I have written up two classes meant, essentially, to replace the monk class in a little homebrew project I was working on. I realized they would work well--if they worked at all--just about in any setting, and would love to hear any and all constructive feedback.
I basically took the monk idea, saw that it was a bit convoluted, and split it into two different classes:
1. Martial Artist: A d10, full BAB class with flurry of blows and minimal armor. The primary purpose of this class is to be able to pummel things to paste; its secondary purpose is to be somewhat skilled and agile. It should be able to function as a melee warrior first and foremost (compare fighter and ranger).
Link to Martial Artist on GoogleDocs
2. Mystic: A d8, 3/4 BAB class with mystic abilities based on ki and a basic unarmed combat style. Much more obviously built on the monk chassis, but swapped flurry of blows and other combat skills for more ki, ki abilities, and skills. This is meant to be a support character focused on defense and stealth, with enough combat skills to hold his own (compare bard and rogue).
Please note these two classes are quite alpha and have not been playtested in the slightest. I am not an experienced class builder so I would appreciate any and all guidance.
What I would like your feedback on:
1. Do I succeed in the above listed goals?
2. Do these classes look to be relatively on par with/balanced against
classes of similar HD/purposes?
3. Would these be usable in a "typical" fantasy adventure campaign?
4. Do the class features progress in a consistent way which makes sense?
5. Are there any class ability descriptions which need editing/further
explanation/clarification?
6. Anything else that would improve the usability and general balance
of the classes in most campaigns.
(A note on "balance" -- by balance I mean generally speaking would you have as much fun playing one of these classes as you would a similar class; would you feel regularly effective in and out of combat during a well rounded campaign that comprised of relatively equal parts of combat, exploration, and puzzle solving? Would you regularly feel less or more effective than most other classes (moreso than in extant classes)?)
Bonus points for extra credit:
Suggest better names for the two classes. I went for "generic" because I find if you pull class names from other cultures/languages/very specific historical positions, people start judging the class based on extremely specific criterion not necessarily aimed for for a fantasy adventure game. At the same time, generic is generic, and maybe they could use a little more oomph. Also, "martial artist" doesn't mesh with the Mona degree that base classes should have one word names, and although I don't really agree with that, the editor within wants me to be consistent with official material format, even if all this is is a fun homebrew project.
Simple question, aside from some additional HP and some higher BaB,
What does the Martial Artist give you that monk doesn't already?
I completely get that a lot of people are very unsatisfied with the current monk, but it looks like you dropped many of the unique bonuses and just turned this into a fighter with progressing unarmed strike damage.
In a way, that was goal, albeit from an oversimplified point of view. There are basically two perceptions of what the monk is or what the monk should be: one is a flurrying unarmed asskicker, the other is a mystical specialist in defense and some other cool abilities. The problem is that trying to smash the two together produces a lack of focus, and inexperienced players are hard put to figure out how to make the monk work for them. The monk is--arguably, to be fair--a bit mediocre at both things (although, unlike some folks, I think it is possible to build a good monk). I decided to see what would happen if the two ideas were split, making classes good at one monk-concept or the other, but not try to do too much at once.
Flurry of Blows is basically just a free TWF progression for the class at full BaB
No, you can also do certain combat maneuvers as part of a flurry, and full strength is dealt with all attacks, making it more than free TWF. A fighter with TWF will never be able to do what a character can do with flurry of blows (at least, not in the same way).
which is what most of your full round actions will be regardless, so that increased BaB progression is relatively less useful.
The point of full BaB is to have this minimally armed melee character be able to hit as well (or better) when making a single attack as a standard action as when they are able to full attack. While of course MOST melee based classes will try to get off a full attack when they can, the fact remains there are going to be times when that isn't possible. The monk suffers a bit from an odd disparity where at higher levels they can hit better when making multiple attacks than when focusing on making a single attack.
It also eliminates the necessity for essentially tracking two different BABs for one class.
It does gain some more HP in this, but only average 1 more than expected. Plus you dropped the fast movement, AC bonus, and will save.So what exactly does this offer that isn't a fighter in a monk shell?
AC Bonus was traded for Elusive (a dodge bonus to AC) AND the ability to perform all class abilities while wearing light armor. (The mystic, which is much more directly based on the monk, retains the AC bonus and special defenses, and still no armor, etc.)
The tradeoff for the monk's various ki and mystical abilities, the martial artist gets uncanny dodge, a faster bonus feat progression, and the flying kick (stolen, to be fair, from the d20 Modern martial artist) and crushing blow abilities. (Okay, and very minorly, proficiency in glaive (to represent the use of the naginata by some of the various types of warriors I looked at when writing up the class). :) ) There are no Wisdom-based abilities, to reduce MAD. Strength and Dexterity should be the most important stats of the martial artist.
The martial artist is more specialized and has more skills than the fighter, and the fighter will never, as a single class, be as good at low-equipment combat or have the kind of defenses the martial artist has---that's the goal at least. At the same time, the fighter will always be the superior weapon master and all-around super soldier. The two should be similar loosely speaking as both are fully martial classes, but each fill their own niche.
As for martial artist vs. monk, the martial artist should be a better all around melee combatant than the monk--what would make the monk (or mystic) stand out versus the martial artist would be its non-combat skills. Whether full-attacking or single-attacking.
If you have suggestions for how to further improve/make more unique the martial artist, such as by adding more unique abilities, I would love to hear them. Thanks for dropping in.
