My Take on the Ninja - making him less NASTY-

[Goberlick]

The Ninja at mo is totally OP and this is my take on him to make him less nasty and more balanced but still making him good. I can go into details why I made these changes and will if asked but what do you think?

Ninja-

You may never have any Followers.

You may make a secret strike when you attack a character or creature.You cannot do this when you are attacked by another character. The battle takes place as normal except that you deduct three from your opponent's attack score, to a minimum of 1.

You may evade Enemies any Region.

You cannot visit the Mystic or Enchantress or the Healer.

You cannot gain a Warlocks Quest instead you my have another turn after this one.

Start: City Alignment : Evil

Str: 3 Cra: 3 Life: 3 Fate: 1

[Goberlick]

Ubernerd Lucas:

"There are actual distinctions between wizards and warlocks in fantasy" I will say again the dif of the Ninja-Assassin is the same as Wizard-Warlock and Thief - Cat Burglar, yes they are different but very close given that the Ninja is a western style take on what a Ninja is...

I just think so people disagree for disageeing sake Ubernerd if you don't like it then you have said so "OK".

"Erm, so before the alignment was all about fluff" I don't know what it was about all I know is it does not fit the Ninja and the Ninjas gameplay as far as I understand. If you think diff then explain why? you have so good...

"It's perfectly clear why it's on the character's card. In pretty much every game of this sort, specific trumps general" No its does not need to be there at all period the rules state very well what happens.

"Furthermore, I don't see why you're dead-set against being clear" Please read my posts I explained this.

"The rules on evasion"

Yes Everything that is attempting to attack and Creatures that appear can be Evaded but not in the Inner Region and not if the card says just Enemy not Creatures if you read the rulebook it states that (and I'm parrapghasing) Anything that says "Enemy" only effect "Enemy" as written on the card "Enemy: what it is" if it does not say that its not a "Enemy" but a Creature. But I say again if you did some research and read the rulebook "which isn't that long" you will find all this..

and NO... Anything released later does not override the base rules. You harping on me "making it clear" I explained why before.

"*sigh* not entirely true. Creatures that spawn from events/palces/strangers are not enemies (they don't have a card with any keywords) but can still be evaded. For example, the Sentinel guarding the bridge to the middle region doesn't have the enemy keyword, but can be evaded"

YES by effects that allow you to Evade and do not key to "Enemy" only!! By Cricky He's Got IT!!

"I was under the impression that Goberlick was using the general evasion rules to justify himself, so I went with interpreting evasion under the general rules. This confusion only highlights the need for clarity of rules where possible".

No it just need players to "Read the Rules" and I was not using the "general evasion rules to justify myself" I was using all the rules given I thought at the very least people on this forum would of "Read the Rules" before saying what they thought! The fault is with you not me, but its understandable given the way Talisman is written but what isn't is your desire to agrue for agruement sake. So you made a mistake "big whoop" get over it and move on...

"Regarding the ninja being only able to evade enemies, does the game actually let the ninja use his abilities to evade (e.g.) the sentinel? I legitimately don't know. If so, need to find out if that's working as intended or not".

Sigh, if so its a bug, at mo the ninja can give enemy a - str but on the card its says "1 minium" thats also a bug. Just because it happens in the DE does not mean its "Intended to" its all down to what a card says within the rules.. So go Read the Rules...

[Goberlick]

Originally posted by Artaterxes:

Whether or not the Ninja can use edits, things like evading in the Inner Region and having a fate value of zero are rules-exploding nightmares.

Originally posted by Gorith:

Are we really still on this topic?
Op not being able to replenish fate? So what happens when we get the forest expansion?

Yeah, thats a very good point I have to readress my thinking when it comes to the zero fate and can't repelish fate. The lastest thing I'm thinking about is limiting teh Evade ability to your movement roll eg "If you roll a 1-3 on your roll for movement you may evade blah blah blah" interesting to get you guys thoughts on that?

[Gorith]

I honestly think the evade works fine as is. Secret strike is really the only strong part he has going for him and it's still inferior to the assassins ability in particular as they add more expansions (gotta take what we know is comming into consideration when talking about balance). his base fate of 1 really hurts him as thats actually the most he can get (base) with abilities/cards that use the "replenish" keyword and ones that have the "gain" keyword are very few and you will encounter them less as you add more cards to the decks with expansions.

Uber I agree it's written pretty ambiguously. The reason heralds back to it's original designer having had designed it just for personal use before he got the original publisher. That and the original publisher was Games Workshop and they are pretty bad about not clarifying their wordings in places if theres another place anywhere else in the rules that already clarifies it regardless of how brief or burried that place is then they also don't generally put "see page xx" near where the confusing wordings are. If you read some of the later expansions rulebooks they get better but that doesn't help the core rulebook and FF really need to just rework the entire rulebook to make more sense.

