[3.P] What makes a ninja?

[Jackinthegreen]

Questions like this probably need to be asked about most of the classes and concepts within D&D.  What makes a ninja?  How would you use existing official sources to realize that goal?  How would you redo the class and/or concepts within the game to realize that goal?

[FlaminCows]

The ninja class does the ninja concept pretty well, actually. I look at the class, read the rules and think, "Yep. That's a ninja all right." It does the stealth thing, the assassinations thing, the poison thing, and the mystical kung-fu powas thing too. It just isn't very good, that's all. By 3.5's rather arbitrary measuring stick of compared class power.

Maybe make all the Ambush feats a standard feature that comes with Sudden Strike and Sneak Attack. They're not overpowering, and what with how they normally take up a feat slot each they end up being used all on their lonesome, missing the opportunity of mixing and matching different Ambush abilities with each precision strike. You could also turn the feats that improve the ninja's Ki Power abilities into class features as well. There's a couple in Complete Scoundrel, and a bunch in Dragon 342 and 351. Perhaps I'll make a mock-up of it later.

[Solo]

Isn't a Rogue ninja-y enough?

[Hallack]

As a mechanical improvement how about combining Sneak Attack/Skirmish into a feature that works for extra damage in any situation where the composite parts would have worked. 

So the rogue, ninja, or whatever sneak attacking/sudden striking class can get their damage by denying dex, moving to strike, etc...

[SneeR]

As a mechanical improvement how about combining Sneak Attack/Skirmish into a feature that works for extra damage in any situation where the composite parts would have worked. 

So the rogue, ninja, or whatever sneak attacking/sudden striking class can get their damage by denying dex, moving to strike, etc...

This does help support the lightning fast ninja stereotype so they don't ALWAYA have to sneak around. They can blitz about and own fellows, too.

[Jackinthegreen]

The ninja class does the ninja concept pretty well, actually. I look at the class, read the rules and think, "Yep. That's a ninja all right." It does the stealth thing, the assassinations thing, the poison thing, and the mystical kung-fu powas thing too. It just isn't very good, that's all. By 3.5's rather arbitrary measuring stick of compared class power.

Maybe make all the Ambush feats a standard feature that comes with Sudden Strike and Sneak Attack. They're not overpowering, and what with how they normally take up a feat slot each they end up being used all on their lonesome, missing the opportunity of mixing and matching different Ambush abilities with each precision strike. You could also turn the feats that improve the ninja's Ki Power abilities into class features as well. There's a couple in Complete Scoundrel, and a bunch in Dragon 342 and 351. Perhaps I'll make a mock-up of it later.

I've already done a bit of a review of the Dragon 342 and 351 ninja feats at http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2991.msg106082#msg106082.

But yes, by the measuring stick of 3.5's relative power levels it doesn't end up all that good even when we factor in the feats in those Dragon issues, though they -might- make it T4 instead of 5.

[Unbeliever]

The ninja class does the ninja concept pretty well, actually. I look at the class, read the rules and think, "Yep. That's a ninja all right." It does the stealth thing, the assassinations thing, the poison thing, and the mystical kung-fu powas thing too. It just isn't very good, that's all. By 3.5's rather arbitrary measuring stick of compared class power.
...

Isn't a Rogue ninja-y enough?

+1 to both of these.  I think the Rogue probably pulls off the ninja just fine, or at least as well as it does for a Rogue.  But, if you want something more "ninja-esque," i.e., more of the mystic east, etc. etc. then having something like the Ninja base class is fine, too. 

Although for both the Ninja and Samurai types of classes I don't really see much of the point outside of some kind of fetishism.  If you're playing a game where you're the lone Ninja in a standard fantasy Western European environment, then why do we need a whole class for that?  It, as OOTS famously points out, is a social and fluff conceit, not a mechanical one.  If you're playing a whole Oriental-themed game, on the other hand, then having a single Ninja or Samurai class isn't going to work either:  you're going to need a series of variations on it so that someone can play a more exotic weapon oriented one, a more mystical one, a more infiltrator type, so on and so forth. 

You'd want to build those characters out of things like Swordsages and Rogues and Monks (which would be easier if those latter two were better-built classes, but that's another issue) and various other bits that are laying around in the system.

[veekie]

The Rogue does cover most of the ninja skills aspect of a realistic ninja, though not all the aspects of one at once. A spellcasting rogue more or less covers the fantasy ninja.

