[Avatar d20 Project] Warrior Base Classes

[Sir Shadow]

I still say its a really good idea.

[Pirate_King]

I think Jet could fall under a category (guerrilla). Even though he's self trained, he still uses certain stereotypical styles in his raids. A ranger could specialize in countering such groups.

Is there any way to keep a ranger's animal companion as an option, crunched in a different way? I'm thinking messenger hawk, or ostrich horse, or any of the mounts the fire nation uses. A shirshu, even, for a higher-level ranger.

[Eighth_Seraph]

A ranger would be constrained by all the normal rules for keeping pets and/or mounts, though Wild Empathy definitely broadens the options for adult animals that a ranger could reasonably domesticate.

[Pirate_King]

What about animals that are already domesticated? What sort of price range and access rules are we looking at for mongoose-dragons, ostrich-horses, kimodorhinos, dragonmoose, and so on? I suppose that would go into a different thread, perhaps machines, with the relation to mode of transport.

[Shades of Gray]

I think that the passive way for monks should have tiger-hook swords or whatever they're called. I can imagine a monk letting the enemy miss, then he grabs on to him with the blades and throws him away.

[Eighth_Seraph]

Hm. The weapon is compatible with the style, but I think that making it a style weapon would be a bit too specific. It's a very powerful exotic weapon, so I'll leave it for specific dojos to teach the use of the weapon.

Translation: If you want to synergize, burn a feat and put it into your backstory. Then negotiate with your DM to count it as a style weapon for the sake of damage and bonuses. It's a strong weapon, and would be even more so if the crossguard and hilt spike were all doing Enhanced Strike damage.

[Shades of Gray]

Couldn't this be balanced by the fact you can't even afford one until level 3, and then you are blowing 8/9 of your money on it?

Could we make a variant weapon like the hooked sword, except it only has the hooked part and the cross guard? Or the hooked and the spike only? It wouldn't be worth the feat, but it could be used for monks and there weapon styles.

Feat
Extra Style weapon
Prerequisites: 6 levels in Monk. Weapon Proficiency with new weapon.

Benefit: You may add an extra weapon to the style weapons list for monks. The requirements for that weapon are:

Cobra Strike: Must be a light piercing or slashing weapon. Must have a critical threat range of 19-20 or betterr.
Denying Stance: Must be a light weapon, must be a weapon you can trip with.
Hand and Foot: Must be a double weapon. Twin Dao count for this purpose.
Overwhelming Attack: Must be a weapon that either has reach, or a weapon that you can trip with.
Passive Way: Must be a weapon that you can trip with.

[Pirate_King]

For prerequisites, I'd add weapon focus: whatever weapon added to the style. That would represent the necessary familiarity with the weapon required to incorporate it into the style training.

[Eighth_Seraph]

Hm. As a martial artist, I'm not really a huge fan of this feat, but I see the reasoning. As a homebrewer, I agree that there should be such a feat, but as things stand the feat isn't worth it. Let's use the twin dao as an example. Putting aside the issue of money, a monk (Hand and Foot) would need to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus, then Extra Style Weapon before the feat becomes worthwhile. I think if we cut out Weapon Focus and changed the pre-reqs to proficiency with the weapon it would be alright, without getting broken. I think, from experience, that martial artists generally tend to incorporate a weapon into their art before becoming familiar with them. That's how I learned to use a wakizashi, anyway. I still have no idea how to use a sword without throwing kicks in between cuts.

I like the idea of balancing the addition of potentially powerful weapons with restrictions based on style. I think we might need to refine the restrictions a bit more, but I definitely like the idea. The Denying Stance, Hand and Foot and Passive way restrictions, for example, don't quite seem to fit. I'll work with you more on this tomorrow, as it's getting late and I need to sleep.

[Darkkwalker]

Regarding the favored enemy bit. I think there should be a human (White lotus member) catagory. Just sayin'. I know that this isn't explicit, but it seems to me that the group is widespread and non-exclusive. Though it does seem to be a secret organization. Also, human(guerilla) as previously mentioned, wouldn't be amiss. Though Jet and the others are members of the earth kingdom in general. so yeah. I also think there should be a human (civilian) in there somewhere. as civilians don't really change too much from country to country. but then you'd need human (criminal) as well to show that civilians and criminals are different. It just gets really complicated. anyhow, I think the white lotus thing is the most important.

That is all.

oh, spirits too. or are they being placed under magical beast? because Koh doesn't seem like a beast, more an evil spirit. so yeah. though, adventures in the spirit world aren't cannon, well, except for the avatar. anyhow. yeah. thoughts?

