D&D 5E Assassins, Alignment, and Archetypes

[doctorbadwolf]

No, it's got potential. It doesn't synergize with bleeds though. Maybe move and attack on a critical starting at 5th level?

I like the general idea more than a second attack. Helps separate the class a little and it emphasizes the move and strike thing.

Yeah we gotta be careful not to make every feature a moving part, too. Reading Mercer’s Blood Hunter gives me a headache, trying to imagine tracking all those active features.

but yeah, I’d love for a normal round for an assassin to include moving and either Hiding or attacking as part of the attack action after making an attack. Maybe on a crit or drop? Maybe even a drop or an attack where you invoke shrouds, so you have some control over it?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, so

HD: d8
Weapons: Simple, all the light weapons, Hand Crossbow, Shortbow
Armor: light
Skills: 3 of [mix of ranger and classic rogue skills]
Tools: 2 of Disguise, Poison, Alchemist, Tinker (trust me. The class needs some social and exploration stuff. Badly.)

Level 1: Shrouds (1), Ribbonish thing related to social stealth
Level 2: Bleed Feature, Lethal
Level 3: Assassin’s House
Level 4: ASI
Level 5: Defense/Riposte Feature, Move and Attack/Hide Feature
Level 6: House Feature
Level 7: Evasion

 

[Fenris-77]

That looks about right, yeah. The social stealth thing - how about a solid bonus to deception specifically for use with a disguise? Also, are we looking to steal expertise here for this class or not? Maybe not, just to keep things separate.n

Moving after an an attack requires special rules, something like "after a hit in melee, the assassin may use any remaining movement to disengage without provoking attacks of opportunity". That part could be a low level bit, and then at a higher level you add in the "on a crit (or whatever) the A may use his reaction to move X and make an additional melee attack against a different target" part.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That looks about right, yeah. The social stealth thing - how about a solid bonus to deception specifically for use with a disguise? Also, are we looking to steal expertise here for this class or not? Maybe not, just to keep things separate.n

Moving after an an attack requires special rules, something like "after a hit in melee, the assassin may use any remaining movement to disengage without provoking attacks of opportunity". That part could be a low level bit, and then at a higher level you add in the "on a crit (or whatever) the A may use his reaction to move X and make an additional melee attack against a different target" part.

True. The second attack could be at level 5. I do wonder if maybe making a “Extra Attack, but situational” is a bad idea, though, the more I think about it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

For social stealth, the idea is to allow the assassin to just...slide up to the folks at a fruit stand and examine some fruit or sit next to someone on a bench, or walk with a small crowd, and be hidden. Whether that should be deception or stealth, idk.

I wonder if there is room in the base class for tools, by the way. Gadgets. It feels like all assassins have specialized tools to some degree, but idk where to put such a thing.

 

[Coroc]

Arya is a great Assassin.

edit: I’d even say she should be part of the inspiration for the subclass that focuses on disguise. Maybe using mystical arts to become something like a changeling.

oh! What do we all think about using “monsters” as inspiration for the names of the subclasses?

Assassin of the Doppelgänger/Wraith/Displacer/Manticore Enclave/School/Guild?

Agreed. But she is a very skilled front end fighter also, check her training sessions wiht Brienne from Tart.

She uses her skill to infiltrate without having to resolve to stealth. But unlike a normal assasin (like in AC i think you would have to run if to many guards approach) she could stay and fight it out.
For me that is a big difference. If she would just hide for a moment put on another face and escape that way, then it would be more like the D&D class.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I kinda skipped a lot of posts so I don't know if this has been brought up but:

Traditionally, the issue with assassins in DnD is the game assumes being an adventurer and part of an adventuring party. Assassins are traditionally not part of a team (at least while on mission) and usually only go on one very specific kind of adventure. Bridging the gap is tricky, otherwise this would have been solved long ago.

 

[Coroc]

I skipped some posts, but I think Creed of__________ (creatures) sounds so badass I might get it tattooed after work latter today .

...

Do you always go to the body shop if you get any good ideas at work?

I mean, do you have tattoos like "I should suggest go to the next football game to my buddies"
or "the garden needs another tree in the NE corner".

Do not forget love ends, but the tattoo stays, eve nif yo uget old and wrinkly

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Assasins are the true bad guy of the D&D classes, although I would like some piece of "anti-villain".

Usually assasins are a stealth class for populated urban zones, not in nature regions. They haven been trained neither to explore dungeons or the underdark nor to face groups of enemies.

Subclasses? Easy, you only have to see the archetypes for the slayer class in the pathfinder SRD.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Agreed. But she is a very skilled front end fighter also, check her training sessions wiht Brienne from Tart.

She uses her skill to infiltrate without having to resolve to stealth. But unlike a normal assasin (like in AC i think you would have to run if to many guards approach) she could stay and fight it out.
For me that is a big difference. If she would just hide for a moment put on another face and escape that way, then it would be more like the D&D class.

See, for me, that is just something that an assassin should be able to be built to do, or not. As always, past editions are just inspiration, not something I feel beholden to at all, so I don’t worry about whether past dnd assassins could survive a standup fight. I worry about if my inspirations in general can or not. And the answer is, some of them.

Take AssCreed. Altair can’t, Ezio can sometimes, if you’re very good, and Connor can fight a horde of redcoats singlehanded and limps halfway through Delaware or whatever at th e end of the game while bleeding out, because he is a force of nature.