Quote Originally Posted by Dork_Forge View Post
The summary of this is basically 'they need more than just those features at those levels' (apart from what seems to be the mandatory 2024 mentions), which is what I have consistently said about the Assassin.

Yes, at 9 and 13 they need something else on top of those things. That does not mean the features they do get are bad.

As for the 'not all campaigns get that downtime thing', so? Not all games give scrolls and books for Wizards to learn, not all games will feature anywhere near enough combat to value combat features the same, not all games feature scouting opportunities or give the space to use mobility. The features make sense for an assassin, the features themselves are powerful at their intended aim. The features themselves are not the issue.

That doesn't matter, everyone plays the game differently and several people (inc. myself) have piped up with personal experience that those games do exist. Just give Assassins a decent combat feature at those levels and people probably wouldn't care about the other features relevance anymore.
Wizards get plenty of spells even in campaigns without scrolls and enemy spellbooks. Other rogues get features that work in campaigns without downtime. This is a deficiency of the Assassin subclass.

I'm happy for you that you enjoy it. No Pinkertons will come to your house and confiscate your 2014 PHB, it's not going anywhere. But I understand and appreciate why the designers are revisiting the subclass, that's all I'm saying.