This class gets all kinds of hate. Is it just the fact that a straight rogue can fill the same archetype better? Is it that there's no real game play need for the class, or that it makes for boring game play, or what? Is it any good as a strictly NPC class?
The death attack DCs are too low to be useful. The death attack is very circumstantial and hard to pull off in a group. Most of the assassin's abilities just are not very useful for the average adventurer. The rogue is just better in almost every way.
Of course the Ninja will be better than the rogue.
Three rounds of waiting before you can use your main class feature and if the person has a good perception (ya know when your moving up to attack your stealth is crap) then it doesn't work.
How could you possibly use it?
First thing, there is a weapon enchant in 3.5 that increases the DC on the death attack. I would makes something like that. A +1 enchant that lets you add your weapon's enhancement bonus to your death attack DC. With a bane weapon, that could get pretty nasty.
Poison - Poison is really expensive if you want anything that is halfway decent. Alchemists make better poison users because they can craft poisons. Assassin needs a little love in the poison area.
Give them something like the ranger(skirmisher)'s combat tricks. I like that they removed the spells from assassin's but they really feel like they are lacking now.
Had a guy once who made a Pathfinder Assassin. Got to level 6, waited three adventures to get the opportunity to death attack something ... then rolled a natural one. The next adventure, we ran into a bunch of Allips and he got wisdom-drained down to zero and turned into one before we could do anything to help him.
Had a guy once who made a Pathfinder Assassin. Got to level 6, waited three adventures to get the opportunity to death attack something ... then rolled a natural one. The next adventure, we ran into a bunch of Allips and he got wisdom-drained down to zero and turned into one before we could do anything to help him.
Man... this just makes me wanna cry.
Is the class really that bad?
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This class gets all kinds of hate. Is it just the fact that a straight rogue can fill the same archetype better? Is it that there's no real gameplay need for the class, or that it makes for boring gameplay, or what? Is it any good as a strictly NPC class?
Keep all their abilities and give them back spells and they'll STILL be weak, given the power boost every other class received. Assassin was one of the few classes actually reduced in power by Pathfinder (IMO, of course), since pretty much all the new abilities they obtained piggyback off their pitiful-DC death attack ability.
Had a guy once who made a Pathfinder Assassin. Got to level 6, waited three adventures to get the opportunity to death attack something ... then rolled a natural one. The next adventure, we ran into a bunch of Allips and he got wisdom-drained down to zero and turned into one before we could do anything to help him.Man... this just makes me wanna cry.
Is the class really that bad?
Indeed it is true...I recently played one in a campaign to level 10...tried a few times to land a DA. No luck whatsoever. I was detected every time...and then you will often find yourself frustrated by the 3 rounds you spent trying to set it up. Yes I am aware that its easier to setup outside of combat. Opportunity never presented itself though.
Yeah, bring back the magic. I always though that made the class worthwhile.
Otherwise, you might as well stick to your original class and just say you're an assassin. Being an assassin basically means you do wet-work. You can do that as almost any class (Paladins might have a problem with it)
So without anything interesting speaking for the class and the fact that unless you are suffering from OCD (and need to take levels in assassin to call yourself one, instead of just saying you're an assassin), you can be an assassin without the class, it is quite unnecessary.
Assassins need spells. Without the ability to turn invisible without blowing all your money on potions makes things way too difficult to land those DAs.
On the bright side, Ability Focus (death attack) will help you boost the DC up by 2. Don't forget that. I'd look into having a magic item made that would boost it by another one or two.
Eyes of the Eagle (perception +5) should be purchased ASAP in order to get that as beefed as much as possible too. You can also spend another 7500gp to have it upgraded to a +10 when you can. If you can scout out and get the drop on your enemies before encounters start, you can kick off the battles with a death attack.
If you have to go core on the assassin, a Ring of Invisibility needs to make it's way in your hands earlier than normal. Make it your early on quest to find and kill someone who owns one.
Creative Director
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Anyone looking for a spellcasting assassin prestige class need look no further than the Inner Sea World Guide and the Red Mantis Assassin prestige class.
