Ultimate Combat Ninja playtest

[StreamOfTheSky]

Has anyone here tried out the Ninja? I've had the pdf for a while and it actually looks really interesting, albeit very very MAD (they practically have no dumpstats!). It's like the Rogue, but with talents that don't suck, I'd say it's actually almost enough to balance the Rogue with the onther non-casters, though it could still use a little more help.

Unfortunately, it appears the majority opinion on paizo's forums is that because it's slightly better than the Rogue (REALLY not a difficult accomplishment), that it's somehow overpowered, even though most other classes in core could still tear it to shreds. Rather than the real issue: the Rogue's weaksauceness. Also ignoring that (I'm guessing) based on Rogue getting access to Ninja tricks and bunch of new options, that the Rogue class itself will likely get a heaping helping of desperately needed "power creep" in this new book to keep it on par with the Ninja.

Rant aside, anyone actually get to try one out yet? I like the smoke bomb line, but it eats SO many of your ninja tricks (just think, there's 3 of them pre-Master Tricks at level 10, and you only get four tricks by then) that I just don't see it as worth the investment. How versatile does Forgotten Trick make you? Do you find it difficult to not run out of ki, with so many class features potentially fueling off of it?

 

[Tharian]

I didn't realize the playtest was out yet (it's been a really busy time at work recently). Thanks for the heads up. If I get a chance to check it out in play, I'll definitely put my thoughts here.

 

[gamerprinter]

When he runs out of ki, he's less of a rogue than a rogue, but while he has ki, he's got all kinds of tricks and advantages over a rogue. His invisibility trick let's him get practically a free attack every round. Played right, with careful expenditure of ki its a very dangerous class. Plus he gets Assasinate without having to take a prestige class.

GP

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Looking at it...I think using Vanishing Trick to get a single sneak attack every round is an extremely bad idea. Makes you run through your ki like nothing, and what do you really gain for it? Vanishing Trick seems like it's better for getting into position before a fight starts than for repeated spamming. Actually, that's something that frustrates me about building a Ninja -- At level 10 with Invisible Blade, a ranged Ninja suddenly becomes viable, but until then, with Pathfinder's multiple nerfs to ranged SA (Grease doesn't work, Blink doesn't work, can't use splash weapons to hit a really easy AC...), I just don't see how he can get much mileage out of the large amount of feats archery requires. In other words, a Ninja built starting at 10+ is much easier to figure out than one at level 1. I suppose that's true for any class, but it seems especially true for the Ninja.

I see people complain that they get Bastard Sword proficiency, but I'd rather have the Rogue's rapier -- you can finesse the latter.

Assassinate without the prestige class is nice. I think you get it a little later than a Rogue/Assassin would, though this version allows for ranged sneaking, finally. I actually think it's kind of weak for a Master Trick, though. I do recognize the nastiness it can bring when combined with Sniper Goggles if it's a large area.

Oh, and gameprinter, you didn't have issues with the Ninja's MAD? They seem to have it worse than even Monks. What is your opinion vs. Rogues? Do you agree the real problem is the Rogue's talents being poor, and the Ninja's are not unbalanced?

 

[Kaiyanwang]

Say it's overpowered is laughable. Is intersting. That's all. If people complains is more powerful than the rogue, is because perhaps the rogue has seen stolen a lot of his stuff by prestige classes.

I only used it as NPC, but with since I had to build 4 of them I suddenly realized that pump Charisma in addition to the other stats is not easy; and that one thing is read the list of powers and another is combine them well with a decent amount of Ki.

Looks powerful on paper, but is just, at best, fine.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I heard all the talk about how overpowered the ninja was at first. Then I tried to make one and see if it is overpowered. It's pretty far from overpowered.

1. MAD: Worse MAD than monk or rogue. You want same basic stats as rogue plus Charisma. A stat that adds to nothing but social skills. It's for the most part a non-combat stat.

2. You still have a weak fort and will. With the focus on charisma, your dexterity isn't as good. So your reflex save is weaker. And you have to spend a talent on evasion. So defenses a bit weaker.

3. You still have the limitations of sneak attack. Blur at low level to negate it. Fortification armor, elemental form 3 and higher, any of the body spells, and outright high AC or stay out of combat abilities at high level to negate it. Forced to flank.

4. No trapfinding. So can't even disarm magical traps and the like. Real great ninja that can't even do his job breaking into and assassinating casters.


And Paizo becomes yet another company that can't get the ninja right because they are trying too hard not to make it overpowered, while at the same time making the class relatively unplayable using their standard method of generating characters.

I'll probably take the base ninja and rewrite it. Probably use wisdom as the primary stat for ki pool like the monk so those two classes can better mesh. Then you might actually be able to make a ninja with some martial arts rather than Paizo's metagame attempt to ensure the monk isn't a viable multiclass option with the monk. Even though it should be.

