Assassin Token and Guild

[Algol]

Since assassins are now limited by same rules as everyone, is there a merit to locking them behind an application processes?

On a similar note why are players not allowed to form their own assassin guilds? Competing assassin guilds sounds very cool to me and with the minimum mechanical contractor being rather expensive these days I think they wouldn't be redundant to have around.

[jinrohbrigade]

On the latter part I don't think there is anything stopping someone hiring a PC to kill another outside of the assassination system. It just won't have any interaction with the settlement/election system, which is probably part of the reason it still requires a token.

[Algol]

From wiki:
A RP Rating of 20 is required. Applicant Assassins *must* operate within the guild and may not create their own assassin guild.

[Shadowy Reality]

As for the RPR and Application requirement. You are right that assassins must now abide by the same engagement rules as everyone else, but consider two things:

1) They can remove settlement leaders. This is an extremely impactful mechanic, shaping a whole settlement. It is important this isn't abused.
2) Even against non settlement leaders the assassins have some responsibility over their marks. You can be a level 10, you insult the wrong person and you get a bounty on you for 100k. Any assassin will be able to take you down, wouldn't you rather have a good experience, rather than a couple of words and a swift death? I know this can also happen without assassins being involved, but the gold element gives assassin players an extra incentive to be efficient and kill their mark.

Regarding assassin players needing to operate within The Guild. It makes sense. The Guild is an extremely powerful organization, as mentioned before, capable of overthrowing governments. Why would they offer someone a job with them and have that same person go around their whole business and do their own thing as well?

[Algol]

Then the token should be for the guild not for the class itself. As the rule stands it basically railroads how one can play an assassin (some aspects of it at least), which is rather in poor taste IMO.

[Algol]

So, here is how I propose to change things

The current mechanical guild becomes something similar to "Continental" in John Wick series, so it wouldn't conflict with any independent assassin RP, as long as it doesn't involve guild grounds.

Current contracts would be high profile contracts(or sanctified if we want to be John Wick like), that could be only trusted to an assassin endoresed/ sanctioned by the super guild. And to become a sanctioned assassin one would require DM token/ approval.

[Halibutthead]

and here i am wishing they'd take away the token approval process. i had a character die out because after days of trying to "get approved" and being told wrong form, wrong forum, wrong everything, i gave up. it's just not worth the effort for a subpar class imo.

if they changed the class name to something other than assassin and required DM approval to join the assassin's guild (which could include any class), the whole thing would be 150% better. change my mind

[Shadowy Reality]

If you do not have Assassin levels you can create your own mercenary/assassin/murder company, nothing stops you.
You just can't be part of the assassin's guild and create your own business on the side.

I am not sure how I feel about opening the assassin's guild to builds without assassin levels. It opens a precedent. Look at Zhentarim and Harpers, you need to fulfil the requirements for the class and you must take levels on the class at some point.

I would be alright with decoupling Assassin levels from the token process (but not the RPR). But I think the Guild must always require both levels and a token.

[-XXX-]

Harpers and Assassins have mechanical means of influencing the settlement system from the outside.
That alone means that an increased level of DM supervision is warranted.
They're also forced into global NPC guilds to make sure that they don't play favourites with local factions or directly benefit from their PrC perks themselves*

Players can always RP a spy or a "hired professional" without the PrC. They just won't be getting any of those extra settlement system meddling perks.


*why else would a toon who can rig the elections bother with all that intrigue, politics and cloak & dagger when they could just cut the middleman and run the show themselves?

[ImWithThisGuy]

I should preface by saying assassin's token requirement predates the existence of the guild. This alone shows that there is reason beyond mechanical ties for it's presence; it's rather based in preserving the setting and fun in general.

The argument has been made before whether or not assassin needs a token, or a RPB requirement, but every time, I find myself wondering why people want it removed so badly, or misunderstand why it remains a requirement for a sub-par class.

