Crimson Contracts

[HellHound]

Caine was the first to kill. There are new blood who follow his ways. They kill. Some for pleasure, some out of hate, some jealousy... and many do it for gold. The red gold of blood.

The Assassins Sourcebook. Dark tales of killers for hire. New core and prestige classes, spells, magic, equipment and more.New core and prestige classes, spells, magic, equipment and more.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Crimson Contracts - The Assassin's Manifesto - $7.50 PDF - 128 pages

Hooray. Another book about assassins. This isn't the first one, nor even the first PDF one, but I feel it is one of the best ones.

The first thing that struck me about this book is the cover art and design. It's very nicely laid out, but visually stunning. Most of the book is laid out nicely with a torn parchment header and footer, using nice clean fonts throughout and interesting black & white art. The chapter headers break from the style of the rest of the document with a black & grey beackground white text and a bloody, splattered graphical header and a striking piece of art that appears to be an oil-painting or some such medium (very surprising for a PDF product, in my opinion).

The book is broken into 8 chapters - The Role of Assassins, Skills & Feats, Classes, Tools & Weapons, Spells & Psionics, Templates, Organizations and DM Tools. THe feel throughout is fairly dark, and definitely creepy in places. A majority of the chapters are rules-heavy, but they are all held together by a storyline that is also creepy (although definitely not an example of excellent prose). The storyline does a lot to make the whole book feel like a coherent whole.

The first chapter is an excellent introduction to the mind of the assassin, types of assassins, stereotypes, character concepts, methods and means. This is the chapter that stood out the most for me on first reading, mainly because almost all PDF products I've read have been primarily rules-oriented, whereas this entire chapter is ideas and flavor material.

The second chapter (Skills & Feats) includes expanded tables & rules for handling and manufacturing poisons and venoms, antitoxins, seduction and a batch of new feats, including several poison-specific ones. None seemed unbalanced, although some of the new knowledge skills seem underpowered. But since these knowledges are used as pre-requisites for the later prestige classes, the reduced power of them seems actually to be a good balancing act.

The third chapter (Classes) includes three NPC classes that seem mostly fluff for most campaigns (maybe the thief would be fine, but the thug has already been done in several FFG books to date), as well as 15 prestige classes such as the Arcane Assassin (killers who specialize in ray spells), Brutal Killer (think of any slasher-flick), Dancer of Scarves (a VERY Oriental Adventures-style assassin), Fist of Righteousness (paladin - assassin? not quite, but definitely a good take on a lawful-good "assassin" that uses smite to take on the forces of evil), the Master of Toxins, Stalker of the Sands and even the dwarf-specific Stoneheart. Some of these classes are more powerful than others, but none are out-and-out overpowered to the typical screams of "broken", although some are definitely aimed at higher-power campaigns like Forgotten Realms where it seems the spellcaster prestige classes are particularly powerful. Most of the classes use the basis of the Assassin PrC from the DMG - non-spellcasters can become members, but often they learn to cast spells as part of the level progression. The spell lists start to blur together as you proceed through the chapter however.

The fourth chapter (Tools) includes a large selection of new poisons (including some that are quite "Epic" in power and DCs, with quite high price tags to go with them). A small selection of new weapons are also included, as well as several pages of new magic items, minor artifacts and even some new psionic items (although the psionic potion seems somewhat out of the norm). The cool magical shuriken set are quite tasty.

The fifth chapter (Spells & Psionics) add a half-dozen pages of new spells, almost entirely offensive in scope.

The next chapter (Templates) is a very interesting set of new creature templates, with the "wirebound" being the most intriguing and flavorful of the set - characters or creatures magically melded with metallic barbed wire wound tightly over and through their flesh. The type of metal used determines what special powers are granted.

Next (Organizations) comes another full chapter of information without rules. These are assassin organizations, some of which are the training grounds for some of the specific prestige classes earlier in the volume, others have the feel of being from the campaign world or pet project of the authors.

The last chapter of the book is a collection of alternate rules and an encounter. The optional rules are quite detailed handlings of things like Torture (detailed rules-wise, without going into detail on the actual techniques in question), breaking necks, garotting, choke holds & kukris. The chapter finishes with a sample encounter with a brutal-killer character, which I have already used in game play when the party was "bored" at the local tavern (like that hasn't happened in almost every campaign at least once).

Overall, I was impressed with the book. This is the largest (in page count and word count) PDF I have picked up so far, and I had to break it up on the print-spool to get it out of the printer, but it was worth it. Additionally, it came bundled with (less stunning) easier-to-print versions of the chapter header pages, making the entire document quite nice when printed without being a total ink-hog. At 128 pages, this is almost exactly what I would expect from something like "The Quintessential Assassin" or a similar work. It is definitely my favourite assassin book published to date, although the prose / flavor text / storytelling could definitely be better-written (much of the prose is in the format of dialogue, which feels quite weak as exhibition material when comapred to better storytelling methods). Combined with some of the new spells from the Green Ronin Assassin's Handbook and the real-world poisons therein, this book has become the basis for assassins in my games. A few NPC assassin write-ups with complete stat-blocks throughout the book would have been appreciated to make it more GM-friendly, but several such NPCs have been posted on the authors' website since the release of the PDF.

 

[Crothian]

Crimson Contracts By Ambient

This is from a promtional copy.

