Monk fix

[dman11235]

1a. Shouldn't Abundant Step be a supernatural ability... especially when defying gravity or teleporting?
1b. And instead of faster teleporting at level 19... how about allowing the monk to move their speed as a swift action once per round?

2. You should also include the clauses where the monk loses certain abilities whenever they take penalties for encumbrance.

3. For aquatic environments, I would give the monks the ability to hold their breath for a very long period of time.

4. What about abilities to avoid being slowed down or hindered?

5. An ability for Cold Resistance 5 might be helpful for monks that find themselves in arctic environments, monks that don't want to be weighed down by heavy garmets.

1a: Nope, definitely an (ex).  I did that on purpose.
1b: Nope, did that on purpose too.  It's not supposed to be movement.  It's teleportation.

2: Why?

3: Why?

4: That's Abundant Step.  At level 3 they are no longer affected by difficult terrain.

5: Nope, gotta get that stuff from elsewhere.  Traditionally, they (Eastern style monks) did wear warm clothes when needed, so that's not really an issue.  Also, I specifically only made it armor that prohibits class features.  The Tattooed Monk introduces an ability for energy resistance (including Endure Elements as a constant effect) if you want that.  This class does not have that as a part of it.

I like this monk! Of course, it would only work in a campaign that also had a more powerful fighter and a few other classes.

Why?  I mean, this monk falls into about the Crusader/Warlock power range.  If there's a problem with the power with this monk, then you're not gonna be able to use the Fighter anyways against the likes of the Cleric, or most of the classes anyways.

The Debilitating Strike options are awkward. Entangled by what? Shaken how? If you want these things to be unresistable, it would be better to describe them without using the technical terms. For example, instead of saying shaken, say the opponent has a -2 to attacks and AC (or whatever shaken does). Instead of entangled, have the opponent be unable to move from its current position without a DC [whatever] strength check.

Entangled and Shaken are conditions, they have set values.  It doesn't matter by what they are shaken or entangled, you can make that flavor whatever suits you (for example, maybe you send vibrations through their body that just don't stop for shaken, and for entangled you tie their arms together with their hair, or something else).

New movement forms: I have two problems with these. First, you encourage the monk to invest a ton of ranks in Balance, but then make balance checks unnecessary after a couple levels. So a patient monk doesn't have to invest in Balance at all. I suggest keeping the balance checks forever. Second, some of these effects feel pretty unmonk-like to me. Limitless flight? Standing still on water? What you might do instead (though it will be weaker) is to make this like the Walk on Walls psionic feat. You can walk across water, as long as you end your action on a solid surface. You can jump to great heights (effectively flying) as long as you end your action grabbing on to something. That way, you could retain your cinematic special effects without streching believability too far for this basically mundane class. Keep in mind that your monk can charge anywhere, and has a huge movement speed. That means he can move quite far on water, in the air, etc in one round. Let him charge and run anywhere he can move.

The flight and such are taken from the stereotypical Asian martial arts film, think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Those characters would be mid-level Monks.  More specifically, this class is designed around movement, and anything that cannot fly is not mobile enough.  It starts with making ground movement easier (by using Balance), and ends up making flight possible.  The part about balance checks being useless eventually: no, they don't.  It still takes a balance check to do the swift action teleport.

You might consider enhancing the mobility skills. Let the monk use the jump skill without the normal limits, and at some level, double the range of jump, allowing great leaps. Let the monk climb at full speed and take 10 while climbing.

That's not necessary, although if I did add something like that, it would be at level 3.  Since level 3 already has enough, the next place to put it would be at level 7.  Since level 7 already makes it useless, I don't need it.

Vision: Blindsight is great, but in my opinion, it doesn't fit the idea of a monk very well. What allows him to see invisible creatures? Instead, what if you gave the monk Blind Fight for free. Combined with Blindsense, this means there's only a 25% chance of missing. Add in tremmorsense, so the monk can detect enemy positions around corners and behind walls, and you have the super-senses monk you seem to be going for. If you're really stuck on blindsight, I might word it differently and call it something else: "Because the monk is so attuned to the terrain around him, he can precisely pinpoint the locations of his enemies. Within half the range of his blindsense, he suffers no miss chance due to concealment or invisibility."

They gain Blindsight at level 16.  That's a perfectly reasonable level for that ability.  The tremorsense is a potential flavor for the blindsense/sight, but it's staying as it is.  This ability replicates the old archetype of the always alert warrior, the one who you can never sneak up on.  Very ninja (the fictional assassins, not the class or historical assassins) inspired, I suppose, but adapted a bit.

[Braininthejar]

Blindsight does make sense - the monk-related media are full of blind masters who are so "in tune with the world" they can fight blind without any hinderance.

As for quivering palm, I was thinking of expanding what exactly it can do. Something like this:

At this level of unarmed combat mastery, a character can perform a strike that disrupts the chi flow in his opponent body, causing a potentially fatal internal organ failure. It is effective against all living creatures that have discernable internal anatomy and are not magically protected from critical hits. The quivering palm can be used ( as often as you decide) as part of a normal attack. The character can have the blow do subdual damage or even none at all, leaving the victim seemingly unhurt. The target must make a DC (however you calculate it) fortitude save. If he suceeds, he becomes immune to that attacker's quivering palm for 24 hours. If he fails, the attacker leaves a chi disruption in his body, set to kill the target either at a specified time (anywhere from immidiately to 72 hours) or under specific conditions, which must be connected to physiology (- next time the target falls asleep, gets shaken, enters rage, spends 3 consecutive turns fighting, makes a strength check over set DC etc.) When the condition is met, the target drops dead. Until then, there are no visible signs. A victim who knows of the effect can try to remove it before it discharges. It can be done by a heal spell from a caster aware of the condition, the person who caused it hitting the target again to safely reset their chi, or a DC 30 heal check from a character skilled in acupuncture.



