Currently, this ability is basically totally useless. "Under rare circumstances, you take a bit less damage from a rare circumstance which is rarely dangerous anyway."
My suggestion is to change it so that 4th level monks can slowfall any distance as long as they're within arms reach of a wall, and let the listed distances reduce damage from freefalls (so a 4th level monk takes freefalls as if they were 20 feet less, a 10th level takes freefalls as if they were 50 ft. less, and a 20th level monk doesn't take freefall damage at all). This A) is actually kinda useful, B) in't the least bit overpowered, C) doesn't especially effect backwards compatibility, and D) is really really cool (if I do say so myself).
Thoughts?
As I posted elsewhere, this is what I would do with the slowfall ability.
I was thinking that. Multiply all the slowfall distances by 1.5 or so (30 ft, 45 ft, 60 ft, 75 ft, 100 ft) and then have unlimited slowfall at 14th. Alternatively, have 25 ft at 4th, 50 ft at 6th, 75 ft at 8th, 100 ft at 10th and unlimited at 12th.
As I posted elsewhere, this is what I would do with the slowfall ability.
I was thinking that. Multiply all the slowfall distances by 1.5 or so (30 ft, 45 ft, 60 ft, 75 ft, 100 ft) and then have unlimited slowfall at 14th. Alternatively, have 25 ft at 4th, 50 ft at 6th, 75 ft at 8th, 100 ft at 10th and unlimited at 12th.
This doesn't solve the problem. The ability is still meaningless and still not very cool.
The ability is highly specific and not terribly useful, I'll grant you. I happen to think that it is quite cool though.
While it does not happen much, me and my players find it a cool and flavorful ability
The idea I had for modifying slow fall is based on Jackie Chan and that crazy stuntman from X-Men, MIB, and the last Die Hard movie.
Both those men demonstrate an almost inhuman ability to climb walls.
What if a monk could climb a distance equal to half his slow fall distance as a move action?
That ability is a pretty common staple of the old Kun-Fu theater movies and even shows up in The Hidden Kingdom (of course so does Jackie Chan).
Cheers
The ability is highly specific and not terribly useful, I'll grant you. I happen to think that it is quite cool though.
Yes... but wouldn't it be much cooler if my suggestion were implemented?
Oh the distance (and any damage mitigation) can be calculated as you suggest or however Jason wants. I just thought adding the ability to move up the walls to the ability to move down the walls would make Slow Fall more useful.
Maybe he'll rename it Chameleon style. :-P
Cheers
Of coruse it would be cool to have unlimited slowfall really early on, but I don't think it needs to be unlimited so early.
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Other options;
1) Take dice right off the top. -1d6 falling damage per Monk level, to total immunity to falling damage (as long as conscious and able to take an action, so not stunned or pinned or paralyzed or whatever) at 10th level, would allow a first level Monk to fall 10 ft. and take no damage, and to fall 20 ft. and take no damage if he makes the appropriate Acrobatics check.
2) At X level, the Monk rolls falling damage normally, and then takes only half. At X+Y level, the Monk takes a quarter falling damage. At 10th-ish level, the Monk takes no falling damage.
3) Falling damage becomes nonlethal damage, and then no damage at all, at 10th level.
4) The Monk must make a Reflex Save, modified by his ranks in Acrobatics, DC based on the height of the fall *or* just some static number. If the DC is based on the height of the fall, he takes half damage on a success, and no damage on a success by 5 or 10. If the DC is based on a static number, he takes 1d6 less damage on a success, and -1d6 additional damage for every 2, 4, 5, whatever, he makes that save by.
I'm partial to some variant of the Reflex Save + Acrobatics Ranks mechanic, personally. The DC based on height of fall thing (to a certain max once it reaches 10d6 anyway) seems like it would be quicker to adjudicate than the static DC / skill-check-dependant die reduction.
Of coruse it would be cool to have unlimited slowfall really early on, but I don't think it needs to be unlimited so early.
The monk doesn't need the ability at all. He does need as much awesome as possible, though, if he wants to be a legitimate competitor for player's attention against the other classes, and this change is low on the power level but high on the awesome.
Let me rephrase: what reasons are there to not change this? What about changing it to this is a bad idea?