Crimson Contracts is a 127-page pdf all about assassins and the art of assassination. The book covers everything that from new prestige classes to new poison and from new feats to new originations. The book also follows the hiring of an assassination by Ralts Bloodthorne. I like how they follow this character and introduce the features of the book with him and his quest to hire the perfect assassin. It gives a great insight into the world and really adds a level to the readability of the book. There is a story to follow, as one reads from chapter to chapter and the story does not interfere of eclipse the purpose of the book.

The book comes in two versions. The first is for use on the computer while the other is designed for easy printing. I personally like this as it allows for optimum use no matter which the user wants to use the product. The art is nice and stylish. I really think it fits the product well with a feeling of evil in them. The format is really easy to read and the table of contents will help when locating specific things. The book does not have an index, which is something I like to see in all products.

The book does a very good job of covering many different types of assassins from the sneaking to the brute, the seductive to the cunning. I was very impressed with the variety of types they have.

The book starts with the roles of the assassin. It takes one through the many different types of assassins. Then it goes into the methods of the assassin like the investigation of the target and ways of dealing with him. The information here is very good and thorough. There are some mature themes and it is handled very matter of fact like.

The next chapter deals with skills and feats. There are many new uses for old skills and some good variant rules here. The feats are pretty good with some interesting ones like Run By attack and Exude Venom. While there are not many feats they are very creative and many unlike anything I’ve seen published yet.

Core and Prestige classes comes next and I’m not so sure about the new core classes. They are designed for NPCs as classes geared towards NPC Assassins and their ilk. However, I’m not sure the more NPC classes are really that needed. I would have preferred to see a single, versatile NPC class. The three core classes look well done and balanced so there should not be any problems with using them. One interesting thing they did with prestige classes was making them of various power levels. This allows the DM to select the prestige classes whose power fits his campaign. The Brutal Killer is basically a psychopath who is devastating in combat and very hard to kill. Then there is the Femme Fatale who uses seduction to kill her victims. And then there is my favorite, the Fist of Righteousness. These are Lawful Good assassins who are chosen by their god to act as judge, jury, and executioner. There are many other good prestige classes and they are of a variety of power levels.

Next is the tools of the trade chapter. It is filled with many things that an assassin will want and need in his job. There are twenty new poisons and I really think they are creative and well done. Not all of them just do attribute damage. There are some that cause pain, swelling, dumbness, and many other cool effects. There are some new magical diseases and a good deal of new equipment, weapons, magical items, and artifacts. There are even psionic items in here and that is a big plus in my book.

New Spells is the next chapter. There are not many spells, but the ones that are there are very well done. There’s a spell to hide a weapon on one’s familiar. There’s a spell that makes your alignment appear differently. And there is a nice spell that renders the subject mute. This is a very nice selection of new spells.

The following chapter is Templates. In it are seven new, and creative templates. My favorite of these is the Winter’s Child. A Winter’s Child appears as a teenage albino. They are swift and do well in cold climates. The other templates are also very good and many of them like Poison Child are quite insidious.

Then the book covers new organizations. Each gives how they have rankings, traditional clothing, markings, or weapon, places they would lair, and some methods of operation. These are well done and many should easily fit in the standard campaign.

Lastly are some variant rules. There are new torture rules that I find much better then the ones presented in the Book of Vile Darkness. There are also rules for breaking someone’s neck, using a garrote, choke holds, and instant kills using the kukri and sickle. Then there is a sample encounter.

This is a very good book about assassins and the range of information is compelling. Many of the prestige classes, new rules, and ideas presented here can also be used in a modern or other type of setting with a little work. Ambient should be very proud of this book, as I believe it is their strongest book to date.

 

[Bishop]

Crimson Contracts -- THE, not simply The, but THE Assassin's Manifesto... Outstanding, brilliant and completely wonderful to behold!! I have never in my life, seen quality of writing of this style. The writers boldly went, I think, where no one envisioned them to go. The prestige classes were very well thought out and excellently portrayed. The mechanics seems solid, though I have yet to test any of it in a game. I must say, however, this is to be a CORE supplement for my gaming in 3E and other d20 products! I, emphatically, feel that the Fist of Righteousness, is by far, one of the best Prestige Classes I have seen in awhile. The idea of a Lawful Good assassin, while it boggles the mind, is stimulating to think about, and answers whether you can have an assassin in a campaign with all good personnel, especially those that have that one paladin who insists on playing the extreme views...

If you get one e-book this year, hell next year even, you NEED to make sure this is the one! It has been excellent so far, and I just can't wait to playtest in my campaigns!

 

[Blacksway]

Bishop, write a review rather than adding a comment to someone elses review! Then more people will see it!

 

[JoeGKushner]

The d20 waves of similar products or themes rises again. A year ago you couldn’t find a book on poisons or assassins to save your unlife. Now they’ve sprung up in abundance. Green Ronin, Bastion, Mongoose and Ambient all have their sourcebooks in the pool now and Crimson Contracts is certainly one of the better books for all things dark and dangerous.

The book starts off with some ideas on how assassins differ from one another. It’s a quick look at the different ways assassins move about and showcases why in many instances, assassins are lousy player characters. You know, PCs who dress up in all black, being super obvious that they are bad men. Those generally aren’t the ways an assassin works as an assassin must be subtle and have a background that allows him to work in society without being detected. There are variations though, where the assassin is employed by the court, or by an illegal citadel where their status perhaps isn’t quite so shadowy.

