What is it with all of the DnD/adjacent games messing up the Assassin class so badly, then just straight up giving the most assassin-themed-abilities to other classes?
This is something that's struck me playing both Pathfinder and... most editions of D&D, in addition to my recent runthrough of CRPGs Baldur's Gate 2, 3 and Wrath of the Righteous (in which they had to re-homebrew the Assassin class because they messed it up so bad).
In 5e, the Assassin procs his 'special ability' only on Surprise which is basically entirely GM dependent, and means that after the first round of combat the trained Assassin is indistinguishable from a basic Rogue.
If that wasn't strange enough, they then introduced the Gloomstalker class, which gets an additional attack on the first round, improved initiative and a bunch of tools that are arguably more Assassin than Ranger, and fairly inarguably more Assassin than... well... Assassin! Why do Assassins have to multiclass to properly realise their class fantasy?
Then they tried to fix this in 2024 with a sort of half-baked 'Assassins do more damage equal to half their level'. This feels like such a lazy, underdeveloped bandaid on the problem, and as far as I know has been met with an equally muted response.
What about Pathfinder, then? It, too, has a fairly underwhelming Assassin... and then it has the Slayer.
The Slayer studies it's target for bonuses to knowledge skills about that target and bonuses to hit and damage - something essential for a Rogue with it's lower BAB.
So what gives? Why is there another class that's had very Assassin-like abilities loaded into it, rather than into the Assassin class?
Studying targets, making extra attacks at the beginning of combat, reacting quickly at the beginning of combat? Outisde of janky surprise rules, these seem like things that belong to this class.