Adapting to a Terrain would require the Ranger to spend an hour of that long rest doing cinematically Ranger things, of course. Staring intently off into the distance, tasting the dirt, sitting at the edge of the firelight listening to the nightlife.
People talk about expertise in nature and survival as if they are the key comparisons for rangers.
The problem is rangers need a versatile set of skills. Most of the time phb ranger can be used in key adventure information is investigating,Medicine, perception or tools.
How often do rangers need to be asked who or what killed said npc. These skills are even useful in avernus.
Often times making checks for water or heat help the whole party avoid exhaustion.
Primeval awareness allowed preparation on the long term.
I suggest two features.
1. Primal awareness with longer duration(hour or 2 per slot) and some of the favored terrain features baked in. (Expertise/double proficiency is already taken care of)
2. Ranger recall. Your knowledge of hunting monsters and traveling grants you advantage on wisdom or intelligence checks 1/2prof# times per day.
If I were redoing Favored Terrain I would make Adaptable a 1st level Ranger feature, where spending a long rest in a terrain grants the benefits of Favored Terrain. Then at level 3 or so I would allow a choice for an always Favored Terrain, upgrading at certain levels to allow more.
I would make it so you're still better at traveling/surviving in your Favored Terrain, but you get other benefits from being adapted to it that work outside of it (Cold Resistance for Arctic, Fire Resistance for Desert, hold breath and swimming speed for Ocean, limited darkvision for Underdark, climbing speed for Mountains, et cetera).
Natural Explorer could have been really cool in your Favored Terrain and still really good in campaigns were you never visit your favored terrain if it had more mechanical oomph and better benefits.
I like this idea. Keeps the feature intact while making it dead less often.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
The idea of learning the detailed ins and outs of surviving in a terrain are not something I am willing to accept being learned in an 8 hour meditation. I do know and have applied enough about serviviving in eastern forests, mountains, plains and deserts as well as oceans ( to some extent) to know it’s not something that even the “spirits of the terrain” are going to be blue to brief you on in one 8 hour rest period. What I could see is spell or ranger ability like primeval awareness that actually gave you information like shelters, water sources, possible foraging areas, etc as well as the presence of significant threats within a 10 mile radius of your location. The former might tell you distance and direction while the latter might only tell you presence. If it’s an ability it should be usable proficiency bonus times a long rest.
The idea of learning the detailed ins and outs of surviving in a terrain are not something I am willing to accept being learned in an 8 hour meditation. I do know and have applied enough about serviviving in eastern forests, mountains, plains and deserts as well as oceans ( to some extent) to know it’s not something that even the “spirits of the terrain” are going to be blue to brief you on in one 8 hour rest period. What I could see is spell or ranger ability like primeval awareness that actually gave you information like shelters, water sources, possible foraging areas, etc as well as the presence of significant threats within a 10 mile radius of your location. The former might tell you distance and direction while the latter might only tell you presence. If it’s an ability it should be usable proficiency bonus times a long rest.
When deciding between realism and playability, I choose playability. D&D characters end up as superheroes. Being able to learn survival skills in a ludicrously short amount of time seems well within the fantasy of the Ranger class.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The idea of learning the detailed ins and outs of surviving in a terrain are not something I am willing to accept being learned in an 8 hour meditation. I do know and have applied enough about serviviving in eastern forests, mountains, plains and deserts as well as oceans ( to some extent) to know it’s not something that even the “spirits of the terrain” are going to be blue to brief you on in one 8 hour rest period. What I could see is spell or ranger ability like primeval awareness that actually gave you information like shelters, water sources, possible foraging areas, etc as well as the presence of significant threats within a 10 mile radius of your location. The former might tell you distance and direction while the latter might only tell you presence. If it’s an ability it should be usable proficiency bonus times a long rest.
I think you miss understand what I was saying..while primeval awareness was active you get the traveling pace boost, foraging ect (the bullets) and a list of creatures types nearby.(Non detection with modifications could cover being tracked.)
Your knowledge of terrain comes from your expertise in the current setup. Learned in your period of becoming a ranger over a period during backstory.
