Ok i think that our groupes play very differently, and the way my group playes they don't need a trapfinder
Ok i will give you Mammy's farm, although my group went first in the barn so they had the NPC rogue to handle the traps, also the PCs went into the house yelling the heroes are here and just mawed through the ogrekin, sure the ended up using a good portion of a full wand of CLW but whatever they are cheap.
On the Mokmurian camp i can't understand it, the 2 red dragons "pets" are a joke for the level of the PCs, the rock throwing never happened because the players never let the giants fight them at anything else but melee range, ok some of the giants were a tough fight but that's when the wizard f****d them using her spells (most of the other time she was just hanging in the back).
Well the fight with Mokmurian himself your GM must have seriously changed his spell list (which is not wrong, far from it, but keep it mind when we are discussing the way the AP is written) because Mokmurian has one fireball, 2 scorching rays memorized and no form of the dragon (which a very good spell for Mokmurian to use when he is forced to melee) BUT even if he had more blasting spells he would have been an easier encounter because (blasting usually sucks unless you are built for it) my players had at least 2 different resist energy on them. Don't get me wrong the fight with Mokmurian was an exccelent and very difficult battle but not because of the blasting he employed (he really didn't) but becuase he owened their asses through battlefield control (he even separated them) and he was very good in melee.
As i have said before, my party (most of the times) were extremely tactical and using as much magic as possible to enchance those tactics, they even called themselves prismatic hexagem (from rainbow six), other than that one or two of the melee guys were med to high optimized so it wasn't that they couldn't handle the brute force opposition but the most important of all was the wizard, she was excellent, over the top and saved their asses on numerous occasions.
Anyway i am drifting from topic, the evasion thingy might be slightly important (remember there is a ring that gives it) but trapfinding isn't (at least from what i have seen from modules and APs).
Yeah, I am going to chalk it up to table variance. I am sure my GM monkeyed with spell lists, and all in all he did his level best to challenge us (as he should). Sufficed to say, some GMs are gonna make traps and area effects hurt, so having either trapfinding or evasion is a plus. But as both are defensive abilities they can often be glossed over.
Getting back on topic, the ninja is a combat rogue archetype. It trades some defenses to be more stabby. In combat focused games that is going to appear as though the ninja is a straight upgrade.
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But if you, well, I dunno, ROLE PLAY, their roles are entirely different. Their motivations are normally different. Their educations and backgrounds are different.
I have a problem with this. I can create a character of either class to fill the same role and also have a similar background. For example, lets say I'm making a 'pirate'.
With a rogue I perhaps pick up a rapier, put point in Profession:sailor. Perhaps I take an appropriate archetype.
With a ninja, I put her in a tricorn, call her 'wakazashi's' 'sabers', perhaps put a point in Profession:Sailor. But I put my ninja ki tricks into acrobatics related stuff, which I learned climbing the riggings of my ship. I use smoke bombs and am stealthy when raiding a port. If I have a reasonable GM, I've switched out some weapon choices or maybe I'm a half elf with Ancestral Arms (or something like that).
Mechanically, I'm a ninja. But I'm ignoring all that oriental soy sauce flavoring and certainly not wearing any friggin pajamas. In character I've never heard of Ki, but I seem to have an uncanny ability to pull things out of my rear end. But I'm Role Playing my own motivations which, I as a player have come up with.
Classes like Rogue or Ninja do not have built in motivations, like Paladins do. Their educations are whatever you as a player say they are (with gm approval). They do have mechanics. You use whichever set of mechanics, either Ninja or Rogue that lets you make a kick a-- good character.
Bluntly, whatever works is whatever works, and the more we get hung up on labels, the more we get in our own way in making cool, fun characters that are fun to role play.
PIRATE NINJAS forever! Since we're one in the same we'll have to find something else to beat up.
Ninjas get an often overlooked trick: Pressure points. One point of str or dex damage with each sneak attack. Every full attack a ninja does gives a -1 to attacks and damage or to ac. Given enough attacks, and TWF is immensely better when you have at will invisibility, the ninja may nerf someone into a weak clumsy baby, to be killed at leisure. That is Kenshiro levels of acupunture there.
I really don't think that trick is that good, most of the time.
If you've Sneak Attacked something that many times ... why isn't it dead already?
But if you, well, I dunno, ROLE PLAY, their roles are entirely different. Their motivations are normally different. Their educations and backgrounds are different.
These things are determined solely by the player. The motivations, educations, and backgrounds are precisely what the player wants, and nothing more.
These things are determined solely by the player. The motivations, educations, and backgrounds are precisely what the player wants, and nothing more.But if you, well, I dunno, ROLE PLAY, their roles are entirely different. Their motivations are normally different. Their educations and backgrounds are different.
Tell that to the paladin and his code...
Fluff is mutable, mechanics are not. Ninjas don't always wear PJs, sometimes rogues do.
These things are determined solely by the player. The motivations, educations, and backgrounds are precisely what the player wants, and nothing more.But if you, well, I dunno, ROLE PLAY, their roles are entirely different. Their motivations are normally different. Their educations and backgrounds are different.
Tell that to the paladin and his code...
Fluff is mutable, mechanics are not. Ninjas don't always wear PJs, sometimes rogues do.
I did tell that to the Paladin and his code. I threw them both out. :)