A Fix for Death Attack [3.5]

[CountD]

So I've always been a fan of the idea of the Assassin class, but the main feature of the Assassin, death attack, is underpowered and I feel that it is in need of fixing. So I homebrewed an item with inspiration directed toward the Assassin's Creed series of video games for a special weapon, an "Assassin's Blade," that has the effect of doubling the DC of death attack and then adding its damage (1d4). Since we only go up to ECL 6 in our campaign for the sake of some semblance of realism, my death attack DC with this homebrew would range from 27 to 30 (10 + Assassin Level (1) + Intellect Modified (2) x 2 (homebrew multiplied) + 1d4.)

I'm not sure if this makes this too powerful, though (I'm fairly inexperienced in this department), and I'd like the Playground Community to help me balance this one out.

Many thanks in advance!

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Since we only go up to ECL 6 in our campaign for the sake of some semblance of realism, my death attack DC with this homebrew would range from 27 to 30 (10 + Assassin Level (1) + Intellect Modified (2) x 2 (homebrew multiplied) + 1d4.)

I'm not sure if this makes this too powerful, though (I'm fairly inexperienced in this department), and I'd like the Playground Community to help me balance this one out.

Unless you're making changes to saves you haven't mentioned (:smallwink:), I think that's far too high for level 6; a good-Fort character with an 18 Con has a +9 modifier before feats and gear, so you're looking at something between a 10% chance to make the save and needing a natural 20. Meanwhile, a caster's best spells have a DC around 17 before feats and gear--not that it's bad that a martial type beats a caster, not at all, but a 10+ point disparity is a bit much.

I'd have the weapon only multiply the modifiers, not the base 10, but multiply the 1d4 as well (so it's 10 + [level + Int + 1d4] x 2). That puts the DC between 18 and 24, which is at minimum better than a caster's best DC (as it probably should be, seeing as you're so specialized), but the above-mentioned martial character has at worst a 25% chance of failure--much more acceptable, I think--and an average caster needs a 19 or 20, so it's not useless in general.