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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Monastic Tradition: Way of the Enlighted Realm (Outer Realms)



Quintus Vorenus
2016-04-28, 12:05 PM
Heed me! All those who are sentient are in truth as if they were raised in a cave, chained by their legs and necks since childhood so that they cannot move, and they can only see the Shadows of the Truths that pass behind themselves.

At first, when one is liberated and compelled to stand up and look towards the truth, one suffers sharp pains; the truth is distressful, and one is unable to see the realities of which in ones former state had been but shadows; Do not turn form the conception that what you saw before was an illusion, for now you are approaching nearer to to a more real existence.

Look to your body and Know that is also but the Shadow, and step towards the Freedom and the Truth that lie in the Enlightend Realm.


Teachings of the Way of The Enlighted Realm



The Way of the Enlighted Realm is not a Monastic Tradition in the usual sense, for it is very rare for any master take on a student. Most among their ranks come from other traditions inspired either through nightmarish dreams, or by even more harrowing experiences brought on by the denizens of the Far Realm.

Its tenets are based upon the premise that the material world is but a Shadow of the True world that is the Far Realm, its practitioners seek by means of meditation and training to discover the secrets of the Old Ones. But instead of using such truths to amass eldrich power they use them to slowly 'perfect' their minds and bodies.


At 3rd level the monk learns to use his ki to changes his physiology:

Minor Becoming: The monk may manifest minor aberrant traits as a free action. When he does so his unarmed strikes gain 10ft reach and may cause bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage at his discretion.
Bring Forth Spawnling: Anytime the monk takes a short rest ha can create a Spawnling Pack by investing part of his own life force. For each hit die invested he creates one Spawnling Pack, or adds a spawnling to the pack. While the Spawnling lives the Monk cannot recover the invested hit die.





Entropic Life: Spawnling Packs are unstable creations and exist soley by the sustenance of investeted life force, they cannot heal naturaly nor be healed by magic. Spawnling's come in to being fanticly loyal to the donor and only cease to be so while magicly charmed.

Lifepool: Each Spawnling Pack shares a common life pool as this power wanes individual members must be cut off. All damage against a Spawnling counts against the group total, for every 10 hit points lost one spawnling dies. On the other hand spells that specify a number of targets must affect each individual spawnling or fail to affect the pack.

Morfic Shape: A spawnling's shape is a ever bubbling mass of Flesh that fuses and parts with that of other spawnling's. But if a swarm comes in to contact with a medium corpse it can make a poor imitation if its shape. This imitation is but a disguise and does not change a Spawnling's statistics. A spawnling may not atack while disguised.

SPAWNLING SWARM
Medium Aberration, unaligned

Armor Class 14 (natural armor)
Hit Points 10 (1d8+2)
Speed (Same as donor)

Senses: Darkvision 60ft
Skills:: Same proficiency as donor.
Languages: Same as donor.

STR 14 (+2) DEX 14 (+2) CON 14 (+2) INT 6 (-2) WIS 6 (-2) CHA 4 (-3)

Feast on Flesh.Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5ft., one target., if more than one Spawnling is part of the pack the pack attacks with advantage.
Hit: 4 (1d4+2) slashing, piercing or bludgeoning damage per Spawnling that is part of the pack.



At the 6th level the monk gains the following abilities:

Tethers of Flesh: When the monk manifests his aberrant traits he becomes capable of greatly warping and expanding his form. While manifested the monk adds his proficiency bonus to his athletics tests, or double the bonus if already proficient.
Furthermore the monk automatically inflicts unarmed damage on restrained opponents, and may atempt to grapple opponents up to two sizes larger then him.
Engulf: By expending 3 ki points, the monk expands his flesh engulfing any grappled opponents restraining them automatically. Furthermore the monk use his reaction to attempt to grapple any opponent that hits him with a melee weapon. This ability lasts one round per two monk levels.




At the 11th level the monk gains the following abilities:

Unreproachable Envoy: Upon attaining 11th level, the monks of the Enlighted Way no longer counts as a humanoid and gains the aberration type. He also has advantage on all saving throws made to resist aberrations.
Major Becoming: When the monk manifests his abberant traits he gains the amorphous trait, becoming imune to the prone and restrained conditions. While he mantains the transformation he also gains: a climbing speed equal to his movement speed. And a burrow speed equal to half his speed.




At the 17th level the monk reaches the pinnacle of his transformation:

Disturbing Arrival: The monk is no longer restricted by euclidean space and can Plane Shift once per long rest. Furthermore any opponent the monk restrains is swallowed whole, suffers blindness and is sent to an extra dimensional space inside the monks body. When the restrained condition ends, so do the others at which point the opponent apears at the closest space avallabe.
This also removes the usual restrictions a character receives from restraining an opponent, the cap on amount of sustainable grapples, and alows the monk to grapple an opponent up to three sizes larger than him.





Updated the description of the subclass, and made some alterations to thethers os flesh and disturbing arival, now it allows the monk to double his proficiency bonus, helping to reduce MAD, and spread the ability to grapple larger targets between the classes progression.


