The WORST ARCHETYPE in Pathfinder 2e 

"Today I'm talking down on Pathfinder..." He says while wearing a D&D Hoodie 😂

I think you missed the part where the mark lasts until the target dies or you use Mark for Death again, you don't need to be able to see and hear the person in the interim. You can mark someone for death hours or even days before you actually do the whole assassination thing.

A niche use of Angel of Death is it allows you to bypass regeneration rules. Normally when a monster with regeneration goes to 0 hp, like a troll or the tarrasque, you need to deactivate their regeneration else their dying value won't increase past dying 3 no matter what. The only way to kill a monster that has regeneration without deactivating their regen is either by giving them doomed (so they can die at dying 3 or less) or to use a spell or ability with the death trait. This is because when an ability with the death trait reduces a creature to 0 hp they die immediately, completely bypassing the normal dying rules. It's still a pretty niche and weak ability but if you're fighting a bunch of creatures with regeneration, it might be situational pick.

*Paizo watching NoNats videos, scribbling on a notepad." NOO we are totally NOT leaving it. We are going to change that.. *starts sweating*

I feel like Assassinate might be the only thing that is actually really rough. Everything else encourages the actual role of an Assassin, Mark for death, lasts until you change the target or it dies. The poisons you can make from the alchemical crafting that you need, it all pushes for someone who is prepping ahead of time to deal with a specific target. Using mark for death in combat, means you either don't have an actual target at the moment, something has gone horribly wrong, or you(in universe) are being sloppy with your planning. Assassin is a situational archetype, it changes how one interacts with the game world, and may change drastically what type of campaign you are in, but I don't think it is bad, it just has a role outside of the usual knock down the door fighting style most people are used too. Some archetypes are like that. I will also say recovery checks on an enemy are rare but are mentioned as being an option Dm's can choose to do. And the type of individual you would want to assassinate probably has enough plot relevance that would call for recovery checks, and also the type you would want to make sure whose allies can not bring back in anyways.

The 3rd edition Assassin prestige class this is descended from has always felt like it only worked with the GM actively guiding the whole process. Which, for an NPC, is fine. It gave PCs clear ways to foil the Assassin, and the GM could use the hand of the author to get the Assassin into position. But for PCs? It's always been terrible. And now that NPCs don't use the same rules as PCs, this archetype has no reason to exist.

I played with this archetype on like my second character I ever made in 2e for a one shot and while the character was fun enough I didn't actually know the game well enough at the time to realize that literally nothing I had picked for my archetype had done anything other than lightly flavor my character's actions and playstyle, rather than actually adding anything significant. Really hoping it gets a massive facelift cause nothing about this archetype actually helps you to play that assassin fantasy.

I feel I should point out that this Archetype serves the same purpose that See Invisibility serves in 5e (according to Xp to level 3): it's useless for most players, but is a great tool in the gms enemy creation toolbox. Imagine how scared your players will feel, knowing they're being stalked by an Assassin, who can spend a turn marking one of them before combat even begins, and they don't get death saves against them. With surprise attack, you could make the assassin a precision ranger for really good dpr by stacking the Hunter's Mark and Marked for Death conditions on one pc, without giving up Surprise Attack. Long story short: I think an npc with the Assassin dedication would be a spectacular enemy to have floating around.

Angel of Death could be viable against Creatures with Regeneration.

I consider the Assassin as an NPC Archetype anyway which makes Angel of Death really awesome imho.

One of the base rules of pathfinder 2e is that abilities and choices in your level-ups (and much of character creation) can be done in any order. In this way, the ability to choose a feat and a second feat that uses it as a prerec in the same level is just default allowed by the rules

I tried building an assassin before seeing this dedication. Seeing how crap it was I went up poisoner instead. I wasnt able to do the fantasy one shot with a knife, but it made in and out of combat still feel right. If you want to be an assassin, dont choose assassin, choose poisoner.

7:52 I do give certain NPC enemies death saves, if they have a party member that can heal them.

"I swear by GFuel!" He says after swearing at the GFuel that he stirs up next to him. And now I have a head canon where NoNat has an increased chance to swear while nearby GFuel products.

Thanks for making this video. I think it is important to have an honest conversation about the things we like and don't like about the system. We love PF2, but that does not mean it is perfect. We need to be allowed to say when we find faults in the system to make it better.

The only way I'd see Angel of Death as an useful feat is against creatures that will NOT stay dead - trolls, revenants, ghosts, those air creatures from Rage of the Elements, take them down, they get back up again. But let's be honest, in that case a thaumaturge or a loremaster could do a MUCH better job by finding the critter's weaknesses and exploiting them.

