Why Assassins are awesome!!!

[Malrex]

I heard a plea.....that not much was being discussed on the forums anymore...paladins have been beaten to death, so lets talk about assassins!!

Despite the clickbait title, I don't like the assassin class much. I like the flavor of it--its been fun for me to get some intrigue going in the City of Vermilion and utilizing an Assassin Guild as a tool (and fleshing out a Assassin hideout 'dungeon'), but as a character, I don't see them fitting in too well in an adventuring party.
I think the class could work well in a city campaign (if others played thieves, assassins, or something fitting), but the assassination table needs some work or perhaps I dont understand it (or remember it too well). Giving a class a chance to outright kill another seems a little much--maybe someone can explain it better to me.

So does anyone have any homebrew rules they have used for assassins? A way to 'fix' them? Or do we have some who will defend the class and tell us what's up?
I definitely want the class to work in City of Vermilion and thought about doing some homebrew ideas to include in it, but I havent sat down and playtested or thought up new ideas for it yet. I'm leaning toward making them have some alchemist traits for different type of poison, oils an

Also...don't get me started on the monk...I dont think they really fit in a dungeon group either--although, they are excellent in city adventures as I'm finding out with a player doing well during playtesting.

 

[squeen]

I will sift through some of the recent discussion on 1e assassins over at K&KA and post the summary points. The big question was if the (1e) assassin could use his/her assassination % chance in a dungeon crawl setting if the PC surprises the monsters, or if it was more of an elaborate "hand wave" of an assassination "plot" attempt, better suited for city adventures. e.g. "DM can you tell me if I was successful poisoning the food of the mayor?".

EOTB saw them in an unusual/insightful light as the original anti-paladin PC role.

This came up because some newbie players in a K&KA campaign wanted to import the current fad for movie-style super-assassins and play one as neutral (AD&D restricts them to evil-only).

Because of the latter, I sussed out the typical bad-player attempt to roll-up a 1st-level instant-bad-ass, and poo-poo'd that --- dropping them in the "my-awesome-paladin" candy jar.

 

[The1True]

This conversation is going to lose the v3+ people fast if it turns to arcane rules too quickly. Maybe keep it abstract?

Squeen man, you need to accept that some of us want to be something other than some flavour of Fighter. We read the books and watch the movies. We want to do the cool stunts and play out the cool character arcs that an interesting class offers. Yes, the later editions went overboard. But funnn! You're accusing the 'candy classes' of instant badassery, but in almost every version of the game they're universally underpowered except in maybe one activity. If being an OP, game-breaking bad-ass is the chief requirement for candy class status, then across the board, in every edition of the game, it's the arcane spellcaster. Long term, nothing is ever going to touch a lvl 9+ (some might argue 5+) Magic User/Wizard. (The 3e Cleric might be worse...)

I've been trying to make some sort of sniper work for quite a while. The abstract nature of the combat rules make it very difficult to make this kind of assassin class work. Moving past frustrating arguments about alignment and generally getting along with the rest of the players/characters in the party; you're basically entering into a covenant with the DM that if you do your research and are diligent in setting up the shot/scene, you may dispatch an NPC (usually a quite important one) in one shot, without having to roll miraculously.

It's a big ask, given the amount of work your average DM has put into their boss NPC's. I'm personally all for it as a DM and a player. But definite due-diligence needs to be observed, or it's just OP.

 

[squeen]

Squeen man, you need to accept that some of us want to be something other than some flavour of Fighter. We read the books and watch the movies. We want to do the cool stunts and play out the cool character arcs that an interesting class offers. Yes, the later editions went overboard. But funnn! You're accusing the 'candy classes' of instant badassery...

I do accept that's what the masses want --- that's why I've given up on D&D and the masses. No fortitude.

Don't try to convince me the 1e Magic-user --- with one spell, 1-4 hp, no armor and a dagger --- is an instant 1st-level bad-ass.

That's the class I always chose to play. (run away!)

Here's the reply I got back from the artist who drew this wizard and labeled it "D&D". I complimented his drawing skill, but then mused about the inclusion of armor:

Not unless they take a feat, or if medium armour proficiency is part of their race (like a Dwarf) So this dude must have taken a medium armor feat!

Really? Has 5e unlocked all the cheat codes, or just most of them?

 

[The1True]

I definitely want the class to work in City of Vermilion

Do away with the alignment requirement first of all, unless you consider every US Special Forces guy to be at least a little bit evil? The majority of real assassins are just hungry, desperate people willing to run up a lawn, guns-drawn for terrifyingly small amounts of cash. This is not what we're talking about though, when we portray a romanticized killer in an RPG setting. We're talking about highly trained mission specialists with an organization at their back. Depending on the organization, they could be any alignment.

So consider the organizations deploying assassins in your city. How much support to they provide? How much information? How clandestine are their operations?

