Ninja

The Ninja (Japanese: 忍者, ninja) is one of the character classes available to players in the Wizardry series of games. It is one of the advanced classes, and usually impossible to access for beginning characters. This class is a blend of features between a Fighter and a Thief, gaining access to several weapons and armor, skills normally reserved to Thieves, and a group of skills unique to the class. The Ninja is the equivalent in Wizardry of a common fantasy archetype in several role-playing games, the Ninja or Assassin.

Class Description
The Ninja can best be described as a class that blends some aspects of the Fighter and Thief classes, but the truth is that the Ninja is a class that significantly differs from either. As a Fighter, a Ninja has a wide choice of weaponry and armor to choose, although because of the unique skills of the Ninja, the use of such is rarely recommended. As the Thief, the Ninja usually has access to lock-picking and trap defusing, but their chances of success are much lower than a pure Thief.

However, the unique skills of Ninja tend to over-compensate for the losses acquired by being a "hybrid" class. First of all, the Ninja gains a level reduction of Armor Class when the Ninja wears no armor; while at first this grants the Ninja AC roughly similar to that of a Mage or Priest, eventually they surpass high-AC characters such as the Fighter or the Lord. Second of all, and much as Samurai do, the Ninja may instantly slay an enemy target with a critical hit. The high chance of critical hits dealt by Ninja make the class a highly sought one, despite the usually difficult requirements.

Llygamyn Saga
In the group of games that compose the Llylgamyn saga (Wizardry I to V, excluding Wizardry IV), the Ninja cannot be accessed at all at character creation because of the outrageous requirements to become one. The requirements to become a Ninja were lessened with Wizardry V, making the Ninja the class with most changes from its predecessors in comparison to the rest of the classes. A Ninja will not associate with characters of Good alignment, thus you cannot have a Ninja in a party led by an Good character in the first slot, nor will any Good character be accessible when a Ninja (or any other Evil character) is on the party. However, there are ways to circumvent this restriction.

To become a Ninja, the character must achieve the minimum stat requirements (Wizardry I-III/V):


 * STR 17/15


 * IQ 17


 * Piety 17/15


 * VIT 17/16


 * AGI 17/15


 * Luck 17/16


 * Must be of Evil alignment

As observed, the requirements to become a Ninja are outrageous, and no race has a distinct advantage over another to become a Ninja; that said, Hobbits usually have a better chance to become Ninjas with a lot of effort. Since no class provides excellent stat growth in all categories, and given the tendency of first games to reduce player attributes, said advantage is only minimal. Humans have an extremely hard time becoming a Ninja, but their usually balanced stats tend to compensate: their Piety usually causes some trouble.

Ninjas usually are easier to get on console versions of Wizardry, since most of them do not provide an attribute penalty at level up.

Dark Savant Saga
In the group of games that compose the Dark Savant Saga (Wizardry VI thru VIII), the Ninja gains perhaps one of the most solid set of skills ever given to any player at character creation. From beginning, they have access to virtually every single Weaponry skill, including Hand to Hand. As well, they have access to all Physical skills, including Legerdemain, Skulduggery and Ninjutsu. As for Arcana skills, they only gain the Alchemy and Kirijutsu abilities aside from the ones normally given to every character.

Upon closer examination, the reasons why Ninja have such a set of abilities are better explained. Unlike with the other games, Ninja have restricted use of most weapons and only a few pieces of armor. The Ninja, alongside the Monk, are the only two classes that gain a full Armor Class reduction, but this time through the use of the Ninjutsu skill, which also provides the ability to Hide in combat to Ambush the next round. As well, Ninja now must add skill points to the Kirijutsu ability in order to deal instant-death critical hits.

At level 5, the Ninja gains a limited access to spells of the Alchemy spellbook, as the Ranger does. Because of the late access, Ninjas acquire and develop Alchemy spells very slowly. In fact, despite the large amount of skills gained by the Ninja, they do not develop crucial skills (such as Skulduggery or Alchemy) with use, as what happens with Thieves and Alchemists

To become a Ninja, the character must achieve the minimum stat requirements (VI to VII/8):


 * STR (Strength) 12/50


 * INT (Intellect) 10/50


 * PIE (Piety) 10/-


 * VIT (Vitality) 12/50


 * DEX (Dexterity) 12/55


 * SPE (Speed) 12/55


 * PER (Personality)/SEN (Senses) -/50

As with earlier games, the Ninja is a very difficult class to achieve. Because of the redefinition of the basic races and classes, the Hobbit now has a great difficulty becoming a Ninja. From the new races, the Dracon and the Felpurr have an easier time becoming Ninja. Perhaps as a rare event, Dwarves are also well fit to become Ninja. As a rule of thumb, most races will have a requirement of 15-17 bonus points (or the minimum amount of points required for changing into the class based on their racial attributes); the most difficult would be the Mook, with its outstanding requirement of 21 points.

Duhan Saga (Tales of the Forsaken Land/Wizardry Alternative)
In Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land (also known as Busin: Wizardry Alternative in Japan) and their sequels, the Ninja becomes even more of a jack-of-all-trades class, very close to its later incarnations than to their earlier ones. First and foremost, the Ninja gains the ability to use spells from both the Priest and Sorcerer classes, but with the harsh limitation of learning only up to the second level of each. The Ninja retains it's old ability to instantly slay an opponent with a critical hit, and also the high chances to enable such ability. As well, the Ninja reclaims its supernatural evasion ability. A point to consider is that Ninja do not have the capability to equip as much weapons as a Fighter or Samurai do. Another point to consider is that, once again, the Ninja is the class with the highest requirements to access: however, they aren't as outrageous as with other instances of the series. To top it all off, they have a better chance to unlock and defuse traps than other classes (save for Thieves), but the system used by the game to defuse locks and traps makes this edge a bit needless.

To become a Ninja, the character must achieve the minimum requirements:


 * Level 12


 * Evil Attribute


 * 25 Power


 * 25 Life


 * 25 Agility


 * 25 Luck

As with the earlier versions of the series, the requirements to become a Ninja are difficult to achieve, but Halflings have a much easier task than other classes. Still, virtually any class can become a Ninja without difficulty. The greatest restriction the players will have with the class lie on the difficulty to blend characters of different alignments, considering that Ninjas once again require to be Evil by definition. Ironically, one of the few Ninja NPCs is acquired at the very beginning of the game, and usually it will adopt a Good or Neutral alignment.

The sequel to Wizardry: TOFL has the advanced version of the Ninja, called the Omnyoji.