Some Monk Suggestions play-tested


Homebrew and House Rules

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A short session tonight, and half my players were missing. Present were the monk, rogue, and cleric.

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party continued their exploration of the Witerose ruins, discovering the haunt in the abbey tower, and going in search of the bodies of those killed by the gardener. To this end they explored the graveyard, heavily overgrown as it was, and encountered the three huge shambling mounds.

Now while these things were dangerous, I didn't consider them a huge threat: While they hit for a lot of damage, they had low AC and few special defences. The fight that broke out was short, but the party took some hits: the monk got caught a few times, the rogue once, and the cleric a few times as well. Destroying the three mounds took about four turns, including the surprise round. Largely the monk did around 50-75% of the damage to each, with the cleric and rogue splitting the rest. A lot, but around average for most combat classes and if the barbarian had been present instead I would expect him to inflict 75-100% of the damage! All the characters took some hits, enough to make the monk player a little worried.

Following eliminating the mounds, they party did find some bones of fallen monks in the graveyard (from the adventure it was unclear what became of their remains, I assumed the gardener dragged them here for fertilizer) and laid them to rest. They then went on to explore the abbey basement and encountered the will-o-wisps there.

The rogue really struggled in this encounter, and although he made good use of flanking and charging his was only a minor contribution - he actually got hurt quite bad as his touch AC was low enough for the wisps to get quite a few hits.

The cleric had a terrible touch AC, but started with casting true seeing and protection from energy[/b] on himself. After that his just laid on with the [i]holy axiomatic warhammer - but like the rogue his contribution was minor. The monk destroyed the majority of the wisps, and even she took some hits from them. However, a lot of moderate AC targets with low HP was ideal for the monk to face. If she took two blows (on average) to destroy a wisp rather than one (which the barbarian would have done) she had twice as many attacks to do it with.

Analysis: these two "low end" encounters went as I'd expect - while the monk did a lot of DPR, it wasn't excessive and was somewhat less than a barbarian or fighter would have managed in her stead (for example, the monk did 116 damage in one round to a shambling mound; nasty, but the barbarian has managed more than that in one critical hit before now).


You ever tested a fight between the Monk and the Barbarian?


No, but on the balance of things it would go to whoever got lucky. The monk is hard to hit, but not impossible and he's easy to hurt. The barbarian is easy to hit, but hard to hurt. The monk might be able to get a trip in before the barbarian could close, but he'd be certain to take damage if it failed.

If the monk managed to get a grapple and pin in place (CMB of +23 vs CMD of 36), he'd win it. If he failed, the barbarian would probably win it.


Dabbler wrote:

No, but on the balance of things it would go to whoever got lucky. The monk is hard to hit, but not impossible and he's easy to hurt. The barbarian is easy to hit, but hard to hurt. The monk might be able to get a trip in before the barbarian could close, but he'd be certain to take damage if it failed.

If the monk managed to get a grapple and pin in place (CMB of +23 vs CMD of 36), he'd win it. If he failed, the barbarian would probably win it.

There is a part of me hoping for something like this to happen with a domination spell, if only to see the results.

When I tried this with my Monk vs the Party fighter, it came down to a fight of offense vs defense. My defensively strong Monk could dish out okay offense, where as the offensively powerful Fighter had weaker defenses. If he could get a full round of blows on me, I was dead, but if I could withstand his attacks for ~4 rounds, I'd win.

I won, but only barely. We rolled the next round of attacks just to see what would have happened, and he managed to land 2 crits which would have ended it.


Yeah, it's the luck of the dice really. Here's the Barbarian's stats (Power Attacking & Raging):

Spoiler:

General Kefflin
Male human (kellid) barbarian 13
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +2; Senses Perception +16
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 28, touch 13, flat-footed 26 (+9 armor, +3 deflection, +2 Dex, +6 natural, -2 untyped penalty)
hp 206 (13d12+110)
Fort +18, Ref +9, Will +11; +5 morale bonus vs. spells, supernatural abilities, and spell-like abilities but must resist all spells, even allies'
Defensive Abilities improved uncanny dodge, trap sense +4; DR 4/—
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 40 ft.
Melee +2 fey-bane greatsword [+25]+21/+16/+11 (2d6+29/17-20 plus 2d6 vs. Fey) or
+3 furious greataxe [+26]+22/+17/+12 (1d12+30/×3) or
+3 greatsword [+26]+22/+17/+12 (2d6+30/17-20) or
mwk handaxe +20/+15/+10 (1d6+18/×3) or
bite +14 (1d4+9), 2 claws +14 (1d8+9/×3)
Ranged skybolt +17/+12/+7 (1d8+12/×3)
Special Attacks greater rage (32 rounds/day), pounce, rage powers (animal fury, beast totem, beast totem, greater, beast totem, lesser, increase damage reduction +1, superstition +5)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 31, Dex 14, Con 24, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 12
Base Atk +13; CMB +19; CMD 36
Feats Cleave, Furious Focus[APG], Great Cleave, Improved Critical (greatsword), Lunge, Power Attack, Quick Draw, Toughness
Traits bastard, killer
Skills Acrobatics +14 (+18 to jump), Climb +20, Handle Animal +6, Intimidate +17, Knowledge (nature) +6, Perception +16, Profession (soldier) +13, Ride +6, Survival +10, Swim +13; Racial Modifiers bastard
Languages Common, Hallit
SQ fast movement
Combat Gear potion of cure light wounds (3), potion of cure moderate wounds; Other Gear +3 mithral breastplate, +2 fey-bane greatsword, +3 furious greataxe, +3 greatsword, skybolt, arrows (20), mwk handaxe, amulet of natural armor +1, amulet of natural armor +2, belt of physical might +4 (Str, Con), cloak of resistance +2, cloak of resistance +3, headband of alluring charisma +2, ring of protection +3, backpack, flint and steel, grappling hook, hemp rope (50 ft.), lamp, shovel, tent, small, trail rations, heavy horse (combat trained), bit and bridle, military saddle, saddlebags, 144 pp, 3,465 gp, 14 sp
--------------------
Tracked Resources
--------------------
Arrows - 0/20
Potion of cure light wounds - 0/3
Potion of cure moderate wounds - 0/1
Rage (32 rounds/day) (Ex) - 0/32
Trail rations - 0/1
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Animal Fury (Ex) Gain a d4 bite attack while raging
Bastard -1 CHA skills vs. Brevic Nobility, +1 Will save.
Beast Totem +4 (Su) +4 to Natural Armor while raging.
Beast Totem, Greater (Su) Pounce ability and 1d8 claw damage while raging
Beast Totem, Lesser (Su) Gain 2 d6 claw attacks while raging
Cleave If you hit a foe, attack an adjacent target at the same attack bonus but take -2 AC.
Damage Reduction (4/-) You have Damage Reduction against all attacks.
Fast Movement +10 (Ex) +10 feet to speed, unless heavily loaded.
Furious Focus If you are wielding a weapon in two hands, ignore the penalty for your first attack of each turn.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Lv >=17) (Ex) Retain DEX bonus to AC when flat-footed. You cannot be flanked unless the attacker is Level 17+.
Increase Damage Reduction +1 (Ex) While raging, your DR increases by 1.
Killer Add weapon's critical modifier to its critical bonus damage.
Lunge Can increase reach by 5 ft, but take -2 to AC for 1 rd.
Pounce (Ex) You can make a full attack as part of a charge.
Power Attack -4/+8 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Quick Draw Draw weapon as a free action (or move if hidden weapon). Throw at full rate of attacks.
Rage (32 rounds/day) (Ex) +6 Str, +6 Con, +3 to Will saves, -2 to AC when enraged.
Superstition +5 (Ex) While raging, gain bonus to save vs magic, but must resist all spells, even allies'.
Trap Sense +4 (Ex) +4 bonus on reflex saves and AC against traps.

