Going back to the old ways...

[Septire]

When I read posts along the lines of "character X ruined the RP that fifteen people had worked on by taking away our building" my immediate reaction is that the post is very short-sighted. Through something bad happening to the group, they have an event to react to, something that will generate more (and more focused) RP. Enemies are a -good- thing, and RP is often -improved- by a material setback.

I'm in agreement with this, but I feel like the emotional, knee-jerk reaction usually causes quite an OOC smell to arise from it. My thoughts are basically this: One chancellor or three councilors, I haven't really seen a huge difference in how it's handled IC and OOC. I prefer the one chancellor system myself for the Pros and Cons HD outlined, it's just preference.

The argument between one or three seems to be more of a matter of preference, with the various Pros and Cons cited in some fashion. Doesn't really seem to be going anywhere imho.

I'd say handle IC things IC, and "Be Nice" does not necessarily extend to IC interactions (otherwise evil would be a very grey area). More importantly is how situations are framed OOC and the perspective one chooses to take, and how one chooses to deal with the information and situation.

I don't know where the grievances lie exactly. Is this thread really pertaining to a fault of the system, or is it a problem pertaining to fairness? In this context, I mean fairness to be the expected outcome for a time or effort expenditure. If someone is brushed aside IC and exiled, it's not "fair". If another group shows up and gets elected rather than the expected party who is there all the time it's "not fair."

What is important to understand is: It's not fair, and sometimes one must be careful in how they evaluate their expectations of the game. Try not to expect too much, it usually bites you in the end and leads to burn-out, and you'd be amazed, as Mithreas is implying, what sort of RP can come out of a seemingly unsalveagable situation. When the game shatters your expectations, it doesn't mean that Bad Roleplay took place, or that the other side is being Disrespectful of the RP that's going on. That's... the game, isn't it? How adventurers choose to deal with various situations, that how is the Roleplay aspect of the server? If everything went according to one's preconceived notions of fairness and expectation, it wouldn't be a dynamic game. It would be predictable, and predictable is boring. I daresay that the bad RP happens when a player decides exactly what's going to happen early on and then does everything in their power IC and OOC to force an inorganic outcome, or takes to non-IC platforms to settle IC disputes.

I say this because it seems like there is an ulterior discussion happening between the lines concerning some players not being as active as they should, and other suggestions dropping in here and there pertaining to players and what they ought to or not to do. I'm not current with the RP and the legitimacy of any veiled accusations, but I feel like this discussion is more than just about the merits of the system. The warnings Lorkas and others have provided imply that others are picking up on these veiled suggestions as well.

Now, with that said, is the issue really with how many people are elected into power, or with one's notion of fairness and expectation? I know there are players who work hard at seeing their RP shape up a certain way, running a settlement, running a faction, owning a shop, or whatever else. They have a set of goals in their mind and it turns into a Pass or Fail evaluation. Did I get elected? Did my faction get into power? No. Well, there's always the next election. This manner of thinking is not how great factions and leaders operate, I'm sorry to say. If you make your RP and enjoyment of the server contingent on IG assets, you're hampering your RP and relegating your enjoyment to chance, and dynamics that are often beyond your control. I think this has lead to a big rise in OOC collusion to try to influence these dynamics, beyond what is IC. The root perspective of winning and losing conditions is flawed. There should not be a prerequisite like this for your enjoyment of the game, and this is what GrumpyCat was talking about: framing one's expectations towards How do I have fun, rather than How do I win?

For those players using communication platforms (Discord/forums/skype/whatever) as a trivial communication platform with friends for the sake of fun, cooperative discussion, or respectful and objective arguments, I shower you with praise. For those who are using these platforms to leverage others through shaming, cliquing and generally turning to tribalism, please take my words to heart, for what good it may do.

The whole thread:
1. Respect goes both ways. Don't ask for it if you aren't willing to give it.
2. Suggestion bin works wonders if you just want to suggest something without going into an argument.
3. Expect differing opinions if you open it up as a general discussion.
4. Don't assume, and don't expect.
6. If you're not clear on how the system is suppose to work, or if you think there is a problem, ask plainly without strings.
7. Civil communication goes a lot further than with veiled insults/attacks. I mean that for the OP as well as those responding. The best way to alienate people who might have listened to you is to confuse the matter at hand with ulterior motivation, angst, and anger. Scholar Midnight already posted an announcement on this. Some people have forgotten basic etiquette, I suppose it's time for that monthly reminder.
8. Handle IC issues IC, if you have an OOC issue with a player(s), you should probably speak with a DM rather than taking it to an open communication platform. Or better yet, try to resolve it peacefully with said player(s). Most people are respectful and have enough intelligence to find mutual enjoyment. For those that simply don't care, they have that prerogative if they wish. As long as they're not breaking the rules, people are allowed to disagree and have differing opinions (or choose to have no involvement). If you go above and around the DMs, most often the DMs can't help you if you bite off more than you can chew, and it's just an exercise in frustration.
9. Those who play stupid games win stupid prizes. If you want to give someone a stupid prize, you have now joined the stupid game. The best way to not win stupid prizes in turn is to not get involved with stupid games to begin with.

