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Mr.Bookworm
2011-09-12, 02:22 AM
Introduction
There are approximately 20 million monk fixes floating around out there, everyone and their grandmother has done one, and I would even wager that this exact same concept has been done before; nevertheless, I've had this floating around in my head for the past couple of days, and it won't go away, so here it is.

The basic intent of this is to be fairly modular. You have the base chassis, which is still probably slumming it up with the original Monk in the tier 5 ghetto, albeit maybe looking down it's nose a bit snootily at the original. Then the styles come along, haul it off, and next thing it knows, the Monk is waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a bunch of Frankenstein parts stapled to it, screaming as it realizes that it has become that what it most fears.

You will perhaps note that there are only two styles present. You will then maybe say "Bookworm, my man, it is quite clearly labeled that you need three styles to play this class! What is up with that, old sport?" you will say while wearing tweed, smoking a pope, and affecting a British accent.

And then after I have finished disposing of your corpse for annoying me with your charming ways, I will point out to the empty room that this is not complete yet, but I decided to go ahead and post what I had to get some feedback.

Furthermore, if anyone points out the relative lack of fluff in this, while I sigh and make my way to the store to buy several large sturdy garbage bags (again), I will inform my car that if you are playing D&D and reading about it on the Internet, you most likely have read the Monk's fluff before, and that I will be adding more fluff for the styles later, as well as charming things like pictures and quotes and what have you.

So with that all of that out of the way, safely disposed in a secure location, please read, and hopefully enjoy. And if you don't enjoy, please, please tell me why.


The Monk

Alignment: Any non-chaotic
Hit Die: d8

Class Skills
The monk’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skill points at each level: 6 + Int modifier, x4 at first level

{table=head]Level|
Base Attack Bonus|
Fort Save|
Ref Save|
Will Save|Special|
Unarmed Damage|
AC Bonus|
Fast Movement

1st|
+1|
+2|
+2|
+2|Primary style 1, flurry of blows, unarmed strike|1d8|+0|+0 ft.

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+3|
+3|Primary style 2, evasion|1d8|+1|+10 ft.

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+3|
+3|Still mind, ease of movement|1d8|+1|+10 ft.

4th|
+4|
+4|
+4|
+4|Ki strike (magic), slow fall|1d10|+2|+10 ft.

5th|
+5|
+4|
+4|
+4|Purity of body|1d10|+2|+20 ft.

6th|
+6/+1|
+5|
+5|
+5|Primary style 3, secondary style 1|1d10|+3|+20 ft.

7th|
+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+5|Wholeness of body|1d12|+3|+20 ft.

8th|
+8/+3|
+6|
+6|
+6|Secondary style 2|1d12|+4|+30 ft.

9th|
+9/+4|
+6|
+6|
+6|Primary style 4, improved evasion|1d12|+4|+30 ft.

10th|
+10/+5|
+7|
+7|
+7|Ki strike (metalline)|2d6|+5|+30 ft.

11th|
+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+7|
+7|Diamond body, greater flurry|2d6|+5|+40 ft.

12th|
+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+8|
+8|Secondary style 3|2d6|+6|+40 ft.

13th|
+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+8|
+8|Diamond soul, tertiary style 1|2d8|+6|+40 ft.

14th|
+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+9|
+9|Primary style 5|2d8|+7|+50 ft.

15th|
+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+9|
+9|Tertiary style 2|2d8|+7|+50 ft.

16th|
+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+10|
+10|Ki strike (adamantine), secondary style 4|2d10|+8|+50 ft.

17th|
+17/+12/+7/+2|
+10|
+10|
+10|Primary style 6, timeless body|2d10|+8|+60 ft.

18th|
+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+11|
+11|Tertiary style 3|2d10|+9|+60 ft.

19th|
+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+11|
+11|Secondary style 5|2d12|+9|+60 ft.

20th|
+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+12|
+12|Primary style 7, perfected body|2d12|+10|+70 ft.[/table]

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with gauntlet, club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger, handaxe, javelin, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, sling, and the unarmed strike.

Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields

When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses her AC bonus and speed bonus.

AC Bonus (Ex): The monk adds her Wisdom bonus, if any, to her AC. She also gains a dodge bonus to AC equal to half her class level.

Fast Movement (Ex): The monk gains a bonus to her speed, as indicated in the table above.

Styles: At 1st level, the monk gains the 1st ability of her primary style. At 2nd level, the monk gains the 2nd ability, at 6th level the 3rd, at 9th level the 4th, at 14th level the 5th, at 17th level the 6th, and at 20th level the final 7th ability.

At 6th level, the monk may begin to learn a new style to complement her original style. He gains the 1st ability of this new style at level 6, the 2nd at level 8, the 3rd at level 12, the 4th at level 16, and the 5th at level 19.

At 13th level the monk may learn an additional style. He gains the 1st ability at level 13, the 2nd at level 15, and the 3rd at level 18.

Unarmed Strike: At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply her full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

Usually a monk’s unarmed strikes deal lethal damage, but she can choose to deal nonlethal damage instead with no penalty on her attack roll. She has the same choice to deal lethal or nonlethal damage while grappling.

A monk’s unarmed strike is treated both as a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.

A monk may use her unarmed strike damage when attacking with a gauntlet.

When attacking with her unarmed strike or a weapon she is proficient with, the monk may use her Wisdom in place of her Strength for the attack.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): When the monk makes an attack as a standard action, she may make an additional attack at her full attack bonus. The additional attack takes a -5 penalty to the attack roll.

In addition, when the monk makes a full attack, she may add an additional attack to her routine at her full attack bonus. This additional attack suffers a -2 penalty.

When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1½ or ×½) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows.

In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the flurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that she has enough attacks in her flurry of blows routine to do so.

Greater Flurry: At 11th level, a monk may make three attacks as part of a standard attack action, all with her full attack bonus. The first attack suffers no penalty, the second attack takes a -5 penalty, and the third takes a -10 penalty.

When she takes a full-attack action, she may make two additional attacks at her full attack bonus. Each additional attack takes a -2 penalty.

Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level or higher if a monk makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Still Mind (Ex): At 3rd level, a monk gains a bonus equal to half her class level on saving throws against spells and effects of the enchantment school.

Ease of Movement (Ex): At 3rd level, a monk learns to move with a measure of grace while carrying weight or burdened with armor. She maintains half of her AC bonus and speed bonus while wearing armor or carrying a medium or heavy load.

Ki Strike (Su): At 4th level, a monk's unarmed strike is treated as if it were magic for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction. At 10th level, her strikes are treated as if they were cold iron and silver for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction. At 16th level, the monk's strikes are treated as adamantine for all purposes.

Slow Fall (Ex): At 4th level, a monk within reach of a wall or other obstacle may use it to slow herself to a safe speed while falling from any height. Even if the monk is not within reach of anything, she still halves all falling damage when she lands, rounding down.

Purity of Body (Ex): A 5th level monk gains immunity to all nonmagical diseases and poisons.

Wholeness of Body (Ex): A 7th level monk may heal a number of her own hit points each day equal to her class level times her Wisdom bonus. This takes a standard action, and she may spread out this healing over any number of uses in a day.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 9th level, a monk’s evasion ability improves. She still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

Diamond Body (Ex): At 11th level, a monk gains DR 5/adamantine. She also gains immunity to magical poisons and diseases.

Diamond Soul (Ex): At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to 11+character level.

Timeless Body (Ex): After attaining 17th level, a monk no longer takes ability score penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any penalties she may have already incurred, however, remain in place.

Bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when her time is up.

Perfected Body: At 20th level, a monk permanently becomes an Outsider with the Native subtype. Her damage reduction increases to DR 10/adamantine.


The Styles

Unbound Foot
The way of the Unbound Foot is one of travel and freedom. Most monks that follow this path mediate while running.