For those looking for crunch, the book offers a mixed bag. To me, the new skills seem a little out of place. It’s not that they’re bad skills, but knowledge of antitoxins and medicinal venoms, and perhaps even preserve flesh, could all fall under variants of the Heal skill. Knowledge of Assassin Groups and the Professional Ability to Gather Venom help round out the skills, but once again, with Seduction, couldn’t this have been handled by an existing skill?

Those looking for tons of new feats will be a little disappointed as there are nine in the book. Some like Invisible Spell are potential campaign watchers while Spell Thematic, the ability to have your spells take on a certain appearance and style, is something I’ve seen many GM’s allow their players to do without spending a feat on it. The ability to Exude Venom however, provided you have the Toxic Immunity Feat, should make for some interesting encounters when players think they’ve disarmed their enemies.

One of the things that bothered me as a GM in the new Core and Prestige Classes, is that the core classes are NPCs. Nothing wrong with adding some more material to the kettle, but perhaps some variants of the Expert, Warrior or the Thug from Fantasy Flight Game’s book, Traps & Treachery, with some ideas on skill and feat selection, would go over better than Brawler, Hit Man, and Thief.

The PrCs bothered me too. I have nothing against variant power levels in classes. Sometimes it’s the only way to do a class to grant it a certain feel, but when creating overly and under powered classes, perhaps some recommendations on adjustments to the CR would be a good idea? Yes, it would. Now I can either eyeball the classes or use them in small numbers at lower levels to test their balance, but some advice would’ve went a long way. Take the Brutal Killer, a PrC that gets 1d12 hit dice, spell resistance, and at higher levels, vampiric regeneration. Probably a little more powerful than a standard PrC. Now the bad news, in addition to having various power levels, I have to decide on a case by case basis which ones are prone by rules raping by my players. More work for the GM.

There are a lot of fields covered by the PrCs though. The Dancer of the Scarves and the Femme Fatale provide female NPCs with some new and impressive ways to get close to their targets and finish them off, while the holy assassin gets another variant with the Fist of Righteousness, a PrC fit for those with the Smite Evil ability and a lawful good alignment. I wonder what class this PrC is for eh? This class is another example of one that may be too powerful. They gain special abilities at each level, have a spell progression table, 1d10 hit dice, and six skill points a level.

All in all, while a massive selection of PrCs can expand your world, DMs should take care with these PrCs. It’s nice to have assassin style concepts for different races like the Little Death for the Halflings and the Stone Heart for the dwarves.

For me, the chapter Tools of the Trade brought a lot to the table. It seems that you can never have enough types of poison and there are a ton of new poisons here. One look at the table provides you with a quick breakdown of what each type of poison does and the individual descriptions provide more details on things like taste, method of application and even a little history. Some of the materials aren’t just stat poisons either. Things like Psi-Away block a character’s use of psionic abilities. This is something I like, poisons that aren’t just meant to kill. I know that some like Thrapra’ak would see use by the jokers of the party as this poison is often used as a laxative.

The sections on anti-toxins and magical diseases were a little too short for me to really get into them. It was something I noted, made a few notes on and moved on to the larger section of equipment. Ah, here we have some things like bladed cloaks and razored leather armor. Nice little touches that can give your character a slight edge like the archer glove, a +1 bonus to hit with a bow, or the bow sight, another +1 to hit with the bow, but only as long as it’s properly sighted.

Now I’m currently reading the Black Company books and they have a cult of stranglers within it. They use an old trick of cloth with a weighted coin to strangle their victims. Well, now that’s come to D20 with the Arm of Kali, a long strip of cloth weighed down with a coin. Other standards like boot blades, blowguns and a variety of garrotes, help round out the new weapons section.

Those looking for new magic items will get a pleasant surprise with the new weapon special abilities like Heartseeker, increasing the critical multiplier by 1, or Phasing, weapons that ignore stone, wood and plaster. I would’ve liked to see some more magic weapons, especially the sword held by one of the narrators of the book. Still, the Shadow Blade, a weapon that makes no noise and provides a massive bonus to hide and move silently checks, will have to do.

Of equal interest to me though, were the psionic items. One of the weapons, Assassin’s Second Chance, allows the user to reroll a bad die roll once a week, while the Gauntlets of Concussion allows the user to strike the ground and send forth a wave of energy that strikes a single target. The nice thing about these items is that they all have the requirements to make them, and if you don’t own the Psionicist book, you can still use most of them for they don’t rely on psionic powers to work.

Eldritch Sorceries, brings new spells to the d20 system. It starts off with a breakdown by class and level of each spell, and then provides the details. There is a bit of a lack of higher-level spells here as the highest is 6th level, for both clerics and wizards. Take Vampiric Regeneration, a 5th level spell that does what the old ring of vampiric regeneration did. Provides the user with half the hit points he gained from any damage inflicted in hand-to-hand combat. Remember that heartseeker weapon property? It’s also a 4th level spell. I guess my question here then is, where are the psionic powers?

GMs looking for more tools will enjoy Creature Templates. Here we have beings like Death’s Assassin, an undead assassin created by an assassin who failed his original mission. Others like the Wirebound provide even more options as there are several types of wirebound. Each one of these uses a different type of metal in the creation so the weakest, Bronze, gains 2 bonus hit dice, and a +3 AC, along with other abilities, while the Mithril gains a 6 bonus hit dice, +5 to AC and a more advanced abilities.

