5 Level Class: The Assassin

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The Assassin

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/9e/b9/c5/9eb9c5ec90fa85029eedd55215c5378c--dark-warrior-queen-of.jpg

NOTE: I am very rough at fluff. If you are willing to contribute to any fluffing / worldbuilding for an assassin base class, I will happily credit you here.

This class is intended to be a Tier 3 alternative to the Rogue that encapsulates all the "edgy" playstyles of rogues. If you want to play a character who wears a hood, covers their mouth, and kills people, this is probably the right class for you.

The archetype of an "assassin-esque" class is even more popular now than it was back in AD&D 1e when Gygax let you instakill people off a coinflip. Since those days, the idea of what it means to be an assassin has grown broader and broader. Assassins don't necessarily just use poison and disguises anymore -- 3rd edition D&D's assassin prestige class (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SRD:Assassin) gave them unique spells, and 4th edition (Dr #379) tied them directly to shadow magic. One of the best-known assassin fixes (https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Assassin,_Tome_(3.5e_Class)) has pushed them towards necromancy. The concepts of assassins and ninjas are also much closer together than they were before, at least in part by 3rd edition's choice to make the Ninja's Sudden Strike an offshoot of Sneak Attack. Most importantly, the idea of playing an assassin (or assassin-like) character is far more popular today than it was in the 70s.

The expanding conceptual scope and increased popularity have led me to want a simple base class for the assassin. My goal is to make a class that is a) as accessible as a Warlock, and b) open-ended enough to allow every kind of assassin or assassin variant. Shadow magic users, wandering bounty hunters, and classic ninjas should all be useful assassin builds that you can bring to the table.

Alignment: Any
Hit Dice: d6



Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
Techniques


1
+0
+2
+2
+0
Sneak Attack +1d6
2


2
+1
+3
+3
+0
Death Attack
3


3
+2
+3
+3
+1
Sneak Attack +2d6, Uncanny Dodge
4


4
+3
+4
+4
+1
Stalker
5


5
+3
+4
+4
+1
Sneak Attack +3d6, Obscured
6



Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Heal (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (local) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Skill Points: 8 + Int Mod

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the assassin.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Assassins are proficient with all simple weapons, light weapons, repeating crossbows, and hand crossbows. Assassins are proficient with Light Armor but not with shields.

Assassination Techniques: From poisons to camouflage to shadow magic, the tools of assassins are as varied as they are deadly. At level 1, the assassin gains 2 assassination techniques. As she gains levels, she learns additional techniques according to the assassin class table. Assassin techniques are listed below this class.

If an assassination technique requires a save, the DC of that save is 10 + 1/2 the assassin’s character level + the assassin’s intelligence modifier.

Sneak Attack (Ex): At level 1, the assassin gains sneak attack as the rogue with 2 exceptions:

Assassins are well trained in eliminating magical opponents. The only creatures they cannot sneak attack are oozes and amorphous creatures (such as the gibbering mouther).
Assassin sneak attacks only apply when the target is denied their Dexterity bonus, not when they are flanked.

Death Attack (Ex): At 2nd level, Assassin may spend 3 rounds to study a target that she could sneak attack. If she does so, her next attack against that target is a Death Attack if she makes it within 3 rounds. A Death Attack triples the damage dice she gains from her sneak attack. Special attacks such as a coup de grace may be a Death Attack. If an assassin fails to hit her target with a death attack, it is wasted.

An Assassin may perform actions that do not interrupt her study simultaneously with this action. Examples of these actions include loading a crossbow, performing, and having a conversation. She must continue watching the target while taking these actions, which may arouse suspicion.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 3rd level, an assassin can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.

If an assassin already has uncanny dodge from a different class, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.

Stalker (Ex): After intense training, stealth becomes second nature to an assassin. Starting at 4th level, when making a hide or move silently skill check, an assassin may take 10 even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so.

In addition, the assassin gains Darkstalker as a bonus feat. If she already has this feat, she may choose another feat that she is eligible for.

