D&D 5E Assassins, Alignment, and Archetypes

[TheCosmicKid]

Brainstorm for simplifying and harmonizing Shadow Action and Deadly Party:

Shadow Dash
When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to move your speed and then attempt to hide. You can ignore difficult terrain and climb at your regular speed for this movement.

Deadly Parry
When a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction and spend a shroud on that creature to make a melee weapon attack against it. If you hit, reduce the damage of the target's attack by the damage of your attack, and you can use Shadow Dash as part of the same reaction.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

The intimidation ability involves a check because frightening with no chance of failure would be broken.

I was referring to the difficult terrain/climbing option; there is no intimidate option in the version of the feature I read. You appear to have moved that up to Inevitability of Death. And I think I forgot to mention it in the first pass, but I'd prune that too. It's effectively a completely different feature, and the class is already getting a lot at 5th. It's a good idea for a subclass feature though: perhaps in a guild that revolves around using terror as a weapon, like the 3E ghost-faced killer. I ran one of those in a couple of one-shots -- pretty cool.

I’d consider this, but it would still give expertise in stealth. Having situational stealth expertise against shrouded targets isn’t quite enough to get the concept across. I might drop that part of shroud though, since it’s redundant.

I would recommend keeping the shroud feature and dropping Expertise. Expertise is always a boring ability and sort of a kludge for saying "You're good at this". More unique and thematic ways of saying that are better, and shrouds definitely qualify. Plus, and I know you're tired of hearing this, but you really do need to take every opportunity to make this kit distinctive from the rogue.

it’s comparable to deflect missiles, but Melee only. Any ability that costs shrouds can be paid from the pool or from those on a creature. I’ll find a place to make that clear.

There's a few things to keep in mind before comparing this sort of effect to Deflect Missiles:

• Melee attacks are more common than ranged attacks.
• The monk is a melee class, so Deflect Missiles is not being used against whoever their primary target is.
• The monk is balanced around making lots of weak(ish) attacks, so giving them an extra attack is less impactful than giving a one-big-attack class like the executioner an extra attack.
• This extra monk attack can't carry their big bad rider effect, Stunning Fist, but Deadly Parry is a normal weapon attack that can carry shroud damage, Blood in the Cut, and any other riders.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Brainstorm for simplifying and harmonizing Shadow Action and Deadly Party:

Shadow Dash
When you hit a creature with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to move your speed and then attempt to hide. You can ignore difficult terrain and climb at your regular speed for this movement.

Deadly Parry
When a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction and spend a shroud on that creature to make a melee weapon attack against it. If you hit, reduce the damage of the target's attack by the damage of your attack, and you can use Shadow Dash as part of the same reaction.

No reaction. Sorry, I get where you’re coming from, but it’s either part of the attack action, or we make placing shrouds part of the attack action and make these things a bonus action.

Being a new thing doesn’t make it a bad thing. 1 per turn, they can do soemthing utility based as part of the attack action. Thats not OP.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

No reaction. Sorry, I get where you’re coming from, but it’s either part of the attack action, or we make placing shrouds part of the attack action and make these things a bonus action.

Being a new thing doesn’t make it a bad thing. 1 per turn, they can do soemthing utility based as part of the attack action. Thats not OP.

Of course being new doesn't make it bad, but I don't see any reason to modify the action economy here -- the existing reaction rules parsimoniously achieve what we want. If you're truly averse to using them, I would make placing a shroud an at-the-beginning-of-your-turn nonaction and shadow actions bonus actions on the grounds that shrouding is closer to a "passive" ability.

It's not really a passive ability, though. When we get down to it, you're saying you want the class to do three things per turn on most if not all turns, and that's something you should think really, really hard about whether it's absolutely necessary or whether there's some way to economize this turn. It's not even a question of "OP" per se. The 5E design ideal is to do one thing per turn; even the bonus action is a stretch that the designers have said they don't really like. Going all the way up to three represents a huge claim on play time and attention, even if by the numbers all of these things are balanced or even underpowered.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Of course being new doesn't make it bad, but I don't see any reason to modify the action economy here -- the existing reaction rules parsimoniously achieve what we want. If you're truly averse to using them, I would make placing a shroud an at-the-beginning-of-your-turn nonaction and shadow actions bonus actions on the grounds that shrouding is closer to a "passive" ability.

It's not really a passive ability, though. When we get down to it, you're saying you want the class to do three things per turn on most if not all turns, and that's something you should think really, really hard about whether it's absolutely necessary or whether there's some way to economize this turn. It's not even a question of "OP" per se. The 5E design ideal is to do one thing per turn; even the bonus action is a stretch that the designers have said they don't really like. Going all the way up to three represents a huge claim on play time and attention, even if by the numbers all of these things are balanced or even underpowered.

Placing a shroud takes negligible time. The Assassin’s round isn’t more complex than a rogue or monk’s.

I mean, we will see with playtesting, but for now I’d rather keep it as is and find out.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also, even Mearls has said that he’s realized it isn’t actually bonus actions he doesn’t like, it’s how dual wielding works.

I may actually go the route of making shrouds not use an action, though. It’s not like rogues use additional action economy to use sneak attack.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Also, even Mearls has said that he’s realized it isn’t actually bonus actions he doesn’t like, it’s how dual wielding works.

