Boots of the Assassin
| A pair of soft boots, specially designed by the Assassin's Guild, that allow the wearer to sense potential victims nearby. They also allow the wearer to easily find vulnerabilities when attacking unaware opponents, allowing effective stabbing attacks with any weapon. |
the +2 pair of boots of the Assassin
+2 boots
+100 Stealth
All weapons count as short blades for purposes of determining stabbing bonuses
Detect Monsters: Similar to the Ashenzari ability.
Desirability
The boots of the Assassin are a definite boon to stabbers, as the monster detection and massive stealth boost make it even easier to reach sleeping opponents and land that lethal hit. They are also amazingly useful for other melee characters, so long as you have some means of generating stabbing opportunities: the short blade-grade stabbing multipliers can be massive, and the much higher base damage of heavier weapons can lead to extremely potent blows. A reliable source of invisibility, the Dazzling Spray spell, or distracting allies are all excellent ways to land stabs even if you're wearing noisy armour, though raising your Stealth skill will still improve your stabbing performance signficantly.
Casters and ranged fighters certainly don't suffer for wearing these, but they may find a pair of boots of running preferable.
History
In 0.15 the stealth bonus was increased from 80 to 100.
The current form of the boots of the Assassin were added in 0.14. However, prior to 0.13, there was a very different version of them: +2 boots which granted +80 stealth, +3 dexterity, and allowed you to evoke invisibility.
