[3.5 PrC] Elastic Warrior

[Omegonthesane]

I was thinking of ways to let Monks keep up with the rest of the party. While not having many ideas for a sumo wrestler or heavyweight champion type, I came up with this tongue-in-cheek PrC for Stretch Armstrong. Or for Dhalsim to dip into.

Elastic Warrior
"Yes, I did just beat him up from across a chasm. Stop complaining."

The first Elastic Warriors were an order of monks who, frustrated with the range limits of the human body, discovered means of stretching it far beyond these limits by supernatural means. By consistently training, meditating, and deforming their body, they can perform feats that confound even spellcasters, and certainly the best of them are prized for their power to match any spellcaster's range.

Requirements:
- Base attack bonus +3
- Evasion
- Escape Artist 8 ranks
- Improved Unarmed Strike
- Must do more unarmed strike damage than a typical person of your race, whether by being a Monk or having Superior Unarmed Strike or any other method.

Hit Die: d8

{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|AC bonus|Elastic Grappler bonus

1st|
+1|
+2|
+2|
+0|Short range punch (full round), unarmed damage, please to not be abusing armour, elastic grappler|+0|+2

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+3|
+0|Improved Evasion, AC bonus|+1|+3

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+3|
+1|Ki strike (magic)|+2|+4

4th|
+4|
+4|
+4|
+1|Short range punch (standard action)|+3|+5

5th|
+5|
+4|
+4|
+1|--|+4|+6

6th|
+6|
+5|
+5|
+2|Short range grapple|+5|+7

7th|
+7|
+5|
+5|
+2|Short range punch (attack action), sniper fist (full-round action)|+6|+8

8th|
+8|
+6|
+6|
+2|--|+7|+9

9th|
+9|
+6|
+6|
+3|Stretch up!|+8|+10

10th|
+10|
+7|
+7|
+3|Sniper fist (standard action), elastic anatomy|+9|+11[/table]

Class Skills

The elastic warrior's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).

Skill Points/level: 4 + Int modifier.

Weapon Proficiencies: Elastic warriors gain no new proficiency with any weapon or armour.

Class Features

The following are class features of the Elastic Warrior class.

Short Range Punch (Su): With an effort of will, an elastic warrior can extend her limbs far beyond their usual proportions when attacking. As a full round action, she may make one unarmed melee attack at a range of up to 25 feet + her character level. At 4th level she may do this as a standard action, allowing her to move and pull it off in the same round. At 7th level she may do this as an attack action, allowing her to use a full attack with it. She cannot make attacks of opportunity with this ability, nor can she grapple with it until 6th level. No matter what obscure rule is invoked, an elastic warrior cannot make a full attack in the same round as using short range punch until 7th level.

Unarmed damage: Elastic warrior levels stack with Monk levels for the purpose of determining damage done by unarmed strikes. An elastic warrior who is not a monk gains unarmed strike damage as a monk of her class level before working out improvements like Superior Unarmed strike, if this would improve her unarmed damage.

Please to not be abusing armour: Elastic warrior class features, other than unarmed damage, do not function if the warrior is wearing any item with an armour check penalty. This includes all shields, and nearly all armour.

Elastic Grappler (Ex): An elastic warrior's stretchy nature makes her both extremely good at tying enemies up and extremely hard to hold down in a grapple. She gains a bonus on all Grapple checks equal to 1 + her class level. So a 7th level elastic warrior would get a +8 bonus on all grapple checks.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level, if she didn't have it before, an elastic warrior gains the benefits of Improved Evasion as spelled out in the Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue base classes.

AC Bonus (Ex): Without fixed joints getting in your way, it becomes a lot easier to dodge blows in general. An elastic warrior gains an untyped bonus to AC equal to her class level minus one (so a 7th level elastic warrior would get a +6 bonus). This bonus applies in every conceivable situation except when the elastic warrior is immobilized or helpless, or is using an item that gives her an armour check penalty.

Ki strike (magic) (Su): As the Monk special ability. If an elastic warrior already has this ability, she instead gets a bonus feat, which may be any feat that she meets the prerequisites for.

Short Range Grapple (Su): At 6th level an elastic warrior becomes so good at grappling that she doesn't need to be close to an enemy to do it. She may attempt to grapple with attacks granted by Short Range Punch, and may maintain such a grapple without moving into the target's square. However, she does not gain the benefit of Elastic Grappler unless she does move into the target's square.

Sniper Fist (Su): By 7th level, an elastic warrior has begun to transcend reality itself to a ludicrous extent, never mind the limits of her own body. As a full round action, she may make one unarmed melee attack at a range of up to 400 feet + 40 feet per character level. At 10th level she may do this as a standard action, allowing her to move in the same round - but using Sniper Fist as a standard action always provokes attacks of opportunity, due to the level of focus required. She cannot make attacks of opportunity with this ability, nor can she grapple with a sniper fist attack. No matter what obscure rule is invoked, an elastic warrior can never make a full attack in the same round as using sniper fist.

