Posted by Assassin on October 7, 2000 at 20:52:31:
In Reply to: My take on all races for Assassins. (text) posted by Zepachu on October 7, 2000 at 18:46:05:
> 1) Felar - Felars have their claws and inherent street-fighting ability, making them quite potent... even when naked. A high level assassin can effectively wield a staff and strike with their claws, dealing out a great deal of damage. Also, they are great at backfist. Everything will take you a long time to learn, but if you're serious about the character it's well worth it. Hmm, disagree. Fire and water vuln are terrible. You can't even go underwater meaning that total exploration of Thera is impossible. Also, the nature of the class offsets the natural street fighting abilities of felar. 550 xp penalty isn't justifed and the 23 CON is very much offset by 17 STR and 17 INT. > 2) Drow - The reason I have dark-elves as second is because I like Felar claws and their health. Drow learn really quick, and even though they have a wicked bad experience penalty a level 25 assassin VS a level 30 warrior will win the fight. Don't let ANYONE fool you, having your skills mastered plays a big roll (literally) in battle. Ack, mithriil axe is really all I should need to say here. The drow has a chance against only the dumbest of warriors. The vuln can be too easily exploited. Also, you _will_ find yourself in range with many people 9 levels your senior. 24 INT and DEX is nice but doesn't compensate for the 800 (!) xp penalty and miserable CON. Oh, you must be evil so your choices are limited there too. > 3) Arial - If you intend on being a battlerager (shiver) be an arial... you'll be able to escape Invoker quicksand and other such things with inherent flying... other races can just quaff a potion quite easily found/bought. Pretty much the same argument as for felar. This time it's lightning and water. High INT and awesome dexterity plus auto-fly are fine things. I would rank these 2nd behind humans. But beware of invokers, water elementals, your weaknesses are easily exploited. Heck, even a ranger can call lightning, and embossed rings will haunt you too... > 4) Half-Elves - Yuck. Hybrids! They're comparable to drow but with a different vuln... Here I agree. Really isn't any reason. Dark vision and sneak are part of the class so why bother. And humans, the nearest comparison here, don't have the iron problem. > 5) Humans - You will rank quicker than others, sure, and all around will be a well-balanced character, but there IS a reason other races get experience penalties... It pays off. If this is your first assassin, play a human, quickly rank up to 30-35, see how the class is. A dozen or two hours of ranking should let you see 30-35 as human, especially since assassins are always wanted as tanks. Then delete and pick another race. Someone else mentioned this too... But human is the best tradeoff. Your 23 DEX is still fine. Only felar can beat you CON-wise (at a huge price tho). You have no vuln, no align restrictions. 20 INT is not quite as good as arial but still serviceable. And no race xp penalty. Humans are the best choice imho. So I would say: human, arial, felar, drow and h-elf. The gap between human and arial is much smaller than between arial and felar as well.