Rogue: Rough-in of Assassin

[karl_k0ch]

It's worth noting that none of the PrE trees include a toughness enhancement line. I wonder what happened with the racial trees.

[Scraap]

Actually, yet another thought occurred to me... does daggers include throwing?
/eyes halfling thrower concept

[Gratch]

So I can see how a destinylike system works for an acrobat or mechanic type destiny where the current PRE gives mostly differing abilities at each tier. And the destiny system works fine at epic given it's 5 homogenous epic levels... but regarding heroic multiclass:

How does one apply it to all the current "ability building" PRE's - such as Defenders (a little more AC and PR each tier and HP and blocking bonus) is given at each PRE level. Tempest is slightly similar. I'm mostly just wondering how the destiny system which gives a certain ability at a certain tier with upgrades to it can directly map the more specific ability across a range of levels that we currently have.

Better said: How much of the current benefits of being L6 into a defender/tempest class will one receive once the update switches over? Is it possible to give a portion of the PRE's defining benefits across a level range with a destinyBox tiered system?

[Coldin]

It's worth noting that none of the PrE trees include a toughness enhancement line. I wonder what happened with the racial trees.

If I had to guess, all the racial trees will include a "Toughness" enhancement, since it's become practically required for any build anyway.

[sephiroth1084]

It's worth noting that none of the PrE trees include a toughness enhancement line. I wonder what happened with the racial trees.

Um...so far we've seen one monk tree, two rogue trees and part of a bard tree...none of which have Toughness enhancements in the game currently either.

The only classes with Toughness enhancements are Barbarian, Favored Soul, Fighter, Paladin. Not sure why you'd have expected to see them here, or how not seeing them here leads you to any conclusions about the enhancements overall.

[Cyr]

Copy pasted from OP with comments in Red for ease of quoting.

This is a copy of the Assassin enhancements on Llama... they are pretty rough in some spots and obviously not finalized.

Granted

Knife in the Darkness (0 AP, Rog 0)
You gain proficiency with Kukris. You can also use your Dexterity modifier to hit with Daggers and Kukris. It's a TRAP!
Dagger in the Back (5 AP, Rog 3)
You can now use your DEX modifier for damage with Daggers and Kukris It's still a TRAP!
Assassin's Trick (10 AP, Rog 6)
Activate: Target intelligent opponent loses 25% Fort and immunity to Sneak Attack for 12 seconds if the target fails a Will save (DC 10 + Rogue Level + Int Modifier) Very cool, what is the cooldown, does it break attack sequence...
Nimbleness (20 AP, Rog 12)
On Sneak Attack: Up to once every 2 seconds, you gain 1% dodge for 6 seconds. This effect can stack up to 10 times. I assume that a new proc renews the timer on all stacks. Very cool again.
Lethality (30 AP, Rog 18)
Any sneak attack that also counts as a vorpal strike that you make will kill most living targets.Can we get a full description of this in the UI with limitations and such so players can know how it really works without consulting an out of game source or forums. Oh and it is a great ability.
Deadly Shadow (41 AP, Rog 20)
+4 Sneak Attack Dice The uber rogue capstone sticks around.

Tier 1 So five points min to get next tier stuff...sneak attack, toxin*3, and poison strikes seems like how I will probably go even if it is a useless poison attack.

Poison Strikes
Select one of three Poisonous attacks. Depends on how these work...TBD
Toxin Affinity (3 Ranks)
+1/2/3 Fortitude Saves vs Poisons (and?) to the save DC of your Poison attacks Depends on how poison attacks work...TBD.
Shiv (3 Ranks)
Melee Attack: Deals +1/2/3[W] damage and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by 100. On Sneak Attack: Target also gains a -2 Fortitude penalty against Poisons for 20 seconds. (Stacks 5 times.) Not a huge fan of the proliferation of commonly activated abilities in destinies or these new PrEs. This one seems pretty mediocre.
Sneak Attack Training 1
Grants +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing Sneak Attacks There is one no brainer purchase for everyone.
Stealthy (3 Ranks)
+1/2/3 Hide and Move Silently Bleh...



Tier 2 Need at least five more points spent here to open tier 3...super easy to do in this tier as it has tons of stuff to buy.

