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SirNibbles
2018-06-18, 08:55 PM
Currently under construction

This is an NPC class. This is an NPC class. This is an NPC class. I need to stop trying to make this playable by a PC.

Blah blah blah flavour text about religious orders having Paladins and Clerics, Monks filling a third role, etc.

What role does a monk fill? Not from a D&D party perspective, but from a worldbuilding perspective- what do these monks actually do most of the time?
1. Praying
2. Maintaining the monastery (cleaning, gardening, etc.) - perhaps a chant that mimics a Plant Growth (enrichment) effect?
3. Helping the community (feeding the poor, healing the sick, raising orphans) - remove disease, or leave that to (multiclass) Paladins?
4. As part of 3, do they do any adventurer-type tasks? Do they go and clear out creatures from dungeons that are attacking locals? If so, what difficulty of task are they capable of taking on?
5. How large is a monastic community, what is the average level spread, and what does this mean for that community? Obviously, it will vary based on the worldbuilding, but for a standard 3.5 setting, what does a monastery look like?

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This class was originally thought up as a class mostly for NPCs, inspired by Gregorian Chants. I wanted to come up with a way to make those chants mechanically useful, and this is the result.

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The Monk

Alignment: Any Lawful
HD: d6
Skill points: 6 + Int
Class Skills: Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (Int), Perform (Cha), Sense Motive (Cha), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Table: The Monk
Level BAB Fort Ref Will SpecialMonk's Chants
1st +0 +2 +0 +2 Monk's Chant; AccompanimentChant of Protection
2nd +1 +3 +0 +3 Chant of Focus
3rd +1 +3 +1 +3 Chant of Aggression
4th +2 +4 +1 +4 Fast Chant: Standard
5th +2 +4 +1 +4 Chant of Alacrity
6th +3 +5 +2 +5 Chant of Mental Clarity; Chant of Physical Prowess
7th +3 +5 +2 +5 Chant of Frenzy
8th +4 +6 +2 +6 Fast Chant: Move
9th +4 +6 +3 +6 Chant of Healing; Chant of Withering
10th +5 +7 +3 +7 MultichantChant of Restoration; Chant of Weariness
11th +5 +7 +3 +7 Chant of Purifying Light; Chant of Consuming Darkness
12th +6/+1 +8 +4 +8 Fast Chant: Swift
13th +6/+1 +8 +4 +8
14th +7/+2 +9 +4 +9
15th +7/+2 +9 +5 +9
16th +8/+3 +10 +5 +10 Volume XI
17th +8/+3 +10 +5 +10
18th +9/+4 +11 +6 +11
19th +9/+4 +11 +6 +11
20th +10/+5 +12 +6 +12


Weapon and Armor Proficiency
The Monk is proficient with all simple weapons.

Monk's Chant (Ex): A Monk is able to create extraordinary results by chanting. The Monk must be able to speak clearly in order to use the Monk's Chant. Beginning a Monk's Chant is a full round action; maintaining a chant is a free action which requires Concentration checks if damaged or distracted. While chanting, a Monk is unable to speak, including performing vocal components of spells. Every chant requires a Perform (Sing) check to begin and maintain. If the leader of the chant fails to maintain the chant, the chant's effect ends immediately and cannot be started again until his next turn. The DC to lead a chant is 10 + the level at which it becomes available.


Chant of Protection: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 60 feet who are able to hear the chant receive a +1 sacred/profane (if good or neutral/evil) bonus to all saves. Every additional chanting Monk increases the bonus by +1.

Chant of Focus: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 60 feet who are able to hear the chant gain a +1 sacred/profane bonus to all attack rolls. Every additional chanting Monk increases the bonus by +1.

Chant of Aggression: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 60 feet who are able to hear the chant gain a +1 sacred/profane bonus to all damage rolls. Every additional chanting Monk increases the bonus by +1.

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Chant of Alacrity: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 45 feet who are able to hear the chant gain a +20 sacred/profane bonus to movement speed. Every additional chanting Monk increases the bonus by +5 feet.

Chant of Mental Clarity: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 45 who are able to hear the chant gain a +1 sacred/profane bonus to their Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Every additional chanting monk increases a single one of those stats by an additional +1.

Chant of Physical Prowess: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 45 who are able to hear the chant gain a +1 sacred/profane bonus to their Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. Every additional chanting monk increases a single one of those stats by an additional +1.

