Background: Party all have super amazing stats to play with. I didn't realize the difference between PF and 3.5 when I started, so everyone was given 18 16 15 14 13 12. I like Heroic characters. They are all highly geared. The party consists of an elf Bard/fighter/arcane archer, half elf Silver Dragon Sorceress, human Healer Cleric, and a human Rogue 10/druid 4.
Ninja is built with the same stats and was hired by an angry drug lord who the party ruined.
Drow ninja 14 with 14/26/14/12/14/24 stats.
Feats:Improved Initative, Weapon Finesse, Point blank shot, Rapid Shot, Extra Ki x2, and Stealthy.
Ninja Tricks: Vanishing Trick, Flurry of Stars, Forgotten Talent, Pressure Points, Smoke Bomb, Invisible Blade, and Shadow Clone.
Traits: Reactionary and Forlorn.
Ki Pool of 17 ki points.
Ninja purchased bracers of armor +4, 50 +1 bane shurikens (25 Human, 25 Elves) an Elixer of Hiding, Vision, and Tumbling, a Clamor Box, and wand of knock with 10 charges.
Using the amazing skills and +29 to stealth the ninja is able to sneak into the party's headquarters. He waits until late when most of the party is sleeping. The Clamor box is set to give the ninja 1 minute to prepare. He hides in a shadowed corner and waits. Box wakes the party and they run out to investigate, ninja went invisible right before party opens door and activates Shadow Clones.
Surprise round goes to the ninja and he attacks the Sorceress. Her Flat footed AC is 20. He hits her for 36 damage. Ninja wins initiative (rolled a 13+14). He spends a ki point for Flurry of Stars and uses the Rapid shot feat to throw five stars: Elf Bane Shurikens +18/+18/+18/+18/+13 all at the sorceress and all hitting. Each attack deals 9d6+5 totaling around 150 damage and killing the sorceress outright. Nobody else has see invisibility, so they begin hunting. The cleric casts true seeing on himself (no purge). The next round the ninja goes after the archer in the same way, hitting with 4 attacks for 130 damage and reducing the archers dexterity by 4.
It goes downhill from there. Archer is finished off next round and the ninja hides. His elixer makes his stealth +39 and he lays low until he can isolate the party rogue. Same deal and since the ninja is four levels higher, the rogue is not protected by Uncanny Dodge.
The Cleric was the hardest, but after killing all the party's mook guards it was just a matter of time and patience...and not allowing the cleric to regain spells.
They got what they deserved...told me that they didn't fear a ninja.
nice play.
I guess they got what they deserved for being that vulnerable at lvl 14! (by then most sleep in extradimensional spaces because they don't want a surprise).
the ninja's first attack was inevatably killing the sorcerer, so why do it? except of course if you wanted to make a point.
Also your party seems to be a bit low on the power curve with those class choices (talking of bard and rogue). Hitting them with quite a well made ninja was hard.
I hope you all had fun and noone is angry.
I´m pretty sure that the Ninja Invisiblity effects specifically AREN´T detected by See Invisible.
Though Arcane Sight or Detect Magic may be able to localize their Aura (if Magic Aura isn´t also used)
Brutal encounter though.
They can be seen until the ninja is level 20. The reason to take out the sorceress first was the ONLY choice. Her initiative is +12 and she barely lost the roll. First round for her is a quickened see invisibility followed by a hold monster. With the stats that she has the DC is something horrible like 24ish. The Ninja knows she has this spell and his will save is a measly +10.
They have been led into a false sense of security since I have never hit them at their home base before. They decided to trash talk after destroying an encounter that i had spent a good deal of time on. I mean totally destroyed. So I brought back a villain they left alive.
I gave them a pass and told them that it never happened...only after making them roll new stats for a different game. We've been playing this game for over a year now so I wasn't going to be so mean using a class that, IMHO, is still slightly overpowered.
A rogue needs to take two lesser talents just to be able to get a 5 round invisibility. One lesser trick and one master trick gets improved invisibility is way powerful. Especially when it costs so little. 17 ki points is a lot of invisibility and being able to unload 5 attacks getting 7d6 SA plus poison plus bane will kill just about anything.
Nice job! That's how I build my high-level adversaries - deadly and effecient. Though the Sorceress really did fail, imo. At this level she should have a miss chance for missiles as a free action. At least that's what my players have learned. ;)
I've been fairly easy on my party thus far in game. I've been looking forward to the ninja for a long time now. Personally, I think they should have just made alternate class features for the rogue...like the poisoner or scout archetypes. But I like this new class.
