Designing Feat Support for the Assassin (Executioner)

[Shatteredtower]

One of the common complaints about the inadequacy of the executioner sub-class of the assassin comes down to the lack of effective feat support. Here are nine attempts to address that, each of them designed to offer additional options to one of the assassin's attack powers.

Fair warning: You are likely to find that some of these feats are clearly better than others. The primary goal was to suggest several options that may address the perceived inadequacies of the subclass. It may be that one or more of them are too good even for current optimization standards, but I suspect even the most powerful of them fall well short of that bar. Comment freely on what you think works well, works poorly, would work better for the mechanic described, or what Will Doom Us All, as well as suggesting alternates for any feat name(s) that makes you wince.

Bolting the Scene
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, quick shot at-will attack power
Benefit: After assassin's strike has been expended, you can use quick shot once per round as a minor action.

Darting Lunge
Prerequisite: quick lunge at-will attack power
Benefit: When you hit a target with your quick lunge, you can shift 1 square in any direction, rather than just back to your starting position. In addition, if the target of your quick lunge power takes an action to stand up before the start of your next turn, you can make a basic attack against the target as an immediate reaction.

Death's Grip
Prerequisite: garrote strangle at-will attack power
Benefit: As a free action at the start of the target's turn, you can make a basic melee attack against the target of the garrote strangle. You must use your garrote for this attack. In addition, when you sustain the power, you may shift 1 square as a free action and slide the power's target into the square you just vacated.

Extended Contract
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, Attack Finesse class feature
Benefit: After assassin's strike has been expended against a target, select one other creature. For the remainder of the encounter, Attack Finesse causes an additional 1d8 damage per tier to that creature.

Internalized Toxin
Prerequisite: Poison Use class feature
Benefit: Select one assassin poison that has the implement keyword in its power description and for which you know the recipe. You can choose to consume that poison with a mnor action, making yourself its target. You are subject to the poison's full effect. (No attack roll is required.) Once per turn until you succeed on a saving throw against the poison's effects or the end of the encounter, any creature that attacks you from a square adjacent to you is subject to the effect of a missed attack by the poison. (Again, no attack roll is required.) You may choose to fail the saving throw against the poison's effects.
Special: You can choose to take this feat more than once. Each time it is selected, it applies to a new assassin poison for which you know the recipe that has the implement keyword in its power description.

Isolate the Mark
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, Attack Finesse class feature
Benefit: Until assassin's strike is expended, add a +2 bonus to the damage caused by your weapon attacks. Increase the damage to +4 at level 11, and +6 at level 21.

Ophidian Retaliation
Prerequisite: poisoned dagger at-will attack power
Benefit: When you are wielding a dagger, you can use the poisoned dagger power as an immediate reaction whenever an adjacent creature hits you with an attack.

Rain of Needles
Prerequisite: precision dart at-will attack power
Benefit: Ranged basic attacks with a blowgun can be performed with a minor action.

Three-Legged Catch
Prerequisite: bola takedown at-will attack power
Benefit: Change the target listing of your bola takedown power to "One creature, or two creatures in squares adjacent to one another". You may apply the bonus damage from your Attack Finesse class feature against both targets of the attack.

[Mando Knight]

Bolting the Scene
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, quick shot at-will attack power
Benefit: After assassin's strike has been expended, you can use quick shot once per round as a minor action.
Shift 2 and an extra attack as an at-will minor is a little OP...

[Shatteredtower]

Shift 2 and an extra attack as an at-will minor is a little OP...

Faster than I'd expected, but thank you. While I'd agree in most cases, I'm not sure it's true for the executioner at certain levels of optimization. You still have to commit your assassin's strike before you can utilize this benefit, you're still limited to one attack per turn with the extra damage granted by Attack Finesse, and it's not granting an out of turn action.

That said, combining this feat with one that lets you use another weapon for out of turn actions could overpower the class. Most of the ones listed here won't help much with that, however.

