D&D 5E Assassins, Alignment, and Archetypes

[Tony Vargas]

Now, I didn’t expect an Assassin class in the PHB, but when I read the Assassin Rogue archetype...<whistle> nope! That’s certainly a type of Assassin, sure. I mean, it doesn’t follow through on having poison proficiency, it’s too hyper focused on “false identity infiltration”

The 1e PH Assassin was quite the disguise artist, right down to faking other alignment languages.

First, though, what would the base class do?

Erm? Kill people? Obviously SA, poisonings, trap-setting, and faking causes of death would seem to be high on the list. Infiltration, be it stealth and/or disguise, of course, and Escape & Evasion if not prone to suicide missions (hardly out of the question, in concept).

Then we get to Archetypes. Folks question why “any class can’t be an assassin”(any class can be a thief, too, folks.)

Anyone can be paid to kill people, sure. Anyone can predict the future, too - Diviners are just a lot better at it. It's a matter of having the skills!

or insist that there aren’t enough viable archetypes tomake a full class worth it.

Well, there's obvious stuff like the actual etymological-root hashīshīn, there could be Royal secret assassins, above-board/legal Executioners (Lictor, Carnifex, &c), Avengers carrying out divinely-dictated death sentences, Spies, and, of course (gag) ninjas. Oh, and the supernumary shadow-magicky assassins from DDI, which 5e nodded to with a Monk subclass, and, if we are going into magic, a "poison maiden" or other curse-delivery-service could be a sort of assassin, too.
Edit: oh, and Bounty-Hunters, similar skill set, just might bring 'em back alive, sometimes.

Sorry, just brainstorming, what did you have in mind...

Below is a short list of assassin archetypes, and what they’d do.
Executioner. Fast, parkour, climb speed, reaction attacks when an enemy misses, some poisons.
Covenant Agent. Religous Assassins
Wraith. mystic assassins
Spy/Social Infiltrator.

Sounds good.

 

[Charlaquin]

People v. Superior Court, 157 P.3d 1017 (Cal. 2007)
"Decker did not want to kill these women himself — as he explained, 'he would be the prime suspect' and 'would probably make a mistake somehow or another' — so he sought the services of a hired assassin. "

People v. Bruno, 111 AD 3d 488 (NY Ct. App. 2013)
"When asked to elaborate as to why she described defendant as the assassin, the witness, who testified through an interpreter, explained that 'he was the one who shot [her].'"


....and so on. It's all over the place. Like, everywhere. To refer to people who hire people to kill people (I should break out the Streisand ... people, who hire people .... to kill people ... are the luckiest people in the world).

Here, how about in the news?


NY Post article-

"Instead, the man, identified as 'witness 2' in court documents, went to the cops, who sent an undercover officer to play the role of assassin. "

No offense, but you are just, 100% wrong. It is NOT A FANTASY THING, unless I'm living in a fantasy world.


looks around

Eh, maybe I am. Point still stands.

Fair enough, I guess.

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

Also fair.

 

[Charlaquin]

@lowkey13 : real quick, I wonder if what might be going on here is a division between the way the word “Assassin” is used and the way the word “Assassination” is used. What I’m thinking of is when people talk about “the assassination of so-and-so,” which (again, in my experience) seems to almost always be about political attacks rather than contracted killing. But your references are generally along the lines of “so-and-so hired an assassin to kill so-and-so.” Could it perhaps be that colloquially “assassin” has come to mean “one who kills for money,” while “assassination” has come to mean “politically motivated murder?”

 

[lowkey13]

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[Panda-s1]

The D&D alignment system was much more ridged in earlier editions. Firstly it accepted (as do many legal codes) a moral distinction between killing in battle or for self defence, and murder. And secondly it made neutrality the norm. An ordinary decent person who never hurts anyone would be neutral. In order to qualify as good, it was necessary to be actively altruistic - i.e. seeking the benefit of others without reward for yourself. It would be difficult for a mercenary to be "good" under those definitions, since no matter how heroic your actions are the instant payment is accepted it is considered neutral.

yeah I know AD&D was a lot more rigid about alignment, I still find it dumb that mercenaries basically get away with murder re: alignment while assassins have to be horrific people by default. like what if I made an assassin who only ever killed evil targets? would absolutely refuse to kill anyone good or even neutral? maybe this character counts as evil, idk, I never liked alignment anyway.

Mercenary jobs are more often "win this fight". If a job was offered that was basically "kill this person", then it is indeed likely that only evil mercenaries would apply for it.

The 3.5 edition assassin was required to be evil because of the requirement to enter the prestige class, which was a set of specialised skills and magic taught be a specific organisation. A DM who waived the entry requirement would likely have no issue with non-evil assassins.

and how do you win fights as a warrior again?
(I know someone's gonna go into nature of medieval combat and ransom etc. I don't care, we're talking about D&D right now)

I know evil was a prerequisite in 3.5, but WotC did put out an april fool's article that detailed a "new" prestige class called avenger that was almost the exact same thing as assassin except good.

I have a feeling someone at WotC felt the same way lol.

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.

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.

I mean I think I hear more about people talking about the "correct" use of assassinate more than I hear pepople "misuse" it. I think most people just associate assassinations with the murder of high profile people and don't give it more thought.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Fenris-77]

There's hard ways and easy ways to approach this project. Poison, frankly, is the hard way. There are excellent 3PP supplements for it anyway and some DMs might be fine with the class but not want rampant poison use. Poison as a class feature is goofy - either the game has poisons nastier than PHB or it doesn't, and if it does its tool based, not class based.

Light sneak attack against a hobbled target sounds like a pain in the butt. Extended crit range with advantage is a cleaner mechanic - advantage can be manufactured by the assassin more easily than a condition so it's less dependent on other characters. You can play around a lot with crit range too - extend the d20 range, either in general or under certain conditions, plus you can monkey around with the number of dice. I think it indexes better DPR rather than nova, and that's more fun to play IMO.

 

[Charlaquin]

Assassin is a tricky concept to make a solid D&D class out of IMO because combat is such a significant part of the game, and an assassin isn’t really a combatant. If they’re doing their job right, there shouldn’t be a fight. If they’re really good, there shouldn’t even be a death. Just a knife in the pillow to show they could kill you if they want and a note with their demands. At least, that’s my view of assassins, as opposed to mere hit-people.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Fenris-77]

We really need to get past the name. Call them Nightshades, or Ghost Killers, or Grey Men, or Rainbow Warriors, whatever gives you feels. The thread is going to keep calling them assassins, as per the OP. The thread is not about common hit men, or amoral killers for hire. Think of it as highly skilled special operatives who specialize in high power targets. Infiltration, stealth, and efficient and precise melee rather than brute force. More specifically, how to realize that idea in a class that manages to feel separate from from Rogue and Fighter. This assassin is a combatant, as is usually the case with fantasy assassins, and one of the design goals is to make a class that isn't as "on it's own" as the rogue archetype of the same name.

I don't think that bringing our own baggage about real world assassins and assassination is helping the thread at all.