The problem I see with it is that I don't think I'd ever play the rogue if I have the ninja on the table...as written. Big deal, I lose trapfinding and trap sense and I gain a crap load of sweet abilities. Ninja has full access to all of the rogue talents but the rogue has no access to the ninja talents. Ninja gets the best of both worlds. Better in fact.
I think that Invisible Blade needs to be taken out completely. Just having a regular invisibility is powerful. Throw a smoke bomb and then turn invisible. Use stealth to hide and then ambush for another round of Sneak Attacks. Ninja get UMD anyway, so they can buy a wand or scroll. At those prices, it will discourage any cheeze.
Forgotten Trick needs to be changed too. That is one of the first Tricks I take because it means I can have anything I want. I take the most useful of talents and then buy Extra Ki. This ability reminds me of the cheeze with divine metamagic, nightsticks, and extra turning. Though nothing could get that bad. :P
I see a lot of threads with assassinate as a problem. Change the name and be done with it. The ability isn't worth a second thought and I wouldn't take it to be honest. My optimized uber stat ninja would have had a DC 24 save. MOST people won't have more than a 20 or 22 by that level if they use a point buy or roll stats. So a level 20 ninja has a DC of around 26 not mega statted? Any wizard or sorcerer will make the save, if they even get hit, and any figher will make that save.
Forgotten Trick, Flurry of Stars, Pressure Points, Shadow clone, Smoke Bombs, vanishing trick. Ghost Step, Invisible Blade, Shadow Split, and dipping into the rogue talents for Skill Mastery. Those are the only abilities worth any real consideration.
As for my Sorceress player. She has been doing much better. This is her first caster and first time playing anything over tenth level. That she has gotten away from "I cast orb of cold" and moved to "I quicken a haste and cast hold monster on the enemy fighter. Then I move behind the rock." This has me thrilled.
All of my players have been doing this. It takes me punishing them a little...like the archer who always uses pointblank, deadly, rapid. He finally came up against a fighter with full plate, a steel shield, and the missile shield feat. AC was 41 using combat expertise. Suddenly taking a -6 penalty to all his attacks wasn't such a smart idea. Or the Rogue who took skill mastery never rolling and taking 10 on Perception and Disable Device. Suddenly those exceptional locks and traps that were scaled to keep high level adventurers away started causing problems.
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Very nice playtest. The pile of +1 bane shurikens and bunch of buff potions instead of magic items was a little cheesy - something that only a one-shot NPC can get away with - but still, par for the course for a single, high level opponent.
I think this confirms what we've come to expect: the Ninja is not overpowered, he's just right; Rogues are the ones who are behind the curve.
Very nice playtest. The pile of +1 bane shurikens and bunch of buff potions instead of magic items was a little cheesy - something that only a one-shot NPC can get away with - but still, par for the course for a single, high level opponent.
I think this confirms what we've come to expect: the Ninja is not overpowered, he's just right; Rogues are the ones who are behind the curve.
Agreed.
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I agree with BobChuck. We finally have a class that can be as powerful as the wizard!
That said, I'm actually not a big fan of the Ultimate Combat classes yet(I didn't like the Magus at first either).
I will admit that was probably one of the better playtest reads I've seen, and it sounds like it was a blast to run. Good job!
To be fair though, any encounter designed to be a giant F U to the party is going to succeed, whether you use ninjas or not ;)
I agree with BobChuck. We finally have a class that can be as powerful as the wizard!
Could you please explain this?
Nice encounter, but as others mentioned, this ninja had prior knowledge of the party's capabilities because of that apparent past roleplay scenario. And that monstrous DEX may have been involved some how.
Still, pretty neat. Nice to see that a class other than Monk can use shuriken to good effect.
I concur with others, A DM with full knowledge of the Party can easily take them appart with most any class fully stated out and equiped to dismantle them. This isnt new to Ninja's.
Any encounter where you stack the odds in the favor of the NPC is going to be a TPK. Sorry, it's true. You could have done the exact same thing with a rogue, just having him use UMD with some wands instead of Ninja abilities.
The NPC was built for a one-shot 'kill you all' and no thoughts to survival beyond the hit. It's realistic, assassins often didn't plan beyond the kill, they didn't have to. They either survived or didn't, so the thought is to maximize chances of success and survival.
