Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Is Assassin playable now? If yes: How?

Assassin is both playable and reliable, but is wholly dependant on you knowing how to trigger surprise rounds. This in itself is less obvious.

There are a lot of guides to triggering surprise, and unfortunately most of the tips give mixed results. I've found one method that works 100% for me, so much that's it's the key to my solo honor runs. To trigger surprise, ensure you're sneaking out of enemy cone of sight. Then switch to turn-based mode (default on PC is shift+space, although the input is sometimes poor so I bind capslock to getting into turn-based). Simply attack from unseen in turn-based mode to trigger combat, and you will enter a surprise round. If you have a party, this gets a bit more finicky, but apply similar rules to the whole party (you have to enter combat 1-by-1 with each member if they're all sneaking)

Hope that helps.