Assassin & Application: Thoughts

[Naghast]

So. Assassin.
It /USED/ to have special rights to use different pre-PVP interaction rules, which is now gone.
It also has the ability to remove people from seats of power, but, to my knowledge, it requires working with assassin's guild (there needs to be a bounty on someone, claimed by an assassin). Correct me if i'm wrong there.

And, currently, taking assassin levels requires an approved application. But i've been thinking, because

This application requirement honestly feels like a leftover, from when assassin had those privilages to potentially jump someone from stealth as long as they were aware that an assassin is hunting them that day.
Or maybe there IS some other reason to that, that i just don't know about. In which case, inform me, please.

Anyway, it feels like it'd just be better if the application was not on the /class/ but more on the /assassin's guild membership/ (so, bounties and stuff), simply put.

What do y'all think though?

To me it just feels kinda meh that assassin's gated behind an application as a class itself, and not specifically the ability to destabilise settlements, considering the special pre-pvp rp rules are just outright gone. Just feels like the app's been just, forgotten about.

Plus the class itself is literally as close as we're probably gonna get to an arcane trickster prestige class - a rogue with minor arcane abilities - and that class fantasy is generally really appealing to me.

[Waldo52]

I never really wanted to play an assasin, because I prefer the skill points and new feats from the rogue update.

That said, I agree with everything you said. Now that surprise killbashing without RP is off the table I see absolutely no reason for gatekeeping here. The sheer amount of people who have complained to me that they couldn't make an assassin even after the rule change is mind blowing.

[Hazard]

I think there's still some merit to this needing an application, given how popular it is to just have an assassin buddy run around with your gank squad so you can get the kill and bounty.

[Waldo52]

I think there's still some merit to this needing an application, given how popular it is to just have an assassin buddy run around with your gank squad so you can get the kill and bounty.

True but that's pretty much the only good argument left for this policy after the rule change and on its own I don't think it's compelling enough to overcome the issue of intruding into the creative space of the player base.

If we're really concerned about gank squads and we're looking to police them via an application process we have to be reasonable and start with paladins, lol.

[Hazard]

I think there's still some merit to this needing an application, given how popular it is to just have an assassin buddy run around with your gank squad so you can get the kill and bounty.

True but that's pretty much the only good argument left for this policy after the rule change and on its own I don't think it's compelling enough to overcome the issue of intruding into the creative space of the player base.

If we're really concerned about gank squads and we're looking to police them via an application process we have to be reasonable and start with paladins, lol.

True.

[Naghast]

That's... Kind of why i mentioned moving the application from the /class/ to the /guild/. Bounties would still require an app.

[Kythana]

100% agree.

It would also remove the meta exposing for an assassin whenever you see DEATH ATTACK during pve with one.

Now an assassin could be literally anyone, and you wouldn't know. And I think that's neat.

[Hazard]

100% agree.

It would also remove the meta exposing for an assassin whenever you see DEATH ATTACK during pve with one.

Now an assassin could be literally anyone, and you wouldn't know. And I think that's neat.

Didn't even think of that. That is pretty sweet.

[AstralUniverse]

I personally cant even think of one reason to play Assassin, rather than RP the very same character as a Rogue.

[Waldo52]

Eh...

Arelith has done some pretty cool things with rogues but death attack is pretty sweet.

It largely boils down to weather you prefer locking people down with on hit paralysis or if you prefer to lock people down with grenades or weather you want to compete in the dex based damage olympics or you prefer having more HP/skills/feats.

I'll admit that from an outside perspective they look almost identical.

I would say there are actually some pretty good reasons to have assassin levels just from a video game or spreadsheet point of view.

[RedGiant]

As the player of perhaps one of the worst assassins in the history of Arelith (worst as in bad, unaccomplished, never got even one bounty), I have to say the Guild is one of those things that, as we say, "briefs well".

I specifically built my guy to do one thing and only really work well in a team. When I was active on him, there was a very active guild with a leader and great RP. All of the bounties, however, were swiftly picked off by one player who rebuffed the guilders who tried to bring them into the fold and would not cooperate with us despite many attempts. After a long period of trying to do it the 'right' way, only to have bounties claimed in record time or targets simply disappear from Arelith entirely, I got bored and moved on.

In short, the guild "briefs well", but in practice it seems to oscillate between dormancy and functional, but disappointing. If you need someone killed, most people don't start with assassins, which seems a shame.

I am of the opinion we need another overhaul of the entire idea. This thread comes along now and again, and the OP presents another idea: decoupling the guild from the class.

