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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ECMO3" data-source="post: 8318787" data-attributes="member: 7030563">No they aren't  If they were there would not be conditions for it. They could just say a Rogue does extra 1d6 damage once a tunr, with another 1d6 at every odd level.  That is what they do with other such abilities like for the Ranger subclass damage bonuses like fey wanderer or swarmkeeper for example. The PHB lays out specifically when you can and can not get sneak attack and if those conditions are not met you do not get it.  For example:1. Fight an invisible stalker and the Rogue is almost never getting sneak attack unless he does something to cancel the disadvantage.2. Fight ghasts and he starts within 10 feet of one and fails his constitution save - bye bye sneak attack for that turn.3. Rogue is scouting ahead, fails stealth and gets in a fight, the party is 2 turns behind so he has no allies to give position for SA and he needs to retreat.4. The Rogue WINS initiative due to his high dexterity but is not hidden and must move to attack.This kind of stuff happens in every campaign.Aside from these obvious cases, intelligent monsters should absolutely make it difficult for characters to use their abilities and it is possible to deny Rogue an SA fairly easily.  It is not free, but it is not difficult to do either.  If the Rogue is kiting in and landing SA every turn intelligent enemies should try to counter that through ready action, grapple, dodge etc.  None of that is free and depending on the situation it may not be advisable, but a DM is not a jerk because he fights intelligent enemies intelligently and takes an action to cut a player's damage by 70%.For example, your 5th level party is fighting an Orc Warchief and  8 Orcs.  The Rogue is coming in and out and using the chief as a pincushion and taking disengage to avoid AOOs from the enemeoes.  Two of the Orcs come up between the Rogue and the cheiftan and ready action.  When the Rogue tries to walk past in one grapples and one helps.  Once the Rogue is grappled said Orc drags him into a corner and takes the dodge action every turn.  You basically have eliminated an Orc from the fight and the Rogue will not land SA again until he uses an action to break the grapple or one of his allies kills the Orc.  It is a heavy price to pay.  You lose two attacks for one turn and take another Orc out of the whole battle, but it eleminates 3d6 damage every single turn.  There are other variations using shove, positioning, blocking, caltrops, cover (which does not disable SA but will make them harder to land).  It is not being a jerk to do these things.Most of the charaters I play are Rogues and I play for several different DMs and I never had a Rogue who got SA every single time he attacked.  I don't think I had one who got it 80% of the times he attacks.</blockquote>

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