Interjection Games is proud to present its second base class built upon the "momentum" engine first described in the top 10 of 2015 nominee Master of Forms base class: the assassin! The best parts of momentum have been distilled down with their own little assassin twist, extra care has been taken to increase out-of-combat utility, and the very ability design of the class itself has been built to allow 18 distinct character archetypes without the need for actual archetypes!
What is "momentum?"
The momentum system is inspired by the ubiquitous combo point systems found wherever a rogue or rogue-like character gets plopped into an online game. Where combo point systems have only two categories of abilities, those that generate combo points and those that dump all combo points in one shot, momentum allows for more granularity in play by having abilities that dump one "combo point," abilities that dump two, abilities that dump three, and so on. Do you keep biding your time building your power, or do you launch into something scary-but-not-quite-terrifying because you're not at your maximum yet? Or do you just draw from the pool of emergency points you replenish each day?
This resource management minigame, as well as the little tricks momentum classes use to accelerate or break the momentum engine, makes every round of combat significantly more engaging than, "I full attack the ogre."
Fighters, for shame!
How does the assassin allow for 18 special snowflakes?
Upon taking 1st level in assassin, the player chooses two "hot," or combat-heavy, ability trees and two "cold," or out-of-combat-heavy, ability trees. With a few chances to dip outside of them, these ability trees represent a fairly hard lock on what that assassin will be able to do. The assassin's ability trees are:
Hot
Acupressure: Touch attack tricks meant to be used in place of your last attack of the round (because touches are easy to land)
Execution: Brutal tactics for the frontline fighter
Initiation: Subtle tactics for the sniper and ambusher
Magehunting: Steal magic, lock down mages, and hurl their own power back at them.
Cold
Infiltration: Equal parts parkour, mind tricks, and good ol' breaking and entering
Intuition: A sixth sense, a seventh, and maybe an eighth keep you safe.
Poison: Brew custom poisons at no cost to yourself, then make somebody miserable.
Product Features
The assassin base class
105 techniques in seven categories (see above)
19 feats
A modular design that doesn't need archetypes (good sales will mean more technique categories)
Momentum meets "ki" with some techniques drawing power from combat, some from a classic daily pool, and some that can take from both sources; versatility!
Product Availability
Fulfilled immediately.
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The Assassin for Pathfinder is Interjection Games’ version of the assassin concept but in base class form. Assassins have been part of D&D for a long time, since there was a class back in the day of D&D (Read my trivia section at the end for more history). Roguish classes have always had it rough, even with all the improvements over the years. Even with classes like the slayer from the controversial Advanced Classes Guide, or the Prestige Class in the core, (which do the Ezio well enough) one needs to wonder why we have yet another assassin class. Well, the concept is so broad and previous executions so focused (limited really) that there is always room for more. And, if you have, or at least read about, the Master of Forms by the same company and the wonders of its system, it is used here but retooled as to better represent the class concept.
What’s inside?
33 pages of content for 6 1/2 bucks (nice), which include:
-The Assassin base class, who here has an unusual chassis: medium BAB, good Fort and Ref saves, d8 HD, but only 4 skill points. They get a broad enough class skill list, but you have to think what you are going to focus on to know what skills you want/need. They are proficient in light armors, simple weapons and a fitting assortment of martial and exotic weapons. Apart from this basics, Assassins get sneak attack at a reduced rate than rogues (up to +7d6), and evasion. This is all well but expected. Where this Assassin truly shines is in its novel, unique tricks. They get to chose 4 assassination techniques at first level, coming from 2 broad types called Hot and Cold, which are further subdivided into Categories, kind of “schools”. Assassins are trained in 2 of hot and 2 cold schools, but can learn and use techniques from other schools at certain levels, albeit executing them (hehe) at reduced efficacy. They also learn the basic universal techniques of assassination, getting some toys to function properly even if you screw up during character creation. All techniques’ DCs are based on Int by the way.