And here are the monk's stats:

Spoiler:

Marshall Leessin Lodovka
Female undine monk (drunken master) 13 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 110, Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide 174)
LN Medium outsider (aquatic, native)
Init +8; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +28
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 32, touch 28, flat-footed 27 (+4 armor, +2 deflection, +4 Dex, +1 dodge, +11 untyped bonus)
hp 107 (13d8+39)
Fort +13, Ref +14, Will +17; +4 to avoid being knocked prone
Defensive Abilities improved evasion; DR 1/—, drunken resilience (dr 1/–); Immune drunken courage; Resist cold 5, fire 10
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 70 ft., ki stagger, swim 30 ft.
Melee +1 shock kusarigama +17/+12 (1d3+2+1d6 acid plus 1d6 electricity) or
+1 shock kusarigama flurry of blows +19/+19/+14/+14/+9 (1d3+2+1d6 acid plus 1d6 electricity) or
dagger +10/+5 (1d4+1/19-20+1d6 acid) or
mwk temple sword +17/+12 (1d8+1/19-20+1d6 acid) or
mwk temple sword flurry of blows +19/+19/+14/+14/+9 (1d8+1/19-20+1d6 acid) or
sai +16/+11 (1d4+1+1d6 acid) or
sai flurry of blows +18/+18/+13/+13/+8 (1d4+1+1d6 acid) or
unarmed strike +20/+15 (2d8+11+1d6 acid) or
unarmed strike flurry of blows +22/+22/+17/+17/+12 (2d8+11+1d6 acid)
Ranged or
mwk shuriken flurry of blows +19/+19/+14/+14/+9 (1d2+1+1d6 acid) or
mwk shuriken +17/+12 (1d2+1+1d6 acid) or
underwater light crossbow +13 (1d8/19-20+1d6 acid)
Special Attacks drunken strength, flurry of blows, stunning fist (14/day, DC 23)
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 12, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 24, Cha 10
Base Atk +9; CMB +20 (+22 grapple, +22 trip); CMD 38 (40 vs. grapple, 44 vs. trip)
Feats Blind-fight, Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Improved Grapple, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Improved Unarmed Strike, Snake Fang[UC], Snake Sidewind[UC], Snake Style[UC], Spider Step[APG], Stunning Fist
Traits child of the temple, noble born - lodovka
Skills Acrobatics +25 (+29 to avoid being knocked prone, +54 to jump), Climb +13, Escape Artist +8, Intimidate +4, Knowledge (history) +5, Knowledge (nobility) +7, Knowledge (religion) +6, Perception +28, Perform (string instruments) +4, Profession (brewer) +12, Profession (driver) +11, Profession (soldier) +20, Ride +8, Sense Motive +25, Stealth +12, Survival +11, Swim +15
Languages Aquan, Common
SQ abundant step, amphibious, drunken ki, fast movement, high jump, hydrated vitality, ki pool (16 points lawful), maneuver training, slow fall 60 ft., wholeness of body (13 hit points)
Combat Gear deliquescent gloves, potion of cure light wounds (3), potion of cure moderate wounds, potion of enlarge person, potion of pass without trace; Other Gear +1 shock kusarigama, crossbow bolts (20), dagger, mwk shuriken (25), mwk temple sword, sai, underwater light crossbow, belt of physical perfection +2, boots of elvenkind, bracers of armor +4, campfire bead, cloak of resistance +2, eyes of the eagle, figurine (silver raven), guided amulet, handy haversack, headband of inspired wisdom +4, monk's robe, ring of fire resistance (minor), ring of protection +2, tome of clear thought +2, applejack (per gallon), bedroll, canteen, climber's kit, flint and steel, grappling hook, silk rope (50 ft.), trail rations (3), light horse, bit and bridle, military saddle, saddlebags, 50 pp, 2,923 gp
--------------------
Tracked Resources
--------------------
Applejack (per gallon) - 0/1
Crossbow bolts - 0/20
Dagger - 0/1
Deflect Arrows (1/round) - 0/1
Drunken Ki (Su) - 3/6
Figurine (silver raven, 24 hours/week) - 0/24
Hydrated Vitality (26 HP/day) - 0/26
Ki Pool (16/day) (Su) - 0/16
Masterwork shuriken - 0/25
Potion of cure light wounds - 0/3
Potion of cure moderate wounds - 0/1
Potion of enlarge person - 0/1
Potion of pass without trace - 0/1
Stunning Fist (14/day, DC 23) - 0/14
Trail rations - 0/3
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Abundant Step (Su) Use 2 Ki as a move action, to dimension door self.
Amphibious (Ex) You can survive indefinitely on land.
Blind-Fight Re-roll misses because of concealment, other benefits.
Campfire bead On command bead becomes 2 ft tall fire for up to 8 hrs.
Combat Reflexes (5 AoO/round) Can make extra attacks of opportunity/rd, and even when flat-footed.
Damage Reduction (1/-) You have Damage Reduction against all attacks.
Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Deflect Arrows (1/round) While have an empty hand, negate one ranged weapon hit you are aware of (unless from a massive weapon).
Deliquescent gloves +1d6 acid dam to touch/weapon att. Natural/unarmed att is immune to ooze acid & doesn't split.
Drunken Courage (Su) Immune to fear as long as you have 1 Drunken Ki.
Drunken Ki (Su) Drunken Ki pool allows the use of Ki powers.
Drunken Resilience (DR 1/–) (Ex) DR/- as long as you have 1 Drunken Ki
Drunken Strength (max 2 Ki) (Su) Add 1d6 per Ki point spent to a melee attack.
Energy Resistance, Cold (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Cold attacks.
Energy Resistance, Fire (10) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Fire attacks.
Fast Movement (+40 ft.) The Monk adds 10 or more feet to his base speed.
Flurry of Blows +11/+11/+6/+6/+1 (Ex) As full-rd action, higher BAB and combo unarmed/monk wep as if two-weapon fighting.
High Jump (+13/+33 with Ki point) (Ex) +13 to Acrobatics checks made to jump.
Hydrated Vitality (26 HP/day) Gain fast healing 2 when submerged completely in natural, flowing, water.
Improved Evasion (Ex) If you succeed at a Reflex save for half damage, you take none instead. If you fail you take half damage.
Improved Grapple You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when grappling a foe.
Improved Trip You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when tripping.
Improved Unarmed Strike Unarmed strikes don't cause attacks of opportunity, and can be lethal.
Ki Pool (16/day) (Su) You have a ki pool equal to 1/2 your monk level + your Wisdom modifier.
Ki Stagger (Su) As long as he has at least 1 drunken ki point, the monk can spend 1 ki point as a move action to move 5 feet without provoking attacks of opportunity.
Maneuver Training (Ex) CMB = other BABs + Monk level
Slow Fall 60 ft. (Ex) Treat a fall as shorter than normal if within arm's reach of a wall.
Snake Fang If opponent misses you, make an attack of opportunity as an immediate action
Snake Sidewind Gain a bonus to avoid being knocked prone, and use Sense Motive check to confirm critical hits
Snake Style Gain +2 on Sense Motive checks, and deal piercing damage with unarmed attacks
Spider Step (30') Walk half your slow fall distance across walls, ceilings, ropes, branches, water, etc. as a move action.
Stunning Fist (14/day, DC 23) You can stun an opponent with an unarmed attack.
Swimming (30 feet) You have a Swim speed.
Wholeness of Body (13 hit points) (Su) Use 2 ki as a standard action to heal own wounds.
--------------------
Zen Warrior: A monk may choose to use their Wisdom bonus rather than their strength or dexterity bonus for attacks made with special monk weapons, combat maneuvers, or with the monk’s unarmed strike. Regardless of which ability modifier is used, the monk adds his AC bonus to his number to hit with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons.
Currently, +7 modifier to hit.

A monk’s unarmed strike treats the hardness or damage resistance (of any type) of a target as less by one point for every level of monk the character possesses.
Currently, reduce DR by 13

Amending the Ki-Pool entry as follows:
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 gain a +1 enhancement bonus as the spell greater magic fang. At 7th level this increases to +2, at 10th level, his unarmed attacks are +3, at 13th level +4, and at 16th level his unarmed attacks gain a +5 enhancement bonus.
By spending 1 point from his ki pool, a monk can make one additional attack a round at his highest attack bonus.
In addition, he can spend 1 point to move 20 feet in a swift action.

The monk is proficient with all weapons of the type "monk".

The monk's AC of 32 is good, but the barbarian's Furious Focus gives him a +26 first attack - even with ki, that's a better chance of hitting than the monk would like. The monk can hit the barbarian much easier, but the barbarian has about twice the monk's hit points. The Barbarian needs three solid hits to win, or one hit and one critical, and he should get at least one hit a round. The monk needs to deliver nine hits to win, at three a round on average. Really it comes down to who wins initiative; and who gets a critical hit.

Actually, if anything really says I've got it about right, this does.


So throughout the course of this thread/your experiments, do you think you have a pretty good platform to talk about the monk changes you've made and their overall impact to the monks usefulness compared to the standard paizo monk?


I do, yes.

The monk changes enabled the monk to make more significant contributions than previously, without dominating the other combat-classes in the party. Instead his combinations of flexibility and mobility, as well as being able to deal significant but not over-powering DPR, enabled the monk to compliment the other main combatants - in this case a barbarian, archer-ranger, and a magus - rather than compete with them.

