I was at a friend's apt hanging out and reading coursework while he and his group were playing their campaign. The players had made some horrible enemies, and they were aware that Red Mantis Assassins had been hired to kill them some time ago.
So the point of this post is thus: Was the GM too harsh with the following in playing it straight?
The PCs are camped out in the wilderness, they are intentionally avoiding towns and common roads to hide their tracks. However, unbeknownst to them one of the assassins has picked up their trail. They are all level 12, the assassin, I was informed, was a Ninja 5/Assassin 1/Red Mantis Assassin 10 to make him CR 15 (an "epic" encounter for the party.)
He stalked the party all night, and one of the players decided that his character needed to go pee. So he got up, walked into the night, made a Will Save (vs Prayer Attack), and the GM announced that 30 minutes have passed without him returning or coming back. One of the other players decides to go out alone as well, another Will Save (vs Prayer Attack) and another 30 minutes. Then, finally, the two remaining PCs go out together, one is killed by the assassin after failing a Fort Save (vs Death Attack) from him being invisible (Red Mantis Assassin spells) and the other died to the Red Mantis Assassin's Prayer Attack after failing his Will Save (vs Prayer Attack).
So, basically, the PCs were soloed by an NPC who was following them around and trying to assassinate them. They handed themselves to him on a silver platter, and all died. Was the GM too harsh in this PC massacre or should have the PCs made better decisions about how to act in the wild?
On that note, I wonder how brutally effective a party of Red Mantis Assassins would be if they all went far enough to at least have Prayer Strike.
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Was the GM too harsh in this PC massacre or should have the PCs made better decisions about how to act in the wild?
I think this is not about him being too harsh but what kind of campaign the players expected. To send a dedicated assassin with 3 levels higher after a group, using all the tricks he has to offer is about the same as having them be killed by an avalanche when travelling through the mountains. Stuff like that can happen. But should it happen in a RPG campaign?
Depends on the campaign.
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I think the players and GM need to be on the same page about the lethality of his tactics. A single CR 15 versus a full party is not as difficult at as 3 CR 12's.
Part of the problem here was that the players split the party. A level 12 character is very powerful in the game world, and yes I know PC's don't know what "levels" are, but they understand that they are well above the average person. Even with no assassins after them, fantasy land is a dangerous place so going off one by one is just not a good idea when someone goes missing. The first person could have stayed within 30 feet and turned his back to the party for privacy. There was no need to go out of sight.
With all of that being said I don't think the GM was too harsh. Next time they will stick together, well hopefully anyway.
[QUOTE="Taku Ooka Nin"
On that note, I wonder how brutally effective a party of Red Mantis Assassins would be if they all went far enough to at least have Prayer Strike.
I forgot to answer this.
The PrC is so mad, that it is not really all that good, other than for flavor. You would be better off using a ranger or slayer as an assassin group.
The individual assassin got lucky because everyone failed both saves. Unless the GM was using PC wealth and PC stats that save would likely have been low enough that the PC's could reasonably make it.
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Well, did the players enjoy it? Is the campaign still going forward?
It sounds like they didn't really have a fair chance (what with one PC down before they even know stuff is going down). But that doesn't mean it was a bad action by the GM, depending on the style of game.
By level 12 it is possible that the party either has contingency plans of its own for this kind of thing, or that a third party will take steps to revive them somehow, perhaps for a big favor owed later. This could be part of an ongoing storyline where the PCs somehow bounce back. Perhaps by a side adventure featuring their allies/cohorts organizing a mission to revive the main PCs, giving all players a chance to play some entirely new characters for a while. At level 12 all kinds of things are possible. The point is that not everything bad that happens to a PC automatically needs to be (in the long or short term) unfun for that PC's player.
On the other hand, it could also be the end of a campaign, possibly with very unhappy players.
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Assassins are always difficult in RPGs. In PF but it's just as hard in Vampire or Shadowrun. If PCs make enemies it is certainly plausible that those enemies will engage the services of an assassin that's perfectly suited to taking down the PCs.
In those other two games you also have sniping and bombs, which do astronomical damage if used correctly. As in, one-shot-don't-care-who-you-are-you're-dead damage. An assassin striking without warning should certainly succeed in killing the PCs stone dead. In PF, having "the initiative" in combat, in terms of starting from the right battlefield position, with some good tricks, can likewise make it a sure thing that the PCs die.