I personally love the guild. It is a great, automated primer on being an assassin on Arelith. It also has tremendous potential. I, for one, don't think it needs much to reach its potential. Here are a couple of the main problems and my ideas to solve them.

1) Guild Membership - Keep it as a requirement, but maybe lose the application? This would likely solve the dormancy problem. If your worried about people 'doing it right', progressing through the guild trains them. There hasn't been much policing of members beyond this anyway. In my experience, the only policing is the usual DM interactions that surround PvP and hurt feelings.

2) Target Disappearance - This is a tough one, but we all know of bounties that go to ground. This would be fine, except that logging off is a kind of immortality and its difficult to discern between a genuine IRL absence and using this as a survival tactic. I wonder if some clever scripting here could at least make this significant, such as detecting 'maintenance' logging during an active bounty. Perhaps after a set time it could impose a gold hit, a certain percentage of the bounty being automatically deducted from your bank account, to represent the banks buying out the contract of a 'good customer'? I dunno.

3) PvP Rules. The age old dilemma here is that Arelith assassins actually have more hoops to jump through to stay OOC legal than your average, everyday gank squad. Though unpopular, I still would like to see the entire contract system overhauled, made more interactive/accessible, and completely serve as the only RP required before a bounty goes 'live' and can be collected.

[Hazard]

Not to derail the thread, but I don't think the guild will ever be popular for 'getting people killed' because they're objectively terrible assassins. You pay them to kill someone, and the target is able to just pay more money 'not' to be killed.

Their reputation is ruined. Beyond getting someone out of settlement leadership, there's no point. You're much better off just giving someone gold directly to go and kill who you want them to.

[Royal Blood]

The assassin's guild is broken in a lot of ways. It's so annoying I don't want to get into it.

It's broken. Devs know its broken. Admins know its broken. Everyone I've spoken to has acknowledged its broken and works in ways that people did not realize and are not wise.

Hopefully it sees some change soon because it needs it badly.

Edit: Regarding the application specific, I think you can't apply until you're at the part where you take the assassin levels? Unless that has changed since I always found that funny since if you can't get your application through your character build is irrelevant.

[DM Monkey]

Seeing the other side of things, unfortunately I think we still need the application process.

[Amateur Hour]

The ability to cause a government shift should remain firmly-locked behind an application (personally, I feel the RPR 40 and 50 fastlane process is a mistake, but that's a separate issue).

Whether that's associated with the guild alone or the class is a separate issue. I'd honestly be more in favor of the guild being open to any build (just submit an application) like I would with Harper or Zhent, but it may be a mechanical limitation issue.

[Sincra]

The assassin application is there because assassins are not meant to be a commonplace thing.
Ontop of this one can be an assassin without being part of the Guild, that is why it is optional to join at level 5 assassin.

This is why I believe the application is good, I do not want to see every edgy person taking it to be even edgier, nor do I want the mystery of the class undermined by it being common metapicks.

Further, the Guild being "bad assassins" because they take payoffs is nonsense.
Consider these two scenarios:
Scenario 1:
They do not accept payoffs.
A powerful and rich person has a bounty on them.
Assassins go attack them and die, or are injured, until either the contract times out or someone gets lucky.

Scenario 2:
They do accept payoffs.
A powerful and rich person has a bounty on them.
They pay off the contract after finding out about it, either from an attack or are contacted by an assassin prior.
The guild is paid off twice or even three times the value for 0 extra work and minimal damage to their valuable employees.

These are not the only ways this can play out, but I find the second far more compelling and allows an avenue of escape from the onslaught for the target that is not just hiding in a quarter or staying logged off, the second of which can get you in trouble if linked to purposefully avoiding the contract.
It also should be remembered, paying off a contract is not a good action when you are knowingly beneffiting evil people who will use that money to further the same action on others, this is a moral quandry and is important to the setting.

In this way it is both an IC sensical thing to do and an OOC story generative thing to do.
If you believe it is more effective to hire a goon to go do it?
Do that instead, you already said the solution even if it has the downside of lacking anonymity.

[Kythana]

The assassin application is there because assassins are not meant to be a commonplace thing.

Really? So the class that is effectively a rogue with poisons and some innate spells is supposed to be rarer than epic spellcasters? Characters that can casually call forth the most absurd magic imaginable? Characters that have been chosen by their gods for some divine purpose?

But a guy with a poisoned dagger and the ability to cast invisibility is too wild?

I'd argue the opposite really. Assassins are just blades for hire. They're mercenaries without morals. If anything, it's probably one of the most populous professions in Faerun.

