I suggest the removal of the Unholy visual effect applied to weapons upon activation and selection of the Assassin Tools. In the Classes and Feats page they are described as techniques, and not coatings, poisons or spells, and thus shouldn't apply a visual effect to the weapon, even more so due to the server's WYSIWYG policy.

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I play:
Frums Deedone, the Green Child
Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum

I'm in favor of this.

I don't mind!

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+1

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I don't mind. We'll give the DMs a day or two to respond and unless someone has a solid objection we'll push it through to be changed.

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I am all for removing metagamey (intentional or not) visuals that aren't necessary. Just like the various auras we took down.

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I feel it is worth noting that the VFX gauges the duration the tactics are active, removing it would remove any the most prominent cue to the player when they will need to 'reapply' the tactic to their weapon. (outside of examining the weapon having the temporary "intelligent" weapon property on it)

Removing the visual wouldn't be gamebreaking or anything, but as someone who plays an assassin, it would get old pretty quick.

EDIT: The thought occurs to me that we could simply make the duration of the tactics permanent (until rest or reset). Since they can be indefinitely replenished through the use of the assassin tool widget anyways. Only caveat being that you need to be out of combat to do it.--This would make my qualm with removing the visual redundant! So, given that, I'd be all for it too!

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Occasionally seen as [DM] Raua, or playerside as...

I rarely use my assassin now, but I would 100% love that since redoing the tactics, which I often even used on bare hands which have no VFX, is a pain even with the indicator. You are able to pull off multiple tactics as well from just one use, so making it a toggle until rest or change of tactic would be amazing.

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Honestly, in my opinion, it really should be a toggle, and invisible. Even if it wasn't permanent, it would just mean you need to pay attention to your combat log. When you stop getting spammed with the cooldown, it's gone.

That said, I really don't understand why it's not permanent. I suppose it does hurt one type of build. Any Assassin that only dips two levels into Assassin. These only have two minutes of the buffs, and need to be out of combat to reapply them again. That said, jst about any other build could, in theory, just use the tools after every combat, and re-apply them. For the case of an 18 Assassin, I don't think I've ever been in a fight that lasted more than 18 minutes, and the only ones that might have been that long, due the the inverse correlation of fun and time reception, you could've run away from the fight and re-applied the buffs. If there was a cost or daily limit, it would mate sence. But something you can apply for turns/level, as often as you want, already is functionally infinite, but it would make them less annoying to deal with.

On top of robbis points, usually you just fish for 1s with those tools anyhow, they really should just be permanent. Even the 2 level dip assassins can just in theory keep them up indefinitely, it'd just be a quality of life change.

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I do not mind much either way. If I had my personal preference I would enjoy it more to benefit the ones actually investing in the class and make it permanent at lvl 10 assassin or so and when only having 2-3 lvls you need to go through that extra hassle to get the bonus. Alas, I am not hard pressed on it, I'd just personally like rewards when investing in a class outside of the 1-3 lvl "build beefs".

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Edited thread name to reflect other suggestions.

Also, I think it may be too much work, but since we are all bouncing ideas, what I would really love is a way to select which technique the Assassin is using on the fly, something like Knockdown or Ki Strike but with a HIPS-like cooldown. As Freax pointed out there is quite a bit of Fishing-For-1s involved in their use (I don't think you can get a DC higher than 39-ish without gimping your build a lot), so that would at least give you the option of targeting specific saves without having to select a technique before the encounter.

(Again, I am fairly sure that would be troublesome to script, time and effort wise, I just mentioned it here as food for thought).

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I play:
Frums Deedone, the Green Child
Balrig Sootkiln, Blood and Vellum

Let's be honest, though, unless I am mistaken, if a level 2 Assassin were to get an on-hit stun weapon, for example, it would do the same, but better.

A level 2 Assassin has a really low DC. I know of one somewhat decent build that gets DC 23. Wizard spellsword, with an Assassin dump. A build that sacrifices a couple of skill points for death attack over sneaks, and the stun assassin tool. Again, DC 23. That is very slightly better than an item with an on-hit, and triggers once every minute. Even having that permanent, I honestly don't see the issue. In addition, it requires Assassin prereqs, which aren't exactly standard for a spellsword, and you need to be evil.

I'm not going to lie, I'd prefer to see any more Assassins. If these were to dump two levels, it'd still be more Assassins on Amia. As it stands, compared to rogue, there is very little incentive to go Assassin at all, let alone use Assassin as a dump class. Having the tools infinite probably isn't going to fix the problem, but I can't see it being unbalanced either. You shouldn't be punished for using a sub-standard dump-class by having the one feature you'd gain be horridly clunky to use. If there was IC balancing to it, like, I don't know, a cooldown like barb rages, yes. Heavy assassin should be more comfortable than low assassin. But having a class feature locked behind something that, if properly played, is not an issue, and only matters if you aren't good at the class, that's poor design.

I think I can count the Assassins I know of on both my hands. And exactly one of them had low assassin levels. Compared to rogue, assassin is a really bad dump class choice. If a change that makes the class over-all better to play helps assassin dumps out as well, I don't mind. They don't exist anyway. I'd be happy to bet quite a bit of money on the lack of assassin dumps. Rogue does exactly the same, but with less requirements, and just as good.