Hello, everyone!
So I am a new GM running Fall of Plaguestone for my group of three players, and because of the back story of one of the players, they are going to be running into an assassin character. However, I can't find a 2e stat block for an assassin. I've thought about creating a "PC Character" to make the assassin, but I am not sure if that will be fair to the players, or the poor assassin taking on three people at once. Can anyone give some advice on how to make this character for this?
Background and context, if it helps.
The player in question is playing an elf alchemist from Elidir who was planning on making a rebel strike against a garrison in Cheliax, via some explosives that were to be delivered. However, she messed up her formula to cause the package to explode early, still in Elidir...On a aqueduct...Which flooded the commercial city enough to hold business for a full day, and ruin some crops as well. In a strange twist, nobody was reported dead from the incident, but tens of thousands of gold from trade was lost, not to mention ruined crops. She decided it would be best to leave Elidir as quickly as possible, and joined the caravan bound for Etran's Folly. (Fun part of the character, every time she throws a bomb she rolls a d20 to see if she accidentally drops the bomb at her feet from sheer clumsiness, which was her own idea.)
After discussing her character's back story with her, I did some research on Elidir, and low and behold, there happened to be a secret temple in Elidir. A temple once dedicated to Nocticula, now devoted to Socothbenoth. Almost all of it's members drowned in the flood. The survivors have sent out the assassin from their group to find the one responsible for the flooding, and end them in as brutal fashion as possible.
Thanks for any help that can be given!
What level do you plan on this encounter happening, what difficulty do you want it and must the assassin be a solo enemy?
Malk_Content wrote: What level do you plan on this encounter happening, what difficulty do you want it and must the assassin be a solo enemy? At the point I have the encounter planned, the party would be about level 3. So I think to pose a challenge the enemy would need to be around level five? I want the difficulty to be about the same amount as the Hallod fight earlier in the campaign if that helps. Do you have suggestions on whether or not the enemy should be solo or not? My initial thought is he fights alone, but I’m open to suggestions.
Quote: (Fun part of the character, every time she throws a bomb she rolls a d20 to see if she accidentally drops the bomb at her feet from sheer clumsiness, which was her own idea.) You may want to talk to her about that. In a custom game where the GM controls the difficulty, they can compensate to enable fun ideas like this so it doesn't cripple the party at an inopportune moment.
Plaguestone is a preset module. One that is swiftly developing a reputation for being unusually deadly and causing many TPKs. This is usually blamed on Plaguestone being written concurrently with the rules before the math and encounter building guidelines were finalized and ending up deadlier than its designers intended.
I would think long and hard about adding anything that could cause additional difficulty.
In the same vein, you need to think carefully about where and when to add your assassin encounter because chances are high that the PCs will already be pushed to the limit by the preexisting encounters.
Spamotron wrote: Quote: (Fun part of the character, every time she throws a bomb she rolls a d20 to see if she accidentally drops the bomb at her feet from sheer clumsiness, which was her own idea.) You may want to talk to her about that. In a custom game where the GM controls the difficulty, they can compensate to enable fun ideas like this so it doesn't cripple the party at an inopportune moment.
Plaguestone is a preset module. One that is swiftly developing a reputation for being unusually deadly and causing many TPKs. This is usually blamed on Plaguestone being written concurrently with the rules before the math and encounter building guidelines were finalized and ending up deadlier than its designers intended.
I would think long and hard about adding anything that could cause additional difficulty.
In the same vein, you need to think carefully about where and when to add your assassin encounter because chances are high that the PCs will already be pushed to the limit by the preexisting encounters. I have had to adjust the difficulty, especially since it’s a party of three instead of four. I did also adjust some hit bonuses for the traps leading into hallod’s hideout. But so far I have only once had to actively rescue the party, boar fight, because they ended up just getting incredibly horrible rolls. At the moment, with their level, I definitely don’t want to hit them with anything harder. I’ve considered just adjusting hallod’s stat block, maybe making it just slightly harder since they will be two levels higher than they were with him.