As for the assassin prestige class itself... I've always kind of thought of it as better served in the role of an NPC villain, honestly. They work pretty well in that regard.
Anyone looking for a spellcasting assassin prestige class need look no further than the Inner Sea World Guide and the Red Mantis Assassin prestige class.
As for the assassin prestige class itself... I've always kind of thought of it as better served in the role of an NPC villain, honestly. They work pretty well in that regard.
All my pcs have good perception and if not a decent one and a good fortitude save, they are all but immune to death attack.
Anyone looking for a spellcasting assassin prestige class need look no further than the Inner Sea World Guide and the Red Mantis Assassin prestige class.
You know, I was going to say what it would take to make the assassin good would be turning into mantises. And that wouldn't make them good so much as cool.
I think RMA is a little weak too, honestly, but at least it oozes high octane pure awesome style.
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I'd say tear it to bits and turn it into a rogue archetype or series of rogue feats or talents.
I welcomed the change to a non-casting prestige class for the assassin. It makes vastly more sense to me; and all the spells the assassin really needs are covered in level 1 (or at most level 2) potions (say a higher caster level vanish or invisibility). Exactly what I'd expect from a real assassin.
The prestige class works really well for villains (we had a nasty ambush of six assassins getting the drop on us in Council of Thieves the other night).
The death attack DC is low initially, but exactly on par at level 5 assassin (e.g. rogue 5/assassin 5) and is well beyond expected DCs when the assassin is fully leveled at level 10 (rogue 5/assassin 10).
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I have never really looked very hard at the DC problem for DA, but for both flavor and a bit of utility/power I would suggest adding, rather than spells, alchemist-style extracts ala The Witcher. The ability to provide one's own invisibility, silence, darkness, spider climb, etc would probably help make up the power difference.
I'd say tear it to bits and turn it into a rogue archetype or series of rogue feats or talents.
This. And, you know, ninja is quite similar :)
To be fair, the original purpose of PrCs wasn't for character options or optimization arms race. They were meant for NPCs who you needed to overspecialize. Stalwart Defender, Assassin, Master Spy, all cripplingly overspecialized. Useful as NPCs, because they're really good at what they do, but lame as PCs (IMO), because what they do doesn't come up much. The neat thing about this, is you can make something using PrCs that would be TERRIBLE as a PC, but is actually rather fearsome as an NPC.
Even with the save DC problem, I rather like a Shadowdancer/Assassin I have. Hide in plain sight, observe for 3 rounds ->Shadow Jump->Death Attack-> Disappear into the NIGHT.
To be fair, it can be kind of awkward doing all that setup for a plot device and having the attack fail, but that's why you have to have contingencies. *shrug*
But yeah, the PCs aren't usually concerned with making sure NPCs are really, really dead, but if you want a PC to stay dead (or require significant effort to return), that's the point of it. It's not BAD, it's just not FOR players...
Edit: Admittedly, presenting it in a book chock-full of player options (unlike the 3.0 Assassin's debut in the DMG) isn't very good form, but they had to put it SOMEWHERE (Not to mention that all the basic Gamemastery stuff is in the Core book for PF, and a bunch of neat peripheral stuff occupies the GMG)
Ah well.
This class gets all kinds of hate. Is it just the fact that a straight rogue can fill the same archetype better? Is it that there's no real gameplay need for the class, or that it makes for boring gameplay, or what? Is it any good as a strictly NPC class?
I'd say one thing that would make the Assassin better is to make Death Attack work on ranged attacks within 30 ft. Other than that, it's a matter of utilizing entirely too many circumstances than you can expect to use a core class feature. Another change I'd make is to have DA function if the target does not perceive you as a threat, even if they are aware of your presence. This could make for a much, MUCH more versatile tool in RP non-combat settings.
JJ states it well regarding the RMA as a replacement, particularly since Prayer Attack virtually guarantees a higher SoD DC than Death Attack AND it's dependent on the target seeing you and being fascinated. Yes, the fascinate DC is not amazing. It's basically like making DA saves against Will rather than Fort, and you can be foiled by your party. Alternatively, you could be aided by your party if they somehow fascinate the target for you, but the target gets repeated saves, then, while you approach.