Regarding the sneaking example, what sort of character is taking the assassin archetype but not taking stealth skill feats? I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that any assassin character will have swift sneak by the time they get assassinate, considering it's a level 7 feat (so they have at least three chances to take it. More if they're a rogue). That being said, the archetype still has lots of problems, and it really doesn't work very well in a party. And the rest of the points are good (I think mark for death is more intended to be used pre-combat since it has an unlimited duration, but it still feels really bad to use as a PC most of the time), and assassinate is still a once per battle ability at best. But I feel like the baseline assumption used should be of a character that is built towards the strengths of the archetype. Using a character that isn't built for stealth to illustrate an example of why an ability from a stealth-focused archetype is bad undermines the argument a bit.

0:26 Is this a challenge? I will play it today!!!

Putting aside the obvious issues with the capstone feat, I think _Pursue a Lead_ from Investigator would be a far more flavorful way to engage the archetype feats than _Mark for death_ . Potentially more useful too, if you're going after a specific target instead of just getting bonuses against random monsters.

I think the biggest thing you could do for Mark for death is to change into a one action. Focus spell. And that would put what I believe they wanted to do which is limit the amount of times it is viable in combat to mark somebody. Adding on an assassin’s tool kit for those in between levels, so you could make things like smoke sticks or poisons for free like in alchemis, or even something with disguises, to make it easier to sneak into places would be amazing. I will say I like the mechanic of the Assasinate ability, but just changing it to hidden would probably fix it. Ideally though I’d like little boosts to go with the assassin kit, like you deal an extra damage to marked enemies who are poisoned, or if you are disguised your weapon has fatal d12 for the first round of combat. Just something to where you are rewarded for just being the sneaky stubby guy even if it is just once.

I think this archetype actually kind of works outside of combat, which is when a proper assassin will get most of their kills

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My thoughts: For the dedication, it is clearly supposed to be used from stealth as a set up for the first round of combat. At 2nd level, a +1 to the damage roll is effectively upgrading the damage die of your weapon by one step and increases your minimum damage. The Deadly trait is also not too bad, since it also gets upgraded if the weapon already has Deadly. For instance, if you're using a Longbow and hit a target with this ability, it will do around 6 damage (1d8+1). If you crit, it will do around 17 damage instead of 14 damage. I don't think that's too terribly bad for a dedication. For the Expert Backstabber feat, it pretty much just upgrades all of your damage dice from Striking runes by one step (and minimum damage). Surprise Attack is nice. Angel of death is purely a roleplay feat. Very nice in a more intrigue focued game, less so in something like Abomination Vaults. And the Assassinate trait is not very good at all. They could have worded it better, and it could have come earlier in the game. If I were to homebrew this, I would say the extra precision damage always goes through, and you roll to see if you take more damage. Like, on a failure you take double the precision damage, on a crit fail they instantly die, with no success or crit success outcome. It would also be nice if it wasn't unnoticed, maybe make it so that it works if you're hidden but only if they haven't seen/detected you yet (like, you can't use this from stealth continously, only as your first attack from being hidden.) I will also mention that the alchemical crafting feat is a prerequisite, and poisons are very much intended to be used by this Archetype.

Angel of Death I'll give credit to actually but it IS niche as heck. It can be used to overcome regeneration and soft immortality, which I have seen a few times in adventures! But yeah this archetype is very poorly made for most official adventures. I will say, stealth is kind of a bitch in Pathfinder2e. You really need to invest in skill feats for stealth to be a thing you're actively using like that. And yeah the game is just cruel to close range steath, it just isn't really a thing (without feats). Assassinate won't feel good because most of the time creatures are at your level or higher and there just usually isn't time for an extended stealth section for an individual player and unnoticed is a bonkers requirement.

5:31 You know, if the precision damage scaled with your damage die (Instead of getting 4 to the damage when you have a +3 weapon) it would at least scale and feel like its more impactful and I'm surprised this wasn't what they went with. If they kept the 2 precision damage for Expert Backstabber, the damage with just a regular Striking Runes would turn it to 3 damage. With Greater it'd be 4 damage and with Major it'd be 5 damage!

So, Assassin works but is VERY campaign AND DM specific. Its good for out of combat, setting up attacks and doing things like killing the weaker level evil tyrant, but isnt good without prep work. Mark for Death is purely a set up tool. Assassinate is either a combat starter or a tool for RP. But it does have design flaws. Or namely, its design flaw is that the system doesnt complement its goals as written. Id say add more ways to count things as one degree more hidden than they really are to enhance this theme GREATLY, but jts a bit too flawed as it stands to make work consistently and without the DMs goals being to let this shine.

