Need some opinions...

[Jazzdrummer]

Very cool. Well we're getting ready to start here in just a bit. I'll give a review afterwards. Cheers!

[Gold Bearer]

Of course you could use the training hall method so it costs gp but leveling up would still only be available after they've completed a certain number of quests.

Witch Hunter next I think, I still haven't made one of those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehjJ614QfeM

[Jazzdrummer]

Okay the Witch Lord has been slain! At one point things looked a bit bleak since the only one with the Spirit Blade was the Assassin. His first attacked was augmented by the Wizards' spell Courage having the Assassin rolling 5 dice. He rolled....dud. Nothing...lol. How disappointing that was to roll no skulls with 5 dice. On his next turn he rolled 3 dice and got all skulls...uh oh.... The Witch Lord rolls defense and gets two black shields which means 1 wound got through. So he was immediately slain because of death strike. So there ya have it. That was only time it triggered but it triggered when it counted. If it wasn't for that I'm not sure how things would've turned out. Everyone was low on BP and only having 1 person who can hurt the Witch Lord make things even more stressful. So death strike saved the day.

[Gold Bearer]

He killed the freakin' witch lord with deathstrike, what a legend! That is so damn awesome, it's made my evening.
Thanks for using him, I hope you had fun with him.

[Jazzdrummer]

Yep! I couldn't believe it. I was feeling pretty sure that all my guys were going to die in that damn dungeon. Everyone was low on BP due to unlucky defense rolling and we had no luck finding healing potions. So it was pretty epic. When all three dice revealed a skull...I was thinking this could actually happen...lol. And it did. So death strike won the day otherwise I don't think we would've won. Things had really been quite unlucky up to that point. So good job Gold. I think you have a keeper with this custom.


REPLAY: So I decided to replay the final fight against the Witch Lord without the death strike ability to see what would've happened. Well, my initial instincts were correct. By way of the command, fear, and summon undead spell, the Witch Lord absolutely decimated my party. It came down to only the Assassin left. (I call him Artemis after one of my favorite characters in the Drizzt Novels) Now Artemis was the only one left because the Witch Lord commanded him to slay the wizard which he did decisively and without remorse. Once all of my companions were dead, he had his undead army attack Artemis which, by doing so, allowed him to be woken up from his command geas. I was able to miraculously defend against all of his undead horde's attacks. Finally my turn, I slayed one zombie and ran like the wind blows. The Witch Lord, who was only at 1 BP himself and out of spells...finally, came running after Artemis. He rolled his 5 attack dice and slayed the helpless Assassin who also had only 1 BP. Tough fight.

But with all that being said death strike will likely not happen very often. Some games it may not trigger at all. But it's nice when it does happen. I only used the hidden blade a few times. I never really felt an incentive to use it honestly. The dodge ability worked fine.

[Jazzdrummer]

Okay so I've had an opportunity to test out several versions of the rogue/assassin and, since this thread has gotten a bit long, I wanted to post the 4 versions that ended up being my personal favorite for those that may want to try them out as well without having to read through 5 pages of posts. These are not necessarily original. All of them are inspired in some way shape or form from others. I just added my own little spin here and there. I just want these ideas to be posted for others to see and enjoy especially if you're looking for a sneakster to be added to your party of adventurers.

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The ASSASSIN (Sotiris and Gold Bearer)

Body
Mind
Attack
Defense
Move (Can move/attack/move)
Starting Weapon: Dagger
Starting Armor: None
Restrictions: Can only use a dagger. Due to his sneaky nature he can only wear light armor but no helmet.

**Lethality**
If you roll a on your attack roll it counts as
**Assassinate**
If you do any damage to a target it is automatically slain

My review: This guy is fantastic. Fast, deadly, but fragile. At most he will roll only for defense. So he's meant to use his move/attack/move skill to dart in out of combat. If you find the assassinate ability to be a bit too much (I didn't) don't allow it to be used against undead. If you prefer to not use black shields as a positive then allow the assassin to use short swords as well. If it still feels too powerful then make him have to roll all on his attack roll which was suggested by Gold Bearer. Allowing a character to instantly slay enemies and simulating the ability to do so within this game is tough while still maintaining balance. This is probably about as close as you can get.
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An alternate ASSASSIN

Body
Mind
Attack or (If dual wielding)
Defend
Move (Can move/attack/move)