Replaced the Aberrant Emulation feature at the 11th level with the Major Becoming:


Aberrant Emulation: The monk learns to emulate some of the abilities of the iconic aberrations residing in the material plane. Tests that require saving throws must surpass the monks Ki save DC:


Flayer's Blast. 60ft-cone. 5 ki. Uses an action. The monk emits a cone of psychic energy, targets that fail an INT save are stunned for 1round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.

Sovereign's Touch. 5ki. A target hit by one of the monks melee attacks must pass on a CON save or suffer the effects of an aboleth's tentacle disease Except that it can always be cured by any disease-removing magic.

Tyrant's Gaze: 120 ft. 7ki. Uses an action, cannot take bonus actions or reactions until the start of the monks next turn. Three effects determined randomly from the list below (reroll repeated results), divided between up to three targets the monk can see.

Charm Ray. WIS Save. Charmed for 1 minute/3 levels, or until harmed by monk.
Paralyzing Ray. CON Save. Stunned for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Fear Ray. WIS Save. Frightened for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Slowing Ray. DEX Save. Speed halved for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Enervation Ray. CON save halves damage. 1d8 necrotic damage/3 levels.
Telekinetic Ray. STR save. Move target 30ft, and target is restrained until the monks next turn.
Sleep Ray. WIS save. Sleep for 1 round/3 levels. They awake if they take damage or another creature uses an action to awaken them.
Petrification Ray. DEX save. On success nothing happens, on failure creature is restrained for 1 round/3levels. Targets make another saving throw at the end of their turns, If sucessfull in three saves the creature ends the effect, if the fail at three they are petrified until the effect is removed. The rolls need not be consecutive.
Disintegration Ray. DEX save. If sucessfull no damage. (2d8) + 1d8 force damage/3 levels.If hit points reduced to 0 body becomes pile o gray dust. If the target is a unattended nonmagical objects or creation of magical force, it is disintegrated without a save if large or smaller, or has a 10ft cube desintegrated if it is larger.
Death Ray. DEX save. If sucessfull no damage. (2d8) + 1d8 necrotic damage/3 levels.If hit points reduced to 0 the target dies.




Minor Becoming: Changed melee reach from 15ft to 10ft (15 was a typo.). Also moved type change to level 11.

Bring forth Spawnling: was updated with a better description, changed resource from ki to hit dice to prevent spamming with ki recovery.

Aberrant Emulation: Changed from an open description to a fixed list of abilities. Tried to drop each ability a notch, and to make them scale. Fixed a high cost so as keep them from being spammed with ki recovery.

Final Hyena
2016-04-28, 12:28 PM
I love the theme, it saddens me that it wouldn't fit into my world :(

But the Aberrant Emulation feature doesn't sit right with me. It says it can do this, but at the end GMs are told well actually you can choose to let it fail. I can see that being a source of unhappiness. You could say that they learn to emulate it during a long rest/down time. During this time the player/DM can rebalance the power. A few examples as a guide would help smooth that out.

Quintus Vorenus
2016-04-28, 06:20 PM
First of all thanks for your reply! It was a pleasure to read.


You could say that they learn to emulate it during a long rest/down time. During this time the player/DM can rebalance the power.

That's a fine ruling, I really didn't consider the possibility of a GM having something thrown right back at him. And exactly the type of ruling that might be necessary with such open worded feature.

Can't realy give examples without infringing Monster Manual copyright's.

About the disclamer it was maybe a tad over sarcastic, didn't mean anything more than: be a gentleman clear it with your gm first. Or you may hear a Hell no! ;)

Final Hyena
2016-04-28, 06:29 PM
You generally set a power level that you desire so you make a few examples for instance "Ranged Attack; +x to hit with Xd12 damage." Generally one example for a basic ranged/melee type attack and then a few abilities that cause condition would hopefully be a good guide for most abilities (but I know very little of the MM).

Quintus Vorenus
2016-05-17, 07:19 AM
You generally set a power level that you desire so you make a few examples for instance "Ranged Attack; +x to hit with Xd12 damage." Generally one example for a basic ranged/melee type attack and then a few abilities that cause condition would hopefully be a good guide for most abilities (but I know very little of the MM).

Ended up agreeing with you, so although it took me a while I come up with a fixed list of abilities. I tried to take the abilities down a notch, while adding some scaling.

Joxeta
2016-05-17, 10:42 AM
At 3rd level the monk learns to use his ki to change his physiology:

Minor Becoming: T. Also the monk may manifest aberrant traits as a free action. When he does so his unarmed strikes gain 10ft reach and may cause bludgeoning, slashing or piercing damage at his discretion.
Bring Forth Spawnling: The monk creates a Spawnling Pack by investing part of his own life force. For each hit die invested he creates one Spawnling Pack, or adds a spawnling to the pack. While the Spawnling lives the Monk cannot recover the invested hit die.



What is the T on Minor Becoming about? I'm suspecting that a portion of this feature simply got editted into oblivion :(
Also, what kind of action or when can the monk create the spawnling pack?




