Monk/Ninja

[Iron_Katana]

I have been messing around with a fun variant of the Monk. I started a campaign in Japan (trying to be historical) with no Elfs, orcs, etc as PC's.

Using the feat from CA, allowing me to advance in both rouge and monk at the same time. With the sudden strikes, ghost steps, great leap coupled up with the monk feats its been rather fun. I did use up 2 feats to gain the use of Kursai-gama , 1 exotic feat and one weapon finese feat. Its added a lot of fun the the Monk. RPing its been a blast also.

Skills have complemented each other well. Diplomacy, and other stuff for the monk side while trapfinding, etc for the Ninja side.

The hardest part for the class is the RP side. Hiding secondary class and having the party believe that they have a monk in the party. Right now he is escorting a Shugenja to the southern regions to open contact with with other temples. (Hes also gathering information on some "troubled" lords)

Just a test. But so far a welcomed break from the norm and min/maxed toons.

[Matthew]

What is this Feat called that allows you to advance in two Classes at the same time?

[MeklorIlavator]

I believe its in the complete adventurer, and it allows one to advance in some ablitites of each class at the same time. For instance, the Paladin/monk version increases smite evils, even if you advance in monk.

[Jack Mann]

I think he means one of the feats that allows you to use progress the class features in one class with levels in another. However, I didn't realize that Complete Adventurer had any support for the Rouge class.

[Call Me Siggy]

Actually, that would be the feat Ascetic Stalker, from Complete Scoundrel, although maybe it came up in Adventurer first...

[Matthew]

Ah right, gotcha. Thanks folks.

[Draz74]

Yes, Complete Scoundrel, Ascetic Stalker, and it only progresses a few features of both classes, not all of their features.

If it progressed all of both features, then you'd easily be able to make a character who was a way-overpowered fighter/skill monkey hybrid. Meaning it might be able to keep up with an extra-cheesy but not particularly optimized full caster.

[JaronK]

Actually, if it gave you everything, you might be at least workable.

The truth is, both the monk and the ninja are underpowered classes. The ninja is the weakest of the skill monkeys, and the monk... well the monk can run fast. It starts to hurt after a while, unless the rest of your party is very weak or there's very little actual combat.

That said, a Swordsage focusing on Shadow Hand techniques actually does this concept quite well, especially if you take the unarmed varient swordsage with a two level dip into the class of your choice (Rogue 1/Rokugan Ninja 1/Swordsage 18 is a personal favorite). Shadow hand lets you do all the ninja things, like vanishing into shadows and climbing up walls and so on, while Tiger Claw gives you lots of bouncing fun. The best part is, you can absolutely fake being a monk and in fact do it better than a normal monk.

JaronK

[Fenix_of_Doom]

you know if I'd ever played a ninja, I'd pretend to be a monk(or a commoner ) without being one, because that's what ninja's do. Since you are actually a monk yourself, you shouldn't have to much problems with this, just be sneaky, use disguise self and bluff sort of things. Nobody will notice the difference between a monk throwing shuriken and a ninja doing so.