PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Way of the Planar Warrior



AgentMaineSIGMA
2017-11-16, 11:09 AM
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1keF6TZEziW3I-TbcYwJ9apFbQX6nVi_8

This started as me trying to make the Jedi. It quickly became something else. A warrior monk, you get some traits to enhance your weapons, some special reactions, and access to some of the Outer Realms for nifty features to finish it off. Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Lalliman
2017-11-17, 04:15 AM
Elemental Blade seems a underwhelming for its cost of 2 Ki points. Sure it gives options, but think about it this way:
- Very few creatures are vulnerable to fire, and I've never seen one vulnerable to cold. Fire and cold damage can bypass physical resistance, but a 6th level monk can already do that with his unarmed strikes (aside from the very few (if any) creatures whose resistance isn't pierced by magical weapons), and at that level his unarmed strikes do the same damage as a shortsword. So these two are really only situationally useful in levels 3-5, or in the rare event of facing a creature that's vulnerable to fire.
- The Earth benefit can potentially give you 20 extra damage (two attacks per round for ten rounds, not counting opportunity attacks), but only in the rare event that the battle lasts a full minute. By comparison, spending those 2 ki points on FoB gets you an average of 15 extra damage (2 x d6 + 4) at mid game (more at higher levels) in the first two rounds, when it matters most. Wind is an equivalent bonus and thus is similarly underwhelming.

I would suggest changing the cost of Elemental Blade to 1 ki point, and changing Fire and Water to deal 1d4 extra damage of the element in question.

Elemental Infusion is cool, and it gives the monk something to do with their reactions, but again, it's so expensive. Ki points are immensely scarce and valuable. Think about what Ice and Magma do: in the most common level range of play (1-10) they deal 1-5 damage to a single target. For 2 Ki points. The only situation in which I might feasibly use these is if the GM has enemy HP openly visible and I know with certainty that using it will finish off a dangerous enemy whose turn is coming up.

Smoke and Ooze are more useful, but I'm still not sure about the value. Compare Patient Defence (bonus action + 1 ki -> impose disadv on all attacks for one round) to Smoke (reaction + 2 ki -> impose disadvantage on one attack). Bonus actions are admittedly very valuable to a monk, but even so the 2 ki seems costly. Smoke and Ooze might be fine if you intend them to only be used as occasional panic buttons, but they're too expensive to serve as a reliable tool.

There's a lot of ways to fix these, but my suggestion would be:
- Reduce cost to 1 ki.
- Make Ice and Magma deal damage equal to your martial arts die + your Wisdom mod, with a Dex/Con save to avoid. So it's basically equivalent to an opportunity attack.

Extraplanar Avatar is similarly underwhelming.
- Elysium and Hades are powerful but expensive. An Open Hand monk can instant-kill creatures with Quivering Palm (or deal 10d10 guaranteed damage) for a lower ki cost.
- Limbo and Mechanus are basically useless because you have no control over the damage type, and your unarmed strikes already bypass physical damage resistance.

Since this is 17th level, when wizards learn to deal 40d6 damage in a massive area and balance basically ceases to exist, I suggest you go crazy with it and not worry too much about strict statistical balance. Maybe let Limbo enter a state where they can change their damage type at will, but they have to change it at least once per round. You'll want something powerful-feeling like that as an archetype capstone.

The rest seems good. I really like the concept.

nickl_2000
2017-11-17, 09:03 AM
I can't add a lot to what Lalliman said. Most of it is what I was thinking as well. However, I think it is overly restrictive to allow elemental blade only on a short shord, why not make it any bladed monk weapon?

That would open it up to Dagger, Handaxe, Sickle, Spear, and Short Sword and give the player a few more options, plus they are more likely to run into magic version of these and not be left behind because of the limit.

Lalliman
2017-11-17, 09:23 AM
That would open it up to Dagger, Handaxe, Sickle, Spear, and Short Sword and give the player a few more options, plus they are more likely to run into magic version of these and not be left behind because of the limit.
Agreed on most of these. The martial arts damage die applies to monk weapons too, so the dagger and sickle are perfectly viable alternatives to the short sword from level 5 onward. However, the spear would be the superior option among these due to the d8 damage die when two-handed. So maybe leave that one out if you want to encourage sword-like weapons.

nickl_2000
2017-11-17, 10:43 AM
Agreed on most of these. The martial arts damage die applies to monk weapons too, so the dagger and sickle are perfectly viable alternatives to the short sword from level 5 onward. However, the spear would be the superior option among these due to the d8 damage die when two-handed. So maybe leave that one out if you want to encourage sword-like weapons.

Seems fair to me. The PC still has more options available to them this way. Question though, could a PC dual wield a short sword and dagger and light saber both of them? I'm imagining myself playing Ahsoka now.

http://i.imgur.com/5cWDlg8.jpg

Lalliman
2017-11-17, 12:24 PM
Seems fair to me. The PC still has more options available to them this way. Question though, could a PC dual wield a short sword and dagger and light saber both of them? I'm imagining myself playing Ahsoka now.
Technically the bonus attacks from Martial Arts and FoB must be unarmed, but I would allow you to make those with an off-hand weapon instead, using your Martial Arts damage die. And in that case I see little reason not to let you empower both weapons, for double the ki.