The Ninja Assassin (Shinobi): D&D 5e Character Build

[@Gafizal1]

Why not just start with a rapier, and a short sword ? lvl 1 rapier , lvl 2 short sword, monk 2 rapier is dedicated weapon ? The lvl 1 fighter with a long sword and Str 8 is not good

[@cmccbuilds8229]

This is correct on both accounts. Editing at 1am has failed me :(

[@Gafizal1]

@@cmccbuilds8229 No worries, appreciate your content! I kept wanting to find a way to fold some rogue into this build, but... alas...

[@arkyark8]

One can easily re-skin the rapier into a sabre. Same mechanics but with slashing damage instead.

[@mikedickens848]

One of the best ninja build yet.

[@SleepyOmel]

As someone who likes watching build videos, how have i not managed to find you sooner?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

More people need to share!!

[@bernardinidavide]

Man, you are awesome! I had nothing but an image of it (The build) in my mind and u made it real. Thank you so mutch!

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Glad you liked it :)

[@michelleeveret6087]

This sounds like a really fun build! Thanks for sharing :)

[@geoffshetler9553]

YES! Another AMAZING Video and Build. Keep up the great work!

[@edwardhumphrey3580]

Not to take away from Battle Master, but definitely going Echo Knight with this instead

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Awesome. Love echo knight.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Damn, didn't see this when I posted about psi fighter.

[@thedeaderer8791]

Yo I'm not into monks but this build seems Hella fun. This kinda build is why I'm subscribed bro I love the way ur brain works lmao

[@alexdaemon09]

I don’t watch build videos to actually build what they say. I simply watch them to get inspiration for an existing build and to learn something new. This video is absolutely exquisite! P.S - Comment #100 W

[@Elbinac]

About Focused Aim*, per the wording you need to miss to spend those points. @9:07ish you indicate that even if your attacks hit you can still spend the points which is not true. Potentially turning a miss into a hit and getting another weapon attack either way is still useful enough. DM homebrew not withstanding. *rant mode* It would be nice to see Monk abilities opened up a little to allow for flurries of daggers, darts or even arrows. Maybe even a stunning strike. Would certainly be a nice ninja feel. Ah well.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Focused aim not KFA, but you’re right. It does specify “miss”. I was trying to be too cutesy.

[@Elbinac]

@@cmccbuilds8229 Replying while tired ftw! Ah well, fixed it. Still sort of does the thing, just less reliably.

[@geostanton]

Mike, great build. Looking for the character stat sheet and couldn't find it on the list. Thinking about using just the Monk fighter version so as to not "over optimize" LOL. Thanks!

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Character sheets are all on my patreon

[@geostanton]

I have access to the patreon. I don't see it

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Let me see what’s up. And thank you for the heads up and support.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

@geostanton added. Let me know if you have any other issues or notice anything else missing.

[@belrevan1986]

I remade this build for an Eve of Ruin campaign. He will be 2 rogue/ 4 gloomstalker ranger/ 14 shadow monk

[@thewolverine7619]

I'm gonna totally use this with a tortle as my race. Why? Because I love the Ninja Turtles and got inspired because of all the turtle clips

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Awesome! Love me some ninja turtles.

[@havilar3095]

totally becoming a wererat for splinter now!

[@benmills4358]

Hello, I'm new to the page. Researched the build personality you would get more out of taking 4 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger instead of Battle Master Fighter. 1 favorite foe/Hunter's mark for damage. 2 Umbral Sight/ Dread Ambusher Wis bonus to init plus invisible in dim light /darkness + extra attack and damage 3 if you plan on using darkness spell I strongly suggest getting Feat Eldrich Adept for Devil Sight ( seeing in magical darkness)

[@cmccbuilds8229]

The build has blind sight and requires the battle master maneuvers to stunning strike on off turns. I already have a Gloomstalker/monk build on the channel. Hunters mark isnt good, especially on a build that gets attacks with a bonus action.