The idea of learning the detailed ins and outs of surviving in a terrain are not something I am willing to accept being learned in an 8 hour meditation. I do know and have applied enough about serviviving in eastern forests, mountains, plains and deserts as well as oceans ( to some extent) to know it’s not something that even the “spirits of the terrain” are going to be blue to brief you on in one 8 hour rest period. What I could see is spell or ranger ability like primeval awareness that actually gave you information like shelters, water sources, possible foraging areas, etc as well as the presence of significant threats within a 10 mile radius of your location. The former might tell you distance and direction while the latter might only tell you presence. If it’s an ability it should be usable proficiency bonus times a long rest.
When deciding between realism and playability, I choose playability. D&D characters end up as superheroes. Being able to learn survival skills in a ludicrously short amount of time seems well within the fantasy of the Ranger class.
Yes, learning a terrain in 8 hours is unrealistic. So is launching a fireball from a pointy stick after saying some gibberish.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
When deciding between realism and playability, I choose playability. D&D characters end up as superheroes. Being able to learn survival skills in a ludicrously short amount of time seems well within the fantasy of the Ranger class.
In practice it just means "You no longer have a favored terrain, you're just universally better outdoors". Which isn't necessarily bad, but rather than making it require time attuning I'd probably just make it a Survival check to gain the various bullet points listed under natural explorer (delete the double proficiency in favored terrain; you get double proficiency if you took expertise).
Actually, most of the bullet points I would be fine just making universal features of Survival. Maybe make 'Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger' a ranger class feature, and the rest are just 'this is what survival does'.
When deciding between realism and playability, I choose playability. D&D characters end up as superheroes. Being able to learn survival skills in a ludicrously short amount of time seems well within the fantasy of the Ranger class.
In practice it just means "You no longer have a favored terrain, you're just universally better outdoors". Which isn't necessarily bad, but rather than making it require time attuning I'd probably just make it a Survival check to gain the various bullet points listed under natural explorer (delete the double proficiency in favored terrain; you get double proficiency if you took expertise).
Actually, most of the bullet points I would be fine just making universal features of Survival. Maybe make 'Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger' a ranger class feature, and the rest are just 'this is what survival does'.
since you put all that down, I had an idea and tried to put numbers together and it highlighted just how dependent on that invisible feature at level 13 ranger will be to keep up to pace. This is using the Thief and Hunter subclasses since that is what was shown in the UA.
Level
Weapon
Dex Mod
Rogue
Ranger
Ranger + invis
1
0
3
10.1
11.4
11.4
2
0
3
10.1
13.35
13.35
3
0
3
13.34
17.3
17.3
4
0
4
13.99
18.6
18.6
5
0
4
17.24
26.28
26.28
6
1
4
17.89
28.23
28.23
7
1
4
21.14
28.23
28.23
8
1
5
21.79
30.18
30.18
9
1
5
25.03
30.18
30.18
10
1
5
25.03
30.18
30.18
11
2
5
28.93
32.13
32.13
12
2
5
28.93
32.13
32.13
13
2
5
39.49
32.13
42.37
14
2
5
39.49
32.13
42.37
15
2
5
43.28
32.13
42.37
16
2
5
43.28
32.13
42.37
17
3
5
47.94
34.08
45
18
3
5
47.94
37.98
50.27
19
3
5
51.73
37.98
50.27
20
3
5
51.73
37.98
50.27
I have made some assumptions to get these numbers (i.e. all attacks at 65% chance to hit), include dex modifier and +weapons, both dex mod and +weapons benefit ranger more than rogue. I have assumed TWF for the ranger's choice of fighting style, but ranger while looking a lot stronger in the early game later on it's gotta be burning spell slots for the bonus action invis to keep up with rogue. Ranger better hope their target doesn't have blind sight, see invisibility or other such sense else yikes. Ranger does have spells and other tricks that could get higher numbers.
And yes, about level 13, my numbers indicate rogue would get over a 33% jump in DPS at this level... so it definitely shouldn't be downplayed.
I also might have made some mistakes in these numbers, certainly I have used probably too simple a method to calculate rogue's sneak attack critical damage, which might be slightly (but not much) higher than I have calculated. I think these numbers are still good enough for comparison tho.
Thanks. Rogue damage t’s even better if you have lots of fights per day where spell casters fall off. But it has come to my attention that rogues lost their ability to sneak attack on opportunity attacks. While it’s not the end of the world nerf I have to accept that is slightly game changing nerf. DMs will have no fear walking away from or passed a rogue on the battle field. While I will still defend the UA rogue being okay, I have to admit that needs to change so I already have something to say about the rogue in the survey.
