How do you handle Rogue (Assassins)?

[Majoru Oakheart]

Caltrops? Ball Bearings? Hunting Traps? Oil? Manacles? Applying Poison to a weapon?

Ball Bearings and Hunting Traps are things that get in your allies way, and most combat doesn't involve a lot of moving around, if the enemy is already in melee with you, it's likely they aren't moving away. Your allies won't appreciate falling on their face either.

Oil doesn't do much, it does a little more damage if the person takes fire damage. That requires someone in your party to use a fire attack. Plus, throwing oil on someone is likely an attack action. Throwing on the ground might not have any effect at all depending on your DM.

I'm never had a DM let me put Manacles on someone who wasn't already helpless or held down.

Applying poison to a weapon might be worthwhile. If you can get a hold a poison and it is within your character's morals to use it. It gets expensive to always apply it and in Adventurer's League, for instance, the only poison you can buy is Basic Poison, which does 1d4 points of damage if they fail a save.

The problem is that virtually ALL of these are worse than making an off-hand attack with a short sword. Since 1d6 points of damage tends to be more effective than any of those options.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Advantage on one attack once a combat MAYBE depending on your Initiative is a pretty paltry consolation prize.

Why not compare it with the Arcane Trickster, who at Level 13 can use Mage Hand as a Bonus Action to get Advantage every turn, without fail? That sounds a HECK of a lot more useful than anything Assassin gives you, ever. And its just icing on the cake for what the Arcane Trickster brings to the table.

You're comparing a Lv. 13 feature to a Lv. 3 feature. That doesn't really help your case.

Bonus-action features to get advantage are kind of bad, anyway, for the most part. Any Rogue can, with that same bonus action, get the same number of attack rolls to land a Sneak Attack as advantage gets you simply by dual-wielding. Or if working at range, Crossbow Expert, or simply Cunning Action Hide.

An Assassin in this scenario doesn't need to spend an action of any kind for the advantage. If the Assassin is dual-wielding or going Crossbow Expert, it gets 4 rolls to land a Sneak Attack at the start of combat. All it needs to do is beat initiative. It's much better than you're giving credit for.

 

[Gadget]

My example from the marketplace: "I'm walking through the marketplace and looking at apples. A Rogue is hiding nearby. They made their Stealth check so I neither see nor hear them or any of their equipment. They roll lower than me in initiative. I take my first turn. I'm no longer surprised, but since I haven't seen nor heard them, I didn't stop being surprised because I saw a glint of metal or heard something and had time to react to it. I'm not not even aware that there's someone out there trying to kill me."

Just curious:

So what about when you are walking through the crowed marketplace and one of the people who brushes by you has an unseen dagger hidden in their sleeve and you suddenly feel a sharp pain in your side as he quickly thrusts into your kidney while brushing by? Are you not surprised? You 'saw' the person (but not the dagger & the threat), knew they were there, yet still were surprised. How is that situation handled?

 

[Gladius Legis]

Caltrops? Ball Bearings? Hunting Traps? Oil? Manacles? Applying Poison to a weapon?

Arguably, a Thief would make a better poison assassin than the Assassin would.

Caltrops are a 5-foot square. Practically useless unless you do all your adventuring in 5-foot wide corridors. Also not really useful in combat unless everyone's ranged, maybe.

Ball bearings are DC 10. lol, next.

Hunting traps, at least they're DC 13, but again, limited range and aren't really helpful in combat unless you're trying to run away or your party is all ranged people. It's certainly not the "equivalent of grappling," as it doesn't reduce speed to 0 and prevent prone enemies from standing up.

Oil: Paltry extra fire damage per round. Smoke it if you've got it, but it's hardly a gamechanger.

Manacles: Size restricted.

Poison: Basic poison is only 1d4 extra damage with DC 10 vs. CON to negate. Terrible. Other poisons are very rare, expensive and often hard to get, and unlike the Assassin, the Thief doesn't get Poisoner's Kit proficiency for free.

 

[Sleepy Walker]

Your solution is "have the DM adjudicate the situation outside of RAW."
If you attempt to Attack a Surprised creature, Initiative is rolled and combat begins.

