Sneak Attack

[Booker Grimm]

A rogue in our party has twin hand crossbows and the Crossbow Expert feat.

Can he sneak attack twice on his go? Or does it have to be a reaction?

Example ; 1 Orc fighting his mate in melee. He shoots from the shadows on his turn with his twin crossbows. Both hit. Does he get to add the sneak attack twice in that instance?


I'm happy to let it happen because I allowed it previously, (and they are going to need it!), just after clarification.

Thanks.

[LordEntrails]

I'm pretty sure the text of sneak attack specifically says once per round. So it doesn't matter if they get one or twenty attacks in a round, they can only do sneak attack damage once per round.

Edit: No they do not.. "Once per turn, you can deal an extra..."

[Zacchaeus]

I think they can sneak attack twice per round; once on their turn and once via a reaction.

[Dax Doomslayer]

I think they can sneak attack twice per round; once on their turn and once via a reaction.

A reaction is on another creature's turn and would not be on their turn...It would not work with a bonus action - if that's what you meant?

[Zacchaeus]

No, as stated they can sneak attack once during their turn and once as a reaction (a reaction is implicitly not on that players turn). In other words it's possible to sneak attack twice per round but not twice per turn.

[LordEntrails]

No, as stated they can sneak attack once during their turn and once as a reaction (a reaction is implicitly not on that players turn). In other words it's possible to sneak attack twice per round but not twice per turn.

I don't think my rogue has figured out he can do sneak attack on his reaction yet.

[Booker Grimm]

Hmmm, reading those replies has left me just as confused. I'm happy that he may use a reaction, which is a trigger if something happens that he is reacting to, but what about specifically as I described: There is an orc fighting your mate. It's your turn on initiative. He says right, I'll make two sneak attacks at the orc with my twin crossbows. Both hit and he applied sneak attack damage twice.

[LordEntrails]

Hmmm, reading those replies has left me just as confused. I'm happy that he may use a reaction, which is a trigger if something happens that he is reacting to, but what about specifically as I described: There is an orc fighting your mate. It's your turn on initiative. He says right, I'll make two sneak attacks at the orc with my twin crossbows. Both hit and he applied sneak attack damage twice.

No. Each character/creature gets one TURN per ROUND. There are as many Turns in a Round as their are characters/creatures.

A Rogue can only use a sneak attack Once per TURN. So, two attack or more during a given turn (from multiattack, dual wielding, a bonus action, etc) only allows SA to be used Once in that TURN. In the same ROUND, sometimes a creature can use a reaction to make an attack (such as an attack of opportunity when an enemy moves out of the quare next to them), and if that attack qualifies for a SA, then they can add the SA damage to that attack, because it is on a different TURN than their own when they may have used SA already in that ROUND.

Is that clear?

[BaneTBC]

Maybe you should explain it to your player as less "a sneak attack", which he is thinking he can do twice, and more that it is you can apply sneak attack damage to ONE attack (hit) per turn. That's all it is, you're getting to apply extra damage once. Sneak attack is just a poor name for the damage boost as it tends to confuse people.

So let's say he attacks with his main hand weapon, we'll use hand crossbows for your example(we're going to assume the attack qualifies for sneak attack damage), then if he hits he can apply sneak attack damage to this attack. He then goes to use a bonus action to do his second hand crossbow attack with the Crossbow Expert feat (which by the way, that feat allows you to ignore the reload portion so he can actually just use one hand crossbow to do this[but the second one doesn't get bonus dex damage]), so on this second attack, he would just roll normal damage, no sneak attack damage on top of it.

To give another example, he makes that first main hand attack and misses. He uses his bonus action to shot a hand crossbow again and it hits, you can then apply the Sneak Attack damage on top of this attack as long as it qualifies, but no bonus damage from dex. Same thing would apply for two weapon fighting (which is basically what this is but with hand crossbows).

[Booker Grimm]

Yeah, thankyou. That was what I figured. It makes sense now.