So I'm cooking up a fantasy campaign to run for a few friends of mine, and it's got pre-generated characters, who are assassin/spies for a particular nation. Part of the plot, or at least the prologue/setup portion, hinges on being able to kill an NPC with a single strike, and since that's also just sort of their job in general, I wanted to come up with a system that would more accurately reflect the narrative/cinematic system in games and films, of the single strike kill, which isn't as easy in this system.

I also don't want it to be completely broken, but something that is a viable method for combat, given the circumstances, so this is roughly what I had in mind, and I wanted to workshop it. Not sure if I would build this as a Talent progression, or just an aspect of how the game mechanics in general work.

If a PC makes a stealth check to try and approach a target, and succeeds, AND is able to cover all necessary range bands in that same turn, their next action, if it's an attack, will be without any difficulty dice (excluding any special talents the target might have to the contrary), and if the attack lands, it's automatically a crit. This would allow you to insta-kill any minion (since it's a crit), and depending on the amount of damage inflicted, possibly allow a secondary kill as well (the double shiv kill beloved by Assassin's Creed). This allows for the potential to quickly and quietly drop a single, or small groups of targets, while preventing the player from just totally wiping out like a big minion squad. If it's a big squad, it would at least let them thin the herd a bit, before going into regular combat actions. But for single targets, or pairs, it would work quite well.

Since a crit doesn't mean insta-kill for a Rival/Nemesis, I was thinking of the attack having an automatic +result to the critical injury chart when it's rolled, like say +20 to the roll result, allowing the chance (on a good roll) to be able to roll Death even for tougher enemies.

Though as I sit here thinking about it more, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to just port over the...I think it's called Perfected Strike from the Star Wars system, with some minor tweaks perhaps. It's a series of talents, that as you buy improved and superior, allow you to just auto-assign different categories of critical injuries on a hit. Start with the minor ones, to the more severe, than the really nasty ones with Superior. And instead have it tied to a successful Stealth roll or something.

I'm not trying to make assassin's OP, but to simply make it reasonably consistent as a way to take out targets, at least weaker ones, with the possibility for improvement in the ability as the character becomes more powerful. And having a mechanic, where I can send my fresh out of character generation, kingdom assassin out to solo a target, and have it actually be viable that they could pull it off.

What do you all think?

There is the back stab talent allthough you will need more then a starting character to make it.

I would suggest you to use the normal Rules and give your starting pc's maybe +50-70 xp

Then add gear in a assasin/ninja tone så smokebomb, poison etc.

Perhaps to make it work with the normal RAW make a tone called assassin's could be that unawere was 1 diff less or fully upgrade or spend a story point once per session to attack with no difficulty. If you dont want the extra xp at creation tone could also be do double damage to unawere targets.

Anyways thats my 2 coppers 😀

Okay this is a little unusual of an idea, but at least it doesn't break the game....

Talent:

Quote

Assassin's Strike.

Once per sessions, a character may spend 1 hour observing an unaware target and make a Skulduggery check versus the target's vigilance on Success, the target is killed instantly as if the target had suffered "The End Is Nigh" critical injury. At the end of the the character's turn, the target dies.

Adjust to taste. The point of the 1 hour is so it's not very useful once combat has already started. And the point of the "unaware" qualifier is such that once combat starts, the target is on full alert.

5 hours ago, kaosoe said:

Okay this is a little unusual of an idea, but at least it doesn't break the game....

Talent:

Adjust to taste. The point of the 1 hour is so it's not very useful once combat has already started. And the point of the "unaware" qualifier is such that once combat starts, the target is on full alert.

Imo this does not need a talent its more a results of the narrative.

The actual assasination need not be a combat check. So if your ninja is perched silent and undetected waiting for his victim to be a sleep and slithing his throat dont resolve it as combat but maybe just use what your suggesting

Playing off of Assassin's Creed, I would run the "final" assassination as a skill challenge rather than a straight combat. Make it a big, narrative set piece that's more than just a single check.

But if you want to keep it as a combat action, you could write up a device that acts like the Palm Stunner from Star Wars. That lets you make an opposed check against an unaware target to deal strain damage or auto knock out a Minion. It's not intended to be used in combat, but you could copy the effects and give it "active" stats if you do have to fight with it. I'd mimic the Stealth Vibroknife as a base, but make it more rare.

