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Darth Ultron
2015-02-23, 09:01 PM
In D&D 3.5 one of the requirements for the Assassin prestige class is an evil alignment. Other editions have bounced around with ''the assassin can't be good'' or ''can't be lawful'' . In 1E it was ''any evil''. The Assassin kit from 2E had no alignment restriction. It would seem clear that in the black and white morality of D&D, that assassins are always evil.

I've always had a problem with this. To me, being an assassin is not necessarily evil. Now there is little doubt that the Assassin prestige class in the DMG was made to be the worst possible evil assassin type. Just the line where the D&D prestige class says ,is a hired killer, solely devoted to the practice of murder, who is willing to kill someone for no purpose other than to be accepted for assassin training is enough to make them evil.



What do you guys think? Are Assassins necessarily evil?

Knaight
2015-02-23, 09:05 PM
It depends on what is meant by assassins. If the term is being used very broadly to cover anyone who extra-judicially murders an important figure, I'd say that they aren't necessarily evil. Hitler was the subject of a lot of assassination attempts, I have absolutely no issue with people trying to carry those out. With that said, even with that broad definition the vast majority are pretty horrible people.

If the term is being used to cover professional contract killers, then it's an even dimmer prospect.

Chronos
2015-02-23, 09:11 PM
I think it's partly a disconnect in just what a prestige class is supposed to represent. In 3rd edition, most players treated prestige classes as just a set of capabilities, but many designers treated them as membership in particular organizations or the like. Joining a guild of people who will kill anyone just because someone put out a contract on them is evil. Killing for other purposes might or might not be.

The fact that Blizzard recognized this is part of the reason for the existence of the Avenger class, identical to the Assassin except for the entry requirements. The message is "this particular class might be evil-only, but it's also a precedent that a class with those capabilities isn't overpowered, so you can make a non-evil version too".

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-23, 09:11 PM
In D&D 3.5 one of the requirements for the Assassin prestige class is an evil alignment. Other editions have bounced around with ''the assassin can't be good'' or ''can't be lawful'' . In 1E it was ''any evil''. The Assassin kit from 2E had no alignment restriction. It would seem clear that in the black and white morality of D&D, that assassins are always evil. 3.5 Avenger is the 3.5 Assassin, but with all references to Evil replaced with Lawful, all references to Good replaced with Chaotic, and the "accept a contract hit" roleplaying requirement replace with sort of "patriotic duty" thing.

Basically it's government assassin the class. And restricted to Lawful alignment.

goto124
2015-02-23, 09:42 PM
I see no point in alignment restrictments on (prestige) classes. It restricts RP, IMHO.

Lawful Barbarians are perfectly possible. Lawful Bards are e.g. court jesters, or diplomancers working for a king, etc. Asasssins could be working for a government, or be vigiliantes, and they could be killing Evil or Good people.

There could be a Chaotic Good assassin trying to take down the tyranny of the queen. There could be Lawful Evil assassins looking to 'silence' transgressors, such as that CG guy mentioned just now. And there's also the Lawful(?) Evil assassin who kills what she's paid for.

Why not let players come up with their own interpretations?

Karl Aegis
2015-02-23, 09:45 PM
You understand very well that killing people is wrong. And yet, you can't escape the fate that you've stumbled into. Giving up on your lifestyle and turning your back on your master is out of the question. Plus, there's that special reason that you need the money...

You are asked to kill, and thus you kill. But it is leaving an empty space within you which grows with every assassination.

Fate: Emotion: Emptiness

Description: You only know how to live as an assassin. However, recently you have begun to hate that piece inside of you that only knows the ways of killing.

Depending on the setting, an assassin doesn't have to be evil. Most people wouldn't find doing your job to be that socially deviant.

Jay R
2015-02-23, 10:02 PM
We routinely get confused when we use words as D&D technical jargon that have related but not identical English meanings.

I once played a very successful 2E Thief who never stole anything. He was therefore not a thief, he was merely a Thief.

An assassin is a person hired to kill somebody. Depending on the situation, such a person doesn't have to be Evil.

But such a person doesn't have to be an Assassin either, in the sense of the D&D class. If a Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard or person of any other class is hired to kill somebody, then she is an assassin.

