Ninja Training Feat PEACH

[JeffreyGator]

I have a player looking for a Ninja theme for his Rogue.

Rather than creating a new archetype or forcing multiclassing into monk I am suggesting he uses a reflavoring Arcane Trickster archetype and takes the following modified Tavern Brawler feat at level 4

Feat: Ninja Training
Your unarmed strike counts as a finessable, light weapon doing d4 damage.
You are proficient with improvised weapons.
Standing up/climbing doesn't cost extra movement.

[PapaQuackers]

Its pretty meh. A d4 of unarmed damage isn't really gonna want to make him stop using his dagger/short sword.

Improvised weapons and climbing is thematic, but not all that potent considering its a feat investment.

It also seems to lack that key shadowy blending in aspect.

[Lalliman]

I'd say change the wording of the unarmed strike to work like the monk's Martial Arts, meaning you can make a bonus action attack without actually using two-weapon fighting. You need the full off-hand damage to make fighting unarmed with a d4 damage die worthwhile.

Even then you should probably make it a half feat (meaning you get +1 to a stat as well), just like tavern brawler.

Also, the standing up feature should cost 5 feet of movement, just like with the Athlete feat.

[Artagon]

What does he want out of being a Ninja vs Vanilla rogue?

[JeffreyGator]

I'd say change the wording of the unarmed strike to work like the monk's Martial Arts, meaning you can make a bonus action attack without actually using two-weapon fighting. You need the full off-hand damage to make fighting unarmed with a d4 damage die worthwhile.

Even then you should probably make it a half feat (meaning you get +1 to a stat as well), just like tavern brawler.

Also, the standing up feature should cost 5 feet of movement, just like with the Athlete feat.

My intent was kip-up and climbing be like Athlete. I wanted to avoid the unarmed dex attack not being eligible for SA problem mostly. I'm ok with adding the ability damage on the bonus attack.


What does he want out of being a Ninja vs Vanilla rogue?

I think it was a more interesting idea than the vanilla thief archetype. He isn't that fond of spellcasters and so avoiding an AT and we have already had an assassin in our group.


Thanks all for the replies!

[Artagon]

I think it was a more interesting idea than the vanilla thief archetype. He isn't that fond of spellcasters and so avoiding an AT and we have already had an assassin in our group.

But what is he wanting out of it? Does he want to be unarmed? Ninja are most commonly thought of to be weapon users, so that might not be what he's looking for. Personally, if I was going to make a ninja out of rogue, I'd include the ability to ignore difficult terrain (they were the first free-runners), add in some special bombs, like a flash bang or damage bomb (probably basing damage on sneak attack), some disguise bonuses, investigation, etc..

What made Ninja so good was the illusion that they could get into super highly guarded places like a shadow.. in reality they often had members that infiltrated a place before hand.. taking jobs as menial workers or guards.. and they would LET the assassins in.

I'm not sure a Feat could really cover everything that you'd want out of ninja. I'd be more inclined to make it a sub-class so that I could cover more of the bases over the course of their career.