What sage advice says, which is identical to the rules in the PHB on page 189

The first step of any combat is this: the DM determines whether anyone in the combat is surprised (reread “Combat Step by Step” on page 189 of the Player’s Handbook). This determination happens only once during a fight and only at the beginning. In other words, once a fight starts, you can’t be surprised again, although a hidden foe can still gain the normal benefits from being unseen (see “Unseen Attackers and Targets” on page 194 of the Player’s Handbook). To be surprised, you must be caught off guard, usually because you failed to notice foes being stealthy or you were startled by an enemy with a special ability, such as the gelatinous cube’s Transparent trait, that makes it exceptionally surprising. You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares. If anyone is surprised, no actions are taken yet. First, initiative is rolled as normal. Then, the first round of combat starts, and the unsurprised combatants act in initiative order. A surprised creature can’t move or take an action or a reaction until its first turn ends (remember that being unable to take an action also means you can’t take a bonus action). In effect, a surprised creature skips its first turn in a fight. Once that turn ends, the creature is no longer surprised.

In short, activity in a combat is always ordered by initiative, whether or not someone is surprised, and after the first round of combat has passed, surprise is no longer a factor. You can still try to hide from your foes and gain the benefits conferred by being hidden, but you don’t deprive your foes of their turns when you do so.

The order goes

-determine surprise
-establish positions
-roll initiative
-take turns
-Begin the next round

Nowhere does it say surprise is lost if a creature takes a turn first. Nowhere in sage advice does it say a creature loses surprise if it goes before a PC. Sage advice indicates that once a creature is designated as surprised, it is surprised the entire round. RAW with intent added. Clunky, but every indication is that is how it is supposed to work.

Now you might have gotten confused because I had a sentence where I said it all happened outside of combat. I was meaning that the act of the rogue to make an excuse to break line of sight, stealth, and/or decide to attack, since outside of initiative is really the only way a surprise round can be initiated anyways.

Nothing stops the assassin from getting a critical hit on a surprised creature. That does not mean the assassin gets sneak dice, though if the assassin happens to be invisible or there is a friend within 5ft or the DM rules the assassin has advantage for any other reasons then he/she/it would get sneak dice and a critical hit.


Is this good? Not really.
Does it confer a benefit if used properly, yes.
Does it mean the rogue has to be way far away from the party to use its assassinate ability? No.

Is it more useful in social instances, like infiltrating a palace, killing nobles, or otherwise striking against targets not expecting to be struck, instead of straight up combat? Absolutely.

 

[cooperjer]

If you want to introduce more situations where the party surprises the monsters, do it.

Surprise happens whenever the enemy doesn't not a threat, not based on dice rolls.

The party's just talking when suddenly the rogue attacked? They didn't notice they were a threat until combat started, Surprised!

The party kicks down the door to a room without being detected before that? Surprised!

Edit: Here, I'll go over it in detail.

This? This here determines whether entities notice each other. Nothing more.
This bit here, however, requires that the noticed entity be identified as a threat.

I like this in concept, but in practice I've found it doesn't work in my game. Usually, in a subtle social interaction, the PCs are trying to persuade a creature to let them pass without harm or convince a creature that they are not a threat. As an example a PC bard dressed in cult clothing talks to a couple cult guards about the new recruits not in cult clothing and convinces them the PCs can pass on to the next area of the cult keep to get their new gear and begin training. At this point I tell the players they've earned XP for that encounter and killing the guards does not grant any additional XP. In a non-subtle social interaction where the PCs are attempting to intimidate the NPCs, then the NPCs are on guard and will not be surprised. As an example, an evil looking warlock approaches a few cult guards. The guards sees some of the PCs (a barbarian and a paladin, but not the assassin) and they work together to intimidate the guards to let them pass. If the assassin fires a long bow attack at the guards from the shadows, I'm not going to grant surprise because the NPCs are on guard from an attack.

If there is another example of social interaction where the players are engaged and not resulting in NPCs on guard, but not considered as a completed encounter please let me know.

 

[Yunru]

Of course you are aware of a threat, there's someone standing in front of you casting a fireball spell. That seems like a threat to me.