@Set: Those options seem to me to be just too complicated, much more so than necessary, and not especially cool. Also, falling damage caps at 20d6 (PFRPG beta pg. 329).
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Other options;
1) Take dice right off the top. -1d6 falling damage per Monk level, to total immunity to falling damage (as long as conscious and able to take an action, so not stunned or pinned or paralyzed or whatever) at 10th level, would allow a first level Monk to fall 10 ft. and take no damage, and to fall 20 ft. and take no damage if he makes the appropriate Acrobatics check.
I find this to be the best solution, specially since it remove the limitation of needing a "wall", and additionally won't reduce the falling speed, giving a distinct favor compared to feather fall.
removing the need of the "wall" also add some logic/realism to the ability... just take this into account, would a Lvl20 Monk take damage after reaching his maximum possible height during a vertical jump?
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removing the need of the "wall" also add some logic/realism to the ability... just take this into account, would a Lvl20 Monk take damage after reaching his maximum possible height during a vertical jump?
I'm really not terribly worried about realism, here. It's all utility and ease of play for me.
The vast majority of Wuxia-style Monks either drift gracefully to the ground, drop heavily and land completely unharmed with a loud smack, or land normally, but uninjured, as if they stepped off a curb and not a tower parapet. Very few do any sort of 'smacking the wall to slow the fall' thing, and I don't think that's really necessary mechanically, thematically or for balance. It's, IMO, an unnecessary complication and can just be thrown out.
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removing the need of the "wall" also add some logic/realism to the ability... just take this into account, would a Lvl20 Monk take damage after reaching his maximum possible height during a vertical jump?I'm really not terribly worried about realism, here. It's all utility and ease of play for me.
The vast majority of Wuxia-style Monks either drift gracefully to the ground, drop heavily and land completely unharmed with a loud smack, or land normally, but uninjured, as if they stepped off a curb and not a tower parapet. Very few do any sort of 'smacking the wall to slow the fall' thing, and I don't think that's really necessary mechanically, thematically or for balance. It's, IMO, an unnecessary complication and can just be thrown out.
Same for me, but a touch of realism add some flavor.
I think Slow Fall, and almost all other physical monk' abilities should be caped around Lvl 10, from here on Monk's abilities should be more... Mystical and/or Legendary.
Of course, if monk class features were mostly converted to "ki powers" (read: spells), they could just select feather fall as a 1st level ki power and we'd be spared the need for long descriptions of unique, 20-level-scaling class features that at the end of the day are less useful than a 2,000 gp ring.
Director of Games
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There are a couple of thoughts here that I think show some promise. The first, I think we probably should remove the wall component of this effect, making it just an ability to avoid falling damage. Second, I think it is very much within the flavor of the monk to be able to use this ability to climb walls at his normal speed, up to his maximum falling distance. That might be another ability though, and not strictly tied to this one.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
wall climb would be sweet.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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There are a couple of thoughts here that I think show some promise. The first, I think we probably should remove the wall component of this effect, making it just an ability to avoid falling damage. Second, I think it is very much within the flavor of the monk to be able to use this ability to climb walls at his normal speed, up to his maximum falling distance. That might be another ability though, and not strictly tied to this one.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
I am put in mind of the psionic feat "Up the Walls."
I actually think, if you could come up with a clever name for it, it would be a reasonable combination to use the two of them together. Looking at the table, the advancement in slow fall distance is already scaled with the monk's speed bonus (albeit at a 2-to-1 scale). Perhaps the monk's movement abilities should be tied into one.
Perhaps something like this:
Feather Step (Ex): At 4th level, a monk can glide across impossible surfaces as part of her movement. A monk treats sloped or even vertical surfaces as identical to horizontal surfaces. She need not make Acrobatics or Climb checks to move along sloped or vertical surfaces unless she ends her movement on them.
A monk who falls while adjacent to a wall or other vertical surface may use her feather step to slide down the wall a distance equal to her movement rate. If the fall is greater than this distance, the monk takes falling damage as normal from the remainder of the fall.
Improved Feather Step (Ex): At 8th level, a monk's feather step ability improves, enabling her to move across liquid surfaces as if using water walk , though the monk will sink normally if she remains on liquid at the end of her turn. The monk may also move across difficult terrain without a reduction in movement (magically manipulated terrain may still interfere with movement).
