TSR-East Classes: Ninja

Ah, the ninja. Staple of many 80's* cheesy movies, video games, and comic books! Oh, how we love thee! The question with the ninja is not one of describing what a ninja IS to the player. It's capturing what a ninja DOES in game mechanics. And the fact that ninja can be masters of stealth and martial arts, hordes of faceless and easily dispatch-able mooks, mystical badasses, or even in an earlier age of the internet guitar-shredding decapitating madmen.

*and 70's, 90's, 00's, 10's...

For my take on the ninja (round 5 since I've already done four versions in Chanbara!), I modified the Halfling class. It's a bit of a power-up over the traditional Halfling. No weapon restrictions, they can rise above 8th level, I increased their indoor hide chance a bit, gave them Dwarf trap/sliding wall detection and Elf secret door detection, and Thief's backstab! What do they give up for that? Heavy armor (plate equivalent) and shields, bonuses to hit with ranged weapons and AC vs larger than man-sized creatures. Oh, and their saving throws don't improve quite as fast, but they're still good (equal to the Dwarf/Hwarang). Actually, I might change that, and put them back at Thief saves since they do have some nice extra powers over the Halfling. I'll think about it.

Here is the Ninja:

Ninja (Spy) AKA Cìkè, Amsalja, Shinobi

Requirement: Con 9

Prime Requisite: Dex [13 +5%, 16 +10%]

Hit Die: d6 to 9^th level, +2/level after

Arms: all weapons, medium armor

Special Abilities: stealth, perception, backstab

Ninja Advancement
Level	XP	BAB	Abilities
1	0	+1	Stealth, Perception, Backstab
2	2000	+1
3	4000	+1
4	8000	+3
5	16,000	+3	Backstab x3
6	32,000	+3
7	64,000	+5
8	120,000	+5
9	240,000	+5
10	360,000	+7	Backstab x4
11	480,000	+7
12	600,000	+7
13	720,000	+9
14	840,000	+9
15	960,000	+9	Backstab x5

Stealth: A ninja can conceal themselves when out of doors 1-9/d10. Indoors, they can hide 1-3/d6. They may not move while hiding without giving away their position.

Perception: A ninja has a chance to detect traps 1-3/d6, secret doors or sliding passages 1-2/d6, and hear faint noises 1-2/d6.

Backstab: A ninja that surprises an opponent or attacks from hiding gets a +4 bonus to the attack, and deals double damage if successful. The damage increases at 5^th, 10^th, and 15^th level as shown on the Ninja Advancement chart.

	Hwarang, Ninja
Save Level:	1-3	4-6	7-9	10-12	13-15
Death Ray/Poison	10	8	6	4	2
Magic Wand	11	9	7	5	3
Paralysis/Turn to Stone	12	10	8	6	4
Dragon Breath	15	13	11	9	7
Rod/Staff/Spell	13	12	10	8	6