At the 6th level the monk gains the following abilities:

Tethers of Flesh: When the monk manifests his aberrant traits he becomes capable of greatly warping and expanding his form. If manifested the monk's grapple tests are no longer restricted by his opponent's size. Furthermore the monk automatically inflicts unarmed damage on restrained opponents.
Engulf: By expending 3 ki points, the monk expands his flesh engulfing any grappled opponents restraining them automatically. Furthermore the monk use his reaction to attempt to grapple any opponent that hits him with a melee weapon. This ability lasts one round per two monk levels.


Everything seems okay here... Does it take any particular action to activate Engulf? Or is it free and you just spend the ki points?




At the 11th level the monk gains the following abilities:

Unreproachable Envoy: Upon attaining 11th level, the monks of the Enlighted Way no longer counts as a humanoid and gains the aberration type. He alsow has advantage on all saving throws made to resist aberrations.
Aberrant Emulation: The monk learns to emulate some of the abilities of the iconic aberrations residing in the material plane. Tests that require saving throws must surpass the monks Ki save DC:


Flayer's Blast. 60ft-cone. 5 ki. Uses an action. The monk emits a cone of psychic energy, targets that fail an INT save are stunned for 1round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.

Sovereign's Touch. 5ki. A target hit by one of the monks melee attacks must pass on a CON save or suffer the effects of an aboleth's tentacle disease Except that it can always be cured by any disease-removing magic.

Tyrant's Gaze: 120 ft. 7ki. Uses an action, cannot take bonus actions or reactions until the start of the monks next turn. Three effects determined randomly from the list below (reroll repeated results), divided between up to three targets the monk can see.

Charm Ray. WIS Save. Charmed for 1 minute/3 levels, or until harmed by monk.
Paralyzing Ray. CON Save. Stunned for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Fear Ray. WIS Save. Frightened for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Slowing Ray. DEX Save. Speed halved for 1 round/3 levels. Targets can make another saving throw at the end of their turns.
Enervation Ray. CON save halves damage. 1d8 necrotic damage/3 levels.
Telekinetic Ray. STR save. Move target 30ft, and target is restrained until the monks next turn.
Sleep Ray. WIS save. Sleep for 1 round/3 levels. They awake if they take damage or another creature uses an action to awaken them.
Petrification Ray. DEX save. On success nothing happens, on failure creature is restrained for 1 round/3levels. Targets make another saving throw at the end of their turns, If sucessfull in three saves the creature ends the effect, if the fail at three they are petrified until the effect is removed. The rolls need not be consecutive.
Disintegration Ray. DEX save. If sucessfull no damage. (2d8) + 1d8 force damage/3 levels.If hit points reduced to 0 body becomes pile o gray dust. If the target is a unattended nonmagical objects or creation of magical force, it is disintegrated without a save if large or smaller, or has a 10ft cube desintegrated if it is larger.
Death Ray. DEX save. If sucessfull no damage. (2d8) + 1d8 necrotic damage/3 levels.If hit points reduced to 0 the target dies.






Nothing of note on Unreproachable Envoy.
Aberrant Emulation is overall good stuff. I like the ability to imitate a beholder, but maybe having access to all of the eye rays is a bit much? This is 11th level, but it seems a little powerful for that point.



At the 17th level the monk reaches the pinnacle of his transformation:

Disturbing Arrival: The monk is no longer restricted by euclidean space and can Plane Shift once per long rest. Furthermore any opponent the monk restrains is swallowed whole, suffers blindness and is sent to an extra dimensional space inside the monks body. This lasts as long as the restrained condition. This removes the usual restrictions a character receives from restraining an opponent and the cap on amount of sustainable grapples.


Love this. Like, a lot.

Hope this helps a bit.
If not, then keep calm and roll on ;)

Quintus Vorenus
2016-05-17, 05:18 PM
Greetings Joxeta,

Thanks for spotting the T! I think im going to change bring forth spawnling so it states that a monk may bring forth spawnlings during a short rest.

Engulf does not take any kind of action.

I also have my doubts about Aberrant Emulation. I tried to balance it by adding a hefty cost and scaling so only at the 18th level do most abilities equal those of the original monsters. And stronger ones like Petrification aren't feasable for awhile.

Arracor
2016-05-26, 09:16 PM
I very much enjoy the subclass' flavor. I do think it has some (already acknowledged) balance issues with its emulation ability, and I also have slight, minor reservations about unlimited Reach attacks with no drawbacks. It also, in my opinion, suffers from a bit of feature drift; what I mean is, the set of abilities doesn't all feel like a completely cohesive theme. The first ability gained is basically tentacle arms, which is cool and shapeshifty. The grappling feels like a natural extension on the theme. Spawnlings, however, feel strange and out of place to me. Why does this monk create blubbery flesh-tentacle-pod-things? How do they supplement the class' theme? I feel like this feature is, of any of them, the one I'd take out completely or change to be more specifically thematic. For example, if it's meant to be additional attacks, maybe give the monk the ability to grow multiple tentacled arms by spending hit dice, all of which attack on their own initiative and possibly with a degree of randomness.