[@benmills4358]

@@cmccbuilds8229 fair enough I'll have to check out that video

[@Fsbr21]

@cmcc builds could you explain how a typical round would play when you start out combat? gameplay wise- lets say lvl 6 there are 2 melee enemies and 2 archers

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

OK, I've watched this a least 5 times in the last 18 hours.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

That’s where all my views are coming from ;)

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

@@cmccbuilds8229 I really like the concept. Would like to run 3 levels of rogue for assassin in it. Or maybe sentinel for a little more control.

[@SZRLM]

One could argue that since the Twilight Sanctuary follows the caster, it makes it easier to try to track the relative position of the invisible assassin. But ya know, still invisible. Also at a certain point, teleport 30ft is not as good as disengaging and moving 50+ft. Surprised to not see Eldritch Adept or Fighting Initiate included to avoid level dips especially given how much bending over backwards to mitigate Darkness's effect on the user there was. Keep in mind Twilight Sanctuary is only once per rest and doesn't allow for ki-fueled attack like Ki-casted Darkness.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

:) why not Strixhaven backgrounds fog cloud?

[@panagiotisgeorgiadis2613]

5lvls Kensei and 6 lvls bladesinger. I know you need good stats to build it but listen. You have bladesingers extra attack that allows you to do an attack and a cantrip. So you first cast mind sliver which will give your enemy 1d4 minus on his next saving throw and then you attack unarmed and call a stunning strike. Because you are a Kensei that means you also get a +2 on your AC. Now you can combine this with a haste spell that you would cast at the first round of combat giving you a +4 to your AC. The downfall is that you need at least 11lvls for this to start working (actually it would be 12 so your unarmed strikes will be considered magical) and you will only have 5 Ki points but it works very good imo.

[@snakept69]

I played a relatively similar build. Instead of Fighter I went Rogue Assassin with Shadow Monk. Less straight up damage, but expertise in stealth+pass without trace means you never fail stealth, even on a nat 1. You are dependant on surprise and poisons for damage, but surprise is trivial with that ammount of stealth and poisons can be done with some DM help. I even used Holy Water and an anti-demon/undead "poison". Was very fun, but nowhere near as good as this one in a "fair" fight.

[@hazardpay8560]

@18:19 can someone walk me through how he's getting 7 attacks a round?! he mentions action surge, flurry of blows and a reaction attack by my count I see: 1 Attack 2 Unarmed from Flurry of Blows (Monk 2) 1 Extra attack (Monk 5) 1 From Action Surge (Fighter 2) 1 from a Reaction assuming the opportunity to react presents itself That's 6, where's the 7th? I'm assuming he means Ki Fueled attack - but that is also a Bonus action, which conflicts with FoB If he'd chosen somewhere along the line to take Fight up to level 5, he'd have #7 but otherwise I'm not seeing it?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Action surge doubles the action attacks from 2 to 4. Flurries of blows is 6. Reaction attack. 7.

[@hazardpay8560]

nevermind, I figured it out Action surge confers another Action If I use that action to attack, the wording of Monk 5's extra attack would turn that into 2 attacks... Fair play.

[@landonrivers]

We are going to be killing dragons in Tyranny of Dragons. How could I use this class? Also, how can I avoid stepping on toes with constant Darkness casting which might hinder the others in my party from attacking?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

The video before this one is entirely about darkness in combat and how to use it.

[@landonrivers]

@@cmccbuilds8229 Thanks! yep I saw that one. What about for fighting dragons? They can blindsight, so all my shadow goodies kind of go to waste.

[@awdsgrgde6979]

Wait. Just a thought. Assuming everything happens in dim light or darkness: Is it possible to use stunning strike on a creature with an action, grapple it in the next turn, guarranting the grapple, then use Shadow Step vertically upwards into the air, still holding the creature, make the creature take full falling damage and reduce the damage you take with Slow Fall?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Why can you teleport an enemy with shadow step?

