Sick of Assassins

Ok, time to rant a bit here. I am sick to death of assassins jumping out of every corner and dark shadow to stab my poor wizard in the back. And I'm not even talking about the bloody infuriating assassin you encounter after selling Lareth's gear. I missed him but ran into his cloned brothers. Let me explain.

Usually my party encounters the assassin shortly after I sell Lareth's gear to the traders, about the time my party is 4th level. Needless to say, this can make for a difficult encounter since my wizard never has enough false life spells cast and is usually spitted, sneak attacked, and ability damaged by the assassin, resulting in a very short adventuring career. And since the party usually doesn't have enough gold for a resurrection spell at this point, there's no real reason to continue with the game if my wizard (or sorceror if I'm running one) gets deadified. Fortunately the assassin has low saves, so a timely hold person spell from the cleric solves him easily enough. Paralyzation plus Coup de Grace with a greataxe equals thanks for the pointy sword and swell gloves Blackie. However, I need to reload the game several times to get an encounter where my party kills the assassin without losing my wizard.


I recently upgraded to version 5.7.2 after last playing the game with version 5.6 awhile ago. Wanted to see what was new, so I tried to do things a little differently. My party had several goofy NPC's (dwarf archer, Half-orc paladin of Gruumsh, etc.) But still was fairly effective. But I missed the assassin this time. The party did Burne's quest (glad to see this was fixed), blackmailed Romag, and then reported on him to Burne. Later on, the party went back to the trading post to sell Lareth's equipment, and the traders refused to buy or sell anything. Never had that response before. Seems that the traders find out if the party informs Burne, causing the traders to have nothing else to do with the party. Ok, I guess this is just new content and my rogue will have to live without the +2 rapier. Life and the game go on.

Later on, I do go back and attack the traders, killing one and letting the other escape. Just wanted to see if they included the Trader's Revenge content, which they did (more on that later). By the time the party was 5th level, I've cleaned out the brigands from the tower and went downstairs to visit the wizard with the golden skull (can't remember his name, he usually dies fairly quickly). Most of time I wait til my party is about 9th level so my cleric can take him out with a slay living spell. This time the wizard fell to a deep slumber spell and the usual greataxe coup de grace. So, feeling lucky, I saved the game and went to visit the Smigal lady next door. There my luck ran out.

Smigal is a very slippery opponent. If you don't kill her quickly, she can bluff her way out. Not much of a problem at 9th level, but my party was barely 6th at this time. After several frustating attempts where Smigal kept slipping away, I changed the party order so my paladin with a decent sense motive skill would do the talking. And I went back to visit Lady Smigal again. Not a problem, usually. Catch her bluffing, she rips off her mask, screams, and combat resumes. Not so this time.

Now Smigal has friends. Two assassins, clones of the Lareth's Gear assassin, appear and jump my party, specifically the wizard. And Smigal is more buff than I remember her ever being. Ok, my mistake for walking in with only a 5 person, 6th level party. So of course, being stubborn and a bit peeved, after the TPK, I reload and go back with the same party at the same level and try it again. Needless to say, it took about a dozen tries before Smigal and the assassins fell to a combination of Deep Slumber and Hold Person. Thank goodness for the assassins with poor saves. Well, now my roque and the elf cleric have pointy new magic weapons (since when did a rapier count toward the elven longsword proficiency??) and lots of xp.

Then I encountered another assassin in the Trader's Revenge encounter. Walk into the house in Nulb, run into Romag and associates, some words are exchanged and then the fight starts. And another assassin jumps out and kills the wizard in one shot, again. Ok now I'm not just peeved, I'm annoyed. Without the wizard, the party ends up dead, again. So, I reboot, make sure the wizard has a couple of stoneskins and false lifes on, then go back in and clean house. So that's 3 dead assassins so far, more TPK's and reboots than I have ever had in any version of the game, and the party hasn't reached the 2nd level of the temple yet. Now I have a very paranoid wizard. Have to run around with multiple false life and stoneskin spells cast just in case another assassin decides to show up. Not to mention how expensive it is to keep casting stoneskin over and over again. The party hasn't run into anymore assassins so far, but I still have to fight the Balor and Zuggy yet, so it would not shock me to find out that assassins are waiting there as well.

