Playing a Revenant Assassin

[Novem5er]

I rolled up a level 11 Revenant Assassin the other week to play in our early Paragon Eberron campaign (which I DM, but I want to play sometimes too!). The characters in our party all have a bit of a dark side, so I thought this guy would fit in thematically (a minotaur barbarian, half-vampire rogue, ex-terrorist sorceror, fraudulent dragonmarked heir, etc).

I've only played the Revenant in two dungeon crawls, just messing around with the rules. The first time, my wife DMed the monsters and she put my guy solo against 3 level 11 monsters. I survived with just 2 HP left, but I was impressed that he could take down three equal level monsters on his own.

I played him again in a make shift dungeon crawl with friends last night, and while he was not too effective for most of the fight due to positioning, etc, etc... the last round was a Doozy!

Basically, in a single round I did 150 HP worth of damage to a pour minotaur warrior.

Dark Reaping + a 2[w] encounter power + rolling a CRIT + Grave Dust Assassin feat (which triggered my 4 shrouds w/o spending them) + an Action Point to use a Daily and invoke my 4 shrouds = 150 HP of damage.

Sweet!

Now if I could just get a chance to actually RP with him, I'd be a happy DM and player again!

Anyone else have some incredible rounds recently?

 

[MrMyth]

The DM in my regular campaign wanted a short break, so I took over running for a few levels - and he brought in a Revenant Assassin. And proceeded to 'wow' the rest of the characters with a couple rounds that dished out 150ish damage to one target (typically through a similar set-up - Dark Reaping, Encounter with 4 shrouds via Grave Dust, Action Point Daily and spend shrouds normally.)

Now, this is at level 14-15, so it is definitely impressive, but not in any way inappropriate - but the party has only had one striker (and one that focused on multitarget effects), so seeing a character able to unload like that into one enemy was definitely impressive.

What has been really impressive is the durability - between various assassin tricks (invisible, invisible, incorporeal), various items (you hit me? I turn into a cloud of ravens!) and revenant (the ability to second wind from below 0 is a great trick), the character has been quite a bit sturdier than expected.

 

[Novem5er]

Yes, the durability (or survivability) is what saved my Revenant when I played the solo encounter. I was facing a minotaur warrior and an ogre savage, and after a few rounds, my wife threw in a drow warrior.

I spent most of the encounter jumping around, using abilities that gave me either temp HP, insubstantial, or allowed me to hide. The Avenging Haunt paragon path is pretty nice because it gives you insubstantial and phasing for a round (quick escape out of a tough spot), and the Shade Form allows you to hide with any cover or concealment.

There was a nice cat-and-mouse moment when it was just myself and the drow warrior.

Now, so far the character has been impressive, but not overpowering. In the group encounter I did, I actually felt pretty ineffective for most of the fight. My partners were also strikers (barbarian and sorceror) and round-to-round they were out-hitting me. Together, they tag-teamed an elite medusa in one round. For the record, the savage minotaur paragon path is pretty nasty... they get a free charge whenever they spend an action point, and when it follows a power that pushes the target, it creates a three-hit opportunity: Push, Charge, and then Daily!

Simply put, all of our paragon tier characters have been lots of fun!