Assassin Feedback

[NMcCoy]

As written, you can apply the poison to the blowgun itself instead of the darts, and it will then last for the encounter.

 

[Deverash]

What he's saying is that there is nothing in the rules to prevent you from argueing that you just put the poison on the blowgun, and get the poison all encounter.

 

[Theroc]

But... you're not striking with the blowgun... >.> you're striking with the dart...

 

[Artoomis]

But... you're not striking with the blowgun... >.> you're striking with the dart...

As written, you are attacking with the blowgun. Sure, you use ammunition to attack with the blowgun, but that does not change the fact that you are attacking with the blowgun. A +1 blowgun gets +1 to attack and damage with the darts. In the same way, one could argue that , as written, the weapon that gets the poison is the blowgun and so the darts all get the poison form the blow gun.

I am not saying it should work this way, but that's the way it is written.

To work only for ammunition, the poison should only be allowed to be applied to melee weapons or ammunition. Not just a "weapon" without regard to whether it is melee or ranged.

 

[GreyLord]

On a different note...did I read their predendum right? The little part that says it's still in the playtest stage????

They're giving us a freaking playtest assassin?

I suppose it's good to playtest the thing...but what about the final picture?

If they are presenting it to DDI as playtest, does that mean it's actually going to come out in something else hardcopy? For every other class I can think of that came out as a playtest first...it eventually came out in one of the books?

What's up with the entire playtest thing? OR is it now part of the entire unearthed arcana thing melded with essentials?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The last assassin was not playtested... the barbarian was... so it has nothing to do with unearthed arcana... just that we are given a full writeup of a complete essential class ready to playtest.

A class which is very hard to judge just from reading... so many tricks, so many little damageing things, a death attack, only one encounter...

I like where the essential moving forward is going:

the basestructure of 4e is still there, but at-wills are not bread and butter skills, encounters are all put together into a single devastating attack, dailies are poison skills (like arteficiers infusions)

A very cool concept... maybe i get my halfling player to play this instead of a thief...

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

As written, you are attacking with the blowgun. Sure, you use ammunition to attack with the blowgun, but that does not change the fact that you are attacking with the blowgun. A +1 blowgun gets +1 to attack and damage with the darts. In the same way, one could argue that , as written, the weapon that gets the poison is the blowgun and so the darts all get the poison form the blow gun.

Let's finish reading the poison power: "Apply the [some poison] to your weapon or one piece of ammunition. Until the end of the encounter, whenever you hit a creature with a weapon attack using that weapon or ammunition [some effect]."

RAW, you can apply the poison to your blowgun. When you physically attack a target with a blowgun as an improvised melee weapon, you can apply your poison.

Ranged attacks with projectile weapons use projectiles to strike the target though, not the weapon that fired the projectile. If you are using your blowgun to deliver a ranged attack, the ammunition strikes the target, not the blowgun.

Finally, if a player stated this argument to me, I would point out that they are purposely ignoring how poison works with projectiles to gain a mechanical advantage. The rules explicitly state how poison works with ammunition, the player should honor those rules.



Besides, a smart player would simply coat a magical dagger with the poison and throw it. Since it's magical, it returns to the player's hand to be thrown again.

 

[Insight]

Some of the poisons work only for the first attack and some work for the entire encounter. This doesn't make much sense. It should be one or the other.

I agree that ranged attacks are seriously hosed in this. Especially when you give the Assassin at-wills that use specific weapons (such as the blowgun).

 

[Klaus]

As written, you can apply the poison to the blowgun itself instead of the darts, and it will then last for the encounter.

You're welcome to applying the poison to the blowgun, but don't be surprised if you end up being poisoned...

 

[WalterKovacs]

Some of the poisons work only for the first attack and some work for the entire encounter. This doesn't make much sense. It should be one or the other.

I agree that ranged attacks are seriously hosed in this. Especially when you give the Assassin at-wills that use specific weapons (such as the blowgun).

The higher level version of the poisons aren't as bad, as they apply to 5 pieces of ammunition which would be closer to how many attacks you may get in during a single enounter.

There are options using non-assassin specific weapons (i.e. thrown) which would benefit from the ability to reuse. On the other hand in the case of blowgun the at-will which uses a blowgun greatly improves poison attacks, not only increasing the chance of hitting with it but also causing the first save to auto-fail.

There are many poisons available. Basically, they are like daily powers, and you get a "spellbook" which lets you pick some and use the ones you want, etc (you can presumable prepare multiples of the same one if you want it).

So arguing that some of them aren't as good for one of the two guilds presented is like saying "these con based dailies aren't very good for my Fey pact warlock". Yes, not all of the dailies are optimal with one build. The single dose poisons are best delivered via the dart gun at will, the multiple time per encounter is better put on a melee weapon, the airborne poisons are probably better for the melee build as well (it provides a ranged option that doesn't require a ranged weapon to use). The article seems, overall, to favor the melee build, a bit like the Avenger having token ranged powers, but the utility powers of the Assassin are much easier to take advantage of as a ranged attacker. There is inherent benefit in being able to strike (and hide) from a distance.