{table=head]#|
Ability

1|Unbound stride
2|Defy the earth
3|Unsurpassed speed
4|Abundant step
5|Run among the birds
6|Runner cannot be jailed
7|Outrunning light[/table]

Unbound Stride (Su): The monk may ignore all difficult terrain as long as she moves at least half her full speed each round. The monk may also run on water or other liquids, as long as she moves at least half her full speed each round. If the liquid is harmful, such as magma, the Monk takes no damage as long as she is running. If she does not move the required distance, she immediately sinks into the liquid.

Defy the Earth (Su): The monk may ignore the clutches of gravity, and run on walls or other vertical objects, as long as she moves at least half her full speed each round. If she does not, the monk begins to fall. She may even briefly run upside down along ceilings, although if she spends more than a single round on a ceiling, she begins to fall.

Unsurpassed Speed (Ex): The monk doubles any speed bonuses she gains, including her own class-given speed bonus.

Abundant Step (Su): The monk may move, as a swift action, a number of feet equal to her movement speed times 10. She must move in a straight-line and she does not provoke any attacks of opportunity while doing so. She may do this once per encounter or every ten minutes outside of combat.

Run Among the Birds (Su): The monk may run on the very air itself. She must maintain at least her full movement speed each round, or she immediately falls. She may freely move in any direction, usually orienting themselves as if they were running up a wall while moving vertically in the air.

Runner Cannot Be Jailed (Su): The monk permanently acts as if under the effects of a freedom of movement spell and the epic spell eternal freedom.

Outrunning Light (Su): The monk may use the spell time stop once per day, except the duration is 1d4+Wis bonus rounds, and may be activated as a free action. While under the effects of the time stop, the monk may use her Abundant Step ability at-will.

Truthful Arrow


{table=head]#|
Ability

1|Way of the bow
2|Sniping the stinger
3|Forceful arrow
4|Threading the needle
5|Death from the horizon
6|
7|Slay the sun[/table]

Way of the Bow: The monk gains Zen Archery as a bonus feat and become proficient with the shortbow and longbow. The shortbow and longbow become special monk weapons.

Sniping the Stinger (Ex): The monk may, as an immediate action, attempt to deflect a melee or ranged attack. She may do so after the attack has been rolled, but must do so before damage is rolled. She resolves this as a normal attack, with the AC equal to the result on the original attack roll. If she succeeds, the target of the original attack takes no damage as the attack misses.

Forceful Arrow: The monk may use her unarmed damage in place of her bows normal base damage.

Threading the Needle (Ex): The monk may ignore all concealment and cover when attacking if it is less than total cover or concealment. If attacking into a grapple, she always hits the target she is aiming for.

Death from the Horizon (Su): The monk's ability with a bow transcends the mundane talents of lesser archers. Your bows maximum range increases to your Wisdom bonus times 500 feet. There are no range increments on this new range, and you may attack to your maximum range without any penalties.

Slay the Sun (Su): Once per day, the Monk may make a single attack with no maximum range as a full-round action. She must be able to perceive the target somehow, but she need not be directly in the target's presence. The attack roll gains a +20 insight bonus, and if the arrow hits, it deals normal damage plus 20 damage per point of Wisdom bonus the Monk has.

Armed Hero
{table=head]#|
Ability

1|Weapons of the hero
2|
3|
4|
5|
6|
7|[/table]

Invisible Eye
{table=head]#|
Ability

1|Hone the senses
2|Feel the flow
3|Fling a light into the future
4|See without seeing
5|Prying eyes
6|Eye of the beholder
7|One with the world[/table]

Hone the Senses (Ex): The monk vastly improves her more mundane senses. She gains low-light vision, darkvision out to 30 ft., and the scent special ability. If she already has low-light vision, she may see four times as far in dim lighting. If she already possessed darkvision or scent, double the range.

Feel the Flow (Ex): The monk's senses improve almost to the point of supernatural ability. She gains blindsense out to 10 ft. per class level.

