Rogue vs. Ninja DPR race!

[Ardenup]

Hi,

Not seeing how the ninja is overpowered. More mobile? Yes, Harder to hit? yes, better DPR? not really.

Not that Pure DPR is a total measure of usefulness but the ninja doesn't seem to have a massive advantage over the rogue here:

Human- for Extra talent favored ability Or
Half- Elf with ancestral weapon: Curve blade and skill fcs:intimidate and racial +2 vs enchantment
or
Half Orc for falchion and intimidating and darkvision

In any point buy, dump Int to 7 and cha to 7. You're a killer, not a face.
You'll still get 6 or 7 skill points.
Max STR to 19 (17+2) at level 1, get a decent dex and con.

Have the Birth Mark trait.

Rogue (scout)
1 SA 1d6, Trapfinding, Martial Weapon Prof: Longsword, Intimidating Prowess
2 Wpn Fcs: Longsword, Evasion
3 SA 2d6, Trap Sense +1, Power Attack
4 Dazzling Display, Scout’s Charge
5 SA 3d6, Furious Focus
6 Trap Sense +2, Slow Reactions, Human Favored- Fast stealth
7 SA 4d6, Conrugan Smash
8 Offensive Defense, Skirmisher
9 SA 5d6, Trap Sense +3, Shatter Defenses
10 Opportunist
11 SA 6d6, Cleave or Outflank
12 Slippery Mind, trap sense +4, Human Favored-Trapspotter
13 SA 7d6, Extra Talent: Crippling Strike
14 Resiliency
15 SA 8d6, Trap Sense +5, Extra Talent: Hunter’s Surprise
16 Assault Leader
17 SA 9d6, Blindfight
18 Another Day, Trap Sense +6, Defensive Roll
19 SA 10d6, Shadow Strike
20 Redirect Attack, Master Strike

The main enchantment on your weapon you need is Subtle. Adds +4 to hit and damage on a SA.

This guy auto SA's on a charge or any move over 10ft. (+2 for charging, +4 for subtle, Furious Focus means no PA penalty)

Any power attack that hits (with furious focus likely nearly always) auto triggers an intimidate (with around a +6 or +7 feat bonus depending on Skill focus or Intimidating Prowess)

The now shaken enemy is flat footed to you (auto SA with constant +4 from subtle) for at least a round. Further PA hits trigger a new check to keep the condition going for a few rounds...

For those enemies that will be immune to Intimidate: Hunter's suprise.

Has pretty good AC: Offensive Defence + Chain shirt, dex and the rest (around 40 or more with the SA AC bonus)

My point here is while the Ninja May be able to do this build. he's have no room for the supernatural stuff, which seems to be the reason people want to take the class...

[kaisc006]

lvl 20 is way to high to compare anyone's DPR. It is well known that around lvl 20 the game becomes rather unbalanced because there are just too many factors players can bring to the table. If you want a good DPR comparison, head over to DPR OLYMPICS, follow the guidelines mentioned in the first post, and once you have done the math and such post your build.

[Seeker of skybreak]

Just skimmed your post but if you are going to start doing DPR comparisons between the rogue and ninja then you should probably just use the core rogue and not an archetype. The ninja is essentially an archetype and not a new class and I think it would defeat the point your trying to make by comparing to another archetype.

Also, DPR would only have to be figured up for the Ninja as you can pull from the DPR olympics for rogue builds.

Edit: Ninja'd (ironic considering the topic) by kaisc006. He even linked it. I still think my point about archetypes has merit though.

[IkeDoe]

The problem is that the high level ninja uses Great Invisibility and gets SA everytime he attacks, without having to invest resources in Intimidate related stuff, he doesn't need to buy wands or leech other players resources either. Invisibility allows him to move without provocking AoOs, and gives 50% concealment too.
For the Rogue build, the DC to Intimidate a monster at this level goes from 25 to 35 iirc, so Skill Focus or moderate Cha is needed if you want to auto-succeed.

At 20th level it's even worse, if the enemy can see invisibility (something that most demons and high level wizards can do) the Ninja can use Hidden Master.

I don't think the Ninja is extremely overpowered, but what I get from that build is that the Ninja needs at least fine-tuning.
As you say "More mobile? Yes, Harder to hit? yes, better DPR? not really." The worse thing of the Ninja is that it can't do more damage than the rogue, and the best thing is that it is better in other ways = power creep.

[kaisc006]

IkeDoe wrote:

The problem is that the high level ninja uses Great Invisibility and gets SA everytime he attacks, without having to invest resources in Intimidate related stuff, he doesn't need to buy wands or leech other players resources either. Invisibility allows him to move without provocking AoOs, and gives 50% concealment too.

For the Rogue build, the DC to Intimidate a monster at this level goes from 25 to 35 iirc, so Skill Focus or moderate Cha is needed if you want to auto-succeed.

As you say "More mobile? Yes, Harder to hit? yes, better DPR? not really." The worse thing of the Ninja is that it can't do more damage than the rogue, and the best thing is that it is better in other ways = power creep.

I'm not sure how you get the ninja doesn't have better DPR than the rogue. Take a look at post 616 and 617 in Optimized Ninjas. Ned the Not so Ninja is a multi-classed inquisitor/ninja which can be comparable to the typical rogue/martial class. It would be rather simple to turn this into a rogue build and get similar DPR, however the ki extra attack jumps the ninja up a lot. Tiny Tim is a full dex ninja build which can be comparable to a full dex rogue build. The same can be said in that both would have similar DPR where the ninja pulls ahead with his extra ki attack.

The ninja has a slight edge over the rogue in terms of DPR. If he is going invisible all the time he is using up ki that could be reserved for extra attacks. IMHO they are quite balanced in that the rogue has a bunch of skill and survival tricks up his sleeve while the ninja has combat and stealth. You could further add to the frailty of the ninja by restricting their abilities to light armor... Haha but that's a discussion presented in another thread.

[kaisc006]

Seeker of skybreak wrote:

I still think my point about archetypes has merit though.

I'm not going to agree or disagree with the argument over whether the ninja should be an archetype. IMHO since the ninja is an alternate class comparable to the rogue and his archetypes, then we as playtesters should pit her against the most optimized rogue builds; archetype or not. Then the devs can decide for themselves.

[Ardenup]

kaisc006 wrote:

lvl 20 is way to high to compare anyone's DPR. It is well known that around lvl 20 the game becomes rather unbalanced because there are just too many factors players can bring to the table. If you want a good DPR comparison, head over to DPR OLYMPICS, follow the guidelines mentioned in the first post, and once you have done the math and such post your build.

Check the build. It has the Conrugan smash trick wrapped up by level 9. At 10 (The first level the ninja can do thier Gtr invisibility trick- at the cost of a limited resource) the rogue can do his intimidate trick all day long. Taking Oppourtunist in a team scenario (which i prefer since fights rarely happen in a vaccum) UPS dpr quite a bit.

I'm simply saying ninja might equal safer (invis trick, mirror image trick), but it may not equal better melee.

[Ross Byers]

I removed a post. Civility is encouraged.