[Solo]

So, Rogue with the Assassin prestige class?

[FlaminCows]

So, Rogue with the Assassin prestige class?

Yeah, that makes a decent ninja. Stealth, poison, assassinations and mystical powers. Stronger than the existing Ninja class, too. The only problem is not getting some of the Ninja-esque goodies during early levels.

Although for both the Ninja and Samurai types of classes I don't really see much of the point outside of some kind of fetishism.  If you're playing a game where you're the lone Ninja in a standard fantasy Western European environment, then why do we need a whole class for that?  It, as OOTS famously points out, is a social and fluff conceit, not a mechanical one.  If you're playing a whole Oriental-themed game, on the other hand, then having a single Ninja or Samurai class isn't going to work either:  you're going to need a series of variations on it so that someone can play a more exotic weapon oriented one, a more mystical one, a more infiltrator type, so on and so forth. 

Personally, I don't think there is anything bad about having more than one way to do the same character. The point of the Ninja class and the Samurai class is to introduce mechanics that fit their archetype. Sure, you can build a character to fit that archetype using other methods, but with them you have a few more. The OA samurai has its honourable code and his two swords and his iaijutsu focus, the CW samurai has his intimidation, and the CA ninja has his swift action supernatural and extraordinary abilities. Adding a Ninja class doesn't mean that there is now a single ninja class and no way to do a series of variations, on the contrary it means that more variations are now available.

Basically, the point isn't fetishism. The point is trying to do things in new ways.

[Unbeliever]

As I said, there's nothing necessarily wrong with having more classes.  More stuff is good, I suppose, as it gives you more fiddly bits to build stuff out of.  Ahem: 

I think the Rogue probably pulls off the ninja just fine, or at least as well as it does for a Rogue.  But, if you want something more "ninja-esque," i.e., more of the mystic east, etc. etc. then having something like the Ninja base class is fine, too. 

I'd appreciate if you didn't ignore whole paragraphs of my posts in rebutting me.  And, obviously I'm not against having multiple ways to build the same character.  Hell, I even mentioned that in my post and my argument was that labeling one class "Ninja" might chill just doing that. 

But, anything that the Ninja class brings to the game can be done with more flexibility by the Swordsage or some magic (e.g., Swift Invisibility). 

And, for the sake of argument, there might be a real risk in closely identifying classes with an archetype.  Not all Samurai are or should be daisho-wielding intimidation machines.  The Ninja class is fine b/c identifying all Ninjas with mystical assassins is just what they are. 

But, these classes do tend to be less rich and more flexible than other classes.  Compare the Swordsage and the Wizard to the Ninja.   I also kind of hesitate to construct a homebrew that looks just like the character I want to make, perhaps in part due to my affection for D&D's "building blocks" approach to character creation, which Pathfinder doesn't seem to embrace as much.

[veekie]

Many approaches to a single end isn't that bad in itself, it makes for good additional materials to a game, but bad core materials. For the core game you want classes which fit as many archetypes as complexity and playability allows, whether the classes themselves are varied or not. Peripheral materials and splatbooks should fill the more specific but in demand niches, with tighter fits, so as to provide value without increasing power creep overly.

[FlaminCows]

Unbeliever, I wasn't ignoring whole paragraphs of your post at all. I was rebutting a specific part of it, the only part I did not agree with. Were I to mention the previous paragraph, it would sound something like this: "You're okay with it, AND you think it is fetishism and pointless? So which is it, then?" which is a bit more confrontational than I wanted it to be. I did read your whole post and the intent is not to rebut you, since I like you and want to be your friend with sunshine and rainbows and everything, but to rebut a specific statement.

As to how those classes are less flexible than others, I think that's part of the point. Sometimes people want to build a specific character to fit an archetype from the rainbow of material available, and sometimes people want a pre-built class that fits the archetype that they're going for without any work. While not all Samurai are daisho-wielding intimidators, all the daisho-wielding intimidators are Samurai.

Not everybody wants or needs flexibility, and having both the narrow and the wide classes means that those that like customising their character to a specific idea within an archetype get what they want and those who just want to play the archetype but don't want to work with fiddly bits get what they want too.