The character class Assassin has the requirements set down in the book you are using, unless the DM houserules it. If you want your character to take pay for killing people, but not be Evil when the book requires it, then don't play an Assassin. Play a Fighter or Thief who takes pay for killing somebody.

The next problem is that Evil is also D&D jargon, and doesn't mean the same thing as the English word evil. An Evil character might not be evil, and an evil character might not be Evil. But the rules of the forum won't let us debate that one,

goto124
2015-02-23, 10:12 PM
Where's the OotS strip about Miko and her samurai class confusion...

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-23, 10:24 PM
But such a person doesn't have to be an Assassin either, in the sense of the D&D class. If a Fighter, Ranger, Barbarian, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard or person of any other class is hired to kill somebody, then she is an assassin.

The character class Assassin has the requirements set down in the book you are using, unless the DM houserules it. If you want your character to take pay for killing people, but not be Evil when the book requires it, then don't play an Assassin. Play a Fighter or Thief who takes pay for killing somebody. The problem is the 3.5 class Assassin has features which lend to the classes purpose, features that those other classes do not possess. Like Death Attack. Why can't a good guy learn how to observe and swiftly exploit weaknesses?

Mastikator
2015-02-24, 12:09 AM
Murdering people for money? Yeah seems pretty evil.

Being an "Assassin" as a game class isn't the same as being an assassin as a profession. Then again, the game class can also be defined as "evil".

Grek
2015-02-24, 01:57 AM
The alignment restriction on Assassin should be Chaotic, not Evil. Murder is always illegal (that's what murder means, "an unlawful killing, with malice aforethought") but in the D&D-verse, sometimes murder can be Good. If you stealthily assassinate a demon general, nobody is going to say that makes you Evil, even if they might say that it was dishonorable or lawless.

hamishspence
2015-02-24, 02:22 AM
BoVD gets around it by saying that killing of some creatures - creatures of "consummate, irredeemable evil" never counts as murder - not even when done purely with the motive of profit.

And defines Murder as "killing for nefarious reasons"

goto124
2015-02-24, 03:23 AM
The alignment restriction on Assassin should be Chaotic, not Evil. Murder is always illegal

What of assassins who are hired by the king?

Obak
2015-02-24, 05:23 AM
Reasonably, no. But it depends on motivation and target.
An assassin that kills for money could still have standards (no women and children), as mentioned above you could still have a vigilante type assassin that targets opressors of all kinds.
And of course we have to violate Godwins law, what if someone had killed Hitler/Stalin/Sauron before they could start their wars and kill millions of people?
But then again, the alignment system is mostly B.S.

Deophaun
2015-02-24, 05:40 AM
Murdering people for money? Yeah seems pretty evil.
Interesting how you underlined "for money," and not "murder," which is a word that is both a verb and a moral judgement all in one.

Killing for money, on the other hand, is not necessarily evil. A hit man who only took contracts on dangerous criminals about to be released from prison could well be Neutral or even Good in D&D's alignment system.

hamishspence
2015-02-24, 06:51 AM
A Good person generally subscribes to ideas like mercy and forgiveness. Once someone's been punished - a Good person doesn't really have a call to keep punishing them.

If they had evidence that was (to them) overwhelming, that the "dangerous criminal" will keep on harming the innocent until stopped - that prison simply isn't reforming them - then a Good person might start invoking the argument of

"Killing an evildoer to prevent them committing further acts of evil, doesn't count as Evil in itself"

Killer Angel
2015-02-24, 06:59 AM
Interesting how you underlined "for money," and not "murder," which is a word that is both a verb and a moral judgement all in one.


Because that's how the class is portrayed. The assassin kills because of the payment, and doesn't question if the target is Mr. Eviltyrant or Lady Mercythecharitable


Killing for money, on the other hand, is not necessarily evil. A hit man who only took contracts on dangerous criminals about to be released from prison could well be Neutral or even Good in D&D's alignment system.

