Assassin (character class)

The Assassin is a character class common to many role-playing games, often but not always representing the historical Assassin or Ninja. Such characters typically combine combat ability with strong stealth skills, and specialise in defeating an enemy without becoming involved in a protracted melee. Assassins first appeared in many role-playing games including Dungeons & Dragons and its rivals, which influenced later appearances in video games. In many of these, the Assassin class is only available to the player after having advanced in another class, such as the Thief.

The Assassin class was first introduced in role playing games in the Blackmoor supplement to Dungeons and Dragons in 1975. It was introduced at the same time as the similar yet distinct Thief class. In its original incarnation, the Assassin class was a sub class of the Thief. Later iterations of Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop RPGs featured the Assassin as a standalone class. The first MMORPG to feature the Assassin class by name is Ragnarok Online in 2002.

Avalon: The Legend Lives released in 1989 is an on-line text based multi-player role playing game notable for being the first to introduce fully developed professions and skills released the Assassin specialisation as a crowning skill during 1999. Unintentionally following the earlier Dungeons & Dragons Thief advancement model. It later introduced a specific Assassins Guild which split from its Thief Guild in 2005.

Assassin classes usually have attacks that cause a high amount of damage in a short amount of time. This type of damage dealing is often referred to as burst damage by players. Typically, once the Assassin player expends resources during the offensive, the player is left defensively vulnerable and unable to continue the offensive until said resources are regained, hence the "burst" moniker. Also, Assassins have a chance of scoring something known as a critical hit, which is when an attack made by the Assassin does significantly more damage than normal. The critical hit is a common game mechanic in the RPG genre, varies from game to game, and is usually implemented into every character class, but Assassins are usually given traits and abilities that make them more likely to score critical hits, furthering their ability to deal out burst damage.

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