Dragon 379: Assassin Heroic Tier

[The Little Raven]

The lack of the MC feat means, though, that all the information is available only for full-blown assassins. There's no way to "dabble" with the class, or use it for an existing character.

One of my players brought that up for his character, and I explained it away as the assassin guilds being so protective of their secrets, they only take the dedicated, not the dabblers.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That's what I tried to say earlier to no avail. It says in the article you can enchant the ki focus and its not a physical object. So if you want a +2 flaming ki focus...do the rituals.

So what are the people saying "there are no ki focus items" looking for? They are not items.

Because each type of object can be enchanted only with certain types of enchantments. A Ki Focus is not a weapon, so it doesn't qualify in the rules to have any of those enchantments put on it. But the rules, it can't be enchanted with anything at all(since it is not a weapon, not a wand, not a staff, not an orb, and so on and each of those enchantments needs to be put on the appropriate type).

You need a table saying "+1 Magic Ki Focus costs X". You need a bunch of enchantments that say "This can by put on Ki Focuses". Otherwise you can't enchant them at all. Yes, this can be house ruled easily enough by saying "All weapon enchantments can go on Ki Focuses". However, Mike Mearls said in his post that that was a workaround, not the real rule. And that sometime in the future, there WOULD be rules on WHICH enchantments go on Ki Focuses. That would make your character illegal as soon as those rules come out.

And in my case, I complain about it because I play in the RPGA where the rule is that if it isn't in the books it isn't allowed. Which means, you can't use any type of workaround for months. You CAN'T use Ki Focuses.

 

[Undrhil]

Because each type of object can be enchanted only with certain types of enchantments. A Ki Focus is not a weapon, so it doesn't qualify in the rules to have any of those enchantments put on it. But the rules, it can't be enchanted with anything at all(since it is not a weapon, not a wand, not a staff, not an orb, and so on and each of those enchantments needs to be put on the appropriate type).

You need a table saying "+1 Magic Ki Focus costs X". You need a bunch of enchantments that say "This can by put on Ki Focuses". Otherwise you can't enchant them at all. Yes, this can be house ruled easily enough by saying "All weapon enchantments can go on Ki Focuses". However, Mike Mearls said in his post that that was a workaround, not the real rule. And that sometime in the future, there WOULD be rules on WHICH enchantments go on Ki Focuses. That would make your character illegal as soon as those rules come out.

And in my case, I complain about it because I play in the RPGA where the rule is that if it isn't in the books it isn't allowed. Which means, you can't use any type of workaround for months. You CAN'T use Ki Focuses.

OK, but as has been said by many on this thread already: You DON'T NEED to use Ki Focuses in order to enjoy playing the Assassin. Until Ki Focuses are more fully explained, you can use a weapon you are proficient with as an implement for your powers which require an implement. There is nothing stopping you from doing this until we find out how to use a Ki Focus. Problem of legality solved. You aren't using a undefined Ki Focus, so in the future when they define them, you are free to go through and pick one up or start using it or whatever.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

OK, but as has been said by many on this thread already: You DON'T NEED to use Ki Focuses in order to enjoy playing the Assassin. Until Ki Focuses are more fully explained, you can use a weapon you are proficient with as an implement for your powers which require an implement. There is nothing stopping you from doing this until we find out how to use a Ki Focus. Problem of legality solved. You aren't using a undefined Ki Focus, so in the future when they define them, you are free to go through and pick one up or start using it or whatever.

You need Ki Focuses if you want to play an assassin who doesnt use weapons or one who steals weapons once he has got passed the guards. Both of which are described as valid ways to play an assassin according to the article(and are described as one of the advantages of playing one).

You need them as well if you become a Shadowblade. Otherwise all your attack rolls will be about 3 lower than they should be for your level(and only gets worse as you go up levels).

 

[MrMyth]

You need Ki Focuses if you want to play an assassin who doesnt use weapons or one who steals weapons once he has got passed the guards. Both of which are described as valid ways to play an assassin according to the article(and are described as one of the advantages of playing one).

You need them as well if you become a Shadowblade. Otherwise all your attack rolls will be about 3 lower than they should be for your level(and only gets worse as you go up levels).