The monk has averaged about 2/3 the DPR of the ranger & barbarian, but has better AC and saves (but about half the HP of the barbarian). He's on the same playing field, but plays a different kind of game, if that makes sense.

Potential issues this play-test has answered:

Would granting the monk a full enhancement bonus to the unarmed strike upset the WBL and item distribution, giving the monk an "unfair advantage"?
No, this didn't happen. I did a lot of work including much number-crunching on the DSP Soulknife during the playtests for Psionics Unleashed, so I had an idea of what pitfalls to look for in this. In practice, the monk's residual MADness still gave them a greater need for good all-round stats, meaning that items like a belt of physical perfection were very desirable, and they absorbed any cash freed up by having a "free" magic weapon. In addition, the monk also spent cash on extra weapons that gave them more versatility than relying on the unarmed strike. That said, the unarmed strike performed very well. Recently the monk hit a high of 125 damage in one round on one target. That may sound like a lot, but it's more of an average for the party barbarian or ranger.

Would making the monk wisdom-focussed remove the need for physical stats for the monk, making, for example, Strength a dump-stat?
There was less need for a high strength, but it wasn't something you could dump-stat. The wisdom-to-hit did not help the monk deal damage-per-hit, after all. They still needed an AoMF for weapon properties that helped boost damage, too; similarly, dexterity is still needed for AC, constitution for hit points, and so on. In the end, the monk still needs decent all-round stats - in the Kingmaker game, the monk has invested in an Tome of Clear Thought of all things because she wanted more skills to do her role - but there is less need for a lot of high scores. Your monk can now pick two scores they want high, and leave the rest.

Was there extra book-keeping required for the DR-bypass ability?
Not at all. There are already feats that do this, so the monk boing it based on level was not a major task. On the flip side it made the monk a valuable (and effective) party-member even at low-level when foes with DR were encountered. In these cases, for the monk it made the difference between inflicting damage and not, for the party it made the difference between having to arm everyone with multiple weapons or feeling confident that at least one combat character would be able to do something. It was also amusing to have a hulking barbarian scowl at a locked, barred door, decide it needed smashing, then turn to the monk and say "after you."

Did the monk become over-powered when they moved?
Given the new Pummelling Style, the question is redundant. The extra attack ability did give my monk more flexibility than just one super-attack - on one occasion, it was used to dart in between two foes and make a trip attempt on both with a reach weapon - but given that two of the monk's attacks would barely match the DPR of a barbarian's single attack, there was no question of it ever being over-powered. The twenty-foot move probably means that Pummelling Style wouldn't be a "must have" for this monk.

If anyone can think of any other potential issues, I'd love to hear them!


How differently do you think things would've gone had you stuck to the paizo monk during the campaign?


I think the player would have given up in frustration, to be honest.

Even with increased accuracy, the monk misses more often than others, but the number of attacks compensates for that. Without the changes, chances to hit would be reduced (currently, +4 enhancement would be lost and reliance would have to be on an AoMF which would almost certainly be less), damage per hit would be greatly reduced, and many foes they have fought would have been almost impervious to the monk thanks to DR that the monk could not bypass.

Almost certainly the monk would have less feats, and while this character has made the most of reach weapons and maneuvers, these have depended on weapon proficiency they would otherwise lack.


Do you feel your changes have put more focus on unarmed strikes or monk weapons? Again, in comparison to the Paizo monk.


I don't think it has changed the focus that much - despite all the advantages of the unarmed strike now, the monk in my campaign hangs on to his kusari-gama and is constantly looking for interesting weapons. Giving the monk proficiency with all "monk" weapons has given them more armed as well as unarmed options.


Last Night's Game:

Kingmaker Spoilers:

For this section I wanted to play their entry to Pitax which isn't detailed in the adventure path, and wrote my own little set of encounters to detail this.

King Irovetti is well aware that the PC's have amphibious party members (the undine monk) and forces (the boggards based at the hot springs, and the lizard folk by the Candlemere). As such he will be aware of the need to protect his harbour against a possible sub-aqua infiltration, and to this end he will recruit two factions to fight for him: scrags from Loric Fells, and skum that already dwell in the Pitax River (hints of which are in the entry on Pitax). The former he will hire the same way he hired his other troll soldiers, the latter he can purchase by supplying them with women - Irevotti has no compunctions about dealing the lives of his citizens for his own purposes, as the destruction of Littletown testifies.

The party, however, has an "in" to the city in the form of Ilora Nuski, who has found some old smuggler friends currently ferrying in supplies to the besieged city at night. He has a hidden hold he has used to smuggle goods as well, and for a not-inconsiderable sum will smuggle the PCs past the aquatic patrols. He will moor opposite a sewer outlet, the party can use the concealed hatch from the hold to directly access this. Once there, they are on their own.

Equipped with hats of disguise the party infiltrated the sewers, and ran into their first obstacle: a leaving party of skum that had just been "paid" for their services. The victim in question had been unable to pay her thieves' guild subscription (protection money), and under Irevotti's orders she had been offered to the skum.

The skum party consisted of four fighters (6) and a warpriest (8). They were not intended to be a serious challenge, as they encountered the party with their captive, and indeed they were not. The party's major disadvantage was that the ranger lacked darkvision, and until the combat was fully joined couldn't see far enough to shoot at anything. The second phase of the encounter was a pair of thieves' guild minotaur fighters (6) that would intercede, and these posed a slightly more serious threat especially in the confined tunnels.

The party at this point consisted of the monk, cleric, magus, and ranger. Once the ranger could start shooting he riddled the skum with arrows, although she was less effective against their creature type. The magus delivered some wicked spell-strikes, but wanted to avoid area of effect spells that might harm the prisoner. The monk, buffed up, used her mobility to get in among the enemy and used her Snake Fang to great effect, killing two of the skum outright and sharing the other with the magus. The party ploughed on, taking some damage from the minotaurs when they charged in, with the kills shared between the whole party.


Next Session:

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party went ahead with infiltrating the Palace of King Irovetti, waiting until darkness for cover. They got a look at the Palace and decided to that their best points of egress were the cupolas in the roof from which guards mounted a watch. There were four of these that they had to neutralize in short order, and to this ends they made use of a Wand of Silence and a Wand of Darkness, and two Greater Invisibility spells. Present again were the monk, cleric, ranger, and magus.

They sneaked close from the North-East, and were spotted by one guard in a cupola. The Ranger shot him with an arrow with silence cast upon it, and he wasted a round trying to sound an alarm without any of his colleagues noticing before the ranger finished the job with four more arrows, not just killing that guard but pinning him in place.

The monk, with Greater Invisibility and silence cast on him used his Abundant Step to get close to two more cupolas and their guards, the silence covering both. The following round he attacked, felling one with two blows, then using his ki-movement to move to the next and take him down with two more blows.

The magus meanwhile had flown to the last guard, who had by now noticed something was very wrong. However, before he could do much about the Magus closed with him using fly and employed his Rod of Lordly Might ratehr imaginatively: he used the "ladder" configuration in it's "open any door" mode to drive the cupola and the guard in it off the roof of the Palace. The watchman landed in the palace grounds right outside the doors, somewhat stunned and confused.

The Party wasted no time using the trapdoor he had opened to descend into the palace, into the secret passageway running parallel to the Great Hall. I ruled that the secret doors there opened onto the balcony, and were located behind portraits with peepholes (it's that kind of palace after all).

Because it was early evening, I decided that Irovetti's court was still in session, and because the party is pretty strong, I beefed up the opposition slightly, adding in Kob Moleg and Lady Alisane into the mix. along with a statted out Tolg Koth to replace Villemar who was killed in the Battle of Fort Drelev.

The party identified their enemies, and prepared to attack. The monk once again used abundant step to get close while still invisible, while the ranger drew a bead on Irovetti from a woodshaped hole in the secret door. Irrovetti saw the monk (he had see invisible active according to his stat-sheet) and raised the alarm, even as the ranger shot him...with a natural 20. Irrovetti then vanished thanks to his contingency spell and 87 points of damage from a critical hit, and the fun started.

In the surprise round the magus hit Kob Moleg with a phantasmal killer that he failed the save for by 1. The dwarf plunged through the secret door, the monk tripped the two guard's closes him and initiative was rolled...

The magus moved first, using his metamagic rod to quicken a fireball and then dropping a second one on top of it he hit the remaining generals and commanders (and wardens) hard. General Avanish (the ogre mage) turned himself invisible and started flying. The monk managed a perception check to locate him and jumped onto the conference table to snare him with his kusari-gama chain while the ranger started picking off mooks. The cleric cast divine power on himself, blocking the top of the balcony stairs, and Tolg attacked him - using sunder to go for his weapon rather than the man, and successfully breaking the dwarf's hammer. I don't often go for the party's gear, but they have a lot of it and the cleric has a habit of collecting spare weaponry...

