[Grief]

Aptorian, on Aug 20 2009, 10:40 PM, said:

Grief, on Aug 20 2009, 11:20 PM, said:

Aptorian, on Aug 20 2009, 07:23 AM, said:

Yeah, but we're talking about magic wielding assassins, not who's the best and toughest knife fighter. Kalam has no magic, his only chance would ever be surprise, which is all well and good, but if he was facing the likes of Cowl or an ascendant shadow dancer he would be deader than dead.

Otataral knife. From what we've seen, therefore, Cotillions magic wouldn't help him in the slightest. In fact, his godhood could even be a disadvantage, considering how badly a sliver of otataral messes up Poliel when she's in mortal realm, it would make Kalams knife an even more potent weapon.

It also nullifies any magic user.

So, i'm not going to say Kalam is best, but he's certainly up there with Cotillion-considering cotillion hesitated before risking a fight with him, and the fact that magic is no advantage and godhood could be a disadvantage.

Your ottataral knife is not going to help you when the assassin mage is standing thirty meters away from you, cloaked and holding a crosbow, or he's using warrens to jump in and out of the world to confuse your attempts at tracking him. Or when you're charging him with your ottataral knife and he makes a gargoyle fall off the nearest tower and flattens you. Etc. etc. A clever assassin choses his battles and he would avoid fighting an ottataral wielder if it wasn't to his advantage. Again, its an assassin thread, not best knifefighter thread.

That argument isn't really valid-otherwise it's simply a matter of power. Mael could kill someone from a large distance with relative ease-does that make him a better assassin that Laseen or Topper?

Also, the claw Kalam fight use magic. You say a clever assassin chooses the battle-but that assumes discriminative circumstances. I could just as easily say Kalam could sneak up on them as you could say they could sneak up on him.

If it's a question of "who would kill who" I believe that Kalam still holds an advantage-otataral-because you have to assume it's a straight up fight or whatever.

"Who is the best at assassination" seems a rather pointless discussion, unless you discard the advantages such as being a god-which make the discussion pointless.

Advantages discarded:

Dancer/Kalam.
Apsalar.
Laseen.
Topper.
Cowl.

Advantages included:

Rake/Gothos/Raest/Draconus/Mael/Hood etc.

[Aptorian]

Raest would totally pawn Rake...

[Grief]

Aptorian, on Aug 20 2009, 11:00 PM, said:

Raest would totally pawn Rake...

Not in a battle of Hungry Hungry Hippos-we know from Maels discussion with Gothos(RG page 317) that you do not fucking mess with Rake at Hungry Hungry Hippos.

It's too close to call with Tiddlywinks, and Twister is a pointless discussion because Calm would pwn both of them.

[lobo the wolfman]

See Grief knows what he is talking about. As a mortal Dancer was careful of Kalam, and with his Shadow Dance skills Dancer was considered the best assassin of his time, with Laseen close behind. So Kalam would have given Dancer and Laseen both a run for there money, magic or no.

[Ulrik]

Sorry boys...Kruppe owns them all...it will be revealed, yknow! Eel, master assassin!

(to "advantage killer", silly topic itself, Caladan rule...BOOM...restart whole world)

This post has been edited by Ulrik: 20 August 2009 - 10:54 PM

[lobo the wolfman]

Kruppe!!!KRUPPE!!!!! this is the best assassins thread, not the Rumbling Fat Bastard thread. In the time it took for Kruppe to brush the crumbs from his jacket, break into some skull numbing rant and have Coll, Cutter and Rallick help leaver his titanic ass off out his chair, Kalam would have torn him into prices with his damn feet!

So no, not Kruppe

[Silencer]

Slight issue here. Otataral is not proven to work on Shadow Dancing. Why? Because, in BH, Kalam was "advancing on Apsalar, knives out", and QB intervened - he told Kalam that he was being stupid, because she was a Shadow Dancer. Ergo, she still would have been able to put a blade in his face despite the Otataral present, and the only reason she wasn't about to is because she didn't care any more if she died.

Now, this means one of two things - Shadow Dancing is not affected by Otataral, as it only "draws on certain elements of Rashan" cf House of Chains, and the rest is not necessarily warren magic, but rather more personal - a true manipulation of shadows.
Or second, it could mean that a Shadow Dancer is so kickass at assassination and knife fighting, it's irrelevant if they actually Dance or not.

So, while Dancer-Kalam may be close, Cotillion-Kalam, with Otataral and Shadow Dancing, is not necessarily going to be. See also the thing in HoC when Kalam is just like HOSHIT after seeing Cots deal with those shades.

Grief, on Aug 21 2009, 09:21 AM, said:

Silencer, on Aug 20 2009, 10:11 PM, said:

Ah, yeah. XD Possum it was.

