One of my D&D buddies is planing on making a Ninja class (Complete Adventurer) for an upcoming campaign we are going to be in a couple months from now.
I’ve looked over the class and found it has some interesting abilities but on the whole the sudden strike felt rather crippling in its usefulness.
Is there a way to use that class well that I can pass on to him when I see him next.
(42 points, lvl 6th is the campaign start).
Its the same campaign I’ll be using my background of lies character.
I have a PC who wants to play a ninja in my next campaign as well, and I always thought it looked like a pretty powerful class, as long as you can get past the fact that so many monsters (undead, etc.) are immune to sneak attack (and sudden strike).
If I was trying to build a powerful ninja, I’d try to capitalize off of a high wisdom while gaining as much sneak attack as possible. Consider a Human Ninja 3 / Rogue 3 with Quick Draw, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid shot, and Zen Archery (CW). Simply use a very high wisdom to gain good ki points, attack bonus, and AC. If you don’t care about getting Evasion from Rogue, use Ninja 3 / Rogue 1 / Spellthief 1 / Assassin 1 for an extra +1d6 damage.
If you want a melee build, try Human Ninja 3 / Sword sage 2 (ToB) / Rogue 1 with Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative and Weapon Focus, which will allow you to double your wisdom bonus to AC and get extra attacks. With a good dexterity and the +1 bonus from Swordsage, you could have a superb initiative, and would probably never need to use Ghost step in the first round, since nearly everyone else would be flat-footed when you act.
Keep in mind that Sudden Strike has the same damage potential as Sneak Attack, but is quite a bit more limited in ability to execute since flanking doesn’t grant it.
I’d be more worried about Ghost Step (although that’s not unbalancing either) since you become invisible for the whole round, which means every attack you get that round is from an invisible position. You go invis, full attack and 5 foot step back. You’re still invis until it’s your round again which means no AoOs, and you’re not really worried about being hit except by a fireball or similar AoE and for that you’ve got reflexes up the wazoo.
Another thing to keep in mind about Sudden Strike is that it lends itself to hit-and-run tactics. That’s all well and good if the rest of your party is good with those tactics, but is not as effective if you’re spending all your time getting one good shot off and then stuck protecting the mage in back or somesuch.
See if the rest of the group is suited to working with a Ninja in the Ninja’s preferred way of approaching things. If so, then it’s a much more viable combination.
Monk/Ninja with a couple of Psionic feats that jumps down off one building, runs across the courtyard, slaps you silly with his bare hands, runs UP the wall on the other side, and is over the roofline and out of sight....all in a single round.
Ninja can combine fairly well with Fighter as a means of fulfilling the pre-reqs for the Ghost Faced Killah—excuse me, Killer PrC. If he takes two levels of Ninja and four levels of Fighter, he’ll get decent feats to start, and the GFK lets SS and PA dovetail nicely. Blackguard is a good finisher for the class, since many of ht pre-req feats are the same, and it grants sneak attack.
Couple of things that help with ninja builds:
- simply get improved bluff, or better yet, go invisible blade and get bluff as a free action
- get a ring of blinking (this is really good defensively too)
- multiclass and get hide in plain sight
- have allies cast blindness on the foe
- use two weapons and the ghost step full round invis is much more useful
Hmm as I first understood ghost step it worked just like regular invisibility in that the first attack spoils it but as I look back I find that to be not true. He’d still have to worry about any one with the feat blind-fight.
Not to mention ghost strike can quickly burn through his ki pool.
The party will include
1 Spirit Shaman
1 Ninja
1 Psion: Telepath (myself)
and the last friend doesn’t quite know yet but is thinking some kind of
duel welding tempest but he makes deadly fighters so he’s alright.
So one in the group will be capable of casting blindness.
So as it stands no it is not a hit and run party.
I doubt he’d go the way of the monk ninja as he has played a lot of monks.
A Ring of Blinking could cause you to miss half your attacks as well. Though the Ninja’s ghost strike could take care of that.
Invisible Blade could work if not for the ridiculous feat requirements. And the official errata doesn’t change this
It does nerf the Uncanny Feint to once a round though.
I’ll recommend he look at the ghost faced killer all though we’d need to drop the evil alignment requirement as his evil characters almost universally end up like serial killers.
Blink is 20% miss chance for your own attacks. That is a small cost compared to the benefit of 50% miss for opponents and them losing dex bonus against you.
Anyhow, haste and any other way to get extra attacks helps to make the most out the single round of invis.
To my experience, the ki pool should be sufficient when combined with the other tricks to allow sudden strike just as often as a rogue gets sneak attack. Depends on play style though, but in the games I was playing there was maybe 2 major combats per day max. Minor scuffles are not a problem.
try Human Ninja 3 / Sword sage 2 (ToB) / Rogue 1 with Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative and Weapon Focus, which will allow you to double your wisdom bonus to AC and get extra attacks.
A ninja can only add her wisdom when waring no armor, were as a Sword sage needs to were light armor to gain Wis to AC.
But on the fact of the inviability, you don’t run out of Ki points to fast. My one friend played a ninja and even though he was not geared for combat he did very well in it.
If your player wants a stronger class (as well a class that works better against undead) check out the Hunter post on the form. It is a really good balance of a Ninja but with more a fighting aspect.
PS: I love the Ninja 3/ Roge1/ Spell Thief 1/ Assassin 1
My fiance’e played a really effective Whisper Gnome Ninja with a single level of Shadow Dancer for hide in plain sight. She had all the nifty Silencing feats, and was extremely effective against enemy spell casters...or even 1v1 against most other baddies.
Actually a swordsage doesn’t have to wear light armor to gain wis to AC, but it can. Either way, the two do not stack together I belive, you only get to add Wis once.
try Human Ninja 3 / Sword sage 2 (ToB) / Rogue 1 with Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative and Weapon Focus, which will allow you to double your wisdom bonus to AC and get extra attacks.
No sane DM would EVER in there right mind let someone add twice there wisdom bonus to AC.
But I’ll tell my DM about it and we can both laugh hysterically.
andrewk - 27 February 2008 07:42 AM
A ninja can only add her wisdom when waring no armor, were as a Sword sage needs to were light armor to gain Wis to AC.
But on the fact of the invisibility, you don’t run out of Ki points to fast. My one friend played a ninja and even though he was not geared for combat he did very well in it.
If your player wants a stronger class (as well a class that works better against undead) check out the Hunter post on the form. It is a really good balance of a Ninja but with more a fighting aspect.
PS: I love the Ninja 3/ Roge1/ Spell Thief 1/ Assassin 1
He’s looking to play a Ninja and I’m looking to help him build
up his character so he doesn’t bite. He’s had some unworkable
concepts before.
Fighter 2/Ninja 6/Ghost-Faced Killer 10/Ninja 4 should be a nice damaging while not overly powerful or min-maxed build.
It’s slightly MAD intensive, but if you choose correctly you can fix that. Wis and Str are your important stats, dex is third. Then Cha, then con, then int.
You can dish out some really nice damage with this build, and won’t be completely screwed against creatures immune to sudden strike, and you’ve got some power for when you run out of ghost steps.
