My group is playing Kingmaker and using the Book of the River Nations expanded rules. Sebastian is excited to kill one of our characters and I need your help!
One of the kingdom events is Assassination Attempt. It is worded as follows.
One of your leaders (determined randomly) is the target of an assassination attempt. If the target is a PC, play out the attempt, using an assassin of a CR equal to the targeted PC’s level + 1. If the target is an NPC, make a Stability check to negate the attempt. If the leader is assassinated, the nation gains 1d6 Unrest points and immediately suffers vacancy penalties until the role is filled during a subsequent Improvement phase.
We randomly rolled and got a PC. (10th level) We succeed on 95% of stability rolls (only fail on one), yet having a PC rolled by these rules means that we have a near 100% chance for failure given that it would be a CR 11 character.
Do you think this implies one on one combat?
Do you think it should be equivalent level +1 like CR 7 instead? (A single 10th level character is ECL 6.
Or, does Sebastian just get to kill one of our PC's? (Which he is known for and is currently salivating and licking his lips so feverishly that his keyboard at work has shorted out due to the drooling.)
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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The dice giveth, and the dice taketh away.
The dice say that the PC dies. I just get the pleasure of rolling them.
Besides, what's the worst that could happen? A shadow with assassin levels and a ghost touch weapon emerging from the walls and unloading with an assassination attempt followed by 2-3 iterative touch attacks draining 1d8 Strength each?
On an unrelated note, if a shadow had sneak attack, the sneak attack damage is negative energy damage, not Strength damage, right?
This is all theoretical.
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If I roll this in my game, I plan to arrange it so it was a one on one melee until the player was dead, the assasin was dead, or a set number of rounds had passed (like 5 at least). If the players argue, tell them the assasin could have watched for days or even weeks for the right opportunity. IMC, most of the assasins are druids or druid/rogues anyway, so getting to someone is not the hard part.
If the player was killed, then the rest of the party can join in. Seriously, unless there is no PC cleric, who cares? It is just a little gold to cast a raise dead and restoration at 10th level...
Now if you are playing in a political game, there could be a lot of ramifications. Maybe the goal wasn't to take out the PC permanently, just piss off the ruler. Maybe provoke them into doing something hasty? Maybe warn them to stop doing something they are doing, once you figure out who did it? Sort of an assasination as "friendly" note... :)
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The problem is the AP is Kingmaker. How often is it just the party and no one else around?? I know in my game we have squires, NPC council members, bodyguards, etc constantly. Pretty much the only time there is even a gnat's arse of a chance for an assasin to survive is when the PC is alone. And the only way that happens is if they have a way to teleport right after. This is level 10+ we are talking about here, economy of action says the assasin doesn't last past the first round vs the full party unless he is very lucky.
If I am a 10+ lvl assasin, I am either going to arrange an accident followed by another accident, followed by a poison trap, followed by a deadly fall while I am drinking in the tavern....or I am going to do it myself and not let others interfere (nor my target from accessing their weapons and equipment if at all possible). No way I make I suicide run with a 20% or less change of succeeding on my target. Thinking like this does not get you to a 10th lvl character status.
Unless you are a rogue, or a scholar type character with little combat skills, I really don't see how its not at LEAST a 50/50 chance to win. Unless you have a particularly cruel or realistic GM, he will probably make it tough, but give you at least a fighting chance. Otherwise, he should just say, "okay the next morning, you all wake up and hear the servants screaming because Fred the paladin is dead". If there is no tension from having a fighting chance, there is not much point in playing out the encounter.
My advice to you as a player would be don't over-worry about this event. Even if you lose, unless they take the body, so what? The real bottom line is that death outside of a timed dungeon in a remote area is pretty much a matter of a business expense of 7k gold, and a couple of spells cast. If I am a PC ruler, I am more concerned about things that I can't pay to fix, like a plague running through my kingdom or an invading army or a very bad winter.
