The Gaming Den

da chicken, over at Nifty wrote:
3.5 Assassin still uses Int to cast spells (it explicitly does so). It's not clear what "casts as a Bard" means, but I take it to mean you suffer no ASF from light armor.

I took it to mean that Assassins as written (and I acknowledge that this is pretty dumb) are the only class that spontaneously casts using their Intelligence.

What makes you think they are just referring to ASF?

-Jack

Well, if you ignore the sentence about "casts like a bard", then their spellcasting ability doesn't change. Everything else you need to know is right there -- limited spells known, spells per day, etc. And the only thing that makes bard casting any different than sorcerer or wizard casting (or any other arcane casting) is ignoring ASF and prohibiting Silent Spell.

Why is the line there? It's either redundant, or it means you ignore ASF from light armor for assassin spells and you can't cast spells with Silent Spell. That latter part is especially dumb because you actually want to be quiet.

If that's not what it means, then the book basically says: "Assassins cast spells just like bards. Except they use Int instead of Cha for determining DC, bonus spells, and highest level available. And they don't use the bard spells list. Or the spells known per level table. Or the spells per day table. Ok, so they're nothing at all like bards."

And why didn't they say "like sorcerer"?

I think they meant that the can cast spells in light armor with no ASF. As for not being able to uyse silent spell, well, do you expect them to think about stuff before they right it?

Thanks for the explanation.

-Jack