Assassin & Application: Thoughts

[DM Monkey]

people making assassins to snitch on bounties probably encouraged this a little bit

This shouldn’t happen, but needs to be brought to our attention.

I should also mention that a lot of people bring up points here that were true in the past, but aren’t necessarily how the guild functions now. Things have changed, the tactics I see people use when going through a hit are also different. It might be hard to see that on the player side unless you’re either an assassin who’s a part of current events (within a few months) or a target.

[Svrtr]

people making assassins to snitch on bounties probably encouraged this a little bit

This shouldn’t happen, but needs to be brought to our attention.

I had thought it was known about, but there's been a notable tradition of assassins who work for a settlement directly or directly for a settlement lead sheerly to cover for said settlement lead by informing about contracts, cutting out the chance for actual assassins to take said contracts

I think it is one of the worst things an assassin can do and 100% wish it was against the assassin rules in the same way as harper and zhent personally, but as others have mentioned it seems to be the most common form of assassin

[solar separation]

i think this is one class that should remain gatekept / limited. as to avoid this thing that you're supposed to hardly ever see directly becoming common enough to be more widely known about than they already are.

the only thing that's wrong with the guild are the quests are broken due to not being up to date with the geography of the world.

as well as maybe having it so if you're an assassin you er, are discouraged from becoming faction lap-dogs(snitches or no). but that might be too limiting and even i'm not sure that's really worth-it.

[Whosdis]

Might be odd to some, but I like the idea of assassins in with the various settlements. Whilst I think it would also be cool to have a sort of Morag Tong shtick, having a weapon in the settlements is cool.

HOWEVER I do agree they shouldn't be thwarting the contracts. An honorable writ of execution is what it is. Maybe there should be an alternative ways of closing the contracts, for example, actually failed/botched assassinations.

[Waldo52]

i think this is one class that should remain gatekept / limited. as to avoid this thing that you're supposed to hardly ever see directly becoming common enough to be more widely known about than they already are.

I've seen this sentiment questioned by at least one other poster. So this is supposed to be a secretive, rare group. To an extent you can say the same for every role except for human fighter.

Assasins are rare compared to what? The necromancers and devil conjurers that appear everywhere you go? The elusive eastern monks with their exotic esoteric wisdom that we have filling the role of generic Skal villager? Druids privy to ancient hidden magic who serve as vending machines for barkskin at the gates of town? The giant or the guy with freaking WINGS? (Grits teeth, lol)

As adventures, most of us represent something somewhat rare. If you believe that the role of assassin should be rare and special even among a sea of unique snowflakes, that logic works better for a formal organization like the guild than it does for access to death attack, poison bonuses, etc.

[DM Monkey]

You really can't say that about other roles like fighter. Assassins, Harpers, Zhents in our setting on Arelith are rare. Rare means that you won't encounter them often. So yes, even among a sea of unique snowflakes, these mentioned classes should still be rare.

[MissEvelyn]

As a secret organization, I, too, believe that Assassins should remain rare. The same goes for Harpers and Zhentarim, and if I remember correctly, those two are also application-only classes.

If anything, I'd love to see more faction and deity specific prestige classes brought on from the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting books, and controversial as this opinion is, those should be application-only as well, to ensure their members understand their role in the setting.

[solar separation]

i think this is one class that should remain gatekept / limited. as to avoid this thing that you're supposed to hardly ever see directly becoming common enough to be more widely known about than they already are.

I've seen this sentiment questioned by at least one other poster. So this is supposed to be a secretive, rare group. To an extent you can say the same for every role except for human fighter.

