this is my gf's custom assassin character, I used lots of restraints and guides when making it, but im worried some of the abilities might be making the game a little too easy, the flavor for the character sorta is like the assassin's from assassin's creed, so I wanted the character to be versatile in weapons and armor, of course be agile and stealthy, and lots of situations are impossible for those assassin's without allies so I wanted it to have beneficial ally abilities because the scholars and courtesans in that game make everything easier.
SKILLS
STRENGTH D8 []+1 []+2 []+3
melee: strength +1
DEXTERITY D10 []+1 []+2 []+3
acrobatics: dexterity +2
ranged: dexterity +1
stealth: dexterity +2
disable: dexterity +1
CONSTITUTION D6 []+1
INTELLIGENCE D6 []+1 []+2 []+3
perception: intelligence +2
WISDOM D6 []+1 []+2
CHARISMA D6 []+1 []+2 []+3
POWERS
Hand Size 5 []6
Proficient with [X]Weapons [X]Light Armors
You may evade your encounter.
When attempting a combat check with a weapon that has the knife([]or finesse)trait, you may use your stealth die instead.
You may reveal an ally to add 1d6([]+1)([]+2)to a check at your location, or recharge it to add an additional d4.
CARD LIST Favored card type: your choice
Weapon 5 []6 []7 []8
Spell X
Armor 1 []2 []3
Item 3 []4 []5
Ally 4 []5 []6
Blessing 2 []3
So there is the character before the role card, wanted ranged as a small addition because of bows and throwing knives, and wanted it versatile in most all trades so that's why I voided having a d12 so I could have a d10 and no d4s , the assassin's greatest feat and weapon should always be stealth which is why I went with the evading ability and created the ability to use stealth die for weapons, and then the 3rd ability was for the ally helping I mentioned, and its this ability, while we play, that makes me feel as though we baby feed ourselves through this game, she pretty much always has an ally in hand, and we stick together, so we both always have an additional d6 + so all our checks, I wonder if that is too much, went with the your choice card type because an assassin chooses what tools to use for their mission, sometimes it requires allies, sometimes an item, and of course weapons, so what is your all's opinion of this character, is anything too overpowered? does anything not fit well?
I'd have to say, it seems a over powered to me. Here is why:
1. It has 6 skill bonuses. The rulebook guidance is no more than 5. There is some guidance here from Mike and Chad about creating characters you might find helpful. No iconic character in the game has 6.
2. It has both Melee and Ranged. No iconic character in the game has both. I'm not saying that can't be done, but it is part of the larger picture.
3. The d6 reveal power. It basically combines Lini's and Lem's powers, but with a bigger die, and the option to throw in one more die with it all. Lini only gets a d4 and can't recharge it for an additional die. Lem can only help others and only with a d4. With this power, with an ally to recharge, the worst you could roll would be a 2d6 + 1d4. That is an average of 10, without any skill feats or power feats. I'd recommend some combination of a higher cost, a lower die, and/or limited target (you or other characters).
4. You can evade any encounter. Again, in and of itself not overpowered, but given the things, you have so many special skills, and can add so much to any check, that in the off chance you for some reason can't roll at least 2d6 + 1d4 + modifiers, you can just evade the encounter all together.
Every character should have some weaknesses. I'm not sure I see any here.
That's my 2 cents anyway. Designing characters is tough. And I applaud you for playing so far through with your custom characters. The one's I've made haven't made it past Burnt Offerings without me being dissatisfied.
Hawkmoon269 wrote: I'd have to say, it seems a over powered to me. Here is why:
1. It has 6 skill bonuses. The rulebook guidance is no more than 5. There is some guidance here from Mike and Chad about creating characters you might find helpful. No iconic character in the game has 6.
2. It has both Melee and Ranged. No iconic character in the game has both. I'm not saying that can't be done, but it is part of the larger picture.
3. The d6 reveal power. It basically combines Lini's and Lem's powers, but with a bigger die, and the option to throw in one more die with it all. Lini only gets a d4 and can't recharge it for an additional die. Lem can only help others and only with a d4. With this power, with an ally to recharge, the worst you could roll would be a 2d6 + 1d4. That is an average of 10, without any skill feats or power feats. I'd recommend some combination of a higher cost, a lower die, and/or limited target (you or other characters).
4. You can evade any encounter. Again, in and of itself not overpowered, but given the things, you have so many special skills, and can add so much to any check, that in the off chance you for some reason can't roll at least 2d6 + 1d4 + modifiers, you can just evade the encounter all together.