Lady Alisan scented the invisible monk and went for him, but his AC was out of her range even with flanking and all she got was two kicks from Snake Fang. Meanwhile the Heralds and Wardens swarmed up the balcony behind the party, but did little save present a great target for the magus to hit most of them with a cone of cold. Gneral Avanish solved his monk problem by simply flying off, dragging the monk with him. The monk responded by reeling himself up the chain and delivering a stunning fist which Avanish failed the save on.

The dwarf cleric unleashed his dancing greatsword on Torg (+1 keen greatsword, and he has an ability to make it dance, didn't I say he collected spare weapons?), and added a cold ice strike and a spiritual ally into the mix to make Torg's life more miserable. Torg failed to sunder the greatsword, and Alisan couldn't get flanking on anyone to contribute effectively. A pair of troll guards burst in from the entrance hall, while the ranger picked off most of the remaining Wardens and Heralds.

On turn four the magus unleashed another brace of fireballs on the trolls this time, taking all the remaining guards with them. The monk unleased a flurry on the stunned Avanish, which hurt. A lot. The ranger finished off Torg, turning him into a pin-cushion. Alisan decided the battle was a losing one and turned herself invisible, and ran. One of the troll guards sniffed out the magus on the balcony, but couldn't quite get a hit in. The other troll started hacking at the balcony supports, but the dwarf cleric got him with a hold monster.

Turn five, and the magus was still using spell combat on the troll, blasting him and using a flaming sword. The ranger finished the job with arrows, while Avanish recovered from the monk's stun and promptly assumed gasseus form to slip out of the grapple, dropping the monk thirty feet onto the carpet. Avanish and Alisan fled to raise more guards, leaving the party in control of the throne room...


Dabbler wrote:

Next Session:

** spoiler omitted **...

This is something right out of a Hollywood movie.


It was a gloriously chaotic fight with lots of cool moves and some carefully planned action. All the players had tremendous fun, and no-one noticed we'd gone an hour and a half over our normal time until ten minutes before the end.


The battle continued...

Kingmaker Spoilers:

With Alisen and General Avinesh Jurg escaping the party's wrath, and having a palace full of guards too, it didn't take long for a counterstroke to be organised against the party. Not that they waited for it...

My stumbling block was two of my absent players from last session put in appearance this time. The solution was, as one was the Spymaster - a halfling rogue - that he had arranged separate infiltration into the palace, and brought in the other PC (the alchemist) along for the ride. They were at this stage disguised as Pitax Wardens being organised for a counter-attack.

The enemy forces pooled in two areas, one at the Northern entrance to the throne room, the other at the Palace entrance hall. The monk slipped in among the latter, still invisible, as they gathered and organised. The rest of the party withdrew to the northern part of the throne room to meet the expected attack, which came sooner. This was disrupted in the approach passages by the rogue who tried to Bluff the attacking wardens and trolls into thinking there was a trap. This delayed some, and one troll stormed alone into the throne room. The alchemist started chucking bombs around, and despite trying to bluff them as an accident, the majority of the guards and trolls didn't buy it.

The first troll went down to the cleric and ranger - the former still under his Divine Might spell, so a 10' tall dwarf was fighting the trolls. The magus, seeing that this end of the fight was secure, used dimension door to go help the monk, and as both were covered by greater invisibility they sowed some confusion among the enemy. Avinash Jurg removed this by casting a dispel magic at their invisibility, and making them both visible. He then became visible himself as he attacked the monk.

Meanwhile, the party was taking damage from the gathered wardens and trolls in the passages and rooms Q9 and Q11, mainly the alchemist who discovered that revealing himself in the middle of the enemy was not a wise idea. The cleric and ranger moved in to help the rogue and alchemist, the latter managed to withdraw from melee with a few hit points left.

In the entrance hall, the monk had felled one troll and a couple of guards, and was duking it out with Avinash the ogre mage. He was taking some hits, as his AC wasn't out of Avinash's range and the ogre mage had a good enough CMD to resist the monk's tricks. The magus was making his defensive style pay off against the other troll and guards, as buffed to heaven and back he kept chipping away at their hit points while they failed to get any attacks to connect effectively (thanks to shield, mirror image, stoneskin). In the end the monk wore down Avinash, the latter opting for melee over spells, and Snake Fang took him down when he missed his iterative attacks.

At this stage the last player enetered the arena. To make things interesting, I had the remoraz from the basement burrow in on Irovetti's orders and attack - this caused some consternation. The monk tried hitting it and took a lot of damage, then got bitten into serious negatives. The ranger had some magical beast-bane arrows in his quiver, and with the rogue's deadly slingshot brought down the monster before it could eat the monk. A heal from the cleric brought him back up to speed.

Analysis: although these challenges were to wear the party down, they did reveal the monk's Achilles heel - when he does get hit, it hurts. In this case he nearly died courtesy of a very nasty bite and a dangerous general.


...and continues...

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party ploughed on, after a short period to recover lost hit points and catch their breath. They were by this time very low on spells, but had effectively cleared the entire palace of guards. They began searching the palace for Irovetti's bolt-hole, and fopund a great many concealed and secret doors before finally locating the narrow staircase that lead down to his hidden chamber.

The rogue led the way, and opened the door on Irovetti's bed-chamber to find the King waiting for him with his (disguised) lover. The halfling leapt to the attack, but caught an AoO on the way in, but then resisted two spells (dominate person and hideous laughter) in return before the rest of the party piled in. Iroretti's high AC made him a hard target for the PCs, but the monk pressed him hard and forced him on the defensive so spell-casting was harder for him, while the magus did the same to his spirit naga paramour. She alternately blasted the party and provided help to her master, while he struggled to duke it out with the monk - and actually managed a very good exchange of blows and damage, essentially winning until the monk got clever and started using maneuvers to trip and then disarm Irovetti.

In the end the weight of attacks from the monk, cleric, and ranger bore down Irovetti, while the magus, rogue, and alchemist took care of the spirit naga. Her breath of life spell hauled Irevotti back from the brink once, before the alchemist bombed her to death.

Monk performance: the big difference in the monk was that he was able to score hits at all. At this level, many monks really start to struggle against this kind of AC (in this case 32 and 34). While the monk missed a lot of attacks, he managed to get a couple of good hits in every round. Irevotti, having seen the monk's Snake Fang style, used his Rod of Razers to engage the monk at a distance and also scored a number of hits. The monk did not dominate this fight, but he was a valuable member of the team.


Kingmaker Spoilers:

The game continues!

Pitax as a nation disintegrated following the death of King Irrovetti, as circling enemies carved chunks off her borders while the PC’s took the capital, and an internal insurrection declared their succession and the founding of the nation of Corvenn in what was left of southern Pitax. Numeria seized Mormouth, and Mivon carved some chunks from Eastern Pitax, while Tymon supported the breakaway duchy of Corvenn to regain a stable northern border.

All this meant that the party will have to explore and claim the Glenebon Uplands, Thousand Breaths, and the plains around the city of Pitax the hard way. That said, they are popular rulers even there, carefully selecting which factions to support and which to ignore. They imported some build points of food stuffs and effectively threw a party for Pitax, mingled, listened to rumors and played nice. This gave me a great opportunity to give them the next set of quests.

After that, they started exploring for the new road to Numeria across the Glenebon Uplands. There are few encounters that can challenge the party on the random table, so I glossed over most of them. However, when they encountered Hillstomper the awakened mammoth they had something worthy as an adversary. When the injured mammoth approached them the ranger tried her animal empathy – I should point out that her track record with this ability is not exactly faultless. In fact, it consists of more cases of being attacked by the animal in question than in befriending it; in this case it appeared to be successful until Hillstomper asked her (in common) what she was doing.

After they had healed Hillstomper, he explained his problem, and rather than thinking “Ker-ching!” the party declined his offer of ivory, but agreed to help him regardless. The party buffed him up to the eyeballs, using animal growth to make him truly massive, greater magic fang, protection from energy, and other spells to really crank things up before challenging the crag linnorm. The latter didn’t last long, as the party coordinated with Hillstomper’s charge and essentially killed the linnorm in one round. The monk was the only member of the party injured by an AoO from the linnorm as he rushed in, the protection from energy managed to handle the linnorm’s breath and it didn’t get a chance to attack further.

The party also found the steamgrotto, and decided this was a good place to set up a spar town, to be named “Bathton”...