Again it is not just opportunity attack. It is also on ready actions where you forgo your turn to wait for an enemy to get in range of an ally to get a sneak attack. In 1d&d that is no longer possible under the current wording.
since you put all that down, I had an idea and tried to put numbers together and it highlighted just how dependent on that invisible feature at level 13 ranger will be to keep up to pace. This is using the Thief and Hunter subclasses since that is what was shown in the UA.
Level
Weapon
Dex Mod
Rogue
Ranger
Ranger + invis
1
0
3
10.1
11.4
11.4
2
0
3
10.1
13.35
13.35
3
0
3
13.34
17.3
17.3
4
0
4
13.99
18.6
18.6
5
0
4
17.24
26.28
26.28
6
1
4
17.89
28.23
28.23
7
1
4
21.14
28.23
28.23
8
1
5
21.79
30.18
30.18
9
1
5
25.03
30.18
30.18
10
1
5
25.03
30.18
30.18
11
2
5
28.93
32.13
32.13
12
2
5
28.93
32.13
32.13
13
2
5
39.49
32.13
42.37
14
2
5
39.49
32.13
42.37
15
2
5
43.28
32.13
42.37
16
2
5
43.28
32.13
42.37
17
3
5
47.94
34.08
45
18
3
5
47.94
37.98
50.27
19
3
5
51.73
37.98
50.27
20
3
5
51.73
37.98
50.27
I have made some assumptions to get these numbers (i.e. all attacks at 65% chance to hit), include dex modifier and +weapons, both dex mod and +weapons benefit ranger more than rogue. I have assumed TWF for the ranger's choice of fighting style, but ranger while looking a lot stronger in the early game later on it's gotta be burning spell slots for the bonus action invis to keep up with rogue. Ranger better hope their target doesn't have blind sight, see invisibility or other such sense else yikes. Ranger does have spells and other tricks that could get higher numbers.
And yes, about level 13, my numbers indicate rogue would get over a 33% jump in DPS at this level... so it definitely shouldn't be downplayed.
I also might have made some mistakes in these numbers, certainly I have used probably too simple a method to calculate rogue's sneak attack critical damage, which might be slightly (but not much) higher than I have calculated. I think these numbers are still good enough for comparison tho.
Thanks. Rogue damage t’s even better if you have lots of fights per day where spell casters fall off. But it has come to my attention that rogues lost their ability to sneak attack on opportunity attacks. While it’s not the end of the world nerf I have to accept that is slightly game changing nerf. DMs will have no fear walking away from or passed a rogue on the battle field. While I will still defend the UA rogue being okay, I have to admit that needs to change so I already have something to say about the rogue in the survey.
Again it is not just opportunity attack. It is also on ready actions where you forgo your turn to wait for an enemy to get in range of an ally to get a sneak attack. In 1d&d that is no longer possible under the current wording.
Once during each of your turns-once per round. Simple fix to no opportunity sneak attacks
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
It makes sense to me that you can't get sneak attack on a readied action since e.g. if you're waiting for an enemy to pop out of cover, you aren't going to get the best shot thus it makes sense for no sneak attack. But I would like to see Sneak Attack expanded to be "When you take the Attack action on your turn, or when you make an Opportunity Attack".
It makes sense to me that you can't get sneak attack on a readied action since e.g. if you're waiting for an enemy to pop out of cover, you aren't going to get the best shot thus it makes sense for no sneak attack. But I would like to see Sneak Attack expanded to be "When you take the Attack action on your turn, or when you make an Opportunity Attack".
So it doesn't make sense to make a sneak attack with a ready action on an ambush where the enemy has no clue that you are there...waiting for them...right... especially with feats like skulker... I would rather leave it the way it was in 5e. It didn't break the game as they were still behind in damage on other characters with extra attack.
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
Existing wording on Held Actions is they are Reactions.
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
Readying an action does not delay your turn, it just allows you to use your reaction to take an action outside of your turn.