If Jason Buhlman was the one that made the decision to go Charisma and went out of his way to hamstring the ninja, I find it annoying as a Pathfinder fan. It was intuitive to make the ninja wisdom based, yet they didn't. It was intutive to make it a multiclass option. This ninja is a few trick pony. And once you know what those tricks are, it's an easy class to defeat.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

See, I like the charisma focus somewhat, making the Ninja a disguise-master social "face" character. And the class as written gives me a strong urge to use it to make Nene from Samurai Warriors, who could be represented marvelously by the class as written...assuming a high point buy, which pretty much any Ninja needs just to be viable. I'd rather some other stat be made less important. Giving good Will saves or mletting them use Cha instead of Wis for them could do the trick, though Perception would still be hurting. I don't think that's enough, though, Wis is already on the cusp on dump stat status for normal rogues, still needing the other 5 stats isn't much progress.

I really am warming to the idea of "finesse weapons already let you use dex to hit without the need for a feat and the Weapon Finesse feat just lets you replace str with dex to damage as well." My friend thinks that's overpowered, but I've yet to see a single dex-based melee build in PF that doesn't suck, or if heavily painstakingly optimized, couldn't perform better if built as a non-dex "slug it out" type instead. Such a houserule would help Rogues AND Ninjas.

 

[Celtavian]

See, I like the charisma focus somewhat, making the Ninja a disguise-master social "face" character. And the class as written gives me a strong urge to use it to make Nene from Samurai Warriors, who could be represented marvelously by the class as written...assuming a high point buy, which pretty much any Ninja needs just to be viable. I'd rather some other stat be made less important. Giving good Will saves or mletting them use Cha instead of Wis for them could do the trick, though Perception would still be hurting. I don't think that's enough, though, Wis is already on the cusp on dump stat status for normal rogues, still needing the other 5 stats isn't much progress.

I really am warming to the idea of "finesse weapons already let you use dex to hit without the need for a feat and the Weapon Finesse feat just lets you replace str with dex to damage as well." My friend thinks that's overpowered, but I've yet to see a single dex-based melee build in PF that doesn't suck, or if heavily painstakingly optimized, couldn't perform better if built as a non-dex "slug it out" type instead. Such a houserule would help Rogues AND Ninjas.

I don't much like the idea of using a stat that doesn't make sense for saves and the like. But I guess you could use the Charisma as force of personality angle that is taken with sorcerers and oracles. So I guess that would work for the ninja. Force of personality is a palpable force even in the real world.

I ran 3.5 without weapon finesse allowing players to use either strength or dex to hit, whichever was better. I used this for all weapons.

Wasn't overpowered at all. All it did was balance the dex based-classes versus the strength-based classes. Now if you let them do Dex-based damage, then it would be overpowered. But it's pretty simple to see from a balance perspective:

Dex affects:
1. Skills
2. AC (up to armor max)
3. hit
4. reflex saves

Strength affects:
1. Skills
2. damage (at least as good as AC and reflex saves given damage occurs on every swing)
3. hit
4. Str checks, which are more common than dex checks.
5. carrying and lifting capacity

So that keeps both stats balanced. All it does is make sure someone that wants to focus on dex doesn't have to waste a feat to use it to hit.

The reason I did not carry this rule over to Pathfinder is becasue I didn't want to have many house rules and I didn't feel like rewriting every monster with a high dex's stat blocks. I wish Pathfinder would have adopted this rule to begin with eliminating the need for a house rule. But they are still behind giving dex-based and str-based characters equal footing. Would have been nice if Pathfinder were the first game to make a fighter like Drizz't possible without expending so many feats that he is good at nothing else but swinging two equal sized weapons.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yes, Force of Personality was the basic idea for how charisma could effect will saves. And Paladin already gets cha to all saves, on top of the normal stat. That's basically a magical protection, of course, but then again, the Ninja's heavily magically flavored already anyway.

Dex to damage would at least cost a feat, and then the rogue/ninja can at least do a little more damage when they can't sneak attack. And when they can sneak attack, the extra damage isn't going to be a huge boost compared to what they're already doing.

 

[Celtavian]

Yes, Force of Personality was the basic idea for how charisma could effect will saves. And Paladin already gets cha to all saves, on top of the normal stat. That's basically a magical protection, of course, but then again, the Ninja's heavily magically flavored already anyway.

Dex to damage would at least cost a feat, and then the rogue/ninja can at least do a little more damage when they can't sneak attack. And when they can sneak attack, the extra damage isn't going to be a huge boost compared to what they're already doing.

A feat for dex damage would be a good way to balance it. As much damage as strength based melees do in Pathfinder it wouldn't hurt to let dex based characters do more, especially if you use 15 point point buy.