D&D 5E Sneak Attack: optional or mandatory?

[Majoru Oakheart]

For the record, this sounds awesome. I get how letting player's toggle their combat efficiency could cause problems for pre-packaged adventures and organized play, but this is exactly the type of character (concept over mechanics) that I prefer in my home games.

But having a concept doesn't preclude being good at combat. Certain concepts simply aren't appropriate for certain games. D&D being a game mostly about combat, concepts that aren't good at combat aren't appropriate.

I know that DM and play-styles vary, but I've never had a problem balancing adventures for the characters players bring to the table or providing each player with unique challenges based on their character's core competencies.

I have. It requires way more work than I'm willing to put in as a DM. When I write adventures, it goes something like this:

The Strange Mines
An adventure for 5 level 5 PCs.

Act 1:

The PCs discover something weird is happening in the town they entered(for whatever reasons, I'll let them decide). The people are acting weird. The Mayor has been secretly killed 2 weeks ago and replaced with a doppleganger. He's been using an amulet to slowly mind control everyone in town to help him search for a temple to his evil god that was buried underneath the mine near the town.

Act 2:

The PCs will likely follow the clues in town to the mines. The people in town mention something weird is in the mine as the ones that aren't mind controlled hear noises coming out of the mine at night. The doppleganger has hired a group of Trolls(or whatever monster is appropriate for 5 level 5 characters) to guard the mine and keep it safe from prying eyes. They will attack the PCs when they go to investigate.

Act 3: After fighting their way through the trolls, they'll reach the underground temple just after the doppleganger has broken through. The ancient guardians of the temple are still active and recognize the doppleganger's holy symbol as authorization to command them. The PCs will have to fight a bunch of wights(or whatever undead is CR/Level appropriate for 5 level 5 PCs) which guard the entrance.

Act 4:

The PCs reach the main chamber of the temple where the doppleganger has managed to take control of the most powerful guardian of the temple: A clay golem(or whatever golem like creature is appropriate for 5 level 5 PCs) who attacks the PC while the doppleganger attempts to activate an evil artifact that will take control of the minds of everyone in town permanently.

The PCs will need to fight the golem and defeat the doppleganger before he succeeds.
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And I will write all of that before I even know which characters the players are playing. To me, their characters don't really matter to the adventure.

 

[Kobold Stew]

There are many ways we can imagine offering a rogue an effective combat ability as an alternative to Sneak Attack.

Let's not worry about the precise mechanics; the concept is enough for now. I assume that each of these casn be presented in a way that is balanced against each other.

The Jan 13 pack offered three possibilities:
* Backstab (advantage/damage when victim was near hostile individs)
* Isolated strike (advantage/damage when victim was not near hostile individs)
* Tumbling Strike (advantage/damage when attacker starts 20 feet from victim)
Each is mechanically distinct, and we can note that "Backstab" was being framed primarily in terms of translating the benefits from 3.x, with the benefits of flanking.

Given that, adding more seems straightforward enough:
* "Surprise strike" -- advantage/damage before a victim has had a chance to react (traditional surprise, high-initiative rogues)
* "Fighting dirty" -- advantage/damage against humanoids in melee
* "Knives to a Gunfight" -- advantage/damage when using weapons with the Thrown property.

etc.

Not everything should fit (I suggested thrown weapons because they tend to be underused and require str and dex; substituting "finesse" would not work, I feel, because that's a default choice in any case. But as I said, the precise details aren't strictly relevant)

OR...

Instead of extra damage, a rouge might be able to make a victim Stunned or Frightened (Reavers!).

There are so many ways that the game could offer interesting choices here to potential rogues, none of which remove for those who want to play a backstab-for-extra-damage rogue. Let those that want it have backstab (whether conceived as in Jan 13, or like the "surprise strike suggested above, or perhaps both). But let other rogue builds emerge that will change the type of play.

Let rogues have a choice and that helps individuate the character while still keeping her combat effective.

 

[Greg K]

D&D being a game mostly about combat, concepts that aren't good at combat aren't appropriate.

