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I was curious about the Samsaran Monk of the Healing Hand. This is either not truly a sacrifice or one of the truest sacrifices around.
A samsaran's life is not a linear progression from birth to death, but rather a circle of birth to death to rebirth. Whenever a samsaran dies, it reincarnates anew as a young samsaran to live a new life. Her past memories remain vague and indistinct—and each new incarnation is as different a creature and personality as a child is to a parent.
True Sacrifice (Su): At 20th level, in a final selfless act, a monk of the healing hand can draw in his entire ki, which then explodes outward in a 50-foot-radius emanation. All dead allies within the emanation are brought back to life, as if they were the subject of a true resurrection spell with a caster level equal to the monk’s level. When the monk does this, he is truly and utterly destroyed. A monk destroyed in this way can never come back to life, not even by way of a wish or miracle spell or by the power of a deity. Furthermore, the monk’s name can never be spoken or written down again. All written mentions of his name become nothing more than a blank space.
The outcome of this odd pairing really can only take one of three forms; either the samsaran is truly utterly destroyed, not truly utterly destroyed, or something in-between. This much I am absolutely sure of.
Truly Utterly Destroyed: The old adage is "mechanics trumps flavor" so it would make complete sense for the samsaran to not reincarnate anew as a young samsaran. In this outcome the samsaran made a truly great sacrifice, not only giving up its current life and the past lives it had accrued but also any lives it might have lived in the future. Truly a loss for the samsaran community and the world.
Not Truly Utterly Destroyed: Because the mechanics of true sacrifice are talking about that particular player character and the flavor of the samsaran race states "each new incarnation is as different a creature and personality as a child is to a parent" it may stand to reason that the samsaran would still be reincarnated.
Something In-Between: What if both happened at the same time? Yes, the samsaran was reincarnated as their race is want to do, but true sacrifice also took place, robbing the new samsaran from the inheritance of their memories of their past lives or even bleeding through into their current incarnation. This could manifest as not having a name or even having no memories at all; merely popping into existence as a child with little to no knowledge of the world around them.
Now that I think about it, this could be a really cool back story (pending GM approval) for a samsaran character. You could even swap out the Shards of the Past racial feature for the Forgotten Past (Story Feat). In order to fulfill the completion requirements of the feat, the samsaran character might have to solve the mystery of the nameless hero who scarified their life to save his adventuring companions. After all, a samsaran pulls off true sacrifice and you happen to manifest around the same time with memory issues? Not the needle in the haystack it first appears, but there is still plenty of room for mystery. Maybe the evil they defeated still lurks in some form, ready for a CR appropriate encounter to finish the job...
Thoughts?
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I, personally, would lean towards Truely Utterly Destroyed, mostly for flavor purposes. As you said yourself, if the Samsaran just reincarnates afterward then it isn't even remotely a true sacrifice.
I can potentially see situations where as a GM I might decide that option 3 could make for a great story and where I would incorperate it, but the catch would be that I would never tell the player beforehand that I was going to do this. The player must believe that thier character is making a TRUE SACRIFICE and that they will be gone forever, otherwise it tarnishes the whole thing and trivializes the act of self sacrifice.
^ +1
Specific > General, and Cannot > Can.
You are truly and utterly destroyed, and cannot be restored to life. Not even by your racial reincarnation fluff.
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Yeah, it's a pretty terrible ability, all in all. Your capstone ability, the thing you've waited 20 levels for, the culmination of your ENTIRE CLASS...is the ability to blow yourself up so hard even the gods don't know how to put Humpty back together.
Yeah, it's a pretty terrible ability, all in all. Your capstone ability, the thing you've waited 20 levels for, the culmination of your ENTIRE CLASS...is the ability to blow yourself up so hard even the gods don't know how to put Humpty back together.
Hey, with enough of them, you can eli8minate the English language.
You blows up, no one can say "you".The blows up, no one can say "the".
And so on.
Pretty potent stuff.
Yeah, it's a pretty terrible ability, all in all. Your capstone ability, the thing you've waited 20 levels for, the culmination of your ENTIRE CLASS...is the ability to blow yourself up so hard even the gods don't know how to put Humpty back together.Hey, with enough of them, you can eli8minate the English language.