Then it could be a variant class. As Paladin and Paladin of freedom. Assassin and Punisher.

hamishspence
2015-02-24, 07:19 AM
Because that's how the class is portrayed. The assassin kills because of the payment, and doesn't question if the target is Mr. Eviltyrant or Lady Mercythecharitable


True - OP question seems to be -

is it possible for a "practitioner of the profession of assassination" (as opposed to a Character With That PRC) to be nonevil, if they are extremely choosy about what contracts they accept?

Killer Angel
2015-02-24, 07:33 AM
True - OP question seems to be -

is it possible for a "practitioner of the profession of assassination" (as opposed to a Character With That PRC) to be nonevil, if they are extremely choosy about what contracts they accept?

Ah, I thought it was more "can I be an assassin (PrC) without being evil"?

Then probably the answer is yes, you can be a killer for hire, with a strong sense of morale.

Jay R
2015-02-24, 08:47 AM
What do you guys think? Are Assassins necessarily evil?

When played by somebody who calls himself "Darth Ultron"? Probably.


The problem is the 3.5 class Assassin has features which lend to the classes purpose, features that those other classes do not possess. Like Death Attack. Why can't a good guy learn how to observe and swiftly exploit weaknesses?

I had a similar question in original D&D: why can't somebody Lawful learn to climb? [It was a Thief skill.]

The answer is that D&D is a simulation, and simulations are always intentionally simplistic. As one of my simulations professors said, "If we wanted to observe reality, we'd observe reality."

Dividing people into specific classes, or defining a mere nine specific alignments, or even dividing the probability of doing something into 5% intervals, is a way to reduce all of human experience, real or imagined, into a playable system. The answer to all such questions is, "Because reality is a much more complex system than the writers were willing to mess with."

endur
2015-02-24, 09:48 AM
True - OP question seems to be -

is it possible for a "practitioner of the profession of assassination" (as opposed to a Character With That PRC) to be nonevil, if they are extremely choosy about what contracts they accept?.

depends on your defn of good ... If The Man With No Name qualifies as good, then you can be good. If he is neutral, then you can be neutral

Knaight
2015-02-24, 10:04 AM
Depending on the setting, an assassin doesn't have to be evil. Most people wouldn't find doing your job to be that socially deviant.
When the job in question is killing people for money, this doesn't really apply. There are a lot of jobs less bad than that which are still pretty socially deviant; that one is almost cartoonishly so.


I had a similar question in original D&D: why can't somebody Lawful learn to climb? [It was a Thief skill.]

The answer is that D&D is a simulation, and simulations are always intentionally simplistic. As one of my simulations professors said, "If we wanted to observe reality, we'd observe reality."

In this particular case though, there's a good argument to be made that it's not because D&D is a simulation, but because it was a fairly sloppy simulation. At the time there was way less in the way of reference material for said simulation, so it's a very understandable sloppiness, but it's a weird restriction that emerged from a pretty bizarre handling of skills. It's similar to the cross-class skills in D&D 3.5, which introduce a bunch of restrictions that wouldn't otherwise be there and actually increase the complexity of the game by doing so.

Broken Twin
2015-02-24, 10:33 AM
I just wanted to point out that the semantic differences between murdering people for money and killing people for money are more important than some people seem to be implying. To say that everyone that kills people for money are Evil is not recognizing that there ARE socially acceptable jobs wherein you are being paid to end other people's lives. Primary example, the military.
--------------------------------

The Operative: I believe in something greater than myself. A better world. A world without sin.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: So me and mine gotta lay down and die so you can live in your better world?
The Operative: I'm not going to live there. There's no place for me there, any more than there is for you. Malcolm... I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done.

Assassins may not be Evil, but they're never Good. Even heroic ones (ala Altair) are still killing unsuspecting people for their personal idealism. Doing bad things for good reasons doesn't make you a good person.

Kalmageddon
2015-02-24, 11:00 AM
I think it's partly a disconnect in just what a prestige class is supposed to represent. In 3rd edition, most players treated prestige classes as just a set of capabilities, but many designers treated them as membership in particular organizations or the like. Joining a guild of people who will kill anyone just because someone put out a contract on them is evil. Killing for other purposes might or might not be.

The fact that Blizzard recognized this is part of the reason for the existence of the Avenger class, identical to the Assassin except for the entry requirements. The message is "this particular class might be evil-only, but it's also a precedent that a class with those capabilities isn't overpowered, so you can make a non-evil version too".

