The latest preview adventure for Deathwatch refers to a Callidus Assassin as an NPC...

I was wondering how to best reflect one as a PC... I think they make for better roleplaying than the Vindicare found in Ascension. I'd start by making them an Ascended career with the Temple Assassin trait, then give them Polymorphine as standard.

Optional traits would likely have names like 'A Word in Your Ear' and similar, boosting Charm, Deception and similar.

Thoughts?

Interestingly, my DH psyker makes for a decent Callidus Assassin, what with Shape Flesh and Mimic (or even Mutable Features or Trusting Aura if I want to get real nasty. If only I had some better skills... or maybe a Daemon weapon to approximate the Phase Sword, haha).

I'm pretty sure there is discussion about this floating about on the boards if you're willing to make the circuit.

Firstly you'd need a transition package for them, which I think would have to be rather substantially different from the Vindicare's. They've both gone through Assassin training, but the Callidus must stress different things. Possibly +5 Int +5 Fellowship and some Insanity points.

Temple Assassin Ascended Trait might work to a degree, obviously both Vindicare and Callidus are in fact from a Temple. Seems to me like this perhaps misses the crux of what it is to be a Callidus, however, so you might think about working it differently. Maybe still allow the re-rolls on failed Swim, Climb, Acrobatics and Contortionist and then find a different element rather than a bajillion dodges.

Secondary Ascended Traits having to do with different Fellowship based tasks seems reasonable, though perhaps a similar mind scrubbing option should also be presented. Perhaps one would be to allow an Assassin to use the Mimic power without penalty for studying only vox recordings (or if you wanted to go further, don't even require a Deceive test when impersonating someone's voice), and add an extra degree of success to any Deceive test. Note also that if you indeed do want to use the whole Temple Assassin trait, the "Secondary" Ascended Traits that you choose from need to be weaker than average... Temple Assassin is disproportionately powerful especially with Unnatural Agility (Sure, I'd love a total of 10 defensive reactions at Rank 9... every dang turn, wheras many characters can only use theirs once per session).

Rank Advances should probably look something like a mix between Inquisitor and Death Cultist, obviously Stealth Mastery and Shadow Craft Mastery should come in the first few ranks along with perhaps Charismatic Mastery. Sprinkle in social advances along with combat ones. Making up the Rank Advance charts is the most tedious part and vitally important. In my experience, whilst creating your own classes, always go for underpowered first. At best this will place you in the right balance and outweigh your natural tendency to power up something you've made yourself, and at worst you're only a few Elite Advances or discussions away from putting it at the proper level of potency. So much easier to give something to a character than to take it away from them.

You would also have to stat out the C'tan Phase Sword, as stated in some other threads, should probably have Warp Weapon, Unwieldy (can't parry with) and Flexible (can't be parried) to represent it's mercurial, pseudo-real state.

People complain that Deathwatch will be devoid of roleplaying and it cracks me up, I just don't understand how they can think the Space Marines are this unmovable wall of emotionless "same". The Temple Assassins, however, do feel that way to me. Maybe it's cus they are always wearing masks... I don't know.

I would be very interested to hear how your PC roleplays as a Temple Assassin. I'm not saying it can't be done, I am just very curious about the personal story being told by the character.

It's also possible that the player enjoys the "personal growth" arc less and the "clever combat" more. Which is not uncommon and perfectly legitimate way to have fun. If that is the case I'd love to hear a clever kill story instead lol.

River Tam from Firefly... Mind Cleansed Temple Assassin. Just sayin'

I can only imagine that a Temple Assassin would be just as, if not much more, fruitful as a roleplaying exercise. The slow erosion of self in the face of countless assassinations, how a character deals with the concept of being essentially a tool of death much like a knife, whether (in the period of time without a "mark" that would exist whilst in an Inquisitor's Cadre) he or she begins to stray away from their conditioning and begin to grow a robust sense of self. Will such a lone wolf begin to trust those in the Cadre, as their paradigm shifts away from solitary infiltration and murder and towards group exercise? There are a huge number of internal conflicts and explorations that exist in an assassin, just look at some characters in fiction for inspiration.

Speesh Muhreens however... it's easy to think of them as musclebound, roid fuelled Gears of War type chumps. The further from "human" a character strays, the less rich it tends to feel from a roleplaying standpoint. Just take a poll on superheroes and see who's more popular, Batman or Superman, and there you have it in a nutshell.

Returning to topic I think one difficulty will be avoiding the temptation of making the Assassin too powerful to begin with. You need to give the character room to expand and improve, and also ensure that there is a solid explanation for why such an assassin will be cavorting with an Inquisitor as a semi-permanent arrangement.