Next, is assassination a whole character class, or is it a suite of abilities that could be applied to basically any base class? Obviously, this is easier to do in later editions with Proficiencies and Feat trees etc. Similarly, it being a prestige class in 3e lets you tack it on to a wider array of builds. Kill squads contain specialists representing an array of overlapping core competencies (like your adventuring party). Do they all possess the skill to 'make it stick' though? Maybe there's only one individual who needs to get a PHD in where to strike for maximum effect, which poisons are most difficult to detect etc.

Finally, support it in the adventuring material. Provide more than just Assassins/Thieves guilds and various shadowy government/religious organizations; provide research material as well. Make a dossier for NPC's. Along with the obligatory descriptive points, antipathies and associations, add a couple of useful points of leverage; habitual activities, frequented destinations, favourite food, secret relationships, hidden weaknesses. Things for a diligent player to dig up and knit into a plot somewhat more coherent than "I study his movements for 5 rounds and then attack". If your players have spent a couple of sessions gathering information, infiltrating the NPC's networks, and putting together a plan, you're going to be a lot less sore when they whack the guy without a climactic struggle. But the DM needs material to work with, otherwise it's yet another boss monster permanently ensconced in his throne room surrounded by bodyguards!

And as an afterthought: When the war kicked off in Ukraine, I asked Quora why there aren't more assassinations, given that it seemed to me like a pretty efficient way to solve problems and save hundreds of thousands of lives. The answers were more than I can sum up here, and quite fascinating. There are serious and far-reaching consequences to taking the easy route (WWI being a hell of an example). What kind of mayhem will an unsanctioned hit touch off in your city?

 

[The1True]

Really?

Artistic license! Maybe they're just really thick robes?
Or maybe he dipped a level of Ftr at the start of his career to get past that 1 spell, 4 hp hump...

 

[squeen]

It's more the 5e-speak that freaks me out than the art (which is good). Draw whatever you want---no rules!

 

[Alexander Moonbeam]

Assassins are great. I'm proassassin.

The strong mechanical incentive to attack from stealth encourages tactical play.

Their immediate ties to an assassin guild get you straight into faction play and politics at level 1. That's absolutely my jam.

The main complaint I've heard raised about assassins (not here, but on the Internet at large) is that you shouldn't play evil PC's because they'll ruin a campaign of betray the party or something like that. But honestly, that kind of thing is less of a problem when you're playing with mature adults.

One of my favorite campaigns that I've run included a Lawful Good paladin and a Neutral Evil assassin in the same party. Heretical, I know. But the players worked out an arrangement between themselves: the assassin had been arrested for the crime of, you know, being an assassin. He would have been executed, but the paladin persuaded the local ruler to hand the assassin over to him. The assassin was forced to serve the paladin until the paladin decided that the assassin had repented. Essentially, our paladin was our assassin's parole officer. The players roleplayed the hell out of it.

One of my favorite encounters I've run was in that same campaign. The party were reluctant guests at a gruesome dinner party hosted by an oni lord. The assassin managed to slip poison onto the oni's plate, and the creature choked to death. That's when all Hell broke loose....

I've been trying to make some sort of sniper work for quite a while. The abstract nature of the combat rules make it very difficult to make this kind of assassin class work. Moving past frustrating arguments about alignment and generally getting along with the rest of the players/characters in the party; you're basically entering into a covenant with the DM that if you do your research and are diligent in setting up the shot/scene, you may dispatch an NPC (usually a quite important one) in one shot, without having to roll miraculously.

In my current (AD&D, 1E) campaign, I'm allowing a ranged attack to count as a "backstab" as long as the target is not aware of the attacker's presence. That's basically all you need to turn the Assassin into a part-time sniper. The attack roll still has to succeed, of course, and you still need to roll on the assassination table. But it works often enough that it doesn't feel shitty, and fails often enough that it doesn't take over the campaign.

 

[Malrex]

Do away with the alignment requirement first of all, unless you consider every US Special Forces guy to be at least a little bit evil? The majority of real assassins are just hungry, desperate people willing to run up a lawn, guns-drawn for terrifyingly small amounts of cash. This is not what we're talking about though, when we portray a romanticized killer in an RPG setting. We're talking about highly trained mission specialists with an organization at their back. Depending on the organization, they could be any alignment.

So consider the organizations deploying assassins in your city. How much support to they provide? How much information? How clandestine are their operations?

Next, is assassination a whole character class, or is it a suite of abilities that could be applied to basically any base class? Obviously, this is easier to do in later editions with Proficiencies and Feat trees etc. Similarly, it being a prestige class in 3e lets you tack it on to a wider array of builds. Kill squads contain specialists representing an array of overlapping core competencies (like your adventuring party). Do they all possess the skill to 'make it stick' though? Maybe there's only one individual who needs to get a PHD in where to strike for maximum effect, which poisons are most difficult to detect etc.

