Help with balancing my party

[Glomb175]

Ok so he sneaks up to an enemy and attacks using his rapier 1d8+5, but (using the assassin archetype) because the creature hasn't taken an action he gets advantage, and because the creature is surprised (because of the stealth) it's an automatic critical hit making the attack roll 2d8+5. Because he gets advantage he can then use sneak attack at level 5 which is 3d6, but because of the critical hit this becomes 6d6 (I just looked this up and it says crits count on sneak attack as well as the initial attack). then he uses his hand crossbow using the crossbow expert feat 1d6+5

Total 68 damage

Even if you were to disallow the crit on sneak attack it's still 50 damage

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[Hillsy7]

Ok so he sneaks up to an enemy and attacks using his rapier 1d8+5, but (using the assassin archetype) because the creature hasn't taken an action he gets advantage, and because the creature is surprised (because of the stealth) it's an automatic critical hit making the attack roll 2d8+5. Because he gets advantage he can then use sneak attack at level 5 which is 3d6, but because of the critical hit this becomes 6d6 (I just looked this up and it says crits count on sneak attack as well as the initial attack). then he uses his hand crossbow using the crossbow expert feat 1d6+5

Total 68 damage

Even if you were to disallow the crit on sneak attack it's still 50 damage

It's not Double Dice AND Max damage. It's Double the dice (Or the roll of the Dice)......2d8 on average is 9, 6d6 on average is 21. +5 gives and average of 35 damage for the sneak attack. The offhand attack averages at 8.5. If he hits. Yes, that's 43 Damage on the first turn, assuming he hits twice (I don't believe you'd get advantage from the 2nd attack), and yes it'll sting. But yeah, for a 6 man party against a CR 7-9 monster (check out Kobald Fight Club encounter builder), that's a good opening at best.

Also, how's he got 20 Dex AND a feat at level 5.....Rolled stats and Human Variant?

In situations like this, it's perfectly reasonable to tweak your monsters up a few points of AC (Because bounded accuracy is predicated on 19 being a Max attack stat at level 5) - He becomes signifanctly less lethal against high AC characters, even with Advantage.

 

[Charles Rampant]

A Hard encounter for that party would be an Orc War Chief, two Eyes of Gruumsh, and six Orcs. Your assassin - assuming that he hits twice against AC 16 - will remove between half and two thirds of the War Chief's hit points in the first round. That... doesn't seem too OP? I mean, it's good, but a Fireball by the party Wizard would arguably be a more impressive result all round. And this is merely a Hard fight, against a lower-CR primary threat. Against a Deadly encounter - Yuan-ti Abomination, two Broodguards, and a Malison - the Assassin will only do a third of the Abomination's hit points.

You might want to scale your combats up a touch.

 

[Glomb175]

It's not Double Dice AND Max damage. It's Double the dice (Or the roll of the Dice)......2d8 on average is 9, 6d6 on average is 21. +5 gives and average of 35 damage for the sneak attack. The offhand attack averages at 8.5. If he hits. Yes, that's 43 Damage on the first turn, assuming he hits twice (I don't believe you'd get advantage from the 2nd attack), and yes it'll sting. But yeah, for a 6 man party against a CR 7-9 monster (check out Kobald Fight Club encounter builder), that's a good opening at best.

Also, how's he got 20 Dex AND a feat at level 5.....Rolled stats and Human Variant?

In situations like this, it's perfectly reasonable to tweak your monsters up a few points of AC (Because bounded accuracy is predicated on 19 being a Max attack stat at level 5) - He becomes signifanctly less lethal against high AC characters, even with Advantage.

I'm not saying he gets Max damage that was an example of maximum damage he can possibly deal

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[Glomb175]

A Hard encounter for that party would be an Orc War Chief, two Eyes of Gruumsh, and six Orcs. Your assassin - assuming that he hits twice against AC 16 - will remove between half and two thirds of the War Chief's hit points in the first round. That... doesn't seem too OP? I mean, it's good, but a Fireball by the party Wizard would arguably be a more impressive result all round. And this is merely a Hard fight, against a lower-CR primary threat. Against a Deadly encounter - Yuan-ti Abomination, two Broodguards, and a Malison - the Assassin will only do a third of the Abomination's hit points.

You might want to scale your combats up a touch.

I have been the whole campaign, I'm playing lmop and they should be fighting goblins with like 10hp or something stupid which is why I've been either buffing their health and damage or just replacing them with creatures with adequate cr

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[abirdcall]

Something is weird here.

Unless you have someone casting Pass Without Trace a lot and have a party who are great at stealth you're not going to be sneaking up on enemies very often.

Even with the above you get to have 1 fight before alerting the rest of the dungeon (or wherever) of your presence.

A BBEG who is easily surprised doesn't sound like much of a threat in the first place.

On top of all of that the Assassin still needs to win initiative.

They should be getting advantage a couple times a session. They will probably only end up getting the auto-crit a few times a campaign. A few more times if the party is optimized for it.

If they're getting it every fight something is askew.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Uhm, by level 5 in Lost Mine of Phandelver they're either finished, or they're in the final mine, which doesn't have a lot of Goblins in it.

 

[Eltab]

As mentioned above, check the math and the character sheet. Try to build this Assassin yourself from scratch. If you can't do it - even knowing the desired goal - sit down away-from-table and have a talk: how did HE do it?

When I ran Arauthator in Rise of Tiamat, I amped him up as high as I could within the rules: he became an Ancient White Dragon (not Adult), with max HP &c. The Ranger still got a crit with an Arrow of Dragon Slaying and took out 1/5 of his total HP in one shot. I didn't have to act very much when I started wheezing and choking and holding my ribcage.

Assassins have to set up an ambush to get all their cool features to work right. Is that what your group is doing, or are they kicking down the monsters' front door?

If the group is making a name for themselves, have some NPC Rogue in the story try to ambush them back - because if he pulls it off, HE is the big bad toughie of the neighborhood. Roll with your PC's in-story reputation !

 

[Glomb175]

Something is weird here.

Unless you have someone casting Pass Without Trace a lot and have a party who are great at stealth you're not going to be sneaking up on enemies very often.

Even with the above you get to have 1 fight before alerting the rest of the dungeon (or wherever) of your presence.

A BBEG who is easily surprised doesn't sound like much of a threat in the first place.

On top of all of that the Assassin still needs to win initiative.

They should be getting advantage a couple times a session. They will probably only end up getting the auto-crit a few times a campaign. A few more times if the party is optimized for it.

If they're getting it every fight something is askew.

Tell me what is askew

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[Glomb175]

Uhm, by level 5 in Lost Mine of Phandelver they're either finished, or they're in the final mine, which doesn't have a lot of Goblins in it.

Neither

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