At Last Forgot said:

Not really, no. I'd say more along the lines of Tainted Schola Assassin with Nascent Psychic abilities. She was described as a "reader." She remembered her past and who she was just fine. She was just a little "leaky in the brain pan," to borrow the Verse's phrase for it.

-=Brother Praetus=-

My point is simply that Assassins, regardless of how they are trained, indoctrinated, or altered can make for exceedingly compelling characters. If I have my way, I'll never play Deathwatch. Just not my kind of character and there's not really as much choice inherent to the game. The distinctions between Chapters and specializations strikes me as much more superficial than the kind that exists between humans of differing life experience.

At Last Forgot said:

I probably wont play it straight. Meaning it might be used as a side adventure or one shot that ties into my overall Dark Heresy plans.

However, I will buy a few of the books for the info contained there in and for the critters and gear.

I agree in that the Callidus is definitely the more "role playing" assassin. My guess is that they went with the "melee assassin" and the "ranged assassin" and hope that the Callidus (i.e. "sneaky assassin") is in the works somewhere. The Eversor is definitely a NPC and the Culexus Assassin should be as well; both are not really suited to interacting with other humans that they are not trying to kill.

Side note: I am always curious about posts that have people saying that Deathwatch will be "one dimensional" or "without role playing." Hmm... anyone remember Recon? Ninja's and Superspies? Top Secret? Twilight 2000? Just some of the very early, military or to my mind, heavy combat oriented games. I mean, with all the Space Marine novels out there now, how can people think they are of low role playing value? Each book is nothing more than a collection of "adventures" with "characters" playing through them? The newest Imperial Fist novel Sons of Dorn is a good example of character interaction. I actually think Deathwatch will have more role playing between characters than less simply as players attempt to establish themselves as different from their squadmates.

Just my two cents there.

-Cynr

I could see Culexus being playable, after a fashion (and possibly Venenum), since the Eversor is the only Temple that doesn't psychologically screen its members. They should be somewhat close to sanity, usually, able to work with others, sort of.

All would have the Temple Assassin trait, I think, to represent the Ward saves they have in table top, and both Temples included have this trait, implying its shared between all Temples.

Brother Praetus said:

Cool movie. the words I liked from her was in the bank job "Revers"

Brother Praetus said:

I think that Leon in The Professional is a good look at how an assassin can grow as a person/character. He was not mind scrubbed, but he was brainwashed to a degree, and he certainly grew as a person during the course of the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, you should. Make sure it is the international verson, too!

Eponral said:

Seconded. Emphatically!

Its like a Jason Bourne thing.

I asked this very important question at GenCon and the reply basically says there is nothing officially in the works.

-Cynr

Yeah I was at the talk. It was nice that he gave an explained answer though. He didn't just say "no". He basically said he think it's a great idea but it has to make sense for the book it comes out in. Looking at the books in the future line up it could make sense in Malleus, but if we extrapolate from some of the other questions he answers then I'm betting there is some kind of "Assassins Book" down the pipe. He also suggested that while official rules weren't in the works (he said "he couldn't speculate to far into the future as things change") he did point out that a lot of what we wanted could easily be built by a clever GM.

I went to all the seminars and Mack felt like he was the most excited and "honest" of the developers. He pointed out that FFGcurrently has books announced that he wanted to cover "intricately" and that the books on the way now deserved his full focus so that they are done right. He did refuse to speculate on anything to far down the pipe though, cus things change.

He also did a demo of the new space hulk game for my group and we got a chance to ask him a few more questions. He got me pumped up for Only War. That dude loves the Imperial Guard and was able to rattle off all the official "Calixis Sector" guard units without missing a beat. He listened to all our questions and thought about his responses, going so far as to ask us about our campaign and what excited us about certain topics.

Here is a transcript from a video I took while he was talking to my friend in the main hall. We had just asked if there would be spire gangs in Book of Judgement.

Mack: "...Hive gangs are a great place for a GM to play around with the law and I see why you want them. I can't really speculate much on the future as before I tackle anything like that I want to do my homework and do it justice."

Bill: "I bet you get these kinds of questions a lot."

Mack said: "Yeah, and it's one of my favorite parts of the job. I learn a lot about what people want from future books by the questions they ask. I'm a huge fan of 40k, just like all of you. It's very important to me that the elements of the game you love get the attention and focus they deserve. Even if I can't speculate on the future it's important for you guys to ask these questions and I don't mind at all."

