D&D 3E/3.5 Assassin in 3.5: How did I miss this?

[IcyCool]

The Death Attack isn't htat useful, though. How often in combat are you going to take 3 rounds out to then try to make a special attack that might not even hit? I mean yeah, it's cool and all for role-playing... but not really that useful in a game. I'd rather have and extra d6 to Sneak Attack damage.

The idea being that they don't know you are there, and you start combat with a death attack.

 

[Synthetik Fish]

The idea being that they don't know you are there, and you start combat with a death attack.

But how often does that ACTUALLY play out? A party isn't going to want to wait, in game or real time, for you to sneak around, set up, watch, etc., just so you Might get one death attack off. The ability is more used for, well, assassinations. Sniper on the roof, that type of thing. It's a GREAT NPC class, I just don't see that paticular ability being used by PCs as much.

 

[IcyCool]

But how often does that ACTUALLY play out? A party isn't going to want to wait, in game or real time, for you to sneak around, set up, watch, etc., just so you Might get one death attack off. The ability is more used for, well, assassinations. Sniper on the roof, that type of thing. It's a GREAT NPC class, I just don't see that paticular ability being used by PCs as much.

Exactly, it's not really designed as a "team player" type of class. There are a couple of others like that floating around, including a base class (IMO).

 

[mzsylver]

Exactly, it's not really designed as a "team player" type of class. There are a couple of others like that floating around, including a base class (IMO).

Which base class out of curiousity?

 

[Synthetik Fish]

Which base class out of curiousity?

Well, pretty much any evil class is hard to do. Most campaigns aren't evil campagns, and it's hard to explain an evil character in an otherwise all-good party.

There was one prestige class (I know in 3.0 at least) it was barbarian based, basicly the class gives a whole bunch of protection against magic, but you have to destroy X amount of GP of magic items a week or whatever. Frenzied Bezerker is hard to pull off, too.

Druids are hard to do, and IMO are rarely useful. Most campaigns DON'T take place in the forests. What is a Druid really going to do in a dungeon? Goodberry?

 

[Drowbane]

How did you miss it? It was clearly hiding in plain sight.


(Also, the Assassin PrC simply isn't used that heavily. Most people don't run evil games, so it isn't that suitable for PCs, and for NPCs it just usually isn't that fun to murder PCs with no warning.)

That and its a fairly lame PrC.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I'm actually fond of the Assasin PrC.

A friend of mine played a Neutral assassin, and the rest of the party found it quite useful. Of course we were mercenary freedom fighters taking no prisoners, but the REAL reason for taking the PrC was simple.

SPELL LIST.

Almighty spell lists. Once you have one, even if you don't have access to the spells, you can grab all of the front-loaded spells on reasonably cheap media like Wands. For Rogues, this is very nice, as you're not screwing up the rest of your stats (HP, Sneak Attack progression, etc) taking levels in Sorc or Wiz.

Combine with a friendly in-party item-creation wizard, it's quite effective.

--fje

 

[Synthetik Fish]

I'm actually fond of the Assasin PrC.

A friend of mine played a Neutral assassin, and the rest of the party found it quite useful. Of course we were mercenary freedom fighters taking no prisoners, but the REAL reason for taking the PrC was simple.

SPELL LIST.

Almighty spell lists. Once you have one, even if you don't have access to the spells, you can grab all of the front-loaded spells on reasonably cheap media like Wands. For Rogues, this is very nice, as you're not screwing up the rest of your stats (HP, Sneak Attack progression, etc) taking levels in Sorc or Wiz.

Combine with a friendly in-party item-creation wizard, it's quite effective.

--fje

A) You msut be Evil to be an assassin. Neutral won't cut it.

B) You can only use wands of spells that are on your spell list. Just because Fireball is evocation doesn't mean that an assassin can use it. (Not saying that you thought this, jsut putting it out there.)

I still think that in the proper circumstances, a level or 3 (to get 2nd level spells) in spellcasting is very devastating for a rogue. You should have a high Intel anyways (for skills) so taking a level in Wizard makes a lot of sense. Don't have to, but often it doesn't hurt (IMO.)

 

[IcyCool]

Which base class out of curiousity?

Note that this is my opinion only, but I feel that as is, the Paladin doesn't lend itself to a team atmosphere (unless the team shares the view of the Paladin). It's certainly more workable than say, Frenzied Berserker.

 

[Bill Muench]

Very nice! That's gotta hurt. I take it the babua sneak attack and class based sneak attack stack? Given that Wraithstrike is a swift action, it only takes one round to setup to cast Divine Sacrifice. What's the best class levels to have in Blackguard and Assassin for this? Now if you could use it to force the sneak attack such as Bluffing or similar, or with two-weapon fighting and flanking. Ouch!
Pinotage

Yep, it's pretty painful. Babaus can actually get into Blackguard without any class levels if you swap their feats around, IIRC. So something like Babau Blackguard3/AssassinX is pretty groovy. Plenty of sneak attacking, 2nd-level Blackguard spells, Assassin abilities, etc. There are a couple of ways to force the sneak attack - distract assailant, flanking, greater invisibility, etc. Give him a few lackeys to provide flanks and it works great. Plus, every time the PCs hit him, their weapons take acid damage. Good stuff. I actually prefer to just use his claws, rather than a weapon, for visual purposes. That said, two-weapon fighting is superior in the long run.