[Doctor Kumquat]

In general, these look interesting, but there are reasons why basically no one gets access to truly at-will (or even 1 per turn) minor/free action attacks. At low-op levels, a free attack with a small-die weapon isn't a big deal, but once you start stacking enough static modifiers on that, these feats become hilariously good. Normally, executioners don't have a good use for their minor actions, but one with Bolting the Scene starts out-damaging a Twin Striking ranger while adding extra mobility to boot. Similarly, an executioner that multiclasses into Seeker and picks up some extra RBA boosts could turn a lowly blowgun into a weapon of mass destruction if it allows genuinely at-will minor action RBAs thanks to Rain of Needles. That could easily be 1d4+25 or so, 3x per turn every turn, by mid paragon.

Internalized Poison seems... counterintuitive, or at least negligably useful unless you play your assassin as a flashy martyr instead of a low profile assassin. Unless you're getting ganged up on to dramatic effect, unleashing a couple on-miss effects doesn't seem worth dropping a daily on yourself instead of just hitting an enemy with it.

Isolate the Mark seems similarly questionable; in most encounters, it seems like you'd want to drop Assassin's Strike on turn 1 or 2. Intentionally delaying use of it for +2/tier damage seems like it'd lead to more baddies having more turns to try and squash you. ...Although now that I think about it, if you're paragon tier and abusing Rain of Needles, that's basically +12 damage per turn if your attacks all hit. That's seeming like it might be more worth it now, since @4d10 in a comparable range, you're averaging similar damage in ~2 rounds. That's not to say this is a great feat, so much as it's a reflection on how inflated damage modifiers can get when you have at-will minor action attacks.

[Yakk]

Bolting the Scene
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, quick shot at-will attack power
Benefit: After assassin's strike has been expended, you can use quick shot once per round as a minor action.
At-will minor action attacks seems like a bad idea, as it turns Assassins into pseudo-rangers.

Assassins should be lurkers, not Artillery.

Darting Lunge
Prerequisite: quick lunge at-will attack power
Benefit: When you hit a target with your quick lunge, you can shift 1 square in any direction, rather than just back to your starting position. In addition, if the target of your quick lunge power takes an action to stand up before the start of your next turn, you can make a basic attack against the target as an immediate reaction.
Skirmisher, not Lurker. Again, a nearly at-will non-standard action attack.

Death's Grip
Prerequisite: garrote strangle at-will attack power
Benefit: As a free action at the start of the target's turn, you can make a basic melee attack against the target of the garrote strangle. You must use your garrote for this attack. In addition, when you sustain the power, you may shift 1 square as a free action and slide the power's target into the square you just vacated.
This is the most Lurker like yet, but is again a "multi-tap nearly at-will effect".

Extended Contract
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, Attack Finesse class feature
Benefit: After assassin's strike has been expended against a target, select one other creature. For the remainder of the encounter, Attack Finesse causes an additional 1d8 damage per tier to that creature.
This encourages the use of assassin's strike early on even moreso than the base system, then turns you into a normal striker with a slight bump in damage output.

If you want to boost your Attack Finesse damage output, do it Lurker style. Like "your Attack Finesse deals an extra 1d8 (2d8 at level 11, 3d8 at level 21) to targets you are Hidden from". This is even nastier than your feat.

Internalized Toxin
Prerequisite: Poison Use class feature
Benefit: Select one assassin poison that has the implement keyword in its power description and for which you know the recipe. You can choose to consume that poison with a minor action, making yourself its target. You are subject to the poison's full effect. (No attack roll is required.) Once per turn until you succeed on a saving throw against the poison's effects or the end of the encounter, any creature that attacks you from a square adjacent to you is subject to the effect of a missed attack by the poison. (Again, no attack roll is required.) You may choose to fail the saving throw against the poison's effects.

Special: You can choose to take this feat more than once. Each time it is selected, it applies to a new assassin poison for which you know the recipe that has the implement keyword in its power description.

Hurm. Sort of meh.