Stretch Up! (Ex): Having stretchy limbs makes for an easier time than most mortals have for many physical tasks. A 9th level elastic warrior adds her Dex bonus (if any) as well as her Strength bonus to Climb, Jump, and Swim checks.

Elastic Anatomy (Ex): A 10th level elastic warrior is so stretchy that it is hard to pin her vital organs down. Whenever she suffers bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, she automatically makes a Will save before the damage is rolled. The save DC is equal to 10 + the attacker's base attack bonus + the attacker's Wisdom bonus (if any). If she passes this save, she is immune to critical hits and precision damage caused by that attack only.

Multiclass note: If for some reason you abide by the Monk's multiclass restrictions, a monk who becomes an elastic warrior may continue advancing in level as a monk.

((Problems I can already see but can't think of a solution to:
- Sniper Fist stamps all over archers. This is mostly a problem with archers being not all that good, IMHO, but its primary purpose is to let you punch out spellcasters who are on your material plane without yourself being a spellcaster.
- I'd rather not make Standard Action Sniper Fist the capstone. At least, not on its own. Can anyone think of a flashy but not unbalancing ability that's appropriate? Thought of one while typing the flavour text, but it may be unbalanced.

EDIT: I'm aware that you can enter this class at level 5 if you went straight Monk 4. That's a design decision, not an oversight.

EDIT EDIT: Elastic Grappler now scales to class level directly. This leaves me with two dead levels, so I need ideas.
Short Range Punch and Sniper Fist have been buffed. The latter especially, as it's specifically so you can punch out flying spellcasters and the like.))

[Dragon Elite]

Wow... it's cool. Monks are now equal to other stuff!

[DracoDei]

One of my pet peeves are bonuses that don't progress as smoothly as possible. I believe it would help the class if you had elastic defense equal class level until level 3, then skip a level to go to +4 at class level 5... you know what, let me use a chart.

Class level|Armor Bonus
1|+1
2|+2
3|+3
4|+3
5|+4
6|+5
7|+5
8|+6
9|+7
10|+7

This might require some tweaking, and I guess that starting it at +2 at class level 2 or 3 might be alright, but I like things not be be "jerky".

[Omegonthesane]

One of my pet peeves are bonuses that don't progress as smoothly as possible. I believe it would help the class if you had elastic defense equal class level until level 3, then skip a level to go to +4 at class level 5... you know what, let me use a chart.

Class level|Armor Bonus
1|+1
2|+2
3|+3
4|+3
5|+4
6|+5
7|+5
8|+6
9|+7
10|+7

This might require some tweaking, and I guess that starting it at +2 at class level 2 or 3 might be alright, but I like things not be be "jerky".

Hm, yeah, good point - and especially in the spirit of an elastic person that he gets stretchier gradually, not in discrete steps. *goes to mod the class accordingly*

[The Neoclassic]

I like the concept. However, there are some things that I think ought to be tweaked to make this a particularly solid class. If you are only looking for "O nifty sauce" and not constructive criticism, stop reading now. :smallbiggrin: (I'm just not sure because you didn't specify PEACH.)

Prerequisites:
Nothing here prevents a person, with the right splatbook class or combination of classes, from taking this class at third or fourth level. It looks like you made it only with monks in mind, which is fine, but be aware that people with only some levels in monk (or even none, if they can manage it) may want to take it. Adding a skill requirement is one of the easiest ways to fix this, and Tumble or Jump (8 ranks) might be an appropriate option.

Also, requiring 1d8 unarmed damage... Don't small monks deal less damage, and hence would be at a disadvantage here? I might remove this requirement. Also, forcing anyone to have a certain ability score for a class is just... bad. It's one of the basic things that the DM's Guide states should never be used as a prerequisite, and I'm liable to agree.

If you really want to make sure that one must have some monk levels to qualify, perhaps you could add "Must have Flurry of Blows class feature" to the requirements. Evasion is a good requirement and should certainly stay. For some reason I'm imaging a rogue/monk multiclass character picking this up though. :smallsmile:

Class Features
Are the skills just copy/pasted from the monk list? As this class has a more martial focus (as opposed to the monk's rather holistic approach regarding the mind & body), I might remove the Knowledge skills, Sense Motive, and even Diplomacy. Intimidate might be a good addition, but certainly not necessary.


Improved Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level, if she didn't have it before, an elastic warrior gains Improved Evasion. She already had to have Evasion to get into this class, so this may not count as impressive.

Remove the second sentence. It's unnecessary and generally, if you're hoping this is something that other people will use, it's best to avoid such commentary. We already know that you have to have Evasion to get in, and we aren't expecting every class feature to be "impressive"- just useful!