Also, note that your weapons only get Backstabber and Deadly against your target specifically. Any other enemies in the encounter, they're just normal weapons.

Fun fact! It’s actually not the same as the rogue’s sneak attack requirements for Mark for Death’s extra damage. You CAN’T use ranged weapons RAW. Therefore, Assassinate is pretty much entirely unusable always.

Like, the central issue with the Assassin is that it's just not really for dungeon crawling and typical adventures. You want this in a Westmarsh-style campaign where you will be interacting with the same things a lot, building up bases of operations, and have NPCs organizations you would be okay with infiltrating for weeks. That's where the assassin would do well. Mark of Death is especially this: You can put it on a target possibly years before it triggers, and it can be used whenever you have a moment to observe the target. It's the kind of ability which grants roleplay opportunities - If you have an audience with the king of a rival kingdom, or if you meet someone and have a moment where your assassin glares through them before leaving, or if you go to a wizard to scry a target, or if you just scope out a target before attacking later in the night. You have to play it right, and have to put it in the right campaign where a party is going to be okay with you assassinating people in the first place (Which tends to take a lot of time focused on one player and negates a lot of combat encounters inherently.) But is it actually good at that role? And... I really don't know in this system. But, I don't think so. I would hope for a large burst of damage on an unaware target, like how older editions allowed at least semi-reliable instant death, sometime relatively early. I would like the ability to, you know, disappear into the night afterward. I would like the ability to kill silently so I don't alert others. And I would like more abilites to get into a situation where I could assassinate people in the first place. So, I think this is a misread. But I also don't think this class is very good.

Whats funny about the early PF2 Class/Archetypes, is how clearly the devs were trying to be mindful of power creep. Now you read the Kineticist and wonder, "Wow, this is just so much better than most of what we had before." I think with the game having been out for a few years, its fine to let some of the first material get the same sort of fun treatment.

Thanks for this video. I do really enjoy the Archetype system, but there's some real, genuine stinkers. Another one that comes to mind is "Firebrand Braggart", which is just... awful. -Terrible buy-in reward (Disad to a roll to get... a +1 circumstance bonus, and absolutely, positively nothing else.) -A singular neat feature (Daring Act) that requires three full feats (Daring Act, Daring Flourish, Daredevil's Gambit) -A pretty okay challenge feature that only lasts a single round unless you critically succeed Why on earth would I pick this? It's like you took Swashbuckler, took all the mechanically satisfying bits out of it, and turned it into an archetype. I'm gonna be honest and say I genuinely wonder if some of the developers just don't like the Firebrands. It's not /literally every option/ that requires Firebrand membership, but a lot of the feats, features, or archetypes that require membership with them are... bad. Look at Acrobat- I could pick up Tumbling Opportunist, which is neat, flavorful, and useful- without being a drain on my action economy- or Mockingbird's Disarm, which is a Reaction (instead of a Free), has the same requirements, and /disarms/ instead of /trips/ (an objectively weaker option, since it was intended to be weaker.) EDIT: Also, feel especially bad for a Monk Assassin. We're talking about a class that already has an important 1st turn- dropping that stance! Now you've got two kinda bummy turns- turn one of DO NOTHING, and turn two losing an action to enter a stance. And, if you kill the target, they flee, or something else? Damn, time to re-mark. And unlike your Ranger Buddy, you need an entire turn to re-mark, not one action.

Can you do a mark for death outside of combat ? Sneak around, mark for dead, Start combat at range while sneaking. Assasinate the enemy and hide. Next round sneak to become undetected again and assasinate again. Assasin is made for ranged sneaking and sniping. And the enemy will have severe difficulty attacking you when you're undetected.

I've just checked this archetype, thought it's a bit confusing and... You are releasing the video! Love you

There are abilities in monster stat blocks that talk about death saves for the monster, but it's never used, agreed

I've used the assassin archetype on a character once. Was playing a stumbling stance monk, and I think the things the most from the archetype I actually used was the expert backstabber and the sneak attack feat. I used mark for death a handful of times, when we were in situations that looked like they might go bad, and then it was fantastisc, but you really need to have it applied before combat. And once I got to mark someone almost a day ahead of time, through some good planning, and when we got to the combat with him, I was tied up with smaller enemies and never got to actually hit my target, which is one of the biggest feel-bads I've had in a while.

Trolls can’t regenerate if you use a death effect and you say they are just dead.

