Assassin's Guild Tweaks

[Amateur Hour]

Interesting stuff. I'm curious whether or not its a fair game for an assassin to stand in stealth while another pc provokes their target into pvp, then jump in just to secure the kill. Seems sketchy, but then again this entire class is meant to be sketchy... sorry if this was already answered and I missed it.

This is already permitted in the newly-clarified PvP rules; a group can be in stealth/invisible and be ready to strike as long as one member of the group is visible and interacts in a hostile manner with the target.

And, frankly, a large part of why I'm a little leery of the new system in terms of the stated goal of "incentivizing more roleplay between assassins and their contracted targets". The new system incentivizes this, and if the target misses the popup in the combat log that says they've been assassinated, they could easily be killed and never know there was a contract on their head...and even if they do notice the message in their combat log, that's OOC information, not information the character knows, so that's going to spark as much RP as any seemingly-random PvP death.

The old system guaranteed the possibility of the target RPing trying to respond to the contract because the guild would inform them; the new system makes it very easy for them to never know and therefore do no RP about it. The new system effectively removes the requirement for the assassin to RP anything that specifically indicates "I'm going to try to assassinate you;" they just have to RP hostile intent the same as any other PvP encounter (which is very often limited to the 60 seconds before someone hostiles). While an excellently-roleplayed assassin definitely has more creative space with the new rules, without any clear requirement that they step up in the areas where mechanics have been removed, the new rules incentivize minimizing RP to increase chances of a successful kill payout.

[Waldo52]

Great changes overall, except for one. If anyone cares to elaborate. But my assassin is purely reliant on his sneak attacks to get the drop on an opponent.

The way the rules are set up is that I can only attack from stealth is if another party member is initating the combat with the other PC or vice versa.

Is this true? Are you allowed to just assault people from stealth without further introduction if your party member has entered PvP properly?

[MischeviousMeerkat]

Great changes overall, except for one. If anyone cares to elaborate. But my assassin is purely reliant on his sneak attacks to get the drop on an opponent.

The way the rules are set up is that I can only attack from stealth is if another party member is initating the combat with the other PC or vice versa.

Is this true? Are you allowed to just assault people from stealth without further introduction if your party member has entered PvP properly?

Yes, usually there's one person doing the role-play and 2 - 6 other friends in stealth to ensure an engaging role-play experience.

[Waldo52]

Great changes overall, except for one. If anyone cares to elaborate. But my assassin is purely reliant on his sneak attacks to get the drop on an opponent.

The way the rules are set up is that I can only attack from stealth is if another party member is initating the combat with the other PC or vice versa.

Is this true? Are you allowed to just assault people from stealth without further introduction if your party member has entered PvP properly?

Yes, usually there's one person doing the role-play and 2 - 6 other friends in stealth to ensure an engaging role-play experience.

LMAO

[RubiRo]

I think it's overall a good change.

I also think the concerns expressed here are valid. So in order to avoid confusion, a small post-death pop-up message for the assasinated player would help them understand why they were just killed.

"You have suffered the fate of an assassination contract." or something similar would help bring clarity to the targeted player.

This does and has always existed.

Oh that's good to know!

Additional comment that I didn't know about, but apparently you can whisper someone -reveal (or -reveal [Character name]), and it will reveal you in stealth, so you won't have to give up your build, and you can still RP with them as well.

[Watchful Glare]

Removal of the Assassins' 24 PvP rule is an interesting change. The list of builds that can effectively assassinate will be reduced, I imagine we'll see more of the collaboration between assassins and other characters as well in carrying them out now.

[Wethrinea]

I have never been much directly involved in assassinations, but my characters have often be indirectly affected when their role has been a settlement guard.

The one thing that has always irked me is the complete anonymity of the people who place contracts. On an OOC level it is a cheap way to engage in PvP with zero risk to yourself. On an IC level it makes no sense that the Guild can't be threatened into giving up who is behind the hits. When targets are settlement leaders, what really stops said settlement from laying siege to the place and wipe it off the map?

The increase in minimum bounties are a good change, as is the limit on number of contracts. The very public existence of the guild is however something that still require a massive suspension of disbelief as I see it, so perhaps making it less obvious and harder to get in touch with could be looked into?

Or perhaps there could be a way for skilled investigators to find out who places contracts, so there is at least some risk involved in hiring people to do your dirty work?