For Elastic Defense and Elastic Grappler, I think you can just say a "+number bonus" rather than "untyped bonus." If the bonus type isn't specified, I think the assumption is that it isn't typed, though I might be wrong on this (someone else will probably know).


Elastic Anatomy (Su): A 10th level elastic warrior is so stretchy that it is hard to pin her vital organs down. Whenever she suffers damage, she automatically makes a Will save before the damage is rolled. The save DC is equal to 10 + the attacker's base attack bonus + the attacker's Wisdom bonus (if any). If she passes this save, do not roll for damage; assume every damage die rolled a 1. This extends to sneak attack damage as well.

This seems overpowered. I might make it just apply to critical hits. Also, is this for all damage or just melee/ranged damage (as opposed to magical damage through fire, force, cold, etc)? It doesn't make much sense that, for example, a monk who'd be covered in severe burns from a fireball wouldn't take much damage because of properly placed vital organs. Damage to the skin and extremities can still be pretty serious, and the ability to just get one's whole self out of the way quickly is already represented through Evasion & Improved Evasion.

Finally, I might allow the monk to apply his or her Dex bonus instead of or in addition to their Str bonus for Climb and Jump checks, thanks to the massively cool stretchiness of their bodies.

[Person_Man]

Quibbles:

The "Must do more unarmed strike damage than a typical person of your race" is a weird requirement. If you want to require that they take Monk levels, then require Still Mind or Ki Strike. If you're fine with Rogue and Scouts entering the class, then Evasion and Escape Artist is all you need.

Unarmed damage: Assuming you're fine with non-Monks entering the class, I'd add the sentence, "If you don't have any monk levels, you are treated as a monk of the same class level as your elastic warrior class level for determining your unarmed damage."

Can I apply Power Attack to Short Range Punch? If so, you're going to have Bloodstorm Blade brokenness in this PrC (which may or may not be a good thing, from your perspective). Also, you're wording of this ability is very odd.

Please to not be abusing armour: There are tons of ways to get a huge armor bonus without an armor check penalty. Specifically, there are several magic items, feats, special materials, and PrC that lower armor check penalties. So it's possible to have an Elastic Warrior with full plate. I suggest re-writing this restriction to conform with the Monk's armor restriction.

Magic Fists: You could reword this ability to make your Elastic Warrior class levels stack with Monk levels to determine Ki Strike abilities.

Elastic Anatomy is just way too powerful. I'd just make them immune to critical hits (which includes immunity to Sneak Attack).

[The Neoclassic]

Unarmed damage: Assuming you're fine with non-Monks entering the class, I'd add the sentence, "If you don't have any monk levels, you are treated as a monk of the same class level as your elastic warrior class level for determining your unarmed damage."

I like the idea of non-monks being able to enter too, though I can understand if the OP wants to keep it to monks only. If your suggestion here is used, I'd recommend clarifying it to "a monk with the same number of levels as you have in Elastic Warrior" or something of the sort.


Please to not be abusing armour: There are tons of ways to get a huge armor bonus without an armor check penalty. Specifically, there are several magic items, feats, special materials, and PrC that lower armor check penalties. So it's possible to have an Elastic Warrior with full plate. I suggest re-writing this restriction to conform with the Monk's armor restriction.

Agreed. I'd probably remove it as a separate feature too, just specifying under proficiencies that other than unarmed damage, no Elastic Warrior abilities work when armor is worn or whatever. This is how it's formatted in the monk class, and I think it looks rather neat & nice that way.

[Omegonthesane]

I like the concept. However, there are some things that I think ought to be tweaked to make this a particularly solid class. If you are only looking for "O nifty sauce" and not constructive criticism, stop reading now. :smallbiggrin: (I'm just not sure because you didn't specify PEACH.)
Heh, I just don't want DEstructive criticism. Like what Frank & K got for Boneblade Reaper back in the day... something like "I wouldn't allow this cheese as an Epic class that took up both slots of a gestalt" because it made monk/necros not gimps.


Prerequisites:
Nothing here prevents a person, with the right splatbook class or combination of classes, from taking this class at third or fourth level. It looks like you made it only with monks in mind, which is fine, but be aware that people with only some levels in monk (or even none, if they can manage it) may want to take it. Adding a skill requirement is one of the easiest ways to fix this, and Tumble or Jump (8 ranks) might be an appropriate option.

Also, requiring 1d8 unarmed damage... Don't small monks deal less damage, and hence would be at a disadvantage here? I might remove this requirement. Also, forcing anyone to have a certain ability score for a class is just... bad. It's one of the basic things that the DM's Guide states should never be used as a prerequisite, and I'm liable to agree.
OK, swapped Dex 14 for Escape Artist 12 8 ranks. An early design feature was going to be that they could only wear armour if their DEX bonus equalled or was more than their ACP, but I decided screw that.

