The Hired Assassin works in a similar manner as the Belligerent Drunk. He will attack the player once dialogue is initiated inside taverns although they have significantly lower chance to spawn.
Assassins are hired by enemy lords (with less than -20 relation) that have a sadistic (harsh) personality. They become active without notice once the player comes close to them. At most, they appear once every 7 days.
The Hired Assassin will attack a couple of seconds after the player enters the tavern. If the player rushes to talk to him before he attacks, a dialogue will start, but it will always result in him attacking you no matter the option the player chooses. The fight can't be dodged unlike with the drunk (having high renown).
Although he is poorly armed, his higher hp and average proficiencies can give the player trouble early on (he is slightly stronger than the drunk). This fight gets way harder through a feature that triggers when an Order knight spawns in the tavern as well. Whenever the player has -20 or lower relations with the order's knight, the knight will take the chance to attack the player, making this tavern fight drastically harder. Without altering relations, only the Order of Eventide will attack the player.
The tavern keeper's speech to this fight will slightly differ from the fight with the Belligerent Drunk in which they provide astute observations of the relatively greater degree of soberness and malice of the Assassin's behavior: "Strange. That one didn't seem like your ordinary troublemaker. He didn't drink all that much -- he just stood there, quietly, and watched the door. You may wish to consider whether you have any enemies who know you are in town... A pity that blood had to be spilled in my establishment..."
The player will obtain 50 denars and his Sword.