What I'm saying is that "multiple ways to build a character" goes beyond just fiddly bits. It also means being able to choose between fiddly bits and pre-build classes that fit the archetype. It only chills the fiddlyness for people who want to chill the fiddlyness, and while the building blocks approach is fine for some people it isn't for everyone. See? 

[Unbeliever]

^ yeah, I can get behind that.  And, as I've probably mentioned somewhere else, that's kind of my ideal:  I'd love D&D where you can have one person play Single Class 20 and the person next to them playing something with a crazy long build stub and it all working well together.  That being said, there is still something funny going on.   Why is there a whole class for a Samurai, prebuilt, and a Swashbuckler, but none for an Archer? 

And, for the record, something can be pointless and still not affirmatively bad.  If I were designing the game from the ground up, or making homebrew decisions, I wouldn't approach the classes that way.  But, given that the Samurai and the Ninja and so forth are already in print, it's not like a fatwah against them.  I think the Shugenja is also a kind of pointless class as it doesn't really add anything to the system, but if someone wants to play one, then I'm happy to oblige and will even help them expand their spell lists, etc.

It would probably help if most of the classes like Samurai and Knight (you could throw Shugenja in there), classes that seem much less generic than the normal ones, were simply better.  I often feel like they squeeze a relatively rich archetype (e.g., Samurai, Knight) into a fairly unattractive, overly simplistic package. 

That being said, the Ninja is one of the better ones.  Now that I think about it, probably the best one. 

[veekie]

It would probably help if most of the classes like Samurai and Knight (you could throw Shugenja in there), classes that seem much less generic than the normal ones, were simply better.  I often feel like they squeeze a relatively rich archetype (e.g., Samurai, Knight) into a fairly unattractive, overly simplistic package.

A flawed approach I think, because this inherently encourages power creep.

Ideally, your focused class should look at how generic classes fail to cover the desired features, and work to achieve them. This is of course, on top of a simply poor reading of the concept, the Samurai for example, fails to cover neither fictional nor realistic samurai, focuses on an even smaller subset of the samurai concept and has the gall to fail at this set. The Ninja meanwhile, does look at how the rogue fails to meet the ninja concept(mainly magical powers), and tries to meet it specifically, it is only bad in terms of implementation, all the abilities are wholly appropriate to a fantasy ninja assassin.

[Unbeliever]

That sounds like the right approach.  Although I'm at pains to think of one besides Ninja that was in the right ballpark based on that.

[ImperatorK]

Could you guys take the discussion, that's not about ninjas, elsewhere? It's interesting, but not on-topic.

[veekie]

That sounds like the right approach.  Although I'm at pains to think of one besides Ninja that was in the right ballpark based on that.

Cavalier is a similar one a non-magical mounted combat specialist. To a lesser extent, so are the Dread Necromancer and Warmage.

Primarily, the lacks of the Ninja class itself is the reduced power of it's offense out of proportion of it's gains. Sudden Strike is meant to make up for the supposed ease of the ninja stealth over the rogue, crippling them in terms of offense by dint of underestimating how easy it is to obtain consistent sneak attacks. Weapons were locked in an eastern mode, which left the ninja with some rather distinctive weapons rather than disguisable/effective arms. Of particular note is simply bad exotic weapon design, weapons with poor stats that are exotic simply because they're foreign, shuriken that dealt completely terrible damage being the iconic example.

The ninja powers were also highly assassination oriented, disregarding the espionage, subversion and sabotage aspects of the secret operative. While granted few individual ninjas would be good at all those aspects, they have as broad a job as any spy and it's a pretty big loss to the depth of the tools and skills they possess.

[FlaminCows]

Could you guys take the discussion, that's not about ninjas, elsewhere? It's interesting, but not on-topic.

My apologies. In our defence, it is at least somewhat on topic, but there is reason enough to realign it.

The trouble is, I think, that the thread's question has been answered to the point that everyone seems to agree upon it. The abilities that a competent archetypal ninja would have in D&D are stealth, assassination techniques, movement, poison use, and small magic. I do agree that we need to talk a bit more about ninjas, but with the thread's primary question answered we need a secondary one to keep it centred. That's a big reason why it got derailed: with everyone agreeing on what abilities make a ninja, discussion on the best way to bring those abilities into the game is one possible next step to the conversation.

In short: I agree with you, but what should we be talking about?

[ImperatorK]

If the topic is already exhausted then let it die. It's still about ninjas, even when there's nothing more to say.