D&D 5E Do Assassins suck?

[S'mon]

What's that?

An item in XGTE that lets a weapon act as a casting focus.

Had a think about it & told my players: "I'm going to house rule that Eldritch Knights can Attune to a +1 or better bonded magic weapon to use it as their spellcasting focus, as per the Ruby of the War Mage - making the Somatic gesture with weapon in hand - otherwise they have to mess around with components to cast, and basically can never use weapon & shield combo as no hand free for casting."

I bet the EK player will be surprised he can't already cast for free with weapon & shield in hand, but requiring an attunement slot seems like a reasonable compromise and averts the silly drop-weapon-cast-resummon thing that the RAW requires.

 

[Zardnaar]

An item in XGTE that lets a weapon act as a casting focus.

Had a think about it & told my players: "I'm going to house rule that Eldritch Knights can Attune to a +1 or better bonded magic weapon to use it as their spellcasting focus, as per the Ruby of the War Mage - making the Somatic gesture with weapon in hand - otherwise they have to mess around with components to cast, and basically can never use weapon & shield combo as no hand free for casting."

I bet the EK player will be surprised he can't already cast for free with weapon & shield in hand, but requiring an attunement slot seems like a reasonable compromise and averts the silly drop-weapon-cast-resummon thing that the RAW requires.

Ah they should have let them use weapons as a focus or get hands free part of warcaster.

Valor Bard us even worse off than EK. Same problem but the point of the subclasses on a primary spellcaster makes it even worse.

 

[Horwath]

An item in XGTE that lets a weapon act as a casting focus.

Had a think about it & told my players: "I'm going to house rule that Eldritch Knights can Attune to a +1 or better bonded magic weapon to use it as their spellcasting focus, as per the Ruby of the War Mage - making the Somatic gesture with weapon in hand - otherwise they have to mess around with components to cast, and basically can never use weapon & shield combo as no hand free for casting."

I bet the EK player will be surprised he can't already cast for free with weapon & shield in hand, but requiring an attunement slot seems like a reasonable compromise and averts the silly drop-weapon-cast-resummon thing that the RAW requires.

that is why we ignore this whole hand business.

if you can reasonably free one hand for a second or two, you can cast a spell with S/M components(if you have M components on your person).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Yeah outside clerics, paladins and artificer most of the gish type classes are screwed unless they take warcaster.

Why I rate AT higher that EK. AT can easily have a hand free or switch between dual wielding and single weapon to use reactions.

"Screwed" seems a bit overstated. If you can cast Shield you don't need a shield.

An Eldritch Knight is fine as long as they stick to a two handed weapon or bow. You only need two hands on the weapon while you are attacking with it.

That said, both Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights would clearly have benefited from subclass specific notes in the players handbook explaining the limitations of spellcasting with weapons and giving some pointers on spell picks. Of course the latter part would now be out of date, so there's that.

 

[fearsomepirate]

RAW, it's not too much of a problem if you understand how the rules about interacting with objects work. See, dropping a weapon is free, and picking it up off the ground can be combined with your action. What happens if you pay close attention and make your players play it by the book is that every round has people dropping their weapons on the ground and picking them back up. This is incredibly idiotic, so my house rule is LMAO WHO CARES.

 

[Zardnaar]

RAW, it's not too much of a problem if you understand how the rules about interacting with objects work. See, dropping a weapon is free, and picking it up off the ground can be combined with your action. What happens if you pay close attention and make your players play it by the book is that every round has people dropping their weapons on the ground and picking them back up. This is incredibly idiotic, so my house rule is LMAO WHO CARES.

You can do that but reactions eg shield spell.

 

[Retreater]

To answer the OP: yes, assassins suck. Not even on a power level, they suck because they assume your character is working alone, not as a part of a group, while the rest of the players at your table do nothing. Characters like that don't belong in D&D and are antithetical to the spirit of the game.

 

[Horwath]

To answer the OP: yes, assassins suck. Not even on a power level, they suck because they assume your character is working alone, not as a part of a group, while the rest of the players at your table do nothing. Characters like that don't belong in D&D and are antithetical to the spirit of the game.

good workaround, and a buff to assassin is to grant assassinate attack if assassin was not detected by an opponent, no matter if battle started of not.
After that, even if assassin makes successful Hide check, presence in known and that trick cannot be made this combat again. Assassin can still make Hide checks as normal to get advantage on 1st attack out of stealth if circumstances allow for a Hide check.

 

[fearsomepirate]

You can do that but reactions eg shield spell.

You can always drop whatever you're holding (and the silliness of litigating this during play and specifying where a sword falls and declaring when you pick it up is why I simply don't care).

 

[auburn2]

Same way new players screw up warlocks and don't pick Eldritch blast. Or they put the 8 in dexterity and don't use heavy armor. Or pick Eldritch knight with sword and shield and then can't cast spells like shield.

They don't know how to use find familiar. Or how did booming blade is or green Flame Blade etc.

Or they pick spells like true strike etc. Basically they don't know enough about 5E to pick the right spells.

So AT us the best one if you know what you're doing and into the mid and higher levels.

Otherwise the Scout and Swashbuckler are the best at lower levels or if you don't know what you're doing that well.

My wife can make the AT sing. The other players not so much.

Ok if they play a Rogue, any Rogue, with 8 dexterity they screwed up. Have you really had that happen?

I have played many warlocks without EB though, and EK with sword and shield is fine as long as you have warcaster feat.