It never made much sense to me for professional assassins to

Aren't ninjas assassins? Like, they're the same thing, right?

Anima comes to mind. The assassin class specializes in traditional stealth, yes, but mostly in acting, blending in, disguises, and poison usage; actually combat skills are secondary if not tertiary. If they have to fight, they're already fucked up HARD.

Then again that's more of a system difference that setting. A Technician or Weapons Master can still make money killing dudes in a flamboyant and open manner.

>>43901580
Yes, but not all assassins are ninjas.

>>43901526
I guess that depends on what kind of assassin, the kind that poisons and sabotages, or the kind that uses a blade?

>>43901641
Even for the latter, shouldn't he just be good at stabbing you by surprise rather than kicking your ass openly?

>>43901628

And ninja don't even specialize exclusively in assassination. They more often serve as scouts, spies, and saboteurs than sneaking and killing.

And, well, they aren't actually trained to fight openly.

>>43901677

Exactly. Ninja were trained and equipped to counter the most common weapons you'd find, the swords of samurai bodyguards, but they weren't meant to fight in the open. Half their techniques are about killing as quietly and efficiently as possible, and the other half are about using weapons as distractions rather than killing tools. You think throwing stars are effective? They're just to make people take cover or cause some pain to anyone chasing you.

>>43901526
Specifically in HxH the Zoldyck family have tu hunt Nen users, who are superhuman with magical powers. Also, it would be basically impossible to sneak up on a good nen user, since En exists, and even without En they can sense other people's auras.

The Zoldyck's are also weird because they're so strong that they own a mountain surrounded by a wall with an unlocked gate. Everyone knows about the Zoldycks and knows what they do.

>>43902776
>They're just to make people take cover or cause some pain to anyone chasing you.

Yah. A lot of Ninja martial training is focused on getting away from the bodyguards long enough to get out of the building.

>>43901526
Few settings account for a knife in the back being a one hit kill so assassins need to be given combat abilities as well.

Meanwhile, Ninja's are oft regarded in media as being The Assassin.
With America media's love affair with ninja back in the eighties, coupled with Japan's love affair with their romantasiced history, as apposed to what really happened, it's led to Ninja being kick-arse fighters second only to the hero.

Thus all assassins are now kick-arse fighters.

>>43902898
That's where they falter in comparison to the hassassins, huh.

>>43902859
They also don't all actually rely on overwhelming confrontational ability, although this is extremely common.

The second youngest doesn't actually apparently fight physically, mostly, although they are probably tougher than the average person, although probably not by Nen user standards, the youngest can do a huge variety of things and doesn't really have to do anything other than want it. (with conditions of course) and it's not really clear what the mother does but I suspect she's more subtle than not, although again, maybe she is dangerous if she wants to get her hands dirty. Palm is dangerous even though she's mostly about divination, for instance.

But yeah, Kill, his father and Grandfather, Illumi, all physically nasty, although Grandad and Illumi also have extremely impressive and useful abilities that aren't really about brawling, and use them liberally. Illumi in particular can use his to be very devious and could easily surprise someone with disguise, or use pawns to attack without ever being detected himself.

Killua does use his power for closer range stuff, but I expect he intends to build towards greater range.

He also uses an application of it to be very, very fast and avoid conflict sometimes, too.

>>43903041
What are other main differences between ninja and hassassins, in regards to combat, techniques, etc?

>>43903292
yeah the Zoldycks are far from invincible, but they're still godlike among humans.
Zeno himself said Netero could beat the shit out of him every day, and Netero even admitted that how he was in the Chimera arc was half his strength when in his prime, and that for 50 years he hadn't been considered the strongest nen user.

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>>43903362
Hassassins had the Pieces of Eden.

>>43903041
Falter? Perhaps. The hashishin were direct political tools and were not expected to survive their missions. They were frequently doped to the gills to grant confidence and resistance to pain. Their mystique was that they were numberless and anonymous, and could be anywhere.

By comparison, the Ninja were less directly used as political tools, though they certainly were used in that role. Their mystique as assassins was their stealth. A successful assassination run was not discovered until the next morning when Lord Hokeitokei didn't rise for breakfast because of a bad case of head separation, poison induced heart attack, or darts to the eyes. Never seen. Never caught. Not that this always worked out...

