I keep hearing that the rogue subclass assasin is weak, but I still dont see why.
Arcane trickster gets a few spells, but for a martial, that shouldn't be very useful right?
Thiefs abilities seem very specific and unflexible. Mostly like disarming traps and creating different personas.
But, at third level, assasin rogues get a really neat ability, they have advantage against creatures who havent had a turn yet in combat and automatically get a critical hit on creatures they surprise. These features play to the rogues strength and seem quite good, at least on paper.
Thief looks decent, but I just dont see what's wrong with assasin, unless I'm missing something.
So what rogue subclasses (including ones from Tashas and Xanathars) are good? And why is assasin bad?
Trying to be top damage dealer is hard as a rogue but they do ok and have skill reliability (expertise and reliable talent) so they are fine adventurers.
Assassin's skills however are party and dm dependant. Will the group help trigger surprise often enough? Will you do poison harvesting for damage boosts?
Fast hands actually is quite fun and useful. there's several threads about it already. Tldr : thrown vials and healers kits+healer feat really make Fast hands work.
Archane trickster can make illusions to hide behind and have other interesting utility.
The problem with assassin is that their cool ability often isn't as effective when you have a paladin/fighter/cleric clunking around in heavy armor a few feet away from you, so you never get the jump on anyone. It's not that it's bad in theory, it's that it works pretty well for a solo operator, not someone part of a team.
So the assassin could go ahead, and get the jump on an enemy (effectively only one) and then hope the rest of the party can catch up before the enemy's friends beat the rogue senseless. (Meanwhile, the players are sitting around the table, twiddling their thumbs while the one person running the rogue gets to play as their character goes off to do something cool. So there's kind of a meta-game reason why its not so great, also.)
As far as good or bad subclasses, it depends on what you want them to do. They all have some cool features. It's kind of a right tool for the job situation, where some will be useful and others not as much.
IMO The assassin isn't a good subclass for a few reasons, some already posted about. The big ones being stuff like how it actually is bad game design, the only thing that kind of matters is an only ok 3rd level feature with the rest ranging from useless to situation at best, that the actual feature isn't even good, and the opportunity cost of picking it over every other more interesting rogue option (basically all of them.
The reason I say it's bad game design, and it's been covered somewhat already, is that it relies on a very specific willingness to allow and enable a specific playstyle that is a little selfish. Not only is it a question of whether the party will allow/be good enough to work towards a stealthy ambush, but if the adventure itself would enable you to do so. In a dungeon crawl, it's pretty possible that you only get an encounter or two out of the feature before there's a full alert going on and opening a door would remove the ability to actually surprise a group of enemies. The first part for advantage is a bit better, but considering that with Tashas rogues got Steady Aim for easy advantage anyway it's a bit moot.
The rest of the features are trash. Customizing a background, or just taking the ones that would be good at those tool proficiencies already covers the rest of the archetype. The level 9 feature doesn't feel like a feature at all and ought to just have been a description of a use of the disguise kit, and on top of that there isn't much of a chance this is even close to as good as someone who can use magic for things like disguise self and other related spells for disguising your identity. Imposter is just the actor feat which is already considered pretty bad. Death Strike comes in at the same level full casters have 9th level spells for wish etc. and has the surprise condition required. You could have made this just a passive thing on every sneak attack and I'd still say it's not great. People rarely play at this level anyway though so it doesn't matter much one way or the other.
Why Assassinate isn't good? All it does is give you a free crit with you actually needing to put some work into it. People seem to forget that Hold Person/Monster exist and give all melee attackers auto crit which also supports the rest of the party. Advantage is also fairly common with good team play, so I don't rate that part highly either. It's also sort of all or nothing but worse since it only possibly matters on that first round of combat, after that first turn you get you are basically a rogue without an archetype.
The comparisons to the other rogue options, even just the PHB ones, is pretty rough. Fast Hands has a variety of utility options to be good, and can enhance your ability to actually fight things in combat. Second Story Work is good if the DM bothers to actually include elevation in their maps, climbing up a tree to shoot arrows safely is already a decently useful defensive feature. At will advantage on stealth is nice, it's not too common you need to care about your movement speed for it so the penalty isn't too bad. Use Magic Device is pretty niche, but if you are somehow finding extra wands the spellcasters don't want or something. Arcane Trickster gets you some great utility cantrips, and access to being able to use spells that compliment your rogue activities from the wizard (Find familiar is also there to always give you a help action for advantage to attack enemies if you need it, or advantage to your skill checks). This also includes the ability to cast hold person to possibly give your entire party advantage and auto crits on an enemy instead of just yourself. That alone makes it worthwhile without the rest of the features (which are also decent).
