Tribunal talk:Dark Brotherhood Attacks

Reverted Edits

A new user just changed the level requirement in one place from 6 to 4, and in another place from 6 to 3. It seemed somewhat unusual, so I reverted the edit, especially since at several other places on the page it says level six. If these were legitimate corrections, my apologies; feel free to reply to this comment. --Nephele 02:49, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

It is 6.

--Delrok 10:51, 12 August 2006 (EDT)

I just added the level back at 6 for the x-box, since I know there is a requirement on the x-box, but I don't know what it is. There is no requirement for the PC version. I also added a recommended level based on personal experiences. --Ratwar 16:29, 20 October 2006 (EDT)

I'm also lowering the recommended level on most of the other quest pages to 25+, since completing Tribunal before level 30 is very possible. --Ratwar 16:35, 20 October 2006 (EDT)

Just saving an image to use later. [1] — Unsigned comment by Ratwar (talk • contribs) at 00:06 on 8 November 2006

Relevance?

what is this doing in the article: In many of the dungeon areas, most of the creatures there will reappear if you kill them, dispose of their corpse and return to the area. They will not reappear, however, if you kill them and leave their corpses as they are (feel free to loot them though). This is a great help especially if you are having trouble defeating the more powerful creatures found in the expansion.

it is very usfeuul, but not for this quest — Unsigned comment by 80.127.45.182 (talk) at 14:42 on 19 September 2007

Huh, agreed. In fact, the note before that is also a bit iffy. I'll take care of that. Somercy 10:47, 19 September 2007 (EDT)

Edits

Added the last part to the quest. To fully complete this quest, you have to talk to any guard in Mournhold. Only then will the quest be completed and not show up in the journal under "active quests" anymore. -92.227.82.23 15:22, 10 December 2008 (EST)

If anyone's having trouble getting the guards to talk, just bribe them. I know this is common knowledge, but I spent hours trying to figure it out. --Zander490 13:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

assasin ids

do anyone know the assasins ids? I need them because i want to use the placeatpc command but the one i got from the CS didn't work — Unsigned comment by DarthMikael (talk • contribs) on 4 January 2010

Depending on your level, they are either db_assassin1, db_assassin1b, db_assassin2, db_assassin3 or db_assassin4. --Timenn-<talk> 15:01, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Basic Tactic

If you need to do the level up sleep and could not be bothered to loop back to a city, just rest on the most pointiest peak in your local area. If an assasin appears, then they must spawn on the ground below your position which gives you an opportunity to do a few things: escape by moving off and away from them with a minor levitate potion/spell (which means if they want to chase you they must go around the peak you rested on), cast a few target spells or practice you marksman!

Also, since there is such a difference in height, they won't be able to throw that nice carved ebony dart. — Unsigned comment by 115.70.80.179 (talk) at 01:29 on 7 January 2011

Getting Dark Brother Hood equipment fresh out of Seyda Neen

After you get situated with your character do the following: 1) Buy a Scroll of Drathis' Winter Guest from Arrille 2) Go outside of town and position yourself so that the back of your character is against a wall/ barrier of some sort.(Highly recommend entrance of Addamasartus) 3) Set the newly purchased scroll onto your spell slot and put your character in casting stance. 4) When you think your positioning is right, save your game. 5) Now sleep until you get attacked 6) The moment you hear a warcry, pan your view toward the direction of the sound and click (cast) in that area.

Explanation: The scroll deals 35-60 frost damage within 5 ft which when directed at a stage 1 brotherhood assassin will kill him/her instantaneously. Positioning yourself with your back against the wall is to shorten the pan time necessary to view the assassin because the assassin will almost always show up to attack you from behind, with the wall the assassin will have to attack from the sides instead.

Additional Notes: 1) Straggling hostile monsters may spawn together with the assassin. 2) This method costs around 70-75 gold to perform. 3) It's very possible to get the assassin's dart using this method.