I'm hoping he can pull it off, 40k has a lot of stuff to cover. Maybe I should post a full transcript of the video.

Aye, Mack's been a great guy to work with. I have a feeling he might be trying to live up to what the fans expect, and the sort of level of dedication he sees in Ross and Sam with their work. I mean, I've had e-mail conversations with him that lasted a day or more due to one or two things I've mentioned whilst playtesting. If he's like that with other playtesters, and the developers he works with, Dark Heresy is in **** safe hands.

Old topic I know, but one of my players is asking. His complaint is that the Vindicare isn't really a great role playing character that can (or should) interact on a social level. Going over all the old GW information that I can find, I have to agree. They are basically given an assassination order and released to complete it, even if that means the lie in wait for weeks to take one shot. Not exactly a team player. After reading the DW one-shot, where you actually meet a Callidus as an Inquisitorial agent, I really think this Ascended class should be addressed.

My suggestion is a Support Page freebie. I know that it is great material but I am pretty sure people are not going to rush out to buy a book because this class was in it. With so much out there, especially with all three games up and running, we buy books because they are GREAT! I also realize that this would mean more Ascended options for one class over the others, but really, if that is the issue then it supports a Support Page freebie. GM's, if you don't want it, don't download it.

Just me keeping the dream alive for an "official" (yeah, yeah I know I can make my own... I did nearly a whole SM book when DH was released) class for everyone.

-Cynr

I've got the opposite problem that someone wants to play a Vindicare, but is unhappy about me dumping it as a playable class- because it is entirely too 1-dimensional and boring

"Hey I'm a sneaky guy with a huge gun"

"Great what else do you do"

"I dodge a lot!"

"...just great"

We could probably swap and solve both problems but the shipping is expensive for a live munchkin these days, especially for a large one, he can however live entirely on chips and coke though. Death Cult assassin with a few small tweeks here and there to the skills and background, addition of Polymorphine Use skill (which I already have in-play) and some adjustment to the Characteristics would probably just about do it. Specialist temple equipment isn't that hard to bodge-up.

ShatterCake said:

Putting the vid up on YouTube (or somewhere) would be very much appreciated too.

I'm all for the assassin temples (culexus is beastly) but eversor wouldn't be a good fit for dark heresy. they're roid raging psychopaths that kill everything around them and work alone. when they don't have a mission they're placed in cryo suspension so they don't kill everyone around them because they have to constantly take the drugs that turn them into a berserking lunatic. not really suitable for an rpg that requires team work and investigation.

At Last Forgot said:

Culexus Assassins are problematic PCs as they are only ever meant to be used to take down extremely nasty psykers... or at least that is how I remember it. Untouchables who can then become competant Temple Assassins are so rare they are not broken out for anything else. That and the fact that they are barely any more subtle than an Eversor. In fact I was kind of surprised that it was Vindicares they chose as a character class as they didn't strike me as the most interesting roleplay material (as someone said, before Ascension my impression was that they were given a kill order, sneaked into position, killed the target and then returned). Callidus was always the one that seemed ideal for a PC... though maybe there was some issue with the whole polymorphine stuff?

The way I see Culexus is that while they may be Untouchables, they're dialed up to 11, which means they're more powerful than the package you can buy at character creation is. Whether this could be represented with some kind of Elite package or rank is up for debate, but I'd argue that becoming a potential Culexus Assassin means you're even more unpleasant to be around than a normal Untouchable is.

As for other Assassins, well I think the RPG games provide us with fertile ground to sow the Vanus and Venenum Temples. Make them something that wouldn't really fit in to the battlefield of the 41st Millenium, due to the styles of combat and murder that they focus on being unsuited to it, but would be great potential in an RPG format.

I could see (and would definetly want) a future book that covered Assassins, the nobility, and high-level politics within the Imperium. As those three would seem to go together very well, considering assassination is a popular political tool within the quasi-fuedal structure of the Imperium.

You see Temple assassins are nails, the fluff says their nails the abilities say they are nails and they did a good job translating it DH. The problem with the Callidus, as I see it, is that a Vindicare is almost unstoppable, a Callidus really has to be aswell the only really balancing factor a Vindicare has is that they are a complete one trick pony. Add to that the fact that a Callidus is a master of disguise and they'll pretty much render anything that isn't Primaris Psyker redundant.

Read "Nemesis" (Black Library) in order to get some insight about the personalities of the Assassin Temples. The Vindicare actually makes for one of the MOST roleplayable characters IMHO from that book...as does the Venenum (poisoners) and Vanus (death by information).