Epic Martial Discipline: Invincible Sword Princess

[The Demented One]

Epic Martial Disciplines

Epic martial disciplines are the fighting styles of the most powerful warriors and swordsmen in all creation. Powerful secret techniques wielded by gods, archfiends, and epic heroes, they represent the absolute pinnacle of the Sublime Way.

Learning Epic Martial Disciplines
Every epic discipline has an epic feat associated with it, called an initiation feat. Once an epic character has taken the initiation feat of a discipline, he gains the ability to learn the maneuvers of that epic discipline. Unlike normal maneuvers, epic maneuvers must be learned individually–each one has a unique XP cost and training time to learn. Learning even a single epic maneuver is an arduous quest for the mightiest of heroes, as they must seek out a master of the discipline to learn it from. Such beings include deities, demon princes, and things far more strange. Without such a mentor, the training time required to learn an epic maneuver is doubled–and even then, the pinnacle maneuver of an epic discipline can never be learned without a mentor. As with normal martial maneuvers, a martial adept must meet certain prerequisite number of maneuvers known from the same discipline to learn epic maneuvers. Each discipline has a single “pinnacle” maneuver, one that requires all other maneuvers of the discipline to be learned before it can be mastered.

Using Epic Maneuvers
Epic maneuvers are readied and initiated differently than normal maneuvers. Whenever a martial adept readies his maneuvers, he may choose a single epic martial discipline to ready for that day. Doing so readies all epic maneuvers of that discipline that he has learned. They do not count towards his normal maneuvers readied. Each readied epic maneuver can be initiated once per encounter–they cannot be recovered by any means. The martial adept may enter epic stances of his readied discipline as if they were normal martial stances, save that no ability or effect can ever allow him to gain the benefits of any other or second stance at the same time as he gains the benefits of an epic stance. Epic maneuvers do not have a level, but are treated as being of 10th level for all purposes. The saving throw against an epic maneuver has a DC of 20 + the listed ability modifier, although many epic maneuvers list ways in which their DC can be increased. All epic maneuvers are extraordinary abilities, unless otherwise listed.

[The Demented One]

Invincible Sword Princess



The first Invincible Sword Princess was a warrior goddess of unsurpassed prowess, an angelic battle-maiden who took up arms against any who earned her wrath. When the arch-devils and demon princes marshaled their unholy armies to march on the world, she smote them down–and when the tyranny of the gods angered her, she made war on heaven itself. But before the dawn of history, she left this world, seeking out some answer to her unconquerable blade. And yet her invincible fighting arts are not yet lost, their secrets carved into the very firmaments of heaven and hell themselves when the Invincible Sword Princess turned her blade against them, and they are not forgotten by the lords of hell she conquered, nor the angelic hosts who desperately tried to save the gods from her wrath. Only the most powerful of epic heroes can take up the mantle of the Invincible Sword Princess once more, and turn their own blades against all who oppose them. The associated weapons of the Invincible Sword Princess discipline are the bastard sword, the greatsword, and the longsword.

Unconquered Sword [Epic, Initiation]
You have begun learning the secrets of the Invincible Sword Princess discipline.
Prerequisites: Martial Lore 24 ranks, must be capable of initiating 9th-level maneuvers of any discipline
Benefits: You may fight defensively without taking any penalties on your attack roll to do so. In addition, whenever you are attacked, you may parry, adding your Strength modifier in place of your Dexterity to your AC. Doing so counts as an attack of opportunity for this round. You must be wielding a weapon which you are proficient with in order to parry. Characters with this feat may learn maneuvers from the Invincible Sword Princess discipline.

Heavenly Bulwark
Invincible Sword Princess (Counter)
Initiation Action: Immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instant
XP Cost: 20,000 XP
Training Time: 10 days

The Invincible Sword Princess cannot be wounded, cannot be slain. Blades shatter against her skin, flames wash over her without scorching, and even the wrath of the gods is turned aside. You can initiate this maneuver whenever you would be dealt damage by any single source. All damage that would be dealt to you is prevented, and you gain damage reduction equal to your initiator level until the end of your next action. This damage reduction cannot be overcome by any damage.

Blossoming Steel
Invincible Sword Princess (Counter)
Prerequisite: 1 Invincible Sword Princess maneuver
Initiation Action: One immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 30,000 XP
Training Time: 15 days

To take up arms against the Invincible Sword Princess is to invite her wrath. You can initiate this maneuver whenever you are attacked. For the rest of the encounter, any enemy who attacks you provokes an attack of opportunity from you if they are within your melee reach. You gain a +5 morale bonus on all attack rolls and a +10 morale bonus on all damage rolls made as an attack of opportunity.

