Sneak attacks seem ALWAYS bad?

[gpauley]

It seems like every time I make a sneak attack (attack with no warning), I'm at an extreme disadvantage. ALL enemies get to make a move, then a normal round ensues. However, in that normal round the character that made the sneak attack has no action points left. Basically sneak attacks give the enemy a free turn. Is it supposed to be this way?

[Vinnolo]

sneak attack applies surprise on all the enemies, they lose their next action, which means their entire first round is spent doing nothing, just for one action on your party, you are doing something wrong if you are not getting the surprise debuff, its either that or everyone in your party is slow as bricks and enemies are going first before you

[gpauley]

Originally posted by Vinnolo:

... you are doing something wrong if you are not getting the surprise debuff, its either that or everyone in your party is slow as bricks and enemies are going first before you

Yeah they get surprise debuf, but they still run out of the woodwork and attack me. And I only seem to be slow as bricks if I surprise attack. Which is why I don't do it anymore. Better to walk up into the middle of them and say I'm going to kill you all "prepare to die". This way I'll get a number of them first just by getting higher initiatives.
I wonder... maybe I need to go to turn based mode before I surprise attack?

[corbo]

Sneak attacks do not Surprise automatically. Careful there.

Anyway, gpauley, I'm assuming you are talking about the 1st attack, not sneak attacks in general.
You need to get into Turn Based mode before you attack.
If your victim dies isolated, combat doesn't start, but people around will usually come looking for you. Use the rest of you turn to hide and move away.
If combat starts (witness, victim not killed, other reasons...) you'll still have time to finish your turn if you get Initiative. If enemies are surprised, you get another round to finish the job before moving away,

If you don't go into turned based mode, when mobs come looking for you in real time, you likely don't have time to hide again and move away.
What happens then is that mobs discover you, inside the same turn as your attack, so your action is already spent when TB mode starts automatically. And mobs won't be surprised when they find you.

There are more quirks to stealth, like when to use Sneak or normal attacks, how lighting works, etc., so have fun experimenting.

[alanc9]

Why would the character executing a sneak attack to start combat get an extra action?

[Mike Garrison]

By "sneak attack" you mean "attack first, out of combat", right?

There is a setting in custom mode that controls whether you can get a free "first strike" attack or not.

When you get surprise on an enemy, they lose their first turn. BUT ... if the enemy doesn't see you, then the game never shifts into combat mode. So that lost first turn simply passes in real time.

Also, just because one party member is in combat does not mean that all of them are. So sometimes you get a first strike but only that character enters combat. All the enemies skip their first turn but none of your other characters are in combat so they don't get to take advantage of it. There are ways to deal with this, but it can end up feeling like your surprise attack didn't gain you much.

[jonnin]

I advise calling it alpha strike, rather than sneak attack. Sneak attack is a rogue's extra damage that almost makes up for being down 1 attack. Alpha strike is where the enemy stand there going durrrr when you pop stick your head in the room and take a potshot at them while they were having tea.

It should work just fine, but there are some mechanics that can get in your way like having your whole party in stealth so they don't get initiative in the alpha round because not in combat (which you can manually fix or just not stealth them to begin with).

[Moi Magnus]

Originally posted by gpauley:

It seems like every time I make a sneak attack (attack with no warning), I'm at an extreme disadvantage. ALL enemies get to make a move, then a normal round ensues. However, in that normal round the character that made the sneak attack has no action points left. Basically sneak attacks give the enemy a free turn. Is it supposed to be this way?

You don't give a free turn to the enemies.

When you start a combat by making an hostile action, that action is taken out of your first turn of the game. So you still get the same number of actions that if they started the combat themself. No free turn given, but no free action either. You still get one action per round of combat, and the "attack that started the combat" is the action of the first round.

If your initiative is crap (which is likely the case if you have low Dex), it will look as if they had a free turn. But it would also look as if they had a free turn if the combat started in another way, because you have a crap initiative so you play after them. You just moved your attack from "end of the round" to "beginning of the combat" for the first round, but then you're back to playing at the end of the round, so it look like the enemies played twice in a row.

There is an exception, which is the surprise round. If you manage to attack them while having the surprise, you will get your free round. But to do that, you need to do more than just "attacking first", and even "attacking while hidden" might not be enough. The exact conditions are kind of a mess (see https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Surprised_(Condition)).