What's the worst character type to be an assassin-type? (other than paladins)

[William drake]

If you're an adventurer, you're a killer. I mean, you might occasionally spare the orc babies (but who hires an assassin to kill orc babies, anyway?), but your entire job description boils down to Killing Things And Taking Their Stuff. It's more the raiding and pillaging side of the coin than the assassination side, admittedly. (Pirates vs. ninjas! )

I'd generally say a lone assassin makes a poor PC in a typical game, because the majority of his allies are going to be, at best not helpful and at worst an active hindrace to the way he works.

A *team* of assassins, on the other hand, makes a perfectly good PC party.

I don't agree. An adventurer is not a killer by trade, he or she may have to kill, but it's not their numberone job title; they guard, recover, explore, and many other things where Killing may take place. Like, they get ambushed by goblins, or attacked by the local guards who have been under the coin of the local lords.Its not the same thing as going out of your way to kill someone becaue someone plaid you. And no, I'm sorry, killing evil creaures doesn't make you an assassin.
you can't lump them into the assassin role simply becaue they kill, soldiers arn't assassins...they kill, but they don't assassinate people for political, or economic reasons(yes I know, those who put them into the battle may be doing it for theirown end, but the soliders themselves arnt doing it for those reasons)

Its like saying police men are hitmen, yes a police man might have to draw his gun and kills someone, but that is rare, mostly he passing out tickets or directing trafic or whatnot, where as a hitman....well, duh.

 

[Hussar]

I don't agree. An adventurer is not a killer by trade, he or she may have to kill, but it's not their numberone job title; they guard, recover, explore, and many other things where Killing may take place. Like, they get ambushed by goblins, or attacked by the local guards who have been under the coin of the local lords.Its not the same thing as going out of your way to kill someone becaue someone plaid you. And no, I'm sorry, killing evil creaures doesn't make you an assassin.
you can't lump them into the assassin role simply becaue they kill, soldiers arn't assassins...they kill, but they don't assassinate people for political, or economic reasons(yes I know, those who put them into the battle may be doing it for theirown end, but the soliders themselves arnt doing it for those reasons)

Its like saying police men are hitmen, yes a police man might have to draw his gun and kills someone, but that is rare, mostly he passing out tickets or directing trafic or whatnot, where as a hitman....well, duh.

How often are policemen hired to wipe out a cave full of orcs? Or go to that lair and slay the dragon? Let's see, right there is Breaking and Entering, Premeditated murder, Assault, and I'm quite sure a rather large host of other laws beign broken.

Most PC's kill things for economic reasons. They are hired by someone (possibly a goverenment official, possibly a private individual) for money, typically to kill something. Not always, that's true, but, it's pretty hard to argue that "Take care of those trolls for this sack of gold" is anything less than being a hit man.

We just tend to gloss over that aspect of the game usually.

 

[jinx crossbow]

What's the worst class to be an assassin-type? (other than paladins)

The HalfOrc Barbarian.
Everybody knows they are evil murders and not thrustful.

If man find a dead body ans a halfOrc is near, all know he's the killer.

Jinx

 

[Darklone]

Barbarian and Fighters: Don't agree... these two can have a decent Dex, depending on the weapons choice. A few minor magic items and they can sneak nicely. Causing damage isn't a problem anyhow. A cleric has to be pretty highleveled to be better, even with the right spells.

 

[starwed]

I'm voting Gnome Bard.

Not only, as others have pointed out, do bards make good assassins, this was their explicit role in Dark Sun. (The DS bard got many of the features of the assassin subclass...)

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

How on earth do you figure that? Unless you're assuming a PC-classed assassin would never be hired to take out commoners, low-level characters, and the like. (Also, "almost certainly" isn't going to be good enough for any paladin.)

-Will

Again, I'm not talking about paladin-as-sword-for-hire, I'm talking about paladin-as-one-man-BBEG-killer. Necromancer causing trouble? Send in a griffon-mounted holy badass charge-focused paladin to one-shot him rather than wading through his skellies. Orc warlord raising a horde? Why worry about orc babies when you can lop his head off without even touching his mooks?

