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Hi All,
My Mystic Monk build attracted a lot of attention in another thread some time back, but I abandoned work on it at the time as Paizo said that they were not looking at a complete restructuring but just tweaks. Recently I blew the dust off it and rebuilt it somewhat. It is rather different from the typical monk in essence but not in feel, I think. A lot of monk archetypes can be restructured and made just from this base class, which I like a lot. I've included an archetype not many people would associate with the monk just as an example, I'll work on more as time goes on.
For example, Qingong Monk can simply replace the existing mystic powers with those of their own selection. Sohei and Zen Archer primarily just need the flurry options available at 1st level with non-monk weapons.
Anyway, her is is: The Mystic Monk
Very nice. Flurry is a bit . . . wonky . . . in the wording, but I was able to figure it out by referring back to your chart. Other than that, I like it.
MA
Yes, that bit needs work! But mechanically, it works well once you factor in the weapon training.
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Flurry of Blows
(re-imagined)
a monk using unarmed strikes or monk weapons may use a standard action to make a full attack.
then, for the "skeleton",
give them Feat progression as fighter.
also, Ki Pool at 2nd, followed by alternating Mystic Powers.
something like:
1- Flurry of Blows, Monk Feat
2- Monk Feat, Ki Pool, Mystic Power
3- Mystic Power
4- Monk Feat
5- Mystic Power
6- Monk Feat
7- Mystic Power
8- Monk Feat...
this way, all the Two-Weapon Fighting and Rapid Shot (which become Monk Feats) functions normally, like for all other characters, and interact with Flurry in and only in that you can move about the field too.
lastly, flesh out the rest with the usual 1st level stuff (WIS substitutions, etc), Movement upgrades at 3/6/9/12/15/18, AC upgrades at 4/7/10/13/16/19, and Unarmed Damage upgrades at 5/8/11/14/17/20, or some similar progression, or whatever else you like. (for example, i like how your Shattering Strike kicks in at 8th...)
I think the monk gets enough bonus feats as it is. I also think that giving the monk a full flurry of blows attack as a standard action is overpowered if we are also addressing the monk's other problems. The 'half-flurry' I gave the Mystic Monk is about equal to the class feature of the mobile fighter archetype - so we do not eclipse that class with it.
I don;t see the need to improve the monk's defences at all. He's already fine defensively, really. I do wonder about giving him ki-pool at 2nd, though. The Ninja gets it then...
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no sure. one can't have it all.
my intention here was to do away with the confusion at the intersection of Flurry and TWF. the two seem like unnecessary semi-parallel tracks. so i was thinking, why not the kiss principle?
and so, if we were to do away with the distinction, as Flurry already has an implied TWF feat tucked into it, we would be taking away, so the idea was to give back.
basically, i was thinking that it would be cool for the monk to Strike Twice and Move on potentially every round starting at 1st level. this emphasis on Mobility would justify them having a lower Damage Output.
maybe the Fast Flurry could be given at 1st level, and could be re-imagined as what actually constitutes Flurry of Blows. that, instead of trying to give the monk a full-round attack routine, the emphasis becomes to give the monk a scaling, multiple-strike, standard-action routine. this could leave a little free-play with the move action - such as also allowing monk to use a move-action to make a(nother) 5ft-step.
i guess i'm just wondering if there are some mechanics that we cling to even if they do not serve the 'vision' of the concept. reading these posts got me thinking about Field Mobility, and how that role could be filled by the monk. is Striking Twice with Movement at all levels an unworthy cause to pursue?
I prefer the flurry of blows to not be TWF myself - I like the flexibility of being able to use one weapon. On the flip side, I have no problem with it being incompatible with TWF. You do one or the other.
The zen strike ability lets the monk hit with his wisdom bonus and then you can spend ki to hit with your wis bonus. Was it supposed to be wis damage or something else?
No, I originally didn't include that zen strike feature, I meant to remove the other when I made it standard, obviously I missed it!
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there was a computer game awhile back that my roomate played and gave me the 3.0 tabletop open content conversion called "Everquest"
anyway, in it the Monk would get the Dual Wield feat at 1st level
Dual Wield basically let you make two attacks as a standard action at -0/-5
i have always liked that idea...
Extra attacks do not start getting important until later levels, hence I have not given them the Fast Flurry until 8th level. AT that point, it becomes meaningful.