Looking to non PHB options. Arcane Trickster gets the blade cantrips. Inquisitive isn't really useful for combat but is great socially and for dungeoneering. Mastermind does the social intrigue and disguises better than the Assassin while giving advantage out to the rest of the party for free. Phantom lets you be a good skill monkey, damage multiple enemies in a turn, repeatedly, slow flight, phasing through walls/floors/ceilings, and make everything have disadvantage to hit you. Scout is very difficult for swarms of enemies to pin down, and gets extra expertise in some decently good skills. Soulknife is a potent mid range rogue who can still attack with their bonus action like a melee rogue, has party telepathy, gets to bardic inspire any of their failed rolls into a possible success, get a bonus to attack if they would miss (which is a massive improvement to DPR), Teleport, and turn invisible. Swashbuckler is basically the Mobile feat as an Archetype and gives you an initiative bonus.
Compare all of these options to a single "you can situationally auto crit a single time per combat", and you really start to realize how bad Assassin is.
I think the best Rogue is Arcane Trickster and there is nothing else close. It is both a powerful and a broad subclass and it is really difficult to go wrong with an AT. The Mage Hand Legerdemain is arguably the strongest subclass ability of any Rogue in tier 1/2, with cantrips they do the highest sneak attack damage and with spells they can excel at any phase.
The second best is a much tougher.. Soulknife, Swashbuckler and Thief all have plusses and minuses but are easy to make a good viable character.
Assassin (and Phantom) are not bad but if you want to keep up with the subclasses above you need to really build your character to it. The classes above you can really build any way you want. With Assassin to keep up you need to get an initiative bonus through either a feat (alert) or a subclass (twilight cleric, warmage, Gloomstalker). Ideally you would get alert and take a 1-level twilight cleric dip. You also should take expertise in stealth. If you do those things you can keep up with the subclasses above pretty well, but you pretty much have to do those things (and you have to sneak to make use of stealth). If you don't do those things then you will be behind those other subclasses.
Assassin is better than mastermind or inquisitor.
Since you asked about Eldritch Knight, that is a pretty good fighter class. With spells like Shield, Absorb Elements and Protection from Evil and Good there is a lot of defense that is going to substantially bolster your fighter. War Magic is a significant damage boost from levels 7-11. If you are looking at an EK fighter and comparing it to an Assasin Rogue I would say the EK is a better subclass than Assassin in terms of what it brings to the respective class.
Since you asked about Eldritch Knight, that is a pretty good fighter class. With spells like Shield, Absorb Elements and Protection from Evil and Good there is a lot of defense that is going to substantially bolster your fighter. War Magic is a significant damage boost from levels 7-11. If you are looking at an EK fighter and comparing it to an Assasin Rogue I would say the EK is a better subclass than Assassin in terms of what it brings to the respective class.
I assumed EK was a mistype and they ment arcane trickster.
I will say I think assassin gets devalued because of "dpr hunters". Anything deemed "roleplay tools" or ribbon" features are not treated well at some tables because either dms have a hard time mentally balancing the space where narrative and mechanics meet. some values single checks too much. or place equal value on unequal features. the 9th level fake identity is way better than just a disguise kit. its almost undetectable and can lead to solving some problems in interesting ways. Possibly turning an assault into an escape. or even bypassing certain complication points. Or for scouting/casing purposes. there is plenty of combat value that is not damage.
Since you asked about Eldritch Knight, that is a pretty good fighter class. With spells like Shield, Absorb Elements and Protection from Evil and Good there is a lot of defense that is going to substantially bolster your fighter. War Magic is a significant damage boost from levels 7-11. If you are looking at an EK fighter and comparing it to an Assasin Rogue I would say the EK is a better subclass than Assassin in terms of what it brings to the respective class.
I assumed EK was a mistype and they ment arcane trickster.
I will say I think assassin gets devalued because of "dpr hunters". Anything deemed "roleplay tools" or ribbon" features are not treated well at some tables because either dms have a hard time mentally balancing the space where narrative and mechanics meet. some values single checks too much. or place equal value on unequal features. the 9th level fake identity is way better than just a disguise kit. its almost undetectable and can lead to solving some problems in interesting ways. Possibly turning an assault into an escape. or even bypassing certain complication points. Or for scouting/casing purposes. there is plenty of combat value that is not damage.
Your right, I got confused. My bad.
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I will say I think assassin gets devalued because of "dpr hunters". Anything deemed "roleplay tools" or ribbon" features are not treated well at some tables because either dms have a hard time mentally balancing the space where narrative and mechanics meet. some values single checks too much. or place equal value on unequal features. the 9th level fake identity is way better than just a disguise kit. its almost undetectable and can lead to solving some problems in interesting ways. Possibly turning an assault into an escape. or even bypassing certain complication points. Or for scouting/casing purposes. there is plenty of combat value that is not damage.
I don't think it's the "DPR hunters" (It's normally called minmaxers but whatever), especially since it is actually theoretically good if you are going from the idea that you can constantly get that first round auto crit and stack smites etc. on it. The issue to be had with rating the ribbon features is that you are getting them late and they aren't good ribbons.