Chant of Frenzy: All allies within 45 feet who are able to hear this chant are treated as if their Base Attack Bonus were 1 higher. Every additional chanting monk increases this bonus by +1. This increase may grant affected allies additional attacks; normal rules apply for making use of multiple attacks.
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Chant of Healing: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 45 feet who are able to hear the chant have all their healing (except healing from negative energy effects), including Fast Healing and Regeneration, increased by 1. Every additional chanting Monk increases this bonus by 1. Non-evil alignment only.

Chant of Withering: While the monk is chanting, all enemies within 45 feet who are able to hear the chant have all their healing (except healing from negative energy effects), including Fast Healing and Regeneration, reduced by 1. Every additional chanting Monk increases this reduction by 1. This cannot reduce the amount of HP healed from a healing effect below 0. Evil alignment only.

Chant of Restoration: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 45 feet are affected in a manner similar to receiving a Lesser Restoration spell: A single ability score is healed for 1 point of damage per round. It also eliminates any fatigue suffered by the character, and improves an exhausted condition to fatigued. Every additional chanting monk increases the healing by 1. Non-evil alignment only.

Chant of Weariness: While the Monk is chanting, all enemies within 20 feet are fatigued (Will save DC 13 + Chant Leader's Wisdom Modifier negates). Each additional chanting Monk increases the DC by 1. Creatures must continue to make saves once per round on the chant leader's turn as long as the chant continues. Anyone who fails to save two rounds in a row becomes exhausted instead of fatigued; an exhausted character who makes their save the next round is only fatigued, and a fatigued character who makes their save is no longer fatigued. Evil alignment only.

Chant of Purifying Light: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 30 feet radiate with light, shedding bright light in a 5 foot radius and dim light in a 10 foot radius. Any undead creature or Ooze that comes within the bright light of an affected ally takes 1d4 points of holy damage. Creatures that remain adjacent take this damage every turn, at the start of the chant leader's turn. Every additional chanting Monk increases the damage by 1d2. A will save (DC 15 + Chant Leader's Wisdom Modifier) reduces the damage taken by half. Treat this as a third level spell for determining lighting when multiple conditions overlap. Non-evil alignment only.

Chant of Consuming Darkness: While the Monk is chanting, all allies within 30 feet are shrouded in darkness. The 10 foot area around each ally is treated as one level dimmer than the prevailing light conditions (Bright Light becomes Shadowy/Dim, and Shadowy Illumination becomes darkness. Enemies within an ally's darkness take 1 damage per round for Shadowy Illumination and 2 damage per round for darkness. Allies also gain Darkvision out to 20 feet. Each additional chanting Monk increases the Darkvision range by 10 feet. Treat this as a third level spell for determining lighting when multiple conditions overlap. Evil alignment only.

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Chant of Hmm:

Chant of Probably Should Do Something Useful: Filling space for formatting, this ability will likely not make sense in the end.

Chant of Last one of this tier Probably does something stupid because I suck at writing homebrew.

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Chant of Almost Done:

Chant of Nearly Finished:

Chant of Last One Assuming no Alignment Splits:






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Accompaniment (Ex): A Monk may join an ongoing allied chant as a full round action and maintain the chant as free action which requires Concentration checks if damaged or distracted. The power of chants is determined by the total number of chanting monks, up to a maximum equal to 2+ the chant leader's Wisdom modifier- see the individual descriptions for each chant. In addition to increasing the power of the chants, every additional allied chanting Monk increases the range of chants by 5 feet, as long as the accompanying monk is within the original range of the monk who is leading the chant; this range increase is not limited by the leader's Wisdom modifier.

If an accompanist fails to maintain a chant or moves outside the range of the leader, the power of the chant immediately lessens to reflect the new number of chanting monks. Despite being outside the range to accompany, a monk may still be within range to gain the benefits of a chant. The DC to accompany a chant is half the DC needed to lead the same chant, rounded down. A monk need not be capable of knowing a chant well enough to lead it in order to know how to accompany it, though this increases the DC to accompany by +2.

A Monk may add his Wisdom modifier, if positive, to his Perform (sing) check to accompany chants, up to a maximum determined by his level. He may add up to +1 at 1st level, +2 at 5th level, +3 at 10th level, +4 at 15th level, and +5 at 20th level.

