Fun 3 NPC assassination team

[Mike Miller]

I am devising a team of NPCs to make an assassination attempt on the party. I would like to hear any fun ideas people have for this set up.

The group will be 3 level 10 NPCs. Medium optimization is best. Sources can be any non-setting specific books/mags.

Right now I am thinking of using a warblade, cleric/master of shrouds, transmuter/fatespinner. The group will have silence cast on something they have and go in with mm rods of silence to keep casting through it and get the drop on the PCs.

The PCs are roughly level 12 and there are 4-6 of them (depending on who shows up). The party has a good mix of martial and casters/Psionics.

How does that sound? What other ideas do people have?

[Silva Stormrage]

A dispelling focused character is always a good assassin. Players can become cocky if they place a single alarm spell not realizing it can be dispelled.

Some sort of Cleric or Wizard who has the ability to apply chain metamagic to a dispel magic can be brutal, especially in combination with the Master of Shrouds. Dispel their armor or any other buff that would make them resistant or immune to the hordes of incorporeal undead.

Arcane Mastery to take 10 on the dispel checks and some boosts like inquisition domain and a dispelling chord for a total of +6 CL on dispel checks should be enough to shut down all their buffs/wards and a suppress good chunk of their magic items for a few rounds.

[ExLibrisMortis]

A dispelling focused character is always a good assassin.
I have one ready-made! Doesn't add much to the encounter level, by the book, but it might just be the nastiest surprise in there.

Azurin Cloistered Cleric 4/Church Inquisitor 1/Paragnostic Apostle 1
Spontaneous domain casting (Magic domain)
Abilities: 13+ Wisdom (to cast dispel magic), 13+ Constitution (to qualify for Soultouched Spellcasting), 14+ Charisma (to have 5 turning attempts)
Domains: Inquisition (bonus, from Church Inquisitor), Knowledge, Magic, Purification
Feats: Divine Defiance1, Soultouched Spellcasting azurin, Domain Focus (Magic)3, Versatile Spellcaster6
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 9 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 4 ranks, Spellcraft 4 ranks
Items: dispelling cord (1000 gp)
Caster level 6, +1 for abjurations (Purification domain), +1 for Magic domain spells (Domain Focus)
+7 on dispel checks (+4 untyped Inquisition domain, +2 insight Soultouched Spellcasting, +1 untyped Penetrating Insight, from Paragnostic Apostle)
+2 competence on dispel checks 5/day from dispelling cord

With one turn undead use, you can counterspell as an immediate action, burning any prepared spell(s) to spontaneously cast dispel magic. With Versatile Spellcaster, you have at least five third-level spells per day. Your bonus on dispel checks is +17, 5/day, and +15 after that (but you're out of spells anyway). At level 6, nothing magical is going to get past you for a long time.


You don't want to be too lethally "bursty" on your assassins, but a Telflammar Shadowlord is just right in that level bracket, so you could, for example, go in with Maiming Strike and hit someone with a ton of Charisma damage. Not a kill, but a nasty debuff to any Charisma-based caster.

[Mike Miller]

Interesting ideas. I will definitely consider the debuff angle. I was already considering hitting them off-guard, so the debuff may not be totally necessary. With this approach, I could have the attack occur during an unrelated adventure instead of down time.

[Piggy Knowles]

If I was building a 3-person strike team for a mid-range level of optimization, I think I'd go with something like...

The Tech Support

Human, Rogue 1/Wizard 4/Unseen Seer 5

Focus on Intelligence and Dexterity. Skill-wise, focus on stealth, perception and search/disable device. Take focused specialist (conjuration), immediate magic for abrupt jaunt and combat wizard to nab Improved Initiative. Make sure to grab Able Learner and Darkstalker as feats. This is the person who provides vital intel on targets, disables any defenses/traps (magical or otherwise) and gets the team into position. Focus on scrying, teleportation and counterspelling rather than outright damage. Can provide some decent damage in a pinch thanks to sneak attack and touch spells, but mostly the goal is to scry out any targets, teleport the strike team in, lower any defenses, and teleport them out after they've done their job.

The Muscle

Human, Paladin of Tyranny 4/Hexblade 4/Crusader 2

Debuffer, poisoner, disabler and all-around tank. Take the dark companion hexblade ACF, which combines with the PoT aura of despair to make sure all nearby foes are eating -4 to their saves even before you take into account fear, negative levels, etc. Relevant feats include Death Devotion, Master of Poisons, Extra Granted Maneuver, Dreadful Wrath and Imperious Command. Focus on forcing as many saving throws as possible: fear, poison, negative levels via Death Devotion, etc. For crusader maneuvers, focus on self-healing maneuvers to increase tankiness and keep the bad news going for as long as possible, plus White Raven Tactics to help support the strike team.

