Monk vs. Ninja

[Lightweight Rower]

I've read in a lot of posts how a lot of players prefer monks and ninjas. But I was wondering, which class is better? The monk or the ninja?

[ChaosTheorist]

"Better" at what?
Ranged damage? Toss-up (assuming equal stats)
Ranged kills? The Ninja.
Melee damage? The Monk.
Melee kills? Toss-up--but a same-level Fighter with Excaliber or Fang will get more instant kills than either.
Useful magic? Depends on the other casters in the party.

The Ninja is kind of an odd class. Unless you're specifically running a Faerie Ninja to use the Cane of Corpus, it's kind of hard to justify the Ninja other than for variety. The Ninja's unique skill is thrown auto-penetrate + thrown critical, plus the melee crital-strike bonus. Which is kind of cool, but the Ranger is a better long-range killer (and has the same magic), and well-equipped Fighters dish out more melee damage and get more melee kills. Plus, the thrown criticals of the Ninja are hard to come by early on due to the shortage of good weapons to throw. And the Ninja levels up slower than all the other hybrid-caster classes.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't try one, but be aware that you need to decide up front what your Ninja's role will be, and tailor the stat building appropriately. Unless you're running a much-reduced party, it takes a long (long!) time to build a "do everything" Ninja.

[Lightweight Rower]

Yeah, I guess I should have made my question more specific. But you pretty much cover my question, since I was asking which one was better in general.