Break this fix.


Homebrew and House Rules

Liberty's Edge

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Munchkins and power gamers. I want you to attempt to stress test the following changes to the monk.

First, under unarmed strike replace the last paragraph and the chart with:

"A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown above on Table: Monk. The unarmed damage values listed on Table: Monk is for Medium monks. A Small monk deals less damage than the amount given there with his unarmed attacks, while a Large monk deals more damage; see Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage on the table given below."

with

"A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would. At first level a monk's unarmed strike does 1d6 hit points of damage. At 4th level the monks unarmed strike gains a +1 enhancement bonus. For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +2 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level."

Second replace:

"Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. He can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to his monk level by using 2 points from his ki pool."

With

"Wholeness of Body (Su): AAt 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. A monk may spend one ki point to heal himself as if casting cure light wounds. At 11th level the monk may spend 2 ki points to heal himself as if using cure moderate wounds. At 15th level the monk may spend 3 ki points to heal himself as if using cure serious wounds. At 19th level the monk may spend 4 ki points to heal himself as if using the spell Heal."

And finally add to the end of Diamond Soul:

Spell resistance may be raised or lowered as a swift action.


ciretose wrote:
"A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would. At first level a monk's unarmed strike does 1d6 hit points of damage. At 4th level the monks unarmed strike gains a +1 enhancement bonus. For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +2 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level."

That's a non fix ... getting cheaper enhancement bonuses on top of the damage progression would be nice, as an alternative it just makes them weaker though. At higher levels you are often getting enhancement bonuses from a friendly caster casting GMF or GMW any way ...

I'd do this :

- give the monk those enhancement bonuses on top of the damage progression

- make the healing swift

Liberty's Edge

Again, discuss the build as is not as you would make it. If you want to discuss how you would make it, feel free to post all of your changes in a thread and ask for feedback.


ciretose wrote:
Again

Hmmm?


Why would you post this thread 5 times?


Give me some target levels and what books are allowed.


At first level, tiny monks deal 1d6 damage and gargantuan monks deal 1d6 damage? That's broken.

Spell resistance automatically pings back on at the start of the creature's turn. This should remain so for the monk's SR. Why spend a swift action to do it?

Paizo Employee Design Manager

Spell Resistance:
Spell Resistance
Spell resistance is the extraordinary ability to avoid being affected by spells. Some spells also grant spell resistance.

To affect a creature that has spell resistance, a spellcaster must make a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) at least equal to the creature's spell resistance. The defender's spell resistance is like an Armor Class against magical attacks. If the caster fails the check, the spell doesn't affect the creature. The possessor does not have to do anything special to use spell resistance. The creature need not even be aware of the threat for its spell resistance to operate.

Only spells and spell-like abilities are subject to spell resistance. Extraordinary and supernatural abilities (including enhancement bonuses on magic weapons) are not. A creature can have some abilities that are subject to spell resistance and some that are not. Even some spells ignore spell resistance; see When Spell Resistance Applies, below.

A creature can voluntarily lower its spell resistance. Doing so is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a creature lowers its resistance, it remains down until the creature's next turn. At the beginning of the creature's next turn, the creature's spell resistance automatically returns unless the creature intentionally keeps it down (also a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).

A creature's spell resistance never interferes with its own spells, items, or abilities.

A creature with spell resistance cannot impart this power to others by touching them or standing in their midst. Only the rarest of creatures and a few magic items have the ability to bestow spell resistance upon another.

Spell resistance does not stack, but rather overlaps.


Is this an Eratta? I could have sworn it used to say you had to spend an action to turn SR off and back on.


You forgot to put 'monk' in the thread title.

Is this a typo:For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +2 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level." -did you mean +1 every 4 levels?

Spell resistance may be raised or lowered as a swift action. This part is intended to allow monks to benefit from party buffs? What about replacing it with an ability that would allow monks to receive buffs from allies without dropping their SR instead?


What is this supposed to be "fixing", per se? Are you saying that the monk is broken somehow?


Heh.


Barry Armstrong wrote:
What is this supposed to be "fixing", per se? Are you saying that the monk is broken somehow?

"groans" oh dear god, here we go again.

Liberty's Edge

Cheapy wrote:
Give me some target levels and what books are allowed.

Relative to the bestiary chart

1.Should be able to hit with a primary attack more than 50% but less than 75%
2.Stunning fist should work more than 10% but less that 25%
3.AC should be greater than the Bestiary averages (it is a melee class)
4.DPR should be greater than the average ¾ caster class wading into melee but less than the average Martial Class (we can discuss what these exact numbers are, but again, just looking for consensus)
5.All of this should be able to be accomplished unarmored and unarmed.