Every character should have some weaknesses. I'm not sure I see any here.
That's my 2 cents anyway. Designing characters is tough. And I applaud you for playing so far through with your custom characters. The one's I've made haven't made it past Burnt Offerings without me being dissatisfied.
I believe I saw all the guidelines and chose to use 6 because I still added up to only nine for power bonuses, figured that wouldn't hurt, and figured holding both melee and ranged at 1 each made it balanced to have both, I saw on one of the other characters, they add a trait on their role card, would it be balanced to do that here? cause using range for an assassin was technically an evolution of them, so make one of the added things on the role having the ranged trait? or void it all together? I ask because the role card I made (which I will post some other time) adds a checkbox for ranged trait on the ability that allows you to use a stealth instead, as for the ally ability, what do I do to fix that? should I reduce it to a d4 with no recharge ability? or perhaps make it a d4 and make it recharge to add like +1 []+2 ? due to the stealth flavor, I would like to keep the evade ability, merisiel was her chosen character ebfore we made our own, and was closest to what she wanted, but rather than have a loner character,r she wanted a character that was helpful to the group and used allies.
In my opinion this is way overpowered.
There are too many good skills and the powers are also really too powerful. You have 6 skills listed with a total of +9. That's just too much. (Also, Perception should be a Wisdom based check.) Consider dropping melee altogether. Drop or weaken perception. Drop one of the Dexterity based skills. That would take it to 4 or 5 skills.
The evade is far too powerful. Explore with no consequences if you come across something bad? Power that with burying a card from your hand or at least discarding a card. Or weaken it to only work on weaker encounters. Basically anything to make it less good.
The reveal an ally power is also way too good. Lini can only add to her checks when revealing a subset of allies, animals. And then she gets 1d4. And that ability makes her one of the most powerful characters in the game (in my opinion). This assassin version is even better for power AND it can be boosted even further on a recharge AND it can be used on another characters check. I would suggest limiting it to humans, lowering the die to a d4 get rid of the recharge for an additional boost, but allow discarding to give another character (possibly at any location) a d4 to their check.
Even with these suggestions to weaken the character, I still think it would be rather powerful. I love the concept and think you're on the right track.
Also, FYI I flagged this thread to be moved over to Homebrew.
Aureate wrote: In my opinion this is way overpowered.
There are too many good skills and the powers are also really too powerful. You have 6 skills listed with a total of +9. That's just too much. (Also, Perception should be a Wisdom based check.) Consider dropping melee altogether. Drop or weaken perception. Drop one of the Dexterity based skills. That would take it to 4 or 5 skills.
The evade is far too powerful. Explore with no consequences if you come across something bad? Power that with burying a card from your hand or at least discarding a card. Or weaken it to only work on weaker encounters. Basically anything to make it less good.
The reveal an ally power is also way too good. Lini can only add to her checks when revealing a subset of allies, animals. And then she gets 1d4. And that ability makes her one of the most powerful characters in the game (in my opinion). This assassin version is even better for power AND it can be boosted even further on a recharge AND it can be used on another characters check. I would suggest limiting it to humans, lowering the die to a d4 get rid of the recharge for an additional boost, but allow discarding to give another character (possibly at any location) a d4 to their check.
Even with these suggestions to weaken the character, I still think it would be rather powerful. I love the concept and think you're on the right track.
Also, FYI I flagged this thread to be moved over to Homebrew.
alright, my bad, posted it here just not thinking or knowing really about the different areas to post, I agree about the ally power to an extent, I know the bonus is too powerful, realized we were cake walking through stuff pretty well, still got beat by that dragon even with the ability >.> was thinking of reducing it to a d4 and either taking the recharge away or making it recharge additionally for +1 []+2 , opinions of that? the evade will most likely stay because merisiel a pathfiner character has that ability to the exact word, I figured perception from where intelligence and wisdom are close to the same thing, and have the same die as D6 , I also feel like I saw it on intelligence on some character >.>
alkatrazshock wrote: alright, my bad, posted it here just not thinking or knowing really about the different areas to post, I agree about the ally power to an extent, I know the bonus is too powerful, realized we were cake walking through stuff pretty well, still got beat by that dragon even with the ability >.> was thinking of reducing it to a d4 and either taking the recharge away or making it recharge additionally for +1 []+2 , opinions of that? the evade will most likely stay because merisiel a pathfiner character has that ability to the exact word, I figured... There is nothing wrong with the evade, when taken alone. But in the context of the rest of the character it's just too good. It would still be good if you had to discard a card (think smoke bomb for flavor) to evade the encounter.