Simple question, aside from some additional HP and some higher BaB,
What does the Martial Artist give you that monk doesn't already?
I completely get that a lot of people are very unsatisfied with the current monk, but it looks like you dropped many of the unique bonuses and just turned this into a fighter with progressing unarmed strike damage.
Flurry of Blows is basically just a free TWF progression for the class at full BaB, which is what most of your full round actions will be regardless, so that increased BaB progression is relatively less useful. It does gain some more HP in this, but only average 1 more than expected. Plus you dropped the fast movement, AC bonus, and will save.
So what exactly does this offer that isn't a fighter in a monk shell?
I also have a martial artist class simply because I don't like the kung-fu inspired supernatual things the monk does + I want my monk to be an actual martial artist who is so bad ass he don't need weapons, and not some guy that gets made fun of on message boards.
Deathquaker I can send you my martial artist which is very monk like, but without the supernatural stuff. It seems similar to yours in many regards so you may not gain much from it. Let me know if you want to look at it.
I will give you a review of yours when I am more awake.
Alright, I'll try to add some thoughts.
First, thank you very much for your detailed reply. This is all very useful and helpful to have for consideration.
I will respond; much of this is just to get clarification or to explain where I'm coming from on this.
First, the martial artist. I feel it comes off more like a fighter variant than its own class, but let's take a look.
Especially since you are the second person to mention this, what about it particularly makes it feel like a fighter variant? I'd think it would end up being compared to ranger more because of its focused fighting style, more limited bonus feats, more skills, etc. (Not that I was trying to make it a ranger variant!) Beyond its having a martial focus (as all d10 classes do) what particularly makes it fighter like? What would make it stand out more from the fighter so as to sit in its own niche? How does it compare to the other d10 classes--Barbarian, Cavalier, Ranger, Paladin?
Living Weapon and flurry of blows - Great. This is essentially the defining feature of the class. It makes sense for this class and combines the two to make a formidable damage dealer. The limitation I see is the removal the ki strike abilities making these strikes strongly unfavorable against DR until the capstone ability. This essentially re-emphasizes monk unarmed weakness, and most martial artists will be partially punished for using unarmed strikes.
Like other non-supernatural, martial classes, I intended that the martial artist would rely upon weapons, other equipment, and buffs from other party members (as a friend of mine noted, what's wrong with expecting cooperation?) to bypass damage reduction.
Remember also that brass knuckles would allow the martial artist to deal unarmed damage with a weapon. Remember also that with Living Weapon, a martial artist can deal unarmed strike damage even with hands full--so for example, if a martial artist had an adamantine temple sword in one hand, it could use that to harm the golem it was fighting, while still punching and kicking away at the human guards assisting the golem. Living weapon also allows unarmed strikes to be enchanted by spells like magic weapon AND magic fang; carrying around oil of magic weapon and the like is a fairly low cost gear issue by the time bypassing DR becomes a notable concern.
Further, I included Penetrating Strike and Greater Penetrating Strike as possible bonus feats, to provide another way for the martial artist to bypass DR.
There is always the lengthy, difficult to resolve debate about how much gear reliance is a good thing. I recognize that if this class were to be used extensively (a very hypothetical proposition :) ), if every martial artist has a pair of adamantine or cold iron +5 brass knuckles, that indicates something's probably not right. At the same time, I really don't want to give this class--really NOT a supernatural one--a "magic" means of enchanting his own strikes. Thoughts?
Elusive and Uncanny Dodge- So, you trade in your heavy armor and you get this. I have no objection to the trade, and thematically it makes sense. The only thing that really gives me a disconnect is the statement that dexterity is now a primary trait. Dex is always important, but nothing about this class makes it feel dexterous other than this feature. More simply, I think elusive and uncanny dodge are compensation abilities given for the armor removal, but the class gains no benefit from light armor other than not being punished.
A further emphasis on Dexterity would be okay. Maybe give them Weapon Finesse as bonus feat? They also do get Evasion, which Dexterity contributes to.
"Punished" seems a strong word. I assume you mean it's a character weakness. What makes it weak in this way? They build their AC differently in the way a tank would. Yes. Why is this bad? I realize with Internet-neutral this could be taken in a snarky tone of voice, but I just want to know. I am aware they will still probably have a lower armor class at high levels than a heavily armored fighter--but the tradeoff should be that unlike the fighter, they can't be flanked and will rarely lose their Dex bonus (and their Elusive bonus) to AC. My hope is really that it is a tradeoff, not a loss. Would allowing use of shields help, or would that diminish the class's flavor too much?
Flying Kick, Bonus Feats, Crippling Blow- No real argument against these. They fit the character, kick is a nice charge mechanic, crippling blow a dangerous, but not necessarily overpowered capstone.
Thank you, this is good to know.
Bonus feats still kind of make the class seem like a variant fighter.BAB, Saves, Skills, HD - Feels again a little contrived. I don't think the concept in game terms is strong enough to warrant its own class. These are strongly aligned with the fighter and could easily put it in the variant category
Cavaliers, rangers, and monks (and to a much lesser degree, rogues) also get bonus feats, but I personally have not seen someone say that these classes step on the fighter's toes.