So this makes it really hard for the GM to use assassinations well. Because at some point the game starts to suffer if PCs can make major enemies with impunity, if the GM doesn't do this. But if the GM does play wealthy/connected/powerful enemies intelligently, they'd invest to make sure the assassination is a sure thing. Giving the PCs no fair chance.
Handling this paradox really tests the GM's advanced skills. There are things you can do to use assassinations so that enemies don't appear toothless, but the campaign doesn't come to an abrupt halt. For example:
I'm running an Elder Scrolls campaign right now. The party has been going out of their way to piss off the dark brotherhood, and one of the players back story actually has them as an arch-nemesis. I figure at one point I'll have to assassinate at least one of them with a cou de gras while sleeping in a tavern or fighters guild. They are only level 4 and just started interfering so I wasn't going to bust it out yet, but at this rate it will almost surely happen.
Anyway, if they don't start prepping nightly for such an occurrence, its their own fault, especially when pissing off groups of master assassins. Even with prep, a high level assassin may very well circumvent your "traps" unless your very clever.
Is this going to be "harsh", probably. Too harsh, probably not.
I think this is not about him being too harsh but what kind of campaign the players expected. To send a dedicated assassin with 3 levels higher after a group, using all the tricks he has to offer is about the same as having them be killed by an avalanche when travelling through the mountains.
Four levels higher.
So in the first two ambushes it was a level 12 character against a level 16 NPC. Even ignoring the advantage of surprise, that's the equivalent of sending four level 16 NPCs against a group of level 12s, a CR 19 encounter. In addition, just one single roll to survive? Shouldn't there be mutual perception checks? Why is the bad guy automatically in a position where he knows exactly what's going on but the PCs don't have a clue about him?
Realistically, four people aren't going to stay within sight of one another 24 hours a day except in a serious emergency. Murdering someone as soon as they go off on their own is going to teach the players 'never split the group, not even for role-play reasons'.
On the other hand, sending one person to investigate a mysterious disappearance instead of the whole of the rest of the party is stupid.
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I have killed pcs who made bad decisions like not healing between fights, rushing into a dark room where they had no vision...I don't tend to babysit my players, which they enjoy a lot. But I think perception rolls were indeed appropriate, even more so if they had some who specialized in Survival, as they would have been able to tell that something was wrong. Not even mentioning that fluff wise, a level 12+ druid is most likely a good friend of the animals and feys of most woodlands, if they had one.
Sounds like an over-zealous GM combined with not-quite-smart player tactics.
First, how far away from the rest of the party would you go to pee when you believe Red Mantis are hunting you? I would go just behind, or even in front of, the nearest tree.
Second, as mentioned, sending a single party member out to look for the first party member that didn't come back is straight out of the "anti-survival" handbook.
However, the GM could have been more gracious here and allowed combat once the assassin got the first or second member, if for no other reason than to make it more exciting ... even if he intended a party wipe.
Though, if this is something normal for their group, and the players still had fun, then no issues
I think this is not about him being too harsh but what kind of campaign the players expected. To send a dedicated assassin with 3 levels higher after a group, using all the tricks he has to offer is about the same as having them be killed by an avalanche when travelling through the mountains.Four levels higher.
So in the first two ambushes it was a level 12 character against a level 16 NPC. Even ignoring the advantage of surprise, that's the equivalent of sending four level 16 NPCs against a group of level 12s, a CR 19 encounter. In addition, just one single roll to survive? Shouldn't there be mutual perception checks? Why is the bad guy automatically in a position where he knows exactly what's going on but the PCs don't have a clue about him?
Realistically, four people aren't going to stay within sight of one another 24 hours a day except in a serious emergency. Murdering someone as soon as they go off on their own is going to teach the players 'never split the group, not even for role-play reasons'.
On the other hand, sending one person to investigate a mysterious disappearance instead of the whole of the rest of the party is stupid.
The thing is... they already knew they were being stalked by assassins. Therefore by going off by yourself just to go pee is stupidity. Then to send one guy to check on the disappearance of your buddy when you all know you're hunted by the Red Mantis Assassins... C'mon. That's what you see stupid people do in bad movies.
Now, that being said... Perhaps a secret GM perception roll should have been done in an attempt to warn the PC. Granted, that may have actually happened, but we are not aware, because we were not there.
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I think this is one of the Two Hats of the GM situations.
With his white hat, the GM is planning out the game in the long run to make sure everyone has fun. He comes up with exciting enemies that are a fair challenge.
