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Boci
2010-05-29, 12:13 PM
The Hassassins

Brief History: In the desert nation of Nakir, the river beds may run dry, but gold and silver pour through the kingdom like a flash flood. With so much wealth trading hands as people buy and sell, pay tribute and bribe, the rulers have many ways in which they can use coin to better their situation.
120 years ago, the king of Nakir set up an elite force of trained killer who later became known as the Hassassins. After his death, these occultic warriors became an independent body within the kingdom’s infrastructure, available to any noble who could afford their services.

Reputation: To the common people of the realm, Hassassins are beings of a nightmare: brutally efficient killers shrouded in dark clothing who stalk their pray in the dead of night. However, the speed and precision of their blade is not the main reason they are feared so much. Indeed, there are many creatures that in one-on-one combat would be far deadlier than any of the Hassassin. The reason these killers are so feared is the rumour, not completely unfounded, that they can find their target, no matter where it hide, be it a secret cave only it knows about or even the end of the world.
To nobles, the Hassassins are a reliable, if expensive, way to remove people in their path. They know the Hassassins would never target someone of royal blood, and that whichever member of the Hassassins they hire will kill themselves before giving up any details on the contract. Never-the-less, even the boldest of nobles will have a drink to bolster their courage before entering the lair of the Hassassins.

How to hire: The Hassassin’s lair consists of a series of catacombs directly beneath the Royal Palace of Nakir. Since obtaining their services requires a face to face meeting with them in their lair, only nobles may recruit their services, although some will act as a go between for rich merchants, but this will drive the price even higher. Hassassin’s will accept anything of value for payment, be it coins, gems, magical items or even alchemic and other non-magical substances, as long as they are rare and valuable. Their rates are 25% higher than the standard price for contract killings. Half the payment is made before hand and half after the target is killed. Hassassins consider a request a binding contract and will send another of their kind to complete a job if the one hired first is killed.

Types of services: Assassinations are by far the most common types of assignments requested from the Hassassins, but they can also be hired as body guard for short periods of time and will listen to other requests.

Methods: Once a Hassassin has been assigned a target, they will enter a trance before commencing the hunt. To be in a trance they are required to be fatigued, either physically or mentally. Since the trance represents a different state of mind to their usual life, they will not fatigue themselves by training. Some will dance whilst others will read for hours on end. They will then inhale the steam of water laced with a hallucinogenic plant. Similar to Mordayn (From Book of Vile Darkness), this drug has the same initial and secondary affects, but the side effects are instead brief images of the target and their locations. The Hassassin will then set out to find and kill their target, carrying with them one more dose of the plant in case they need it.

Hierarchy: The Hassassins have a single leader and four “lieutenants”. These are the only members of rank in the organization. To encourage their members to stay on edge, the deeds of the others are kept track of, but 10 is the highest grade available (representing a quick and efficient mission), and there can be any number of members between 5 and 27 with that grade at any given time.
If the leader dies, the four lieutenants select a new one, and the leader will replace any lieutenants that die. In the so far unheard of scenario that both the leader and any number of lieutenants die at the same time, the Hassassin’s edict dictates that a new leader will be voted in based on the wishes of every member. Anyone with a grade of 10 can nominate themselves to be leader, but doing so bars you from running for the position of lieutenant for 6 months.

Resources: As an organization, the Hassassins have about 150,000gp in cash. Their total assets are worth around 1 million gp. Their leader is typically CR: 15-16, and the four lieutenants are 12-13. Unranked members of the organization will vary from 5-11. They have around 100 members and a small number of contacts and informants.

Anyone have anything else to add? If not I will move on to stating the members from the movie. Couple opf questions:

1. Does any source book give typical prices for assassinations?

2. How many distinct Hassassins can you remember? I can remember the leader, the grenade thrower, the dual kusari-gama wielder, the master thrower and the one wielding the strange axe/spear who was killed off quickly.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-05-30, 05:43 PM
The Hassassins

<snip>

1. Does any source book give typical prices for assassinations?

2. How many distinct Hassassins can you remember? I can remember the leader, the grenade thrower, the dual kusari-gama wielder, the master thrower and the one wielding the strange axe/spear who was killed off quickly.

