Assassin Preview at Gencon

[Silverblade The Ench]

Ki!! see, it's still around, sort of
certainly sounds interesting, hm...

 

[Felon]

1. Story motivation: giving self over to Shadowfell in some way
2. Different, and interesting, mechanic: striker damage builds up over time, presumably through studying or becoming more in tune with the target
3. Too lazy to look at the docs again, but I'm sure that there's at least a 3 in there.

We already have warlocks to handle the pact- with-sinister-forces angle.

More to the point, there's not much that's interesting about the striker damage. I guess that it's for suddenly jumping out of the shadows to gank some poor guard, but it's still not going to one-shot the guy. And once combat starts, Damage now is certainly preferrable to damage later. Since it ramps up in a linear progression, there's not much incentive to let it build up.

 

[drothgery]

Except that Shadow, the source the Necromancer is most likely to use, will not be in PHB3. PHB3 is Psionics, Divine, Primal. The only way the Necromancer will appear is if it's Divine, which imo would be a mistake, but eh.

Was it ever explicitly confirmed that the subtitle on the PH3 cover we saw was the final one, and not just a placeholder? The only PH3 classes that we've actually seen previews of have been psionic.

 

[Shroomy]

Was it ever explicitly confirmed that the subtitle on the PH3 cover we saw was the final one, and not just a placeholder? The only PH3 classes that we've actually seen previews of have been psionic.

Yes, the earlier image is identical to the one in the Spring 2010 catalog.

 

[Felon]

Was it ever explicitly confirmed that the subtitle on the PH3 cover we saw was the final one, and not just a placeholder? The only PH3 classes that we've actually seen previews of have been psionic.

That's what I'm wondering. Divine is done. Plenty done. We only had two divine classes to convert, and we got two new ones to round out the four core. And primal? The barb was kinda shoehorned in there so the druid would have a buddy, and then two other classes were contrived to give them their four core.

 

[Cadfan]

We already have warlocks to handle the pact- with-sinister-forces angle.

More to the point, there's not much that's interesting about the striker damage. I guess that it's for suddenly jumping out of the shadows to gank some poor guard, but it's still not going to one-shot the guy. And once combat starts, Damage now is certainly preferrable to damage later. Since it ramps up in a linear progression, there's not much incentive to let it build up.

Mathematically and therefore objectively wrong.

Lets use the sample character. His damage per shroud is 1d6+3, rerolling 1s, which averages to 7.

Lets say he has 70% accuracy.

If he has one shroud active, he can do expected bonus damage of .3*0 + .7*7 = 4.9

If he has two, he can do .3*7 + .7*14 = 11.9

If he has three, he can do .3*14 + .7*21 = 18.9

If he has four, he can do .3*21 + .7*28 = 25.9

This favors waiting as long as possible to use your shroud.

If you do not believe me, assume combat is 12 rounds long. Character A uses his shroud damage every round. B uses it every other. C every third, and D every fourth.

A will have expected bonus damage of 12*4.9 = 58.8
B will have expected bonus damage of 6*11.9 = 71.4
C will have 4*18.9 = 75.6
D will have 3*25.9 = 77.7

QED. Waiting as long as possible is best.

 

[Imban]

QED. Waiting as long as possible is best.

Huh. Given your math I came to the conclusion that in most fights - i.e. ones where you're not expecting it to turn into an absolute slogfest - you should probably use it every other round.

To put it in perspective, you're dealing an average +1.05 damage/round for the entire fight if you use it every other round as opposed to every round. From every other round to every third round, you're only gaining +.35 damage/round. From every third round to every fourth round, you're gaining +.175 damage/round.

+1 damage/round is approximately equal to some feats that people actually take, but the possible missed opportunities of using it and such far outweigh the amount I care about less than half a point of damage per round.

(I mean, if you're just going to be flailing at the same guy with at-wills for 40 more rounds, or you need to make an enemy spend as little time in Bloodied as possible, things change, but...)

 

[Cadfan]

Huh. Given your math I came to the conclusion that in most fights - i.e. ones where you're not expecting it to turn into an absolute slogfest - you should probably use it every other round.

To put it in perspective, you're dealing an average +1.05 damage/round for the entire fight if you use it every other round as opposed to every round. From every other round to every third round, you're only gaining +.35 damage/round. From every third round to every fourth round, you're gaining +.175 damage/round.