Darn its long... it always happens to me.

[dman11235]

Yeah, see, at best that's a Stunning Fist feat, but as it is I just don't like the ability.  Well, also, there's the fact that I try to stay away from SoDs, so that might be another factor.  I feel that Freezing the Lifeblood can do the job well enough.

[zioth]

I like this monk! Of course, it would only work in a campaign that also had a more powerful fighter and a few other classes.

Why?  I mean, this monk falls into about the Crusader/Warlock power range.  If there's a problem with the power with this monk, then you're not gonna be able to use the Fighter anyways against the likes of the Cleric, or most of the classes anyways.

I wasn't complaining about the power level. Just pointing out that this monk is much more powerful than the other basic melee classes (fighter, barbarian, rogue). Because of that, it would work best (I should have said "work best," not "only work") in a campaign where the other melee classes have been adjusted as well.

The flight and such are taken from the stereotypical Asian martial arts film, think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Those characters would be mid-level Monks.  More specifically, this class is designed around movement, and anything that cannot fly is not mobile enough.  It starts with making ground movement easier (by using Balance), and ends up making flight possible.  The part about balance checks being useless eventually: no, they don't.  It still takes a balance check to do the swift action teleport.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was what I was thinking about too. In that movie, the characters make tremendous leaps, but they only fight high in the air for a few seconds. It just seems like a long time because of the slow motion. Also, they're not flying around with perfect mobility; they're continuing a very long jump (equivalent to poor maneuverability). Limiting these abilities to one round, I think, would be more in line with the stereotype you're looking at.

Balance checks: If I were playing this monk, I would think: Do I want to invest a ton of skill ranks in Balance, when in the long run, it will only be useful for a single ability at high level, or would I rather distribute my skill points in other ways? If you want Balance to be important to the build, I think you should keep the many uses of it, rather than make each use expire after a few levels. Eventually, those checks won't matter anyway (especially if you let the monk take 10), but the player at least won't feel like he's wasted skill ranks.

It would also be nice if the other mobility skills were important to the build somehow. You didn't like the ideas I suggested for jump and climb, but maybe the monk could have some other use for high ranks in those skills. That would continue the theme of a super-mobility class.


If I were designing this class (which I'm obviously not), I might make the abilities something like this, with powers divided up by level. This feels less magical, and might be more in line with martial arts movies:

The monk can use mobility skills to great effect. He can jump, climb and balance with no movement penalty.

Jump: There are no limits to height and distance travelled using jump, and jumps can be made from a standing start. At at level X, the distance and height jumped are doubled, and at level Y, they are quadrupled. He can use terrain to extend a jump. For example, he can leap off the ground, then kick off a tree to jump again. At level Z, the monk can even kick off the air itself, making up to one turn of up to 90 degrees during any jump. A monk with flight from any source can make a DC30 jump check to move with mobility one step better than usual, or to fly at his land speed.

Climb: The monk can move at full speed while climbing, and can climb surfaces that are ordinarily unclimbable (a wall of force, for example). He can also use a climb check to walk along walls and even ceilings, as long as he ends his movement either holding on to something, or standing on a solid surface.

Balance: As per your description - balance to walk on water, tree branches, etc. Balance to teleport. The only change is that you have to end your movement on a solid surface when trying to walk on a surface that can't hold your weight.

[EjoThims]

Balance checks: If I were playing this monk, I would think: Do I want to invest a ton of skill ranks in Balance, when in the long run, it will only be useful for a single ability at high level, or would I rather distribute my skill points in other ways? If you want Balance to be important to the build, I think you should keep the many uses of it, rather than make each use expire after a few levels. Eventually, those checks won't matter anyway (especially if you let the monk take 10), but the player at least won't feel like he's wasted skill ranks.

It scales the way it does specifically to provide a use for higher ranks while making lower check uses not be auto fails on a 1. If you want the most benefit at all times, you put in ranks or pump your modifier... If you want to wait four levels for when you'd probably pass the check 90% of the time anyway, go ahead.

And there is, in fact, a time when Monks would be fighting exactly like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon fights; levels 11-15, where they must make the Balance check, can only go for Dex modifier rounds at a time, and fall if not at least on a wall or other surface at the end of such time. There's no reason at all to assume that Monks that are even better than that staple trope can do so indefinitely, balancing their weight on the smallest motes of dust or whatever other flavor you like.

[dman11235]

Half of the update is done.  I don't feel like doing the other half yet, since it's making a list.  For the list of bonus feats (which obviously has not been made yet), it's going to be the Stunning/Unarmed feats and then most, if not all, of the feats from the UA ACFs.  Then possibly some more.

[bobthe6th]

so... come from high arcana... going to finish this?

[dman11235]

Yes, currently took it up again, see Avatar thread.  Basically, the block is that I needed to rebuild the game before I finish this again.