On a character side, Assassin roleplay is very specifically based on killing. There may be failures, but the attempt upon taking a life, innocent or not, is always present. And when this roleplay targets other players (as it eventually does, with or without a guild) it is vital the assassin's player understands how to make and play a character who's roleplay goes beyond 'Find, Kill, Profit'.


This brings us to the player side. If a player does not understand the implications of their character's roleplay, how can they be expected to portray it correctly and responsibly? Mind that this goes for any class or roleplay set. So then, how can we expect people with the automatic IC justification to target/kill people (some of which they may never even have met or heard of) to do it correctly or responsibly?

The token and RPB requirement need to stay in order to ensure the class isn't turned into the murderhobo it technically is. It sets a standard so players know what's expected when they are playing the class. Which is the theme for playing any class with a token or RPB requirement, not just assassin.

[Algol]

Harpers and Assassins have mechanical means of influencing the settlement system from the outside.
That alone means that an increased level of DM supervision is warranted.
They're also forced into global NPC guilds to make sure that they don't play favourites with local factions or directly benefit from their PrC perks themselves*

Players can always RP a spy or a "hired professional" without the PrC. They just won't be getting any of those extra settlement system meddling perks.


*why else would a toon who can rig the elections bother with all that intrigue, politics and cloak & dagger when they could just cut the middleman and run the show themselves?

Yeah I agree about election stuff but whole "You can RP any kind of assassin, but not if you have any assassin levels then you are severely limited ." part what ticks me off. Classes should enrich RP potential not hamper it severely. Hence why I think the token should be for the guild not the class itself.

I should preface by saying assassin's token requirement predates the existence of the guild. This alone shows that there is reason beyond mechanical ties for it's presence; it's rather based in preserving the setting and fun in general.

The argument has been made before whether or not assassin needs a token, or a RPB requirement, but every time, I find myself wondering why people want it removed so badly, or misunderstand why it remains a requirement for a sub-par class.

On a character side, Assassin roleplay is very specifically based on killing. There may be failures, but the attempt upon taking a life, innocent or not, is always present. And when this roleplay targets other players (as it eventually does, with or without a guild) it is vital the assassin's player understands how to make and play a character who's roleplay goes beyond 'Find, Kill, Profit'.


This brings us to the player side. If a player does not understand the implications of their character's roleplay, how can they be expected to portray it correctly and responsibly? Mind that this goes for any class or roleplay set. So then, how can we expect people with the automatic IC justification to target/kill people (some of which they may never even have met or heard of) to do it correctly or responsibly?

The token and RPB requirement need to stay in order to ensure the class isn't turned into the murderhobo it technically is. It sets a standard so players know what's expected when they are playing the class. Which is the theme for playing any class with a token or RPB requirement, not just assassin.

Palemasters used to require a token as well but they no longer do. And when they are poorly done I'd say they do more damage to the setting than a murder hobo rogue+.

As mentioned before you don't need to have assassin levels to shank someone with minimal RP for some pocket change.

We already trust players to play demon cultists, palemasters,evil barbarians, paladins with no token. Why assassin should be different? Just make the guild require a token so people can't abuse it to force elections.

[Ork]

I agree. I think we should unrestrict assassin.

[ImWithThisGuy]

Palemasters used to require a token as well but they no longer do. And when they are poorly done I'd say they do more damage to the setting than a murder hobo rogue+.

As mentioned before you don't need to have assassin levels to shank someone with minimal RP for some pocket change.

We already trust players to play demon cultists, palemasters,evil barbarians, paladins with no token. Why assassin should be different? Just make the guild require a token so people can't abuse it to force elections.

We trust all players to act reasonably, no matter what they play, yes. If we didn't, there would be a character application for every single character that is made on arelith, which thankfully isn't the case.

And frankly, I don't like the election assassin system at all; I would love to see it changed to require DM permission and/or oversight. That said, each of your examples differ from assassin in a major way; they can all be murderers, but their roleplay isn't centered around it. Them being their class doesn't automatically MAKE them a murderer. An evil barbarian can just as easily focus on destroying civilization or enslaving innocents. And when/if he does murder people, does that define him as his class? Not in the slightest.

