Pathfinder Society & Class Variants - Ninja


Rules Questions

Shadow Lodge

In building a Ninja for Pathfinder Society, I noticed there are no class variants for ninja. Now, there are a ton of Rogue class variants, some of them with reqs. that Ninjas can satisfy (since Pathfinder Rogues and Ninjas are remarkably similar - to the point where Ninja probably should have just been a Rogue variant itself XD). From what I can see, there has been plenty of house rule discussions on allowing such an option, but since I'm intending on running this character in sanctioned games, I was wondering if anyone knew if there was an official ruling on this? Specifically, I really love the "Scout" variant.

It would be pretty sad if you couldn't, after all, Ninjas don't seem to get any variant love.

Silver Crusade

Ninja is an Alternative class to the Rogue ... As such it benefits from a lot of similarities but loses out in other areas, generally most people agree Ninja is "better" than rogue due to its Ki and whatnot but to my knowledge there are very few archetypes for Alternative classes because the class in and of itself is a large archetype.


Ninja basically IS a Rogue variant.

You lose trapfinding and such, and gain Ki. Most everything else is similar enough that it works like one of the more fleshed out Archetypes.


Alternate Classes from Ulimate Combat, Page 8
"These are standalone classes whose basic ideas are very
close to established base classes, yet whose required
alterations would be too expansive for an archetype. In
this case, that’s the samurai and the ninja—specifically
Asian-themed classes that have long and unique histories,
as well as great cultural cachet, but which are similar in
concept to the established cavalier and rogue, respectively.
An alternate class operates exactly as a base class, save
that a character who takes a level in an alternate class
can never take a level in its associated class—a samurai
cannot also be a cavalier, and vice versa. The antipaladin
from Advanced Player’s Guide is also an alternate class."

I'd read that to be you can still play an archtype, as long as that archtype replaces things that haven't already been replaced. (Much like you can have two archtypes, as long as they don't overlap)

So I don't see any problem playing a scout ninja, as the ninja gets uncanny dodge, and imp uncanny dodge.

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