4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

I believe article was actually scheduled for last month but got bumped at the last moment.  In any case, most of the concerns people have expressed about the assassin (at least the ones that I’ve read such as the missing ki foci, missing multi-class feats, not enough racial, paragon, and epic feats) have little to do with the fundamentals of class design that Mearls is discussing in this column.

But the complaints of the title of Assassin vs the class is dead on to this article...there is thread here on just that. I agree BP, it is a nice article but does leave you wondering.

I just don’t see how that particular discussion, which I’ve seen many, many times on various messageboards over the years, usually in relation to the barbarian class, relates to this article, which really has nothing to say about class names.

This article is talking about several things, one of which is the fluff of the class. Personally, the class name “Assassin” comes with a lot of history. People see that class and already have an idea of what to expect...an for a lot of them, that is some kind of Rogue. This is not what the 4e Assassin is at all and so the fluff doesn’t work. As for the mechanics, I think this is the most interesting striker mechanic to date.

I’m not saying that the article effectively addresses all the specific criticisms that have been laid against the assassin.  Indeed, it doesn’t come anywhere close to doing that and I don’t think it even tries.  It’s simply that the idea of an article discussing class design released in the same month as a new class which has received a whole lot of criticism makes me think that the criticism was planned for or that the article was written because of it.

I liked the article.  It was a bit short but gave some basic questions to ask.  I am in the middle of designing a class right now and I found this article of use.  As far as actual design it didn’t give me much, but I was glad to see my fundamental design concepts are good and that I am on the right track.
I have not been following the discussions on the Assassin (except for the misnomer of the name, which I agree with), so I didn’t bring any baggage into the reading of the article.  Therefore, I saw it as more of an informative article than a rebuttal.