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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BASHMAN" data-source="post: 6089808" data-attributes="member: 8277">So I played in a 5e game where we were supposed to make characters who were descended from our old characters.  My old character was a Half-Orc Monk, and I wanted to make this new character be his daughter, also a Monk, but with a bit of a darker edge to her; more like a ninja.  She'd be 3/4ths human, 1/4th orc, so i'd play it as human. Later I found out though, that another PC had already made a female human monk.  Change of plans.  At first I decided to scrap the character entirely, and make a descendant of another character, but then I looked at the barbarian class again.  Then I looked at the backstory of the proposed character.  Something happened. Is it just me, or does the barbarian class make a freaking awesome ninja?  Yes, there will need to be a lot of re-skinning involved.  Put away your notions of kilt-wearing claymore wielding men with bright orange beards frothing at the mouth with blood-lust. Instead, imagine a ninja spirit warrior, who enters a "battle trance" during which she is completely fixated on the task at hand.  Like River Tam, having one of her "episodes" which results in lots of dead bad-guys.  I also added in here a bit of a "drunken master" effect, that she quaffs some of "the good stuff" to induce these trances; but I'm thinking of dropping that and having the battle trance be simply the result of intense target fixation and focus. The "half damage from weapons" part of the rage is skinned as her attempts to block the attacks.  So when a badguy hit her with a club, and she took half damage, I narrated it as "As the club is about to strike at her head, Kodachi's forearm shoots up to block and takes the hit instead".  My resulting character, Kodachi, is a 1/4th orc (effectively human) who, unlike her father, has embraced the primal call to violence from her orcish ancestors.  While her father, Kage, suppressed this, she has harnessed it and refocused it. At first level she took the Dual Wielding feat.  We rolled stats, and I ended up with Strength 14 (+2) Dexterity 18 (+4) Constitution 16 (+3) Intelligence 13 (+1) Wisdom 11 Charisma 11 after applying racial and class mods.  Notice that Dex is her highest stat instead of strength.  So she won't get as much out of raging per se as she could with a high strength; but she keeps a very high AC.  Because her Con is high stat #2, this results in a high AC without wearing any armor.  Sort of like a monk with Wisdom.For weapons I took Scimitars (1d8 slashing finesse) and re-skinned them to be Ninja-To.  I took a cestus for each hand, re-skinned to be Tekko.  I took a longbow, re-skinned into a Daiku, and daggers, re-skinned into Shuriken. Most of the time, she attacks with her paired Ninja-To, using Dex to hit and damage.  So +3/+3 to hit; 1d8+4/1d8 damage (+1d6 martial die). When she is raging, she uses STR to hit and damage with both weapons, with +1/+1 AND ADVANTAGE to hit; 1d8+4/1d8+2 damage (+1d6 martial die).   For skills I took Climb, Tumble, Sneak, and Balance. Background I made up "Ninja" which gave me those skills and as a "Trait" I copied "False Identity" from the Charlatan. Now let's look at the "Barbarian" abilities that she gets as she levels, and see how they can be Ninja'd. Fast Movement - this is already a Monk thing; so that easily works. Feral Instinct - heightened awareness improving initiative?  Yeah, I'd say that works for a ninja. Relentless Rage - Able to take a licking and keep on ticking.  This is her battle trance / drunken master resilience paying off. Feral Reflexes - Cannot be surprised.  I'd say that's ninja appropriate. Fearless Rage - Cannot be afraid while in her battle trance; her concentration and focus has become so strong that she cannot be distracted from it. Regenerative Rage - Regain HP while raging when bloodied.  This probably would be re-skinned as the Drunken Master training, maybe taking a swig of "the good stuff"; or it is simply some sort of effect of the battle trance allowing her Ki to refocus an heal her body. These all seem to work so far. For future feats I plan 2 weapon Defense, Shift (groan) and Strike and Fade.  The Strike and Fade feat I see as being very "Ninja-Like" as she dives past an enemy, who only after the fact notices the two sword slices the passing shadow made. So what do people think?  Does this work?</blockquote>

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