Totema
2014-06-04, 05:37 PM
In my long search for a Ninja base class that doesn't gargle balls, I felt satisfied when I stumbled upon the Ninja designed for the homebrew "Tome of Prowess" rules (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Ninja,_Tome_(3.5e_Class)), on dnd-wiki.org. (note: not the godawful dandwiki site) I made a few adjustments that I thought sensible; for instance, I replaced Sudden Strike with Sneak Attack because Sudden Strike is a huge pain to activate, reduced their class skill set and skill points per level a bit, added a ki power that granted temporary trap finding, and added a few minor clauses to some of the class abilities. And since I'm not ready to introduce my players to Tome of Prowess rules, I used the alternate abilities the page suggests. It looked to me like I had a nice stealth-based T3 class on my hands.
But when I tried a bit of play testing I noticed one very troubling thing. Given everything that this ninja can do, it not only totally obsoletes the rogue in combat situations but also the assassin as well. Supplanting a base class (an important one at that) is bad enough, but outperforming a prestige class is totally unacceptable.
I'm not good at trimming the fat from homebrew classes, especially ones I hadn't built myself. It occurred to me that it was designed with Tome of Prowess in mind, while it's probably well balanced with those rules; in fact I noticed that their rules set doesn't even include a rogue or assassin, so I'd reckon this is meant to replace both of them. So, it's a much different story with regular old kitchen sink D&D. I first thought of nerfing all the bonuses to Death Attack it gets, but I'm not sure what to replace it with. Can the Playground offer any help?
But when I tried a bit of play testing I noticed one very troubling thing. Given everything that this ninja can do, it not only totally obsoletes the rogue in combat situations but also the assassin as well. Supplanting a base class (an important one at that) is bad enough, but outperforming a prestige class is totally unacceptable.
I'm not good at trimming the fat from homebrew classes, especially ones I hadn't built myself. It occurred to me that it was designed with Tome of Prowess in mind, while it's probably well balanced with those rules; in fact I noticed that their rules set doesn't even include a rogue or assassin, so I'd reckon this is meant to replace both of them. So, it's a much different story with regular old kitchen sink D&D. I first thought of nerfing all the bonuses to Death Attack it gets, but I'm not sure what to replace it with. Can the Playground offer any help?