As far as Perception being Wisdom based, that has its basis in the RPG. As far as I know there are no characters with an Intelligence base for their Perception.
Personally I still think that the Ally power is plenty good with 1d4 on your own check with no recharge for additional bonuses. I'd probably say that discarding would be a better choice over recharging in general.
Flavorwise I don't think that having a strong Ally power meshes with the character's stats. Charisma is a d6 which is the second lowest die possible and is the stat used for getting people to do things for you. Using allies over and over again, followed by the recharge, so that you can keep asking for their help later just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Those are just my opinions. Without playtesting some ideas I'm not sure how it would play out.
Aureate wrote: alkatrazshock wrote: alright, my bad, posted it here just not thinking or knowing really about the different areas to post, I agree about the ally power to an extent, I know the bonus is too powerful, realized we were cake walking through stuff pretty well, still got beat by that dragon even with the ability >.> was thinking of reducing it to a d4 and either taking the recharge away or making it recharge additionally for +1 []+2 , opinions of that? the evade will most likely stay because merisiel a pathfiner character has that ability to the exact word, I figured... There is nothing wrong with the evade, when taken alone. But in the context of the rest of the character it's just too good. It would still be good if you had to discard a card (think smoke bomb for flavor) to evade the encounter.
As far as Perception being Wisdom based, that has its basis in the RPG. As far as I know there are no characters with an Intelligence base for their Perception.
Personally I still think that the Ally power is plenty good with 1d4 on your own check with no recharge for additional bonuses. I'd probably say that discarding would be a better choice over recharging in general.
Flavorwise I don't think that having a strong Ally power meshes with the character's stats. Charisma is a d6 which is the second lowest die possible and is the stat used for getting people to do things for you. Using allies over and over again, followed by the recharge, so that you can keep asking for their help later just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Those are just my opinions. Without playtesting some ideas I'm not sure how it would play out.
well the character is meant to sorta be like a reverse merisiel, have the thief/stealth flavor, but not be a loner, merisiel has the ability to recharge any card to add a d6 to a combat or discard it for another d6, if she is alone, so this character is not much different in power accept its a helping character, not a loner, so this power was designed as more of a helping, i can see altering it to a d4 for recharging and then discard for a d4 perhaps, it does have the limitation of ally over any card, and your location rather than any, and for the flavor of assassin's again going off assassin's creed, allies are a big part, but not so much that the character needs based off them, the main feats are combat but overall a jack of all trades, so I didn't want anything to be a d4 really, I can see where charisma maybe should be more, but cant justify it with keeping combat valued and everything else above a d4
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
If you want your character to not be a loner, consider letting his power only affect other characters at your location, or be only usable when there's another character with you. As other have mentioned, it's far above the baseline for power: The cost is less restrictive than Lini's, it has a more powerful effect, it can affect other characters and it can be even more powerful for a small additional cost.
My suggestion would be to drop the ally power to a D4 and only let it work on other, with a discard ([]recharge) option to use it yourself.
You may reveal an ally to add 1d4 ([]+1)([]+2) to an attempted check by another character at your location. Discard ([]recharge) that ally to change "another" into "any".
Not the best worded power i produced, but i think you get what i mean.
And about the skills. I would really drop the melee. If you want a melee weapon, you should try to get a knife or finesse. Small restiction but adds much to the flavor. (Because, who wants to see an assassin with a 2-handed axe?)
About the rest of the skill, i would probably drop the perception completely, cut of one of the dex skills and add a Diplomacy: Charisma +2 because it would be much more in line with someone that uses a lot of allys (like other posters before me already mentioned).
As always, i hope this helps.
Fenris235 wrote: My suggestion would be to drop the ally power to a D4 and only let it work on other, with a discard ([]recharge) option to use it yourself.
You may reveal an ally to add 1d4 ([]+1)([]+2) to an attempted check by another character at your location. Discard ([]recharge) that ally to change "another" into "any".
Not the best worded power i produced, but i think you get what i mean.
And about the skills. I would really drop the melee. If you want a melee weapon, you should try to get a knife or finesse. Small restiction but adds much to the flavor. (Because, who wants to see an assassin with a 2-handed axe?)
About the rest of the skill, i would probably drop the perception completely, cut of one of the dex skills and add a Diplomacy: Charisma +2 because it would be much more in line with someone that uses a lot of allys (like other posters before me already mentioned).
As always, i hope this helps.
