Why Assassins are awesome!!!

[squeen]

Top of my Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1725622839875678479

I've decided that if I ever create my own blog/podcast/zine/whatever, I think I may name it "Your Paladin sucks!". The name came to me while working on a new drawing---a counterpoint to "A Paladin in Hell".

Inspired or too inflammatory?

In case the holiday week gets away from me, Happy Thanksgiving folks.

 

[Beoric]

@squeen, maybe you should name it "A Paladin Is Hell."

 

[Malrex]

Happy Thanksgiving!
An interesting question. I think they would need to abide by both, but the 'god' trumps land laws in my opinion.
Right there---that could take the paladin out of several dungeons/adventures. They shouldn't want to loot some random place for gold...instead they would want to root out a Blood Cult and claim their paladin horse *cough* The Red Prophet Rises.

I guess I see a fighter--more like a knight loyal to their king/leader, who would take the land laws above any deities. It could depend on the campaign though.

I understand it can be different at other people's table---but at the table I play at---I don't give a shit what anyone else says, playing a paladin is a complete pain in the ass and hardly any fun, let alone overpowered. My DM uses the tools provided to him...so if you are a complete goody 2-shoes, then it might be fun, but I can handle about 4 sessions before I wish I was playing something else. Definitely not worth all the ("overpowered") quirks.

And...relating to that, I do say, I am definitely a strong believer in 3d6 for stats. Recently we started play-testing Coppercore again. We did 3d6 stats for 0-level characters and 3d6 stats +4d6 for your top 3 choices for abilities for 1st level characters. I rolled complete shit, which I can't remember all of them but:
S 5
I 9?
W 11?
D 7
Con 5
Chr 14
Per 8?
Comeliness 17

So, I'm playing a noblewoman (rolled great for that!) who is completely stunning and wealthy, but pretty much sucks at everything--so she tries to get others to do everything for her. My other character rolled a 4 intelligence and I call him Dented Dan as he wears a dented helmet.....these 2 are the most fun to roleplay, lol! Way more fun than playing a Paladin who gets judged on every action they take.

 

[The1True]

S 5
I 9?
W 11?
D 7
Con 5
Chr 14
Per 8?
Comeliness 17

these stats make me feel lightheaded and nauseous
ditto for almost every premade at the back of every Basic adventure ever.
Congratulations, you've found the holy symbol necessary to Turn Late-edition Munchkin

hissssss

 

[squeen]

@The1True : Aww. Come on! The stats don't make the PC in OD&D/AD&D. They just aren't that important.

@Malrex : What class is "noble woman"? Also...Per and Comeliness? Gag.

 

[grodog]

I like assassins, and two players have them as PCs in my current game—one an olven assassin, the other a half-orc fighter/assassin (who’s from The Horned Society).

In fact, the half-orc used his disguise ability on Saturday night to try to fool fighting-retreating goblins to stand their ground (so that they could be slaughtered more quickly/easily). I gave him a 70% success chance (which failed when rolled), but thought it was an interesting application of disguise you don’t see too often—mimicry!

I’m also playing a paladin of Wee Jas in The Dungeon Delver’s Monday nights Greyhawk campaign, and while I enjoy the PC and the role-playing opportunities she brings to the table, it may be the last time I ever choose to play a paladin again—the class advancement rate is sooooo slooooooooooow that we’ll be done with the Giants modules before I’m level 9, probably….

Allan.

 

[Johnny F. Normal]

On Carcosa everyone gets down with human sacrifice. It's just a matter of whom you gut like a pig.
The paladin and assassin are perhaps just the two sides of a coin.
The wrath of god may come as gleaming steel or a glint in the dark.
I played the avenger class (4th ed.) as the space between the two sides of zealotry, he was nuts but still understood how cooperation with 'others' was beneficial to the big picture.

David Byrne taught us not to get hung up by big jackets why do we allow alignment to gum shit up?


...ya late to the party.

 

[Malrex]

@The1True : Aww. Come on! The stats don't make the PC in OD&D/AD&D. They just aren't that important.

@Malrex : What class is "noble woman"? Also...Per and Comeliness? Gag.

You gag at one of my only good rolls for a stat? lol. Bah!

