I am playing a Tengu Ninja is the Skull and Shackles AP. We have just had a long and sucessful session where we went up two levels. I am having trouble making up my mind on where to take my character.
First here is the character so far:-
Name Fu Kyu Lot
Class Nina (Scout)
Race Tengu
Alternate Racial Traits
Claw Attack
Glide
Gender Female
Str 10
Dex 21
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 12
Traits
Reactionary
Irrepressible
Bussemi's Blessing
Feats
Weapon Finesse
Extra Ninja Trick
Combat Reflexes [level 5 feat, selected provisionally]
Special Abilities
Ninja Tricks
Fatal Finesse
Vanishing Trick
Offensive Defence
The first of these is 3rd party. My GM, Arcane Mark, allows 3rd party on a case by case basis, so suggest 3rd party stuff please.
Skills
Magic Items
Ring of Swimming
Wand of Mirror Image
Both of these are excellent in this setting.
Fu as a huge range of skills mostly with 1 rank in each I am not going to list. Acrobatics, Disable Device, Perception, Stealth and Use Magic Device are maxed out.
So far Fu has proved to be an excellent Ninja, great at sneaking and killing things. She has 3 natural attacks doing 1-3 damage, with +5 to hit and damage owing to fatal finesse and weapon finesse. Vanishing Trick and a high stealth allow a lot of sneak attacks doing an extra 3d6.
Also so far, my choices have been fairly obvious. The idea was to use natural strikes and the feats and tricks I have taken more or less pick themselves. The choice of level 5 feat is open, but combat relexes and improved initiative cannot be bad choices and will be needed in the long run.
But very soon I am going to have to choose a direction. One way is to continue concentrating on doing damage in melee. I will need 2 weapon fighting eventually, the natural attacks are much better for now but eventually you need iterative attacks. And natural weapons are not suitable for attacking everything. But I am not settled on the best way to do it.
Another option is pursuing ranged combat, evetually aiming for Improved Snapshot and trying to get hold of Sniper's Goggles. This means investing in a lot of feats, Improved Snapshot's prerequisites are Dex 15, Point-Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Snap Shot, Weapon Focus, base attack bonus +9. That is 4 feats and I don't get the BaB until level 12. It is great when you get there.
Another decision is do I use a ranged weapon with a good range, probably the short bow, or shiruken or both. Flurry of Stars and Shiruken Style are very good, but a 10' range sucks. With those two tricks Rapid Shot and 2 Weapon Fighting I can fire off 5 shiruken for 1 Ki point as a full round action, all with -4 to hit and +2d6 [eventually more] damage.
Another question is do I pursue poison use feats, Alchemy, Adder Strike et al.
So many options, so few feats and tricks, so few pre-requisites.
Multiclassing into a class which uses maneuvers - either Dreamscarred Press's stalker or D&D 3.5's swordsage which preceded it - works pretty well due to half your ninja class levels counting for your initiator level. i.e. a Ninja 4 / Stalker 1 would have an initiator level of 3 and would be able to take 2nd level maneuvers.
Poison use I find too expensive, unreliable and limited in what it can effect. Ranged sneak attack is a serious problem until you get Invisible Blade at 10th or higher - most other means affect only one attack.
I have never been too impressed with Pathfinder poisons either.
Why are ranged attacks different from melee attacks when it comes to sneak attacks? I am not saying you are wrong, but it seems illogical.
Thanks for the input avr.
Sorry for the delay - the big difference between ranged and melee sneak attacks is flanking, and several variants on it introduced in PF. I don't know whether it was intentional or not when D&D 3.0 set up the combat system but the effect is clear and has mostly been enhanced by PF. Some minor means like feinting or the scout archetypes' ability to get sneak attack on a charge either work better or only with melee too.
At a guess there's two attitudes at the base of it. First, some people think that sneak attack should normally happen only once per round. Second, archery is in many ways the strongest combat style in D&D/PF and there's some resistance to making it even stronger.
As the only person to have replied to my post, you are the last person on the site who needs to apologise.
On sneak attacks and previous incarnations of the game, this is part of the sidebar to sneak attacks under the rogue class on d20pfsrd:-
"Precision Damage & Critical Hits
Precision damage (such as that dealt by a rogue’s sneak attack ability) applies to more creatures than it did in previous editions of the game.
Some may balk at this but it can easily be imagined or explained as the rogue having found a weak point in the undead’s “body” (such as a zombie’s head) or even finding a crack or flaw in a construct’s “body.”"
I am not aware of the source of the sidebar, but if it is correct then the difference is deliberate.
And I can offer a guess at the reason. Via a diversion. I have been playing D&D on and off since 1979, which does man I should be referred to as a 'Great Old One". I have only played one Rogue I can recall before Fu. And that was a Magic User/ Thief in Advanced D & D in a 1 on 1 campaign designed to be about theft. Reason- well 2. First I am a bit of a power-gamer and thieves/ rogues lacked power and secondly I almost always play spell casters.
So I think Pathfinder beefed up the number of attacks that get sneak attack damage to up the power of under powered rogues. And a good idea it is too. Back in Advanced D & D sneak attack damage only happened from complete surprise.
I must say I find Fu a lot of fun to play. I think all my characters since I started playing Pathfinder, after a very long break from similar systems, that does not cast spells. It means I have to tackle the game from a whole new perspective.
And I think I will concentrate on melee attacks, w/o poison. One of the 2 other PCs is a Kineticist and I think I can leave most ranged combat to them.
Thanks Nicholas.
Channel energy for more Ki isn't really for this character as you say.
The Helm of the Mammoth Lord is a superb idea I wasn't aware of. Maybe cloak of the Manta Ray as its skull and shackles.
Multi classing is interesting. It has downsides, delaying invisible blade and using up feats to keep the sneak attack damage.
Another possibility is Amateur Swashbuckler and the associated feats.