Restrictions: Can only use daggers for weapons. Due to his sneaky nature he can only wear light armor but no helmet.
Starting Weapon: 2 Daggers (Can carry up to 4)
Starting Armor: None

**Poison** - If you roll a on the attack roll the target takes 1 unblockable damage

My review: This is my take on a poison assassin. As you can tell I really like the idea of using daggers and black shields. It just thematically makes sense to me. So this version slowly chips away at the target's health while retaining the same agility as the previous one. With 2 attack dice he will have a 28% chance to roll a and only a 3% of rolling .If only rolling 2 dice feels weak to you then allow him to use broadswords and longswords. 3 attack dice will give him a 35% chance of rolling a and only a 7% of rolling and virtually no chance of rolling . Again it makes sense that undead would be immune to this ability. Up to you. If you didn't want that limitation then I would name the ability something else like sneak attack for example.

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The ROGUE (Francisthe3rd)

Body
Mind
Attack
Defense
Move
Starting weapon: Shortsword
Starting Armor: None
Restrictions: Can not wear heavy armor or use two-handed melee weapons.

**Quick Reflexes**
You do not spring hidden traps or hazards unless a is rolled on one die.
**Opportunist**
When attacking a monster that is adjacent to another hero all rolled are counted as .

My review: This guy kind of reminds me of the 5th edition D&D rogue. He's more beefy in combat than the others and he serves as an excellent scout. He will always roll a maximum of but will sport a nice bonus to hit when he's got a flanking buddy.
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The THIEF

Body
Mind
Attack
Defense
Move
Starting Weapon: Dagger
Starting Armor: None
Starting Items: Toolkit
Restrictions: Can only wear light armor but no helmet. Can only use weapons that roll a maximum of (Dagger, Shortsword, Sling, Short Bow, rapier)

**Stealth**
If no enemies are in LoS at the start of your turn, you may use stealth but must roll one less movement die. If a monster is revealed roll a die at the end of your movement for each monster that can 'see' you. If a is rolled (17%) you are discovered, otherwise you remain undetected. While in stealth, you may only do free actions otherwise stealth is cancelled. The sole exception to this is searching for treasure. As long as monsters are in LoS you must continue to roll a die every turn at the end of your movement to maintain stealth even if you don't move. If you attack an adjacent monster from stealth, monster rolls no defense. Afterwards, regardless of outcome, you are detected. If you want the chance of detection to be greater (33%) than allow the thief to be detected if he rolls a . Either way the more monsters that can 'see' you the higher the chance you will be detected since you have to roll for each monster.

**Greedy**
When drawing treasure cards you may draw 2 and discard one. You may do this in the presence of enemies if you are in stealth.

My review: To me this is the iconic thief from the earlier editions of D&D. In combat he's meant to primarily attack from ranged unless using stealth. Otherwise treasure is his main game.

[Gold Bearer]

Artemis, cool name. Yea deathstrike shouldn't trigger very often if you're using something like the spirit blade. It would be a much more useful skill with my monster BPs in my sig. What I really like about the skill is that it triggers more often if you use less dice, I'd give him orc's bane to use against anything with 2-3BP, and a longsword for 1BP enemies and diagonal attacks and his hidden blade for things like ogres and bosses.

My deathskrike/dodge assassin didn't make your list. I think the top one you posted is very overpowered to be honest. Two skulls for a black shield and insta-killing whenever you cause damage means he'll take out big monsters/ogres/minotaurs/bosses far too easily. He's much more fragile without dodge of course but that makes him an all or nothing character, if I were EWPing against him I'd just make sure I took him out first to stop him one-shotting especially if there's a boss that shouldn't be that easy to take down. What Artemis did against the witch lord was epic, because he only stood a one in eight chance of causing a potential deathstrike.

There's some nice ideas in there, I'm taking Quick Reflexes for my updated theif/rogue and I'm working on a monk (eastern kung fu type) as well as the witch hunter. I'll post them in their own thread instead of spamming yours. I think Stealth would be a great one for a ninja, I think a character needs to be a bit magical for stealth to make sense because not everywhere is going to be a dark dungeon and a mystical type ninja who can disappear and teleport should make for nice class, it's just going to be a bit of a challenge to make sure it isn't an overpowered class because a ninja should be deadly and agile as well.

