Ninja balance

[Charlie Kemek]

I was wondering if it was equal to remove all the ninja skill bonuses (Acrobatics, speed climb, etc), and change the sudden strike to sneak attack, and make the ki power generated from int rather than wis. I don't think that it is equal, but what does the playground think? If you don't think that it is equal, would you mind giving me some suggestions or alterations to make it equal? Thanks in advance!

[Zincorium]

Hm. Honestly, the difference between sudden strike and sneak attack is the main balancing factor between rogues and ninjas, but since ninjas do seem to be decidedly on the weaker end of the power scale, perhaps a boost is in order.

The ki power being generated off of intelligence could go either of two ways. One is that the wis to AC remains wisdom, that introduces MAD and so decreases the power of the class. The other is that intelligence is added to AC instead, which adds a very slight amount of synergy and takes away very little.

The ninja skill bonuses in and of themselves are okay, but at higher levels they don't actually accomplish much, as the ninja should be beating most DCs for those skills handily even without an additional bonus.


To sum up: A ninja could, IMHO, be balanced with itself by changing the ki abilities to intelligence while leaving the AC bonus with wisdom, removing the skill bonuses, and changing the damage to sudden strike.

Changing the AC bonus to intelligence too would make it a worthwhile class to play for people who aren't desperate to play a ninja.

And being a swordsage going into shadowsun ninja is a ToB-centric way of solving pretty much all of your problems.

[F.H. Zebedee]

Wait... You're asking if making a Ninja less capable of using Balance, you increase their Balance?

My goodness, we need a thesarus in the game design community.