Assassins as a Heroic Archetype?

[chronoplasm]

And the rogue is a thief.

The difference is in the motivation.

For instance, think of a trained monastic warrior who goes on a quest to infiltrate Neraka and kill the leader of the evil dragonarmy in his sleep, throwing Takhishis' forces into disarray. He's an assassin, and he's heroic.

I'm sorry, but for some reason I read this as
"...a quest to infiltrate Nebraska..."

Points of Light in a post-appocalyptic United States with magic?

 

[El Mahdi]

Any character who wails away at their target for 300 rounds without taking it down is not doing their job, regardless of class

Or, they may be using a Ring of Regeneration on their victim during a torture session.

Sounds like it be right up an Inquisitors alley.

 

[avin]

Bruce Wayne fails the final Assassin test, though - he is unwilling to kill someone.

Except on The Dark Knight Returns comic book, of course.

Best comic book example of an assassin is Itto Ogami, IMO.

All these years playing and I remember just one campaign where we were GOOD against evil, so we don't share OP's concerns about the assassin...

We're going to start a GURPS Martial Arts game where all of us are assassins.

Not bad, not good, just paid to kill.

 

[jbear]

where would Drzzt D'Urden be without Artemis Entreri?

 

[evildmguy]

Another example of an Assassin might be the Operative of Serenity.
He believes his actions are a neccessary evil to protect the Alliance and its citizen. In some peoples eyes, he might be a hero. He doesn't himself see it as such (and the audience and the protagonists don't either), but an Alliance-trusting individual might.

That's one I was thinking of, although the others are good examples as well.

"I am a monster. The world has no place for me in it."

edg

 

[pawsplay]

Bruce Wayne fails the final Assassin test, though - he is unwilling to kill someone. He has all of an Assassin's skill set (or at least one possible skill set ), but he lacks the ultimate aim to kill his mark(s).
In a way, Rohrschach is the opposite in that sense - he didn't always kill people, but he changed after a bad experience. But both Batman and Rohrschach clearly have the skillset of Assassins.

Batman at least took a level of assassin under Raas al Ghul... and he was prepared to shoot Joe Chill. In a lot of ways, Batman is an example of a very cool assassin PC, someone with moral and psychological complexity, and who has a "real life" that interferes with his clandestine activities.

 

[Garthanos]

Hmmm there is a perfect comic book character who goes by the name of "Darkness"
his turn towards heroism was inspired by the batman. And his powers corespond very very closely to that of the Shadowfell Empowered Assasin in 4e.


I think batman is closer to a brutal rogue with a detective background. (yeah if you want multiclass in some monk or hybrid if you want so that punches are the attack of choice for close range and light blades for range).

 

[Andor]

Best comic book example of an assassin is Itto Ogami, IMO.

I can't believe it took 3 pages for someone to mention him. Lone Wolf and Cub is all about an assassin. However while he is heroic is stature and action (and sometimes motivation) he would certainly never describe himself as a hero. Perhaps my favorite episode of that series has him hired by a feudal lord to assasinate a monk who the lord believes is encourageing a peasant reballion against his rule. Itto approaches the monk but finds himself unable to strike down an enlightened figure. He prepares to kill himself for his failure and converses with the monk who guides him of how to find enlightenment along the assasin's path. He meditates on this "Meet the Budda, Kill the Budda. Meet your parents, kill your parents." achieves enlightenment and manages to kill the monk. Of course the feudal Lord betrays Itto and he kills him without a qualm.

Reno Williams of one movie and a long series of books is another assassin as hero, but one who is a member of an order that dedicates themselves to killing evil people, viewing assassination as a higher calling.

There is also the concept of the duelist assassin. This is someone who operates as an assassin, maybe even openly, but rather that striking from the shadows approaches his prey openly and engages them in a more-or-less legal duel. This is an approach modern morals find more appealing although it does little to make the assassin less mercenary. A distinctly unheroic version of this archetype kills Paul Tankersly in the Honor Harrington series.

 

[awesomeocalypse]

It may help to think of it in terms of a "team" dynamic, because d&d is a team game, and the temperament of a given hero generally has much less to do with the role the heroes play in the world than does the direction they choose to take as a team.

In most fiction featuring a heroic team that works together to defeat their enemies or solve problems, each hero tends to embody a certain archetype. Roles like "the heroic leader" or "the brain" show up again and again in different genres and different media, and are represented to some extent by the classes themselves (allowing that anyone can roleplay a character to be anyone they want them to be)--played true to stereotype, wizards are "the brains" while classes like paladins are "the heroic leaders".

One of those recurring tropes is "the badass". The ruthless antihero who often clashes with the others (especially the leader) and who employs darker methods than the others, but who at the end of the day is absolutely on the side of right and there when you need him. Batman is like this. So is Wolverine. They're the white hats who kinda look like black hats if you squint in the right light. But they still function as integral and effective parts of teams that are about as heroic as it gets.

The badass is a popular role for lots of players for every class, but it is especially suggested by a few classes, primarily strikers. The Avenger aka Batman with a holy symbol, the Rogue who is a direct descendant of a class literally alled the "thief", the Warlock whose faustian fluff is more suggestive of a villain than a hero...all of these are classes that push players in the direction of playing "the badass" within their team.

The assassin clearly fits into that role. Batman and Wolverine aren't assassins...but both trained with assassins at key points in their development, and they both employ methods we might associate with an assassin-like character (granted, Batman does not kill, but he's basically a ninja with supertech in every other way. Wolverine when he's feeling sneaky is 100% like an assassin). It isn't hard to picture an assassin character who employed completely ruthless methods to take down evil, but who was nevertheless at the end of the day firmly on the side of right and of his teammates.

 

[Garthanos]

Hmmm there is a perfect comic book character who goes by the name of "Darkness"
his turn towards heroism was inspired by the batman. And his powers corespond very very closely to that of the Shadowfell Empowered Assasin in 4e.

Oh yeah and the character was also a mob enforcer no less... his redemption is far more subject to doubt. In some ways making him a more interesting character because of this.