It may sound strange, but one of the things, if not THE thing that I disliked most about character creation, was the Assassin Special rule. It was the first Role special ability I read, and it scared me very much for the subsequent ones.

As I didn't found any discussion concerning it, I'm starting one now and would very much like your opinions.

So, to the point: why is their special "cool stuff" the ability to be able to move their opponents around?

Ok, once in a lifetime you may want to drop someone down from a bridge or something like that, but anyone should be able to do that with a good push. It's not a super power to be able to throw someone.

Their ability should, by definition, assist them in assassinating people.

Why not give them some back-stab or stealth attack ability?

Personally, I'd give them a bonus to damage equal to their AB against unaware of defenseless opponents.

I 100% agree with this. If an Assassin is slapping his target across the room repeatedly as he tries to kill them, he is very bad at his job.

I like the idea of making the Assassin better at sneak-attacking targets, but with the new wound system it's very difficult to 1-shot an enemy. +Ab damage vs unaware targets might not be enough, but the only way to tell for sure is by testing different values and seeing how they work.

I was about to post about this myself. I think a better concept for the Assassin would be increasing the damage they do from Surprise, as suggested, or perhaps increasing their RF chance on Surprise. I really like how the new Assassin is middling in open combat but amazingly athletic and good at stealth/scouting and a good special to reflect that would be nice.

Special abilities for assassins-

Backstab is great, but the ability could be two fold: the ability to inflict the damage as fatigue instead if an opponent is unaware to knock them out, and a surprised opponent could take double damage.

Special abilities for assassins-

Backstab is great, but the ability could be two fold: the ability to inflict the damage as fatigue instead if an opponent is unaware to knock them out, and a surprised opponent could take double damage.

This is an interesting idea. Unfortunately inflicting damage as Fatigue to try and knock out a target could backfire, since a character dies if they accumulate a large amount of Fatigue (2x their Tb+WPb, I believe). Assassins also don't seem like the type who'd want to take their target alive.

I also like the idea of the ability granting a flat bonus to damage (possibly based on Ab) rather than multiplying weapon damage. That way, assassins could use a knife to effectively kill their targets rather than hauling around a greatsword.

I would much prefer a "bonus damage on surprised targets" type ability. The current one is very situational and does nothing for sniper-type assassins.

As for snipers; maybe make the damage bonus Per for firearms, and Ag for melee weapons?

I like the idea that perception would add extra damage based on a weapon quality, maybe accurate: so I wouldn't want to double-dip.

A straight up double-damage on back-attacks or unaware/surprised targets might be enough, though slightly DnDish. Maybe this ability only works with "Light" weapons?

Its true that snipers would need a bit of work - but I wouldn't want assassins to open up full auto-fire while dual wielding autoguns on a surprised target and butcher them that way.

Single attacks only, then? Makes sense for melee and ranged.

It could be a damage bonus on the assassin's first hit against a surprised target. This ensures that characters won't exploit the rules by always toting rapid-fire guns (which are already very good).

Using Per instead of Ag for guns is a great idea. Assassins have very cheap Per advances so can take advantage of this ability quite well. In fact, it might even be appropriate to base bonus damage for melee attacks on Per (representing a knowledge of humanoid physiology and the ability to spot weak points), though Ag certainly makes sense in this case.

Actually, yeah, Per for both makes a lot of sense. Stealth attacks are much less about raw manual dexterity and a lot more about identifying the right spot to hit.