>>43902776
>And, well, they aren't actually trained to fight openly.
Most ninja were also samurai.

>>43903485
Don't forget that after a ninja attack the lord's death was also usually accompanied by the sudden disappearance of a gardener, cook, attendant or some other simple servant that had been working in the palace for years.

>>43903511
I don't think that's true.

>>43903485
>They were frequently doped to the gills
That's a myth.

>43904412
Many of the big named Ninja schools were Samurai schools.
To a be Ninja from those locals you had to hold the title of Samurai first.

>>43905937
Is meant to link to
>>43904412
I accidently took out one of the >

>>43901526
Real-life? Most modern day settings with a high lethality?

Don't most real assassins just either get close and spray with bullets, snipe or use explosives?

>>43901628
>>43902776
Ninjas have a pretty bad track record at killing dudes and an even worse track record at killing them stealthily, what with one documented unsuccessful attemped being performed with a cannon.

>>43903362
The Assassins basically just stabbed a muta and then were killed on the spot.

Why wouldn't they?

Sure, if their job goes perfect they should never have to use those skills, but when does a job ever go perfect?

Those are skills that benefit them to have(and also increase their physical training) and really have no downside to them learning them.

So why shouldn't they pick up the ability to fight?

>>43905993
The US and Israel just blows the fuck out of the general region they figure their target is in with a missile or guided bomb.

The Russians apparently either use pollonium or just hire thugs who shoot people up in the streets or break into their houses and beat them to death.

>>43906211
This.
And in organized crime, they just get The Boys together and go bash a dude up with sticks or empty a pistol into their chest or whatever. Murdering guys just isn't very theatric.

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I feel like in most systems or settings, 'Assassin' is really something that should either be a major class or archetype with several subclasses and ways to go about it, or just have it be a plain job, and not an actual class.

As is, the word has become a little loose and watery since it can mean a dozen different roles. Are you a ninja? Hired? Freelance? Do you kill by stealth? Brute force? Are you a fighter who is just real good at critical hits and insta kills in a fight? Do you only work if you can sneak up on a target? Are you the kind of assassin who uses disguise, or even public assault like the traditional assassins did?

Like, shit, practically everyone in a game is an assassin in the sense of "Real good at killing shit fast", though I understand the most rote meaning is supposed to be "Real good at killing shit in a quiet, fast, sudden-death manner". The issue being giving players the most traditional gamey-style Assassin power, INSTANTLY KILLING SHIT, is way too fucking overpowered.

>>43906292
The thing about it is that that same stuff goes just as much for real life: what makes an assassin an assassin? Pretty much anyone with a little drive and planning can attempt an assassination, and the most successful ones are often conducted by people who have other jobs or skillsets that ended up being suited to the situation at hand.

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>>43906309
It's true. It's just kind of a weird exception. Almost any other class or job concept is pretty easy to nail down, but Assassin just ends up in 17 directions, none of which seem particularly definitive or satisfying.

At the end of the day I just make Assassin a class that has access to stealth, sneak attacks, poisons, serial/psycho killer style powers, and real heavy critical hit bonuses. Then I let the player flavor it how they like. Maybe they're a giant troll who has solider training that lets him snap necks and be an absolute terror in woodlands, or they can be your usual shady ass hobbit who guts your throat open while you sleep.

Since, well, the most traditional assassin style of 'public murder and then get torn apart' doesn't mesh THAT good with most systems and settings.

>>43902951
>Few settings account for a knife in the back being a one hit kill

This. If you allow a simple stealth check to invalidate all defences and hit points, everyone will specialize in stealth and everything else will become pointless.

>>43906411
And then it will be like skyrim and stealth archers all over again.

Dark Heresy still gives the option of making them great melee fighters, but also the option of making them snipers or even just dudes who blow up your car on the way to the UN.

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>>43906420
Granted, I'd hope that in a played game with people that the enemies wouldn't all be a bunch of blind deaf wandering idiots who stand in place. One or two dudes down in any remotely occupied place, and there's gonna be some alert real fast.

I run GURPS so there is actual incentive to be murderous and quiet, and it has been done and worked before.

But the players were so sick with guilt that they totally changed their story path. And they are also very aware the same could happen to them. Not that I would, but I sure as hell THREATEN like I would through in-game dialogue and NPCs.