I think this is pretty much it. If the Assassin prestige class was called "Assassin of the Evilbad Guild of Puppykickers" no one would question the entry requirement because it would be grounded in a far more defined context. Just saying "Assassin", especially after a certain series of video games became popular, isn't enough to justify an "Evil" entry requirement in the mind of most people.

endur
2015-02-24, 11:31 AM
in 3.0, it was the assassins guild of greyhawk. 3.5 removed the reference to Greyhawk

Deophaun
2015-02-24, 11:51 AM
Because that's how the class is portrayed. The assassin kills because of the payment...
No, the Assassin (PrC) murders because of the payment. The entire "because of the payment" clause is inconsequential when it comes to the Good or Evil of the class. Mercenaries kill because of payment. Executioners kill because of payment. The adventurers that are paid 100 gp to clear out a kobold den? Killing because of payment.

JeenLeen
2015-02-24, 03:32 PM
Although it's been said in other ways already, in summation:

The Assassin PrC is evil because, per the fluff, they are a member of an assassin's organization, and they were willing to kill someone solely to join said organization, which is based on killing people just for money. It might be possible to do that evil act for a good reason (one evil act doesn't make you fall, though that one might be a biggy), but it seems reasonable to say that to be that PrC you must be evil.

However, it makes sense to say not all assassins (not the PrC) are evil just because they kill folk. Likewise, it's reasonable to allow that PrC as a bundle of powers available to non-evil PCs, either ignoring the fluff or inventing other fluff.
Assassins (PrC or not) who kill just for money probably are evil, but there are many ways in which an assassin could do good (or neutral) acts. I could see similar for lawful, chaotic, or neutral, but that's a side issue.

Galen
2015-02-24, 04:40 PM
In D&D 3.5 one of the requirements for the Assassin prestige class is an evil alignment. Another requirement was "The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins". Now, I think it goes without saying that killing someone for no reason other than enhance your career is unequivocally evil. So the 3.5 assassin is definitely Evil with a capital E. Other editions, not so sure.

Mastikator
2015-02-24, 04:59 PM
Interesting how you underlined "for money," and not "murder," which is a word that is both a verb and a moral judgement all in one.

Killing for money, on the other hand, is not necessarily evil. A hit man who only took contracts on dangerous criminals about to be released from prison could well be Neutral or even Good in D&D's alignment system.
I've looked into it and it turns out I was defining assassination way too broadly.
Assassination is the deliberate killing of a prominent person or political figure, usually for payment or political reasons. That means if you are a hitman who kills low level gangsters of a competing criminal organization then you're not an assassin, but you are a paid murderer, a hit man.

Under that definition, I'd say assassins aren't necessarily evil people, killing a tyrant for example is assassination, but it could arguably be a good thing.

Which makes the name of the D&D class "Assassin" a bad name, since it's really just a hitman and not an assassin, it would be like inventing a class named "Paladin" and have it be about "religious warrior" when it historically was something extremely specific (Charlemagne's peers) and only slightly overlapped.

This comes down to the confusion about game mechanical class and in game social class, which use the same nomenclature but aren't necessarily (or even often) related. For example Miko Miyazaki, who was a Monk and Paladin, but actually was a Samurai. Based on that sentence alone you literally can't deduce which was her game class and which was her social class. Monk, Paladin and Samurai have different meanings in each case. Same with Assassin and Assassin and the game doesn't even bother to clarify what it means yet it puts "Always Evil" restrictions on it.

Basically, it comes down to bad game design.

Duke of URRL
2015-02-24, 05:19 PM
Another requirement was "The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins". Now, I think it goes without saying that killing someone for no reason other than enhance your career is unequivocally evil. So the 3.5 assassin is definitely Evil with a capital E. Other editions, not so sure.

I kinda think ''advancing ones career'' is a good reason.

Make me wonder: A person in the D&D world does advance their career by killing. Killing is the best way to get the most experience points and go up a level and.....advance their career.

Take Farmer Bob. He can farm things for a year....and hardly get any XP. But if he was to go out and kill, he could get hundreds of XP points a month. He could be a 10th level commoner in no time....

