Last night in my game, the players got the drop on a group of ogres. The Rogue/assassin got to perform an assassination attempt in the surprise moment on one of the ogres and killed it. As the surprise ended, the player playing the assassin had the highest initiative and was able to reach yet another ogre. As this ogre hadn't taken its turn yet in combat, I gave him the possibility to assassinate that ogre too. What's your taken on this? Didi I read the ruels right?
I agree. But in the description it says that if the assassin attacks before a creature has taken a turn in the combat - and the second ogre hadn’t...
One way to do this is to run initiative as soon as any combat action occurs and not allow "free" attacks outside of it.
When someone says "I attack" you roll initiative. If anyone is surprised you assign the "Surprised" condition:
"If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't."
So you would see if the rogue's initiative roll was higher than the Orcs. If so they go first and get the benefits of the Assassin surprise and attack bonuses on the Orc they pick to attack.
Say the Orc dies from the attack...it is now the next Orcs turn and they cannot act/react and their turn is over.
Initiative rolls back to the top.
The rogue no longer gets the assassination benefits as the second Orc has had a turn.
This is the RAW way of running any combat encounter.
Now obviously this makes the Assassin rouge terrible if they happen to roll lower than the Orcs for initiative....this is the unfortunate reality of being an assassin rogue. How you guys want to run it as a table is up to you but if you are giving "Free" attacks before initiative is even rolled.....then it will favor the assassin heavily.
Last night in my game, the players got the drop on a group of ogres. The Rogue/assassin got to perform an assassination attempt in the surprise moment on one of the ogres and killed it. As the surprise ended, the player playing the assassin had the highest initiative and was able to reach yet another ogre. As this ogre hadn't taken its turn yet in combat, I gave him the possibility to assassinate that ogre too. What's your taken on this? Didi I read the ruels right?
You did right, the SAC clarified it, but the intent was clear in the rules:
For triggering the rogue’s Assassinate ability, when does a creature stop being surprised? After their turn in the round, or at the end of the round? A surprised creature stops being surprised at the end of its first turn in combat.
As the second ogre had not taken his turn in the round, he was still surprised therefore the Assassinate ability could apply.
So your ruling was appropriate to the RAW and moreover I am pretty sure that the player was happy with the ruling, so well done !
Round one - orcs (assuming all of them) are surprised -> assassin does his thing, rest of the party does theirs -> end of the round, at this point no-one is surprised anymore and everyone took their turn (orcs "action" being "I am no longer surprised").
Edit: Assassination requires no turn in COMBAT not in the ROUND
Last night in my game, the players got the drop on a group of ogres. The Rogue/assassin got to perform an assassination attempt in the surprise moment on one of the ogres and killed it. As the surprise ended, the player playing the assassin had the highest initiative and was able to reach yet another ogre. As this ogre hadn't taken its turn yet in combat, I gave him the possibility to assassinate that ogre too. What's your taken on this? Didi I read the ruels right?
You did right, the SAC clarified it, but the intent was clear in the rules:
For triggering the rogue’s Assassinate ability, when does a creature stop being surprised? After their turn in the round, or at the end of the round? A surprised creature stops being surprised at the end of its first turn in combat.
As the second ogre had not taken his turn in the round, he was still surprised therefore the Assassinate ability could apply.
So your ruling was appropriate to the RAW and moreover I am pretty sure that the player was happy with the ruling, so well done !
Round one - orcs (assuming all of them) are surprised -> assassin does his thing, rest of the party does theirs -> end of the round, at this point no-one is surprised anymore and everyone took their turn (orcs "action" being "I am no longer surprised").
Edit: Assassination requires no turn in COMBAT not in the ROUND
Yeah the main issue is that a free "surprise opportunity" for esstientally a free shot is not in line with the RAW.
Once he declared he would attack you roll initiative and its up to the dice gods if he goes before the Orcs who also roll initiative.
So say he rolled a Nat 1 on his initiative and the Orcs roll a Nat 20. They go first, and are no longer surprised when it comes to the assassin's turn as they have had a turn in combat.
