Assassin path. Lots of help needed

[monkey3]

*Edit - Some numbers on post 18 *

I really want to play an Assassin. I like the concept of being able to kill a target in a surprise round. The tough part is, are you then useless when you don't get surprise? Also, is Rogue 20 the best Assassin? Silly question. Anything past Rogue 17 is bad (when you can add 3 fighter levels).

So, who is the best RANGED Assassin? And at what level... We don't play at level 20 only. I am thinking of a chart like this:

The table below may be hard to understand. I want to know at each 5 level milestone, what can each "assassin" build do for damage in a surprise round, and what can it do when it does not have surprise (S).

Breakpoints: lvl5withS lvl5notS lvl10withS lvl10notS vl15withS lvl15notS lvl20withS lvl20notS

Classes:
Assassin 17, Battle Master 3
Assassin 15, Battle Master 5
Ass12, BatMas3, GloomStalker5
BatMas12, Assass8
Ass 3, Hexblade 17(with smite)
<anything I missed?>



Assumptions: You will always be able to sneak attack (either you are attacking with advantage, or a melee friend will be next to a target). You have reasonable stats (18 dex/chr at lvl5, and 20 at lvl10+). You take the useful feats at the right time: Sharpshooter/Xbow Expert/Lucky/Alertness and a 20 dex. I assume a hand crossbow for the extra bonus attack.

Assumption: you will nova in your Surprise round, so Battle master will use the die for damage, Batt Mast will use d8 for damage, and use Action Surge. Warlock with max smite.

Assumption: you will not nova (use 1-2 use per rest resources) every round when you did not surprise. Feel free to be reasonable here.

Feel free to state your assumptions if they make a difference. Even if you only fill a line or two, maybe others can fill the rest, and help out.

Thanks.

[Sigreid]

The real issue with an assassin is none of its subclass abilities are what you can call team abilities. To use them you will need to either be away from your group or have a group designed to stealth with you.

[clash]

The easy solution to this is play a gloom stalker ranger. Until high levels they will stay on par with an assassin rogue in the first round of combat. This analysis has a lot of assumptions but provides a good statement for how they keep up.

Assasin rogue vs Deep Stalker ranger opening round
Level 1
Rogue vs Ranger
1d8 + 1d6 + 5 ~ 13 vs 1d8 + 5 ~ 9.5
Level 3
Rogue vs Ranger
(1d8 + 2d6) * 2 + 5 ~ 28 vs (1d8 + 5 + 1d6)* 2 ~ 26
Level 4
Pickup sharpshooter
Rogue vs Ranger
(1d4 + 2d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d4 + 10 ~ 49 vs (1d8 + 15 + 1d6)* 2 ~ 46
Level 5
(1d4 + 3d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d4 + 10 ~ 56 vs (1d8 + 15)* 3 ~ 58.5
Level 8
crossbow expert
Rogue vs Ranger
(5d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d6 + 15 ~ 72 vs (1d6 + 15)* 4 ~ 74
Level 11
Rogue vs Ranger
(7d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d6 + 15 ~ 79 vs (1d6 + 15)* 4 ~ 74

[opaopajr]

The point of a Rogue Assassin is to enlarge the explore & social pillars so as to inversely shrink the combat pillar. It's not Assassin's Creed or Hitman (which is more of an action-packed joke of the topic assassination). It's a schemer, poisoner, forger, isolator, disappearance act par excellence so that combat is the most unfair it can possibly be.

If that's not supported by the campaign or party, you are going to feel constrained and less useful. :smallamused:

[Misterwhisper]

The issue with assassin is that their surprise attack sounds good on paper but it VERY rarely works out in practice.

The enemy has to be surprised which is completely different than in old editions, now it is much harder to catch someone by surprise.

Honestly if you want to play an assassin type build, rogue is great, but I would go either swashbuckler if you planned to be a more social type of assassin like a James Bond kind of guy, or scout if you are the quiet sneaker.

Arcane Trickster is also great due to all the buffs and utility.

Thief could work but it is not its strong suit.

Inquisitive is also very good for the wise and observant kind of assassin.

It just depends on what style you want to go.

