Tiering the Pathfinder Classes - Antipaladin, Cavalier, Ninja, and Samurai

[pabelfly]

I'm interested in starting work on a tier list for Pathfinder, in the same way that we have a tier list for 3.5 (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?600635-Why-each-class-is-in-its-tier-2019-update!). This link is a collection of discussions about the power and versatility of all the base classes of 3.5 DnD, and it’s quite a useful resource. I think Pathfinder could do with a similar resource as a point of information and discussion.

There has been an informal attempt to do a tier list for Pathfinder, which I've also used as part of the reference to this thread: (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?649283-%85-And-What-Is-the-*Deal*-with-Pathfinder-Tiers). But this lacks discussion on the classes and a shared consensus on how scoring works, both of which are as important as the tier number itself.

The current, work-in-progress thread for Pathfinder Tiers version of this thread is here (link) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?650140-Why-Each-Class-is-in-its-Tier-Pathfinder-Edition-(Work-in-Progress)). This thread has links to previous tiering threads and short summaries of thread discussions for those who missed them when they were posted. Contributions and votes for older threads are still welcome.

This thread, we’ll be taking on Cavalier, Samurai and Ninja.

For reference, in the informal thread:

Antipaladin is tiered between 3.67 and 4
Cavalier is tiered at 4.63
Ninja is tiered at 4.38
Samurai is tiered at 4.63


So, the questions are: what should each of these be tiered at? And are there any notable archetypes for these classes that deserve separate tiering? I guess a discussion thread is the way to find out.

Since we had some discussion about Antipaladin in the previous Paladin thread, I'll share a few highlights:


I’d say the Antipaladin spell list is overall worse than the Paladin spell list. It seems more geared towards save-based effects, but lagging behind on spell level access also means lagging behind on spell save DCs. Aura of Despair helps with this, but even so, many of those spells overlap with Cruelties, which will have a higher DC... Overall, I’d say Antipaladin is a little lower-Tier than Paladin, but still above average for Tier 4. I’ll rate it Tier 3.8.


...it's a T4 class at best and arguably T5. It is frankly awful in almost every mechanical sense and waffles between being useless in most campaigns for obvious reasons and being useless even in campaigns specifically designed to support evil characters by having its hands tied by an absurdly stupid Code.


...The more I think about just how bad its Code is, the more inclined I am to give it like a 4.5. And I'm only giving it that much on the condition that you're playing in a game that it can actually function in at all, and you optimize the hell out of a fear build to abuse it stripping away fear immunity; in any normal game, it's a contender for 5+... So, split the difference and call Antipaladin a hard 5.0.


In one campaign our GM repeatedly tried throwing an Antipal against us specifically to counter my Paladin.
The first time it was a total fluke; it was a pretty big battle spread out over a small village, and that Antipal ended up one-on-one with our low-op Crusader Cleric... who was of LN alignment, and the Antipal was basically helpless against him. The PC just clobbered her unconscious with his frickin shield.
The other time it was a different Antipal and it actually did come to that coveted duel between him and my character. He won initiative, charged, creamed me with a juicy Smite Good with his Humanbane Greataxe, and iirc even rolled a crit - that brought me down to mb 40-50% HP, and that was his one moment of glory. Then it was my turn and, well, he didn't survive my Full Attack. I don't even remember if I used my Swift for a LoH or a Hurtful attack.


Antipaladin: 3.8. The lack of good enemies in typical campaigns is a negative. Trading lay on hands for an offensive ability that can't be utilized during your normal dps routine without a conductive weapon is a negative. A smaller and probably worse spell list than either of the above. The summon monster is a bit better than a mount, I think. This class feels like one tweak away from being solid. I'd forgive the rest if ToC was better integrated into the class instead of being slapped in as the reverse of LoH without thinking about it enough. Or if it was just LoH, I guess.


Antipaladin gets a lot of flak, but people underestimate how good it is at debuffing opponents. Negating immunity to fear is pretty huge. It means that the Antipaladin can make the best use of an Intimidate stacking build, via the very on-brand Damnation feats. With just 2 of them, your intimidate stacks with itself, allowing you to completely debilitate any one opponent. You could even take this further with Performance Feats focused on Dazzling Display, to debilitate entire groups of enemies. And there's shockingly little counterplay to this, thanks to your Aura of Cowardice. In the late game, these kinds of builds are some of the most dangerous, since they can effectively "fear-lock" you out of doing anything for as long as the fear-user desires... I'd rate the class a solid 3.8 or so.


...They can take the feat, "Dreamed Secrets" and gain access to arcane spells. Specifically, this gives them access to things like the very on-brand Blood Money spell, which is especially great when you realize that they already have Animate Dead on their spell list. In other words, Antipaladin can do minionmancy way better than anyone else on this list. The rest of their spell list, while not as expansive as the base Paladin, still has a few notable standouts, like Greater Invisibility + Dimension Blade, or Vampiric Touch or Silence. That said, Blood Money + Animate Dead is probably well worth a ticket to Tier 3 land on it's own, IMHO.





What are the tiers?

The simple answer here is that tier one is the best, the home of things on the approximate problem solving scale of wizards, and tier six is the worst, land of commoners. And problem solving capacity is what's being measured here. Considering the massive range of challenges a character is liable to be presented with across the levels, how much and how often does that character's class contribute to the defeat of those challenges? This value should be considered as a rough averaging across all levels, the center of the level range somewhat more than really low and really high level characters, and across all optimization levels (considering DM restrictiveness as a plausible downward acting factor on how optimized a character is), prioritizing moderate optimization somewhat more than low or high.

A big issue with the original tier system is that, if anything, it was too specific, generating inflexible definitions for allowance into a tier which did not cover the broad spectrum of ways a class can operate. When an increase in versatility would seem to represent a decrease in tier, because tier two is supposed to be low versatility, it's obvious that we've become mired in something that'd be pointless to anyone trying to glean information from the tier system. Thus, I will be uncharacteristically word light here. The original tier system's tier descriptions are still good guidelines here, but they shouldn't be assumed to be the end all and be all for how classes get ranked.

