PrC suggestion?

[Kajae]

Really? That's weird, given that similar prerequisites are available with classes.

[Doubtful]

Feats and Classes are very different beasties.

[Spacedog]

You could make the feat require not-good to actually do anything, and then include in the description of the feat that it should only be taken by non-good characters. Of course, you're inevitably going to get the occasional careless person complaining about their useless feat.

[Cornuto]

I'd rather see poison be made useful first. As it stands now the poisoned weapon duration is a few seconds, it's a higher DC to apply it than to overcome it, and at best it does 2 points of ability damage.

The duration of applied poison to a weapon is 18 seconds (3 rounds). 3 seconds of which is taken up by the resolving of the spell effect before I can actually swing my weapon to use it.

The DC of the applied poison is lower then the DC to apply it to the blade by 2 points consistently, making it more dangerous for me then my victim. The application requires a DC check between 16 to 28 depending on the posion.

Regardless of the DC of the poision the damage is always 1d2 to a sepcific ability and is never any stronger, which most people won't blink at. Once posion is applied to a creature, they cannot be effected by the same poison again until the first is either cured or wears off.

Good aligned classes aren't missing much.

[Spacedog]

It'd be nice having some poisons that, say, silenced, or slowed, or turned the person into a chicken briefly.

[NaturalHazard]

So its not just killing people its how you do it that determines whether your evil or not? so sneaking up to someone and sliting their throat ect is evil even if they are an enemy and b would kill you if given the chance? but its not evil to nuke someone from a distance with a spell? thats not evil? so if you have to kill someone or they are out to get you the only way to fight if your good is A not to fight to run away or whatever and if you fight to challege them directly? You can't run away and hide then shoot them in the back while they are looking the otherway? I guess then im an evil SOB in rl cause if someone is out to get me im going to use any trick I can to stay alive or get them first, besides maybe endangering others if I can help it. Anyway so any type of pre-emptive strike or action is evil? And the use of poisons hunters often use poisons to kill prey, and tribes of people have in the past often use poisons in warfare? im sure every single one of those people who used poison was evil? How about setting traps is that evil 2?

[NaturalHazard]

not everyone is a paladin, war/fighting for keeps is not a sport where you get awarded brownie points for good sportsmanship and you get to meet up after the game and have a couple of rounds with the other team. So killing efficiently is evil? spells, tactics, any trick?

[NaturalHazard]

fighter uses knockdown to knock his foe down, does he then have to wait for him to get up before he takes a swing at him? i guess he has to if he is a good or neutral charactor because it would be evil to kick or bash out your enemies brains while hes lying helpless there on the ground, nevermind the fact that a second before he tried to open your veins with a blade. Only evil rogues can use sneak attacks? or only sneak attacks from stealth?

[NaturalHazard]

sorry im just confused, i guess all my charactors that I have ever played are evil because when it comes to combate they used whatever worked best to eliminate the enemy with as less risk to themselves as possible, only considerations would be innocents getting caught in the crossfire. And i guess in the game we can rp pvp where we heal/revive the enemy but capture them instead of letting them go free or killing them outright, but against the spawn we dont get any options like that.

[Spacedog]

Understanding why a class is evil-only becomes complicated, as our world doesn't work on the black-white scale the Forgotten Realms do. In the case of the assassin, the PrC requires, in pnp, that you kill someone for no reason other than joining the assassins, or to make money. That's just plain evil.

The Use Poison feat is only used by evil PrCs (or at least very nearly only used by evil PrCs, I'm sure there are exceptions) because, well, using poison on sentient, intelligent beings is evil. Hence why Talona, the goddess of disease and poison, is evil.

Of course, the assassin PrC has slowly warped from being a killer-for-hire to being, basically, just a rogue with HiPS in the minds of most players, it seems. With that understanding, no, there's nothing inherently evil about it.

[Kajae]

It's not just how you kill, it's also that for which you kill.

However, the whole idea of Assassins being Evil just because they kill for money is a little odd.

The average adventurer breaks into homes, massacres the inhabitants, and loots their corpses, often going to the trouble of picking off anyone who tries to flee, and there is generally a reward attached. The inhabitants are rarely in the middle of doing anything malicious at that particular time, often just eating, sleeping, or counting their monies.

Sure, you might say they're 'monsters' and 'evil.' But Assassins kill Evil people all the time; after all, someone who's Evil probably has more enemies than someone who's Good, since they've got their own alignment pool to contend with in addition to those opposite them. They might not be performing the assassination because 'it's the right thing to do,' but most adventurers are simply in it for personal gain (gp and exp), too. And Adventurers kill a lot more guard mooks who are probably just there because the pay is good and they need to feed their families.

The only thing 'Evil' about the Assassin class from its abilities is the use of poisons, and even that isn't very evil. Rangers traditionally use natural poisons all the time in lore, especially when confronting particularly hated enemies. And the average human probably has a good deal of bug or rat poison around their house. Is it any worse using toxins on a sentient creature than a nonsentient one?

It might be one thing if Poison did damage or caused excrutiating pain, but the representation in-game is a little on the light side. Hell, it's probably weaker than most Rat Poisons we have today.

Alignments suck.

[Spacedog]

Is it any worse using toxins on a sentient creature than a nonsentient one?

Yes. Yes, it is.

[Kajae]

Questionable by modern standards, perhaps, but I suppose the DnD world is more Black-and-White.

Of course, a lot of the time it isn't.

The point is that you're intentionally dosing a living creature with substances designed to kill and cripple.

[Saulus]

Is there a suggestion buried in here somewhere? Sorry guys, please open a new thread if you wish to discuss this matter further.