It does make sense that the guild should not be populous however, as there should be stringent requirements. And there should also be diversity within. See something like the Dark Brotherhood from Oblivion, which has a range of skillsets, and not just 'a bunch of dudes with knives.'

This is why I believe the application is good, I do not want to see every edgy person taking it to be even edgier...

...Where exactly did edginess come into play? Assassins are not inherently edgy, nor does taking the class means it has to be so. This argument really doesn't make sense considering we already have classes like dirge, hemomancer, palemaster, warlock and blackguard. There are already plenty of edgelord baiting picks, which are arguably way edgier than assassin.

Looking at the class features, what exactly strikes you as edgy? Death attack...? Seeing renamed sneak attack is somehow more edgy than:

• Glowing red swords
• Massive blood magic and self harm to acquire focus
• Literal devil/demon summons
• Bone arm, undead summoning
• Macabre singing, vfx wails and scream spamming

...nor do I want the mystery of the class undermined by it being common metapicks.

What mystery? The only thing that is ambiguous about assassin is the guild. If you take that away, it's- Again, just a rogue. If you want, you can take assassin on the PGCC and test out every non guild related feature.

The only reason I can presume you might think this is because there isn't much theorycrafting or discussion regarding assassin. And that's entirely because it's application locked, so nobody cares.

Do that instead, you already said the solution even if it has the downside of lacking anonymity.

We would. If killing a settlement leader as a non assassin had any sort of effect. But since we're told mechanically that it must work like this, everyone is forced to accept it. You could kill a settlement leader on cooldown for months, and nothing would happen until the actual guild assassin is involved.

So, yes. They are bad assassins objectively speaking. And we're forced to deal with them.

Seeing the other side of things, unfortunately I think we still need the application process.

Can you tell me what it is about the class itself that is the problem? Nothing in regards to the actual guild system, pretend that doesn't exist.

Please explain what class features are so broken that they require an application for.

[Waldo52]

The assassin application is there because assassins are not meant to be a commonplace thing.

Really? So the class that is effectively a rogue with poisons and some innate spells is supposed to be rarer than epic spellcasters? Characters that can casually call forth the most absurd magic imaginable? Characters that have been chosen by their gods for some divine purpose?

But a guy with a poisoned dagger and the ability to cast invisibility is too wild?

I'd argue the opposite really. Assassins are just blades for hire. They're mercenaries without morals. If anything, it's probably one of the most populous professions in Faerun.

It does make sense that the guild should not be populous however, as there should be stringent requirements. And there should also be diversity within. See something like the Dark Brotherhood from Oblivion, which has a range of skillsets, and not just 'a bunch of dudes with knives.'

This is why I believe the application is good, I do not want to see every edgy person taking it to be even edgier...

...Where exactly did edginess come into play? Assassins are not inherently edgy, nor does taking the class means it has to be so. This argument really doesn't make sense considering we already have classes like dirge, hemomancer, palemaster, warlock and blackguard. There are already plenty of edgelord baiting picks, which are arguably way edgier than assassin.

Looking at the class features, what exactly strikes you as edgy? Death attack...? Seeing renamed sneak attack is somehow more edgy than:

• Glowing red swords
• Massive blood magic and self harm to acquire focus
• Literal devil/demon summons
• Bone arm, undead summoning
• Macabre singing, vfx wails and scream spamming

...nor do I want the mystery of the class undermined by it being common metapicks.

What mystery? The only thing that is ambiguous about assassin is the guild. If you take that away, it's- Again, just a rogue. If you want, you can take assassin on the PGCC and test out every non guild related feature.

The only reason I can presume you might think this is because there isn't much theorycrafting or discussion regarding assassin. And that's entirely because it's application locked, so nobody cares.

Do that instead, you already said the solution even if it has the downside of lacking anonymity.

We would. If killing a settlement leader as a non assassin had any sort of effect. But since we're told mechanically that it must work like this, everyone is forced to accept it. You could kill a settlement leader on cooldown for months, and nothing would happen until the actual guild assassin is involved.

So, yes. They are bad assassins objectively speaking. And we're forced to deal with them.

Seeing the other side of things, unfortunately I think we still need the application process.

Can you tell me what it is about the class itself that is the problem? Nothing in regards to the actual guild system, pretend that doesn't exist.

Please explain what class features are so broken that they require an application for.

+1

Keep preaching, Kythana. I love it.

Sincra, I agree with a lot of your posts or at least tend to see where you're coming from when I disagree with you. But you're losing me here.