Consistent throughout these tiers is the notion of problems and the solving thereof. For the purposes of this tier system, the problem space can be said to be inclusive of combat, social interaction, and exploration, with the heaviest emphasis placed on combat. A problem could theoretically fall outside of that space, but things inside that space are definitely problems. Another way to view the idea of problem solving is through the lens of the niche ranking system. A niche filled tends to imply the capacity to solve a type of problem, whether it's a status condition in the case of healing, or an enemy that just has too many hit points in the case of melee combat. It's not a perfect measure, both because some niches have a lot of overlap in the kinds of problems they can solve and because, again, the niches aren't necessarily all inclusive, but they can act as a good tool for class evaluation.

Tier one: Incredibly good at solving nearly all problems. This is the realm of clerics, druids, and wizards, classes that open up with strong combat spells backed up by utility, and then get massively stronger from there. If you're not keeping up with that core trio of tier one casters, then you probably don't belong here.

Tier two: We're just a step below tier one here, in the land of classes around the sorcerer level of power. Generally speaking, this means relaxing one of the two tier one assumptions, either getting us to very good at solving nearly all problems, or incredibly good at solving most problems. But, as will continue to be the case as these tiers go on, there aren't necessarily these two simple categories for this tier. You gotta lose something compared to the tier one casters, but what you lose doesn't have to be in some really specific proportions.

Tier three: Again, we gotta sacrifice something compared to tier two, here taking us to around the level of a vanilla Magus. The usual outcome is that you are very good at solving a couple of problems and competent at solving a few more. Of course, there are other possibilities, for example that you might instead be competent at solving nearly all problems.

Tier four: Here we're in Fighter and Barbarian territory. Starting from that standard tier three position, the usual sweet spots here are very good at solving a few problems, or alright at solving many problems.

Tier five: We're heading close to the dregs here. Tier five is the tier of chained Monk, classes that are as bad as you can be without being an aristocrat or a commoner. Classes here are sometimes very good at solving nearly no problems, or alright at solving a few, or some other function thereof. It's weak, is the point.

Tier six: And here we have commoner tier. Or, the bottom is commoner. The top is approximately aristocrat. You don't necessarily have nothing in this tier, but you have close enough to it.

[Kurald Galain]

Quoting myself on antipally,

Looking at the antipally mechanically, I'd say they're weaker than the fighter (with its massive combat bonuses plus Advanced Weapon Training special abilities) or the rogue (with its high sneak attack damage plus large amount of skill points plus skill-based talents), and that's before considering how an antipally code of conduct makes them an awful fit for pretty much any party in terms of behavior. I'd call that a clear Tier Five.

NOTE that this is not about alignment but about code of conduct. ALSO NOTE that (unlike the pally) antipal cannot heal himself as a swift. ALSO ALSO NOTE that antipallies will likely fight a lot of evil enemies as well (evil is not One Big Happy Family), in which case their smite is useless.

Aside from that, I find the antipally remarkably silly in design: you take a famous existing class then cross out all instances of "law" and "good" and scribble in "chaos" and "evil" instead, and expect that to somehow make sense? Come on, I see better villains than that on Saturday morning cartoons. And it looks like Paizo's writers agree, because you very rarely see an antipally anywhere in any module or adventure path (and even then, it's almost always a one-off battle, or a throwaway line about ages ago) - as opposed to Hellknights, the very-lawful mostly-evil order of Cheliax and Asmodeus. Hellknights are actually well-written, a credible threat, and often seen in lore and adventure paths; but we can't rate them here because they're mechanically a prestige class.

[Kurald Galain]

Ninja is basically a rogue archetype from before the invention of archetypes. It's the same as the rogue, but a number of times per day it can make an extra attack while full attacking, or go invisible as a swift action. Both of those are good tactical options, and going invis each turn (after your attack) is both a solid defense mechanism and a free sneak attack your next turn. It's not hard to make a build that does this 10-15 times per day, making it almost an at-will ability. Overall, ninjas are pretty useful both in and out of combat; they are stronger than the chained rogue but not as good as the unchained rogue. Tier four.

Unchained Ninja? A later splatbook clarifies that alternate classes (such as the ninja) count as archetypes, and since the u-rogue can take most rogue archetypes, it should be possible to make an unchained ninja. That said, the rules on this are somewhat muddy, and there have been long debates on the Paizo forum on whether or not you can actually do this. If allowed, I'd say an u-ninja would rank the same as an u-rogue, or Tier 3.5.

Cavalier is essentially a fighter on a horse, and it's not really clear why it exists as a separate class because feats and archetypes can put pretty much any weapon-using class on a horse. As a result, it's a class that only very rarely sees play (although it's still more popular than the ranger). It deals with combat well enough in terms of numbers, but since all its abilities are numerical, it has fewer tactical options than a fighter. Out of combat, it doesn't really contribute. I'd put this at Tier 4.5.

Samurai is a cavalier archetype from before the invention of archetypes. It doesn't stand out as particularly different, and it has the added problem that its specific flavor really doesn't fit in any campaign set outside of Feudal Japan (or Azure City). As a result, this is basically the least-played class ever. Mechanically speaking, it's still a Tier 4.5.

[vasilidor]

Antipaladin feels like it should be around tier 4. The chassis is OK, and it has Smite which is on the face of it a good class ability. Spells feel a little lack luster. I am going to say 4.5 for the Antipaladin.

The Ninja is, in some ways, better than the Chained Rogue. Gaining access to invisibility with ninja vanish and getting the ability to make illusionary doubles of itself and other spell like abilities. Tier 4.

Most Cavaliers I have seen in play were halflings. And as Halflings they were quite good, being able to bring their mounts into places were horses would have been difficult at best. A mounted Halfing on a riding dog with a lance and the charge feats is an awesome thing to see in a dungeon. Alas, we are doing the class as a whole and not how small characters can make it awesome due to their ability to get their mounts in anywhere just about. the inability to get mounts in with most possible characters into dungeons drops this class from a 3.5 to about a 4.5. If a flying mount is aloud this class is a solid 3 in wilderness games. This one is about as nitpicky as the ranger with the rangers favored enemy and favored terrain.

