Sneak attacking undead and constructs seems wrong

[ParanoydStyle]

One of my house rules for 5E is that Elementals and Oozes are immune to critical hits and sneak attack, due to their lack of a discernible anatomy or vulnerable points.

I still allow crits and sneak attack for constructs because I figure that a clever rogue can find a weak joint or an exposed seam or whatever in a golem or automaton. I still allow crits and sneak attack for undead because in my experience almost half of the enemies you face in D&D are undead, and the 3.5 Rogue's inability to sneak attack undead, elementals, constructs, oozes, plants, and maybe one or two types I'm forgetting made the class essentially worthless in sometimes quite literally every other combat, but by far the biggest source of the problem was the undead.

But undead are really the only place there's a tension of any kind between my personal sense of "okay, that makes sense to me" and "this is how the game needs to be balanced". And I defer to the latter. I might amend my house rules so that INCORPOREAL undead are immune to sneak attack. While that's a bit fiddly, there is something very weird about the idea of backstabbing a wraith.

 

[Staffan]

I see it in the other players when the rogue out damages them. Especially since he went with the Assassin archetype, so on the first round he is devastating if he goes first. Oh, yeah, and he is also a half-orc so gets the savage attacker thing or whatever it is, adding another die to critical hits (which the assassinate feature is).

I think you are over-interpreting the Assassinate feature. Here's what the PHB says: "You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit."

In most cases, Assassinate only gives you advantage on the attack roll, which means you get to sneak attack even if your buddies haven't gotten to the target yet. The automatic crit is only against creatures that are surprised. In my experience, surprise is fairly rare, especially when you're moving with a party full of people who are not as stealthy as you. Basically, in order to get the auto-crit you'd have to:

1. Sneak ahead of the party.
2. Avoid detection by the target (Stealth vs Passive Perception, which usually isn't a problem for a stealthy character).
3. Beat the target on initiative (because surprise in 5e works by eating your first action - essentially, the surprised character's action in round 1 is "stop being surprised").

That's fairly rare.

 

[S'mon]

BTW afaics you still 'take your turn' while Surprised - you just don't do anything.

 

[S'mon]

3. Beat the target on initiative (because surprise in 5e works by eating your first action - essentially, the surprised character's action in round 1 is "stop being surprised").

If the target is completely unaware of the attacker at the moment of attack, I'd rule they are not 'in combat' and so they don't get an init roll to avoid the surprise attack. I'd then go to init, with the target no longer surprised at the moment init is rolled (so no double dipping surprise attacks).

Occasionally PCs do get prior-to-init-roll attacks even vs aware foes, eg the Primeval Thule 'Ice Reaver' heroic narrative gives move + attack prior to init. I'd allow two lots of surprise attacks in that case.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I think you are over-interpreting the Assassinate feature. Here's what the PHB says: "You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit."

In most cases, Assassinate only gives you advantage on the attack roll, which means you get to sneak attack even if your buddies haven't gotten to the target yet. The automatic crit is only against creatures that are surprised. In my experience, surprise is fairly rare, especially when you're moving with a party full of people who are not as stealthy as you. Basically, in order to get the auto-crit you'd have to:

1. Sneak ahead of the party.
2. Avoid detection by the target (Stealth vs Passive Perception, which usually isn't a problem for a stealthy character).
3. Beat the target on initiative (because surprise in 5e works by eating your first action - essentially, the surprised character's action in round 1 is "stop being surprised").

That's fairly rare.

I guess you missed some of my posts, I wasn't interpreting it, our DM and the rogue player were. But after looking up the feature myself I plan to bring up the surprise element (won't he be surprised to learn they've been doing it wrong, huh? LOL)

Since the half-orc rogue is Stealth +9, yeah he usually beats passive perception. With +8 for Initiative, he often wins that too.

I am also going to have to review just how our DM is doing the surprised foe acting on the first round. Technically, since they are surprised they won't act until round 2, and he will probably do it that way even if the target wins on initiative. I'll find out at our next session.

But thanks for the further clarification.

 

[André Soares]

Now I completely understand why the rogue was doing a crapton of damage XD

 

[dco]

If they are damaged by weapons I don't see the problem, the rogue deals more damage with one attack, that's all, the same way a heavy weapon or a more agile/strong characters does more damage.

If you have problems with the simulation avoid D&D, the classes have a lot of mechanical differences for defense, damage, spells, etc that could be the same for all, but it is done this way for differentiation. The rogue instead of making more attacks deals more damage in one attack, if you limit this extra damage then what's the point of using that class?