What makes the fighter unique is bravery, armor training, and weapon training, and that they get the MOST bonus feats and the most variety of said feats to choose from. The martial artist gets nothing like these things (and their pool of bonus feats is still closer to the monk's, they just get a few more of them--but still not as many as the fighter). I still don't get the comparison, sorry if I'm just being dense. I do want to get where this comparison comes from because if an existing fighter could be made to do what this class can do, I wouldn't bother at all with this project, and maybe I'm missing something important (but believe me, I have tried to make a martial artist out of a fighter... the best I got was an archetype that focuses on wrestling, but it still didn't look anything like the martial artist).
Overall- I like the idea of splitting the monk, but this class lacks a strong focus. You may give the martial artist back some fast movement and high jump to make the class feel like a "quick" class. This would allow him to have a kind of fast stealth scout option.
An early draft kept a fast movement mechanic. I thought it too much given everything else but maybe it wouldn't be unbalanced. The class does have Fleet in its pool of bonus feats, so as it is, someone could make a fast-moving character (at the cost of other feats, to be fair). This I'll definitely think on. What about a one time bonus to movement, like the barbarian gets?
Personally, I always liked the concept of the monk as a combat maneuver specialist to make a battlefield controller, and i think this could be a good template to do that. Focusing on that aspect would give this class its own mechanic specialty. Give it some abilities to say deal some damage on successful CM checks. You could give him increased distance moved with those maneuvers which force movement of enemies.
Wow, I really like both these ideas. They add more flavor and follow in similar footsteps to the Flying Kick, and would help the class fill in its niche even better.
As I am still trying to figure out the rhythm of how class abilities should be gained and develop... do you know where you would insert these abilities? Would something need to be traded off to add these abilities in the name of balance?
Tie in some mechanic that might allow him to auto-assist allies fighting the same enemy
I like this idea too. An easy way to do that would be for it to get some bonus teamwork feats, but then that might step on the cavalier's toes. Something definite to think about though.
Thanks very much again for your comments and suggestions.
The mystic I believe is much muddier waters than the martial artist. I think the way it is currently designed it suffers even harder than the monk in knowing its role(s) and primary mechanic. More directly, if you intended kill the monk to birth two separate classes than the martial artist came out malnourished and the mystic still covered in so much placental refuse. Without even mentioning that you gave it ki abilities that only benefit from flurry of blows, and didn't give the mystic flurry!
Bolded is mine. Ah ha! I see what I did. I forgot to delete one of the ki abilities when copy pasting ki pool from the monk.
Yes, the following...
make one additional attack at his highest attack bonus when making a flurry of blows attack
... should be deleted, or the ability should simply allow the mystic to make an extra attack when full-attacking. Good catch.
To review, here are the other things the mystic can eventually do with ki:
- increase his speed by 20 feet for 1 round
- give himself a +4 dodge bonus to AC for 1 round
- increase the range increment for shuriken by 20 feet for 1 round
- give himself a +10 circumstance bonus to Stealth for 1 minute per level. This ability can only be used once per day.
- boost his jump check to +20 (part of the high jump ability)
- Use ki haze to grant himself concealment
- Heal himself with wholeness of body (amount healed is boosted from monk ability)
- Make himself invisible with ki shadow
- Use abundant step
- Make himself ethereal with empty body
That I can see, none of the rest of these are reliant on flurry of blows, so are we good at least on this one issue? Most of the ki abilities involve stealth, movement, and avoidance--I was hoping to emphasize that theme with the mystic--but I agree with you that theme could be tightened further.
- ki strike (bypass DR through various means as long as pool is not empty)Whew, I think this class needs some major work or it will be completely dwarfed by the existing monk.
The existing monk is a little better at melee than the mystic. The mystic should be better at using its ki and is more skilled (and note that it has a bigger ki pool to start with) as a tradeoff. Did I succeed at making it MUCH better at mystical abilities...? Well, let's see...
What could you do? Well, I know my opinion is my own and a somewhat "out in left field" kind of one, but I think we need to rethink the mystic with its fluff and its core mechanic. So, before I do a breakdown, let's think about what the mystic is. You wanted to isolate the "supernatural" effects of the monk. You did this by including the stunning fist mechanic, keeping the ki pool, several of the movement based mechanics, and a limited amount of the martial abilities. Of those four things, I believe only the first two really fit your concept, and the other two should be sent off to the marital artist class for more love there.
Before I respond further, let me take a step back and note--when I looked for sources of inspiration on how to tweak the monk into the mystic, I looked at both historical/"real" legendary sources, like the yamabushi and the shugenja (not the L5R one), and goofy martial arts movies and anime. My image of the mystic is the weird old man who lives in the mountains, who zips around like a 5 year old while the traveler who sought him out can barely keep up with him, who seems to disappear and reappear out of no-where. He isn't necessarily a scary damage dealer like a pure tank-like character, but is more capable of defending himself than he looks.
The movement based mechanics and the martial abilities were kept for these reasons, to flesh with this concept I have in my head. I conceded this may still be too vague, too unfocused. But I just want to explain the idea where this is coming from.
I would like to hear more about how it would balance out to give the martial artist fast movement and take it away from the mystic, but I do not want to remove the mystic's other movement abilities, as to me that IS part of the definition of this class. Nor do I want to lose a lot of the martial abilities--but I would also like to hear more about how maybe they can be better focused.