But honestly - for a home game, one can pretty easily resolve those problems. In the RPGA, the issue will probably be resolved before one can get to Paragon level... and the nature of LFR itself is almost more hindrance to the weaponless Assassin than the lack of Ki Focus.

I think it would be nice to have this resolved, and quickly. I don't think it makes the Assassin 'unplayable' as many have claimed.

 

[Undrhil]

But honestly - for a home game, one can pretty easily resolve those problems. In the RPGA, the issue will probably be resolved before one can get to Paragon level... and the nature of LFR itself is almost more hindrance to the weaponless Assassin than the lack of Ki Focus.

I think it would be nice to have this resolved, and quickly. I don't think it makes the Assassin 'unplayable' as many have claimed.

Exactly. I'll be playing a Kenku Assassin starting tonight (Friday) at our LFR game. I won't let the lack of a ki focus stop me from enjoying the concept.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think it would be nice to have this resolved, and quickly. I don't think it makes the Assassin 'unplayable' as many have claimed.

Oh, I agree. It isn't completely insurmountable. It just annoys me that WOTC advertises this big deal about how they are increasing the price of DDI. But don't worry, they'll make up for it by including way more exclusive DDI content that you can't get anywhere else. The first two examples of which are a fully playable race and a fully playable class.

But Assassin isn't fully playable. It's partially playable. One might even say MOSTLY playable. But not fully. And given that we've been paying extra for a couple of months now and the extra benefit we've gotten is a race and 90% of a class in 3 or 4 months now(I don't remember). At 5 dollars extra a month, I've almost paid for an entire print book. Those normally contain 5 races, 8 classes, a list of over 50 magic items, 30 or 40 feats, and so on.

I just feel kind of cheated that I'm paying 5 dollars for 90% of the assassin and then 5 dollars more months from now for the other 10%.

 

[Jhaelen]

I just feel kind of cheated that I'm paying 5 dollars for 90% of the assassin and then 5 dollars more months from now for the other 10%.

See, the thing that's ironic to me is this:

If they'd never mentioned Ki-Foci anywhere in the class description it would be '100% playable' and noone could complain it was 'incomplete'. I.e. by providing less, they'd fullfilled your criteria of 'completeness'.

I guess it's a good move they're going to release shorter articles in the future...

 

[WalterKovacs]

Oh, I agree. It isn't completely insurmountable. It just annoys me that WOTC advertises this big deal about how they are increasing the price of DDI. But don't worry, they'll make up for it by including way more exclusive DDI content that you can't get anywhere else. The first two examples of which are a fully playable race and a fully playable class.

-snip-

I just feel kind of cheated that I'm paying 5 dollars for 90% of the assassin and then 5 dollars more months from now for the other 10%.

However, they didn't say that the extra 5 dollars was going entirely towards these new exclusive things. The introductory price was at the start, when very little was available. It gave people access to be the first to "try out" the character builder ... which included helping to Beta test it and resolve existing problems. Now the Character Builder is up and running and a solid resource. Ditto the Compendium and Monster Builder. From when the introductory price was introduced the value of DDI has increased quite a bit, arguably justifying the 5 dollar increase. The price increase occured after those things were introduced, but introducing it before hand would have been a bad idea. Instead, some people got a preview that cost them a bit of less.

The exclusive features are not meant to make up for the price increase, but are an advertising tool, another feature. Since they are charging more, they might as well include more content.

It is annoying that they left out a key feature for the assassin (and it does seem a little lacking in terms of paragon/epic feats in addition to magic items geared towards it and other things that 'full classes' get in a book, although arguably it isn't until he X Power books that they get the full treatment that includes things like the race/class combination feats and the AVX books for the items that are specifically for the class. However new implement types are ussually introduced with the class tha uses them.

 

[The Little Raven]

Looking at the PHB1, not all classes got paragon tier feats, and only one class (Wizard) gets epic level feats. So, the assassin articles basically give us an assassin on-par with what the PHB1 provided, with the notable exception of ki focuses.

The lack of ki focus enhancements sucks, but it can be circumvented by allowing a ki focus to be enhanced with any weapon enhancement as Mike Mearls suggested.