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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fast_Jimmy" data-source="post: 7354932" data-attributes="member: 6939191">No effect? Caltrops can seriosuly hamper movement, ball bearings can cause an enemy to fall Prone (delicious Advantage for a Rogue's Sneak Attack), animal traps can essentially work as a Grapple without having to actually have someone Grappling... LOTS of great uses of items, even from the "controversial" Attack ones, which I think is a really lame cop out to ensure no one ever uses items, ever.Except when the chest that is being lockpicked is secretly trapped as well, avoiding most chances of death.Also, what in the world makes you think you can't open doors with Mage Hand? An Arcane Trickster would forever have this invisible hand up since its a cantrip and doesn't require Concentration. Every door opened, every tripwire disarmed, every chest picked... all done by magic invisible hand. That's hardly useless. Yes, yes... spells are BARELY more helpful than the Assassin's Level 7 and 13 abilities to look and sound like other people. If only there weren't a Level 1 spell the Arcane Trickster can get that would allow them to Disguise their Self...Except in combats were the enemies roll higher in Initiative. Even with a +5 Dex, that's going to be 30-40% of combats. With Alert, that's less so, but we are now talking about requiring Feats in addition to all of the above requirements. Is it impossible? No, of course not. But does it make the entire subclass, THE ENTIRE SUBCLASS, insanely dependent on DM, campaign and party support? Yes. Yes it does. We are talking about Assassinate, but look at all the other Assassin abilities - not a solid, reliable one in the mix. Its a trap subclass that people can feel tricked with. If you run a WotC module and try to use any of the abilities of the Assassin, you will be sorely disappointed in how little, if at all, they show up.Should AL modules be the ultimate measuring stick of every subclass? No, but they are very indicative of most campaigns and tables, dungeon diving and combat over intrigue and sneaking in the shadows. The assassin is a subclass for a certain campaign/table and nothing more... but with a minor change to make Assassinate more reliable, it could be a predictable, quantifiable subclass that the player can control outside of circumstances completely outside their control (DM, party and campaign setting).Fix Assassinate to be simple and easy to use (not by changing Surprise but by changing Assassinate) and the entire subclass can no longer be a source of confusion and frustration.</blockquote>

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