Admin, OOC, and Launch Discussion

To think about for later:
Need to zero in on a general ruling about the nature of Sneak Attack with multiple Attacks. Can a Sneak Attack entry just "float" around to attach to any hit?
Does player have obligation to announce in advance which Attack the SA is linked to?
Does a player have obligation to see one Attack result, choose whether or not to apply SA there, and then proceed with next Attack?
It could matter - what if the first Attack is a Hit but the second Attack is a Critical Hit? Does player just get to "float" the SA over to the 2nd Attack because it is better, and double the SA bonus?

I'm not decided either way, and will always reserve some option to deliver different rulings based on different circumstances, but would prefer a general "90% of the time" stance resolved.

When the SA criteria is based on the adjacent ally being nearby (as in this case), "floating" application of SA might seem realistic enough. Though the possibility of a second Attack Critical mentioned above is still a quandary.

But if SA criteria is based on a sudden Stealth-launched strike, the SA damage I think is probably hard-linked to the first Attack only.

Also, second Attack is often a Bonus attack, often an "off-hand" weapon. May suggest that SA maneuver should be linked with the main attack? With Bryn having 2-Wpn Fighting AND Dual Wielder, I don't think it matters much but if someone doesn't have those capabilities...?

On this scenario and round in the Ep 2 Golem fight, I'm completely fine with it shifting from the first to the second Attack. Will think about it though on the broader questions and open it up for discussion here. Anyone can make appeals, talk about it in advance before it has a chance to become a high-stakes do-or-die situation where a ruling would have potential to be a surprise or frustration (or maybe even a Santa Claus gift-ruling because I am reluctant to bring the pain of a tough rule that hasn't been clarified previously).

Thanks for openly musing about rules considerations, J. I'm going to put forward a case for why 'floating' sneak attack with two weapon fighting is both realistic and mechanically balanced.

Why It's Realistic

A relevant quote from the PHB about Sneak Attack:
A rogue's fighting style is opportunistic. He's throwing jabs, feints ... some of those connect, some go wide or are intercepted - but all are purposeful. A well-timed miss can throw the enemy off balance, get their guard away from that chink in their armour. If the opponent parries the first blow, that might open up a weakness the rogue can exploit from a different angle. The rogue's sneak attack is the surprised sliced tendon in the wrist after you parried their first attack. It's the tear to the hamstring that you exposed when you blocked the first knife high, but then you presented them with an opportunity to go low. Its dodging the first thrown dagger only to realize you've moved into the path of the second dagger that they threw into your only way out of the first.

Why it is Mechanically Balanced

You give up a lot to TWF!

* It costs you your bonus action. This is the biggest cost of TWF. Good bye Cunning Action, the definitive rogue ability. No more disengaging after attacking. No more dashing to slit the wizard's throat before he casts the spell. No more retreating back into the shadows and hiding from attacks. You are COMMITTING to this fight - no more hit and run tactics, you've got to stay in the fight or risk opportunity attacks to get out. Rogues can't take much punishment with their d8 hit die and lower AC (no shields, light armor).

Also, many subclass features need a bonus action. Mastermind's ranged help action, Inquisitive's insightful fighting and eye for detail, Thief's fast hands, and so on. The bonus action is crowded for rogues. If you TWF, you are sacrificing your rogue abilities in order to get your damage to catch up to a fighter with a Great Sword and 2 attacks.

* It costs you your off hand. So, no shield results in a lower AC, and no spell foci on hand for multiclassed spellcasters.

* TWF means using light finesse weapons which means less base damage.

Floating Sneak Attack can Bite Both Ways

You've noted issues with missing the first attack and critting with the second. But what if you hit with the first attack and crit with the second? You don't get to stack the sneak attack onto the crit, it triggers on the first attack that hits. So, TWF doesn't reliably crit fish. It mostly just increases your chance of landing a sneak attack at a relatively steep cost.

Still Screwed by Disadvantage

There are many situations which auto shutdown sneak attack. Just giving a rogue disadvantage on their attack shuts it off, never mind removing the adjacent ally condition or denying advantage, etc. I think you can subtly control sneak attack power creep by imposing disadvantage on attacks in applicable situations. Even without exercising DM fiat, lots of monsters and some environmental conditions have built-in mechanics to do this.