>>43901526
You know DnD 5 does this with the assassin archetipe of the rogue class. You only have one attack for all your 20 levels, same as a wizard, but lots of disguising mechanics and a super sneak attack that one shots enemies.

>>43901526
it's a lot easier to kill somebody if you're really good at killing fast with your hands without weapons. Not because a weapon isn't better at actually efficiently ending life (because it totally is), but because it's so much easier to actually get into killing range and make the kill before anybody can react.

Further away you are, the less you control the situation (snipers have limited fields of vision after all, it's not like your target is going to be in the middle of a plain), if you're closer than sniper range then your weapon will stand out, or hiding it will make it hard to get and obvious when you go for it. If you have something small enough to hide easily, then it's not actually going to be good at killing people until you're at point blank range.

That's why you got people in a setting where people can be ULTRALETHAL with their barehands favoring bare hands for a -killing- method.

This leads to anime ninja skills be necessity. You getting in that close and using your hands is going to make extricating yourself tricky without amazing levels of stealth/escape skills.

The whole thing only works in A) settings where it is established super-human abilities are somewhat common (such as Hunter X Hunter), and preclude the use of weapons for one or more reasons (nen users crazy ass abilities).

>>43906506
The reason this doesn't work IRL is because all of the barehanded methods of killing are either fast and unreliable (several kinds of blow to the head can totally be lethal, but depend heavily upon the target's skull structure and pure luck), take too long (strangling someone is straight up the most certain method of killing somebody, but only if you take your time with it), or require too difficult positioning to pull off (snapping somebody's neck means being in a very specific position relative to them, and often requires being in a special kind of body lock to do efficiently, and getting into such locks is really difficult if the target has any friends about, and leave you super vulnerable because you're now tangled with a limp corpse. Also, semi-unreliable, it IS possible to survive a necksnap, and also impressively hard as the neck muscles are REALLY goddamn strong and tough).

Combine with the incredibly high chance of leaving genetic evidence, the favored methods of assassination now basically boil down to:
>Snipe
>Driveby
>Suicide Run
>Bomb

Poison isn't really favored because anything REALLY fast acting tends to be noticable in some way, even if it's just 'oh shit, the wrong person drunk from the glass and now they're tipped off!' And where a bomb can be controlled, poisoning somebody's food is not guaranteed to deliver a lethal dosage.

>>43906539
Well, duh. In real life you can't blow a power slot to tear someone's heart out once per day if their HP is below 25% or they're stunned.

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Another fun and simple way to do an Assassin is just make it a glass cannon style fighter; incredible damage, high mobility, no armor.

>>43906208
The general idea is that one must be quiet enough, as an assassin, not to make a noise, and the stronger you are the heavier you will be. If you're relying on hand to hand combat, that means you're gonna put on some muscle mass, because most fights are determined by physical strength. If you've already been seen, though, then you've already screwed up and will leave more proof that you were ever there. So, it's better to train people how to silently and efficiently run away effectively than to fight a guy.

>>43901526
Go play a bard alchemist who can use the disguise kit or knows alter self.
Bam instant proper assasin.

>>43906292
I remember that mongolian picture scroll pointing out that the hero in vietnamese cartoon electronic tales are basically assassinating kings of enemy nations.

so yeah.

>>43906539
>(strangling someone is straight up the most certain method of killing somebody, but only if you take your time with it)

Historically the thugee tag-teamed people when they stragled them. Three folks held the victim down and one did the strangling. But even that only happened after a baiter had successfully prepped the group they were going to target for the kill.

Whenever I design a class that's supposed to fit the assassin bill, I usually give them a skill set meant to bypass ordinary mechanics.

Like, it's not just "they kill things fast". It's not a matter of speed as much as it is of it being unfair.

Assassins should be able to take the most advantage of systems meant to even out the playing field. Great at killing, but shit at defeating opponents in a fair battle.

>>43906957
Like what?

>>43906963
Well abusing sneak is a way. If there's some sort of multiplier for sneak damage theirs is way higher, or ignores any defense. So they can deal awesome damage if undetected, but once visible they are fucked.

These depend on the system, but for more realistic ones, things like poison are great because they usually kill everyone without much variation. A super strong warrior might have some resistance, but in general he won't last much longer than a normal person.

In short, Assassin's use things that would allow a weakling to potentially kill someone stronger than they are, or bypass defenses they might have.