I believe on #4 we came up with a number that was basically 1/4th of Hit Points for equal CR (Or at least I did).

5th, 10th and 15th seem to be the classics, but feel free to pick any others that you think might show an exploit or problem.

Again, this is to stress test to see if these changes are overpowered.

Liberty's Edge

Axl wrote:

At first level, tiny monks deal 1d6 damage and gargantuan monks deal 1d6 damage? That's broken.

Spell resistance automatically pings back on at the start of the creature's turn. This should remain so for the monk's SR. Why spend a swift action to do it?

Good catch. Any suggested changes to wording?

As to SR, right now technically the monk is supposed to have to make a check to receive healing unless he uses a standard action to lower SR. So reducing the lowering time to a swift action allows the monk to be healed without wasting a standard action (but still having some penalty). I thought about making it "non-hostile" spells get through, but I am starting with this before adding more.

Liberty's Edge

blope wrote:

You forgot to put 'monk' in the thread title.

Is this a typo:For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +2 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level." -did you mean +1 every 4 levels?

Spell resistance may be raised or lowered as a swift action. This part is intended to allow monks to benefit from party buffs? What about replacing it with an ability that would allow monks to receive buffs from allies without dropping their SR instead?

Yes, typo. Good catch.

Liberty's Edge

Barry Armstrong wrote:
What is this supposed to be "fixing", per se? Are you saying that the monk is broken somehow?

Devs did, so yes. And looking for reasonable solutions to correct the issues.

If you aren't interested, feel free to move on.


I'll dot this thread just to see how this will go.

Much more fun than watching Gorbacz's attempts to troll me.


ciretose wrote:
Any suggested changes to wording?

A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would. At first level, a medium size monk's unarmed strike does 1d6 points of damage. (See the table below for damage for other sized monks.) At 4th level the monk's unarmed strike gains a +1 enhancement bonus. For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +1 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

Tiny monk: 1d3
Small monk: 1d4
Large monk: 1d8
etc.

[I have also added errata to the text.]

A monk may choose to lower this spell resistance as an immediate action.

[This allows the monk to react when the party cleric declares "I'm coming to heal you", but also uses up the monk's swift action for the next round. There is no need to mention raising the SR back up, because the default rules is that it automatically returns at the monk's next action.]


Actually my SR suggestion might create a problem if the monk wants to keep the SR down for more than one turn. The following text may be better:-

A monk may choose to lower this spell resistance as a swift action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a monk lowers this spell resistance, it remains down until the monk's next turn. At the beginning of the monk's next turn, the monk's spell resistance automatically returns unless the monk intentionally keeps it down (also a swift action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).

[I use the phrase "this spell resistance" to explicitly apply only to Diamond Soul's spell resistance. Other sources of SR should use the default core rules.]

Liberty's Edge

@axl - I'm trying to avoid a chart, but I appreciate the feedback. As to SR, I'm leaning more and more toward it just being against hostile spells, but I would love to have someone weigh in on where this might cause problems, as clearly the Devs put it the way they put it for a reason.


ciretose wrote:
I'm trying to avoid a chart

I suppose you could write:-

At first level, unarmed strike damage for a medium size monk is 1d6, and for a small size monk is 1d4.

[This removes the need for a chart, and it should be straightforward for players/GMs to extrapolate damage for odd-sized monks.]


ciretose wrote:
As to SR, I'm leaning more and more toward it just being against hostile spells, but I would love to have someone weigh in on where this might cause problems, as clearly the Devs put it the way they put it for a reason.

SR already has a mechanic to allow creatures to lower their own SR to receive helpful spells. Our suggestions make it easier for the monk to do that.

To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?


Equal CR is a bad metric. Most fights in this game are composed of multiple less-than-equal-CR creatures, so I will aim for the general case. I'll double check the CRB math, but I think this will end up being -1, -2, or -3, to reflect more realistic scenarios.

For fun, the first one will be 15 point buy and CRB only.

Liberty's Edge

Axl wrote:


To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

Bingo. I've tried this for a drow PC in a 3.5 game and it caused all sorts of headaches. Basically the PC will classify "hostile spells" as "spells that I want to have SR versus." Arguments start in 3, 2...

I like the immediate action lowering plus the optional auto-return posted by Axl above. It has the nice side effect of allowing SR to come back if you get knocked out (though that may be a pain in your cleric is coming to help).

Liberty's Edge

greggem wrote:
Axl wrote:


To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

Bingo. I've tried this for a drow PC in a 3.5 game and it caused all sorts of headaches. Basically the PC will classify "hostile spells" as "spells that I want to have SR versus." Arguments start in 3, 2...

