Ninja

The Pros and Cons of a Ninja

The popular image of the ninja is a stealthy killer who can materialize out of nowhere like a ghost and loose a storm of blades or fists. Once she has devastated her foe, she moves on as mysteriously as she came.

Ninja Assets

When you choose a ninja, you get fighting skill, plus a long list of special abilities that make the character more effective in combat, give her extra mobility, and literally allow her to disappear. You can use these abilities to make your ninja a silent killer if you choose, but that stereotype is not your only option. She might also function as a spy, a cat burglar, a tireless explorer, a peasant hero, a flashy acrobat, or any combination of these archetypes. Below are several assets you have going for you when you choose a ninja.

• • Ki Powers: Starting at 1st level, a ninja has a pool of internal energy that she can focus to enhance her body or mind. As long as she keeps at least some ki in reserve, she also gains a +2 bonus on her Will saves.

  • Other effects that a ninja can achieve by expending ki are described below. Her ninja level and Wisdom bonus determine how often she can use her ki each day, as noted in the ninja class description.

• Armor Class Bonus: A ninja has a sixth sense when it comes to warding off physical attacks. When she is unarmored, unencumbered, and not immobilized, she adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her Armor Class against all forms of attack, even touch attacks. She also gains an additional +1 bonus to Armor Class at 5th level and every five levels thereafter.

  • Fairly Good Attack Bonus: A ninja's base attack bonus -- +3 per four levels -- is second only to that of the fighter and other more martial classes. Though it's not the best in the game, it does give the ninja a decent chance to hit her foes.

• Sudden Strike: A ninja can deal extra damage to any foe who is denied his Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (if any). Sudden strike is similar to the rogue's sneak attack ability, though it is slightly less flexible because it doesn't work against foes that the ninja merely flanks.

  • Good Reflex Saves: A ninja uses the best save progression in the game for Reflex saves (see Table 3-1 in the Player's Handbook). This natural grace helps her avoid most effects that could deal damage or entrap her, such as area spells, entanglement, and many traps.

  • High Skill Points: With 6 skill points per level, even a ninja with a poor Intelligence score has plenty of skill points to spend.

  • Good Skill Selection: The ninja has a long list of class skills, most of which serve to make her perceptive, self-sufficient, agile, and sly. With her broad skill selection and plentiful skill points, she can be a stealthy commando, a crafty pickpocket, or any kind of character in between.

  • Finding Traps: Starting at 1st level, a ninja can use the Search skill to locate traps. This ability can make infiltrating enemy strongholds and exploring dungeons or ruins much less risky.

  • Ghostly Footsteps: A ninja can become amazingly stealthy just by focusing her ki. Beginning at 2nd level, she can become invisible for 1 round. This ability comes in handy for quick escapes or slipping past the most vigilant sentries. At 10th level, she can become ethereal for 1 round instead of merely invisible. This ability lets her literally walk through walls and sneak past foes that can smell or hear invisible opponents. At 20th level, she can remain ethereal for several rounds at a time to perform extended reconnaissance, engage in prolonged ethereal combat, and pull off miraculous escapes.

  • Envenomed Weaponry: Beginning at 3rd level, a ninja can apply poison to her weapons without the usual chance to poison herself (see page 296 in the Dungeon Master's Guide). Starting at 9th level, she can apply poison to a weapon as a move action rather than a standard action. This ability can bring poison into play so quickly that foes may not notice its presence until they're already committed to combat.

  • Impressive Leaps: When she attains 4th level, a ninja makes Jump checks as though she had the Run feat plus a running start, even when making standing jumps.

  • Impressive Acrobatics: Beginning at 6th level, a ninja gains a +2 bonus on Climb, Jump, and Tumble checks. This bonus increases by +2 every six ninja levels thereafter.

  • Amazing Dodges: Starting at 6th level, a ninja can focus her ki to give foes a 20% miss chance on attacks against her for 1 round. When she attains 18th level, the miss chance increases to 50%.

  • Speedy Climbing: When a ninja attains 7th level, she can climb vertical surfaces at her land speed rather than at half speed (see the Climb skill description), provided that she has at least one free hand and can begin and end her movement on a horizontal surface. This ability isn't quite the equivalent of walking up walls, but it comes close.

  • Striking the Incorporeal: Starting at 8th level, a ninja can focus her ki to strike incorporeal or ethereal foes as if they were corporeal and present on the Material Plane.

  • Evasion: At 12th level, a ninja gains the evasion class feature (see the Rogue class feature in the Player's Handbook), but only when unencumbered and unarmored. This ability allows her an excellent chance to avoid all damage from attacks that fill large areas.

  • Ghostly Mind: Starting at 14th level, a ninja becomes difficult to locate through spells of the scrying subschool. This ability helps her vanish from many kinds of magical sight and nicely augments her ability to elude a foe's nonmagical vision.

  • Ghostly Sight: Beginning at 16th level, a ninja can see invisible and ethereal creatures and objects just as well as she can see normal ones.

Ninja Weaknesses

As with any class in this game, the ninja's advantages come at a price. Below are a few of the disadvantages you should keep in mind if you're considering a ninja character.

• • Poor Fortitude and Will Saves: Because a ninja has the worst progression for Fortitude and Will saves in the game (see Table 3-1 in the Player's Handbook), she isn't good at shrugging off effects that attack her body or mind. However, her ki power helps offset her poor Will save, as does the fact that she probably has a high Wisdom score so that she can make optimal use of her ki powers and Armor Class bonus.

• Mediocre Hit Points: The ninja's 6-sided Hit Dice give her hit point total that's fairly low for a character with so many offensive combat capabilities.

• Mediocre Armor Class: A ninja has no proficiency with armor or shields, but she gains a level-based Armor Class bonus and can use her Wisdom bonus (if any) to improve Armor Class. Ninjas also tend to have high Dexterity scores so that they can make the most of their sudden strike class feature, and this innate agility also improves Armor Class in most situations. The ninja's ki power can also provide a potent defense. These considerations allow her a reasonable Armor Class, but not a great one. As a result, she tends to be more vulnerable to damage in battle than other martial characters, especially if the combat lasts more than a few rounds.

• Mediocre Weapon Selection: The ninja has proficiency with simple weapons and a handful of fairly small martial and exotic weapons. This selection allows her plenty of choices when it comes to weaponry, but no really outstanding options.