D&D 5E Assassins, Alignment, and Archetypes

[lowkey13]

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[Charlaquin]

idk mercenaries kill people for money, why are they allowed to be neutral or even good? assassins are just mercenaries who work on very specific targets. it's that whole "backstabbing people to death is EVIL just THE WORST" attitude that made them evil, but I don't want to get into an argument over alignment, I'll be up all night.

Also, the idea that “assassin” means “murderer for hire” is kind of a weird fantasy-ism. Assassination is politically-motivated murder, which is something D&D adventures of all classes engage in from time to time. I see what @doctorbadwolf is going for here, but I’m not sure “assassin” is the best name for the class. Too much baggage tied up in that name, I think it might be better described as like a “Nightblade” or something.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Fenris-77]

Implementing something like shrouds, if we are likening that to finding weak spots, could be accomplished in two ways. One, you observe the target for X time, call that the stealth method; or two, after fighting an opponent for a round (or something to that effect). So it works on the "case your target basis" but also works in normal melee but would be indexed at larger target and not so much mooks. In both cases observation is the key.

 

[Charlaquin]

As soon as it passed into the West, it was immediately used to mean a murderer for hire. See, e.g., references in Italy in the 14th Century.

The first known western explanation that I know of is that an assassin is a person who kills other people for money.

My understanding is that in the west the word Assassin was used to refer to the Ḥashashiyan, who were mistakenly believed to have been motivated by money, and later got generalized to mean anyone who employed similar techniques (which more often than not were more about intimidation and psychological warfare than actual murder). Regardless, in the modern day it means politically or religiously motivated murder.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Lethal is: When you reduce a target of an attack to 5hp of fewer, you instead reduce them to 0hp. This would scale with tiers, but the idea isn’t for it to ever be super high. It’s there to make the assassin the guy who never leaves someone just barely still alive with an attack.

Exact, this is what my 4e executioner had (up to 40 damage at epic levels, right?) and it was fun and satisfying, even with the high hp bar of 4e monsters.

For what I've seen, undead of cr 4 have about 30/40 Hp but Turn Undead require a save and is 3/sr. So lethal threshold being something like: 5 (at 5th level), 10 at 9, 15 at 14 and 20 at 18th could ok I think if its against a creature under a status effect:

Lethal Strike:
At 5th level, when you attack a humanoid while it is under the following effect: Surprised, Poisoned, Blinded, Stunned, Paralyzed or Unconscious and the attack would leave it at 5 hp or less, it falls to 0 hp immediately instead. The threshold increases to 10 hp at 9th level, 15 hp at 13th level and 20 at 17th level.

Exploit Weakness:
Beginning at 1st level, your attack against a creatures under the following effect: Surprised, Poisoned, Blinded, Stunned, Paralyzed or Unconscious deals 2d6 extra damage of the same type as the weapon your using. This damage increases to 3d6 at level 11 and 4d6 at level 19.

Archetypes features:

Student of Poison (Poisoner): You gain proficiency with poisoner's kit. If a creature would make a save because of a poison, you add your proficiency bonus to the DC to resist the effects of the poison. You also have advantage on all check made to gather and harvest poisons and their components.

Envemomed Strike (Poisoner) You ignore resistance to poison damage when you damage a creature. The first attack that hits after you roll initiative deals an extra 1d12 poison damage. This damage increases by 1d12 at level 10 and 18.

Hunter's Binding (Bounty Hunter): When you finished a long rest, you can craft a number of Hunter Traps or Manacle equals to 1+ Int mod. The DC to avoid and escape the trap or manacles equal to 8+Prof+Int mod. The damage of the traps is 2d4 instead of the usual 1d4, and this damage increases by 1d4 at 5th level, 9th level and 14th level. If your DM use the variant rules for Tying Knots found in XGtE, creatures have disadvantage to escape your knots.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Charlaquin]

Well, the mistake is what took because that's how it came into the western vernacular. To the extent it has a particular connotation, that's usually because in the modern era, it's more important people that we think of as being "assassinated."

I appreciate that it can have different connotations (as in the assassination of JFK, or even referring to athletes as assassins because they are good) but if you look around, you will see that it is just as commonly used in murder-for-hire, much like "hit man."

I disagree. In day to day life, when I hear the word “assassination” it’s generally about the killing (or more often attempted-killing) of a political target. Only in the context of fantasy do I see the word being used to describe killers for hire, and even in that context it’s inconsistent. For example, fans of A Song of Ice And Fire often refer to the Faceless Men as assassins, but the fiction itself does not. The Order of Assassins in Assassin’s Creed is motivated by political philosophy rather than money, and are canonically direct successors of (a factionalized version of) the actual Ḥashashiyan. Heck, even in fantasy fiction that features assassins who do kill for money, the money itself is usually a secondary motivation at most, used to fund the order. That’s what seems to really define assassins in most fantasy fiction, is organization. The Faceless Men, the Order of Assassins, the Dark Brotherhood, they’re all political and/or religious orders first and contract killers second.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Fenris-77]

The etymology of the word is probably very secondary to the task at hand, as interesting as the conversation might be.