No, that is how you and some people approach it. That is not how everyone plays it and, apparently, is not how D&D was, originally, played where avoiding combat was the goal and getting into fights meant you screwed up- hence, XP for Gold.

 

[Larrin]

I would like sneak attack to be the 'default'. You can craft a thousand different combat substitutions, but in the end sneak attack is simple and fits the broad-strokes version of a rogue and most rogue subclasses. You sneak, then attack. Its hard to beat that, any simpler and it would just be "attack". As edditions have progressed the 'sneak' portion has become easier, and many variations simply play with what is defined as 'sneak'. I see no good reason why most base models of rogue subclasses shouldn't simply start with it.

Options to replace it? Sure. No reason not to. But make it a choice that ONLY affects sneak attack, not an entire subclass. That way ANY subclass can have the simple, effective fun of sneak attack and ANY subclass can have the fun, new option that someone feels is better for their character than sneak attack. If giving up sneak attack is a prerequisite to taking a subclass, you are only hurting the subclass, not making it better. That is the choice that people really hated making (I think). A swashbuckler that MUST give up sneak attack will always be inferior to a swashbuckler that CAN give up sneak attack.

My goal: The first time player can take any subclass of rogue and the DM can be assured that they still have the handy tool of sneak attack to fall back on in combat. The player that knows what he is doing can take any subclass of rogue and ditch the sneak attack he doesn't want for something he knows will make his character better.

 

[Mistwell]

I heavily disagree with this. If I'm running the Dungeon of Ultimate DOOM that I've been spending the last year writing up in great detail filled with horrendously deadly traps and nasty monsters who want to eat your face

Then I'd say you did something unwise, spending a year making a dungeon before actually talking to your players and asking what they want to do. What if they get there and simply say, "Yeah, nice dungeon and all, but we're exploring the city and planning a caper at the wizards tower now"? You don't dictate what the players decide to do with their characters, you just adjudicate results. Why are you spending a year on something that dictates what your players will do?

and you show up with a character who is an 8 year old girl who spends her days picking daisies in the field and doesn't know how to wield any weapons or solve any puzzles...you should expect to have nothing to contribute to the party...and likely to die.

Well, depends on hows it plays out. Why does the PC join the party, what are they trying to accomplish, what sorts of adventures do they want to go on? I can see a child character that starts out weak but learns as they go as having the potential to be a great PC. I imagine, if the party enters a dungeon and this PC wants to go along, they'd start as a scout (being small, and likely having skills hiding since they survived this long). So they'd sneak ahead spot the foes and terrain, report back, allowing the rest of the party to plan an ambush. Maybe the child would then taunt the foes, run away, have the foes chase her into the party's ambush. Seems like a lot of potential to contribute to the game.

D&D isn't improv acting. It's a specific game with specific conventions. One of which is "You will face nasty monsters and you need to be able to defeat them".

Uh, wow. No, it's not. There are tons of settings and adventures that involve political intrigue, or investigation, or capers, which involve no monsters. Monsters are just one possible aspect of the game. Those are not requirements for D&D, they're just one thing it can do.

I appreciate that your games, that's what you focus on. Please appreciate that not everyone does that, certainly not all the time.

The person you were replying to specifically mentioned Pathfinder Society adventures, at that. In Pathfinder Society, the DM isn't allowed to change the tone of the game or adapt to a non-combat player at the table. They get an adventure that says "You enter the room and the door slams behind you. In the room are 3 beholders who want you dead. Roll for initiative!" That's what you have to run.

And that guy was saying you cannot run a bard/something not related to a bard (level 2 total character) in a Pathfinder Society game, which is objectively false. This idea that you need to run a highly combat optimized character or else you cannot play in Pathfinder Society games is false. It's up to the player to do what they find fun and hopefully effective. But the day you start eliminating new players from joining a public game because you feel they didn't optimize their character enough, is the day Pathfinder Society starts dying a slow death as new players get driven away from the game. Pathfinder Society isn't a "Non-Optimized Characters Need Not Apply" group event.