If this discussion is suppose to be about whether the system itself has merit or not, I invite you to read up to HD's argument summary of the pros and cons of the system. There's no perfect system. The existing systems are designed to be tools, limited tools at that, to facilitate roleplay. Roleplay does not start and stop with an exile, nor does it start and stop whether someone was elected in or not.

With all this said, I personally would like to see more robustness with the system itself. Voting is nice, but I would definitely like to see more types of government, especially in the UD, and/or more collaboration with the DMs concerning matters like coup d'etats and oligarchical takeovers of militant factions. (n.b. I say with DMs to prevent powerbuilds/wanton PvP sweeping aside other forms of gov't and add some credibility to the takeover). Assassination is one small step towards achieving greater dynamism, even if assassins suck.

The other side of what I want to see is being able to actually do more when someone is in power. I think there were talks about this a long time ago but it never really made it in. Focusing more on military, trade, or culture, for instance. Allowing leaders to pay gold or resources towards certain boons. Boons that a government could buy, for instance better trade relations with Amn for a couple game years which brings in more merchants selling exotic wares (and possibly also Amnian pirate occassional spawns on the coast, or Amnian vessels with the ship system). Things like that. Would probably be a lot of work though... at the very least, maybe offering a resource/gold exchange for such a thing orchestrated by a DM. Just my two cents.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

That would be cool. Who wants to be the chief legislator and problem solver anyways?

Me? Its a valid avenue of RP.

Pardon, I meant it in the sense that it be neater to see it start from a decentralized position, with the potential for it to be centralized, not dismissing the roleplay of it.

I dislike less the idea of having one Supreme Leader, and moreso that the path to becoming Supreme Leader is a very ... easy? ... one. I still don't think we've struck the right balance with "leadership contests."

[JediMindTrix]

I can't help but notice I seem to be the only one that thinks all the issues in this thread can be fixed with a healthy assassin contract on a chancellor or councilor's head.

If there's no Ardath's I'm not paying

[Cerk Evermoore]

assassin's guild is pretty hurting in the sense they have not been relevant in awhile. Likely due to not enough assassins? Maybe people with 15 points rogue / SD could join the guild. People who invest heavily in dex don't seem that much different.

[Cortex]

It might have to do with requiring 5 sin levels and the removal of the gank ability (which was annoying anyway). Could do with being reduced back to 3 or reworked some.

[Xantor_Stromgate]

Can we deal with things like this IC instead?

*looks to the left, looks to the right, and it's all right!!!!*

X

[One Two Three Five]

It might have to do with requiring 5 sin levels and the removal of the gank ability (which was annoying anyway). Could do with being reduced back to 3 or reworked some.

I'd honestly remove the requirement to be an assassin mechanically, and instead have the assassin's guild welcome any with a good enough reason- you already need dm approval for it, now. But if that's more work for dms, and I imagine it very well could be, nevermind. I agree it needs reworking though.

[gilescorey]

It might have to do with requiring 5 sin levels and the removal of the gank ability (which was annoying anyway). Could do with being reduced back to 3 or reworked some.

I'd honestly remove the requirement to be an assassin mechanically, and instead have the assassin's guild welcome any with a good enough reason- you already need dm approval for it, now. But if that's more work for dms, and I imagine it very well could be, nevermind. I agree it needs reworking though.

Then the class goes from "borderline useless" to "totally useless."
If this were to happen, I'd like to see a total mechanical rework of the Assassin class along with it.

[One Two Three Five]

Being a five level boondoggle to get into a guild isn't that useful, is it? Rework both and make assassin worth taking for more than five levels to get into the guild. The custom poisons were possibly? a good start, but I haven't seen any opinions on them (good or bad, admittedly) so who knows.

[Durvayas]

The poisons are actually not bad. Only issue being the DCs being around mid 20s means they are largely worthless for PvP aside fishing for 1s. They work really well in PvE though.

[Cerk Evermoore]

I think the issue is not that it requires 5 levels of assassin to join the guild. I don't think having a heavy requirement should be removed. I just think some guy with 20 points rogue should probably qualify also. Not that we need stronger assassin class combos because that isn't really the issue.