Samurai suffer from the same issue as the Cavalier for the exact same reasons. My final vote for both of them is 4.5.

[Gnaeus]

Ninja 4. Similar to Rogue. Solid skilmonkey.
Antipaladin 4. A worse paladin. Paladin is at best low T3.
Cavalier and Samurai. 5. Less out of combat utility than fighter. I'm certainly not convinced they fight better than fighter. Look worse at solving common melee issues than fighter.

[Rynjin]

Antipaladin: T5. Lol.

Ninja: Better than Rogue, maybe even better than Unchained Rogue in some ways. While it lacks Dex to damage, Ninja Tricks are, on the whole, MUCH better than Rogue Talents (as Kurald Galain so helpfully pointed out in the Rogue thread, it is well worth trading 3 Rogue Talents for 2 Ninja Tricks, and is one of the best uses for your Rogue Talents available) and the existence of Vanishing Trick in particular makes Ninja MUCH more consistent in its ability to provide itself Sneak Attack, and also protection in-between rounds (you can't hit what you can't see! 50% of the time anyway).

Ninja is like a solid...3.8? 3.6? I think it's a high T4 anyway. There is no Unchained Ninja, sadly, by RAW. Though it is a VERY easy houserule to make.

Cavalier: Mechanically sound, boring as sin is my basic assessment of Cavalier. it actually has quite a lot going for it, with the free Mount, Banner, Order, and of course Challenge to round out its damage dealing, but it's so...uninspired. I won't go so far as to say it could have been a Fighter archetype, but it's in the same boat as Gunslinger in that it's a full BaB dude whose entire identity is "Good at a specific type of combat". Tier 4.3? Daring Champion may rate higher, but I don't really feel like doing a full analysis of it. it's VERY good at killing things though.

Samurai: Hoo boy, I've got a doozy for you. So baseline Samurai? It's functionally identical to Cavalier. Give it a T4 as well. Most class features are the same...actually make it a 4.1, because Resolve is so good.

But there is one GAME CHANGER archetype for Samurai. I don't know who wrote this. I don't know why they wrote it the way they did. This is almost certainly a mistake. But it is RAW: Ironbound Sword (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/alternate-classes/samurai/archetypes/paizo-samurai-archetypes/ironbound-sword-samurai-archetype/)

Take a look at the Merciful Combatant class feature.


At 3rd level, an ironbound sword becomes an expert at defeating foes without killing them. An ironbound sword can use any weapon to deal nonlethal damage without taking the normal –4 penalty on attack rolls. Additionally, the ironbound sword gains a +2 bonus on combat maneuvers against a target so long as the last successful attack she made against that target dealt nonlethal damage. Her samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack with fighter levels for the purposes of fighter and samurai prerequisites and class features.

This replaces weapon expertise.

Oh, it just lets you sword people nonlethally without ki-...wait, what's that last line?

"Her samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack with fighter levels for the purposes of fighter and samurai prerequisites and class features."

So, anyway, Ironbound Sword lets you effectively Gestalt Fighter and Samurai together. That's...somethin'.

Now, a conservative reading is that you'd still need to be a high enough Fighter to unlock certain class features, after which they'd continue to scale. And this is a bit weaker. But still, getting a full 20 level progression of Armor Training, Weapon Training, and Bravery for just 5 Fighter levels, the rest is spent on a class with other class features? That's a steal. That's every notable Fighter feature at full progression for just 5 levels. And you don't nerf your Samurai progression any either, because the Fighter levels work vice-versa.

And the more liberal reading is you just dip Fighter 1 and get the other 19 levels for free.

Now, is Gestalting two T4 classes THAT big of a deal? No, of course not, I allow this cheese (in the more liberal interpretation no less) in the actual games I run because like, who actually gives a ****? I ran a campaign from 1-10 and it was never an issue, and that's with allowing it in a game with the Spheres archetypes for each class available. But it's noteworthy, and I think good enough to bump Ironbound Sword to like...3.6? You get a lot of mileage out of just having two classes worth of features.

[Kurald Galain]

it has Smite which is on the face of it a good class ability.
Here's the problem with smite. Paladins fight almost exclusively evil foes, so their smite evil is useful pretty much all the time. But as Rich Burlew points out, evil is not One Big Happy Family; so antipallies will fight good foes and evil foes. And neutral ones too, because antipallies don't get along with anyone. So their smite is useless quite a lot of the time.


"Her samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack with fighter levels for the purposes of fighter and samurai prerequisites and class features."
I don't buy your reasoning on this. It's very obvious what this ability means, and it's... not that.

[Thunder999]

So Ninja is better than chained rogue, I'd say high tier 4.
The Forgotten Trick trick adds some interesting versatility, 2 Ki to have any other trick for 1 round/level, not sure there's really enough good utility/niche tricks to really do that much with it though.
Some notable options are:
Ki Venom, free poison with 10+1/2 level+cha mod DC and your choice of any score but con, so easy way to int damage animals and some magical beasts into a coma.
Shadow Clone, it's mirror image.
Vanishing Trick, it's 1 round/level invisibility.
Advanced ones:
Acceleration of Form, it's displacement and haste for half the duration a caster gives them, sitll not a bad buff.
Ghost Step, swift action to move as though incorporeal for a round.
Invisible Blade upgrades Vanishing trick to greater invisibility
Occulted soul, nondetection SLA
See the Unseen, it's See Invisibility
Unbound Step, kind of like air walk.

That's more magic than I'd expected.
Oh and there's that hilarious capstone Hidden Master that just makes you imposssible to detect, which is obviously pretty strong.

I'd say that's a fairly high tier 4. 3.6?

Antipaladin is mostly just a slightly worse paladin, Smite Evil is slightly worse than Smite Good (smite good covers literally every undead as an example), Touch of Corruption/Cruelties need a Conductive weapon to have useable action economy vs Lay on Hands being used as a swift by default, though ToC is actually a pretty awesome debuff, particularly paired with the save penalising aura and fear stuff and antipaladin can do, the summon monster ability would be awesome without that stupidly long cooldown if your minion dies (why do the evil people care about dead minions anyway), slightly worse spell list (you just don't have the DCs for the more offensive stuff, high cha and aura of despair will work for the 10+1/2 level stuff, but not when you're tossing out 2nd level spells at level 10) Tier 4

Cavalier and Samurai are tier 4, they're pretty good at killing things, but not much else. No idea how people think they're nonfuctional tier 4s, they have a solid damage booster in challenge and some of the orders can pump it even higher.
Tier 4 is doing one thing well, and they kill stuff well.