However, if you hit them in their sleep, unarmored, unprepared, then of course you're going to win. Sorry, not being snarky, just saying it doesn't work as a playtest to show they are overpowered. A wizard could have snuck in using teleport and started casting symbol trap spells all over the rooms they were sleeping in, and carried a dozen or so scrolls in with him (all silenced). Then the first one to wake up and look at the 23 trap sygils on the wall sets off a giant explosion that burns them to a crisp, and wakes everyone else up who also looks around in confusion and get's blown up.
Doesn't make the wizard/sorcerer/etc broken, just means the GM stacked the deck against the players in such a way they had no chance.
Same deal and since the ninja is four levels higher, the rogue is not protected by Uncanny Dodge.
You got this bit of the rules wrong; a 4 level advantage lets you beat Improved Uncanny Dodge and flank someone with it, but a level 4 rogue (or level 2 barbarian) with normal Uncanny Dodge retains his dex bonus vs. even a 1000th level invisible rogue or ninja.
So, just to get this straight - the party took down a drug dealer (one of the lowliest pieces of scum I can imagine, in real life or in game) and you got pissed and decided to create a scenario to kill them off? Unarmored, and unequipped?
This scenario stands as a testament not to the glory of the ninja (which is a pretty cool class) but as a cautionary tale against vengeful, onion-skinned GMs who are out to teach the party a lesson for doing their jobs! Excellent work!
***mocking, overly long joker applause***
And then when the ninja slept a commoner slit his throat.
Nerf Commoners!!!!!
I completely agree
Commeners are to powerful even for an NPC class. They should have the lowest Hit die, Lowest skills, no weapon or armor proficiencies, bad BAB, no good saves and no class abilities
This reminds me of the guy who claimed that Wiz16/Ftr1 was more powerful than Wiz17 because that fighter level enabled him to wear heavy armour, cast antimagic field and then beat the pure wizard to death with a martial weapon, his extra HP and better AC and attack bonus.
With those odds, a regular rogue with a wand would have done the same. Or even without the wand.
A party that hardly defends against invisible enemies and rushes out without preparation will fall against level 1 kobolds! (Okay, almost ;-))
I must agree the knowledge and preperation that the npc had seemed to be to be bordering on Meta gaming on your side. Sure it would make sense for him to have had info on the PCs from the beaten villian but I doubt he would know everything. Furthermore it seemed you just wanted to one up your players, you made it personal. Though I am not saying who you targeted didn't make sense.
What stopped you from just killing them while they slept? I see no reason why a ninja or rogue or anyone would wait if they had the drop on them, unless the point was to warn them to kill some and leave the others shocked and afraid.
Now on the lines of the Ninja I dont really think it is overpowered, it does seem slightly more powerful than the class it was born from but thats for play testing and tuning. But I dont really feel that played a part with the massacre of your party.
I noticed the npc has traits. I've seen this on a few play test npc the Pc only bit appears to be ignored a fair bit?
And then when the ninja slept a commoner slit his throat.
Nerf Commoners!!!!!
I completely agree
Commeners are to powerful even for an NPC class. They should have the lowest Hit die, Lowest skills, no weapon or armor proficiencies, bad BAB, no good saves and no class abilities
PF is the Commoner Edition. It advantages commoner with new stats PB and they raised the HD to d6 too.
@Dragonborn3: thanks for the link.
I noticed the npc has traits. I've seen this on a few play test npc the Pc only bit appears to be ignored a fair bit?
Not to mention that forlorn isn't for drow, only for elves. There are no drow growing up among non-drow to become "forlorn", anyway.
Hm. I wonder what the point buy values were for those stats.
18 16 15 14 13 12 is like, 17, 10, 7, 5, 3 and 2. So 42 point buy.
14/24/14/14/14/22
So uh these... are these his base stats? +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Con. So with adjustments I guess these are?
You didn't mention buying magical items so I'll assume they are.
5, x, 5, 5, 5, x.
x is a number so high I have to generate a new point buy value for it. One sec.
16 is 10, 17 is 13, 18 is 17. 19 is 21, 20 is 26, 21 is 31, 22 is 37, 23 is 43, 24 is 50.
5, 50, 5, 5, 5, 37.
107 point buy.
Um.
Ummmmmm.
EDIT: With 107 point buy, I could play a character with a stat block of 18/18/18/18/18/19. I really hope he has like a +6 belt of dex and a +6 headband of charisma.
I gave pun pun 14 levels of ninja and pwned my party! AWWW YEAH!
Umm you cant rapid shot AND flurry.
All I got out of reading this is OP hates his players and probably shouldn't be a DM.
