D&D 5E Death strike is grisly

[drjones]

So to summarize, if you like it it's magic and it's good, if you don't like it its not magic and it's bad. Gotcha.

I feel like I have been foolish to engage in this conversation. I am going to take some time to rethink the direction of my life.

 

[Chocolategravy]

So to summarize, if you like it it's magic and it's good, if you don't like it its not magic and it's bad. Gotcha. I feel like I have been foolish to engage in this conversation. I am going to take some time to rethink the direction of my life.

If your wildly inaccurate summary is what you got out of it, then yes, you need to take more time to think.

 

[SilverfireSage]

It isn't restricted to (demi)human. There is a weird disparity between how effective the assassin is on a surprised target and a helpless one. It's like they forget all those anatomy lessons. They should have included stunned/paralyzed in what you can hit with death strike.

I think the developers assumed if someone is already paralyzed or incapacitated they're probably going to be dead regardless in a few seconds. Not an excuse, but a reason for the omission. This isn't exactly that hard to house rule though.

 

[Cybit]

Don't attacks against paralyzed creatures auto-crit if they are within 5 feet?

EDIT: Also, based on the posting history and time since joining the boards, I'd also not feed the troll.

 

[keterys]

I was playing around with the idea of a rogue assassin recently, and I've largely decided that mechanics based around surprise are a benefit for solo play or for NPCs, but aren't all that valuable in a normal D&D party.

YMMV, and definitely expect variation by DM.

 

[Bumamgar]

But you don't need surprise to get sneak dmg, and surprise is determined on a character by character basis, so even if you are the only sneaky member of a clanky plate armor based party carrying torches, you can still surprise anything that doesn't succeed on perception vs stealth check. Knowledge of your three un-stealthy friends does not imply knowledge of you.

 

[keterys]

But you don't need surprise to get sneak dmg, and surprise is determined on a character by character basis, so even if you are the only sneaky member of a clanky plate armor based party carrying torches, you can still surprise anything that doesn't succeed on perception vs stealth check. Knowledge of your three un-stealthy friends does not imply knowledge of you.

I'd definitely have advantage on them, being unseen and hidden, but they'd have knowledge of someone in the combat, and thusly not be surprised.

"Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter" - so as long as they notice any one of the three unstealthy party members, they're good to go.

 

[jadrax]

"Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter" - so as long as they notice any one of the three unstealthy party members, they're good to go.

If you run it as a Group check, as log as 50% (i.e. 2 in your example) beat the target's Passive perception, then all the group would count as succeeding and the monster's would be surprised.

 

[Thaumaturge]

If you run it as a Group check, as log as 50% (i.e. 2 in your example) beat the target's Passive perception, then all the group would count as succeeding and the monster's would be surprised.

That's how it goes down at my table.

Thaumaturge.

 

[keterys]

Surprise is _really_ hard to pull off unless you do tricks like turn it into a group check, or you stagger the party to take into account their natural stealth abilities, or you build a party oriented towards stealth. Back to why I mentioned DM variation Some day, maybe I'll be at a table where both the DM is pro-surprise for PCs and the adventure takes it into account.

Then again, I'm not sure I'm eager to have monsters making sure that half their group is super sneaky so that the other half of super bruisers can all get surprise