D&D General Kill Shot

[doctorbadwolf]

So I have gone in circles with my Assassin class over the years.

One idea i like more every time i consider it is the Kill Shot.

It has level of efficacy and complexity.

At lowish level, it is just "When you deal damage to a target and it's remaining HP is less than your Dexterity Modifier, it is reduced to 0HP instead."

Simple, kinda ribbon level.

Then later it gets two upgrades, I think at levels 6 and 11.

"When you or an ally Bloodies a creature, you can make an attack against it as a reaction."
And

"When you deal damage to a crrature and it's remaining hit points are lower than your assassin level plus your dexterity modifier, it must succeed on a constitution saving throw or die."

The exact numbers i am not sure about, but i feel like this, with a teleport, and a way to mark a target for death (damage boost on a resource limit), it is a solid fantasy shadow assassin.



Thoughts?

The other dynamic i have considered is for the first part to scale more, and ghe final buff is based on CR.

 

[Scribe]

What are your feelings toward a meta currency (Prof/Modifier per day?) kind of thing?

I do, perhaps unsurprisingly, have a draft of Shadowdark class that does something like this, where it can burn a luck token to slay a target, with some qualifiers.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What are your feelings toward a meta currency (Prof/Modifier per day?) kind of thing?

I do, perhaps unsurprisingly, have a draft of Shadowdark class that does something like this, where it can burn a luck token to slay a target, with some qualifiers.

Oh i am all for limits per day.

I already have their mark as a thing they can do x/day depending on assassin level, and at one point had them as a half caster.

 

[MarkB]

At lowish level, it is just "When you deal damage to a target and it's remaining HP is less than your Dexterity Modifier, it is reduced to 0HP instead."

"When you deal damage to a crrature and it's remaining hit points are lower than your assassin level plus your dexterity modifier, it must succeed on a constitution saving throw or die."

The only issue I'd have with this as a general class feature, rather than for your specific table, is that it requires either full transparency of opponents' hit points, or for the DM to be aware of and manage these features on the player's behalf, since you are effectively situationally dealing more damage and the situation in question is not one that the player is necessarily aware of.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The only issue I'd have with this as a general class feature, rather than for your specific table, is that it requires either full transparency of opponents' hit points, or for the DM to be aware of and manage these features on the player's behalf, since you are effectively situationally dealing more damage and the situation in question is not one that the player is necessarily aware of.

That is fair, but frankly i do not see any value in hiding hp totals from players.

Still, could center it around CR and Bloodied. Bloodied is supposed to be player character knowledge, and CR is already targetting by player abilities. In fact this idea starts from Destroy Undead.