Oldee 16:26, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

None of that preparation is necessary. When you are low-level, the assassins are wimps. --Brf 01:03, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

But of a late comment: The above is still a really good tip. Many people's characters are also wimps at level 1–2, especially if they're not spending early hard-to-get cash on crap armor from Arrille's but saving up. It's probably worth compressing this into a tip in the article. It's definitely a better tip than the "go to the Fighters Guild and cheat with a lame exploit" tip. This one is at least legit gameplay. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 14:09, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

An easier way of getting an ebony dart

is simply to rest in front of a area exit door (e.g. the entrance of a mine), and leave through it as soon as resting ends (hopefully as the assassins spawn) - they don't seem to throw the dart when you re-enter the area. Or at least, that's worked for me so far... 124.168.206.248 06:36, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I have found that in the PC version of the game, resting in the Balmora Fighters Guild can cause the Assassin to spawn inside the bed, and therefore be unable to attack you, or throw the dart. Simply place yourself between the wall and the bed, and activate the bed to rest. When the Assassin spawns, he should be stuck and unable to defend himself. Yvondith 05:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Got Dart but no journal message.

Exactly as my topic says. 99.237.87.20 00:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably because you already reported the attack to a guard thus advancing the quest. Entering 'SetJournalIndex TR_DBAttack 0' or 'SetJournalIndex TR_DBAttack 10' in the console makes it so you can the get journal entry. Never tested the 'SetJournalIndex TR_DBAttack 10' but other one do works. — Unsigned comment by 112.202.26.86 (talk) at 16:20 on 1 October 2011

If you click "Take all" or "Dispose of corpse" on the dead assassin, you won't get the journal entry. You need to individually click the dart and then put it in your inventory, then you will get it. — Unsigned comment by 69.120.134.16 (talk) at 12:19 on 10 January 2023

Assassin Stats

Does anyone know the NPC statistics for the assassins? If so, what are they? 1337 w0n 10:10, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Guards and bounty

On a fresh character, I got attacked just outside Seyda Neen and a guard ran through the water from 10-25 feet away and helped me; maybe the bit about the guard is inaccurate? Also, on an older character, I seem to be getting a bounty when killing the assassins during 100% chameleon, after sleeping in the beds at the Balmora mages guild. No mods or unofficial patches installed; fresh PC GOTY edition that comes with bloodmoon/tribunal. Anyone have any insights on that? It's rather frustrating trying to use that method to get the darts. 98.67.108.180 02:24, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Not a bug, though perhaps a bit of a misfeature. This will happen in any town/city/stronghold with guards, when you deal the first strike against any humanoid who is not already in combat mode against you, and anyone else humanoid witnesses it and thus can report it. That's what's happening if you are wearing CE Chameleon gear sufficient to hide from the assassin. He spawns, does not see you, and is just standing there. So, your hitting him qualifies as an unprovoked attack on a person in a law-controlled area, i.e. a crime. You can actually succeed in this, in the same spot, if by chance no one in the MG can see you when the assassin spawns and you hit him. So, you can just move a bit or wait until there is no line of sight between you and the randomly wandering MG people.

To get the dart, you do not have to kill the assassin without him fighting back anyway, you just have to kill him before he uses the dart, and he may never use the dart at all if you paralyze him the moment he issues his battlecry, or if you maintain close quarters. It's sufficient to get him to spawn in a corner and close to you, and keep him in the corner and stay close to him to inspire use of his melee weapon. I've gotten the dart almost every single time using this method.
— Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 21:57, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

I've updated the article to cover this (just the basic bounty fact, not all this detailia). — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 22:43, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Quest stage 40

Is this even set? Is there a particular NPC I should talk to? Aven (talk) 08:05, 13 January 2013 (GMT)

Based on the description for stage 30, you should speak with Apelles Matius. Vely^►t►e 17:23, 2 February 2013 (GMT)

Attacks on Xbox only once ?

When i reached level 6, i was attacked by one lowly assassin. Since i collect unique item's, i so craved his dart. Unfortunaly he threw it at me before i was able to kill him. So i decided to wait for another. I waited for weeks and none came for me. I figured i had to complete the main quest, but it does not seem to work that either. So my question is, does the bortherhood attack only ONCE on the xbox version at all ?

P.S i have neither travelled to mournhold, nor talked to Apelles Matius. --The Hlaalu (talk) 20:10, 28 January 2014 (GMT)

My experience coincides; in multiple playthroughs my character was never awakened more than once by the assassination attempt. There was never more than one attacker.