Isolate the Mark
Prerequisite: assassin's strike encounter attack power, Attack Finesse class feature
Benefit: Until assassin's strike is expended, add a +2 bonus to the damage caused by your weapon attacks. Increase the damage to +4 at level 11, and +6 at level 21.
See, it occuring before the strike goes away encourages its tactical use.

However, what I might be tempted to do is the following:

Assassin's Expertise (requires assassn's strike encounter attack power, attack finesse class feature)
Benefit: You gain a +1 feat bonus to attack rolls with weapon attacks that use your attack finesse class feature. This increases to +2 at level 11 and +3 at level 21. In addition, while your assassin's strike power is unexpended, you gain a +2 bonus to damage with weapon attack rolls, increasing to +4 at level 11 and +6 at level 21.


Ophidian Retaliation
Prerequisite: poisoned dagger at-will attack power
Benefit: When you are wielding a dagger, you can use the poisoned dagger power as an immediate reaction whenever an adjacent creature hits you with an attack.
Not as bad as the above non-standard attack powers, but similar.


Rain of Needles
Prerequisite: precision dart at-will attack power
Benefit: Ranged basic attacks with a blowgun can be performed with a minor action.
What is with "I want to be a Ranger"?


Three-Legged Catch
Prerequisite: bola takedown at-will attack power
Benefit: Change the target listing of your bola takedown power to "One creature, or two creatures in squares adjacent to one another". You may apply the bonus damage from your Attack Finesse class feature against both targets of the attack.
This is a good one.

...

How about ways to recharge Assassin's Strike? Say, rolling an 8 on your attack finesse damage roll? (1/8 at heroic, 1/4 at paragon, and 37% at epic). Then throw in the ability to choose to reroll your finesse damage dice once each via a feat.

Or "While hidden from a creature with line of sight, you can take a standard action to assess the creature. Maybe throw in a "attack vs Will" here. If you do so, before the end of your next turn you may use Assassin's Strike on the creature even if it was expended." -- a lurker-type feat.

We can throw in stuff that lets you become hidden or keep hidden easier, like being able to roll a stealth check after you make an attack that damages a target, and if you remain at least partially concealed and beat their passive perception you do not break your hidden state. Throw in serious damage boost for being hidden when you attack, and that can build a feat support tree.

Shadow and Blood: (Requires Assassin's Strike power, Attack Finesse) If you have expended Assassin's Strike, if you roll an 8 on your Attack Finesse damage dice, before the end of your next turn you may take a Standard Action to expend a healing surge and recharge Assassin's Strike.

Hidden Death: (Requires Attack Finesse, Assassin class) When you attack a target while hidden and have concealment from the target, make a stealth check against the target's passive perception. If you beat the target's passive perception, your attack does not end the hidden state.

Slaying Ghost: (Requires Attack Finesse, Assassin's Strike power) When you attack a target while Assassin's Strike is expended and while Hidden from the target, you gain an additional 1d8 Attack Finesse damage. This increase to 2d8 at level 11 and 3d8 at level 21.

Measure twice, cut once: (Requires Attack Finesse, Assassin class) When you roll your Attack Finesse damage dice, you may choose to reroll each die once, but must keep the second value.

Meditation on Death: (Requires Assassin's Strike power) When you use your second wind as a standard action, select one enemy you can see. If you are hidden from that enemy, you may use Assassin's Strike on that enemy before the end of your next turn without expending it, even if it was already expended.

Hide in Plain Sight: (Requires Assassin class.) You have concealment against enemies who are marked by an ally of yours. You have total concealment against enemies who are marked by an ally of yours and adjacent to them.

Balance of Death: (Requires Assassin's Strike power) When you roll your Assassin's Strike damage, you may choose to not deal it. If you do so, your Assassin's Strike power is not expended.

Master's Strike: (Requires Assassin's Strike power) When you roll your Assassin's Strike damage, roll one extra die of the same kind (this is not extra damage). All dice lower than this extra die are increased to match it, and then it is discarded.

Perfect Kill: (Requires Assassin's Strike power) If you exceed the target's Bloodied value in damage when using the Assassin's Strike power on an attack, you may choose to kill the target (similar to when the target is helpless).

