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JaronK
2008-01-04, 03:22 AM
This class was originally posted for review here: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=967679

So, after much frustration trying to make a ninja character, I decided to create a class for it. The class is intended to function as both a realistic ninja and as a high fantasy sort of ninja. In theory, it should be roughly balanced against a Swordsage, which was the primary inspiration (Swordsages right now are the best ninja like class, but their lack of speed and appropriate weapons doesn't feel right). The idea of the class was to make something with a lot of relatively weak abilities (similar to a monk) so that there would be no dead levels, while still remaining balanced.

And more to the point, it's supposed to be more ninja like than the current crop of dissappointments (I'm looking at you, CAdv Ninja and Rokugan Ninja!).

Anyway, thoughts?

http://www.wizards.com/global/images/mtgcom_arcana_732_pic3_en.jpg


Ninja

Hit Die: D6

Class Skills: Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device,
Disguise, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently,
Open Lock, Perform, Profession, Slight of Hand, Search, Sense Motive, Spot, Tumble, Use Magic Device,
Use Rope

Skill Points Per Level: 6 + Int Modifier

Weapons and Armour Proficiency: Ninjas are proficient with the Blowgun, Chain, Club, Dagger, Dart, Fukimi-Bari, Kama, Katana, Kusari-Gama, Nekode, Ninja-to, Nunchaku, Quarterstaff, Sai, Shikomi-Zue, Shortsword, Shuriken, Unarmed Strike, and War Fan. They are not proficient in any armour or shields.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Known|Grant|Stances| Special
1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|
4|
2|
1|Sudden Strike +1d6, Unarmed Strike, Quick to Act +1, Trapfinding
2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+0|
4|
2|
1|Poison Use, Evasion
3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+1|
5|
3|
1|Sudden Strike +2d6, Acrobatics
4th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|
6|
3|
1|Slow Fall 20ft, Weapon Flexibility
5th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|
6|
4|
2|Sudden Strike +3d6, Quick to Act +2
6th|
+4|
+2|
+5|
+2|
7|
4|
2|Great Leap, Uncanny Dodge
7th|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+2|
8|
4|
2|Sudden Strike +4d6, Speed Climb
8th|
+6|
+2|
+6|
+2|
8|
4|
2|Shadow Run, Slow Fall 30ft
9th|
+6|
+3|
+6|
+3|
9|
4|
3|Sudden Strike +5d6, Improved Poison Use
10th|
+7|
+3|
+7|
+3|
10|
5|
3|Quick to Act +3, Thousand Faces (Disguise Self)
11th|
+8|
+3|
+7|
+3|
10|
5|
3|Sudden Strike +6d6, Blind Fight
12th|
+9|
+4|
+8|
+4|
11|
5|
3|Fast Acrobatics, Slow Fall 40ft
13th|
+9|
+4|
+8|
+4|
12|
6|
4|Sudden Strike +7d6, Hide in Plain Sight
14th|
+10|
+4|
+9|
+4|
12|
6|
4|Improved Uncanny Dodge, Ghost Mind
15th|
+11|
+5|
+9|
+5|
13|
6|
4|Sudden Strike +8d6, Quick to Act +4
16th|
+12|
+5|
+10|
+5|
14|
6|
4|Ghost Sight, Slow Fall 50ft
17th|
+13|
+5|
+10|
+5|
14|
6|
5|Sudden Strike +9d6, Greater Poison use
18th|
+13|
+6|
+11|
+6|
15|
7|
5|Improved Evasion, Poison Immunity
19th|
+14|
+6|
+11|
+6|
16|
7|
5|Sudden Strike +10d6, Slippery Mind
20th|
+15|
+6|
+12|
+6|
16|
8|
5|Quick to Act +5, Free Movement, Slow Fall 60ft, Thousand Faces (Alter Self)[/table]

Unarmed Strike: Ninjas are highly trained in fighting unarmed, though not as trained as a monk. At 1st level, a ninja gains the unarmed strike abilities of a 1st level monk. However, unlike a monk, a ninja's unarmed strike damage does not increase with level beyond the starting 1d6 damage (or 1d4 for a small ninja).

Sudden Strike: At 1st level, and every odd level after that, a ninja gains 1d6 Sudden Strike damage. See the Complete Adventurer Ninja for details.

