So what was the consensus on O-Assassins Flurry of Talons/Shadow Fire?

[TheWayofPie]

Is it three instances of damage because of the AND or is it one instance of damage? I am leaning towards the second because it sounds too good to be true. And if it sounds to good it usually is.

Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex. Make three attack rolls. If any of them hit, resolve them as a single hit, and all of them must miss for the attack to miss.

Hit: 1d8 + Dexterity modifier damage if one of the attack rolls hits, 2d8 + Dexterity modifier damage if two hit, and 3d8 + Dexterity modifier damage if three hit.

[Kurald Galain]

I am leaning towards the second

You are correct.

Note that it says "1d8 if one attack hits", not "1d8 if at least one attack hits". So only one of the three instances can apply.

[TheWayofPie]

Gotcha so if all three hit you get 3d8 + Dex Mod and thats it.

Surprised I wasn’t really able to find much about it. I imagine this was debated quite a bit back in the day.

[Waddacku]

I guess there was some amount of debate, but the arguments will basically boil down to "Shadow Darts is phrased with 'or', Flurry of Talons with 'and'", and whether Assassins need it or if it's too much. There's no final word on it, either way, just do whatever suits your table.

[MwaO]

A lot of it is because Mearls, the writer of the original Assassin, didn't want/know to use standard terminology. As an example, it is reasonably clear he avoided using the term 'extra damage' in Assassin as only one at-will has it. Or in the case of those 3 powers, there's a Ranger power that works roughly the same way, Pounding Barrage, and for whatever reason, he chose not to copy it.

It is probably reasonably likely he was trying to copy roughly what Pounding Barrage did. But Assassin is actually solid whichever way you play it and paragon is full of good encounter powers that make it clear that Assassin is kind of a Sorcerer with great utilities, horrifically bad daily powers, not great heroic encounter powers -> great paragon tier encounters, and not great at-wills.