Please tell me your thoughts on the Assassin subclass. It seems kinda “meh” to me overall, which is why I’m asking for others’ opinions. Am I just missing something or underestimating it’s strengths?
Assassinate seems to be awesome if it happens, but only once per fight and then you have no feature. And that’s only if it actually happens at all.
Infiltration Expert and Impostor seem to be pretty good when applicable, but they only be useful in certain kinds of campaigns. And even then they seem like the types of features that leave the rest of the party out more often than not.
Death Strike seems like it has a lot of potential, but… it’s again only really useful once per battle, and only for some battles, not even most. And even if you can use it, there’s a Con save against it which is the most common save that most of the baddies will have at that level. That means that even on the rare occasions when you could use it, it’s likely not to work much if not most of the time.
Do I basically have that all right, or am I missing something? What do you think? Please let me know in the comments below, it will be much appreciated.
Yeah, I'd say it pretty 'meh'. In a campaign where you know that you can use Infilitration Expert a lot it will be worthwhile but most campaigns aren't like that. The same goes for the other abilities. It's not that they're once a combat that sucks, it's that they're so unreliable. If you really do want to play an Assassin, talk to your DM on what constitutes Surprise to know if it's worth it and also so you know how to get it.
If it's not your thing, just play a Thief or an Arcane Trickster. Or a Soulknife. ;)
Yeah, I remember starting that thread a while back when I was confused about this. Anyways, from the answers I got, I think Sposta's impression of Assassin is correct: Their only really useful feature is Assassinate, and basically everything else is a blank slate until you get to Death Strike, and even the latter has its flaws.
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Infiltration Afficionado is ridiculously powerful, especially once you reach level 11. Most of the abilities are ridiculously powerful on higher levels. Then again, it's top tier level play so if that's what you want, go for it.
I mean yeah the combination of advantage for you and disadvantage for others is super strong, but then again it's a purely out of combat feature on a strictly non-magic class so I don't think it would break anything, really. Meanwhile spell casters have access to literal brainwashing, invisibility, illusions and whatnot. Also it's a 9th level feature, it's allowed to be strong. You're near the end of most campaigns at that point and chances are many opportunities for that kind of feature already passed so you better get a lot out of it for the remaining few levels.
I mean yeah the combination of advantage for you and disadvantage for others is super strong, but then again it's a purely out of combat feature on a strictly non-magic class so I don't think it would break anything, really. Meanwhile spell casters have access to literal brainwashing, invisibility, illusions and whatnot. Also it's a 9th level feature, it's allowed to be strong. You're near the end of most campaigns at that point and chances are many opportunities for that kind of feature already passed so you better get a lot out of it for the remaining few levels.
Please tell me your thoughts on the Assassin subclass. It seems kinda “meh” to me overall, which is why I’m asking for others’ opinions. Am I just missing something or underestimating it’s strengths?
Assassinate seems to be awesome if it happens, but only once per fight and then you have no feature. And that’s only if it actually happens at all.
Infiltration Expert and Impostor seem to be pretty good when applicable, but they only be useful in certain kinds of campaigns. And even then they seem like the types of features that leave the rest of the party out more often than not.
Death Strike seems like it has a lot of potential, but… it’s again only really useful once per battle, and only for some battles, not even most. And even if you can use it, there’s a Con save against it which is the most common save that most of the baddies will have at that level. That means that even on the rare occasions when you could use it, it’s likely not to work much if not most of the time.
Do I basically have that all right, or am I missing something? What do you think? Please let me know in the comments below, it will be much appreciated.
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Yeah, I'd say it pretty 'meh'. In a campaign where you know that you can use Infilitration Expert a lot it will be worthwhile but most campaigns aren't like that. The same goes for the other abilities. It's not that they're once a combat that sucks, it's that they're so unreliable. If you really do want to play an Assassin, talk to your DM on what constitutes Surprise to know if it's worth it and also so you know how to get it.
If it's not your thing, just play a Thief or an Arcane Trickster. Or a Soulknife. ;)
There's already a thread with a whole 4 pages of discussion. No need for a second one, really.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/class-forums/rogue/139989-if-assassin-isnt-a-good-subclass-then-what-is
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
Ahh, thank you for that link! That’s exactly what I’m after. I looked for something like that, but must not have looked hard enough. The banks again.
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Yeah, I remember starting that thread a while back when I was confused about this. Anyways, from the answers I got, I think Sposta's impression of Assassin is correct: Their only really useful feature is Assassinate, and basically everything else is a blank slate until you get to Death Strike, and even the latter has its flaws.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
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HERE.Well, here’s my attempt to fix the assassin: (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/homebrew-house-rules/158888-fify-wotc-assassin). What do you think?
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Infiltration Afficionado is ridiculously powerful, especially once you reach level 11. Most of the abilities are ridiculously powerful on higher levels. Then again, it's top tier level play so if that's what you want, go for it.
Really? I didn’t think Infiltration Aficionado was all that bad, it was the higher level features I was worried about.
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I mean yeah the combination of advantage for you and disadvantage for others is super strong, but then again it's a purely out of combat feature on a strictly non-magic class so I don't think it would break anything, really. Meanwhile spell casters have access to literal brainwashing, invisibility, illusions and whatnot. Also it's a 9th level feature, it's allowed to be strong. You're near the end of most campaigns at that point and chances are many opportunities for that kind of feature already passed so you better get a lot out of it for the remaining few levels.
I've never encountered a forum where I got this many "talking to a wall" impressions as this one...
That’s kinda what I was thinking too.
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