How To Get A-Head in Aabahran: Despiser's Ninja Guide

[Lunicant]

Despiser How to Rule the Shadows as a Ninja

 

A ninja, properly played, can be the single most deadly force in these Forsaken Lands. They have a wide variety of offensive abilities, as well as the ability to land the only 'one hit kill' attack with regularity...if you have the patience for it.

 

 

RACES

 

Human: A human, as with every single class in this game, can be a decent char. Even, flat stats all across, as well as the lack of a vuln, make this a good class; and of course, only by being a human can you go undead, which has some decided advantages. Generally, though, a 'pure human' ninja, although a solid choice, is just a bit...boring. Humans, however, have the full range of alignments to choose from. Half-elf: To be honest, there really is no obvious 'bad' race to choose for ninja; almost all races can be played solidly, and the same is true for the half-elf.

 

Half-elves, although having lowered strength and constitution, have several benefits, being more dextrous and smarter, more easily learning and mastering skills. Generally, though, like humans, a half-elf is the same...a solid race, but nothing outstanding...although is a rather good weapon for a half-elf ninja out there. But, in my opinion at least, it's not worth it. Half-elves can only be neutral.

 

Drow: A drow, at 500 xp, is the highest exp. penalty out of all these races, and with good reason. Having outstanding intelligence and dexterity, you will find you train skills very quickly, have large amounts of mana to set decoys/use blindness dust, and so on, and the high dext is very useful to a ninja. The autosneak is also a very nice bonus, allowing you to sneak in and out permanently, without having to worry about low movements, and so forth. The downside to this, however, is that drow have very puny strength and constitution, although that is made up for somewhat by the large amount of spare practices you will have, which can be converted to trains. Drows can only be evil.

 

Avian: The best of all, for a 'beginner' player who doesn't mind putting a little extra effort in, via the exp penalty. Avians have decent strength and constitution, decent intelligence and wisdom, and VERY good dexterity, just behind drow. Autofly means that you don't have to worry about flight potions or scrolls, and the high strength and constitution will allow you to use more weapons and have more health than a drow. An extremely solid class. It's one weakness, however, is a vulnerability to air damage...but air damage weapons being few and far between, this isn't much to worry about. My personal favorites have always been avians. Avians, like humans, have the full range of the align spectrum to play with.

 

 

A ninja has five weapons; sword, spear, dagger, staff, and hand to hand. Master them all; you don't have enough weapons so that you can neglect any. Take especial care to master hand to hand. I say exactly why...but think about what you strangle people with.

 

Dirt kick: Dirt kick is a skill common to all melee-oriented classes. It, in effect, blinds the opponent for a round, lowering their accuracy a good amount.

 

Hide and Sneak: As the name implies, the first one lets you hide, so that only classes with detect hidden (aside from quest classes, that is only thieves and ninjas) can be seen. Sneak allows you to move around and stay hidden; it also allows so that when you enter or leave the room, people there don't get a "Ninjadude flies west" message. Hide can only work in certain types of terrain; experiment, though. You may be surprised at the places you can hide, although you can never hide in Deep Forest or in Water of any sort.

 

Detect Hidden/Detect Invisible: These spells allow you to, respectively, see hidden people, and see invisible people. Fairly self-explanatory.

 

Endure: An extremely useful skill. It improves your svs spell for the time when the skill is active; as your rank goes up, so does the degree of protection.

 

Disarm: This allows you to remove a weapon from your opponents hand. Note, however, that the less you know about that weapon, the harder it is to disarm, and some weapons are inherently easier or harder to disarm with or to disarm (see 'help weapons'). Also, some weapons cannot be disarmed, and others, when disarmed, don't drop to the floor, but instead to their owner's inventory.

 

Pick Lock: An extremely useful skill, this allows you to pick open many locks, allowing you to open locked doors and chests without a key. Not all locks can be picked; some may take many tries to. Mastery really isn't necessary, but if you wish it, just go to an unpickable door and pick away for a while.

 

Caltraps: A HUGELY useful skill in combat. It has three effects. First, it hampers your enemies movement in battle, lowering their dexterity and hitdam. Second, it adds an 'enfeeble' effect for a few hours, so that your enemy uses up a considerable amount of movement while they run, either away from you, or towards you. This can keep fleeing enemies from running far, or allow you to make an escape while they stand there, frustrated, all their movement gone, and spikes in their feet. This is one of the three most important melee skills for a ninja to use; dirt, caltraps, and nerve pinch, usually in that order.

 

Trip and Grapple: Tripping is a lag skill that only works when your opponent is not flying; it's mainly useful because, if you miss, unlike with bash/bodyslam/grapple, you are only lagged one round, not three. However, it is generally less 'lagging' as well. Grapple is a "poor man's bash." It does a decent amount of damage at pinnacle and mastered, and has a chance to lag the opponent much like bash or bodyslam does, if it lands. Like I said before, however, it's not as effective; you might be able to grapple someone for a few rounds, but don't expect to 'grapplelock' them to death.

