A Question I Never Thought I'd Ask - Tell Me Please, of the 3.5 Ninja

Our Tuesday night group seems to have decided to do a "Farewell to 3.5" mini-campaign that's going to START at 20th level with a combat involving Tiamat.

Yeah, really. The idea is to play characters on the verge of godhood and get there. It's fairly counter to our usual playstyle, but that's kind of the point, really.

Anyway, my idea for a character is the patron saint of necessary deaths. A super stealthy, super fast, super deadly shadowy assassin type along the lines of Sorry/Apsalar from Steven Erickson's Malazan Empire novels (granted, at 20th level, still less competent than Sorry). I looked into the Assassin PC, and didn't see what I wanted, really, but the Ninja class from Complete Adventurer looks like the sort of thing I wanted. Especially if I take ten levels of it coupled with ten levels of Shadowdancer.

However.

I've never before played a 20th level character. I sure haven't built one from scratch. I've never had the slightest prior inclination to play a <shudder> ninja, and apart from the class features, I don't plan to now. But having never seen the class in play, I'm not sure if it's as spiffy as it looks. Can anyone familiar with it point out any pitfalls I should be aware of?

Theron said:

I've never before played a 20th level character. I sure haven't built one from scratch. I've never had the slightest prior inclination to play a <shudder> ninja, and apart from the class features, I don't plan to now. But having never seen the class in play, I'm not sure if it's as spiffy as it looks. Can anyone familiar with it point out any pitfalls I should be aware of?

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I'm sorry if this disappoints, but IME Ninja (C. Adv) is much better as a class to dip into than a straight 20-level progression. You get the best things up front: ki power (invisible), poison use, and wis to AC . . . and you get mediocre or worse things later on: by the time your jump bonuses are notable, people are flying around. This is more useful if you cross-class into Bo9S and pick up maneuvers whereby Jump checks deal damage.

At low levels a straight ninja can be pretty deadly, but at 20th level there aren't a lot of things your invisibility will surprise.

No disappointment here. As I said, I'm quite unfamiliar with the class, and since this will almost certainly be an exercise in over-the-top character builds, I'm hoping to just be near level footing with the guys in the group who eat and breathe character optimization. I'll definitely file that away.

Theron said:

No disappointment here. As I said, I'm quite unfamiliar with the class, and since this will almost certainly be an exercise in over-the-top character builds, I'm hoping to just be near level footing with the guys in the group who eat and breathe character optimization. I'll definitely file that away.

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Well, it's hard to go wrong with a druid 20 as long as you take natural spell.

Looking into wildshape forms and good animal companion choices is highly recommended.

Augment Summoning is useful as well, but honestly it's almost impossible to mess up a druid 20 badly.


Stealth isn't too difficult to do with a druid, assuming you can get a little in-party buffing. Wildshape can get you into all sorts of places. Immunity to poison means you can use contact poison with no worries.



"Anyway, my idea for a character is the patron saint of necessary deaths. A super stealthy, super fast, super deadly shadowy assassin type along the lines of Sorry/Apsalar from Steven Erickson's Malazan Empire novels (granted, at 20th level, still less competent than Sorry). I looked into the Assassin PC, and didn't see what I wanted, really, but the Ninja class from Complete Adventurer looks like the sort of thing I wanted. Especially if I take ten levels of it coupled with ten levels of Shadowdancer."

Stealth: Wildshape + A thousand faces gives you that. Trackless step is situational, but still useful. Hide isn't a class skill, but you probably can get good enough magical support not to worry that much about it, or take a single level in some other class at the end (or grab a feat/ prestige class from somewhere).

Speed: The druid spell list is short on teleportation, but there are several decent spells for getting around quickly. Again, wildshaping will get you a good movement form for whatever you want to do.

Deadliness: The druid is a total offensive powerhouse. No denying it.


If you want it to be done non-magically, I'll have to dig up some character designs...

Read The Complete Ninja on WotC CharOp board.