This class is indeed much more of a revision/re-vision of the monk than the martial artist is so it looks like the monk with some changes (but not nice even changes, or else I would have just written an archetype). I'm okay with that, but if it's being build on the monk is detracting from its focus... then we may have to start from the ground up. I'm not sure if I have what it takes to do that all by myself. :) I will bear this all in mind as further feedback comes in and see what comes of it.
So, we are left with the stunning fist, and the ki pool mechanic. I believe we could expand those into a unique class.
How I would change things:
[list]Living weapon, bonus feats, ki strike- Drop this like a bad habit. Just remove it, it has no place. You were so excited about making martial artist MAD, and you left the mystic in that quagmire. Let the mystic focus on dex and wis, don't tie him down with a subpar mechanic, that is a waste of everyone's time. AC bonus, evasion - Keep this, the way i am going, the mystic will still be in melee so the defenses are important.
If he's still going to be in melee, then I don't want to give up living weapon and ki strike. The martial artist will use some weapons; the mystic really in my mind should be able to fight with absolutely nothing.
If the mystic were to lose living weapon and ki strike, then it loses its melee abilities. It either therefore should be re-written as entirely a non-combat character (a d6 mystic with loads and loads of supernatural abilities) or it needs some way to hold its own in melee, and I don't see how it can if you take its offensive abilities away. My preference is to keep it a d8 character on par with the bard and rogue--lots of support but also melee support as well. I will still think about how else it could be done, but it will require a lot of reconsideration if most of its melee skills were to be removed entirely.
# Skills - You can keep some of the skills that are there for attempting "physical training", but give the class some social skills. Besides the fact that the mystic implies a kind of wise advisor, what good is tongue of the sun and moon if you can't convince anybody of anything. Seriously, even consider handle animal since the mystic can very powerfully interact with them.
I like handle animal! Diplomacy would be a fine add too. (I don't see Bluff, however... although for feint builds...?)
# Fast movement, slow fall, high jump - I don't really like the way these feel with the way I am envisioning the class.
Then that's just an issue of your vision of the class vs. mine. To me the "wire fu" skills are essential to the mystic. (Maybe we'll get a third class out of this discussion, though....)
Even though they represent that physicality, they feel very mundane for the direction I am going. I instead propose we expand another more supernatural mechanic, abundant step.
And despite my disagreement with you above, I agree with you here. I think abundant step is cool and could be built up more.
Empty body, perfect body, one body/mind/self, diamond soul- Keep these body enhancement, they keep the class unique. Consider phasing in typed damage reduction earlier in the class to increase defensive power if necessary.
I like the idea of phasing in DR earlier, but don't know where/when to put it in. Maybe add a temporary DR effect at the expenditure of ki?
# Ki striking - Allow the mystic to make melee touch attacks that can give inhibiting conditions or physical ability penalties against a save DC, by interrupting the opponents flow of ki. This ability would replace stunning blow. It can have a limited number of uses per day, but I don't think that's necessary as long as the attack does no damage. Give different conditions over the 20 levels, but give them a random duration (1d4 rounds). Have the save DC go up with mystic levels like stunning fist, and allow different conditions to affect other saves. Some ideas - blinding, confusing, calming, nauseating, paralyzing, sickening, dazing. Allow certain strikes to have longer durations based off their relative usefulness. This also makes calming emotions and quivering palm make sense in context.
Maybe I am missing something here, but it sounds like you want me to replace stunning fist with something that works almost exactly like stunning fist anyway (except to make it an MTA). Personally, especially since I am new to this, I prefer to work with existing mechanics rather than make up my own, where the existing mechanics resemble what I am trying to achieve anyway (I have a feeling if I replaced it with something custom, someone else would come along and say, "Why don't you just make this into the monk's stunning fist?").
Adding further effects to stunning fist is plausible, however.
Ki pool- Expand this into a stronger core mechanic. Start it sooner, perhaps second level. Give it ways to increase ki striking, keep the defensive aspects, then make it do more. Allow for a limited type of ki healing for others, maybe a mechanic for dealing with objects similar to the sympathetic vibrations spell. We already see how expansive the mechanic is with ethereal jaunting and invisibility, so give it more, and make it more spectacular. Give the mystic more uses of it, and have it apply to much more situations. Hell, give him a hadoken if you want just strengthen this to be a more powerful and desirable mechanic.
Making the ki pool earlier is definitely worth considering. The ki mystic monk archetype does this... need to look at how it works.
Also: Everyone always talks about hadoken and I have no idea what it means, despite my exposure to Japanese pop culture.
# Overall - I know my changes are drastic, and it borders on pulling the mystic into an almost psionic character feel, but I don't mind. I think the mystic could benefit from feeling like a psionic character, it's thematically appropriate. Finally, this class lacks basic damage dealing potential. Perhaps a ki strike that does extra damage dice could be appropriate, or a way to convert conditional negatives to damage could be useful. I don't think damage dealing is the classes strength, but some mechanic would be ideal at least to provide options. I do suggest tying it to the existing main mechanics: ki strike and ki pool.
I don't think dealing more damage is right, but expanding stunning fist and some other abilities might be a way for it to provide battlefield support.
Thanks, you've given me a lot to think about. I think you and I have a bit different views of what this class should look like but it's still useful to get your perspective on things.
Simple question, aside from some additional HP and some higher BaB,
What does the Martial Artist give you that monk doesn't already?
I completely get that a lot of people are very unsatisfied with the current monk, but it looks like you dropped many of the unique bonuses and just turned this into a fighter with progressing unarmed strike damage.
