Your thoughts on Shadow Sun Ninja prestige class?

[Nuavion]

This prestige class seems cool and strong for how easy it is to get. The Balance of Light and Dark ability with the ability to deal a lot of unarmed strikes seems good for taking out a strong enemy while also having some negative aspects so as to keep it in check. It also seems like it would be fun to roleplay as well.

Your thoughts?

[Crake]

The main drawback of the prestige class (of all the tome of battle prestige classes) is the highly limited maneuver disciple school availability, as well as losing the ability to train out lower level maneuvers for higher level ones. When you take that into account, most of the tome of battle prestige classes become far less powerful.

Edit: You also appear to only get one maneuver known every 3 levels (plus one at 1st level), which means as you progress there will be levels where you don't have access to the highest level of available maneuvers. Compared the the most likely entry class, the swordsage, which gets a maneuver known at every level, plus the extra maneuvers readied, only one every 5 levels, compared to the swordsage of an extra readied maneuver every 2.5 levels or so.

[frogglesmash]

Shadow Sun Ninja is a reliable way to make vampires who are immune to the sun.

[Nuavion]

The main drawback of the prestige class (of all the tome of battle prestige classes) is the highly limited maneuver disciple school availability, as well as losing the ability to train out lower level maneuvers for higher level ones. When you take that into account, most of the tome of battle prestige classes become far less powerful.

Edit: You also appear to only get one maneuver known every 3 levels (plus one at 1st level), which means as you progress there will be levels where you don't have access to the highest level of available maneuvers. Compared the the most likely entry class, the swordsage, which gets a maneuver known at every level, plus the extra maneuvers readied, only one every 5 levels, compared to the swordsage of an extra readied maneuver every 2.5 levels or so.

Oh wow that's not good lol I wonder why the ToB prestige classes were made in such a way.

Shadow Sun Ninja is a reliable way to make vampires who are immune to the sun.

How so? I mean I know that if you die, you become a vampire in 1d4 days. I just thought you were an NPC at that point though.

[Eloel]

How so? I mean I know that if you die, you become a vampire in 1d4 days. I just thought you were an NPC at that point though.

Vampire is a playable race. It's DM's call if you stay a PC after you become a vampire, but there are certainly games where PCs just start as vampires.

[Red Fel]

Vampire is a playable race. It's DM's call if you stay a PC after you become a vampire, but there are certainly games where PCs just start as vampires.

Actually, the class says explicitly that "[y]ou are now a dedicated champion of evil and an NPC." So, unless the DM decides to ignore the RAW, which he can do, this explicitly turns your character into an NPC.

Unless, of course, the party frees the PC soul from Dis. But in that case, the vampire is destroyed and the PC comes back to life - not as a vampire, but as a living PC again. So that doesn't quite work either.

But yeah. NPC. It's only "DM's call" if the DM wants to suspend RAW. Which, again, he can do, but don't paint it as a guaranty.

[Eloel]

Actually, the class says explicitly that "[y]ou are now a dedicated champion of evil and an NPC." So, unless the DM decides to ignore the RAW, which he can do, this explicitly turns your character into an NPC.

Unless, of course, the party frees the PC soul from Dis. But in that case, the vampire is destroyed and the PC comes back to life - not as a vampire, but as a living PC again. So that doesn't quite work either.

But yeah. NPC. It's only "DM's call" if the DM wants to suspend RAW. Which, again, he can do, but don't paint it as a guaranty.

I was thinking regular vampires, and not to vampires made by this class. You're right.

[Red Fel]

I was thinking regular vampires, and not to vampires made by this class. You're right.

To be fair, it would be super cool if the PrC basically made you a sunlight-immune Evil Vampire who was not actually your PC but hijacking his body, and let you keep playing. Or, alternatively, if you kept your cool sunlight-immune Vampire powers after being rescued, but got to go back to being who you were pre-Vamp. That would be an awesome story hook.

Sadly, not the case.

Oh wow that's not good lol I wonder why the ToB prestige classes were made in such a way.

In theory, it's that you're giving up some maneuver progression/versatility in exchange for cool class-specific abilities.

In practice, bad writing/design.

So, basically most PrCs.