I still feel that that is still a little too limited, I like the idea of perhaps revealing an ally to ad a d4 []+1 []+2 to a combat check at your location or recharge it to add a d4 []+1 []+2 to a check at your location, I don't want it too underpowered, cause in most all cases, it will just be 2 of us playing, and the game got hard at times even with the OP version of the ability to get a d6+2 anytime , valeros has the ability to just add a d4 to a combat check at your location, doesn't even need a card in hand to do so, merisiel can recharge any card to add a d6 to a combat check made by her, or discard it for another d6, granted if she is alone, lini can reveal an animal trait ally to add a d4 to her checks, and can discard any card to roll a d10 in place of strength and dexterity for any check, amiri can bury any card from her hand to get a d10 to her strength, melee, or constitution check, seelah can discard her top deck card to get a d6 to any check of her's with it recharging if its a blessing or spell, and lem has the ability to recharge a card to add a d4 to any check by another character at your location, so looking at all those, I think my reduced version is in the same league, lots are great in bonus because it pertains to a specific check, normally combat, where as in the flavor of assassin's allies, they could be used to help do pretty much anything, not just fight, so I want more than just combat check, and want the character to be able to assist not only their own checks but other character's too, so kicking down the dice size to lowest, and having a card type restriction on a bonus to any check,where as others give a bigger die and no card restriction to just combat checks, seems to balance it, this character does get to auto evade, but that's about it otherwise, they don't get to auto recharge stuff, or have access to magic and therefore heal, and the ability requires allies meaning you have the weakness of not burning through allies with explores, youll have to sit on them to get the bonus, though I don't know how to work out a lot of the feats, perception seems like a key thing for an assassin, what kind of assassin isn't perceptive? and they aren't snipers, assassin's are mostly close combat, and good in hand to hand, so taking away melee doesn't seem justified either, and being an assassin, you have to be acrobatic and have high dexterity, stealth, and id assume lock picking will be part of the skill set for sneaking and gathering intel, so disable seems to be needed too, ranged could perhaps be dropped though, thinking more about the ability, might have it be opposite from what I said before, have the reveal be d4 to non-combat check and then have the recharge be for a combat check, cause that would make more sense due to the ally going away perhaps due to injury , where as an ally shouldn't have to go anywhere to help open a chest or something, perhaps also make a check in the ability, like discarding the ally for combat check and then a check of such and such to recharge instead
We have our own homebrew assassin and played with several options to stop overpowering.
Result is combat is 1d4 with no skill bonus.
Ranged is dexerity +1 off a 1d10.
In addition she has the power as follows:
Ember (Character name) gains a +1 ranged bonus([]+2)for all combat checks made with a weapon with the knife trait. You may reveal a second weapon with the knife trait to add the weapon bonus to the check.
This makes here pretty deadly with knives but not that great with other weapons.
She also has the power to banish an item with the liquid trait to a 1d4 with the poison trait to her combat checks with a weapon with the knife trait. Suddenly all those annoying potions became wanted!
Just my tuppence worth.
gk
gavin kerr wrote: We have our own homebrew assassin and played with several options to stop overpowering.
Result is combat is 1d4 with no skill bonus.
Ranged is dexerity +1 off a 1d10.
In addition she has the power as follows:
Ember (Character name) gains a +1 ranged bonus([]+2)for all combat checks made with a weapon with the knife trait. You may reveal a second weapon with the knife trait to add the weapon bonus to the check.
This makes here pretty deadly with knives but not that great with other weapons.
She also has the power to banish an item with the liquid trait to a 1d4 with the poison trait to her combat checks with a weapon with the knife trait. Suddenly all those annoying potions became wanted!
Just my tuppence worth.
gk
that's pretty cool, I like it to an extent, but I like the flavor of using the stealth die and making it +2 limiting it to assassin weapon types, and might take ranged away and do what I did before, have ranged get added to that ability on the role card, the liquid thing is cool, ill have to ponder an ability like that, cause clearly poison should be a thing
For the liquid thing, what about something like this:
You may bury a card with liquid trait to add 1d4 with the poison trait to your combat check.
That would give you a way to cycle those items (which you said elsewhere you found rather useless) and also a way to use them. You could even add a power that said when you play a boon with the liquid trait, you may bury it instead of banishing it. That way you wouldn't risk loosing them for your deck if you played them.
Hawkmoon,
Funny you should say that as that is one of the is one of the power enhancements Ember can take.
Alkatrazshock,
The problem with Stealth as opposed to Ranged is the lack of boon boosts in combat situations for the Stealth keyword. If you are carrying a couple of Blessing of Erastils or Blackmoon Rangers then you have some pretty powerful boosts.