Manuevers: A Ninja knows martial manuevers, much like a swordsage, but with the following exceptions. They may only take manuevers and stances from the Tiger Claw, Shadow Hand, Setting Sun, and Diamond Mind Schools, and they have fewer manuevers and stances available to them. In all other ways he is treated as a swordsage with respect to manuevers, and recovers expended manuevers as a swordsage does. He may treat his ninja levels as swordsage levels for purposes of meeting prerequisites for feats such as Adaptive Style.

Quick to Act (Ex): You gain a +1 bonus on initiative checks. This bonus increases by 1 at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level.

Trapfinding: At first level, a Ninja gains the Trapfinding feature. See the rogue ability for details.

Poison Use: Ninja are trained in the use of poison and, beginning at 2nd level, never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when poisoning a blade. Starting at 9th level, a ninja can poison a weapon as a move action (normally, this would be a standard action). Starting at 17th level, a ninja can poison a weapon as a swift action.

Evasion: At 2nd level, A ninja takes no damage if he successfully makes a reflex save against an effect that would normally cause half damage on a successful save, see the rogue class feature for details. A ninja can only use this ability when wearing light or no armour and carrying no more than a light load. This ability becomes Improved Evasion at level 18.

Acrobatics: Starting at 3rd level, a ninja may add his class level to all Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble checks when wearing light or no armour.

Slow Fall: At 4th level or higher, a ninja within arm's reach of a wall can use it to slow his descent. When first using this ability, he takes damage as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is. The ninja's ability to slow his fall (that is, to reduce the effective distance of the fall when next to a wall) improves with his ninja level until a 20th level he can use a nearby wall to reduce the damage as if the fall was 60 feet shorter.

Weapon Flexibility: At 4th level, a ninja increases his mastery of the Shadow Hand school. A ninja of 4th level or higher treats all fineseable weapons as preferred weapons for the Shadow Hand school.

Uncanny Dodge: Starting at 6th level, as the Rogue class feature. At 14th level, this becomes Improved Uncanny Dodge.

Great Leap: Starting at 6th level, a ninja always makes jump checks as if he were running and had the run feat, enabling him to make long jumps without a running start and granting a +4 bonus on the jump. This bonus does not stack with the bonus from the run feat. A ninja can use this ability when wearing light or no armour and carrying no more than a light load.

Speed Climb: A ninja of 7th level or higher can scramble up or down walls and slopes with great speed. He can climb at his speed as a move action with no penalty. However, he must begin and end the round on a horizontal surface (such as the ground or rooftop). If he does not end his movement on a surface horizontal enough to stand on he falls, taking falling damage as appropriate for his height above the ground.
A ninja needs only one hand free to use this ability. A ninja cannot use this ability while wearing more than light armour or carrying more than a light load.

Shadow Run: A Ninja gains a bonus to his speed at level 8 equal to five feet times his con bonus. He can use this ability when wearing light or no armour and carrying no more than a light load.

Thousand Faces: At 10th level, a ninja's training allows him to become a master of disguise. He may use Disguise Self at will, with a caster level equal to his ninja level. At 20th level, his training allows him to actually take on some of the traits of those he disguises himself as, and he can then use Alter Self at will, again with a caster level equal to his ninja level.

Blind Fight: At 11th level a ninja gains the Blind Fight feat as a bonus feat.

Fast Acrobatics: Starting at level 12, a ninja becomes even more adept at acrobatics. He takes no penalty for moving at full speed while balancing or tumbling.

Hide in Plain Sight: At 13th level, a ninja can hide even while being observed. See the Ranger class ability, except that the ninja can hide in any terrain. A ninja cannot use this ability while wearing more than light armour or
carrying more than a light load.

Ghost Mind: Starting at 14th level, a ninja gains a special resistance to spells of the scrying subschool. To detect or see a ninja with such a spell, the caster must make a caster level check (DC 20 + ninja class level).
In the case of scrying spells such as arcane eye that scan the ninja's area, a failed check indicates that the spell works but the ninja simply isn't detected. Scrying attempts targetted specifically at the ninja do not work at all if the check fails.

Ghost Sight: At 16th level and higher a ninja can see invisible and ethereal creatures as easily as she sees material creatures and objects.

Poison Immunity: Starting at 18th level, a ninja becomes completely immune to the effects of poisons.

Slippery Mind: See the Rogue class feature.

