Dark Legacy MUD Forum

In reading over the ranger topic (http://forums.dark-legacy.com/viewtopic.php?t=388) I came across where Arureal mentioned a

new Archer class devoted to bows. While this is a possibility, it is a bit too narrow of an option for a full class.

Like bard is to pure-magic, assassin would have to be a rather unorthodox class. Perhaps this class could be called an assassin. He would have a large variety of skills. He would be a master of bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons, but obviously versed in the skills of the blade and hammer.

Some may believe that assassin would end up being much like the rogue class, but it is rather a class which would accent the rogue class very well. Assassin would be to ranged weapons what rogue is to melee weapons.

A few ideas for skills:

Throws - Give extra damage and attackroll bonuses to thrown items, possibly a speed bonus
Throw Food - Level 1 - Accuracy bonus for thrown foods in combat. Although very unorthodox, it allows common items to be used fairly effectively against weak mobs. Non-resistable damage/criticals (like non-elemental spells).
Throw Dagger - Level 10 - Speed and accuracy bonus for throwing daggers in combat. While low damage, daggers are able to be thrown quickly and relatively accurately. Piercing damage/criticals.
Throw Axe - Level 24 - Damage and accuracy bonus for throwing axes in combat. Although large and slow in being thrown, axes can do a large amount of damage to enemies. Although it will not do as much damage as an axe used in melee, a talented axe thrower may be able to sever appendages. Slash damage/criticals.
Throw Special - Level 40 - Ability to throw special class-only weapons. These weapons would include shurikens for pierce damage, balanced axes (or circular saws) for slash damage, some type of weapon for blunt, and then rare, uncraftable (or expensive to craft) items for large amounts of elemental damage.

Archery - Obviously, these skills focus around the use of bows.
Poison Quiver - Level 1 - Enchants a quiver of arrows with liquid explosives, poisons or, by use of special assassin elemental throwing items, elemental damage.
Power Shot - Level 10 - 'Lunge' type bow shot. Slower but with quicker damage. Slightly more balance drain compared to lunge, but slightly higher damage comparatively.
Tandem Shot - Level 24 - Basically
just a 'jab' compared to the 'thrust' of shot. It shoots faster with slightly less damage and slightly less balance drain. Becomes quicker with practice.
Multishot - Level 40 - Begins with a shot of two arrows, later progressing to four or five.

Miscellaneous - Skills that do not fall into any other category.
Martial Arts - Level 1 - Causes damage roll (with only half to 75% effectiveness on some stronger ones?) to affect punch, elbow, kick, headbutt, etc.
Explosives Training - Level 10 - Allows more effective use of explosives.
Snare - Level 10 - Severely lowers the retreat/advance speed of an enemy and prevents it from fleeing.
Create Bomb - Level 24 - Allows use of special items which assassins process into explosives usable by any class.

Assassins would obviously have the default skills of punch, elbow, etc. but would NOT recieve the dual wield skill. They would also not gain any spells or out-of-combat skills such as lock pick, detrap, hide/sneak (maybe hide?), or doorbash. They are also not designed for crowd control and recieve low armor skills. The lack of melee prowess makes them a truly distinct class, which can hold its own at range. In my plan, assassins seem to be very much an anti-caster class, but I would suggest some type of debuff for fighting meleers, such as the snare skill and their ability to poison arrows.

Looking back, it may seem that there are too many skills for a class, but when you think about it, the majority are passive skills. Also, Tandem and Power Shot basically replace jab and lunge for an assassin. All throwing skills would basically be weapon skills (perhaps other classes will get the first three up to a lower percent?).

I only have on problem with your class, its name. Assassin is already a used Epic class name. I can not come up with another name at this time. I wil try to think of a new one later. If anyone else has a name for this class, post it.

Yes...but bard was also an epic class already when it was added in too, so this doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Of course, if another suitable name is used I wouldn't complain, it just seemed to summarize the class.

I like this
but, arent assassins like... night-thief-killer things? at least, thats what I've always seen then as.
hrm... names, names, names...
hitman? i donno...

Assassin and hitmen are synonyms to the best of my knowledge. Assassin is just generally used to describe someone who works with finesse or skill. Seeing as how throwing is their main skill and a pretty hard thing to master, this would be finesse and skill.

oh.. .well, whatever, if you want an assassin class, then hitman, since its 'synonymous' would be.. a choice

why not make this idea apart of the Monk class, break some necks and instant kills skills

why not call it Range Master since all the main weapons and skills would have to do with ranged weaponry?