How would you use Stealth effectively here and what assassin weapon types are you trying to limit your character to?
gk
gavin kerr wrote: Hawkmoon,
Funny you should say that as that is one of the is one of the power enhancements Ember can take.
Alkatrazshock,
The problem with Stealth as opposed to Ranged is the lack of boon boosts in combat situations for the Stealth keyword. If you are carrying a couple of Blessing of Erastils or Blackmoon Rangers then you have some pretty powerful boosts.
How would you use Stealth effectively here and what assassin weapon types are you trying to limit your character to?
gk
well I picture an assassin using clearly knives, concealed type blades, so daggers and anything with the knife keyword, I also could see a sword being used, but not some heavy long sword, which is why I chose the word finesse for the ability, cause that's on the more elegant type fancy weapons, then there is later adding range to the ability, allowing bows to be used, probably wont need them, but due to trying to make the character not OP I don't want everything to be the most useful thing in the world, I want the character to be good, really good, but not so good it seems that we are baby feeding ourselves through the story, also since stealth is on dexterity, wouldn't anything that's adds to a dexterity check be usable with the stealth die in combat?
alkatrazshock wrote: since stealth is on dexterity, wouldn't anything that's adds to a dexterity check be usable with the stealth die in combat? Yes, you'd be OK with Blessing of Erastil since your Stealth-based knife combat would be based on Dexterity.
I can't remember if Black Arrow Rangers apply to Dexterity checks or only Ranged; if it's Dex then you're good, but if it's Ranged then I think most if not all daggers have the Ranged trait so you're still good with those. I think Archers apply to Ranged checks as well so they'd also be useful with most/all daggers. (Re-reading Gavin's post, I think maybe he was saying that Erastil and Black Arrows are things that *do* still help you.)
You might lose the use of a few boons but then I think you gain a bunch of boons that boost/automatically pass Stealth checks. Burglar? Potion of Hiding? Cloak/Boots of Elvenkind? Wish I had the cards with me to check...
I have to say I agree with isaic16 on the other thread: for both flavour and balance, drop the Melee skill (and maybe even drop strength to d6) and give the character a strong incentive to use knife and finesse weapons.
Nefrubyr wrote: alkatrazshock wrote: since stealth is on dexterity, wouldn't anything that's adds to a dexterity check be usable with the stealth die in combat? Yes, you'd be OK with Blessing of Erastil since your Stealth-based knife combat would be based on Dexterity.
I can't remember if Black Arrow Rangers apply to Dexterity checks or only Ranged; if it's Dex then you're good, but if it's Ranged then I think most if not all daggers have the Ranged trait so you're still good with those. I think Archers apply to Ranged checks as well so they'd also be useful with most/all daggers. (Re-reading Gavin's post, I think maybe he was saying that Erastil and Black Arrows are things that *do* still help you.)
You might lose the use of a few boons but then I think you gain a bunch of boons that boost/automatically pass Stealth checks. Burglar? Potion of Hiding? Cloak/Boots of Elvenkind? Wish I had the cards with me to check...
I have to say I agree with isaic16 on the other thread: for both flavour and balance, drop the Melee skill (and maybe even drop strength to d6) and give the character a strong incentive to use knife and finesse weapons. I feel as an assassin, yes typically you want to get that kill with stealth, hence the ability, but if you get caught, you need to be able to hold your own in a straight fight, even hand to hand, and to me, that's what I feel melee as a skill is, its saying, hey your character is good at melee, in the updated character I posted, I dropped constitution to a d4 to raise the charisma, and I dropped ranged as a skill, and made it an addition to the stealth ability on the role card, thus trying to limit the character to knives and finesse through the first half of the game, and then expanding your weapon versatility, as an assassin, you have to adapt to what works best, with the story arc ive seen, that happened with ranged weapons, you running around with a knife, once everyone else is using guns, some exceptions have to be made, now applying it to a world of dragons and giants, even more reason to not only be skilled in knives, all characters have what they are good at and can use, especially in blessing department, unless ou don't have blessings, but this character's would deff be erastil, to me that's what this character is, a stealth favored combatant that can hold their own in a straight out fight, very agile, and also doesn't take the loner route of an assassin, this assassin works better with a group, having limitless pool of allies to assist in the tasks at hand due to high charisma, agile, evasive, and to me, the stats and abilities capture that without making the character too good, I could be wrong though, I thought this version of the character was good and balanced, then I realized having a free d6+2 and possibly a d4 to every check was bananas
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