Knight or Ninja

Mediaeval plate armour is not completely impenetrable. Arrows, swords and pointed daggers will penetrate steel plate. A ninja could, in theory, stab an armoured knight through his armour. However, chain mail will stop virtually anything short of a battleaxe or war hammer. While it may not stop all blows, full armour will reduce or eliminate damage from most assaults. A knight's weapons, such as swords and halberds, have much greater reach than a ninja's non-projectile armaments. Of course, ninja are less heavily armoured and their weapons are lighter, so speed would be on their side in a duel. A ninja would have to dodge their way in close to a knight and do something particularly lethal; a knight, on the other hand, just needs to land one blow that's reasonably on-target and the ninja would be dead or incapacitated.

Another advantage is a knight's ability to parry. Swords and shields are effective for blocking attacks; a ninja's weapons are utterly useless in that regard.

Also, the entire 'purpose' of the knight just appeals to me more: valiantly charging into the midst of the most fierce fighting, as opposed to the ninja's way of sneaking about the place, looking for cheap and easy ways to pick off unsuspecting enemies.

and silk was considerd arrowproof because the arrow couldnt rip it, so the arrow pushed the cloth into the wound, preventing most infection and removing the arrow more easily, but you have to take into account the numerous layers of armour (as you do by moving onto mail etc). Never the less, just getting a bad scratch in combat could and often did lead to a deadly infaction which, if not killing you, would cause a limb amputation, whos more likely to recive such a wound - ninja.
armour was also shaped and curved to prevent people from simply stabbing through their armour via deflection, or there wouldnt have been much point to it, thats why crossbows were more deadly than bows because the crossbow was closer range like a sniper.

if youve been tought PROPER sheild fighting, then you will know hoe bloody hard it is to fight someone who knows what they are doing with a sheild, and that on it's own, let alone fully armoured would stump a ninja (unless they had ninja magic lol) as for parrying, you can parry and block with ANY type of sword, but oriental swords being one sided are a hinderance, and the curve is even more of a letdown. BUT alot of people today, are tought compleate rubbish about how to fight, so EVERYONE is relient on actually learning something decent lol

i agree totally with you about valor and chivalry. I have had countless people who turnup and before they have even held a real sword they want to stab people in the back, once they become experianced in only a week, they can see how stupid this was, most people who stab in the back get hurt because a decent swordfighter learns to "sense" everything around them and will often turn around and hit you by accident. Backstabbing is a very VERY difficult technique to learn to do properly.

if you need to stab in the back it means one simple thing, you lack any ability whatso ever and your still gonna die. And your probably gonna die worse than an honest opponant.