The Face

Kenku, Rogue 3/Marshal 3/Crusader 4

Focus on Charisma, and skill-wise go hard on all the social skills. (Hat of disguise is a must here, by the way.) The relevant auras to pick up here are master of tactics for +Cha to damage while flanking and motivate Charisma for double Charisma bonus on all relevant skills. Good feats to grab include Extra Granted Maneuver, Craven and Staggering Strike. With a +4 bonus to attack rolls when flanking thanks to kenku, and the tactics of the wolf stance plus master of tactics to give you and the Muscle a considerable damage boost while flanking (not to mention sneak attack and Craven damage), the Face is actually an extremely capable combatant all on its own without being so murder-y that it ends up immediately killing a PC. (After all, an ubercharger or shadowpouncer is a great assassin... but a terrible thing to pit against your average party.)

---

Basically, it's a strike team that makes sense thematically and is really good at bypassing common party defenses, but not so deadly that it immediately risks actual death for party members. You can scale the nastiness up or down as you'd like: the two melee brutes are equally capable at disabling or dishing out lots of damage or outright killing, depending on how you want to play them/what poisons they're equipped with. The arcane support can turn into a decent sniper more or less at-will, or can focus strictly on supporting the other two combatants. Poisons can kill outright or they can debuff, disable, knock out, etc.

[mesc]

1. An explosive runes mage
There are many ways to apply explosive runes, I thought of a build like this and It became a lot similar to naruto explosive tags. You can create a sword like the shibuki, which has multiple paper with explosive runes on it. Place explosive runes everywhere, then just let prying eyes trigger them. It makes a fun assassin, albeit not discreet.

2. Invisible Trickster
Another funny idea I once thought of that does a more pshychological battle with enemies. Basically the premise is bluffing what spells you cast. Start the battle with announcing the names of the spells you cast, pcs will get used to this, then start saying the names of completely different spells instead of the real spell you cast. For example, say the spell you cast was summon monster or fire wall, when in fact it was an image or other illusion spell. Apply some silent and invisisble metamagic to your spells as well, to trick the pcs even more.

3. Counter attack assassin
The basic Attack of opportunity build. Its a funny concept, the assassin who counter attacks harder if you attack. It just needs the feats, combat reflexes, twf, karmic strike, double hit. Improved trip and high sword low axe is also nice.

The counter attack assassin is a great dristaction, the trickster is a great support and battle staller, the explosive runes finishes the enemies off.

[Mike Miller]

Any recommendations for a group of 3 psionics users? I am not very familiar with Psionics but one of my players is a psionic and I think it would be neat to have some psionic enemies for once.

1 psion, 1 psychic warrior, 1 ?

[ayvango]

dragonwrought kobold spellthief 1, stalwart sorcerer 4, daggerspell mage. Spell-stored bloodstone dagger. Smiting Spell metamagic. Put many spells on your daggers, activate blade of blood as swift, cast some touch as standard and attack! Arcane way to do assassinations.

[Piggy Knowles]

Any recommendations for a group of 3 psionics users? I am not very familiar with Psionics but one of my players is a psionic and I think it would be neat to have some psionic enemies for once.

1 psion, 1 psychic warrior, 1 ?

Sure, psionics work well with this sort of thing. I'd recommend a stealth- and infiltration-focused shaper; the Utility Belt from my Optimization Showcase series would work well here. At level 12, that would be a human psychic rogue 1/psion 11 with Able Learner, Darkstalker, Psicrystal Affinity, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Expanded Knowledge (dimension swap), Expanded Knowledge (evade burst), Expanded Knowledge (schism) and Linked Power as feats. A suggested list of powers would be:

1- Psionic minor creation, entangling ectoplasm, psionic grease, astral construct, vigor
2- Psionic levitate, detect hostile intent, control sound, share pain, dimension swap
3- Greater concealing amorpha, telekinetic thrust, time hop, dispel psionics, psionic shrink item, evade burst
4- Psionic freedom of movement, psychic reformation, psionic fabricate, schism
5- Psionic true seeing, anticipatory strike, psionic plane shift, ectoplasmic shambler,
6- Psionic overland flight

With Able Learner and the psychic rogue skill list alongside an Int focus, maxing out stealth and detection skills should be easy despite the low skill points per level. Powers are mostly designed to augment these abilities (a lot of movement, detection and utility powers), with shrink item + telekinetic thrust able to put out nasty damage if necessary (damage that you can scale as needed based on what you think is an appropriate challenge for your party - a particularly tough party that swings well above its ECL might be facing a bevy of shrunken boulders or casks of alchemical nastiness getting flung at them, while a more moderate party might instead be facing a Jean Grey-style opponent who throws fabricated weapons... still dangerous but not so deadly).