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Not to mention that forlorn isn't for drow, only for elves. There are no drow growing up among non-drow to become "forlorn", anyway.
Is PF still doing the 'drow are not elves' thing? If so, couldn't he say he took that trait as an elf and then transformed into a drow via the 'PF believes elves are Transformers' thing?
You got this bit of the rules wrong; a 4 level advantage lets you beat Improved Uncanny Dodge and flank someone with it, but a level 4 rogue (or level 2 barbarian) with normal Uncanny Dodge retains his dex bonus vs. even a 1000th level invisible rogue or ninja.
Same deal and since the ninja is four levels higher, the rogue is not protected by Uncanny Dodge.
This. Hopefully the players pointed out this.
Although with Shurikens of Vengeful GM Cheese, I doubt it would have mattered much.|
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Not to mention that forlorn isn't for drow, only for elves. There are no drow growing up among non-drow to become "forlorn", anyway.Is PF still doing the 'drow are not elves' thing? If so, couldn't he say he took that trait as an elf and then transformed into a drow via the 'PF believes elves are Transformers' thing?
No, the point is the trait is supposed to be for an elf raised among humans. This would never happen with drow on Golarion.
No, the point is the trait is supposed to be for an elf raised among humans. This would never happen with drow on Golarion.Not to mention that forlorn isn't for drow, only for elves. There are no drow growing up among non-drow to become "forlorn", anyway.Is PF still doing the 'drow are not elves' thing? If so, couldn't he say he took that trait as an elf and then transformed into a drow via the 'PF believes elves are Transformers' thing?
The drow could have been born an elf and spontaneously 'combusted' in a drow, just like allevrah in SD and that other dude does so the PC's can waste him.
However, drow ARE elves and elf bane DOES work against DROW (as does favored enemy ELF) we used elf bane dagger and favored enemy in SD campaign quite a bit.
It does sound as if the DM here was determined to make a lesson out of this. I probably wouldn't have liked it as a player if a buffed up tailored NPC with bags full of cheesy ammo wiped out my woke up in the middle of the night party, and I probably wouldn't accept the "do-over, I just wanted to pwn you" offer and would have rolled up a new character.
I agree with those who say a rogue with similar buffs and equipment could have done the same thing, as could a wizard, cleric or even druid.
I do think the players, as described by the OP, did show a remarkable level of naivetee and lack of crisis management for a group playing 14th level characters, but surely there was a better way to teach them this "lesson".
Lets think about this from a storyline perspective.
AT SOME POINT a Ninja got the job of ganking a whole party.
Now given that this is a fairly experienced and high end master assassin, this guy would have spent every last waking minute using every available resource to learn everything about the party, and would have been observing (through various means) their movements, habits etc...
So yeah, a little Meta is fine - that Ninja would have planned this thing to a brutal tee - and would be very unlikely to have any surprises.
Players rely on meta all the time, to their benefit - so at least allow the NPC's the benefit of professional common sense, and not have them running around like rank amateurs.
Lets think about this from a storyline perspective.
AT SOME POINT a Ninja got the job of ganking a whole party.
Now given that this is a fairly experienced and high end master assassin, this guy would have spent every last waking minute using every available resource to learn everything about the party, and would have been observing (through various means) their movements, habits etc...
So yeah, a little Meta is fine - that Ninja would have planned this thing to a brutal tee - and would be very unlikely to have any surprises.
In general, I think most posters agree that any paid "assassin", regardless of class level, would have prepared as much as possible and then attacked when the party was least prepared. However, at some point, too much Meta-planning runs the risk of overshadowing fun. I
think the bigger point being made is the fact that a 107 point buy ultra-prepared 14th level Ninja accomplished a TPK isn't really an indication of the excessive power of the Ninja. The point is, and I agree with this myself, that virtually any class with such high stats and such good preparation/equipment would have the same outcome. So the OP's example has real little bearing on the relative capability of the Ninja.
In general, I think most posters agree that any paid "assassin", regardless of class level, would have prepared as much as possible and then attacked when the party was least prepared. However, at some point, too much Meta-planning runs the risk of overshadowing fun. I think the bigger point being made is the fact that a 107 point buy ultra-prepared 14th level Ninja accomplished a TPK isn't really an indication of the excessive power of the Ninja. The point is, and I agree with this myself, that virtually any class with such high stats and such good preparation/equipment would have the same outcome. So the OP's example has real little bearing on the relative capability of the Ninja.