Finally, support it in the adventuring material. Provide more than just Assassins/Thieves guilds and various shadowy government/religious organizations; provide research material as well. Make a dossier for NPC's. Along with the obligatory descriptive points, antipathies and associations, add a couple of useful points of leverage; habitual activities, frequented destinations, favourite food, secret relationships, hidden weaknesses. Things for a diligent player to dig up and knit into a plot somewhat more coherent than "I study his movements for 5 rounds and then attack". If your players have spent a couple of sessions gathering information, infiltrating the NPC's networks, and putting together a plan, you're going to be a lot less sore when they whack the guy without a climactic struggle. But the DM needs material to work with, otherwise it's yet another boss monster permanently ensconced in his throne room surrounded by bodyguards!

And as an afterthought: When the war kicked off in Ukraine, I asked Quora why there aren't more assassinations, given that it seemed to me like a pretty efficient way to solve problems and save hundreds of thousands of lives. The answers were more than I can sum up here, and quite fascinating. There are serious and far-reaching consequences to taking the easy route (WWI being a hell of an example). What kind of mayhem will an unsanctioned hit touch off in your city?

Good stuff The1True.

Both my (conflicting) Thieves guild(s) and Assassin guild are actually adventures or a dungeon crawl for those characters deciding to follow certain hooks or get wrapped up in the politics. I have a map for the Assassins Guild and some major NPCs, but not the total writeup yet. But yes, I like the idea of players gathering some information before they 'storm the castle' or whatever. OR...have enough helpful info for an assassin class (Id probably do class instead of feats/skills) where if they worked out of the assassin guild there would be a list of jobs to support the class....which can all be intertwined into all the other existing hooks/rumors--which may make more sense of why an assassin joins an adventuring party.

I could see assassins being evil or neutral--but I also believe the requirement of them being evil is the same 'balance check' that paladins have with being lawful good--it's the big hindrance that needs to be there so they aren't total candy in my opinion...otherwise you take the balance tool from the DM and they become overpowered/candy classes--although if roleplay isn't in your game and used as a balance check tool by the DM then they are probably just overpowered already. So, as Paladins get their Lay on Hands for the requirement of being good, assassins get their special skills/powers because of that hindrance of requiring to be evil. So I'd probably keep the assassination table for evil assassins, but maybe swap the assassination table for a skill of poisoning or +4 'backstab' sniper range attack for neutral assassins which isn't as good as outright killing. There would also probably be some internal strife within the Assassins Guild as neutral assassins may just target evil dudes, which may piss off the evil dudes so they hire the evil assassins to take out the neutral assassins, etc.

Alexander Moonbeam---
"The strong mechanical incentive to attack from stealth encourages tactical play.

Their immediate ties to an assassin guild get you straight into faction play and politics at level 1. That's absolutely my jam.

The main complaint I've heard raised about assassins (not here, but on the Internet at large) is that you shouldn't play evil PC's because they'll ruin a campaign of betray the party or something like that. But honestly, that kind of thing is less of a problem when you're playing with mature adults."

I agree with Alexander to an extent. The stealth tactical play can be frustrating with regular characters though. An all thief/assassin/monk group would be super interesting to try though in a city--in fact, I may need to try a adventure writeup for that.
10000% agree with mature adults and evil PCs. Sometimes the roleplay can lead to a betraying of a party member--but at my table, that usually takes up to a 9 months-2years of real time and roleplay where both players know what's up at that point.

@squeen --Id be interested what the K&K folk have said about the assassin. EOTB's view/opinion would be interesting to hear.

 

[The1True]

Ahahahaha. This discussion made me go back and read the PH and DMG rules for Assassins and then further follow the confused arguments online. Ho lee CRAP! Comforting to know that that class is as much nerfed garbage in 1e as all the other editions. Sorry Malrex, I see no reason for alignment requirement to balance this class. I get the whole Paladin thing (although, frankly, if you can randomly roll paladin stats without using the UA class-roll matrix, more power to you), but the assassin is not a good class. I guess they're making it evil because they can ONLY use poison to assassinate, which is frankly ridiculous (the alignment AND the poison requirements). Even if it has to be poison though, check out the 3e 'Book of Exalted Deeds' for "good" poisons to get an idea of alternative options. But sure, maybe even if your assassin started out a good guy, working for a benevolent organization, years of wet work have stunted his alignment. Let's go with that...

But yeah, so okay, if I fail my assassination attempt which, in every way, is a sneak attack, I only get base damage, no sneak attack damage. cough-bullshit-cough. On the other hand; as if the victim gets no Saving Throw. Doesn't 1e have a specific Poison save? Come ON! It's like the rules for this got written up in a fugue state at 3 in the morning and distributed across two books. And, so we're clear, I'm not defending the 3.5e Assassin Prestige Class which is also a hot piece of garbage that requires insane levels of power gaming to make its Death Attack stick.

