I love brainstorming and discussing builds so let me know what you think. Also, this is for PFS.
Archtype: Scout
STR 17 (I like keeping main stat on an odd number since I'll get 3 points added over his career)
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 10
WIS 10
CHA 12 (mainly to have 2 ki sooner, so perhaps these would be better elsewhere?)
Traits:
Reactionary, +2 Init
Sacred Touch, Stabilize as Standard Action...I like having support elements on my characters. I recently watched a fellow PC bleed to death and there was nothing we could do (long story) so I want to be prepared for a situation like that.
Feats:
1 - Unarmed Strike, Dodge (Prereqs)
2 - Ninja: Vanishing Trick
3 - Step Up
4 - Combat Trick: Following Step
5 - Deflect Arrows
6 - Combat Trick: Crane Style
7 - Crane Wing
8 - Combat Trick: Step Up and Strike
9 - Power Attack (Late, I know haha)
10 - Ninja: Shadow Clone?
11 - Improved Critical (Katana)
Mainly I love the idea of being able to ignore the first melee and ranged attack of each round. I tried building a monk around that concept but ultimately just wasn't happy with the flavor. Level 7 is a tad late to finish that concept but up until then I still have vanishing, Sneak Attacks, and Following Step to keep things interesting in combat.
This would be by far my least support-oriented character. If you have any thoughts on how to give melee characters a bit of a support twist I'd love to hear it. Most of what I've seen in that regard though is just boosting AC of adjacent allies, and usually BBEGs that have been a big problem have been ones with a huge attack bonus, so an extra point or two to AC from me isn't really going to help the team much from what I've seen, so it doesn't seem worth pursuing that. Fighting defensively so that I can ignore his first big swing...THAT sounds fun. (Is Power Attack worth it with Fighting Defensively or is that too big of a penalty?)
So what do you think?
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I see a couple of things right away that you may want to consider.
1. Crane Style and Crane Wing:
a. These require a free hand and defensive fighting. To use these consistantly you will either have to use the Katana one handed (not optimal for your build) or remember to call your free action of changing grip on your weapon at the begining and end of each attack.
b. You more than likely won't need to deflect the first attack of every round. You have access to Vanishing Trick and Shadow Clone from lvl 2 up and Invisible Blade after lvl 10. You can effectively never be accurately targeted in combat if you so desire. In addition to that three trick combo, you could go for Spring Attack and add Wind Stance, then you could have a constant 20% miss chance against all ranged attacks from round 1 of every combat. However, if you get Invisible Blade the Spring Attack line would only continue to be useful against creatures that can see through invisibility, so I wouldn't reccomend it for a Ninja. And finally, if you want to boost your AC there are the Befuddling Strike and Offensive Defense rogue talents as well. Several combinations of these feats, tricks, and talents could make you nearly impossible to ever successfully attack.
2. The Step Up and Strike line is awesome combined with Invisible Blade.
3. If you take Vanishing Trick and Shadow Clone early in your progression you will not need Unarmed Strike, Dodge (unless for something else), Deflect Arrows, Crane Style, or Crane Wing. That frees up a lot of resources. Then at lvl 10 you can get Invisible Blade or Assassinate.
4. For support:
a. A lot of Ninja/Rogue support comes from diversity and burst damage in combat. The Rogue is better at diversity (IMO) but the Ninja is better at burst damage, especially if you take Invisible Blade or Assassinate at lvl 10.
b. Most melee characters don't have a built in AoE capability. Anyone can get Dazzling Display, which is a good AoE effect to cause enemies to be Shaken. The Ninja however, has some excellent AoE tricks with Smoke Bomb, Poison Bomb, and Choking Bomb. It can be used as a ranged touch attack with a 15' radius and can block vision, cause choking for 1d4 rounds, and poison a group of enemies all with the use of 1 ki point. Enemies will come staggering out of the smoke cloud only to be picked off by a waiting party.