Check out the Book of 9 Swords. Specifically, check out the Swordsage. It can very easily feel like an assassin. Its abilities are a lot of fun, too. As I'm sure you know, it was also one of WotC's attempts at 4th edition style mechanics to see what people thought. It's full of win.

Thanks folks. Both this thread and its twin over on RPGnet are pointing me to the Swordsage, so that's where I'm heading.

Theron said:

Anyway, my idea for a character is the patron saint of necessary deaths. A super stealthy, super fast, super deadly shadowy assassin type along the lines of Sorry/Apsalar from Steven Erickson's Malazan Empire novels (granted, at 20th level, still less competent than Sorry). I looked into the Assassin PC, and didn't see what I wanted, really, but the Ninja class from Complete Adventurer looks like the sort of thing I wanted. Especially if I take ten levels of it coupled with ten levels of Shadowdancer.

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It would be decent in concept, but better with 9 levels of Swordsage instead of the last 9 levels of Shadowdancer.

However, the main pitfall, really, is that the concept is utterly worthless against Tiamat. Completely. The only thing it'll accomplish is to take half damage from her numerous breath weapons every time she breathes on him, because he'll never make the DC 59 Reflex save, so Improved Evasion would be the only thing keeping him alive for a few rounds. And that's assuming she doesn't just bite him in half. Of course, the save DC is only 46 for the Tiamat in Manual of the Planes, which he might manage on a natural roll of 16 or so with high Dex, a Cloak of Resistance +5, and the high base Reflex of all those classes combined.

Tiamat can see invisible and ethereal all the time. And as a dragon goddess, she has blindsight out to 10 freakin' miles. And there's no way he could (with any kind of decent chance, beyond like 5 or 10%) Bluff past her +59 or so Sense Motive bonus in order to utilize Sudden Strike (or a rogue's Sneak Attack), short of custom major-skill-boosting magic items. Or multiclassing into various stuff to get esoteric Bluff bonuses, like a snake familiar, Mindbender PrC levels (IIRC) after taking some wizard levels, etc.


For something vaguely similar, you might try a 20th-level Swordsage or something. But relying on the Emerald Razor maneuver to automatically attack her Touch AC, using Adaptive Style every other round to ready that maneuver again. Trying to hit her 50 AC or so otherwise will be a major pain. (+15 base attack as a swordsage, +1 weapon focus, +10 Dexterity with Weapon Finesse and a rapier, +5 from the rapier's enhancement, +2 flanking I suppose?, +1 from a Stone of Good Luck or something?, for a total of like +34 to-hit, so needing a 16 or better I guess? but her Touch AC of 2 is no problem) You'll have some sneaky stuff, but won't be able to do much damage.

Actually, screw that. Play a sorcerer that relies on touch attack spells that don't rely on any particular damage type. Orb of Force maybe? Broken, but the best bet for slaying Tiamat. Oh, just make sure to Heighten it above 5th-level; only 6th-level + spells have any effect on Tiamat. -_- I can't believe I just suggested someone use Orb of Force.

Why? Orb of Force is good. The Orbs in general are good. I still don't get how people think that they're crazy-broken. Heck, Force doesn't even do as much damage as the other ones.

Arkhandus said:

However, the main pitfall, really, is that the concept is utterly worthless against Tiamat.

(...)

Tiamat can see invisible and ethereal all the time. And as a dragon goddess, she has blindsight out to 10 freakin' miles. And there's no way he could (with any kind of decent chance, beyond like 5 or 10%) Bluff past her +59 or so Sense Motive bonus in order to utilize Sudden Strike (or a rogue's Sneak Attack), short of custom major-skill-boosting magic items. Or multiclassing into various stuff to get esoteric Bluff bonuses, like a snake familiar, Mindbender PrC levels (IIRC) after taking some wizard levels, etc.

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Actually a rogue's sneak attack will work just peachy as long as you get some other poor schmuck on the other side of her. When you're a rogue, flanking is your friend.

The trick then (as you mentioned) is hitting that AC with the vast array of attacks you're going to want to have, since adding attacks usually means lowering to-hit. I admit those ranged touch attacks are starting to look good...