Alright, since my previous topic in the general forum is pretty much an arguement of personal ideas at this point, I'd like to come here and take this a different route.

I've looked around in some class sourcebooks and various wikis, but I've yet to find a good meaty bit of lore for the Assassin PrC. I've seen a lot of examples of backstories for other people's custom assassins (ninjas, trained killers, what-have-you) but nothing official. Is there something good I'm missing out there?

Lore about their origins, skills, abilities-- stuff that makes them special and a PrC.

No. I'm willing to bet there's no Realmslore on the class specifically. It's "just" a class.

The best you can hope for is descriptions of assassin groups and individual NPCs. There are the Night Masks in Westgate, featured in the Cleric Quintet novel of the same name, and apparently in some NWN2 module called Mysteries of Westgate. There's something in Lords of Darkness too, I believe. Erevis Cale was also part of them, you might want to read up on him. Artemis Entreri is another famous assassin. Not sure if either ever had the PrC, though. The latter predates 3e.

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<- That book has a whole chapter related to Assassins Guilds. Night Masks most prominently, also Eldreth Veluuthra(Human hating elves), and to a small degree Fire Knives(Cormyrans) and Flames of the Dark Sun (Cyricists).

However when converted to pdf form, I'm a second edition source. Thats fine, because second edition was the best for fluff, but its an entirely different class system. So there's nothing specific about particular abilities.

As for the original origin back in the days of yore...I don't know. Something to do with Bhaal, perhaps?

I can't remember the title of the book anymore but the class descriptions from the second edition (maybe its just player's handbook 2'ed?) has a fair bit on them on their old mechanics as it was a stand alone class back then. Further some religious history about Bhaal's church (bascially just assassins) and Cyric's modern church where assassins also play a large role.

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...Hereof follows that the social contract is only beneficial as long as all have something and none have too much...
- Rousseau Book 1 Chapter 9 in "The Social Contract"

Don't know if you have check this or not but in the 3.5 Edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 180, there's quite a bit about Assassins. It's almost two pages, then it goes into Blackguard.

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk31 ... ea0990.jpg
http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk31 ... 4bf675.jpg

Description of Assassins directly taken from Dungeon Master's guide 3.5 Ed Page 180

The assassin is the master of dealing quick, lethal blows. Assassins also excel at infiltration and disguise. Assassins often function as spies, informants, killers for hire, or agents of vengeance. Their training in anatomy, stealth, poison, and the dark arts allows them to carry out missions of death with shocking, terrifying precision. Most rogues, monks, and bards who choose this class become examples of the classic assassin skulking in the shadows with a blade carrying certain death. Fighters, ex-paladins, rangers, druids, and barbarians operate as warrior assassins, with as much ability to kill in combat as from the shadows. Sorcerers, wizards, and clerics may be the most terrifying asassins of all, for with their spells they can infiltrate and slay with even greater impunity. As NPCs, assassins work in guilds or secret societies found hidden in cities or based in remote ortresses in the wilderness. Sometimes they serve more powerful evil characters singly or in a group. Occasionally an assassin works alone, but only the most capable are willing to operate without any sort of support or backup.

Requirements:
To qualify to become an assassin, a
character must fulfill all the following
criteria.
Alignment: Any evil.
Skills: Disguise 4 ranks, Hide 8 ranks, Move Silently 8 ranks.
Special: The character must
kill someone for no other reason
than to join the assassins.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

Speaking of which, is there any mention of what happens to the abilities of an assassin who later turns neutral or good? Obviously they can't take more assassin levels but are they like bards or monks who lose none of their class abilities? Or do they get a lot of their abilities hosed if they fall out of evil alignment?

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I play:

I think they they would keep their abilites. There's no Ex-Assassin bit like there is with Paladin or Druid, for example.

Obviously though, there's a chance that using some of those abilities again will quickly move the character back to evil. But lets not start that alignment argument again.

I would assume that since their abilities are knowledge based, they would retain them. They aren't divine in nature like, Paladins, Druids, etc.

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The official 3.5 FAQ (page 30) states that non-evil assassin loses his class features including weapon and armor proficiencies. Weird, huh?

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«I always play fair. Exactly as fair as my opponents.»
Mara Jade

The official FAQ is officially wrong, IMO.

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Named Most Influential Character, Amia Awards 2011

I quite agree. To be honest, loss of spells isn't impossible to justify (well, assassin is spontaneous arcane spellcaster, thus some sort of supernatural, possibly alignment-wise phenomenon might be involved), but why on Toril would anyone lose mundane sneak attack and proficiencies due to change in alignment?..

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«I always play fair. Exactly as fair as my opponents.»
Mara Jade

Could be that the abilities themselves are sort of innately evil, just like some spells.. and if you don't want the alignment anymore you can't use them, thus they become unavailable to your char.

So if your char is an ex-assassin then uses those skills to some sort of end, you'd be shifted towards evil again until you're there and no longer neutral or good.

That's my guess at least, given how the skillset is described in the two pages I posted. Though I think the DMs can decide if how the skillset is used is an evil act or not.

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Adair - Druid and part time treant cosplayer

I guess it would be more along the lines of "as your character renounces his evil ways, he vows to never use his dastardly techniques again".

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