Poison Strikes* TBD
Venomed Blades (3 Ranks)
Poison Stance: On Hit: 1d4/6/8 Poison damage with weapon attacks No brainer 3 points.
Bleed Them Out (3 Ranks)
Melee Attack: Deals +1/2/3[W] damage and on successful damage causes your opponent to bleed. The bleed effect can stack up to 5 times. Another active attack...meh at least this one seems more promising then the one in tier 1.
Sneak Attack Training 2 (Requires: Sneak Attack Training 1)
Grants +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing Sneak Attacks Hey there is another no brainer purchase.
Damage Boost (3 Ranks) Sweet 3 more points of no brainer purchase.

Tier 3 Need 10 more points spent to get to tier 4. This tier is weak though so looks like dipping back into tier 2 for most of that is certainly the way to go...of course sneak attack and stat are likely purchases...maybe critical accuracy for meeting later reqs.

Poison Strikes* TBD
Critical Accuracy (3 Ranks) Could make these +20/+40/+60 and it would still be only purchase if points needed to be used or as a pre-req...
+1/2/3 to confirm Critical Hits
Shadow Dagger (3 Ranks) Huge meh on this. Maybe if it was entire rogue level so it was a reliable blind effect.
Throws a dagger made of solidified shadows at your enemy. Deals 4d8 unholy damage and blinds the target (Fort DC 10 + Half Rogue Level + Intelligence Modifier negates Blindness)
Sneak Attack Training 3 (Requires: Sneak Attack Training 2)
Grants +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing Sneak Attacks Yeah, more no brainer purchase
Stat Enhancement: DEX or INT Can't object to choice of two stat.

Tier 4 You are going to be buying tons of junk you really could care less about to get assasinate/capstone. Otherwise, this tier is probably not too appealing and you are just spending points to reach 30.

Execute (Requires: Critical Damage)
Melee Assassinate Attack: Deals +3[W] damage. On Sneak Attack: If the target is below 20% health, deal 500 damage (Fort DC 10 + Half Rogue Level + Int Mod negates). yippie yet another active attack...
Critical Damage (3 Ranks) (Requires: Critical Accuracy)
+1/2/3 Critical Hit damage (before weapon multipliers) More damage, but not a ton more
Killer (3 Ranks) (Requires: Critical Damage)
When you kill a target, you gain a 5% Morale bonus to melee doublestrike for 15 seconds. Weak enemies will not always produce this effect. The killer buff can stack up to 2/3/4 times. Strange ability...probably worthwhile because you will have more points then you know what to do with to hit 30 spent or 41.
Sneak Attack Training 4 (Requires: Sneak Attack Training 3)
Grants +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing Sneak Attacks First no brainer in this tier.
Stat Enhancement: DEX or INT Stat is a stat and seems like second one will be cheaper then before from Eladrin's explanations so probably a no brainer.

Tier 5 40...well even this pretty good PrE will be hard stretched to spend that many points in a very productive fashion. Expect some active attack clickies to be purchased to fill in those last points.

Assassinate
Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Kills a living target instantly if the target fails a Fortitude save (DC 10 + Rogue Level + Int Mod). Even on a successful save, the target takes 10d6 additional Sneak Attack damage from this attack. Now for pure rogues mostly.
Improved Assassinate (3 Ranks)
+1/2/3 to the save DC's of your Assassinate abilities. If you have spent this many points to get assassinate you might as well make it even so should be fairly popular.
Knife Specialization
+1 Critical Threat Multiplier with Daggers and Kukris. Daggers also gain +1 Critical Threat Range. Apparently a capstone assassin will make using these very suboptimal weapons worthwhile. Looks like a switch weapons over when you get this case, but not a big deal because you can be slashing or piercing spec before that.


*Poison Strikes If these are active clickies like they look like.../bleh. So many active clickies to cycle through on this destiny alone will really add upto a lot of them when you get your destiny.

[NancyD]

In our current setup (subject to change), it's possible to get tier 5 enhancements at level 11. (40 AP spent in tree.)


That's our intent - the dagger/kukri abilities in the tree are intended to open up additional options for dex/int builds rather than completely replace existing weapons. A strength based assassin build, for instance, will likely want to go with rapiers, or even possibly the khopesh. We'll try to be careful with this.


You've also got Venomed Blades (+4.5 per weapon) and the active abilities like Execute.


Tier one of the Acrobat, Ninja, or Deepwood Sniper tree. You'll have 80 action points to spend, and can't put them all into one place.