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Would you be willing to try to build Violet Song Jat Shariff from the movie Ultraviolet?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Hmm it had a pretty small audience.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Yeah, but its literally my favorite Milla Jovovich part. Also, how often will current Stand Against The Tide be perfect for a build? (Dammit Kurt Wimmer, why did your 2nd gun kata film have to do so poorly)

[@ghosteeniesmith6219]

please turn up your input volume

[@Spidermunyo]

what thing deos he use to make his charachters im trying to use dungeron master vault but it deosint have some of the stuff mentioned help please

[@cmccbuilds8229]

It’s Dndbeyond

[@LucasSchmitt-qk8hz]

Ive nade this build without knowing i was originally making an assassin but built a ninja

[@gaidencastro9706]

Notes: Ninjitsu is more of an intent. A combat Shinobi is a foot soldier that uses grappling hooks to get over walls and performs ambushes, all while in armor. The closest thing we have to a classical "Ninja" Shinobi are the samurai who dedicated their lives specifically towards ninjutsu, who specialize in espionage rather than killing and mainly assassinate people when it's convenient. These Shinobi's job is mainly getting the lay of the land before the party even gets to a city or castle, which would also be really cool.

[@jeffadams9807]

Why Not Add 3 Levels Of Gloomstalker ???

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I do that in my gunk build

[@AuraXars]

I've heard some tables banning/not liking twilight cleric, if that wasn't an option at the table what would you consider adding for the last 2 levels?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Peace cleric or monk

[@DrAndrewJBlack]

👍🏻

[@james-ud9lp]

But don't you need a way to see through the magical Darkness? Without something like devils sight. Or something like that you won't be able to see I understand you have blind fight but that's limited to 10 ft.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Follow up, why not psionic fighter instead of battle master for more dice (I know not as versatile and it wants intelligence as a secondary but double proficiency dice that scales with level instead of class level).

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Psi Warrior is great but doesn’t have the rider options that BM has until lvl 7. It’s not as flexible. And the lack of a reaction attack option is actually huge. Especially on a monk that can use that to land a stunning strike.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

@@cmccbuilds8229 kk

[@backlash660]

I made a similar build except instead of 3 levels of fighter I went with 3 levels of Gloom Stalker ranger .

[@cmccbuilds8229]

In that case I wouldn’t go twilight cleric. Some anti-synergies there.

[@backlash660]

@@cmccbuilds8229 I like the feel of the twilight cleric . It might not be the best for optimizing but the flavor was what I wanted .

[@TommieCobb]

The biggest problem with this, is that all of this is super dope, and should be possible via Non-magical means, without having to dip into a spellcasting class. Darkness spell? Ninja Smoke Bomb Sleep Spell? Ninja sleep powder. But I guess these things are too complicated to be anything but magic in the game. 🙄

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Flavor can and should be used on those shadow ninja spells.

[@TommieCobb]

@@cmccbuilds8229 I agree. But I'm tired of putting salt and pepper on my mashed potatoes and pretending it's a steak. I want the real thing lol.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Lol!

[@mortalitydoesstuff8965]

@@TommieCobb while the design of 5e fucks over the martial classes like all editions before it, if your DM is smart they'll award martials custom abilities they can use that synergize with their character concept after completing certain story or personal arcs, learning them from NPCs they interact with, or discovering their secrets through exploration, collection, and studying. It's not an excuse for the designers not to implement this kind of stuff, but it's an easy way to make your players feel super cool and strong without having to do that much work overall. And you can get these abilities from anywhere. I watch a lot of reviews of crowdfunded expansion content just to steal subclass abilities I think are cool, tweak the numbers and the descriptions so they fit the fantasy I'm trying to communicate a bit better, and slap those babies onto players' character sheets. You can also grab from older editions of D&D (4e has a lot of cool stuff that translates very easily to 5e), other game systems entirely, or just make up your own. The design language of 5e is pretty easy to understand on purpose, even moreso (hopefully) with the changes coming in One D&D, so as long as you have a decent understanding of how to do dice math and a specific fantasy you want to fulfill you can create all kinds of awesome abilities for your players to enjoy. And if this is something you're interested in, let your DM know and see what they think and I'm sure you'll at least give it a test drive. Also, there's nothing stopping you from doing this for spellcasters too and you should as well, but keep it pretty limited, predictable, and specific for them because if your homebrew gets too complex you might get some interactions you didn't anticipate that throw the whole balance of power at the table into a death spiral. It's much harder to do that on classes where all you do is hit things.