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
That's not how the Ready Action (there's no such thing as a Held Action) works. You don't delay your turn when you do a Ready Action, you are still in your initiative spot, all you do is give yourself a preprogrammed Reaction that can happen outside of your turn.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
That is not how ready action works. Ready action lets you hold an attack action, movement, or spell as a reaction outside your turn using a set condition you set for it. After you ready your action you end your turn and use the reaction to release the set action you set for your ready action on another creatures turn. It doesn't hold your turn to interrupt a creatures turn like the samurai fighter subclass capstone does. Because the wording says "on your turn" it means that sneak attack doesn't work on ready action. The new wording of sneak attack stops anything you want to use sneak attack outside your turn and since ready action uses your reaction to make an attack outside your turn it stops sneak attack from working since it is as you said a reaction. It is why attacks of opportunity sneak attacks don't occur as often as it will split your focus on your reaction to get the sneak attack if you can get it or save it for the uncanny dodge to keep yourself alive. If a player focusing their build around getting sneak attack on attacks of opportunity it means they will sacrifice their survivability so a DM can focus on killing the rogue a lot more easily. That is why it was never an issue like some people like to make it out to be.
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
What you're missing is there's no such thing as "a held action." Readying an action is in no way delaying your turn. It's taking an action on your turn that allows you take a reaction on someone else's turn (yeah, you could in theory end end up doing it on your own turn, but that's really niche) in response to some trigger that you define. The actual rules are extremely clear about this.
It makes sense to me that you can't get sneak attack on a readied action since e.g. if you're waiting for an enemy to pop out of cover, you aren't going to get the best shot thus it makes sense for no sneak attack. But I would like to see Sneak Attack expanded to be "When you take the Attack action on your turn, or when you make an Opportunity Attack".
So it doesn't make sense to make a sneak attack with a ready action on an ambush where the enemy has no clue that you are there...waiting for them...right... especially with feats like skulker... I would rather leave it the way it was in 5e. It didn't break the game as they were still behind in damage on other characters with extra attack.
It somewhat depends how surprise works in One D&D - we've had some hints that it will involved Adv/DisAdv on initiative but we haven't seen the full rules. In 5e you wouldn't ready an action on an ambush, an ambush would grant Surprise and you could sneak attack on your turn as normal. But if you're thinking more like the "I hold my actions until they walk through the door" type ambush then yes it does make sense that you can't sneak attack, you have a split second to aim that attack at them, there is no reason to suppose you can aim perfectly to get sneak attack in that situation.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Adapting to a Terrain would require the Ranger to spend an hour of that long rest doing cinematically Ranger things, of course. Staring intently off into the distance, tasting the dirt, sitting at the edge of the firelight listening to the nightlife.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
People talk about expertise in nature and survival as if they are the key comparisons for rangers.
The problem is rangers need a versatile set of skills. Most of the time phb ranger can be used in key adventure information is investigating,Medicine, perception or tools.
How often do rangers need to be asked who or what killed said npc. These skills are even useful in avernus.
Often times making checks for water or heat help the whole party avoid exhaustion.
Primeval awareness allowed preparation on the long term.
I suggest two features.
1. Primal awareness with longer duration(hour or 2 per slot) and some of the favored terrain features baked in. (Expertise/double proficiency is already taken care of)
2. Ranger recall. Your knowledge of hunting monsters and traveling grants you advantage on wisdom or intelligence checks 1/2prof# times per day.
Simple and close to RAI of the original.
I like this idea. Keeps the feature intact while making it dead less often.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
The idea of learning the detailed ins and outs of surviving in a terrain are not something I am willing to accept being learned in an 8 hour meditation. I do know and have applied enough about serviviving in eastern forests, mountains, plains and deserts as well as oceans ( to some extent) to know it’s not something that even the “spirits of the terrain” are going to be blue to brief you on in one 8 hour rest period. What I could see is spell or ranger ability like primeval awareness that actually gave you information like shelters, water sources, possible foraging areas, etc as well as the presence of significant threats within a 10 mile radius of your location. The former might tell you distance and direction while the latter might only tell you presence. If it’s an ability it should be usable proficiency bonus times a long rest.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
When deciding between realism and playability, I choose playability. D&D characters end up as superheroes. Being able to learn survival skills in a ludicrously short amount of time seems well within the fantasy of the Ranger class.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I think you miss understand what I was saying..while primeval awareness was active you get the traveling pace boost, foraging ect (the bullets) and a list of creatures types nearby.(Non detection with modifications could cover being tracked.)