Hot techniques are further divided in Acupressure, Execution, Initiation and Magehunting. They are the most similar to Master of Forms abilities, but instead of filling a Focus pool, opponents near the Assassin get their own Presence pool at 0, representing a kind of nervousness, dread and acknowledgement of their possible killer. This pool empties over time when out of the assassin’s range, based on his charisma. Cold techniques (divided into Infiltration, Intuition and Poison) are more traditional. They are fueled by a technique pool, but a lot are passive. Apart from active abilities, some are called lukewarm and can be fueled by either the presence pool of an opponent or the technique pool of an Assassin. There are also a couple techniques that don’t have a cost and passive and always active.
-Favored Class Bonus: As always, these cover the core races plus a few others, and they give abilities like extra-speed, extra poison points, higher DC vs. specific foes, a free alchemical weapon attack with a specific technique, extra hp after executing powerful techniques correctly, etc.
-Feats: This section include 19 feats. Many of them are specializations, with increased DCs, category-only pools, or increasing the spell stealing of magehunters. There are two techniques which lets you train others in the killing arts, although only for a short period of time, which is an awesome way to introduce the Assassin’s engine.
-Assassin Technique Summary: This a list of the categories’ techniques. You will notice that there are a few that require a certain class level, but beyond that, you don’t really have to mind anything else when choosing. The techniques are followed by their Presence change and a short description of their effects.
-Techniques: They are divided by category with 15 each (plus the Toxin Mixology base ability of the Poison Category), so if you add the 5 universal techniques you get a grand total of 111 different techniques! They are presented in a format similar to spells. After the name, the techniques mention if they are extraordinary or supernatural, followed by category, Pool compatibility (if they can be fueled by the technique pool), range, target, presence source, presence required, presence change, execution time, duration, and requirements (if any). Since there are tons of forms, I will cover one per category with no requirements at random. Reflex Trigger makes the target attack itself, Lacerate deals additional bleed damage, Steady Snipe increases your weapon’s range, Rattling Presence require target magic-users to succeed at concentration checks to cast high level spells with an extra cost to cast any spell, Kong Vault (actual name) lets you ignore some feet of difficult terrain per round, Anticipate makes the opponent provoke an attack of opportunity after targeting you with an attack or ability, and Bilious Edge transforms your poisoned blade into a magical and later aligned weapon. And these were only 7 random abilities available at first level! Just imagine the higher level abilities!
Of Note: The customization. The sheer amount of options at character creation, from race, feats, skills and even ability score arrangement, plus the choice of 4 categories and 4 techniques will make it very difficult to have similar assassins, so even if two players want to play one no biggie. The categories themselves are cool (intuition and acupressure are so ninja), but of course the magehunting is the dopest thematically. Finally, the out-of-combat presence of the assassin denotes an improved design ability of the author from the last “momentum” class, the Master of Forms, who outside of combat is not that good (better than fighters but that’s not saying much). Finally the Presence pool feels videogame-y in the best possible sense, and I will use poker chips under my minis to denote presence pools of enemies (which would be a bar over the enemies heads in most cases).
Anything wrong?: There skill points seem too low IMHO, but the fact that they need high Int to get the best DCs for their techniques mitigates this. The Poison category could use ranks in Craft (alchemy) instead of assassin levels, since this poison crafting is completely disconnected from standard rules. The name “categories” is too plain and it looks like a missed opportunity (traditions, schools, disciplines… some are taken but is better than “categories”), and in the technique entry they would look better (and save some space) as a school/subtype like spells do, for example: Rattling Presence (magehunting). Finally, the technique presentation sounds complex and looks worse on paper but are really easy once you play one or two combats; I think there may be a way to present the engine in a more player-friendly way. An example of this would be the pool compatibility and presence change for cold techniques, which by the way doesn’t interact with presence. Why not just a Technique pool cost entry that, if present along presence change, denotes a technique as “lukewarm”. This may seem like too much complaining but in fact, it’s quite the contrary.
What I want: As always with IG, more support. In this case, I was hoping the feats would let other poor stealthy classes to dabble in assassination, but they will have to retrain I guess LOL. Apart from this, magical items that interact with the many categories would rock. Also some crossover, how does a Monk, Ninja or Master of Forms archetypes (or tricks, talents, ki powers etc.) with some acupressure and intuition? An alchemist with poison? Also the author can read minds since there is a 4th cold category for interaction (that’s what my other wish saw).
