Master Ninja

A master ninja is an individual who pursues enlightenment and honor by the blade, in the darkness of night. Most belong to a ninja clan, but some are rogues who have gone on their own path or who have been shunned from their former ninja clan. Those shunned are most often on the run from the same clan, from those who wish to silence the outcast.

Master ninjas are honorable people. Honor is above all else. To dishonor a master ninja is to invite death. Honor for a master ninja is even above alignment in most cases. When dishonored or when their honor is challenged or ridiculed the master ninja must face the challenger in a duel of honor. This doesn’t mean that the challenge must be one that ends in bloodshed, but most often it is. To lose a challenge of honor, or if the dishonor goes unchallenged means the ninja has become clouded in respect to his honor. Until his honor is regained in some way the ninja loses all special abilities of this class and may not rise in level with this class. When honor is somehow regained, these penalties are removed.

Above all else, a master ninja must keep his identity as a ninja a secret. Occasionally very trusted allies of the ninja may know his true identity, but if his ninja clan were to find out about this, they would be angered and the ninja and all his companions would be marked for death. If anyone who is not supposed to know the identity of the ninja finds out who he is and what he is then this must be remedied very quickly. When this happens a master ninja immediately suffers a temporary loss of honor. This does not result in loss of XP or loss of abilities as described above, but the ninja must remedy the situation within a week’s time or all the above penalties take place. To remedy the situation the ninja must kill or somehow permanently silence (memory drains work well if somehow possible) the individual within the weeks time. To further the difficulty in this, if the individual has told anyone about the ninja, then the ninja must silence ALL of these people as well. Obviously when it gets this far there usually is no point of return for the ninja’s honor, which is why it’s imperative to rectify the situation quickly.

A master ninja is honor bound to maintain his identity even into death. If sudden death were to be imminent then the ninja would do his best to maintain his secret. The best way to do this would be to stab himself in the gut with his sword and then use the same weapon as he’s dying to slice off the features of his face. As disturbing as this may seem, it’s effective and not above the honor of a master ninja to do if the need arises.

Master ninjas are required to maintain a secret identity if they are to travel and be in urban areas for any length of time. The identities are often those of shopkeepers (good bases of operations) such as weapon smiths, tailors and martial arts teachers.

Hit Die: d8

Requirements
To qualify to become a master ninja, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +5.
Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Shuriken, Improved Unarmed Strike, Craft Poison (See Traps and Treachery).
Move Silently: 8 ranks.
Hide: 8 ranks.
Craft: 4 ranks (this must be a craft skill of a type that can be openly used to run a professional business, not something such as crafting poisons).
Other: Evasion class feature

Class Skills
The master ninja’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Alchemy (Int), Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex). See Chapter 4: Skills in the Player’s Handbook for skill descriptions.

Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier.

Class Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	
1st	+1	+2	+2	+2	Monk-like Amor Bonuses,sneak attack +1d6	
2nd	+2	+3	+3	+3	Improved Evasion, Poison use	
3rd	+3	+3	+3	+3	AC bonus +1, fast climb, sneak attack +2d6	
4th	+4	+4	+4	+4	Silencing attack, Fast Sneak, High jump	
5th	+5	+4	+4	+4	Invisibility, sneak attack +3d6	
6th	+6	+5	+5	+5	AC bonus +2 Opportunist, Hide in plain sight	
7th	+7	+5	+5	+5	Gaseous Form, Walk on water, sneak attack +4d6	
8th	+8	+6	+6	+6	Blindsight, Always sneaky	
9th	+9	+6	+6	+6	AC Bonus +3, Passwall, sneak attack +5d6	
10th	+10	+7	+7	+7	Improved Silencing attack, Improved Sneak attack	

Class Features

Monk-like AC Bonuses: When the ninja is wearing no armor or shield, he receives the AC bonus listed in Table 3-10 in the Players Handbook. This bonus stacks with any AC bonus he previously received as a monk. Furthermore, the ninja applies Dexterity and Wisdom bonuses to AC if unarmored.

Sneak Attack: As a rogue. This stacks with any sneak attack ability from other classes.

Improved Evasion: At level 2, a ninja’s evasion ability improves. He still takes no damage on a successful Reflex save against attacks such as a dragon’s breath weapon or a fireball, but henceforth he takes only half damage on a failed save.

Poison Use: Ninjas are trained in the use of poison and never risk accidentally poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade.

Fast Climb: The ninja can scurry up a wall at unbelievable speed. With each successful Climb check, the ninja can move half his speed as a move-equivalent action or his speed as a full-round action. Furthermore, he retains his Dex bonus to AC while climbing.

Silencing Attack: If the ninja successfully hits a flat-footed opponent with a melee attack, the opponent is unable to speak for one round. This prevents casting spells with verbal components and shouting warnings or alarms.

Fast Sneak: When using Move Silently and Hide, the ninja can move at his normal speed without suffering a penalty to those skills.

High Jump: The ninja has developed the ability to jump with great accuracy and strength. The ninja’s base height does not count for how high he may jump.

Invisibility: The ninja can turn invisible as a spell-like ability (as the spell invisibility, but targeting himself only) once daily for each level of ninja.

Opportunist: Once per round, the ninja can make an attack of opportunity against an opponent who has just been struck for damage in melee by another character. This attack counts as the ninja’s attack of opportunity for that round. Even a ninja with Combat Reflexes cannot use the opportunist ability more than once per round.

Hide in Plain Sight: Ninja’s can use the Hide skill even while being observed. As long as they are within 10 feet of some sort of shadow, ninja’s can hide themselves from view in the open without anything to actually hide behind. They cannot, however, hide in their own shadows. Hide in plain sight is a supernatural ability.

Gaseous Form: You can assume gaseous form, as a spell-like ability once per day for 1 round per class level. Using this ability requires a full-round action.

Walk on Water: This is the extraordinary ability to walk on water. A ninja may make a Tumble check (DC 25) to walk on water. Success means that the ninja may move across calm water (dangerous liquids such as acid may still cause damage) at half their normal speed. Failure means the ninja gets wet and may try again next round. If the water cannot be crossed within one round then the ninja must make a Tumble check again to see if he may continue. Failure means he falls into the water suffering all penalties and dangers associated with his actions.

Blindsight: Using non-visual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, scent, acute hearing, or echolocation, the ninja maneuvers and fights just as well in darkness as in light. Invisibility and darkness are irrelevant, though the ninja still cannot discern ethereal beings. The ninja’s blindsight extends for 60 feet.

Always Sneaky: The ninja is always taking 10 on his Move Silently and Hide checks. Unless the ninja wants to be seen or heard, make opposed Spot and Listen checks to detect the ninja’s presence.

Passwall: Once per day the ninja may pass through walls in a fashion similar to the Passwall spell. This spell-like ability lasts for one round per class level. The difference is that this ability affects only the ninja and does not physically affect the wall. The ninja becomes somewhat ethereal (only for passwall purposes) and able to pass through walls as if they were not there. This ability works just as the Passwall spell except as noted above.

Improved Silencing Attack: This ability is just like silencing attack except now it may be used at any time a sneak attack is possible, which includes flanking opponents or opponents that have lost their dexterity bonus to AC.

Improved Sneak Attack: As the feat of the same name (found on page 36 of Traps and Treachery). Your bonus damage for sneak attacks are 1d8 instead of 1d6 now. This extra damage follows all the rules of a normal sneak attack except it now does more damage.