5 Tips for Assassins
Header Art: Pathfinder Core Rulebook (2019) by Paizo Publishing
Every once in a while, your stories might include assassinating a king, a priest, an important character, or even one of the player characters because they decided to make fun of another adventuring group. In this case, you need an assassin (or two) to sneak in, kill the target, and escape safely. But… how do you accomplish that?
Luckily for your would-be assassins, there are several items, strategies, and more they can use to get into places they shouldn’t, do a light bit of regicide, and escape from under the noses of those pesky adventurers that insist on calling themselves ‘heroes’.
1) Gaseous Form
While your assassin might not be a spellcaster, that doesn’t mean they can’t pick up a potion of gaseous form. This handy spell allows a creature to become a misty cloud for an hour, slipping through cracks, under doors, disguise as fog, and anything else air might be able to enter. Few people are going to trap themselves in an air-tight room, especially since they’ll eventually run out of air and they’ll have to open up their room for a quick breather.
An assassin with this spell or potion means that they can go just about anywhere they need to. They are a cloud of mist, watch how they soar and sneak into a well-guarded castle.
Of course, there are downsides. If you want your assassin to escape, they need two vials of this potion since it ends once they leave their mist form. Which they are going to have to do if they want to kill someone since clouds aren’t known for murdering people and you can’t attack or cast spells while a mist due to the wording of the spell. So your assassin better have a second dose of this potion or an escape plan for after they’ve done the deed (or a way into the castle if they are using the potion as their escape route).
Additionally, people are going to notice a bit of fog wandering the hallways of a castle or sneaking about the grounds. You aren’t invisible. This means you need to plan your attack during a foggy morning, in the middle of the night, or some other mist- or fog-shrouded time. Or have a druid finally use that control weather spell they couldn’t think of a use for and make a fog-shrouded day for you.
2) Hat of Disguise
One of the most common pieces of adventuring equipment is the hat of disguise, a powerful item when used for nefarious purposes. This at-will disguise self spell allows an assassin to effortlessly change their appearance on the fly, letting them easily fade into a crowd and appear as anyone they wish. They can easily take on the guise of a soldier, a servant, a royal visier, or anyone they need to so that they can get close to their target. Once they do the deed, they can then swap their look as they sprint off into a confused crowd.
This strategy gets even more useful when the assassin is a goblin, kobold, halfling, or gnome, allowing them to appear as a small human child or any other small-sized creature that can move about without much attention drawn to them. No one will notice the small child running through the fancy noble’s ball toward the king, at least not until it is too late.
There are downsides to this strategy. It takes your action to cast the spell, so you have to sacrifice your Dash or Hide action to assume a new identity. This is a bit compensated for if you can Dash or Hide as a bonus action, like a rogue or a goblin. In addition, you are limited to an illusion that is close to your original form so you can’t make yourself appear as a child if you are the size of a goliath, and if someone pats you down, they’ll quickly discover the weapon sheathed on your hip. In addition, anyone with true seeing up will quickly notice a goblin covered in weapons and poison vials running towards the king and respond with a handy disintegrate spell.
3) Hidden Compartments
So far we have only talked about magic items that any adventurer can get, but let’s talk about hidden compartments. This could be an empty space in the heel of their favorite pair of boots, a secret poison cache in a hollowed-out jewel on their ring, or a false wall in their cart where they keep their weapons. These compartments allow an assassin to sneak dangerous substances or weapons into places they aren’t supposed to be, giving them an edge against all the unarmed nobles at the party who foolishly left their rapiers at the entrance with their cloaks and hats. The fools.
There are several ways to go about this, but a favorite includes a hollowed ring with a single dose of poison in it. When you are ready to inject the poison, you can either sleigh of hand the poison into the victim’s drink, use a small needle embedded in the ring to slap them on the back, or punch them really hard in the face. Kind of depends on how obvious you are trying to make the poisoning be.
The obvious downside is how you access your hidden compartment without anyone noticing or stopping you. Often these compartments might not end up in the most convenient of places, like if you hid the items in a small compartment in your carriage, you might have to come up with an excuse to get access to it. Or maybe you built a dagger into your shoe, now you have to break open your shoe or only able to kick people with your dagger-shoe since it can’t be pried out.
4) Etherealness
Looking at another magical solution, an assassin who has deep pockets might be able to pick up a batch of oil of etherealness or perhaps own a set of legendary plate armor of etherealness. While this is quite an expensive solution, it is one that few have safeguards against. An assassin that isn’t even on the material plane is difficult to stop, especially when you can only see them if you have true seeing or true sight - which you probably don’t since that spell only lasts for 1 hour and is 6th-level. You aren’t likely to keep that cast at all times, especially when it costs you 25 gp every time you do it.
This is especially handy when an assassin wants to kill a king in the middle of the night or day, or whenever they want. Because you are on a different plane, the assassin doesn’t leave an obvious trail for servants, guards, or others to notice until they return to the material plane. In addition, while on the Ethereal Plane, you can walk through walls, up into the sky, under the ground, and more. The only thing you can’t walk through are objects made of gold or lead, and living creatures. Otherwise, while on the Ethereal, you can see into the material plane as if looking through a stained-glass window and move in any direction or through any object you want.
Of course, even this very expensive solution has some downsides. While on the Ethereal Plane, you can not affect creatures or objects on the material plane and you can’t see fine details or hear anything on the material plane. So you must return to the material plane to read secret documents, hear whispered conversations, or stab the king in the back. You can’t even put your knife into the king’s ethereal back while on the Ethereal Plane and then return to the material plane with the killing blow. There is no way to bypass a living creature’s aura while on the Ethereal Plane so you have to wait until you return to the material plane to stab your target.
This now means you are back on the material plane, where everyone can see you, and you need an escape route after the job is done. Perhaps you have an invisibility potion or a potion of gaseous form, but you will need something to help you get out and you probably don’t want to spend the money on a second rare potion unless you have to.
5) Poisoner’s Kit
We’ve already talked about poisoning in regards to a hidden compartment, but this tool is far more valuable than as an incidental side mention. An assassin that hasn’t learned how to use poisoner’s kits is in for a bad time. I’ve written about how to use poisoner’s kit and provided a lot of different poisons, and so it is up to every assassin to learn to use this invaluable tool against their targets.
This is an especially handy tool when you want to be away from the crime, when you want to make sure no one sees you do it, or if you are wanting to inflict the poison on more than one person at a time - like a whole banquet of guests and nobles!
Unfortunately, the poisoner’s kit does have some downsides. If you aren’t there to oversee the poisoning, you can’t be sure that it’ll work as well as you want. If someone has a paladin or a cleric nearby, they might be able to stave off the poison. There are a lot of creatures immune or resistant to poisons, like dwarves, and you don’t have control over the creature’s dice luck to ensure they fail the save.
Many of these downsides can be mitigated, but that will typically require you to be in the room where the poisoning happens, ensuring that the job gets done and you can get paid for that little nasty bit of regicide.
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