Twinstrike Monk
The monk Celeratis, inspired by the fast movement of monks, experimented with rapid attacks. He discovered a new rhythm of quick pairs of strikes. The blows were made so fleetingly that they cannot take full advantage of strength or enchantment, but the frequency of the hits made up for that lack. Celeratis established a school devoted to speed, which became known as the Twinstrike Monks.
Twinstrike (Ex). Starting at 1st level, whenever a Twinstrike Monk begins a standard action or a full-round action that could attack with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon, he may declare twinstrike. All attacks in that action beccome twinstrike attacks. A twinstrike attack splits into a pair of strikes. Attack strikes are like attacks. They resolve with attack rolls and deal damage to an opponent using the same rules as attacks. Strikes use the same attack bonus that the unsplit attack would have had. For example, at eighth level a monk in a twinstrike standard action gets a pair of strikes at +6/+6 BAB and in a twinstrike full-attack action gets two pairs of strikes at +6/+6/+1/+1 BAB.
A monk cannot twinstrike while encumbered, wearing armor, or using a shield.
During a strike the monk may attack only with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon (brass knuckles, cestus, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, and temple sword). Non-monk weapons, including natural weapons, cannot be used during a strike. The monk may not use the same weapon twice during a single twinstrike attack, except for unarmed strike. The monk cannot draw weapons nor take a five-foot step between the strikes of a twinstrike attack, but he can draw shurikens and other ammunition. The monk may skip either strike during a twinstrike attack. Neither hand counts as an off hand during a twinstrike and the monk may not make an off-hand attack in a twinstrike action. A twinstrike standard action is allowed only one pair of strikes.
During a strike, a monk gets full damage from the weapon or unarmed strike, but the additional damage modifiers to the weapon damage, such as Strength modifier, enchantment bonus, Power Attack, Favored Enemy, and Smite, are halved and their total is rounded down. For example, a Twinstrike Monk with a +3 Strength modifier striking with a +1 kama would deal only 1d6+2 damage rather than 1d6+4 damage. The additional damage modifiers that are multiplied by one half are those that would be multiplied during a critical hit.
Secondary effects that trigger upon a successful hit or critical hit, such as the additional electricity damage from a shocking weapon, the stun attempt from the Stunning Fist feat, the Sneak Attack damage from the Rogue ability, or the Bleeding Critical feat, trigger only once per attack. The effect happens upon the first successful strike during which the secondary effect is in use. Energy resistance and damage reduction apply per attack rather than per strike. For example, if a monk hits an opponent with damage reduction 10/- in a first strike dealing 7 damage and a second strike dealing 8 damage, then the 7 damage from the first strike is reduced to 0, and the 8 damage from the second stroke is reduced to 5, so that the total damage from the attack is reduced by 10. Any effect that ordinarily affects an attack roll of a single attack, such as a True Strike spell, affects both attack strike rolls in that twinstrike attack.
The Twinstrike Monk may substitute the melee-attack combat maneuvers--trip, disarm, and sunder--for melee strikes in a twinstrike as if the melee strikes were melee attacks. He may also twinstrike during special-attack actions: combat maneuvers, attacks from combat feats, Aid Another, and grapple check. All strikes in that special attack will have the effects of the special attack. The special-attack strikes in one attack do not have to have the same target: the attack may aid two distinct allies, disarm opponents of two distinct weapons, and so forth. A monk does not fail a twinstrike grapple check until he fails all grapple check strike rolls in the grapple check.
Damage Blocking (Ex}. Starting a first level, when a Twinstrike Monk hits an opponent and the additional damage modifer to the weapon damage, such as Strength modifier, enchantment bonus, Power Attack, Favored Enemy, and Smite, sum to at least one (before being divided by two for a strike), the monk may chose to not apply those modifiers to the opponent and instead apply 2 points of damage reduction onto that opponent. This damage reduction reduces the next 2 points of damage dealt by that opponent in attacks before the monk's next turn. The relevant additional damage is the additional damage that would be multiplied by a critical hit. This damage reduction stacks if applied multiple times.
For example, a first-level monk with Strength 12 hitting an opponent with a kama for 1d6+1 damage can instead use this ability and hit for only 1d6 damage and put 2 points of damage reduction on the opponent. If the opponent attacks before the monk's next turn, the damage dealt in that attack is reduced by 2.
The damage reduction increases to 3 points at third level and by one additional point every odd level after that.
Flashing Fists (Ex}. Starting at fifth level, a Twinstrike Monk gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls for unarmed strikes and for combat manuevers without weapons. At ninth level, that attack roll bonus increases to +2 and it increases by an additional +1 for every fourth level after that.
Strike of Opportunity (Ex). Starting at ninth level, a Twinstrike Monk may twinstrike during an attack of opportunity.
Mixed Maneuvers (Ex). Starting at thirteenth level, a Twinstrike Monk can mix together ordinary and special attacks in the same twinstrike. During a twinstrike he may use any attack strike or special-attack strike for either strike, regardless of the type of action and the nature of the other strike. Two exceptions are that a bull rush standard action made during movement must contain at least one bull rush strike and a grapple check action must contain at least one grapple check strike. A third exception is that a combat feat strike can be made only during the action appropriate for that combat feat, such as a Vital Strike strike occuring only during a Vital Strike action.
Triplestrike (Ex). Starting at seventeenth level, a Twinstrike Monk makes three strikes during a twinstrike attack.
Twinstrike, Damage Blocking, Flashing Fists, Strike of Opportunity, Mixed Maneuvers, and Triplestrike replace Flurry of Blows and Maneuver Training. A twinstrike full-attack action counts as a flurry of blows for all other abilities and feats that interact with a flurry of blows.