Infiltration Expertise is a "ribbon" that is just talking about actions that any sane DM would allow you to do regardless. "Oh hey DM to really sell this next infiltration I'd like to set up some false paperwork and supporting evidence I am who I say I am" shouldn't be a class feature. That's just a downtime activity that might feature forgers tools, disguise kit, and some deception rolling. Making this even worse is that this is something you get AT LEVEL 9! This is the level that casters are getting 5th level spells. You want to tell me that a downtime activity is equivalent to long range party teleportation, Modify Memory, Geas, or Dominate Person?
It wouldn't even be that good at level 3, when you would likely need to do such mundane infiltrations. This is a downtime activity, I wouldn't even want to call it a Ribbon since that gives it far too much credit.
And once again, the Imposter feature is just the actor feat. It's actually worse in a lot of ways since you need to study them for THREE HOURS instead of a minute. You get the ability to also mimic their writing style, but consider this is at level THIRTEEN. It's even worse compared to Infiltration Expertise, since at this point you are competing with 6th and 7th level spells.
Compare all of that to basically any other rogue archetype feature for either level, and you realize that these are some of the worst of the lot.
So what rogue subclasses (including ones from Tashas and Xanathars) are good? And why is assasin bad?
Prior to Tasha's, a Rogue subclass, in order to be good, had to provide a reliable way to Sneak Attack an enemy because the class didn't provide one. Tasha's gives all Rogues a way to do it, which is worth noting for subclasses that don't provide their own method and play nicely with the Tasha's ability. The failure to play nicely with the Tasha's method is one reason (of multiple, it's not just one flaw) Soulknives are so bad (in fact, this downside is extremely minor compared to the Soulknife's other problems, like how it's bad at Stealth and can't use its psychic blades to attack off-turn).
What fundamentally makes Assassin so bad is that the L3 benefits rely on the Assassin being good at something Assassins aren't particularly good at (going first) and buff the Assassin in a way that scales with number of attacks made, which is why the long-reigning champion build for nova damage is approximately Fighter 11/Ranger 3/Assassin 3 with the remaining levels depending on some other choices. It's just poorly designed as a Rogue subclass.
Because Rogue subclasses go an incredibly long time between providing abilities - no benefits, in general, from levels 4 to 8 inclusive - it's also worth pointing out that a Rogue subclass may be balanced very differently at different points. Phantom Rogues, for example, get a huge spike in power at level 9 that's so drastic it makes you stare in confusion at levels 3-8.
If you're talking about level 3, the best Rogue subclasses are Arcane Trickster and Swashbuckler, and at level 9, Phantoms join the party (bear in mind they're pretty heavily focused on what they're good at, so it depends on what you want your Rogue to be good at). After that, the subclasses may well be good enough to incorporate into builds that include a Rogue dip, but none of them have enough synergy with being a Rogue to compete with those three.
"DPR hunters" are not the same as min-maxers or optimizers. Sometimes they overlap or claim another title but not the same. They are people who only care about damage numbers.
MinokeTheWise: You want to tell me that a downtime activity is equivalent to long range party teleportation, Modify Memory, Geas, or Dominate Person?
Yes. an absolute solution to several checks allowing you to tactically prepare and understand Map layout, normal enemy placement, avoid several checks that are potential failure points. vs hurt one enemy. you are also getting an extra d6 that is repeatable for an unlimited amount attacks per rest.
MinokeTheWise: And once again, the Imposter feature is just the actor feat.
Actor feat only covers some of the imposter features and no check is way better than just advantage. advantage does nothing for impossible checks but imposter makes the impossible possible.
MinokeTheWise: Compare all of that to basically any other rogue archetype feature for either level, and you realize that these are some of the worst of the lot.
I am a firm believer in contemporary comparisons and yes the PHB 9th level features are all in the same scope of benefit. 9th level assassin gets a "casing tool" to help avoid checks. 9th level arcane trickster is a boon to spells that cause saves{which they have less of than other casters} 9th level thief is just situational advantage for stealth.
Quindraco: Prior to Tasha's, a Rogue subclass, in order to be good, had to provide a reliable way to Sneak Attack an enemy because the class didn't provide one.
Between allies and the bonus action hide I saw a 85-95% Success rate for sneak attack at our adventures league tables. There was always a corner to hide around or an ally that could provide options. granted most rogue players were ranged over melee back then.
The failure to play nicely with the Tasha's method is one reason (of multiple, it's not just one flaw) Soulknives are so bad (in fact, this downside is extremely minor compared to the Soulknife's other problems, like how it's bad at Stealth and can't use its psychic blades to attack off-turn).
I don't understand this at all.
What from TCE does not play well with Soulknife?
Soulknives are the best Rogues at stealth due to psi-bolstered knack. Also with psychic veil they can turn themselves invisible, making them the only Rogue that can hide without finding some cover or darkness to obscure themselves first (ATs using spells not withstanding).
