To the question of how to do sneak attack well, here's something for consideration:

Sooner or later, Larian are going to have to handle Paladins using their divine smite. How that can or should be handled is a bigger overall question - but whatever the agreed upon solution is, that is the way sneak attack should also be handled.

For these kinds of choice-directed things, having them automatically apply (whether through a fiddly toggle or not) is not going to be an acceptable solution. (It may usually be okay to add sneak attack automatically when appropriate, but not always - it's a tactical choice. They'll need to give us that tactical choice for smites, so there's no reason to deny us it for sneak attack as well, at that stage)
Similarly, having it be a separate skill that you have to use independently of your other attacks is also not going to be an acceptable answer for something like that.

The main issue is how hands-off they've left the choice element of combat to be at the moment. We don't have choice over our reactions - we don't have most of our reactions at all, in fact. Abilities that we should be able to choose the application of, we can't. The 'toggles' only work in a very temporary kind of band-aid way, and are another way in which we are left fighting the UI to do what we want.

If I think I might fall, I have to cast feather fall in advance - and burn the spell slot that I might not end up needing; if I or an ally does fall I cannot react to cast it.
If I have hellish rebuke, I can certainly pre-cast it... but then it will trigger immediately on the first thing that hits me after that, and I have no say in the matter. I cannot rebuke the specific creature I want to, and no-one else, nor can I let it pass if I need my reaction for something else.

Smites and Sneak Attack are integrally about player choice, which the current design system takes away from us at every opportunity. We need that back before it can be done properly at all.

Last edited by Niara; 03/01/21 08:24 AM.