Wishing this could be played

[Greenfield]

My wife recommended a book to me that I've been thoroughly enjoying. Many of you may have read it. It's called Assassin's Apprentice.

I won't give any spoilers that aren't inherent in the title, but the premise is fascinating. The King makes references to "the diplomacy of the blade", and his personal assassin is a man who isn't at all evil.

He explains to his new student that he kills when he has to. He will also teach to blind, deafen, cause a debiliting cough, a weakness in the limbs or impotence on occasion. One task hs set to his apprentice was to cause a visiting noble's horse to develop a limp so he'd have to stay a few days longer for it to recover. On another occasion he has the boy slip a little something into a teapot so a particular noble's favorite servants would develop "loose bowels" for a few days, and some other servant would have to tend to the noble until they recovered.

It paints a whole different picture of the profession, as a subtle manipulator of events rather than simply as a killer.

Sadly, the D&D rules don't allow for this type of character, one who kills to protect the stability of the country, or causes selective inconveniences to selected individuals for the best of reasons.

Any thoughts on how to work a character like this, within the rules and without inviting abuse?

 

[Dandu]

Sadly, the D&D rules don't allow for this type of character, one who kills to protect the stability of the country, or causes selective inconveniences to selected individuals for the best of reasons.

How do they not allow for it?

 

[domino]

Yeah. You can still play that type of character, even if you don't use the Assassin Prestige Class. It's hard, to get the relevant abilities, especially if you want to cause the blindness and stuff by mundane causes rather than magic, but it's perfectly viable.

 

[Dandu]

Yeah. You can still play that type of character, even if you don't use the Assassin Prestige Class.

Avengers, assemble!

It's hard, to get the relevant abilities, especially if you want to cause the blindness and stuff by mundane causes rather than magic, but it's perfectly viable.

One could cause blindness with science.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I don't know if there exist official poisons that cause bowel issues (Maybe a creative Bestow Curse?), but blindness, deafness, sickness, weakness, all have existing methods.

Ok, so I know I'm very biased, but this sounds like a Factotum to me.

Or a Rogue with good UMD. Perhaps a Wizard with some stealth abilities.

 

[Dandu]

I don't know if there exist official poisons that cause bowel issues (Maybe a creative Bestow Curse?)

Bad curry.

 

[domino]

Or even just a weak Con draining poison, not enough to seriously kill someone, but the toilet shattering digestive problems is really just flavor anyways.

 

[Umbran]

Sadly, the D&D rules don't allow for this type of character, one who kills to protect the stability of the country, or causes selective inconveniences to selected individuals for the best of reasons.

These are two different issues.

Killing to protect the stability of the country? Dude, even Paladins do that! The rules allow for this in anyone who isn't Chaotic Evil, really.

Causing 453 different kinds of selective inconvenience? That's a bit different. It sounds good in a piece of fiction, but for a game system poses a major challenge. The thing is that in the book, the author gets to write both the challenge and the solution - so, of course the character always has something relevant at hand, because the character's full knowledge isn't set in stone for the reader beforehand. Game systems typically have to pretty carefully delineate what a character can do, though, so the GM can set a challenge to a character for which they are ill-prepared.

Some systems get around this: for example, White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension would handle this pretty well. A character with modest levels of Entropy, Life, and Matter would do the trick, all stated as coincidental effects. "I use Life and Entropy to give him an upset stomach. Coincidence: I slip a poison into his food tonight."

 

[Greenfield]

The essential challenges are simple: You can't have an Assassin who isn't Evil.

And of course, the old problem of trying to recreate the flavor of a character outside the world that formed him.

 

[Aeolius]

You can't have an Assassin who isn't Evil.

James Bond?