If you want to multi class, as much as i hate the subclass itself, Hexblade Pact of blade 3, Swashbuckler X is very very nice.

[follacchioso]

I think you only really need 3 levels in assassin. All the other features in this class seems to be oriented towards NPC characters. You will rarely have the time to spend seven days preparing a new identity during an adventure, although it may be a fun way to surprise your fellow players, however there are many better options to disguise, and you are losing compared to other classes.

[Chronos]

You can't always count on an ally being next to your target. Sure, the melee guys will close range as soon as it's their turn... but you'll probably go before them, so on that all-important first turn, they're likely to not be in position yet. Winning initiative isn't always a good thing.

And any battlemaster in a party with a rogue should be using their Commander's Strike on you. Sneak attack works once per turn, not once per round, so if you make an attack on someone else's turn, you get to Sneak Attack again.

[Keravath]

1) Getting surprise at all is entirely DM dependent. Most combats will not have a surprise round. You may be able to setup an ambush to get a surprise round but if the targets passive perception notices one or more of the hidden attackers ... no more surprise round.

2) You can usually rely on advantage (and thus sneak attack) against opponents with initiative lower than you in the first round. This is why the alert feat and gloomstalker ranger multiclass work very well since the gloomstalker adds their wis modifier to initiative.

3) Even if you succeed in surprise, you can only sneak attack once/turn.

However ... no rogue is useless ... the base class is so good that the archetype adds some cool ability and flavor but doesn't make them ineffective. An assassin is good on the first round when they likely have advantage and in the cases where the DM gives a surprise round they are amazing. Later rounds, an assassin has all the usual rogue tricks with hiding as a bonus action to obtain advantage on ranged attacks as well as landing sneak attacks with allies adjacent to their target.

[Keravath]

You can't always count on an ally being next to your target. Sure, the melee guys will close range as soon as it's their turn... but you'll probably go before them, so on that all-important first turn, they're likely to not be in position yet. Winning initiative isn't always a good thing.

And any battlemaster in a party with a rogue should be using their Commander's Strike on you. Sneak attack works once per turn, not once per round, so if you make an attack on someone else's turn, you get to Sneak Attack again.

This is actually where the assassin shines since they will have advantage and can land sneak attacks on any target they go before in the first round initiative order. So, obtaining a high initiative for an assassin is very beneficial.

[Rukelnikov]

Take 3 lvls of assassin, and then anything that can add lots of dice to attacks, lots of things that work, whisper bard or hexblade for ranged smite, even swords bard can work since Slashing flourish works with ranged and the auto crit of round 1 would double the damage for the secondary target too. Action Surge sinergizes incredibly well too.

The main problem you face with the lvl 3 assassin build, is the gap between that lvl 3 asassin goodness and whatever the next step will be, you will have to decide wether you want an ASI now and delay your other features for one more level or wait 4 more levels for that first ASI.

TBH for many assassin builds the easier thing to do is not starting with assassing, but adding it when you already have something else up, since, after the feature shines the most when you can make multiple attacks in a single round. So maybe going Gloom Stalker 5 first still makes you "assassin" fluff wise, and would save the frustration of the levels 3/4-8/9.

[Jerrykhor]

The main problem with Assassin is that their Level 9 and Level 13 features can be easily replaced with Disguise Kit, Actor Feat and Forgery Kit, with less restrictions and earlier availability. If your campaign have the slightest bit of urgency at all, they are almost impossible to use. Death Strike at 17 is nice and all, but its no Quivering Palm, and there's no guarantee you'll ever get there.

[ad_hoc]

I really want to play an Assassin. I like the concept of being able to kill a target in a surprise round. The tough part is, are you then useless when you don't get surprise?

There is no surprise round. Even with surprised you don't get the auto crit if you lose initiative.

The main ability they have is to get advantage if they win initiative. That will come up in every combat.

[Corran]

I really want to play an Assassin. I like the concept of being able to kill a target in a surprise round. The tough part is, are you then useless when you don't get surprise? Also, is Rogue 20 the best Assassin? Silly question. Anything past Rogue 17 is bad (when you can add 3 fighter levels).