c. You could also boost your Sleight of Hand skill and get the Weapon Snatcher advanced rogue talent. I think that would be a pretty good support ability as it allows you to disarm opponents with a Sleight of Hand check.
d. Never overlook the importance of Use Magic Device for providing support options. The ability to use wands and scrolls is a fantastic support option. And if you are ever worried about running out of Ki points, a wand of Ki Leech and the ability to use it will be helpful.
e. The Crippling Strike advanced rogue talent when paired with Invisible Blade is an excellent method of lowering the BBEGs attack bonus. With that combo and boots of Speed you could potentially do 8 points of STR or DEX damage in one round, that's not counting potential poisons on your blade.
f. Combo's that help with flanking are a good idea too, not just for you but also for your party. Gang Up and a Menacing weapon are nice for that. If you are able to get any party members to take the Out Flanked teamwork feat it could be useful here as well. A +6 to attacks when flanking vs. +2, is nothing to laugh at. Precise Strike is good too for flanking teamwork but not necessary, and not as useful for a pure Ninja or Rogue.
Shadow Strike is a must to hit things with concealment.
Extra Rogue Talent, Extra Ki, Improved Initiative, Master Alchemist, Imp. Critical, Dodge, W.Finesse are all worth considering.
As you prob have a decent charisma may as well use it for a bloodline:
skill focus (humans have an ability where they get multiple skill foci free instead of a feat), Eld. Heritage, I. Eld. Heritage: check the protean (tangle and spring attack), arcane (enchant a powerful weapon), shadow (touch attack + hide in plain sight) and celestial (ray harm.healing + fly) bloodlines.
Races might want to look at:
-sylph or strix for another way to fly (use reach and make AC irrelevant).
-ifrit for +4 init and smoke sight feat (see through smoke = smoke bomb/smoke stick concealment from 1st and cannot be targeted
-elf (dreamspeaker trade) again using that chr and there is nothing sweeter than casting a 5th level spell from 1st level that allows you to haunt and taunt the dreams of your prey items and all those npcs/pcs who annoy you or think they got away!
My advice is choose 1 main way to avoid attacks - AC, feat chains, smoke concealment, plain invisibility, position (flight n flyby or spring attack) and build from there.
A simple potion of clw or a DC 15 heal check stops people bleeding - use your trait more wisely. If healing bothers you get the celestial bloodline for ranged healing.
Since he said this is for PFS, sylph, strix, and ifrit are all not allowed as races.
I am totally a weaboo when it comes to ninjas, as Shadowlord may be able to attest to due to all of the ninja threads of mine he has posted in. I am currently playing a ninja in a Rise of the Runelords game and I have one for PFS play. Tell me what you want to do with your ninja, and I will recommend a build. Remember, the names of the classes are just labels. You can build just about any class to do just about anything other than making main spellcasters out of spelless classes.
Lots of great food for thought - thanks! That's why I love this board.
I think it's worth noting that PFS only goes through level 11, so building with a huge focus on the Advanced Trick I'm not sure is the best idea - not that they aren't great for those last 2 levels, of course. I just don't want to give them a huge focus.
Looking at Shadow Clone more closely, I do see how maybe that is redundant with Crane Wing. However, Shadow Clone takes a standard action and is also limited by my (low) ki. I'm not sure I like it as much as Crane Wing.
If I was going to get rid of any of the feats, I'm less attached to the Step Up and Strike line. Maybe I should get rid of those three and then take Smoke Bomb, Poison Bomb, and Choking Bomb instead, although those are also subject to my low ki from having a fairly low CHA.
Regarding what I want the build to do - I primarily only plan to use Vanish for positioning. Then I want to Fight Defensively so I can use Crane Wing along with Deflect Arrows. The vision for the character started as I was trying to brainstorm other forms of support. I've been the whip bard, I've been the divine caster, and I wanted to try something else now. Crane Wing and Deflect Arrows caught my eye since I can put myself in a place to take an enemy's attention without actually taking damage, thus protecting the rest of the party in a sense, also. Almost like an MMO tank, at the risk of sounding cheesy. As I mentioned, I looked at Fighters to see what I could come up with there, but most of those feats involved using a shield to boost teammate AC, and since I've seen several "boss fights" where AC became almost irrelevant because of huge bonuses, I wanted to avoid that approach.
