D&D 5E Encounter Concept: Wall Running Assassin

[critacademy]

 

[Salthorae]

This makes me instantly think of Szeth, the Assassin in White from Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive.

 

[aco175]

Slippers of spider climbing on the assassin or the PCs would help. A fly spell would also help things or even hold person is always good to stop a cool encounter.

 

[critacademy]

This makes me instantly think of Szeth, the Assassin in White from Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive.

That is exactly the inspiration for this concept. What am awesome villain.

 

[Salthorae]

That is exactly the inspiration for this concept. What am awesome villain.

Well... good job with fidelity then, since it was so recognizable

My favorite part of him has always been that he's such a conflicted villain. The public sees him one way, but readers get to see his conflict in his POV.

From a 5e assassin build perspective, I would actually do something like a Warlock (Hexblade) Pact of the Blade build with some custom Acolyte/Criminal background, because nothing says bonded Shard/Honorblade like summoned Pact weapon!

I'd also do some or all of these depending on the level of encounter:

• Armor of Shadows
• Ascendant Step (levitate at will)
• Eldritch Smite
• Fiendish Vigor
• Improved Pact Weapon
• Otherworldly Leap
• Thirsting Blade

Warlock can also cast Spider Climb, Fly, & Investiture of the Wind to mimic his flight/gravity adjustment powers with their Warlock spell slots if you don't have the item around.

Eldritch Blast with Repelling Blast, Grasp of Hadar are also options to mimic some of the gravity powers of Szeth against opponents.

Banishment could also be flavored to look like he sends people soaring into the sky

Maybe some multiclass with Monk just because of flavor. Maybe (Kensai) focused on your pact weapon. That would also free up one invocation (Thirsting Blade) for use elsewhere.

Anyway - yeah, slippers of spider climb for lower-level encounters.

For higher-level encounter versions, I would definitely give the assassin a Sun Blade to really pull in that Szeth concept

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My favorite part of him has always been that he's such a conflicted villain. The public sees him one way, but readers get to see his conflict in his POV.

I think a lot of Sanderson's character-building is weak (and often, perversely, he backs off when it gets strong and "normalizes" his characters! Which is a pity!) but Szeth is definitely a very well-rendered anti-hero who is actually fairly believable and interesting.

The only difficulty with such an encounter that I foresee is that it is potentially kind of a knife-edge in maybe not fun way. Specifically, if Szeth-a-like is too hard to stop, it may feel almost like a bad cutscene in a computer game (like Kai Leng in ME3, who does a similar thing - twice), where there's nothing that works and it's all pre-ordained.

And yet, on the other hand, if he's too easy to stop, this encounter might be over in one or two failed saves, if the PCs have the right spells or magic items.

I'd make him Legendary so he can shrug off a certain amount of cc, but if I was pretty sure he'd succeed in killing the target I'd want to make sure the players didn't feel too guilty or cheated. I have actually run NPCs like this and I've seen quite sane and normal players get preeeeeeeetty upset - not really with me - but it definitely honks them off in a way that can make them mad with the system rather than the enemy. I'd also have him run if he was out of cc-drop abilities.

I'd also consider, instead of one high-powered Szeth-a-like, maybe three Szeth-a-likes of a lower power? All with the slippers of spider-climb and so on, but not Legendary and with low enough HP that they might be possible to take down that way. That way, even if the target dies, if the players nail 1-2 (or even all 3, just too late) of the assassins, they're likely to feel a lot better about the encounter.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Slippers of spider climbing on the assassin or the PCs would help. A fly spell would also help things or even hold person is always good to stop a cool encounter.

This is why when I get around to making a full Assassin class or a new and better assassin rogue subclass, they will have abilities to help escape such spells.

 

[Salthorae]

This is why when I get around to making a full Assassin class or a new and better assassin rogue subclass, they will have abilities to help escape such spells.

Well.. at least for this specific example Warlocks are at least proficient in Wis saves so that would mitigate it a bit in my build for this example.