Last session was one of exploration, the party ran into a couple of peludas, these ones in a lake on a mountainside. As this was a level 14 party, six strong, the CR9-10 peludas (one was Advanced) didn't represent a real challenge. As it was, they didn't kill them all, just beat them into surrendering and negotiated that the peludas could stay where they were, but they wouldn't eat people any more.

On a different note, a new player joined with a new PC, a bard. Should be interesting to see how the bard affects the dynamic...


Dabbler wrote:

Last session was one of exploration, the party ran into a couple of peludas, these ones in a lake on a mountainside. As this was a level 14 party, six strong, the CR9-10 peludas (one was Advanced) didn't represent a real challenge. As it was, they didn't kill them all, just beat them into surrendering and negotiated that the peludas could stay where they were, but they wouldn't eat people any more.

On a different note, a new player joined with a new PC, a bard. Should be interesting to see how the bard affects the dynamic...

What kind of bard?


Regular bard, no archetype, lots of buffing spells and abilities, uses an Agile scorpion whip with Lunge for 20' reach. It's a new player as some of my regulars are getting less regular as exam season approaches.


Dabbler wrote:
Regular bard, no archetype, lots of buffing spells and abilities, uses an Agile scorpion whip with Lunge for 20' reach. It's a new player as some of my regulars are getting less regular as exam season approaches.

I suspect the Monk will see the most benefit out of this as any attacks that are near misses will become hits with the Bard present.

It's something I've often seen a lout out martials, classes like the Monk and Rogue benefit more from buffing than other classes because most of their attacks that miss, only miss by a little. So they go from having maybe 1 hit in a round, to having 2 or 3 hits, where as Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins etc. go from having 2 hits a round to maybe having 3.

Sure, those frontline martials are probably doing more damage with that one hit than the others are with multiple, but the extra 2 or 3 hits that Rogues/Monks get goes a long way to making them feel useful and contributing.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Really enjoying this thread. I like seeing your changes pan out in practice. Well done!


Quote:
Guided Hand only works if you dip Cleric to get channel energy, and you have to get Channel Smite as a prerequisite as well. The sensei is basically a "bard-lite" and pays for it with flurry of blows, without which he's pretty much ineffective compared to the bard.

wat

Sensei rocks so much ass. Infinitely high DC stunning fists means perma-lockdown, huge amounts of AC, crushing blow, can grant players all sorts of buffs as a swift action, dimension door and stun a caster at later levels...


And here I was thinking only Dabbler and I were the only ones in this thread... :P


Secret Wizard wrote:
Quote:
Guided Hand only works if you dip Cleric to get channel energy, and you have to get Channel Smite as a prerequisite as well. The sensei is basically a "bard-lite" and pays for it with flurry of blows, without which he's pretty much ineffective compared to the bard.

wat

Sensei rocks so much ass. Infinitely high DC stunning fists means perma-lockdown, huge amounts of AC, crushing blow, can grant players all sorts of buffs as a swift action, dimension door and stun a caster at later levels...

Oh the sensei has his advantages, he may not suck as much as a regular core monk, but that's still not up to par from what I can see. For example, a bard is the buffermeister of the game, can "stun" with the same DC at a distance with hold person (or other spells) and it lasts longer, and shut down a caster with silence also at a distance at a much earlier level. Like I said, the sensei is "bard-lite" in respect of whatever he does, the bard can do better. Sure, the monk gets the higher AC but then the bard doesn't have to get into melee to deliver his effects, so the two factors cancel.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Can your monk move and still flurry?

Verdant Wheel

Kryzbyn wrote:
Can your monk move and still flurry?

20 feet at a time for a ki point.

This was changed from "+20 feet to speed" into "move 20 feet swiftly" in the ki pool. Very clever and simple word re-arrangement.


Yes, thanks, that is correct. The monk can therefore move a short distance and still full attack, for a ki-point. He can also move normally and spend a ki-point for an extra attack, he does not have to be flurrying to get the extra attack.

Yesterday we started the 6th chapter of Kingmaker, as usual I have spoilered this.

Spoiler:

The group had convened to do some governing in their capital, Castleton. This large city was built on the foundations of the Stag Lord’s castle where the Shrike River flows into the Tuskwater. As the first bloom was the black lake, I had it start right on top of them...There was an earth tremor as the manifestation occurred, then messengers disturbed the council and informed them that the lake had turned black, and that there was now a whirlpool in the Tuskwater.

The party investigated, and observing from afar decided to use the ranger’s ability to speak with animals (via a spell) to ask the black swans where they came from. The ranger flew out on the ebony fly, with the magus flying alongside her and the undine monk swimming. Just as they started talking to a swan, three of the water elementals attacked – for the party of six, I included six rather than four water elementals. The elementals got surprise, and initiative, and all three were hammered hard by their slam attacks as they manifested as great black swans made of water.

The two flying characters managed to fly out of reach and proceeded to bombard the elementals with spells and arrows. The monk had to exit post haste using abundant step, as he rapidly found that even his exceptional swim speed was not enough to out-swim the elementals. The rest of the party – cleric, bard, rogue – put out in their folding boat not realizing there were more elementals. When they did, they quickly turned about and made for shore again.

The ranger and the magus bombarded two of the elementals to destruction, then joined the rest of the party in the boat as they made shore with four more elementals hard on their heels. The cleric summoned an earth elemental, and the mayhem commenced. From the shore the monk was much more effective, his ability to bypass DR made him very effective against the elementals but their high attack bonus meant he wasn’t proof against their attacks, and his lower hit points pushed him close to the edge before the fight was over.

After the fight, the cleric performed a commune to find out where the fey intrusions were originating, and found they originated from the Castle of Knives in the forest of Thousand Breaths. The party are starting to get equipment upgraded, which should be interesting...some of the blooms may find them with gear still at the upgrader’s!


I read up on the first and last couple pages of this thread - though I don't have it in me to read 2 years of posts (o.O) I thought this was pretty cool! I'm glad the monk is working out well for your players and your game.

I have spent some time trying to systematically rebuild the monk, rogue, fighter and maybe eventually a couple of others - though I think my goals were/are a bit more dramatic than yours, I thought I would weigh in and share some of my own monk 'fixes', what I personally would consider minimal.

Imo most of your fixes seem solid (and clearly work for you and your group), but Zen Warrior, swift 20' move, and ki strike aren't my favorite.

For zen warrior, I agree monks need to be less MAD, but I feel like this mostly just makes wis more important, and makes it very difficult for monks to deal damage, even though they aren't particularly overwhelming at any other aspect of melee/combat either.

The 1ki swift movement is definitely a cool idea, and I've messed with it a few times, but the thing I dislike about it is that monks are already *very* heavily weighted towards doing everything they can to full attack every round, because it's *so* much better than anything else they can do. This makes that easier, but it doesn't help them do too many other interesting things.

Ki strike for DR seems fine, and I think they should get something like that, and something simpler than the current system, but this is strange as a static bonus to me. Why not improve their baseline effectiveness and make this a ki power?

[cont.] (Ugh, lost half my post. Sigh)

Briefly, here're what I would consider minimal fixes to the monk. I've playtested it less extensively than you, I think, but I've had a few monks played and it's worked well:

Weapon Prof: Monks are proficient in all simple, martial, and monk weapons.

Full BAB, removed flurry of blows and maneuver mastery. IUS can be treated as using 2 light weapons. TWF chain is added to monk bonus feats. - I don't see this as an attack buff, but as cleaning up the class. They already have full bab w/ flurry, but I dislike that this makes doing *anything else* so much worse. Full bab lets them do all the things they already loved, but be more of a skirmisher, which I think leads to more interesting play.

AC Bonus becomes Inuitive Defense and Ki Bonus Inuitive defense gives monks Wis to AC and Init as long as they wear no armor. The scaling AC bonus becomes Ki bonus: As long as the monk has 1 point in their ki pool, and wears no armor, they gain their ki bonus to attacks, damage, and AC.

Ki Pool is moved to 1st level, and reads as follows:
Ki Pool: Wis + ½ Level

Ki powers at first level

Defense - +4 Insight Bonus to AC for 1r/½ Monk Level (Min 1) as an immediate action. if you activated this ability in response to an attack, and that attack misses, you may take an immediate 5ft step.

Motion - Ignore difficult terrain this turn.

Awareness - +4 insight bonus to a single Perception or Sense Motive check as an immediate action.

At 4th level:
Strike - Add Wis to attack & damage + bypass DR this round.
Flurry - +1 attack on full attack this round.