If I were paying for an assassination in Golarion, I think I'd insist on an 'unable to be Raised from the Dead' clause - so either a Death Effect (like the Assassin PrC death attack) or "Bring me the head of Bob the Paladin!" Depending on the reason for the assassination, preventing Reincarnation might also be required (though I can hire a lot of Grigori-types to make a big deal about how Bob the Gnome isn't really the same person as Bob the Human).
My main concern as a DM is to prevent exactly the reaction Redcelt just talked about - treating the entire thing as a simple business expense. This is a Kingdom-shaking event; it shouldn't EVER be "ho, hum, mark off some gold from the treasury."
If I roll this in my game, I plan to arrange it so it was a one on one meleeDitto.
I think if you really think about it, and look at your questions, and your
'only one failed save - honest, we're being hard done by' approach, you
kinda know the answer to your question...I have a question of my own - when you 'make' that one save - do you
complain that 'honestly, this is not fair on the DM & the world he's
trying to create for us'...
You misunderstand. We can only fail a stability check on a ROLL of a one. I love the campaign and dont mean to sound like I am complaining. I am fine with the character dying as well. I am merely pointing out the discrepancy between a near auto success if a NPC is randomly rolled and a near auto-failure if a PC is rolled.
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You misunderstand...
..I am merely pointing out the discrepancy between a near auto success if a NPC is randomly rolled and a near auto-failure if a PC is rolled.
Yes I missed that point as well. I think the original idea by the designers was to allow PCs a chance to fight back in case the event happened at a bad time in kingdom expansion when the roll was higher. Otherwise it would be sort of "rocks fall and you die" sort of scenario.
IMO, this should be an auto-succeed assasination if it affects an NPC and a solo combat if it affects a PC. Any assasin would be of a comparable challenge level to the party and will likely obliterate an NPC who would be of a lower level. The good news storywise is that nothing stirs the blood of your party like having a loyal retainer whacked by an enemy.
To address another point, I don't particularly like how easy a Raise Dead is to fix a hit on a ruler, but its part of the game expectations for most groups. In my game, I at least added the caveat that a priest of Pharasma has to be consulted and Her blessing given to bring back someone to life who has been killed. Additionally, most traditional swordlords believe this is cheating, since it removes the sense of risk and challenge, and won't agree to be returned. Obviously neither of these restrictions were meant to stop a PC from being Raised, merely to make the story more gritty regarding NPCs.
Well, PC is dead. No raise dead possible. Greater Shadows are a b$*#& that way.
It's a possibility to be resurrected. But not very cheap, and comes at a cost for the character (level) and his story (maybe you died the way your God intended you to die (Gorum) and you might offend him by returning.. Willing to risk it?)
Talk to your players, either outgame, or ingame with your npc's.
If I were paying for an assassination in Golarion, I think I'd insist on an 'unable to be Raised from the Dead' clause - so either a Death Effect (like the Assassin PrC death attack) or "Bring me the head of Bob the Paladin!" Depending on the reason for the assassination, preventing Reincarnation might also be required (though I can hire a lot of Grigori-types to make a big deal about how Bob the Gnome isn't really the same person as Bob the Human).
My main concern as a DM is to prevent exactly the reaction Redcelt just talked about - treating the entire thing as a simple business expense. This is a Kingdom-shaking event; it shouldn't EVER be "ho, hum, mark off some gold from the treasury."
Amusingly enough, in Stephen Brust's Vladimir Taltos novels, they actually had a 'sliding scale' on Assassinations & their fees. Dead, non-revivable, and 'consume your soul'. The last was for when the target had done something utterly unforgivable.
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My character was targeted for assassination at lvl 5, facing a 7th level foe. He was attacked while chopping wood as punishment for allowing a prisoner to die. Since he was chopping wood, he was unarmored, His animal companion was with him, but the poison knocked poor Tiberius out after the first round(before he got to do anything but run over) to 3 HP, he managed to crit the assassin, finishing the him in the nick of time.