Still working on how exactly we’re doing sharing, but with a Series of Dice-Based Events we’re doing a bunch of NPC sheets for module conversions (think bestiary, but with humanoids and classes)... no lv5 Assassins, but enough samples to bring something up easily.
I think a single lv5 enemy can work, but Sneak Attack is very much a staple of assassin-like creatures, so you likely want feinting and manouvers to be a relevant tactic... which means action economy constraints. Anything I should keep in mind? Relevant ancestries or peculiarities?
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So I cant get to my computer right now, in charge of a 1 year old, so cant generate the stats but I can talk about the design a bit.
If you want a solo opponent I'd have one that is only 1 lvl above the party, with the rest of the budget spent on traps. Have the assassin draw the players notice through other npcs (perhaps Roth mentions seeing an unsavoury sort in the abandoned part of town) so the fight happens on their half. I'd recommend something like a ranged assassin on the rooftops with good jumping ability. This can give a dynamic fight with players trying to take cover while advancing, the assassin knocking down planks connecting rooftops as he moves between them etc. When I get to my computer I have a map made up for this sort of thing that I can share.
If you want to keep a solo assassin but find fights with more actors easier to balance out, try adding the assassin to another lower difficulty encounter. The assassin stalks the party until they are engaged in another encounter and then strikes from behind while they are surprised.
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That sounds like an excellent idea for an encounter in general. I might add, developing this on multiple levels gives you the opportunity of shoving people onto traps (or directly on the streets).
Additionally, if you look for lv4 assassins, the Caligni Stalker is a good lv4 dualwielding assassin with shadow magic and poison. Just need to fix up his death reaction (perhaps throw a smokestick and hide as a reaction to being hit, but he only has two sticks?), alter sight attributes, possibly just ignore the Command or keep it in mind for recurring villainousness in the future, and you’re good.
So HERE are some homebrew humans I made for a friend to use in their campaign. It was short notice so they aren't the most fleshed out and you could tweak as you need. I'd take the Sniper and apply the Elite template to make it a level 4 creature. This would give you 60 out of the 90xp for a Severe encounter for three players. The remaining 30 I'd spend on hazards, which could get you 5 level 2 hazards of your choice to put onto the map.
THIS is a map I used in one of my games for a similair encounter (though mine had more weaker melee enemies on the ground and an on level longbow archer from a tower.) The map on the left is the ground floor, the one on the right the rooftop/upper stories.
Malk_Content wrote: So HERE are some homebrew humans I made for a friend to use in their campaign. It was short notice so they aren't the most fleshed out and you could tweak as you need. I'd take the Sniper and apply the Elite template to make it a level 4 creature. This would give you 60 out of the 90xp for a Severe encounter for three players. The remaining 30 I'd spend on hazards, which could get you 5 level 2 hazards of your choice to put onto the map.
THIS is a map I used in one of my games for a similair encounter (though mine had more weaker melee enemies on the ground and an on level longbow archer from a tower.) The map on the left is the ground floor, the one on the right the rooftop/upper stories.
Awesome, these are great!
Ediwir wrote: That sounds like an excellent idea for an encounter in general. I might add, developing this on multiple levels gives you the opportunity of shoving people onto traps (or directly on the streets).
Additionally, if you look for lv4 assassins, the Caligni Stalker is a good lv4 dualwielding assassin with shadow magic and poison. Just need to fix up his death reaction (perhaps throw a smokestick and hide as a reaction to being hit, but he only has two sticks?), alter sight attributes, possibly just ignore the Command or keep it in mind for recurring villainousness in the future, and you’re good.
I missed seeing that one in my bestiary, thank you for the suggestion. With all of these, I should be able to make the encounter with ease. Thank you everyone for your help! Now just to do my best to make sure it's fun.
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