Machine Gun Snipers

I'd like to highlight one of the crazier things that happened in Session 1: the assassination of four orcs by Deadleaf the elf. As we played the game it struck me as very powerful, the kind of power that gives me pause.

Can a character use a missle weapon to make an assassination attempt? If so, can they make multiple attempts per segment? If so, why would an assassin ever bother with melee weapons?

around elves watch yourselves

Let's review the rules.

First of all, elves working alone or with other elves surprise other monsters two-thirds of the time. This will put them in a situation to assassinate often.

halflings do it too

Secondly, any assassin who surprises his target may opt to use the ASSASSINATION TABLE [edit: added the table at the bottom for reference] in lieu of a regular attack, outright killing their target half the time (or not so often - read on).

cheaters

That's all well and good but characters only get one attack per surprise segment, unless they have a missile weapon at hand. Is that legal? Nothing in the excerpt above (nor anything else I found in the rules) prohibits it, and besides, the sniper is a classic assassin archetype. So ranged assassinations stand.

Many missile weapons have a rate of fire higher than one per round. In a surprise segment, that rate is tripled!

gary what were you thinking

What does that mean for assassination? The rules are ambiguous. The way I see it there are three valid interpretations:

1. One. The assassination does not interact with the weapon's rate of fire or the triple rate of fire provided by surprise (which multiplies the weapon's rate of fire). This option is easy to adjudicate and keeps ranged assassination more-or-less equal in effectiveness to close range.
2. Three. The assassination is not affected by the weapon's rate of fire, but the assassin can leverage the surprise round to snipe multiple targets. This option is also easy to manage as it is a fixed number, but greatly improves the assassin's lethality. It also removes weapon type from the calculation. This is the option I chose.
3. Triple Rate of Fire. Essentially you convert each attack the character is entitled to into an assassination attempt. This solution is unacceptable to me because every failed assassination is still an automatic hit. A level one assassin outdamaging a 5d6 fireball surely goes against the spirit of the game.

Also consider: these are attacks of opportunity, not carefully-crafted assassinations! It is appropriate for the DM to apply a significant penalty to the assassination roll in this situation. This penalty can be used to mitigate the effectiveness of ranged assassination and the effect of multiple attacks.

In this case, I assigned a -5% CUMULATIVE penalty to Deadleaf's assassination attempts (suggested by Deadleaf's player himself). For example, when targeting 1 HD monsters (orcs) the three attempts were at 45%, 40%, and 35% to kill, respectively.

Option 2 has made for some fun moments at the table - it's always great to see a player on a hot streak - but I wonder if it grants too much advantage to ranged weapons. Everyone else seems satisfied with the results so I will roll with it until I see an obvious violation of rules or spirit.

I hope that was an interesting exercise for you. What do you think? Did I miss a rule? Did you come to the same conclusions I did?

Edit: here is the ASSASSINATION TABLE for reference.