[@vancestrong3900]

If bought, there is a cannister of smoke that dispelles smoke to hide. Otherwise talk with gm to implement a system where your character uses objects as smoke bomb but spell slot as item quantity?

[@Droid6689]

It would seem to me that a straight hexblade would be functionally superior for this just without trying to buff your party's stealth. Rolling 3d20 is much nicer when you crit on 19s as well and can dump an eldritch smite into it, plus no need for multiclassing because your sight ability is built into the class. Then if you were going for a more accurate ninja it'd be better to do Gloomstalker 6/Assassin 14 to get more versatility for all the spy stuff ninjas did instead of just being mystic stealth attackers. Monk is a poor class for an accurate ninja because it forces you into unarmed strikes when ninja were primarily armed combatants and the class lacks the skillmonkey aspect that is quintessential to a ninja

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Uhh this build uses weapons. Monks don’t force unarmed combat at all.

[@Droid6689]

@CMCC Builds Flurry of blows doesn't use weapons, Martial Arts bonus action attack doesn't use weapons, even the weapon based Kensei forces unarmed strikes to use their Agile Parry. I guess nothing stops you from using two weapon fighting but it's kind of a large downgrade from the unarmed strikes without the fighting style. You could try and stunning strike every turn to use ki powered strike, but if the enemy is getting stunlocked you get advantage each turn anyway without cheesing darkness so the darkness would be mostly for defense. Also it just occurred to me that I cannot fathom a clean way to roleplay this fighting style without metagaming. With blind fighting you can "see" 10 feet out and then the 15 foot darkness blocks all sight so you cannot perceive anything past 10 feet. How would that character know what direction to go in to get to a new target?

[@cmccbuilds8229]

The primary mode of attack on this build is with weapons. That should be clear from the video. The 1-2 additional BA attack will usually be unarmed. That matters little to the DPR and force multiplying power of the build. Not seeing an enemy doesn’t mean you don’t know exactly where they are. They must be actively HIDDEN for them to be unknown.

[@Droid6689]

@CMCC Builds Yes, but that was my point. If you wanted a monk without using unarmed attacks you have to actively avoid extra damage. It would take a very liberal, and entirely illogical, interpretation of the rules to say you know the exact location and identity of every creature in earshot when blinded. RAW says you can detect location by noise, but does not state you can identify the source of the noise explicitly. A fair and logical interpretation of the rules would say you could roll to intuit the identity of a sound, but until identified in some way you wouldn't be able to tell each sound apart from eachother

[@jordanprice6457]

I love the idea of all of this automatic advantage and good dpr, but the reality of using darkness for these effects is that it isn’t table-friendly. Darkness will put most of your party members at disadvantage to hit unless that have Devil’s Sight. Yes this is cancelled out if the enemy can’t see in the darkness either, but you’ve just cancelled everyone’s advantage but your own. If you have a barbarian in your party, reckless attack is now useless. Same with any other character that wants advantage. AOE effects can be difficult to aim depending on the size of the effect if you don’t know where the enemy is in the darkness and most martials have to hit with an attack to force a saving throw that might “bypass” the to hit roll advantage/disadvantage problems. Overall, it might be fun for you, but if it’s not fun for your friends and party members, I don’t think it’s really fun.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Someone didn’t watch the darkness video!