I may actually go the route of making shrouds not use an action, though. It’s not like rogues use additional action economy to use sneak attack.

Yeah, that was sort of my thought. You can get around the intuition that this should be an action (like Hunter's Mark and Hex are) by tying it directly to another action: "When you take the Attack or Hide action, you can place a shroud on a creature you attacked or a creature you are hidden from."

Alternatively, have you considered making both Shadow Action and Shroud bonus actions and just expecting assassins to have to choose carefully what they're going to do this round, the way rogues do with Cunning Action and monks do with their ki abilities? There's some narrative appeal to that: an assassin is either plotting carefully or springing into action, but not both at the same time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, that was sort of my thought. You can get around the intuition that this should be an action (like Hunter's Mark and Hex are) by tying it directly to another action: "When you take the Attack or Hide action, you can place a shroud on a creature you attacked or a creature you are hidden from."

Alternatively, have you considered making both Shadow Action and Shroud bonus actions and just expecting assassins to have to choose carefully what they're going to do this round, the way rogues do with Cunning Action and monks do with their ki abilities? There's some narrative appeal to that: an assassin is either plotting carefully or springing into action, but not both at the same time.

Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind as I playtest this version. It may end up feeling off, or it might work really well.

right now, the average level 2 turn is;
Bonus action place shrouds.
action attack, move, shadow action hide/gain “ignore difficult terrain and climb at speed”)


at 5th, that becomes
Bonus action place shrouds
Action attack, move, shadow action (as above, or intimidate a target)
Potential Reaction reduce damage, possibly spend Shroud to counterattack.

Okay, having written it out like that, I see potential issues more.

specifically, the bonus action is boring. Either it needs to not take action economy to place shrouds, or something else.

My issue with making the Shadow Action a bonus action is partly that it is then just Cunning Action but with different Cunning Action options. That’s much closer to “us this a rogue” than having expertise is, IMO.

So, I think I haven’t ever actually mentioned what the basic idea of shadow actions (and quick on the draw) is. I basically wanted to make them special ways to Interact With An Object, which you can do as part of another action 1/turn, but situational in what actions they can be part of.
Perhaps I need to just make that explicitly what Shadow Action does, and tie Quick On The Draw, as well as the Specialized Tool benefits, to the Shadow Action.

And maybe, just to maintain narrative better, QoTD allows you to use a Shadow Action as a Reaction when you fail a relevant roll.

If I do that and make Shroud placement not need a bonus action, I could put Shadow Action as a bonus, and the round should work pretty well. Shrouds can’t be every round anyway, but it’s important IMO that assassins can gank their main target and get away in the same round. Especially on a turn where they get their shrouds (and this damage potential) to its max. I don’t think it’s good design to require waiting more than 1 round to do the main thing the class does. So, attacking a mook and then regaining stealth in one round, while building shrouds, and then maxing the shroud in the next turn and ganking the prime target, is about the max tolerance for delaying
that core defining feature.


Might move the intimidation benefit of Inevitability of Death to a different level, as well. Level 5 is cluttered. Monk gets some stuff at ASI levels, and archetype levels, might do that, or push something further back.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, I think that will simplify things, make a lot of things read cleaner, and if shadow action (needs a better name, like most of the features) is a BA, then Specialised tool can just allow the tools to be used as either an object interaction (many DMs would already allow it) or a bonus action if appropriate.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

My issue with making the Shadow Action a bonus action is partly that it is then just Cunning Action but with different Cunning Action options. That’s much closer to “us this a rogue” than having expertise is, IMO.

That's partly why my Shadow Dash suggestion was a reaction that only had one option and triggered on hitting with an attack. A burst of speed specifically when you draw blood is pretty distinct from the rogue's more modest but reliable menu of options. Does the base assassin need the same sort of menu presentation for this feature? Or do they just need to run and hide really, really well? When they get the ability to intimidate people, is this really thematically similar enough to put under the same umbrella of "Shadow Action", or should it just be a new feature?

If I do that and make Shroud placement not need a bonus action, I could put Shadow Action as a bonus, and the round should work pretty well. Shrouds can’t be every round anyway, but it’s important IMO that assassins can gank their main target and get away in the same round. Especially on a turn where they get their shrouds (and this damage potential) to its max. I don’t think it’s good design to require waiting more than 1 round to do the main thing the class does. So, attacking a mook and then regaining stealth in one round, while building shrouds, and then maxing the shroud in the next turn and ganking the prime target, is about the max tolerance for delaying that core defining feature.

Part of the trouble is that the maximum number of shrouds grows with level, so it actually gets harder and harder to max them as the character levels up. I ran into a similar problem with a class I was writing that built up a pool of rage dice. Ideally, you want it to max out at the same rate (or faster). To do this, you can set the maximum at a constant one, two, or three shrouds, and grow the damage per shroud with level, rather than the shroud count. Alternatively, you can grow the shroud count as before, but have a single shroud action apply (say) half maximum shrouds, or maximum shrouds if the target is vulnerable. Either way, the result is that the assassin can create a distinctive sort of rhythm, alternating between cautious set-up turns and wild explosive turns.