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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 4:31AM
#11
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I'm still curious why Bard, Monk, Barbarian, Sorcerer are not getting Essentialized.
Aside from that and on topic, this playtest does intrigue me. I have a player interested in Assassin for DDE3 and I think I'll request he use this playtest so that we can all get a look at how it plays and integrates with a group, particularly a full group.
I'm enjoying the additional perspective of class designs available through Essentials, but I am dismayed that Cleric thusfar is the only leader. Though Druid will be a leader, I think that 4e brought in additional classes that are archetypal even if they are not from the original classics.
Despite the original plan of only developing 10 Essentials products, I'd be pleased to see additional archetypal classes given this new perspective of designing a class. It could really create a wide variety of material to draw upon for creating campaigns. The Essentials are also an easy way to create a few stock NPC classes that are quick to build and easy to manage from behind the screen. It would be fascinating to see Warrior, Adept, Aristocrat, Expert, Commoner developed for generic NPCs that one might run across and occassionally include in adventures.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 5:01AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2006
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Problems though: You can only gain 15th level poisons (seems to be the equivalent of normal Assassin dailies) via the Paragon Executioner path.
Also it's unclear if you get a level 16 utility if you don't paragon into Paragon Executioner (could just be a common feature of Essentials Paragons).
Not all the paragon tier features are tied to the paragon path. The ones that do are marked as Guild executioner paragon path feature in the writeup, and (guild executioner) in the paragon tier table. So Advanced Poisons (the feature granting 15th level poisons) and the level 16 utility wouldn't go anywhere if you took a different path.
As I gather, a Slayer can eventually get 4 uses of Power Strike for 3[W], so 12[W] spread out. An Assassin gets 7d10, but it is in one burst, but I'm sure somebody can do the math on that.
I don't have the Slayer in front of me, but does the 4th use of Power Strike come from the slayer paragon path? If that were the case, the difference wouldn't be so pronounced, given that Assassin's Strike gains an extra 2d10 from the assassin path. Anyway, concentrated damage is usually more valuable than damage spread out across turns, particularly since it makes it easier to exploit maximized dice from critical hits or coups de grace.
Finally, I'd like to mention that I've fallen deeply in love with the Death Attack feature. I think it more than makes up for the boring +d6 to damage feature, as it truly turns you into an Executioner. Damage-wise, it's probably worth around 5 extra damage / tier each time it triggers (since enemies should have anywhere from 1 to 10 damage at heroic, you can average), so it's nothing to sneeze at, either.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 5:01AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2008
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One of my fellow players asked if I'd had a look at the Essential Assassin, so I came here to have a look and hree is what I thought. Keeping in mind I'm quite against Essentials to begin with as nothing I have seen thrills me overly much. Most of it harkens back to 3.5e and throws away so much of what I liked about 4th ed (e.g. the parcel system).
Attack Finesse
Great so I get melee training for free.
Quick Swap
Awesome, I get yet another feat for free. So at level 1 I get two free feats. Oh wait a minute. No I don't. I only get 1 feat for free. The other feat is preselected for me. So instead of getting to chose a feat I want, I'm instead forced to take quick draw. That gives me so much more customisability.
Assassin's Guilds
I actually approve of these in general. They appear to encourage players to use non-standard weapons which always adds variety. However for my "assassin" in particular, I'm not a member of a guild. I'm a member of a secret temple to the Raven Queen. So any flavour this might have introduced is made moot immediately.
Assassin's Strike
So instead of "studying an enemy" which I've had quite a bit of fun with and sunk a few feats into it to add flavour and utility, I get a single encounter power. I can see why the Essential assassin is called "martial". Apparently its inherited some of the fighter's boring by giving the players little to no choices.
Ki Focus
This is about the only thing I actually recognise from 4th ed Assassin's.