Obscured (Su): At 5th level, an assassin becomes capable of avoiding magical attempts to locate them. When a divination is attempted against the assassin or any item in her possession, the caster of the divination must succeed on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against a DC of 10 + the assassin’s ranks in hide. If they do not succeed, the spell fails.

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Assassin Techniques
Unless otherwise specified, assassin techniques are extraordinary abilities.



Technique Name
Description


Adaptive Stealth
Hide easily when you are near cover or concealment.


Death from Afar
Make sneak attacks and death attacks from any range.


Exotic Weaponry
You gain proficiency in new weapons


Eyes in the Dark
See through one type of concealment


Flank Attack
Make sneak attacks and death attacks if you flank a target.


Fleeting Distraction
Briefly distract a target to make your feint attempt easier.


Leaps and Bounds
You get a bonus to Balance, Jump, and Tumble.


Master of Poisons
You gain the feat Master of Poisons (DotU).


Nature's Disguise
Make a disguise that lets you hide easily in an environment.


Shadow of Malice
Conjure a dark presence to study for a death attack on your behalf.


Shadow of Opportunity
Create a shroud of magical darkness.


Spider's Dance
Climb on walls, as long as you don't attack.


Sublime Training
You learn a maneuver or stance (Bo9S).


Sudden Motion
Move a short distance as a swift action.


Trapfinding
You can discover and disable traps.


Trapmaking
You can make improvised traps



Some assassin techniques involve creating a certain type of poison. These are called poisoncraft techniques.



Technique Name
Description


Eyeblast Poisoncraft
You can craft eyeblast poison (BoVD).


Goodbye Kiss Poisoncraft
You can craft goodbye kiss poison (CScoundrel).


Roach Paste Poisoncraft
You can craft roach paste poison (DotU).


Sleeper Weed Poisoncraft
You can craft sleeper weed poison (A&EG).



Some assassin techniques involve crafting certain types of alchemical items. These are called toolcraft techniques.



Technique Name
Description


Caltrops Toolcraft
You can craft a bag of caltrops.


Flash Pellet Toolcraft
You can craft a flash pellet (CAdv).


Ghostoil Toolcraft
You can craft ghostoil (A&EG).


Smokestick Toolcraft
You can craft a smokestick.


Tanglefoot Bag Toolcraft
You can craft a tanglefoot bag.


Thunderstone Toolcraft
You can craft a thunderstone.


Toxic Tooth Toolcraft
You can craft a toxic tooth (CScoundrel).

[tr]



Adaptive Stealth
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
You can use the Hide skill even while being observed, as long as you are within 10 feet of a source of cover or concealment.


Death from Afar
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
You can make a sneak attack or death attack from any range.


Exotic Weaponry
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
When you gain this technique, choose an exotic weapon or 2 martial weapons. You gain proficiency with any weapon chosen this way.


Eyes in the Dark
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
When you gain this technique, choose a source of concealment. You may see through that concealment perfectly.

You may choose this technique multiple times. Each time you do, choose a different source of concealment.


Flank Attack
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
You may make sneak attacks and death attacks against targets that you are flanking.


Fleeting Distraction
Action: Swift
Duration: 1 round
As a swift action, you may make a touch attack against a target with one of your weapons. If that attack succeeds, your next feint attempt against that target automatically succeeds if you have at least as many ranks in Bluff as that target has in Sense Motive. You must make your feint attempt within the duration of this technique in order to get the benefit.


Leaps and Bounds
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
You get a +6 competence bonus to Balance, Jump, and Tumble checks.


Master of Poisons
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
You gain the Master of Poisons feat from Drow of the Underdark. If you gain that feat from another source later, you lose this technique and gain a Poisoncraft technique of your choosing.


Nature’s Disguise
Action: 2 minutes
Duration: 24 hours
You can create a disguise for yourself that is specific to your current terrain (forest, marsh, hills, mountain, desert, plains, aquatic). Alternatively, you can create a disguise that is specific to the current area of the dungeon or urban environment you are in.

