The Assassin. Core Class or Prestige Class? Spell-Casting or Non-Spellcasting?
Dark Jezter
First Post
Extra crispy, with biscuts and baked potatoes.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Prestige class, as its just a focused Rogue. But, I don't have a preference between spellcasting or not. Both would work well enough.
Sejs
First Post
(IMC of course)
Lower-case 'a' assassins are just anybody who kills people, usually covertly, for money.
Capital 'A' Assassins are members of a secret...ish society with rules, hierarchy, and traditions. They're represented by the Assassin PrC as presented in the DMG, spellcasting and all.
You can hire someone to whack your enemy, and whether or not they have any spellcasting abilities, death attack, etc, all depends on the person you hire. If you retain the services of the Guild of Assassins (who'll have an appropriately spiffy name), you can be pretty darn sure the people who do the job will cast spells, not poison themselves, and have access to death attack. On the other hand, you'll probably never meet the people who do the actual killing, just their middleman.
Lower-case 'a' assassins are just anybody who kills people, usually covertly, for money.
Capital 'A' Assassins are members of a secret...ish society with rules, hierarchy, and traditions. They're represented by the Assassin PrC as presented in the DMG, spellcasting and all.
You can hire someone to whack your enemy, and whether or not they have any spellcasting abilities, death attack, etc, all depends on the person you hire. If you retain the services of the Guild of Assassins (who'll have an appropriately spiffy name), you can be pretty darn sure the people who do the job will cast spells, not poison themselves, and have access to death attack. On the other hand, you'll probably never meet the people who do the actual killing, just their middleman.
Skarp Hedin
First Post
Sandain said:
That doesn't mean that these assassins don't have a class and are neither spellcasting non non-spellcasting. The poll didn't state that the answers were to be as a PC class.
I said prestige class, non-spellcasting. This is because while yes, anyone who kills for money is an assassin, if it's going to be an actual -class-, I wouldn't have it as a core class. I said non-spellcasting because I dislike the idea that the best thing to give a prestige class is magic powers. Fighters have no magic powers, but most prestige classes seem to use them, even for non-magical characters. And no, I don't really know what else to do with them either, what non-magic things to use instead of magic stuff, but I know I'd like to see more magicless prestige classes.
Both: core or NPC class/non-spellcasting, and in some settings also a prestige class/spellcasting.
I think there is a place in many settings for a thug or stealthy killer class that combines rogue skills (but not rogue skill points) with expanded weapon proficiencies. In some campaigns they may be reasonable as a player concept.
The spellcasting prestige class is a good fit for the legendary (or Japanese movie) ninja and similar greatly-feared assassins with reputed low-level supernatural powers.
I think there is a place in many settings for a thug or stealthy killer class that combines rogue skills (but not rogue skill points) with expanded weapon proficiencies. In some campaigns they may be reasonable as a player concept.
The spellcasting prestige class is a good fit for the legendary (or Japanese movie) ninja and similar greatly-feared assassins with reputed low-level supernatural powers.