So yeah he effectively loses all his subclass abilities at that point....which is why Assassin rouge is more of a meme build IMO.
That is the RAW way.
If you want to run it so that he gets a free attack before initative is rolled that is up to you...but it will significantly increase his power which might not be a bad thing IMO but its up to you guys.
Right, offhand could work, that's a good point which i forgot about.
Yes technically they could....it would not proc Sneak Attack (assuming a successful sneak from the previous attack) and would not have the ability mod to the damage (assuming no two weapon fighting fighter dip or feat) so you are looking at a very low damage output even with a crit (2d6 maximum)
Last night in my game, the players got the drop on a group of ogres. The Rogue/assassin got to perform an assassination attempt in the surprise moment on one of the ogres and killed it. As the surprise ended, the player playing the assassin had the highest initiative and was able to reach yet another ogre. As this ogre hadn't taken its turn yet in combat, I gave him the possibility to assassinate that ogre too. What's your taken on this? Didi I read the ruels right?
You did right, the SAC clarified it, but the intent was clear in the rules:
For triggering the rogue’s Assassinate ability, when does a creature stop being surprised? After their turn in the round, or at the end of the round? A surprised creature stops being surprised at the end of its first turn in combat.
As the second ogre had not taken his turn in the round, he was still surprised therefore the Assassinate ability could apply.
So your ruling was appropriate to the RAW and moreover I am pretty sure that the player was happy with the ruling, so well done !
Gotta disagree.
From the PHB: "If you're surprised you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends".
A surprised creature gets a turn. It can't do anything with it, but it gets one. And if it gets one, according to the SAC, it stops being surprised at the end of it.
edit: as an aside, the assassinate ability, especially combined with a lack of more generic options for similar attempts by non-assassins, is a pain in the ass.
It gets a turn, but if that turn comes, as the DM describes, after the assassin because the assassin has a higher initiative, he can use assassinate on as many targets that are surprised as he has attacks.
As for assassins, as I have explained a number of times, the solution is about allowing both assassins (whether they are of the right subclass or not) and their targets to ready actions outside of combat, it makes the situations much more interesting.
Sure... But that's not RAW.
It is interesting sure but by RAW there are no attacks before initiative is rolled.
It gets a turn, but if that turn comes, as the DM describes, after the assassin because the assassin has a higher initiative, he can use assassinate on as many targets that are surprised as he has attacks.
As for assassins, as I have explained a number of times, the solution is about allowing both assassins (whether they are of the right subclass or not) and their targets to ready actions outside of combat, it makes the situations much more interesting.
Sure... But that's not RAW.
It is interesting sure but by RAW there are no attacks before initiative is rolled.
I think you two might be talking about slighty different things and are both technically correct. However, what Lyxen described is a different situation from the one in the OP.
What bjornsundell described, unless I'm reading it wrong, is a surprise round used by an assassin to kill an opponent, followed by a second round during which the assassin gets to use the Assassinate ability again due to having a higher initiative and thus getting to act before that second opponent who was surprised during the surprise round. If I read that right; that is not correct according to the rules. The second target was no longer surprised when the assassin took his second turn, as he had had a first turn during the surprise round. Not having acted yet doesn't change that, that's how it worked in 3E but not in this edition.
I think a few people are getting confused on what the OP is saying.
Basically the combat happened like so:
Group encountered enemies.
The OP as DM gave the group a choice of what they want to do. The Assassin got their Assassinate and killed an Orc.
The OP as DM thencalled initiative.
The Assassin takes their first turn to go after another Orc who, technically has not yet had any turns this combat so was technically still Surprised. Therefore the Assassinate conditions apply, so the Assassin got another kill.
---
The conditions of Assassinate were technically played correctly. The problem the OP is having is that they allowed the group to attacks outside of a combat initiative. By RAW the initiative starts the moment any hostile intent is declared, so by RAW the Assassin should only have been able to Assassinate one Orc with Sneak Attack.
The Surprise system in 5E is ill-thought out, not realistic and mechanically horrible. But, unfortunately, the Assassinate feature was built upon this.
