Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnLynch" data-source="post: 7687038" data-attributes="member: 6749563">What's the difference between rolling a 20 on a surprise round and rolling a 1 on the normal combat? Absolutely nothing. As you note, surprise is hard to get. Often it's not worthwhile to bother trying. This is the first edition that I've played that doubles how difficult it is to get one that has any meaningful effect. And if the assassin's ability is so minor, why bother including it? It's a gotcha moment for any player who reads the rules and doesn't interpret them the sameway Jeremy Crawford has. I'm going to have to either change the rules or warn players not to play an assassin for that ability.At this point I don't know what I'll do. My players are currently rolling up PCs so I might have to decide. I'm inclined to let a player keep it and continue with surprise as I've been applying it. But I'll have to warn the player that if their toy does turn out to be overpowered AND this impacts the group's enjoyment of the game I'll have to take it away or change the way we apply the rules so they are disincentivised to bother using surprise. A bit of a dampener on the game to start with, hopefully no-one tries to be an assassin until I've had time to look into the rules more deeply.</blockquote>