[Mephibosheth]

I know this is something of a non sequitur, but the recruitment and character development process for my "The Fall of Chin the Great" campaign has got me thinking about animal companions. This is something of a reveral from my previous position on this issue, but I'm starting to think that there are characters in the show who exhibit a relationship with a certain animal that transcends the relationship between a person and an animal under normal circumstances. Here I'm thinking about Aang and Appa, Roku and his dragon, and Jun and her shirshu. To this end, I've devised the following feat. Let me know what you think.

I'm Great with Animals!
You have befriended an animal, who trusts you implicitly and accompanies you on your travels.
Prerequisites: Character level 6
Benefit: You gain an animal companion as the Druid class feature. You count as a Druid three levels lower than your character level for the purpose of this class ability.

You can choose your animal companion from the following list:

{table=head] 1st level or higher | 4th level or higher | 7th level or higher | 10th level or higher | 13th level or higher

Bearded Cat|Bear|Armadillo-lion|Giant Beetle|Badger-mole

Buffalo-deer|Bull-antelope|Buzzard-wasp|Kimodo-rhinoceros|Boar-q-pine

Cat-owl|Cat-gator| |Mongoose-dragon|Flying Bison

Dragon-moose|Ostrich-horse| |Platypus-bear|Shirshu

Fox-antelope|Wolf-bat

Hog-monkey

Messenger Hawk

Polar Bear-dog

Raven-eagle

Winged Lemur[/table]

As to the issue of Favored Enemies, I like breaking it down by nation and training/organization, but I don't know how keen I am on extremely specific categories like Human (guerilla). I think a simple Human (unaffiliated) or similar catch-all category would suffice and would be more useful to rangers. Perhaps even slightly more specific categories like Earth Kingdom (unaffiliated) would be better. It just seems like very specific categories like Human (guerilla) would never get selected unless it was a guerilla-specific campaign.

Those are my thoughts. Let me know about the feat.

Mephibosheth

[Pirate_King]

Yay! Animals!

perhaps for guerrilla, it could be combatant(raider) that would be a blanket term for a member any sort of gang that would use hit & run raids, such as guerrilla teams, gangs of bandits, pirates, etc

[Eighth_Seraph]

The kimodo-rhinoceros tore through the village, paying no heed to the wooden houses upon which it wreaked havoc. The bandit upon the beast spurred it on, throwing bombs and dynamite sticks every which way while roaring with glee at the devastation accumulating around him. On a rooftop a mere fifty feet away, two boys watched him with increasing fury.

"Damn those pirates!" said one "This the third year they've done this, and our militia doesn't stand a chance against that force of arms." He sighed hopelessly "I'm sorry that you had to come at a time like this. We usually like to give travelers better hospitality. We should get out of here before that drunken fiend sees us."

The other boy didn't say a word, but drew his shortbow and nocked an arrow to the string. The boy predicted the pirate's moves expertly, and his bow sang. Three arrows sank deep into the man's chest, and he immediately collapses, bleeding and dying.

The younger boy stood dumbfounded. "Wha? How did you do that?"

"My village was destroyed by raiders from the plains. These people are all the same."


In other words, I kinda like Raider as a Favored Enemy and the animal idea. I'll go ahead and add it. I really don't think that Civilian and Criminal would be good categories, as nobody actually specializes in killing Commoners, and criminals vary widely. Maybe Prowler or somesuch for Rogues, What do you guys think?

[Pirate_King]

I think criminal could either fall under the raider category, for organized crime and such, and one that worked alone could fall under the rogue category. It'd be a nice way to make a sort of law enforcer/private investigator/bounty hunter kind of ranger.

[Lord Tataraus]

I was just about to add the monk table to the pdf and I noticed that it does not have a column for Defense Bonus progression. Is this on purpose or was it excluded on accident? I finally have some free time to work on the pdf so if you could answer quickly that'll be great. Also, in addition to this monk and ranger, what non-bender classes should be included in the pdf?

Thanks.

[Pirate_King]

it probably didn't have the column because it's right there on the srd, column a, I think. Lowest one.

[Eighth_Seraph]

Nah, I didn't expect people to known what's in the SRD from Unearthed Arcana. Since the original draft of the style-based monk back on the original melee thread, I decided to get feedback from the playground as a whole and post the class as a stand-alone thread here on the homebrew forum. To avoid confusion, I removed that class defense column so people wouldn't think that I was giving monks another AC bonus in addition to core abilities. I'll stick it back on so you can copy/paste the whole thing, Tataraus. Thanks for the update, by the way.