Personally, I homebrew the Assassinate ability to be based on target's awareness and reaction to the attack, not on the mechanical condition, so even if the assassin stayed hidden until later in the battle and then jumped out to attack, since the target was unaware of the assassin that assassin still gets the assassinate bonuses (which by RAW they wouldn't, however nonsensical that would be), while still only being once per combat like it's supposed to be. It requires more ad hoc thinking by the DM but is still more sensible (and easier to adjudicate) for the ability, especially for surprise attacks occurring out of combat due to ambushes and stuff. But that's just me.
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Assassin gets to add their WIS mod to sneak attack damage to the first creature they hit in combat and thereafter to any creature they are hidden from.
Creatures get DIS on saves against poison crafted by the assassin.
Not sure why so many folks are have a hissy over the multiple attacks and also the attacks outside of combat.
I'm fairly certain that several encounters in published adventures start with the bad guys ambushing the party before initiative.
I'm not really a fan of how 5E handles this either (not that other editions were necessarily doing this right, but 5E is arguably on the worse end of the spectrum), but RAW is RAW. By RAW, if some combattants are surprised at the start of combat they don't get to act on their first turn and can't react until after their first turn but they still roll initiative like everybody else and their first round of combat is the same first round of combat for everyone else. If some encounters in published adventures handle it differently, they're not following the RAW.
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Readying attacks/actions before combat feels a bit like cheating the system IMO.
Generally the action economy is usually in favor of the players as they are much more likely to have bonus to initiative than creatures are and are much more likely to have summons/familars/etc.. to extend the advantage further.
I have never felt bad about not allowing it as it rewards those who:
Take a high passive perception- They are less likely to get jumped and notice a threat before engaging it
Take the Alert feat- If you allow ready actions from the players you would assume the baddies can/will do the same which somewhat invalidates this feat as you are not surprised AND have higher initiative but still suffer from them "jumping" you
Generally allowing the Assassin to get a ready surprise auto crit swings too far in the other direction for me....I would rather change the subclass itself and deal with the poor design of the subclass than open a can of worms with the overarching rules as that always has downstream effects that you may not be aware of.
Another possible suggestion to house rule is just roll initiative as normal but the Surprise condition doesn't end until the end of the round, not the character turn, and Surprise condition lets Assassinate trigger regardless of who goes first in initiative.
I also do agree with how Lyxen uses the ready action. The ready action is a great mechanic for ambushing and ensuring a character does what they want to do when they actually need to. How Lyxen describes their use of this seems very much inline with how it's supposed to be used and makes realistic sense for adjudicating scenarios the 'regular' rules/initiative would prohibit - something that is narratively important for immersion and fun.
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I actually like it less now that you clarified TBH....not only do you allow it but you have to persistently justify your actions to allow you do something? Overall I think that would grind my encounters to a halt as they players tried very hard to find a reason to be able to Ready an action. I would rather just play the game.
The flow is better to me when the dice do the talking for initiative. The world is chaotic and even the best prepared assassin can falter in the moment.
Also the high passive perception is an investment in a skill like any other. I do not hinder the rogue who wants to sneak anymore than I hinder the cleric who wants to be very perceptive. It's needlessly prohibitive IMO.
Players absolutely have an advantage on initiative as there is almost 0 creature effects that add bonus to initiative.
Player options:
High Dex (Player ability scores tend to be higher than creatures they encounter particularly in DEX as most melee creatures rely on STR for attacks)
I am sure I am missing some options but its VERY clear players have a multitude of options that Aid them for initiative and creatures do not.
Overall the fact is that players already are at a high benefit when it comes to action economy and initiative and allowing them to ready actions before combat just pushes it further in their direction.
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HI all. I have a question for you:
Last night in my game, the players got the drop on a group of ogres. The Rogue/assassin got to perform an assassination attempt in the surprise moment on one of the ogres and killed it. As the surprise ended, the player playing the assassin had the highest initiative and was able to reach yet another ogre. As this ogre hadn't taken its turn yet in combat, I gave him the possibility to assassinate that ogre too. What's your taken on this? Didi I read the ruels right?