Those GMs who are intrigued by all these goods but don’t have the time to work them into their own campaign will enjoy Murderous Organizations, a section devoted to providing numerous types of guilds. This section comes across much better than the one in Green Ronin’s the Assassins’ Handbook. While neither devotes a lot of time to making your own guilds, the variety, despite the shortness, in Crimson Contracts, allows the GM to pick and choose from several guilds instead of just two.

Each guild starts off with a stat block including leader, ranking, apparel, markings, weaponry, and other details that help the GM capture the feel of the guild at a glance. The background are roughly a page to two pages and help set the stage for what type of guild each one represents. Have a decadent city where assassination is legal? Look at the Crimson Brotherhood for some ideas on how such a guild might work. Want to get some more use out of the Yuan-ti in your game? Well, there are not one, but two guilds with links to them. Now this seems to tie into one of the PrCs from Librum Equitis 2 and perhaps even the upcoming adventure module so I’m eager to see how these all will function in a campaign. Just as impressive though is the promise of future material for the Wraith-Killers, a guild of assassins ruled by the undead.

The book closes out with some things for Game Masters to mull over rule wise. Want some variant torture rules? How about rules for breaking a creatures neck or options for strangulation with a garrote? Their in here. The book ends with a brief encounter so that GMs can prepare their players for pain.

Now in terms of setup, the book follows the conversation of two powerful individuals as one is seeking to hire an assassin for a very specific mission and the other, the guild master, is showing this death knight around the guild. This allows each chapter and section to flow into another but is at times a little distracting. While the characters are interesting, they aren’t provided any stats and while it’s a good method of introducing ideas, it’s used too much.

The chapter breaks are excellent full color illustrations but stand out in direct contract to the rest of the book. The black and white illustrations aren’t bad but not in the same league as the cover or interior color chapter breaks. The text is fair and white space is average.

I was disappointed in the whole core and PrC section. I don’t enjoy products I have to work extensively at making fit and the idea that the power levels varied so much so that something would be useful to you no matter what your style, without providing alternative CRs and method of toning down or powering up the classes, is a cop out.

To get a five star rating out of me, the book would have to minimize the dialog, improve the playability of the core and PrCs, provide rules on making and running assassin guilds, and provide more anti-toxins. As a player resource, the book does have spells, weapons, feats and a few ideas that will go a long way in helping players portray assassins in a new and more dangerous light but it’s more of a Game Master’s resource book filled with poisons, templates, organizations and other goods.

 

[Psion]

Crimson Contracts: The Assassin's Manifesto

Crimson Contracts is a d20 System fantasy rules supplement by Ambient, publisher of such titles as Librum Equitis and Thee Compleat Librum ov Gar'udok's Necromantic Arts (soon to see print as Necromancer's Legacy. Crimson Contracts presents new rules and options for assassin-type characters.

Crimson Contracts is written by Michael Chapin and Timothy Willard.

A First Look

Crimson Contracts is a 128 page PDF document. Its listed price is $11.95 for a download, but has the trademark RPGnow "permanent special" price of $7.50. The document comes in a zip file with both a screen version and a printer-friendly version.

Both cover and interior artwork is by Michael Martin. The cover is color, depicting an intriguing picture of a man with an exotic mask. The interior art is a mixture of color and black-and-white. The color art (used primarily for chapter headers) is fairly decent, but the black-and-white artwork looks rather amateurish.

The document makes good use of PDF features, such as a well-organized bookmark section. The addition of a printer friendly version is nice, but only includes replacement pages for the chapter header pages, so printing it out seems like a bit of a hassle.

The book makes use of flavor text in which two a henchman proposes each of the assassin types as potential hires to his master, but the master turns most choices down. This chatter is interesting for a while, but after the fifth prestige class or so, it wears a little thin. It started sounding a bit like "Green Eggs and Ham" by the end.

The text of some of the class abilities mentioned in the book is a little confusing and unclear, and there are a few blatant spelling errors that I am surprise weren't caught with a spell check.

A Deeper Look

Crimson Contracts is organized into seven chapters.

The first chapter provides general background information on assassins and their methodologies, but little in the way rules material. Provided here are a few ideas of different archetypes and personalities of assassins that GMs may find useful when conceiving assassin NPC.

The second chapter is where the real meat of the book begins, with rules regarding skills and feats.

The skills section provides new uses for several skills (such as using alchemy to invent new toxins and using diplomacy for networking and seduction) as well as new skill categories. The new skill categories for knowledge is probably overdone in that it provides no less than four different knowledge skills related to poison, which is over proliferation of skills in my book. Given the very general nature of skills in D&D, one knowledge skill should have been sufficient to cover all of these topics.

The chapter provides a number of new feats useful for assassin-type characters. Some notable entries include:
-Envenom Spell: This metamagic feat allows a caster to apply poison to the effects of a spell. The wording of the spell implies that any spell can be so altered, which I find a little too giving. I don't see it making too much sense to be able to envenom a charm person spell (for example), and being able to use a significant are spell to convey the poison to multiple targets is entirely too giving. A much more reasonable limit would have been to limit the feat to work on spells that cause damage to a single target.
-Run-by attack: This feat allows a character to attack a victim while running by. I am not seeing how this feat differs significantly from the core Spring Attack feat.
-Themed Repertoire: This feat causes the character's spells to take on the appearance of a particular theme. This is very similar in concept the spell thematics feat in Magic of Faerun, and it even uses the exact same example theme: skulls. However, this feat has the very bizarre requirement that spells modified with their feat must change its energy type. I think if you are taken by the concept of a spell theme, you are better off using the web errata version of the spell thematics feat from Magic of Faerun.