[kittenblackfriends]

Just a question:

Are there any poisons for sleeping or holding? And what of an anti-teleporting one? That might open things up a bit more, if you can allow for capture of targets as opposed to outright slaying them.

[gilescorey]

Being a five level boondoggle to get into a guild isn't that useful, is it?

No, but that's also a misrepresentation of what I said.. The only use the class serves in a mechanical sense is a five-level dip to allow Guild RP/interaction.

It is not entirely useless as it stands, just very nearly so. If you take out the five level requirement without reworking the class, the class loses the one, niche use it has. Thus, useless. Which is why I appended the thing about a rework.

[Durvayas]

Just a question:

Are there any poisons for sleeping or holding? And what of an anti-teleporting one? That might open things up a bit more, if you can allow for capture of targets as opposed to outright slaying them.

There is a poison that induces paralyze, but the DC is fairly low.

[Septire]

Assassin needs a pretty heavy overhaul imo.

Unfortunately Death attack is hardcoded, so any changes would have to work around it. A spell book would be nice but we would probably need haks for that, unless some half-baked cast spell properties were added to an item (yuck). Poisons are one option but it's kinda meh given the low DCs (or rather, the ease by which saves can be made with unisave gear and the con meta for certain classes). Assassin-specific items could work as well, but I've been told that balancing a class around class items is the wrong way to go about balancing a class (I still disagree, but given the way UMD works, those items would need to be those "Only assassins can use this unless you have a UMD of 60" type of deal).

The trouble with the class is it is very much kill or be killed, and this is decided during and shortly after initiative. They're suppose to be a save or die type of deal. Works well in PnP, on a server setting not so much. Given how dangerous save or die is, everyone would kit themselves to prevent being one-shotted, but if everyone does this, the assassin can't perform their role... so it's going to have a hard time fitting in.

Then again, there are other classes that can perform save or die, or just kill a target outright with burst damage or via ganking, while still having good survivability and PvE potential. So that leads me to the conclusion: Useless. I play a 20 assassin (int-based) and it's horrible. For those that can't make the save, just -pray out of the paralysis effect and be on your way. Or equip a freedom artifact or use Freedom of Movement and not worry about it. True sight robs the assassin of their initiative and escape. Any other redeeming qualities of the class are outclassed by others (of which there are few: wands outclass the spells per day, only 4 skill per level as opposed to 8 from rogue, few sources of AC that other classes cannot already get (tumble), redundant perks (UMD, Set Trap), and rogues get bonus feats for Improved Sneak attack (more damage), or Defensive roll (Epic Dodge)).

I don't really see a point in the class in its current form. The gank rule where assassins didn't need to RP before PvP tried to save their initiative but lead to stupidity like 25/5 wizard assassins who just popped out of nowhere and dropped gruin, or worse still: placing bounties the moment the assassin struck. Honestly such behavior should have been dealt with swiftly and harshly (after all, assassin is still a DM-request token, implying the need for oversight), but such as it was, it was removed. The 5 assassin level requirement for joining the guild was met on the bare minimum threshold for getting into the guild, and little advancement was seen beyond this, for the reasons outlined: The class is one of the worst in NWN, especially with Arelith's custom systems and changes. Putting a 5 level requirement for the guild, unfortunately, is just shoe-horning the class in to say "I'm relevant now!", otherwise it would not be pursued (and indeed, the request to join the guild with 20 rogue for functional equivalence implies the desire to not take the assassin class). When players are looking to become assassins and use the assassin systems without taking the assassin class, what does that say about the class?

As it has been said to me from a long time ago: Assassin is just the poor man's rogue.

Some ideas to fix it might be:

1. Full AB progression with the assassin class to make up for the +3/4 AB progression. If assassins are suppose to focus on killing things over having skillpoints, they shouldn't suffer when striking a target. That's their thing, after all.
2. Gated power spike, like a use/day item that temporarily spikes their damage. Assassins would have to choose when and where to use this to gain a massive increase on damage output when attacking a target who cannot see them (this could be tricky with PCs).
3. More unique items that become available as the assassin increases their level. Something like a tiered shop system in the Assassin guild.
4. More tools or perks that become available with assassin level to allow for greater discovery and tracking of marks.
5. HiPS at level 8 (similar to PnP), and/or trackless step, and/or a use/day save or die temporary unique power on hit that calculates a save or die effect (this isn't death magic, so it would be a fort save and death ward would not count towards this, helping to distinguish between death magic and death attack).
6. Other Save or X abilities that may key off reflex or will instead of just fort, so the assassin can use different techniques on different classes (not dissimilar to how mages have Save or X with different saving throws).
7. A better means of escaping PvP should the assassination be botched. Smoke bombs or something. Then again most assassins are going to buff before attacking their mark. Then again, it can be difficult to deliver a threat and RP before PvP. Any competent player would probably just kill the assassin on the spot and not give them the chance to come back later. Liberal uses of freedom and/or true seeing (or just hiding behind a quarter door) makes short work of any assassination threat. Given the way the RP before PvP shadow rule works, it's not clear how soon the PvP must happen after RP, so a player can usually just wait that out in relative safety before the assassin must RP before PvP again.
8. Remove -pray from PvP, or better yet, just don't allow -pray while paralyzed.

