What is a "creature" for SA?

[Albions_Angel]

Hi all,

Quick question, but a little more nuanced than I think the Rules Q&A thread will be able to provide.

Sneak Attack says it affects creatures. But creatures isnt give a definition... ever... as far as we can tell. Are undead "creatures"? Are "Constructs"? "Elementals"? Are there things with special abilities that explicitly cant be sneak attacked?

Thanks

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hi all,

Quick question, but a little more nuanced than I think the Rules Q&A thread will be able to provide.

Sneak Attack says it affects creatures. But creatures isnt give a definition... ever... as far as we can tell. Are undead "creatures"? Are "Constructs"? "Elementals"? Are there things with special abilities that explicitly cant be sneak attacked?

Thanks

As I understand it, things that you can interact with are generally broken into two categories:

Creatures: These have (at least in potential) stat blocks. They can (usually) take actions.

Objects: These have AC and HP (for breaking purposes). They usually can't take actions.

All the types (undead, construct, elemental, humanoid, etc) are creature types, and so can be subject to sneak attack.

Simple rule--if it has the 6 stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA) it's probably a creature. I don't know of any exceptions, but they may exist.

[JackPhoenix]

Funny thing: MM doesn't define "a creature", it defines "a monster".
A monster is defined as any creature that can be interacted with and potentially fought and killed. Even
something as harmless as a frog or as benevolent as a unicorn is a monster by this definition. The term also applies to humans, elves, dwarves, and other civilized folk who might be friends or rivals to the player characters.

[mephnick]

Sneak Attack works on anything except like..buildings.

It deliberately works on everything you might fight to avoid the pitfalls of earlier editions where rogues were useless against half the monster manual. God..whose decision was that?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sneak Attack works on anything except like..buildings.

It deliberately works on everything you might fight to avoid the pitfalls of earlier editions where rogues were useless against half the monster manual. God..whose decision was that?

I hope that last sentence was sarcasm (or otherwise not serious) :smallsmile:

The rogue class is balanced around almost always getting SA. Nothing worse than being useless against most non-humanoid foes and having simple abilities deny you SA (3.5 had spells and enchantments that denied crits which also denied SA). "Realism" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[mephnick]

I hope that last sentence was sarcasm (or otherwise not serious) :smallsmile:


No I meant 3.5 was stupid. I totally agree with you.

[SharkForce]

Funny thing: MM doesn't define "a creature", it defines "a monster".

on the other hand, it defines all monsters are being creatures, so we know if it's a monster, it is definitely a creature :)