[Curve]

Imagine how cool it would be if you had to pay 5k to enter (the room with the Administrator only) the guild as a non-assassin.

[Sincra]

I have never been much directly involved in assassinations, but my characters have often be indirectly affected when their role has been a settlement guard.

The one thing that has always irked me is the complete anonymity of the people who place contracts. On an OOC level it is a cheap way to engage in PvP with zero risk to yourself. On an IC level it makes no sense that the Guild can't be threatened into giving up who is behind the hits. When targets are settlement leaders, what really stops said settlement from laying siege to the place and wipe it off the map?

The increase in minimum bounties are a good change, as is the limit on number of contracts. The very public existence of the guild is however something that still require a massive suspension of disbelief as I see it, so perhaps making it less obvious and harder to get in touch with could be looked into?

Or perhaps there could be a way for skilled investigators to find out who places contracts, so there is at least some risk involved in hiring people to do your dirty work?

Wiping it off the map doesn't work for an agency that is not centralised, they would simply send a hit squad after you for trying, this is why people cannot touch it. Doing so invites inevitable death.

There's also no reason the guild would leave documents pertaining to who placed a contract laying around, they already got the gold and thus don't need to contact them for a followup.
Leaked details would just cut business and they really do not want that.

[Dr. B]

Why not just remove the mechanical facilitation completely and leave it up to the players in the assassin's guild to handle contracts and payoffs as they see fit?

The only reason the mechanical system was there in the first place was because, originally, assassination allowed for an exception to the rules of engagement, so there had to be some way to regulate it. Now that that's no longer the case, I don't see the need for a PC liaison at all.

[Scurvy Cur]

When targets are settlement leaders, what really stops said settlement from laying siege to the place and wipe it off the map?

While I certainly sympathize with the fact that it's currently not possible to trace assassin contracts back to the individuals who placed them (rendering the contracts probably a little too safe to place), I wanted to build on Sincra's answer for this particular question, because I've seen this question come up elsewhere too.

In short, I think you're misunderstanding what the exact authority level of the "settlement leader" PC is.

When a PC is elected to a settlement office, they are not "put in charge" of the NPC population in any way shape or form. They are not elected to be the chief executive power of a nation state. In some settlements such as Westcliff, this is implicit. In others (Cordor, Guldorand, Andunor, etc.) this is explicit.

Part of the limit on the PC's power is that their authority does not extend to NPCs, except as specifically implemented in the mechanical systems of exile and eviction (narratively enforced by NPC guards and/or bureaucrats). As a result, no settlement leader is ever in a position to simply "send the marines", so to speak. The NPCs who truly run the settlement would, in almost every situation, have a really good excuse not to take on the expense and risk of attacking the Assassin's guild building. Once you take a more reasonable view of the scope of an elected PC official's power, it makes a lot more sense why settlement has ever taken this specific course of action.

Nor, as Sincra has explained, would this really be a practical answer anyhow. Razing the guild's current premises would not, in and of itself, do more than inconvenience the guild (which at this point has very possibly collected as much gold in bounties as has ever been stolen from Cordor's treasury). Doubtless, the guild would simply relocate, and there would probably be a very good chance that the guild would subsequently feel obligated to make an example of the settlement whose government decided to pursue this course of action, pour décourager les autres. Viewed in this light, a settlement getting into a protracted, aysmmetric quasi-war with a decentralized, evil, murder-as-business factory for the sake of a single PC makes absolutely no rational sense whatsoever.

[Eyeliner]

From a "this game has to be fun to play" and not strictly IC point of view you have to accept that Sencliff, the Assassin's Guild and other known evils that are built into the module are strong or cagey enough to survive. It's not hard to come up with reasons why or just leave it vague.

[msterswrdsmn]

One more thing comes to mind as to why you wouldn't want to elimiate the assassins guild, from an IC point of view.

There might come a time you absolutely need to use them.

The usage of assassins (both hired thugs and highly trained operatives) is something that has been very commonly used, historically. Theres absolutely no reason to believe that even a good-aligned settlement or character may at least consider hiring them for a greater good or need.

The assassins guild always struck me as a lesser evil on the island, per se, simply because they're equal-oppertunity employers. Literally anyone can place a contract. Whether it makes IC sense is a different story, but there's no mechanical reason to stop say, a good-aligned character from hiring the assassins guild to supplement a weaken an evil faction in a faction war, or to threaten someone who is using the legal system to protect themselves.