1: I am not sure, but maybe you could do something like the price in trap the soul, IIRC 1000 GP per HD of the target; though it is a metagame construct, HD are a good way on representating Power so more difficult targets it would have more class levels and therefore more HD (assuming th Hassassin are intendes as NPC antagonist).

2: I don't remember anyother; but I believe they were the only distinct one, mayvbe you can throw a unarmed master? it isn't so difficult to think an assassin organization would have someone who could kil anyone with his bare hands.

Edwin
2010-05-30, 05:49 PM
As for prices, HD is probably a bad way to do it.

Think about, a powerful noble may not have that many class levels, or any that are particularly useful for combat for that matter, but he is, politically, very powerful.

He would, at least if he fears for an assassination, surround himself with guards, and possibly some sort of magical wards.

If CR wasn't such a garbled concept, I would say that's your best bet for calculating a price based on the challenge.

That being said, personally, I would simply look at how much wealth the PC's have, how much they spend doing it, and how much they should have, and just make a decision based on those figures.

Dusk Eclipse
2010-05-30, 05:51 PM
As for prices, HD is probably a bad way to do it.

Think about, a powerful noble may not have that many class levels, or any that are particularly useful for combat for that matter, but he is, politically, very powerful.

He would, at least if he fears for an assassination, surround himself with guards, and possibly some sort of magical wards.


Yeah you are right, I dif not think about those implications, but again I said that from the point of view of an NPC antagonist targeting a PC

Edwin
2010-05-30, 05:57 PM
Yeah you are right, I dif not think about those implications, but again I said that from the point of view of an NPC antagonist targeting a PC

In that case, the PC would, realistically, have about 3-4 equally powerful allies to help him.

But then again, I suppose you accounted for that anyway. Just add the HD of them all.

GolemsVoice
2010-05-30, 11:07 PM
As far as I remember, there were about 6 or seven dust columns travelling, but I really don't remember any mor assassins than you did.

And I think basing the price on the (perceived) HD of the target, plus security, plus traps etc wouldn't be too bad, and it would reward a careful contractor. Somebody who sents the assassins on a mission that proves to be way more dangerous than he told them because he failed to gather enough info on the target might find himself being visited by a man in black, who whishes a friendly chat.

Boci
2010-06-01, 04:47 PM
Okay, so of the higher ranking members, what we know:

Leader: Has an affinity with snakes, although will sacrifice them if it suits his need, and sometimes unnecessarily. Preferred fighting style is two swords, wielding his offhand blade defensively.

Grenadier: Throws grenades, weapons can be used by others.

Master thrower: Throws large amounts of disposable weapons.

Whip master: Dual wields reach weapons, uses them to move around

Axe-spear man: No idea, I don't think he lived long enough.

So, how can we state them?

Leader: Probably has wild empathy or charm animal, so a ranger makes most sense. His defensive offhand blade could be interpreted as a slightly altered spiked shield, or something with no mechanical representation. Rogue if the obvious choice for such a character. Too bad there’s no feat for stacking rogue and ranger levels, but hey, its homebrew. Only problem is, since he apparently did not flank, he would need to use some less common method to gain sneak attack.
Grenadier: Only optimal way to do this is Artificer. He probably used simple alchemic weapons in the movie, but to fit his character’s concept at a high level would require consumable magical items.
Master thrower: Most likely has that item (cannot remember the source) that produces an infinite amount of +1 daggers that only last for a single round. Would be a master thrower with the palm toss trick.
Whip master: His weapons could be a whip daggers or kusari-gama or spiked chains if he’s a cave stalker. Dual wielding and jumping around the place suggest a tiger claw warblade, but light weapons means no power attack.

Anything to add?

As far as the price of hiring a Hassassin, the problem I have with the HD + guards and traps is, how is the noble suppose to know that. The only method I can think of is the noble buys says who he wants killed and the Hassassin decide who to send and the price is based on the CR of the assassin.