What is most YOUR concept of the fantasy ninja?

[frankthedm]

PHB rogues with proper dedications to family / clan.

 

[S'mon]

Rogue with Assassin prestige class does seem to cover a fantasy ninja pretty well, yup. Or for the "unstoppable killing machine" Ninja, Fighter-Rogue or Fighter-Monk-Rogue.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Fighter/rogue/shadowdancer is ninja enough for me.

I've been thinking about using a gestalt fighter/rogue in our next campaign.

 

[Gez]

Good gestalt builds for fantasy ninjas:

• Cleric of Trickery and Shadow/Rogue
• Fighter/Rogue
• Monk/Rogue
• Scout/Rogue
• Sorcerer/Rogue

Basically, anything (well, maybe not druid or paladin) with rogue.

(By the way, I'd love to play a gestalt scout/rogue. Skirmish sneak attack!)

 

[Hand of Evil]

NPCs assassin abilities with a lot of bluff.

 

[Desdichado]

If you're after a fantasy ninja, then something very like the "ghostbusting" supernatural ninja from Complete Adventurer is most appropriate.

Well, there's the unwarranted blanket statement of the day. Don't you think that depends on the fantasy?

Historical ninja, and other tropes appropriate to a roleplaying game which is neither historical nor particularly fantastic (like the "assassin" ninja or the "martial arts master" ninja), can and should be done differently.

I quite agree.

I'm not strongly convinced that a historical ninja should be anything other than a fighter with a specialised combat style and set of tactics - though it's probably true that the fighter class from core D&D isn't best suited to it.

Uh... wha...? You must be reading different histories than I am. There is no "ninjitsu" combat style. Ninjas were not fighters, or combatants of any kind. They were assassins. Historically, they'd probably be experts, or at most rogues, with ranks in skills like hide, move silently, and whatever else would allow them to do things like use poison and otherwise assasinate without getting into combat.

For my money, the Rokugan ninja base class is still just about what I want a ninja to be; just a bit fantastic, but more a combination of the martial arts movie ninja paradigm with just a bit of the historical thrown in as well.

 

[punkorange]

So far most people seam to say phb rogues, but I would probably say phb monks would be more my vision of ninjas. Take away some of their god-like abilities, give them some rogue-like abilities such as sneak attack. Mix it all togather with the balancing stick and you have a ninja.

 

[Nareau]

One of my players came up with a very ninja-esque prestige class:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=129567

Spider

 

[Gentlegamer]

1st level Commoner with +20 circumstance bonus to Bluff (to convince others that ninjas could harm even a fly).

 

[shadow]

Ninja's have the Real Ultimate Power!