I like the immediate action lowering plus the optional auto-return posted by Axl above. It has the nice side effect of allowing SR to come back if you get knocked out (though that may be a pain in your cleric is coming to help).

So any suggestions on wording. I think we all agree on what we are trying to accomplish.

Perhaps something like "At will, a monk can allow a specific spell to bypass spell resistance if he chooses."

Liberty's Edge

Cheapy wrote:

Equal CR is a bad metric. Most fights in this game are composed of multiple less-than-equal-CR creatures, so I will aim for the general case. I'll double check the CRB math, but I think this will end up being -1, -2, or -3, to reflect more realistic scenarios.

For fun, the first one will be 15 point buy and CRB only.

Thanks. I'm just looking to see if this would be too much relative to other classes. Once you post builds we can compare them to similar builds from other threads.

Shadow Lodge

greggem wrote:
Axl wrote:


To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

Bingo. I've tried this for a drow PC in a 3.5 game and it caused all sorts of headaches. Basically the PC will classify "hostile spells" as "spells that I want to have SR versus." Arguments start in 3, 2...

Is there a problem with that? My table treats SR like a saving throw in that you can always voluntarily fail to resist, no action needed. Never felt it made SR overpowered. Not sure how it would work with racial SR, but if you limit it to the monk's ability there's little chance for abuse.

Your "at will" wording above looks fine.


Dotted for later comment.

MA


Stupid no discussing changes request...grumble grumble grumble

Sovereign Court

Interesting idea. Does away with a chart (unarmed damage as a function of size+level), gets past the "monks need AoMF" silliness.

How about weapon qualities/materials though? A monk would still have trouble until level 12 with cold iron/silver, and until 16th level with good/evil/chaotic DR.

Liberty's Edge

Cheapy wrote:
Stupid no discussing changes request...grumble grumble grumble

In this thread. We can do it in another thread. I am as guilty of this as the next person, but I am trying a new approach.

Liberty's Edge

Ascalaphus wrote:

Interesting idea. Does away with a chart (unarmed damage as a function of size+level), gets past the "monks need AoMF" silliness.

How about weapon qualities/materials though? A monk would still have trouble until level 12 with cold iron/silver, and until 16th level with good/evil/chaotic DR.

Except the enhancement bonus would be treated like a weapon bonus, thereby overcoming the DR the same as +2 and +3 weapons.

And the Monk robe would functionally raise the enchantment level by one 5 levels earlier.

Also, AoMF still is useful, since you can add melee enhancements without having to add +1 enhancement.


Axl wrote:
ciretose wrote:
As to SR, I'm leaning more and more toward it just being against hostile spells, but I would love to have someone weigh in on where this might cause problems, as clearly the Devs put it the way they put it for a reason.

SR already has a mechanic to allow creatures to lower their own SR to receive helpful spells. Our suggestions make it easier for the monk to do that.

To define "hostile spells" creates a whole new mechanic, and one that potentially creates problems.

Is Reduce Person a "hostile spell"? What if it's cast by the party wizard? When it cast by an enemy spellcaster? A dominated friendly wizard? A rogue using disguise or bluff skill and use magic device?

Wouldn't the easiest fix be to just define hostile spells as those cast by an enemy and everything else affects you?


ciretose wrote:

I think we all agree on what we are trying to accomplish.

Perhaps something like "At will, a monk can allow a specific spell to bypass spell resistance if he chooses."

How does the monk know what spell is being cast? Does he have to make a spellcraft check? What if he is unaware of the spell being cast?

This rule creates far more problems than it solves, for not a lot of gain.


I'd prefer to see something unique for Monk rather than "u do +x more damage derp". AoMF already covers this. I think the following mechanic would be interesting.

Traveling Fist: At level 3, when the Monk makes an unarmed strike against a target as an Attack action (meaning the single-attack standard action), he may target touch AC. At lvl 7, the Monk may use this ability up to 10' away so long as there is continuous solid wall, natural stone, or other hard matter between him and the target. It may travel through an additional 5' of wall for every 4 monk levels thereafter. At lvl 15, He gains half his monk level (rounded down) as bonus damage for every 2 points of armor bonus on the target or for every 5' of solid mater it travels through.

This sets up a dualism between the Monk's single unarmed strike as an attack action and flurry of blows as a full-attack action with the single strike targeting touch and flurry working at full-bab. In short, it gives Monk an actual reason to use the standard attack action over flurry in some cases. It's also quite thematic.

Liberty's Edge

1st, it doesn't do more damage. It actually does the same amount of "damage" per hit on average by the math. The increase is to attack bonus, which is lacking, and to ability to bypass DR, which is lacking.

The only increase to damage would actually come from AoMF melee enhancement bonuses.