Conclusion
Some interesting elements, but most of it is bland. Where my assassin has quite flavourful powers (reaching into his own shadow to pull out a noose) and also has powers which introduce interesting roleplaying opportunities and tactical choices (keeping a monster busy by turning invisible and the monster then rampaging through the room looking for me), the Essential version offers me some bland options that while it might do more damage, isn't as much fun to roleplay.
Given how much people complain about how the assassin isn't a real striker (I certainly have fun with my assassin), I was interested to see how they updated it. But they haven't actually updated the 4th ed Assassin. They've simply created a new class and tacked on the same name. This only affirms my dislike for Essentials and my decision to stick with 4th ed instead of moving onto the new edition.
And it is a new edition. They've swapped out any and all references to the PHB and replaced it with Essentials books which are suppose to be optional rather than required.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 5:33AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Aug 24, 2005
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I've linked to this thread as the official discussion thread for this article. If you choose to create a thread before I do it, thats fine. But please try to follow the model we've established for initializing an article discussion thread. Thank you   Dragon 391
Essentials Assassin: A Player's Essentials Playtest Classby Rodney Thompson Meet the executioner assassin—30 levels of back-stabbing, poison-wielding excitement. Talk about this Article here. 
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 5:42AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Jun 29, 2003
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Meh, I seem to be unable to bring myself to read the class in detail due to the Essentials format(whether that i because of a fault of the format or my own personal grudge I don't know). So about the only thing I can comment on is my dislike of the idea of a dual power source class and or build, but I'm clearly not the target audience of WotC anymore, so I doubt they give a damn about my feelings on that. *sigh*
Mostly agreed, and I've otherwise been generally excited about the Essential classes/builds. The formating is just a pain to read through. The constant intro texts in front of every single power is just a distraction from the meat of the class. Having to reprint features at each tier to increment their damage instead of just laying the progression out when it is first gained makes judging the class's overall potential difficult. Finally, I do not need basic advancement rules, like stat increases, included in class progression, even for newbie players that seems like excessive hand holding.
As for the duel power source, I'm not really in favor of it, but I'm not greatly opposed either. However, I am sorely disappointed by this new Assassin, who seems to have lost most of what made him special. Stripped of most of his shadow magic he seems more like a modified slayer/thief than a new build of the original class.
The only thing I truely like is the daily poisons instead of daily attacks, though I can't shake the feeling that they would have made a better pseudo-class (like spellscared) than an actual class specific feature. However, only a single encounter power even if it is really powerful bugs me, and I'm not sure Death Attack and extra at-wills make up the difference.
Not all the paragon tier features are tied to the paragon path. The ones that do are marked as Guild executioner paragon path feature in the writeup, and (guild executioner) in the paragon tier table. So Advanced Poisons (the feature granting 15th level poisons) and the level 16 utility wouldn't go anywhere if you took a different path.
Yeah that's definitely a big problem I have with the Essential presentation format. Beyond the needless repetition and bloated descriptive text, having the paragon path built directly into the class progression makes it difficult to tell what's what with only a cursory glance. The labels help, but are easily missed as they tend to disappear into the overall blurred haze of text.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 5:58AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2007
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Attack Finesse
Great so I get melee training for free.
Quick Swap
Awesome, I get yet another feat for free. So at level 1 I get two free feats. Oh wait a minute. No I don't. I only get 1 feat for free. The other feat is preselected for me. So instead of getting to chose a feat I want, I'm instead forced to take quick draw. That gives me so much more customisability.
Can you explain this? You get the equivalent 2 free feats and one of your choice at first level. Im not sure where you are getting the preselected feat form.
 Never Point a loaded party at a plot you are not willing to shoot. Arcane Rhetoric. My Blog.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 6:26AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2006
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Not all the paragon tier features are tied to the paragon path. The ones that do are marked as Guild executioner paragon path feature in the writeup, and (guild executioner) in the paragon tier table. So Advanced Poisons (the feature granting 15th level poisons) and the level 16 utility wouldn't go anywhere if you took a different path.