I'm starting to consider getting rid of the Crane feats, but I don't like using a standard action to activate Shadow Clone when a small part of why I liked this build was that I'd actually be doing damage which my bard and cleric don't really do, haha, so even when fighting defensively to prepare for Crane Wing I'd still get hits in.
I'm working on another feat progression taking away both the Step Up and Crane lines, but taking Vanish and Shadow Clone very early along with Extra Ki a few times to see what other flavor I can make.
If you have Stealth and Perception maxed out, and if you scout a little bit ahead, you might find yourself in the possition to use surprise rounds to activate Shadow Clone more often than not. I'm not really sure how the fights in PFS go. BDJ might know more about playing in PFS. Extra Ki and a wand of Ki Leech are your friends as a ninja with low-ish Cha.
If you are worried about putting too much emphasis on the advanced talent and later feats you may consider going for flanking bonuses like gang up and menacing weapon paired with the Pressure Points ninja trick. Each time you deal Sneak Attack damage you also deal 1 point of STR or DEX damage. Again this is to help bring those high enemy hit bonuses and ACs down a bit. I am not sure how helpful this will be in PFS play. The Unwitting Ally advanced rogue talent would be good for this too, not sure if it's as good as Invisible Blade or Assassinate though.
Also, Dodge and Mobility are great for battlefield mobility if you don't constantly want to spend a ki point and standard action to use Vanish.
I really don't see the point of step up, following step and step up and strike.
1. Ninja have the flexibility to attack close and at ranged so its not so necessary to follow.
2. If you stick in melee even invisible you might not last.
3. If your invisible and they move away they probably provoke anyway and if they don't they loose their action or likely move further than 10 ft in which case you get no attack of opportunity.
4. Its 3 feats. 4 really as without combat reflexes its kinda a waste to be forcing your attack of opportunity with feat expenditure when you will likely get one for being invisible and others moving past or into you.
I don't think the ninja class is going to do what you want it to do. They just aren't built to be the focus of monster attention without getting into serious trouble. I also don't particularly care for your stat spread. If you really want to be a defensive fighter, you'd be better off sacrificing Str to get every point of Dex you can. Cha is your second most I portent stat and you basically ignore it. If I were you, I'd look at a stat spread like:
Str: 10
Dex: 18 (16 + 2 from being human)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 14
This is going to give you two more AC and an extra ki poi t at the expense of a little damage. You're going to have to decide if you want to do more damage or be sturdier, because it's almost impossible for a ninja to do both.
One other thing to remember is you can't take Combat Trick more than once. You can argue for taking the Ninja Combat Trick once and the Rogue Combat Trick once but it explicitly states that each ninja trick can only be taken once.
Ninja Trick wrote: Unless otherwise noted, a ninja cannot select an individual ninja trick more than once.
Actually, there is no argument. You can't take both of them.
Paizo PRD wrote: Rogue Talent: The ninja can select a rogue talent in place of a ninja trick. The ninja cannot select a rogue talent that has the same name as a ninja trick. The ninja can select this talent multiple times.
Build 1
1 - Improved Unarmed Strike, Dodge
2 - Shadow Clone
3 - Extra Ki
4 - Vanishing Trick
5 - Deflect Arrows
6 - Crane Style
7 - Crane Wing
8 - Offensive Defense
9 - Vital Strike or Toughness
What about something like this? It still isn't AC focused, but uses Shadow Clone to dodge attacks, with Deflect Arrows and Crane Wing for the odd attack that does get through.
Build 2
I tried a DEX build and came up with:
1 - Weapon Proficiency (Scimitar), Weapon Finesse
2 - Shadow Clone
3 - Dervish Dance
4 - Vanishing Trick
5 - Extra Ki
6 - Offensive Defense
7 - Vital Strike
8 - Resiliency?
