I said it before. There doesn’t need to be any special checkmate rule. If you can’t One Shot a creature, it’s because you aren’t experienced enough to do it.
HP and damage are indicative of how experienced and powerful a creature is. A lvl 20 Ranger could easily One Shot an orc. A lvl 1 Ranger couldn’t. They don’t have the experience. Sure, they have training, but the lvl 20 Ranger is more skilled, and can fire two times in the time it takes the lvl 1 Ranger to Fire once. In fact, every class becomes better at one shooting higher and higher lvl enemies as they gain in lvl, either by Sneak Attack hitting more vital areas, extra attacks being able to attack faster in the same six second round, or magical enhancement.
Even with the dagger to the throat. A lvl 1 anything is going to have a hard time slitting the throat of an enemy. 1d4+3 just isn’t much damage, but that’s not the daggers fault, it’s the character’s. They are unfamiliar. They miss judged how deep to cut, or the enemy brought its hand up to stop it. A bandit might not be good enough to keep his throat from being slit, but the Veteran will know techniques on how to do so.
Rogues are the best at this, and look at their abilities. Sneak attack isn’t magic extra damage. It is indicative of the Rogue’s ability to know how to do more damage. They hurt their target more, because they know how too. So a Rogue can One Shot kill, or slit the throat, of higher and higher lvl enemies.
Especially Assassins, as this is literally their whole purpose for being. A lvl 20 Assassin with a dagger can potentially do 4d4+40d6+5 worth of damage. That’s a range from 49-261 Damage in a single hit. They can literally one shot every NPC stat block in the Monster Manual, and probably 90% of the rest of the Monster Manual. This is their whole point of being a class choice. Yes, it won’t come up often, but it does when they decide to assassinate someone.
By creating a “Checkmate” rule, you literally destroy the Assassin’s entire reason for being. If i were playing an assassin in a group where the DM had a checkmate Rule, I’d be pissed, because he is literally giving away the Assassin’s lvl 17 ability to anyone who can set up an arbitrary “checkmate”.
I really need to make an assassin at some point.
HP and damage are indicative of how experienced and powerful a creature is. A lvl 20 Ranger could easily One Shot an orc. A lvl 1 Ranger couldn’t. They don’t have the experience. Sure, they have training, but the lvl 20 Ranger is more skilled, and can fire two times in the time it takes the lvl 1 Ranger to Fire once. In fact, every class becomes better at one shooting higher and higher lvl enemies as they gain in lvl, either by Sneak Attack hitting more vital areas, extra attacks being able to attack faster in the same six second round, or magical enhancement.
Even with the dagger to the throat. A lvl 1 anything is going to have a hard time slitting the throat of an enemy. 1d4+3 just isn’t much damage, but that’s not the daggers fault, it’s the character’s. They are unfamiliar. They miss judged how deep to cut, or the enemy brought its hand up to stop it. A bandit might not be good enough to keep his throat from being slit, but the Veteran will know techniques on how to do so.
Rogues are the best at this, and look at their abilities. Sneak attack isn’t magic extra damage. It is indicative of the Rogue’s ability to know how to do more damage. They hurt their target more, because they know how too. So a Rogue can One Shot kill, or slit the throat, of higher and higher lvl enemies.
Especially Assassins, as this is literally their whole purpose for being. A lvl 20 Assassin with a dagger can potentially do 4d4+40d6+5 worth of damage. That’s a range from 49-261 Damage in a single hit. They can literally one shot every NPC stat block in the Monster Manual, and probably 90% of the rest of the Monster Manual. This is their whole point of being a class choice. Yes, it won’t come up often, but it does when they decide to assassinate someone.
By creating a “Checkmate” rule, you literally destroy the Assassin’s entire reason for being. If i were playing an assassin in a group where the DM had a checkmate Rule, I’d be pissed, because he is literally giving away the Assassin’s lvl 17 ability to anyone who can set up an arbitrary “checkmate”.
I really need to make an assassin at some point.
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