Though his partnership with QB is kind of his 'modus operandi', he DID still do a lot of wetwork in BH without him. Which would have to be why he ranks that highly. One could then argue that Cowl is magically (supposedly...don't actually believe it - it's a bit like the revelation that Dancer humiliated Cowl, and prior to that it was thought they were fairly equal) close to Rake, which makes the inclusion of QB irrelevant, Laseen has Otataral, and Topper beat Cowl. So then the ranking holds.

Not sure how well you could argue that considering the factors involved. It's like saying Skinner is as good as Dassem simply because he survived a fight from him-the evidence still suggests otherwise.

^I don't even know what you're saying here? My point is that Cowl nullifies QB's magic, as he is up there with Rake magically (supposedly), and Topper beat Cowl, ergo Topper also nullifies QB.

And I somehow doubt that the mere presence of an Otataral weapon makes godhood a disadvantage. It can help to even the playing field - but all it really did to Poliel was driver her a bit crazy and pin her to the mortal realm...and that was a shard actually impaled in her hand, not a weapon in the vicinity.

[D'rek]

All of these folk are great without their magic and most if not all of them have some otataral anyway. Laseen uses it by the bucket-load, Kalam has his knife, Rallick smeared his face in it, Pearl had Kalam's for a little bit, as did ST and Cotillion could've gotten it off him. I'd say just about any of these folk could get some otataral if they wanted. That being said, it generally only seems to help them against cookie-cutter enemies like the Talons Kalam kills in HoC or the Veils Laseen waits for in her tent in RotCG. Against anyone else on the list, ie somewhat fairly equally matched, they'd probably be knife-fighting for long enough that they could retreat/push the duel out of the otataral area. Or, if it's an otataral weapon, they can break it (otataral is a weak metal for making weapons) or disarm their enemy (Kalam is disarmed of one of his knives by a mere fake-Talon). So, being available to anyone and not a counter-able effect, I don't think Otataral plays much of a part in this debate.

[Ulrik]

lobo the wolfman, on Aug 21 2009, 01:08 AM, said:

Kruppe!!!KRUPPE!!!!! this is the best assassins thread, not the Rumbling Fat Bastard thread. In the time it took for Kruppe to brush the crumbs from his jacket, break into some skull numbing rant and have Coll, Cutter and Rallick help leaver his titanic ass off out his chair, Kalam would have torn him into prices with his damn feet!

So no, not Kruppe

Honk honk, beware, joke runs wild!

Well, my point is that there is no such thing like "who has better assassin skills". In case of swordsman you can solidely estimate by some duels, assassins are from nature cunning. Their nature is fighting WITHOUT equal conditions! Kalam probably got screwed by Cowl, Topper even Pearl without his otataral knife. With this protection Laseen, Kalam, Rallick (OK, he´s special) own magic wielders. So, how do you measure? And whos assassin? Twin daggers and cloak? Crossbow? Or just man (woman) who kills without some duelling?

Its pointless b´cause you CANT measure basic asssassin trait - fight from "higher ground" and do not fight when do not have it. I laseen better than Cowl? In her tent - yes. Outside? Drop dead, lady.

Its like game "mine father is betterr than yours!" (poorly Rake cant play it and probably always ran to Mommy Dark when other Andiiies teased him;))

[lobo the wolfman]

I got the joke, l was also kidding around but i guess sometimes it doesn't come out so clear......

True, magic is an advantage, a big advantage but it is not the end all and be all. Being a mage as well as a warrior or assassin doesn't make you invincible. Kalam didn't kill all those Claw in Malaz City (twice) because he sprinkled otataral dust everywhere and killed them all while they where snatching their heads wondering what happened to their magic. Nor did they all line up and wait while Kalam dueled them one by one.

He did by being a sneaky and cunning bastard, while starting off with little weapons, cold, wounded and with no otataral. And they where even using magic to help them find him, and using warrens to move about and they still couldn't kill him until their numbers where too great. All the magic in the world can't help you can't see or tell where your target is.

I don't disagree that Cotillion as the god or Dancer as the mortal being on top of the list, nor Apsalar being second but putting Kalam low on the list because he is not a mage is wrong, he should be equal to or just below Laseen.

This post has been edited by lobo the wolfman: 21 August 2009 - 07:24 AM

[Grief]

Meh, I wouldn't rank Apsalar above Kalam really. Dancer perhaps-but she isn't cotillion, just has some skills inherited.
Also, I'm not saying otataral in the vicinity is a disadvantage-but if you get stabbed with it as a god it's going to hurt.

As for the point about Shadow dancing-that would be a very easy mistake to make, but even if it's not I doubt you can use rashan with otataral about. One easy counter case to make is the simple fact that he probably doesn't always use the same set of knives.