Pale master is an interesting example as it used to also require a token, and while I agree they can be damaging in their own right (meaning they probably should still require a token, as far as I'm concerned) they are, again, not centered around killing other players. If you take the murder out of their roleplay entirely, they still exist as a defined class. They are not so dependant on the roleplay that it cannot be removed if the player wants.

I'm not saying the only thing an assassin can do is murder; what I am saying is if they don't or aren't expected to at least try, they really aren't an assassin. And frankly, if you remove the restrictions from the class, people are much less likely to respect the class itself. Meaning they are also more likely to use it as a vanity class, so they can have fancy 'death attack' popping up over their head, or for the sake of getting that powerbuild juuuuust~ right. This kind of thing happens all the time with other classes; like Weapon master, Knight, Loremaster, etc. Adding assassin to the list is a mistake, because all other classes add more to a character than a singular one thing; murder.

If we take all the murder related roleplay away from an assassin, what remains? I think you phrased it best: rogue+. Removing the token removes the expectation to play the class any different from 'rogue+', and that may as well mean removing the class entirely. Which, as much as it pains me, makes a lot of sense when you have a class based on something so one-dimensional. A single action that effectively defines a class, a single action which almost every character on arelith can (and does) do very regularly.

(But please don't remove assassin, that would make me very, very sad.)

[Watchful Glare]

I'm not in any rush to see Assassin join the procession of classes taken only for what they offer mechanically, which is exactly what we'd see. At the moment you can have it if you want it, you just submit an app. This simple thing prevents their mass production with no accountability or no thought. Assassin's Guild is also in the process of being reworked.

[Halibutthead]

I'm not in any rush to see Assassin join the procession of classes taken only for what they offer mechanically, which is exactly what we'd see.

can you explain what would be bad about that? or how it would be worse than pal/bg dips for sorcs (perfectly fine) or any of the other classes?

[magistrasa]

Disconnect the assassin class from the guild, remove application requirement, open it up to more alignments. The fact that anyone can meta your alignment any time you attack something while in a party is extremely discouraging. The assassin class is really cool and does offer a lot of roleplay fodder in its mechanics. Giving it some more conceptual versatility would make it way more fun and engaging to play. Having played a few myself, it's honestly one of my favorite classes on the server, both in mechanics and in flavor.

[Subtext]

I'm not in any rush to see Assassin join the procession of classes taken only for what they offer mechanically, which is exactly what we'd see. At the moment you can have it if you want it, you just submit an app. This simple thing prevents their mass production with no accountability or no thought. Assassin's Guild is also in the process of being reworked.

I would argue that most people make their class selection based on how they want to play their character in an efficient way and when it comes to the RP not quite fitting the class then there are much worse offenders than what I could envision to happen with assassin.
Or simply put. I couldn't possibly infer from the RP just how many players dipped paladin, monk, bard, loremaster and so on...

I too don't really see much point in locking that particular class behind a token. It doesn't offer much mechanically either and there are better choices for facilitating that kind of RP. Nor do assassins have special rules these days.
However, I also believe that the guild system should continue to require a token given the potential impact.
I also think that it should be slightly loosened for Harpers and Zents too. Aka - token required to take the class but not a requirement to take the class if you get the token.
(I do think too that these classes could use a second look as well. Some of the prerequisites are kinda odd, especially after the huge update regarding skills some time back. )

[Waldo52]

+1 to opening up the assassin.

I understand the idea of there being an assassin's guild and only people with assassin levels being allowed to roleplay as members. But I have a simple libertarian perspective on this: if all members of the guild are assassins, why does it have to be the case that all assassins are members of the guild?

The class is basically an evil rogue who trades skill ranks and grenades for poison and better sneaking. I don't want mandatory guild roleplay and an enforced code of conduct, I want to explore a cool class in my own way.

[Sincra]

I prefer it locked.
Prior users in agreeance have stated why.

[Algol]

I prefer it locked.
Prior users in agreeance have stated why.