• Assassin's Blade (R)
  • When attacking an unaware target, may make an opposed Skullduggery vs Resilience check. Success automatically incapacitates a minion or deals 12 damage to target's wound threshold. Each success rolled increases damage by 1.
  • When in structured time, the blade uses this profile:
    • Skill: Melee - Damage: +1 - Critical: 2 - Range: Engaged - Special: Pierce 1, Vicious 1 - Rarity: 8 - Price: 750

This is a little overpowered, so it may need additional drawbacks than just rarity, but it's a place to start.

12 hours ago, Archellus said:

Imo this does not need a talent its more a results of the narrative.

The actual assasination need not be a combat check. So if your ninja is perched silent and undetected waiting for his victim to be a sleep and slithing his throat dont resolve it as combat but maybe just use what your suggesting

Sure. I tend to lean narrative as well. However, it seemed that OP wanted something crunchier otherwise they wouldn't bother asking.

I was thinking of those talents for an assassin :

Spadassini T1: You learned to do to precise strike in your opponent's body vital areas. Once by encounter on a successful melee or ranged attack you can add your Agility to the damages.

Sicarii T3 : Needs Spadassini. Your knowledge of anatomy and how to strike vital area has progressed. Once by encounter you can choose, on a successful melee or ranged attack, to transform any uncancelled success in advantages (subject to be cancelled by threat) for triggering a critical wound(or upgrading the level of critical if already triggered).

Hashishin T5 : You know how to deliver a fatal blow. Once by encounter you can spend 4 advantages or a triumph to instantly kill your opponent / target on a successful melee / ranged attack.

I didn't tested any and I'm not sure they aren't unbalanced. They're rather powerful even with the limit of once by encounter.

7 hours ago, kaosoe said:

Sure. I tend to lean narrative as well. However, it seemed that OP wanted something crunchier otherwise they wouldn't bother asking.

Yeah I am looking for something crunchy, mostly because I know my players, and they are really analytical. So I wanted something that would fit, without being broken, but could easily reflect the "one stab kill" trope that is the "assassin" in pop culture. Because the reality is, in most game systems, it's really hard to actually pull off the one hit kill, especially as characters become more powerful. There is a famous Order of the Stick comic strip about threatening someone with a crossbow, when they have a lot of hitpoints. So I wanted something that could at least replicate the "kill shot" on minions without needing a lot of effort, but wouldn't just insta-kill Rival/Nemesis NPC's....but had the potential for it later. I'm not against the idea of the Big Bad being killed with a dramatic backstab, as that's just as good of a trope as any other way of taking down the Big Bad. And in a campaign about assassin's, it would make sense they would try and implement that if the opportunity arose. Which is why I was thinking of some scaling system. Low end, it does something like "auto-crit" which translates to "dead Minion", so they can use it to take out guards in the typical fashion. High end, it gives them the chance (not guaranteed, but a decent chance) to drop more powerful NPC's, if they can line up all the factors needed. Thus the idea of something like adding bonuses to the critical injury table result, meaning they are more likely to roll that "death" result, and if not, it would still seriously wound the Rival/Nemesis NPC, making it still viable as an opening move.

I'm not a huge fan of crunch mind you, which is why I enjoy the FFG system so much, as it's designed to be crunch light, and I much prefer to focus on the fluff of a game, and not the numbers. BUUUUUT, my players are not like that. They are much more number focused, so I wanted something that I could put in front of them that would be usable, but not broken.

Have them roll a Stealth check and spend a Story Point to perform the assassination. The Stealth check need not be successful, it's just to determine if there are witnesses to the murder.

In this way, the assassination attempt is at GM discretion per the Story Point rules, so they can't just a rule you come up with against you and assassinate everything whenever they feel like skipping the story bits and such. On top of that, since it's a powerful effect, they have limited use of it in any given game session by requiring a Story Point spent.

Ok so, after further discussion with my friends who will be playing, this is what I've got so far. I haven't really had time since our discussion to review the core book about this, so it's the second part that I'm interested in feedback/tweaks on. The first part is pretty much going to be as-is, because me and my players seem to be on board with it.

Basic Assassination - Common Setting Rule.