Flurry of Blows is basically just a free TWF progression for the class at full BaB, which is what most of your full round actions will be regardless, so that increased BaB progression is relatively less useful. It does gain some more HP in this, but only average 1 more than expected. Plus you dropped the fast movement, AC bonus, and will save.
So what exactly does this offer that isn't a fighter in a monk shell?
I also have a martial artist class simply because I don't like the kung-fu inspired supernatual things the monk does + I want my monk to be an actual martial artist who is so bad ass he don't need weapons, and not some guy that gets made fun of on message boards.
Deathquaker I can send you my martial artist which is very monk like, but without the supernatural stuff. It seems similar to yours in many regards so you may not gain much from it. Let me know if you want to look at it.
I will give you a review of yours when I am more awake.
Feel free--but there isn't a lot of supernatural stuff in the martial artist (certainly in the mystic). I'd love to see what you came up with--post it here or I think you still have my email address. :)
# Ki striking - Allow the mystic to make melee touch attacks that can give inhibiting conditions or physical ability penalties against a save DC, by interrupting the opponents flow of ki. This ability would replace stunning blow. It can have a limited number of uses per day, but I don't think that's necessary as long as the attack does no damage. Give different conditions over the 20 levels, but give them a random duration (1d4 rounds). Have the save DC go up with mystic levels like stunning fist, and allow different conditions to affect other saves. Some ideas - blinding, confusing, calming, nauseating, paralyzing, sickening, dazing. Allow certain strikes to have longer durations based off their relative usefulness. This also makes calming emotions and quivering palm make sense in context.
Maybe I am missing something here, but it sounds like you want me to replace stunning fist with something that works almost exactly like stunning fist anyway (except to make it an MTA). Personally, especially since I am new to this, I prefer to work with existing mechanics rather than make up my own, where the existing mechanics resemble what I am trying to achieve anyway (I have a feeling if I replaced it with something custom, someone else would come along and say, "Why don't you just make this into the monk's stunning fist?").
Adding further effects to stunning fist is plausible, however
Let me take a look at my monk variant for my homebrew..I think I did just this very thing. Will e-mail it to you in a moment.
My half completed martial artist.
The channel ki ability is over complicated, and I need to get rid of dead levels after 11. I will probably borrow things from DQ's version.
Freehold and wraithstrike: your emails are received and I am looking them over, thanks.
Pobbes: Briefly (for now):
- I love the CM special abilities for the Martial Artist; I think we could re-slow the bonus feat progression and add some of these ideas (or a pool for the player to choose from).
- Bluff and ki for damage reduction for the mystic, done.
- Stunning fist and variants--Freehold_DM's sent me some ideas to look at so I need to chew on some options.
- As you describe what you think of as the mystic, the image I get in my head is not the old yamabushi but more like a character like Lao Ma from Xena: Warrior Princess: very serene and unshakeable, master of t'ai chi (the martial art) and qi gong (the healing motions): not usually a combatant but able to quickly disable opponents, able to heal self and others rapidly. Levitation ability, totally stealthy (and DEFINITELY all about the social skills, my god), and... throwing balls of -- AAAAH, now I understand what hadoken is, thank you :). Also can shatter clay jugs by looking at them. ;)
The mystic was meant to be a re-write of the monk, since certain of the monk's combat abilities went to the martial artist----and honestly, because this started as a project for a very specific, difficult to explain homebrew project where the monk as written just didn't quite do what I needed it to. Making something like the "Master of the Tao" like the above described character is ALSO a cool idea but could be a brand new thing entirely. I'm thinking only minorly boosted unarmed strike damage, special attacks that deal ability damage, and adding Wis to attack bonus and/or damage................................... Okay, I think I'll be busy now. :)
Every time I see a rewrite of the Monk class to make a separate martial artist I want to say something snarky, but I understand in concept the reason for this particular urge.
My actual USEFUL advice for people with a compulsive need to do this would actually be to look at/crib from/blatantly rip off FantasyCraft's Martial Artist core class for reference material, a they treat Monk as a Prestige Class to level into.
Every time I see a rewrite of the Monk class to make a separate martial artist I want to say something snarky, but I understand in concept the reason for this particular urge.
My actual USEFUL advice for people with a compulsive need to do this would actually be to look at/crib from/blatantly rip off FantasyCraft's Martial Artist core class for reference material, a they treat Monk as a Prestige Class to level into.
I wouldn't call it a compulsion... rather, to repeat myself AGAIN... this began as something for a Homebrew project... without going into unnecessary details, basically I needed a minimally-armed warrior, but the fighter didn't work without a lot of tweaking, and the monk didn't have the right flavor for the specific project, so I started writing up the martial artist instead. Mystic came later as I thought about what it would mean to have martial artist and something closer to the actual monk in the same game without stepping on each other's toes. It began as a specific project with a specific goal.... later I thought maybe the classes could be worked into a standard PFRPG game, hence this post. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you with my having gaming interests different than yours, and I hope we both can recover from this crushing blow in time. ;)
Thank you for the suggestion about the book, but I do not own FantasyCraft and do not wish to buy it. As far as I could tell it is not OGL material (at least I couldn't find anything saying so on the product description) so it would not be appropriate to "crib" anything off their work--even if I did want to spend the $30 (pdf) or $40 (hard) on the rulebook to look at it. I will bear your suggestion in mind should I come across a copy at a friend's or something, and the system does turn out to be OGL.