Finally, to reduce MAD: Evasion at 2nd level is replaced by Martial Tradition:
Select a tradition:
Steel Wind: 2nd level, you gain Evasion. All monk weapons and weapons from the spear weapon group count as finesse weapons for you. Additionally, when wielding any finesse weapon, you may add your dexterity to damage. This isn't increased for two handed or decreased for off-hand.

Anvil: 2nd level, gain Stalwart. You gain natural armor equal to your constitution modifier.


Arnakalar wrote:
I read up on the first and last couple pages of this thread - though I don't have it in me to read 2 years of posts (o.O) I thought this was pretty cool! I'm glad the monk is working out well for your players and your game.

Thank you!

I started this thread with some provisos (don't blame you for not reading from the beginning though!) which I'll outline:


  • All changes to the monk should be minimal, increasing the word count by as little as possible.
  • Any changes should not invalidate existing monk builds, and impact archetypes as little as possible.
  • Keep It Simple - don't complicate what needn't be complicated.

Some of the monk's problems were not that their abilities were bad, but that the synergy between their abilities was very poor. Flurry of blows doesn't gel with improved movement and mobility, is the classic example. Others were that the monk was too unfocussed, like MAD - you need everything at once, and you cannot have it.

Arnakalar wrote:

I have spent some time trying to systematically rebuild the monk, rogue, fighter and maybe eventually a couple of others - though I think my goals were/are a bit more dramatic than yours, I thought I would weigh in and share some of my own monk 'fixes', what I personally would consider minimal.

Imo most of your fixes seem solid (and clearly work for you and your group), but Zen Warrior, swift 20' move, and ki strike aren't my favorite.

For zen warrior, I agree monks need to be less MAD, but I feel like this mostly just makes wis more important, and makes it very difficult for monks to deal damage, even though they aren't particularly overwhelming at any other aspect of melee/combat either.

This worried me, too, at the outset. However it didn't pan out that way at all in play. The big problem was that to reduce MAD you have to reduce the significance of one ability score and enhance another, and there's no getting around it. The monk already struggles in a balancing act between Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom, so whichever score you make key has to be one of these three. Strength is used by every other combat class in melee, and Dexterity already carries a heavy feat-tax to use. You could give the monk free feats, in effect, but that doesn't create options, it just restricts them. So that leaves wisdom, and no other combat class uses a mental stat to hit with so it at least makes the monk unique.

The damage turned out to not be an issue. Once you had the DR bypass and the automatic enhancement bonus then it became less important to do masses of damage in each hit, and easier for lots of small hits to add up in effectiveness.

Arnakalar wrote:
The 1ki swift movement is definitely a cool idea, and I've messed with it a few times, but the thing I dislike about it is that monks are already *very* heavily weighted towards doing everything they can to full attack every round, because it's *so* much better than anything else they can do. This makes that easier, but it doesn't help them do too many other interesting things.

Everyone tries to full-attack each round, that's just the way the system works. In actual fact what I found was that on a number of occasions the monk opted NOT to go full flurry, but instead move and hit twice. Using a shang gou the character would get equidistant between two enemies and spend a ki point to go for trip attacks on each. It was a very effective contribution to the party success at the time.

Arnakalar wrote:
Ki strike for DR seems fine, and I think they should get something like that, and something simpler than the current system, but this is strange as a static bonus to me. Why not improve their baseline effectiveness and make this a ki power?

Ki is a resource that the monk struggles with already. Among the best Archetypes are those that give bonus ki - the drunken monk, the hungry ghost monk - so I didn't want to front-load ki with too many ki-powers the monk has to struggle to fuel.


Arnakalar wrote:

Briefly, here're what I would consider minimal fixes to the monk. I've playtested it less extensively than you, I think, but I've had a few monks played and it's worked well:

Weapon Prof: Monks are proficient in all simple, martial, and monk weapons.

Why martial weapons? I would include a feat to make a martial weapon a monk weapon, rather than give them all the martial weapons. I'm with you on all monk weapons, though, that's one change I definitely included!

Arnakalar wrote:
Full BAB, removed flurry of blows and maneuver mastery. IUS can be treated as using 2 light weapons. TWF chain is added to monk bonus feats. - I don't see this as an attack buff, but as cleaning up the class. They already have full bab w/ flurry, but I dislike that this makes doing *anything else* so much worse. Full bab lets them do all the things they already loved, but be more of a skirmisher, which I think leads to more interesting play.

Problem: You just invalidated every "single weapon flurry" monk build out there, including most sohei builds. That's one reason I avoided this and why when Paizo tried to define flurry this way they had such an outcry.

Arnakalar wrote:

AC Bonus becomes Inuitive Defense and Ki Bonus Inuitive defense gives monks Wis to AC and Init as long as they wear no armor. The scaling AC bonus becomes Ki bonus: As long as the monk has 1 point in their ki pool, and wears no armor, they gain their ki bonus to attacks, damage, and AC.

Ki Pool is moved to 1st level, and reads as follows:
Ki Pool: Wis + ½ Level

Ki powers at first level

Defense - +4 Insight Bonus to AC for 1r/½ Monk Level (Min 1) as an immediate action. if you activated this ability in response to an attack, and that attack misses, you may take an immediate 5ft step.

Motion - Ignore difficult terrain this turn.

Awareness - +4 insight bonus to a single Perception or Sense Motive check as an immediate action.

At 4th level:
Strike - Add Wis to attack & damage + bypass DR this round.
Flurry - +1 attack on full attack this round.

I love the new monk abilities, but...the monk is already front-loaded, ki at first level just makes the monk a shinier dip class for other classes to be better monks than pure monks.

Arnakalar wrote:

Finally, to reduce MAD: Evasion at 2nd level is replaced by Martial Tradition:

Select a tradition:
Steel Wind: 2nd level, you gain Evasion. All monk weapons and weapons from the spear weapon group count as finesse weapons for you. Additionally, when wielding any finesse weapon, you may add your dexterity to damage. This isn't increased for two handed or decreased for off-hand.

Anvil: 2nd level, gain Stalwart. You gain natural armor equal to your constitution modifier.

While I like the idea of different fighting styles, that still leaves the dex-focussed monk with a feat-tax of one or two feats just to function, which is pretty much the current situation, ie one we do not want.


Another session done!

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party did their rulership bit, then went to the town of Templeton (built over the Temple of the Elk near the Thorn River) to complete the building of a Theatre for the Houton Legacy. No sooner had they started than a rider raced into town from the rest of the Narlmarches to report that strange fungal growths had been seen in the vicinity of the Lonely Statue, a landmark on the Pilgrim’s Path. Not only that, but swarms of mandragora had devoured several pilgrims!

The party wasted little time departing for the location, first ensuring that the inn at the hot springs was safe. They then rested, prepared battle spells, and teleported to the Lonely Statue the next morning.
They popped out in the middle of the clearing to find it transformed by mould and mushrooms, and with mandragora everywhere. Although the cleric snapped up an anti-life circle one swarm was already inside with them. It gave some party members a savaging, until the bard dropped a swarm of monkeys on it, and the cleric started summoning. The magus dealt with it most effectively: fire shield protected him, and after the cleric cast protection from energy, communal on the party he unleashed a couple of detonate spells. These, combined with the magma elementals the cleric summoned, destroyed not only the attacking swarm but the surrounding ones as well, ending the bloom.

Back to work, they didn’t get much further when a sending message came through from the alchemist in Fort Drelev: a group of ettins had been sighted from the north-west, destroying farms and raising havoc. Off they went again, and this time collated reports to see that the ettins were headed toward a mine on the Siltstrand River, and transported themselves there.

Once at the mine, the rogue, monk, and ranger were sent scouting while the rest of the party organized the miners for their own defence, getting them armed and into either the barracks (really just their sleeping quarters) and the mining administration building, crossbows at the ready.

The ranger and rogue returned, having spotted both the ettins and in the rogue’s case, signs of large wolves (I added in some warg scouts to the ettins, as the party is large and well-equipped). The party’s decision to get the miners under cover was a good one as the warg scouts launched a skirmishing attack shortly afterwards, sneaking close to the buildings before rushing into the attack.

The party ranger spotted them, and the party buffed up ready for the fight. This was to stand them in good stead later! The cleric popped up some walls of stone to plug gaps in the defences, and the magus used undead anatomy to make himself into a large festrog, then stoneskin and lastly haste on the whole party save the monk, who was shadowing the ettins from the river as they marched up the trail alongside it.

One of the wargs managed to leap a wall of stone, and the others rueshed the party from as many angles as they could. One straggler was targeted by the miners who killed it with mass crossbow fire, the rest suffered from the party’s melee capabilities but kept them effectively locked down until the ettins appeared. The monk snagged a straggler as the latter turned away from the river, and pulled him in with a trip attack before beating him to death under the waves, then followed the ettins.

