Any ideas on Changing/Improving the Shadow Sun Ninja?

[Scarlet Tropix]

Long story short, I have a player who wants to have the Shadow Sun Ninja as one of his prestige classes. [I say one because It's a gestalt game, but that's fairly irrelevant to this discussion except that I expect to have a campaign journal out of it in which I would be using these changes.]

Anyway, the Shadow Sun Ninja has interesting fluff as well as a really cool capstone, but the way you use its abilities and the limitation on the capstone make it a hard class to deal with.

Assuming that I wanted to be able to use these changes in consecutive games, do you have any suggestions or quick fixes that might bring this into a better light?

[The Glyphstone]

Having an undead pet follow you around, or taking Tomb-Tainted Soul, makes the SSN into a (slow) infinite healing machine. That's more of a tactic than modifying the class...I suppose you could change it so that the Touch of Sun and Shadow can be 'reset' to whichever one he wants to use with a Move action.

[Scarlet Tropix]

Right. And as far as the healing goes, infinite healing, even if it is slow, is something I don't really want to hand to the players for obvious reasons.

Edit: Although admittedly, looking at it, it wouldn't really break the game.

Being able to switch would help greatly. Perhaps the time it takes to switch lessens to a swift action at a higher level? Or would that be too much?

Edit: Any idea how to drag it away from scaling with the Monk [No] and helping the Swordsage? [Yes]

Another Sporadic Edit:
And, looking at it, it might be nice if alternation between the different abilities improved their default attributes, rather than being needed to function.

[JaronK]

Right. And as far as the healing goes, infinite healing, even if it is slow, is something I don't really want to hand to the players for obvious reasons.

Edit: Although admittedly, looking at it, it wouldn't really break the game.

We've found in our games that DMs absolutely love endless healing. At first glance it seems overpowered, but it's actually wonderful. You can beat on your players HARD and as long as the players survive they can get right back up. Casters hate being healbots anyway, and this removes that. If you don't want that endless healing to happen between combats, all you need to do is have one combat rapidly follow another. From a DMing perspective, it's actually lovely to have, to the point that groups at my house have almost all included at least one endless healer (two Crusaders in WLD, a Dread Necromancer in our evil game, and I think we had a Binder doing it in another game).

So, don't shy away from it. It's fine.

JaronK

[Scarlet Tropix]

Yeah, as written the healing wouldn't take place quickly enough to outshine a cleric in combat, so I actually think this isn't so bad.

[JaronK]

Exactly. It just reduces downtime. And let's face it, downtime isn't fun time.

JaronK

[Scarlet Tropix]

Indeed. I will work on this.

Back on the subject, I think maybe the Shadow Sun Ninja isn't exactly what we need. The SSN are described as good [although there's no requirement] and character himself is kind of an... Unpleasant person.

Maybe what I'll do is homebrew a class. Something like the Ebon Phoenix Mage I saw on the board, with some different fluff and Shadow Sun inspiration.

[Riffington]

Exactly. It just reduces downtime. And let's face it, downtime isn't fun time.

JaronK

Well, it isn't in your game. I've had games where it was, and those where it wasn't. If you have plans for your downtime (and healing up, crafting, politicking, etc are relevant) then it totally makes sense to have wounds carry over. It can work/be fun, just depends on your group.

Alternatively, if your idea of fun combats is "beat on your players til they almost drop, heal to full, repeat", then endless healing is great. If on the other hand, you want a combat where "Damn, I was wounded" to matter, you need to get rid of easy healing items. Endless healing doesn't change the game much more than CLW wands.

[Scarlet Tropix]

Well, it isn't in your game. I've had games where it was, and those where it wasn't. If you have plans for your downtime (and healing up, crafting, politicking, etc are relevant) then it totally makes sense to have wounds carry over. It can work/be fun, just depends on your group.

Alternatively, if your idea of fun combats is "beat on your players til they almost drop, heal to full, repeat", then endless healing is great. If on the other hand, you want a combat where "Damn, I was wounded" to matter, you need to get rid of easy healing items. Endless healing doesn't change the game much more than CLW wands.

I personally would not call any of these downtime, as PCs will do these things, or can be led to do these things, for reasons beyond getting smacked about.

[Riffington]

I personally would not call any of these downtime, as PCs will do these things, or can be led to do these things, for reasons beyond getting smacked about.

What is downtime?
I assume that downtime is anything other than active adventuring. The kind of stuff that some people want to skip through ("blah blah blah you spend 5 days in town, you're all healed up, your sword is ready, and now it's time to mount up"). I don't think any of that has to be boring, but depending on your group it might be. If you see your players zoning out whenever they aren't in imminent danger, gloss over the downtime stuff. If they perk up when you describe the library's holdings, linger over it.

[Scarlet Tropix]

Oh, I agree with what you're saying in that context.

Forgive me, I misunderstood you at first.
Although I will admit, I personally prefer it NOT to be boring. I like finding things for my players to do that do not involve murder.

[JeminiZero]

Back to the topic on hand, SS-Ninja can range from weak to strong depending on what else is taken with it. A bunch of its abilities have requirements that your player will either have huge difficulty with, or will ignore them entire.

Shadow Sun touch is one such ability. Its unlimited healing if you have undead or Tomb tainted soul or similiar abilities, its next to useless if you don't since the damage it deals is hardly worthwhile in combat.

Light Within the Darkness is another one (enemies must save vs blinded after you make a successful hide check). If you can wrangle out HiPS, you could effectively spam this every round ala Blinky the Ninja (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6304375&postcount=12). Otherwise again, you can only use it on the 1st round of combat.

And finally, Balance of Light and Darkness. Losing con might be a problem... unless you are undead (which incidentally also helps with Shadow Sun Touch healing). In which case you can slap on negative levels on your enemies without consequence. Combine with a few choice maneuvers/feats/templates that maximize your attacks per round, and you can drop enemies fast.