[RPG] During D&D 5e’s different design iterations, were Assassins ever different

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I am running Hoard of the Dragon Queen for my players. I am currently preparing the next session and am reading "Episode 4: On the Road". The event No Room at the Inn (page 36) mentions an encounter with four Assassins. The description of the encounter leaves no doubt that if faced, there is little possibility of avoiding fighting the Assassins.

However, characters are levels 4 to 5 at this point. Assassins are a CR 8 encounter alone. (MM, p. 343). I doubt the designers had an encounter with four Assassins, an absolutely deadly encounter in mind when they designed the events. At least not without including a warning as they do throughout the book.

This leads me to my questions: have Assassins ever been anything else than a level 8 encounter?

Note I am well aware that I as a DM am in control of these things and can change the encounter, I am not looking for advice on the encounter itself. Thank you!

Best Answer

Indeed, that encounter is way above the characters' expected level. One of the writers, Steve Winter has also spoken a little about the encounter's balance and design history.

In a post (posting as Huscarl) on WotC forums, Steve Winter wrote of the "No Room at the Inn" encounter:

[in] The original version ... the villains were not assassins but young green slaads polymorphed into human form.

... then young green slaads disappeared from the MM and we were instructed not to use them in this encounter. We cast around for alternatives and found no really good ones, but assassins were at least close to the slaads in power -- as they were then written.

... By the time the monster stat blocks were finalized, assassins wound up significantly more powerful than the original slaads or even than assassins had been when they were chosen as the slaads' replacement.

Emphasis mine.

He then lists possible changes to the encounter that would bring it more in line for the expected party level at that point in the story.

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