She is a 0-level right now who has somehow survived her first 'adventure'---basically a mining cave-in that opened up a dungeon. Daddy wanted her to learn a honest days work...Was supposed to be like a funnel adventure that set the scene for the real heroes (our 1st level guys who will arrive later I think), but our 0-level dudes (hp of 3 and 2 for Dented Dan) rolled really lucky. Even Dented Dan rolled a 20 and took out a kobold. But Ihlvasa, my noblewoman of poor strength and health...I think I may make her a warlock due to her Charisma or maybe a thief who focuses on Pick Pocket. We have shamans and warlocks in our campaign (clerics are super rare this far north and sometimes killed on sight as the people here pray to the spirits/animal totems and detest the old gods). Shamans work together with spirits for their spells, and warlocks use and abuse spirits for their magic sometimes turning them into banngeists (evil spirits), so shamans and warlocks hate each other and on either side of the coin (like paladins and assassins). She seems pretty useless but if she can get Charm Person, Strength, and other buff spells, as well as having others do her bidding, maybe she will make it. I still cant believe I rolled that crappy. Sorry to deter from assassins are awesome...but fun to play again (was DMing and playtesting Vermilion for the past year).

 

[squeen]

I have been thinking about magic-users and clerics and the potential for ubiquitous magic in my campaign world. Sorry if I mentioned this before, but I think I am going with the ability to channel magic and/or have divine favor as something only a small percentage of the population can achieve. Not infinitesimal, but 1-2% ish. What that practically means is that not everyone 0-level PC/NPC can be simply trained into becoming a MU/Cleric. You also need the "gift".

Of course, if you roll up your PC, and choose that class you are golden. It just means you just can't grab any old Joe off the street and make them your apprentice. No "army of wizards", etc.

 

[Beoric]

these stats make me feel lightheaded and nauseous
ditto for almost every premade at the back of every Basic adventure ever.
Congratulations, you've found the holy symbol necessary to Turn Late-edition Munchkin

hissssss

Stat inflation is an illusion. It makes players feel like their character is tougher, but if NPCs use the same metric, the PCs' relative positions have not changed. If everyone has better stats, then effectively nobody does.

The default stat determination in 4e gives all PCs, NPCs (and monsters, more or less) an average of a +1 bonus in every stat. "Oooh, stats too high, snowflake players can't hack it!" I hear. But really, it is still a level playing field.

 

[Malrex]

I have been thinking about magic-users and clerics and the potential for ubiquitous magic in my campaign world. Sorry if I mentioned this before, but I think I am going with the ability to channel magic and/or have divine favor as something only a small percentage of the population can achieve. Not infinitesimal, but 1-2% ish. What that practically means is that not everyone 0-level PC/NPC can be simply trained into becoming a MU/Cleric. You also need the "gift".

Of course, if you roll up your PC, and choose that class you are golden. It just means you just can't grab any old Joe off the street and make them your apprentice. No "army of wizards", etc.

I prefer the low magic campaign. We DO have a lot to choose from--mage, specialist mage, warlock, sorcerer (sorcerer you are born with it), and cleric, druid, shaman....then we have the bard that can be arcane, divine, or have a special bardic ability of being able to cast both divine or arcane but can never change their spells. But all spellcasters have some drawbacks in Jon's campaign. Mages may be killed on sight as everyone distrusts magic, warlocks are generally evil or misunderstood, and sorcerers are born with the talent and think they are cursed. Clerics--again, driven off or killed, druids are welcomed, and shamans are the normal. Cleric and druid are pretty 'normal' but we tried to make how you get your magic different and in the case of shamans and warlocks, it could almost be viewed as treasure because you either need to find a spirit or banngeist which has 'divine spheres' or schools of arcane during your travels to gain power. Maybe a bit fluffy for some, but we enjoy it.
But after all that, we have all fighters and thieves in our group with one NPC druid.

 

[EOTB]

The paladin apparently isn't a D&D class, it's a Rorschach Test.

(Any definition given to something in D&D that precludes core gameplay function it's shown to have in published materials is ipso facto a personal idiosyncrasy of the interpreter. There is not one single archetypal class in D&D that would spend time in dungeons full of monsters and treasure if limited to their non-D&D archetypes.)

(Nor would they likely ever form a team of any sort.)

 

[squeen]

The paladin apparently isn't a D&D class, it's a Rorschach Test.

Quite. I very much like the paladin as NPCs. I also very much dislike like the NBA (American basketball). I'll allow you to connect the dots.

 

[grodog]

Stat inflation is an illusion. It makes players feel like their character is tougher, but if NPCs use the same metric, the PCs' relative positions have not changed. If everyone has better stats, then effectively nobody does.