So yeah, I'm saying if you want to make assassination and assassins a prominent part of your campaign Malrex, you should bravely monkey around with that dysfunctional piece of junk until it doesn't suck (for the players AND the DM) and throw it in an Appendix. Damn the RAW-people's cannons!

 

[squeen]

Comforting to know that that class is as much nerfed garbage in 1e as all the other editions.

And my concern was that it was too powerful...

 

[Malrex]

Well, that's one reason why I started this thread...I wanted to hear people's opinions about the class and how it could stop being garbage, but also not too powerful.
I'm hearing no alignment restrictions, sneak attack damage if assassination attempt is missed, hand-waved assassination table, sniper attack....

I may check out Exalted Deeds...I'd like to get a decent list of about 20 different poisons and their recipes. I've started adding alchemy recipes as loot and my players seem to dig that.

 

[Malrex]

found this on Dragonsfoot by quetzalcoatl:
1e Spy (revised Assassin)

Can be any non-Lawful alignment.

Assassinate ability reduced to Incapacitate (2e Mugging from Complete Thief's Handbook). If successful, target is rendered unconscious for 2d8 rounds.

Use of Poison reduced from "Yes" to "?".

Gains the Gather Information ability (per 2e Complete Thief's Handbook). Ability starts at 20% at 1st level and increases 5% per level up to 90% at 15th level. Can be combined with the Disguise ability to open up avenues of information gathering beyond just "underworld" contacts. A roll can either be used to indicate success or failure on a solo info gathering mission in lieu of role play, similar to Spying in the DMG, or to determine the quality/amount of information gained in a role play scenario (failure = low/avg, success = high).

Gains the ability to Find Secret/Concealed Doors/Compartments as an Elf or 1/2 Elf. If also an elf or 1/2 elf, chances to find increase by 1 in 6.

Otherwise, class abilities are as per the 1e Assassin.

 

[Two orcs]

ACKS (revised) assassin works great, it fights like a fighter (HD inbetween thief and fighter), sneaks and backstabs like a thief. Big difference is it has both the backstab of the thief, the weapons of the fighter, and the damage bonus on the fighter so even if setting up a backstab is something you do once or twice per session it really shines in those situations. With the ACKS cleave mechanic you can potentially kill an entire encounter in one round. Low AC (and no shield) means it doesn't outfight the fighter in straight up fights.

 

[Two orcs]

ACKS doesn't have an assassination table, but the assassination hijink accomplishes something similar. Assassin (and the elven assassin/mage nightblade class) may spend their downtime doing wetwork for money being able to off an NPC with a successful Hide in Shadows throw (various bonuses and penalties). This is what you send your henchmen or yourself to do at high level while the mage slaves away in his laboratory and the fighter recruits his army.

 

[Maynard]

Honestly,

What does the assassin supply that the thief cannot do? What does the assassination table provide that sneak attack doesn't? Everything associated with assassins: Poison, guilds, etc are just window dressing imo.

 

[Malrex]

ACKS (revised) assassin works great, it fights like a fighter (HD inbetween thief and fighter), sneaks and backstabs like a thief. Big difference is it has both the backstab of the thief, the weapons of the fighter, and the damage bonus on the fighter so even if setting up a backstab is something you do once or twice per session it really shines in those situations. With the ACKS cleave mechanic you can potentially kill an entire encounter in one round. Low AC (and no shield) means it doesn't outfight the fighter in straight up fights.

Almost sounds like a fighter/thief then.

 

[Malrex]

Honestly,

What does the assassin supply that the thief cannot do? What does the assassination table provide that sneak attack doesn't? Everything associated with assassins: Poison, guilds, etc are just window dressing imo.

Well the assassination table is more outright kill while backstab attack is just a bonus to damage. Not sure if sneak attack does anything different, I didn't go beyond 2e. But you are right in a sense, its like window dressing. Just like a paladin--is there anything really different that a paladin brings to the table that a cleric can't do?
I think it brings a different type of play for roleplaying purposes, but in an adventuring group--ya, not much.

 

[The1True]

I'd like to get a decent list of about 20 different poisons and their recipes.

Check out the 'Book of Vile Darkness' as well then. It's full of cool but utterly broken ideas.

 

[The1True]

ACKS (revised) assassin works great, it fights like a fighter (HD inbetween thief and fighter), sneaks and backstabs like a thief. Big difference is it has both the backstab of the thief, the weapons of the fighter, and the damage bonus on the fighter so even if setting up a backstab is something you do once or twice per session it really shines in those situations. With the ACKS cleave mechanic you can potentially kill an entire encounter in one round. Low AC (and no shield) means it doesn't outfight the fighter in straight up fights.

Sounds a bit like it renders the Thief redundant though?...