No it isn't. You make a character that fits the game you are playing.

Naw, other way around. You make the character you want to play, and you make sure to talk to your DM about how to fit that character in. DM controls the world, the player controls the PC. The DM doesn't control the PC, nor the player decisions on what PCs to make and how to play them. If they die they die. But, DM doesn't get to control all aspects of the game - the PCs are the one aspect they're not in control of.

If I'm playing a Call of Cthulhu game, I'm likely not rolling up a Space Marine or even a Commando. They don't fit the game. Most of that game involves running away from enemies and avoiding touching books. Playing a Commando with Automatic weaponry is missing the point.

I have no idea what's available in that game...let's stick to discussing D&D in this D&D topic?

D&D is mostly about defeating monsters, venturing into dungeons, and solving problems that require larger than life abilities to solve.

It's really not. It might be for you, but there are lots of people who NEVER go into dungeons in their games. I know people who have run a swashbuckling sea adventure game for years and years, and others who have been running political intrigue games for years. Dungeons are just one possible thing you can do with this game - not the only thing or even primary thing you can do. What did you think all those city supplements and wilderness supplements and ocean supplements and planes supplements were for?

That's not to say that there aren't people out there using the D&D rules to run games that aren't within the D&D theme. I'm certain there will be 100 people who read this who tell me I'm completely wrong and that D&D doesn't HAVE to involve monsters, combat, dungeons, or even problem solving.

Be that as it may, D&D should support that as its primary method of play.

It should support it as one method of playing, for sure. But it should not force you to play that way. It should support people who don't play that way, as well.

Because most of those adventures don't work well in a group. A cat-burglar adventure reminds me of the time I attempted to run a rogue sneaking into a castle as an adventure. None of the rest of the party could help because they were so bad at stealth. So, I went into the other room and ran the PC through an adventure where they hid from guards and made their way from room to room searching the castle. Which took 2-3 hours. With 5 other players sitting in the other room being extremely impatient that they weren't being involved.

I assure you, a caper adventure can absolutely be run with a diverse group of PCs of a variety of classes and abilities. It's a blast too. And D&D has supported this type of adventure from the very beginning, and in every edition of D&D, on some level.

Political intrigue always reminds me of the adventure I once played where one player spent the whole session attempting to make political contacts and woo one of the ladies in the court while the rest of us sat there looking at our 8 charisma scores and decided not to open our mouths to avoid causing any problems for a couple of hours straight.

That's a shame. There is a lot you can do in that sort of situation. But, if you didn't like it, that's cool. Just understand, many people do, so that sort of adventure should be supported by the rules.

Combat, puzzles, and exploration get the entire party involved. Everyone has to help defeat the beholder. Everyone has a chance to figure out the puzzle. Everyone can contribute to searching the room.

Not that you can't use those other things as pieces of an adventure to allow one person to shine. But you need to keep them short enough that no one else gets bored and quickly move onto the parts of the game everyone can contribute to.

So, if someone is ONLY good at the parts of the game that tend to exclude everyone else, they don't make a good character.

There is no part of the game that inherently excludes everyone else. A good DM can adapt to make sure everyone's enjoying things no matter what the party decides to do.

I find it particularly interesting you keep mentioning puzzles. I like puzzles, but this is an aspect of the game that's both poorly supported by most rules, and also that a lot of players say is very boring to them. You will find 10 times the number of wilderness and city adventure support, than you will puzzle adventure support. So, it seems you get this idea that you can make something that is shrouded by the perception of being not for everyone, into something that everyone can appreciate. You seem to have done it with puzzles. So, can you understand those other types of adventures might be like that one?

 

[Falling Icicle]

I'd like to know what kinds of abilities people would want to exchange for sneak attack.