I really do like the Assassin, but the simple fact is that it is a very, very easy class to marginalize due to the Death Attack restrictions.
To be fair, the original purpose of PrCs wasn't for character options or optimization arms race. They were meant for NPCs who you needed to overspecialize.
... according to who? That's really not the impression I've gotten from things I've read from the 3E original design team.
It was the class that seems to have been intended mainly for NPC use. It's a lot easier to set this situation up as an NPC vs PC attack. Or as part of a staged event where you start things off by getting a notable NPC killed.Three rounds of waiting before you can use your main class feature and if the person has a good perception (ya know when your moving up to attack your stealth is crap) then it doesn't work.
How could you possibly use it?
You mean where the npc assassain sneaks up watches my party leaps out to attack (destroying his stealth bonus) and someone makes their perception check and yells "enemy!!!" Leaving the assassain stuck in a group of PC's? Oh no what ever will I do.
If he is invisible he is probably using an expendable and could have just pumped us full of poison in the first place. If the assassain still had their own spells then yeah under contrived circumstance the wizard would get ganked (no one hears the spell, the wizard isnt flying, no one is in the assassains way) which is a pretty lame way to die that the DM could do to the wizard whenever he ticked him off.
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As Mr. Salvatore said when he was told that he would have to do away with Artemis Entreri in his stories when Assassin was removed as a class back in the day "[paraphrased, mind you]But he's not an assassin, he's a fighter-theif who takes money to kill people!"
Whoever told him that he'd have to kill Artemis because the the class wouldn't be a class any more was a total idiot.
Bob realised that while the rules change, the characters don't have to. Some class or race goes away as a core choice? No need to kill off everyone who had that class. Unlike the rules have been taken over by someone who has no idea what they're doing, the character should still be perfectly doable with the new core.
The only reason I can see for that to be impossible is when the character used some really weird and exotic stuff even in the old edition. Then you still won't have to kill him off - just wait for the proper material to arrive before putting stats to the character (something that isn't really necessary for novel characters in the first place)
I'm going to say that to make it a good class it needs to lose the fluff only "kill someone for no other reason" entry requirement and the alignment restriction.
Not in Pathfinder. The assassin PrC has a very specific role: It's for people who contract themselves out as murderers. That is, by definition, evil, at least in Pathfinder.
They could do away with that fluff restriction, but the alignment restriction can't go.
True Death is the only way I know of for a non-caster to kill someone dead with any real expectation of them staying that way if they have value and friends or superiors or cohorts with resources. That is critical to so many concepts it should be at first level so a dip can get it.
Again, not in Pathfinder. Pathfinder assumes that access to powerful magic and the willingness to spend a considerable amount of gold will enable you to undo death.
Note that the ability to kill someone is someone everyone basically gets at level 1. Every character can murder another character so nobody can get him back without magic.
To get someone back from the dead, you'll need, at the very least, a 9th-level cleric and 5000 gil in diamond dust. Now if you go by the guidelines for things like power level, a 9th-level cleric isn't something you'll run across at every street corner. You'll probably need a city.
That means the killers already have a 8 level head start (and you don't necessarily need anything special to do kill, either).
And note that even this relatively powerful priest doesn't have a carte blanche: He only has 1 day per caster level to do his magic or the spell won't work, the guy cannot have been turned into an undead creature, and the body must be whole. (And available).
So you have several options: Hide the body until the time has run out. Or just destroy it. Use a death effect (The most extreme option (turning the guy into an undead creature) can be accomplished by a 5th-level cleric, and the rest isn't that hard to do - it takes a bit of effort, but there is no hard level limit for it.
One nasty way to prevent a raise dead from working is make sure it doesn't stick: stick needles into all kinds of necessary organs. The spell doesn't get rid of them, so the guy comes back just to die again in agony (unless someone notices the needles).