So is every character in D&D evil then?

dps
2015-02-24, 05:30 PM
I just wanted to point out that the semantic differences between murdering people for money and killing people for money are more important than some people seem to be implying. To say that everyone that kills people for money are Evil is not recognizing that there ARE socially acceptable jobs wherein you are being paid to end other people's lives. Primary example, the military.


I'm not so sure about that. With the possible exception of an executioner, most of the jobs you might have that make it legal to kill someone don't have killing people as the primary part of your job. Even in the military, killing people isn't the goal, it's a means to an ends--your job is to guard this supply depot, or capture that enemy city, or repel the alien invasion, and you're going to have to kill to do that (well, maybe not the guard duty, it you never get attacked), but merely killing enemy soldiers isn't the reason you're there.

Knaight
2015-02-24, 05:33 PM
I'm not so sure about that. With the possible exception of an executioner, most of the jobs you might have that make it legal to kill someone don't have killing people as the primary part of your job. Even in the military, killing people isn't the goal, it's a means to an ends--your job is to guard this supply depot, or capture that enemy city, or repel the alien invasion, and you're going to have to kill to do that (well, maybe not the guard duty, it you never get attacked), but merely killing enemy soldiers isn't the reason you're there.

Also, one of the jobs is mercenary. Mercenaries aren't exactly renowned for being a moral, upstanding group of people.

Galen
2015-02-24, 06:11 PM
I kinda think ''advancing ones career'' is a good reason.

Make me wonder: A person in the D&D world does advance their career by killing. Killing is the best way to get the most experience points and go up a level and.....advance their career.

Take Farmer Bob. He can farm things for a year....and hardly get any XP. But if he was to go out and kill, he could get hundreds of XP points a month. He could be a 10th level commoner in no time....

So is every character in D&D evil then?
Well, you don't usually kill the Orc marauders for the sole reason of getting XP. You kill the Orc marauders for the reason of making the countryside safe. And gain XP while you're at it. (if you do kill them for no reason other than XP, then, yes, you are Evil)

The Assassin's condition, on the other hand states specifically that you must kill someone for no reason other than <a selfish one>. Evil.

Grek
2015-02-24, 07:25 PM
What of assassins who are hired by the king?
If they are actually assassins (ie. people who murder other people for money), the king is hiring them to do something illegal and they are still criminals. If the king is legally allowed to hire them to kill the people he's hiring them to kill (this is quite likely, he is the king, after all) it isn't murder: murder is an unlawful killing, and if the king lawfully hires you to do it you're a soldier, not an assassin.


Assassins may not be Evil, but they're never Good. Even heroic ones (ala Altair) are still killing unsuspecting people for their personal idealism. Doing bad things for good reasons doesn't make you a good person.
Assassination can be a good thing for a good reason in D&Dland. If a Blue Dragon kills the previous king with a bolt of electricity, snatches the crown from the smouldering corpse, declares himself to be the new king by right of conquest and has parliament ratify this declaration, killing the dragon after that point is base, murderous regicide. But it would also be a Good deed. Even if you get paid for it. Even if your payment is that you get to be king after you slay the dragon and snatch the crown from its smouldering corpse.

Even the requirement to kill someone just to join can be squared with that stance. It doesn't say you have to kill an innocent, just that you have to kill someone. If your campaign setting's assassins guild goes around toppling tyrannical governments by murdering their leaders, and their entrance requirement is "shoot the Sheriff of Nottingham" you are not evil for joining up.

Galen
2015-02-24, 07:40 PM
If your campaign setting's assassins guild goes around toppling tyrannical governments by murdering their leaders, and their entrance requirement is "shoot the Sheriff of Nottingham" you are not evil for joining up.Once again, you killed someone for no purpose other than selfish. Yes, the sheriff might be Evil. Yes, you might oppose a tyrannical government. But harbor no illusions, your alignment is not determined solely by those you oppose. If you killed someone for no goal other than a selfish one (I really really really want to join this cool club!), you are evil. Yes, even if the one you killed is evil too.

