D&D General The 5e Ninja, would it be a class or a subclass?

[Greg K]

As someone that would use a different system for Naruto and some other specific anime inspired ninja, I, personally, would go with one of the following for D&D:
1. Rogue (Assassin) or a Light Armored Fighter variant. Add a Ninja background, trade armor proficiency for the monk's unarmored defense per the variant rule in the DMG, take the Unarmed Fighting Style (the Rogue via the Martial Adept feat).
2. Rogue (Assassin) or Light Armored Fighter. Add the Ninja background and multi-classing with Monk (Open Hand) and Artifcer (for creating smoke bombs, device to walk on water, etc.)
3. A Ninja class or Rogue with a new Ninja subclass that blends elements of the Rogue (Assassin), Monk (Open Hand) and Artificer abilities.

*Edit: For Naruto inspired and some other versions of anime Ninja, I would use BESM (Dyskami), OVA (Wise Turtle), Ninja Crusade (Third Eye Games), or a superhero RPG such as BASH! Ultimate Edition (Basic Action Games), Mutants & Masterminds (Green Ronin) with the 2e Mecha & Manga, or Icons: Assembled Edition (Ad Infinitum)

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I'd like to see what the professional designers come up with for their game system; since I am not a professional game designer, this makes sense.

You, as a DM, have to make such decisions about what to include/exclude already; it's part of the job. Let's not pretend they are equivalent.

Alright, well there are plenty of unofficial options I'm sure (and there is no professional licensing for game designers, so "professional" is a pretty nebulous construct). I wasn't actually trying to put a burden of game design on you, so sorry if I was flippant about that. I just think the official rules should keep down the bloat to a place where most people don't start every campaign getting, giving, or negotiating a litany of what character creation options they are going to forbid.

And with that I'm unfollowing this thread. I really didn't mean to say much more than "a class would probably be a mistake, a subclass seems good" but I've been told by one person I'm being to authoritarian a DM and and told by another I need to just ban classes, which makes me feel like I'm probably being criticized from multiple extremes of opinion, and that usually is a good time to nope out of a discussion. Shine on you crazy ninjas!