While you are wearing this disguise, you may use the Hide skill even while being observed, provided you are in an area that matches the disguise.


Poisoncraft, Eyeblast
Action: By Craft check or 1 hour (see text)
Duration: Permanent or 24 hours (see text)
You can craft eyeblast poison (Book of Vile Darkness), and you are immune to it. If you do this using Craft (Alchemy), you do not receive a -4 penalty to your check.

So long as you have artisan's tools, you can also craft an unstable version of this poison for personal use only. You may create a dose of this poison over 1 hour using scavenged materials. A poison created this way is different from conventional poisons:

Instead of initial and secondary damage, the poison applies its initial damage with a duration of 1 round
Instead of the standard save DC, the poison’s save DC is based on your assassination technique DC
After 24 hours, the poison decays into uselessness.
Only you may use the poison you create
The difference between this poison and others is immediately obvious, and as a result you cannot sell the poison to anyone who is even passingly familiar with poisons (any vendor who buys or sells poisons will be)

You may simultaneously prepare 2 + your Intelligence modifier doses of this poison (minimum 1).


Poisoncraft, Goodbye Kiss
As eyeblast poisoncraft, but you can craft the goodbye kiss poison (Complete Scoundrel).


Poisoncraft, Roach Paste
As eyeblast poisoncraft, but you can craft the roach paste poison (Drow of the Underdark).


Poisoncraft, Sleeper Weed
As eyeblast poisoncraft, but you can craft the sleeper weed poison (Arms and Equipment Guide).


Shadow of Malice
Action: 1 swift action
Duration: 3 rounds (see text)
If you have the Death Attack class feature, you can conjure a dark presence from beyond reality to prepare a Death Attack on your behalf. As a standard action, choose a target you would normally be allowed to study. So long as the other Death Attack requirements are met (for example, the target still must be denied its Dexterity bonus to AC against you for the entire duration) you can undertake other actions while the shadow studies the target on your behalf. After the dark presence has completed its study, you have the normal opportunity to make a Death Attack before it is lost.

This is a spell-like ability. It is considered a 1st-level Divination spell cast by a sorcerer of your assassin level.


Shadow of Opportunity
Action: 1 swift action
Duration: 1 minute
You create a shroud of magical darkness with a radius of 20 feet, centered on your space. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). This does not grant you the ability to see in magical darkness.

Only 1 of these effects may be active at any time. If you use call darkness while another instance has not expired, the oldest effect dissipates.

This is a spell-like ability. It is considered a 1st-level Evocation [Darkness] spell cast by a sorcerer of your assassin level.


Spider’s Dance
Action: 1 standard action
Duration: Permanent (see text)
When you use this technique, you grant yourself the ability to spider climb (as the spell) with a permanent duration. If you make an attack roll while this technique is in effect, the effect ends after the attack roll is complete.


Sublime Training
Action: None
Duration: Permanent
When you gain this technique, choose a maneuver or stance (Bo9S) for which you meet the prerequisite.

If you chose a maneuver this way, you may use this maneuver once, and you may regain it as a full-round action. If you chose a stance this way, you learn the stance.

You may choose this technique multiple times. Each time you do, choose a different maneuver or stance. In addition, you may retrain 1 other maneuver or stance that you gained from a previous instance of sublime training.


Sudden Motion
Action: 1 swift action
Duration: None
As a swift action, you may move up to half your speed (rounded down to the nearest 5’ increment).

The movement from this technique is considered normal movement. You cannot dash in a round that you take a 5’ step (or vice versa), and you provoke attacks of opportunity for moving. Unlike normal movement, you cannot combine it with a Jump or Climb check in any way, but you may use combine it with Tumble checks.


Toolcraft, Caltrops
Action: By Craft check or 5 minutes (see text)
Duration: Permanent (but see text)
You can craft a bag of caltrops as though you had a number of ranks in the appropriate Craft skill equal to 3 + your assassin level.

