Green Ronin's Assassin

[S'mon]

Check out Mongoose Publishing's Power Class: Assassin. I haven't tried playing their assassin yet, but just from reading through it, it seems balanced. And it's only £2 (US $3).

Hi Zander - I'd say it was on the weak side of balanced. Check out my review in the Reviews section.

 

[S'mon]

The trouble is, I'm not really interested in spending more money. I don't have an objection to assassins who use magic; when there is a way of doing the otherwise impossible through magic, I think assassins would study magic.

Can you tell me what sort of death-dealing ability the Mongoose Assassin has?

It's a double-damage Sneak attack with improved chance for instant kill on dmg 50+. It requires 3 rounds' unobserved study of the victim.

 

[CCamfield]

It's a double-damage Sneak attack with improved chance for instant kill on dmg 50+. It requires 3 rounds' unobserved study of the victim.

Thanks for the information, S'mon. Does it have some chance of an instant kill on <50 damage?

 

[Psion]

Dropping auto-kill is a interesting point. The trouble is, what then separates an assassin from a rogue with lots of sneak attack damage?

Good question.

The answer is, of course, you probably SHOULDN'T separate them. Sneak attack is a FINE mechanic for this sort of thing.

 

[Graf]

A rogue hits an unsuspecting target precisly somewhere vital. Ideally this cripples or kills the target before they can react.

An assassin hits an unsuspecting target precisly somewhere vital.
Ideally this cripples or kills the target before they can react.

The sneak attack rules represents this (as does the assasin's death blow ability in the DMG) in the core rules. Where is the benift from adding another insta-kill ruleset on top of this?

I think that assassines/rogues use small weapons because they are easy to hide not because of how much damage they do... What makes them good is the totally obscene is what they can do with that throwing iron/sharpened fan/chess piece.

A mid-high level rogue is going to do a few points of damage with their dagger and around ten times that amount from the sneak damage. -THAT'S- skill.
The assassin in the DMG with death blow and poisons is enogh "plus alpha" for me. YMMV.

 

[S'mon]

Thanks for the information, S'mon. Does it have some chance of an instant kill on <50 damage?

No, not unless they're using poison or somesuch. But the x2 sneak attack damage alone does so much that this should rarely be an issue IMO, although I do have fond memories of the 1e 'instant kill' table...