[Rynjin]

I don't buy your reasoning on this. It's very obvious what this ability means, and it's... not that.

So enlighten me, what does it mean? It seems pretty clear cut. They stack for prereqs and class features. The "and class features" bit is notable because it's worded utterly unlike any similar ability, eg. Fighter Training. What does


Starting at 10th level, a magus counts 1/2 his total magus level as his fighter level for the purpose of qualifying for feats. If he has levels in fighter, these levels stack.

Now I agree, as I said in the initial post, it was almost certainly not INTENDED to work the way I said, but it is also most certainly worded to allow what I said.

[Drelua]

Regarding medium-sized cavaliers, they're just one feat away from being able to take their mount anywhere; Undersized Mount. (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/undersized-mount-combat/) This is one case where I would require a player to pay attention to encumbrance, but with a casting of ant haul at low levels you should be all set, and by mid to high levels your mount's probably strong enough that it doesn't matter.

Not sure how this factors into tiering, we can't assume all Cavaliers take this option, but if you're playing a Cavalier and taking your mount certain places is a problem, the solution's there, and the pre-req's essentially nothing. I'll abstain from voting this time around though, I haven't really played any of these classes and I've barely seen them in action. I have been wanting to play a Paladin/Ninja for a while though...

[Kurald Galain]

So enlighten me, what does it mean? It seems pretty clear cut.
It means that if you have a class feature that cares about fighter level (e.g. Bravery gives a +1 bonus per 4 fighter levels) then you count both fighter and samurai levels for that.


if you're playing a Cavalier and taking your mount certain places is a problem
The problem is not so much that mounted characters are ineffective, but that if you do want to play a mounted character, you have very little reason to use the cavalier class for that.

[Rynjin]

It means that if you have a class feature that cares about fighter level (e.g. Bravery gives a +1 bonus per 4 fighter levels) then you count both fighter and samurai levels for that.

That's...exactly what I said the conservative take was, yes.

By level 5 you have all the Fighter features of note, however, and so they continue to scale with your Samurai levels.

[pabelfly]

Ninja is like a solid...3.8? 3.6? I think it's a high T4 anyway

I'll split the difference and call it a 3.7 unless you want to change it.

VOTE UPDATE

Antipaladin
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999 – 4
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, KuraldGalain, Rynjin – 5

Average – 4.32



Ninja

Thunder999 – 3.6
Rynjin – 3.7
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Gnaeus – 4

Average – 3.86



Cavalier

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.3
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.46



Samurai

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.1
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.42



Samurai (Ironbound Sword)

Rynjin – 3.6
Thunder999 – 4
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.32



Anyone else got any opinions about Samurai's "Ironbound Sword" archetype?

[Kurald Galain]

That's...exactly what I said the conservative take was, yes.
Yes, but calling the archetype a fighter/samurai gestalt is really not accurate.

However, Advanced Weapon Training is a separate class feature that starts at level 9 (d20pfsrd includes it in the main weapon training feature, but that is incorrect). The same applies to Advanced Armor Training. That makes fighter 20 a better pick than fighter 5 / ironbound 15.

[Rynjin]

Yes, but calling the archetype a fighter/samurai gestalt is really not accurate.

However, Advanced Weapon Training is a separate class feature that starts at level 9 (d20pfsrd includes it in the main weapon training feature, but that is incorrect). The same applies to Advanced Armor Training. That makes fighter 20 a better pick than fighter 5 / ironbound 15.

You could actually do Fighter 15/Samurai 5 as the more optimal split. You get full progression Challenge, Mount, etc. and also get to partake of Advanced Weapon/Armor Training. It's literally just better than Fighter or Samurai unless you reeeeally like Armor/Weapon Master or Greater Resolve or something.

Sam 15/Fighter 5 would also be better for some Fighter archetypes, like Sensate or Mutation Master. It's extremely flexible, and well worth considering for any prospective Samurai.

I don't think calling it an effective gestalt is inaccurate at all. It's close enough for government work IMO.

[pabelfly]

Writeup of the Antipaladin class. I'll do the other classes later. Critiques appreciated



Antipaladin is a recoat of Paladin, except worse in many important ways. The code of always acting Chaotic Evil is rather difficult in play, sometimes even in evil-oriented campaigns. Smite Good and Detect Good are much more niche in use than Smite Evil and Detect Evil. It doesn’t get swift-action self-healing and loses the ability to heal, buff and remove debuffs. Their spell list is geared towards save-based effects, but since the Antipaladin caster level is so low, it’s worse than other typical debuffers, and the Antipaladin's Cruelties are often better anyway. You’ve also got the issue of limited spell slots throughout much of the Antipaladin’s career. All of these drawbacks earn Antipaladin a spot at the bottom of Tier 4 instead of the bottom of Tier 3 like it's brother, the Paladin.

[Arkain]

Their spell list is geared towards save-based effects, but since the Antipaladin caster level is so low, it’s got worse save DCs than other typical debuffers, and the Antipaladin's Cruelties are often better anyway.

Did you perchance mean to say "spell level"? Caster level usually doesn't influence spell DCs.

[pabelfly]

Did you perchance mean to say "spell level"? Caster level usually doesn't influence spell DCs.

Thanks for picking that up.

[Kurald Galain]

Turns out antipally has several archetypes that make it even weaker, namely Blighted Myrmidon (which replaces smite good by smiting animals, fey, and plants; which very rare opponents in almost every campaign I've heard of); Iron Tyrant (which replaces most of its supernatural abilities by baseline monk stuff); and Rampager (which deals minimal bleed damage and gives penalties to heal checks). I'd like to put these down for tier 5.5.