With the black hat, the GM is actually playing the enemies designed while he was wearing the white hat. Now he's making the enemies act smart, because those enemies are trying to win.
The GM needs to wear both hats; the white hat to select opposition that the PCs can handle, the black hat to run that opposition as if they really were trying to win against the PCs. When a GM forgets one of the two hats, he's either making it too easy (boring) or way too hard (also no fun).
Black Hat is an enemy NPC deciding the PCs need to die. White Hat GM is coming up with plausible reasons why this won't cause a TPK and end the campaign.
White Hat is all-seeing. He knows all the coincidences that will happen. He can metagame to make things harder or easier. Black Hat isn't; he's the NPCs that aren't allowed to metagame against the PCs.
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Also, the CR numbers lie all the time. It's possible to devise properly CR'ed encounters that are much easier than the numbers suggest, or that are way harder, while staying nearly within a CR budget. The above is a good example of that.
Although also, since the assassin had the environment working to his advantage, that's another +1 CR, pushing this from "theoretically epic fight likely to kill several PCs and PC victory not at all assured" into "in theory everyone should die".
I think this is not about him being too harsh but what kind of campaign the players expected. To send a dedicated assassin with 3 levels higher after a group, using all the tricks he has to offer is about the same as having them be killed by an avalanche when travelling through the mountains.Four levels higher.
Yes, I mixed up level and the CR given by OP.
What I was up to: When an assassin decides to kill someone he has a good chance of succeeding if his level is similar. If he behaves like a proper assassin should.
Allow me to explain the scenario as I remember it:
The GM offered that the perception check to identify the Red Mantis Assassin was pointless, he comes out of hiding on the first 2 PCs to face them directly and used Prayer Attack on his surprise round Secondly he was invisible via a ring of invisibility, meaning that his already +20 something to stealth turned into +40 while moving and +60 while not. Instead of tipping the players off he just asked them what their perception scores were at the beginning of the session.
The GM did not have PCs roll Fort saves VS the Coup De Grace, but he instead did it on his end when he knew what was coming. In short, the assassin's stealth was too high for the PCs, save for the Cleric who was one of the 3rd to die, to hit.
It went like this:
Yolk Vaskerkin the barbarian goes to pee. The GM rolls his fort save just in case. The Mantis Assassin sneaks up behind Yolk, waits for him to finish, then when the barbarian turns around the Mantis Assassin starts prayer attack. Will save, fails, Coup de Grace, pre-rolled fort save fails vs damage, Yolk dies. This is repeated for Barendallow Faeriesoul, who also dies.
The cleric is the only one who was allowed to roll perception because on a 16 or higher she could have seen the assassin, everyone else would have needed to roll higher than a 20 on a 20 sided dice, and nat-20s on skills are not automatic successes.
I think you guys overestimate the benefit the environment gave the NPC since he would have been equally effective in pretty much any setting if the PCs made similar decisions. The GM afterwards stated that he was expecting the assassin to either kill only one person or do nothing more than shake the party up, but because they made decisions that maximized his potential they all died.
NPC used NPC stat-block had gear dumped into making stealth better (the ring of invisibility was probably the most expensive thing he had) and therefore was pretty good at what he did. It didn't help that the Cleric was a "caster" cleric with a crappy fort save as I remember. Still, he did roll a 3 on his fort save VS the Death Attack, which is why he died as I gathered from his exclamations.
I'm going to say this is kosher. If the players and their characters were aware that assassins were after them, then they should have taken precautions. And "send one guy out alone after the first guy disappears" is straight out of the "don't do this" section of theEvil OverlordAdventurer's Handbook.
FTFY.
I think maybe the level was 1 or 2 too high (which changes some of the mechanics at work) but otherwise the scenario is generally valid. I think poor player tactics contributed to PC death as much as an too powerful opponent. When one player didn't return, and knowing you have assassins following you, you shouldn't split up the party.
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Something is bothering me. What kind of player makes his character walk into the woods to go pee. Was there some strange rule that the character had to check to see if he was doing the pee pee dance? Did the DM tell him "Hey you have to pee" and then he decided that even though he has killed with these folks, he didn't want them to see his unit, so he had to go by himself into the woods while he knew he was being stalked by assassins.
Something fishy here.
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Doesn't sound unfair to me. I'd say the assassin pretty handily solo'ed a CR 15 encounter. Right on level for him. Award the DM 51,200 XP.
