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Core vs Essentials Assassin Builds
Sometimes it’s interesting to see the changes that happen in the course of the development of a class. WotC has given players of 4e the chance to see several classes before being finalized, but none has changed more than the Executioner/Essentials build of the Assassin.
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I’ve played with playtest characters before and when I got the chance to play in an Essentials-only game, I went out of my way to give the Executioner a shot. I built Daeon Elhroman, Eladrin Assassin and cousin of the famous Aeofel. I loved the flavor of the class. The core Assassin felt like the main character in a Hollywood ninja movie. It was about being an awesome combatant and action star. A shadowy and stealthy action star, sure, but the class never really felt like it had much in the way of subtlety or variety. The Executioner, for all that it sounds more like a straight up front-line combatant, had a different feel. With its poisons and garrotes and darts, it seemed to encourage players to think more like an Assassin might and less like an action hero. To strike when the enemies least expect it, when they’re enjoying dinner, when they’re walking home in the dark night, when they’re asleep in their own bed. I loved the flavor of the Executioner.
Choosing a Style
When I started actually building the character, my enthusiasm dimmed just a little. With the way that the powers were organized, you were forced to specialize. You could be a close combat Assassin, with garrotes and unarmed throws, or you could be a ranged Assassin with blowguns and bolas. You couldn’t do a little of both, which is something I sometimes like to do with a Striker (because sometimes you’re unable to get into melee combat or it’s not in your interest to do so). Okay, fair enough. It’s a bit disappointing, but it fits the flavor they’ve presented for the Executioner and there’s still melee basic and ranged basic attacks available after all. There were other issues at hand, but none of them seemed serious and I was looking forward to giving the class a spin.
In Play
So what happened when the game got rolling and we got into combat with my super fun Assassin? If you guessed that it was not at all super fun, you get a cookie. I’d built a Red Scales Assassin, which is the close-combat option, and my at-wills were so situational as to be almost useless. In two sessions, I got to use my garrote power just once and only with the DM handwaving things so it was even possible. Strictly speaking, according to the rules, I shouldn’t have been able to do it, but in the interests of fun, he allowed it. I used the kukri charge power a little more often (twice), but averaging just one use per encounter is not something to write home about with enthusiasm. Three at-will uses in two encounters. Nothing more. So encounters quickly turned into an endless series of melee basic attacks. I didn’t feel like I was playing an assassin. I wasn’t doing anything cool that made me think “Man, I am so glad I picked this class”. In fact, I was really regretting taking it at all and talked to the DM about changing Daeon to a Hexblade when that book was released.
Major Revisions
Then came the second release of the Executioner. It wasn’t the finished version (it had empty levels at 7, 17, and 27 at the very least), but already it was better than the original playtest. The final version is better as well, by giving players 3 different at-wills and improving all 3 of them over the playtest versions. By making all the powers better and giving more of them, the fact that the Executioner’s main attack is still just a melee basic is mitigated somewhat. Now it actually feels like the Executioner has a reasonable variety of options and abilities that can be used more often than just once or twice an encounter.
Now I think I’m willing to give the Assassin another try. With both improved powers and more of them, I think it will be easier to feel like I’m playing an Assassin, not just an even more dumbed down version of the Thief. I’m glad that WotC listened to the feedback that was given to them and acted on it and, in so doing, made a class that has mechanics that more closely match the flavor presented.
Sidebar: That said, I have one last thing to comment on in regards to the Assassin and the changes made. In a recent interview about the Executioner, I feel that the developers were, to some extent, blaming the players for not understanding how the class was meant to be played. Although I’m sure that they didn’t intend it to sound that way, it certainly did to me and it struck me as rather insulting. As though I weren’t able to appreciate their design and what they were trying to do with it. I did, I just thought that it made for a pretty boring character, which played nothing like what the class flavor/fluff suggests. As I said before, I do appreciate that they ~did~ change things based on what their customers said and didn’t stubbornly insist that they got it right the first time, but the interview left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.
Final Thoughts
That last bit of negativity aside, the final version of the Executioner Assassin is a solid and interesting class that’s just gone through some rough spots. I really recommend the class to people looking for something a little different in flavor. I’m looking forward to re-making Daeon with this final build in hand and seeing what kinds of interesting things I end up doing with him.
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Assassin photo downloaded from Flikr on Dec 21, 2010 and used via 
Some rights reserved by leorolim
For the record, I agree with you about feeling like the Design & Development interview was doing some finger-pointing at the players regarding “understanding how to play” the class as designed. I never playtested it, but I did a double-take when I read that.
If we ever get that Essentials game back up and running, I’d be interested to see what Daeon looks like these days. My opportunity to play Essentials has been fairly limited, but so far I’m one of those irritating chuckleheads who likes what he sees.
I wonder if I could get into an Essentials game where the players can swap their way through the different classes, like a character buffet.
The essentials game will be up and running again as soon as the holidays are over and things settle down a bit.
That character buffet idea is interesting. I’ve been toying with having players make 2 or 3 PCs and letting them switch out if they want at certain points in the story (i.e. not in the middle of combat, but during the next extended rest). Probably not happen for this game since all your backgrounds are integrated so nicely…
I’m looking foward to having Daeon make another appearance. I really do think he’ll be more fun to play now. Because it veers more towards what I feel is the good Essentials character design and away from the bad (like the Thief, Slayer, and Knight). If they hadn’t done the major overhaul of the Assassin, the group would be seeing Daeon the Hexblade instead. I was that frustrated with how the original playtest Assassin was going. As much as I loved the flavor, the mechanics were just not good.
As for the character buffet, I can kind of understand the appeal, but I’m not sure it’s the sort of thing for me. Not for D&D anyway. I like to make one character as interesting and fun as possible and splitting that attention across 2-3 PCs would feel like a lot more work and a lot more to keep track of.