Thanks. That is helpful. Wow, daggers viable. Interesting times. Could be superfun.

[Aashrym]

It's worth noting that none of the PrE trees include a toughness enhancement line. I wonder what happened with the racial trees.

I would expect to see them on DoS (maybe), stalwart, war priest (maybe), ravager and occult slayer and FB (maybe ), divine avenger (maybe but this sounds like offensive melee so doesn't really fit, imo), nature's warrior, battle engineer (maybe, or it might work like war chanter), and various race trees (possibly to various degrees)

War chanter was adding 1 hit point per enhancement taken in that tree with wassail and I believe that's changing.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the toughness lines change either.

[Aashrym]

Um...so far we've seen one monk tree, two rogue trees and part of a bard tree...none of which have Toughness enhancements in the game currently either.

Most of spellsinger and war chanter were up, all three rogue trees, henshin, and part of ninja-spy. I'm kind of kicking myself for having not kept track of what I took a look at. I didn't expect Eladrin to come out and start discussing them more and knew we are a long way from the end versions.

Mechanic went with traps and added on to that with abilities like time bomb and kill switch. Kill switch didn't have damage numbers listed (XX was the damage) but time bomb does 250 sonic, 250 fire damage plus saves for knock down and sundering iirc. I don't recall the activation timer on it but it did display 30 seconds of cool down.

I'm planning on playing bomberman at some point if I feel like soloing around and it works out.

EDIT: Druids also have as strong toughness line.

[BlackSteel]

personally I like all the active attacks. last two TR's have been sad playing around w/o some of the destiny abilities. instead its simply plink plink plink auto attack and the occasional boost

[sephiroth1084]

I agree with your assessment on most points, but where I disagree, I'll comment in this color. Also, where I'd like to see something done differently.

Granted

Knife in the Darkness (0 AP, Rog 0)
You gain proficiency with Kukris. You can also use your Dexterity modifier to hit with Daggers and Kukris. It's a TRAP! I don't think it's a total trap, but it certainly is overly restrictive.

Also, Knife in the Darkness is a cool name, but it has nothing at all to do with darkness or sneaking (more on this later).
Dagger in the Back (5 AP, Rog 3)
You can now use your DEX modifier for damage with Daggers and Kukris It's still a TRAP! Same as my comments on the first. I'll reiterate that Str-based characters

1. aren't limited in their weapon choices,
2. gain the same attack and damage bonuses with basically any weapon they pick up
3. get to use those bonuses starting at level 1, with any weapon, without spending a feat or action points or committing to a particular PrE
4. currently have more sources for boosting their Str than there are for Dex
5. can still have acceptable Reflex saves, AC, Balance, Hide, Move Silently and Open Lock
   

Tier 1
Shiv (3 Ranks)
Melee Attack: Deals +1/2/3[W] damage and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by 100. On Sneak Attack: Target also gains a -2 Fortitude penalty against Poisons for 20 seconds. (Stacks 5 times.) Not a huge fan of the proliferation of commonly activated abilities in destinies or these new PrEs. This one seems pretty mediocre.

I'd actually use this one quite often, at least the first rank of it, if it works. Unyielding Sentinel had a similar ability that generated threat on nearby enemies instead of reducing threat, it never worked, and the devs have changed the ability to a static incite buff on your attacks instead of fixing it, because doing so would be too difficult/time consuming. Whether that is a temporary thing or not isn't very clear, but given how similar this is, I wonder whether it could be made to function.

In any case, I'd definitely use this regularly both on its own and in conjunction with Diplo or Bluff to ensure that I shed, or avoid, aggro consistently. With Subtle Backstabbing getting moved to the Acrobat PrE (as of right now), having an in-tree method for reducing threat looks fairly important.

Additionally:
I'd think this would be a better way to promote using a dagger--make this ability either usable only while wielding a dagger or kukri, or by giving the attack further benefits with those weapons. Maybe it could gain +0.5[W] per tier, and/or impose a -3 Fort penalty instead of -2, or reduce threat by 150.

+1/2/3 Hide and Move Silently Bleh...
Agreed. H/MS bonuses are useful early in the game for things like Stealthy Repossession, but our modifiers on those skills quickly outpace monster Spot and Listen checks. Common wisdom dictates that spending more than half ranks in H/MS is a waste of skill points. Now, this isn't a call to increase monster perception, because the moderate range needed to be useful allows characters like Ghoste's stealthy wizard to work (I have one myself that I play occasionally).