Needless to say, I'm not in favor in the assassin character. The lone assassin in the Lareth's Gear quest is more than sufficient in my opinion. The encounter is usually very difficult for my party at any level and usually requires several tries to defeat satisfactorily (not just to kill the assassin, but to kill the assassin without any party members getting killed). Despite the loot and experience from the fight, I have never liked this encounter. But since the assassin is a unique character( at least in previous games), I could live with it and would try my best to find a new way to deal with the assassin before falling back on hold person + Greataxe coup de grace. Now there are more assassins in the game. I guess the additional assassins are new content since I have never triggered them before. In my opinion, one assassin is more than enough to run into and I hope future versions have fewer assassins to plague the party.

 

I always liked the assasin character. If a character gets killed I take it on the chin.
If you can't afford to raise them roll new ones they level up pretty quickly.
I alway thought Smigal should have more help in her second encounter. If she is the head of assasins it makes sense that all her troops are looking for you.

 

I dunno, I thought the Smigmal's assassins were great. Be glad you didn't trigger them together with Falrinth's "support troops", or you'd have a bunch of hairy things on your ass and some fireballs flying around.

Smigmal is king of easy if she's alone. She has pretty low Wisdom as well, so more often than not, I charm her and take her on a stroll in the Temple. I wish the same could be said of the assassins, but when you try to charm them the game starts lagging (not sure if this was solved or not). In any way, if you position yourself well before the fight, they're not gonna get enough time to kill your spellcasters. Some luck involved, of course.

 

I really liked the additional assassins for the Smigmal encounter. Nice addition Co8 -- thanks!

The old Smigmal encounter had always been unsatisfyingly easy (just like Falrinth), and it makes sense for her to have some backup support. (Though I must have killed Falrinth too quick because he was still easy and didn't summon anything.)

The new Smigmal encounter was quite the surprise first time around, and I did get a TPK (no contest) since my party was weakened after fighting the brigands and Falrinth first and I went in expecting the usual Smigmal encounter.

And, by the way, I also had the lag problem that Ausdoerrt mentioned when I charmed one of the assassins (Co8 5.7.0 on WinXP).

 

Actually, all the assassins should have greater invisibility on them so they sneak attack on every attack. PCs need a real serious chance of death during every encounter. :ninja:

Smigmal should be one of Iuz's top assassins and have the ability to murder a party of heroes in a straight-up fight instead of being a puchover. Instant death poisons on her weapons, -12 AC, cloak of major displacement and the proper assassin feats like death blow. :tombstone

You would think the golden skull would have just a tad better protection than just some gimpy loser of a wizard and a secret door. Throw a few beholders in there throwing around disintegration spells and fingers of death and prismatic spray! Turn falrinth into an 18th level lich that looks at the PCs as experiment material. :chainsaw:

 

I love the assassins. I love any encounter that doesn't become a walk-through after several times. I originally wanted them added to the Air Temple fight that would have occurred after the temple went on alert. Of course they would strike the rear of the party. The proper introduction of an assassin to a fight should generate a "WTF?" moment as somebody's portrait goes grey. :thumbsup:

 

The most fun w/ the assassins to be had is to not expose Smigmal, fight her the first time, then go fight Falrinth the first time. Then come back after resting to have to face bugbears, Falrinth AND assassing. Buckets of fun.

These new encounters are fun, made me rethink my "perfect" party... Should be more fun like this, or that another-party-of-adventurers RE we used to have (no idea where it went, but I think it'd fit better into the game now that it's been rebalanced).

 

Ha, i couldn't figure out how this assassin thing worked out til i read this line.

I always sold the armor and stuff at the blacksmith's shop. that's why i couldn't get attacked.

so this guy is balls nasty?

I'll have to load that one up for an encounter

 

In War of the Golden Skull we have one traditional assassin in the fight to defend Hommlet, and I think I made a couple of the rogues in the Delko Grove fight have the assassin AI, but they are of higher level.

 

Believe it or not Gaear, I triggered all of that on my first try

 

Well, I never have being in troubles with that assassin. First of all, becose I never uses an mage - or bard, or anything with less than a d8 Hit Dice - and, sure, becose all my characters weares heavy armours and shields. Anybody shall take me flatfooted, but nobody pick me up without armour bonuses! And remember, boys and girls, that to cause adicional damage with a sneak attack, ya need to hit!

But lemme talk about another thing...
I have wonder - and now I have readed - that we shall encounter Smigmal two timas in the game, or, at least, one time before the first enconter at the temple 3th level. Where the reck are Smigmal encontered before that match?

 

Just a note to UncleBuck. You can reincarnate your wizards alot cheaper than resurrecting them. Just see Jaroo instead of going to the church.