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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 4161407" data-attributes="member: 1645">I think we can agree that it's an issue of how the DM stats up the challenges, how the players decide to tackle those challenges, and how the dice roll -- but another important element is how the game is designed.And a big, if invisible, element of how the game is designed is how ablative hit points work.  If a guard is at all vulnerable to a one-shot kill, then he's almost guaranteed to die to two shots.  For the initial attack to have a 50-50 chance of killing him, it must average as much damage as he has hit points.This is not true with a save-or-die effect, like the assassin's death attack.  If a death attack fails to kill the guard, it's not because it did "just" 90 percent of his hit points in damage.  He's not reduced to a tiny fraction of his hit points.If a 5th-level Rogue meets a 5th-level Fighter in open combat, the Rogue is supposed to lose -- not 100 percent of the time, but much more than 50 percent.  It's not a fair fight.If a 5th-level Rogue successfully ambushes a 5th-level Fighter, the Rogue is supposed to win -- not 100 percent of the time, but much more than 50 percent.  It's not a fair fight.How exactly we want to implement that is up for debate, but I'd like to see a system where the Rogue has a decent chance of taking out the Fighter with one good sneak attack, and if that fails, the Fighter instead has the advantage, and they both know it.</blockquote>

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