Rogue: Rough-in of Assassin

[Aashrym]

Well, if the Assassinate DC for Halflings is based on Rogue level, not character level, it makes the Halfling PrE something of a cruel joke. I mean, even more of a cruel joke than absurdly-low DC's already do.

Assassinate is already a marginal ability, given that it is only really usable if you're soloing or playing in a Permadeath guild. Few parties are willing to, or have the discipline to, give you the time to use stealth and make the approach without alerting the monster. If the ability is also unreliable when used, that number will drop from few parties to zero parties.

Per the original mock up of the racial PrE's in the let's talk thread it was stated character level.

EDIT with the QUOTE:

Each race will have an enhancement that adds another specific enhancement tree to the character’s available list of trees. Elves and Half-Elves, for instance, gain access to the Arcane Archer tree if they take the racial enhancement to unlock it. Dwarves gain access to Stalwart Defender. The player can choose to unlock the tree and then not use it, if they so desire. Trees unlocked in this way use the character’s total character level instead of class level for prerequisites and effects.

[Entelech]

There is a problem with giving dex to atk/dmg with all finesse weapons though. Currently, the majority of assassin rogues use khopeshes if they have the feats to fit it in, or they use rapiers and short swords otherwise. Adding this dex to atk/dmg with daggers and kukris for free gives more general build options to assassin rogues. If you give dex to atk/dmg for free for all finesse weapons, you will end up with str rogues using khopeshes if they have the feats for it, or rapiers and short swords otherwise, and you will have dex rogues using rapiers and short swords, because they have better damage and crit profiles than kukris and daggers. Which leaves you pretty much exactly where we are now, except that the rapier/short sword group can choose to stack str or dex.

A fair compromise that I think would work fairly well would be to change the first 2 autogrants to be "choose 1 finesse-able weapon. you now gain the ability to use dexterity for your attack and damage modifiers for weapons of the chosen type", which would allow players to pick which two types of finesse weapons they want those bonuses for. I would leave any other enhancements in the tree that specify bonuses to daggers and kukris as they are though, so that daggers and kukris would still be a viable and attractive weapon choice for these options.

It depends on the dagger or kukri in question.

I can see a Rogue with a pair of Polycurse Daggers or Epic Midnight Greetings being quite happy with things as they stand. Unfortunately, that leads to even more severe cookie-cutter-WoWness than allowing you to go with Short Swords or Rapiers (unless you've got better items of another type).

That said, I like your suggestion of allowing one to choose when selecting the enhancement (and resetting enhancements thus allowing you to choose again).

[sephiroth1084]

There is a problem with giving dex to atk/dmg with all finesse weapons though. Currently, the majority of assassin rogues use khopeshes if they have the feats to fit it in, or they use rapiers and short swords otherwise. Adding this dex to atk/dmg with daggers and kukris for free gives more general build options to assassin rogues. If you give dex to atk/dmg for free for all finesse weapons, you will end up with str rogues using khopeshes if they have the feats for it, or rapiers and short swords otherwise, and you will have dex rogues using rapiers and short swords, because they have better damage and crit profiles than kukris and daggers. Which leaves you pretty much exactly where we are now, except that the rapier/short sword group can choose to stack str or dex.

A fair compromise that I think would work fairly well would be to change the first 2 autogrants to be "choose 1 finesse-able weapon. you now gain the ability to use dexterity for your attack and damage modifiers for weapons of the chosen type", which would allow players to pick which two types of finesse weapons they want those bonuses for. I would leave any other enhancements in the tree that specify bonuses to daggers and kukris as they are though, so that daggers and kukris would still be a viable and attractive weapon choice for these options.

A better solution:
Give Dex to damage for all finessable weapons.
Include things like the tier 5 abilities that enhance daggers and kukris. 1d4, 15-20/x3 is a pretty awesome profile for a weapon--the base damage sucks, but that is fairly irrelevant when you're accounting for crit power. Then you can have people using, saying, Balizarde, if they like that, or Midnight's Greetings, where both are worthwhile, and you aren't tied to one or the other.

The PrE should encourage dagger and kukri use (I'm not necessarily of this opinion anyway), not demand it. Dex to damage for daggers and kukris only demands you use those if you want to be a Dex build Assassin. Going finesse with rapiers and shortswords ends up being worse, in many situations, and would leave you feeling like you should have just gone Str.