Dancing with Victory
Invincible Sword Princess (Counter)
Prerequisites: 1 Invincible Sword Princess maneuver
Initiation Action: One immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 30,000 XP
Training Time: 15 days

The world weeps with each drop of the Invincible Sword Princess’s blood that is shed–and so, she does not permit herself to bleed. You can initiate this maneuver whenever you are attacked. For the rest of the encounter, you may ignore all penalties to your AC. You apply your full AC against touch attacks and attacks that would deny you your Dexterity bonus to AC.

God-Smiting Outrage
Invincible Sword Princess (Boost)
Prerequisites: 1 Invincible Sword Princess maneuver
Initiation Action: One swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 30,000 XP
Training Time: 15 days

The gods of heaven and the arch-fiends of hell thought to stand against the Invincible Sword Princess. By her fury, they were first taught humility. For the rest of the encounter, all attacks you make deal an additional +25 damage. On a critical hit, this increases to +50 damage.

Soft Blade Kiss
Invincible Sword Princess (Boost)
Prerequisite: 1 Invincible Sword Princess maneuver
Initiation Action: One swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instant
XP Cost: 30,000 XP
Training Time: 15 days

Even the slightest touch of the Invincible Sword Princess’s blade is enough to slay her foes. Until the end of your turn, all melee attacks you make are touch attacks, rather than standard melee attacks. Attacks that hit deal standard melee damage.

Lightning Stroke
Invincible Sword Princess (Strike)
Prerequisites: 2 Invincible Sword Princess maneuvers
Initiation Action: One standard action
Range: Melee attack
Target: One creature
Duration: Instant
XP Cost: 45,000 XP
Training Time: 20 days

Every motion, every strike of the Invincible Sword Princess knows perfection. You make a single melee attack, which automatically hits, regardless of your target’s AC or any other effects, save those which explicitly cause all attacks to fail. The attack deals an additional +20d6 damage.

Shining Adamant Defense
Invincible Sword Princess (Counter)
Prerequisites: 2 Invincible Sword Princess maneuver
Initiation Action: One immediate action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: One encounter
XP Cost: 45,000 XP
Training Time: 20 days

The Invincible Sword Princess declares her own destiny. You can initiate this maneuver whenever you make a saving throw. For the rest of the encounter, you gain your choice of a +20 resistance bonus to saving throws of a single type, or a +10 resistance bonus on all saving throws.

Victory Over All
Invincible Sword Princess (Stance)
Prerequisite: 2 Invincible Sword Princess maneuvers
Initiation Action: One swift action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Stance
XP Cost: 45,000 XP
Training Time: 20 days

Moving with grace beyond words and skill beyond awareness, the Invincible Sword Princess gently brushes aside the foolish attacks of any who would dare attack her. While in this stance, you add your Strength modifier to your AC in addition to your Dexterity, rather than in place of it, whenever you parry an attack. In addition, whenever you are attacked, you may choose to perfectly block it, as an immediate action. If you do, the attack automatically misses, regardless of the result of the roll or your AC.

Cosmos-Slaying Glory Blade
Invincible Sword Princess (Strike) [Pinnacle]
Prerequisite: 8 Invincible Sword Princess maneuvers
Initiation Action: One standard action
Range: Melee attack
Target: One creature
Duration: Instant
XP Cost: 100,000 XP
Training Time: 50 days

The limitless power of the Invincible Sword Maiden surpasses the gods themselves. If she smites the mountains, they are toppled. If she stands against armies, they fall. Should she turn her blade on the sky itself, then the heavens would be pierced. You make a single melee attack, your weapon weeping golden fire to mourn the devastation it must unleash. If the strike hits and would successfully deal any damage to its target after damage reduction and similar effects have been applied, then your foe is utterly destroyed. The attack deals effectively unlimited damage, automatically reducing your enemy to -10 hp. A merciful martial adept may spare their victim, leaving them alive at 0 hp.

[The Rose Dragon]

This reminds me of a certain Zenith Caste for some reason.

[Sanguine]

So...Much...Awesome!

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Next epic disciplines: Silver-Maw Tyrant and Unseen Shadow Mask

[The Tygre]

AAAAAAAAAAHHH! THE AWESOME IS INCINERATING MEEEEEEE!

No words... Should've sent... A poet... So beautiful.

[Mulletmanalive]

No words... Should've sent... A poet... So beautiful.

Damn, where's that from?

On the style...It actually feels somewhat like a return to form for warriors. They were the big dogs back in 2e [especially with the high level handbook in play] and this seems to give them some fun to be had at high levels.

[The Tygre]

Damn, where's that from?

