Ok so its 7am, havnt slept in over 24 hours, am bored, and have one nagging question.
WHY DO ASSASSINS NEED TO BE EVIL? ok if ur a hired killer doing it cuz ur good at it and u like gold, fine, ur evil. But what about assassins that kill for a just cause? Assassins that have a purpose other than murder? Why cant i make a lawful good assassin and only use the death attack to paralyze and he takes a vow of non violence? It irritates me because i want to make an assassin for PFS...but no evil so that idea kinda gets blown up. And even if u ARE a killer for hire slaying people for cold hard cash why is it that players look at u funny if ur assassin character saves a child or pets a kitten? does being evil mean that i automaticaly hate puppies and eat babies? As a cold kilelr i only do ONE evil act, murder(presumably) and even then maybe ur character only takes contracts to kill people who harm others. its just, an annoyance when i tell the gm, "i wana play a rogue-1/bard(dervish)-5/assassin-1/master spy-x, and he tells me, "u cant be evil"...
if you're neutral, love puppies, and suddenly kill some people for money, become evil. This does not mean you have to punch puppies and children all of a sudden.
If the GM judges you evil, you can keep acting as you did, the alignment reflects what you do, not the other way around.
Assassins being evil seems to be in the lore, they kill for money. They may have ideals, but ultimately, they kill for money.
Ninjas should do the same job just fine (if not a lot better).
if you want to play an assassin in PFS that's tough luck, in any other scenario a GM would probably tell you that's it's fine to play a neutral assassin.
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Being a gun for hire isn't the same thing as being an Assassin. If the church wants someone who can investigate a matter that needs to be taken care of discretely, they send in an Inquisitor.
Assassins are the people you hire when you want someone dead, and you need them to stay dead. As an Assassin, you need to have a certain disregard for the sanctity of sentient life, which is where the evil comes in. Assassins are they guys hired to kill political figures. If you're hired to kill a crime lord, it's probably by a criminal organization, as "good guys" typically don't hire assassins for that kind of thing.
Now, does that mean Assassin characters have to be jerks? Absolutely not. You can pet children and save kittens just fine. However, part of being an Assassin (in the context of Pathfinder) means killing in cold blood.
flaw of of the game with raw
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Let explain it in a quote:
The Operative: I'm sorry. If your quarry goes to ground, leave no ground to go to. You should have taken my offer. Or did you think none of this was your fault?
Mal: I don't murder children.
The Operative: I do. If I have to.
Mal: Why? Do you even know why they sent you?
The Operative: It's not my place to ask. I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Mal: So me and mine gotta lay down and die... so you can live in your better world?
The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there... any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.
I suppose my frustration is more on the DM then with the rule. He seems to be under the impression that a lawful evil assassin will just be killing off the party and causing havoc. Or the players feel i might betray them, and that is not how i would play an adventuring assassin. My character wouldn't take many kill contracts at all, mostly infiltration and that sort of thing. he would act as more of an unseen diplomat behind the curtains Using poisons to incapacitate, not kill, his death attack to paralyze and not murder. Think more of a Burn Notice type figure, killing only when it is unavoidable. Even in home campaigns i get weird looks at playing an Assassin, when our "mercenary" fighter gets to mug people, intimidate them for more money, and kills indiscriminately if a random NPC hurts his feelings by telling him that hes a bad person. Apparently the fighter is Chaotic Neutral, and my above example is an unforgivable evil that must be washed from Golarion.
Ok so its 7am, havnt slept in over 24 hours, am bored, and have one nagging question.
I'm not saying I have an answer for you, but don't be afraid to get a good night's sleep :)
I suppose my frustration is more on the DM then with the rule. He seems to be under the impression that a lawful evil assassin will just be killing off the party and causing havoc. Or the players feel i might betray them, and that is not how i would play an adventuring assassin. My character wouldn't take many kill contracts at all, mostly infiltration and that sort of thing. he would act as more of an unseen diplomat behind the curtains Using poisons to incapacitate, not kill, his death attack to paralyze and not murder. Think more of a Burn Notice type figure, killing only when it is unavoidable. Even in home campaigns i get weird looks at playing an Assassin, when our "mercenary" fighter gets to mug people, intimidate them for more money, and kills indiscriminately if a random NPC hurts his feelings by telling him that hes a bad person. Apparently the fighter is Chaotic Neutral, and my above example is an unforgivable evil that must be washed from Golarion.