Fling a Light Into the Future (Su): You gain an instinctive awareness of yourself and your environment that allows you, with concentration, to gain a vague understanding of what fortune your actions will bring to you. This acts as the spell augury, with a caster level equal to your character level. If the spell fails, you fail to gain any understanding. You may use this ability once per hour as a full-round action.

See Without Seeing (Su): The monk senses surpasses the mundane limits of her body. She gains blindfight out to 10 ft. per class level. Her blindsense also improves to 20 ft. per class level.

Ethereal Eyes (Su): The monk can perceive when others attempt to scry upon her. Eh. This kind of sucks. (CHANGE)

Eye of the Beholder (Su): Nothing can hide from the monk while within her gaze. She acts as if permanently under the effects of a true seeing effect. This ability affects her blindsight, as well, conferring all the normal effects of true seeing to what she perceives within her blindsight.

One with the World (Su): The



Ruinous Assault
{table=head]#|
Ability

1|Tranquil fury
2|
3|
4|
x
6|
7|[/table]

Morph Bark
2011-09-12, 06:00 AM
Be very very careful with granting DR/-. DR 10/- is huge, even at level 20. Making it DR/chaotic or DR/adamantine would be just as fitting as DR/magic with the official monk, but stronger.

Maraxus1
2011-09-12, 01:05 PM
If you are giving him 2d12 unarmed damage, why do you bother to talk about his melee weapons anyway? Seriously, what is it with monk-fixes ans those huge unarmed damages anyway?

And: The final flurry of blows base attack is ...
+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+3/-2/-7

That really needs to change, because in basic play, such low attacks are quite worthless, while a min-maxer will definitely find his ways to abuse such a high number of attacks to do horrible, horrible things.

AC: A defensive monk build could already tank most monsters' attacks out of the MM on his level short of dragons. I really don't see a need to up the level dependant bonus to AC again. The "limited bonus while wearing armor" however, I like that.
I'm not sure about "half wis bonus" for a level 1 dip, however, so you might want to add "armored monking" to level 3 or something. Definitly allows some more interesting multiclassing, or even the first character in the history of the game, who uses a feat to buy light armor proficiency.
... *check* hm, or mithral chain shirt without armor proficiency, given enough dex to fill it.

Wholeness of Body: As a swift action, this is really only a cosmetic difference from simply having lots of hit points. Lots of hit points however are the barbarian's portfolio and I for one don't like the monk stepping on his toes there, so make it a standard action again, please.

Diamond Soul: This is once again a "fix" for which your group hates you.
"So, your 13th level Monk has a spell resistance of 31?" the DM asks. "Well, looks like I have to pull out a level 21 caster then. Timestop, epic buffs, delayed metamagiced fireball, you're all dead except the monk who is only half dead."

Mr.Bookworm
2011-09-13, 11:10 AM
Be very very careful with granting DR/-. DR 10/- is huge, even at level 20. Making it DR/chaotic or DR/adamantine would be just as fitting as DR/magic with the official monk, but stronger.

I find DR to be kind of overvalued by quite a bit. I didn't want to do DR/magic, given that it kind of sucks at anything past the first few levels, and I didn't want to do DR/chaotic after switching it to any non-chaotic. DR/adamantine does make sense, though, and I think I like that better than straight DR/-. I'll change that.


If you are giving him 2d12 unarmed damage, why do you bother to talk about his melee weapons anyway? Seriously, what is it with monk-fixes ans those huge unarmed damages anyway?

I thought about scaling it back down a bit after I scaled it up, but I decided to just leave it and get some commentary. I'll scale it back a bit.

The weapons thing was literally copied straight out of the SRD.


And: The final flurry of blows base attack is ...
+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+3/-2/-7

That really needs to change, because in basic play, such low attacks are quite worthless, while a min-maxer will definitely find his ways to abuse such a high number of attacks to do horrible, horrible things.


Yeah, I'm not satisfied with the Flurry of Blows. I'll play around with it some and try to find something I like.


