               Arena:TES, Gems of Enlightenment for Assassins

James D. Hudnall provided the gems of enlightenment for the Assassin class.
The following are various pieces of information he has offered.

       "I'm playing an assassin. They're great characters, but they can't
cast spells, unfortunately. You have to find magic items to use for that.
But assassins are very deadly. They can kill with one strike when you
start getting up there in levels. The best thing to do with an assassin is
beef up the agility and strength stats first because that will make your
killing power more effective. Also you want high intelligence for picking
locks and lots of luck."
       "I like the fact that the assassin makes a good thief, fighter and
can jump and swim decently."

       "Assassins at a high level (with good agility and strength stats,
mine are in the 70s) can kill most monsters with one to three strikes, and
they rarely miss. It's only high level beasties that are tough like Golems
and Demons. I've killed five Minotaurs with one slash more that once.
Spiders die like flies before me."
       "Assassins are susceptable (successable) to magic fired at them. My
character keeps getting killed by fire shooting monsters, so I have to use
strategy to get close to them before they can shoot at me. I highly recommend
that anyone playing an assassin beef up on Shield and Paralyze magic items,
as well as heal and heal true potions."
       "I use an ebony torc, an ebony amulet and a belt of agility to lower
my AC. It's at -15, which considering you can only wear leather armor is
good. An ebony belt would lower my stats more, but the belt gives me a +7
to hit and defend, which is more important to me."
       "I also recommend you get your character's willpower beefed up as
high as possible as a defense against magic."
       "Assassins are great characters, but their weakness can make game
play tough in some places."
       "I think assassins are good characters if you want to do well, but not
to easily. It seems magic users are a little too powerful once you get up
there in power."
       "BTW: Assassins are also great at swimming, climbing and jumping."

Many thanks to James for sharing these suggestions with us. Happy Gaming to
all of you,

gsv
