Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Sneak attack buff

Please consider buffing rogue's sneak attack to once per action like how booming blade works in patch 8 update 3. Rogue's sneak attack in bg3 is once per round which is worse than 5e's once per turn. Pure rogue is one of the weakest martial classes to play because how easily you can stack magic item effects and apply them over and over again with extra attacks. Every power build gets 3 levels in rogue for its subclass features and then ignores the class because sneak attacks do not scale.

Changing it to once per action will help pure rogues realize its assassin fantasy without making the class feel like fighter/barbarian/ranger. I highly doubt it will even make the class as good as some current strong builds like sword bard or sorlock. Now that shadowblade can give casters 4d8 weapon that can be dual wielded and warlock,bladesinger even gets extra attack with them, pure rogues will be even worst than it is right now. So please consider making this change.

They do scale. Their damage die increases with every other Rogue level (I.e. Levels 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11). Meaning they go from 1d6 at level 1 to 6d6 at level 11.

The only major drawback to Rogue is in regards to Haste, where Larian's homebrew on non-Honour Mode difficulties makes other classes exceedingly broken. I.e. Instead of the actual 5e Haste that grants one additional weapon attack. Larian's Haste gives one additional Standard Action - Meaning that Extra Attack martials gets 2-3 extra attacks and Casters get an extra spell cast. This is compounded upon by the ever prevalent Elixirs of Strength, so each of these extra attacks are getting massive Str modifier bonuses (While Sneak Attacks don't have any stat modifiers included). Honour Mode helps bring this back in line by only providing Martials with one extra attack (Though Casters still get their bonus spell cast unlike true 5e Haste)

Ironically, even the reason why everyone multiclasses Thief is due to Larian's homebrew too. Where Fast Hands is granting straight up extra Bonus Action compared to 5e's actual rules that simply lets a Thief use certain items with a Bonus Action (Which would still be pretty strong in BG3 given the abundance of Smokepowder Bombs/Satchels they'd be able to throw with a Bonus Action. Where normal campaigns don't have such available items and would instead rely on things like Alchemist's Fire, Acid Vials and Caltrops)

While the reason why leveling Thief beyond 3 is not done being because everyone is going Str builds because of Elixirs, so Sneak Attacks don't even function because they require Finesse weapons (As there's no Thug subclass in PHB that provides Sneak Attack functionality for non-Finesse weapons)

Essentially, Sneak Attacks and as a consequence, Pure Rogue, only feels weak due to Larian's homebrew massively powering up other builds. They could add more homebrew to boost Rogues, though this could result in having Rogues feel broken compared to non-busted builds (Not everyone powergames with Hasted Fighters/Monks with perma-Cloud Giant Elixirs or Bards tossing out Arrows of Many Targets Flourishes or whatever other min/maxed builds you can think of. Within the context of "Normal" builds, Rogue is fine comparatively)

From the D&D5 Playerbook:

Sneak Attack
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Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe’s distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.
You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemyisn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.
The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Sneak Attack column of the Rogue table [thats 1d6 for every odd level you posess].

yeah it's once per turn in 5e. In Bg3, it's once per round. If you use sneak attack as reaction in Bg3, you cant sneak attack when your turn starts. This is not how it works in 5e. In a game where there is so much homebrew power creep, nerfing sneak attack from base ruleset doesn't make any sense.

I'm talking strictly about honor homebrews, when things like the tavern brawler, triple casting leveled spells in a turn(haste + metamagic), double damaging persistent area of effect spells ie spirit guardian, cloud of daggers, moonbeam etc. (once at casters turn, once when opponent's turn starts), arcane acuity stacking, no attunement limit etc. exists, it destroys the baseline power level of that 6d6 sneak attack of 5e. Thats why I asked for the buff, so playing pure rogue doesn't feel like playing a weaker version of another class.

If you land sneak attack on your turn, and afterwards land an Attack of Opportunity, you can apply Sneak Attack twice within the same round.

Unfortunately, if you do apply Sneak attack to an Attack of Opportunity, you won't have it available for the Rogue's next turn.


They could make it so Sneak attack refreshes both at the beginning, and end of the Rogue's turn. That way both the Rogue's turn and their reaction will have access to the Sneak Attack damage.

Currently, Sneak Attack only refreshes at the End of the Rogue's turn, which is where the issue comes from.

I don't see how this would help pure rogues compete with rogue multiclasses. Unless there's something I'm missing or neglecting, it would also have the effect of making gloom stalker assassin even more powerful.

Pure Rogues get stronger Sneak Attacks due to them scaling with Rogue levels (Not character levels)

Thus, being able to Sneak Attack more often provides greater benefits for Pure Rogues that have more Sneak Attack damage dice than any multi-classes that will have fewer Sneak Attack damage dice.

Of course, it will ALSO benefit Rogue multiclasses, who will still be gaining even more damage from being able to Sneak Attack more often, just it won't benefit them AS MUCH as a Pure Rogue. It's merely a case of "Would this additional benefit that a Pure Rogue gets be able to not only bridge the gap with other builds, but bridge it enough to also cover the bonuses Rogue Multiclasses would be getting from the same change?"

That makes sense, I didn't consider the higher bonus. I can't say I'm terribly fond of gloom stalker assassin getting a buff though.