Something is bothering me. What kind of player makes his character walk into the woods to go pee. Was there some strange rule that the character had to check to see if he was doing the pee pee dance? Did the DM tell him "Hey you have to pee" and then he decided that even though he has killed with these folks, he didn't want them to see his unit, so he had to go by himself into the woods while he knew he was being stalked by assassins.
Something fishy here.
This!
I really want to have that part explained.
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I was wondering about that as well. I've never heard a player ever once declare that their characters were going to relieve themselves--not unless it was to humiliate a fallen enemy or some such.
Considering the assassin could have waited for them all to go to sleep before slitting their throats, this could have gone much worse for the PCs, but I still think it could have been better played too.
First, I would have made the assassin much lower level. Next, I would have allowed more rolls to allow the players a chance. For example, you said he had been tracking the PCs for some time. Did the PCs never get Perception checks to notice they were being followed during all that time? The assassin couldn't have been invisible the entire time. Golum was a master sneak, and yet the Fellowship still realized they were being followed after a time, and took steps to deal with it. Would it not have been more exciting for the players to try to lay an ambush for their would be killer?
I think this situation isn't really unfair as described (I could totally see a scenario playing out that way), but it is somewhat poorly designed. As the GM, you obviously knew there was no way the PCs would spot the assassin. That's already a red flag. The players have to have a chance in life or death scenarios, or at least a clear indicator that they should flee, otherwise you might as well say "rocks fall, everyone dies; hand over your sheets and make some new characters" whenever such a situation comes up. That might be authentic to real life, but it makes for a poor game.
Also, you should also ALWAYS let the players roll their own saves, particularly when it means life or death. If you rolled my save and I died as a result, I would feel somewhat cheated.
Good catch Liam!
A little something, the ring should also be "turned off" during the assasin's attack and that make him visible for at least another round (standard action to re-activate the item). Was the Stealth of +20ish still over what everybody else could roll in Percep?
Another basic question I have about the assassin: did the enemies have the Financial/Social power and connections to gain the service of a 15th level individual witch I assume are not available all over...
I think the GM was totally in the right to do this. Not harsh at all. I'd have done it, anyway.
The only time I've ever seen or heard of a player leaving the party to 'heed the call of nature', they were actually heading off alone to make their required obeisance to Cyric, Lord of Lies and the rest of the party didn't know they were rolling with an evil party member.
So I must wonder what was Yolk Vaskerkin doing alone in the woods, if that even is his real name!?!
The players were aware of an assassin following them and decided to split up individually and go into the middle of the night one by one, so I'd say they were being incredibly stupid and deserve to die.
Something is bothering me. What kind of player makes his character walk into the woods to go pee. Was there some strange rule that the character had to check to see if he was doing the pee pee dance? Did the DM tell him "Hey you have to pee" and then he decided that even though he has killed with these folks, he didn't want them to see his unit, so he had to go by himself into the woods while he knew he was being stalked by assassins.
Something fishy here.
Yes! I can't believe this wasn't the first question in the first response to this thread.
Seems convenient. Perhaps the player of that PC was in on it with the GM and wanted to kill off his character so he could make a new one? Not much else makes sense.
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Well, to be fair, it sounds like prayer attack was used fairly- -the assassin was only invisible for the death attack when two of the four approached.
Victim one:
Assassin starts in stealth. Move action to approach, Standard to Prayer Attack, three rounds later, dead adventurer.
30 minutes pass.
Victim two:
Assassin starts in stealth. Move action to approach, Standard to Prayer Attack, three rounds later, dead adventurer.
30 minutes pass.
Victims three and four:
Begin looking together, no mention of being stealthy themselves. Assassin turns invisible. Begins death attack, three rounds pass, kills one victim. Next turn, begins Prayer Attack, three turns later, TPK.
It's elegant, as far as the assassin is concerned.
Why didn't any of the party hear the screaming of the dying party members, either?
Death attack is pretty sudden, and prayer attack puts you in a daze and prevents the taking of actions.
Why didn't any of the party hear the screaming of the dying party members, either?
There are so many ways to kill a person without them having the capability of screaming. Anything that punctures the lungs, throat, or kills them too fast to scream, i.e. in one single blow (like the prayer coup de grace or the assassin's death attack) would leave them dying silently.
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Kind of surprised the casters didn't use any spells to check on the situation but anyway...with more details revealed, heh it was just a series of unfortunate events or maybe the players were just bored of the campaign and just wanted to die. Considering how paranoid my players are on the gaming table...this kind of stuff would have never happened.
