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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010045" data-attributes="member: 18387">Whispers of Death is a 30 page electronic sourcebook for assassins.  The emphasis seems to be for playing assassins as PCs, since the subtitle of the book is "A Sourcebook for Assassin Characters", and a few of the elements help DMs with assassin PCs.  The book should appeal to both players and DMs though, since most of the material is usable by both.  The book sells for $5 even on RPGNow.com, and there is a print version available for twice that price.This PDF is jammed with good stuff.  Within the total of 40 pages, you'll find 28 pages of content, 2 pages for gaming licenses, and a few filled out assassin character sheets.The book starts with a chapter of prestige classes.  Included are the Mask, Shadowblade, Shadowstalker, Slayer, and Sniper.  The Mask is a master of disguise and gets bonuses when doing so.  The Shadowblade is a guild-specific prestige class that gets the ability to meld into the shadow plane.  The shadowstalker is the master of stealth and hiding.  The Sniper can make ranged sneak attacks and death attacks.  Other than the Shadowblade prestige class, these classes are modular and can be used to add flavor to any character, especially those classes that are only 5 levels.The next chapter details a few assassin related feats, ranging from creating diversions to hide and sneak attacking undead to increasing death attack DCs and mastery of stealth.  Only one of these feats is an Improved Something feat, and all of them are useful and some are just plain cool.Next we have a selection of equipment, such as silenced armor, a few new crossbows for poison delivery, and other miscellaneous items such as darksuits, footpads, and weaponblack.  All are balanced and well priced.The next section presents an odd idea.  I've seen something similar in another book, but there are "assassin styles" which add flavor and abilities to a character without spending levels in a prestige class or wasting feats.  Each of these styles takes XP to earn, and have 5 ranks for each granting different abilities for each rank.  Styles include the Divine Assassin, Master Assassin, Mercykiller, Shadows of Light (which allows good aligned characters to become assassins?), Spirit Hunter, and Venom Shadow.  These styles can help seperate different assassins from being just a plain assassin.The next section gives the DM a table for determining the payment for assassin characters.  Results are sometimes odd, but I think it was done this way to preserve balance.  The web enhancement for this product, titled Whispers of Death Companion, provides an alternate table that makes a lot more sense.Next we have descriptions of 4 assassin guilds, complete with a description, acceptance policy, leader stats, and a character path.  These paths present the classes, prestige classes, and feats a typical character belonging to the guild would take.The book continues with some new assassin spells and some shadowblade specific spells, all of which are useful and balanced.The book then concludes with a recap of the assassin class out of the DMG, so you don't have to go look it up when you've got your printout (or print version) of Whispers open in front of you.In conclusion, this is a great book.  It's more than worth it's $5 cost, and will see a lot of use in my campaigns for both my assassin characters and for assassins that will horribly kill the PCs.</blockquote>

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