Another Improving Assassin Thread

[Vissy]

It's been a few months since the last one, and since Assassin is still rather lackluster both in terms of flavor and at actually assassinating anything, I thought I'd raise this topic again.

Going to go straight into the meat and bones of it - here are a few great suggestions for improving Assassin:

1) HIPS at Level 8. A common suggestion with a lot of history. The drawbacks are also well-known to those who remember the earlier threads: there are fears giving Assassin HIPS might dilute the uniqueness of classes like Shadowdancer. Personally, I think this is something that can be resolved. After all, in pen and paper, Assassin does have Hide in Plain Sight at Level 8. I think it would make a lot of sense to at least give them this.

2) Crafting poisons / ways to improve the DCs of existing poisons. This would require creating new poison items, I believe, or adding in existing poisons (with bumped-up DCs) as Assassin-unique items. Since poisons are a part of the Assassin's toolkit, this would be a flavorful mechanic to add to the class which would make the class more unique, allowing it to stand out from your standard rogue/fighter/rangers and whatnot.

3) Add more Assassin-specific trinkets and equipment. Currently, there are very few such items in the module, and there could stand to be a few more - these items should mainly concern spell slots, as otherwise other UMD classes might benefit too much from them.

[Frankz]

If assassins need a buff, give acccess to more bonus feats.

[FinalHeaven]

Assassins do need some sort of improvement but unfortunately the persistent, incorrect stigma around them being the "PvP class" makes it unlikely.

They're great for flavor and in extremely rare cases they're great for the Master/Apprentice style roleplay, but the latter is so close to being non existent due to even the average player realizing there are far stronger builds out there that it probably shouldn't even be counted as a positive.

They absolutely could do with HIPS but that'll never fly, usually for the reason stated above.  I'd very much love to see some sort of special poison creation/strengthening feature for them.

[myrddraal]

Poison craft with unique poisons with actually good DCs as an added class spell like ability with how palemaster get summon undead and summon greater undead is probably the best way to go about buffing them “fairly.” That way you also don’t have people passing them out like candy to their friends.  One of them maybe being a DOT, another being a slow, and another being a direct damage.  Spacing them out at levels 1, 4, 9, with dc’s varying between different saves (please not all fort saves) and have them scale with assassin levels as something like 15+class level + int mod

Alternatively since they’re rogues with less skill points, making them full BAB class could work if nothing else is touched or granting them the 6+ int skill points rangers get.  Still less than rogue levels, more than monks I guess, but still a narrow scope of skills.

[Alcoholic Squirrel (Birdman)]

I would also recommend the addition of more suitable Assassin spells.

Click here for the previous thread

I wanna see the Assassin meme become the Assassin dream

[Merry Munchkin]

The capstone skill for any assassin really ought to be the ability to instantly kill something -- after all, that is what an assassination is all about.  One shot, one kill.  If we can do a custom capstone feat for assassins at an appropriately high level, I would suggest a selectable combat feat that can be used X number of times a day, that would be a fortitude-save-or-die type of ability like quivering palm.  High level casters (via spells) and monks (via quivering palm) have that ability, so I have no idea why an assassin couldn't have it too.

I would also suggest a companion feat for Dead Eye that allows the addition of your Dex bonus to damage using melee weapons.  Rogues could use this feat too.

[Alcoholic Squirrel (Birdman)]

The capstone skill for any assassin really ought to be the ability to instantly kill something -- after all, that is what an assassination is all about.  One shot, one kill.

So this is actually how P&P Death Attack worked...



I'm pretty sure Assassin is the furthest from it's P&P version on the server. It's missing a lot of good spells, it's abilities do not do what it is set out to do, some very notable and important abilities are utterly missing.