It doesn't matter what they were doing BEFORE they became a threat. They are a threat now and you are aware of them.

Unless you mean that you have to be aware they are threatening towards you even before they do anything threatening. Doesn't that mean that both sides are always surprised?

"You see Orcs with Greataxes in the room. They turn around and attack you. You are surprised."

"No we aren't, we were aware of the threats!"

"Were you? There were a bunch of Orcs in the room. You don't KNOW they are going to attack you, they might have been friendly."

"But you just said they charged towards us and attacked."

"Sure, but before they had done that, you were unaware of any threat, so you were surprised. But then again, they were unaware that you were a threat either, so they are surprised as well."

The only way any of this makes sense is if Surprise only happens when you are unseen and unheard...i.e. Hidden. Which is what the sentence before that one in the PHB says, that you must be hidden to get surprise.

Here's a summary of the 4e stealth and surprise rules:

1. You can become Hidden by making a successful Stealth vs Passive Perception check. If you are unaware of your opponents you are surprised.

2. In order to Hide you must have full cover or concealment. To continuing hiding you must have at least partial cover or concealment. If you ever have no cover, you stop hiding immediately and everyone can see you.

3. If anyone is surprised, the first round of combat is a surprise round and anyone unaware of their opponents cannot act during it. Anyone who is not surprised can only take one action or a move during the surprise round but not both.

Sound familiar? They are identical other than 2 major changes: Surprise ends at the end of people's first action except the end of the round and the other people only getting to either take an action or a move. The only other thing that was changed was that the language was changed to be less "rules text" and more natural English. This means they changed the word "opponents" to "threat" to sound less like a game. But the meaning of it didn't change. If you are unaware of the people attacking you, you are surprised.

It should be noted that during the first "beta" release of the D&D Next rules that became 5e, the stealth/surprise section was literally copied and pasted from the 4e rulebook and each version after that had a couple of words modified one way or another.

It wasn't until quite a few versions that they eventually removed the idea of a Surprise Round from the rules and changed it to what we have now.

It should also be noted that nothing in the actual book says that Surprise ends at the end of your first Turn. It says if you are surprised you can't take Reactions until the end of your first Turn. The book never says that Surprise ends at the same time you can take Reactions again. The designers have clarified that Surprise ends at the same time, but that isn't actually written there.

There's a reason for that. Surprise ended at the end of the First Round until near the very end of the beta testing of the rules and was listed in a different section, which is why it vanished when that section was removed.


No, there's no in game rationale for why surprise ends during your first action. As I said above, it is a bug that is a side effect of removing the idea of "rounds" from the game.


So, what happens if someone is hidden, they are completely unseen and unheard?

My example from the marketplace: "I'm walking through the marketplace and looking at apples. A Rogue is hiding nearby. They made their Stealth check so I neither see nor hear them or any of their equipment. They roll lower than me in initiative. I take my first turn. I'm no longer surprised, but since I haven't seen nor heard them, I didn't stop being surprised because I saw a glint of metal or heard something and had time to react to it. I'm not not even aware that there's someone out there trying to kill me."

That's the definition of surprise according to the book, the person attacking has successfully hid from me and I'm unaware of a threat. The "bug" comes in because I really SHOULDN'T recover from being surprised just because I rolled higher in initiative, I'm still unaware of any enemies. But the bug slipped in there when they remove the surprise round late in the testing of 5e. It's small enough they aren't going to fix it.

Which is a large difference from "Someone in front of me pulls a hidden weapon and attacks". I'm perfectly aware someone is trying to kill me when my turn comes up in initiative. Which means I'm not surprised.

Let me boil that down.

"Your in game rational makes sense so I'm just going to ignore that point by saying it doesn't exist. Rather, this means that 5e was designed with a 'bug' that they've not bothered to fix or was never previously caught. Here's a strawman."

I answer the first point in the summation. As for your strawman. It's a completely different scenario. The player's have gone in with the intent to attack and/or the expectation that they will be attacked. Everything they see will be a threat by default.

