Assassinate (Ex): A slayer with this advanced talent can kill foes that are unable to defend themselves. To attempt to assassinate a target, the slayer must first study his target for 1 round as a standard action. On the following round, if the slayer makes a sneak attack against the target and that target is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly killing the target. This attempt automatically fails if the target recognizes the slayer as an enemy. If the sneak attack is successful, the target must attempt a Fortitude saving throw with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 the slayer's level + the slayer's Intelligence modifier. If the target fails this save, it dies; otherwise, the target takes the sneak attack damage as normal and is then immune to that slayer's assassinate ability for 24 hours.
Assassinate has 3 conditions. 1 the slayer has to study their target for 1 round. 2 They make a sneak attack on the next round. 3 The target does not recognize the slayer as an enemy. The first two are fairly straight forward and should not cause any questions. The third one is more complicated, but not nearly as much as you are making it out to be.
As long as the target of the assassination does not consider the slayer an enemy before the attack he can use assassinate on the target. There is no requirement for the slayer not to be in or have been in combat. If the target cannot perceive the slayer obviously, he does not consider him an enemy, so things like invisibility will cover this requirement. If the target perceives the slayer but considers him an ally or at least a neutral party that also covers the requirement. Using disguise or magic to make the target think the slayer is an ally will work.
Determining if a target considers the assassin a neutral party is probably where most of the ambiguity lies. The way I would handle it is if the character would attack the slayer given the opportunity. For example, if the slayer were to move out of a threatened square would the target make an AoO on the slayer? If the target would take the AoO on the slayer they would be considered an enemy.
A slayer can use assassinate in combat fairly often. If the slayer is pretending to be part of the party this is quite easy to accomplish. You are right about one thing and that once they attempt to assassinate the target it usually means further attempts are difficult to achieve. Greater Invisibility would work but anything else is likely to fail.
The sneak attack condition I highlighted includes the denied DEX bonus. I consider that to be part of the same requirement.
The last thing that causes the assassination to fail is when the target recognizes the slayer as an enemy. That means he has to be able to perceive the slayer and treat him as a hostile creature. Both conditions have to be satisfied for the condition to cause the assassination attempt to fail. If the target cannot perceive the target, he cannot recognize him. That is why the greater invisibility allows multiple assassination attempts in a round.
The AoO is more about would the target attack the slayer than can he. Something that prevents an AoO will not necessarily prevent the assassination attempt. Another way to answer it is ask if you get a free attack on the slayer will you take it? If the answer is yes that slayer is a hostile creature. If the target considers the slayer hostile and can perceive the slayer the assassination does not happen.
I'd expect table variation on multiple attempts per round. After the first attack, the enemy recognizes the slayer as the enemy in that square. While I'm not crazy about this kind of logic, it's exactly the kind of thing the design team would decide if they weighed in on this question.
For what it's worth, similar abilities like this that are meant to turn off after a first attack (like the vigilante's version of sneak attack), use the terminology "aware of" instead of "recognizes".
A stalker gains an ability called hidden strike, which allows him to deal an extra 1d8 points of precision damage on melee attacks (or ranged attacks from within 30 feet) against foes who are unaware of his presence, who consider him an ally, or who are made flat-footed by startling appearance. This extra damage increases by 1d8 at 3rd level and every 2 vigilante levels thereafter. A stalker vigilante can also deal hidden strike damage to a target that he is flanking or that is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, but in these cases, the damage dice are reduced to d4s. A stalker can deal hidden strike damage against targets with concealment (but not total concealment).
Even if you are aware of the assassin, you might not recognize what it is or notice the attack coming. That said, even if someone is invisible, that doesn't meant they can't be detected and therefore recognized. I would generalize to perhaps still within some sort of stealth relative to the target of the assassinate.
we are trying to figure out if the slayers advanced talent Assassinate (Ex) can be used in combat?
The second you use the ability, you're in combat, if you weren't before.
Most options to make it work have been mentioned, but there is one morwe: The advanced benefit of the Divine Fighting Technique Norgorber’s Silent Shiv lets you "treat [a creature] as being completely unaware of your presence for the purposes of all class features and feats you have".
That is why the greater invisibility allows multiple assassination attempts in a round.
How? The target of the first attempt is either dead or immune for 24 hours, and any other targets would require having being studied as a standard action the previous round.
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I'm going to have to go with "no, you can't always use it." Because otherwise you can easily come up with a rotation to assassinate one target every other round.
R1 Standard: Study Target 1
R1 Move: Stealth
R2 Standard: Assassinate Target 1
R2 Move: Whatever
R3 Standard: Study Target 2
R3 Move: Stealth
R4 Standard: Assassinate Target 2
R4 Move: Whatever
The clause "This attempt automatically fails if the target recognizes the slayer as an enemy" seems to be a shorter way of writing "you may only use this ability if the target is unaware of the presence of the slayer or believes him to be an ally or non-combatant."
How? The target of the first attempt is either dead or immune for 24 hours, and any other targets would require having being studied as a standard action the previous round.You know, I completely missed that last part about becoming immune for 24 hours.
I assumed it was more a question of the attack missing, and thus the assassinate never actually being triggered.
Multiple uses in combat is going to be difficult to achieve, but not impossible. It would require the slayer to spend another round studying his new target before making the second assassination. Outside of greater invisibility or the first attack being out of sight of the other combatants it will be hard.
A slayer under greater invisibility could move through a long combat taking out targets every other round. The slayer could use the first round to study a target and assassinate them on the second. Then on the third round move to a new target and studying it. On the fourth round he could assassinate a second target. As long as the invisibility holds out and the targets cannot perceive him, he can continue assassinating every other round. You can move and still take the standard action to study the target.