From what I gathered about Yolk's player he was the one who would do random things for no apparent reason. The GM wasn't forcing them to do such things. I recall he once made it a point of crapping in every royal or noble's bathroom that he could.
He thought it was funny (evident from his chuckles) since whenever he said, "I need to take a shit," in the court of a king he doubtlessly caused some sort of problem with his rudeness.
I am fairly certain he wanted to return and reference his bodily deeds.
I was wondering about that as well. I've never heard a player ever once declare that their characters were going to relieve themselves--not unless it was to humiliate a fallen enemy or some such.
Considering the assassin could have waited for them all to go to sleep before slitting their throats, this could have gone much worse for the PCs, but I still think it could have been better played too.
First, I would have made the assassin much lower level. Next, I would have allowed more rolls to allow the players a chance. For example, you said he had been tracking the PCs for some time. Did the PCs never get Perception checks to notice they were being followed during all that time? The assassin couldn't have been invisible the entire time. Golum was a master sneak, and yet the Fellowship still realized they were being followed after a time, and took steps to deal with it. Would it not have been more exciting for the players to try to lay an ambush for their would be killer?
I think this situation isn't really unfair as described (I could totally see a scenario playing out that way), but it is somewhat poorly designed. As the GM, you obviously knew there was no way the PCs would spot the assassin. That's already a red flag. The players have to have a chance in life or death scenarios, or at least a clear indicator that they should flee, otherwise you might as well say "rocks fall, everyone dies; hand over your sheets and make some new characters" whenever such a situation comes up. That might be authentic to real life, but it makes for a poor game.
Also, you should also ALWAYS let the players roll their own saves, particularly when it means life or death. If you rolled my save and I died as a result, I would feel somewhat cheated.I'm pretty much with RD on this one. It's one thing to have your PC die in battle or even in a solo assasin assault. It's another thing to have your character go off into the darkness without even an opportunity for a die roll.
GM's need to work out encounters like these in their heads ahead of time. They have to decide what are the probabilities, but in all fairness taking total agency from the players the way this seems to have been done, while legally kosher, is not cool.
Ah, ah, I'm not the GM, I was over there hanging out and reading stuff for my classes.
I believe the GM rolled the Fort Save to not tip the other players off. He needed the players to not be able to know something was up aside from the time.
If the GM said, "Roll a will save. Roll a fort save. You die," the players would have been up in arms immediately fully embracing the meta-gameing at that point.
I have a story that's similar to this one.
The group had just indirectly discovered the identity and hideout of a serial killer BBEG that was stalking one of the PCs. The PC (A Ranger) in question, enraged by the revelation it was someone they knew, immediately wanted to rush off to the BBEG's location and confront him. She was backed up in this decision by all the other PC's except one. This one PC (An Alchemist) suggested that since they knew who was responsible for the killings, they should inform the local captain of the guard, just in case something happened to them when they went to the dungeon, also citing the possibility for reinforcements.
The other PCs rejected this idea immediately, and the Ranger said that was fine with her if the Alchemist wanted to do that, but if he did she and the other party were going on without him and leaving him behind. This actually put the Alchemist in kind of a bind, because if he went to warn the authorities he had no way of following the party due to a lack of Survival skill (GM was also notorious for random encounters on the way to places outside the city, death was likely for a lone PC) So the Alchemist would have essentially been asked to sit out the rest of the session and just sit and watch the others fight the boss for making an intelligent decision.
The Alchemist decided to go with them and not warn the Sherrif in the end because the player was worried the party would have difficulty dealing with the dungeon if he allowed them to go on without him.
The result? A total party kill, even with all four PCs there. The knowledge of who the killer was died with them, and the group was unable to continue the game. The Alchemists player was unhappy with the result and credited the end of the game to players "making decisions like characters in a horror movie."
After reading the story in the OP, I feel kind of bad for the last two players who went to go check.
The players played unwisely.
For me, as a DM, this is lacking a couple of key elements:
1.) Story. A good TPK should leave some players alive to run in fear/plot revenge, even though it was in reality a TPK. Alternatively, they should wake up resurrected in a torture dungeon. These things may have been present and we simply weren't told.
2.) Build up. Had the party fought baby versions of the assassins before? Did they know about Prayer Strike and it's effects? DM's teach players about the world in steps, because it is a story about the characters. This also may have happened and we weren't told.
3.) Awareness of less wise/smart players. I've run a campaign for 5 years with great characters run by poor mechanical players. Their real life personalities don't suit the intricacies of power gaming. I would never deploy an assassin against these players above their level as they would all certainly die without any fun. It would steal all of their progress.
