Help me understand how sneak attack works in this game

[guppy]

I know how it's supposed to work per 5e ( once per turn on an attack with ranged dex weapon, or finesse mele weapon - with an option for doing it once more if you get a attack of opportunity with said finess mele weapon )

(This is all for ranged attacks with 2x hand crosbow:)
Here's how I've noticed it working in game but it's inconsistent as anything.

1) If you have an ally near by you can use the 'sneak attack' ability ( even if the ally is invisible and out of combat )
2) if you have advantage you can use the 'sneak attack' ability
3) if you crit (and have all you reactions on 'ask') it will ask you if you want to sneak attack when you crit
4) if you haven't used 'sneak attack' and you hit (and have all you reactions on 'ask') it will ask you if you want to sneak attack


if you used 1&2 and *crit* it will sometimes pop up asking you if you want to sneak attack - if you chose to 'react' this way it will add another *separate* instance of critial sneak attack. And yes both initial hit damage and the separate instance has double sneak dice, it even causes a separate concentration check.

4) doesn't seem to always trigger, especially for offhand attacks - if I use a normal main hand bow attack that misses, I expect it to ask me for sneak attack if my offhand bow attack hits this only happens very rarely.

On the flip side 3) happens quite frequently - but not every time I land a crit ( all hits on the first round of combat are crits with assasin rogue ) so I get to see a lot of them - it may be it only triggers if the dice roll was a crit.

Is there something I'm missing here that causes this inconsistent behavior?

And more importantly is there a way to reliably use sneak attack on the off hand/bonus attack? especially at low levels having that extra attack for a second chance to land sneak attack is basically a requirement for rogues

[Kernest]

AFAIK in BG3 to use sneak attack on ranged weapons, the weapon has to be in your main hand.

Also, you can't have disadvantage (such as from too long or too short range).

[guppy]

Originally posted by Kernest:

AFAIK in BG3 to use sneak attack on ranged weapons, the weapon has to be in your main hand.

Also, you can't have disadvantage (such as from too long or too short range).

Somewhat true - if you have disadvantage you can't sneak atack unless you also have advantage ( they cancel each other out ) - so you can sneak attack outside of normal range, while threatend ect.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/guppy42/screenshot/2090288967805623582/

Needless to say that's not a situation I'd normally be in, it was constructed for the purpose of demonstrating that :D

Edit: it's worth pointing out that if I didn't have an ally in range of the target I wouldn't be able to sneak attack it. The tooltip doesn't make it clear as it just claims you need advantage - but it's advantage OR an ally in mele range.

But even with an ally if you just have disadvantage you still can't

But I'm getting side tracked that wasn't really the original question ;)

[Kernest]

I'm not sure what you're asking then.

You should never get the prompt to use sneak attack on an off-hand ranged attack, if this happens (never seen it), it's an error.

The game rolling sneak attack again with separate concentration rolls when critting (also never seen this) would be another error.

The only way to "reliably" get sneak attack on off-hand/bonus action would be to use melee weapon.