Assasins are rare compared to what? The necromancers and devil conjurers that appear everywhere you go? The elusive eastern monks with their exotic esoteric wisdom that we have filling the role of generic Skal villager? Druids privy to ancient hidden magic who serve as vending machines for barkskin at the gates of town? The giant or the guy with freaking WINGS? (Grits teeth, lol)

As adventures, most of us represent something somewhat rare. If you believe that the role of assassin should be rare and special even among a sea of unique snowflakes, that logic works better for a formal organization like the guild than it does for access to death attack, poison bonuses, etc.

if i was a medieval peasant and went outside my house i would be more likely to run into a human male fighter than i would some shadowy assassin.
if i was a wizard leaving my wizard tower to go out looking for components to buy, i would be more likely to run into a human male fighter than i would be some shadowy assassin.
i think you knew precisely what myself and other posters were going for when we said that.

your example of conjurers and necromancers are also confusing, because those aren't necessarily rare finds in the setting itself. i would say they're more common(not to say commonplace) than the aforementioned shadowy assassin.
which is how it should be.

[Waldo52]

i think this is one class that should remain gatekept / limited. as to avoid this thing that you're supposed to hardly ever see directly becoming common enough to be more widely known about than they already are.

I've seen this sentiment questioned by at least one other poster. So this is supposed to be a secretive, rare group. To an extent you can say the same for every role except for human fighter.

Assasins are rare compared to what? The necromancers and devil conjurers that appear everywhere you go? The elusive eastern monks with their exotic esoteric wisdom that we have filling the role of generic Skal villager? Druids privy to ancient hidden magic who serve as vending machines for barkskin at the gates of town? The giant or the guy with freaking WINGS? (Grits teeth, lol)

As adventures, most of us represent something somewhat rare. If you believe that the role of assassin should be rare and special even among a sea of unique snowflakes, that logic works better for a formal organization like the guild than it does for access to death attack, poison bonuses, etc.

if i was a medieval peasant and went outside my house i would be more likely to run into a human male fighter than i would some shadowy assassin.
if i was a wizard leaving my wizard tower to go out looking for components to buy, i would be more likely to run into a human male fighter than i would be some shadowy assassin.
i think you knew precisely what myself and other posters were going for when we said that.

your example of conjurers and necromancers are also confusing, because those aren't necessarily rare finds in the setting itself. i would say they're more common(not to say commonplace) than the aforementioned shadowy assassin.
which is how it should be.

Census data in a pretend elf universe is hard to come by, so there's a lot of room for "agree to disagree". But spellcasters are usually described as somewhat uncommon in the realms from what little I read back in the day, outside of more explicitly magical races like elves and yuan-ti.

I can't think of a way for facts to intervene here unless someone with a PHD in Forgotten Realms lore chimes in with statistics. Because I don't want this thread to devolve too deeply into people butting heads on a personally subjective topic for three years I'll just state my opinion one last time, because I think my views are in line with a sizeable chunk of the player base.

Spellcasters are common on the server, I suspect beyond what would be suggested by Forgotten realms lore.

Rogues are common on Arelith as well.

Rogues with some slightly jiggled mechanical bits and pieces, and a bit of extremely basic magic ought to have the opportunity to be common in the same way.

As for members of the guild, that should be much rarer. And those guild members, assassins, should be gated behind application and be made rare/mysterious by that process. Weather they actually have levels in assassin or not.

A final note of caution regarding this class: Assassins have a reputation for being specialists at sending people to Kelemvor's Wall. Weather they're truly overturned in this regard or not, we probably have a current sample size of seven or eight so it's hard to tell.

Unlike zhents or harpers or winged snowflakes the class is not only gated but also potentially overpowered. And when two people have a disagreement in terms of potential PvP rule breaks where do they go? The DMs of course. The same DMs who gave this optimized character the green light to make his murder machine. The same DMs who may have an unconscious bias in his or her favor.

I'm not occusing the DM team of corruption or incompetence, it's just basic human nature. Maybe instead of saying "This class is so good that you have to please us with your concept and earn it, we have good judgement", the best approach would be to take a step back, give it to everyone and then make the same balance adjustments given to any other class with a large enough pool of players to give reasonable feedback.

A class that supposedly specializes in killing other characters, a privilege handed out by the same DMs who adjudicate inter-player PvP disputes. I think there's a profound conflict of interests there. This is just unsettling.

If you're a DM and you consider yourself honest and fair, you're still not free from the unconscious bias. If you're investigating this player's conduct, even if you're not the DM who approved his application you still might not want to make another DM look like an idiot for penalizing a player that your colleague formally endorsed.