Gaitika wrote:why not call it Range Master since all the main weapons and skills would have to do with ranged weaponry?

Because that is a horrible name for a class?

hmmm...... Sniper?

i still say monk should be more like assassin class because we have deities that are good and evil , and for monk we need the pro's and con's

did they have the word "sniper" back... then?

I am quite aware that assassins are not really masters of ranged combat, but ranged weaponry is severely underused in this game. The idea of adding in a class like this is just that they have a great deal of ranged attack. I chose the name "assassin" because assassins are generally thought of as having a great deal of finesse, like what would be expected from some of these attacks.

we could give rangers the archery bonuses

(i think they already have some sort of archery bonuses atm?)

As far as I'm aware, the rangers have no archery bonuses. Even if they do, ranged weaponry is rather underpowered. Melee combat has various skills to use such as bash, headbutt, multistrike, and spin. Although attacks this strong might be a bit overpowered at range, it is quite underpowered to have none at all.

Giving current rangers the skills of amazons would result in them being overpowered. This would make them be able to cast basic magic and also allow them to have powerful attacks. We could take away the rangers' ability to cast, but this would leave paladins as the sole melee-oriented hybrid. Adding a ranged "pure melee" character would basically be the equivalent of the non-magic "pure caster" bard character.

I say an assasin sounds too much like a rouge anyhow, if you're looking for a ranged weapon user either modify the rangers or add a sniper or archer class.

Maybe a new skill for rangers like sharpshoot to increase damage done by ranged attacks (maybe something like 10%-25% more) would be enough of an enhancement, along with bows and crossbows being their prominant weapons?

or, we could also make weapon skills worth a damn

(such as specific weapons costing more points to use for a non preferred user class (like a mage with a two handed battleaxe versus a rogue with a dagger))

and people could raise or lower their skill level by dumping points into one or another (such as some of you might remember was one of the oldschool ways we handled crafts (like mining)) raise-lower-lock etc

of course, this would need to be done across the board, but, i kinda like it still

if we did something like that, y not do the same for the armor skills too

i think if we did have an assassin class, we should have a skill called pressure point which increases the amount of criticals

no, there should never be a skill that increases or decreases ones chances of critically hitting or critically failing a particular roll. It should be fair for everyone, identically, across the board.

critical hits should not be how well you hit someone, it's luck, either good luck, or bad luck, and thats all it should be.

Isabelle wrote:no, there should never be a skill that increases or decreases ones chances of critically hitting or critically failing a particular roll. It should be fair for everyone, identically, across the board.

critical hits should not be how well you hit someone, it's luck, either good luck, or bad luck, and thats all it should be.

Better talk to Celeborn about the starsign of the clover then.

i would disagree with that. I do understand what you are saying, and i'm not saying you are wrong, but neither am i, i think it's just a matter of preference on how something should be.

i would say that a critical hit is some random fluke which may or may not happen when you critically succeed a roll to hit.


So ok, you whack some beastie in the head, and it's all bloody, and gross, and probably kills the thing, doing like alot of damage.

or, you whack some beastie in the head, and 1 of many critical possibilities occur:
such as: you whack the beastie, and your blade passes clean through the skull, separating it in two, and the brain falls out with a resounding *plop*

or, you whack some beastie in the head, and decapitate it.


But mostly, i do not want any single player depending on critical hits as the way to win a fight.

I have no problem with there being a (sort of) minor critical hit (for lack of better words) where the player does 'maximum' damage on a creature, but i would like to see the 'critical hits' (such as x2, x3, x4 damage) as simply some random roll which occurs after you already hit the first 'pseduo critical hit' which does max damage.

so it would be
roll
roll a critical on the die (max damage)
since there is a critical - mud rolls on critical hit table, and does x2, x3, x4 etc damage


i like that better than depending on critical hits in a fight. makes them occur much less often. (i think)

I agree with you Isabelle.

Due to the way the current combat system is set up, we all DO rely on critical hits, theres no other way to win, either against mobiles or players.

It would take a great deal of effort to change this, however. Would require a complete revamp of how combat works, and an overhaul of most of the mobiles in the game.

PS. maybe this discussion should diverge into its own thread?