Your knowledge of terrain comes from your expertise in the current setup. Learned in your period of becoming a ranger over a period during backstory.
Sorry I wasn't clear.
Yes, learning a terrain in 8 hours is unrealistic. So is launching a fireball from a pointy stick after saying some gibberish.
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
In practice it just means "You no longer have a favored terrain, you're just universally better outdoors". Which isn't necessarily bad, but rather than making it require time attuning I'd probably just make it a Survival check to gain the various bullet points listed under natural explorer (delete the double proficiency in favored terrain; you get double proficiency if you took expertise).
Actually, most of the bullet points I would be fine just making universal features of Survival. Maybe make 'Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger' a ranger class feature, and the rest are just 'this is what survival does'.
This I am fine with.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Again it is not just opportunity attack. It is also on ready actions where you forgo your turn to wait for an enemy to get in range of an ally to get a sneak attack. In 1d&d that is no longer possible under the current wording.
Once during each of your turns-once per round. Simple fix to no opportunity sneak attacks
Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Quest offer! Enter the deep dungeon here
Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
It makes sense to me that you can't get sneak attack on a readied action since e.g. if you're waiting for an enemy to pop out of cover, you aren't going to get the best shot thus it makes sense for no sneak attack. But I would like to see Sneak Attack expanded to be "When you take the Attack action on your turn, or when you make an Opportunity Attack".
So it doesn't make sense to make a sneak attack with a ready action on an ambush where the enemy has no clue that you are there...waiting for them...right... especially with feats like skulker... I would rather leave it the way it was in 5e. It didn't break the game as they were still behind in damage on other characters with extra attack.
Ok, the new wording is specifically trying to eliminate a sneak attack on a reaction and appears to do so. Everyone has also been saying it stops sneak attack on a held action and I’m not getting that part. As I see it with a held action you had initiative and are holding your turn and action to interrupt your foe’s turn. You haven’t ended your turn you are delaying your turn. When you chose you complete your turn taking your attack action. Since you are still in your turn and are taking an attack action you are fully entitled to your sneak attack. What am I missing?
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Existing wording on Held Actions is they are Reactions.
Readying an action does not delay your turn, it just allows you to use your reaction to take an action outside of your turn.
That's not how the Ready Action (there's no such thing as a Held Action) works. You don't delay your turn when you do a Ready Action, you are still in your initiative spot, all you do is give yourself a preprogrammed Reaction that can happen outside of your turn.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That is not how ready action works. Ready action lets you hold an attack action, movement, or spell as a reaction outside your turn using a set condition you set for it. After you ready your action you end your turn and use the reaction to release the set action you set for your ready action on another creatures turn. It doesn't hold your turn to interrupt a creatures turn like the samurai fighter subclass capstone does. Because the wording says "on your turn" it means that sneak attack doesn't work on ready action. The new wording of sneak attack stops anything you want to use sneak attack outside your turn and since ready action uses your reaction to make an attack outside your turn it stops sneak attack from working since it is as you said a reaction. It is why attacks of opportunity sneak attacks don't occur as often as it will split your focus on your reaction to get the sneak attack if you can get it or save it for the uncanny dodge to keep yourself alive. If a player focusing their build around getting sneak attack on attacks of opportunity it means they will sacrifice their survivability so a DM can focus on killing the rogue a lot more easily. That is why it was never an issue like some people like to make it out to be.
What you're missing is there's no such thing as "a held action." Readying an action is in no way delaying your turn. It's taking an action on your turn that allows you take a reaction on someone else's turn (yeah, you could in theory end end up doing it on your own turn, but that's really niche) in response to some trigger that you define. The actual rules are extremely clear about this.
It somewhat depends how surprise works in One D&D - we've had some hints that it will involved Adv/DisAdv on initiative but we haven't seen the full rules. In 5e you wouldn't ready an action on an ambush, an ambush would grant Surprise and you could sneak attack on your turn as normal. But if you're thinking more like the "I hold my actions until they walk through the door" type ambush then yes it does make sense that you can't sneak attack, you have a split second to aim that attack at them, there is no reason to suppose you can aim perfectly to get sneak attack in that situation.