Ninja

[TrickyNikki]

Hello all,

Here is a new class I was working on. I hope the name is fine, if it's not I'll change it

[LleijS]

This looks like it could be a cool class. Maybe I'm just dense, but I couldn't find what 'Malice Points' are used for. Also, why did you envision this as a new class as opposed to a sub-class of the Assassin?

[Dimirag]

I would make it a Thief sub-class, like the assassin, but if you like having individual classes, go ahead.

As LleijS says, the class names "Malice Points", but the class has no uses for it, maybe an oversight from another class?

It has the "poison skills" but it lacks any description.

As for his special abilities, I'm disliking most of them:
Untouchable: The use of "AoO" feels weird. Having it as a "power" feels off, plus the whole "just ignore it" plus the infinity uses at high level.
Swift: Do not like double dipping on Ability bonuses, it may generate a huge gap between low and high score characters.
Prepared Strike: Hard for me to understand how it works, I guess I can gain a bonus per 10' of movement reduced up to half movement. But either way, moving lesser does not sounds like waiting.
In the Shadows: Seems OP and magical, needs refinement.
Infinite Throw: Really really dislike this one, seems imported from some Final Fantasy. I can't understand the "can only crit once".

[Blorpy]

Well I wouldn’t be a good nemesis if I didn’t weigh in a bit.

I like the idea of a ninja class. Not in medieval European dnd of course, but Asian adventures would be neat, or maybe like techno-future, shinobi style!

Others have already covered many of the issues here. I’ll just point out that the document refers to “crits”, and that it should be noted that critical hits are not a part of the core rules so would need to be defined. And given that most system issues have been pointed out, I’ll be the annoying guy who corrects grammar.

Firstly, run the spell checker to filter out “Ninka” and such.

“Ninjas are adept operatives that stalk the night”. This wording suggests that the night is the thing being stalked.

“deftly silent and deadly at the same time”. Switching from adverb to advective in a list is a bit a awkward. Also “silent and deadly” is often used as a euphemism for flatulence where I’m from.

“Some of them live as mercenaries, those who allow themselves to be swept up by large monetary contracts”. Very awkward wording. I would just say “Some are mercenaries”, since everyone knows that mercenaries take contracts and that they are doing it for money. Also, being “swept up” suggests the ninja has a lack of agency. Succinct wording is usually better in any case. I would also perhaps contrast this description with what those who aren’t mercenaries are up to.

“Some look down upon the Ninja, for many see espionage and assassinations as something below other, more honorable people such as knights”. Knights in the same setting as ninjas? I mean, you can, though I don’t know that I’d write that as a default assumption.

You know what else would pair well with this class? An expanded list of Asian weapons. I’m not sure if someone has made that already but it would be cool.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Keep up the good work!

[Blorpy]

Hey, I thought some more about this, and have a few more hopefully constructive comments.

- Swift could maybe benefit instead from a static unarmoured bonus, since you are dealing with high dex scores regardless. And come to think of it, what weapons/armour is this class allowed to use?

- Into the Shadows could perhaps clarify that the ninja requires some degree of darkness to accomplish this. It would break immersion to have them disappear in the middle of the day and in plain sight while in the middle of a battle. You could alternately make this a smoke bomb/misdirection sort of ability. Asia has had gunpowder since the 9th century, so it's not too big a stretch to imagine this in such a setting.

- Infinite throw is an amusing ability as a sort of advanced cleave. I actually don't hate it since this class trades a lot of hit points to be like this and cleave mechanics can be funny. Dimi is right that this could get absurd in a normal DnD game. It is more gamey, but such a thing could work in a martial arts movie which seems to be more where this is aiming anyway. I think where it gets problematic is that a ninja could probably use this to decimate a small low level army in a single round, which brings into question whether there should be a cap on how much throwing someone could conceivably do in a span of 10 seconds. Maybe a cap on the number of times they can do this? Or maybe each subsequent attack gets less accurate so it naturally tapers off? Another option is just to give them additional throwing attacks like the fighter, though that has less spectacle.

- Untouchable seems fine if you just remove mention of AoO since that's not a thing in BF. Alternately you could give them some kind of tumble ability.

- Prepared strike might be better if it's something they can always do. Having cooldowns makes it feel like a 4E thing. You could do this by changing it to +1 per 10' sacrificed. It's a little less math, at least.

- Assassinate works here.

Okay. That's all I've got for now.

[TrickyNikki]

Hey Guys, thanks for all the feedback! I have changed some stuff up when it comes to mechanics (Haven't looked into the spelling and gramma), so let me know what you think.

I did not really touch infinite throw, because to me it seems like the type of thing that just sounds fun to do and it's not really that broken, especially when all thrown weapons are measly 1d4 damage. At this point, a magic-user can annihilate everything they please in an area of effect, and he needs no ammo and no successful hits on that so... The whole mention of just a single crit, is to do with being able to crit on only one attack