The third chapter provides new classes, including NPC core classes as well as prestige classes. One new core class is referred to in the table of contents, text, and magic items that apparently got cut from the book: the psionic assassin.

The NPC core classes are the brawler, hitman, and thief. The brawler is simply a fighting type with a few bonus feats related to unarmed combat; it seems to me as if the warrior with the proper feat selection effectively fills this role. The hitman and thief are rogue-like NPC classes much in the same vein as FFG's thug NPC class. It also seems to me that the hitman and thief would best be combined or (better yet) simply handled as rogues.

There prestige classes chapter includes 16 assassin-style prestige classes in all, providing a wide variety of methods of assassination. As such exotic threats are the stuff of fantasy, I looked forward gleefully to integrating these classes into the campaign. My heart sank when I read an editor's note to the effect that some classes were deliberately overpowered and should only be used as NPCs. I view this as a severe problem, as balance exists for both PCs and NPCs, and the central concept of the "level" loses its meaning when you create special exceptions for different types of classes.

The prestige classes are as follows:
-Arcane Assassin: The arcane assassin is an assassin that relies primarily on their spells to get the job done. An arcane assassin has continuing spellcasting advancement at 2/3 the normal rate as well as a number of abilities to help them in their trade, such as sneak attacks and improved spell penetration. The most questionable ability is perhaps the arcane signature ability, which allows the arcane assassin to prepare a signature spell as a quickened spell with no additional slot cost.
-Brutal Killer: The least subtle of assassins, the brutal killer is more a fighter type than the stealthy rogue type. The brutal killer is a thinly disguised barbarian variant that gets (weak) spell resistance instead of damage reduction and a few other benefits.
-Dancer of the Scarves: An interesting class, the Dancer of the Scarves is essentially a strange breed of harem girl who have mastered a secret martial art that lets them wield scarves as deadly weapons. The abilities of the class all have very evocative thematic names. One thing that bothers me about the class is it invents its own feint mechanic; the mechanic itself does not bother me, but using the same terminology to describe a different mechanical effect is problematic. Another thing that bothers me is that a maneuver that blinds an opponent refers to the 2nd edition mechanic for blindness (which provided a -4 to hit penalty) as opposed to the third edition mechanic, which is entirely different.
-Femme Fatale: The femme fatale is a seducer of sorts. The class gains spells as well as class abilities that aid in this pursuit. The class entry requirements are bizarre - they require that the character seduce each member of a couple and lures one into killing the other. Further, there are some odd things in the class abilities as well. For example, the class has an ability that, due to her distracting allure, grants a charisma bonus to AC. There are stranger things in the d20 system so I can stand that. It gets stranger still in that it insists that characters that would not normally be attracted to her get the precise same penalty. Finally, it says not a single thing about non-humanoids with respect to this ability. The ability is, as many of these class abilities, insufficiently explained and justified.
-Fist of Righteousness: The fist of righteousness is the basic church avenger type "lawful good assassin." Though the concept does not appeal to me, I know that there are some out there that it would appeal to. The class has spellcasting abilities as well as abilities related to judgment of the victim. The abilities are, unfortunately, too vaguely worded, and if you read into them what I think the author means, entirely too powerful. For example, the juror's mantle ability lets the character "decide the guilt or innocence based on evidence presented." So, is this decision infallibly accurate. If so, it seems entirely too broad an ability. If not, what is the use of the ability?
-Hunter of the Damned: Another "good assassin" archetype, this one a little more palatable. The hunter of the damn seeks out and destroys possessing entities. The class receives spell abilities, and class abilities that allow the character to act directly against a possessing entity.
-Ice Heart: One of the more reasonable classes in the book, the iceheart is an assassin that is cold both emotionally and literally. The ice heart slays by means of cold.
-Little Death: The little death are halfling assassins. The class abilities are very close to core assassins, with a few class abilities that let them compensate for or take advantage of, their size.
-Lord of Insanity: The lord of insanity is a psionic assassin that specializes in twisting the mind of the victim. Fundamentally an interesting concept and a serviceable class, it has a few flaws. First, the class has its own psionic power advancement, but there is neither a psionic power list nor any indication of which other classes list are to be used. Second, one of the class's abilities inflicts a "chosen insanity" on the victim, but there is no system for specific insanities in the core rules or this book.
-Master of Toxins: One of the more reasonable and interesting classes in the books, the master of toxins is specialized in the use of poison. As the master of toxins gains levels, it becomes immune to more poisons, and can eventually exude types of poisons that it is immune to.
-Necrokiller: Similar to the arcane assassin, the necrokiller is has continued spellcasting advancement at 2/3 the normal rate. The necrokiller can use the remains of others to assist in assuming disguises. The class is interesting and appears fairly well balanced, though some mechanics are rather non-standard.
-Phantasmal Assassin: Another interesting class, the phantasmal assassin strikes at a victim with phantasmal images and phobias. The class has its own spell list and spell advancement. Once again, the class refers back to a second edition mechanic, the mind bar psionic ability.
-Silent One: Similar to the little death, the silent one is a slight variant of the core assassin class. The class lacks spellcasting abilities, but has some special abilities related to silence, such as a the ability to silence an opponent struck (presumably to prevent calling out an alarm.)
-Siren: Another close variant of the core assassin, the Siren is a female assassin with a strong voice. The sire has a spell list and class abilities more tuned to using their voice as a weapon.
-Stalker of the Sands: The stalker of the sands has some standard assassin abilities, as well as some sand and desert themed special abilities that let them ply their trade. Some abilities lack clarity in how they can be used. For example, it is not clear how many targets can be affected with the sands of sleep ability, nor how far away from the target it can be used.
-Stoneheart: The stoneheart is a dwarven assassin with earth themed assassination abilities, such as the ability to phase through stone. The prerequisites include a ritual that gives the dwarf some ability modifiers and impressive immunities without any cost to the character; the effects of this ritual would have been much more balanced if its abilities were folded into the class.