Yes, Murder-for-Hire is wrong, but in a setting like Arelith's, it isn't that far of a stretch from say, writs, which blatantly say "go to this area and kill its inhabitants for a reward". Yes, theres a difference, but its not that big of one from an IG viewpoint.

[ReverentBlade]

One more thing comes to mind as to why you wouldn't want to elimiate the assassins guild, from an IC point of view.

There might come a time you absolutely need to use them.

The usage of assassins (both hired thugs and highly trained operatives) is something that has been very commonly used, historically. Theres absolutely no reason to believe that even a good-aligned settlement or character may at least consider hiring them for a greater good or need.

The assassins guild always struck me as a lesser evil on the island, per se, simply because they're equal-oppertunity employers. Literally anyone can place a contract. Whether it makes IC sense is a different story, but there's no mechanical reason to stop say, a good-aligned character from hiring the assassins guild to supplement a weaken an evil faction in a faction war, or to threaten someone who is using the legal system to protect themselves.

Yes, Murder-for-Hire is wrong, but in a setting like Arelith's, it isn't that far of a stretch from say, writs, which blatantly say "go to this area and kill its inhabitants for a reward". Yes, theres a difference, but its not that big of one from an IG viewpoint.

Faerun's alignment system explicitly judges on actions, not the "greater good" or the intention of the person performing the act. This has been cited as precedent many times by the DMs through various alignment forum debates. Participating in murder for hire, either as customer or provider, is cosmically Evil on Arelith regardless of any extenuating circumstances. It doesn't matter if the ends truly do justify the means, the cosmic planar juju of the world considers it Evil. Its the reason Assassins remain alignment locked to any Evil, and why I think anyone that places a contract should be likewise immediately alignment swapped to Evil.

[Amateur Hour]

Wiping it off the map doesn't work for an agency that is not centralised, they would simply send a hit squad after you for trying, this is why people cannot touch it. Doing so invites inevitable death.

There's also no reason the guild would leave documents pertaining to who placed a contract laying around, they already got the gold and thus don't need to contact them for a followup.
Leaked details would just cut business and they really do not want that.

I've been thinking about this a while, and while it might veer into suggestion territory...the fact the guild is fundamentally about killing for that sweet sweet cash instead of true devotion to Cyric (though I'm sure there's some Cyricists who would do it for religious fervor alone)...why not give assassins a fraction of the contract value if a contract they take gets paid off instead? Not as much as if they make the kill, but, say, a third or a quarter.

What's the benefit to the assassin? From an IC perspective: actually killing someone is generally regarded as a Bad Thing. It's taking on risk. The assassin now gets to choose between a smaller payout with less risk by intimidating the target into paying off the contract, and a bigger payout with greater risk by going for the kill. From an OOC perspective: it gives them an IC reason to interact more extensively with their prospective victim and give them a chance to pay off the contract. At the moment, all the forces in-character push an assassin to give the target as little opportunity as possible to respond to the contract.

Why would the guild allow it? If they're profit-focused, then a paid-off contract means they're getting paid more than if the contract were fulfilled. A 100k contract could turn into a 175k payday for the guild (just going with the 25% value payout to the assassin.)

What's the benefit to the target? None IC, but because the assassin has some incentive to give the target a generous window of opportunity to pay off their contract, this means the target will likely get better RP out of it.

[Sincra]

You're correct in that it does veer into a suggestion.

While I appreciate ideas, we are already inundanted!
Slight issue of the opaque nature of the development process, you never know what was already planned either.

[dominantdrowess]

I personally believe that if an assassin's contract is paid off: Particularly at THREE TIMES THE RATE ... the contractor should not get back half of the gold.

The problem is -- that this doesn't turn into a 3 to 1 advantage. This turns into a 6 to 1 advantage because of this. That math is INCREDIBLY bad and INCREDIBLY harmful to some of the smaller settlements.

Let's say I put a 1 million gold bounty on someone.

They have to pay 3 million gold.

I get to keep 500,000. They're still out 3 million gold in addition to dealing with everyone's personal problems. The Andunorian districts can already have insolvency issues - particularly if someone loots or destroys it on the way out of office.

Literally, no district is worth this each week, yet a single shop in the hub easily can be. ( I believe I proved that for a rather extended period. )

It is unreasonable to expect most settlement leaders to OOCly have the time to be as active as my character was, managing both inter-personal issues, participating in events -and- managing mercantile things enough to support and offer gold toward support of factions in the district for bidding and other expenses in most cases.