You blows up, no one can say "you".
The blows up, no one can say "the".
And so on.
Pretty potent stuff.
You have to at least consider the possibility an adventurer shares a name with at least someone else in the world (unless you are a gnome, and then it is a total crap shoot). Statistically, the more common a name the more likely someone with that name is to reach level 20 in this archetype. If someone had the most popular name and went true sacrifice...
Or, maybe it is just whenever something references THEM that the name is removed, people cannot say it (because it is forgotten), and everyone else is fine.
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I dunno, I prefer the interpretation that when Dave the Monk dies every other Dave in the world is basically wiped from existence (in a legal sense).
And the havoc that could be wreaked upon the world if a Monk named Zero sacrificed himself.
Funnier that way.
I keep forgetting how hard I rewrote that ability for our games.
As far as I'm concerned, that ability is one of the ways Samsarans are made.
its stuff like this that makesme appreciate your inight mikaze.
Ooh, not to mention you can remove Asmodeus from the Pact Primeval with it.
He can't sign it if he has no name.
I'm a sucker for narrative. I like option 3.
Though option 1 is most likely intended.
I don't see any reason to worry about it, since no one ever takes that archetype.
I know this is the rules forum, but given this is a specific case that is almost entirely based on what are pieces of fluff:
What happens is whatever your GM feels should happen for the story. Under that, 2/3 seem more interesting by leagues.
Well, excluding some of the admitted brilliance if a player was going in LazarX's point.
That aside, I don't imagine there is a RAI to this because these are two concepts within completely different grounds. It's apples vs suspension bridges, let alone oranges.
By RAW - one follows mechanics trump flavour and thus the consequence of the ability is always perma-death.
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A Samsaran monk who sacrifices himself this way has found one of the few ways to escape the wheel of reincarnation. He is truly dead and gone.
I now have an idea for a character. A Samsaran who had been reincarnated countless times, with the details of past lives vague as usual, but he has the remembrance of all of his deaths available to him with perfect clarity.
He wants nothing more than to be ripped free from the wheel, and becomes a monk of the healing hand to try to do so.
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A Samsaran monk who sacrifices himself this way has found one of the few ways to escape the wheel of reincarnation. He is truly dead and gone.I now have an idea for a character. A Samsaran who had been reincarnated countless times, with the details of past lives vague as usual, but he has the remembrance of all of his deaths available to him with perfect clarity.
He wants nothing more than to be ripped free from the wheel, and becomes a monk of the healing hand to try to do so.
I suppose a samsaran who becomes a monk of the healing hand to find release from the cycle of death and rebirth is little different from a character who becomes an alchemist to attain eternal youth. Both enter into specialized training to unlock a hidden secret that will fulfill their wishes. Only real difference is one gets to enjoy their final ability a lot longer than the other... usually.
Also, side question... if a samsaran uses true sacrifice and is utterly destroyed, does that only affect the samsaran's current incarnation or does it erase all of the samsaran's past incarnations from the universe as well?
Seems to me the samsarang wouldn't be reincarnated because his/her soul just got a fast track to one of the higher planes outsiders.
To be honest I think the narrative of this power is amazing if used at the end of a campaign and the soul reson for winning (and really you use it to stop a tpk) its the sort of thing players remember decades later.
Just a pity no one can remember the name of bobs monk.
I would rule it with A.) You think you're truly destroyed but the reincarnation still happens... Next time you roll a samsaran there will be some perks for your most memorable sacrifice
Hey, with enough of them, you can eli8minate the English language.
You blows up, no one can say "you".
The blows up, no one can say "the".
And so on.
Pretty potent stuff.
Monk Dad: "You know, I've always hated how wizards can fly out of reach." *names sons Levitate, Fly, and Overland Flight, and raises them as Monks of Healing*
But seriously, RAW says they ain't comin' back. Meanwhile, RAA (Rules According to Awesome) say that every single one of the past lives and future lives is sacrificed, providing enough fuel for the monk to ascend to godhood as the Nameless God, referred to only by titles and whose precepts cannot be written down by mortal hands. Major bonus points if he took the Vow of Silence.