[exelsisxax]

Antipaladin - 5.
Antipally sucks. take everything paladin has, but make it worse and borderline nonfunctional in a legal PF party. You can't swift heal yourself ever, can't heal allies other than dhampir with either touch of corruption or channel energy, smite good is super niche in any typical game, and where it will work well you're probably eating smites coming the other way every combat. You've got worse nega-mercies, your spell list is small and lacks cool paladin things so you can barely pretend to be an evil cleric at a massive level delay. Theoretically the alternate bond has more versatility but it won't be nearly as useful as a paladin mount which will scale dramatically better. The only good thing they have is cutting through fear immunity, but that applies to almost nothing that is not a paladin - far too niche. I would rate an antipally as NA: not even a valid class for a PC.

Cav/samurai: 4.5
Martials not allowed to have nice things. Challenge is worse smite, mount is worse animal companion, tactics is worse solo tactician, banner is staggeringly nerfed inspire courage. Resolve is cool, but otherwise these poor bastards are just terrible fighter rehashes with a bit of team friendlyness. They function, but not well.

Ninja: 4
Ninja is a rogue with a few handouts making them actually functional. More attacks, invisibility on demand, more talents and able to dip into the handful of external Ki options that don't suck. It's not great but it can absolutely do the job of shanking things to death in the back that rogue can't really get done. Unchained ninja might be as high as 3.75, due to all its combat needs becoming baked in rather than scrounged with items and feats and unchained skills offering a bit of real utility options.

[vasilidor]

How is Tactician worse than solo tactics?
You grant feats to allies.

[Thunder999]

How is Tactician worse than solo tactics?
You grant feats to allies.

Tactician takes a standard action and only lasts 3 rounds+1 round per level, so it requires to blow an entire turn in combat Oh and for some reason it's only got a very small pool of uses per day, 1/day at 1st, 5/day at 20. That's not even enough to use it in every fight until level 15.
At level 9 it does improve to a swift action, but that isn't quite free (that's competing with your Challenge, which you probably also want to activate ASAP)
Oh and it grants only 1 teamwork feat base, 2 at 9th+.

Solo Tactics takes no actions and has no uses per day limit. Inquisitors also get 6 free teamwork feats rather than only 3.

[exelsisxax]

How is Tactician worse than solo tactics?
You grant feats to allies.

You get one/two teamwork feats, and can only ever share those feats with allies, and only for rounds per use. Solo tactics comes with 6 feats over 20 levels, inquisitors can change one of them as a standard action, and inquisitors also have access to shared training. Shared training lets you share any 1-4 teamwork feats you have for 10 mins/level bypassing prereqs.

[pabelfly]

VOTE UPDATE

Antipaladin
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999 – 4
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, KuraldGalain, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5

Average – 4.39



Ninja

Thunder999 – 3.6
Rynjin – 3.7
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax – 4

Average – 3.88



Cavalier

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.3
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.47



Samurai

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.1
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.43



Samurai (Ironbound Sword)

Rynjin – 3.6
Thunder999 – 4
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax – 4.5
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.35



Okay, critiques on the other three mundane martial classes of the week are appreciated.



Ninja

A recoat of Chained Rogue, but with the ability to turn invisible and the ability to make extra attacks with full attacks. These make Sneak Attack much easier to add to damage and make the class less reliant on other party members than vanilla Chained Rogue. You also have a great skill list and 8 + INT skill points to have plenty of skills to use out-of-combat. All up, a high-tier 4 class. A theoretical Ninja based off the Unchained Rogue might be roughly a half-tier better, getting into low Tier 3.



Cavalier

A combat class that is focused on itself into mounted combat. Unfortunately, mounted combat is narrow in scope and the class has few options to solve various in-combat scenarios (never mind outside of combat). Medium and larger characters are going to struggle to make use of Cavalier in situations where movement is limited, for example indoors and in dungeons, although smaller characters will struggle less with this. Challenge helps boost damage against major enemies, and while limited in use, is helpful regardless of combat situation, and Tactician can help spread around teamwork feats without having multiple team members having to take the feats. That said, other classes are more effective at both mounted combat and spreading teamwork feats. Overall, this is a low Tier 4 class.



Samurai

A recoat of Cavalier, except that Samurai is specifically flavoured for feudal Japan, for how much or little that’s worth for you and your game. It otherwise functions pretty similarly to Cavalier – mount is niche, restrictions on mount use are surprisingly common, and you have few options to solve problems out of combat. The main difference is that Samurai swaps out teamwork feats for Resolve, which is helpful in keeping a Samurai alive and relevant on the battlefield, which arguably makes it slightly more powerful than Cavalier. Still, it's overall a low Tier 4 class like Cavalier is.

[Rynjin]

Cavalier

A combat class that locks itself into mounted combat. Mounted combat is narrow in scope and has few options to solve various in-combat scenarios (never mind outside of combat). Medium and larger characters are going to struggle to make use of Cavalier in confined spaces, although smaller characters will struggle less with this. Other class features help get respectable numbers in combat within the confines of their role, and Tactician can help spread around teamwork feats without having multiple team members having to take the feats. Overall this is a low Tier 4 class.

"Locks itself into mounted combat" isn't really accurate. The class does benefit a lot from being mounted up, but it is a perfectly viable combatant away from its mount because Challenge is overall a solid ability.

The class encourages but does not require mounted combat. Hell, its arguably strongest archetypes (like Daring Champion and Esquire) nix the Mount entirely.

[pabelfly]

"Locks itself into mounted combat" isn't really accurate. The class does benefit a lot from being mounted up, but it is a perfectly viable combatant away from its mount because Challenge is overall a solid ability.

The class encourages but does not require mounted combat. Hell, its arguably strongest archetypes (like Daring Champion and Esquire) nix the Mount entirely.

Okay, I fixed it. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Kurald Galain]

A combat class that is focused on itself into mounted combat. Unfortunately, mounted combat is narrow in scope and has few options to solve various in-combat scenarios (never mind outside of combat).
I'd rephrase this: "A combat class focused on mounted combat. Unfortunately, it has few options to solve various in-combat scenarios (never mind outside of combat)." (it's not mounted combat that has few options, but it's this class that has few options). Also, replace "confined spaces" with "indoor spaces". Maybe add that the catch is that other classes are more effective at mounted combat and at spreading teamwork feats.