So, who is the best RANGED Assassin? And at what level... We don't play at level 20 only.
I am playing with the idea of a rogue (assassin) 3/ hexblade (blade pact) 17, cause I value a great deal what some spells (like invisibility, alter/disguise self/ scrying/ etc) can add to the playstyle of an assassin. But I am having a bit of the same issue that you have. That is, while this build leaves me satisfied regarding how I will go about assassinating, I have not figured out yet how to make it a good combat build.

Anyway, I am thinking that this build comes online at level 8 and reaches max potential (always regarding assassination) at level 12.
You want thirsting blade, eldritch smite, improved pact weapon, branding smite and assassinate, to bring it online to start with (all of which you can have by character level 8). Add to that spells like invisibility and a few more useful spells.
And by character level 12 you will have higher level spell slots and banishing smite (along with devil's sight and/or mask of many faces and perhaps actor) to improve on it.

At least that's the basis, you can add a lot of useful bits and pieces to improve on how often/reliably you can do your assassinating. The hard part is trying to make this build a useful in combat character. I dont think it's unplayable, but I dont know how to make warlock archers good enough, and if I dont focus on being a warlock archer then whatever I am planning to be means that a lot of my investment goes to waste when I am doing anything else other than trying to pull off an assassination.

ps: Lucky. Definitely pick lucky on an assassin. You need to win the contest in 3 consective rolls:
1) stealth most likely, but sometimes it might be deception or sth else
2) initiative
3) attack roll (though with advantage and two attacks, while all you need is to have one attack hit with on which you will add branding/banishing and eldritch smite, this is not that big of a deal).

[Crgaston]

The easy solution to this is play a gloom stalker ranger. Until high levels they will stay on par with an assassin rogue in the first round of combat. This analysis has a lot of assumptions but provides a good statement for how they keep up.

Assasin rogue vs Deep Stalker ranger opening round vs Fighter
Level 1
Rogue vs Ranger
1d8 + 1d6 + 5 ~ 13 vs 1d8 + 5 ~ 9.5
Level 3
Rogue vs Ranger
(1d8 + 2d6) * 2 + 5 ~ 28 vs (1d8 + 5 + 1d6)* 2 ~ 26
Level 4
Pickup sharpshooter
Rogue vs Ranger
(1d4 + 2d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d4 + 10 ~ 49 vs (1d8 + 15 + 1d6)* 2 ~ 46
Level 5
(1d4 + 3d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d4 + 10 ~ 56 vs (1d8 + 15)* 3 ~ 58.5
Level 8
crossbow expert
Rogue vs Ranger
(5d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d6 + 15 ~ 72 vs (1d6 + 15)* 4 ~ 74
Level 11
Rogue vs Ranger
(7d6) * 2 + 15 + 2d6 + 15 ~ 79 vs (1d6 + 15)* 4 ~ 74

A Gloomstalker Samurai Assassin with SS and Alert would be a lot of fun. Action Surge on your surprise round! 4/12/4 or 3/12/5. Or just Samurai 15/ Assassin 5 if you're really trying for max attacks.

Thanks for all this math! Couple things... what's the 1d4 after Sharpshooter? Also, looks like you forgot to include the extra 1d8 on Gloomstalker's 1st round attack.

[Malifice]

There is no such thing as a surprise round in 5e.

During the 1st round of any combat some creatures may be surprised. They stop being surprised once their turn ends on round 1.

You need to be able to initiate combat without any of your opponents noticing a single threat beforehand. They notice you or even just a single ally of yours before combat, they aren't surprised.

You then also need to roll higher than them in initiative order in order to be able to attack them while they're surprised.

I'f they roll higher than you, they are no longer surprised by the time your turn comes up on this first round.

[CTurbo]

Gloom Stalker is by far the best dip for an Assassin IMO even if you just go Ranger 3/Rogue 17. Assassin's 17th level feature is a decent capstone. Gloom Stalker 5 would be great if you think you'll never make it to level 20.

As mentioned above, Gloom Stalker/Assassin with Alert and Sharpshooter is really great and it is NOT that hard to pull off surprise rounds under that setup. The best way to surprise enemies is by shooting arrows at them from a distance.

