Giving Rogues/Ninjas Death Attack - Balanced?

[Malaqai]

As the title suggests, I'm thinking of giving rogues and ninjas a little something in the way of the assassin's Death Attack in the form of a pickable trick or talent. What are your guys' thoughts on this?

[Kazudo]

Well, Rogues get Special Abilities starting at 10th. Why not make Death Attack one of them?

For Ninjas, I could see it working if they use up some of their ki power.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Death Attack is pretty worthless as far as class features go, at least for PCs. I don't see anything wrong with giving it out for free, but don't expect any players to be impressed with it.

The special abilities that a Psychic Rogue or Psychic Assassin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723a) can select are far more fun/useful, and you could easily just give them a prerequisite of being a psionic creature and/or maintaining/spending a psionic focus to use and making them available to Rogues. Wilderness Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogueVariantWilderness Rogue) can gain the Ranger version of Hide in Plain Sight, which is also considerably more useful and fun than Death Attack.

[eggynack]

Sure. Unless you're playing a ridiculously low optimization game, this shouldn't impact balance at all.

[Malaqai]

Thanks for the replies and particularly for your suggestions, Biffoniacus_Furiou! I'll give those a look and see how they fit into my setting.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, they actually already get a sort of Death Attack, so I'm gonna go with "yes." If you meant from an earlier level than 10...still going with yes. Rogue and Ninja are some of the weakest classes in Pathfinder.


At 10th level, and every two levels thereafter, a ninja can select one of the following master tricks in place of a ninja trick.

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Assassinate (Ex): A ninja with this master trick can kill foes that are unable to defend themselves. To attempt to assassinate a target, the ninja must first study her target for 1 round as a standard action. On the following round, if the ninja makes a sneak attack against the target and the target is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC, the sneak attack has the additional effect of possibly killing the target. This attempt automatically fails if the target recognizes the ninja as an enemy. If the sneak attack is successful and the target of this attack fails a Fortitude save, it dies. The DC of this save is equal to 10 + 1/2 the ninja’s level + the ninja’s Charisma modifier. If the save is successful, the target still takes the sneak attack damage as normal, but it is immune to that ninja’s assassinate ability for 1 day.

Well...Ninjas can. I forgot that rogues can't get Master Tricks for some reason. Almost as odd as how rogue can get Combat Trick twice (by taking it as a talent and a ninja trick) but ninja can't do the same in reverse.

[Malaqai]

Well, they actually already get a sort of Death Attack, so I'm gonna go with "yes." If you meant from an earlier level than 10...still going with yes. Rogue and Ninja are some of the weakest classes in Pathfinder.

Yes, I want them to have it available as soon as they're able to start taking tricks/talents though I may just give the ability to them at level 3 and hide in plain sight at level 6.

While we're on the topic of improving mundanes through small things like that, are there any suggestions for rangers or bards? I'm hosting my first campaign in a couple weeks and the party consists of a Rogue, a Ranger, a Dervish Dancer, an Oracle of Bones, and an amnesiac/pacifist cleric who thinks she's a druid. I don't think the campaign will be too optimized since the Oracle's the only one who's played before, but I'd like to give my T3s and 4s a little bit more oomph.

[TiaC]

One problem with Death Attack is that it encourages the rogue to either separate from the other players or tell them not to do anything. Using Death Attack means that you are playing a very different game from other classes.

[Spore]

One problem with Death Attack is that it encourages the rogue to either separate from the other players or tell them not to do anything. Using Death Attack means that you are playing a very different game from other classes.

The WHOLE CLASS encourages rogues to go separate from the group. Be it that Sir Clank the Clamorous doesn't spook anyone you try to scout out or the Wizard doesn't get killed by traps or provides information for which the Cleric would risk his divine powers because you had to agree to things so vile - even while bluffing - that his god would've had smitten him by now.

I would really give them the ability to debuff without saves. Crippling Strike is a great example. You deal Str damage, no save. Your sneak just has to hit. Give them something similar to Dirty Trick effects but targetting AC not CMD.

[Malaqai]

Something I'm a little bit worried about is how NPCs with this ability may affect the party. For example, my party is going to start off as level 3 nobodies, but once they start getting in the way of the BBEGs plans, what's to stop him from sending a Shadowdancing Ninja with Death Attack after them?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Well, they actually already get a sort of Death Attack, so I'm gonna go with "yes." If you meant from an earlier level than 10...still going with yes. Rogue and Ninja are some of the weakest classes in Pathfinder.



Well...Ninjas can. I forgot that rogues can't get Master Tricks for some reason. Almost as odd as how rogue can get Combat Trick twice (by taking it as a talent and a ninja trick) but ninja can't do the same in reverse.

That is actually a lot better than normal Death Attack, since you only waste 1 standard action as opposed to three turns. On the downside there doesn't seem to be a way to boost the DC (besides leveling up and increasing cha) the way you can do to Death Attack's DC.