CN =/= CE
I'm just sayin'.
(Specifically, I'm saying that the behavior you describe does not match with "chaotic neutral" so much as "chaotic evil".)
EDIT:
Ok so its 7am, havnt slept in over 24 hours, am bored, and have one nagging question.I'm not saying I have an answer for you, but don't be afraid to get a good night's sleep :)
Also.
I'll agree with Dodger; if your GM has a good imagination, and trusts you not to abuse it, it might be a fun inclusion to his game.
I'm reminded of Remo and Chiun of Warren and Murphy's The Destroyer series, later made into Remo, The Adventure Begins for the big screen. In it, Remo is a good, decent guy who gets majorly shafted and left for dead, only to be recruited by an impossibly secret agency to assassinate the enemies of the U.S. He's trained by Chiun, "the Master of Sinanju" (who would probably hunt me down and kill me for putting that in quotes, no doubt) the reigning master of an elite assassin organization that has served kings and queens dating back to ancient Greece (I think). In the series, Remo isn't exactly LAWFUL, but IS a good person, even as he lays out the bodycount using little more than his fingers and nearby furniture.
SO...I think a LG assassin could work, within a certain context. Go watch the movie with your GM, is my suggestion.
Reading your post is just painful. Please, for the love of those whom you want to help you... learn how to spell and punctuate. You're not texting your tween friends here.
I really hope you don't mean me! (I don't believe so, but please do let me know!) I do attempt to use proper punctuation, over-all, regardless of my use of very silly colloquialisms (or "slang", as the young ones call it nowadays). Please let me know if the affected aesthetic offends your sensibilities!
I strongly suspect you mean the OP, and, in that case, I concur, but it may help to clarify!
Anywho.
Assassins in D&D and its variants and versions do not have to be evil if the DM has an imagination. If the GM regards the class as a /skill set/ it's all good. Ultimately, paladins and assassins are doing the same thing. Killing monsters and people and taking their stuff.
4E handles the relationship between alignment and class very nicely, by not dealing with it. A class is a skill set, it's what you /can/ do. It's not WHY you do it.
A chaotic evil paladin is a tough fighter with some healing abilities. The story might require adherence to some strict moral code of... not letting people tell you what to do and exploiting the weak whenever it's possible (or fun).
Soldiers could be said to kill for money. Generally, they're not doing it for community service. It's their job. The military gives them tools and skills to kill people and break things. Likewise, wizard schools teach people how to engulf other people in flames. Clerics learn how to crush skulls.
Tell your DM that you won't be evil. You're playing a striker, much like a rogue or ranger. The name of the powers is fluff. Don't call it Death Strike, call it backstab.
While I agree with your premise (that, at its core, a class is a skill set) I do not agree with any number of philosophical conceits, in both terms of gameplay, and reality, that you espouse in this post.
THAT SAID, I believe what you're ultimately saying is:
if your GM has a good imagination, and trusts you not to abuse it, it might be a fun inclusion to his game.
That, I agree with. Also, I'll note, again, that if your "fighter" is called chaotic neutral, and happens to...
mug people, intimidate them for more money, and kills indiscriminately if a random NPC hurts his feelings by telling him that hes a bad person
... than he isn't chaotic neutral, and your group needs to take a hard look at enforcing alignments (as in, they already don't enforce alignments, so they might want to throw the restrictive part of the mechanic out the window and use it as a descriptor alone, save for certain classes inherently tied to an alignment by virtue of being tied to specific deities, ala clerics, druids, paladins, and blackguards - which have been replaced by "antipalidins", in Pathfinder).
Also, I like Owly's post.
What I don't understand is why classes are still built around the idea that they have to give you prepackaged motives and goals. Why can't we just have classes for mechanical purposes to make the character concept we want?
