A non-ninja ninja

[Cuchulainn]

My 7-year old son is very interested in starting (as a player) in his own D&D game (with me as the DM).

He is a HUGE Naruto fan and wants his character to be a leaf-village-type ninja.

I was wondering if there were any ideas out there for some ninja concepts using a core class other than the Ninja. I know the MONK is an obvious choice, but what about something more unusual?

I came up with one concept using the Duskblade. Human, Starting feats: exotic weapon - shuriken, and Improved unarmed strike. Starting spells: burning hands and shocking grasp (yes, he likes Sasuke the best).

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

[Granfather]

Human rouge with improved unarmed strike. Beng a dm you can say kama or throing stars are class proficentcy's for him. if you have accece to Tome of battle:book of the Nine swords, Sword Sages convert easly to ninja theme aspecaly a nartuo nija theme.
(ps Sorry for spelling errors)

[Cuchulainn]

Granfather wrote:

Human rouge with improved unarmed strike. Beng a dm you can say kama or throing stars are class proficentcy's for him. if you have accece to Tome of battle:book of the Nine swords, Sword Sages convert easly to ninja theme aspecaly a nartuo nija theme.

(ps Sorry for spelling errors)

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't have Tome of Battle, unfortunately.

The rogue is pretty ninja-like, but lacks the Gen-jutsu/ninjutsu power-options (which is one of his favorite aspects of the show). The rogue or maybe even the barbarian might make a good Rock Lee-type build, though.

would a psychic warrior be a good build? Maybe even a cleric, druid or bard?

[Khezial Tahr]

Actually... as a fan myself I'd say almost any class will work. Not all the ninja are "stealthy" types. Naruto himself has a big mouth and not a bit of stealth in him. ;)

With that, Duskblades work very well, Warmages too. To get more jutsu in the game, you'd probably have to have more split classed guys. This way you can easily cover they variety of types of ninja.

[pres man]

Drop the multiclass rule from monks and let him be a monk/sorcerer. That should handle anything you need.

[Hunterofthedusk]

I once had a very ninja-like character. It was a human rogue; I took the Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Windmill Shuriken) feat, which the weapon was custom made for me by the DM. 1d8 slashing damage, 10ft range increment, 3 pounds, x2 crit, folded up and sheathed into a clip on my character's forearm. Folded, it was as big as my character's forearm, so unfolded it was pretty big and every time I threw it I laughed because I just pictured how crazy wicked that weapon was. My DM said that rogues were proficient with shuriken, so I had a ton of those. As for using magical effects, I had use magic device and used scrolls, since that seems to be a central theme in many ninja-themes, reading slips of paper to have magical effects. mostly it was just simple level-1 scrolls, like obscuring mist or spider climb (this was in 3.0 when spider climb was a lvl 1 spell, and when I dm it still is, even though I've mostly converted to 3.5. Also, darkness is still in it's glory, as are the spells like bulls strength and cats grace with their 1 hour/level durations.). With all of the skill points, I maxed out climb, move silently, hide, balance, UMD, jump, tumble, use rope, bluff, and disguise. It was great fun.

[SmiloDan]

Maybe Spellthief/Duskblade multi-class?

[Saurstalk]

Sorry - don't follow Naruto. But I was going to suggest that a Monk/Rogue is a noteworthy replacement for a ninja class.

[Cato Novus]

Try taking a Rogue, add the Monk's unarmed damage and armor bonus as he levels, the Bard's spell progression(although with more appropriately themed spells) with the spells based off either INT or WIS, and a mix of weapons you find most appropriate.

[SmiloDan]

Is this for a campaign where it's just you and your son? If so, try going Gestalt.

[Cuchulainn]

SmiloDan wrote:

Is this for a campaign where it's just you and your son? If so, try going Gestalt.

That's still up in the air. He's trying to recruit friends from school to play with him, but apparently none of them have geek parents who play (or used to play) rpgs.

If we actually get together a group, I'll probably go with the duskblade.

If it ends up solo, I may resort a gestalt monk/sorcerer.

[Shisumo]

Depending on what level you start at, the Ascetic Mage feat lets you multiclass between the sorcerer and monk classes, and keep some of your monk class features while you're doing it.

[Digitalelf]

there is a d20 "version" of Naruto available for free on PDF at www.narutod20.com

It is for use with d20 Modern, but hey, the price is right (and besides, the two systems aren't that different):-)

The web site says you are unable to print the file (something about that feature being locked), but you actually can, it's just that the book itself does not have any page numbers. But the adobe bookmarks go by chapter, and that allows you to more easily find the page(s) you want (thus allowing you to print the section(s) that you want)...

-That One Digitalelf Fellow-

[Rezdave]

Cuchulainn wrote:

The rogue is pretty ninja-like, but lacks the Gen-jutsu/ninjutsu power-options

You previously specified "Core" ... which means pretty much limiting yourself to Rogue or Monk, perhaps with a Sorcerer multi-class.

For a newb and a kid I'd stick to single-class, but shake it up a bit.

My inclination would be to use Rogue as the template, but then drop all of the Sneak Attack bonus dice and instead open them up as "Power Slots" and create a range of powers that can fill them as chosen.

Perhaps use the Pathfinder Barbarian's rage points as inspiration for a daily-allowance of power points for his "ninja-powers" that he uses to fill these slots. You could also fill them with appropriate feats, Monk Special Abilities or even just fill back in some good, old-fashioned Sneak Attack dice here and there.

HTH,

Rez

[Zynete]

If by core you meant a twenty level base class then one option for the spellcasting portion might be the shugenja from Complete Divine if you have it. They cast from a known spell list similar to a sorcerer, but the spells of the class are tied to the elements fire, water, air, and earth which might give more of a Naruto-vibe than a sorcerer might.