November's SAGE ADVICE Is Here!

November's Sage Advice column by WotC's Jeremy Crawford is up. This month deals with lightfoot halfing and wood elf hiding racial traits, some class features, backgrounds (you can have only one!), muticlassing, surprise rounds in combat, and more. Check out this month's Sage Advice here. The advice here has been added to the Sage Advice Compendium.

 

[Lidgar]

Nice to see an explanation on surprise. Only took about 10,000 pages of debate here to catch their attention that it needed some treatment.

Based on the explanation, looks like those slow assassins are back in the saddle again.

 

[Pauper]

Yea, except you can sneak attack using Strength if you want. You just have to use a Finesse weapon. A Finesse weapon allows Dexterity to be used for melee attacks but does not require it.

This is correct, but not relevant -- in order to Sneak Attack, you must be using a ranged weapon or a finesse weapon. An unarmed strike is not a weapon, so doesn't apply.

It should be noted that the same rule disqualifies spells from adding Sneak Attack damage, unless the spell for some reason allows you to use a finesse or ranged weapon. If you're using a finesse weapon (i.e.: a rapier or whip) for Greenflame Blade, or casting Magic Stone (which you then load into a sling), that works. Scorching Ray, not so much.

 

[kore]

I would think the fact that unarmed strike isn't a finesse weapon, regardless of any confusion between a weapon and a weapon attack, should be clear enough that Sneak Attack doesn't work with it.

 

[ad_hoc]

Nice to see an explanation on surprise. Only took about 10,000 pages of debate here to catch their attention that it needed some treatment.

Based on the explanation, looks like those slow assassins are back in the saddle again.

What do you mean?

"A surprised creature can’t move or take an action or a reaction until its first 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."

This holds up the rule from the PHB that there is no surprise round and that surprised creatures still roll initiative. If they beat the assassin's initiative then their power is no longer in effect.

Really, the assassin is not what people think it is and it is not very good for a standard game. It is a very specialized subclass.

 

[TwoSix]

This is correct, but not relevant -- in order to Sneak Attack, you must be using a ranged weapon or a finesse weapon. An unarmed strike is not a weapon, so doesn't apply.

It should be noted that the same rule disqualifies spells from adding Sneak Attack damage, unless the spell for some reason allows you to use a finesse or ranged weapon. If you're using a finesse weapon (i.e.: a rapier or whip) for Greenflame Blade, or casting Magic Stone (which you then load into a sling), that works. Scorching Ray, not so much.

It's not relevant to the sneak attack question, yes, however, it was relevant to the poster that I quoted and their assertion that Sneak Attack was always associated with Dexterity.

Even more relevantly, it's still a silly buggers ruling that leads to annoying semantic games of "yes, it's a weapon ATTACK, but you didn't make it with a WEAPON, so it's no good," that only makes the game less streamlined. I won't be using that ruling in my home game.

Grinder rests.

 

[brehobit]

What do you mean?

"A surprised creature can’t move or take an action or a reaction until its first 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."

This holds up the rule from the PHB that there is no surprise round and that surprised creatures still roll initiative. If they beat the assassin's initiative then their power is no longer in effect.

Really, the assassin is not what people think it is and it is not very good for a standard game. It is a very specialized subclass.

Yeah, it's a bit unclear how to deal with an assassin shooting someone from cover with a bow. If that shot causes initiative to be rolled and the target gets initiative, he's not surprised any longer. The archer needs to be hidden AND win initiative. Seems like the target gets two bites at the apple.

 

[ad_hoc]

Yeah, it's a bit unclear how to deal with an assassin shooting someone from cover with a bow. If that shot causes initiative to be rolled and the target gets initiative, he's not surprised any longer. The archer needs to be hidden AND win initiative. Seems like the target gets two bites at the apple.

Yes, that is exactly how it works. What is unclear about it?

 

[DeathMutant]

Yea, except you can sneak attack using Strength if you want. You just have to use a Finesse weapon. A Finesse weapon allows Dexterity to be used for melee attacks but does not require it.

I have a Strength-based rogue, basically a THUG, using Finesse weapons and am quite happy with it so, I agree, Sneak Attacks do not have to be associated with Dexterity.

 

[GobiWon]

I wish they'd been a little more chatty on the shield-as-a-weapon ruling.

The decision to allow the AC bonus to stay if you make a shield attack isn't the call I'd make, but that's fine. There are spillover effects, though:

e.g. how does it interact with the Dual Wielder feat? Is an improvised weapon (shield) a melee weapon? PHB 147-48 isn't clear either way, I think, but potentially, the feat would allow a shield to grant a +3 and still let you make a 1d4 (or more?) attack with the off hand. (I am presuming that a shield isn't "light").

I'm sure there are other loopholes.

Improvised weapon (shield) attacks require an attack without the benefit of your proficiency bonus. Just because you are proficient with a shield as a defensive item doesn't mean you are proficient with it as a weapon. You could become proficient using the weapon master feat, though.

 

[procproc]

> If you attack with a shield—most likely as an improvised weapon—do you keep the +2 bonus to AC? Attacking with a shield doesn’t deprive you of the bonus to AC.

This seems like it has a huge impact on the action economy, especially at lower levels.

It wasn't initially obvious to me how this interacted with the Shield Master feat, as I thought it was redundant with the benefit that lets you shove with the shield as a bonus action. It turns out that you can only shove as part of the attack action, so implicitly not with an attack made as a bonus action with an offhand weapon. This implies that for a normal character with a shield, you can make an off-hand bonus action attack with a shield as an improvised weapon (so no proficiency bonus), and the Shield Master feat gives you the additional option of shoving as a bonus action.

It would have been nice if this had been spelled out somewhere. I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of players playing melee characters with shields aren't aware that they're supposed to be allowed to bash with them as a bonus action every turn. I sure wasn't.