97.235.37.203 16:13, 4 March 2014 (GMT)Imbalance

I've never had an assassin attack me more than once either, but I really don't think it's absolutely necessary to make a special blurb about this somewhere. Where does it say they will attack more than once? I don't even see anything where assassins attack more than once on PC (multiple assassins at higher levels, not more than one occasion). •WoahBro^►talk 16:21, 4 March 2014 (GMT)

Most definitely more than one occasion. What needs to be verified in the CS (see thread below) is whether the max number of attacks is actually 10, as the article still states in 2017, or is 15, as reported by a tester. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 21:44, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Spawning 15 assassins

I have added instructions to the page for spawning up to 15 assassins. 15 seems to be the hard limit, as I have been unable to get more to spawn. The key seems to be that the attacks stop after the journal entry caused by killing the assassin, NOT by reporting the assassination attempt. I have a picture of part of the room filled with assassins, but can not upload it. — Unsigned comment by 74.98.37.215 (talk) at 00:34 on 20 October 2014

I have removed the instructions. This isn't really part of the quest at all, and it doesn't really hold any relevance to the goals of the wiki as it is outside of the intended gameplay. There are a large number of things you can do with the game if you have high enough skills that we don't list, simply because you aren't intended to do the quest with skills at that height. It would be like saying, if you were invincible, you can have all the money you want in life, just rob banks over and over. It just isn't helpful to a normal person. It may seem harsh or like we aren't really listening to your ideas, but the wiki has to maintain some limits on what is listed, otherwise it becomes and endless series of notes of things people have done. Hopefully that all made sense to you! If you have any questions or things you want clarified as to why this is, feel free to ask them. Jeancey (talk) 00:40, 20 October 2014 (GMT)

Makes sense, maybe it would be better in the Glitches or hints section? Although the part where it says that the Attacks stop when you report them is not true. It's that they stop when you get the journal entry for killing an assassin, or 15 (not 10) attacks are reached. In theory you could be low level and escape the cell, leaving the assassin for later (in 15 different locations). — Unsigned comment by 74.98.37.215 (talk) at 01:15 on 20 October 2014

Like I said, we typically don't include this information anywhere on the wiki. The glitches page is (supposed to be) specifically for easy to discover game-altering glitches. At some point when I'm not busy with ESO, I was planning on going through the page and removed many if not most of the glitches listed, as our standards have changed since they were first added and they aren't covered by our new standard of quality. Jeancey (talk) 01:22, 20 October 2014 (GMT)

That sorta sucks. That's one of the things I enjoyed using this site for. IMO anyone can play the game straight through, exploiting a glitch or two, but it most fun in later playthroughs to see how much you can exploit the game. And judging by some of the comments in above discussions, other people want to know how to do things like spawn more assassins. Thats why I've been adding things in discussions like "Helseth's Champion" and getting two Dwemer Weapons, or the maximum allowable Super Potion Strength. — Unsigned comment by 107.77.68.126 (talk) at 16:50 on 20 October 2014

Actually, those sort of discussions are perfectly suited to our forums. You don't have to stop using UESP at all, just shift where you are discussing it from the talk pages to the forums. :) We just like to keep the wiki clear of that sort of thing because not everyone wants to glitch and exploit in their game. :) Instead of removing the glitches entirely, perhaps I should create a thread on the forums to move the ones I remove from here into. Would that be acceptable? The information will still exist, just in a slightly different place. Jeancey (talk) 16:54, 20 October 2014 (GMT)

Yo Jeancey, I've been trying for a few weeks to find an exploit similar to this one you had here, about spawning 15 DB assassins. I don't get why you didn't put this into the Glitches section, Gaining infinite money from the Ralen Hlaalo quest operates on the exact same principle, circumventing in-game variable checks to produce multiple outcomes, and that exploit is completely outdated and it is still being hosted on the Glitches page. Please put your methods in the Glitches Section where it belongs, or maybe point to where you've posted it elsewhere on this website. Thanks? BKang (talk) 12:13, 31 May 2016 (GMT)

(←) I've flagged two claims in the article as needing verification, based on this thread: When DB attacks stop, and how many the max is. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 22:43, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking at dbattackScript and Apelles Matius's dialogue, the necessary condition to stop the attacks occurs when you speak to Apelles Matius about the topic "Asciene Rane". Doing so will set the relevant journal index (TR_DBAttack) to 50; this in turn is the condition dbattackScript looks for to abort the attacks. (Note that dbattackScript itself will not stop running; it simply returns to the beginning and doesn't execute any of the relevant attack code if the condition is met.) Wolfborn (talk) 20:54, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Assassin stats

We don't seem to be giving the assassin stats, IDs, etc., anywhere. It's not here, it's not at Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood, Tribunal:NPCs, Tribunal:Bazaar Sewers, or Tribunal:Manor District.