Here's an Updated Mystic Monk with an added converted archetype, the monk of the healing hand. I've corrected the double entry with ki and zen strike, and I have adjusted the wording on the flurry of blows to hopefully make it clearer. I'll convert over some other archetypes as requested. Some I think can be accommodated by adding in a few additional mystic powers - the Qingong monk being a shining example of this.
Extra attacks do not start getting important until later levels, hence I have not given them the Fast Flurry until 8th level. AT that point, it becomes meaningful.
Here's an Updated Mystic Monk with an added converted archetype, the monk of the healing hand. I've corrected the double entry with ki and zen strike, and I have adjusted the wording on the flurry of blows to hopefully make it clearer. I'll convert over some other archetypes as requested. Some I think can be accommodated by adding in a few additional mystic powers - the Qingong monk being a shining example of this.
Sorry it took so long to get over here Dabbler. I got your PM, but I needed to check your document and actually get a chance to sit down and post. :)
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I'm going to try and address any thoughts or concerns in order of appearance through the document. If some of these seem a bit critical, please understand it is only in an effort to help so you can make even better classes. ^-^
1) You listed quite a lot of weapon proficiencies for the monk. Most notably you gave them automatic proficiency with all weapons with the monk descriptor. To my knowledge, there are quite a few weapons on the d20pfsrd.com that have been published by Paizo which have the monk descriptor that monks are not automatically proficient (off the top of my head there is a d8/x3 1 handed sword for example). Was this intentional?
If it was intentional, I don't think it was a bad idea. Just checking for sake of backwards compatibility. With my psionic monk writeup, I had considered doing much the same thing, but left their weapon proficiencies alone for backwards compatibility (I may even decide to give backwards compatibility the finger and do this anyway, though that will pretty much obsolete all but a handful of monk weapons).
2) I noticed that you removed the silly pseudo-BAB that monks get from their flurry of blows but still disallow monks from dual-wielding and using the two-weapon fighting option as part of their flurry. Was this intentional, or an error of copy/pasting? If intentional, is there a reason that you decided that monks shouldn't be able to dual-wield and benefit from their class feature? It seems a strange restriction and as many monk threads have noted, treating their flurry as pseudo-TWF does no one any good.
3) I like how you allow a monk to flurry as a standard action later in the game. This is a cool feature.
4) The monk lacks any sort of spellcasting but is still stuck in a spellcaster's body. IMHO, if the monk isn't going to have 3/4 casting either as a divine caster, arcane caster, or psionic manifester, then he needs to be in a warrior's body, which means full BAB and d10 HD like the Ranger or Paladin.
The improvement to flurry is nice, but by end game virtually every martial in Pathfinder can sustain a +35 to hit without investment, and upwards to +45 or so with investment or on demand with class features. The monk's class features such as "Enhance Strike" which you've added only allow the monk to obtain the low-end of attack rolls compared to other martials (+15 base, +5 magic weapon).
5) Zen Strike doesn't really help the monk as much as I'd like. The monk is still melee prime, and this ability is a trap to make monks feel like they can contribute by emphasizing Wisdom prime, only to realize later that they can hit but deal no meaningful damage (especially at high levels).
If I may make a suggestion, I'd advise granting 1/2 the monk's Wisdom bonus to attack and damage rolls in addition to their normal Strength bonus. Thus a monk with a 14 Wisdom would provide a passive +1 to hit and damage, while a monk with a 30 Wisdom would provide a passive +5 to hit and damage.
Do to the way ability scores scale (due to wish, magic items, etc), a monk should have little to no difficulty benefiting from this is a major way, as it is relatively cheaper to increase multiple ability scores than it is to increase one ability score.
A 20th level monk might have a +7 Strength modifier (13 base, +6 item, +5 inherent = 24), and a +10 wisdom, resulting in a +12 bonus to hit and damage (effectively giving them a 34 strength in terms of hit and damage with 1 handed or light weapons).
6) World Wise is a cool feature but has little use beyond a +4 to a particular skill chosen at 2nd level. I don't really like the Artisan ability, but that is mostly because Master Craftsman is bad and should feel bad. If not for the special restrictions on making spell completion, trigger, and potions then it would be a cute way to qualify for Brew Potion, but due to the severely limited nature of Master Craftsman, the monk will never be as good at crafting items as a Gnome Fighter.
7) I like the way you handle fast movement. It shows up more smoothly in smaller bursts and stacks with effects like haste and expeditious retreat.