[jgmaurer]

First off, I would like to say that I love this project, and that I want to help out...even if only a little bit

Second, I have a few ideas (note all thoughts are based on the web-site, the pdf wasn't working so if things are different or I am stating redundant material I apologize in advance):

Martial Artist:

Add Vagrant to the passive style, you don't have any Vagrant styles and this one seems the most likely.



Can't think of anything else right now....or anything else I was thinking about has already been changed on this thread

[black dragoon]

From what I've seen of your work I've gotta say kudos. I would never have been as tenacious as you guys. Why is'nt there a drunken fighting style anyways?

[ErrantX]

Because it's a Nickelodeon cartoon, duh :P

-X

[jagadaishio]

This may be a little late of a comment but when it says 'Agile' in the various style tags, do you actually mean 'Mobile?' If not, I'm not sure what the tag is referring to.

Do monks get the class defense bonus as listed for classes with no armor proficiency?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/ad...fenseBonus.htm

[Eighth_Seraph]

Yes on both accounts. I should probably get around to adding the class defense bonus on the table like I said I would a few months ago...

[Mephibosheth]

I made the replacement on the website, but I may have missed one or two. If I have, let me know.

Also, has there been any progress on completing the one-handed Ranger combat style? As far as I know, it's the only one we haven't finished.

Mephibosheth

[Bandededed]

Well, there are also some monk combat styles that haven't been finished yet, as well. As for the one-handed combat style, would some abilities like these work?

Set-up Strike: As a standard action, or instead of two attacks in a full-attack action, any ranger wielding only a 1 handed weapon in one hand and either nothing or a shield in his off hand may make a touch attack with their off hand against any opponent within melee range. If this strike is successful, instead of dealing damage, their opponent is instead considered flat-footed until the beginning of the opponents next turn.

Reactive Theft: When missed by a melee attack made by an opponent's weapon, a one-handed style ranger may react to take the weapon from his enemy.

Resolve this as a disarm attempt as normal, except that it provokes no attacks of opportunity and the ranger gets a +2 bonus to the attempt. The bonus stacks with all other bonuses.

If the attempt is successful, the weapon is either on the ground (if the ranger has a shield), or in the ranger's possession (if the ranger has a free hand). If unsuccessful, the opponent may not react to disarm the ranger.

Use of this ability counts as an attack of opportunity for the ranger, and cannot be used if he has none of these remaining.

[Eighth_Seraph]

Ooh! I likes 'em. The problem is that the structure we have now kinda requires feats, so we'd have to turn these into tactical feats, which would mean that we'd have to put both of them (and one more) into a single feat. But I like 'em a whole lot

And...yeah. I'm completely stuck on the monk fighting styles. I have no idea what to do with Overwhelming Attack, and I was going to make an Inner Fire, based around the good ol' Dragon Ball Z fighters, toned down to sane levels and sans flying. More like the original Dragon Ball, really. Then I was going to go on to make Ansetsuken, Street Fighter style. But yeah. I'm stuck. Help?

But before I do anything else, I have an idea. I've been to a couple tournaments since I made the write-up for Hand and Foot, and I've noticed a few things. First includes a pair of new techniques I made (Fade-Away Kick and Sliding Side Kick), and the second is that Tae Kwon Do is a pretty standard hard art. I mean really standard, what with it being a mix of every hard Korean art in existence before 1973. What that means is that a whole bunch of other hard arts have techniques very similar to what I've restricted to Hand and Foot up until this point.

So my question is: what would you guys think of my transferring the Decisive Strike ability to a new art category, and instead granting all hard arts limited access to the Hand and Foot technique list?

[String]

A minor thing, since I've been working under the assumption that Kyoshi Warriors are monks of some type: Warfan? should it be a style weapon of some sort?

[felinoel]

A minor thing, since I've been working under the assumption that Kyoshi Warriors are monks of some type: Warfan? should it be a style weapon of some sort?

Really? Because we have been having them be the passive style of the Martial Artist class

[Eighth_Seraph]

Hrm. I guess I should make up a style heavily specialized to be the Kyoshi warriors. The main problem is that they wear armor in a fight, though. I'll get working on it, since representing the show is, after all, what this class was meant to do. Suki's fighting style in The Boiling Rock does seem like a soft art, and she can definitely fight unarmed and unarmored, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

Thanks for the reminder, String.

[String]

Felinoel: Ah. my bad. the martial artist isnt in this thread (is it? I thought it was separate) and so I must have missed that. And isnt there also a monk style called the "passive way"? is that different from the martial artist style?

[Eighth_Seraph]

Er. I'm pretty sure that Felinoel meant my Monk class. I still mess up and call it a Martial Artist from time to time. But yeah, Passive Way is one the monk styles I've made. It's actually going to be playtested tonight or tomorrow, hopefully. Should be interesting.