I have never heard assassins described as particularly rare. Wizards are literally warping the fabric of reality everywhere you go on the server, and spellcasting is supposed to be a fairly esoteric thing in forgotten realms.

I don't understand how expanding the assassin class to any interested player will make players edgier, or what the **** is wrong with being edgy in the first place. I like to play Cyricists. My favorite backpack option is the rack of skulls. What of it?

[Dalrand]

+1

I agree, no point having a class unnecessarily left behind an application. The guild makes sense to instead be app only, as it gives the power to destabilise settlements, otherwise I am unsure as to what the issue is!

[Hazard]

Further, the Guild being "bad assassins" because they take payoffs is nonsense.
Consider these two scenarios:
Scenario 1:
They do not accept payoffs.
A powerful and rich person has a bounty on them.
Assassins go attack them and die, or are injured, until either the contract times out or someone gets lucky.

Scenario 2:
They do accept payoffs.
A powerful and rich person has a bounty on them.
They pay off the contract after finding out about it, either from an attack or are contacted by an assassin prior.
The guild is paid off twice or even three times the value for 0 extra work and minimal damage to their valuable employees.

The scenarios listed are exactly why they're bad assassins, and why no sane person would pay them to kill anyone outside of the mechanical benefit of it being the only way to remove a settlement leader by force.

No one would hire assassins that keep the money you gave them even if the target isn't killed, if the bounty 'expires' or if the target pays it off themselves.

You don't get to just 'not' kill the target, or accept more money from someone else, and keep working as a guild of assassins.
Best case scenario, their professionalism and reputation is ruined and no one ever hires them (that is the current reality).
Worst case scenario, everyone in the guild is killed by real assassins, who actually do their job when hired.

It's not even good from a purely business is business perspective. You want people to pay you to kill people, as a guild of assassins. Why would they pay you, when they know the bounty can both expire or just be paid off? The answer is mechanical removal of settlement leader.

[Royal Blood]

Edit:

Bounties stack for settlement leaders like 3 million base becomes 9 million to remove. It's base bounty X3

Once a bounty is set it only takes 100k gold once a IRL month to keep that bounty on.

Once you've acquired a significant bounty your only out is to die as the bounty can be renewed forever.

That might seem okay. But this is where group A maybe has a ton of play time and they have better shops. They can easily drop , 3, 6 or 9 million gold bounties. I would also think it is far easier for surface merchant to generate high volumes of gold in comparison to UD merchants just due to player volume.

The assassins guild for that reason needs to be gated I think because the mechanics are easy to be suffocating and if every character is an assassin hybrid then no one will be a settlement leader.

I would find ways to make the assassin more engaging and valuable beyond PVP kills The quest system for the guild is cool for example.

I would also change the way the bounty system works. Still reward investment but get rid of the potential for forever bounties.

[Cthuletta]

This will probably be an unpopular opinion- but hear me out!

I know the Assassin's rules of engagement have changed at some point, and I think there's a middle-ground idea here that I'd personally like to see.
It used to be that when you had a contract on you, you'd get an anonymous wisp stating so. It was a little cheesy, I won't lie, 'The Assassin's Guild has placed a contract on your head.' or some such, which seemed a little out of line with what a guild would actually do, and I can understand why it was removed given that just allowed some folks with beau coups of money to go pay it off immediately. BUT! What if we brought that back, and the wisps said something much more cryptic, with a variety of random lines that could be spat out. 'Your days are numbered.' 'You know what you did.' et. cetera, still cheesy, but maybe not as blatant or in your face. Can the target still figure it out and go pay it off immediately, well yeah, but let's be honest, high-profile characters are usually checking the guild daily ANYWAY to do just that.

Secondly, let's say in this hypothetical situation where the wisps come back. Those come from the guild itself, meaning guild-bound assassins. The wisp, is the target's RP warning. Those who are part of the guild and trying to take out the target, get the RP-prior rule boundary lifted or in some way significantly reduced.

Thirdly! I like the idea of the class being open without an application, means you could have free-lance assassins out there if ya wanted to. They would have to follow the rules of Engagement. I also like the idea of binding the application to the guild specifically. This would mean that those who are part of the guild via their application, get the extra goodie of working with the guild, and having those restrictions of engagement prior to PvP lifted or reduced, as part of the official organization. This has to be done with the O-K from the DMs, so the application process is for that special rule change and can go do the murder-thing with their permission and knowledge. This could maybe even be opened up to non-Assassin-Class characters?