Yeah that's definitely a big problem I have with the Essential presentation format. Beyond the needless repetition and bloated descriptive text, having the paragon path built directly into the class progression makes it difficult to tell what's what with only a cursory glance. The labels help, but are easily missed as they tend to disappear into the overall blurred haze of text.
Perhaps some kind of color coding would help here? Just a bit of different color for the paragon path features might be enough to tell them apart at first glance.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 7:29AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Jun 13, 2008
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I'm with others on the not a big fan of the Essentials layout. It works for the red box, and for these books. But I really hope once we're past Essentials they go back to more like the old layout. Just to further clarify, I love the material, just not the presentation. Here's the feedback though, that I sent on the Assassin in particular: Feedback Submitted
Show
Increase in Hit Points is good, it'd be nice if this applied to the original assassin as well.
Assassin's Strike, I don't think needs the helpless information, since it's just reiterating what you do with a Coup de Grace action.
Proficiency in Unarmed attacks does not exist as far as I know.. Or at least there's no proficiency bonus for it, so it has no meaning. Which means Unarmed Throw is effectively Implement vs. AC attack, so its going to be very inaccurate most of the time, should be reflex, or there needs to be some improved unarmed attack proficiency (similar to the Monk's Unarmed Strike)
Unseen Spearhead I foresee lots of problems, since by treating them as helpless you can Coup de Grace, which is auto-crit, which equals insane damage (especially given the encounter power to max all those d10 dice). Imagine Crit-Fisher builds, that no longer have to fish.
Poisons applying until an extended rest, are a good idea, but might lead to some odd things. It'll put a lot on the DM to either outright disallow their use in some cases, or the assassin will be trying to figure out on any preplanned fight how to get the poison ingested by the BBEG.
Flawless Disguise - If the Assassin isn't trained in bluff... this is worth less than an additional skill training would be.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 7:33AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2006
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Some interesting elements, but most of it is bland. Where my assassin has quite flavourful powers (reaching into his own shadow to pull out a noose) and also has powers which introduce interesting roleplaying opportunities and tactical choices (keeping a monster busy by turning invisible and the monster then rampaging through the room looking for me), the Essential version offers me some bland options that while it might do more damage, isn't as much fun to roleplay.
+50. I'll keep my shrouds and shadow powers. To me, this iteration of the Assassin takes away everything that was exciting. Now, it's just another damage maxxer like the Avenger. Plus, this type of assassin always struck me more as a rogue, anyway.
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3 years ago ::
Sep 17, 2010 - 7:34AM
#20
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2004
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Ok, I just double checked, and you guys are wrong. Advanced poison is not tied to a paragon path feature, which means all assassins gain access to it. The only powers in the article which are labeled as paragon path features are blindside, devastating assassination, executioners action, daring escape, vital strike, and poisoners secrets (which come at the regular levels for paragon features, at 11, 12, 16, and 20).
I really like almost all the mechanics of the class. The ki foci works well to allow the class easy bonuses to hit and damage (via feats) to all weapons. This class is very much about regularly switching up the weapons it uses in order to use the best weapon for any given job. The fact that all of its at-wills are tied to a different weapon really gets that feel across! And using poisons for daily powers, and shadow abilities for utility powers, really helps to peg the flavor and feel of this class. It is great! I love it!
However, there is one thing I really HATE about this class. In terms of poisons, it has too few options. I mean, it gets the right amount of poisons, and the right amount of options in terms of what it can use while it is being played. But it gets very few poisons to choose from after its batch of 1st level poisons. If I counted right, of its epic level poisons it will eventually be forced to choose all three of them. It learns 3 25th level poison recipes by 30th level, but only 3 25th level poison recipies exist! That is REALLY lame.
What this class needs to polish it off is more poison options. 4e does not need a return to the days of 3e where you got "4 different options" at 4 different levels, but only 4 options to choose from total (which means you never really got a different option, just a choice at which levels you would gain which options). Please, create more level 15 and 25 poison options in order to give this build more replay value. There should always be a few poisons you are forced not to gain in order to choose the ones you do gain. That gives a class more replay value.
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