In addition to the various weaknesses that the classes have, many of them invoke new skill categories that are perhaps too specific and too close to existing categories. For example, I think knowledge (local customs) can be safely folded under knowledge (local) and knowledge (religious law)[/I] under knowledge (religion).

The Tools of the Trade chapter includes new poisons, diseases, and mundane and magic items of particular use to assassins.

The poisons follow the typical pattern for new poisons, including descriptive and game effects. However, the use of game terminology is somewhat inconsistent. For instance, the body text summarizes the effects of beeyurt spice as being non-lethal stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea, but you have to look in the table to get the game effect (nausea.) The poison bantuvi summarized the game effects (one point of permanent loss to each ability score) but does not use the standard terminology for this in the table (drain.)

The diseases section is particularly flavorful and evocative, though again some parts of the descriptions could use more explicit amplifications in game terms. For example, one otherwise very flavorful disease, shadow blight, invokes different saving throws in the summary than is used in the text.

The mundane equipment is generally interesting and useful, providing a variety of benefits for those who take the time who use them, such as a bow silencer that helps and archer shoot in silence and a bladed cloak to foil would-be grapplers. However, a few items raised an eyebrow. For example, an archer glove is stated to provide an initiative bonus when using a bow; this is not a good way to represent speed of readying a weapon as initiative in the d20 system has little to do with weapon speed, and even characters with quick draw or who already have weapons out do not get initiative bonuses.

The magic items includes weapon qualities such as heartseeker (enhances the damage multiplier of the weapon) and phasing (a cheap version of the brilliant energy enhancement that can go through stone, wood, or leather, but not metal.) The essence of darkness potion provides a major bonus to hide rolls, but carries with it the possibility of infection with the shadow blight disease. The second skin is a wondrous item with a rather gruesome construction method that can absorb the likeness of a dead person and allow a living person to take their likeness. Overall, I was most impressed with the creativity of the magic items in this book.

The Eldritch Sorceries chapter contains a variety of new spells. Some are interesting and useful, some even beyond the realm of assassination. Azela's Windows can replay events that the caster has seen, which in the right sort of campaign can be a very useful divination. Combat Fluidness is a potentially useful spell that gives the caster an initiative bonus; however, it invents a new bonus type (arcane) where using an established one like insight or competence would have been preferable to prevent abuse. Eye of the Needle allows a character to slip through very small openings.

One thing that was odd about this chapter is that it doesn't bother to add some of these spells to the assassin spell list. Given the subject of the book and the nature of the spells, I found that quite an omission.

The book has a rather large selection of creature templates. Most of the templates do not alter the creature type. One that does, the death's assassin, is a failed assassin called back from the dead. I had difficulty taking this one seriously. The described appearance of the creature sounds like it came right out of an ice tea commercial - the skeleton like creature draws snow like flesh to it and gives it a snowman-like appearance.

Other templates include the demon driven (a possessed creature created by an assassin cult), the poison child (a humanoid who acquires the ability to resist and secrete poisons), the shadow born, the soulless one (a humanoid that is twisted to destroy its family members), the winter's child and the wirebound. There is a good degree of overlap between the concepts in this chapter and the prestige class chapter.

The Murderous Organizations chapter provides a rundown of various organizations that employ assassins, from guilds to cults to secret orders. There is a nice selection here, and the section is fairly rules-light and adaptable.

The final chapter, Game Master Tools provide variant rules on assassination and related trades, such as torture. The torture rules are fairly robust and sensible; the only major change that occurs to me is that I would make torture a category of the profession skill vice the craft skill as listed here, as that would make it available immediately to rogues. I am not too impressed with the very concept of the "breaking a creature's neck" rules; this type of thing is best abstracted as an "unarmed death attack"; I do not think it is a good idea to open up a more general method of bypassing the HP mechanic.

Conclusion

This is a fairly good resource for including assassins in the campaign. It is much broader in scope than Green Ronin's Assassin's Handbook, and provides a nice variety of different game materials and ideas supporting assassins and assassin groups. I was particularly impressed with the magic item section.

However, some mechanics struck me as dubious or confusing, especially in the prestige classes chapter where I felt it needed to be strongest. I feel that in terms of both presentation and rules consistancy, this book was a step down from Ambient's Librum Equitis 2 and Thee Compleat Librum ov Gar'udok's Necromantic Arts. I disliked some of the conventions the author used in those books, but in those cases it appeared that the author knew the rules and just chose to take a different route. In the case of this book, fumbles like hearkening back to 2nd edition mechanics simply make the authors look naive about the d20 system.

