Ultima Online Ninjitsu - eight abilities, eight animal forms, and the two figures that are not settled

The eight abilities

Ability	Skill	Mana	What it does
Animal Form	10	0	Become one of eight creatures. See the note below — an unpublished variant has these two numbers the other way round.
Mirror Image	20	10	Up to 4 images, each of which “can absorb a single attack from an enemy before disappearing”.
Focus Attack	30	10	“A small damage bonus” and it “increases the effectiveness of any magical properties on the weapon”.
Backstab	40	30	From stealth, with a damage bonus based on your Ninjitsu and the distance you have tracked the target.
Shadowjump	50	15	Jump while hidden. On landing, Stealth decides whether you stay hidden.
Surprise Attack	60	20	From stealth; inflicts a defence penalty. You cannot re-enter stealth for 5 seconds afterwards.
Ki Attack	80	25	Initiate, then close. “The farther the Ninja travels to deliver the blow, the higher the damage bonus.”
Death Strike	85	30	Delayed damage. Its own section below.

The eight animal forms, and what each one is for

uo.com’s table, in its own order. The skill column is what you need to take the form.

Skill	Form	What it grants
0	Rabbit / Rat	“+20 point bonus to the stealth skill”
40	Cat / Dog	“Increases regeneration rate”, scaled by Ninjitsu
50	Giant Serpent	“Inflicts low level poison whenever you strike”
50	Bullfrog	“Inflicts poison when your enemy damages you at short range”
70	Ostard / Llama	“Increases movement speed”
85	Wolf / Bake-Kitsune	Movement speed, plus a bonus to both hit chance and max hit points
100	Unicorn	Movement speed, plus “immunity to low level poisons”
100	Ki-Rin	Movement speed, plus “regenerates stamina quickly”

The rat is the one non-ninjas take the skill for. A flat +20 Stealth at 0 Ninjitsu is the cheapest skill bonus in the game, and it is why thieves and scouts carry a handful of points in a magic skill they otherwise never use.

[!] Every bonus above is qualitative. uo.com gives no number for the regeneration rate, the movement speed, the hit chance bonus, the hit point bonus, or the level of poison. Only the rat’s +20 Stealth is a published figure.

Death Strike, and the second unsettled figure

Death Strike does no damage when it lands. It marks the target, and the damage arrives later based on what the target did in between. That much is settled, and so is the 85 skill / 30 mana cost. The rest is not.

What both versions agree on, and what it means in practice: standing still reduces the damage, running increases it, and a target who knows the mechanic will stop moving. Death Strike is therefore a control tool as much as a damage one.

Smoke bombs, shuriken and fukiya darts

Three thrown items are gated on this skill, and they are a large part of why a ninja template works.

• Smoke bombs and egg bombs — uo.com: “essentially the same thing; smoke bombs are made by alchemists using eggs and ginseng while egg bombs are made by cooks using eggs and flour”. Both require 50 or higher Ninjitsu. They are the instant hide, and they are the reason a ninja disengages at will. See Alchemy and Cooking.
• Shuriken — held in a ninja belt, which must be equipped, and you must have a free hand to throw one. Effective at 3–9 tiles, and they can be poisoned — see Poisoning.
• Fukiya darts — shorter range, 1–4 tiles, also poisonable.

[!] Shuriken and fukiya damage is not published, nor is what if anything Ninjitsu skill does to it.

In PvP

Ninjitsu is the best disengage in the game and one of the best openers. The pattern is Backstab or Surprise Attack out of stealth, Death Strike, smoke bomb, gone — and the 5-second stealth lockout after Surprise Attack is the built-in cost of that pattern.

Mirror Image is the defensive one and it is undervalued: four images, each eating one attack, is four attacks that were not aimed at you.

It pairs with Hiding, Stealth and a weapon skill — and with Bushido, because the two share the Faster Casting cap of 4 rather than Magery’s 2, so their abilities come off a suit that is not built around a caster’s numbers.

In PvM

Animal Form carries PvM Ninjitsu almost single-handed: the Wolf / Bake-Kitsune form at 85 grants hit chance and max hit points, and the Ki-Rin at 100 regenerates stamina — which is swing speed, indirectly, on a template that fights for a long time.

Focus Attack is the other one: uo.com says it “increases the effectiveness of any magical properties on the weapon”, which on a well-built weapon is worth more than the “small damage bonus” it is described by.

[!] How much Focus Attack increases those properties by is not published.

What is not published

• [!] Animal Form’s mana and skill cost — uo.com gives 0 mana, 10 skill; an unpublished variant swaps them.
• [!] Death Strike’s timer and whose Hiding/Stealth it reads — 3 seconds against 5, target’s against ninja’s.
• [!] Every animal form bonus except the rat’s +20 Stealth is published in words, not numbers.
• [!] Damage figures for Backstab, Ki Attack and Focus Attack. Each is described as scaling; none of the scales is printed.
• [!] Shuriken and fukiya dart damage.
• [!] Mirror Image duration, and whether Ninjitsu changes the number of images.
• [!] Shadowjump distance.

Caps, and how to train it

Ninjitsu has Power Scrolls, so it runs 105 / 110 / 115 / 120 against the 720 total skill cap. The thresholds that decide a template are 50 (smoke bombs and Shadowjump), 85 (Death Strike and the Wolf form) and 100 (Unicorn and Ki-Rin).

An unpublished training path [!]:

From	To	How
0	40	NPC trainer
40	50	completing the quest
50	60	Mirror Image
60	70	Focus Attack
70	85	Shadowjump
85	90	Death Strike
90	120	the Shadow mastery

Because there are no reagents, the only running cost is mana — so the training suit is a Lower Mana Cost and mana-regeneration suit, not a Lower Reagent Cost one.

Where these come from

uo.com Ninjitsu · uo.com Hiding · uo.com Stealth · uo.com Skill Titles · uo.com Skill Gain Systems. Everything here is from uo.com or the game itself; anything uo.com does not publish is marked [!] as unpublished where it appears.