AC: A defensive monk build could already tank most monsters' attacks out of the MM on his level short of dragons. I really don't see a need to up the level dependant bonus to AC again. The "limited bonus while wearing armor" however, I like that.
I'm not sure about "half wis bonus" for a level 1 dip, however, so you might want to add "armored monking" to level 3 or something. Definitly allows some more interesting multiclassing, or even the first character in the history of the game, who uses a feat to buy light armor proficiency.
... *check* hm, or mithral chain shirt without armor proficiency, given enough dex to fill it.

The Monk's AC kind of sucks, actually. A 10th level original flavor Monk with a Dex and Wis of 16 (which is generous given that a Monk needs two other ability scores and wants one more) has an AC of 18. Add in another 2 points for items. AC 20 isn't that good at 10th level. Looking at the standard attacks of a few random CR 10 monsters from the SRD, the Couatl has an attack of +12, the Formian Myrmarch has an attack of +15, the Guardian Naga has an attack of +12, and the Rakshasa has an attack of +8. All of those but the Rakshasa are hitting the Monk more than half the time.

This Monk with the same scores/items would have an AC of 23, which isn't great, but is a little better.

I quite like the idea of the armored monking class feature, though. I'll add that.


Wholeness of Body: As a swift action, this is really only a cosmetic difference from simply having lots of hit points. Lots of hit points however are the barbarian's portfolio and I for one don't like the monk stepping on his toes there, so make it a standard action again, please.

True. I'll change that back. Also thinking about reducing the pool a bit. I wanted to change it from the fairly crappy "2*class level", but I don't know if it's too much now.


Diamond Soul: This is once again a "fix" for which your group hates you.
"So, your 13th level Monk has a spell resistance of 31?" the DM asks. "Well, looks like I have to pull out a level 21 caster then. Timestop, epic buffs, delayed metamagiced fireball, you're all dead except the monk who is only half dead."

Whoops. I don't think I though that particular part out very clearly. I'll scale that back .

Maraxus1
2011-09-13, 03:04 PM
That is not an AC optimised Monk. :)

28 point buy. Base ability scores 12/16/12/8/16/8

Halfling monk 10 (I'm not even taking the Kobold for another +1 natural armor or stuff like the svefneblin)
Level up ability scores @ 4 and 8 : Dex
Scores: 10/20/12/8/16/8
Relevant feats: Dodge

Expected wealth by level 10: 49000
---------------------------------
Amulet of natural armor +1 : 2000
Ring of Protection +2 : 8000
Ring of Force Shield : 8500
Dusty rose Ioun stone : 5000
Gloves of Dexterity +2 : 4000
Headband of Wisdom +2 : 4000 (custom but reasonable)
Monk's Belt: 13000
Wizard buddy casting mage armor twice a day : a favor every now and then.
----------------------------------
Money to spend on expendables (You know, Barkskin +3 for those heavy days) : 4500

AC:
10+1(size)+4(armor)+2(shield)+6(Dex)+4(Wis)+3(Monk level+Belt)+1(dodge,feat)+1(nat)+2(defl)+1(insight )

= AC 35

That's a 20 to hit for the Formian Myrmarch, Couatl and Naga. (Now, sadly, this character is quite damage-minimized but with weapon finesse he does it steadily and the Stunning fists every now and then might work, too).





About flurry: One useful thing, if you fix the monk anyway, would be to include the clarifications about flurry and 2-weapon fighting and maybe about natural secondary attacks in the description.

Unarmed damage: I checked it again, all you do is scaling it up every 4 and not every 5 levels? I take back what I said before and guess this is okay, Since it puts the additional power towards the end and thus does not power the monk up in the earlier time (where it would not be needed that much).



What I said about the weapons: I guess, the higher unarmed damage is there to balance against the possibility of +5 flaming, frost, electric kamas. But then again, they don't need to be balanced that way because the highly magical weapons are also highly expansive. You might want to give damage upgrades to weapon damage (monk weapons only, probably), too. Not as much as the unarmed damage but a bit.