The way I see it, the more options people have, the better. However, there are limits to this. Each class needs to have a certain degree of competence in combat. I am strongly against the idea that it's okay for a class to suck at combat if they're good at social interaction or exploration, or vice versa. Without sneak attack, a rogue's damage is pitiful. They don't get extra attacks, so most of their damage at higher levels comes from sneak attack. Since a Rogue's combat prowess pretty much depends upon sneak attack, whatever it is exchanged for would have to be similarly powerful. They could give rogues two attacks and make sneak attack less powerful, but even then, it's still going to be a pretty big chunk of a rogue's damage potential.

 

[Mistwell]

The way I see it, the more options people have, the better. However, there are limits to this. Each class needs to have a certain degree of competence in combat. I am strongly against the idea that it's okay for a class to suck at combat if they're good at social interaction or exploration, or vice versa.

And I am strongly against people who say they want to eliminate certain choices and play styles from the game entirely because that's how they personally prefer to play the game.

My favorite, all-time character I played was an Akashic from Monte Cooks Arcana Evolved. He sucked at combat, but knew so much, about so many things, that he altered situations so that those who were good at combat could always take full advantage of their combat abilities. It was awesome, we all had a lot of fun, the game hummed.

And you want to make that game impossible. You want to REQUIRE that everyone play a character that must be good a combat, even if they don't want to, even if the game doesn't need it, even if they can contribute great without it.

No. Have some respect for how some others want to play, who differ from your preferences. Lots of D&D games are not combat-centric a significant portion of the time. It's not a majority of games, but it's a meaningful number of games with a lot of supplements out there to support that type of game. It does no harm at all to your play preferences to allow players to choose a non-combat character type. Nobody is going to force you to play a non-combat type, so why are you trying to force others to play a combat-type? You don't like it, don't play it. But, don't make that choice for everyone else.

 

[Mark1733]

I haven't read all 5 pages of this thread, but I am throwing my 2 cents in. Sorry if I repeat any aforementioned ideas. I like the idea of Sneak Attack being optional, but only in a "when do I get to use it?" timing sense. I am a 3.5 guy and think the typical paths for the rogue are analogous to the fighting preference of the ranger--two-handed vs archery. But first, let's agree that all Rogues need DEX in some way because at a minimum, all rogues are at some point hiding and/or moving silently. With that said, I am thinking that rogues have three key areas of expertise that differentiate them from the other classes: opportunistic fighting, lock/trap expertise, and con artistry, each driven moreso by other abilities--STR, INT, and CHA respectively. I think one method would be to rank these skills sets 1-2-3 -- primary, secondary, tertiary. Then assign power paths to each. These could be sets of powers and/or additional feats from which they select an extra one every so many levels. There are Fighter Bonus Feats, and Metamagic and Item Creation Feats--why not a set of Rogue bonus feats. The Primary power path begins at 1st level, the but the others are delayed by 2 levels for each thing. So...if they pick the opportunistic fighting, they get sneak attack at 1st level, but trapfinding, trap sense, etc are all delayed either by 2 or 4 levels depending on whether they made that path secondary or tertiary. If they pick opportunistic fighting as their second path, they get Sneak Attack at level 3; if its their third path, it begins at level 5. I always thought leaving the Con Artist path exclusively to skills rather than special class features was a miss--being a super-bluffer, master forger, or a sleight of hand/pickpocketer can be really fun, but you have spend loads of skill points and feats to really excel. So, with all that being said...Sneak Attack becomes more of an option if the character chooses to when exactly to get it--however, they will gain the ability at some point, provided they don't die first. I didn't lay out a perfect plan here, but just something to toss around and see what sticks. Thanks.

 

[Falling Icicle]

And I am strongly against people who say they want to eliminate certain choices and play styles from the game entirely because that's how they personally prefer to play the game.

My favorite, all-time character I played was an Akashic from Monte Cooks Arcana Evolved. He sucked at combat, but knew so much, about so many things, that he altered situations so that those who were good at combat could always take full advantage of their combat abilities. It was awesome, we all had a lot of fun, the game hummed.

And you want to make that game impossible. You want to REQUIRE that everyone play a character that must be good a combat, even if they don't want to, even if the game doesn't need it, even if they can contribute great without it.