[Goberlick]

Well in that we just have to agree to disagree even with all the set currently out for Talisman the Ninja is still OP and I will be editing him for casual play because of such. Time will tell with DE might take abit for players to gain that "greater" understanding muh who knows. Needs to at very least be returned to fate 1 fate 2 is crazy.

But all in all I still stand with my changers and I am think that the evade ability needs to be a random thing not all the time effect or at very least put SS to enemy and characters only not creatures.

That works too.

[Goberlick]

Ninja-

You may never have any Followers.

You may make a secret strike when you attack a character or creature.You cannot do this when you are attacked by another character. The battle takes place as normal except that you deduct your craft value from your opponent's attack score, to a minimum of 1.

If you rolled a 1, 2 or 3 for your movement you may evade Enemies in any Region until the end of your current turn.

Whenever you visit the City, Tavern, Village,Chapel or Graveyard, you may draw 1 Adventure Card instead of resolving the instructions on the space.

Start: Any Outer Region Space Alignment : Evil

Str: 3 Cra: 3 Life: 4 Fate: 2

V1.3 after playtesting works alot better indeed. Still High tear character without the OP evade.

[Genocide Pete]

Between the blind confidence, the lack of opening arguments, and the "totally OP," I'm surprised anyone bothered responding to this. This type of person is generally not worth the effort and won't be persuaded to see reason.

[Goberlick]

Originally posted by Genocide Pete:

Between the blind confidence, the lack of opening arguments, and the "totally OP," I'm surprised anyone bothered responding to this. This type of person is generally not worth the effort and won't be persuaded to see reason.

Not true at all but thanks for your input.

[Gorith]

Well Genocide I try to give everyone the benefit of consideration unless it seems like they are trolling even then I occasionally try. I will admitt though that the OP really isn't saying anything besides he thinks it's overpowered and that his playtest shows a marked improvement without sharing the data or how many playtests were run to determine consistency of play after the changes.

Gober you can play it as you see fit just don't expect the rest of you to say "oh hey your right" when your not giving any real concrete evidence to support why you think ninja is to strong or how your changes make it better. Remember when you want something changed it's up to you to come up with and articulate reasons for it that others understand and agree with. Only then do reasons for it not to be changed need to be articulated and backed.

[Goberlick]

Originally posted by Gorith:

Gober you can play it as you see fit just don't expect the rest of you to say "oh hey your right" when your not giving any real concrete evidence to support why you think ninja is to strong or how your changes make it better. Remember when you want something changed it's up to you to come up with and articulate reasons for it that others understand and agree with. Only then do reasons for it not to be changed need to be articulated and backed.

Alright reasons why Ninja is OP: The Ninja is OP because of its evade ability and his secret strike (SS) he can evade danger and not lose life from that demon or dragon draw that other players ethier have to spell or deal. Then the SS ability really make quick work of any lower str enemy increasing the Ninjas str when trading in str. The Dungeon is the most nasty place for the Ninja when other characters have to deal with large str or craft enemy the Ninja just walks past: once the ninja has a high str (which does not take long killing enemy with SS) he can move on to the LoD and use his SS ability on him too. Beat him by 8 and bingo on the COC without a talisman.

Now alot of players are saying "but he can't have followers" and yes this is a very bad anti-ability there are alot of really powerful followers but there are alot of spells and abilities that can take followers too its a good anti-ability but not one that can componstae for the Ninjas SS and evade ability. Now with saying that I know that every character needs a good ability without any sort of ant-ability "its the way characters are designed" but when you put the Ninjas SS ability together with the evade they work so fantasic together and it improves the characters twice over. Thus my reasoning in deciding to limit the evade ability and my first few version ideas over how to fix the Ninja.

Now I'm not saying that its a 100% everytime win but its a hell of alot easier than other character even the Warlock needs the right spell. The evade ability is key in my thinking thus its the ability that need somesort of random aspect and it works well in playtesting.

Now I never said "I wanted the Ninja changed" (well not in so many words) I just said "This is my take on the Ninja" yes he is OP and it would be good if it was changed but I'm not setting myself up as the guy to talk too or do I want my personal verison of the Ninjas taken and used (even though I think there isn't much I can do about it if it did happen).

Furthermore I never asked for this amount of forum abuse or rule debating all I personally wanted was a disscussion over the Ninja and alot of the posts have been that. I understand that alot of players think the Ninja is not OP and is fine the way he is and thats ok, all I say to that is time will tell as more players play more and get to understand his abilities better.

Really these posts have been for my benifit I'm trying to make a better Ninja and was willing to bounce ideas off others it has been of benifit I admit and has given me new ideas.

