D&D 5E Sneak Attack with spells?

[Vaalingrade]

In a whack-a-mole world? No. That's also a smart in fiction move. Better to let 3 people beat on you briefly than to ignore the downed PC and soon have 4 beating on you again.

Whack-a-mole is largely a result of trying to play hardmode in the first place. People keep complaining about a problem they're causing.

 

[Maxperson]

Whack-a-mole is largely a result of trying to play hardmode in the first place. People keep complaining about a problem they're causing.

No. Whack-a-mole is almost entirely caused by a 0 hit point floor, combat being balanced around hit points, and healing for even a single point bringing you fully conscious and to 100% fighting ability. A few levels in and death by massive damage isn't really a thing anymore and as long as you heal the same round or a round later, the mole pops back up to be whacked again since he has almost no hit points.

It has nothing to do with hard mode.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The fact that characters hit 0 so often is the primary issue and it's a DM issue.

 

[Maxperson]

The fact that characters hit 0 so often is the primary issue and it's a DM issue.

It's the freaking game design. You're saying that the DM needs to break the game design and create a new game where so much damage and 0 doesn't happen very often. Good luck with that.

 

[NotAYakk]

The balance problem with "SA with spells" is honestly because of Cantrips.

A rogue who attacks with a scaling cantrip does more damage than one who does not. And ideally you don't want every rogue to have to be a spellcaster to be effective at doing damage.

This was already somewhat broken by SCAG weapon cantrips; they scale like cantrips, and are compatible with rogue SA.

Burning spellcaster levels to get a spell, like shadowblade, isn't as bad as cantrips. Cantrips require a feat or a single level dip, and scale up to level 17.

As it stands, the existence of Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade means that non-gish rogues damage output requires a lot of effort just to keep up. But it is limited to melee, and dual-wielding weapons can help compensate (two attacks either gives 2 chances to land a sneak attack, or more chances to crit). It still requires a lot of effort; for example, Champion 5/Rogue 15 with two short swords and a source of advantage (!) can match a AT 20 rogue using something like shadowblade and/or booming blade (or at least be in the same league).

At range, no scaling cantrips work.

Now, the damage output of Cantrip+SA isn't that broken. So you could just grant something like it to all rogues that is incompatible. Like...

Called Shot: Starting at level 5, as an action you can aim for a weak spot. You make a weapon attack (either melee or ranged) and deal an extra set of weapon damage dice if it hits. Starting at level 11 it deals 2 extra set of weapon dice, and at level 17 3 extra set. Only add your attribute bonus once. If you are wielding 2 light melee weapons, afterwards as bonus action you can also make a called shot with the other weapon.

Your DM may offer to exchange your extra damage for causing an effect, like wounding an arm holding an ally of yours to get the creature to let go.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Not really. If a bat is flapping around you every single turn and causing a character to have an easier time hitting you it is not metagaming to counter that.

It is also not metagaming to realize you can probably kill said bat with one shot.

Those are in game thematics for advantage and hps respectively.

Bear in mind that most players doing this will do it with a pet with flyby attack.
Its not a case of taking a swing at an annoying nuisance that is distracting you while someone else is killing you.

Its the case that you're stopping fighting the creature that is killing you so you can see if the nuisance is going to be buzzing your head again and take a swing at it.

 

[ECMO3]

While allowing the person actually damaging you to continue to do so with impunity just to show up the player.

Wrong on both accounts. First you are severely nerfing the character damaging you, especially if it takes away sneak attack. Assuming he still gets sneak attack you are cutting his damage output by about 25% and that starts the turn after you down the familiar. If they don't get SA you are cutting it by well over 70% depending on what tier you are in.

So you are stopping someone from damaging you.

Second you are taking that enemy out of the fight completely.

Saying you should only and exclusively attack the character damaging your is like saying when someone is shooting you IRL that you should try to punch him instead of trying to take his gun away and stop him from shooting you. In some limited cases that might be smart, but not in most cases.

Its just like ignoring the people beating on you to attack downed enemies in order to force death saves; a metagame move to increase difficulty.

I think this depends on the situation as well. Not killing a player in tier 2+ means he or she will almost always be brought back in the fight. As DM in a fight I will target downed players and I think that is what most would do IRL if their goal was to kill someone.

As a player a lot of the DMs I play with do not do this.

Again IRL you just knocked someone to the ground. You are confident that he is going to get back up and start attacking you again shortly. Usually you finish him off if you can.

 

[ECMO3]

Bear in mind that most players doing this will do it with a pet with flyby attack.

I believe there is only 1 familiar that has this feature and as I said several turns ago, that does make the Owl somewhat more survivable in combat, but that is a unique case.

Also an Owl is still going to die pretty regularly out of combat unless you banish him and if you do there is a high action cost to summoning him again in combat.

 

[ECMO3]

The fact that characters hit 0 so often is the primary issue and it's a DM issue.

Many, many CR-appropriate monsters have the ability to 1-shot low hp characters in tier 2, 3and 4.

Even in published adventures you will find multiple enemies with spells or breaths that will 1-shot characters. So if there is a Adult Green Dragon in the adventure and it uses a breath where it can get the Wizard or the Rogue is that a "DM issue"?

Should I instead aim the breath so it purposely only catches the Fighter and Barbarian and purposely doesn't damage the other characters?

What if you are fighting some Vrocks and they screech? Should I ignore the stunned characters and the advantage I get to attack others? If so, then using the screech is almost useless because it puts up a debuff that is going to be ignored anyway.

 

[Plaguescarred]

What's about all this DM blaming guys? D&D is a RPG that has risks for any characters eventually during adventuring. If you ain't wanna take risks, stay at home pal!

But if you do go adventuring, you should be grateful that your DM put you through some challenges.

You can't make an omlette without breaking eggs - The bigger the risk, the greater the expected reward !