 

[Yunru]

I like this in concept, but in practice I've found it doesn't work in my game. Usually, in a subtle social interaction, the PCs are trying to persuade a creature to let them pass without harm or convince a creature that they are not a threat. As an example a PC bard dressed in cult clothing talks to a couple cult guards about the new recruits not in cult clothing and convinces them the PCs can pass on to the next area of the cult keep to get their new gear and begin training. At this point I tell the players they've earned XP for that encounter and killing the guards does not grant any additional XP. In a non-subtle social interaction where the PCs are attempting to intimidate the NPCs, then the NPCs are on guard and will not be surprised. As an example, an evil looking warlock approaches a few cult guards. The guards sees some of the PCs (a barbarian and a paladin, but not the assassin) and they work together to intimidate the guards to let them pass. If the assassin fires a long bow attack at the guards from the shadows, I'm not going to grant surprise because the NPCs are on guard from an attack.

If there is another example of social interaction where the players are engaged and not resulting in NPCs on guard, but not considered as a completed encounter please let me know.

The campaigns I partake in tend to be a far bit more political, so it could be the case we're talking to a noble we're tasked with eliminating (and haven't enough gold for explosives), it could be we've met under parle, or the Rogue just got bored/thought trying to talk our way around the obstacle wasn't working.

 

[FrogReaver]

Assassain rogue is one of my favorite rogue subclasses. I love playing a ranged one.

#1 The advantage ability this subclass gets greatly increases your chances of applying a sneak attack on turn 1 whether with a group or without. Better chance to hit. More choices of potential sneak attack targets. Better chance to crit.

#2 The advantage ability also helps give you a chance to dispatch a foe on a scouting mission when you are spotted. Other ranged rouges struggle to get sneak attack off in that situation and thus struggle to dispatch such foes before they can alert their camp.

#3 Speaking of scouting. The auto crit ability is amazing for such a rogue when scouting. Rogues are already great at hit and run tactics. The auto crit ability can really help them kill enemies when doing so as opposed to just injuring them. Other possible uses involve having a much greater chance of instantly killing a watchman from afar so he can further penetrate the enemy position without being seen or having the guards called to his position.

 

[5ekyu]

The general subject of resolving a solo-power asset in a group player game stretches way beyond DnD and stealth. Another classic example would be netrunning in a cyberpunk game where netrunning is a solo event. Some versions tried to address this by letting netrunning be a more group event with the dedicated netrunning sort of playing the leader/guide - almost more of a bard role of supporting everyone as they support him.

In my games, session zero they are made aware of the extent to which tabletop ftf solo play can and will be indulged. most of the time that means i use extended checks to resolve longer solo activities rather than moment by moment skill and roleplay.

So a case of "i scout out the enemy camp" turns into a three-way skill challenge just like most other non-immediate activities are. A series of checks looking for three wins before they get three failures. Along the way each success gets a little bit of narrativon and scene and a gain and each failure gets a reversal, setback and additional challenge. push it all the way to three successes and get bigger gains - pretty clear read of the enemy camp, opportunity, etc. Gte to three failures and alarm goes up or other really bad thing happens. But the individual success/failure is not event ending either way.

As for the surprise combat thing, that is one of the potential gains that can be claimed, the ability to find a weakness in their patrols or permieter that can get the other players in close for a surprise round. Consider at the very least each gained success to allow an additional PC in with that stealth roll covering them, while a full success three-wins can result in figuring out how to get whole group in,possibly requiring a distraction but figuring out how to set off one.

So, the assassin can choose to take his own personal strike if he wishes or to work the other group in, let everyone get to the surprise round, and then take the benefits of the whole thing. if i figure no more than 2-3m of "mini-scene" for each win-loss to resolve, thats maybe 15m of time spent for what may be a net surprise gain for the whole party.

i find that tends to give a pretty good time-for-gain investment and a pretty good return on investment for that character and its abilities.

one of the keys i like to keep in mind is that while sneaking across a floor might be a good case for just stealth as dex and represented as a single physical task, the larger case of "sneaking around a camp, fort or perimeter patrols" is a lot more of timing, perception, choices of path and so on that just the physical act of treading lightly.

Its one of the reasons i tend to allow for the use of group checks - where half the people succeeding is enough - for the broader case of stealth vs perception for surprise in the approach scenes.