IA3G: Hehehehe thats how I'm feeling now over the Ninja well done.

Edit: I want to say here that I was wrong about the SS rule ingame the game can give a enemy a - Str because its attack score thats not below 1 not Str before roll. So long as the Attack score is never below 1 everythings aok.

[RaineyAllTheTime]

Yeah, Secret Strike is OK it is exactly as good as the monks ability to add craft to battles. The ability to evade everything is self limiting, yes you can do it but you can't win doing it. the early base game has about four cards that as the monk or ninja you may not want to encounter right away. It really only helps against auto-lose encounters which are rare, otherwise you just end up avoiding potential trophies you coud be earning at the risk of a single life. even then you are just leaving the board littered with cards you've already decided you don't want to encounter, reducing the available spaces to draw something that might actually help you. Unless of course your oppenents go behind you and clean that stuff up actually getting closer to being able to win. It does make it easier to get to a healer, but that's about it. In exchange you have the absolute worst penalty suffered by any character available. The ninja like all characters is situationally good. All told it's pretty rare to find a character I would pick the ninja over, the ninja is okay.

[Mickmane]

Originally posted by Goberlick:

The Dungeon is the most nasty place for the Ninja when other characters have to deal with large str or craft enemy the Ninja just walks past: once the ninja has a high str (which does not take long killing enemy with SS) he can move on to the LoD and use his SS ability on him too. Beat him by 8 and bingo on the COC without a talisman.

Dungeon is a DLC, not everyone has it. Turn it off, and what's left then?

Did you play Ninja without DLC even?

[Goberlick]

Originally posted by BeardedDork:

Yeah, Secret Strike is OK it is exactly as good as the monks ability to add craft to battles. The ability to evade everything is self limiting, yes you can do it but you can't win doing it. the early base game has about four cards that as the monk or ninja you may not want to encounter right away. It really only helps against auto-lose encounters which are rare, otherwise you just end up avoiding potential trophies you coud be earning at the risk of a single life. even then you are just leaving the board littered with cards you've already decided you don't want to encounter, reducing the available spaces to draw something that might actually help you. Unless of course your oppenents go behind you and clean that stuff up actually getting closer to being able to win. It does make it easier to get to a healer, but that's about it. In exchange you have the absolute worst penalty suffered by any character available. The ninja like all characters is situationally good. All told it's pretty rare to find a character I would pick the ninja over, the ninja is okay.

Forgetting the potental of evading the nasty enemy encounters and then killing the killable then yes I agree, the Ninja only fights the enemy it ends up having 1 or more points of using fate to help. Once the first few are dealt with then its a easy rise to high strength indeed.

The ability is not nasty on its own but with SS its a powerhouse. Take the Monk add the evade ability and give him the no followers with taking away the rest of his abilities and you really have the samesort of problem. If SS and the evade didn't work so well together there would not be a prob at all.

Also auto losses are more in the dungeon and thats where the Ninja really shines taking out the dungeon is not really a option so... If the Ninja just hang around the outer and middle then thats a different story indeed. Take him and have a go in the dungeon.

Other than that your input is intrgiuing indeed and thanks.

[Goberlick]

Originally posted by Mickmane:

Dungeon is a DLC, not everyone has it. Turn it off, and what's left then?

Did you play Ninja without DLC even?

Yeah could do that but its easier just to have standard characters only that way you still get the fun of the dungeon but no OP Ninja. The fault is not with the dungeon really its the Ninja.

And yes if you play with the Ninja without the dungeon it does limit the character more being it back to a standard but then there is the highlands too but thats not as bad of course.

Oh and yes and I have "play Ninja without DLC"? its important to assign different gameplay styles.

[Goberlick]

Just finished a nice playtest with my gaming group this is what we came up with as a fix.

Ninja-

You may never have any Followers. You may lose Fate instead of Followers to complete Warlocks Quests.

You may make a <i>secret strike</i> when you attack a character or creature.You cannot do this when you are attacked by another character. The battle takes place as normal except that you deduct your craft value from your opponent's attack score, to a minimum of 1.

You may evade Enemies in the Middle or Outer Regions

Whenever you visit the City, Tavern, Village,Chapel or Graveyard, you may draw 1 Adventure Card instead of resolving the instructions on the space.

Start: Any Outer Region Space Alignment : Neutral

Str: 3 Cra: 3 Life: 4 Fate: 2

And it works well. The biggest prob was when the Ninja got the "delever 2 followers" warlock quest it was a fellow gamer who came up with the "Using fate instead" so the Ninja could at least complete the quest. I never thought of that myself :). limiting the evade to middle and outer helps heaps too, we still where up in arms about the start space but we worked it out in the end.

Looks like a good fix.

[Genocide Pete]

Everyone just nod and smile.