Also psychic whispers makes it easier to communicate with party members while hidden.
Between allies and the bonus action hide I saw a 85-95% Success rate for sneak attack at our adventures league tables. There was always a corner to hide around or an ally that could provide options. granted most rogue players were ranged over melee back then.
I would say it is about 80%, it would be better except stealth fails a good bit before level 11.
To be honest steady aim has not increased this much at the games I played. It is another option but it is a costly one and there are many times that not moving is not a viable option due to cover or someone engaging you or something else. Further Rogues have a ton of bonus action options, so if you are using steady aim when you can get SA without it, you often are not going to do it because your bonus action and movement are more valuable than the advantage steady aim would give.
I will say I think assassin gets devalued because of "dpr hunters". Anything deemed "roleplay tools" or ribbon" features are not treated well at some tables because either dms have a hard time mentally balancing the space where narrative and mechanics meet. some values single checks too much. or place equal value on unequal features. the 9th level fake identity is way better than just a disguise kit. its almost undetectable and can lead to solving some problems in interesting ways. Possibly turning an assault into an escape. or even bypassing certain complication points. Or for scouting/casing purposes. there is plenty of combat value that is not damage.
I don't think it's the "DPR hunters" (It's normally called minmaxers but whatever), especially since it is actually theoretically good if you are going from the idea that you can constantly get that first round auto crit and stack smites etc. on it. The issue to be had with rating the ribbon features is that you are getting them late and they aren't good ribbons.
Infiltration Expertise is a "ribbon" that is just talking about actions that any sane DM would allow you to do regardless. "Oh hey DM to really sell this next infiltration I'd like to set up some false paperwork and supporting evidence I am who I say I am" shouldn't be a class feature. That's just a downtime activity that might feature forgers tools, disguise kit, and some deception rolling. Making this even worse is that this is something you get AT LEVEL 9! This is the level that casters are getting 5th level spells. You want to tell me that a downtime activity is equivalent to long range party teleportation, Modify Memory, Geas, or Dominate Person?
It wouldn't even be that good at level 3, when you would likely need to do such mundane infiltrations. This is a downtime activity, I wouldn't even want to call it a Ribbon since that gives it far too much credit.
And once again, the Imposter feature is just the actor feat. It's actually worse in a lot of ways since you need to study them for THREE HOURS instead of a minute. You get the ability to also mimic their writing style, but consider this is at level THIRTEEN. It's even worse compared to Infiltration Expertise, since at this point you are competing with 6th and 7th level spells.
Compare all of that to basically any other rogue archetype feature for either level, and you realize that these are some of the worst of the lot.
Basically Assassins get the features of the Charlatan background (my favorite for Rogues) at level 9...
Even if you believe a background feature to be equivalent( which is usually a big if) that just means you can take another.
However most backgrounds open up options for checks not actually allow "check bypass" for example the charlatan is a pre established Identity where as a 9th level rogue can make as many identities as needed. banking on choosing right one in the beginning is putting a lot of faith in your choice and you better hope you don't have to "burn" that identity.
So the problem with the Assassin is basically every feature doesn't work that well.
The level 3 feature is situational, used at best once per combat, and surprise in 5e was designed poorly. Here is everything that has to happen for you to be able to use assassinate for that automatic critical hit:
You and any allies also nearby have to pass your stealth checks against the opponents perception. Typically this will be passive perception but it might be active depending on the situation.
You have to beat the enemy in Initiative.
You have to land your attack. You could also critically hit anyway. If you're at advantage, it's around 9% of rolls that make this automatic critical basically meaningless.
So that's 3 rolls of the dice any one of which basically negates the automatic critical hit.
The level 9 feature, Infiltration Expertise, is kinda pointless. You can likely already succeed at creating these documents with a simple forgery kit proficiency. There are also plenty of other ways to infiltrate that are better than this anyway. Stealth is easier. Disguise self is a 1st level spell. Invisibility is a second level spell. This ability doesn't actually do much and is extremely situational.
The level 13 feature makes you even better at infiltrating but you're still not as good as any number of other classes. Another thing worth mentioning is that all these infiltration tactics are boring AF for the rest of the party. They will just sit and watch you infiltrate something. It also requires buy-in from your DM for these abilities to be useful.
The level 17 feature has the same problems as the level 3. 3 rolls of the dice to pull off.
Another problem is gaining access to the poisoners kit is not well defined. Anyone can use poisons. Are you better at making them? Probably? But how?
All in all this subclass doesn't do what you want it to do. Honestly if they combined the level 9 and 13 talents, gave something more interesting at 13, simplified the requirements for Assassinate and Death Strike, you'd have a good subclass. As it stands, most of the time you're just a rogue more or less without a subclass.