A monk who falls, even if not near a wall, may fall any distance up to her speed without suffering damage. If the fall is greater than this distance, the monk takes falling damage as normal from the remainder of the fall.
Thoughts?
(cool monk movement abilities)...
Nice Jason! Feather Step and Improved Feather Step are full of monk coolness. I'm also in favor of a short duration air walk ability. Perhaps a ki use 1 round air walk at higher levels?
Monk Spells List (abridged):
1st Level: Feather fall, jump...
2nd Level: Water walk...
3rd Level:...
4th Level: Air walk.
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[Feather Step (Ex): At 4th level, a monk can glide across impossible surfaces as part of her movement. A monk treats sloped or even vertical surfaces as identical to horizontal surfaces. She need not make Acrobatics or Climb checks to move along sloped or vertical surfaces unless she ends her movement on them.
A monk who falls while adjacent to a wall or other vertical surface may use her feather step to slide down the wall a distance equal to her movement rate. If the fall is greater than this distance, the monk takes falling damage as normal from the remainder of the fall.
Improved Feather Step (Ex): At 8th level, a monk's feather step ability improves, enabling her to move across liquid surfaces as if using water walk [i], though the monk will sink normally if she remains on liquid at the end of her turn. The monk may also...
Dude, that's awesome! I officially renounce and repudiate my own ideas and embrace yours instead!
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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(cool monk movement abilities)...Nice Jason! Feather Step and Improved Feather Step are full of monk coolness. I'm also in favor of a short duration air walk ability. Perhaps a ki use 1 round air walk at higher levels?
Maybe a revision of this ability:
Abundant Step (Su): At 12th level or higher, a monk can tread upon nothingness as if using the spell air walk for 1 round at a cost of 1 point from his ki pool. At a cost of 2 points, he may slip magically between spaces as if using the spell dimension door. Either type of abundant step requires a move action to activate, and the caster level is 1/2 his monk level.
The idea for all of these is really that the monk already gets a phat level-dependent bonus to his speed, so just tying all of these things - wall-running, slow falling, water/air walking, etc. - into the monk's base movement rate already gives us his scaled max distance. We don't need to spell it out in the power's description because the monk's level-scaled speed bonus already gives it to us.
It also goes without saying that the monk would have to be unarmored and unencumbered to be doing all this wuxia stuff. :)
You forgot spider climb...
YES! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
Make dimension door a 4th level monk spell and that takes care of the rest of "abundant step." And 90% of their other "class features" duplicate spells, too. Swift haste, expeditious retreat, tongues... it would be SO EASY...
Agility powers for the win. Go-go, Wuxia-monk!
Let's not forget though that Wuxia monks fly at high levels. Giving them Air Walk if in full "wuxia-motion" would be fun too.
Yeah, in general, I think the monk works better with always-on powers rather than mucking about too much with per-day resources.
Yeah, in general, I think the monk works better with always-on powers rather than mucking about too much with per-day resources.
I'll add on to this.
Yeah, in general, I think the monk works better with always-on powers rather than mucking about too much with per-day resources.
Well, the whole "ki pool" thing boils down to spontaneous spellcasting/per-day resources, except you don't get to pick your own spells -- the game designer does it for you. But given the backlash against ranger spells (from people who would love the exact same thing if it were called "ranger talents" instead), I can see the logic behind the obfuscation in the case of the monk.
To be honest, although I'm very excited about houseruling a "ki powers" (spells list) monk in my game, I can see that many people would prefer to keep up the more rigidly-defined class abilities. That's OK -- Jason has done such an excellent job with the paladin, rogue, and sorcerer, for example, that his final monk almost can't help but be a winner.
Honestly, I'm not too keen on the ki pool. In general, spending points/uses to activate abilities strikes me as a poor balance mechanism (and unfun), and I'd like to stay away from it whenever possible. Granted, it's kinda the basis of most class abilities in D&D, but that doesn't mean we should switch everything over to it.
I agree with the thought that the monk's powers should generally just be 'on' and the lack of a need for the 'Ki' pool. Part of the fun in playing any non caster is to limit some of the extra math needed and the current developments are starting to encroach on that a little (not enough to not be worth having them though!). The wall climb stuff makes sense and has precedent going all the way back to Advanced D&D so I'm good with that too.