8) Maneuver training. Pretty much the same suggestions as with Zen Strike. Completely removing Strength from the equation removes both the athletic qualities of a monk, while also further implying to newbies that monks will not need Strength, but in turn hurt their ability to contribute, and their CMD.
9) Still mind. Still here...still...*shrugs*
10) Ki-Pool is ki pool. I don't think it's as necessary with this monk because you have methods of overcoming DR built into the monk's features. Otherwise ki pool is pretty much a limited resource preventing monks from doing cool things all the time. I generally prefer systems that allow you to use little resources like this, but ki pool feels very tacked on (which isn't surprising as it was just thrown into the monk from 3.5 to PF) with little regard to the playability of the class.
That being said, your additions to the use of the ki pool make it more interesting. Things like "Butterfly Step" which you added make it more interesting and giving you more options; so perhaps it's not so bad as first glance would suggest.
11) Iron Body is nice and cool. However, you may wish to adjust the wording a bit. It could easily be read that it actually reduces the damage reduction of a creature with no duration. IE - monk with DR 3/- hits a werewolf. The werewolf's DR drops from 10/silver to 7/silver with no end duration. You might instead write it as they ignore an associated amount of DR.
12) Physical perfection seems very "meh" to me. A trap even. A +1 inherent modifier as a class feature is horrible. By 20th level you should have +5 inherent modifiers to all your statistics through the use of wish spells provided by the party's arcanist as early as 13th level, or through spellcasting services, or through overpriced magic items. This is a class feature that is going to go obsolete later and has very little benefit immediately.
13) Pierce Defenses seems a bit redundant with all the other new methods of piercing damage reduction that monks get, only functions against the two easiest to bypass DRs in the game (silver and cold iron are cheapsauce), and this ability will be completely overshadowed by their normal enhanced strikes ability at 11th level.
14) Ring the temple bell needs some fierce cleanup on the writing but is a cute ability. :P
15) Weapon Training is a simple fix to their hit/damage problems. The weapon abilities you can choose are a mixed bag though.
Haft strike is virtually useless and inferior to Catch off Guard (CoG as a bonus feat would do this without losing your reach, enhancements, and provide additional functionality).
Ghost Palm actually strikes me as overpowered (which given that I'm very open to martial or player power is a bit odd), and while I think stunning fist needs help, effectively giving them at-will Deep Impact on stunning fist and quivering palm attacks seems a bit extreme. I think I'd rather see them treated more like spells where you can deliver them as part of an unarmed strike and not waste them on a miss.
Mighty fists I dislike for much the same reasons I dislike increasing the damage dice on core monks. It creates a very uneven progression of damage in the case of different sized monks, and is terrible when your GM uses monk levels on certain NPCs. Monk levels on creatures of greater than normal sizes can get very high damage dice values very quickly which scale better than static damage values. This also feels like overkill along with weapon training.
16) Perfect self. I like how this one doesn't turn the monk into an outsider (but you say "magical creature" and left the bit about being raised from the dead), but as with the old monk most of it is pretty "meh", doesn't really seem to demonstrate the nature of transcending mortality as perfect self is supposed to imply, and it's very racist towards non-humans since it gives +2 to all ability scores except those for which you have a racial bonus. Effectively negates the racial benefits (but not the drawbacks) of any race that you have.
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My overall thoughts on it are,
I think it goes in some good directions in some places, but I feel it seems to be a mish-mash of different ideas that "could help the monk" with little rhyme or reason. Many of the abilities are redundant or serve the same purposes as others, some of them don't really work mechanically, and in the case of abilities pirated from other classes it uses those abilities even better (weapon training granting extra abilities with those weapons in addition to +hit/damage for example).
It's actually a bit difficult to keep up with everything that you're getting because there's just so much of it. Looking at the special line of the monk progression it is flooded with special abilities at every level (which again doesn't help very much when many of them scale at different rates, have redundancies, etc). Even going through the abilities I found myself a bit overwhelmed after a while (I didn't even review every ability, just the ones that stuck out to me).
If anything, I would recommend metaphorically laying it out on your work table, figuring out what you want it to do, then trim out the excess bits that get in the way. Simplicity is a virtue for both new and veteran players alike (especially given that you need to manage resources like Hp, Ki points, inventory, buffs, etc). Your monk seems to assume that since monks are really hurting all over the place it has has room to dump lots of stuff on them without overdoing it. That might be the case, but in the end you kind of look like a hastily stitched flesh golem rather than a beautifully crafted bionic man. :P
So in closing...
