Strikewright -- nonrefreshing martial base class

[dspeyer]

Strikewright

Some students of the sublime way are not satisfied to execute maneuvers. They wish to understand them fully. This is a slow path, but it has benefits. A Strikewright has no need of mental exercises to hold a maneuver, and can enhance existing maneuvers, making them more effective than when used by an ordinary adept.

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special	Known	Stances
1	0	2	2	0		3	1
2	1	3	3	0	Confuse Maneuver	4	1
3	2	3	3	1	Insightful Strike	5	2
4	3	4	4	1		6	2
5	3	4	4	1	Heighten Maneuver	7	2
6	4	5	5	2	Insightful Motion	8	3
7	5	5	5	2		9	3
8	6/1	6	6	2	Split Maneuver	10	3
9	6/1	6	6	3	Insightful Defense	11	4
10	7/2	7	7	3		12	4
11	8/3	7	7	3	Maximize Maneuver	13	4
12	9/4	8	8	4	Insightful Offense	14	5
13	9/4	8	8	4		15	5
14	10/5	9	9	4	Quicken Maneuver	16	5
15	11/6/1	9	9	5	Insightful Action	17	6
16	12/7/2	10	10	5		18	6
17	12/7/2	10	10	5	Combine Enhancements	19	6
18	13/8/3	11	11	6	Insightful Survival	20	7
19	14/9/4	11	11	6		21	7
20	15/10/5	12	12	6	Insightful Targeting	22	8

Hit die: d8
Skills: 4+int
Class Skills: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Heal, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (any), Listen, Martial Lore, Move Silently, Perform (dance), Sleight Of Hand, Spot, Tumble, the key skills of chosen schools
Schools: Choose four of: Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Setting Sun, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw, Steel Mountain, Chthonic Serpent, Maula Kae, Piercing Point, Iron Rain, Falcon's Eye, Oncoming Storm, Leaping Gale, Gentle Breeze, Viper Fang, Army of One, Broken Blade, Dancing Leaf, Knowing Heart, Scarlet Rose. This choice is made when you begin the class and cannot be changed. Add the key skills of your chosen schools to your class skill list if they are not already there.
Weapons: All simple weapons and all signature weapons of your chosen schools.

Maneuvers

A Strikewright learns higher-level maneuvers more slowly than normal, following this table:

Initiator level	Highest maneuver level
1	1
2	1
3	1
4	2
5	2
6	2
7	3
8	3
9	3
10	4
11	4
12	4
13	5
14	5
15	5
16	6
17	6
18	6
19	7
20	7

Also, a Strikewright cannot switch out maneuvers for higher-level ones. Known is known.

On the other hand, a Strikewright has no concept of a "readied" maneuver. Any maneuver she knows, she can execute.

Insights (ex):

The determination to understand movement and violence pays off in many ways. Strikewrights can add their intelligence modifiers (if positive) to a variety of things. This never stacks with other abilities that add intelligence modifiers to these things.

at level	gain insightful	which adds int to	but
3	strike	damage	only when using a maneuver
6	motion	balance, climb, move silently, swim and tumble checks	only if you armor check penalty is 2 or less
9	defense	armor class	only in light or no armor, with light or no shield, and not when flat-footed
12	offense	attack roles	only when using a maneuver
15	action	initiative
18	survival	saving throws
20	targetting	critical threat range	to a maximum of the original range (original including other effects that increase threat range, such as keen)

Enhancements (ex):

Strikewrights continue to refine maneuvers after they learn them. When performing a maneuver of sufficiently low level, you may choose to enhance it. Make a Martial Lore check. If it succeeds, you get a benefit. If it fails, you may suffer some penalty.

Confuse Level: any, Martial Lore DC: 17
On success, the DC for a watching Martial Adept to identify the maneuver is increased by 20. On failure, the maneuver proceeds normally.

Heighten Level: less than your highest, Martial Lore DC: 21
On success, any saving throw DC caused by the maneuver is increased by the difference in level between the maneuver and the highest you can perform. For example, a 1st level maneuver with an 11+str DC when you're 8th level and can use 3rd level now has a dc of 13+str. On failure, the maneuver proceeds normally.

Split Level: at least 2 less than your highest, Martial Lore DC: 25
This can only be used on strikes which are standard actions. On success, you perform the strike twice as a full round action. The second time, you take a -5 penalty on your attack rolls. On failure, the maneuver still requires a full-round action, but gains no benefit.

Maximize Level: at least 3 less than your highest, Martial Lore DC: 29
On success, all dice rolled as part of the maneuver roll their maximums. Rolls that are part of an attack which is part of the maneuver don't count (e.g. to-hit, base damage, sneak attack damage). On failure, you take a -4 penalty on attack rolls for this maneuver.

Quicken Level: at least 4 less than your highest, Martial Lore DC: 33
This can only be applied to maneuvers which are standard actions or shorter. On success, perform as a swift action. On failure, waste a swift action.

Combine Level: less than your highest by the sum of how much the individual enhancements must be, Martial Lore DC: 37
Apply two enhancements to the same maneuver. Make a single Martial Lore check and apply both benefits or both penalties.

[DracoDei]

You need to state that enhancements stack or that you can only use one enhancement per maneuver, IE you can't roll for everything the unenhanced maneuver qualifies for.

Insightful motion currently limits one to Masterwork Chain shirt or worse until one can afford mithril. Did you mean "Two or less" or "Less than 2"? I could certainly see it either way.

Also, did you explicitly decide not to include Falling Anvil? I am trying to decide if it would fit. If you just hate FA I very much understand (can't remember who thinks what), and shall edit in my own recommendation to this post at some later point.

[dspeyer]

Only one enhancement. Otherwise, combine would be somewhat meaningless.

Did I mean two or less? I'll have to go back and check.

I deliberately omitted Falling Anvil because I don't think it can be understood. It would be like analyzing a joke. Zanyness is not constructed elaborately out of simple axioms. I omitted all the alignment disciplines for similar reasons.

[dspeyer]

I did mean 2 or less. Fixed. Thanks.

[DracoDei]

I deliberately omitted Falling Anvil because I don't think it can be understood. It would be like analyzing a joke. Zanyness is not constructed elaborately out of simple axioms. I omitted all the alignment disciplines for similar reasons.

Gotcha, makes perfect sense on FA (I only even mentioned it because it is the sort of discipline that is very easy to forget, given its semi-canonical nature), but... given the existance of modrons, I wouldn't be so sure that keeping out Law based disciplines makes sense... maybe only for initiators with the [Law] tag on their race? That might be too obscure to be worth wasting words on though.

[JKTrickster]

Wow this is really a unique idea!

I can't comment on balance, but I like how you open up such a variety of selections to the class - any two Strikewrights can always probably be unique.

Either way, I really find this a refreshing class and can't wait to see other put some real input in here.