Please rate Ninja of the Crescent Moon

[smetzger]

Ninja of the Crescent Moon, Sword and Fist p.30

Requirements: BAB +6, Improved Unarmed Strike, Deflect Arrows, Quick Draw, Move Silently 10 ranks, Hide 10 ranks, Evasion, contact leadership

Class Features: Monk-like armor bonuses, sneak attack, Improved Evasion, kuji-kiri, poison use, AC bonus, fast climb, silencing attack, fast sneak, invisibility, opportunist, gaseous form, blindsight, always sneaky, ethereal jaunt

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

This is the definitive D&D Ninja. For the Monkish/Roguish prerequisites, you get Monk AC, progressing Sneak Attack damage, and a variety of interesting abilities.

When you combine Always Sneaky with Hide in Plain Sight from Shadowdancer, which this class makes easy for you to get into, you become functionally invisible most of the time.

The only thing I miss is the Acrobatics bonuses from Ninja Spy... but, yet again, this class makes it frighteningly easy to get into Ninja Spy.

 

[Thresher]

I think its one of those PRC's that you probably shouldnt play if you want your GM to even remotely respect you.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Hey, you forgot to include an entry for "So overpowered it's not even fair."

Seriously, though, as a DM, there's no way in Hell I'd allow the Ninja of the Crescent Moon in any of my campaigns.

 

[Chun-tzu]

Hey, you forgot to include an entry for "So overpowered it's not even fair."

Um, I hope all posters know that the Ninja of the Crescent Moon was errata'd (S&F web errata). It has a Rogue's BAB and only a good Reflex save (Fort and Will saves have been cut back).

 

[Dark Jezter]

Um, I hope all posters know that the Ninja of the Crescent Moon was errata'd (S&F web errata). It has a Rogue's BAB and only a good Reflex save (Fort and Will saves have been cut back).

I did not know that. Good thing, though, since it makes the class actually playable.

 

[the Jester]

Even with the errata it's a 9.

Without the errata, it rates around a 17 out of 10.

 

[shurai]

What's their hit die? I forget. If it's d6, that might do a lot to balance the class.

The prereqs are very high, though it's true that they're all worth having/automatic class features anyway. Except for Quick Draw, which I can't see a monk really needing.

In any case, since they got errata'd back quite a bit (two saves taken down, bab down to rogue), I think they're playable, but a little too powerful. To me, this class is the kind you'd really want to balance with roleplaying by inflicting lots of organizational control on the character, and making the class difficult to get into RP-wise.

The other thing to remember is that characters can't really take this class until 9th level. That's pretty high, so it's okay that the PrC has some powerful abilities. In my mind, most of the class features are a little underpowered by themselves so I really don't care that they get a lot of them.

For instance, everybody can finagle really good armor and a really high dex anyway, so giving the class the monk wisdom-to-AC thing is essentially irrelevant. Giving people another place to blow ability-boosting magic items is just fine with me, because getting your AC up is more efficient in other ways anyway. Truthfully I don't really think the ninja deserves the monk-like progressive bonus to AC; it would be nice if this class had a serious combat weakness besides the low hit points.

Poison use is definitely really cool, as are the spell-like abilities, but those are really the only seriously powerful abilities the class gets, it seems to me. What really annoys me is that I can see a relatively cheeseball Ninja standing up to a Fighter in straight-up melee, and that Should Not Be. Historically, a ninja fighting a samurai who was aware of him was, more often than not, a dead ninja.

Yeah, I played in a game with a guy who didn't know about the errata . . . he really complained a lot about when I took him to school on the issue. It was fun. : ]

-S