[3.5] Infernal Monster Discipline

[Xefas]

edit: looks like you predicted my post. :D

Yes, yes, I'm amazing like this. Unfortunately Hungry Ghost didn't have quite enough charms in it to make a full discipline, so I spliced it with some Dark Messiah, but it all seems to work. They were both, at one point, the Abyssal Hero Style. I'll start filling in charms soon.

Really awesome discipline. I might give it as an option on my future games. Still, the "Fury is Freedom" seems a bit too strong for a level 2, especially since it is a counter. It is practically, immediate, you are immune to something like that for the rest of the encounter and gain some small amount of damage to you. It's basically a much more pumped up version of the Iron Heart surge.

I'm glad you like the discipline. See, Fury Is Freedom, I think, is more what Iron Heart Surge was meant to be. Currently, IHS is very vague on what it does, and explicitly can't do many things that it seems like it should. Honestly, I homebrewed a new IHS for my group to use almost immediately after getting the Tome of Battle down. It's pretty much exactly like Fury Is Freedom, but it doesn't immunize you or hurt you, but instead gives +2 to attack rolls and armor class for one round. I would heartily encourage anyone who makes a lot of use of the Tome of Battle to adopt this houserule as well.

Other than that (admittedly tenuous) justification, I'll merely point out that 4 damage doesn't seem like a lot, but it's going to be about 10%-15% of a 3rd level character's health, just for using it once. And at mid-high levels, I find effects like this to be necessary to prevent casters just locking down the non-casters of the party and having them whip out their DS at the table and being bored. You could say "I don't use control effects like that", but then the maneuver becomes less useful anyway.

That aside, very interesting, I love the "Break the sky" maneuver. I like to think of it as a punt.

Me too. Either that or a SHORYUKEN!

I really like this discipline, but I feel like it's balanced more for a villain or boss encounter than a player, especially with the faster-attack and -move maneuvers that improve a single foe's action economy.

Well, it is a discipline about indiscriminately murdering everything in your general vicinity. Antagonists will benefit quite a bit from this discipline, if only because they don't have to put a lot of effort into "playing well with others". I think it'd be fine for players to have, though. So long as you discuss the "please don't touch me while I'm murdering" both in character and out of character.

Showed it to my DM, he's adamant that we're going to face a master in it at some point. So, thanks, maybe. I'm a bit frightened.

Awesoooome. Tell me how it turns out. I'm eager to see what an actual character with this turns out looking like.