Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Arcane trickster suggestion

Ok this may go down like a lead baloon but here goes.

Playing pathfinder and one thing that really sticks out playing AT is that you can sneak aatack with cantrips. This is amazing and adds some spice to the mix imo. I mean 5e = no but it is no different technically than shooting a bow as it is a ranged attack. With cantips sneak attack you can build a rogue into inteligence rather than dex and spice up the mix especially multiclassing sorc/mage rogue.

It probably wont happen but it is really fun and isn't inbalanced, just adds some spice to cantrip damage,

Interesting idea, though is there a reason you're limiting this suggestion to cantrips? AFAIK in Pathfinder you can sneak attack with any attack-roll spell, leveled spells included.
I don't even think this rule is limited to Arcane Tricksters. Any Pathfinder rogue with access to spells can do this.

I say cantrips as rouge gains 1d6 every 2 levels so at level 10 you would be doing an extra 5d6 + the extra damage spells do at later levels. So a scorching ray cast at level 3 would do potentially 20d6 sneak attack + 8d6 fire + 8d6 necrotic with hex cast so 32d6 total which is 9th level spell damage, would kill almost any monster on 4 hits in the same turn.

A tenth level arcane trickster would do levelled cantrip damage + 5d6 on sneak attack so a little more than a crossbow or something.

Sneak attack can only proc once per turn though, so a scorching ray cast by a level 10 rogue would only deal an extra 5d6 sneak attack, not 20d6 (as long as at least one ray hit, and you fulfilled the conditions for sneak attack). Plus, you need to account for chances to hit in any calculation, which is ~65-70% per ray, reducing the damage even further. Otherwise you overestimate the spell's power.

But since you only need one of the rays to hit to proc sneak attack, doesn't that increase the spells power?

It does. But adding sneak attack to cantrips would also increase cantrips' power, that's kind of the point of this thread. I don't see why higher level spells should be excluded from dealing sneak attack - you are spending a spell slot after all.

If you're saying that Scorching Ray specifically is too powerful with sneak attack, because you get 3+ chances to hit, then eh maybe. But that's jumping ahead a bit in the discussion, unless you're arguing that no leveled spells should allow sneak attack soley because of Scorching Ray. To which I'd bring up the fact that Eldtrich Blast - a cantrip - fires multiple beams at higher levels, and thus we're back to square one. And are either of the above situations really that different than a dual-wielding rogue?

If they actually add green flame blade or booming blade to the game then you will.

A sneak attack adds to the power of a dagger. And a bow. And a rapier. Why shouldn't it add to the power of a spell?