As it stands at the moment, having an application for guild-only doesn't offer much incentive, since you're all bound by the same rules. People would make assassins just for the mechanical benefits and do everything a guild-assassin would do, without any extra 'oomph', and in time it might make the guild completely inactive for that reason.
Just as an additional note; I've never played an assassin myself, so if the Guild offers something extra rather than just the neat location and access to the bounty list, I am totally unaware.

[For My Next Trick]

Make it so that you can't pay off a hit immediately. Make it take a week to be available as an option. It gives assassins time to plan and execute, and makes it meaningful that way.

[Edens_Fall]

Make it so that you can't pay off a hit immediately. Make it take a week to be available as an option. It gives assassins time to plan and execute, and makes it meaningful that way.

Not a bad idea. Such a thing would help level the field somewhat between those PCs backed by huge forever factions and the casual player with one shop. Would also allow assassin players a chance to work their trade.

[Ceyella]

This will probably be an unpopular opinion- but hear me out!

I know the Assassin's rules of engagement have changed at some point, and I think there's a middle-ground idea here that I'd personally like to see.
It used to be that when you had a contract on you, you'd get an anonymous wisp stating so. It was a little cheesy, I won't lie, 'The Assassin's Guild has placed a contract on your head.' or some such, which seemed a little out of line with what a guild would actually do, and I can understand why it was removed given that just allowed some folks with beau coups of money to go pay it off immediately. BUT! What if we brought that back, and the wisps said something much more cryptic, with a variety of random lines that could be spat out. 'Your days are numbered.' 'You know what you did.' et. cetera, still cheesy, but maybe not as blatant or in your face. Can the target still figure it out and go pay it off immediately, well yeah, but let's be honest, high-profile characters are usually checking the guild daily ANYWAY to do just that.

Secondly, let's say in this hypothetical situation where the wisps come back. Those come from the guild itself, meaning guild-bound assassins. The wisp, is the target's RP warning. Those who are part of the guild and trying to take out the target, get the RP-prior rule boundary lifted or in some way significantly reduced.

Thirdly! I like the idea of the class being open without an application, means you could have free-lance assassins out there if ya wanted to. They would have to follow the rules of Engagement. I also like the idea of binding the application to the guild specifically. This would mean that those who are part of the guild via their application, get the extra goodie of working with the guild, and having those restrictions of engagement prior to PvP lifted or reduced, as part of the official organization. This has to be done with the O-K from the DMs, so the application process is for that special rule change and can go do the murder-thing with their permission and knowledge. This could maybe even be opened up to non-Assassin-Class characters?

As it stands at the moment, having an application for guild-only doesn't offer much incentive, since you're all bound by the same rules. People would make assassins just for the mechanical benefits and do everything a guild-assassin would do, without any extra 'oomph', and in time it might make the guild completely inactive for that reason.
Just as an additional note; I've never played an assassin myself, so if the Guild offers something extra rather than just the neat location and access to the bounty list, I am totally unaware.

The wisp was actually just me on Seraphine - This was back when we had the 24 hour rule, and it was required (At least internally from those who interacted with the guild, we considered it good RP) that No one dies within the same RL day of knowing their bountied, as it leads to No RP. Think about it. Your standing in cordor, some guy walks up "yo your worth 200k." and stabs you. What does that actually do?

But, given Sera died got...interesting things done and left arelith, that's why the wisps stopped. same with a lot of other minor functions I cannot get into, but the difference back then, to now, was I think with the 24hour period, playing an assassin during that, and now, removing it has actually lowered RP, because now you are incentives to collect without story.

For example, the wisps, I would be blantant because we had to be, something like 'you made people angry' I am not allowed to randomly murder 5 hours after that. In fact, we are not allowed to kill anyone after sending a wisp. If I sent a wisp "meet in the slanty shanty" I cant kill you when you show up. The wisps I sent was more like a 'service' my assassin provided working with the others, to enable their Roleplay, because now it is stated, it is explicitly, stated, with no doubt, assassins are after you. You cannot claim you did not know. It was about the set-up. Some people right, would know then go do red dragon island, we would scry them, and run over to confront them. BECAUSE they were warned, there was more counterplay, they have stealth characters with them, its a set up, or they prepared to escape so now thier recounting a harrowing tale of escaping vile assassins.

This... "I went to the bank, some guy said lol you die now, and now I lost my job leading the settlement" stuff is...so lackluster and narratively lacking, I felt I had to do the wisp. It made people feel horrible otherwise, and its like, you can just go check and know you have a bounty, its not like I am revealing overly much, people have lives, checking the guild every day or week still takes 5-10 minutes,more if your someone important enough to fully ward or take guards.