D&D 5E "Fixing" assassinate.

[Gladius Legis]

Assassinate: If you are hidden from your target you can Study the target as an Action. If you remain hidden from the target before your next attack, if that attack hits, it is a critical hit.
You must attack the target within one minute and target cannot become hidden from you before then.

This is literally replacing the current Assassinate with a highly conditional use of the worst cantrip in the game (True Strike). This is so much weaker than the current Assassinate it's not even funny.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Now that I will agree with, if only because they are far, far too dependent upon a certain type of campaign.

I actually love the Assassin's 9th and 13th features, but they needed to be ribbons on top of some more combat-pillar features at those levels.

They wouldn't have to be much, either. Maybe proficiency bonus to initative at 9th, crits on 19-20 at 13th?

 

[Horwath]

This is literally replacing the current Assassinate with a highly conditional use of the worst cantrip in the game (True Strike). This is so much weaker than the current Assassinate it's not even funny.

How is it weaker?

If you scout ahead, you will have plenty of Actions to make the Study before you initiate combat with surprise.

Then you have crit whatever is an initiative roll.

Also, if your party ruins your surprise you can still spend an Action to get advantage AND crit on your next turn.

true strike, while horrible, only gives advantage.

Also you can repeat this attack every other round.
It comes down to the same if you Hide as Bonus action and attack every round, but you keep out of sight(and of attacks) every other round.

This way you can scout ahead, and wait in Hiding while your party comes and you attack together in the 1st round, but you already have a Study on target, so you get your crit attack.

 

[Gladius Legis]

How is it weaker?

If you scout ahead, you will have plenty of Actions to make the Study before you initiate combat with surprise.

Then you have crit whatever is an initiative roll.

Or just give the Assassin an in-class bonus to initiative to make Alert less of a feat tax. Like I recommended adding proficiency bonus to it in a post above. "Problem" solved.

Also, if your party ruins your surprise you can still spend an Action to get advantage AND crit on your next turn.

true strike, while horrible, only gives advantage.

Also you can repeat this attack every other round.
It comes down to the same if you Hide as Bonus action and attack every round, but you keep out of sight(and of attacks) every other round.

This way you can scout ahead, and wait in Hiding while your party comes and you attack together in the 1st round, but you already have a Study on target, so you get your crit attack.

Skipping attacking your action one round to crit the next is the very definition of a trap. You'd end up losing damage with your proposed feature compared to simply attacking every round.

 

[Horwath]

Or just give the Assassin an in-class bonus to initiative to make Alert less of a feat tax. Like I recommended adding proficiency bonus to it in a post above. "Problem" solved.

Advantage on Initiative might work best.

Skipping attacking your action one round to crit the next is the very definition of a trap. You'd end up losing damage compared to simply attacking every round with your proposed feature.

in theory, you will lose a little damage as you cannot double crit on your auto-crit, and you might crit on 2 normal attacks, but you will also use your bonus action to hide, or you will be hidden from round before and so you will be less likely to be attacked.

You are reducing your in-combat damage a little for 50% less chance to be targeted by an attack.
Like true assassin would behave.

But, note that I added expertise with the 2 tools that you get at 3rd level.
Not much, but a boost for roleplay side.

 

[Flamestrike]

To me, it's worst subclass or the rogue, that maybe is the weakest class overall(but I still like to play it).

Rogue is NOT the weakest class in the game dude. It's literally the only class in the game that is not resource dependent. Rogues are incredibly strong, and the assassin has an incredibly strong 3rd level feature (compared to all other Rogue archetypes).

If you're playing in a meta featuring the 5MWD where the DM doesnt give a naughty word about the resource management side of 5E (or doesnt understand it), then yeah; the Rogue is going to suffer. But so is everyone who doesnt have 'Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin and Barbarian' written on their character sheet.

 

[Gladius Legis]

in theory, you will lose a little damage as you cannot double crit on your auto-crit, and you might crit on 2 normal attacks, but you will also use your bonus action to hide, or you will be hidden from round before and so you will be less likely to be attacked.

You are reducing your in-combat damage a little for 50% less chance to be targeted by an attack.
Like true assassin would behave.

But you can attack and then hide as a bonus-action every round, anyway, and accomplish the same.

And you're not just losing the possibility of two crits with your feature. That's the least of what you're losing. You're also losing an entire round's worth of DEX bonus(es) to damage, since crits only multiply the damage dice.

But, note that I added expertise with the 2 tools that you get at 3rd level.
Not much, but a boost for roleplay side.

Yeah that part is good.

 

[Flamestrike]

in theory, you will lose a little damage as you cannot double crit on your auto-crit,

Why waste an attack to get an autocrit (double damage) the next round?

You could just attack each round and deal double damage anyway. Heck; it's even more reliable with your damage spread out over two attacks, instead of just one hail Mary.

 

[Flamestrike]

But you can attack and then hide as a bonus-action every round.

Maybe.

 

[Horwath]

Why waste an attack to get an autocrit (double damage) the next round?

You could just attack each round and deal double damage anyway. Heck; it's even more reliable with your damage spread out over two attacks, instead of just one hail Mary.

Who says you must do it?

This just give you an option to do it if it works for the current situation.

This fixes the problem of surprise with losing initiative and having a non stealth party.

It gives more reliable source of auto-crit over maybe sometime more powerful as you do not need to spend an Action to set it up.