The main difference is that Samurai has ResolveAnd I'd say "Instead of spreading teamwork feats, the Samurai has Resolve" - it's a replacement ability, not a free bonus.

[pabelfly]

I'd rephrase this: "A combat class focused on mounted combat. Unfortunately, it has few options to solve various in-combat scenarios (never mind outside of combat)." (it's not mounted combat that has few options, but it's this class that has few options). Also, replace "confined spaces" with "indoor spaces". Maybe add that the catch is that other classes are more effective at mounted combat and at spreading teamwork feats.

And I'd say "Instead of spreading teamwork feats, the Samurai has Resolve" - it's a replacement ability, not a free bonus.

Okay, fixed. Thanks for the changes.

[vasilidor]

OK, that makes sense.

[Endless Rain]

Antipaladins are not great, but they're not "two tiers worse than Paladin" bad. I'd put it in Tier 4, Ninja a little higher at Tier 3.8, Cavalier at Tier 5, and Samurai slightly higher than Cavalier at Tier 4.9.

[Kurald Galain]

Antipaladins are not great, but they're not "two tiers worse than Paladin" bad.

They are if you check their code of conduct. That's not a piece of fluff you can disregard.

[Maat Mons]

An antipaladin must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if he willingly and altruistically commits good acts. This does not mean that an antipaladin cannot take actions someone else might qualify as good, only that such actions must always be in service of his own dark ends. An antipaladin’s code requires that he place his own interests and desires above all else, as well as impose tyranny, take advantage whenever possible, and punish the good and just, provided such actions don’t interfere with his goals.

So Anitpaladins can do "good" things as long as they secretly have bad intentions. And antipaladins can refrain from doing bad things when it doesn't suit them. That basically means your character can do whatever you want as long as you, the player, are good at making up rationalizations when questioned by the DM.

[Kurald Galain]

That basically means your character can do whatever you want as long as you, the player, are good at making up rationalizations when questioned by the DM.

Correct: the class requires being able to fast-talk your GM (and having a GM that can be fast-talked) to be playable in the first place. That is not a good sign.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I really don't see the code of conduct as being absolutely bad. An antipaladin can hide themselves, as long as they have an evil plan brewing, which is almost always. It's not a Good character, not even a lowercase good one, but it's functional as far as I'm concerned. "I'm not helping them, I'm manipulating them into bringing me closer to the McGuffin, and it'll be so much more painful to realize my treachery if they never suspect a thing" is pretty inarguably a valid reason to not go kicking puppies along the way.

That said, while Fiendish Boon is actually good, and definitely better than Paladin Mount, Cruelty is especially bad, bypassing immunity to fear is situational since it still doesn't affect Undead, Plants and Constructs, Smite Good is so much worse than Smite Evil, ToC loses everything that made LoH good (literally), and the only actually useful spells it gets are those it has in common with the paladin, and Animate Dead (still quite a bit, but antipally lacks very much in out of combat utility before level 10).

I vote 4.1 for the antipally.


I agree with 4.5 for the cavalier. The class is disappointingly bland. At least they have their Animal Companion. Samurai gets some and loses some. Same rating. I guess Ironbound Soul a few perks more, but you have to work for it. 4.2, maybe.

I think the ninja is slightly better than the rogue. I'll go with 3.7.

[Rynjin]

I really don't see the code of conduct as being absolutely bad. An antipaladin can hide themselves, as long as they have an evil plan brewing, which is almost always. It's not a Good character, not even a lowercase good one, but it's functional as far as I'm concerned. "I'm not helping them, I'm manipulating them into bringing me closer to the McGuffin, and it'll be so much more painful to realize my treachery if they never suspect a thing" is pretty inarguably a valid reason to not go kicking puppies along the way.

The problem with this line of thought is one of my other issues with Antipaladin: it is CHAOTIC Evil, none of this is really their MO.

It would be a much better class if it was LE by default.

[Bucky]

An Antipaladin's fear-immunity override has bigger problems than just failing against the mindless. When it works, the payoff is that the enemies stop what they're doing and are forced to run away. But the aura of cowardice only reaches 10', so as soon as the enemies start to run away, they regain their fear immunity and can take their turn less the first 5-10' of their move action. At least the antipaladin usually gets an AoO as a consolation prize.

[Beni-Kujaku]

The problem with this line of thought is one of my other issues with Antipaladin: it is CHAOTIC Evil, none of this is really their MO.

It would be a much better class if it was LE by default.

Okay, no. Chaotic people do have plans. They do not act at random, except maybe when it's very funny. The end goal will eventually be destructive or to topple any authority that threatens them specifically, but the antipaladin would definitely be able to think in advance and realize that getting that one artifact means that nobody will be able to stop them ever anymore and that they could kill and maim to their heart's content. No marshmallow now, two marshmallows later. And then, the whole box of marshmallows after I kill the researcher!
And honestly, hiding among Good people is hilarious. They are always forgiven when they maim people, just because it's "for the greater good", ha! I'll even be able to make "pranks" on them. Like summoning my fiend during the night to steal their things, then go away, escape any questioning and retrieve the things later at my leisure. Or simply get a magic-resistant inhaled disease. Nothing much, just something that will make them love sleeping within 30ft of you >:) Also, a disease that takes a bit more than a day before having actual effects. You wouldn't want the town you're riding through to notice too early, would you?

[pabelfly]

Updated the votes. Samurai and Cavalier have now moved into Tier 5.