All that means that in order to foil stuff everyone with a bit of time on his hands can do to a corpse, you'll need a twice as much diamond dust and a 13th-level cleric to cast resurrection - and if 9th-level clerics aren't exactly common, 13th-level ones are outright scarce.
And the fun part? Even then, you need at least a little piece of the guy (and it must have been part of him at the time of death - though the dust left behind by disintegrate counts). So a killer who knows what he's doing will kill the guy, make sure he won't leave any part of his victim's body behind, and even that 13th-level priest is useless. Maybe abduct the guy and then kill him, or thoroughly clean the crime scene.
If you want to foil that kind of stuff, you'll need 25 kgil worth of diamond dust and a cleric of at least 17th-level. According to the power level guidelines, there are no more than a handful of those on any given continent (and some of them will probably not want to help you).
I don't see how this is critical to any concept. Making it easy to completely negate core abilities of the cleric class would be bad design. And, as I just showed, making it hard to get someone able to bring the guy back isn't exactly hard.
Assassination is not just for evil people
Oh yes it is. It totally is.
The Assassin PrC is simply not someone who has learned to stealthily kill someone else. It's for contract killers.
and for all but the most self isolated targets you can't do it without True Death.
Really? Except for some loners who live in a cave, every single person in your games has the resources to get an experienced (maybe very experienced) cleric to bring him back?
If so, you're operating way off the Pathfinder Guidelines, and the game doesn't cater to you. You'll need to think things through and adjust everything by yourself.
Even those perceived as crazed tyrants usually have people riding their coat tails who know they can't succeed them and want to keep them alive.
However, not all of them will have a cleric of level 9 or higher around. Fewer of them will have a cleric of level 13 or higher at their beck and call. Only very few will have a cleric 17.
I welcomed the change to a non-casting prestige class for the assassin. It makes vastly more sense to me
Well, the assassin doesn't really make sense. It's really easy to play that without any PrC. The old assassin PrC at least brought a little twist to the table. The new class doesn't really have anything I'd consider worth losing those nice rogue abilities for.
Do you know what book that adding weapons enhancement bonus is in?First thing, there is a weapon enchant in 3.5 that increases the DC on the death attack. I would makes something like that. A +1 enchant that lets you add your weapon's enhancement bonus to your death attack DC. With a bane weapon, that could get pretty nasty.
Poison - Poison is really expensive if you want anything that is halfway decent. Alchemists make better poison users because they can craft poisons. Assassin needs a little love in the poison area.
Give them something like the ranger(skirmisher)'s combat tricks. I like that they removed the spells from assassin's but they really feel like they are lacking now.
That is a homebrew enchantment I came up with. I got the idea from a weapon I saw somewhere in 3.0 module that added +2 to assassin death attack DCs. I don't remember where it came from though.
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That is a homebrew enchantment I came up with. I got the idea from a weapon I saw somewhere in 3.0 module that added +2 to assassin death attack DCs. I don't remember where it came from though.Do you know what book that adding weapons enhancement bonus is in?First thing, there is a weapon enchant in 3.5 that increases the DC on the death attack. I would makes something like that. A +1 enchant that lets you add your weapon's enhancement bonus to your death attack DC. With a bane weapon, that could get pretty nasty.
Poison - Poison is really expensive if you want anything that is halfway decent. Alchemists make better poison users because they can craft poisons. Assassin needs a little love in the poison area.
Give them something like the ranger(skirmisher)'s combat tricks. I like that they removed the spells from assassin's but they really feel like they are lacking now.
assassians dagger its in the core book
What would make the Assassin PrC good? Simple. Actual class features. True Death and Angel of Death are not class features. They are plot handwaves. Quiet Death and Swift Death are kinda nice, but intensely situational. The rest, besides Death Attack, are stuff a Rogue already gets, and often does better, with far greater versatility. As it stands, there is no reason, if you want an assassin, not to just make a straight rogue.
Whoever told him that he'd have to kill Artemis because the the class wouldn't be a class any more was a total idiot.As Mr. Salvatore said when he was told that he would have to do away with Artemis Entreri in his stories when Assassin was removed as a class back in the day "[paraphrased, mind you]But he's not an assassin, he's a fighter-theif who takes money to kill people!"