I'll put my explanation down here in the comments to avoid crowding the archetype.
A few weeks ago in a discussion about monk's using nonmonk weapons, I created a mathematical model of the Flurry of Blows ability. In real life, I use mathematical models to find the heart of a process in order to improve the process. So I also used the model to examine the heart of Flurry of Blows.
The heart of Flurry of Blows is, "A monk gets twice as many attacks with weapons that deal half damage."
The half damage is half the damage of martial two-handed weapons. The model also said that Flurry of Blows was an unbalanced approximation of this, because the half damage did not take damage modifiers or additional damage dice into account. Using a unbalanced approximation is fine: that is one way to create different styles for different classes. But this particular imbalance makes the monk depend heavily on damage modifiers such as Strength bonus and enchanted weapons. I feel that that style is wrong for the monk.
Therefore, I rebuilt Flurry of Blows in a more elegant form as Twinstrike. Twinstrike is weaker than Flurry of Blows. The twinstrike concept nearly perfectly balances strength and weakness to end up no more powerful than weapon proficiency in martial two-handed weapons. Except that twinstrike makes combat maneuvers and other special attacks more reliable. Therefore, I added the other five abilities to restore the effectiveness of the monk.
I'll cover the five other abilities here. I put them at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th level as compensation for the monk skipping a +1 to BAB at those levels due to having only a 3/4 BAB progression.
1st level: Damage Blocking - In the martial arts movies, we see the monk blocking blows as much as dealing blows. Real martial arts teach blocking too. This ability tries to represent that without using immediate actions. Furthermore, the monk's role as the character who can stay on his or her feet with good saves and good AC is trivial unless that ability can be used to protect other members of the party. This gives the monk a way to protect his or her adventuring companions.
5th level: Flashing Fists - The monk was envisioned in Third Edition D&D as a bare-handed combatant. The 3.0 D&D Player's Handbook said, "The key feature of the monk is her ability to fight unarmed and unarmored. Thanks to her rigorous training, she can strike as hard as if she were armed and strike faster than a warrior with a sword." The problem is that past the lowest levels, the characters fight with enchanted weapons. The monk's unarmed strike damage grows to keep pace with striking as hard as an enchanted sword, but without a bonus to attack, it does not strike as well as an enchanted sword. Flashing Fists is a correction to this oversight.
9th level: Strike of Opportunity - A fighter with a two-handed weapon gets to use it during attacks of opportunity, so a monk should get to use his or her equivalent, too.
13th level: Mixed Maneuvers - Time to start breaking the rules. This ability is designed to allow playful, creative, and effective combinations of combat maneuvers and combat feats.
17th level: Triplestrike - At seventeenth level, the monk is overdue for raw power.
The half damage is half the damage of martial two-handed weapons.
You're right... at first level. By 20th level the monk is dealing approximately twice the damage of a two-handed melee weapon if you're only looking at damage dice. I'm pretty sure monks' flurry of blows isn't meant to be "twice as many attacks at half damage." Especially since the damage die is such a tiny portion of the actual damage you do. For instance, strength bonus and power attack, two much larger components, aren't halved among the monk's normal flurry attacks.
It's not x2,/2; It's just different.
It's also worth noting that your twin strike nerfs power attack relative to a normal monk, who treats his BAB as full for calculating power attack damage bonuses when flurrying.
Your rationale for some of these seems flawed, too. Monks can get amulets of mighty fists. Enhancement bonus to attack. Boom.
Nice ideas, though!
The half damage is half the damage of martial two-handed weapons.You're right... at first level. By 20th level the monk is dealing approximately twice the damage of a two-handed melee weapon if you're only looking at damage dice. I'm pretty sure monks' flurry of blows isn't meant to be "twice as many attacks at half damage." Especially since the damage die is such a tiny portion of the actual damage you do. For instance, strength bonus and power attack, two much larger components, aren't halved among the monk's normal flurry attacks.
It's not x2,/2; It's just different.
I confess that I have never played a character past 13th level, so I have to rely on second-hand accounts for actual play at higher levels. Yet I have not heard anyone talk about how awesome a monk's damage is when weapon damage dice no longer matter. Flurry of Blows, without aid from the ki pool, is precisely twice the attacks of a full-BAB full attack action at 1st through 5th, 8th through 10th, and 15th level, and fairly close to twice the attacks at other levels. Twice the attacks and all else the same ought to mean twice the damage, which would be very powerful.
So even when the weapon damage no longer matters, when Strength bonus, enchantment bonus, and Power Attack provide the bulk of the damage, something else is holding the monk back. The harshest descriptions I have read say that the monk must stand still to use Flurry of Blows and he does not have the hit points at high level to survive that. If that is true, and I do not have the experience to judge its truth, then at high levels Flurry of Blows means twice as many attacks used less than half as often.
If something else prevents a high-level flurrying monk from being damage incarnate, I would appreciate someone explaining it to me.
It's also worth noting that your twin strike nerfs power attack relative to a normal monk, who treats his BAB as full for calculating power attack damage bonuses when flurrying.
Yes, leaving the full-BAB clause out of Twinstrike weakens Power Attack. At higher levels the monk's BAB lags about 4 points behind, so he misses out on an additional -1 to attack and +2 to damage per attack while using Power Attack. This is one reason why the motif of the Twinstrike Monk talks about sacrificing power for speed.
Your rationale for some of these seems flawed, too. Monks can get amulets of mighty fists. Enhancement bonus to attack. Boom.
Do you think I should change Flashing Fists? Any suggestions?
Nice ideas, though!
Thank you.