[@donatszabo141]

I dont like the last levels. I think 3 gloomstalker ranger could be more potent, if you can get a familiar, with a poisener kit, you can get his venom, rogue assassin is a very good trip too

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I already did a monk/fighter/Gloomstalker build on this channel

[@donatszabo141]

@@cmccbuilds8229 then i will check it ☺️ thank you 👍 i think its very cool you make good role play builds that are competitive ✌️

[@remyb6854]

Bruh. Do you say that dancing lights isnt good because you have darkvision ... My guy. Dancing Lights is good BECAUSE you have darkvision. It creates dim light. You see dim light like bright light.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Which removes disadvantage on perception checks with sight (often good for scouting) - at the cost of announcing your presence (opposite of good for scouting). It’s also concentration, so the pass without a trace you cast > bye! The darkness you cast > bye! It’s not bad because you have darkvision, it’s just bad in general AND you have darkvision :)

[@remyb6854]

@@cmccbuilds8229 lol

[@akmi1931]

Dancing lights is useless on a Dark Elf But it could be very useful on any other build without darkvision

[@havilar3095]

just for the hell of it made a 20th level character. 5 in fighter, 2 in the Twilight Domain cleric, 3 in Gloom Stalker ranger 3 in Assassin Rogue last 7 in shadow monk why IDK lol race drow i took high drow magic feat and alert! im gone roll my stats! one at time! i wont even optimize and and put them in the best spots because why not! lol ill tell you where they land in moment! and if you want you can put the in the best spots for the character! me i wont!

[@havilar3095]

update this is bad very bad STR 17 DEX 9 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 8 CHA 16 hahahahaha

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

I thought this would be a shadow monk rogue build because rogue makes better stealth killers through their sneak attack. I am very disappointed. I don't really care for dpr and would build for Nova damage rather than dpr any time.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Rogue makes the build worse. If you can fit it - do it.

[@arkyark8]

I respectfully disagree. The fact that rogue is not in this build is a refreshing change.

[@mortalitydoesstuff8965]

Monk rogue is my least favorite multiclass. You get a good amount of the same shit in the early levels which is effectively wasting levels. Like yeah your martial arts and sneak attack die may go up but that's not enough of a bonus to make up for crippling your versatility. The only thing it helps is ki consumption in the first tier of play because all the non-attack stuff a monk can do as a bonus action for ki a rouge can do for free Hopefully the One D&D martials play test fixes this issue because everyone really wants that combo to be better than it is. Also let's hope they stop making such bad decisions for rogues as a class so I don't lose interest in one of my favorite martial classes

[@methos1138]

“Jeremy Crawford got this one wrong”….🤨🤭

[@cmccbuilds8229]

It happens

[@punishedwhispers1218]

Rangers are historical accurate ninjas so disliked >:( Not really but just saying

[@reesebenson3215]

Dnd isn’t about historical accuracy, its a fantasy game. That being said, gloom stalkers make great ninjas.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

I’m making a fantasy ninja not a historical ninja. “Way of Shadow Monks of the Way of Shadow follow a tradition that values stealth and subterfuge. These monks might be called ninjas or shadowdancers, and they serve as spies and assassins. “

[@mortalitydoesstuff8965]

@@cmccbuilds8229 historically accurate ninja would have extremely limited if any magic reflavored into abilities and would probably be a samurai fighter and rogue multiclass, probably inquisitor rogue but scout and thief are also good options.

[@cmccbuilds8229]

Exactly. I don’t think “historically accurate” ninja could teleport :)

[@akmi1931]

“Historically Accurate Ninjas” used a lot of tricks and misdirection that was thought to be magical by their victims. You could easily interpret the Shadow Monk’s abilities into traditional Ninja Jutsu by just dismissing the “magical” aspects of it

[@chrisg8989]

This build but with a Tortle so I can be a Ninja Tortle. 🥷 🐢