Damn, that shows me, how powerful "Forceful arrow" is... At least because of the high bow base damage (when compared with monk weapons), it only matters on the higher levels.

Say you have a zen archer monk there ... Level 10 again, offense-focused (as any archer should), +1 flaming/frost Longbow, a collection of +1 bane arrows against almost everyone, monks belt, buffed with enlarge person and Greater magic weapon ...
*check* hm, the damage is not that overpowered but it is quite good and multiply that by flurry of blows + rapid shot and ... whow!


Hm, since I'm already looking into the styles:
Death from the Horizon (Su): "Your bows range increases to your Wisdom bonus,..."
In km or what?

Slay the Sun: Since this is virtually a wis-only build: Possibly like 200 damage no save? At least give it: Fortitude half. 10*Wis is good enough. ... In addition to an arrow that because of the +20 insight is perfect to deliver the quivering palm etc.

Sniping the Stinger: Looks way to cinematic for my taste. Plus intervening once per turn is not only very powerful but also annoying. Combine that with shot on the run so that the opponent has only one attack each round and maxed out attack value and you are seriously untouchable. Maybe it's to far on the castrated side but you could change it to "readied standard action". Or maybe you can think of something in between that fits. and prevents him from using this again and again every turn without giving up anything for it.

Unsurpassed Speed: Wait, is the class bonus an enhancement bonus? Looks like no, then ...
Xeph (30), speed of thought (+10 insight), burst ability (+30 competence), hasted by boots of speed (+30 enhancement), +70 monk
...double all but the base...
310 ft speed.

Add the run feat for 5x run speed ... 1550 ft is ~0.3 miles.
0.3 per 6 seconds is 3 per minute is 180 miles per hour.
Oh, okay, it's fast but not "speed of sound" fast or something.



What I want next:

-Some Grapple/Throw/Hold/Choke build based on Judo/Jujitsu.

-Those sword monks from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (aka chinese martial art monks). Historically sometimes using glaives, too. (And sometimes really weired weapons, let's not talk about those)

Mr.Bookworm
2011-09-13, 03:34 PM
That is not an AC optimised Monk. :)

Yes, you can optimize for AC (though as with many other things, you don't do it with a Monk), but as you yourself point out at the end of it, you're kind of going to be able to do nothing else but that, particularly as you're blowing your entire WBL on it. That's more in the realm of TO, not PO, and isn't something you are actually going to see in a game.

Even if you take the exact same steps as you take with this Monk, it's still only a net +2 to AC (Dodge doesn't stack).


About flurry: One useful thing, if you fix the monk anyway, would be to include the clarifications about flurry and 2-weapon fighting and maybe about natural secondary attacks in the description.

Good point. I'll clarify as soon as I figure out what I actually want from Flurry.


Unarmed damage: I checked it again, all you do is scaling it up every 4 and not every 5 levels? I take back what I said before and guess this is okay, Since it puts the additional power towards the end and thus does not power the monk up in the earlier time (where it would not be needed that much).

Every three levels, actually. 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, and so on.


What I said about the weapons: I guess, the higher unarmed damage is there to balance against the possibility of +5 flaming, frost, electric kamas. But then again, they don't need to be balanced that way because the highly magical weapons are also highly expansive. You might want to give damage upgrades to weapon damage (monk weapons only, probably), too. Not as much as the unarmed damage but a bit.

I have about a dozen different styles I'm fiddling with or have planned, that I'll polish up and post here soon. One of them is a sort of weapons master that gets unarmed damage as weapon damage similar to the Truthful Arrow style up there.


Damn, that shows me, how powerful "Forceful arrow" is... At least because of the high bow base damage (when compared with monk weapons), it only matters on the higher levels.

Mhmm.


Say you have a zen archer monk there ... Level 10 again, offense-focused (as any archer should), +1 flaming/frost Longbow, a collection of +1 bane arrows against almost everyone, monks belt, buffed with enlarge person and Greater magic weapon ...
*check* hm, the damage is not that overpowered but it is quite good and multiply that by flurry of blows + rapid shot and ... whow!