The ettin attack was fairly brutal; the ranger as the party’s ace-in-the-hole as he loosed a stream of arrows at the ettins. The cleric started summoning allies again, the magus dropped some fireballs, and the rogue started sniping out ettins already injured. As the ettins rushed in, the monk got ahead of them and “pulled” them with trip attacks, tying up four of the monsters around him. She then proceeded to kick to death those knocked prone, creating almost a separate “battle within a battle” on her own. The bard started singing, and summoned up a monkey swarm ready to engage the ettins.

Then the satire popped up from on top of the barracks, and drilled arrows into the magus – only his stoneskin saved him from dropping to -10, but thankfully instead he was left with 20 hit points. The ranger returned fire, but the satire was more than tough enough to take it. The ettins charged in, and a group of five large earth elementals rose out of the ground to grapple them. The bard dropped another monkey swarm on the satire, and the little s*ds snatched his arrows (lucky CMB check!) so he couldn’t shoot – not that he needed to, as the magus cut loose with a quickened fly and went for him with Briar.

A prolonged duel was cut short by the ranger, who ended the satire’s life with a lucky critical even as the ettins started falling.

He was chuffed to bits with the satire’s bow...

Analysis: the monk didn’t engage as a standard “tank” but she did pull a large group of ettins away from the main engagement and destroyed them; in terms of kills she equalled what most "tanks" would achieve, although taking slightly longer to achieve it. Most damage actaully went to the magus with his area effect spells, and cleric and his summoned allies. The bard did well, using monkeys to harass the enemy and buffs to boost the party. The underpowered character is the rogue, this one is really struggling to keep up now.


Once again, another session down!

”Kingmaker Spoilers”:

More blooms are unfolding thick and fast!

The first to unfold this session were the Living Nightmares. By coincidence the monk, ranger, and bard were already planning on heading to the city of Pitax to deal with its incessant crime problem. When they arrived via teleport, Captain Irsei of the Watch was already dealing with one mass-murder and two cases of arson, and he wasted no time in calling them in to help. The bard established that the arson was the result of an odd firestorm spell, but they were nonetheless the wiser for the source.

That night, the ranger was targeted by one of the nightmares, and she was grateful for her evasion as she dodged blast after blast. In the process she awoke, and the monk joined her dodging lightning blasts while the catfolk bard clung to a chandelier. Several other nightmares struck around the city, and quite a few citizens had been killed. By the time the rest of the party arrived, the ranger was able to tell his tale of the nightmare, and a Knowledge check revealed the rumors of the Nightmare Rook.

The next night, the dreams struck the halfling rogue who found himself alone in a desert with giant scorpions after him and the rook hovering in the distance. Remembering the advice to confront the rook and ignore the monsters, he used the Helm of Teleoportation to transport himself onto the rook’s back, and empty a portable hole full of rocks onto it.
As attacks go, this was unconventional, but a success: the rook was driven off, and the halfling awoke with a giant feather as his trophy.

The party had little time to recover before the next bloom, this time centered around the Ghost Stone near Varnhold, where winter came visiting (it was late summer). The party were informed when the priest of Erastil in Varnhold notified them via a sending scroll that a band of frost giants had been attacking farms south of Varnhold. Once again, they teleported to Varnhold, and once there they departed south to find the giants. By afternoon they had run into a group of quarrymen fleeing the giants, who were using a nearby quarry to make more rocks for throwing.

The encounter was direct and savage, as the giants had no concept of subtlety and the party opted to let it go by the wayside. They approached the quarry-face from one end, and the giants saw them coming and armed up. The monk was first off the block, and raced around the giants to attack the far end of their line, tripping one giant. The rogue, magus, and bard teleported over to join him, the rogue hiding behind a pile of rocks and the bard starting to sing.

The ranger and cleric attacked the near end of the line, amid a hail of badly-aimed rocks. Both were mounted, the ranger on his wolf and the cleric on his clockwork charger. The ranger peppered the giants with arrows, while the cleric charged in with his lance. The cleric had his AC boosted to the low forties, and the giants couldn’t hit him save with a 20. One did get wise and hit his mount, but that soaked the damage.

The magus had a whale of a time, unleashing fireballs and fire snakes and attacking with Briar, which helpfully boosted his AC with barkskin. With him wearing down the giants, the monk was able to finish the job with her flurry of blows, while using trips to keep the giants off-balance. The rogue, meantime, also made attacks from cover and stealth, getting lots of sneak-attack goodness, and the bard had fun with spells like deafening song-bolt.

I had given the party eight giants to fight as they are a large party, and they splattered the first four quite quickly. At this point the others were committed, and by the time they got to act, there were only two of them left. One ran and was run down by the dwarf cleric, the other was felled by the ranger’s wolf.

The monk had taken a couple of hits, and they were hurting from this. The monk and the rogue both need equipment upgrades, but the current scenario precludes them arranging upgrades as normal – fortunately, I know there are quite a few items they can use awaiting them, and I have placed a few more. The monk used to have the highest AC in the party, but has fallen behind the cleric and the magus. The rogue really needs more AC and offence – in fact of all the PCs the rogue is struggling the most. The player is looking for ways of upgrading and staying relevant, and may have to rework the character from scratch.


Not sure what your Rogue's particular problems are (other than perhaps accuracy and defense), but I've got a couple of ideas. You could drop in an upgraded suit of mistmail armor, possibly with more uses per day (the cost for the obscuring mist effect seems to be 250 gp, so if you reverse engineer it and give him something like 5 uses per day, you can bump the cost of the armor up to 3,250 gp, and then you can also increase the enhancement bonus as normal). Pair this up with a Goz Mask and you can give the Rogue a 20% miss chance and his character can then spread rumors about a mysterious cloud of fog that will appear against enemies of the kingdom and felling those would would threaten Castleton.

You could also toss in a Sword of Subtlety to help the Rogue with accuracy problems if he needs it. Perhaps even changing it into a 'Sap of Subtlety' to go with his Sap Adept/Master feats (that is, I think he took those?).


The Rogue's problem is that he's effectively a one-trick pony: he has an awesome non-lethal sneak attack damage rating, and if he runs into anything he can't sneak attack or that doesn't take non-lethal damage he's stuck.

Accuracy is a problem for him, but not for sneak attacks. I like the mistmail + Goz Mask option, though, I shall suggest that to the player! He won't want the mail for AC (his dexterity is already high enough that he's better off un-armoured), but for the mist effect the party does have an eversmoking bottle somewhere...


Dabbler wrote:

The Rogue's problem is that he's effectively a one-trick pony: he has an awesome non-lethal sneak attack damage rating, and if he runs into anything he can't sneak attack or that doesn't take non-lethal damage he's stuck.

Accuracy is a problem for him, but not for sneak attacks. I like the mistmail + Goz Mask option, though, I shall suggest that to the player! He won't want the mail for AC (his dexterity is already high enough that he's better off un-armoured), but for the mist effect the party does have an eversmoking bottle somewhere...

Perhaps allow him to enchant a set of Bracers of Armor with the ability, but with the +50% cost for multiple abilities.

The problem with the Eversmoking Bottle is that, when you first uncap it, it encases a 50-foot spread. It's unknown if this spread is the radius or diameter, but either way, it's a huge area for a single round. So if the Rogue were to use this item, the entire party would need the masks as well.

The issue with this, is, of course, it makes most combat extremely easy. The entire party can see through the fog effortlessly, while everyone else cannot. So the enemy must first pinpoint the square, and then attack it. If they aren't adjacent when they attack, it's a 50% miss chance, and even if they are, it's still a 20% miss chance.

So your party could play merry hell with nearly any enemy by simply moving around in the fog and attacking from range. Very "Ninja's in the Mist" kind of thing, but it tends to trivialize encounters.

My players in Curse of the Crimson Throne once abused the hell out of this. They used it and allowed it to spread to it's fullest size (100 ft. spread, with me interpreting the spread as meaning radius). They basically passed themselves off as a fog bank rolling off the water and just walked past guards and stuff.


Even a 30' radius would cover most encounters the party would run into, so the same could easily apply to the mistmail idea. In fact, the flask came from a blood hag (they can see through smoke too) who used it on them. Currently, I'm having to drop in items as the party do not have time to make them.

I guess we'll see where he wants to take it.


Dabbler wrote:

Even a 30' radius would cover most encounters the party would run into, so the same could easily apply to the mistmail idea. In fact, the flask came from a blood hag (they can see through smoke too) who used it on them. Currently, I'm having to drop in items as the party do not have time to make them.

I guess we'll see where he wants to take it.