VOTE UPDATE

Antipaladin
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999, EndlessRain – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.1
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, KuraldGalain, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5

Average – 4.27



Antipaladin (Blighted Myrmidon)
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999, EndlessRain – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.1
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5
KuraldGalain – 5.5

Average – 4.38



Antipaladin (Iron Tyrant)
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999, EndlessRain – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.1
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5
KuraldGalain – 5.5

Average – 4.38



Antipaladin (Rampager)
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999, EndlessRain – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.1
Vasilidor – 4.5
AnonymousPepper, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5
KuraldGalain – 5.5

Average – 4.38



Ninja

Thunder999 – 3.6
Rynjin, Beni-Kujaku – 3.7
EndlessRain – 3.8
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax – 4

Average – 3.85



Cavalier

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.3
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax, Beni-Kujaku – 4.5
Gnaeus, EndlessRain – 5

Average – 4.54



Samurai

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.1
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax, Beni-Kujaku – 4.5
EndlessRain – 4.9
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.5



Samurai (Ironbound Sword)

Rynjin – 3.6
Thunder999 – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.2
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax – 4.5
EndlessRain – 4.9
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.4

[Kurald Galain]

Turns out antipally has several archetypes that make it even weaker, namely Blighted Myrmidon (which replaces smite good by smiting animals, fey, and plants; which very rare opponents in almost every campaign I've heard of); Iron Tyrant (which replaces most of its supernatural abilities by baseline monk stuff); and Rampager (which deals minimal bleed damage and gives penalties to heal checks). I'd like to put these down for tier 5.5.

Please note these ratings as well.

[pabelfly]

Please note these ratings as well.

Okay, fixed.

[Thunder999]

An Antipaladin's fear-immunity override has bigger problems than just failing against the mindless. When it works, the payoff is that the enemies stop what they're doing and are forced to run away. But the aura of cowardice only reaches 10', so as soon as the enemies start to run away, they regain their fear immunity and can take their turn less the first 5-10' of their move action. At least the antipaladin usually gets an AoO as a consolation prize.

Personally I'd say preventing full attacks while earning a free AoO is pretty nice actually.

[Kurald Galain]

Personally I'd say preventing full attacks while earning a free AoO is pretty nice actually.

While fear builds are indeed good and effective, if you do want a fear build there's very little reason to use the antipal class for that.

And that's because there are very few creatures specifically immune to fear (which is what the antipal aura removes). There's tons of creatures immune to mind-affecting, but antipal's aura does not counter that. There are several classes that can actually bypass immunity to mind-affecting, but antipal is not one of them.

[Bucky]

Personally I'd say preventing full attacks while earning a free AoO is pretty nice actually.

It depends on what the Antipaladin's party has to invest in order to cause that fear. Despite the name, the Aura of Cowardice isn't actually a dragon's fear aura to cause automatic saves, it just makes other fear-inducers easier to land. If the party does have an action-free fear source then yes, the antipaladin can get a free AoO and deny a full attack just by running at them.

If the antipaladin's stuck with using his own class features, well, at least he has them. He can frighten as a cruelty (targetting Fortitude rather than Will!) on a standard action touch attack that comes with some damage. Trading a Touch use and a melee standard action for an AoO and an enemy move action is okay, but not an outstanding payoff for the risk taken - the antipaladin would generally be better off trying to use the Dazing or Staggering cruelty instead. Or he can try casting a fear-inducing spell (which the list doesn't have good options for in between Cause Fear's 5HD cap and Fear itself at level 13) from 10' away.

[Thunder999]

Oh you'd probably go an intimidate build, Cornugna Smash+Signature Skill or Soulless Gaze for free intimidate whenever you hit someone and the ability to frighten with intimidate.
Or a conductive weapon for cruelties.

[Bucky]

I've said a lot about Antipaladin here, but I want to repeat what I said in the Paladin thread - the code of conduct, and the consequences of other characters' knowledge of it, is so severe that when our party had an Antipaladin in it, he was defeated, forced to flee the campaign, when one of the villains merely revealed he was an Antipaladin! The class has some paper strengths, enough that it keeps showing up, but I've never seen it put into a context where it can make good on them despite several attempts. Antipaladins' unfulfilled potential leaves them near the top of tier 5 - call it Tier 4.6.

I also mentioned in another thread that a low-op-skill player overshadowed his Rogues when he tagged in a Cavalier. In practice, the Cavalier's whole is greater than the parts, all tied together by the mount. The mount, a fully powered animal companion to begin with, is a recipient of the Cavalier's group buffs. The mount can take and benefit from the same teamwork feats as the Cavalier. And the mount delivers the Cavalier to his target. Of course, one thing that enables teamwork feats even better than an animal companion having it is everyone having it, which the Cavalier also causes.

Nevertheless, the tier criteria are not kind to this sort of class - Cavalier doesn't fit higher than Tier 4.5.

Samurai is like Cavalier, but without that one little thing that Cavalier does best. I think it's an upper tier 5, call it tier 4.8, but I'm not confident in this rating due to limited play experience.

Ninja gets Vanishing Trick. It's a good trick, particularly with full sneak attack progression, both in and out of combat, but one that prepared or difficult opponents can counter with e.g. see invisible after a few levels. Ninjas are not particularly good at anything else, although they show basic competence at a variety of other tasks and combat scenarios. They have full access to both basic and advanced rogue talents, for what that's worth. It's at least worth improved evasion, and grabbing Unlock Ki almost doubles the ki pool in exchange for two talents if your GM allows you to get away with it. But Ninjas look enviously at some of the more rogue-ish Kineticist utility talents, which isn't a sign of a high tier placement. On this list's scale, Ninjas deserve a low tier 4 - call it tier 4.2.

[pabelfly]

New procedural update:
Archetypes are tiered separately from classes. Three votes are required for an archetype for it to make it to the master list, and the archetype needs to be more than half a tier stronger or weaker than the base class to be added to the list.