On the style...It actually feels somewhat like a return to form for warriors. They were the big dogs back in 2e [especially with the high level handbook in play] and this seems to give them some fun to be had at high levels.

The movie 'Contact', I do believe.

[LunarWolfPrime]

WOW is all I have to say.

[Xefas]

I love the idea of Epic Martial Disciplines. I like the implementation of seeking out masters, XP cost, training time, learning them individually, but still having prerequisites and not necessarily requiring a master. I think it would be a good analogue to Epic Spellcasting, which I think turns out slightly less broken in practice than it does in theory (at least it would with my group).

But...the fluff for this one. I think you were trying to shoot for that 'silly awesome' zone, but ended up just landing in 'silly'. Honestly, if I were going to use this, I'd probably redo the fluff to be the divine fighting style of the dead God of War, Stratis, the brother of Hextor and Heironeous. The martial aspirant would have to seek out the remains of the dead god on the Astral Plane and commune with his dreaming mind or possibly find one of his artifacts and train with it/near it to act as their 'master'.

[Elfin]

This is great. Really great. Really really great. Really really...you get the idea.

Edit: Xefas has some good suggestions, though.

[Vic_Sage]

Edit: Xefas has some good suggestions, though.

No he doesn't, he has suggestions to make it boring and generic.

Not a fan of the idea of Epic only Disciplines but this is pretty cool.

[The Demented One]

But...the fluff for this one. I think you were trying to shoot for that 'silly awesome' zone, but ended up just landing in 'silly'. Honestly, if I were going to use this, I'd probably redo the fluff to be the divine fighting style of the dead God of War, Stratis, the brother of Hextor and Heironeous. The martial aspirant would have to seek out the remains of the dead god on the Astral Plane and commune with his dreaming mind or possibly find one of his artifacts and train with it/near it to act as their 'master'.

I made something up in the middle of film class. So sue me. If you don't like the fluff, change it, that's not the important part.

[Xefas]

I made something up in the middle of film class. So sue me. If you don't like the fluff, change it, that's not the important part.

I realize the fluff isn't the important part. I wasn't trying to be insulting. Just saying. I admire your work. You do lots of cool stuff. The fluff just seemed a little silly to me this time.

Still definitely something I'll bookmark for later use.

[Zovc]

I think the fluff is of epic proportions. (Pun intended, but nevertheless serious.)

It seems to me like it should require something to use an epic maneuver "again." The way I interpreted the rulings is that you get your epic maneuvers of your chosen discipline once per encounter. I think it shouldn't even be once a day.

Perhaps require the character to retrain the skill? Paying no experience and taking half the training time to re-center oneself.

Another epic feat could perhaps let you circumvent this.

[The Demented One]

It seems to me like it should require something to use an epic maneuver "again." The way I interpreted the rulings is that you get your epic maneuvers of your chosen discipline once per encounter. I think it shouldn't even be once a day.

Turning your superpowers into something that's effectively "once a week" doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Given that they're combat-centric, without the sheer utility that epic spells have, and that you can't mix and match styles, I think that once an encounter is fine.

[Eurus]

So, you can't learn an epic maneuver that costs 45,000 experience unless you're at least level 45, right? Because you gain a level after accumulating 1000 experience times your current character level? So Cosmos-Slaying Glory Blade is... unlikely at best to ever actually see use, even in the most ridiculously high-powered games.

Actually, now that I think about it, I seem to recall a character being able to choose not to level up, saving their experience, if they wanted to do some crafting or something. That makes it a bit better, then, except that the amount of experience required to learn all of these maneuvers is about as much as it would normally take to get from level 21 to about halfway to level 34 (assuming my quick math is correct)...

I suppose what I'm saying is, why require an experience point cost? I know it makes them parallel epic magic, but we all know that epic magic is either useless or game-breaking, depending on whether you mitigate it or not. So why try to mimic it? I think that it might be better to make each maneuver into a feat of its own, and include the training time in the feat prerequisites.

[Zovc]

Turning your superpowers into something that's effectively "once a week" doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Given that they're combat-centric, without the sheer utility that epic spells have, and that you can't mix and match styles, I think that once an encounter is fine.

I guess one-shotting any one thing you can hit with a sword each encounter is just too epic for me to see happening once every encounter. Maybe that's why I don't have what it takes to become a 21st level adventurer... XP

[The Demented One]

So, you can't learn an epic maneuver that costs 45,000 experience unless you're at least level 45, right? Because you gain a level after accumulating 1000 experience times your current character level? So Cosmos-Slaying Glory Blade is... unlikely at best to ever actually see use, even in the most ridiculously high-powered games.