It is definitely a completely worthless Archetype RAW, but I do have some corrections: 3:05 No GM allowance required: "You can perform the steps in the leveling-up process in *whichever order you want.* For example, if you wanted to take the skill feat Intimidating Prowess as your skill feat at 10th level, but your character’s Strength score was only 14, you could first increase their Strength score to 16 using the ability boosts gained at 10th level, and then take Intimidating Prowess as a skill feat at the same level." CRB Page 31. So at least that issues does not exist. 3:33 The ability is intended to be used outside of combat, but can be used in combat in a pinch. Note that there is no time limit. You can mark them for death, then track then down at your leisure. And nothing indicates that action is obviously, so you can probably do it during a social encounter. So it is at least marginally useful, in a setting with lots of talking. 10:00 Actually it is worse. _Smell_ is a vague sense and thus enough to make sure you are _at best_ Undetected. There is in fact no RAW way to ever be *Unnoticed* while in intiative. Undetected is the best you can do. As far as I can tell, Unnoticed only exists to show what Undetected doesn't cover. In fact, "Initiative and Stealth" explicitly calls out the difference. 14:00 It is not feeling bad, it is unplayable. You need a odd scenario (with lots of talking before combat) to even make it remotely viable. If they do not remaster it, chances are they are just going to ignore and burry it.

AS IS TRADITION. A pathfinder edition without a shitty assassin prestige class/archetype wouldn't feel right

Or there's my personal favorite ... the slow death... make someone incapable of saving against alcohol. then offer him a round of beers. "Alcohol is a common substance available in stunning variety. The Price of a dose of alcohol depends on the specific beverage. You can’t recover from the sickened condition from alcohol while affected. If you fail a saving throw against alcohol other than initial saves, the affliction’s stage doesn’t increase; the only way to increase the stage of alcohol’s affliction is to consume more alcohol. Saving Throw DC 12 Fortitude; Onset 10 minutes; Stage 1 +1 item bonus to saving throws against fear effects (10 minutes); Stage 2 flat-footed, +1 item bonus to saving throws against fear effects (10 minutes); Stage 3 clumsy 1, flat-footed, stupefied 2 (10 minutes); Stage 4 clumsy 2 and sickened 2 (10 minutes); Stage 5 clumsy 2, sickened 2, and stupefied 2 (10 minutes); Stage 6 unconscious (8 hours); Stage 7 death"

Assassin : I am totally convinced. It needs a radical overhaul.

I feel like the fact that they're so much better with ranged weapons is probably my least favourite part of the assassin archetype. when I picture an assassin in a fantasy setting, I picture a character weilding daggers. this archetype just feels like it belongs in a modern setting with long-range sniper rifles.

level 12 assassin: If I prepare correctly, I get to open the combat with 6d6 precision damage! level 13 swashbuckler: Yup, I do additional 5d6. Every. Single. Turn.

I would have read that as a single Stealth roll that gets compared to all the Perception DCs rather than four individual rolls. And that's how I would have rolled it at the table, because four independent rolls is just too much extra overhead.

When i see the assassin archetype i keep thinking about the gray gardener part of vigilante and how much it does with less setup (even has a more useful assassinate in execution) Assassin, poisoner and summoner are probably the least useful archetypes imo. Flavour's there, function isn't.

In a "Magical Christmasland" scenario, I can maybe (just maybe) see this being paired with the Gunslinger's "Way of the Sniper" subclass because of how the subclass is designed. Outside of that, based on what I've seen from 2E's rules, the ruleset doesn't seem to really support this archetype as it is written for many of the reasons listed in the video.

Being able to fulfill prereqs at the same level you need them (eg taking Alchemical Crafting and Assassin Dedication at 2nd) is RAW. Also, I think the Sneak rules only apply once initiative is rolled; until then, you are doing Avoid Notice, and you would roll initiative when you want to take the first hostile action (your assassinate). But yeah, this archetype needs a buff and hopefully the remaster fixes it.

I'm new to the system, but I think "assassin" would be a concept better served as its own class. Rogue, but with less skills, and more stuff for combat. And subclasses for specializing in sniping, disguises, or poisoning.

For me an Assassin is a prep class, you spend weeks perfecting that certain poison that only affects that one guy with the peanut allergy and he drops dead in one round. In order to sneak up to that guy to kill him, you could blow dart him with a sleep toxin and then let your "happy dagger" do it's work...