[Grief]

D'rek, on Aug 21 2009, 03:44 AM, said:

All of these folk are great without their magic and most if not all of them have some otataral anyway. Laseen uses it by the bucket-load, Kalam has his knife, Rallick smeared his face in it, Pearl had Kalam's for a little bit, as did ST and Cotillion could've gotten it off him. I'd say just about any of these folk could get some otataral if they wanted. That being said, it generally only seems to help them against cookie-cutter enemies like the Talons Kalam kills in HoC or the Veils Laseen waits for in her tent in RotCG. Against anyone else on the list, ie somewhat fairly equally matched, they'd probably be knife-fighting for long enough that they could retreat/push the duel out of the otataral area. Or, if it's an otataral weapon, they can break it (otataral is a weak metal for making weapons) or disarm their enemy (Kalam is disarmed of one of his knives by a mere fake-Talon). So, being available to anyone and not a counter-able effect, I don't think Otataral plays much of a part in this debate.

Why not?

Firstly I can't see someone breaking it in a knive fight.

Secondly, we're discussing an assassins skill-the disarming argument isn't really an argument at all. Yes, he gets disarmed. But then, if he was fighting cotillion or whoever, it would be between those two-and the better fighter would still be the one who disramed the other-so it's not just "oh he could be disarmed" it's just the same as the discussion of who is a better fighter.

Otataral does play a part-just as much as say magic or being a god.

[Keyjell]

Dancer/Cot is probably the best of them, but I don't think people are giving Laseen and kalam enough credit. They might not be mages, but they make up for that in being better fighters. One on one Laseen and kalam can probably take victory on pure fighting finess over alot of mage assasins. One the other hand battlefield assasinations might be something they might fall behind on.

And kalam might not be a mage, but who the hell knows when Quick Ben wont pop out. And Ben>mage assasins

[Silencer]

Actually, I thought the point of RotCG was that Laseen was a kickass battlefield assassin. XD

Laseen has always been held in somewhat of the same regard as Dancer. The night of slaughter in Quon Tali, etc, etc. They seemed to do these things together. Given time, and training, we can therefore assume Laseen has improved since then, though not as much as a guy who ascended to become the Patron God of Assassins. Considering Laseen has been fairly commonly ranked as the number four assassin in the entire series, or, by me, the #3 - after only Cotillion and Apsalar, I would not say she is being degraded or underestimated! It's merely that she is not THAT good. She does get killed, after all (mitigating circumstances, perhaps - but one could argue she should not have let her guard down), and remember that, while her Avowed hunting is neat, it is told to us that Dancer used to just teleport into the middle of the Avowed command and fuck them up.

I do really start to get a sense of parallelism between Laseen and the mortal Dancer. Which is perhaps why I listed that it goes Cotillion - then Apsalar and Laseen. I just put Apsalar higher as she is potentially even better than Cotillion, while Laseen is dead.

As for Kalam, I think we do have to rank him slightly further down. It is degenerating into a who'd win thread - if we look at it from a who is the best assassin perspective, magic beats stealth every time (because magic is infallible save for against Otataral and better mages, while stealth is pretty much open to anyone to just look around at the wrong time). AND those top-ranked folk are ALSO really good at stealth. Hence why he falls down a bit, in my opinion.

[Grief]

Silencer, on Aug 21 2009, 11:22 PM, said:

Actually, I thought the point of RotCG was that Laseen was a kickass battlefield assassin. XD

Laseen has always been held in somewhat of the same regard as Dancer. The night of slaughter in Quon Tali, etc, etc. They seemed to do these things together. Given time, and training, we can therefore assume Laseen has improved since then, though not as much as a guy who ascended to become the Patron God of Assassins. Considering Laseen has been fairly commonly ranked as the number four assassin in the entire series, or, by me, the #3 - after only Cotillion and Apsalar, I would not say she is being degraded or underestimated! It's merely that she is not THAT good. She does get killed, after all (mitigating circumstances, perhaps - but one could argue she should not have let her guard down), and remember that, while her Avowed hunting is neat, it is told to us that Dancer used to just teleport into the middle of the Avowed command and fuck them up.

I do really start to get a sense of parallelism between Laseen and the mortal Dancer. Which is perhaps why I listed that it goes Cotillion - then Apsalar and Laseen. I just put Apsalar higher as she is potentially even better than Cotillion, while Laseen is dead.

As for Kalam, I think we do have to rank him slightly further down. It is degenerating into a who'd win thread - if we look at it from a who is the best assassin perspective, magic beats stealth every time (because magic is infallible save for against Otataral and better mages, while stealth is pretty much open to anyone to just look around at the wrong time). AND those top-ranked folk are ALSO really good at stealth. Hence why he falls down a bit, in my opinion.

That's a ridiculous argument though.

Otherwise Rake, Gothos etc are the best assassins, and Cotillion and Apsalar don't even come into the top ten.

Magic is hardly infallible when it comes to assassinate people.