What do you think, J?

I have always been playing under the assumption that sneak attack is automatically applied to the first attack that hits.

If the first attack misses then, according to the book, as long as you still fulfill the requirements for sneak attack, it is applied to the next attack.

Now that I think of it, I don’t think I have ever crit with a mainhand attack and sneak attack on this character. Hah.

I've always operated under the assumption that it needs to be declared, which I'm a big fan of. Floating it is unrealistic. The sneak attack moment is something that the rogue intends, a moment of great finesse etc.

I understand the thought process, but it severely reduces the damage output of the rogue class that has no extra attack. The the sneak attack d6 progression is the is the only way for rogues (outside of multicassing) to increase their damage.

When you look at a character like Thorn rolling 4d6+10 every round and bumping that to 8d6+20 with action surge, the rogue sneak attack pales in comparison.

Taking sneak attack away or not letting it float, is like taking away Thorns multi attack.

With all things considered, and in the spirit of this DT game, I don’t mind calling the sneak attack. Realism is king here, not just "damage output"

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, J I trust your judgement. (Just stop taking my fucking weapons away hahah)

Right, but the sneak attack becomes extraordinarily powerful in time. And the class capability for combat isn't all about damage output.

Ultimately, looking at your dice and saying "that hit there... against that target... that's my sneak attack" just kills realism. A sneak attack is a set up move, no matter how many other feints, misses, hits, dodges etc are involved.

Incorporating the bonus action as a factor doesn't make sense. It's the off hand. Whatever the player's choices for that off hand whether we're talking about dual wield or shield use etc are not relevant.

Also, we wouldn't take a fighters maneuvers and just allow them to be applied to the roll of their choice because it's a hit. "Oh yeah... that extra damage maneuver... let's apply it to that hit." Like the sneak attack, the maneuver is intended for a specific moment, succeed or fail.

Allowing maneuvers or sneak attacks to be applied to the roll of choice is mechanically unsound and also unrealistic.

Battlemaster maneuvers are almost all "when you hit a creature with a weapon attack," in essence allowing you to float it. You could potentially still miss despite the bonus granted by a Precision Attack but no other maneuver could potentially go to waste by being declared on an attack that ends up a miss.

To my mind a rogue is setting up EVERY attack as a sneak attack, so for me floating SA makes sense.

But as always, DM's call.

Ox, you keep crying about weapon restriction while Bryn grips up on his double custom-stat built FINESSE DEX BONUS 1d8 KUKRIs that somehow wound up on the sales rack in the weapon store when I said Rapier tech isn't invented yet. "Wahhh. J is out to get me with his weapon control. Waahwaaaaa!"
Nah just kidding, brah--that's funny as hell that you have to stress when you don't have the full stat sheet resources. Character building, my man! Like real life - not every fight scene has the luxury of full battle loadout. I thought it was the man that wins a fight, not the weapon. But I'm old fashioned, that's just me. Ha!

Dang, y'all. This Harvard Debate Club on the Backstab (Uhh! getthatretro) philosophy isn't making a decision any easier. ugh.
Holy ish, too. Ez just sent my head spinning into another series of questions for clarification. Battle Maneuvers DON'T float? Do they spend if you announce them and Miss? Can you choose to spend them AFTER you see the results? I think we did broach this convo one other time, but I forgot (avoided?) to dive further into it. Are we applying those practices consistently ALL THE TIME and with EVERY Maneuver?
Arghh. Stop, J! We're not talking Battle Maneuvers. Not now. Stop.

Couple of things that I think HAVE clarified, for me at least.

1) The Backstab is NOT a "crit seeker". (I think that is the term Len used. Direct hit). Another way to think of it, the Backstab is sticky to the first Hit. If you get first Attack Hit and then second Attack Critical Hit, the Backstab can't shift over to get boosted to the bigger damage. Contrarily if the first Hit is a Critical. BooYah! Double Backstab!

2) "Float" can NOT happen if the SA is based on Stealth and the Rogue is running up on somebody out of the bushes or the shadows. That is decisively convincing I think, much in the manner of how Ez described it as a purposeful, deliberate, experience-based technique strike that is necessarily the first and primary strike. Any extra attacks or bonus attacks after that happen more as an add-on, and not within the same circumstance as the initial surprise, which provided the Advantage in the first place.