I wouldn't call it a compulsion... rather, to repeat myself AGAIN... this began as something for a Homebrew project... without going into unnecessary details, basically I needed a minimally-armed warrior, but the fighter didn't work without a lot of tweaking, and the monk didn't have the right flavor for the specific project, so I started writing up the martial artist instead. Mystic came later as I thought about what it would mean to have martial artist and something closer to the actual monk in the same game without stepping on each other's toes. It began as a specific project with a specific goal.... later I thought maybe the classes could be worked into a standard PFRPG game, hence this post. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you with my having gaming interests different than yours, and I hope we both can recover from this crushing blow in time. ;)Every time I see a rewrite of the Monk class to make a separate martial artist I want to say something snarky, but I understand in concept the reason for this particular urge.
My actual USEFUL advice for people with a compulsive need to do this would actually be to look at/crib from/blatantly rip off FantasyCraft's Martial Artist core class for reference material, as they treat Monk as a Prestige Class to level into.
Hey, who am I to interfere with someone's reinvention of the wheel? I figure, if anything, it'll possibly make for a cooler one, so long as spinners aren't attached.
More seriously, it isn't so much a derision of tastes - at least in the offering - as much as a recurring theme I've noticed of people having to do everything in their power to separate all mysticism from the martial artist as they can arrange it, or turn it into two distinct classes, which seems to be a recurring theme...and incidentally why such was apparently done in FantasyCraft, based on d20 (and retooled heavily therefrom by way of Classic Spycraft and SpyCraft 2.0) as it is, since the class of martial artist is built as a more or less unarmed brawling damage sponge who can make saves like a champ, while the Monk Advanced Class is closer to being the mystical sort with different flavors available dependent on Vows and focuses of disciplines. Martial artists can be pugilists, finesse fighters, wrestlers, and such, and monks build on that, though not all monks come from martial artists.
To me, the separation and need for differentiation is academic at best, pointless at worst due to the power of 'refluffing', but that's more of a matter of tastes, which will naturally differ, and why people will constantly remake the wheel until it matches their expectations.
Thank you for the suggestion about the book, but I do not own FantasyCraft and do not wish to buy it. As far as I could tell it is not OGL material (at least I couldn't find anything saying so on the product description) so it would not be appropriate to "crib" anything off their work--even if I did want to spend the $30 (pdf) or $40 (hard) on the rulebook to look at it. I will bear your suggestion in mind should I come across a copy at a friend's or something, and the system does turn out to be OGL.
An understandable sentiment, considering I maintain a stockpile of GURPS, d20, and other source books and systems, from which I scavenge, compile, recycle, adapt, and post-produce things that would be considered house-rules and tweaks rather than wholesale revamps. I picked up both the PDF and hard-copy as I tend to run my less combat-heavy games in that system (FantasyCraft) or for settings where I'm not using the stock races. However, even without being OGL (or with, I'm not at my books so I can say with authority or certainty off the top of my head) that doesn't mean you can't draw inspiration for your own endeavors at bisecting the monk into martial and mystic components.
Also, I will be watching for the completed results, as I'm about to head home from work to check my actual references.
Okay, home, and FantasyCraft uses OGL. Or at least, it's in the PDF for Martial Artist (both OGL and OGC license). It is safe to discuss general mechanics without going into specifics, so I can at least point out the difference in the workings.
In FantasyCraft, the Martial Artist is the non-mystical fighter, focusing on stupendous badassery to survive rather than armor. As Action Dice are a key component, perhaps as important as stats, it merits noting that the ability to use them in one function as a sort of healing surge (no edition wars, this isn't the place) to recover Vitality (as opposed to Wounds), meaning a Martial Artist becomes a veritable Timex™; takes a lickin' and keeps on kickin'. Given that combat works somewhat differently, this has a differently weighted value compared to Pathfinder.
In contrast, the Monk's core ability allows them to remove statuses by spending Action Points, and given how much more devastating the status ailments can be that's actually a better deal than it sounds. Beyond that, Monks have paths of their own, so that they can advance along paths to match their individual style.
For those who like the idea of their chop sockey more bone-crushing and MMA than Ancient Chinese Secret and such, it can work. There ARE some mystical abilities of a more physical nature available, mostly relating to mobility, jumping, running on water if at a full tilt, that sort of thing - most of them are higher-level actions. Then again, given how combat feats work in FantasyCraft, there's a distinctive chance you can get your inner Luchadore on, disturb and intimidate with Naked Pankration, break limbs and crush organs a la Muay Thai, or end up forging imitations of any style you particularly like.
After all the recent monk talk, I started looking at these again. I'd stopped for a long time, in part due to other projects and in part because UC was in the works and I figured they were going to have a bunch of monk/martial artist stuff (and they did). For awhile, I felt like UC covered some of the issues I was trying to do (and indeed has its own martial artist archetype), but I decided I still wanted to see some full classes, rebuilt, to fit a couple different monky concepts. The hard part is just not repeating stuff that UC did, but... doing my best. This is just a project for fun anyway, right?
Anyway, so far I've just been playing around with the "martial artist" which is is the d10/full BAB not-a-mystic-warrior-just-a-disciplined-unarmed-fighter.
The googledocs link is here.