Another way to encourage the use of these weapons would be to add minor bonuses on some of the abilities in the tree. Say, +1[W] on the activated attacks when wielding a dagger or kukri, or targets hit with Bleed Them Out also take an additional 1 Con damage per hit with daggers and kukris. It's not something central to your build decisions, gives you some incentive to use the weapons, but you don't necessarily feel like you're missing out if you don't.

With the encouragement style, we would end up with Str-based Assassins that use either khopeshes or rapiers and shortswords, Dex-based Assassins that use rapiers and shortswords, and Dex-based Assassins that use daggers or kukris, instead of Str-based and Dex-based that use daggers or kukris. We currently have only a few class/PrEs/destinies that force players into using a specific weapon: Kensei, Acrobat and Monk are the biggies, while Favored Soul strongly encourages usage of a particular weapon, as do elves, drow and dwarves, and Legendary Dreadnought, Shiradi Champion and Fatesinger strongly push you into using a particular group of weapons. Otherwise, the game is pretty open in that regard as it should be. We don't need more things that strongly push us into using specific weapons.

Additionally, this should probably auto-grant Improved Critical (or offer it as an enhancement) for daggers and kukris specifically, to make swapping between them reasonable. Maybe the Critical Accuracy line could also grant these abilities as carriers. That would be an example of encouragement--you can save a feat by using daggers and kukris and gain some flexibility.

[TreknaQudane]

I might want to fascinate and then just assassinate one by one.

Assassinate-ificer

[Aashrym]

Assassinate-ificer

I thought of that one too but then decided magical assassin builds sound more intriguing. I'll possibly make a shadow mage style build and go for the high INT halfling wizard on it.

[TreknaQudane]

I thought of that one too but then decided magical assassin builds sound more intriguing. I'll possibly make a shadow mage style build and go for the high INT halfling wizard on it.

A palemaster halfling /w assassin would be interesting for sure... forms would get you a boost to survivability to let you melee (I'd probably go Wraith for the Incorp and bonus to move silently) plus the ability to heal via spells. BAB would be a concern but with the Tensers change, not much of one.

[Diyon]

A palemaster halfling /w assassin would be interesting for sure... forms would get you a boost to survivability to let you melee (I'd probably go Wraith for the Incorp and bonus to move silently) plus the ability to heal via spells. BAB would be a concern but with the Tensers change, not much of one.

You would have to watch your auras so you don't alert the monster before the assassinate though.

[SealedInSong]

Dude heck no, what are you thinking? Assassinate is a rogue thing and should always stay a rogue thing. The devs would be stupid to change that. Yes it would open it up builds, but that would also make some people want to shy away from the rogue capstone as well as many other things.

Frankly, if the character isn't a rogue, the assassin stuff should be inferior. Otherwise you end up with Halfling Assassin doing nothing unless you're a Halfling Rogue with access to Assassin anyway.

I would liken these arguments to "why make a monk with stunning fist when you can make a cleric with stunning fist--the cleric can do everything the monk can and also heal" etc.

If I choose to make a halfling bard with racial assassin, I had better be able to land assassinate with a character-level-based DC. Otherwise, NO ONE will take the racial enhancement as it'd be useless.

Rogue levels will always provide some indispensable abilities that people will not ignore, and though we might see a fair few halfling assassins that aren't rogues running around (compare: cleric/monks and druid/monks), we'll still see a majority of rogue assassins.

This is a question of flexibility and creativity, not of invalidating a class.

[jakedamus]

The changes look good overall.
but... I will still go strength over dex.
Rogues still are going to have the same issues against anything that avoids sneak attacks (undead etc)
(pierce + slash aren't great against undead either.)
I am not saying they should make sneak attacks work on those. That is just the way it is for a rogue.

It seems to me if you want to solo effectively or be useful against undead you are still going to have to go strength.

I ran church and the cult for favor on my lvl 20 weapon finesse assassin and two zombies nearly killed me. lol
banging away with my disruption weapons waiting for a 20 is painful.

There is this:
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)

But undead are not intelligent? Some are such as vampire. Anyone tested this?