Free Movement: A 20th level (or higher!) ninja can slip out of virtually any entrapment. This counts as a freedom of movement spell which is always active on the ninja. A ninja cannot use this abiilty while wearing more than light armour or carrying more than a light load.

Stycotl
2008-01-04, 10:50 PM
overall, well done.

i like the way you handled some of the balance issues. i would have to play it out to see if meshes nicely, but i like the idea.

the flavor is nice as well.

shadow run seems a bit abrupt to me. i suppose that the ninja will probably not be a constitution-fiend, so it will not be too large a bonus, but it seems like it is just kind of out-of-the-blue. maybe just stick w/ a +10' move bonus at a lower level, and then another at medium or higher levels.

that's all i have. nice job.

Hazkali
2008-01-05, 06:31 AM
Tables can be made here (http://www.pifro.com/dnd). Nice looking class, but as I don't know how stances and manouvers work (I refuse to read ToB: tBo9S) I can't really judge.

Lolzords
2008-01-05, 06:44 AM
Quite nice, overall, I like the evasion at level 2, but I would probably trade in some of those abilities for the ninja Ki powers.

Nebo_
2008-01-05, 06:48 AM
It looks a bit too powerful. With maneuver progression, full sudden strike and a whole heap of useful abilities you've gone a bit overboard. Slowing down the SS progression would be a step in the right direction. Even without ghost step, the maneuvers give a fair few ways to get an opponent flat footed.

JaronK
2008-01-05, 06:56 PM
overall, well done.

i like the way you handled some of the balance issues. i would have to play it out to see if meshes nicely, but i like the idea.

the flavor is nice as well.

Thank you. I tried to make sure that the abilities contradict each other somewhat to avoid overpowering it.


shadow run seems a bit abrupt to me. i suppose that the ninja will probably not be a constitution-fiend, so it will not be too large a bonus, but it seems like it is just kind of out-of-the-blue. maybe just stick w/ a +10' move bonus at a lower level, and then another at medium or higher levels.

that's all i have. nice job.

The ability is actually stolen from the Rokugan Ninja. I wanted to either use Shadow Run or a half speed progression of the Monk ability, and ended up going with Shadow Run, mostly because it meant you could chose to make your ninja fast (by sacrificing something else).

Would you think a half rate version of the monk ability (5' at each increase) would be better?

I don't think it would be too sudden unless you really pumped con, but this class has a lot of MAD anyway, so I don't see that happening too often, unless you decide to play a Half Minotaur Goliath ninja or something.

JaronK

JaronK
2008-01-05, 08:00 PM
It looks a bit too powerful. With maneuver progression, full sudden strike and a whole heap of useful abilities you've gone a bit overboard. Slowing down the SS progression would be a step in the right direction. Even without ghost step, the maneuvers give a fair few ways to get an opponent flat footed.

There's a large number of hidden weaknesses in the class (and in fact in playtesting, it scored just under 50% wins against challenges it should be able to take... which is fine, since it's a hybrid melee/skillmonkey). For example, it's a melee class with d6 HD, no armour proficiencies, and no special armour bonuses. Basically, it's the most fragile class in existance.

Also, most of the abilities intentionally don't synergize. Manuevers generally do well with standard action strikes, but sudden strike works better with two weapon fighting, making it hard to put them together. Many of the abilities (Great Leap, Fast Acrobatics, Slow Fall) do pretty much the same thing as the Shadow Jaunt line. And very few manuevers give sudden strike damage... Cloak of Deception and Sapphire Nightmare Blade, offhand (the latter is a standard action to use). This makes it much harder to deal sudden strike damage.

In the end, the class is designed to be balanced against the swordsage. It loses 33% of the Swordsage's manuevers known and readied, 2 schools, all the Swordsage defensive abilities, the Swordsage capstone ability, the good will saves and d8 HD, and instead gains a large number of ninja themed abilities and sudden strike. MAD increases, due to greater need for Int and Con (though less need for Wis).

In the end, this class should be able to do more damage than a Swordsage for the first few rounds, but can't take hits nearly as well and will run out of manuevers much faster. It's a better skillmonkey than the Swordsage of course, though not as good as a Rogue, and certainly not as good as a Factorum.

JaronK

Xuincherguixe
2008-01-05, 08:36 PM
Rather than Sudden Strike, could it have regular sneak attack?

JaronK
2008-01-05, 10:43 PM
I was worried about it being too powerful that way. Even though a rogue is better as a skill monkey, I didn't want to completely beat out the rogue in melee.

