Assassin Archetype Troubleshooting/FAQ 

Why does this mod require SKSE now?
Firstly everyone should have SKSE installed assuming your system allows it, if you do not then you are missing out on some great mods. Secondly I am no happier about this than you are, I tried to avoid it, but if the Creation Kit wiki is to believed, and my testing, then there are flaws in the implementation of arrays that I cannot work around.

True randomness is actually not always that immersive. During one of my test runs I got three successive missions in Whiterun. I can get around this by temporarily removing selections you have already made from the list. So the lists of potential victims need to dynamically shrink and grow which requires me to use formlists instead of arrays. The victim names are actually soulgems since this is the area of itemization that has the least number of existing entries. I need some SKSE functions in conjunction with this to manipulate the formlists. 

Why are all the targets Nords?
Put simply it is not worth it to do the huge amount of coding names and target data that is required for the other races. Given that the vast majority of people in Skyrim are Nords, it should not hurt your immersion level too much I hope. 

I just got the same selection twice in a row though, should that happen?
Right now it should. Formlists are a way in future to prevent it. However there is a lot of background code that needs to be put in place to make it happen. It means two copies of every list, that is over ten lists to set up. These changes will come in a future version therefore. I have made allowance for them now. 

You are just reusing Dark Brotherhood material, aren't you?
I believe in working with tools I am given. I am not artistic so not good at character design. To the surprise of many there is no way to generate a random appearance in Skyrim creation kit. All you can do is work with existing characters or those your mod adds. This does not seem much of a limitation when you are generating Draugr, because those all look similar, but when all your NPCs look the same it becomes more obvious. The Dark Brotherhood Forever victims are designed with suitable AI, and stats to be good for killing, so I started by using them as the base. You should not however recognize them because they have real names and will be dressed differently each time they appear.  Some are even in different places. From there I am starting to expand, adding extra victims in new places and slightly higher levels.  Currently I have three wandering targets in addition those from DB Forever.

Honestly how realistic is it that I found an apparent farm hand with the Staff of Magnus?
In the original Skyrim, not at all. After reality has been remade with the daedric tome, it is very plausible. The writer Douglas Adams came up with the term Someone Else's Problem field to describe the ability of humans to ignore things that they do not expect to see or which challenge their reality perception. So, your farmhand may have no memory of ever picking up the staff, or any perception that there is a wooden rod in their hand, and everyone around him may behave similarly. He certainly has no idea that he possesses a legendary artifact. 

I saved when I got to the town with the target last night and now this morning he looks completely different. Is that right?
It is a quirk of the Skyrim engine that certain changes do not persist between game sessions. If you reload a save without killing the target, then you risk them being naked or dressed completely differently or with a different name. 

I use a body-clearing mod. I got to the target and there is a quest marker hovering in the air but no body to loot. I assume someone already killed him. What should I do?
Use the QFL Control Book to relocate the quest object

I hate protected characters why are the targets protected?
Most are not. Those who are however intended to venture far out from towns however are, so your level 1 target is not stomped by a level 5 mudcrab etc. 

Why are there both Surnames and Titles lists and different ones for females/males? I found something on the list I consider sexist
There is honestly not much difference between the lists in terms of purpose. It is simply a way to increase the chance of not getting a repeating name until I get round to putting a more elegant solution in place. I agree with you some of the assignments are sexist and you should not assume anything about me because of that. I looked at historical examples of titles/names from the societies that the Nords are based upon and used these as a guide. Sometimes something is on one list rather than the other because that list was deficient at the time and I added some things to it to even it out. Othertimes I placed something on a specific list not to replicate a title of a well-known Skyrim character. There are lots of reasons why things are as they are.

This mod breaks my immersion.. I found someone called "The Undefeated" and he went down in one hit.
Titles are sometimes literal, sometimes ironic. Think of "Little John" in Robin Hood. Someone may be undefeated not because they are a great warrior but because they are known from running away from combat. There are lots of reasons why someone may have a specific title and you are unlikely to know their back history. Also most Nords do not have second names but some do, so what you take to be a title may actually refer to their clan and its history rather than a specific person.

My level 1 character got a full suit of ebony armor off a victim.. this is unrealistic
There are LOTs of possible clothes and armor choices for the victim. So your chance of receiving this is very small. I did not include Daedric but ebony I thought was a possibility. For those who think a Nord wearing Eleven armor is unrealistic, Elder Scrolls games have always included armor progression. Just as your character is likely to upgrade to eleven and glass when available or their heavy equivalents, it is probable others do so too. Level is an artificial gating for gameplay purposes. In reality you should expect to see a few others walking around in different armor types regardless of what their game level is. If someone is rich enough they should be able to obtain ebony armor for example. However, I am looking into the possibility of using a wardrobe to allow people to select and edit clothing and armor possibilities sometime in the future, much as you currently do with chests. So if you really object to a particular choice you will be able to remove it.

This mod is not finished. Why did you release it at this time?
Firstly it is arguable whether most mods are ever finished. There are always improvements that can be made. This mod works according to the testing I have given it. I will fix any bugs that are found. Most of the things I want to improve are on the technical side such as tweaks to random results, and someone who uses this mod to only find five objects will not notice the difference either way. So this mod is useable. Someone like me, who might use it for an entire playthrough will get a better and more immersive outcome when the tweaks are made 

Second, know what I like to do. Well yes.. THAT - who doesn't? .. but I was actually thinking of playing Skyrim here. When I am coding and testing mods, I don't get to play Skyrim. There are close to two week's work already invested in this mod. Some of that is my inexperience. Some of that is dumb mistakes. I lost two days because of a check box that was somehow accidentally selected in the creation kit. Because it was not something that was meant to be selected I did not look for it in my troubleshooting and therefore spent many wasted hours trying to figure out why the mod was not performing in the way it should. 

Like most modders I do not do this for profit, but out of love for the game and the community. However, there are other ways I can be spending my time, and I have to weigh time spent coding mods against income-generating activity that will reduce the thousands currently owed in medical bills. Since the great State of Texas just seized my paypal account for lack of activity .. bastards, it is not like I can earn from this mod even if there were crowds of people wanting to donate money, which there are not. The mod reward points system is a great idea but all three of my mods have earned less than a hundred points together, and the cheapest thing to buy is about 6000 so most mod authors will not see any real gain from it. 

Therefore I have to be realistic, I am going to support this mod but it is not my highest priority. I will release versions when they appear to be working and fix problems that arise. I am not going to devote huge amounts of time to it. It will develop at my own pace. I do still have improvements planned but they will come gradually. Right now I am burned out. I have seen the Creation Kit loading screen so many times I am sick of it. I want to get back to having fun for a while. As a coder I am not satisfied with the mod as it now stands, however it is playable and I think people can use it. Therefore, rather than wait till some indeterminate time when I have all the fixes and tweaks in place, that might be a long time away, I am releasing it now as I know there is a lot of interest in the Assassin archetype

Whilst the permission on this mod are pretty pernicious, simply to prevent people putting out unauthorized patches that later cause problems for me, I am not opposed to people playing with this mod and putting out patches to specific issues that annoy them or cause problems. That is the core of what modding is. Just come and talk to me first, so I know what is happening, can ensure you do not get out of sync with official versions and maybe can incorporate your changes in future editions. 

What future plans do you have for the mod?
Certainly using formlists to limit repetition
Improve the AI of the wanderers, possibly add the ability for them to be spontaneously granted spells and weapons to vary their responses a bit.
Add some wanderers who are aggressive to the player. 
give some wanderers the ability to call down the equivalent of an ambush