Broken Twin
2015-02-24, 08:13 PM
I'm not so sure about that. With the possible exception of an executioner, most of the jobs you might have that make it legal to kill someone don't have killing people as the primary part of your job. Even in the military, killing people isn't the goal, it's a means to an ends--your job is to guard this supply depot, or capture that enemy city, or repel the alien invasion, and you're going to have to kill to do that (well, maybe not the guard duty, it you never get attacked), but merely killing enemy soldiers isn't the reason you're there.

Someone who hires an assassin is rarely doing it for the death itself, they're doing it because they think that person's death with advance their objective. Soldiers are trained to kill when the order is given. The reason why the order is given doesn't change the fact that we are paying and training them to kill on command. The primary purpose of a military is to win fights. The rest of what they do is either to keep them busy, or to keep things ready to fight. People who vilify the military usually have that as one of their primary reasons for doing so. Disturbingly enough, some glorify them for the exact same reason.

----------------------------------------------------------

Regardless, an assassin is, by definition, someone who murders people. Well-intentioned extremist or no, murderers are not Good people.


assassin
n.noun

One who murders by surprise attack, especially one who carries out a plot to kill a prominent person.

murder
n.noun

The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life.

veti
2015-02-24, 08:21 PM
If your campaign setting's assassins guild goes around toppling tyrannical governments by murdering their leaders, and their entrance requirement is "shoot the Sheriff of Nottingham"...

Now I have a mental picture of the Sheriff of Nottingham, a blameless public official, groaning "Oh, not again..." as an arrow hits him in the buttock.

If I ever get to run a campaign again, I am so going to put that in. The Federation of Anarchists & Pranksters. I like it.

Grek
2015-02-24, 11:33 PM
Once again, you killed someone for no purpose other than selfish. Yes, the sheriff might be Evil. Yes, you might oppose a tyrannical government. But harbor no illusions, your alignment is not determined solely by those you oppose. If you killed someone for no goal other than a selfish one (I really really really want to join this cool club!), you are evil. Yes, even if the one you killed is evil too.

Killing isn't a special case. It is an action, like many others. Killing can be evil or it can be good. It isn't a question of why you're doing it or who you're doing it to or anything else like that. It's a question of consequences. Actions are evil if they have evil consequences and good if they have good consequences. Selfish desires are not a special case. Why someone did something is only important when you're asking questions like "Is this person likely to do good deeds in the future?" or "What sort of incentives will make this person do more good?" The question of whether something is good or not is as simple as "All else equal, would we rather they have done what they did, or have not done so?"

There's plenty of people in D&Dland who meet that standard. Mind flayers, for example. Most people will agree that, all else equal, reducing the number of mind flayers running around is better than not doing so. So to with demons, wights, torturers, tyrants, bodaks, devils and chromatic dragons. Killing any of those things will lead to more good consequences than evil, is preferable to not doing so and is, in general, a Good act. Regardless of motive.

goto124
2015-02-24, 11:46 PM
Is it Good, or Neutral?

Blackhawk748
2015-02-25, 12:08 AM
Ill put it this way: Assassin the job: Ya probably Evil, at best Neutral, though you may pull of good (unlikely)

Assassin the fighting style: Your sneaking around trying to take out the "head". This could be the orc sergeant or the warboss. Basically your trying to make your kills cause the most damage. As its a fighting style its neither Good nor Evil, though we can probably say its dishonorable.

russdm
2015-02-25, 12:43 AM
So is every character in D&D evil then?

It's D&D. Do you really think the designers used Thinking when making the game considering stuff like the Piss poor Alignment nutjob system?


then a Good person might start invoking the argument of

"Killing an evildoer to prevent them committing further acts of evil, doesn't count as Evil in itself"

Oddly, somehow this ends up how all of my characters, good-aligned or not, think regarding evil-doers. Especially when playing Jedi themed characters. I tend to play heavily pragmatic characters who don't hesitate to "Do whatever is necessary regardless of morals".

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-25, 10:46 PM
The alignment restriction on Assassin should be Chaotic, not Evil. What if you murder for the hire of a nation or leader to whom you're loyal? Aren't government special agent's by definition Lawfully leaning?