Not quite. The math comes down to (x)(x-1)(500). The way I mathed it out was that each maneuver costs one-tenth of the total XP required to get to the level after the one where you're supposed to be able to "conveniently" get it, with Cosmos-Slaying Glory being placed at 30. You could, in theory, get it at 21st level, assuming you decided to just spend all your XP on ISP maneuvers. Doing so, however, is gonna leave you a ways behind the rest of your party. [/moremaththanyouwanted].

I suppose what I'm saying is, why require an experience point cost? I know it makes them parallel epic magic, but we all know that epic magic is either useless or game-breaking, depending on whether you mitigate it or not. So why try to mimic it? I think that it might be better to make each maneuver into a feat of its own, and include the training time in the feat prerequisites.

Because XP is a convenient common currency to use. Feats, less so.

I guess one-shotting any one thing you can hit with a sword each encounter is just too epic for me to see happening once every encounter. Maybe that's why I don't have what it takes to become a 21st level adventurer... XP

If you hit it, if you beat damage reduction. And by the time you have it, you'll be facing enemies where neither of those are sureties.

[Dante & Vergil]

Oh, ooooooooh, make this discipline a brother and base it off of Sparda from Devil May Cry. (It's a short staight forward descrption.)

[LurkerInPlayground]

*raises hand*

So what's wrong with just calling the class "Valkyrie?"

[The Demented One]

*raises hand*

So what's wrong with just calling the class "Valkyrie?"

1) Valkryie is already a thing in D&D.
2) The name's an homage to Exalted, which provides the inspiration for this discipline.

[lade5]

When are you putting up Silver Maw Tyrant , that sounds interesting.

Invincible sword Princess sounds like the epic form of a Fighter's combat form.Have you considered forms that could be considered specific for combat for the

Monk
Paladin
Mage
Warlock
Ninja
Barbarian

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Forget the capstone. Victory Over All lives up to its name. I can see an epic ubercharger going to town with it since AC would cease to be an vissue.

[Agrippa]

I really like this discipline Demented One. That said I have some slight modifications to flavor that could be made to fit Dicefreaks own Celestial Compact.

The Invincible Sword Princess, its discipline's namesake and founder was the right hand woman to the Seventh Virture herself, the Queen of the Seven Heavens of Celestia. She was a loyal leiutenant and general in her Queen's army's against the Nine Hells of Perdition, the Grey Wastes of Hades and the Abyss. Yet this was not enough for the Invincible Sword Princess.

No, for however many fiends fell before her blade many thousands more still tormented the mortals she was sworn to protect. Yet in some cruel irony her own holy Queen prevented her from saving more lives, souls and worlds from undeserved damnation. If the fiends were attempting to breach their netherworldly bonds to the Depths Below she could bring down the might of one third of the armies of Celestia, but if they had already entered the Mortal Coil the Invincible Sword Princess would be forced to stay her hand. This was the begining of her Fall.

Not a Fall to damnation and Perdition, but instead a Fall to these Mortal Coils upon which we all live. She has become an exiled angel, a paragon of holiness and order cast out of her home for disobeying her own beloved Queen. Yet before her self imposed exile the Invincible Sword Princess rallied a small number, 3,000 at the most, of her fellow angels then turned her own blade against the Seven Heavens.

Not to maim or kill her brothers and sisters, but to cut in to the landscape great gashes and notches, so that all from both Heaven and the Mortal Coil can read and learn from them. The Invincible Sword Princess then taught her art to her fellow noble Fallen, including those who while from heavenly planes more favorable to intervention were still bound by the Celestial Compact to not interfere. She still to this day clings to the ideals of mercy, justice, compassion, selflessness and devotion to the greater good preached by the Seven Heavens and still retained all of the holy powers due to an angel of her once lofty stature.

Is this too long?

[Danzig]

When are you putting up Silver Maw Tyrant , that sounds interesting.

Invincible sword Princess sounds like the epic form of a Fighter's combat form.Have you considered forms that could be considered specific for combat for the

Monk
Paladin
Mage
Warlock
Ninja
Barbarian

Yeah, I was wondering this myself. Considering that there just aren't any epic martial disciplines (well, other than this one), and I assume the practitioner of Invincible Sword Princess is logically supposed to be female, there ought to be one that the dudes can use too. Unless this discipline is able to be called Invincible Sword Prince, when the adept is a dude rather than a chick.

Epic level martial adept goodness is always worth it though. Not sure if I like the idea of not being able to purchase these with feats. By the time my martial adept/spellcaster character hits about level 25-30, it'd be pretty badass to have both epic spellcasting and epic martial maneuvers and/or stances to play with.