4.) Character focus. This retelling reads to me like the opening chapter of a novel about a master assassin, in which his deadliness is communicated through how easily he murders mooks. Except, in Pathfinder, he's the mook, not the hero.
There is a place and style for TPK play. I'm currently playing in an RA campaign and it's a constant heart attack inducing mess of fun. I don't know enough about this campaign to know if it sits in that vein.
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I would not do anything like this. Sure the 2nd player made a huge mistake going out looking alone. (Of course he is probably just following the horror movie trope where you are supposed to say "that is weird i will check it out, and let's split up!")
I have considered what to do about assassins, and I would use a stealthy guy, but probably not such a powerful red mantis, for various reasons:
1. if this is the very first assassin, the PCs would probably would only merit a weaker guy before you'd hire the big guns.
2. to give them a chance, and let the assassin lead to further story development, the assassin has to fail. That doesn't mean hand it over, but you don't do what he did, but unless you want the campaign to end like this one seems to (unless the DM resurrected them all)
3. maybe the assassin is sent to capture them alive.
4. maybe the assassin only incapacitates the first guy, capturing him for interrogation on party strength
5. in real life, many hitmen are pretty bad. Some hitmen (especially amateurs) will try to terrorize their victim first by warning them, stalking them and leaving notes. Very few are the expert assassins that you see in movies, I'd make the assassin after the PCs like that. SO i'd do some of the following:
Maybe items disappear from their campsite, cluing them into their being stalked.
Or I'd give the PCs chances to interact with the assassin first. Maybe they don't notice the stranger they overtake on the road is the same guy from the pub the other day due to his high disguise.
Basically, if you play an assassin the "right" way, the campaign likely ends. Which is frankly boring. So you really can't do it. The only times I've seen a TPK followed by resurrection were screwups by the DM, saying "oh i didn't think you guys would do that" Know the players, know how they'll act.
And I must confess I have never even once seen a player announce their character that is on watch is going to go relieve themself. We just have watch order, and the DM rolls for random encounters.
When I GM I tend to teach my players as I throw things at them so that by the time they are high level they know not to do certain things.* Not splitting the party is a low level lesson if anyone ever tries it. If they do it anyway, that is on them.
*This assumes new players or players who have had GM's go easy on them in the past.
the 2nd player made a huge mistake going out looking alone.
It was really the whole party making terrible decisions. The first player decided to go off on his own. The second player decided to go off on his own. The third and fourth players decided not to follow either of the first two until it was too late.
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Well, yeah.
Smart opponents -> using environment against PCs -> +1 CR
It can be so much more than a +1. Reminds me of my last session. Gestalt game, level 10. I sent two ghosts with those exact stats... except with the ability Malevolence. So CR 9ish? Against 3 level 10 heavily optimized gestalt characters, plus maybe like 15 level 7 fighters.
The group was in with some dwarves who were under siege by undead in an old fort on a hill. In the middle of the night the ghosts attacked two people at the gate, possessed them, coup de graced two others of the dwarven defenders, and then hacked some more defenders to death before the PCs put them down... meaning their skin suits, killing more defenders. And then once one of the ghosts died, the other sunk into the floor and played hit and run possession/ankle grabbing for Corruption Touch all night, literally all night to wear the defenders down. I don't think my players liked it, but it amused the hell out of me.
Anyway, I don't think the story about the Red Mantis was too harsh as the players did f%~& up bad, but then I run a brutal game. How acceptable what happened was depends solely on what kind of game the players were expecting.
Did they know the assassin was one of the best Red Mantis Assassins in the world, or just that some assassins were hired?
I would like to know how the players reacted?
I avoid the whole area of secret assassinations when GMing, no matter what system I use. If a sniper or assassin is required for the plot then I'll make sure that the first strike is a failure and turn it into a hunter-killer chase.
For a GM, using a secret assassin is too easy. It's 'rocks fall because you didn't know the roof was going to collapse', or 'the assassins planted a bomb in that tavern so you're all dead'.
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Did they know the assassin was one of the best Red Mantis Assassins in the world, or just that some assassins were hired?
I would like to know how the players reacted?
That's actually an interesting point, considering the leader of the red mantis is cleric 9/red mantis 10+ (which I suppose in that case means the leader of the red mantis is a mythic character, a very tough lady). Well at least assuming this is Golarion of course.