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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oni" data-source="post: 5829892" data-attributes="member: 380">I think you could skip giving assassins a SoD specifically and instead turn to the death by massive damage rule in 3e for inspiration.  Since HP don't actually represent physically damage we can tweak this mechanic to mean something else, or a few different things really.  You could give run of the mill grunts lower thresholds and more elite creatures like dragons (size) and arch-wizards (wards) and cranky anti-paladins (sheer skill and orneriness) higher ones.  You could give them different thresholds based on whether they are aware or not or even other circumstances (maybe a regular threshold and a disadvantaged one).  You could then do things like give Thieves an out of combat damage bonus, Assassins an out of combat bonus and maybe a circumstantial in combat bonus (assuming an assassin is basically a rogue that has given up some of the exploration/social ability for more combat ability), or maybe the ability to combo his smaller damage attacks to count as one for breaching the threshold (assuming multiple attacks are possible).  Maybe fighters can attack the lower threshold in combat rather out and vice versa for classes with a Death/Sneak attack.  Upshot of all of this would be that it would make the sneaking into a camp and quietly shanking the sentries a possibility without having to make them low level creatures.  It would allow everyone the chance to be able to do it, even wizards, but classes that are better at dealing damage (fighter/barbarians/et c.) would be better at it, and classes designed for such things (thieves/rogues/assassins) would be better still, but on the flip side once the melee starts the combat classes would be able to shine more then it came to reaping through all those grunts and cannon fodder and such.[edit: PC's, being awesome like they are, simply get better thresholds.  Thresholds would be a dial that can be adjusted up or down for deadliness.]</blockquote>

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