Also I do not think Laseen can really be above Kalam-in DG there didn't seem any doubts that he could have pulled off the job, iirc.

[Silencer]

Note I pointed out that even magic has it's limitations. However, you misunderstand. Does Rake assassinate people? No. Is he stealthy? No. Ergo, he cannot be the best assassin. It's not necessarily that he can't, it's that he doesn't. He doesn't use Meanas, Rashan, or Mockra, and nor does he sneak around. The Tiste Andii assassin mages, on the other hand, do. So they could count.

Note, also, how badly they would've raped Kalam without Quick Ben. Why? Because Kalam was helpless at being able to see them. Same as Rallick and Ocelot. There is a reason that Vorcan's guild started relying so heavily on magic. They all went back to basics when Rallick pwned Ocelot - but none of them actually realised that he was using Otataral, so their logic is fail. Darujhistan didn't even really know about Otataral, ffs. And magic was the predominant form of killing. The Claw uses magic. Dancer uses magic. Apsalar uses magic. The only people who don't are the ones with access to Otataral - Laseen, Rallick, and Kalam. *shrug*

I would also like to point out that Rake does not necessarily > Cotillion. Especially not in assassination. It's due to style, rather than power.

[Grief]

Well in a fight Rake would...

No, he isn't an assassin. However, that is just because he is powerful enough that he doesn't really need(or at least doens't seem to think he needs) stealth. However, he could take someone out from long range without ever having to go near. The point i'm making being that if you say "we'll he's better cos he's magic innit?" then there are hosts of people who are far magically supreme and could easily assassinate people. Mael for example. Warren into a room-toss someone to depths of sea-who's going to know? It's a mysterious dissapearance, far cleaner than say someone getting stabbed with a knife.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Ok this thread is getting way too sidetracked from what I set it up for. Rake, Mael, Gothos, Raest, etc...are NOT assassins. Yes, maybe if they wished they could use stealth, or kill someone from a distance and disappear before anyone knew what happened. But they are NOT assassins. This thread works so well because SE and ICE use assassins more than any fantasy author I've ever read, we know of 4 major groups of them (talons, claw, daru guild, and you could even say the rat catchers guild). There are a great number of characters that are assassins saying somebody else because they are more powerful, or a better killer defeats the whole purpose of this thread. Its not hard to determine who the assassins are, in this series they use knives, long knives, throwing knives, small crossbows, and occasionally a rope or their hands and feet. Also, they are repeatedly called assassins by the authors or other characters in the books. Using the most powerful ppl in the books is too much of a slippery slope, I half expected to see a post saying that the CG was the best assassin because he crashed a Meckros city from who knows how far away and left no evidence of his involvement.

[Grief]

WhiskeyJackDaniels, on Aug 23 2009, 04:02 PM, said:

Ok this thread is getting way too sidetracked from what I set it up for. Rake, Mael, Gothos, Raest, etc...are NOT assassins. Yes, maybe if they wished they could use stealth, or kill someone from a distance and disappear before anyone knew what happened. But they are NOT assassins. This thread works so well because SE and ICE use assassins more than any fantasy author I've ever read, we know of 4 major groups of them (talons, claw, daru guild, and you could even say the rat catchers guild). There are a great number of characters that are assassins saying somebody else because they are more powerful, or a better killer defeats the whole purpose of this thread. Its not hard to determine who the assassins are, in this series they use knives, long knives, throwing knives, small crossbows, and occasionally a rope or their hands and feet. Also, they are repeatedly called assassins by the authors or other characters in the books. Using the most powerful ppl in the books is too much of a slippery slope, I half expected to see a post saying that the CG was the best assassin because he crashed a Meckros city from who knows how far away and left no evidence of his involvement.

Fine, Kilmandaros is the best assassin

Anyhow, I feel i've got my point across.

Simply saying "he's magic so he's better" is not an argument. It doesn't mean he would be able to assassinate many people much easier-because that's all about stealth. Sure it's handy-but it doesn't make them more skillful. In fact it takes more skill to assassinate someone without magic than with-and since this must be a discussion about skill rather than power(because otherwise it's still Rake, Ruin, Gothos et all) then the most skillful don't just have the be the magical ones. So there.

[Silencer]

Grief, you are being obtuse.

The mage-assassins in this series use magic because it makes it easier to kill magical people. How would Cutter fare, do you think, against Osserc? Um. Fuck.
Why was Cowl able to kill Osserc? He used magic, ergo, he can assassinate more people than Cutter can, more easily. Ergo, he is better. And so on up the ladder. You then say this means that it's simply a matter of power - it's not. It's also a matter of style and skill. If they don't go around assassinating people, you can't call them an assassin. Simple enough?

It's not like Cotillion uses raw power, either. It's just that he has more to draw on, more talents with it, and then combines it into his assassinations.