Overall, while I would recommend this to anyone looking to develop assassins further in their campaign, I do think some bits need a little retooling.

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Grompi]

Nice review. Very thorough. Tanks!

 

[Messageboard Golem]

CRIMSON CONTRACTS

Four assassin product hit shelves at nearly the same time. So what is one to do? Buy them all and sort the chaff.

Crimson Contracts is the man of the hour.

Crimson Contracts arrives in your email box as a 129 page PDF including cover & OGL.

$3 = 8 page equivalent for Mongoose's Power Class book
$5 = 40 pages for Whispers of Death (PDF)
$7.50 = 128 pages for Crimson Contracts (PDF)
$19.95 = 64 pages for The Assassin's Handbook

What Crimson Contracts has is flavor, and it has it in droves. The entire book (twice as big as any other assassin product on the market) is driven by the story of a single man hiring an assassin, and the messy end that the person he is hiring from suffers in the end.

Art throughout the book is good, with the color plates at each chapter header being particularly impressive. Downright fantastic. The layout is particularly clear and pleasant.

The book introduces itself with background on the types of assassins, their roles, character background ideas and so on. All flavor. And nice.

There are a selection of NPC classes for killers; not just warriors can kill, so we gain brawlers, hit men and thieves. Nice filler for a thieve's guild if you don't want to populate your town with level 5 rogues.

The collection of prestige classes is impressive, and most seem based on the DMG assassin, and should fit in nicely in any campaign that uses the assassin class as is - these seem to be variants and supplements to the assassin, specialists in particular ways of killing. Even nicer, most of these classes do not overlap directly with the assassin, meaning that a character could become an assassin in a guild (taking the DMG assassin PrC) and then specialize along 'standard' guild lines (such as becoming a scarf dancer, a brutal killer, and so on). I was impressed, and found that these added quite easily to my game, while each class had enough flavor and background material (via the continued storyline of the book and the individual descriptive text of each class) that they weren't JUST plug-ins, but plug ins with attitude.

But there are still some problems, as with most books, the prestige classes are sometimes overpowered (Brutal Killer) and sometimes underpowered (Stalker of the Sands)... But the sheer number of classes (16) makes it so it is easy to find ones suitable to a particular campaign or style of play.

The feats and skills chapter is a weak point in the book, with insufficient feats to get my attention, and many of the skills seemingly belonging as new uses for heal or craft skills instead.

The new poisons in this book also shone through as something unique. In addition to stats, there is a nice description of how it appears, how it acts, and what effects it has beyond simple stat damage (laxatives, psionic blocking, and more). The rest of the equipment chapter is good too, but you will sooner or later have to decide which bloody garrotte you will be using in your games, as there seems to be a new one in every rogue and assassin book out there. But the strangulation rules in this book are nicely handled and consistent with the PHB.

In addition to several pages of magic items (most interesting such as the second skin, which comes with a VERY creepy illustration), there are several of psionic items, something still rarely touched in products these days. Although I rarely use psionics in my own campaign, the differnet feel of the psionic items makes them keepers instantly like the Shard Blade - a magically enhanced psionic shard turned into a knife or sword which requires daily expenditure of power points to keep magical.

With all these psionic items, I expected there to be psionic powers, but instead there was a large selection of (mostly lower-level) arcane and divine spells. Wave of Venom creates a splashing wall of poison, and Anti-Magic Blade creates a weapon that can strike through just about any magic spell that would otherwise protect a wizard.

There are also monsters in this book. But atypically, they are all templates to make deadlier assassin NPCs. Some start at grisly (the wirebound - an assassin magically melded to metallic wire that has been wrapped around his entire body in an eldritch ritual), and proceed to the disturbing (the demon driven - an engineered child of a woman and evil outsider who must be slain once before he rises with his true powers).

The highlight, however is the excellent guild section, highlighting a dozen assassin's guilds, each with a stat block including leader, ranking, apparel, markings, weaponry, and other details to get the gist of the guild on the fly, with a page to two pages of descriptive text. What makes these great is they are varied enough that there is a guild for just about every city you could be gaming in. Plus some guilds have ties to the Yuan-Ti, and one is run by a group of powerful undead.

Finally the book ends with variant rules for torture (without getting too graphic or detailed), breaking necks and garrotting. Not necessarily keepers (although the torture rules struck me as well done), but optional rules to consider (I'll only ever use the torture rules, and even then I'd rather just gloss over as much as possible, thank you!). And a sample encounter with a pair of Brutal Killers (which I haven't used yet).

Overall, this is definitely the best of the current batch of assassin books. Still not perfect (but nothing really is), but VERY useable, and economical - I seriously prefer the guilds in this book over the ones in the other two that detail guilds as they are more useable than the two in The Assassin's Handbook, and more fleshed out with more to pick from than Whispers of Death.

A VERY solid 4/5

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
Crimson Contracts: The Assassin’s Manifesto is a 129-page PDF product written by Michael Chapin and Timothy Willard, and published by Ambient, Inc. The full-color product includes a black-and-white version and is available as an $11.95 download.

First Blood
Crimson Contracts: The Assassin’s Manifesto is a guide to professional killers of all types. Whether your campaign needs a traditional guild assassin, a free-lance contract killer, an officially sanctioned court assassin, a lone vigilante, or something in between, Crimson Contracts has everything you need to know about the personalities, roles, skills, classes, tools, and organizations that will fill that niche.