Also, you now need 8 ranks in Escape Artist and unarmed damage is not a fixed factor (though you still need to do more than a normal member of your race. No gimps in this class please!)


If you really want to make sure that one must have some monk levels to qualify, perhaps you could add "Must have Flurry of Blows class feature" to the requirements. Evasion is a good requirement and should certainly stay. For some reason I'm imaging a rogue/monk multiclass character picking this up though. :smallsmile:
I definitely want non-pure Monks to be able to take this class, but Monks pay the least buck for their bang. Barbarians lose their armour, Rogues lose their sneak attack; Monks only lose their Will save.


Class Features
Are the skills just copy/pasted from the monk list? As this class has a more martial focus (as opposed to the monk's rather holistic approach regarding the mind & body), I might remove the Knowledge skills, Sense Motive, and even Diplomacy. Intimidate might be a good addition, but certainly not necessary.
The class skills are just copypasted from the Monk list. I couldn't be bothered to put that much thought into them. Removed the Knowledge skills & Diplomacy, and added Intimidate.


Remove the second sentence. It's unnecessary and generally, if you're hoping this is something that other people will use, it's best to avoid such commentary. We already know that you have to have Evasion to get in, and we aren't expecting every class feature to be "impressive"- just useful!
Heh, I'm too susceptible to snarky comments of opportunity.


For Elastic Defense and Elastic Grappler, I think you can just say a "+number bonus" rather than "untyped bonus." If the bonus type isn't specified, I think the assumption is that it isn't typed, though I might be wrong on this (someone else will probably know).
I want to be absolutely sure that no DM can ever screw over the user of this class, so I specified that it's untyped. There was a debate somewhere as to whether a multiclass Variant Evil Paladin/Blackguard could stack Divine Grace and Dark Blessing because neither had a specified type.


This seems overpowered. I might make it just apply to critical hits. Also, is this for all damage or just melee/ranged damage (as opposed to magical damage through fire, force, cold, etc)? It doesn't make much sense that, for example, a monk who'd be covered in severe burns from a fireball wouldn't take much damage because of properly placed vital organs. Damage to the skin and extremities can still be pretty serious, and the ability to just get one's whole self out of the way quickly is already represented through Evasion & Improved Evasion.
Point, both for flavour and for balance. I've now made it so it only mitigates crits and precision damage. It's meant to be a flashy capstone, not a game breaker.


Finally, I might allow the monk to apply his or her Dex bonus instead of or in addition to their Str bonus for Climb and Jump checks, thanks to the massively cool stretchiness of their bodies.
Congratulations you've given me an idea to fill 9th level's lack of an ability. Thanks!

Now I just need to decide: Should I, at any point ever, give the elastic warrior the ability to give himself reach with his unarmed strikes? I'm thinking at the expense of short range punch and sniper fist for that round, but still.

[DracoDei]

I think turning your unarmed strike into a spiked chain for purposes of reach could be good, but quite frankly I still haven't looked at the OP enough to know if you have room for it balance-wise.

Also, consider smoothing out the grappling bonus.

[Omegonthesane]

Grapple bonus now scales smoothly to class level rather than turning on and jerking up.
This leaves me with 2 dead levels, does anyone have ideas as to how I might fill them? Even if I have room to eventually make unarmed strikes count as having reach for AoO purposes, that's only one dead level filled.

[Waargh!]

Agreed that AC bonus seems to high. You will get what the monk gets plus more. Also, why untyped and not dodge bonus, since he is clearly dodging?
And the grapple bonus seem too much. I would give half that bonus.

Balance Sniper Fist by making it used once for every class level. Maybe plus his DEX or WIS modified. You want hime to have the ability to punch somebody from far away. That is cool. But if he can do it all the time he might be made a permanent sniper.

I would give him more abilities on the dead levels.

Stretch legs(SU): You may stretch your legs by 10ft per classs level effectively gaining height. This allows the Elastic Warrior to reach higher grounds or interact with flying creatures. In addition he gains +10ft movemnt per class level as long as he has his legs stretched. The stretching lasts for one round, in which the Elastic Warrior regains his normal height. This ability is used twice your Elastic Warrior's class level.

Elastic Body(SU): +2 DR against per class level against bludgeoning damage

[cha0s4a11]

Here's a couple ideas:

Stretch Grab: You may extend your arms up to (x) feet per class level to grab unattended objects that are otherwise outside of your reach that weigh no more than (y) pounds as a standard action.

Stretch Hoist: As a full round action, you may extend your arms up to (x) feet per class level to grab onto a fixed object that may otherwise be inaccessible and propel yourself towards that object at a speed of (insert speed here).