Undecided: Possibility of "float" on the non-surprised based qualifiers (adjacent ally, general Advantage). Len makes good points about the constant striving of Rogues to press for advantage (and Advantage) in every strike they make, and also about the commitment costs of two weapon fighting. In Ez's view the SA effort is more like a declared strategy linked to one specific effort, not out of the question. Ez also sounds off of my own gut feeling that Bonus Actions are more like secondary, but then again they are indeed Attacks.

I have to admit, I don't ignore them entirely but I'm not swayed much by arguments based on some philosophy of what the Rogue is "owed" to keep up with Fighters on fairness of how to cough out damage. I know there are overarching balance frameworks that are in the classes and game broadly, but we're kidding ourselves if we say that there is always balance all the time in all situations. A lot of that stuff is very subjective and circumstantial. Every class gets huge varieties of packages on capability, on why to be one class over another. And a Rogue I think gets a LOT of variety even above many other classes, variety in a lot of strange ways in fact depending on how you build (especially Expertise choices). It's very difficult to zero in on one thing like damage output comparisons and call foul somewhere. And if pushed on that, careful, Thieves, I'm probably liable to say "Damn right Fighters send out the boss damage in a FIGHT. Other classes are envious of that? Fuckin' A Straight, y'all, they should be!" Haha!

So here's the decision: Procrastinate.
Will let this simmer.
Risk of emergence of high-stakes circumstance hinging on this ruling noted...and ignored.
For now.

Y'all know I hate rules debates even if I know they must be dealt with.

I love it. It makes the game much more interesting trying to take down a golem with toothpicks.

Right on. In DT, weapons don't kill Golems, people do.
And sometimes they use only bare hands and small weapons.

I’m game with calling the sneak attack and if your good with this, I’ll put sneak attack damage only on the second attack for better or worse.

Narratively I’m looking at it like the first attack creates an opening and the second attack is the back stab.

Does that work for you?

No ruling yet. Will read more on it later.

Since we have teammates on both sides of the issue, no way I can agree with everyone. Have to crash in and proceed for better or worse, ask for understanding on differences.

I glanced at a few online ramblings. This SA with multi attacks question is out there with others too. I didn't take too long with that stuff though - seems like those amateurs are wrestling the debate and musing on opinions and interpretations just like me.

So I drift back to the actual language:

"Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an Attack if you have advantage on the Attack roll. The Attack must use a Finesse or a ranged weapon.

You don't need advantage on the Attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't Incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the Attack roll."

To me this seems key: "...can deal an extra 1d6 to one creature you hit with an Attack..."
It doesn't say other things like: "...when you take the Attack action, you can attempt..."
Or: "...once per turn you can make a..."

Bonus Actions or any other type of second Attacks (or third, etc.) are still Attacks. If they hit, you can cause the extra damage.

When you send the RNG dice roll for SA, to me that is you claiming the SA if it applies. So, if SA does apply, and that means the criteria is clearly met, then that SA will be default scheduled to apply to the first successful hit that follows if there are multiple hits.

If you want the SA linked to another Attack in the sequence, then you must announce that and identify where you want it to fall ahead of time. As mentioned above, you can't lay out the attacks and then later call out where you want it to apply after the numbers are in.

As mentioned above, Stealth/Surprised-based Advantage, if it ever applies at all, will only apply to the very FIRST Attack, hit or miss. So that means the SA can only go there and only if it is a hit. Once the first attack is in, no more Advantage, so SA circumstance goes away.

Sounds good, J.

So I went back through OOC chat, because I was pretty sure we had talked about sneak attack before. We did. On Pg22. I read everything again from pg 67 back to 22, it was a great trip down memory lane from June 2017 when we were fighting the fat Barbarian with pregnant human shields.

Fuck that was a fun scene.

But yea, we didn’t come to a decision back then either. Hahahah.


Edit: I need to stop posting before I refresh my browser... I’m good with that too J

Makes sense to me.

Yeah that makes sense, J.

Thorn's performance:

Yeah he nailed it. :-P