As I said above, this is not a suggestion thread. We have more than enough of those, and they have been unproductive IMHO. If you have your own ideas, please create a thread to discuss your ideas.


ciretose wrote:
1st, it doesn't do more damage. It actually does the same amount of "damage" per hit on average by the math.

Your math is incorrect.

Lvl 1: 1-6 (av 3.5) vs 1-6 (av 3.5)
Lvl 4: 1-8 (av 4.5) vs 2-7 (av 4.5)
Lvl 8: 1-10 (av 5.5) vs 3-8 (av 5.5)
Lvl 12: 2-12 (av 7) vs 4-9 (av 6.5)
Lvl 16: 2-16 (av 9) vs 5-10 (av 7.5)
Lvl 20: 2-20 (av 11) vs 6-11 (av 8.5)

It drops your average damage once you start getting into double-dice and also removes the central tendency that comes from using multiple dice. So, if anything, it's a nerf rather than a buff. Secondly, I wasn't talking about adding bonuses as in this would be a buff but about the mechanical principal of simply adding static damage. That's what every other martial class does and Monk doesn't get any benefit for what it's supposed to specialize in: unarmed combat. Moreover, it's pretty bad form to ask for a review of your idea so long as no one criticizes it. I think it's a bad idea, I said why, and I provided an alternative that compensates for the mid-bab of Monk's non-flurry attacks in a unique and thematic way. If you don't like it, fine, disagree. But don't sit there and imply that I'm not allowed write it. Just because you started the thread doesn't mean it belongs to you; it belongs to Paizo and we all have the right to write in it as we see fit.

Liberty's Edge

And it increases the DPR and DR. At the higher levels you will add Melee enhancement bonuses to AoMF and still hit more often.

As you show, it is the same through level 12, assuming no magic items at all. If you spend 5k on an AoMF with flaming (because AoMF doesn't require a +1 modifier) you will add 3.5 damage per attack.

I didn't say don't criticize, I said keep your criticism to the build proposed.

It is bad form to walk into someones kitchen while someone is cooking and try to make your own meal.

If you want to discuss your build idea, make a thread. If you want to discuss this one, you are welcome to stay.


Keep in mind, the proposed enhancement ever 4 levels would also cut through DR, where as the previous scaling damage dive wouldn't. So while the base damage may be lower, he'll be cutting through DR, which would give him small, but consistent damage.


Perhaps make the base monk (medium) unarmed damage 2d4 . . . then apply a scaling enhancement bonus built into ki strike. Average damage would be 5 at 1st (vs. 3.5), 6 at 4th (vs. 4.5), 7 at 8th (vs. 5.5), 8 at 12th (vs. 7), 9 at 16th (vs. 9), and 10 at 20th (vs. 11). This way, the average damage stays either the same or increases at all levels but 20th, where it lags one point behind. Small monks would do 2d3 and large monks would do 2d6.

EDIT: Although if you want to keep pace with weapon using characters, then the ki enhancement should progress something like this:

5th: +1
8th: +2
11th: +3
13th: +4
15th: +5

That is the levels where a character in a balanced WBL game can afford a weapon of that particular bonus. This way, the monk gets the same bonus at the same level, as everyone else. And can get through alignment DR at 15th level along with everyone else instead of waiting until 20th.

Just a thought.

MA


Quote:
Ki Pool (Su): At 4th level, a monk gains a pool of ki points, supernatural energy he can use to accomplish amazing feats. The number of points in a monk's ki pool is equal to 1/2 his monk level + his Wisdom modifier. As long as he has at least 1 point in his ki pool, he can make a ki strike. At 4th level, ki strike allows his unarmed attacks to be treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the character's monk level. At 10th level, his unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At 16th level, his unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

would have to be changed, perhaps combine the two sections and rewrite them? I don't think it would be class-breaking to tie a level based enhancement bonus to unarmed attacks with having a point of ki in the ki pool but am unsure.

Liberty's Edge

Tels wrote:
Keep in mind, the proposed enhancement ever 4 levels would also cut through DR, where as the previous scaling damage dive wouldn't. So while the base damage may be lower, he'll be cutting through DR, which would give him small, but consistent damage.

And additionally, all of the money previously spend on AoMF can be transferred elsewhere or to AoMF melee enhancement.

So instead of a +2 AoMF, you can now get a Holy AoMF and do 2d6 damage against evil in addition to base damage.

And since the monk and the AoMF both cap at +5, you end up with the same amount of enhancement as everyone else, with regards to cap.

This would come at lower cost, which is part of what I want people to try and break. So far when I got up to 10th level, the cost of the AoMF still limited how much this would effect the monk, and with the bonuses to attack other classes get, he was still behind the martial classes, now coming closer to par with classes like the Magus.

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