No. Have some respect for how some others want to play, who differ from your preferences. Lots of D&D games are not combat-centric a significant portion of the time. It's not a majority of games, but it's a meaningful number of games with a lot of supplements out there to support that type of game. It does no harm at all to your play preferences to allow players to choose a non-combat character type. Nobody is going to force you to play a non-combat type, so why are you trying to force others to play a combat-type? You don't like it, don't play it. But, don't make that choice for everyone else.

Overreact much? You're acting like I sent rules ninjas to your house to piss in your cheerios. You accuse me of wanting to "force you to play a combat-type." Please explain to me how I could force you to do anything? I can't, and even if I could, I wouldn't.

All I said is that each class needs to have a certain degree of competence in combat. Your character might only be 50% of the combat focused character, or some other percentage. I never said you had to make a character that's great at combat. There's plenty of room in this system for optimization, as well as its opposite. All we probably differ on is just how big of a difference the system should allow there to be between optimized and un-optimized characters. This is also, of course, assuming the default rules of the game, which you are free to change at your table however you like.

I won't apologize for wanting a well balanced core rule set that allows all characters to participate in all three pillars of the game to at least a somewhat meaningful degree. I don't want the game to have trap options. Too many times I've seen people make characters that end up sucking at combat or other aspects of the game unintentionally and not having much fun as a result, all because the rules were poorly designed to begin with. I think it's best that the game's default rules avoid such things. But if you deliberately want to make your character suck at combat, go right ahead. I won't stop you.

[Edit] As of right now, 40% of the votes are for making sneak attack a mandatory/common feature for all rogues. So are all of those people rules Nazis that have no respect for your opinion? Maybe you should show some respect for their opinion, which is just as valid as yours. (FYI, I voted for option B).

 

[Mistwell]

Overreact much? You're acting like I sent rules ninjas to your house to piss in your cheerios. You accuse me of wanting to "force you to play a combat-type." Please explain to me how I could force you to do anything? I can't, and even if I could, I wouldn't.

All I said is that each class needs to have a certain degree of competence in combat. Your character might only be 50% of the combat focused character, or some other percentage. I never said you had to make a character that's great at combat. There's plenty of room in this system for optimization, as well as its opposite. All we probably differ on is just how big of a difference the system should allow there to be. This is also, of course, assuming the default rules of the game, which you are free to change at your table however you like.

That's not all you said. You said, "I am strongly against the idea that it's okay for a class to suck at combat if they're good at social interaction or exploration".

I won't apologize for wanting a well balanced core rule set that allows all characters to participate in all three pillars of the game to at least a somewhat meaningful degree.

And if a player wants to choose options so that they focus on non-combat at the expense of combat, you've made it clear you don't want the rules to support that.

I don't want the game to have trap options. Too many times I've seen people make characters that end up sucking at combat or other aspects of the game unintentionally and not having much fun as a result, all because the rules were poorly designed to begin with. I think it's best that the game's default rules avoid such things. But if you deliberately want to make your character suck at combat, go right ahead. I won't stop you.

That is a different argument though. It's pretty easy to explain in the rules "choose this option if you want to be good at non-combat at the expense of combat competency". It's not a "trap" if it says that up-front. That's different than the rules simply not supporting a non-combat focused set of options.

[Edit] As of right now, 40% of the votes are for making sneak attack a mandatory/common feature for all rogues. So are all of those people rules Nazis that have no respect for your opinion? Maybe you should show some respect for their opinion, which is just as valid as yours. (FYI, I voted for option B).

A "common feature" for all rogues is my vote as well. I support the base rules having SA, but the option however to support a non-combat focused rogue, perhaps in an expansion book or module. You, on the other hand, are the only one who has outright stated, "I am strongly against the idea that it's okay for a class to suck at combat if they're good at social interaction or exploration". You are the only one who wants there to be no option for those players. So you're the guy I am responding to. If others want to take that position, I will respond to them as well.