The specter of bias would still linger over the assassin's guild if it was open to most classes, but the mixture of this being a permission only option and a potential PvP juggernaut does not sit well with me.

[Paint]

Hi. Hello. It's me, Paint.

Anyways, I'd prefer if assassin stayed app-locked. It might be more of a burden on the DMs, and I'm not going to pretend that assassin is that special, but there are a thousand different ways to build an assassin that doesn't have the assassin class in name, and a thousand different ways to roleplay assassinating people and performing assassination contracts that don't involve the guild.

Decoupling assassin from the app process and the assassin's guild wouldn't... do much for Arelith? It'd make some players happy -- some. But it wouldn't provide any real benefit to the roleplay culture, and Assassin isn't powerful enough that it'd change the PVP meta that much. On the other hand, it would get rid of a pretty interesting intersection of roleplay and mechanics that I personally think -can- do much for Arelith, if the past is any indication.

The proverbial hoops create friction, so only the people who really enjoy the idea of playing an assassin and dealing with the guild'll do it, which is perfectly illustrated by this topic insisting that the overhead sucks.

[Whosdis]

Ahh yes, the appeal to balance and fairness. I'm certain you might have seen the discussions brought up in the debates about caster disparities. There are people who believe that scrolls and potions having a lower CL threshold on 27/3 casters than on full martials is well and good because that's just the way it is and it's undoubtedly logical and balanced because of that. Funny, the Bioware-created Elf head with facial hair was not given that same monolithic treatment.

I have had numerous friends make the assassin application, and no English majors were they. Evelynn and I disagree on many matters that come down to levelling et al, but I strongly, strongly agree with her in this case: There's no problem with things being cordoned off to ensure quality, and I do not think balance is necessarily a monolith.

I am all for roleplay. Needless to say, it can produce disparity: That's fine. If there's a critique I have of the class, and this is one I will addend that it's colored from what I was told before and hence is not a recent observation, it's that the guild itself comes across as watered down. I furthermore think the general consensus is that the guild allowing targets to pay off their bounties is rather unintuitive unless it's meant solely as a gold-sink for settlements, in which case, what must be shall be.

Actually, I think allowing people to apply for a token which grants them guild membership without taking the levels should be possible. I would actually use the reverse argument of the class's power for people who would like to play amoral casters et al.

[Kythana]

Decoupling assassin from the app process and the assassin's guild wouldn't... do much for Arelith? It'd make some players happy -- some.

Sure it would.

Right now, if I ever group with an assassin at all, they almost instantly out themselves with the very obvious death attack spam. Sometimes it's even commented icly by the "very brutal way" the character fights.

Obviously ooc != ic, but just knowing a detail like this will subconsciously affect the way you view it. And while it's in pretty bad form, I'm certain some people will connect the dots icly, or just be completely disingenuous and exploit the ooc information.

However...

If anyone can be an assassin? I think that would add a lot of potential. Players would be able to freely infiltrate factions and settlements with the goal of getting to a target without it being so obvious what is happening. Settlement leaders might be paranoid towards everyone, fearful that the addition to the settlement could be an assassin.

Which as you said, "there are a thousand different ways to build an assassin that doesn't have the assassin class in name."

On the other hand, it would get rid of a pretty interesting intersection of roleplay and mechanics that I personally think -can- do much for Arelith, if the past is any indication.

Which is?

The proverbial hoops create friction, so only the people who really enjoy the idea of playing an assassin and dealing with the guild'll do it, which is perfectly illustrated by this topic insisting that the overhead sucks.

I'm sorry, but this really is not that compelling of a point. In the proposed change, being a guild assassin(not the class) still requires dealing with the guild, the idea of being an assassin, and making an application. So players that "really enjoy the idea of playing an assassin and dealing with the guild" will still be making applications and going through the same process.

The only difference then is that anyone can actually play the class, allowing for more variety, and a deeper look on any potential balance issues.

