Ninja Spy II Feedback Thread:

[SolarDawning]

Prereqs: Level 12 Monk, Monk Ninja Spy 1, Any one of: Way of the Tenacious Badger II, Way of the Clever Monkey II, Way of the Elegant Crane II, Way of the Faithful Hound II, Way of the Patient Tortise II.

Benefits: Your skill with the blade improves. You gain Improved Critical with Shortsword, an additional +2 Balance, Hide, and Move Silently, an additional +2d6 Sneak Attack, for a total of 3d6. You move an additional 10% faster while sneaking. You can expend Ki to enter the Dance of the Water Strider, running on liquids so long as you continue to move and maintain your concentration.

Ninja Spy: Dance of the Water Strider
Cost: 20 Ki
Benefit: You focus your Ki and can run across liquids as if they were solid- so long as you maintain your concentration and perform no other actions, and do not stop running forward. Hazardous liquids, such as lava, will inflict their effects on you as if you were wading in them. This ability counts as a dark move.

[sirdanile]

What areas of the game can water strider break? I'm thinking abbot.

also 2d6 bonus sneak? thats a pretty nice boost to damage imo, though I still don't think shortswords will be useful.

[Visty]

not exactly

its +2 on the skills

Close enough...

Monk Ninja Spy II
Prereqs: Level 12 Monk, Monk Ninja Spy I, any one of Way of the Tenacious Badger II, Way of the Elegant Crane II, Way of the Faithful Hound II, Way of the Patient Tortoise II, or Way of the Clever Monkey II.
Benefit: Your skill with the blade improves. You gain Improved Critical: Shortsword, an additional +2 Balance, Hide, and Move Silently, and an additional +2d6 Sneak Attack (for a total of +3d6). You move an additional 10% faster while sneaking. You can expend ki to enter the Dance of the Water Strider, running on liquids so long as you continue to move and maintain your concentration.

Ninja Spy: Dance of the Water Strider
Cost: 20 Ki
Benefit: You focus your ki and can run across liquids as if they were solid - so long as you maintain your concentration and perform no other actions, and do not stop running forward. Hazardous liquids (such as lava) will inflict their effects on you as if you were wading in them. This ability counts as a Dark move.

---

The puzzle encryption method was:
1) Convert text to Morse Code.
2) Convert sequential -'s to numbers, convert sequential .'s to dashes. .--., for instance, would be 1b1.
3) Treat the results from step 2 as if they were in hex, convert to decimal. 1b1 = 433
4) Add 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / ... / 19 to each value based on the column it's in.

[Stamp3de]

Water strider lol? That's amazingly useless.

[SolarDawning]

Yup, just fixed as Eladrin posted.

[Trillea]

What areas of the game can water strider break? I'm thinking abbot.

also 2d6 bonus sneak? thats a pretty nice boost to damage imo, though I still don't think shortswords will be useful.

I doubt it will break abbot, you die when you touch the water, that is a hazardous liquid in my eyes.

[J1NG]

Not certain how the "Forward Motion" is. If it's a straight line only, then it won't be useful in the Abbot. But if you can maintain "Forward Motion" and turn whilst moving forward, that WILL make Dark Monks more easily survive there.

Sounds fun so far. Still waiting on Shintao and Henshin of course before I do any changing. But Ninja Spy certainly looks promising so far.

J1NG

[sirdanile]

Alright then what other areas will water strider break or be useful in? possibly madstone if you don't have anyone to open the optional gate (you'll take minor damage, could have fire resist on) Stealer of souls could become a little bit easier, ataraxias haven could be interesting as well.

[SolarDawning]

So, feedback:
I think this is pretty cool.
The requirements aren't overly costly. Taking rank II of an animal path enhancement is no problem at all. So, thumbs up on the cost.

Effects:
Skills- Sure, why not. I won't complain.
Sneak attack damage: +2d6 in one (relatively cheap) enhancement? Yes please. Huge thumbs-up.
Improved Crit Shortsword: Unless Touch of Death is enabled for shortswords, most people won't care much about this. I'm looking at it as a little something to enable multiclass shortsword ninja builds, while the pure monks are taking the PrE for the sneak attack.

Water Strider: I won't complain about extra fun abilities for a monk's mobility. Fun.

[timewalker]

truth be told im happy with the look of this one, the biggest drawing of the monk class to me has been the wierd jacked up effects you can do.

especially considering that the prereqs are abilities that you will have anyway the addition of a sneak attack...well thats extra damage is always nice, the abiltiy to walk on water/lava/grease/blood of the innocent...etc well that is just icing on the cake.

i do liek the theme the ninja spy is showing personally, invis and blur effects on the first one and now this..tacked on top of a damage increase which is always nice....

heres hoping for shinto II to be as good

[rimble]

I don't like that they jipped the whole Monk class out of the siangham, and are trying to make it up with a Short Sword centered PrE.

Putting that objection aside, Tier III will have to bring the mad love to make people put down their 2d8 or 2d10 handwraps and ToD rings, especially depending on what Monk strikes can be delivered through the Short Swords.

Have been considering this for a Rogue/Monk build...and I'm still torn on the decision, this didn't blatantly tip me toward it, which is a good thing.

[TiranBlade]

Tier III

Swordswords deal monk Unarmed Damage instead of thier normal damage.

[Visty]

Tier III

Swordswords deal monk Unarmed Damage instead of thier normal damage.

sadly we wont see tier3for a long time for the same reason we wont see other tier3s for a long time:
tod rings

[timewalker]

i may be misreading ninja spy 1, but I was under the impression that it treated short swords as a ki weapon, and gave us sneak attacks as two sperate effects.

thus i could still use my 2d12 fist with new sneak attack, and pull out metalline/pg shortswords or if i ever felt like i need a GS op say a LIT 2 short sword

could be wrong though

[SolarDawning]

i may be misreading ninja spy 1, but I was under the impression that it treated short swords as a ki weapon, and gave us sneak attacks as two sperate effects.

thus i could still use my 2d12 fist with new sneak attack, and pull out metalline/pg shortswords or if i ever felt like i need a GS op say a LIT 2 short sword

could be wrong though

That's correct. There's just not much reason to use a weapon as a dark monk when Touch of Death won't work with weapons equipped.
Still, this is nice. I like this PrE. A lot.

[TiranBlade]

Any word yet on weither or not there will be Ninja-To or Wakizashi Graphics added for the Shortsword?

If so please say Wak, it's more accurate to history.

Anyone think it's possible?

[timewalker]

That's correct. There's just not much reason to use a weapon as a dark monk when Touch of Death won't work with weapons equipped.
Still, this is nice. I like this PrE. A lot.

thanx for the confermation on that

so as far as im reading we are getting a substantial sneak attack, as well as some fun toys for really just some slight mods to a pretty standard dark side progression.

props to the devs on this one,........now to use this waterwalk to get myself into places that i should in no way be able to get to *evil-grin*

[TiranBlade]

Is it possible that since the shortsword is listed as a Ki Weapon and not a Monk Weapon that it will be usable with Touch of Death or has a Dev already confirmed it won't?

[Angelus_dead]

I don't like that they jipped the whole Monk class out of the siangham, and are trying to make it up with a Short Sword centered PrE.

They are not doing that. DDO's ninja gets shortsword because popular depictions of ninja involve shortswords.

And the siangham is a numerically inferior weapon to a shortsword...

[Baahb3]

The water striding ablity could pose some interesting things with lava. It says you will only take damage as if you were wading in it as opposed to swiming in it, which usually means a simple resist will negate the damage.