Yep. It's supposed to be good. Hopefully not too good, though.



Hm, since I'm already looking into the styles:
Death from the Horizon (Su): "Your bows range increases to your Wisdom bonus,..."
In km or what?

Er. Fixed that. Wisdom times 500 feet.


Slay the Sun: Since this is virtually a wis-only build: Possibly like 200 damage no save? At least give it: Fortitude half. 10*Wis is good enough. ... In addition to an arrow that because of the +20 insight is perfect to deliver the quivering palm etc.

The 200 damage would be added to the normal damage if it hits. I'll clarify that if it's unclear.

And I don't believe you could add Quivering Palm to a bow attack, although this Monk doesn't get it at base anyway (it's in one of the styles).


Sniping the Stinger: Looks way to cinematic for my taste. Plus intervening once per turn is not only very powerful but also annoying. Combine that with shot on the run so that the opponent has only one attack each round and maxed out attack value and you are seriously untouchable. Maybe it's to far on the castrated side but you could change it to "readied standard action". Or maybe you can think of something in between that fits. and prevents him from using this again and again every turn without giving up anything for it.

Well, it is supposed to be rather cinematic, yes. Wuxia-ish. It's basically a better version of Deflect Arrows at heart, though (or at least, that was my intention).

You can't use Shot on the Run with it, though, because you can only use it outside of your own turn.

It does probably need a limiter, though. Hm. I'll think up something.


Unsurpassed Speed: Wait, is the class bonus an enhancement bonus? Looks like no, then ...
Xeph (30), speed of thought (+10 insight), burst ability (+30 competence), hasted by boots of speed (+30 enhancement), +70 monk
...double all but the base...
310 ft speed.

Add the run feat for 5x run speed ... 1550 ft is ~0.3 miles.
0.3 per 6 seconds is 3 per minute is 180 miles per hour.
Oh, okay, it's fast but not "speed of sound" fast or something.


Yeah, you can get some pretty ridiculous speed with that Style.

With Outrunning Light and that build, with, say, 24 Wisdom, you could go 19 and a half miles in a fraction of a second.


-Some Grapple/Throw/Hold/Choke build based on Judo/Jujitsu.

There's one planned, but I'm holding off on it until I have some time to grab a bottle of whiskey and wade into the grappling rules section.


-Those sword monks from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (aka chinese martial art monks). Historically sometimes using glaives, too. (And sometimes really weired weapons, let's not talk about those)

Already planned, as mentioned.

The Underlord
2011-09-13, 04:53 PM
So you made flurry of misses to become flurry of worse misses? though good job on flurry as a standard action. You seem to not have the styles done, so Ill critque more later.

Maraxus1
2011-09-14, 03:17 PM
Isn't threating the needle the really same as to say:

"The character gets improved precise shot" ?

As far as: Is the Zen archer still okay ...

Well, I know fighter archers and they are really useful characters, always able to put their weight into a battle until some point around level 13 or later.

When you write, that shortbow and longbow become monk weapons, does this include the composite versions, too?

In any case, d10+Weapon Specialization stays better then the unarmed damage for a while. And the essential Point Blank shot + Rapid shot and the still quite useful Manyshot, the Monk has to buy from his very rare "per 3 level" feats.

Just from "Forceful arrow" alone, it is not overpowered, it really depends on what you do with the Flurry of blows ability.
Hm, +8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+8/+3/-2/-7 ... In this one case, I think Rapid shot is not necessary, Dex or Wis 18+4lvl+4inh+6enh+2misc = 34
+2 Bracers of Archery, weapon focus, +5bow, +2 misc
=+30/+30/+30/... That's not feel good attacks. When your arrows might cost about 1,000 gp per shot, you really want every single one to hit, of course (Also I guess you could go down to the flaming/frost+1 or "alligned" arrows, costing only 360 each.)

However, the potential is there and very likely anything getting a full attack from your, that you are really serious about will be dead. Another reason not to leave it at this +6 attacks thing.