As for the good subclasses, really all of them have great features. Few standouts (in my oppinion):
Arcane Trickster is great. Spells make everything better.
Scout is very good. It's he best archer rogue by a mile. Combine it with Steady Aim optional class feature from Tasha's and it's very strong.
Swashbuckler is good. Super mobile for hit and run tactics and even easier sneak attacks. Gives good out of combat utility. Turning misses into hits is great late game
IMO one of the big problems with the Assassin is that it relies really heavily on a certain extra degree of willingness from the GM than most other features.
Assassinate requires your GM to set up encounters in such a way that you can reliably trigger it and requires your entire party to work around enabling your feature. Then you need to actually succeed at everything to make it happen.
Infiltration Expertise is tied to rules for disguises, which are very vague. How much mileage you get out of this feature and how much better it is than anyone else using disguise and forgery kits is entirely up in the air.
Impostor is neat, but likewise requires some fairly specific scenarios to work well.
Death Strike is cool and can be a lot of damage, but since it's an upgrade to assassinate it runs into the same general problems that does.
To some extent, everything in the game requires GMs and party members to work together, that's the point of D&D after all. However, the Assassin really goes a step further and just requires your DM and party members to work with you for every single class feature to even work at all.
In a campaign heavily focused around disguises and infiltration and social intrigue, some of these features get better... but even then you run into the problem of not actually getting those features until 9/13, which is pretty deep in a campaign and when magic is starting to get silly.
The Assassin is really the only rogue subclass I would consider "bad", because its signature feature is incredibly circumstantial. In a party with only other sneaky sneaks, it becomes pretty good, but the percentage of classes/subclasses for whom sneaking is a default is rather low for a standard party to end up that way without specific coordination before the first session.
I was surprised to see someone above compare Phantom and Assassin. Phantom is among the best Rogues for me.
the assassinate feature does not work regularly and you need active work from dm and players. Surprise requires the entire party be stealthed or too far away. Anyone of your party fail that stealth check? You don’t get surprise. If your party don’t want to wait for you to sneak in, no surprise. If you could reliably pull this off if YOU were stealthed and others weren’t at the start of combat, then this would be good. But having played and assassin I think I got this feature off once every 5 sessions at best. Creatures just jumped us, a party member that wasn’t me was seen, or various other reasons. It was frustrating.
I literally never used the other features of the class. They are ribbon features that are cool but niche, requiring specific campaigns. The 17th level ability is nice but it’s 17th level making this a effective 2 feature class between 3-17th level.
they SHOULD have had those disguise and impersonation features built into assassinate, and then had the class specialise in poisons. Make them bypass resistance. Make them create poisons per day with various effects. Make them the class that uses contact poisons, ingestible poisons, and those for weapons.
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I keep hearing that the rogue subclass assasin is weak, but I still dont see why.
Arcane trickster gets a few spells, but for a martial, that shouldn't be very useful right?
Thiefs abilities seem very specific and unflexible. Mostly like disarming traps and creating different personas.
But, at third level, assasin rogues get a really neat ability, they have advantage against creatures who havent had a turn yet in combat and automatically get a critical hit on creatures they surprise. These features play to the rogues strength and seem quite good, at least on paper.
Thief looks decent, but I just dont see what's wrong with assasin, unless I'm missing something.
So what rogue subclasses (including ones from Tashas and Xanathars) are good? And why is assasin bad?
Much thanks for your help:)
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HERE.Trying to be top damage dealer is hard as a rogue but they do ok and have skill reliability (expertise and reliable talent) so they are fine adventurers.
Assassin's skills however are party and dm dependant. Will the group help trigger surprise often enough? Will you do poison harvesting for damage boosts?
Fast hands actually is quite fun and useful. there's several threads about it already. Tldr : thrown vials and healers kits+healer feat really make Fast hands work.
Archane trickster can make illusions to hide behind and have other interesting utility.
The xanathars stuff is decent too.
The problem with assassin is that their cool ability often isn't as effective when you have a paladin/fighter/cleric clunking around in heavy armor a few feet away from you, so you never get the jump on anyone. It's not that it's bad in theory, it's that it works pretty well for a solo operator, not someone part of a team.
So the assassin could go ahead, and get the jump on an enemy (effectively only one) and then hope the rest of the party can catch up before the enemy's friends beat the rogue senseless. (Meanwhile, the players are sitting around the table, twiddling their thumbs while the one person running the rogue gets to play as their character goes off to do something cool. So there's kind of a meta-game reason why its not so great, also.)
As far as good or bad subclasses, it depends on what you want them to do. They all have some cool features. It's kind of a right tool for the job situation, where some will be useful and others not as much.
IMO The assassin isn't a good subclass for a few reasons, some already posted about. The big ones being stuff like how it actually is bad game design, the only thing that kind of matters is an only ok 3rd level feature with the rest ranging from useless to situation at best, that the actual feature isn't even good, and the opportunity cost of picking it over every other more interesting rogue option (basically all of them.
