I don't want to start a new topic so I figured I'd post my question here: Did they get rid of the exception rule for sneak attack inadvertently since they got rid of the backstab rules? I couldn't tell since I had two different fights with two different outcomes.
In an early fight I had Shadowheart within 5 feet of an enemy, so I thought, "sweet, I can use sneak attack" and it worked! I hadn't used any spells at that point, so I don't believe there was anything going on that had any special conditions providing advantage/disadvantage. However, when I got to the fight at the gates, it turned into a different story. We were down to the last enemy, and it was literally surrounded by people (3 people right in its face waiting patiently to attack it), and my sneak attack would not work, it kept on saying, "you must have advantage against target." I checked the description it was using for sneak attack and noticed it did not include the flanking exception that 5E uses for sneak attack in the case you don't have advantage.
So yeah, can anyone say for sure what's going on with Sneak attack now?
You might have something here, I'm testing if my characters are within 5 feet by finding where I have (enemy is too close) with ranged attacks. I'm seeing the same problem where I'm denied sneak attack.
Edit:
From what I'm seeing, the enemy needs "threatened" status or you need to have advantage to get Sneak Attack. "Threatened" doesn't provide it all the times that it should. It seems they need to be threatened AND have been hit with a str/dex weapon (at least not a spell like firebolt) to allow for Sneak Attack.