Mistmail only fills the square that the Rogue is in, not other squares. So the Mistmail would let the Rogue run around in a 5-ft. cube of smoke and cut/bludgeon creatures to pieces.


Ah...thought it worked as obscuring mist. My bad. But it only gives him 20% concealment....although that's good enough, really.


Dabbler wrote:
Ah...thought it worked as obscuring mist. My bad. But it only gives him 20% concealment....although that's good enough, really.

20% concealment is all he needs to make stealth checks, which can be done as part of a 5-ft step, and doing so allows him to full attack from stealth and get sneak attacks. Plus, still 20% concealment applies to all attacks against him, including magical and ranged ones.


That player is off for two weeks, and will be reconfiguring their character - I've passed on ideas, and given them pretty much carte blanche to remake it any way that they feel that it should work.

Tonight's session continued...

Kingmaker Spoilers:

Present at this session were the undine monk, the dwarf cleric, the human ranger, and the dhampir magus (currently wielding Briar in the form of an Aldori dueling sword).

No rest for the rulers, as another bloom appeared as soon as they returned from dealing with the frost giants. In this case, it was knurly briars that intruded into the heart of the Kamelands between Nettle's Crossing (now a small city) and the gold mine.

The athach gardeners were not a major challenge, but the difficult terrain and the attacks of the briars made things interesting. Because they were desperate to finish the Theatre for the Houton Legacy, the dwarf cleric sent some of his minions instead of himself, his 12th level gnome bard and his 6th level dwarf paladin. The ranger cast freedom of movement on his wolf mount so that he was unimpeded by the briars, and performed his usual mounted archery to great effect.

The party took more damage when the gardners were killed from the thrashing briars, although they then went on to destroy the pods easily enough, and the bloom was repelled.

The Theatre was opened to great applause, and the party earned their copy of Zudigar's Picnic. Examining the book they quickly realised that the blooms were clearly related to the places in Thousand Breaths and that they still had the Troll, the Worms, and maybe the Tower and a few other encounters to go. Because I targeted areas of monuments and items of interest with the blooms, they deduced that they would likely take place around areas that had such landmarks in them, and started marking them out. They organised scrolls of sending to be sent to all major settlements and forts, so that wherever a bloom struck they would be quickly informed and could teleport to the nearest familiar location to deal with the problem.

Sure enough, they were alerted after a few days of exploration that the fortress in the Slough had been informed by the bog striders of another bloom. In it, three enormous worms were crawling. The party's solution to the worms was interesting: the cleric summoned a roc, and the ranger cast animal growth on it, so that it could swoop down and pick up a worm. While the work actually bit the roc to death, it was hurled to the ground as well for it's efforts from VERY high up!

Once again the area effect spells of the magus and cleric did a lot of damage, while the monk did his Dune impression by using his kusarigama to hook himself up onto one of the worms and beat it to death from there (it wasn't easy). The magus used Briar to channel a couple of vampiric touch spells into a worm, finishing it off.

On the whole a couple of straight forward fights and some good forward planning by the group!


One thing to note is that concealment is necessary for stealth checks but not sufficient - unless you have hide in plain sight, you cannot ever make stealth checks while observed - so a rogue under a blur, mistmail, or similar effect can't just run around and make stealth checks.

On the other hand, giving the rogue plenty of terrain options to interact with can improve this - there's a note somewhere of how forests range from 1/4 to every square counting as cover or concealment - and with cover you can make stealth checks.


Another day on the month of mayhem...

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party have started to explore Thousand Breaths, responding to messages when a new incursion happens. This time around, they faced the Misbegotten Troll...

Because of the size of the party, I added a Misbegotten Bride to the troll, for added fun and games. They had moved into Armag's Tomb, and began raiding the surrounding area at once. When the party arrived via teleport they already knew the area well. Looking over the outside of the tomb, they saw the Bride outside the tomb working on some household chores (she was a fleshwarped broken soul human barbarian, looking largely normal but when talked to clearly batsh*t crazy). With her was one of the smilodons, and the party approached with caution to talk to her. They quickly deduced that she was not all there, and backed away when the rest of the smilodons started out of the tomb, followed by the Troll.

The monk broke the ice by using abundant step to move right next to the Troll and his Bride, and the troll responded by unloading a full attack on her, getting in a hit but several misses. This provoked attacks of opportunity from the monk (thanks to Snake Style) and she sundered a cage on the necklace of lovelies, liberating the fairy inside. When it was her action, she shattered another cage and lashed the remaining blows against the Bride who was also attacking unsuccessfully.

The black smilodons attacked the rest of the party, and the alchemist got badly mauled in particular. The ranger's wolf took some hits, as did the dwarf cleric's clockwork charger. The alchemist responded by ramming a handful of bombs in the attacking smilodon's mouth and ramming it shut, inflicting a lot of bomb damage. The ranger did his machine-gun impression, and the magus shrugged off attacks with multiple images.

Meanwhile the monk manages to unleash a flurry of sunders that destroyed the necklace of lovelies freeing the remaining pixies. She then took a critical hit from the Troll's ranseur, taking her down to 10 hit points. A forbid action from the cleric prevented the Bride interfering further, and she fled. The smilodons by this time were largely dead, and once the necklace was no longer a threat to the picies in it the ranger started shooting the Troll.

The monk decided to risk being in the fight and tripped the troll before finishing him off. The magus finished off the last smilodons with a a fire snake.

Overall a challenging but winable encounter! 'Nite all!


Have you heard about any of the Monk changes in Unchained yet?


I have heard nothing, but then I've largely been out of the loop for new Paizo stuff, it's been so busy elsewhere in my life!


I'll go ahead and copy pasta from the announcement made by Jason Bulmahn

Including both monk and rogue since you mentioned wanting to help your rogue player

Spoiler:
Monk: The original monk has many disparate abilities. While these abilities may be useful, they don't always synergize, and they are extremely inflexible. The unchained monk loosens up, gaining ki powers that allow you to customize your monk to fit your vision, whether it be a kung fu genius or wuxia mystic (my favorites are the ones like ki visions that let you gain divination powers that affect the narrative out of combat!). The unchained monk also has a full base attack bonus, an all-new flurry of blows, and some martial arts style strikes that help him reach his true potential (my favorite is flying kick, which lets you perform a leaping kick out to a distance equal to your extra monk movement speed once per flurry—mobile combatant for the win!).

Rogue: The original rogue has plenty of skill points and a damage increase in the form of sneak attack, but she needed a way to rule her own niche, especially with all the other classes that have things like big skill bonuses and accuracy boosts. The unchained rogue has a powerful debilitation ability that dramatically alters her ability to hit or dodge her foe, rogue's edge, which allows her to do unique things with her favorite skills (figure out surface thoughts with Sense Motive, Bluff so well you bypass truth-telling magic, use Disable Device reactively to protect yourself from a triggered trap, and much more!), and a significant boost to some of her rogue talents (For instance, minor magic? Yeah, you get that cantrip at-will). She also gets Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat and the ability to add her Dexterity to weapon damage!


OK...this I will have to see.


From what it sounds like, the monk is gonna be getting their own version of rogue talents and rage powers and magus arcana and such


Yeah....I want to know if they have addressed the monk's main problems though: overly MAD, and over-dependence on the AoMF.

Anyway, last session...

Kingmaker Spoilers:

The party continued searching for the Castle of Knives when the final encounter happened: the Jaberwock!

This was a pretty nasty encounter, but I confess I expected the Jabberwock to last longer than it did. The main issue was the ranger, who used instant enemy the swine...

OK. The peals of thunder forewarned the party, and many had their buffs up when the jabberwock swooped out of the sky. Many of the party buffed up on the opening round, although the cleric hit it with a cold ice strike, and it responded by biting him with a Power Attack/Vital Strike bite, which really hurt. The party waded in, and the monk and ranger got some nasty hits in and the jabberwock's hit points started falling fast despite it's DR. The magus getting a hit in with briar was the final straw, the creature burbled and then flew off (only the rogue was effected). It was to circle and regain hits points from it's fast healing, but the magus pursued it. The monk tried to get a grapple on it, but failed and fell to earth. The blasted ranger kept following on her wolf, and the jabberwock hit her with a Vital Strike eye-ray and took her down to 4hp. Sadly, the magus got ahead of the jabberwock and got in a full attack with Briar, and the jabberwock was no more...

The party found the Castle of Knives the next day, along with the strategically placed frozen forms of the PCs they will be using for a spin-off game (the Iron Wraiths had met the medusa).

Edit: for the record, the rogue re-trained a lot of his levels as Arcane Trickster. He's got a lot more magic now...

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