ErebusVonMori
2017-05-22, 09:18 PM
WARNING: This post mentions monks heavily.
Where to start? Well the beginning obviously, back when I was first learning 3.5 and was just becoming aware of the fact not all classes were created equal I stumbled across the ninja entry in Complete Adventurer and was immediately taken with the idea. This will be great, my poor naïve self thought, it's going to be like a rogue and monk, taking the best of each and making a superior class.
Yeah...
What was even the point of making this class? I mean really, why?
It has less skill points than rogue (fair enough I guess, it's a more niche roll afterall), and sudden strike is literally sneak attack but worse as you can't benefit from flanking or use it for non-lethal.
You can't wear armour or be encumbered to get your AC bonus, makes sense, but then Wizards did the one thing that really proves it's malice rather than incompetence that struck down poor Monk, they stopped the Wis bonus to AC stacking. Really wizard? How many classes have wisdom as a key attribute? It's not like someone's going to multiclass a high tier martial into it for the bonus, or even a caster. Congratulations you made two classes with three THREE!!! primary attributes and then specifically stopped them synergising them and salvaging something vaguely useful from your piss poor design!
Then there's Ki Dodge. What is this? I mean I have invisibility already and sure we're about the level where people will start counteracting that with spells but unless it's specifically catered to stop me it's a worse version of another ability that I've already ****ing unlocked, sharing the same pool of resources and costing the same swift action, so I'm going to be invisible at the start of combat anyway because it's just flat out better.
And no death attack, seriously no death attack on a class that is basically an assassin. Even monks got a goddamn death attack!
Now great leap and fast climber, I love these abilities and have gotten a tonne of milage optimising for just those, unfortunately yet again ninja is outshine in its own area of expertise with the spell 'spider climb'.
Poison Use, it's a lovely thought but unfortunately poisons are expensive and frankly if I have to choose between a bonus to a single hit or a permanent +1 to something... yeah I don't think I'll choose to deliberately lower my power floor further.
Improved Poison Use - Wow, just wow, a class highly dependant on not staying within reach now has yet another way to completely waste their move action and thus get hit, or can choose to simply not be useful for a round. Seriously this is it? Make it a swift action and maybe then we'll talk. Hell make it that it's a free action and it's just assumed you've modified your weapon to have a vial of poison in the hilt.
Ghost Strike - lets you hit incorporeals for one of your ever-rationed and increasingly sparse ki-points, and it's lovely, it's useful and it genuinely is an aid to the party, now if only it had come during the stage where incorporeal enemies were still a threat to the party.
Acrobatics - for morons that think 6 skill points is a reasonable substitute for an actual class feature.
Ghost Sight - yet another good ability that would have been useful if it came earlier in the progression.
Ghost Mind - I... actually have no complaints about this except maybe that I wish it came a few levels earlier, I mean this ability is great (DC 20+ninja level, so 38 minimum).
Ghost Walk - Wizards say hi. They may also have been laughing.
Why? It could have been beautiful, a couple of the abilities are actually interesting and fun, but it just... falls flat. It needs Str, Dex and Wis (Hey Monk, yeah I'm depressed too) to function, deliberately stops monk ninja synergy which comes to mind naturally in terms of multiclassing/gestalt in terms of flavour. (Seriously Wizards, show us on the doll where the monk touched you.) Sudden Strike is literally a worse Sneak Attack. It's just shy of the skill points to be a skill monkey. A lot of the abilities are barely useful by the time you get them. And one class ability is literally skill points in disguise.
Where to start? Well the beginning obviously, back when I was first learning 3.5 and was just becoming aware of the fact not all classes were created equal I stumbled across the ninja entry in Complete Adventurer and was immediately taken with the idea. This will be great, my poor naïve self thought, it's going to be like a rogue and monk, taking the best of each and making a superior class.
Yeah...
What was even the point of making this class? I mean really, why?
It has less skill points than rogue (fair enough I guess, it's a more niche roll afterall), and sudden strike is literally sneak attack but worse as you can't benefit from flanking or use it for non-lethal.
You can't wear armour or be encumbered to get your AC bonus, makes sense, but then Wizards did the one thing that really proves it's malice rather than incompetence that struck down poor Monk, they stopped the Wis bonus to AC stacking. Really wizard? How many classes have wisdom as a key attribute? It's not like someone's going to multiclass a high tier martial into it for the bonus, or even a caster. Congratulations you made two classes with three THREE!!! primary attributes and then specifically stopped them synergising them and salvaging something vaguely useful from your piss poor design!
Then there's Ki Dodge. What is this? I mean I have invisibility already and sure we're about the level where people will start counteracting that with spells but unless it's specifically catered to stop me it's a worse version of another ability that I've already ****ing unlocked, sharing the same pool of resources and costing the same swift action, so I'm going to be invisible at the start of combat anyway because it's just flat out better.
And no death attack, seriously no death attack on a class that is basically an assassin. Even monks got a goddamn death attack!
Now great leap and fast climber, I love these abilities and have gotten a tonne of milage optimising for just those, unfortunately yet again ninja is outshine in its own area of expertise with the spell 'spider climb'.
Poison Use, it's a lovely thought but unfortunately poisons are expensive and frankly if I have to choose between a bonus to a single hit or a permanent +1 to something... yeah I don't think I'll choose to deliberately lower my power floor further.
Improved Poison Use - Wow, just wow, a class highly dependant on not staying within reach now has yet another way to completely waste their move action and thus get hit, or can choose to simply not be useful for a round. Seriously this is it? Make it a swift action and maybe then we'll talk. Hell make it that it's a free action and it's just assumed you've modified your weapon to have a vial of poison in the hilt.
Ghost Strike - lets you hit incorporeals for one of your ever-rationed and increasingly sparse ki-points, and it's lovely, it's useful and it genuinely is an aid to the party, now if only it had come during the stage where incorporeal enemies were still a threat to the party.
Acrobatics - for morons that think 6 skill points is a reasonable substitute for an actual class feature.
Ghost Sight - yet another good ability that would have been useful if it came earlier in the progression.
Ghost Mind - I... actually have no complaints about this except maybe that I wish it came a few levels earlier, I mean this ability is great (DC 20+ninja level, so 38 minimum).
Ghost Walk - Wizards say hi. They may also have been laughing.
Why? It could have been beautiful, a couple of the abilities are actually interesting and fun, but it just... falls flat. It needs Str, Dex and Wis (Hey Monk, yeah I'm depressed too) to function, deliberately stops monk ninja synergy which comes to mind naturally in terms of multiclassing/gestalt in terms of flavour. (Seriously Wizards, show us on the doll where the monk touched you.) Sudden Strike is literally a worse Sneak Attack. It's just shy of the skill points to be a skill monkey. A lot of the abilities are barely useful by the time you get them. And one class ability is literally skill points in disguise.