+1 damage/round is approximately equal to some feats that people actually take, but the possible missed opportunities of using it and such far outweigh the amount I care about less than half a point of damage per round.

(I mean, if you're just going to be flailing at the same guy with at-wills for 40 more rounds, things change, but...)

Well, I can't mathematically analyze the potential for missed opportunities, etc. So I get your point, but can't really work it into the math. The only other comment I can really make on the math is that waiting becomes more and more worthwhile the lower your accuracy, since the portion of the equation that favors waiting is the miss damage.

As for the general strategy and the "on the table" aspects, well, there's never going to be a solid rule. You'll have to play by ear, knowing that waiting is best, unless you miss out by waiting too long, or unless you build up so much bonus damage that you overshoot zero and waste it by knocking the enemy to negative fifty or something when zero would have sufficed.

Of course, you have some tools to prevent that from happening. You don't have to use your shroud on the enemy that you're fighting. You can teleport from foe to foe by stepping through their shadows. And you have a bunch of options for mobility or even attacking at range.

So basically, you can afford to spend your time fighting one enemy, and concentrating on using your guild bonus to get small amounts of bonus damage versus this particular target, while building up your shroud on a far away enemy not currently engaged by any of your teammates. Then, when you've built up four charges, you can teleport over and dish out some pain on a target that's fully healthy, or nearly so.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

are your DPR maths taking the miss effect into account...


I basic attack for Hit: 1d4+4 Miss:0
1 shroud I BA for hit 1d4+4+1d6(B1)+3 Miss 0
2 shroud 1d4+4+2d6(B1)+6 Miss 1d6(B1)+3
3 shroud 1d4+4+3d6(B1)+9 Miss 2d6(B1)+6
4 shroud 1d4+4+4d6(B1)+12 Miss 3d6(B1)+9

I don't know about you, but if I go attack A, Shroud B, Attack A shroud B
then round 3 shroud B then attack B I do more on a miss (min 10 Max 17) then on a hit with one shroud (Min 10, Max 18).


It rememinds me of the avenger...they screw with the miss and hit numbers and the dmag number making them hard to do real DPR...

so lets do hit/miss out here...

we will take a level 1 rouge and a level 1 assasin both with daggers and basic attack...both with combat advantage...

we will give both a 15 Str

Rouge +8 1d4+2+2d6
Assasin +7 1d4+2+1d6per shroud

rouge hits on a 10... assasin on an 11



roll rogue as/1sh as/2sh as/3sh as/4sh
1 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
2 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
3 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
4 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
5 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
6 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
7 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
8 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
9 0 0 3.5 7 10.5
10 11.5 0 3.5 7 10.5
11 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
12 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
13 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
14 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
15 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
16 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
17 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
18 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
19 11.5 8 11.5 15 18.5
20 18 12 18 24 30
avrage: 6.65 4.2 7.285 8.3 15.075

edit: Ok my chart doesn't look so good so here are the answers:
rouge: 6.65
AS 1 shroud 4.2
2 shroud 7.285
3 shroud 8.3
4 shroud 15.075

 

[Cadfan]

I don't follow what you're doing, but yes, I was taking the miss effect into account. The miss effect is what rewards you for waiting until longer to use your shroud damage.

Think of it this way- on a hit, you do X*Y damage, where X is your shroud damage and Y is the number of rounds you studied. Because you can study and attack in the same round, your choice is between X every round, 2X every other round, 3X every third round, or 4X every fourth round. This doesn't reward waiting, because if you evaluate by damage per round, you get X/1, 2X/2, 3X/3, and 4X/4, ie, X every round no matter what you do. If this were all that was going on, you might as well use shroud immediately at all times.

But lets look at the miss damage separately. If you use shroud every round, your miss damage will be 0X. If you use it every other round, its X. If you use it every third round, its 2X. If you use it every fourth round, its 3X. Now divide to get your miss damage per round, and you'll have 0, X/2, 2X/3, and 3X/4. The longer you wait the more you get.

I'm not going to do comparisons to a rogue right now because that gets very involved. The rogue can't use bastard swords, for one. And they're likely to have different accuracy levels.