In AD&D 1e, they’re not really equal: on page 100 in the DMG, NPCs get stat bonuses by race and class in addition to those already provided in the PHB. I assume this because so many NPCs end up fighting a PC party solo, but I’m not sure. Could just be a sign of the stat inflation times

I pencilled into my copy some tweaks:
- humans get a free-range 0-3 bonus stat points; roll 1d6; 4-6 = 0 bonus points)
- half-orcs get 0-2 points: 1d6: 1-3 = 0, 4-5 = +1, 6 = +2
- half-elves: 1d6: 1 = 0, 2-4 = +1, 5-6 = +2

Allan

 

[Beoric]

In AD&D 1e, they’re not really equal: on page 100 in the DMG, NPCs get stat bonuses by race and class in addition to those already provided in the PHB. I assume this because so many NPCs end up fighting a PC party solo, but I’m not sure. Could just be a sign of the stat inflation times

I pencilled into my copy some tweaks:
- humans get a free-range 0-3 bonus stat points; roll 1d6; 4-6 = 0 bonus points)
- half-orcs get 0-2 points: 1d6: 1-3 = 0, 4-5 = +1, 6 = +2
- half-elves: 1d6: 1 = 0, 2-4 = +1, 5-6 = +2

Allan

I suspect this is just a DM shortcut, since PC chargen in 1e starts with stats, then chooses class based on them, so primaries will tend to be a bit higher. Plus they get a bump from the various ability score generation methods.

OTOH, NPCs usually start with race and class, then determine stats, so Gygax may have seen a need to compensate/streamline for on the fly NPC creation. The bumps are to scores, not bonuses, so a lot of the time it would have made no difference. Are these meant to be used with a specific rolling method per DMG p. 11? Who knows, Gygax didn't think to tell us, it is just as likely he meant it for 3d6 in order.

 

[Hemlock]

I suspect this is just a DM shortcut, since PC chargen in 1e starts with stats, then chooses class based on them, so primaries will tend to be a bit higher. Plus they get a bump from the various ability score generation methods.

Plus Darwinian selection raises the average stats: the median-stats PC probably dies or retires long before reaching high level, unless they find an improbably-awesome magic item early on.

But the NPC stats in many published sourcebooks are still ridiculously inflated, with way too many 17s, 18s, 15s, and 16s.

 

[Beoric]

Plus Darwinian selection raises the average stats: the median-stats PC probably dies or retires long before reaching high level, unless they find an improbably-awesome magic item early on.

But the NPC stats in many published sourcebooks are still ridiculously inflated, with way too many 17s, 18s, 15s, and 16s.

I think I read once that, on average, 4d6 drop one gives a spread similar to 3e point buy (and just slightly less than 4e point buy). If you add the DMG NPC bumps onto that you could get stats in that range.

 

[The1True]

We used the insane Unearthed Arcana dice array well into 3rd Edition. Everyone got sick of it and we went back to 7x3d6 dump the shittiest stat, but everyone was unhappy with their characters (and understandibly suspicious of the one guy with Paladin stats). Like Hemlock said, you can have fun with your mediocre build for 4 or 5 levels, but they're just not going to make it to heroic levels. If you're planning for the long term, you need to build characters with at least one extraordinary prime stat.

god. now I'm remembering the agony of trying to work a fighter character through the percentiles of an 18 Str, 10% at a time with wishes and other junk.

 

[Hemlock]

Just for fun, here's four 3d6-in-order arrays for AD&D 2e and what I'd do with them and how long I'd play them:

Str 10 Dex 8 Con 11 Int 13 Wis 9 Cha 16. Reminds me of Duke Edmund Blackadder. I'd make him a wizard with a lot of henchmen, and play him until he died or ran out of henchmen.

Str 7 Dex 5 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 7 Cha 14. This feels like Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, but physically clumsy. The only options are wizard and 0th level NPC. I'd play him briefly and then likely lose interest, because the character just doesn't interest me as much as Blackadder despite similar stats.

Str 8 Dex 10 Con 6 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 9. Boy I'm getting tired of wizards, so... for a change, I'd make this guy an elven thief/mage with an impulse-buying habit and a lot of debt. I'd play him until he dies or reaches 10th level or so and then retire him. (If I'd gone with my first idea for him, "yet another wizard", I would have given up on him after a single adventure but I like the thief synergy in this case.) Since he's the glassiest of glass cannons, keeping him alive at all would be a challenge, but he's too chronically-in-debt to retire.

Str 9 Dex 15 Con 16 Int 11 Wis 4 Cha 13. Feels like a very brash fighter modeled on one of the Three Musketeers. Longsword specialist, dual weapon wielder with ambidexterity and no ability to say no to a lady in distress. Lots of rash vows. I'd play him up to 9th level or so unless he died first.

 

[The1True]

Str 9 Dex 15 Con 16 Int 11 Wis 4 Cha 13

dude, that last one's such a Thief and you know it. This is the only one even slightly approaching survivable ability scores.
No judgment; I'm legitimately curious: Do you (or anyone here) play in a gaming group where players expect every campaign to peter out before name level?
I can see the fun in seeing how far you can get with what the gods gave you (although, haven't we all had a little too much of real life?), but it must lead to some pretty nihilistic story design on the DM's part. What's the point of foreshadowing weighty future events if the PC's have no future?