Assassin

While anyone can kill for money, that does not make them an Assassin. In fact, few would be so bold as to self proclaim that name upon themselves, for in the Realm of Strife Assassins are a truly exceptional class of individuals who tightly guard their secrets. Operating in secrecy, Assassins are highly skilled at striking their prey from hiding, leaving them debilitated or dead, without even knowing whom or what has brought about their demise. That is unless they are being paid to send a clear message, in which case their victims will die knowing all too well whom they have wronged. Regardless of task at hand, a true assassin does not become personally involved with their marks, generally taking a cold and detached approach to the business of death.

In plying their trade, Assassins will use any and all tools at their disposal to ensure the job is completed in a professional and timely manner. Further setting them apart from your average street enforcer is their ability to supplement their impressive array of skills with magic. Viewing the Spiritual powers as an effective tool for completing a contract, their approach is a utilitarian one. Assassins most often use Spirit powers to mask their presence, assist in infiltration, or to disable those that stand between them and their mark. Only rarely will an Assassin resort to using flashy Spirit powers in an offensive nature, preferring for their work to be discreet and unnoticed above all else, until it is too late.

Class Overview

Typical Roles: Support/Utility, Stealth, Melee Damage, Ranged Damage
Damage Types: Physical, Spirit (Arcane, Elemental, Natural)
Class Mechanic: Spirit and Stealth

Default Stats: During Character Creation you may choose to use the default stat line shown below, before racial modifiers. This can be instead of rolling for stats, or if after rolling ten sets of stats you don’t like the results.

Proficiencies

Natural Armor Proficiency: Cloth
Trainable Armor Proficiency: Leather
Natural Weapon Proficiency: Knives, Bows
Trainable Weapon Proficiency: Swords, Hand Weapons, Crossbows, Firearms

See Equipment section for details. When using a weapon that your class is not proficient with, see Combat Penalties. There is no level or title prerequisite to train in a new proficiency, however you must receive the appropriate Training.

Class Skills

Class Passive Skill: Utility Caster
Class Secondary Skill: (choose one) Bounty Hunter, Acrobat, or Weapon Specialist (of Assassins’s choice)
note: If wishing to specialize in a weapon type that the Assassin does not have as a starting proficiency, you may save the point to be spend at a later date

Primary Skills

Spirit

Guild Law

For the individual Assassin, following the Laws of Magic is of far less importance than following Guild Law. It is typically the Assassin’s Guild which dictates an adherence to the Laws of Magic, and by extension enforces this adherence within its own members. Due to the secretive and clandestine nature of Assassin’s Guilds, it is not unknown for a Guild to secretly possess knowledge of more than one School of Magic, however this would be a closely guarded secret (perhaps even guarded from its own lower ranking members). If the Mage Warden’s were to learn of Guild that took a relaxed approach to the Laws of Magic, they would not hesitate to bring their full force to bear against them. It could be debated who would win such a conflict, but ultimately it would draw unwanted attention to the Guild and as such, most Guilds do not deviate from the Laws of Magic.

From a practical standpoint, assume that Guild Law dictates that for all Tiers, an Assassin must only learn powers from a single School of Magic.

Preparation or Failure

Regardless if they claim their motives are nefarious or noble, all Assassin’s Guilds share one thing in common: their business is death. Their approach to the spiritual arts is a pragmatic one; magic is simply one of many tools available to complete a contract. As such, they approach learning new spirit powers as preparation before entering the field to pursue a mark. While similar in many ways to the academic approach of Mages, Battlemages, and Wizards who study magic for its own ends, the Assassin studies their mark. By identifying the challenges they will face in pursuing their mark, they can then prepare by learning the powers they feel will be most useful to complete the task at hand. Some powers of course are almost universally useful as an Assassin.

Once in the field however, it is forbidden by Guild Law for Assassins to revise or modify the powers at their disposal. This would be an indication that they were ill prepared for their task, and thus not worthy to be called an Assassin. No self respecting Assassin would ever carry tomes of magic or books on spiritual knowledge into the field, and once back with their Guild, they would have no need for them as the Guilds resources would invariably be more robust.

