Adventure Group 2 question

[EricStratton]

I don't want to clutter up their thread so I'll quote the relevant post and ask my question here.

Corran sees the rest of the press gang backing off and decides to attack the leader as well.

In the blink of an eye he flicks his dagger at the leader's undefended throat (sneak attack - +8 vs AC - 1d4 [thrown dmg] + 2d8 [backstabber + sneak attack] + 4 [dex] DMG) and pulls out his short sword (minor action).
To use Sneak Attack you need to have Combat Advantage. How did you know you had it?

Also, since you had Combat Advantage you should've gotten a +2 to your attack roll, right? (not that it turned out to matter)

[DinbinFanfoom]

IIRC, Rogues have Combat Advantage against anything that hasn't acted before them as an encounter starts (anything after them in the initiative list). It's called "First Strike". I couldn't do that in our thread (well I could have, but I'd have been mauled) since I had 2 goblins in my face (beat my init) and only 4 more to move. I suppose I could have sneak-attacked one of the four in the second stack, but we couldn't see those yet. They came out of the woodworks (literally) later. Rogues can also sneak attack anything they've got flanked, because flanking grants CA, I believe.

Edit: Looks like Corran had the highest init too, so he could have sneak-attacked anyone he wanted.

[EricStratton]

Oh, yeah. Sure enough:

First Strike
At the start of an encounter, you have combat advan-
tage against any creatures that have not yet acted in
that encounter.

God there's so much to read and remember I'm dizzy.

[DinbinFanfoom]

I hear ya. I'm just doing my best to focus on my own abilities at this point, I can't even hope to know what y'all are capable of, except what I remember from the PA podcast.

[Sweeman]

You've basically already figured it out... but to reiterate, you get CA by acting first or if you attack an enemy that has attacked someone other than you.

[Shiz]

I thought a non-rogue class only gets CA by flanking a target that has already attacked someone else (except for powers that specifically grant CA, of course.)