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I'll agree with Dodger; if your GM has a good imagination, and trusts you not to abuse it, it might be a fun inclusion to his game.
I'm reminded of Remo and Chiun of Warren and Murphy's The Destroyer series, later made into Remo, The Adventure Begins for the big screen. In it, Remo is a good, decent guy who gets majorly shafted and left for dead, only to be recruited by an impossibly secret agency to assassinate the enemies of the U.S. He's trained by Chiun, "the Master of Sinanju" (who would probably hunt me down and kill me for putting that in quotes, no doubt) the reigning master of an elite assassin organization that has served kings and queens dating back to ancient Greece (I think). In the series, Remo isn't exactly LAWFUL, but IS a good person, even as he lays out the bodycount using little more than his fingers and nearby furniture.
SO...I think a LG assassin could work, within a certain context. Go watch the movie with your GM, is my suggestion.
LOL, I remember going to see that movie as a kid. I had a friend who read the books, and I vaguely remember Remo being much more of a (explicative deleted) in print. The movie was goofy fun, however.
What I don't understand is why classes are still built around the idea that they have to give you prepackaged motives and goals. Why can't we just have classes for mechanical purposes to make the character concept we want?
Because they come with alignment-as-mechanics.
Alignment is a great tool. It's been part of D&D since the beginning (although at that time, it was only law v. chaos, I believe). The primary problem is that many people don't understand alignment... or rather they never come to a consistent enforcement of alignment, or, if they do, they become so married to their own, that their vision comes into conflict with others'.
In any event, this causes alignment conflict.
Further confounding the matter is the fact that the original architects of classes that have alignment-based prerequisites created a given class for that alignment, and so often (as is the case of the paladin), it is married to the concept and very difficult to divorce unless, like 4E, you throw the baby out with the bathwater and get yourself a very, very different baby altogether to replace it.
Besides. Mechanical-only classes lack an important ingredient: flavor. Why is the fighter often considered so dull? Because the name "fighter" evokes nothing (excepting, of course, what every single player expects to do at some point in their career). Mechanically, the fighter class is pretty phenomenal. Evocatively, on the other hand, notsomuch.
The reason classes are given pre-packedged goals and motivations is because, at its core, those classes were designed around those prepackaged goals and motivations. It doesn't mean you need to keep those in your home games. One game I'm prepping, for instance, has only one prestige class: blackguard* (though very slightly modified). The flavor is very similar: ancient, evil powers are the only method of progressing past sixth level (a character can continue to improve certain attributes once they hit level six, within limits - but the only way past is via prestige, specifically, the blackguard). The execution, however, is very, very different. You don't have to be evil to take it (though the other prerequisites remain the same). You don't have to swear yourself to evil powers to increase in level. You will have many temptations and trials as you draw on these ancient evils (and become ever-more-like them) as you progress. However, the ultimate decision (to be good or evil) is in your hands.
In this case, I've taken something that exists, that is evocative due to its prepackaged goals and motivations, and done something unique (or at least rare) and strange with it. Because it's evocative, it has tremendous power to build story concepts with it.
For that reason, I appreciate the alignment-tied-classes. I also appreciate the encouragement to house rule. To create fun games that fit my group. To deal with things that we come up with that the makers can't really plan on. And the existence of a robust, powerful tool (in this case alignment and pre-packaged motivations) that inspire instead of seem so bland as to be tasteless.
* Strictly speaking, this isn't true. I'm actually thinking of allowing the Acolyte of the Skin, Greenstar Adept, and the BoVD Soul Eater as prestige classes too. But the point stands, that the others require a very precise set of limited options, while blackguard is the most likely to be accessed at all.
Reading your post is just painful. Please, for the love of those whom you want to help you... learn how to spell and punctuate. You're not texting your tween friends here.I really hope you don't mean me! (I don't believe so, but please do let me know!) I do attempt to use proper punctuation, over-all, regardless of my use of very silly colloquialisms (or "slang", as the young ones call it nowadays). Please let me know if the affected aesthetic offends your sensibilities!
I think he meant me. I don't usually add apostrophes when I'm lazily typing, or capitalize my "I's".