Whaa a assassin whos job it is to sneak around and spot target then decide when it's perfect time to strike as a dedication ability that last till it dies that he can set up long before combat starts to help him assassinate? Snark aside I would change it to see OR hear for Mark for 2 actions or 3 actions add a strike make the backstabber ability deal extra dice like lite sneak atk Assassinate just make it 3 actions sneak 2x your speed and strike a marked target the the damage is just 6d6 no save to lower it on a success save frightened 1 failed 2 crit fail death or stunned

I guess you really do have to be a Mad Dummy to take this Archetype. Great music selections in this video. I definitely would love to see more funny or chill tracks like that in the future. I would personally refer some tracks from A Hat in Time such as Peace and Tranquility, Oh it's You, Clocktowers Beneath the Sea and I'm totally sure plenty more that would be fitting for your videos. Love your stuff can't wait for the remaster.

So i don't know if you'll read this but i used that archetype to make assassin group in my game for the players to fight. It felt more anti player than anti npc. Now when they see the black robes and the silver pistol they all get super paniced because of one traumatic encounter lol.

If you run into an encounter and use the monsters don't attack rule at the start of combat, the assassin could use the mark for death while everyone else is talking.

I feel like expert backstabber would be better written as "...has the backstabber weapon trait, you may increase your backstabber's damage bonus by an amount equal to your weapon's potency rune (minimum of +1)." At least that'd apply to a +2 weapon for 3 more damage, instead of being an inert feature til level 16. Surprise attack is weird cause if you're hiding targets should already be off guard to you. Assassinate I can still see uses for. You're sneaking around, finding guards in a hideout, and taking them out one by one, which just makes me think of playing the Arkham Asylum games. For the stealth roll, remember you can add your cover bonus to maintain being unnoticed as well. The BBEG might survive an attempt (and tbh, I don't know if I'd want to just skip a boss fight entirely), but it could allow you to just skip past several fights before that point. Plus, I'd imagine if speccing into this build, you'd have the abilities to augment your sneak, e.g. if you're a rogue. It's not fantastic but I don't think it's totally unusable. The archetype wouldn't take much to touch up / make a decent option. Combo actions might help a lot too, like the ability to hide or sneak while marking for death, and maybe a feat that grants you Swift Sneak plus another bonus (since that's a skill feat itself). Maybe the option to "recover" from becoming hidden/undetected if you were previously unnoticed?

This is exciting. It feels like I'm watching a bootleg download of a Nonat video that has flipped the picture in order to avoid an automated copyright take down.

But NoNat, you can’t appease the “Nobody Dies” cult if an Assassin actually… assassinates! We can’t have that.

it feels like this would be something you put on an NPC hunting the party

Mark for Death: A 5e Hunter's Mark that takes a full turn to set up.

Man, now I could go for a ice cold can of Local Beer

The assassin is the redheaded stepchild of archetypes.

Haha, wanna know what’s even worse? Angel of death gives the attack the death effect. Undead are immune to death effects. If you mark an undead for death to give your weapon backstabber and deadly d6. . . You CANNOT INJURE THEM ANYMORE. Yeah, you can’t turn off marked for death RAW, so the ability prevents you from using mark for death on anything immune to the death trait: undead, constructs, etc. Its actually worse than you think, because the one time you would want to use that ability is ON UNDEAD. Preventing a ghost or poltergeist or GRAVE KNIGHT from coming back would actually be REALLY helpful. Too bad it doesn't work on them and, in fact, makes them immune to all your damage. WOW that's bad.

I think you're wildly misunderstanding what Assassin is for. The idea of an assassin sneaking up on someone and slitting their throat is hollywood and videogame hogwash. An assassin striking from the shadows will do it with a ranged weapon. The best assassins will be fighters and gunslingers (sniper gunslingers especially), that can use mark for death out of combat. It's only 3 actions, which makes it much more usable than the investigators pursue a lead and essentially equivalent to the Rangers Hunt Prey. Essentially if you ever see and hear a creature, you immediately mark it for death so it's pre-marked in case combat starts. Then you line up your shot for massive early damage. You don't aim at the boss with assassinate, but you can take out a mook instantly. If you're not using assassinte or if you do want to take out the boss, you also have handy poisoned ammo ready (it's a prerequisite to know alchemy after all). You want maximum chance to crit, so fighter or gunslinger to take advantage of your deadly. Attacking while unnoticed makes the target off-guard and backstabber triggers. Attacking while the target is *asleep* is even better. Being asleep is a massive AC penalty. Angel of Death is for antagonist NPC assassins or for campaigns where you are constantly fighting creatures with regeneration.

