Taijutsu's page

Somebody's probably come up with these already, but hey :) What do you think?

You want your monk weapons to scale, but you don't want to use brass knuckles? Sure, spend a feat.

I was going to specifically state that this feat does not apply to style feats, but I changed my mind. It was def. a knee-jerk response as it really wouldn't change too much.
The broken styles would stay broken and the non-broken feats would stay unbroken.
I considered having this also grant unarmed strike damage to ranged attacks, but that'd make the Zen archer archetype a bit obsolete.
I also considered making a ranged monk weapon feat and set it to later level so that the Zen archer has early entry vs. someone using the feat, but then I realized that the next feat already covers that.

Aka "flurry with a greatsword!" :P
This definitely steps on the Zen archer's toes, but they still get most of the advantages of these feats for free and earlier, so whatever.
4/5 feats is a lot of feats to emulate 1 class feature so I'm cool with it (Proficiency(?), Weapon Focus, Monk Weapon training, Ki weapon training, Focused Monk Weapon Training).
You can get to the feat pretty early if you focus entirely on this tree from the get go. This is intended. This way you can get a slight boost to your damage until your unarmed strike catches up 5-7 levels later.
I might want to change this to include melee weapons only, as the capability to use style feats and such (see Ki Weapon Training) with a ranged weapon might allow for some rather silly shenanigans. On the other hand, I am a firm believer that Martial Characters Can Have Nice Things Too so maybe not :)

Thoughts?

Advanced giant fiendish dire T-Rex... Sounds good.

If by good you mean "horrific gaping maw of death", absolutely :D

I am seeking advice on making a 1st-level version of an Awakened Deinonychus who will become a Ranger as he progresses through the campaign. I built a regular Deinonychus but way too powerful for a first level game.

There's some applicable stuff in section "Monsters as PC's" in the bestiary. As far as being too powerful, you could try and convince your GM to start at a higher level. However, you might find more success by applying the "young" template to your pc, lowering its CR to 2. You'd be roughly equivalent to level 2, which is not that bad when you consider how quickly most games zoom past level 1.

Also, have you considered going as a rogue? High dex, 5 natural attacks, sneak attack, and pounce = win of awesomeness. It works especially well with the roleplaying aspect as well. A sneaky, smart, acrobatic dinosaur that jumps on people just SCREAMS rogue at me :) You could "clever girl" people all up in their business :D

I'm building a recurring villain inquisitor for my game who uses a conductive sword to use some nasty abilities. For most of his spell-like abilities it's very clear how this works. He hits somebody with the sword, and once per round can expend two charges of that ability and WHAM! One Touch of Chaos/Laughing Touch in your face! However, I'm having trouble with one of his spell-like abilities, chill touch, which he gets as a racial spell-like ability.

Chill touch explicitly states that the caster of the spell can use the melee touch attack once per level. This dude is currently 6th level, so if he were to use this spell-like ability normally, he could zap someone 6 times after activating it.

The Conductive property states

If he were to attack with his sword and conduct chill touch, would it:
1. Use up two of his per day uses of the Spell-like ability Chill
Touch.
2. Use up two of the 6 zaps per activation of the Spell-like
ability Chill Touch?

My main problem here is the ambiguity of the word "uses" in the Conductive Property and how "channeling" the ability does not state whether the effect of the ability is transferred through the sword strike or if the ability itself is activated through the sword strike.

What say ye?

The mount should have the stealth bonus too. Being large hurts their skill.

I run it that the mounted person makes the skill checks for him/herself AND the mount for my sanity. :P If you notice, I mentioned the mount's size penalty in my notes immediately following. But sure, I'll add that in. :)

Keep this. It reminds me of someone who's distracting the slaver and standing in the way so the slaves can escape. Fits the theme perfectly.

Yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking :)

Swift Escape: So long as his allies remain within 30 feet, the cavalier and his/her allies gain a +5 bonus to their base speed a number of rounds per day equal to the cavalier's level. This bonus increases by +5 at 6th level, and another +5 every four levels thereafter.

Hmm...yeah, shared movement bonuses does work better thematically. It's also a bit harder to replicate with magic which is nice (I am very much in favor of giving martial characters cool things special to them). It'd probably be used a lot more as well, especially with parties including short people. I'm not sure how I feel the name change though. Swift escape and daring escape sound too similar. It's not a big deal though.

Daring Escape: Once per day as a swift action, the cavalier and his/her allies can use the Withdraw action as a standard action, rather than a full-round action. Additionally, whenever the cavalier and his/her allies withdraw from combat while using this ability, they do not provoke an attack of opportunity.