 

[Bacon Bits]

He did take Alert at 4 instead of the ASI.

He also took Expertise in Stealth, so at this point is +9. With most opponents low Passive Perception, he beats most things. As a half-orc, he does have Darkvision. He is the primary scout for the group (I am secondary), and even once I point out our DM's error about assassinate, he'll still get the drop on a lot of things. So, yes, most of the time he uses stealth to get close enough. As a group we are fairly stealthy, and everyone has darkvision (two dragonborn, a tiefling, half-orc, and my elf).

Also, at this point with magic and my pass without trace, he and I can scout almost undetectable. (FYI, I am Stealth +5 but with books of elvenkind, so I get advantage to move silently as well.) I took Observant and expertise in Perception so my Passive Perception is 23.

Granted, there are a lot of encounters, especially in the wilderness, where he won't be able to use it anymore.

I feel like that is a lot of information randomly inserted all over the place LOL.

So, not only is the Assassin completely min-maxed to benefit exactly this, but so is your character, and you've got the proper magic spells and magic gear for it, too?

I assume you're targeting the whole party with pass without trace, too? (I mean, why wouldn't you?) And I assume that nobody is wearing armor that causes disadvantage on Stealth checks?

I'm sorry you're having trouble, but this is increasingly sounding like it's entirely a problem of your table's own making. If you min-max a party around one thing, it's going to be very good at doing that one thing. I might try to argue that if you're in a dungeon that one combat is likely to be loud enough to give away your position to essentially the rest of the area and spoil surprise, or that closed doors are likely to give away your position when you open them, or that moving with stealth or checking for traps requires moving at slow travel pace or 200' per minute unless you've got a ranger, or that if your Assassin does so much damage then he should be immediately focus fired by the NPCs in every combat, but at this point it really sounds like your party has hung themselves on this strategy. You've all set yourselves up to be good at making the Assassin effective in the first round of combat and done essentially nothing else to help out the other characters.


However, keep in mind that with darkvision if you're wandering around in the dark you suffer a -5 to passive perception due to disadvantage from dim light. In total darkness you've got a passive perception of 18, not a 23. Correcting that deficit is part of what the Skulker feat does. Look under races and it usually says something like, "This race has darkvision out to 60 feet, meaning it can see in darkness as if the darkness were dim light." On PHB p183, it says, "Dim Light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area." Also on PHB p183, "In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight." Finally, on PHB p175, "If the character has advantage on the check, add 5 [to the passive score]. For disadvantage, subtract 5."

 

[DND_Reborn]

Now I completely understand why the rogue was doing a crapton of damage XD

Yeah, I will have to review it all with our DM, but I am 95% certain he was letting the rogue assassinate nearly every combat. Adding the surprise condition would make at least some of a difference, and I think the others will be happy with that. Like I said, we don't want to nerf the rogue, but it just seemed like he was to good to be true... which, apparently, he was.

If they are damaged by weapons I don't see the problem, the rogue deals more damage with one attack, that's all, the same way a heavy weapon or a more agile/strong characters does more damage.

If you have problems with the simulation avoid D&D, the classes have a lot of mechanical differences for defense, damage, spells, etc that could be the same for all, but it is done this way for differentiation. The rogue instead of making more attacks deals more damage in one attack, if you limit this extra damage then what's the point of using that class?

You might not see a problem, I did. And avoid D&D? Hardly! We can just change things like you're supposed to do if you don't like the way the rules work normally.

Anyway, rogue aren't traditionally combat classes, they are support classes and high utility. If you make them on par with fighters, what would be the point of playing fighters? Also the extra attacks fighters get typically aren't realized since most games stop before tier 3 and certainly tier 4. Regardless, I really don't want to get into a class vs class debate so I'll stop before I get started too much.

The issue was sneak attack working when our group kind of feels it is unwarranted. Now, with some of the other explanations I've received some posts it makes a lot more sense (I do like the rogue "taking apart" a target like he would a trap or something) and I can discuss it with the other players that way. For my part, I consider the issue most likely solved once I bring some of these points to the DM's attention.

 

[Bacon Bits]

BTW afaics you still 'take your turn' while Surprised - you just don't do anything.

This is correct. The game describes the effects of surprise by saying, "If you're surprised, you can't move or take an actions on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends." You very clearly have to have a turn on the first round in order for that to work. So, if you were surprised and someone cast hold person on you in the first round before your turn, I believe you'd still get a saving throw to break the spell at the end of your turn even though you were surprised since it doesn't take an action. On the flip side, if you were surprised by a wall of fire, you'd also take damage twice.