One thing I prefer with this assassin over D&Ds one is that the D&D assassin isn't a assassin, its a butcher. It doesn't kill one target it gets bonuses against every target which is bad for something that's meant to be an assassin. So there's that, however... To me a assassin is really, REALLY good at killing ONE thing and then setting up to kill the next singular target in the next scene or combat. They're that guy that creeps through the rafters to drip poison down on to the king's pillow and then disappear without a trace. They're the ones that destroyed the Lich's phylactery before the combat even started. They're the ones that take the guild contract to kill that one person at the time, location and way specified by the contract. They do one thing and one thing only EXTREEMLY well. Point is Assassins should be terrible at killing mobs but fantastic at destroying one target at a time regardless of weapon, technique or range (the right tool for the job) and then disappearing. That disappearing granting bonuses for their next assassination... and so forth. They should struggle at dealing with the trash mobs but having an assassin in the party always means that the 'big bad' is always at risk as the assassin could kill him without warning, at anytime by themselves. In short assassins are giant killers not butchers, they specialise in that. While assassins are inherently solitary characters and thus bad for roleplaying in a party of other characters. The design for the assassin should be based around that moment of dramatic strike and setting up for that moment (and then vanishing).

Gfwell is my favorite flavor of sand. Numnumnumnum

re the stealth section starting at 10:41: I don't actually think you'd use the "Sneak" action if you're not in combat. Unless you've rolled initiative, you're still in Exploration mode, and thus would use the "Avoid Notice" exploration activity (single Stealth check vs. Perception DC) while you sneak up to the guard. The assassin would still be unnoticed when they roll initiative to use the Assassinate action, unless the guard rolled higher initiative than them (then they'd be undetected instead).

They shouldve marketed this as a WotC collab. this seems like most subclasses in 5e.

Was that one of those Disney glasses that McDonalds gave out in the 90s? My family has like six of them, all different designs.

And here I was thinking Surprise Attack was useless as my rogue literally never used it once. Assassin is even worse

Step one, be a bard. Step two, be an assassin. Step three, perform for the King. Step three, mark for death. Step four, return weeks later while you have an alibi. Step five, use bard abilities to sneak into the King's room, unnoticed. Step five, unalive the King.

I feel called out as my first of2e character was an assassin monk using stumbling stance. He died on his first mission to assassinate someone at level 4.

When I think of an assassin I think of someone that specializes in striking from the shadows and fading back in, not a crappy ranger that needs alchemy.

I thought it might be interesting to think about how and where this could actually be used. And it ends up being the place where a lot of things with interesting fantasies but poor execution end up: a game with 1 GM and 1 player. It kind of only works if you build your encounters to make it work. And even if you go through the trouble of manually turning your Pathfinder game into the tabletop equivalent of a stealth videogame, in a normal PC party your reward is that character becomes minimally functional while everyone else is getting neat tricks.

I feel like you aren't really making the same sort of comparison as you do with all the other archetype feats. A majority of Archetypes are situational and many need some amount of set up to make work. If you are playing a campaign where you are doing a lot of planning to take out a target, then this archetype is perfectly fine. Mark for death lasts for quite a while and most archetype don't give this type of straight damage upgrades, especially with just the dedication feat. Angel of Death is pretty solid as well, giving a great way to eliminate regeneration targets and prevent annoying city watch investigators from doing to much to discover your crimes. Assassinate is a huge damage increase and I don't think that you should be using this on the BBEG (because that is strictly against the game design philosophy of paizo). Being able to sneak through a compound and systematically pick off guards is very assassin like. I also don't think you should judge it based on a character with no skill feat in stealth would be able to do. Swift sneak you can get at that point, and you are only three levels away from legendary sneak. All of this to say that this is an archetype that relies heavily on planning for fights before they happen and they are well equipped to do that. If you don't run a campaign that is going to allow for that, then you should tell your player characters that before hand.

This is a hold over from prestige classes. 3.0 Prestige Classes specifically that were adopted into Pathfinder 1e. Arcane Archer is if I recall much higher level and Assassin took suit to requiring some hefty requirements. Never really popular its made to assassinate NPCs in a roleplaying environment (it required 3 uninterrupted turns of study originally)

Strictly speaking a PC gets their level up features in any order they’d like. Not that this changes how underwhelming assassins are against equally leveled foes.