This thread has many cool ideas for the monk. I think the monk has plenty of cool abilities now already, so it doesn't need 'fixing' in this regard, but hey, if even cooler abilities can be provided, I am not going to protest.
Honestly, I'm not too keen on the ki pool. In general, spending points/uses to activate abilities strikes me as a poor balance mechanism (and unfun), and I'd like to stay away from it whenever possible. Granted, it's kinda the basis of most class abilities in D&D, but that doesn't mean we should switch everything over to it.
I like to see a diversity of resource management in D&D - it makes things more interesting. I was a bit leery on the ki pool, when the Barbarian had a rage pool, but with the rage revision, no other class currently spends points to fuel abilities, so ki pool seems fine to me, as do alway on abilities.
I like to see a diversity of resource management in D&D - it makes things more interesting. I was a bit leery on the ki pool, when the Barbarian had a rage pool, but with the rage revision, no other class currently spends points to fuel abilities, so ki pool seems fine to me, as do alway on abilities.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't like resource management in my roleplaying game, at least not in the "sleep 8 hours to regain it" sense. If nothing else, I feel as if there should always be the ability to push yourself further but at great cost, which makes way for the dramatic situation of being exhausted but stretching yourself for that one last blow which you hope will end the fight. D&D doesn't really have any way of modeling that correctly. Once you're out of spells per day, that's it. But that's a rant for another day.
Oh wow... I love the idea behind Feather Step and Imp. Feather step. I always liked the idea of Slow Fall as reducing fall damage, but never saw the chance to exercise it much in many games. The thing that sticks with me is that if you remove the external focus of being next to an object to reduce the fall damage from, it seems like it could turn into a {Spend X Ki Points to reduce the fall damage by X amount, where X is the number of 10-foot increments the fall is reduced by."} *thinks* Not bad, really, but then again, if i have the Ki points available, I'm not going to hesitate to knock X number of feet off of my fall if it means survival.
I also love the climb ideas too.
Still, if (given the above idea of falling reduction) Xpoints for Xd6 is possible, then that opens up the potential for adding energy effects or damage effects, or ability damage effects revolving around that d6 as a representative of the level of force that the monk can manipulate to his own ends.
Also I never like how the monk could fall 20 ft and take NO damage but if he falls 10ft further he takes full damage and doesnt even get to reduce it at all. Not sure if that was changed in Beta already.
From the SRD:
"When first using this ability, she takes damage as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is."Same in the Beta PFPRG (actually, it refers to "he" instead of "she" speaking of the Monk)
So, it actually was never as you stated above. The table is a bit misleading, but the ability itself lessens your fall of the indicated distance (and so, a Monk with Slow Fall 20 ft. who falls for - physically - 30 ft. takes damage for only 10 ft of falling).
But I truly like the ideas presented here to improved the effectiveness of a (slightly lame) ability.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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How about merging the slow descent with climbing walls. After all, what the monk is really doing is creating friction with his ki energy.
The ability could be re-named "rough palm" perhaps?
In addition to the slow fall, the monk can make a Climb check with a bonus, no climbing gear necessary. Or perhaps gain a climb speed.
This would help in situations where the party might be stuck in an annoying location or help the monk grab a hard-to-reach object or get into position to jump kick an attacking wyvern.
A similar idea might be to use the same system for Climb that the monk already uses with the High Jump ability for Acrobatics, perhaps with the caveat that the monk climbs at full speed not half (although her speed is already accelerated, so maybe that's gilding the lily) and/or doesn't lose DEX bonus when climbing.
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A similar idea might be to use the same system for Climb that the monk already uses with the High Jump ability for Acrobatics, perhaps with the caveat that the monk climbs at full speed not half (although her speed is already accelerated, so maybe that's gilding the lily) and/or doesn't lose DEX bonus when climbing.
While I love the ideas above about Feather Step and stuff, it might be neat to try and tie the Monk's special movement abilities to expanded uses of skills, much as the Ranger gets a special use of Track or the Bard gets a special use of Perform or the Rogue gets expanded use of Search / Disable Device.
Ultimately, anything to make skills a little more relevant, would be a nice touch (although it would be going too far in that direction if every class was kludged to have a special expanded use skill, as it doesn't fit every class concept as well).