As it stands, you're going to quickly run out of manuevers that grant sudden strike, which means after two or three rounds you've got to withdraw unless you can get your target flat footed again. The idea is for this class to be a nova melee class, meaning you can do a lot of damage in a few rounds but then be out of tricks and have to fall back.

After all, ninjas should attack and withdraw, not jump in there and brawl. Sneak attack would allow them to just stand in there and flank like a rogue, which isn't quite the feel I wanted.

JaronK

ronnyfire
2008-01-06, 06:13 AM
cause i like shiny tables

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Known|Grant|Stances| Special
1st|
+0|
+0|
+2|
+0|
4|
2|
1|Sudden Strike +1d6, Unarmed Strike, Quick to Act +1, Trap finding
2nd|
+1|
+0|
+3|
+0|
4|
2|
1|Poison Use, Evasion
3rd|
+2|
+1|
+3|
+1|
5|
3|
1|Sudden Strike +2d6, Acrobatics
4th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|
6|
3|
1|Slow Fall 20ft, Weapon Flexibility
5th|
+3|
+1|
+4|
+1|
6|
4|
2|Sudden Strike +3d6, Quick to Act +2
6th|
+4|
+2|
+5|
+2|
7|
4|
2|Great Leap, Uncanny Dodge
7th|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+2|
8|
4|
2|Sudden Strike +4d6, Speed Climb
8th|
+6|
+2|
+6|
+2|
8|
4|
2|Shadow Run, Slow Fall 30ft
9th|
+6|
+3|
+6|
+3|
9|
4|
3|Sudden Strike +5d6, Improved Poison Use
10th|
+7|
+3|
+7|
+3|
10|
5|
3|Quick to Act +3, Thousand Faces (Disguise Self)
11th|
+8|
+3|
+7|
+3|
10|
5|
3|Sudden Strike +6d6, Blind Fight
12th|
+9|
+4|
+8|
+4|
11|
5|
3|Fast Acrobatics, Slow Fall 40ft
13th|
+9|
+4|
+8|
+4|
12|
6|
4|Sudden Strike +7d6, Hide in Plain Sight
14th|
+10|
+4|
+9|
+4|
12|
6|
4|Improved Uncanny Dodge, Ghost Mind
15th|
+11|
+5|
+9|
+5|
13|
6|
4|Sudden Strike +8d6, Quick to Act +4
16th|
+12|
+5|
+10|
+5|
14|
6|
4|Ghost Sight, Slow Fall 50ft
17th|
+13|
+5|
+10|
+5|
14|
6|
5|Sudden Strike +9d6, Greater Poison use
18th|
+13|
+6|
+11|
+6|
15|
7|
5|Improved Evasion, Poison Immunity
19th|
+14|
+6|
+11|
+6|
16|
7|
5|Sudden Strike +10d6, Slippery Mind
20th|
+15|
+6|
+12|
+6|
16|
8|
5|Quick to Act +5, Free Movement, Slow Fall 60ft, Thousand Faces (Alter Self)[/table]

Archangel Yuki
2008-01-06, 11:32 AM
Just nitpicking, but Speed Climb says


Speed Climb:However, he must begin and end the round on a horizontal surface.If he does not end his movement on a horizontal surface he falls, taking falling damage as appropriate for his height above the ground.

Does this mean that i can end my move upside down on a horzonital ceiling and not fall? Then continue moving as normal?

Besides that, I enjoy this. I like the feel, and the advancement. class A base class. Expect this to be yoinked, with much enjoyment in the yoinking of.

EDIT: I am so, so SO going to make a ninja that takes the entire spring attack tree. :D

JaronK
2008-01-06, 06:44 PM
Does this mean that i can end my move upside down on a horzonital ceiling and not fall? Then continue moving as normal?

D'oh. Nice catch. And no, it's supposed to be a surface he could normally stand on. I'll think up a better wording.


Besides that, I enjoy this. I like the feel, and the advancement. class A base class. Expect this to be yoinked, with much enjoyment in the yoinking of.

EDIT: I am so, so SO going to make a ninja that takes the entire spring attack tree. :D

Feel free with the yoinking. Let me know how it turns out.

JaronK

JaronK
2008-01-06, 06:54 PM
Ronnyfire's table shamelessly stolen. Also, I hope that new wording of Speed Climb is better.

JaronK