Assassin Feat: Hidden Insight; Needed or Wasted?

Kalidrev · Oct 29, 2009

Looking over the Assassin feats, abilities and powers, I noticed this feat. I have an issue with this feat, but this may spring from a misconception on my part.

When an Assassin uses his Assassin's Shroud power on an enemy, is the enemy aware of the shroud in the first place? Does it state this anywhere? I have looked all throughout the Assassin articles and can't find a mention of this anywhere. Is there a PHB entry somewhere that says all effects placed on an enemy is automatically known by them?

If there is no mention of this, then what is the point of the Hidden Insight feat? The fact that this feat exists tells me that WOTC is of the mind-frame that effects are automatically known, but is this actually written somewhere?

Rapida · Oct 29, 2009

I could be wrong, but I thought it was stated that every creature knows the effects and conditions of abilities on them. So if they get marked by a paladin then they know they have to attack the paladin or get burned for it. If I get a chance I'll try to find a reference in one of the books.

renau1g · Oct 29, 2009

Yes, the creature is aware of the shroud being placed on them. I don't have the reference either but as Rapida says all creatures know all conditions on them. Without the feat, if an assassin was sneaking around and saw an enemy, he places his first shroud and the mark is like "Hey, WTF? I know something's not right here", and then all of a sudden, they're on the defensive. This lets the assassin place all his marks on the target from teh safety of the shadows, or while he keeps them occupied with talking to them (only takes about 20 seconds or so to place 4 shrouds on a bad guy).

Dunamin · Oct 29, 2009

I think we have to be careful not to confuse D&D terms here. Powers, conditions, effects, and class features are all different.

PH p57 said:
Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed. For example, when a paladin uses divine challenge against an enemy, the enemy knows that it has been marked and that it will therefore take a penalty to attack rolls and some damage if it attacks anyone aside from the paladin.

So creatures are aware of powers affecting them. Including, explicitly, the target of a paladin's divine challenge.

Conditions are also naturally something you're aware of affecting you. You can't really not notice being blinded, prone, or marked - the latter essentially means someone has forced your attention on them (to my understanding).

Class features, however, is not from my impression something you automatically know about. A fighter's target knows the condition of being marked (the fighter is pressuring it), but it doesn't know that if it shifts it will suffer an attack. Unlike the case of a paladin, this isn't caused by a power.

Kalidrev · Oct 29, 2009

R1: Unfortunately, unless the DM specifies otherwise in his adventure... I don't think you could use the Hidden Insight feat while talking to someone since the feat says "Creatures from which you are hidden are not aware of your shrouds"... So you could only do it as an opener from hiding (cause it's not like you care if they know your shrouds are on them in the middle of combat...).

Dunamin: Unfortunately, in this case, Assassin's shroud is an at-will power of the assassin. Thanks for pointing to the PHB location that I needed.

renau1g · Oct 29, 2009

You're right Kal. I was not thinking, it'd be much cooler that way, especially for Murphy, change shape into someone else, get close to target, then *bam* dead target....

Rapida · Oct 29, 2009

Dunamin said:
I think we have to be careful not to confuse D&D terms here. Powers, conditions, effects, and class features are all different.

So creatures are aware of powers affecting them. Including, explicitly, the target of a paladin's divine challenge.

Conditions are also naturally something you're aware of affecting you. You can't really not notice being blinded, prone, or marked - the latter essentially means someone has forced your attention on them (to my understanding).

Class features, however, is not from my impression something you automatically know about. A fighter's target knows the condition of being marked (the fighter is pressuring it), but it doesn't know that if it shifts it will suffer an attack. Unlike the case of a paladin, this isn't caused by a power.

That is a good point about features vs. powers. Assassin shrouds are powers (I'm pretty sure) so the target would know about them without the feat. That sound about right?
EDIT: Ninja'ed!