The first of seven chapters, the Role of the Assassin, provides a myriad of possible assassin types for the campaign. The assassin need not be some black-clad shadow skulking figure; in fact, he might fill any range of roles and have a number of personalities from the wild Bloodluster to the reluctant killer. The roles chapter discusses how assassins get into the killing profession, what sorts of personality quirks and traits they possess, and the methods by which an assassin plans, prepares, and executes his intended victim.

The second chapter is devoted to new skills and feats. Appropriate to a book on assassins is a series of new knowledge skills like Anatomy, plus skills use in the handling and production of poison. Craft (Origami) can provide a unique calling card for a different breed of professional killer. Ten feats allow for different and more effective modes of killing – though some, like Exude Venom or Run-by-Attack are extremely powerful in the context of the current d20 feat set.

Chapter three provides a host of new core and prestige classes appropriate to killers of all sorts. Crimson Contracts does state that the majority of them are designed for NPCs and could be unbalancing in the campaign, and this is a fair warning. While new core classes like Brawler, Hit Man, and Thief are essentially NPC rogue variants, the prestige classes range from the “purposefully weak to the overbalanced.” The Brutal Killer, for example, is a horribly powerful prestige class that makes the barbarian seem tame and would cause any spellcaster to shiver in his boots. There is a great range of ideas – the Dancer of the Scarves and Femme Fatale prestige classes, for example, make great roles for female assassins. There are two Lawful Good assassins, the Fist of Righteousness and Hunter of the Damned – a concept that seems strange but makes sense once you read the class description. Psionics and magic are embraced, as well – the Arcane Assassin is what WOTC’s Arcane Trickster should have been, and the Phantasmal Killer is a neat all-around idea.

Chapter four provides a host of new tools of the trade for the assassin. The centerpiece of these are 20 new poisons and some magical diseases, some of which – like nymph dust – have quite an unusual and interesting flavor. Antitoxins make an appearance; this is an idea that has been sorely lacking from any previous treatment of poisons. There are 14 new exotic weapons, from blade boots to varieties of garrotes, plus a number of special tools that would made a non-assassin archer character quite happy. New magic and psionic items appropriate to the professional killer also grace this chapter – an entire range from potions to arms and armor to miscellaneous magic.

Chapter five presents a host of new spells, most of which enhance abilities to hide, conceal weapons, deliver poisons, and the like. Interestingly, for a product that focuses on assassins, only one of the 33 spells is designated for the assassin prestige class; the remainder are bard, sorcerer/wizard, or cleric spells. The spells have fewer balance issues than the prestige classes, and in fact I found that some, like Polymorph Weapon seemed too high a spell level for their power.

Chapter six provides a host of creature templates to turn monsters into even more effective killers. Players will quake in their boots when facing the undead “Death’s Assassin”, while others like the “Demon Driven” and “Poison Child” are almost equally twisted and terrifying.

The last chapter provides the history, organization, goals, and prices for a range of professional killing organizations. There’s a wide enough range that you’ll likely find something to fit your campaign if you’re looking for an assassin’s guild; the lot would make an interesting basis for an assassin-based campaign. No NPCs are statted, here, though, though this chapter does include a fully prepared encounter with a Brutal assassin character, as well as a number of useful variant rules for torture, neck breaking, strngling, and garrote use.

Critical Hits
Crimson Contracts provides a wonderfully disturbing range of killing machines. After finishing reading about so many killers, I was tempted to recommend a “Mature Audiences” sticker for it, given the sheer level of cold, calculating violence. Ambient could have defaulted to the tame “black-clad ninja killer” assassin approach, but I’m glad they didn’t. While your run-of-the-mill ninja assassin will find plenty of use in Crimson Contracts, there are a lot more thought-provoking concepts inside. The strength of the supplement is that it creates a consistent framework for this set of creative ideas, so that assassins like the Femme Fatale and Fist of Righteousness fit in nicely amongst an entire palette of assassin choices.

There’s a framing story about a death knight looking for a paid killer that runs the length of the book, introducing each section and class. It was great reading by itself and complements the material well, plus it had a nice twist at the end – a wonderful bit of flavor to enhance the game mechanics.

Critical Misses
The authors are honest in admitting that there are elements of Crimson Contracts that could provide some difficulty in the campaign. Most of the classes, skills, and feats seem to be geared for GM use rather than player use – the GM might consider well before allowing a player to use elements from Crimson Contracts in the campaign.

It would have been nice to include a few more examples of the classes and other mechanics prepared as examples, particularly in the organization chapter. A sample assassin of each guild might put the new skills and feats into an appropriate context. As it stands the prestige classes seem divorced from the sorts of organizations that would spawn them.

Crimson Contracts does contain a couple of errors, as well, the most glaring of which is the missing Psionic Assassin class. It is mentioned in the text, and in the table of contents, but the class itself is missing. The table of contents also lacks page references, which makes it a little difficult to simply look up a single item.

Coup de Grace
The key game mechanics in this product are open content (feats, spells, prestige class mechanics, and the like), though the remainder of the product is product identity. Most of the d20 mechanics fit the system quite well, though a selection of each even the publisher finds unbalancing, so use them with caution. Still, there are enough different assassin varieties to make any player or GM happy. If murder, intrigue, and assassination play a bit part in your game, you’ll likely find a lot of good ideas in Crimson Contracts.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.