Yep, that was the point I got (and made) up above.
No, the point is the trait is supposed to be for an elf raised among humans. This would never happen with drow on Golarion.Not to mention that forlorn isn't for drow, only for elves. There are no drow growing up among non-drow to become "forlorn", anyway.Is PF still doing the 'drow are not elves' thing? If so, couldn't he say he took that trait as an elf and then transformed into a drow via the 'PF believes elves are Transformers' thing?
BUZZZ
Thanks for playing. :)
Sorry 0gre, I seem to be pointing this out a lot lately. But, not everyone is playing in Golarion!.
I didn't see any mention of anything Golarion specific in the OPs post (I grant I could have missed it).
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If one of the world's greatest assassins is looking for detailed schematics on the party, I would hope that the party's chief information gatherers would have some opportunity to find out about it.
"Somebody's tossing around 5-pound bags of gold for any information about what kind of weapons you found in that sunken ship last month."
I'm curious to know how this encounter would have panned out if the NPC wasn't full of cheese and the PC's had one round to get their act together (assuming the NPC is NOT able to outright kill a 14th level PC in one round). I mean sure, he will still divide and conquer, that is a good strategy, but I think his equipment and knowledge gave him an outstanding advantage. Not all assassination plots go without a hitch.
If one of the world's greatest assassins is looking for detailed schematics on the party, I would hope that the party's chief information gatherers would have some opportunity to find out about it.
...If they had such a thing.
Most players just aren't that paranoid, and unfortunately most games just aren't that detailed.
BTW, I think a Rogue could have done the exact same thing, with this level of gearing (not to mention stats) some items/scrolls giving Greater Invisibility is not even a stretch... And that allows round-after-round Full Attacks, which is all that killed the party. Dust of Disappearance is one of the more broken items in the game, because besides being cheap it´s immune to See Invis/True Seeing! And throw in some DIRT CHEAP elemental gems to summon some large elementals (under a silence effect or otherwise stealthily ahead of ambushing)... HEY, a perfectly legal CR challenge to murder the PCs with!
My party's rogue can take out any one opponent of equal level if he gets the drop on them.
The fact that the party didn't have a backup kit at that level amazes me. My party's rogue has a bunch of scrolls to UMD if needed. Our cleric has the spell to bring someone back during the round after death. So no glitterdust? No invisibility purge?
A similarly built rogue with a scroll of improved invisibility could have done the same to the party. Clearly the rogue is broken too.
Honestly, the only part of this that really strikes me as at all odd are the Ninja's stats. I mean, the players were built with an 18/16/15/14/13/12 array. Looking at the Ninja's stats, I assume he started with 14/18/15/12/13/16, bumped to 14/20/13/12/13/18 by racial, and 14/21/14/12/14/18 by leveling. I assume the other 5 DEX and 6 CHA come from either unmentioned gear or Tome usage. This is likely just an oversight in his listed equipment. Either way, his final array certainly isn't any more ridiculous than what I'd expect the party to have with that starting array at that level. Heck, the Sorceress was probably sitting at a 29 CHA with just leveling and a +CHA headband.
Other than that bit of weirdness, the assassin had a tactical advantage versus a home-field advantage. It's explicitly stated the party even had mooks guarding the base. I assume hired Warriors, but what level? This and the other defenses on the home base that the ninja had to handle probably need to be quantified here.
Also, he could have started things off with a coup-de-grace on at least one character while they were still asleep, but chose to set off an alarm next to their bedroom and let them get up first instead, which was actually surprisingly honorable.
So was the fight cheap? Perhaps, though not nearly as much so as some people seem to indicate, or as it could have been. With a +39 stealth, the DM could have probably outright destroyed the party while they slept with that Ninja without even waking them up.
right... the PCs should easily have been able to discern from where the attacks were coming from (from what side the shurikens were sticking on the bodies at least, not to mention once they leave the ninjas hands that reveals the exact square), and Full Attacking narrows down his move options to 5´ steps, so he can´t be far away from where the shuriken were thrown. Besides Glitterdust, which is really more reliable than See Invis/True Seeing/Invis Purge, you can conjure/evoke a wall, AoE the area, etc, etc. Dust of Appearance is dirt cheap, and can presumbly be drawn and thrown like a weapon, and even Fighters with 1 skill rank/level can use it just fine.
I´m pretty sure that the Ninja Invisiblity effects specifically AREN´T detected by See Invisible.
Uh, no? They are exactly like Invisibility and Greater Invisibility.