The reason I say it's bad game design, and it's been covered somewhat already, is that it relies on a very specific willingness to allow and enable a specific playstyle that is a little selfish. Not only is it a question of whether the party will allow/be good enough to work towards a stealthy ambush, but if the adventure itself would enable you to do so. In a dungeon crawl, it's pretty possible that you only get an encounter or two out of the feature before there's a full alert going on and opening a door would remove the ability to actually surprise a group of enemies. The first part for advantage is a bit better, but considering that with Tashas rogues got Steady Aim for easy advantage anyway it's a bit moot.
The rest of the features are trash. Customizing a background, or just taking the ones that would be good at those tool proficiencies already covers the rest of the archetype. The level 9 feature doesn't feel like a feature at all and ought to just have been a description of a use of the disguise kit, and on top of that there isn't much of a chance this is even close to as good as someone who can use magic for things like disguise self and other related spells for disguising your identity. Imposter is just the actor feat which is already considered pretty bad. Death Strike comes in at the same level full casters have 9th level spells for wish etc. and has the surprise condition required. You could have made this just a passive thing on every sneak attack and I'd still say it's not great. People rarely play at this level anyway though so it doesn't matter much one way or the other.
Why Assassinate isn't good? All it does is give you a free crit with you actually needing to put some work into it. People seem to forget that Hold Person/Monster exist and give all melee attackers auto crit which also supports the rest of the party. Advantage is also fairly common with good team play, so I don't rate that part highly either. It's also sort of all or nothing but worse since it only possibly matters on that first round of combat, after that first turn you get you are basically a rogue without an archetype.
The comparisons to the other rogue options, even just the PHB ones, is pretty rough. Fast Hands has a variety of utility options to be good, and can enhance your ability to actually fight things in combat. Second Story Work is good if the DM bothers to actually include elevation in their maps, climbing up a tree to shoot arrows safely is already a decently useful defensive feature. At will advantage on stealth is nice, it's not too common you need to care about your movement speed for it so the penalty isn't too bad. Use Magic Device is pretty niche, but if you are somehow finding extra wands the spellcasters don't want or something. Arcane Trickster gets you some great utility cantrips, and access to being able to use spells that compliment your rogue activities from the wizard (Find familiar is also there to always give you a help action for advantage to attack enemies if you need it, or advantage to your skill checks). This also includes the ability to cast hold person to possibly give your entire party advantage and auto crits on an enemy instead of just yourself. That alone makes it worthwhile without the rest of the features (which are also decent).
Looking to non PHB options. Arcane Trickster gets the blade cantrips. Inquisitive isn't really useful for combat but is great socially and for dungeoneering. Mastermind does the social intrigue and disguises better than the Assassin while giving advantage out to the rest of the party for free. Phantom lets you be a good skill monkey, damage multiple enemies in a turn, repeatedly, slow flight, phasing through walls/floors/ceilings, and make everything have disadvantage to hit you. Scout is very difficult for swarms of enemies to pin down, and gets extra expertise in some decently good skills. Soulknife is a potent mid range rogue who can still attack with their bonus action like a melee rogue, has party telepathy, gets to bardic inspire any of their failed rolls into a possible success, get a bonus to attack if they would miss (which is a massive improvement to DPR), Teleport, and turn invisible. Swashbuckler is basically the Mobile feat as an Archetype and gives you an initiative bonus.
Compare all of these options to a single "you can situationally auto crit a single time per combat", and you really start to realize how bad Assassin is.
I think the best Rogue is Arcane Trickster and there is nothing else close. It is both a powerful and a broad subclass and it is really difficult to go wrong with an AT. The Mage Hand Legerdemain is arguably the strongest subclass ability of any Rogue in tier 1/2, with cantrips they do the highest sneak attack damage and with spells they can excel at any phase.
The second best is a much tougher.. Soulknife, Swashbuckler and Thief all have plusses and minuses but are easy to make a good viable character.
Assassin (and Phantom) are not bad but if you want to keep up with the subclasses above you need to really build your character to it. The classes above you can really build any way you want. With Assassin to keep up you need to get an initiative bonus through either a feat (alert) or a subclass (twilight cleric, warmage, Gloomstalker). Ideally you would get alert and take a 1-level twilight cleric dip. You also should take expertise in stealth. If you do those things you can keep up with the subclasses above pretty well, but you pretty much have to do those things (and you have to sneak to make use of stealth). If you don't do those things then you will be behind those other subclasses.
Assassin is better than mastermind or inquisitor.
Since you asked about Eldritch Knight, that is a pretty good fighter class. With spells like Shield, Absorb Elements and Protection from Evil and Good there is a lot of defense that is going to substantially bolster your fighter. War Magic is a significant damage boost from levels 7-11. If you are looking at an EK fighter and comparing it to an Assasin Rogue I would say the EK is a better subclass than Assassin in terms of what it brings to the respective class.