I don't know. I'm still deliberating. I'm currently favoring Westbrook's idea. I mean, what happens if the baddies are in front of the group of escaping slaves? lol

Lots of good feedback. I'm going to have to think some more.

Specifically which part seems unclear?

Heh, this is pretty cool :) I may use this as a recurring enemy in my campaign :D

I'm currently DM-ing a game, and I came up with this idea for a cavalier order. I envision cavaliers of this order as somewhat of a cross between French freedom-fighters from WWII and conductors from the Underground Railroad pre-civil war era (and dudes who run people over on horses :P). In my head this order was founded by a half-orc with a personal vendetta against slavers and species-ists, if that matters.

Order of the Eagle. In-game I'm going to use a different name, but this is the generic one.

Edict: Take any opportunity to fight slavery, tyranny, and oppression. A cavalier of this order values life's intrinsic value, but will kill to defend his/herself and others. A cavalier of the eagle does not actively try to break just laws, but holds the cause of liberty to be higher than the law if needs be.

--This is a bit more vague than some of the other edicts, but I feel the RP challenge of this can be just as great/rewarding as the others.--

Challenge: All allies of the cavalier gain +1 AC circumstance bonus against the target of the cavalier's challenge so long as it is threatened by the cavalier. This bonus increases by +1 for every four levels the cavalier possesses. --This is basically the same as the order of the dragons, just switched from offense to defense--

Skills: Survival and Stealth are class skills. The Cavalier gains 1/2 his/her level (minimum 1) to stealth while he is mounted.

--I thought this might be OP at first, so I changed it to a "mounted only" bonus. At max level this barely cancels out the armor check and size penalty of the mount to stealth.--

~~Edit~~This bonus should apply regardless of whether you have the cavalier or mount roll the stealth check. I run it that the PC makes one skill check for the PC and the mount when they are both doing the same thing, because it's way easier than trying to muddle through the iffy mounted rules.

Order powers:
The pattern for these seem to be:
1. Small, boring but practical thing
2. Something about a feat strength, plus another very specific limited cool thing.
3. Something awesome but with veeeeeery short duration. More of a "tipping point" or a strategy thing than a buff.

Lvl 2 power: Swift Steed. The Cavalier gains 10 ft to his/her base speed while mounted. this increases by 5 ft at 6th lvl and every four levels after 6th.

--Mounts are usually pretty fast, so if I need to scale something back, I can just make this a flat bonus of just 10 to match Barbarians. A lot of orders and archetypes have surges of speed, but this fits better thematically--

Lvl 8 power: Reckless tactics. The Cavalier gains Mobility as a bonus feat, ignoring prereq's. In addition, whenever the cavalier is subjected to an Attack of Opportunity, the cavalier can retaliate in kind (the cavalier's AoO is resolved after the opponents). This ability does not allow the cavalier to make more than one AoO per round. The Cavalier can choose to forego Mobility's bonus to AC for a +4 circumstantial bonus to attack on the cavalier's retaliatory strike.

--This is a bit of fun little YOLO strat. It's a bit similar to the Panther style feat, but it's a little easier to trigger at the cost of always being resolved second--

Lvl 15 power: Daring Escape. As a swift action, the cavalier can grant his/her allies (including him/herself) immunity to damage and damage-based effects from Attacks of Opportunity for one round. Allies must be able to see or hear the cavalier for this to have effect. No one can benefit from this more than once per combat. The cavalier can use this ability once per day.

--This would be horrendously broken if someone could benefit from it multiple times or for more than one round, but the action economy makes it awesome instead of awesome but broken. I also have a variant in mind that makes allies simply not provoke AoO at all, but there are lots of cool abilities and feats based off of AoO's and I didn't want to take those away from ppl who decided to specialize in them. It also makes sense thematically, as *~Daring Escapes~* are less about removing obstacles and more about overcoming them. It would also not stack with the level 8 bonus, which is a possible balance to it being stronger.--

I think this order is kind of cool because it conjures up rather different images of derring-do than your typical dude in armor who runs over people. It also allows for Chaotic Good-types to have fun with cavaliers which I feel can otherwise be difficult. Mechanically speaking, its focus on AoO's and stealth is unique for cavaliers.

What do you think?

Have you heard from your players?

Yes, that was I. Thanks! I'm completely open every Saturday except for about one evening a month so that would be really great if you could do that. My phone number is 801-609-1024. I get text and calls for free (Google voice is pretty sweet), so please contact me whichever way you prefer.

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