None of these give you extra attacks: in fact, many of them require you attack fewer times. All of them are intended as being seriously above-average feat choices.

I am a bit unhappy in that it encourages early use of Assassin's Strike a bit too much. On the other hand, both recharge mechanics require burning a Standard Action.

The hidden mechanics also take away from the aimed for Lurker. Ideally, I'd want a mechanism that makes it optimal to disengage and spend a turn hidden, then come back and kick ass. This is difficult: even getting a fully recharged Assassin's Strike in exchange for spending a turn hidden is not completely amazing, depending on optimization level... plus, as you can see above, it is rather tempting to make "becoming hidden" really easy.

[Shatteredtower]

Sorry for the delayed replies. Yakk, I'll get to yours in a few days, when things are more stable around here.


In general, these look interesting, but there are reasons why basically no one gets access to truly at-will (or even 1 per turn) minor/free action attacks.

I agree. There was supposed to be an extra level of conditional in effect for these, but I'm afraid I screwed up my notes. Bolting the Scene was originally intended to apply only until the end of the turn in which you used Assassin's Strike, but then I waffled on it. I'd considered making it apply until the end of the next turn or applying it as a free action at the start of the next turn. Then I wound up dropping condition entirely, figuring it would be best to start with the excessive option and seeing how far people would want to bargain it down. With he input given, it looks like either the first or third option would work best.

As for Rain of Needles, I'm sorry to say I deleted the intended condition from that one from my notes. I know there was an attempt to tie it into first round and hidden condition requirements, but the combination was overly excessive. I know I'd considered allowing for its use as a free action once during a surprise round, but this also seemed overly specialized. Both are on the right thematic track, but a little more flexibility seemed in order.


Internalized Poison seems... counterintuitive, or at least negligably useful unless you play your assassin as a flashy martyr instead of a low profile assassin.

I'm not sure that's inappropriate to the class, however. Both sorcerers and warlocks employ similar warding effects as attack or utility powers. While this sort of benefit might not feel appropriate for a martial striker, the assassin's power source is shadow. While it seems like suicide, the assassin does have time to prepare counter-measures against the intended effect, a luxury enemies may not have. It's not as good as the arcane options, but it still has use in a way that feels thematic to a master of poisons.

It's certainly not for everyone and may need tweaking, but I'm okay with that. After all, not every difficult encounter is going to feature a primary target even in a campaign that calls for a greater effect, even in a campaign designed around an assassin. At epic tier, there even comes a time when this use of a daily power is likely to be preferable to the standard.


Isolate the Mark seems similarly questionable; in most encounters, it seems like you'd want to drop Assassin's Strike on turn 1 or 2. Intentionally delaying use of it for +2/tier damage seems like it'd lead to more baddies having more turns to try and squash you.

Rain of Needle abuse aside, the goal was to address variations in play style. While it generally makes sense to hit hard and fast, staged encounters are often an exception to this guideline. Having known a few DMs that prefer to utilize that format, especially for key encounters, it just seemed like an option that might be particulary welcome at some tables. In general, it's not an option most tables will need, but that's no cause to ignore the exceptions.

Thanks for the input.

[Shatteredtower]

Yakk, strikers are strikers. They may resemble artillery, lurkers, or skirmishers, but they should not be confined to any one of those roles. While I've addressed the gaps left in bolting the scene and rain of needles (where conditions that restrict them to maybe no more than two uses per encounter would be acceptable, considering the feat cost), further limit should not be necessary. Now gearing any particular feat to one of these specific roles is another story, which we'll get back to with your feat suggestions.

For darting lunge, you note that the power is a nearly at-will standard action attack. The key word is "nearly". The risk is easily avoided, but I see I left out a very important word between "basic" and "attack": melee. I should also add, "with a one-handed melee weapon" to the conditions, so that the assassin usually has to remain adjacent to the target for a chance of an extra attack. (The exceptions require another level of investment.) The target can then choose to avoid the danger by granting combat advantage to adjacent enemies and a small penalty on attack rolls. There aren't a lot of enemies that will take this risk twice.

