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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7918776" data-attributes="member: 6704184">I do think that the assassin needs a clearly defined unique ability that no one else has, in order to stave of the “why it ain’t a rogue, y’all!?” Squad. Shrouds could be that, and one function of them could be to decrease the crit threshold. Combine that with 4e’s Lethal (drop to 0 any critter you drop to 5 or fewer hp) quality of life ribbon, and you’ve got a solid defining gameplay style. More on how I’d do shrouds at the end of the post.But I agree on using monk fight rogue, is just also look to the ranger. Damn right. Ezio Auditore is, I’d say, Neutral Good. Altair probably starts Lawful Evil, ends up more neutral. I’m playing a rogue right now who used to be a warlock, who is definitely Good. We started this campaign in 4e, so he was just Good. Assassination as an archetype is a skill set, not a job. A hit man can be any class, and is probably evil barring some kind of “no innocents” code. An Assassin (capital A is important here) is a person trained to kill for a cause, more likely than an indiscriminate hired killer. Also, it’s a PC class. The PC might be a trained assassin who has escaped or is trying to escape that life.I’m good with this. Executioner or Avenger would be good names, since they then wouldn’t have the same name as a PHB subclass. I’d probably put shrouds in the base class, but make them less explicitly magical, and then the wraith makes shrouds more weird and mystical. I think we can look to the cleric for this. Perhaps a situation where if you deal more than half the target’s HP in damage, and their CR XYZ or lower, they must succeed on a con save or be dropped to 0. At say...5th level at the earliest, maybe it’s the level 11 damage buff. This. The assassin doing it to 1 creature at a time, with a damage threshold requirement, at a somewhat higher level, would be fine.About Shrouds, and Lethal.*Shrouds would be a mark of sorts that you apply a scaling number of (as a bonus action?). *If you are hidden or surprised, you apply more, and if the target is surprised and you’re hidden, you apply full shrouds.*Each shroud is a d10, and you get fewer than the rogue gets SA dice, and use them less often.*at full shrouds/half total shrouds, your crit range goes down to 19, eventually 18, maybe capping off at 17. *Shrouded targets grant you advantage if they are Frighthened, Charmed by you or an ally of yours, or below half their HP maximum. *When you hit with an attack, you can choose to invoke your Shrouds (no action). You add your Shroud dice as a damage bonus to the attack, and all shrouds are removed. *If you crit a Shrouded target, you gain a bonus to damage equal to your assassin level. 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.</blockquote>

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