Salon du Masque

Focus on Freeport #15: Salon du Masque

"Salon du Masque" was reprinted in Tales of Freeport (pp. 80-81), with the addition of an alternate stat block for the DMG Assassin class. (I have left my original comments intact, rather than scrap my own effort.) 

I don’t own The Assassin’s Handbook, so can’t provide much in the way of errata for “Salon du Masque”. However, I have found a couple of items to comment on in the Countess’s stat block:

p. 2, Countess D’Amberville: See The Assassin’s Handbook about Killing Blow, Glib Tongue, Quick Change, Weapon Panache, Sign Language, and the Shadow Hands and Smoke Form spells. [See Tales, p. 81, for a description of Weapon Panache.] Her Charisma alone would give more than +0 to Intimidate; perhaps this is supposed to be “+10”? [Tales corrects Intimidate to +11.]

A few other questions occurred to me while reading this Focus:

1) From a quick look at The Assassin’s Handbook in the store, I saw that the introduction states that the DMG assassin (DMG, pp. 29-30) and the A.H. assassin should not be used in the same campaign. I did not read enough then to determine whether the A.H. gives guidelines for converting DMG-style assassins to the new class. Assuming A.H. is the new standard for GR assassins, this conversion would be necessary for Jesswin (Focus on Freeport #5) and Slaan (Terror in Freeport).

2) Does GR have any advice on how to re-stat the Countess if a GM wishes to use her but does not have (or does not wish to use) the A.H.?

I have attempted to devise my own solution to converting the Countess to a DMG-style assassin:

Rog1/Ftr4/Asn7: CR 12; HD 8d6+4d10+12; hp 64; Atk +16/+11 melee or +13/+8 ranged; SA sneak attack +5d6, death attack (DC 19), poison use; SQ +3 save vs. poison, uncanny dodge (Dex bonus to AC, can’t be flanked); AL CE; SV Fort +7, Ref +11, Will +4.

Skills: As listed, except Intimidate +10, Jump +30*.

Feats: Delete Glib Tongue and Quick Change; replace Weapon Panache with Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus.

Languages: Delete Sign Language (or drop one skill by 2 ranks to buy a new language).

Spells Prepared: Replace Shadow Hands and Smoke Form with spells listed in the DMG, p. 30.

3.5 Revision 

See the d20 Freeport Companion for a v.3.5 update to the assassin class (pp. 8-12) and the Countess (p. 96).