Assassin

Assassins for hire
The base rate for an assassination is about a hundred guilder. This is an entire season's wages for most people. As assassination contracts don't come very often, especially for a beginner trying to earn a rep, most assassins have some other form of income out of necessity. The base rate gets you a thug, rather than a professional. This is someone who may have already taken a person's life, but is not a seasoned and professional slayer of men. The thug isn't likely to have requisite skills or bonuses any higher than two or three points total. They'll probably also have to have a bit of liquid courage first. Finding one of these willing ruffians is easier, however. Someone who hangs out in the seedy underbelly of a city, who knows the sorts of people who might have a drinking buddy willing to do the hit, can do so with a streetwise skill check at a 15 or better. It is possible to make this check unskilled (at a -8 penalty) but for most people, they won't have the right network of contacts, or know the right bars. Such a person would stand out, and possibly become the victim of a violent attack themselves, or at least be tricked or robbed.

A professional assassin is likely at least fifth level in an appropriate class or codicil. They will also have a similar level of applicable skills. These hitmen are also much more expensive; the price starts at around 250₲. Though these killers-for-hire are much more likely to succeed—and do so without getting caught—they are much harder to find. They have to be: the police are out to find them, too, not to mention those seeking vengeance for the murder of a relative or companion. The streetwise skill check for this level of assassin is 20.

The numbers
Masters of the metier of murder are even more expensive and reclusive, but far more effective. Here are the guidelines: Give the assassin a menace level. This is typically about the same as their character level, or the level of appropriate skills, such as weapon proficiencies. Some aspects of the assassin can enhance this, such as adding a point or three for the Step Between Shadows ability of a phantom-assassin. This determines their cost, success rate, and difficulty in finding the assassin in the first place. Multiply the menace level by 50₲ for the base price. This base price can go up much higher for some targets, though. For a thug, they'll only have two or three points in skills, perhaps a single melee weapon proficiency or hand-to-hand skill. However, their inexperience, lack of professional character, and likely intoxication, reduce their effective menace level to zero. They'll still charge for their skills, however drunk they may be. The menace level is also used for the difficulty in finding the assassin. Add the menace level to 15 to determine the target value of the streetwise check. Finally, the menace level is rolled like a proficiency in determining the success of the mission, with a base target value of 15. If the result of that check is a single digit, then not only did the hit fail, but the assassin got caught.

As alluded to earlier, some targets are high-value. Two things determine this: prestige and difficulty. Decide on the prestige of a target on a scale of 1-10. I know that this is a bit fuzzier than using the target's level or statuses or something, but this is the method that the assassin will use to determine the price in-game. Decide on the difficulty of the mission on a 1-10 scale as well. A more prominent target is more likely to have other people nearby, is more likely for their death or disappearance to be noticed earlier, and will generally be harder to get to in the first place. A more paranoid or well-protected target, one that is hard to get to or will involve expensive gear or bribes to access, is also more difficult to kill. Multiply the base cost (based on the assassin's menace level) by both the prestige and difficulty. Subtract the total of the two from the success check.

Technically, the prices are subject to negotiation. However, it's nearly as unwise to dicker with an assassin as it is to cheat one. You really don't want to stiff someone on paying them when A) they have already demonstrated that they are more than willing and able to kill, and B) have just committed murder on your behalf.

Here are two examples
Susanna wants to kill her cheating asshole of a husband, Nathan, so she starts haunting bars in "the colourless part of town" hoping to find an assassin in the Gothic ghetto. Thanks to the judicious crossing of palms with silver (and a natural 20 on the skill check) Susanna miraculously finds someone willing to kill her adulterous husband. Nathan is a nobody, so the prestige and difficulty are both 1. This doesn't increase the cost any, and only subtracts two points from the success roll. The assassin adds his menace level (zero, unfortunately) and subtracts the difficulty and prestige, rolling against a 15 target value.

Nathan wants to break it off with his paramour, Deja. Rather than just be a man about it, and because Deja is a vengeful necromancer of some repute, Nathan decides to hire an assassin instead. He heads into the one part of town where he thinks Deja won't find out about his plan: the Gothic ghetto. Nathan has a few contacts that he leans on to find a phantom-assassin for him among the Goths. ("That's what those people do, right?") His contacts are successful, and after a small finder's fee to the local phantom-agent, Nathan meets Sabina Nightwind. Ms Nightwind does not come cheap, and tells Nathan so right up front. As a tenth-level phantom-assassin, Sabina commands prices upwards of 500₲ (thanks to an effective menace level of 10). Nathan scrambles to sell some of his mother's jewellery to meet her price, as for some strange reason at least a hundred guilder has mysteriously disappeared from his coffer. Sabina is very good, but Deja is not a simple target. She is well known to have a terrible thirst for vengeance and is a powerful sorceress. Plus, she may already have discovered the Undying Ritual. Deja has a prestige of 4, but a difficulty of 8. This increases the 500₲ price to 16,000₲, which put Nathan into panic mode, stealing jewellery from his own mother to pawn. For the success roll, Sabina adds her menace level (10) and the penalty for difficulty and prestige (-12 total) against the target value of 15. It's chancy, but our Ms Nightwind hasn't had a good challenge in a while, so she accepts the hit.

Being the exterminator
Now let's look at things from the perspective of a player character wanting a lucrative career in the field of freelance murder. The biggest obstacle is that you aren't going to get hired very often. Most cities will have someone hiring an assassin at most three or four times a year for every 10,000 people in the city. This excludes mob hitmen or people doing the job themselves. These three hits are split up among however many assassins there are in the city, at all levels, from the thug in the first example, to Sabina Nightwind in the second. The rarity of jobs is one of the big reasons it is so expensive to hire an assassin. For an entry-level assassin, even if all of the jobs in a murderous city go to the same person, it's often more lucrative to be a farmer or shoe salesman, and those jobs have somewhat lowered rates of incarceration and death. For top-tier assassins, however, this can be a profitable occupation, if dangerous and haphazard. The tricky part is getting to the top, without another assassin taking you out for cutting into their business, or just trying to make a name for themselves, or without getting caught or killed along the way by law enforcement or those seeking vengeance. Also, the top rates are for the most difficult missions. The more lucrative the hit, the more likely you are to be the one bleeding out, and the rarer those jobs come your way.

Player character assassins don't have to worry about menace levels so much. It's a good guideline as to the wages that you can command, however, as are using the difficulty and prestige of the target. The skill checks won't generally be used, however. The Game Master instead informs you about someone who wants someone else dead. The mission plays out as one or more game sessions, using your character's normal rolls: skill checks, attack, damage, et al. rather than abstracting all of this into a simple single roll.

To involve the other player characters (and not be a lone-wolf dickhead eating up everyone's game time) you can form a crew. You have assistants and other assassins share the wealth and the burden alike. This can provide roles for the rest of the troupe. The syndic can be the fixer, finding missions and meeting clients. The scout can be your lookout or backup. The apprentice wizard provides you with mystical help. And so forth. The prices for a hit are the same, as a client doesn't care how many of your posse you bring, as long as the job gets done. A suggestion for the effective menace level (to determine price) is the highest character level in the troupe. Even at the 'thug' level, a hundred guilder is a lot of money, even split half a dozen ways.