Yeah I see a lot of problems here. The crux of them being that "good at killing things" is a presumed norm, and not a specialty, leaving *very* little design space. I feel like Marked for Death should be an exploration activity, or at least available in Exploration mode. That's kind of how it worked in previous editions. I dunno. It's just really hard to make "kills opponents good" a thing without automatically making every ability Best In Class™️

Paizo has always hated the assassin archetype. I dont know why but they think that assassin isn't just the pure combat focused archetype for Rogue that it should be, logically. Instead they give the best combat abilities to thief which should just be the skill money Rogue but is actually the "Do everything" archetype with how they designed it. Thief should lose most of its combat effects (like dex instead of Str on damg) and have that be given to Assassin (as well as stuff like analyze weakness or feats that add dice to sneak attack) but every other Rogue Archetype other that thief should lose the skill feat/proficiency progression of every level.

I was expecting NoNat to do an anti-hype, "But WAIT!!! There's LESS!!!"

With every rule set the flavor of the rules matter. Assassins are great at 2 things, killing people unnoticed, and great at movement. I would argue that there should be only 2 skill requirements in both stealth and either acrobatics or athletics. Also you will need sneak attack. Now that you have a solid base to add on to, what do we add? We add in when you deal sneak attack damage you also auto crit with your weapon's specialization automatically with only a successful hit. It doesnt trigger additional damage or damage dice but it does allow for you to really do some crazy things with bleed damage, knocking people prone, pinning people to walls with arrows. It allows you to not just "hit stuff better" but really open up the weapon box and see what you want to use.

Imagine wacthing this video in the future when the assasing and hasnt been remastered...

I beg to differ. The archetype definitely lives up to the fantasy expectations of what people assume and assassin will be. The problem is that the rule set doesn't live up to the fantasy expectations of what people assume the Assassin to be.

Ngl i really miss 4e's style of Assasin, felt very unique and fun while having it's own distict flavor, it was unnapologetically edgy in all the best ways and managed to be something more than "rogue but edgy" Kinda wish it was the route Paizo took! Fun fact: in one of Brazil's official PFS's servers, everytime a NoNat prediction comes true, we say "of course NoNat knows that, his dad works at Paizo", we cannot deny that NoNat kinda looks like a younger Jason Bulmahn, if he get's this one right, we are memeing, be warned!

You go to make a melee assassin and end up with a Stealth Archer. Just like Skyrim.

The death trait lets you ignore regeneration effects like a trolls

I want to make an investigator/ assassin archetype that’s a demon hunter after the closing of the world wounds Golarion.

You can review worst spells also! There are so many of them! If you get into maths, there are spells, that have like 5% of a chance of doing anything at all.

I do that. When i DM, i give all monsters and NPCs Death Saves. I'm the one DM on Earth that would make Angel of Death useful...maybe.

*gestures in the direction of Archetypes+ which gives a big expansion to Assassin and many other archetypes*

I would not that there are several archetypes that were created in 1st edition (and I am assuming the idea continues into 2nd) that exist solely for GMNPCs. They are not general purpose adventuring archetypes, they are very specific, job-related progressions.

Changes I would make to the archetype to make it usable... 1- Change Mark for Death to 1 action, just like Hunt Prey or similar mechanics are already. It adds so relatively little in it's own compared to Hunt Prey and is harder too activate. 2- change Mark for Death to require being able to precisely identify the target with at least one sense - such as sight, hearing, touch, or other exotic senses like tremorsense. 3- Adjust the weapon requirements to get the bonus traits to match Sneak Attack. 4- change the requirements of the dedication to only two of the three skills, no skill feat. 5- change the backstabber trait in general to do weapon bonus precision damage, min 1. So +1 does 1, +2 does 2, and +3 does 3. Then have expert backstabber double that damage. 6- Angel of Death should also include the option to have any attack also include the trait of a single elemental type, special material, or damage type. Doing so let's the attack exploit that weakness 7- Make Assassinate only require hidden. 8- change the Assassinate save to 1d6 on crit success, 3d6 on success, 6d6 on fail, 12d6 on crit fail with instant death as an Incapacitate trait effect. 9- change Public Execution to make target vulnerable to Assassinate until the end of your next turn, and anyone that heard the declaration gain the benefits of Marked for Death against the target. 10- add a way to inflict persistent damage or bleed to a Marked target - such as when inflicting damage from backstabber - and make any target suffering persistent damage always be vulnerable to the assassin's Sneak Attack or Backstabber (or similar) effects. 11- give the dedication basic Sneak Attack (like the archetype feat does currently, does not attack with other sources of Sneak Attack dice.