If you have artisan’s tools, you may also craft a personal version of a bag of caltrops with 5 minutes of work using scavenged materials. You may only have 1 bag of caltrops at a time, as they require more than the usual amount of care to maintain.


Toolcraft, Flash Pellet
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft a flash pellet (Complete Adventurer).


Toolcraft, Ghostoil
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft ghostoil (Arms and Equipment Guide).


Toolcraft, Smokestick
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft a smokestick.


Toolcraft, Tanglefoot Bag
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft a tanglefoot bag.


Toolcraft, Thunderstone
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft a thunderstone.


Toolcraft, Toxic Tooth
As caltrops toolcraft, but you can craft a toxic tooth (Complete Scoundrel).


Trapfinding
Action: By Search check
Duration: None
You gain 3 ranks in Disable Device, plus 1 rank per your level. If you already have ranks in Disable Device, you may spend that many skill points on other skills.
You can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20. You can also use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.


Trapmaking
Action: 10 minutes
Duration: Permanent
As long as you have access to ropes, flexible material like green wood, and weapon-grade material like sharpened wooden sticks or steel weapons, you can build an improvised trap. You can build any non-magical trap on the CR 1 trap list that doesn’t involve a pit. These traps have a Search DC equal to 20 + your assassin level, have a BAB equal to your BAB, and are always single-use traps. You may add poison to these traps if you have access to it, but it will dry out in an hour.

[JeenLeen]

Sneak Attack (Ex): At level 1, the assassin gains sneak attack as the rogue with 2 exceptions:

Assassins are well trained in eliminating magical opponents. The only creatures they cannot sneak attack are oozes and amorphous creatures (such as the gibbering mouther).
Assassin sneak attacks only apply when the target is denied their Dexterity bonus, not when they are flanked.


I think the first bullet on your list is awesome. Most sneak-attackers try to find some way to get past undead and others being immune, so this is a major helper.
I think the second bullet is a mistake, though, as is the idea of this having "exceptions". I'd recommend make the first bullet a modification to all sneak attacking and drop the second. Just let this stack with Rogue sneak attack (if anyone multiclasses to Rogue). Otherwise, it's unnecessary bookkeeping (tracking 2 types of sneak attack).

I know you listed this as an alternative to Rogue. I don't know if that was intended this to be alternative class features or a completely seperate alternate class. If the latter... well, this seems a great level 1 dip for Rogues to get that "sneak attack golems and undead" power.

---

On your techniques, I haven't looked at them all, but I'm really glad to see Trapfinding there. In my opinion, it's nice to have more ways to access that.

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I'm of the mind that exception-based class features are fine from both a rules perspective and player-understanding perspective. Precedents I'm using for this are:

"AC Bonus" class feature from Swordsage / Monk / Battle Dancer / etc
"Advanced Learning" class feature from Dread Necromancer / Beguiler / Warmage
"Armored Mage" class feature from Duskblade / Beguiler

I know those aren't core class features for any of their respective classes, and there's precedent going the other way with Sudden Strike, so that's not an entirely convincing argument.

To the point about making this an aspect of all sneak attacks / precision damage -- while that's personally what I rule in my home games, I want to make this as accessible as possible, and I think that means leaving opportunities for full backwards-compatibility with games run straight from the PHB. This way the assassin performs at the same level in games with a SA houserule as games without that houserule.

I'm also not personally convinced that tracking multiple sneak attacks is bad if you're a multiclassing rogue, given that multiclassing is already a bit of an investment on the player's part and I have seen people handle Rogue / Ninja multiclasses well when they double dip in low-level campaigns.

A possible compromise I could try is giving this a similar name to Sneak Attack like the Lurk's Psionic Sneak Attack so it's clear that the mechanic is different but the function is meant to be the same. I'm curious what your (or anyone else's) thoughts are on that.

Re: trapfinding - I agree. I liked the idea of making it optional, so you can spec into trapfinding in your dungeon crawl games and ignore it if your DM doesn't care about traps.