Encouraging Assassins

[ellestar]

One of my players is playing a combat oriented Dwarven Rog10/Asn2 (I've houseruled away the evil alignment restriction on the assassin class.), and I'm wondering on ways to give him chances to use his assassin skills to the fullest.

The other two players (only three at the moment) are a Grey Elf Sor6/Air Elemental Savant6, and another a Human Wiz8/Lor4. It seems like we've run into the problem that what the assassin can do the magic users can do better. With fly, invisibility, teleport, disintegrate and all that.

Therefore I am asking you, honorable members of the board, for ideas on how to tackle this problem. How to make the assassin character useful? (Not that he's not useful, but I'd like his abilities to come into play more)

I've ran some small encounters with him as an initiation to the Greyhawk assassins guild, but I'd like to see ideas where the whole group can be involved, not merely solo stuff.

 

[Derulbaskul]

I think the problem is that the assassin class is simply badly designed. Rather than considering what an assassin would really be like in a fantasy world, the design team took a rogue and gave it some spells. Assassins don't cast spells....

My homebrew assassin has lost the spells but gains a target/prey/quarry ability. Essentially, this is like a ranger's favoured enemy but applies to one type or group and you have to study the type or group to get the bonus.

The way it works is that, frex, you target the Shadow Thieves of Amn. You spend a certain amount of time making Gather Information and/or Spot checks and then, when you face them, you gain the Target bonus to damage, Hide, Move Silently etc... plus it boosts the DC of the death attack. You can also change your Target by going through the same process again.

Anyway, this ability certainly makes the assassin (who can also be a hunter or bounty hunter: the class is about killing quickly by preparing properly) a lot more effective but also provides a period of time when he can be thwarted.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Assassians are hired for the most part, this sometimes means the party also has to be hired which is not a good idea all the time. I have taken to side baring the work of the assassian, any "job" is handled away from the group.

How this was done - the Assassian guild had a symbol they would place it in plan sight (small round shield with knife painted on it) the party member would see it and then I would run a murder as a quick one-shot game between normal games. Every now and then I would tie them back into my adventure but most were just murders, nothing beyond that, three NPC, the contact, the hiree, the victim.