Frustrating, because I wanted to spawn one (my attacks stopped after the third for no apparent reason; did not talk to Appelles Matius yet, but did talk to a guard).

OpenMW-CS tells me the sleep-attack ones have IDs db_assassin1 through db_assassin4, plus a db_assassin1b; there's also a db_assassin4a not in the dbattackScript, and presumably one of those encountered in Old Mournhold.

• db_assassin1b: Level 1, Rank 0; Reputation. 2; Silver Dagger
• db_assassin1: Level 3, Rank 1; Rep. 4; Iron Spider Dagger
• db_assassin2: Level 10, Rank 3, Rep. 8; Wild Viper Sword
• db_assassin3: Level 20, Rank 5, Rep. 12; Daedric Wakizashi
• db_assassin4: Level 30, Rank 7, Rep. 16; Adamantium Jinkblade of Wounds
• db_assassin4a: Level 30, Rank 7, Rep. 16; Adamantium Jinkblade of Wounds

The last two are identical, except for a different head, and 4a's name is "Dark Brotherhood Assassin" instead of "Assassin" like the rest, he has no Ebony Dart, and does not have db_assassinScript.

The 1b assassin was added later; there's a bit of dead code still left in there named dbattackScriptOLD without the 1a guy, who was apparently added so beginning players did not face someone three times their level. At a guess, maybe that was added between the release of Tribunal as a DLC, and its combination with the rest into the GotY edition; someone would have to have the separate versions and compare them in the CS to be sure.

All of them have the same set of armor, and all but 4a have the Ebony Dart. All are Dark Elf males, class Assassin, with: Hello 30, Flee 30, Fight 100, Alarm 0, Dispo 50, Gold 0.

They apparently have their Health and such auto-generated ("Auto Calc" is on, and they don't have pre-set stats). Weirdly, they all have their Faction ID set to null instead of being in the Tribunal-added Dark Brotherhood faction; I assume one of the code-patching projects has, eh, patched that.

If someone knows about the stats auto-generation (i.e., what stats they'll typically have), this is probably enough to create a table in the appropriate article, and link to it from some of the above other articles.

— Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 13:47, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Update: I've added what I could to Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood#Dark Brotherhood Assassins and otherwise overhauled the rest of that page (which had some outright errors in it), then created the redirect Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood Assassins (finally!), and categorized it as an NPC redirect. Also worked over Morrowind:Dark Brotherhood, and created Category:Morrowind-Factions-Dark Brotherhood, then categorized those who the game says are members of it (not those just associated loosely with it, e.g. Morrowind:Miun-Gei), and, lastly, cross-referenced the vanilla and TB Dark Brotherhood categories by making the latter a subcat. of the former (this should avoid the redundant cross-namespace categorization of individual articles, like we're seeing at Tribunal:Hands of Almalexia). Now just need to adjust text and links in the quest and other articles to point to the new Dark Brotherhood Assassins section. — Unsigned comment by Darklocq (talk • contribs) on Revision as of 09:33, 13 August 2017

Update: Completed the data (some of the generic assassins were missing, as sleuthed out by The Silencer/Silence is Golden), and moved to new proper NPC page at Tribunal:Dark Brotherhood Assassins. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 02:52, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

/* Max number of attacks */

Various people have alleged that the max number of attacks (if you do not go to Mournhold, which stops them) is 10, or 15. The number is not hard-coded in the script, but is a calculated math thing (and I suck at math). Could use some help figuring this out.

The relevant code in dbattackScript is:

float dbchance
...
short attackOnce
short playerLevel
short attackmod
short othermod
...

        [code that sets playerLevel from 1 to 5 based on actual player level, 1 to 30+)

...
        set dbchance to Random 100
        set attackmod to ( attackonce * 10 )
        if ( playerlevel == 5 )
                set othermod to ( 90 - attackmod )
                if ( dbchance <= othermod )
                        [then do the attack stuff]
                        set attackonce to ( attackonce + 1 )
...
                endif
...
        endif
...
        [similar code blocks for different playerLevel values, with different "foo - attackmod" values]

So, every attack increments attackonce by 1.

There actually a typo in the code, giving what should be 90 - attackmod as "90- attackmod". I don't know this language well enough to know if that matters. Same goes for giving attackOnce as "attackonce". The other code blocks have the math spacing correct, (e.g. "70 - attackmod" under "if ( playerLevel == 4 )", then 50, 40, and 20 for, respectively, playerLevel 3, 2, and 1. The playerLevel starts at 1 and increments to 2 at real level 4, to 3 at 10, to 4 at 20, and to the max, 5, at 30.