These are just some brainstorming ideas anyways, some with more merit than others.

As for how I play my assassin nowadays: Just follow around characters better equipped for killing other players and exist to wave the curved dagger over a corpse, preferably from stealth. It's honestly the safest thing to do as a squishy character with limited combat potential. So much for the glory of the kill though. Oh well, it's gold in the bank I guess.

[One Two Three Five]

Couldn't the radial spells used for GSF and Druid Summons be attached to assassin chars somehow? Not the same ones, obviously.

[Septire]

If it's possible to award spell casts to a player character (similar to how shifters get racial spells when they polymorph) I don't know how to do this. I have heard, before I started playing NWN, that it used to be possible to give PCs monster abilities (dragon breath, beholder eye attacks), but it was patched out of the game. So, I have no idea.

[Septire]

Also, to further touch on the PvE aspect of assassins: To be effective, the targets shouldn't be in combat. If you're with a party (and you're with a party if you're that squish), they don't usually want to wait around for you to walk ahead and do the assassin dance, reactivating stealth and trying to paralyze key targets. They just want to roll through and crit things to death for maximum XP, item and gold gains. Not to mention, waltzing ahead of the team and getting spotted puts you in a VERY unfavorable position. Besides, what fun is it to stand around waiting in the back, only to walk in and lo, everything is paralyzed and you just mop them up? Certainly those players want to feel important and like they're a part of the party, and are contributing! That leaves assassins in a rough spot: To step into the spotlight, they have to push everyone else out of it.

So usually you just follow along sneak attacking things... and rogues do this better. For assassin to work in PvE, they should feel like playing some sort of executioner. The ability to blow away a single target, spike their combat potential against one target (living target that is, not undead or constructs), and then go onto a cool-down, sort of like a melee/ranged, cooldown-based evoker, I guess you could say. Whereas a fighter or WM can do consistent damage safely, and a mage has summons and a few pocket nukes, the assassin should feel bursty but have to choose who and what they target. Then again, in PvP that would make them monsters by the nature of their kit, so it would have to be carefully done. Strong enough to make a statement not to mess with them, but not so strong as to be one-shotting some tanky builds. Maybe something like Assassin level * Int mod extra physical damage (not multiplied in the case of a critical, mind you) could work...

[Durvayas]

In PvE, my assassin simply drinks a invis pot and death attacks whatever mage mob there is in the group while trying not to get ganked by the rest of the group. In PvP though, everything septire says is accurate. Every single time the death attack paralyse actually works, the opponent simply -prays out of it. Its effectively useless. Poisons are a good help, but dont help with PvP. Assassination of a dungeon boss works fine. A player? Good luck.

[Kuma]

If it's possible to award spell casts to a player character (similar to how shifters get racial spells when they polymorph) I don't know how to do this.

This already exists for Sorcs and Wizs with the Greater Spell Focus spells, Healer path and Druid "spontaneous" spells. Ask your devs.

[Septire]

Ah! Found it. It's a NWNX function it seems. Of course it is!

So, spellbook similar to how the Healer Path, Druid "spontaneous" spells and GSF spells may be possible for assassins... I'll have to dig a little more to see how it works. Thanks.

But yeah, for vanilla scripting it was patched out a while ago.

[Hunter548]

I'm not entirely certain that adding more spells to assassin is enough to make the class anything other than "Rogues but worse", given that the spells they currently have don't serve to do anything to that effect. Focus also should probably be put on making them better at killing stuff, rather than more utility things of debatable usefulness.

This is, however, probably something for another topic.

[Sfoxwood]

I thought about posting a long reply about the merrits of effort vs mechanics, but in the end I think its just time to move on from this.

None of us are going to get anything more than a headache out of it.

Its tempting to keep going, it really is, but in the end facts are facts. Four people had their rp put to a dead stop with 2 lines of dialog and a button click after days/weeks of work and rp. The system is abusable, was abused, and was designed to be abusable.

Time to move on and fight back ic before this gets too personal.