It took me 11 Levels to figure out, why my Assassin cant assassinate.
0:00: Thief attempts a sneak attack. No refresh of Actions, Combat is initiated and the Thief can only play out the remaining Actions. Just as it should be 0:24: Assassin attempts the same from Real Time Mode. Actions are refreshed, but the Surprised Condition is not applied. 0:45: Assassin attemts a Sneak Attack from Turn Based Mode. This time the Surprised Condition is applied AFTER the attack and after the Dialogue. Surprised is then available for the second attack available through Assassin Initiative.
In each example the NPC initiates a dialogue and is clearly aware of my presence, so they should not be Surprised anymore. Instead, the first attack which was actually a surprise should trigger the Effect. It is also bugged since the Condition cant be applied outside of TBM, and lets be honest, how many fights are initiated that way? Up to that point i had not a single one, thats why i learned the way to trigger it that late.
Suggestion for a Fix: Any NPC not in Combat should have the Surprised Condition by default if the Assassin was not spotted in the last 10 Turns or so. That way the first Attack which initiates Combat would trigger all 3 Assassin Abilities. Well kinda.
1) Assassin Initiative would have no effect as an attack from Stealth has Advantage anyway. It would still work for the following Turns. 2) Assassin Ambush would deal the critical hit on the first attack, no matter if the attack was made from RTM or TBM. It happens before a Dialoge and before Turn Based Combat starts automatically. It would fit better for an "assassination", take out the Enemy before they can call for help. 3) Assassin Alacrity would then trigger afterwards. If the target survives, it can enter its "Alert Mode", play the Dialogue, and the Assassin gains the additional Turn, at which point combat is initiated already and nearby hostiles become aware of what happened.
Assassin still cannot assassinate, and the whole surprise attack system is in a barely working condition.
Moreover, it's not only the assassin's problem. You can't do any ambushing in this game on ANY class. Assassin is just the one class that benefits from it the most. It's not realistic, and it leaves you with the amazing stealth system that you just cannot use half the time.
The only way I was able to consistently ambush guards was by attacking them with a second character and THEN ambushing them with my assassin right in the middle of the crime dialogue, which is quite unimmersive.
The Wiki page states that in order to surprise an enemy, you have to go through a completely unbelievable amount of shenanigans. And even so, the whole system is either barely working or flat-out bugged for certain types of attacks, like certain spells or grenades. It also states that the game has an entirety of 12 encounters that can be surprise attacked. I did not test any of it, but all of this is simply surreal if true.
The fix that I suggest is to make it so that attacking in the turn-based mode won't trigger any crime dialogue and put you straight into action, as it does with enemies that are initially hostile or with regular civilians that don't have a crime dialogue. This way you'll preserve the failsafe so players who actually attack someone by mistake won't get a bad experience, and at the same time allow players to ambush enemies deliberately by using the turn-based mode.
And yes, assassin still doesn't crit outside combat. So the fix suggested by OP is also relevant.
Yes, that's my suspicion. Perhaps the general setting also stupidly counteracts the proper functioning of the assassin subclass mechanic. Did you test it?
Yes, that's my suspicion. Perhaps the general setting also stupidly counteracts the proper functioning of the assassin subclass mechanic. Did you test it?
I did. It didn't seem to have an effect, as I've said.
So far I'm sorta able to ambush guards, but only as an assassin, only with a ranged attack, only from stealth and ONLY with no heavy armor penalty (no idea how it correlates). Ambushing in melee seems outright impossible, even as an assassin. If ALL those boxes are checked, it magically skips the crime dialogue. Still no crit on the initial strike though.
Not to mention that ambushing as any other class I've tested doesn't seem to be possible at any normal circumstances.