As its a fighting style its neither Good nor Evil, though we can probably say its smart. Fixed that for you.

tomandtish
2015-02-25, 10:58 PM
It goes to show the age old problem of trying to make a class out of something that is an occupation (or part of an occupation).

Case in point: James Bond. To earn his 00 status, he had to successfully complete two separate missions to kill selected targets in cold blood. Sounds like assassination to me. But we probably wouldn't stat him as an Assassin.

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-25, 11:14 PM
Case in point: James Bond. To earn his 00 status, he had to successfully complete two separate missions to kill selected targets in cold blood. Sounds like assassination to me. But we probably wouldn't stat him as an Assassin. His medieval counterpart would be stated an Avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a).

Dimcair
2015-02-26, 02:02 AM
Can we all agree that motive is what matters?

Killing someone JUST for money aka selfish purposes is evil.

edit: see, and it doesnt matter if the person paying u is good or bad. Your personal motive matters. At that point it becomes a question about the old "the ends justiy the means" kinda thing. You want to join the assasins to one day kill that tyrant? Too bad, the immediate deed still makes you evil. Maybe lawful evil as you believe in some sort of order but you use evil means to make your way there.

The dark force is the quick way to power....

goto124
2015-02-26, 02:15 AM
So, if you use Evil acts for good/Good intentions, you still ping Evil on detect alignment spells right?

And assassination is considered Evil no matter what? Why does being an assassin to bring down an Evil empire still ping Evil? Okay, maybe it's Evil, but is it evil?

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-26, 02:24 AM
And assassination is considered Evil no matter what? Why does being an assassin to bring down an Evil empire still ping Evil? Okay, maybe it's Evil, but is it evil? Assassination is not Evil. Assassination is targeted killing. Specifically, it is a politically-minded targeted killing. Paid assassination is Evil. And Evil brings down Evil all the time. It's what sucks about Evil. You can't trust anyone.

Tengu_temp
2015-02-26, 02:25 AM
Being a contract killer who's indiscriminate in the jobs he takes means you're evil, yes. At best neutral, in extraordinary circumstances.

An assassin who only targets evil can be good, evil or neutral, depending on other aspects of the character.


His medieval counterpart would be stated an Avenger (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070401a).

You do realize this class is a joke, right? It's WotC making fun of people who wanted to take the Assassin PRC without being evil. Look when it was posted.

And James Bond is pretty much evil in most incarnations. Guy's a sociopath.

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-26, 02:28 AM
You do realize this class is a joke, right? It's WotC making fun of people who wanted to take the Assassin PRC without being evil. Look when it was posted. I am aware of when it was posted. It even says it's an April Fool's joke in the description, if you'd read it. The funny part being that you still can't be Chaotic Good and an Assassin.


And James Bond is pretty much evil in most incarnations. Guy's a sociopath. A sociopath who frequently saves the world. :smallcool:

Tengu_temp
2015-02-26, 02:34 AM
I assume that either WotC went with the same "taking hits on any target means you're evil" logic as I did, or it's simplistic DND morality at work again, in the vein of "poison use is always evil". The latter scenario is more likely.

And just because you're evil doesn't mean you can't be the hero and save the world.

goto124
2015-02-26, 02:44 AM
A sociopath who frequently saves the world. :smallcool:


And just because you're evil doesn't mean you can't be the hero and save the world.

Isn't that an adventurer?

BootStrapTommy
2015-02-26, 02:45 AM
By definition! :smallcool:

GoblinGilmartin
2015-02-26, 04:46 AM
I just want to reenforce some things that were already said.

The Assassin prestige class in 3.5? Refers to a very specific thing. A member of a (Vaguely defined) order of shadowy murderers for hire.
You don't have to be an Assassin in order to be an assassin, get me?

I mean, where would we be without the "guy hires you to kill X evil guy and/or rival" plot thread? We can argue semantics all day, but it really all depends on context. If the target doesn't actually seem to be that bad a guy, and or has good reasons for doing whatever is causing people to put hits out on him, then maybe you could consider taking him out unquestioningly an evil act. If he's secretly an evil necromancer/pedo/cannibal, then the situation is in a bit of a different light.

Anyone can be an assassin, but The Assassins are just better trained for the task at hand.