I'd like to see some additional effect added to the H/MS ranks to make picking this up interesting, and worthwhile throughout the game.


Tier 2
Damage Boost (3 Ranks) Sweet 3 more points of no brainer purchase.
Honestly, if I didn't have to pick up Damage Boost in the current game as an Assassin prerequisite, I wouldn't bother, although it's quite a lot of AP to get to Haste Boost in the Acrobat tree, so this may be something of a necessity.

Tier 3
Critical Accuracy (3 Ranks) +1/2/3 to confirm Critical Hits Could make these +20/+40/+60 and it would still be only purchase if points needed to be used or as a pre-req...
This really wasn't a strong enough ability to stand alone in the game before the combat system changes, and certainly isn't after them, where even a +3 attack bonus often won't have any effect at all on your chance of landing an attack. At the very least, this and Critical Damage should be folded into one enhancement line.

Tier 4

Execute (Requires: Critical Damage)
Melee Assassinate Attack: Deals +3[W] damage. On Sneak Attack: If the target is below 20% health, deal 500 damage (Fort DC 10 + Half Rogue Level + Int Mod negates). yippie yet another active attack...
This does seem rather weak. The one place this would look really useful would be against bosses, but with a Fort negates clause, and most bosses having good to ridiculous Fort saves, this will rarely land, and that's assuming the "Half Rogue level" was a typo and was meant to be full rogue level.

Killer (3 Ranks) (Requires: Critical Damage)
When you kill a target, you gain a 5% Morale bonus to melee doublestrike for 15 seconds. Weak enemies will not always produce this effect. The killer buff can stack up to 2/3/4 times. Strange ability...probably worthwhile because you will have more points then you know what to do with to hit 30 spent or 41.

I'm rather ambivalent about the similar ability on the Black Dragon leathers. I think it synergizes kind of nicely with Assassinate and Lethality, but I don't know that I'd invest more than a rank into this, since killing multiple targets in a short period of time becomes less and less likely as you gain levels and monsters gain HP.

Tier 5

Assassinate
Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Kills a living target instantly if the target fails a Fortitude save (DC 10 + Rogue Level + Int Mod). Even on a successful save, the target takes 10d6 additional Sneak Attack damage from this attack. Now for pure rogues mostly.
Even with the ability to go all-in on the Assassin tree to pick this up by level 12ish still, I really wish this came at a lower tier. For some people (myself), this is the main reason to go Assassin, but it comes so late that it handcuffs your first 10+ levels worth of enhancements, forcing you to skip stuff in other trees, including racial bonuses, and then delays any you would be able to take after acquiring this by a few levels. Besides, with the ability dependent upon your rogue level, it doesn't become too strong for most multi-classers, and still would require a heavy investment in the Assassin tree, even at tier 3 or 4, which would delay advancement in whichever your main tree would be.

Improved Assassinate (3 Ranks)
+1/2/3 to the save DC's of your Assassinate abilities. If you have spent this many points to get assassinate you might as well make it even so should be fairly popular.
I like this, but I think it's odd that it comes at the same time as Assassinate. I feel that something like this should come later...you play with Assassinate for a bit, and then as you progress, you get to improve it. Now, yeah, that's kind of how it works with AP gathering within a level/tier, but this seems too close together.

Does this boost the other DC-based abilities in the Assassin tree, or just the Assassinate attack? If the former, can the same tech get carried over to the destinies to advance class level-based DCs beyond level 20?

Knife Specialization
+1 Critical Threat Multiplier with Daggers and Kukris. Daggers also gain +1 Critical Threat Range. Apparently a capstone assassin will make using these very suboptimal weapons worthwhile. Looks like a switch weapons over when you get this case, but not a big deal because you can be slashing or piercing spec before that.
This is a good way to promote using a knife or kukri. I prefer something like this, where you are free to select it, and where it doesn't hamstring your character to the restrictions on the first and second auto-granted abilities.

As I said when reviewing the Shadowdancer, I'd really like to see more abilities that either promote using stealth, or that gain additional benefits when used while sneaking. Currently, stealth is fairly useless unless you're soloing, and even then does little for you if you have to kill anything before you get Assassinate.