If it were just one block of code, one would surmise that the max number of attacks would be 10: the first attack, then attackonce (presumably starting as 0) incrementing + 1 nine times, to be a value of 9; multiplied by 10, yielding a new othermod of 90; then othermod would become 90 - 90 = 0, thus dbchance would always be > othermod. But I get a big headache when I think about there being different code blocks with different values from which to subtract attackmod. Need one of those "number crunchers" who live for working out such stats.

— Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 03:07, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

So... bit of a necropost, but the issue hasn't yet been resolved, I'm also interested in it, and if I were to start a new section I'd be going over a lot of the same stuff.

I had a look at that script today. You're mostly correct. The maximum number of attacks is 10. I'll go through the code to show how I arrived at that number.

The syntax irregularity of 90- attackmod rather than 90 - attackmod doesn't seem to matter, nor do the instances where the name of a variable changes to lower case. It looks sloppy, sure, but it seems to work.

The basic structure of the script seems to be to figure out a "limbo bar" threshold under which a random roll must fit in order to trigger an attack when you sleep. Increasing your character's level can raise that bar, and each attack event lowers it.

When your character sleeps and the script runs, dbchance gets a randomly picked value between 0 and 99, inclusive (see Morrowind Mod:Random).

The confusingly named playerLevel isn't player character level but something of a difficulty tier that is based on player character level:

1. Player character level 1 to 3.
2. " 4 to 9.
3. " 10 to 19.
4. " 20 to 29.
5. " 30 and above.

The difficulty tier (and those code blocks that branch on its value) sets the base height of that "limbo bar." (It also determines the difficulty of the assassin(s) spawned, but that's less important.) Higher tiers set higher base chances. (The base chance is the literal number in the lines with attackmod and othermod; in the case of the one you quoted, the 90 in 90- attackmod).

attackOnce is a counter that tracks how many attacks have already occurred. It gets used to set attackmod, which modifies the height of the "limbo bar" downward, as in that 90- attackmod example. This way, each attack has a 10% lower chance of occurring on any given sleep than the previous attack (as long as you're still in the same difficulty tier, anyway). This can preclude further attacks until you reach a higher tier.

othermod gets the result of that calculation, and is the final height of the "limbo bar" that dbchance must fit under.

At difficulty tier 5, after 9 attacks, attackOnce would be 9, meaning attackmod would be 90 and othermod would be 0. Since dbchance could also be 0, and the script checks whether dbchance is less than or equal to othermod, there would still be a 1% chance of a tenth attack.

For an eleventh attack, however, a random value between 0 and 99 would need to be less than or equal to -10. Since that can't happen, the maximum possible number of Dark Brotherhood attacks is 10.

Shmoot (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Lawdy, I never would have figured out half of that! I guess we know what number to update the article with. — Darklocq ^☎ ¢ 18:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Here are a whole bunch more numbers for the heck of it.

Percentage Chance of Each Attack
		Attack Number
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Player Character Level	1 to 3	21	11	1
	4 to 9	41	31	21	11	1
	10 to 19	51	41	31	21	11	1
	20 to 29	71	61	51	41	31	21	11	1
	30 and up	91	81	71	61	51	41	31	21	11	1

Shmoot (talk) 00:08, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

BUT...

Since this quest doesn't start until level 6 on Xbox, the corresponding script there must be different. How different, we may never know... different enough to permit 15 attacks? I dunno if anyone wants to dig out an old Xbox just for the purpose of exhaustive empirical testing of an esoteric gameplay question. But I am confident in my PC version analysis.

Shmoot (talk) 00:57, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

spellcasting assassin

I haven't ventured very far into the Tribunal story, but I'm quite familiar with the initial DB attack, and just encountered something I had never seen. . .I slept in the Arena underworks, and exited to the canalworks as soon as the assassin appeared, then went around and approached him from range by a different entrance. Upon detecting me, he cast an illusion spell 3 or 4 times before murdering me with his dart. No idea what the spell was, and looking in the files, I don't see any of these guys having spells other than the default Dunmer powers. Any input on what was going on here? Got a couple of minor mods plugged in, but nothing that should affect Tribunal. 68.203.160.235 16:25, 28 May 2019 (UTC)