This is something anyone can potentially do, as I'm making it just be an aspect of how the world works. It's heavily influenced by the various video games and movies, where the nameless mook sentries and guards, are basically just one poke away from death, assuming they are unaware of the person attacking them. So, the rule:

If a person is able to successfully roll a stealth check on an unaware target, AND also be able to move to Engaged range band with them in a single turn, they are able to make an attack action without any negative dice. If they succeed at the attack (highly likely unless they just have really bad luck on the faces), the attack is a crit. Since crits insta-kill minions, this will drop the minion. Damage will still be measured, since there might be the classic "2 guards talking around a fire" scene, and if enough damage is rolled, it means the person could potentially take out multiple minions in the same action. Again, to me there is precedent for this in pop culture, of the really fast, sneaky person, dropping multiple people without raising an alarm. This is dependent on rolling lots of damage of course, so it's still not a guarantee if you are looking at a decent sized minion group. For example a 3-5 minion squad, is likely not going to be totally dropped with this method, and at best, the assassin will probably only be able to get 2 on an average roll. Obviously, rolling really well, could mean more deaths, (high damage result, additional crits from rolling Triumph, etc), but most likely they won't pull this off. Also, a larger minion squad would make the difficulty of the stealth check harder, so they are less likely to pull it off in the first place. It's meant to make the single/duo minions we all know and love, be fairly easy to drop. Which to be honest, is pretty much what a solo minion is for any combat capable character.

Rival/Nemesis Effects:

First thing, the stealth check will be contested, so it will be often be more difficult than a regular stealth check against a minion. Also, while the attack is still an autocrit (assuming they hit), it won't auto-kill the Rival/Nem, since they don't pop like minions do. Now, since I don't want it to be a guaranteed way to drop Rival/Nems, but still have the potential to drop enemies that powerful, what I had in mind, was something along the lines of the Perfected Strike talent line from Star Wars. Basically, the Improved and Superior versions of the ability, allow the person, on a successful check, to just auto-assign a critical injury of their choice, from the appropriate tier of injuries. I forget the official names for the tiers, but I think it's Minor/Moderate/Severe. If not, that's what I'm using for this discussion. The Improved lets you pick a Moderate injury, and Superior lets you pick a Severe. So, I was thinking of basically having the Improve and Superior versions as a Tier 2/3 talent, and have them basically replicate this, but slightly differently. Instead of just saying "pick an injury from this list that you want." it would just give the roll for the critical injury table result, a flat bonus, that would insure you end up on the appropriate tier. So like, +30 to the result for Improved, to make sure the lowest roll possible would still enter the Moderate range. The +30 is just an example, I don't have the charts in front of me to know the precise number needed, but you get the idea. So that even if you rolled a 1 on the critical injury roll, the added score would still boost you to the Moderate range. The same for Superior, but enough to get the Severe range. The result would still be random in my mind, but at least the player knows the level of severity they will be inflicting.

To me, this works fairly well, as it is one, fairly similar to something already published as a mechanic, so it's not OP in my opinion, and two it also gives the potential for a death result on the critical injury table, assuming the player rolls well.

This Rival/Nemesis portion though, is what I'm still not entirely sold on, at least as far as the specifics of it. I'm pretty much set on having this, or some variation of it, to use in my setting. Since the two main characters are assassins, I wanted something more thematically appropriate for them, instead of just basic combat rules. Also, I have read the Backstab rules, and while nice, they aren't what I'm looking for.

So, thoughts on this? Oh, and if you're thoughts are something along the lines of "You're doing it wrong." Just keep them to yourself.

the best thing is that you are talking to your players and coming up with a shared solution

Seems like you have something that could work for you. One thing you could think about in the minion case is why have the second roll ? you could resolve everything on that one stealth roll including the killing blow. But try out both and see what works. If only 2 players are assassins and you find the other players tends to get bored while there is lots of sneaking up the stakes of that one roll will speed things up and make it count more. But try both.

For the rival stuff sounds fine decide before hand how the flat +30 interacts with viscous and other stuff that adds crit. Is it at least 30 or +30 or does it all stack.

Good luck with the sneaking

2 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

S o, thoughts on this? Oh, and if you're thoughts are something along the lines of "You're doing it wrong." Just keep them to yourself.

Heh, sorry, I think the community can benefit from ppl pointing out poor mechanical choices, for if they want to do something similar. And I think you've made some poor choices.

It's completely unnecessary to create ill-fitting house rules for this (like "Simple"/unopposed combat tests, and auto-crits for no reason, etc.) when the vanilla system can handle it without them. And in a more interesting/open way, ta boot.