[Dr Mantis Toboggan MD]

You can log in for 15 minutes and see multiple giants, winged people, genasi, tieflings, devil/demon summoners, high powered wizards, druids with hordes of summons - in short the server is already ridiculously oversaturated with what should be rare races/classes....Assassins certainly shouldn't be rarer than those mentioned above. A Zent/Harper is at least a part of a specific organization, so I understand the need to gatekeep to some degree, I don't think the argument stands for a class that effectively boils down to generic spy/murderer for coin.

[Sincra]

It is not much of an ask for people to apply to play a class that we want rare from the perspective of the server narrative and setting.
The issue of rare races being noted alot is often because they are visually startling or notable, not because they make up more than a small minority.

As far as I am concerned these are the points and my takeaways:

• X is common so Assassin should be too ignores that is not what we want on the server.
• Assassin is rogue with magic is an over simplification and ignores the identity of assassin to make the case for it being more available.
• The notion that we need to see more of something to know if it is balanced or not is nonsense, we can theorise without playing it and so far we have seen 5, 16 or 17 are common assassin splits with some variance beyond it, 5 assassin often being the one that is most powerful due to gaining more from other classes which speaks volumes.
• The guild is now on my list to look at from an area layout perspective as there was an approved redesign from 2 years ago that was abandoned due to the dev leaving, it will better facilitate rp and some issues raised here when I find time.

[Kythana]

X is common so Assassin should be too ignores that is not what we want on the server.

There doesn't seem to be any good justification for why, other than- This is the way it has been, and that's how it's going to stay.

Assassin is rogue with magic is an over simplification and ignores the identity of assassin to make the case for it being more available.

Over simplification? Am I looking at a different class? it gains enough to be distinctive from a rogue, yes. But it's extremely similar. And beyond the actual assassinate skill, there's not much in here that is actually mechanically compelling for an assassin. It's part of the reason LM is a popular dip, since it's actually provides crucial skills an assassin would want.

The notion that we need to see more of something to know if it is balanced or not is nonsense, we can theorise without playing it and so far we have seen 5, 16 or 17 are common assassin splits with some variance beyond it, 5 assassin often being the one that is most powerful due to gaining more from other classes which speaks volumes.

Quite the opposite, actually. It's nonsense to assume that you know if something is strong/weak based on theorycrafting and builds alone. When the average player is likely never fighting against an assassin, nor playing one in pve, you're getting very limited data and feedback.

Compare this to something like the recent warlock/spellsword nerfs, which were because of universal feedback of how they actually interacted in normal gameplay. Or the invoker nerf before that. Or the popularity of the solo QB bard that was nerfed. Or the 25/5 WM. It's almost like these all came as the result of the widespread popularity of these builds that made it apparent how strong they were.

But if that's the way the team wants it, then I guess that's that.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Maybe there should be an alternative ways of closing the contracts, for example, actually failed/botched assassinations.

This is the best thing said in this thread. Switch the cancellation from "pay it off" to "once a failed attempt happens" and suddenly 90% of the silliness around the guild goes away. There are some logistics that would need to be sorted, like what constitutes an attempt, ect. but I suspect we got people smart enough to work that out.

As far as the "Settlement" Assassins, that's a weird one, because on one hand the assassin should be loyal to the guild first and foremost otherwise why make them have a guild, but on the other having spies should definitely be part of the settlement head's roleplay. I personally would make it so that Assassins themselves can't be the rat, but you can certainly infiltrate with spies that are assassin adjacent, if that makes sense.

Either way you go with that though, it matters a little less if you can't just buy your way out of it as soon as the contract goes up. And Whodis done solved it for you, you just gotta see it.

[Waldo52]

• The notion that we need to see more of something to know if it is balanced or not is nonsense, we can theorise without playing it and so far we have seen 5, 16 or 17 are common assassin splits with some variance beyond it, 5 assassin often being the one that is most powerful due to gaining more from other classes which speaks volumes.

This is plainly false. Every spreadsheet eventually has to come into contact with reality.

[Sincra]

This is going circular and I do not see the merits of arguing opinionated stances that are not going to change.
My own is as a developer and knowing builds, I will be bowing out as I have seen and said what I wanted to.