And since I'm pimping out the showcases, the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless War Mind is psionics-lite, but captures a bit of the flavor and definitely works well at level 12 as the bruiser in a band of assassins. It focuses on making targeted high-damage strikes, which is just perfect for an assassin. Go with a dragonborn fire or snow elf, warblade 4/fighter 1/war mind 5/eternal blade 2 with Hidden Talent (synchronicity), Knowledge Devotion, Power Attack, Psionic Weapon, WF (guisarme) and Deep Impact as feats. Focus on high damage strikes (ruby nightmare blade or divine surge are great choices), which can be targeted at a couple of squares at once thanks to the war mind's sweeping strike ability. Dump a bunch of points into Power Attack, pop psionic focus to attack as a touch attack and go to town.

Finally, since the shaper assassin can cover ranged support thanks to telekinetic thrust, I'd recommend either some sort of general buffer/support in the last slot (if you don't mind breaking from the psionics theme, crusader always works well, maybe even a bardsader, and you could add some psionic flair if you wanted via race/feats or by dipping into psychic warrior), or a party face. The absolute best psionic face I've seen is Face First by RadicalTaoist. Basic summary is that it's a grey elf telepath focused heavily on social skills and powers that conceal and disable. It's a very cool build. At level 12 it would have the feats Psicrystal Affinity, Urban Tracking, Expanded Knowledge (astral construct), Inquisitor, Master Manipulator, Undead Empathy, Expanded Knowledge (remote viewing) and Expanded Knowledge (energy current). The power lay-out at this point would be:

1- Mindlink, disable, vigor, conceal thoughts, psionic charm, astral construct
2- Mental rage, ego whip, psionic glibness, share pain
3- Energy wall, solicit psicrystal, dispel psionics, faint memory
4- False sensory input, schism, psychic reformation, read thoughts, psionic dimension door, psionic freedom of movement, remote viewing
5- Mind probe, psionic true seeing, energy current
6- Co-opt concentration, mass cloud mind, psionic contingency

Here's the link so you can see for yourself: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471343-Weekly-Optimization-Showcase-Face-First-(Tempest_Stormwind)

[zfs]

Obviously it's not optimized and magic does it better, but I've always thought one of the few times the Savant's skill assistance ability actually comes in handy is with stealth. That way two of your hit team members don't actually need any skill of their own in being stealth. Unless I've read it wrong, it's an at-will ability, so you can keep using it the whole time you need to be stealthy.

[Sleven]

I have one ready-made! [...] Cloistered Cleric [...] Versatile Spellcaster

Clerics don't actually know their spells, so Versatile Spellcaster doesn't do anything for this build. You'll need to use the "Spontaneous Divine Spellcaster" variant from UA to get this working.


Go with a dragonborn fire or snow elf, warblade 4/fighter 1/war mind 5/eternal blade 2 with Hidden Talent (synchronicity), Knowledge Devotion, Power Attack, Psionic Weapon, WF (guisarme) and Deep Impact as feats. Focus on high damage strikes (ruby nightmare blade or divine surge are great choices), which can be targeted at a couple of squares at once thanks to the war mind's sweeping strike ability. Dump a bunch of points into Power Attack, pop psionic focus to attack as a touch attack and go to town.

No Psionic Meditation? I think the OP asked for level 10 builds as well. Either way, Psychic Warrior 2/Warblade 8-10 is frankly better at this level.

I'm surprised there was no mention of the Psychic Assassin (Secrets of Sarlona), Psychic Assassin (Web) or Psychic Rogue (Web). Mind Cripple + Mental Assault could be potent in low/medium op... something like Lurk 5/Psychic Assassin (Web) 5 just barely gets both abilities.

[Piggy Knowles]

Whoops, misread. Yeah at ECL 10, PsyWar is definitely better, since sweeping strike is way less valuable if it comes at the cost of maneuvers like ruby nightmare blade. That said, Psionic Meditation isn’t really as relevant for an assassin NPC that will likely have specific targets and will be part of a group that focuses on hit and run tactics.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Clerics don't actually know their spells, so Versatile Spellcaster doesn't do anything for this build. You'll need to use the "Spontaneous Divine Spellcaster" variant from UA to get this working.
Hmm, interesting point.

The PHB glossary says a "known spell" is "a spell that an arcane spellcaster has learned and can prepare. For wizards, knowing a spell means having it in their spellbooks. For sorcerers and bards, knowing a spell means having selected it when acquiring new spells as a benefit of level advancement.".
PHB 180 has the following: "Characters who can cast divine spells undertake a certain amount of study between adventures. Each time such a character receives a new level of divine spells, he or she learns new spells from that level automatically".
Unless we decouple "learned" from "known", clerics have spells known (automatically learned) but don't have spells known (as per the glossary).
Note that "learned" and "known" are used synonymously in various places, including the sorcerer writeup, Extra Spell, and some places in the Spellcasting chapter. I don't think it's viable to disconnect them.

Despite the glossary entry, I'm going to assume that the build is functional enough for use at most tables. If the spell known-status of dispel magic does become an issue, Magical Training solves it well enough.