I feel having that gold return on top of it ... with how effortless it is to inherit someone else's enemies ... it can be pretty ugly. People stopped when they realized /I/ had 20 million gold; but MOST settlement leaders do not have this advantage.

Picture a 2 million gold bounty on The King of Myon. Then he has to pay 6 million ... or he -will- get killed over that gold. Paying it off, the person who deleted 6 million gold from that treasury at the cost of ONE million ... gets to KEEP a million gold.

[-XXX-]

I never considered the playpattern dynamic of a hit being placed only for the mark to casually pay it off moments later to be a particularly good or interesting one.

Retaining the option to pay off contracts but making it unsustainable is a good design IMO.

[dominantdrowess]

Why? It makes government entirely unsustainable even if everyone in your town loves what you're doing.

[-XXX-]

If everyone in town loves what a character is doing so much, then who's placing a 2,000,000 gp bounty on their head?
Outsiders don't really care - going that much out of one's way just to oust someone from office makes sense only if they have a play for the office themselves.

Furthermore, placing the contract is still a long way from carrying out a successful hit. And even then, it's OK for the contract to be carried out the way it was intended - it creates RP either way. It's a perfectly legitimate IG mechanic, why should there be an option to cheese around it with excessive grinding?

[Watchful Glare]

If everyone in town loves what a character is doing so much, then who's placing a 2,000,000 gp bounty on their head?
Outsiders don't really care - going that much out of one's way just to oust someone from office makes sense only if they have a play for the office themselves.

Furthermore, placing the contract is still a long way from carrying out a successful hit. And even then, it's OK for the contract to be carried out the way it was intended - it creates RP either way. It's a perfectly legitimate IG mechanic, why should there be an option to cheese around it with excessive grinding?

People not in the town

[-XXX-]

People not in the town

Do you often find yourself blowing so much gp on something that does not affect your character in any way whatsoever?

Placing contracts on city officials does not make any sense unless you have an agent in place ready to steal the next elections. Otherwise the mark will simply reclaim the office via faction proxy for the next term and you'll be back at square 1... only a couple of million gp shorter.
Assassin players are going to love you though

[Skibbles]

I've only ever seen two high profile assassinations (read: 8v1 turbogank 'assassination' of a settlement leader) and in both cases the killers had no plans or interest of taking over after. Tears are just as good as wine in this system.

In all other cases, that I've seen anyway, the guild is basically just a tax against leaders doing anything that might ruffle feathers or threaten an entrenched bloc.

Which happens to mostly impact new and fresh factions.

Already I'm seeing defeatist conversations in game about needing to check the guild daily, how to come up with millions upon millions as an upcoming faction, over the most pedestrian conflicts. This is a shame.

Besides this: am I the only one wondering why we can't trust players to roleplay outcasts without a tag but we can trust players to use a completely anonymous no-risk no-consequence no-context pvp pay to win system?

[Curve]

Already I'm seeing defeatist conversations in game about needing to check the guild daily, how to come up with millions upon millions as an upcoming faction, over the most pedestrian conflicts. This is a shame.

Players will sometimes let their ooc perception of the effects of rule changes leak into their role play. I would be interested in seeing how this plays out in the game with some time.

Besides this: am I the only one wondering why we can't trust players to roleplay outcasts without a tag but we can trust players to use a completely anonymous no-risk no-consequence no-context pvp pay to win system?

You have a point here. The issue is that the numbers make the argument disparate. There are a controlled number of assassins due to the application process an uncontrolled number of outcasts.

Right now it feels like there is a potential for abuse but we are not seeing it. A look at the outstanding contracts for assassination the bottom payment has risen (an intentional effect) but the top end payments are remaining steady compared to before the change.

I think that we are nowhere near a problem and that when people encounter the system being abused they should report that so that the team can better make future changes if they are needed.

Depending on how that goes and how many political position assassinations happen and how often there could be a good argument for any assassination that would remove someone from office needing to have an accompanying PM to the DMs from the one paying for the contract stating the reasons and one from the assassins planning to take the contract on how they will try to create roleplay rather than end it.

[-XXX-]

Keep in mind that a part of the update was making assassins subject to the same PvP rules as everybody else.
Contract or not, they can no longer jump someone out of stealth with no prior RP interaction.