Let's see if I can paste it into a block here and make it readable:
(Revised)
Martial artists focus on perfecting the body as an offensive and defensive tool. Their skills are derived from techniques mastered by arena fighters, peasant rebels, and others limited by access to weaponry or gear. They wear minimal armor and learn to fight barehanded, with fist weapons, and weapons derived from tools available to the common man, like farming implements (e.g., the nunchaku, which is based upon the wheat flail). They diverge from more spiritually disciplined training styles in order to focus purely on physical perfection.
* Note: Items marked with an asterisk (*) below come from the Advanced Player’s Guide. ((I haven't added weapons, items, etc. from UC))
Role: Martial artists are athletic melee powerhouses, able to deliver swift, deadly blows to the enemy or disable foes with ease, using minimal weapons or protective gear.
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d10
Skills: Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Nobility), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Stealth (Dex), and Swim (Str).
Skill Ranks Per Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Table: Martial Artist
Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1 1 2 2 0 Living Weapon 1d6, Flurry of Maneuvers, Bonus Feat
2 2 3 3 0 Bonus Feat, Maneuver Mastery
3 3 3 3 1 Elusive +1
4 4 4 4 1 Living Weapon 1d8
5 5 4 4 1 Uncanny Dodge
6 6/1 5 5 2 Bonus Feat, Improved Flurry
7 7/2 5 5 2 Steel Body +2, Damage Reduction 1/-, Elusive +2,
8 8/3 6 6 2 Flying Kick, Living Weapon d10
9 9/4 6 6 3 Second Impression
10 10/5 7 7 3 Damage Reduction 2/-, Improved Uncanny Dodge, Bonus Feat
11 11/6/1 7 7 3 Elusive +3, Greater Flurry
12 12/7/2 8 8 4 Steel Body +4, Living Weapon 2d6
13 13/8/3 8 8 4 Damage Reduction 3/-
14 14/9/4 9 9 4 Bonus Feat
15 15/10/5 9 9 5 Improved Flying Kick, Elusive +4
16 16/11/6/1 10 10 5 Damage Reduction 4/-, Living Weapon 2d8
17 17/12/7/2 10 10 5 Steel Body +6
18 18/13/8/3 11 11 6 Bonus feat
19 19/14/9/4 11 11 6 Damage Reduction 5/-, Elusive +5
20 20/15/10/5 12 12 6 Living Weapon 2d10, Crushing Blow
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Martial Artists are proficient with the brass knuckles*, cestus*, club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger (regular or punching), glaive, javelin, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shortspear, short sword, shuriken, siangham, sling, spiked gauntlet, and temple sword*. Martial Artists are proficient in light armor.
Note: Martial Artists who wear medium or heavy armor or use a shield, or are encumbered by a medium or heavier load, cannot use the following abilities: Flurry of Maneuvers, Elusive, and Flying Kick.
Living Weapon (Ex): Martial artists gain Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat and deal 1d6 damage unarmed. The size of the damage dice increases every 4 levels, to a maximum of 2d10 damage at 20th level. Martial artists can deal unarmed strike damage with any part of their body (head, knee, elbow, etc.), so they are able to make unarmed strike attacks even when their hands are full.
A martial artist always applies her full Strength bonus to her unarmed strikes, even if she is using unarmed strikes as part of two-weapon fighting.
If the martial artist has levels in another class with the Living Weapon class feature, these class levels stack in order to determine unarmed strike damage.
The unarmed damage values listed on Table: Martial Artist is for Medium martial artists. Small and Large martial artists receive smaller and larger damage dice respectively; see Table: Small or Large Martial Artist Unarmed Damage.
Table: Small or Large Martial Artist Unarmed Damage
Level Damage (Small Martial Artist) Damage (Large Martial Artist)
1st–3rd 1d4 1d8
4th–7th 1d6 2d6
8th–11th 1d8 2d8
12th–15th 1d10 3d6
16th–19th 2d6 3d8
20th 2d8 4d8
Flurry of Maneuvers (Ex): As part of a full-attack action, a martial artist can make one additional combat maneuver, regardless of whether the maneuver normally replaces a melee attack or requires a standard action. All combat maneuver checks suffer a –2 penalty when using a flurry of maneuvers. At 6th level, a martial artist may attempt a second additional combat maneuver, with an additional –3 penalty on combat maneuver checks. At 11th level, a martial artist may attempt a third additional combat maneuver, with an additional –7 penalty on combat maneuver checks.
Bonus Feat: At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a martial artist may select a bonus feat. A martial artist need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them, with the exception of the feats marked with a (†). Marked feats require the feat preceding it on the feat tree (for example, the martial artist must take Vital Strike before taking Improved Vital Strike).
Bonus feats must be taken from the following list: Blind-Fight, Catch Off-Guard, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Fleet, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm, Improved Grapple, Improved Trip, Scorpion Style, Throw Anything, and Two-Weapon Fighting.
At 6th level, the following feats are added to the list: Gorgon's Fist, Greater Grapple†, Greater Bull Rush†, Greater Disarm†, Greater Trip†, Improved Reposition*, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Mobility, and Vital Strike.
At 11th level, the following feats are added to the list: Greater Reposition*, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Vital Strike†, Medusa's Wrath, Penetrating Strike, Punishing Kick*, Snatch Arrows, and Spring Attack.
At 17th level, the following feats are added to the list: Cockatrice Strike*, Greater Vital Strike†, and Greater Penetrating Strike†.
