Prestige Secrets Assassins
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With all the new books being published I am a bit surprised at times that more products do not go back and revisit the old stand bys. People are always expanded the realm of the game with new rules and new ways to do things. Sometimes though it is a bit easier to just expand upon what people are already using. So, it is nice to every once in a while see something that is easy to use like Prestige Secrets: Assassins. Quite simply if one uses Assassins in their game this book can be useful.
Prestige Secrets: Assassins is another book by the most prolific publisher seemingly ever, Ronin Arts. They have hundreds of small yet usable PDFs out that anyone can find one they can use. The book is written by Rory MacLeod and the art is done by Michael Franchina. The twenty page book has a basic layout. The art is nice and done in color. So it looks good but can be a problem when printing on an ink jet. The book is well book marked making it easy to use at the gaming table straight from a computer.
The book is about assassins. It does cover in good detail the Assassin class from the DMG but it does more then that. The book starts off with a good discussion on what an assassin is and does a nice job of separating the class from the job./ An assassin is simple anyone who kills for money, and that can apply to almost everyone. The Assassin (notice the capital A in there) refers specifically to an assassin that is more serious with the job and takes the Assassin prestige class. It can get a bit confusing when talking about the two types as capital letters are sometimes difficult to notice in speech but in the book it is very simple to differentiate between the two.
The book covers the role of the assassin and some of the misperceptions of the assassin people can have. There is a nice side bar that simply asks and answers the question: Why an Assassin? The book then goes into a very thorough look at the Assassin prestige class and does a very good dissecting it. The chapter ends with assassins as player characters. This section is a little short and I would have liked to seen it expanded to actually have a bit more mechanics in it. Like taking each of the classes and showing how they might go along to become the Assassin prestige class.
Next come some variant classes. I think these could have been tightened up and some extras gotten rid of to make them five level prestige classes. For that matter I think the regular Assassin class would have been better served as five levels. But most prestige classes out there are still ten levels. I just feel most of them would be better served with far fewer levels. The first is the mage assassin and it gets a bit of magical ability and a bit of the assassin abilities. Aside from some unique abilities one might actually be better served just alternating levels between wizard and rogue. I do like though that there is a side bar discussing the non evil version and an addition side bar discussion a divine magic version as opposed to arcane magic. These little details are very useful and can hopefully help the DM and player alter the class to what they need. Next is a poison using assassin and it is okay but some of the abilities just do not sit well with me. When I think of this kind of assassin I see the sneaky guy inserting poison into drinks and jewelry tom take a person out. While this one can do that it also gets things like a poisonous bite and a poisonous spit. Now the poisonous touch they get I like, so it is not all bad in my eyes. But again it is a class that might be a bit better at five levels. Lastly is a sneaky assassin and of the three classes the one that might not even be needed as a prestige class. I would have preferred to just mention how gaining levels in both the Shadowdancer and Assassin could allow a character like this to be made. The class though is well done and fits the role it is designed to fit.
Over all the book does a nice job of going into assassins and broadening them up a bit. The character advice is good and the sidebars are useful. I may not have been one hundred percent in agreement with any of the new classes presented here, but none of them are badly written, unbalanced, or uninteresting. This makes a good book that people can easily use.