[Jazzdrummer]

Artemis, cool name. Yea deathstrike shouldn't trigger very often if you're using something like the spirit blade. It would be a much more useful skill with my monster BPs in my sig. What I really like about the skill is that it triggers more often if you use less dice, I'd give him orc's bane to use against anything with 2-3BP, and a longsword for 1BP enemies and diagonal attacks and his hidden blade for things like ogres and bosses.

My deathskrike/dodge assassin didn't make your list. I think the top one you posted is very overpowered to be honest. Two skulls for a black shield and insta-killing whenever you cause damage means he'll take out big monsters/ogres/minotaurs/bosses far too easily. He's much more fragile without dodge of course but that makes him an all or nothing character, if I were EWPing against him I'd just make sure I took him out first to stop him one-shotting especially if there's a boss that shouldn't be that easy to take down. What Artemis did against the witch lord was epic, because he only stood a one in eight chance of causing a potential deathstrike.

There's some nice ideas in there, I'm taking Quick Reflexes for my updated theif/rogue and I'm working on a monk (eastern kung fu type) as well as the witch hunter. I'll post them in their own thread instead of spamming yours. I think Stealth would be a great one for a ninja, I think a character needs to be a bit magical for stealth to make sense because not everywhere is going to be a dark dungeon and a mystical type ninja who can disappear and teleport should make for nice class, it's just going to be a bit of a challenge to make sure it isn't an overpowered class because a ninja should be deadly and agile as well.

In some ways I agree that's why I mentioned some variations including yours. A death strike or assassinate ability is really hard to balanced just right. You probably hit it right on the head. The question comes down to what is the best number of dice to be rolling where you get good use of it? And should it be required for all the dice to show skulls before it triggers? Your version of Artemis was the only one that slayed the Witch Lord. I've replayed the fight about a dozen times and have failed every time while using other versions. But up until that fight, the character didn't really feel like an assassin to me. I'm big into theme and feel. Now I was primarily rolling with the spirit blade so I was constantly rolling 3 dice. And as you mentioned you only have about a 13% chance of rolling 3 skulls which that many skull kills most things anyways without needing death attack. Anyways up until the final fight he felt more just like a regular fighter. So I guess I like combat abilities that are functional throughout the game not just on bosses. But an ability like death strike working too often will be too overpowered as well. Going back to those 2 questions I presented I think the short sword is probably the best weapon to roll with which you mentioned as well. And that makes sense thematically too. This would give you a 25% chance of rolling both skulls therefore triggering a possible death attack. Now Sotiris has a version where he can use short swords but it doesn't matter whether you 1 skull or 2. If a damage gets through, the target is dead. Try out some of the variations when you get a chance as well. I would love to hear your report afterwards.
I can't wait to see your ninja. Yea my stealth rules work great but it depends on how realistic you're seeing things. The rooms are small and does it make sense that my thief can sneak into these small rooms where he appears to be adjacent to the monsters without them seeing him? I dunno. I just try to use my imagination and not get too bogged down with rules and the literal scaling of the rooms and placement of monsters and heroes. But I encourage you or anyone for that matter to try some of these heroes out and let me know how they played. That would help me get a sense on how balanced or not they are. :

[Gold Bearer]

A thief hiding in shadows works fine in a dungeon but I just want it to be a universal skill that could work in any environment so I like the idea of mystical ninja stealth (not actually turning invisible though). I works fine anyway if you're happy with, I'm probably being to literal, the thief can could sneak up undetected. I just want it for my ninja because it feels less of a stretch to me, less of a stretch than a magical teleporting ninja.

I've put the Witcher up if you want to check it out, more of a conventional hero than my Assassin. a bit like the elf but more specialised and against enemy magicians. The Assassin is my new standard that I going to use for any heroes I make or redo.

[mitchiemasha]

The rooms are small and does it make sense that my thief can sneak into these small rooms where he appears to be adjacent to the monsters without them seeing him?

Miss direction, more so based on illusion, trickery and confusion, especially of the simple minded. That's is why my Sneak is entirely dependant on which monster it is. Dumb monsters are easily fooled, you could stand in it's own shadow. However, a warrior of Chaos, not so! It's going to be next to impossible to sneak past the Witch Lord. In my creation it was important that those mechanics were reflected.