Now if you still find that excessive, consider adding, "In order to gain the benefit of this feat, you must forfeit the bonus damage dice granted by Attack Finesse when using the quick lunge attack." I think that's too great a concession, but I'll admit that the assassin is still something useful from the feat.

In defense of Death's Grip, the investment cost of using garrote strangle is huge. Sustaining it a standard action that severely restricts the amount of damage you can do (no bonus dice from Attack Finesse, not opportunity for critical hit benefits). It also severely limits your ability to make opportunity attacks or free attacks granted by allies. That said, the description should be changed from, "As a free action at the start of your turn," to, "As a free action after you spend a standard action to sustain the garote strangle power." I'd be inclined to abridge that to, "As a free action after you sustain the garote strangle power," but you may find it's too easy to get around the normal action cost.

I like the suggested alternative to Extended Contract, though it will definitely need another name. Assassin's Expertise is interesting, but the feat bonus to attack rolls puts it at odds with other Expertise feats the assassin might find useful. That's fine for games that give characters a +1 per tier bonus to attacks in place of the Expertise feat bonus, but not so much for default play. The point about Isolate the Mark is well taken, however.

Not that I expect it to increase its appeal to you, but Internalized Toxin should not be restricted to a single assassin poison. Even the cost of feat swapping would be too much.

Ophidian Retaliation could use an additional level of restriction. The easiest would be to change it to change, "...whenever an adjacent creature hits you with an attack," to... "whenever an adjacent bloodies you with an attack," (or perhaps "...reduces you to 0 hp..." or the combination of both) and it's suitably underhanded, but I can't help but feel there's a more appropriate option.

Recharging Assassin's Strike would be a lovely option, except that the power specifically prohbits this option by any means. This rules out the suggested Shadow and Blood and Meditation on Death You could instead have the hidden observation option you mentioned increase the benefit granted by Attack Finesse as something of a workaround, especially if the benefit increases dependent on whether or not you've used Assassin's Strike.

While Balance of Death is interesting, it has the potential to be more frustrating to players than a bad damage roll. The feat's benefit is likely to decrease in level rapidly with each die added to the Assassin's Strike power, since it's less likely you'll find a result low enough to be worth discarding. Worse, you simply lose the damage this turn in the hope that you'll get a better result with a later attack. I know you like the lurker model, Yakk, but this does not help move the executioner toward the some power options available to standard 4E classes. Master's Strike can help with that, but that's more of a recommendation for Master's Strike (a simple and sufficiently reliable boost) than Balance of Death. Perfect Kill might have potential at heroic tier, but it doesn't seem like it would be reliable above that, especially against elite or solo opponents.

Hidden Death is reasonable to suggest for a class using the shadow power source. I have reservations, but the benefit offers only a small boost over taking a shot, moving to another hiding spot, and then hiding again. Seems fair for what you've paid. Hide in Plain Sight is creative and again fits the power source. Neither really increases your damage output directly, but combat advantage provides a reliable enough indirect boost by letting you hit more often.

Slaying Ghost is a generous feat, but the general idea seems appropriate. I'd be inclined to suggest a slightly more modest gain, converting the Attack Finesse dice to d12s while you are hidden and have concealment from the target. Forcing the character to both be hidden and have concealment also seems excessive. I'd recommend that the benefit applies if the assassin has the benefit of one or the other.

Measure Twice Cut Once is possibly too time consuming, as a player will have the choice to reroll one to three dice per turn. Is that any worse than the results of attacking with a brutal 2 weapon for multiple [W] dice? Probably not, but speaking as someone that finds brutal weapons annoying for this reason, I could do with a simpler option.

I'm not sure how the suggested feats cut down on the assassin's number of attacks, since hiding can be achieved as part of movement and nothing else seems to require preparation time. Still, you've given me more food for thought here, with which I'll try to produce results by the end of the week. Thank you for the input.