Fast Chant: At 4th level, a monk may begin or join a chant as a standard action. At 8th level, a monk may begin or join a chant as a move action. At 12th level, a monk may do this as a swift action.

Multichant: Beginning at 10th level, a Monk is capable of maintaining two chants at the same time, either leading or accompanying one or both. The Perform (Sing) check required to maintain the chant is equal to the sum of the checks of the individual chants.

Volume XI: At 16th level, the Monk's chant is capable of being heard even in areas of magical silence or by creatures who have been deafened.

Volume XII: The ranges of all chants are doubled.

EDIT LOG:
31 March 2020: Changed chants to require Perform (Sing) checks every round. Under construction to better explain leading and accompanying chants.
1 Apr 2020: Continuing to update and refine, adding new chants.
2 Apr 2020: Continuing to update, adding new chants, changing levels at which chants are gained, and modifying their mechanics slightly.
3 Apr 2020: Still working on it
4 Apr 2020: Still going, removed turn Undead completely
5 Apr 2020: I am continuing to work on this every single day and will do so until it is finished.
17 November 2023: I definitely did not work on this every single day until it was finished.

Possible changes:
Hit dice d6 -> d4
Reduce Skill points to 4+int
Delay turn undead until later levels, or perhaps remove it completely
A worthy capstone of some sort
Change some abilities from (Ex) to (Su); I'd like it all to be (Ex) so it's nonmagical, but some of the abilities are clearly magically inspired. Then again, (Ex) abilities can ignore the laws of physics, so who knows?

Things for me to keep in mind when balancing:
Chants are a limitless resource, unlike spells
Chant power is directly linked to the number of chanters, and even high level chants shouldn't be powerful with only one chanter
Good and Evil chants shouldn't just be different ways to get the same bonus- it'd be more interesting to have two gradually diverging paths

Saintheart
2018-06-19, 08:38 PM
Not sure what the intent here is, but this is the sort of class where it begs parties - especially Pathfinder Bards who are explicitly able to be lawful - to take a one level dip in the class and then help the primary monk generate somewhere in the +4 to +6 range to their attack rolls.

Could be kind of cool if they start singing the Hammer Chorus while smashing the hell out of their enemies. This would also be rather nice thematically for dwarven war chants, having big groups of dwarves all timing their slashes and blows with their axes and whatnot.

EDIT: Just noticed that Chant of Alacrity which is insanely good or cute to contemplate. So a standard person who moves at about 20-30 feet per round can sing himself to move 40-50 feet per round? And 5 feet extra per additional chanter? That means if you've got 10 monks all chanting together they're all moving somewhere at 100 feet per round, which equates to 5.08 m/s (which means a time under 12 seconds for the 100 metre sprint, though these guys won't be running, they'll be walking at that speed). This in turn equates to them moving at about 18.288 km/h, which means they can cover the better part of 200 kilometres in a day if they all maintain the chant.

EDIT THE SECOND: It only gets better the more people you have: the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has 360 members, which comes to a +1795.2 bonus to movement speed per round, which equates to 299 feet per second or thereabouts, which is 91.1352 metres per second, which is 328 km/h. That is above the minimum speed that traditionally defines a supercar, 320 km/h. It should be the Maserati Tabernacle Choir. Don't even have to go with Ring of Communication shenanigans, either, since each additional monk raises the distance at which the chant can be heard (and therefore joined) by 5 feet.

Photons travel at 299,792,458 m/s, which translates to about 983 571 056 feet per second, or 163,928,509.33 feet per round. Therefore you only need about 33,000 monks chanting (as free actions, mind you) to get themselves or any of their allies within a 50 km radius up to lightspeed as a walking pace. Maybe not as efficient as as the commoner railgun, but it's a lot funnier!

Similar scaling applies to the other chants where it's a flat addition per chanter: a monastery of, say, 20 monks could be dishing out 20d4 of damage, though it's not clear if this is round-by-round damage or not. The 60 feet limit also gets increased by +5 feet per additional chanter, which means 30 monks or so could smash undead with about 30d4 of damage from over 200 feet away ... or rather, could make every one within 200 feet of their buddies (who themselves only need be about 200 feet from the choir, since each additional chanter raises all radii of the chants by 5 feet) light up like Christmas trees and make undead fall to bits in the space of about a round or so.