I assumed EK was a mistype and they ment arcane trickster.
I will say I think assassin gets devalued because of "dpr hunters". Anything deemed "roleplay tools" or ribbon" features are not treated well at some tables because either dms have a hard time mentally balancing the space where narrative and mechanics meet. some values single checks too much. or place equal value on unequal features. the 9th level fake identity is way better than just a disguise kit. its almost undetectable and can lead to solving some problems in interesting ways. Possibly turning an assault into an escape. or even bypassing certain complication points. Or for scouting/casing purposes. there is plenty of combat value that is not damage.
Your right, I got confused. My bad.
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HERE.I don't think it's the "DPR hunters" (It's normally called minmaxers but whatever), especially since it is actually theoretically good if you are going from the idea that you can constantly get that first round auto crit and stack smites etc. on it. The issue to be had with rating the ribbon features is that you are getting them late and they aren't good ribbons.
Infiltration Expertise is a "ribbon" that is just talking about actions that any sane DM would allow you to do regardless. "Oh hey DM to really sell this next infiltration I'd like to set up some false paperwork and supporting evidence I am who I say I am" shouldn't be a class feature. That's just a downtime activity that might feature forgers tools, disguise kit, and some deception rolling. Making this even worse is that this is something you get AT LEVEL 9! This is the level that casters are getting 5th level spells. You want to tell me that a downtime activity is equivalent to long range party teleportation, Modify Memory, Geas, or Dominate Person?
It wouldn't even be that good at level 3, when you would likely need to do such mundane infiltrations. This is a downtime activity, I wouldn't even want to call it a Ribbon since that gives it far too much credit.
And once again, the Imposter feature is just the actor feat. It's actually worse in a lot of ways since you need to study them for THREE HOURS instead of a minute. You get the ability to also mimic their writing style, but consider this is at level THIRTEEN. It's even worse compared to Infiltration Expertise, since at this point you are competing with 6th and 7th level spells.
Compare all of that to basically any other rogue archetype feature for either level, and you realize that these are some of the worst of the lot.
Prior to Tasha's, a Rogue subclass, in order to be good, had to provide a reliable way to Sneak Attack an enemy because the class didn't provide one. Tasha's gives all Rogues a way to do it, which is worth noting for subclasses that don't provide their own method and play nicely with the Tasha's ability. The failure to play nicely with the Tasha's method is one reason (of multiple, it's not just one flaw) Soulknives are so bad (in fact, this downside is extremely minor compared to the Soulknife's other problems, like how it's bad at Stealth and can't use its psychic blades to attack off-turn).
What fundamentally makes Assassin so bad is that the L3 benefits rely on the Assassin being good at something Assassins aren't particularly good at (going first) and buff the Assassin in a way that scales with number of attacks made, which is why the long-reigning champion build for nova damage is approximately Fighter 11/Ranger 3/Assassin 3 with the remaining levels depending on some other choices. It's just poorly designed as a Rogue subclass.
Because Rogue subclasses go an incredibly long time between providing abilities - no benefits, in general, from levels 4 to 8 inclusive - it's also worth pointing out that a Rogue subclass may be balanced very differently at different points. Phantom Rogues, for example, get a huge spike in power at level 9 that's so drastic it makes you stare in confusion at levels 3-8.
If you're talking about level 3, the best Rogue subclasses are Arcane Trickster and Swashbuckler, and at level 9, Phantoms join the party (bear in mind they're pretty heavily focused on what they're good at, so it depends on what you want your Rogue to be good at). After that, the subclasses may well be good enough to incorporate into builds that include a Rogue dip, but none of them have enough synergy with being a Rogue to compete with those three.
"DPR hunters" are not the same as min-maxers or optimizers. Sometimes they overlap or claim another title but not the same. They are people who only care about damage numbers.
Yes. an absolute solution to several checks allowing you to tactically prepare and understand Map layout, normal enemy placement, avoid several checks that are potential failure points. vs hurt one enemy. you are also getting an extra d6 that is repeatable for an unlimited amount attacks per rest.
Actor feat only covers some of the imposter features and no check is way better than just advantage. advantage does nothing for impossible checks but imposter makes the impossible possible.
I am a firm believer in contemporary comparisons and yes the PHB 9th level features are all in the same scope of benefit. 9th level assassin gets a "casing tool" to help avoid checks. 9th level arcane trickster is a boon to spells that cause saves{which they have less of than other casters} 9th level thief is just situational advantage for stealth.
Between allies and the bonus action hide I saw a 85-95% Success rate for sneak attack at our adventures league tables. There was always a corner to hide around or an ally that could provide options. granted most rogue players were ranged over melee back then.
I don't understand this at all.
What from TCE does not play well with Soulknife?
