Amoenotep wrote:there are so many restrictions on the insta kill attack that 7 out of 10 times an assassin will have to just stand there and wait for a long long time to use it...hence him actually being an assassin, the patience....also what good is an assassin that can't insta kill...might as well be a leg breaker for the mob or something.
a good point, however last night this assassin was successful with this attack at least 7 or 8 times in the course of about an hour, and i dont think it failed once (whoever played him would know more.) etherealness +monk speed/zone out then hide/rest/try again was remarkably successful. run around a corner and you can hide again.
to make the patience required pay off it might be worth looking at other debilitating effects that are very powerful without making the target feel like it's time to just go home:
-80% of max hp damage + unresistable slow effect. so an injured target might die anyway.
-add in major ability damage across the board: -6 to each stat
-big percent damage plus a major -regen if this is possible enginewise
-80% spell failure
-minimum damage component that might still result in a kill vs the right kind of opponent
--- add any or all of these as the assassin levels up. reduce the 5 minute timer so they can do it more often.
things like this make the assassin very badass and frightening, and while death is almost certainly going to follow soon after, it gives the target a small chance of survival (at the moment i'd say the majority of builds dont have a chance at all against this death attack).
the main thing here is that the save progression versus poison is not balanced the way save vs other death effects in the game. I know, folks will say "insta kill is what assassins DO!" however i would counter that while this is appropriate in a book or movie, it might not be good challenge for a pvp game (see 'devastating critical'). besides... in that case where's my fighter's vorpal blade?