I think a lot of Sanderson's character-building is weak (and often, perversely, he backs off when it gets strong and "normalizes" his characters! Which is a pity!) but Szeth is definitely a very well-rendered anti-hero who is actually fairly believable and interesting.

Hmm, we're going to have to disagree on this one a bit or take it to a different thread and hash out

The only difficulty with such an encounter that I foresee is that it is potentially kind of a knife-edge in maybe not fun way. Specifically, if Szeth-a-like is too hard to stop, it may feel almost like a bad cutscene in a computer game (like Kai Leng in ME3, who does a similar thing - twice), where there's nothing that works and it's all pre-ordained.

...

I'd also consider, instead of one high-powered Szeth-a-like, maybe three Szeth-a-likes of a lower power? All with the slippers of spider-climb and so on, but not Legendary and with low enough HP that they might be possible to take down that way. That way, even if the target dies, if the players nail 1-2 (or even all 3, just too late) of the assassins, they're likely to feel a lot better about the encounter.

Yeah, I mean this is just the set up right? So depending on where you wanted to drop this guy in and his function in your game/campaign you have a bunch of different ways you can use him.

If it's supposed to be something the PC's can stop semi-easily, then yes go for the three lower-powered versions with slippers.

If this is the first time the PC's/World "meet" this assassin a la the WoK prologue, then being more of a cut scene might not be a problem.

I mean basically WoK is that set up. Introduction in a big splash and then the "PC's"/Main characters re-encounter at the end of the book after they've leveled up a bit

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If this is the first time the PC's/World "meet" this assassin a la the WoK prologue, then being more of a cut scene might not be a problem.

If you set the players up to fail, especially if there's really no possible chance of them succeeding, you need to look at ways to mitigate that, if you don't want them being bitter pretty long-term. The players aren't characters in a book, who don't exist when it's inconvenient. You put them on a mission to defend the king, then send a guy they cannot possibly stop to kill the king, they're going to be complaining about that (not about you necessarily, but about that event), until long after you retire from DMing.

I would suggest having them be witnesses rather than active, formal, defenders the first time this guy appears if you're going for that. That way they can decide to intervene (and they probably will), but then when it goes wrong anyway, they aren't psychologically "on the hook" for the failure. Then, when they face him more formally, there should be some kind of warning that he's after the person they're protecting, and they can use what they learned to try and be successful.

And trust me, if they're defending someone, they're likely to blow every single thing they've got to try to succeed. Spells, magic items, potions, etc. So they will find out if he's basically unstoppable, and will expend a lot of resources finding that out.

 

[Salthorae]

If you set the players up to fail, especially if there's really no possible chance of them succeeding, you need to look at ways to mitigate that, if you don't want them being bitter pretty long-term. The players aren't characters in a book, who don't exist when it's inconvenient. You put them on a mission to defend the king, then send a guy they cannot possibly stop to kill the king, they're going to be complaining about that (not about you necessarily, but about that event), until long after you retire from DMing.

I would suggest having them be witnesses rather than active, formal, defenders the first time this guy appears if you're going for that. That way they can decide to intervene (and they probably will), but then when it goes wrong anyway, they aren't psychologically "on the hook" for the failure. Then, when they face him more formally, there should be some kind of warning that he's after the person they're protecting, and they can use what they learned to try and be successful.

And trust me, if they're defending someone, they're likely to blow every single thing they've got to try to succeed. Spells, magic items, potions, etc. So they will find out if he's basically unstoppable, and will expend a lot of resources finding that out.

Depends on the players and the scenario I guess. I'm not saying it should be done like that, but I don't think there is ZERO room for it either.

Do you follow the MCDM Stream? Their entire first game session was against an undefeatable foe who killed a PC (the team leader) and the others all had to run away.

I also don't think them expending all their resources and still failing is a bad thing or a big deal necessarily either.

That sounds like a great reason for PC's to have an in-game grudge or vengeance pact or whatever and set out on an adventure to learn the skills or find an item to lock him down or just even find the Assassin so that they can get a re-match.

Again, depends on the players and what the game is going for.