What cool things did this inspire?: More than anything, this book inspired me to play a solo campaign, either as a player or gamemaster. While I have had games where all characters are ninjas or part of some sort of order, I think this class has enough oomph to do it, maybe increasing skill points and techniques per level. As a gamemaster, I have had the itch to make an adventure where the main enemy is an assassin, and I think IG’s assassin will be the one I chose. I want to see my player’s face when I describe how the guards start sweating, then trembling and suddenly the assassin strikes and delivers Tenchu to the poor blokes, and then the PCs start getting nervous themselves.
Do I recommend it?: Fans of games like Tenchu, Shinobido or Assassin Creed, and maybe even Metal Gear, will feel in Disneyland with this bad boy. Even if I had several disagreements with the nomenclature or the rules presentation, IG takes a concept nearly as old as the game and makes it fresher than the Fresh Prince (lord I’m old). So, 5 deadly poisonus stars.
Trivia: There have been assassins in D&D for a long time. Thieves themselves were not one of the first classes! After the first version of D&D, Thieves appeared in Supplement I (Greyhawk), and Assassins later in Supplement II (Blackmoor). Later on they were part of the core game in AD&D. Also for 1st edition, the Oriental Adventures book introduced the gestalt-y Ninja class, which let you play stealthy “Warriors”, “Wizards”, “Clerics” and extra-stealthy “Thieves” (I use quotation marks since these roles were called by another name in OA). Later for 2nd edition, Assassins (and Monks) didn’t appear as a base class until the dawn of that edition; they were, however, represented in the base Thief class via the “backstab” ability (which sucked), the base Ninja class found in the “Complete” series, and later as many “kits” (think archetypes). The best in this regard was the Holy Slayer kit in Arabian Adventures, which line included the Assassin Mountain boxed set, which rocked (try to get it even in electronic format, the fluff and art is amazing). In 3rd edition things got weird. Assassins became part rogues, part wizards (with spell book and all), as a Prestige Class, which later became a spontaneous caster in the 3.5 revision. There were many other base and prestige classes that stole the Death Attack of the Assassin Prestige Class. Finally, Pathfinder took out the nonsensical casting of the assassin and exchanged it for many flavorful abilities, my favorite being Angel of Death. After this, there have been many books trying to reinvent the wheel, but everything is from “kind of OK” to “very nice”, but nothing as awesome as this one.
Now, on the Magehunting category. There was a Spellthief base class in 3.5 D&D whose main shtick echoes in IG assassin, but before that we had the Spell Slayer kit for wizards, coming again from the awesome Al-Qadim game line for 2nd edition, specifically from the Sha’ir’s Handbook. Spell Slayers were wizard who didn’t cast spells, and instead gained many spell-like and supernatural abilities to counter wizard, their main ability being spellslay, which was similar but way more powerful than the Rattling Presence magehunting technique. The spellslay ability prevented wizards (maybe all arcane magic?) to cast and, depending on the saving throw result, lasted from hours, to days, to weeks!
This base class, commissioned via Interjection Games' patreon by Brandon Funderburgh, clocks in at 36 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 33 pages, so let's take a look!
An assassin-class? Another one? Why would anyone care? Well, there *IS* a reason and this one was crafted by Bradley Crouch, so I'll expect something rather unique here...so please continue reading. What does the assassin class get?
Chassis-wise, the class gains d8 HD, 4 + Int skills per level, 3/4 BAB-progression, good Fort- and Ref-save progression and proficiency with simple weapons, blade boot, hand crossbow, katana, kukri, rapier, sap, scimitar, short sword, shortbow (including composite), shuriken and wakizashi as well as light armor. The class begins play with sneak attack +1d6 and increases sneak attack damage by +1d6 every 3 levels thereafter. As a minor nitpick, the table lacks the "+" before sneak attack, but is at least consistent in that regard. 2nd level nets evasion, just fyi.