I'd really like an ability at, say, tiers I and III (if Assassinate stays at V) that works with sneaking, whether that's a debuff attack, CC, or just more damage, actively, or buffs to your attacks or DCs while sneaking.

For instance:
Knife in the Dark While sneaking, your attacks Hamstring/Daze/Stun enemies you hit. Attacking still breaks stealth, so you'd only get one or two hits in before this turns off against a particular enemy or group of enemies, but it would promote sneaking into fights.

Confounding Stealth While sneaking, your attacks reduce Fortification by 5/10/15%, and temporarily remove sneak attack immunity. Yes, I know this is similar to an auto-grant.

Sneaky Prick While sneaking, the DCs for your Assassin special attacks (poisons, Assassin's Trick, Shadow Dagger, Execute, Assassinate...maybe) gain +2 to their DCs.

Just some examples. Also, I'd probably want to allow all of these to function while Invisible as well.

And it would be nice to get an ability, or to have the mechanics changed in general, to make it possible to get back into effective stealth mode after it has been broken...right now it's kind of silly for you to get noticed, hit an Invisibility potion/scroll/clicky, sneak around a corner, down some stairs and around another corner, climb up some boxes and wait, only to have the guy(s) that originally noticed you make a beeline for your current location, even though you broke line of sight 3 times after turning Invisible and while sneaking.

[sephiroth1084]

As another note regarding the dagger/kukri focus of Assassin, one of the allures of playing a drow rogue, currently, is that the drow racial weapon enhancements line up nicely with the rogue's best weapon proficiencies. Things being equal, this makes playing a drow rogue a bit less attractive. I know a lot of other things will be changing, such as drow possibly getting Tempest as a racial PrE, which would play nicely with Assassin, but it's a relevant point.

Currently, drow are somewhat competitive with halflings for this role, because their +2 attack and damage works on everything and gets multiplied on crits, while the halfling's possible +4 attack and +8 damage doesn't, and also because the halfling is more likely to be spending the same 12 AP for +3 attack/+6 damage, though halflings by and large come out ahead if you're not going Str-based.

[Qezuzu]

Dear Turbine,

Please do not change the animation or functionality of Assassinate.

I know you're going to. I can just feel it. Please stop.

Thanks,
Rogues

[noinfo]

Um...so far we've seen one monk tree, two rogue trees and part of a bard tree...none of which have Toughness enhancements in the game currently either.

The only classes with Toughness enhancements are Barbarian, Favored Soul, Fighter, Paladin. Not sure why you'd have expected to see them here, or how not seeing them here leads you to any conclusions about the enhancements overall.

And Druids

[sephiroth1084]

Dear Turbine,

Please do not change the animation or functionality of Assassinate.

I know you're going to. I can just feel it. Please stop.

Thanks,
Rogues

Don't know why they would, but yeah...
/seconded

[dTarkanan]

I absolutely love that assassins are getting bonuses specific to daggers and kukris finally. I've been waiting 2 years to have a reason to make and use 'em. For ages, the default rogue weapon was rapier, which is completely unstealthy, hard to conceal, and unwieldly; the other PrCs had their specific weapon bonuses- but Assassins- so closely associated with a dagger that the Dungeon Master's Guide had an Assassin's Dagger as one of it's core magic items- had no impetus to use one. Rapiers will still be great rogue weapons, but they're not the iconic assassin weapons anymore, and I'm pleased as punch. Thanks for putting the dagger back in cloak and dagger, devs.

[karl_k0ch]

The only classes with Toughness enhancements are Barbarian, Favored Soul, Fighter, Paladin. Not sure why you'd have expected to see them here, or how not seeing them here leads you to any conclusions about the enhancements overall.

Fair point.
But I'm not jumping towards conclusions, I'm just stating that it will be interesting to see how the racial trees, in particular the Halfling one, will be realized.

[Melt-emi]

Rogue Wand and Scroll Mastery I-IV is MIA, isn't it?

[azrael4h]

Rogue Wand and Scroll Mastery I-IV is MIA, isn't it?

Well, so far only TA and Assassin have been posted that I've seen. But I haven't seen it. Can't have Rogues thinking they're people too you know.

[BrianTheHun]

Rogue Wand and Scroll Mastery I-IV is MIA, isn't it?

That sucks, I've been asking for that for years. I'm guessing that it will probably show up in the Mechanic PrE line.