The ninja is a superfluous class, in my opinion. Not only is it too culturally constrained, but it covers the same territory as the slayer does, only not as well. It also uses a pool of points to power abilities, which is a mechanic which I don't like. Whatever. It was inevitable that it be done. Complete Adventurer also did a ninja for 3.5, although it was a little underpowered. Rokugan also had a ninja, but of course, that makes perfect sense, since that class was the 3e version of Oriental adventures.
Although I'm not a fan of all of the girlbosses in Paizo's iconic line-up, having been a fan of games like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and King of Fighters for a long time, I have to admit that the girl ninja is kind of actually iconic if you're going to make a ninja. Not as iconic as the 80s video game character Shinobi or something like the 80s movie character American Ninja, but there are a lot of girl ninjas around. If they'd made Reiko more cute like Ibuki from Street Fighter, I might have actually liked her more, but instead she's got to be cynical and have a tragic backstory. Then again, you've got to have some reason to get a fantasy Japanese archetype into fantasy Europe, so there's probably only so many ways to do that. Orphaned and adrift in Andoran, Reiko comes across as more condescending and cynical than anything else. Too bad. Then again, they hardly use her, or the samurai, and for good reason. Ironically, she's probably more iconic, although she is in a narrow sense.
No comments:
Post a Comment