That's a shame. But could we at least change the "you can only operate within the guild part"?

[Arigard]

I prefer it locked.
Prior users in agreeance have stated why.

That's a shame. But could we at least change the "you can only operate within the guild part"?

As someone that has played the class, I'm having a hard time seeing what benefit really comes out of this? Why does this make the RP of being an assassin actually better?

If you're able to simply go to your pocket assassin and pay them 20k to go knock someone off to do you a favour, why would you ever go and actually place down a proper bounty? How will people be able to pay off their bounties if everything is being done privately? What are the 90% of assassins going to do RPwise if all of their business is being conducted behind closed doors and they are not privy to it? There's nothing stopping assassins at present (to my knowledge having personal RP agendas and helping their allies in day to day RP, as long as they aren't undercutting the guild, or being paid to do it) - So at what point does having a personal guild do anything except to remove content from the majority to benefit the minority?

We would simply end up in a situation where rather than having a socialized structure for assassin RP where everything is open to all when bounties get placed, we'd get potential monopolies based on who is building the best assassin based clique at that moment in time, which of course would almost certainly become entwined with OOC and who is friends with who. This would politicize assassins and their personal "guilds" in a way the official guild forces into a fairly objective structure & and that is a very good thing IMO for RP and building a fairness into the RP and also necessary when things like settlement leader mechanics exist.

[Algol]

For example then you could play an assassin that's part of a cult, working for them.

You could also roleplay with the person hiring you not only your target. You cold perhaps betray the person who hired you. Or extort them for more money. You could conspire with them for a more effective and overall more interactive assassination conspiracy for the target.

These are just some examples out of top of my mind, I'm sure people can come up with way more creative things to do if they weren't limited by the guilds system.

[Arigard]

For example then you could play an assassin that's part of a cult, working for them.

You could also roleplay with the person hiring you not only your target. You cold perhaps betray the person who hired you. Or extort them for more money. You could conspire with them for a more effective and overall more interactive assassination conspiracy for the target.

These are just some examples out of top of my mind, I'm sure people can come up with way more creative things to do if they weren't limited by the guilds system.

I mean you can do all of this now, you just have to put in the RP as the assassin, it just isn't handed to you. Nothing is stopping you from doing the work to find out who potentially placed a contract, or promoting the guild to potential clients in advance to bring more work to the guild.

Within the confines of, as long as it makes the guild gold and you aren't taking it out of their pockets, you can do a lot of RP as an assassin outside of simply "I see contract. I one line. I kill contract".

As for betraying people? Again, if it's making gold for the guild, you can absolutely do such. What's stopping you from playing two sides off against each other to encourage more bounties (and therefor more gold into the guild) on both sides? What's stopping you from stoking the fires of politics around the lands, or stirring up dissent, or simply just pouring gas on the fire of hostilities to try and drum up more business?

There's plenty of ways you can be sneaky/devious and underhand even within the confines of the current system. It just requires a little more effort, networking and intelligence gathering. As long as the gold is flowing and you're not doing back handed deals that undermine the union, there's a lot of scope for a lot of different kinds of RP.

[Stop. Ninja Time]

I also agree on unrestricting assassin but leaving the guild locked.

Less work for the DMs, more fun for the players, no risk of anything going wrong and more RP opportunities.

Win, win, win and a win, really zero reason to not do it.

Also +1 to opening more alignments. Killing people for money isn't evil when that's what writs are.

[Purplemyst]

I agree with removing the application lock on the assassin. If someone can run around with a bone arm without application, I don't see why someone can't play an assassin without application.

Though I do think that joining the assassin guild should be on application.

I also wanted to add that removing a settlement leader sounds like an extremely powerful ability that makes no sense to me personally.

Citizen one : "Why is Katrina no longer the Mayor?"
Citizen two: "She was murdered by an assassin"
Citizen one: "Are you sure? I just saw her sipping wine in the Nomad"

Then being the player on the other hand who is forced to roleplay they where attacked by an assassin and due to this they decided to step down. But oocly they didn't decide it was forced.