They are totally nonmagical! And they have no alignment restriction. Monks are all kind of mystical. So I started thinking about
But he has *no* supernatural abilities. So I got to thinking about a character.
He grew up in monastery, there since he was a small child. There, they were supposed to unlock their inherent magic talents thanks to the holy men who lived there. One by one, the other boys learn to harness their abilities and magics. But my character lacked all magical power. None. This caused great fury and frustration to grow inside him and he began to train his body and mind ever harder, sparring with the other pupils with greater skill, guile and brutality.
One day in one of these matches with his greatest rival, a mystical bull in his own right, his rival "cheated" and struck my character down with a massive ki strike. Enraged, my character fought back with an assault of his own, crushing both his opponent's fists and shattering every bone in his hands. It was an injury from which he would never recover, as my character continued his assault on his helpless opponent, the terrified students rushed forward to stop him. The first student to reach him felt the full brunt of my character's rage, his tracia crushed, his neck snapped and dead before he hit the ground.
Surrounded and outnumbered my traitors and enemies, my character fought as the school descended upon him.
Many lay brutalized and discarded at my character's feet before the masters magically restrained him. He was exiled from the school forever and stripped of his title and name. Now... he wanders. Purposeless and completely alone....
In terms of mechanics, I've always wanted to make a lockdown/Combat Maneuver monk. Are there some things I should remember or keep in mind? The last time I made a monk I was probably ten.
Since there's no alignment too, I figure multiclassing with a Barb could yield some synergistic effects. Opinions?
Martial art styles seem crazy too. Crane and Turtle seem pretty absurd.
To anyone who's looked at or made a martial artist before, do you have any advice?
I like the idea behind the archetype well enough, I've been advocating for a rebuild of the Monk class into a Martial Artist type base class since beta, where the Monk would be the archetype.
The problem is that one of his major abilities ( Exploit Weakness ) is RNG based and must be rolled every combat round. Also, the ability seems to get progressively harder to activate the further you advance in levels.
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If you want a Lockdown/Maneuver Monk, the Maneuver Master or Tetori archetypes are better for you. Martial Artist works well for dealing damage and has some interesting built in resistances and traits.
I'm currently playing a Barbarian/Martial Artist, just waiting to hit 5th level Martial Artist to be immune to Fatigue. That means turn on/turn off rage every round so I can reap the benefits without any penalties.
If you do want Martial Artist, Dragon or Mantis Styles are great options; Dragon enhances damage (which when combined with being able to add the Fighter feats for Unarmed Strike boosts are nice) and supports a Strength heavy monk. Mantis supports a Wisdom oriented Monk and makes the Stunning Fists that much harder to resist (stacking with the level 3 boost as well) and gives you more of them, too.
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Martial artist is a good archetype, but poorly written in places. He still has abundant step, but no ki to use it, for example.
MA
Martial artist is a good archetype, but poorly written in places. He still has abundant step, but no ki to use it, for example.
MA
I never even noticed that. Another thing that needs to be FAQ'd so it can be fixed. I guess I can do that now.
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Martial artist is a good archetype, but poorly written in places. He still has abundant step, but no ki to use it, for example.
MA
Even the author of the archetype said "Whoops" on that one. In a previous thread he suggested replacing it with "Improved Pain Points" doubling the bonus from the Pain Points ability.
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Fascinating. Well, I don't want a ki pool for this guy. That's his concept. A brutal physical fighter who uses body and technique instead of a mystical force. And he's quite bitter about the whole thing. And he can be nonlawful. I'm thinking probably NE.
if you want to make a good front line monk mix, i really like
MA monk6/unbreakable fighter2/invulnerable rager barbarian 4its a very well balanced level 12 character focusing on dirty trick, and trip maneuvers makes him a beast against living medium targets.
Hmmm, cool. Tell me more.
Even the author of the archetype said "Whoops" on that one. In a previous thread he suggested replacing it with "Improved Pain Points" doubling the bonus from the Pain Points ability.Martial artist is a good archetype, but poorly written in places. He still has abundant step, but no ki to use it, for example.
MA
Nah, take Quigong and replace it with one of those 0 Ki costs things like feats.
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Design Manager
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Nah, take Quigong and replace it with one of those 0 Ki costs things like feats.Even the author of the archetype said "Whoops" on that one. In a previous thread he suggested replacing it with "Improved Pain Points" doubling the bonus from the Pain Points ability.Martial artist is a good archetype, but poorly written in places. He still has abundant step, but no ki to use it, for example.
MA
There's still some question out there about whether Qingong even stacks with Martial Artist though. Qinggong says "Ki Power: A qinggong monk can select a ki power (see below) for which she qualifies in place of the following monk class abilities: slow fall (4th), high jump (5th), wholeness of body (7th), diamond body (11th), abundant step (12th), diamond soul (13th), quivering palm (15th), timeless body (17th), tongue of the sun and moon (17th), empty body (19th), and perfect self (20th). This replaces the monk class ability the qinggong monk gives up for this ki power."
And archetypes follow this rule: "A character can take more than one archetype and garner additional alternate class features, but none of the alternate class features can replace or alter the same class feature from the core class as another alternate class feature"
Does having the option totake a ki power count as altering an existing class feature? No one ever really settled this. Also, there's only a couple abilities that have a zero ki cost, and most of them don't compliment the Martial Artist... Plus, several of the 0 cost ones still require you to have a ki pool (like Deny Death).
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Design Manager
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He did this under the assumption that Qinggong stacked with every other archetype though, which has never seen Dev clarification. I personally think that having the option to replace a class ability counts as an alteration of said class ability, and is prevented under the rules for stacking archetypes. Without clarification it can be read either way though.