The first defining aspect of the assassin class would be assassin techniques - the class begins play with 4 of them and learns a new one each level, up to 23 at 20th level. Techniques have two categories, "hot" and "cold" techniques and a save Dc of 10 + 1/2 class level + Int-mod, if applicable. Unless stated otherwise, only one technique per round may be executed. Hot techniques interact with Presence: An assassin begins play with the ability to exploit emotions and instinctive reflexes of targets - and uses them to accomplish deeds otherwise impossible. When a non-allied creature approaches within 60 feet of the assassin, the creature gains a presence pool, which can hold a maximum of 4 presence points and the pools are lost when a creature leaves the 60 ft. range for the assassin's Cha-mod minutes. Techniques modify the presence pool and can increase or decrease the presence pool of the creature in question. Thus, hot techniques have a presence source, which is usually single target (affecting the presence pool of a single foe); the more fantastic techniques have a certain presence required and they sport a presence change that modifies the presence points of the affected foe.
In contrast to hot techniques, cold techniques do NOT modify the presence pool and instead modify the assassin's technique pool. The assassin gains technique pool points equal to class level + Int-mod. These points replenish after 8 hours. These cold techniques ignore the presence required and presence change entries. They are paid from the technique pool and cost a number of points equal to the presence change. Finally, there are "lukewarm" techniques that may be executed as either hot or cold techniques. If that sounds complicated, rest assured that it really isn't once you've read the pdf.
Each of the two technique types also has 4 categories, which could be likened to schools - for hot techniques, we get acupressure, execution, initiation and magehunting, while cold techniques encompass infiltration (not properly italicized), intuition and poison. A system of this versatility does look like it could suffer from not having the necessary ease of building, but the class has a total of 5 universal techniques hard-wired in the class: At 1st level, studying a target can net you a presence change (and this one can be used in conjunction with other techniques). Later, creatures with HD equal to 1/2 assassin HD or less, you may reduce the presence pool of such a foe down to 0 and net you a temporary technique pool against the target, allowing for relatively quick dispatching of mooks. At 8th level, at the end of your turn, a nearby creature with 0 presence gets +1 presence (at 20th level all creatures are affected). 12th level lets you reduce a target's presence to 0, but also execute + 1 technique this round and 14th level nets you a luck bonus versus creatures with a presence pool that increases at 18th level.
As always, we get favored class options for aasimar, drow, hobgoblins, kitsune, kobold, orc, puddling, tiefling, vanara, vishkanya and core races and the class comes with almost 20 new feats for the class - beyond the obligatory increase of the technique pool, the feats allow for absolutely impressive, creative operations: Adding presence to adjacent foes after using an execution technique, retaining more stolen spells spells, spells as SPs... but there is more to be found: For example teaching an ally technique pools and the basics of assassination for 24 hours! Absolutely awesome and may be expanded! Gaining the option to add presence in surprise rounds is neat indeed. Have I mentioned gaining an infiltration technique. These feats allow for unique gambits, daily limit tricks, passive and active tricks - all in all an inspired set-up!
So, let's take a look at the technique lists! Structure-wise, we have the majority of techniques sans prerequisites, level 4, 6 and 8 as further prerequisite-levels and the techniques are listed by specialization and prereq-level in handy tables for your convenience. Let's start with the hot techniques: Acupressure techniques allow you to cause foes to drop objects, deafen or blind them or force them to move - basically, it takes all those cool chakra control and acupressure tropes we know from Easterns, WuXia movies and anime and codifies them as cool tricks.
Execution is awesome as well - Take the eponymous execute technique: It requires 4 presence, but deals damage to the target equal to the damage taken so far, max 1d6 per level, allowing you to finish off critters with awesome precision. I have never seen an ability that takes this concept actually work - here it does. Impressive. Nasty debuffs, bleeding wounds and adding feints combine brutal end-game attacks and set-ups. Awesome and absolutely glorious. Initiation allows for sniping: Instant throwing knives, disarming shots...oh, and what about hitting a target and then causing its actions to damage the target? That is mechanically intriguing and the sniping tricks work perfectly for Hitman-style assassins - get your inner 47 on!