Probably a bad precedent to set. One combat is initiated and initiative comes into play I would say surprise is over
I agree. But in the description it says that if the assassin attacks before a creature has taken a turn in the combat - and the second ogre hadn’t...
One way to do this is to run initiative as soon as any combat action occurs and not allow "free" attacks outside of it.
When someone says "I attack" you roll initiative. If anyone is surprised you assign the "Surprised" condition:
"If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't."
So you would see if the rogue's initiative roll was higher than the Orcs. If so they go first and get the benefits of the Assassin surprise and attack bonuses on the Orc they pick to attack.
Say the Orc dies from the attack...it is now the next Orcs turn and they cannot act/react and their turn is over.
Initiative rolls back to the top.
The rogue no longer gets the assassination benefits as the second Orc has had a turn.
This is the RAW way of running any combat encounter.
Now obviously this makes the Assassin rouge terrible if they happen to roll lower than the Orcs for initiative....this is the unfortunate reality of being an assassin rogue.
How you guys want to run it as a table is up to you but if you are giving "Free" attacks before initiative is even rolled.....then it will favor the assassin heavily.
Round one - orcs (assuming all of them) are surprised -> assassin does his thing, rest of the party does theirs -> end of the round, at this point no-one is surprised anymore and everyone took their turn (orcs "action" being "I am no longer surprised").
Edit: Assassination requires no turn in COMBAT not in the ROUND
I did read the post and either the assassin did 2 actions per round or the second assassination happened in round 2...
Yeah the main issue is that a free "surprise opportunity" for esstientally a free shot is not in line with the RAW.
Once he declared he would attack you roll initiative and its up to the dice gods if he goes before the Orcs who also roll initiative.
So say he rolled a Nat 1 on his initiative and the Orcs roll a Nat 20. They go first, and are no longer surprised when it comes to the assassin's turn as they have had a turn in combat.
So yeah he effectively loses all his subclass abilities at that point....which is why Assassin rouge is more of a meme build IMO.
That is the RAW way.
If you want to run it so that he gets a free attack before initative is rolled that is up to you...but it will significantly increase his power which might not be a bad thing IMO but its up to you guys.
Right, offhand could work, that's a good point which i forgot about.
Yes technically they could....it would not proc Sneak Attack (assuming a successful sneak from the previous attack) and would not have the ability mod to the damage (assuming no two weapon fighting fighter dip or feat) so you are looking at a very low damage output even with a crit (2d6 maximum)
But it is tech. possible yes.
Gotta disagree.
From the PHB: "If you're surprised you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends".
A surprised creature gets a turn. It can't do anything with it, but it gets one. And if it gets one, according to the SAC, it stops being surprised at the end of it.
edit: as an aside, the assassinate ability, especially combined with a lack of more generic options for similar attempts by non-assassins, is a pain in the ass.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Sure... But that's not RAW.
It is interesting sure but by RAW there are no attacks before initiative is rolled.
I think you two might be talking about slighty different things and are both technically correct. However, what Lyxen described is a different situation from the one in the OP.
What bjornsundell described, unless I'm reading it wrong, is a surprise round used by an assassin to kill an opponent, followed by a second round during which the assassin gets to use the Assassinate ability again due to having a higher initiative and thus getting to act before that second opponent who was surprised during the surprise round. If I read that right; that is not correct according to the rules. The second target was no longer surprised when the assassin took his second turn, as he had had a first turn during the surprise round. Not having acted yet doesn't change that, that's how it worked in 3E but not in this edition.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I think a few people are getting confused on what the OP is saying.
Basically the combat happened like so:
Group encountered enemies.
The OP as DM gave the group a choice of what they want to do. The Assassin got their Assassinate and killed an Orc.
The OP as DM then called initiative.
The Assassin takes their first turn to go after another Orc who, technically has not yet had any turns this combat so was technically still Surprised. Therefore the Assassinate conditions apply, so the Assassin got another kill.