VOTE UPDATE

Antipaladin
Maat Mons, Nihilarian, Kaouse – 3.8
Gnaeus, Thunder999, EndlessRain – 4
Beni-Kujaku – 4.1
Vasilidor – 4.5
Bucky – 4.6
AnonymousPepper, KuraldGalain, Rynjin, Exelsisxax – 5

Average – 4.35



Antipaladin (Blighted Myrmidon)
KuraldGalain – 5.5



Antipaladin (Iron Tyrant)
KuraldGalain – 5.5



Antipaladin (Rampager)
KuraldGalain – 5.5



Ninja

Thunder999 – 3.6
Rynjin, Beni-Kujaku – 3.7
EndlessRain – 3.8
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Gnaeus, Exelsisxax – 4
Bucky – 4.2

Average – 3.89



Cavalier

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.3
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax, Beni-Kujaku, Bucky – 4.5
Gnaeus, EndlessRain – 5

Average – 4.53



Samurai

Thunder999 – 4
Rynjin – 4.1
KuraldGalain, Vasilidor, Exelsisxax, Beni-Kujaku – 4.5
Bucky – 4.8
EndlessRain – 4.9
Gnaeus – 5

Average – 4.53



Samurai (Ironbound Sword)

Rynjin – 3.6
Beni-Kujaku – 4.2

Average – 3.9

[Bucky]

I think Antipaladin (Blighted Myrmidon) is Tier 4.4. It still has the same major drawbacks as the main class, but the broader Smite, and the eventual ability to trade the Smites for free action AoE damage that affects anything living, makes it substantially more likely to be able to handle a given combat encounter.

I think Antipaladin (Rampager) looks like Tier 5. It loses one of the Antipaladin's combat strengths for auras that only barely help it actually win level-appropriate fights.


No opinion on Iron Tyrant.

[Bucky]

Oh, it just lets you sword people nonlethally without ki-...wait, what's that last line?

"Her samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack with fighter levels for the purposes of fighter and samurai prerequisites and class features."

So, anyway, Ironbound Sword lets you effectively Gestalt Fighter and Samurai together. That's...somethin'.

Now, a conservative reading is that you'd still need to be a high enough Fighter to unlock certain class features, after which they'd continue to scale.
Hey, does anyone have a copy of Ultimate Combatant handy? Either the pfsrd has a copy-paste error, or the baseline Samurai has the same thing but maybe better as part of Weapon Expertise. "Finally, his samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack."

No restriction on what purposes they stack for. Class features implicitly included.

[Rynjin]

Hey, does anyone have a copy of Ultimate Combatant handy? Either the pfsrd has a copy-paste error, or the baseline Samurai has the same thing but maybe better as part of Weapon Expertise. "Finally, his samurai levels count as fighter levels and stack."

No restriction on what purposes they stack for. Class features implicitly included.

Yeah, that's a typo on the SRD.


Finally, his samurai levels stack with any fighter levels he possesses for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites for feats that specifically select his chosen weapon, such as Weapon Specialization.

[Kurald Galain]

Because there's been talk recently that classes that are actively detrimental to their party should be in Tier 6 or Tier 7, and given the antipally's backstabbing-based code of conduct, I'd like to change my vote to Tier 6 for it and all its archetypes (as I still don't think creating a Tier 7 is a productive approach).

[ahyangyi]

What part of the CoC are you talking about? I think the class only talked about "action must serve evil goals", but there is no reason to assume it's a good guys' game...

And then the actual CoC various by deity, and I think the Calistra one and the Hei Feng one (both CN deities) are not too bad?

[Bucky]

Because there's been talk recently that classes that are actively detrimental to their party should be in Tier 6 or Tier 7, and given the antipally's backstabbing-based code of conduct, I'd like to change my vote to Tier 6 for it and all its archetypes (as I still don't think creating a Tier 7 is a productive approach).
I mentioned earlier that I GM'd a campaign that had an antipaladin PC. While the CoC cause some problems and ultimately lead to his downfall, hence why I downrated the class for it, it didn't knock his contribution in the meantime down to Aristocrat level or below. I'm not sure what the antipaladin character's evil endgame was, as he fled in disgrace first, but he was encouraging the neutral members of the party to commit evil acts towards the party's loosely shared goal the whole time, cooperating with them to overthrow a foreign lord who had wronged some of the party members.

As a separate matter, I'd like to highlight the Insinuator archetype. Significant features:

Alternate Code of Conduct that plays fine as a pure mercenary in a Good or Neutral majority party.
Trades spellcasting for bonus combat feats or Skill Focus
Can prepare half-damage smites against neutral and 2/3 evil alignments.
Trades touch of corruption for self-only lay on hands
Replaces the fiendish servant every day, instead of every level.


If you think the code of conduct is crippling, this is an upgrade. If you highly value the base antipalladin's spellcasting, this is a downgrade. I think it's roughly even (high tier 5 -> Tier 4.6), because the worse problem-solving ability of an Insinuator drops him out of tier 4 even though the CoC-imposed ceiling has been raised.

[Thunder999]

Personally I'd rather have spellcasting than a slightly better code (I really feel like the impact is overrated), lay on hands is nice, but conductive weapon+touch of corruption is actually a pretty nice combo.

[Giddonihah]

For Ninja I'd like to highlight the Gunpowder Bombardier archetype.

Its a ninja only archetype that gives you bombs that cause status effects and whose DC scales off of DEX instead of the usual Cha, its also a Reflex save instead of Fort or Will.
It can easily do an aoe Entangle/Stun/ or Nauseate on a failed reflex save that lasts effectively the entire combat.

This is amazing for a few reasons.
1. Scaling off of Dex lets you focus more on it, since Ninjas tend to want to WFinnesse with agile weapons. Generally a Ninja will have a higher Dex score than Cha, this means the DCs can actually remain relevant as you level.
2. Reflex saves means you tag a lot of stuff that would be normally immune to this kind of effect if it was a fort save (Nauseate can hit undead/constructs if its not a Fort save). Also big monsters usually have reflex save as one of their weak saves.
3. Ninja's are usually more single target damage dealers, having an AoE crowd control ability boosts your combat flexibility.
4. Opportunity cost is fairly low, it costs 1 ninja trick and the uncanny dodge line. Does tend to block you from a bunch of other Archetypes though.
5. Its a SU effect, no SR worries like the casters Debuffs can have.

Dont know where I'd put the archetype. I think its floor is better than an Unchained Rogue, though optimized Skill Unlock picks starts catching the U Rogue up in other ways. So 3.7 I guess (Same as Unchained Rogue), with the hypothetical Unchained Ninja Gunpowder Bombardier maybe being like a 3.6.

Feels kinda odd that an ability I think is rather busted strong, probably doesn't increase the class by the needed half tier for it to be marked. Breaking into the Middle 3s is hard without actual spellcasting, rather than the facsimile of it, no matter how broken.