Soulknives are the best Rogues at stealth due to psi-bolstered knack. Also with psychic veil they can turn themselves invisible, making them the only Rogue that can hide without finding some cover or darkness to obscure themselves first (ATs using spells not withstanding).
Also psychic whispers makes it easier to communicate with party members while hidden.
I would say it is about 80%, it would be better except stealth fails a good bit before level 11.
To be honest steady aim has not increased this much at the games I played. It is another option but it is a costly one and there are many times that not moving is not a viable option due to cover or someone engaging you or something else. Further Rogues have a ton of bonus action options, so if you are using steady aim when you can get SA without it, you often are not going to do it because your bonus action and movement are more valuable than the advantage steady aim would give.
Basically Assassins get the features of the Charlatan background (my favorite for Rogues) at level 9...
Even if you believe a background feature to be equivalent( which is usually a big if) that just means you can take another.
However most backgrounds open up options for checks not actually allow "check bypass" for example the charlatan is a pre established Identity where as a 9th level rogue can make as many identities as needed. banking on choosing right one in the beginning is putting a lot of faith in your choice and you better hope you don't have to "burn" that identity.
So the problem with the Assassin is basically every feature doesn't work that well.
The level 3 feature is situational, used at best once per combat, and surprise in 5e was designed poorly. Here is everything that has to happen for you to be able to use assassinate for that automatic critical hit:
So that's 3 rolls of the dice any one of which basically negates the automatic critical hit.
The level 9 feature, Infiltration Expertise, is kinda pointless. You can likely already succeed at creating these documents with a simple forgery kit proficiency. There are also plenty of other ways to infiltrate that are better than this anyway. Stealth is easier. Disguise self is a 1st level spell. Invisibility is a second level spell. This ability doesn't actually do much and is extremely situational.
The level 13 feature makes you even better at infiltrating but you're still not as good as any number of other classes. Another thing worth mentioning is that all these infiltration tactics are boring AF for the rest of the party. They will just sit and watch you infiltrate something. It also requires buy-in from your DM for these abilities to be useful.
The level 17 feature has the same problems as the level 3. 3 rolls of the dice to pull off.
Another problem is gaining access to the poisoners kit is not well defined. Anyone can use poisons. Are you better at making them? Probably? But how?
All in all this subclass doesn't do what you want it to do. Honestly if they combined the level 9 and 13 talents, gave something more interesting at 13, simplified the requirements for Assassinate and Death Strike, you'd have a good subclass. As it stands, most of the time you're just a rogue more or less without a subclass.
As for the good subclasses, really all of them have great features. Few standouts (in my oppinion):
IMO one of the big problems with the Assassin is that it relies really heavily on a certain extra degree of willingness from the GM than most other features.
Assassinate requires your GM to set up encounters in such a way that you can reliably trigger it and requires your entire party to work around enabling your feature. Then you need to actually succeed at everything to make it happen.
Infiltration Expertise is tied to rules for disguises, which are very vague. How much mileage you get out of this feature and how much better it is than anyone else using disguise and forgery kits is entirely up in the air.
Impostor is neat, but likewise requires some fairly specific scenarios to work well.
Death Strike is cool and can be a lot of damage, but since it's an upgrade to assassinate it runs into the same general problems that does.
To some extent, everything in the game requires GMs and party members to work together, that's the point of D&D after all. However, the Assassin really goes a step further and just requires your DM and party members to work with you for every single class feature to even work at all.
In a campaign heavily focused around disguises and infiltration and social intrigue, some of these features get better... but even then you run into the problem of not actually getting those features until 9/13, which is pretty deep in a campaign and when magic is starting to get silly.
The Assassin is really the only rogue subclass I would consider "bad", because its signature feature is incredibly circumstantial. In a party with only other sneaky sneaks, it becomes pretty good, but the percentage of classes/subclasses for whom sneaking is a default is rather low for a standard party to end up that way without specific coordination before the first session.
I was surprised to see someone above compare Phantom and Assassin. Phantom is among the best Rogues for me.
The problem with the assassin is this.
the assassinate feature does not work regularly and you need active work from dm and players. Surprise requires the entire party be stealthed or too far away. Anyone of your party fail that stealth check? You don’t get surprise. If your party don’t want to wait for you to sneak in, no surprise. If you could reliably pull this off if YOU were stealthed and others weren’t at the start of combat, then this would be good. But having played and assassin I think I got this feature off once every 5 sessions at best. Creatures just jumped us, a party member that wasn’t me was seen, or various other reasons. It was frustrating.
I literally never used the other features of the class. They are ribbon features that are cool but niche, requiring specific campaigns. The 17th level ability is nice but it’s 17th level making this a effective 2 feature class between 3-17th level.
they SHOULD have had those disguise and impersonation features built into assassinate, and then had the class specialise in poisons. Make them bypass resistance. Make them create poisons per day with various effects. Make them the class that uses contact poisons, ingestible poisons, and those for weapons.