Do you allow assassins/assassinations in your game

[bestialwarlust]

Reading CC thread on his crit/insta kill house rule got me thinking. In OD&D there is no assassin class, much like the thief anyone can be trained as an assassin. And with hit points represent abstract things like luck, wounds, fatigue etc.. I was wonder if or how others here may rule on sneaking up and taking a target out in one blow. Now this can be easily represent with a thief's backstab.

Assuming most "normal men" only have a d6 HP using the original damage rule where all weapons do a d6 assassinations against "normals" is fairly simple and straight forward. And this seems to fit well, but what if an npc was hired to assassinate a player character would you do something different and allow them to be so easily assassinated? or would you just rule extra damage and allow the character a better chance to survive due to luck (higher HP than the average peasant).

For my games I wouldn't allow an insta kill like that as it would set a dangerous precedent and would have players wondering why they can't assassinate monsters. I would allow a character to have an assassin background. Granting them better chances at hiding/sneaking/ambushing and grant a double damage or bonus damage to a well placed surprise attack. 

I would like to hear others input. Now I haven't had this come up in game but if it ever did have more idea's to consider is always good.

[hengest]

I wouldn't like to codify this a lot more than you suggested. To me, it seems like that would be on the slippery slope to the abilities from 3E that I consider just silly (this idea I'm not calling silly, I just fear that it could run in that direction).

I think "background", as you said, is about the limit, and I would apply these bonuses only with a surprise attack planned by the player, and would remove the bonuses if anything is in fact not as the player suspects and plans around.  

I suggest resisting the urge to codify these abilities in a class.  BUT maybe it would be cool not to limit the background by class.  MU into stabbing?  Cool!  May get your face handed back to you, but ok...

[robkuntz]

I think that you have to devise a plan and it is not about a single blow (unless caught sleeping, etc), and then it plays out normally, via poison, etc. assassinations don't fit well into the abstract hp scheme. So they would have to come up with a plan that would do massive damage to a much higher level human (demi-) which really does not synch with AD&D stuff. Essentially assassins have been associated with instant kill, and I believe that's the wrong course. It's just devising a plan that has the potential of killing the target based upon the resources and situation and implementation of these. I don't use assassin instant kills but would allow their expertise in a plan to be forwarded to max damage in all cases. Not much help, rather granular blather, really...

[Deleted]

Well, like I said in the Instant Kill thread, if you find Big Badguy sound asleep and hit him in the face with a two handed axe, he's dead.

Good luck with that one, however.

The problem with "assassinations" by PCs is that I've found most players tend to assume the NPCs are thunderously stupid. For instance, in one open chamber I have a man sitting in an easy chair calmly smoking a pipe, looking totally at ease down in the dungeon. Most people figure out he's a powerful NPC. Then some bright spark says something like "We just need to put poison in his pipe tobacco, har har har."

Yeah, like a high level wizard has never thought of that in his life.

[Vile Traveller]

Back in the day assassins were the only thing from AD&D that made it into my B/X games. In my Known World (based on the fantastic Wayne Rossi analysis of the OD&D setting), population densities are so low that assassination is the norm, not open warfare.

[robkuntz]

May 6, 2016 20:19:43 GMT -5 Vile Traveller said:

Back in the day assassins were the only thing from AD&D that made it into my B/X games. In my Known World (based on the fantastic Wayne Rossi analysis of the OD&D setting), population densities are so low that assassination is the norm, not open warfare.

Wayne's analysis of "which" or "whose" OD&D setting??

[Von]

I do use Assassins but I treat them as a quasi-religious organisation with their own hierarchy and rules about who gets targeted. PCs are only viable targets if their death would destabilise the society around them in some way (more accurately, if the Assassins are persuaded of this). Taking down a group of domain-level PCs is not a matter for the single knife in the back; it's an affair for the Evil Adventuring Party to get in on. The backstab-for-quadruple-damage is only part of the Assassins' armoury, after all.