Yeah, as someone who plays a Jiangshi-born monk/assassin(a lot of the 'poison fist' vibe), all of his power comes from the Monk side. Now we use Free Archetype and such so it's not really a loss to take this, and it's fitting for the guy, so I keep it, but yeah. I definitely would like some extra goodies. It doesn't have to be crazy powerful or anything, but being able to use it more for, like, Assassinating would be kind of nice. Angel of Death is neat and can...do stuff but yeah it's SUPER situational. It's certainly a class that I was just working with the GM to find some improvements that it could get. Making Assassinate usable on above-level targets, when hidden(not unnoticed), so a simple stealth roll would be better with it. THAT being said-I agree that this class is very much most likely this class is going to get a remaster. Like there's a few weak archetypes, but I cannot figure out how they made THIS one so bad. Paizo is usually really good with balance but they just waaaay undershot the mark for it. I think yeah, ranged weapons its alright(it'd be kinda silly if it were reduced to that though-I'd have just called it 'The Sniper' at that point), but still not *good.* But I want to play my Poison/Dragon monk and let him stealth around and make people ded better. He does that great *as a monk* but it'd be neat if the abilities of the assassin matched its flavor(it does have pretty nice flavor.)

tbh I don't know the system well enough to have an actual deep mechanical feat explination for how to pazzaz up the dedication but I think that something simple like "when you are hidden and the initiatiove has not started if you hit a target it deals max damage (which can later turn to double the max damage probably) but otherwise you deal less damage while in initiative" or it could be some sort of a falling off effect like you deal extra damage at the start of the combat but then as the combat rounds roll you lose 1 point of damage per round, which can make you switch your tactics as time goes on to be more supportive as a player then just a damage dealer

Angel of Death in a nutshell: "People die when they are killed" 😂

Additional point. The prerequisites specifically called for Craft and craft alchemy. None of those archetype Feats used them. No buffs to poison use, no unique crafted assassination traps. Nothing

Me: I think it’d be cool to make the main cast of Spy X Family into PF2E. I’ll probably start with Yor; she definitely fits the Assassin archetype NoNat1s: *releases this video* Me: …..Um…maybe I’ll start working on Loid instead

As a lot of prestige classes, this one seems almost entirely for flavour. For a dungeon crawl campaign, it's completely useless, but in a setting where it allows for admission into a organization and gives you "job" opportunities you would not otherwise have, it may be ok'ish. Gladiator and pirate seems like sort of the same thing, it's almost more of a background, cool if there are lots of other gladiators/ pirates you then get to associate with. Maybe it should have been replaced or augmented by some sort of 'contacts' systems, then barred if those are not part of the campaign.

Local beer is very refreshing, how dare you.

I think assassins should get exploration abilities that allow them to remove enemies before the start of combat. Not like bosses, but clear out some of the low level mooks. They should also have abilities to take people out in non-combat situations without causing it to escalate into combat.

I feel that Incapacitate in and of itself needs to either go away, or be modified. It's hard enough to play a character that specializes in any effects that might cause it to have their abilities simply ignored by an enemy being higher level than they are. (Which is a common occurence in Pathfinder to my experience, mostly Society play.)

My PF1E Slayer hit level 10 recently and got to use their Assassinate class feature for the first time. It was wonderful and horrible. Let me set the scene... My Slayer is a Sylph who as time has gone on has become more and more airy and less and less solid. When she uses stealth at night she is damned close to undetectable, and she can now fly at will so she's a silent, floating, undetectable death-dealer. While other party members went in to visit a contact of ours, I spotted what looked like an assassin with a heavy crossbow hiding on the roof across the street. I stealthed up behind him and basically just waited to see what he would do, and when a fight started I got highest initiative and used assassinate for the first time. I ran him through with my elven curve blade, he failed the fort save, instadeath. It was so impressive that the GM said that actual god of murder himself appeared across the street and gave me a smile and a little salute, though I failed the religion check and had no idea who he was. Later I discovered that he was the shopkeeper's brother and was PROTECTING his shop, so my poor slayer felt terribly guilty and dropped 5kgp from her personal funds to get him raised. Amusingly, once raised he was full of praise, marvelling at what a clean cut it was, and saying, "I always hoped that when I died, it would be at the hands of a true artist like yourself," which only made her feel even guiltier. (She's very lawful-neutral and considers herself a guardian of law and order, so being complimented as a really top-class murderer did not fill her with joy.) Anyway, it's a shame that experience couldn't be replicated in PF2E, at least with current rules-as-written.

I think that assassin shines out of combat in roleplay scenario. In my mind there is really cool concept of kind and shy at day cleric of Sarenray, that must kill bad guys at night because every light bring the shadows and we are responsible of what lives in it. Assassin kills when victim least expects it.