Assassins (the class) in the Mists

[alhoon]

Very interesting topic all!

NOTE: IMC only rogues have enough inclination to become assassins. why would an expert wait 6 levels in order to become an assassin suddenly and not start the on the path of rogue?

[Nathan of the FoS]

Very interesting topic all!

NOTE: IMC only rogues have enough inclination to become assassins. why would an expert wait 6 levels in order to become an assassin suddenly and not start the on the path of rogue?

Because they're not PCs, beginning life with the intention of becoming Big Bad Evil Dudes?

[cure]

From expert to assassin in a few easy steps:

Well, you love plants, you do a in degree biology, you do a doctorate in plant biology, you go on a wild expedition to Sri Raji, you get a job in the biology department, you grow to love plants ever more, even their 'dark side', maybe especially their 'dark side', while you learn to hate your collegues ever more, especially their bright and cheery nature. Then there are the bills for that big house and that trophy wife. Finally you snap and put the ground up wolfsbane sitting beside the collegue's coffee in the collegue's coffee. His horrible death set you free. The police come knocking but you easily manipulate the fools into arresting and executing a disgruntled student. Now you are clever enough to realise that poisoning the rest of the faculty is only going to end badly for you. But you also realise that you have a real passion for this and a flair for it too. Moreover you have access to circles closed to many others. It dawns on you, you should become a professional assassin, all you need is a little training to take off the rough edges and a support network to handle the bureaucracy of contracts, bribes and such.

[alhoon]

And so you become a court poisoner. Not an assassin.

An assassin is skilled in battle, poisons, knows some magic like a wizard, can hide in the shadows, is really practiced in ambushes and backstabbing. That profile doesn't tie very well with the evil poisoner you describe.
Even if he was skilled in battle in the jungles and also skilled in knowing and exploiting humanoid anatomy, he should also train in magic, hiding in shadows etc.

[cure]

Ok, rewrite the above as a medical doctor, who has stolen more than a few bones from cemeteries, but is not on a necromantic path. Rather he discovers that he enjoys killing patients more than curing them, and realises there is a market for such.

Basically, there are skills sets that are useful to a somewhat specialised assassin that cannot be easily or, to varying degrees, realistically accessed via rogue, principally handle animals, heal, knowledge (aside from local), and speak languages. Concentration too perhaps for the chess playing spy assassin.

So you take a highly competent animal handler, say of snakes, a highly competent doctor, say a surgeon (think Jack the Ripper), a highly competent and cultured politician of low birth, with extensive knowledge of history, nobility, royalty and religion, and you imagine that he/she goes bad.

Also theatre performers, unless they are full-fledged bards, are experts who with experience begin to fill the requirements and might well have an axe to grind. Or they are just tired of acting out murder and wish to pass to the real thing.

No, not the majority of assassins, who are manifestly rogue, but an interesting and credible slice.

[cure]

-The League of Nine, elusive and mysterious guild based in Borca, members are in fact apothecaries from leading families, they are 9 in number, led by Lorzen Olszanik (Rog5/CPo3/Asn3 NE), the guild may be appealed to right wrongs, which it does according to the advancement of its own pretensions to importance and power and in return for which it issues a bill;

Also I would make Lorzen an Exp/Cpo/Asn unless the prerequisites of CPo permit this.


P.S.: Your tables are a bit skewed. Adding the

Code: Select all

 tags helps a bit but does not make them perfect..[/quote]

I have no serious objections to Lorzen Olszanik beginning as an expert rather than a rogue. The family name is real and of the Borcan aristocracy but he is otherwise invented. As I recall, my reasoning was that this individual ended up leading the nine and that was in part due to his more rigourous initial training as a rogue and subsequently his more marshal training as an assassin rather than just a court poisoner. But on further thought, knowledge of the nobility and cleverness, or simply shifting alliances, would not be unimportant factors either. 

Perhaps better still would be Ari/Exp/Cpo/Asn. The respective levels would have to be calculated and double-checked though.

[The Giamarga]

Well it would be nice to have an exemplary Exp/Asn among the leaders. He would not need Aristocrat levels, even if he was from a "leading family". Or you could read that description to mean that he is an apothecary employed by one of the leading families.

Ari/Exp/Cpo/Asn seems a bit too cluttered, when Exp/Cpo/Asn will do the same, when you give him the right skill selection.

I'll check when I get access to my books. (Yes i love statting assassins.)

[cure]

Actually, it is simply that his family name is that of Borcan aristocrats. That does not prevent his branch having been reduced to poverty by Ivana within living memory. He could then be the hired mercenary of someone else, which is not at all my preference, be returned to importance by his still aristocratic relatives, which might create a nice web of tensions, or be of a properly aristocratic family but was something of a black sheep in his youth, running off for some purpose or other rather than getting a proper aristocratic education.

[Sylaire]

Also theatre performers, unless they are full-fledged bards, are experts who with experience begin to fill the requirements and might well have an axe to grind. Or they are just tired of acting out murder and wish to pass to the real thing.

If you don't mind an RPG-fiction example to back you up on this one, Eva Saarinen from Jack Yeovil(Kim Newman)'s Warhammer stories fits this template (well, okay, she also got her head screwed up by being temporarily possessed by an evil artifact, but that's neither here nor there)...

[The Giamarga]

There's a fanon article on a cambion assassin in the Book of Sorrows: Blackblade, a marquis cambion. He's probably be a freelancer.

[Archedius]

Since this thread has become a revenant- I will provide a link to the Midnight campaign setting's replacement for the Assassin prestige class. It perfectly fits Ravenloft, as do many things from Midnight.

http://darknessfalls.leaderdesslok.com/ ... -knife.htm

While you're there- check out Midnight's core classes. The Wildlander, Channeler and Defender are perfectly suited for Ravenloft and replace the ranger, druid/wizard/sorceror/bard, and monk respectively.

BTW- Fantasy Flight Games knows about the SRD site and fully supports it. In fact they have a policy of making fan-netbooks canon : ) If only Wizards would treat the Fraternity with the same regard : )

[cure]

Since this thread has become a revenant- I will provide a link to the Midnight campaign setting's replacement for the Assassin prestige class. It perfectly fits Ravenloft, as do many things from Midnight.

http://darknessfalls.leaderdesslok.com/ ... -knife.htm

While you're there- check out Midnight's core classes. The Wildlander, Channeler and Defender are perfectly suited for Ravenloft and replace the ranger, druid/wizard/sorceror/bard, and monk respectively.

BTW- Fantasy Flight Games knows about the SRD site and fully supports it. In fact they have a policy of making fan-netbooks canon : ) If only Wizards would treat the Fraternity with the same regard : )

Interesting . . . I may have a look . . . .

[The Giamarga]

There are several alternate Assassin prestige and core classes for 3e, official and 3PP.

I for one always wanted to design a more fitting ravenloft assassin class around the baal verzi assassins great flavour.

[The Giamarga]

Another canon mention of assassins:

THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD OF ASSASSINS (BROTHERHOOD OF THE UNSEEN HAND)
Description Heroes of Light - pp57-64
Based in Chateaufaux (City)
Hounded by Alanik Ray (NP

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Not exactly a group that would pursue the assassin PrC, I think...