Particularly if you're trying to replicate the game play of Assassin's Creed, you're just completely missing any number of ways an assassination could happen/diverse Skill sets.

Minions: make it a brief (one or two rolls) Skill-challenge. Could be Stealth, if they're sneaking up to them, sure, but could be Charm or Deception if the PC is in disguise or hidden in a crowd and want to use that as a means to get next to the target, or even Cool if they're in their own clothes and just walk right up to the target on the street. Athletics for the aerial-kill? Coordination to pull someone over the ledge you're dangling from). So on... Any Skill that can be spun, through the narrative as being viable to get next to the target should work. Simple checks are at least well precedented in general Skill checks, and this opens up "game play"/character builds to more "types". Success on the checks yields the narrative result that the target is killed. X Advantage could be spent to get another target(s?), or to go unnoticed, or to have an easy parkour escape route, or a place to hide around the corner, Triumph could of course be any of the above or performing some additional action (grabbing an item off them in the same motion), or causing some mechanical effect (Staggered, Immobilized) in nearby enemies if the fight is on.

Rival/Nemeses: handle it like a Chase. Determine a difficulty-level of the assassination attempt that is characterized by a number of successes that must be "accumulated" via a series of Skill checks to succeed. This creates a tension, by creating a "count down" dynamic between PCs and NPCs, and again opens up play styles. Determine the Skill checks involved, probably in advance (as such "Set Piece" encounters often are done) - again a wide variety of Skills can and should be involved if you want it to be interesting/an Assassin to be required to have a variety of Skills and/or use team work.

If things go to combat (which, mind you, outright failure and/or detection does not have to be the result of losing the assassination-"chase"), then you handle combat as combat.

At every turn you are thereby using RAW and nothing more, skills a skills (could be in Structured Play, or not), combat as combat.

And you could thereby easily and consistently create Talents to further facilitate the kind of gameplay you want.

I would do things this way because, in AC, if you get to the place and time where you need to be, you can't fail the assassination itself. You never miss the vitals if you "get there". Combat skills are completely unimportant unless you've actually failed at your job. Creating janky, reason-less house rules that won't necessarily fit with other actual rules, all to accommodate what the system can already do quite elegantly, is confusing and will likely lead to greater/unforseen rules problems in play. So handle it the way the system already can handle such things already.

44 minutes ago, Archellus said:

If only 2 players are assassins and you find the other players tends to get bored while there is lots of sneaking up the stakes of that one roll will speed things up and make it count more. But try both.

Well it's only the guys who will be the assassins at the table. It's not a larger group. Hence why I'm not worried about this rule too much, as it applies to all players (all both of them )

48 minutes ago, Archellus said:

Seems like you have something that could work for you. One thing you could think about in the minion case is why have the second roll ? you could resolve everything on that one stealth roll including the killing blow.

Yeah I was considering that, just to minimize rolls, but given the stealth check will have negative dice, that could reduce the effect, it would be unlikely for them to pull off a good hit that does a significant amount of damage (from the roll result that is, excluding gear). I've used giving free rolls for secondary effects in my games before, either due to things that I implemented that the PCs had to deal with, or from something the player came up with that I felt was fitting. It doesn't really bother me, to gate a secondary action behind a primary skill check, where the only way you get the secondary action, is to succeed at the first. And as I recall from the last time I ran the FFG system with this friends, it wasn't really a big deal for the players. They don't mind rolling dice, especially if it's a situation that might benefit them.

52 minutes ago, Archellus said:

For the rival stuff sounds fine decide before hand how the flat +30 interacts with viscous and other stuff that adds crit. Is it at least 30 or +30 or does it all stack.

The bonus to the critical roll for the Improved/Supreme talents is a flat addition, assuming no gear that would also add to it. They would stack as far as I'm concerned. The talents themselves are meant to reflect their skill as a master assassin, when they get to that point XP wise. So that someone with Supreme, is skilled enough at the art of the kill, to use a regular table knife, and be VERY likely to kill you. Whereas a low ranked assassin, just starting out, and who should probably not be sent against super tough targets anyway, would do fine against various minion officials, but would probably benefit from having a good weapon, that is well designed for killing. Thus, the Viscous trait would help them, have a better chance if they come across a tougher target.