Think less 'hit man,' more 'CIA assassin for a LG, possibly religious, country.'

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I don't agree. An adventurer is not a killer by trade, he or she may have to kill, but it's not their numberone job title; they guard, recover, explore, and many other things where Killing may take place. Like, they get ambushed by goblins, or attacked by the local guards who have been under the coin of the local lords.Its not the same thing as going out of your way to kill someone becaue someone plaid you. And no, I'm sorry, killing evil creaures doesn't make you an assassin.

IMX, the single most common paid mission for adventurers is "The @@ are raiding our village! Kill them!" where @@ is orc, troll, undead, whatever. With the exception of the undead, this mission is either mercenary work (wipe them out) or assassination (kill their leader).

The caravan guard role is probably the second most common, though.

you can't lump them into the assassin role simply becaue they kill, soldiers arn't assassins...they kill, but they don't assassinate people for political, or economic reasons(yes I know, those who put them into the battle may be doing it for theirown end, but the soliders themselves arnt doing it for those reasons)

True - most adventurers aren't assassins, they're mercenaries. They kill things for money, but they are more likely to do so head-on, wading through a horde of mooks rather than going directly to the source. That's primarily a function of tactics rather than ethics, though. Some dispense with the 'getting paid' part and just take the treasure off the corpses of their slain foes, making them more raiders or pirates than mercenaries or assassins.

Very few PCs are soldiers, in my experience. The whole 'following orders' thing. Nor are most warriors of a knightly class, 'feudal ties' being altogether too close to following orders.

Its like saying police men are hitmen, yes a police man might have to draw his gun and kills someone, but that is rare, mostly he passing out tickets or directing trafic or whatnot, where as a hitman....well, duh.

No, it's not like that at all. Unless your PCs mostly pass out tickets or direct traffic? Or, heck, unless they are in the regular employ of the local government? I've never known PCs to take such mundane, non-violent tasks, and I've never known a city/duke/patron foolish enough to waste their immense talents at killing things and taking their stuff by setting them on such mundane, non-violent tasks.

 

[Warren Okuma]

Why not Paladins...there called ZELOTS. Everytime make a good assassin, some might not do i for a job, a one time kill, but every type is an assassin.

And give them some ravages and afflictions to coat their sword or lance.

 

[Sejs]

What's the worst class to be an assassin-type? (other than paladins)

I'm voting Gnome Bard. He's so weak...how's he gonna kill anyone?

If an assassin is ever fighting a target in a stand-up fight then he is doing something wrong.

Assassination is done in the form of sneaking in when the target is asleep or otherwise incapacitated, CdGing them, poisoning the crap out of them, or both.

A gnome bard:
-Has access to Ghost Sound and Prestidigiation as natural spell-like abilities. Useful for infiltration.

-Small size means easier to squeeze into tight spaces and a +4 bonus on hide checks.

-Has access to almost all the key skills for getting close to the target: Hide, Move Silently, Disguise, Bluff. One biggun that's missing is Open Lock. That's problematic, but then again nearly everyone's lacking it. The bard does easily meet the requirements for the Assassin PrC, however.

-Fascinate and Suggestion have some very interesting possibilities when trying to get close to a target. Particularly in combination with the Subsonics feat.

-Bardic Knowledge helps you know more about your target.

-Have access to Modify Memory. Modify Memory is really, really swank for people work. Dominate Person, too. Frankly a lot of bard spells are useful for infiltration.

You could make an assassin out of a gnome bard that is quite effective at their job.

 

[Starglim]

A paladin makes a poor assassin because he relies on heavy armour, doesn't get bonus feats that might make up for it and ideally should put his best ability scores into other places than Dexterity and Intelligence. Hence, for the other worst class, I'd look to the class that has most of those same qualities, which would be the cleric.

Wizards have some of the same problems.

However, it's not difficult to overcome these problems by a minimal amount of multiclassing. Cleric/monk/assassin or wizard/rogue/assassin are the obvious candidates. I can't think of any single class which really spoils the assassin concept, given an intelligent build.