One of the great pleasures of this hobby is taking a crack at old fan-favorites and drafting them into 5th edition, making them work within existing schema in imaginative ways.
This in mind, the ninja is a shadowy roguish archetype that uses Ki, same as a monk, to activate quasi-spiritual abilities while straight-up assassinating folks.
Sounds fun? Of course it does, it's a ninja. Let's see what it can do:
FEATURES:
- Choice of two of four ki-based abilities at 3rd, 9th, and 13th level, focusing on utility, combat, and utility respectively.
- Deliver a Deathblow to reroll Sneak Attack dice at 17th level by spending Ki.
- A 1/3 caster Ki system, based on the class assumption of the monk as a half-caster.
CONCERNS:
- Ki abilities cost either 1 ki or 3 ki, which I figure is a good general representation of their utility, but may be too bland or not balanced correctly - it's hard to tell.
- Class options that have a "choice of" abilities can end up having a lack of flavor, as with early drafts of my Vampire PrC. I don't think that's the case here, but I could be wrong.
- I make the assumption that the monk is approximately a half-caster in regards to ki - a fair assumption given how much punching monks do, but also one that could be wrong.
- Ki is mostly a damage resource to monks, but to ninja it is mostly a utility resource. I don't see this as much of an issue, but it could have ramifications I haven't thought of.
- 10 + total character level for a saving throw is kind of odd and unprecedented, but I specifically didn't want to tie the saves to a secondary stat. Save-using options for this archetype are few and far between, and a player could easily avoid taking them to avoid having to put points in a secondary stat, so I didn't want to disincentivize the options in that way.
WHAT I LEARNED:
- Making 1/3-caster options out of alternative resource systems is possible. I wonder what else I could apply that idea to.
Great Work, as usual.
ReplyDeleteHere are a few concerns of mine:
Making the Ki save DC rely entirely on your rogue level instead of prof. + an ability score makes tgis archetype a very weak choice for multiclassing.
Everything is a weapon is worded somewhat complicated, why not just give the ninja prof with improvised weapons as part of the bonus proficiencies.
Due to the low DC smoke bomb, while being super flavourful for a ninja, will not be taken that often I fear since the other choices are quite great contenders themselves and do not rely on an opponent failing their save.
Other than that it really seems quite solid. The 2/3 of level ki points progression seems to working quite well and "feels" like being in the right ballpark
>Making the Ki save DC rely entirely on your rogue level instead of prof. + an ability score makes tgis archetype a very weak choice for multiclassing.
DeleteI feel you, but with so few saves required by this class, I don't really want to make it stat-dependent. So that's the conundrum I'm in, here.
If I, say, made the Ki saves 8+Prof+WIS, it'd be easy enough for people who just didn't want to fuck with WIS to just avoid every option that requires a save, which is also something I don't want to encourage.
A better option could be 10+(half of total character level, round down), which would allow the save to scale with multiclass while not being stat-dependent. What do you think?
>Everything is a weapon is worded somewhat complicated, why not just give the ninja prof with improvised weapons as part of the bonus proficiencies.
Is there a way to do that, and to allow a ninja to sneak attack someone with a thrown bottle?
Because I like your idea, I just don't want to give up the few good things that my mountain of explanatory text manages to give, in spite of itself.
>The 2/3 of level ki points progression seems to working quite well and "feels" like being in the right ballpark
Cool, very glad to hear.
I initially gave 1 every 3 levels, but that felt kind of crap and like you'd have to multiclass monk to do anything fun.
">Everything is a weapon is worded somewhat complicated, why not just give the ninja prof with improvised weapons as part of the bonus proficiencies.
DeleteIs there a way to do that, and to allow a ninja to sneak attack someone with a thrown bottle?
Because I like your idea, I just don't want to give up the few good things that my mountain of explanatory text manages to give, in spite of itself."
The second paragraph of imrpovised weapons on p.147 allows for improvised weapons to be wielded just like the weapon the resemble the most. This would allow for sneak attack if the improvised weapon would be suitably sneaky, but not for example if you wield a heavy wooden beam (which I would rule as a greatclub).
What I really like about your current wall of text are the examples you give like the walking stick rapier, but I feel theese would fair better in a sidebar instead of as part of a rather long rule section.
">Making the Ki save DC rely entirely on your rogue level instead of prof. + an ability score makes tgis archetype a very weak choice for multiclassing.
I feel you, but with so few saves required by this class, I don't really want to make it stat-dependent. So that's the conundrum I'm in, here.
If I, say, made the Ki saves 8+Prof+WIS, it'd be easy enough for people who just didn't want to fuck with WIS to just avoid every option that requires a save, which is also something I don't want to encourage.
A better option could be 10+(half of total character level, round down), which would allow the save to scale with multiclass while not being stat-dependent. What do you think?"
Love it. It is unprecedented but considering that normally DCs range from 10 to 20 (unless you have an ability score below 10 which you probably would never have on the score determining your DCs) in this new solution of yours you would have 10-20 but with a more gradual increase.
If we take a 6th level character for example DC 13 would feel somewhat lowish for a fulltime caster but just about right for someone using it for utility one-off abilities