---
The conditions of Assassinate were technically played correctly. The problem the OP is having is that they allowed the group to attacks outside of a combat initiative. By RAW the initiative starts the moment any hostile intent is declared, so by RAW the Assassin should only have been able to Assassinate one Orc with Sneak Attack.
The Surprise system in 5E is ill-thought out, not realistic and mechanically horrible. But, unfortunately, the Assassinate feature was built upon this.
Personally, I homebrew the Assassinate ability to be based on target's awareness and reaction to the attack, not on the mechanical condition, so even if the assassin stayed hidden until later in the battle and then jumped out to attack, since the target was unaware of the assassin that assassin still gets the assassinate bonuses (which by RAW they wouldn't, however nonsensical that would be), while still only being once per combat like it's supposed to be. It requires more ad hoc thinking by the DM but is still more sensible (and easier to adjudicate) for the ability, especially for surprise attacks occurring out of combat due to ambushes and stuff. But that's just me.
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Yeah for me I do this:
Assassin gets +WIS to initiative
Assassin gets to add their WIS mod to sneak attack damage to the first creature they hit in combat and thereafter to any creature they are hidden from.
Creatures get DIS on saves against poison crafted by the assassin.
Not sure why so many folks are have a hissy over the multiple attacks and also the attacks outside of combat.
I'm fairly certain that several encounters in published adventures start with the bad guys ambushing the party before initiative.
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It's more it's not understood.
They get to attack you since you are likely surprised and therefore cannot act on your first turn.
It irks me because its invalidating those who pick up feats like Alert because you remove that part of it for the player.
Also for those with good initiative... As it means nothing if you can just be jumped all the time
I'm not really a fan of how 5E handles this either (not that other editions were necessarily doing this right, but 5E is arguably on the worse end of the spectrum), but RAW is RAW. By RAW, if some combattants are surprised at the start of combat they don't get to act on their first turn and can't react until after their first turn but they still roll initiative like everybody else and their first round of combat is the same first round of combat for everyone else. If some encounters in published adventures handle it differently, they're not following the RAW.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Readying attacks/actions before combat feels a bit like cheating the system IMO.
Generally the action economy is usually in favor of the players as they are much more likely to have bonus to initiative than creatures are and are much more likely to have summons/familars/etc.. to extend the advantage further.
I have never felt bad about not allowing it as it rewards those who:
Generally allowing the Assassin to get a ready surprise auto crit swings too far in the other direction for me....I would rather change the subclass itself and deal with the poor design of the subclass than open a can of worms with the overarching rules as that always has downstream effects that you may not be aware of.
Another possible suggestion to house rule is just roll initiative as normal but the Surprise condition doesn't end until the end of the round, not the character turn, and Surprise condition lets Assassinate trigger regardless of who goes first in initiative.
I also do agree with how Lyxen uses the ready action. The ready action is a great mechanic for ambushing and ensuring a character does what they want to do when they actually need to. How Lyxen describes their use of this seems very much inline with how it's supposed to be used and makes realistic sense for adjudicating scenarios the 'regular' rules/initiative would prohibit - something that is narratively important for immersion and fun.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I actually like it less now that you clarified TBH....not only do you allow it but you have to persistently justify your actions to allow you do something?
Overall I think that would grind my encounters to a halt as they players tried very hard to find a reason to be able to Ready an action. I would rather just play the game.
The flow is better to me when the dice do the talking for initiative. The world is chaotic and even the best prepared assassin can falter in the moment.
Also the high passive perception is an investment in a skill like any other. I do not hinder the rogue who wants to sneak anymore than I hinder the cleric who wants to be very perceptive. It's needlessly prohibitive IMO.
Players absolutely have an advantage on initiative as there is almost 0 creature effects that add bonus to initiative.
I am sure I am missing some options but its VERY clear players have a multitude of options that Aid them for initiative and creatures do not.
Overall the fact is that players already are at a high benefit when it comes to action economy and initiative and allowing them to ready actions before combat just pushes it further in their direction.