Magehunting is similarly awesome and something I mentioned before: Spell-pilfering, penalized CLs, better saves, making homunculi from mages slain (!!!), dispel magic or copy spells you saved against - this one technique officially makes the assassin my favorite take on the anti-mage killer/ (slightly) arcane trickster trope ever.
Cold techniques are nothing to sneeze at either: Quicker movement, instant Kip Up, leaping through difficult terrain, walking up walls, blending with crowds: Infiltration makes you the badass secret agent/killer the assassin should be.
Once again taking the tropes of the Eastern/WuXia/tropes associated with mystic assassins, Intuition is all about preternatural awareness with lie detector tricks by touch, store d20s to later use (and even share with allies) - the tricks here go far beyond what we usually see and are creative, different and simply impressive. Finally, poison specialization autogrants poison mixology, which nets you daily, highly customable poisons as a basic framework that is used by all techniques, featuring additional doses, the option to drink poisons to heal (!!!) and squirt it from your eyeballs (!!!!) at foes. Making lethargic liquids to impose increasingly powerful conditions on foes...absolutely amazing.
Conclusion:
Editing and formatting are very good - while I noticed some formal hiccups, these never impede the rules-language, which is impeccably precise, as we've come to expect from Bradley Crouch. Layout adheres to Interjection Games' two-column b/w-standard and the pdf sports solid stock art. The pdf comes with basic bookmarks, but does not feature bookmarks for the individual techniques.
OH MY GAWD. Sorry, I can't contain myself here. I read this and liked it. I tested it and loved it. I picked it apart and truly adored it. I saw it and thought "Great, yet ANOTHER assassin class." Don't be fooled. I am NOT kidding when I'm saying that:
A) This plays incredibly well, allowing for all the things that assassins were always supposed to do.
B) From all the classes and takes on the concept I know of, none even comes remotely close to this class in versatility and, more importantly, in the category of fun.
C) I have literally not seen about 90% of the tricks this class has before, and when I have seen one before, it was usually the one truly impressive trick of a class, not one among the vast numbers of unique options.
The momentum and point engines interact absolutely beautifully and the math framework is a beauty to behold if you pen it down: You have the passives, the set-ups, the daily tricks, a vast assortment of customization feats and, on a whole, truly different focuses in the specializations - each of them alone can make for glorious playing experiences, but mixing and matching is even cooler. With a ton of options in combat and beyond, this class is simply one of the best, most rewarding and unique playing experiences I know of for Pathfinder. It perfectly takes the much-maligned and often sucky trope of the assassin and makes it work perfectly, flawlessly and awesome for the first time in PFRPG.
Whether you want to play Assassin's Creed, Ninja's Scroll, Raj' Al-Ghul's killers, Codename 47 or any combination of these guys - this delivers and oh boy, do I want MORE!
This class may quite literally be my very favorite class from the pen of Bradley Crouch; it's that good. Let me reiterate: Even among his unique roster of classes, this stands out far above and beyond in concept and execution. It finally gives the superb concept of the assassin the proper due it deserves and actually has replaced the swordmaster as my favorite non-spellcaster class. Easy to grasp, with a glorious playing experience, this is a must-own class, one of the best classes out there and well worth a final verdict of 5 stars, my seal of approval and is a candidate for my Top ten of 2016. Oh, and it is from now on my go-to class for assassins and thus gets my EZG Essential tag.
How often do you figure the presence pool on other characters fluctuate? I'm guessing it pretty much goes up or down every round (depending on your techniques and play style) but is usually limited to few targets. Unless you are causing status effects and want to move from one target to the other fast.
I'm unleashing a level 7 assassin on my party in the near future, but haven't started on him yet - I'm still on the wondering and planning stage. So that question came to mind, how to keep tabs on the presence pools.
Long story short, I made some presence tokens. 9 sets of 4, each with a different color. Way too many, but just enough to fill a paper sheet.
Another very concise and awesome review Thilo - really explains the mechanics very well, and inspires me to play the class. And, as always, well done IG/Bradley Crouch - proving that mechanic innovation is eminently possible, and in my case, preferable to boring!!!
