assassin Archives - Tribality

The Assassin Class, Redux

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 14:00:40 +0000

In the Rogue Class, Part Five, I discussed the Assassin in broad terms, but didn’t have enough reference text to write about it in detail. I have since corrected this fault, with a copy of Dragon Magazine #379, with the original 4e Assassin, and Heroes of Shadow, with the Essentials version. The two are nearly unrelated in their mechanical conception of the class. That’s not uncommon in the Essentials reworks, but it’s quite pronounced here. (Rogue Part One, Part Two, […]

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The Rogue Class, Part Six

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 14:00:21 +0000

While there may be some additional articles in this series touching on rogues in D&D-like systems, this week I’m talking about the Rogue class of Fifth Edition. Up to this point, we’ve seen the class change from the Thief to the Rogue, lose its assumption of selfishness and even lawlessness (because the rogue turns out to be a great class for detective or inquisitorial work, as we see in 3.x), and turn from a combat-avoidant role to a strong contributor […]

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The Rogue Class, Part Five

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 14:00:42 +0000

In last week’s History of the Rogue, we saw the shift from fragile rogues who should stay clear of combat as much as possible to agile murder-machine rogues. This shift isn’t to everyone’s taste, but I think for most people it makes the rogue feel more like an action hero, on par with fighters, barbarians, and so on. It’s a good class choice for a swashbuckler – and 4e takes that idea and runs with it. (Part One, Part Two, […]

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The Rogue Class, Part Four

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 14:00:40 +0000

At last we come to the watershed moment of the Thief’s Rogue’s development, and I don’t just mean the name change. Up to this point, thieves have a role in combat, but that role is “mostly try to stay away, you’re terrible at combat unless you’re backstabbing.” That approach didn’t fit the source fiction when it was first implemented (cf. Gray Mouser); I’d argue that the thieves who were terrible at combat in the source fiction were terrible for reasons […]

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The Rogue Class, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 13:30:22 +0000

Last week in the History of the Classes, the 1e Thief, Assassin, and Thief-Acrobat came under our all-seeing eyes. This week we turn to 2e, where the Assassin and the Acrobat are kits presented in the Complete Thief’s Handbook rather than classes unto themselves. There’s also a Ninja class, presented in the Complete Ninja’s Handbook; it was one of the stranger evils visited upon 2e’s rules. I’m aware that many of you sadists would just love to see me analyze […]

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The Rogue Class, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:00:56 +0000

Last time in History of the Classes, I talked about a few iterations of OD&D thieves. Now we’re on to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons thieves, as well as their close kin – assassins and thief-acrobats. The changes to the Thief itself are quite scant, but I will analyze these small changes like whoa. Let’s get to it. (Part One) AD&D’s Thief One of the first things the text tells us about the thief is that they are pretty useless in […]

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