Maneuver Mastery: The martial artist is an expert at wrestling and disabling her opponents, and by 2nd level, her training is more than enough to override any raw talent needed to perform certain maneuvers. The martial artist ignores the Strength 13 or Intelligence 13 requirement for any feats related to the following combat maneuvers: Bull Rush, Disarm, Drag*, Grapple, Reposition*, Sunder, and Trip. The martial artist must be able to satisfy all other prerequisites before taking these feats.
Elusive: At 3rd level, the martial artist gains a +1 dodge bonus to armor class. This bonus is lost whenever the character loses her Dexterity bonus to her armor class. This bonus increases by +1 every 4 levels, to a maximum of +5 at 19th level.
Elusive does not work when the martial artist wears a shield or medium or heavy armor, or is carrying a medium or heavy load.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 5th level, a martial artist gains the ability to react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She cannot be caught flat-footed and does not lose her Dexterity bonus to invisible attackers. She still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. A martial artist with this ability can still lose her Dexterity bonus to AC if an opponent successfully uses the feint action against her.
If a martial artist already has uncanny dodge from a different class, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge (see below) instead.
Damage Reduction (Ex): At 7th level, the martial artist has inured her body against attacks so well she gains damage reduction 1/-. At 10th level, and every three martial artist levels afterward, increase her damage reduction by 1. Damage reduction can reduce damage taken to 0 but not below 0.
Steel Body (Ex): At 7th level, the martial artist has perfected her body well enough she is extremely resistant to disease, debilitation, and injury. She gains a +2 to saving throws versus poison, disease, fatigue, exhaustion, death effects, and effects which cause ability damage and ability drain. This bonus increases by +2 at 12th and 17th levels, for a total of +6.
Further, at 17th level, the martial artist can also make a saving throw versus effects which inflict these conditions even if a saving throw is normally not allows, such as versus the spell waves of exhaustion. ((Maybe move this to 12th))
Flying Kick (Ex): At 8th level, whenever a martial artist performs a charge attack with an unarmed strike, she ignores difficult terrain between her and the target, but still must be able to travel in a straight line toward the target. Additionally, if the martial artist successfully strikes the charged target, she may, as a swift action, make a bull rush check against the struck target. This bull rush attempt does not provoke attacks of opportunity, even if the martial artist does not have the Improved Bull Rush feat.
At 15th level, a successful flying kick adds half the martial artist’s class level to the damage roll. She may make a charge attempt even if she cannot move in a straight line, so long as she does not have to deviate from a straight path by more than five feet.
Second Impression (Ex): At 9th level, if a martial artist successfully attacks a creature with an unarmed strike, but the unarmed strike’s damage is completely absorbed by the creature’s damage reduction, the martial artist can choose to transform her attack into a combat maneuver as a swift action. It must be a combat maneuver that can normally be made in place of a melee attack. She keeps the roll she made to attack the creature and adds her CMB to it; if it beats the creature’s CMD, her maneuver succeeds. The maneuver provokes an AOO if such a maneuver normally would do so.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At 10th level and higher, a martial artist can no longer be flanked. This defense denies a rogue the ability to sneak attack the martial artist by flanking her, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target has a combination of character levels with the Improved Uncanny Dodge class feature (such as barbarian, rogue, or martial artist).
Crushing Blow (Ex): At 20th level, the martial artist can punch through steel, even without gear or magical assistance. First, the martial artist’s unarmed strikes count as adamantine for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction and hardness. Second, whenever the martial artist makes a critical hit with an unarmed strike, she deals crippling damage to her target. If the target is susceptible to precision damage (such as sneak attacks), the martial artist deals 2d4 Strength or Dexterity drain, her choice, as a limb or other body part is crushed beyond recognition. This is in addition to normal critical hit damage. The ability drain stacks with any further crushing blows dealt to the same target. If the target is an elemental, ooze, plant, or construct, she instead automatically bypasses the creature’s DR, if any, and deals critical hit damage even if the creature is normally immune to critical hits.
Changes made:
- Focused on making the martial artist be good at combat maneuvers, with combat maneuver mastery ability
- Changed Flurry of Blows to Flurry of Maneuvers (stolen from UC Maneuver Master). In part, to give focus to maneuvers more. In part, because Flurry is giving me a headache right now. And in another part, because I added TWF to the bonus feats.
- Added Steel Body and Damage Reduction abilities to help the martial artist be more defensive. Plus I like the image of martial artists shaking off attacks even though they're not wearing much protective gear. UC Martial Artist Monk Archetype has similar but not same abilities (they're more powerful, but it's a d8 monk, not a d10 martial class).
- Added Second Impression as a way of trying to deal with damage reduction problems in a creative way--and also again focus on combat maneuvers in a way that no existing class can do.
- Other tweaks here and there as to when some abilities are gained and when they go up.
Things to do/things I am not sure of:
- Yes, class is still kind of screwed if wants to be unarmed and bypass DR. (I think I wrote the original version of this class before brass knuckles were errataed to be useless.) I think Second Impression helps. Could almost give "counts as adamantine" much earlier -- 10th level? And do different capstone.
- Consider bonus feat advancement and placement. Is list TOO big?
- Are abilities in general gained at an appropriate level?
- Does it need more class abilities? A lot of what's on the table is just when a given ability increases in power (so I know that it's there).