2 levels of Fighter for Action Surge could very well be worth it

Ranger 5/Fighter 2/Rogue 13 would be pretty great.
Fighter 12/Ranger 3/Rogue 5 would be totally different but also great.

[monkey3]

I like the discussion, but we are rehashing a number of Assassin concepts that have been covered in other threads.
- There is the discussion of how do Assassin features help a team be better. You can say that about any dps class (fighter, warlock, barbarian). Not much, but rogues do have utility more than most.
- There is the conversation of surprise. Yes, we know surprise is luck dependent (RAW with initiative). Most DMs however give you a surprise if you sneak invisibly up to a sleeping merchant regardless of the sleeper's initiative roll. In my post I asked folks to consider the case the surprise vs non-surprise. The frequency of surprise is not at issue here.
- Most classes with 3 levels of Assassin will be good. In my post, I am trying to figure out which is better (with respect to damage only).

With those in mind, can a math person help with the table, so we can tell which of the 5 class combinations does better damage throughout their career?

[monkey3]

I decided to stop being a baby and try to get the numbers myself. I am posting them here in case they are of some use to someone. As always, if you spot an error please let me know. These are all for level 20 (I know the game is over by then).

Assassin 17, Battle Master 3
Surprise round:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d8(BM) +9d6(Sneak) + (10d6+d8)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 20d6+2d8+15 = 94
Bonus atk: d6+5(dex) +d8(BM) +10 (SharpS) +d6+d8(crit)
= 2d6+2d8+15 = 31
Action surge: d6+5(dex) +d8(BM) +9d6(Sneak) + (10d6+d8)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 20d6+2d8+15 = 94
Total = 219
2x damage for 17th level Assassin only on a failed Con save vs DC 19
True total = 219-438 depending on how many of saves fail

Not Surprise:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +9d6(Sneak) +10 (SharpS) save the Sup Dice
= 10d6+15 = 50
Bonus atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= 1d6+15 = 18
Total = 68
Notes: gets evasion, Reliable Talent, 5 Feats

Assassin 5, GloomStalker 3, BattleMaster 12
Surprise round:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) +3d6(Sneak) + (4d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 8d6+2d8+15 = 54
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (1d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (1d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
=2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Gloom Atk: d6+5(dex) +d8(GS) + (1d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d8+15 = 32
Action surge:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) +3d6(Sneak) + (4d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 8d6+2d8+15 = 54
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (1d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) + (1d6 )(Crit) +10 (SharpS) No more ComMan
= 2d6+15 = 22
Gloom Atk: d6+5(dex) +d8(GS) + (1d6+d8)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d8+15 = 31
Bonus:
Can be an attack (~39) or Hunters mark add 2d6(crit) to all above: 16d6=56
Total = 348 or 396 with Heavy Xbow

Note Surprise:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +3d6(sneak) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 = 29
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 =19
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 =18
Gloom atk: d6+5(dex) +d8 +10 (SharpS)
= d6+d8+15 = 23 (first round only)
Bonus: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 =19
Total = 85
Notes: No evasion, gets Darkvision, Inv in darkness, 6 Feats


Assassin 8, BattleMaster 12
Surprise round:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) +4d6(Sneak) + (5d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 10d6+2d10+15 = 61
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Bonus: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Action surge:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) +4d6(Sneak) + (5d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 10d6+2d10+15 = 61
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +d10(BM) + (d6+d10)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6+2d10+15 = 33
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) + (d6)(Crit) +10 (SharpS)
= 2d6 +15 = 22
Total: 276

Note Surprise:
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +4d6(Sneak) +10 (SharpS)
= 5d6+15 = 32
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 = 19
Regular atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 = 18
Bonus atk: d6+5(dex) +10 (SharpS)
= d6+15 = 19
Total = 88
Notes: evasion, gets Darkvision, Inv in darkness, 7 Feats


Summary:
Assassin 17, Battle Master 3
Surprise: 219-438 Other Rounds: 68

Assassin 5, GloomStalker 3, BattleMaster 12
Surprise: 396 Other Rounds: 85

Assassin 8, BattleMaster 12
Surprise: 278 Other Rounds: 88