Actually, they told him Artemis would have to die because the Avatar Trilogy included a bit where every assassin in FR was killed by deific magic. Obviously, if every assassin in the world is killed off, any assassins in stories set in that world has to die, too.
The stupidity, of course, was in including that insanity in the Avatar Trilogy, instead of giving people simple conversion notes for 2nd Edition. But the people in charge of the Forgotten Realms learned their lesson from the mistakes made in the 1e-2e transition and didn't blow up the world for the 2e-3e transition. And we all lived happily ever after. The End.
But the people in charge of the Forgotten Realms learned their lesson from the mistakes made in the 1e-2e transition and didn't blow up the world for the 2e-3e transition. And we all lived happily ever after. The End.
I see what you did there!
why not increase the dc of the death attack wouldn't that make it a bit better?
To be fair, the original purpose of PrCs wasn't for character options or optimization arms race. They were meant for NPCs who you needed to overspecialize.... according to who? That's really not the impression I've gotten from things I've read from the 3E original design team.
According to the section on prestige classes in the 3rd edition Dungeon Master's guide...
why not increase the dc of the death attack wouldn't that make it a bit better?
I'm gonna be honest, I've never seen a successful death attack in the first place, the DC has only been relevant once.
why not increase the dc of the death attack wouldn't that make it a bit better?I'm gonna be honest, I've never seen a successful death attack in the first place, the DC has only been relevant once.
I had an NPC use it very effectively against the familiar of a wizard that had, ironically, been left behind in the chambers of city hall for safety reasons while the party went plane-hopping. Of course, maybe they shouldn't have left the handy haversack holding the artifact there to be guarded by the familiar :)
In any case, I've always viewed Assassin as an NPC class. But then again, I'm one of those people who Will Not Run evil games.
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This class gets all kinds of hate. Is it just the fact that a straight rogue can fill the same archetype better? Is it that there's no real gameplay need for the class, or that it makes for boring gameplay, or what? Is it any good as a strictly NPC class?
Does there need to be more of a reason than 'Rogue can fill it better'? I mean my god, look at the Roue - he is considered a red headed step-child to many because he is an underpowered class of limited use....and he is BETTER than the assassin?!
Essentially you would need to rewrite the entire class to make it better.
You can start by removing that crazy alignment restriction.
According to the section on prestige classes in the 3rd edition Dungeon Master's guide...To be fair, the original purpose of PrCs wasn't for character options or optimization arms race. They were meant for NPCs who you needed to overspecialize.... according to who? That's really not the impression I've gotten from things I've read from the 3E original design team.
I really don't remember that.
Now you're going to make me dig in the basement for my 3.0 DMG...
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Specialization is usually a good thing. However, many of the prestige classes are extremely specialized in very narrow fields.
An extreme example is a prestige class that is great Spellcraft, but it can't take advantage of that knowledge beyond identification of it. Or like an underwater fighting specialist. The other thing is that none of these classes are uber at their specialized task either. If the assassin was actually extremely good at killing, it still could fit. But as it is, it's not better at doing it's job than a rogue with the right build.
assassians dagger its in the core bookThat is a homebrew enchantment I came up with. I got the idea from a weapon I saw somewhere in 3.0 module that added +2 to assassin death attack DCs. I don't remember where it came from though.Do you know what book that adding weapons enhancement bonus is in?First thing, there is a weapon enchant in 3.5 that increases the DC on the death attack. I would makes something like that. A +1 enchant that lets you add your weapon's enhancement bonus to your death attack DC. With a bane weapon, that could get pretty nasty.
Poison - Poison is really expensive if you want anything that is halfway decent. Alchemists make better poison users because they can craft poisons. Assassin needs a little love in the poison area.
Give them something like the ranger(skirmisher)'s combat tricks. I like that they removed the spells from assassin's but they really feel like they are lacking now.
That's it. I made an enchantment out of that, and bumped the bonus up to a +2 in my campaign. So the mechanic is there, it just needs to be beefed up a bit.