Assassin



Obsidian has confirmed that the assassin prestige class will be included in NWN2.

DnD 3.5 Assassin
Description: The assassin is a master of dealing quick, lethal blows. Assassins often function as spies, informants, killers for hire, or agents of vengeance. Their skill in a variety of dark arts allows them to carry out missions of death with shocking, terrifying precision. Rogues, monks, and bards are ideal candidates to become assassins.

Requirements
Alignment: Any evil

Skill ranks: Disguise 4, Hide 8, Move silently 8

Special: The character must kill someone for no other reason than to join the assassins.

Hide in plain sight restriction
Assassins can only use hide in plain sight while within 10 feet of some sort of shadow. He cannot, however, hide in his own shadow.

Poison save
The assassin gains a natural saving throw bonus to all poisons gained at 2nd level that increases by +1 for every two additional levels the assassin gains.

Death Attack
If an assassin studies his victim for 3 rounds and then makes a sneak attack with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly either paralyzing or killing the target (assassin's choice). While studying the victim, the assassin can undertake other actions so long as his attention stays focused on the target and the target does not detect the assassin or recognize the assassin as an enemy. If the victim of such an attack fails a fortitude save (DC 10 + the assassin’s class level + the assassin’s int modifier) against the kill effect, she dies. If the saving throw fails against the paralysis effect, the victim is rendered helpless and unable to act for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round per level of the assassin. If the victim’s saving throw succeeds, the attack is just a normal sneak attack. Once the assassin has completed the 3 rounds of study, he must make the death attack within the next 3 rounds.

If a death attack is attempted and fails (the victim makes her save) or if the assassin does not launch the attack within 3 rounds of completing the study, 3 new rounds of study are required before he can attempt another death attack.

Spells
Beginning at 1st level, an assassin gains the ability to cast a number of arcane spells. To cast a spell, an assassin must have an intelligence score of at least 10 + the spell’s level, so an assassin with an intelligence of 10 or lower cannot cast these spells. Assassin bonus spells are based on intelligence, and saving throws against these spells have a DC of 10 + spell level + the assassin’s intelligence bonus. When the assassin gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his intelligence score for that spell level.

An assassin casts spells just as a bard does.

Upon reaching 6th level, at every even-numbered level after that (8th and 10th), an assassin can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level assassin spell the assassin can cast. An assassin may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for that level.

Spell progression
* Provided the assassin has sufficient intelligence to have a bonus spell of this level.

1st Level

 * Disguise self
 * Detect poison
 * Feather fall
 * Ghost sound
 * Jump
 * Obscuring mist
 * Sleep
 * True strike

2nd Level

 * Alter self
 * Cat's grace
 * Darkness
 * Fox's cunning
 * Illusory script
 * Invisibility
 * Pass without trace
 * Spider climb
 * Undetectable alignment.

3rd Level

 * Deep slumber
 * Deeper darkness
 * False life
 * Magic circle against good
 * Misdirection
 * Nondetection

4th Level

 * Clairaudience/clairvoyance
 * Dimension door
 * Freedom of movement
 * Glibness
 * Greater invisibility
 * Locate creature
 * Modify memory
 * Poison

NWN comparison

 * Assassins in NWN were not proper spellcasters, only able to use a few spells as basic feats.
 * The NWN death attack was incorporated as the assassin sneak attack ability (a separate sneak attack ability was not given). The first death attack would only provide a chance of paralysis but did not require the 3 round study period.
 * Assassins did not get Hide in plain sight as a bonus feat.

External resources

 * NWNWiki:Assassin