I don't hate it but ultimately I just come out with 3 extra AC and a d6 instead of d8 weapon, and no back up plan for attacks that get through Shadow Clone. I guess I could not take the Weapon Prof or Dervish Dance and use a Wakizashi, but then sneak attack basically is just an attempt to balance out the damage I lost from STR, and I'm not sure 3 AC is worth that. I guess it would look like:
Build 3
1 - Weapon Finesse, Toughness
2 - Shadow Clone
3 - Extra Ki
4 - Vanishing Trick
5 - Dodge?
6 - Offensive Defense
7 - Not Sure
8 - Combat Trick: Vital Strike
Maybe that isn't an awful idea.
Build 1 at level 8:
HP: 59 (Not counting Favored Class)
7 Ki
Damage: 1d8+4 (6 if 2 handed with free action cheese...)
Attack Bonus: +8/+3 while fighting defensively
AC: 19, +4 Armor, +2 Dex, +1 Dodge, +2 while fighting defensively
+The ability to completely ignore one melee and ranged attack each turn
Build 3 at level 8:
HP: 67 (Not counting Favored Class)
8 Ki
Damage: 2d6
Attack Bonus: +11 and no iteratives to use Vital Strike
AC: 20, +4 Armor, +5 Dex, +1 Dodge
They seem pretty neck in neck, but to me it seems like when the AC is going to be fairly low anyway (I know I didn't include potential purchased magic item bonuses, but still) does it make a difference? The DEX build does have a better attack bonus though, and more comparable damage than I expected once Vital Strike is accounted for, although the Dex build doesn't get that until level 8 and up until then is doing notably less damage. I could use levels 5 and 7 of the DEX build to get Dervish Dance and get damage up to 2d6+5 but makes the ACs of the builds equal.
It still seems to me like the Crane Wing and Deflect Arrows makes for a fairly sturdy build when mixed with Shadow Clone, while the DEX build gets a couple better bonuses but loses the contingency plans of Wing and Deflect.
I also need to add, though, that the highest tier I have ever played is 5-6, so if it seems like there are weaknesses I'm not seeing that's probably why.
Bigdaddyjug wrote: You're going to have to decide if you want to do more damage or be sturdier, because it's almost impossible for a ninja to do both. I vote for sturdier, since it seems like Sneak Attack will still help me do respectable damage - I'm not planning on matching the damage output of fighters or barbs, but I can still contribute damage and also take hits on behalf of teammates. So at the moment I'm leaning towards Build 1, so from the original post I got rid of the Step Up and Strike line and moved Shadow Clone way earlier to improve defenses.
anthonydido wrote: One other thing to remember is you can't take Combat Trick more than once. You can argue for taking the Ninja Combat Trick once and the Rogue Combat Trick once but it explicitly states that each ninja trick can only be taken once.
Ninja Trick wrote: Unless otherwise noted, a ninja cannot select an individual ninja trick more than once.
Oh! I missed that, thanks. I think the builds I just posted (Build 1 and Build 3) managed to fix that without me even deliberately trying, though. Thanks for pointing that out.
Sage Maduin wrote:
STR 17 (I like keeping main stat on an odd number since I'll get 3 points added over his career)
Remember that PFS in most cases goes through level 11 rather then level 12. In that case, going with 2 odd numbered stats or a single high stat makes more sense.
MHO, make the stats 17 (str) and 15 (Dex or Con) and a 10 cha.
Take someone elses advice on the best way to include extra ki, but do so.
You're picking all of these style feats and wanting to make unarmed strikes. It makes me wonder why you don't just make a monk. They're going to do what you want to do way better than even the best ninja build. You build a ninja to get the rogue-y skill monkey that is a little better at combat because of better weapon proficiencis and better ninja tricks. By building the ninja the way you're building it, you're giving up all of that. You're going to be horrible at face skills because of low Cha and the low Cha also means you won't have many ki points to use some of the cooler ninja tricks, like Vanishing Trick.
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