Guild Library

Every Assassin’s Guild maintains a fully stocked library containing the resources to master and memorize any spirit power from the School of Magic they adhere to. This is a communal resource for members in good-standing and thus when an Assassin does decide to learn a power, they would do so at their Guild Library. Once an Assassin has determined that a particular power would be of use, they would go to their Guild Library to obtain a source of knowledge for that power. The source would typically be either a scroll containing a single spirit power or a tome containing many powers (often entire Tiers or disciplines).

Obtaining sources would almost always be done with the Guild’s permission. Any attempt to learn the power would typically be made in a controlled environment and under the supervision of a more senior member of the guild. Any Guild Member caught side stepping these rules, would be severely punished, expelled from the guild, or perhaps executed.

To learn a power (thus becoming “known” to the Assassin) the Assassin would obtain the source from the Guild Library, and spend at least a half-rest memorizing the prescribed incantations and practicing the gestures required for that power. Once prepared they would then attempt to cast that power, expending the necessary amount of Spirit and requiring them to pass an Intellect test at -1 Intellect per Tier of the power.

• If failing: They would not learn the power and the source would be destroyed, with any damage and/or negative effects inflicted upon the caster or a nearby (unintended) target
• If succeeding: The power works as intended and is now available in the memory of the caster, and can now be used at will while it remains in the caster’s memory
• Alternately: If supervised by a more senior member or guild trainer, a failed stat test may be re-rolled and any failure would be contained without destroying the source

There is a limit to the number of powers that can be known to a Assassin, depending on their level (see Level Ups table below). If that limit has been reached, learning another power would force a previous one out of the casters memory, effectively over-writing it.

Subtle Incantations

While casting methods for the Spiritual Arts universally require both audible incantations of some kind, paired with physical moves or gestures, this is problematic for Assassins. Grand gestures, flashy spell effects, and forceful words do not serve their purposes. Their craft requires silence and subtlety, lest they draw attention to themselves or give away their position. To address this, Assassin’s practice long and hard to master the art of subtle incantations.

This method does not remove the need for for vocalization, but instead reduces it to a barely audible whisper, sometimes referred to as the Silent Tongue. Likewise, casting gestures are made with minimal movement and typically utilize less noticeable parts of the body (i.e. a minute flick of finger instead of a sweeping gesture of an arm). A well practiced Assassin’s subtle incantations and gestures will likely go unnoticed by anyone not trained to look for them.

Stealth

On of the Assassin’s greatest tools is the art of Stealth, allowing them to strike unseen, with little evidence of having ever been there. Except of course for the mark lying dead on the floor. Assassin’s follow the standard rules for Stealth classes and Learning New Stealth Skills.

Stealth Costs for Assassin’s are as follows:

• All offensive or aggressive Stealth actions reduce Stealth by 2 prior to taking a Stealth Test
• All offensive or aggressive Stealth instants reduce Stealth by 1 prior to taking a Stealth Test
• Increase the Stealth cost by 1 if the offensive or aggressive instant or action is NOT a Stealth skill (i.e. a regular attack action)
• All regular movement reduces Stealth by 1 per tabletop inch moved prior to taking a Stealth Test

Assassin’s have the following restrictions for Stealth Disciplines:

• Primary Discipline: Assassination
• Available Disciplines: Thievery, Dirty Fighting, Suppression, Subterfuge
• Forbidden Disciplines: Sabotage, Survival

Upon character creation, Assassins’s automatically gain the following Stealth skills (prior to applying level ups):

• Study Prey (Rank I)
• Apply Poison (Rank I)

To learn new stealth skills require training unless they are upgrades (i.e. Rank1 Stealth Shot -> Rank2 Stealth Shot). Training is typically facilitated in secret, through an Assassin’s Guild.

Level Ups

Assassins use the following chart for levelling up:

HP Dice (Slight): Small Race (1d6), Medium Race (1d8), Large Race (1d10)