 

Dual wield: This skill allows you to use two one-handed weapons at once. Generally, you must dual wield a weapon lighter than the weapon in your main hand, although extremely light weapons don't necessarily follow this.

 

Vanish: A very useful skill; in essence, it is an area teleport. When you use vanish and it succeeds, you are taken out of the room you are in, and randomly placed into a different one in the same area. This skill can be used even in combat as a method of quick escape, although the chance of it succeeding goes down drastically. A good combination would be to 'push' your enemy away, then vanish and get to a place you can hide, or recall as needed.

 

Defuse: This skill allows you to see and defuse most traps around. Be warned though, many of the the better 'special' traps thieves get cannot be defused.

 

Blindness dust: This skill blinds your opponent; it is equivalent to the 'blind' spell for shamans. However, it is an 'area' skill, which attempts to blind all in the same room. Be careful if you are standing next to a hard creature; it will treat any dust in its eyes as an attack. 

 

Poison dust: This skill is similar to blindness dust, except it poisons, not blinds. Useful in conjunction with nerve pinch, it can force many low-strength races to drop heavy weapons.

 

Strangle: Strangle allows you to put your opponent to sleep for a space of two, sometimes three hours, if it succeeds. The chance of it is improved if you are hiding at the time. After strangling, a ninja can then proceed to blind and poison the opponent at leisure. This is an incredibly important skill; master it. It allows you to get the 'jump' on most classes; if you strangle them while unawares, you can blind and poison them, then protect yourself with sanctuary, all the while with your victim sleeping helplessly, unable to put up any protections. Be warned though; not every class can be strangled!

 

Nerve pinch: This skill is akin to a shaman's "weaken" spell...except better. When used, if it succeeds (and at mastery, it will very often), it lowers your opponent's strength by a fair amount. In conjunction with poison dust, you can force your opponent to drop their weapons; if you notice them having a particularly heavy weapon (perhaps borderline), this may actually be the first skill you use.

 

Throw/Edgecraft: With the recent tone-down to the damage of throw, this becomes much less important, although you can hit vulnerabilties with it by the use of the edgecraft skill, which makes shurikens for you to throw. Edgecraft makes better shurikens at higher levels, and rare items can make shurikens that can be thrown to hit vulnerabilities; for example, a rare icy weapon that is edged would produce icy shurikens. Edgecraft is also useful for getting rid of many items that you don't need, but you cannot drop, and which cannot be uncursed.

 

Acupuncture: This is similar to the 'field dressing' skill of the battlemage. When applied, if you succeed, you heal a number of HP (the higher your rank, the more HP), at a loss of 2 dexterity; if you fail, however, your hitdam decreases, as well as your dexterity, for a period of several hours. Chii: This skill is the same as the monk skill; it just improves your AC while being used.

 

Kick/Double Kick: Don't even bother. If you have time to kick, you have time to do something else more important.

 

Envenom: This allows you to poison food, water containers, and shurikens. The poison on food and containers, however, can usually be vomited out fairly easily.

 

Decoy: An underutilized ability. It creates a 'duplicate' of you that explodes when attacked, possibly blinding and poisoning the enemy. However, this skill is a bit less effective against skilled players, who usually won't rush in and slam you. It's also less effective against other rogue classes, who can see both the 'fake' and the 'real' you.

 

Push: A very useful skill, it can be used two ways. First, you can push someone for damage, if you push them in a direction where there's no exits. Second, if you push them in a direction where there IS an exit, they are pushed in that direction. Very useful in many different ways, but be warned; if you fail the push, you yourself will stumble in the direction you intended to push your opponent. At mastery, however, that will be rare...so train it.

 

Study/Assassinate: Assassinate is the ninja's One Hit KO skill, to knock out opponents that are just too darn powerful or sneaky to be killed in melee. For players, one must 'study' the enemy's movement first; you can learn either a lot or a little from each study attempt, ranging from "Failing to notice anything" all the way to "You spot a potential weakness!" After studying, you need to meditate for a time. You will know that you have 'fully' studied your opponent when on your score, you get the message, "Victimdude's soul bears your mark." That is when you can assassinate him. Both study and assassinate can be mastered; assassinate is more effective vs strangled opponents, and while you are hidden. For mobs, I believe it is impossible (or perhaps just very very hard) to assassinate any mobs above your rank. Mobs, however, do not need to be studiedm, making equipping for a ninja fairly easy.

 

At a high rank in your guild, you get to choose which path of ninjitsu you wish to go on. There are five, altogether.

 

Shadowstrike basically gives you an extra attack each round; when it lands, it performs a small status malediction, lowering one of your opponent's stats (str, dext, etc.).

 

Falcon eye lets you study people faster and more easily.

 

Death kiss lets you abort an assassination attempt on a sleeping victim, if you would have failed, and keep your study.

 

Lotus scourge makes your poison that much stronger, increasing it's power several times over.

 

Finally, doublesheath allows you to store weapons in your sleeves; when disarmed, you automatically draw the weapon in the you were disarmed. Also, if you have mastered throw, if you leave a doublesheath slot open, when you 'murder' someone, or when they flee from you, you will automatically chuck a batch of shurikens at them as well.