1) Figure out just what you want your monk to be able to do and when.
2) Remodel the monk to do those things (if you want them to be non-casting martials, adjust their HP/BAB, compare their capabilities with other martials to get some benchmark ideas, check low and high ends of optimization and resource management).
3) Scrap everything that is not needed. Do everything you can in as few abilities as possible.
Sorry it took so long to get over here Dabbler. I got your PM, but I needed to check your document and actually get a chance to sit down and post. :)
Thanks for taking your time, Ashiel - as I said, I value your input.
I'm going to try and address any thoughts or concerns in order of appearance through the document. If some of these seem a bit critical, please understand it is only in an effort to help so you can make even better classes. ^-^
That's what I was hoping for!
1) You listed quite a lot of weapon proficiencies for the monk. Most notably you gave them automatic proficiency with all weapons with the monk descriptor. Was this intentional?
Yes, it was! The unarmed fighter gets proficiency with all monk weapons, so I figure the monk should get that too at the very least. My main point with these was the a class that trains to become living weapons would have proficiency with more than just a tiny subset of weapons no-one would touch if they had a choice. If you want to make a monk weapon-specialist, you should get the chance to do it from level one.
2) I noticed that you removed the silly pseudo-BAB that monks get from their flurry of blows but still disallow monks from dual-wielding and using the two-weapon fighting option as part of their flurry. Was this intentional, or an error of copy/pasting? If intentional, is there a reason that you decided that monks shouldn't be able to dual-wield and benefit from their class feature? It seems a strange restriction and as many monk threads have noted, treating their flurry as pseudo-TWF does no one any good.
If monks got to TWF as well as flurry, they would get a LOT of attacks, but the odds to hit would be awful. This is what happened in 3.5 - your monk could get something like 11 attacks at 20th level. However, given that hitting is still an issue for monks, and an issue that I wanted to address in this rebuild, letting the monk take an option that would reduce their chances to hit and eat up a lot of feats would be essentially letting a player walk their monk into a 'trap' in the mechanics.
3) I like how you allow a monk to flurry as a standard action later in the game. This is a cool feature.
It's a 3/4 BAB full attack, in effect. In fact, it puts the monk on a par with the Mobile Fighter archetype, which was the idea.
4) The monk lacks any sort of spellcasting but is still stuck in a spellcaster's body. IMHO, if the monk isn't going to have 3/4 casting either as a divine caster, arcane caster, or psionic manifester, then he needs to be in a warrior's body, which means full BAB and d10 HD like the Ranger or Paladin.
I really considered that, but then looked at what else I wanted to do. I wanted a real 'mystic' figure, that while he didn't use spells was going to be dangerous. Flurry of blows is intended to be dangerous, and there has to be a downside. I kept 3/4 BAB as that downside. In the end it was a choice between 3/4 BAB and weapon training, or full BAB - I chose the former.
The improvement to flurry is nice, but by end game virtually every martial in Pathfinder can sustain a +35 to hit without investment, and upwards to +45 or so with investment or on demand with class features. The monk's class features such as "Enhance Strike" which you've added only allow the monk to obtain the low-end of attack rolls compared to other martials (+15 base, +5 magic weapon).
Indeed. I wanted the monk to keep up to that base - but not to exceed it.
5) Zen Strike doesn't really help the monk as much as I'd like. The monk is still melee prime, and this ability is a trap to make monks feel like they can contribute by emphasizing Wisdom prime, only to realize later that they can hit but deal no meaningful damage (especially at high levels).
But they can do damage. In fact my main worry was not letting them do too much damage. Wisdom prime allows them to balance strength and dexterity more evenly than having to max out one or the other, and worry about getting a high wisdom.
Now consider: at 20th level a monk could be hitting for 1d6, +4 (weapon training), +5 (natural enhancement), +{attribute bonus}, +(Properties from AoMF) at a 16-20 threat range. On top of that he has the options to be bypassing DR completely, and more attacks. If we take your +7 attribute bonus, that's 1d6+16 (16-20/x2) +properties.
If you want to forget the threat range, it could be 2d6 base damage instead and 19-20 threat. That's more than the monk currently gets, and do not forget factors like Dragon Style that can boost the effect of strength further.
Not saying your idea of adding half wisdom bonus is a bad one, but I would not want to combine it with weapon training.
6) World Wise is a cool feature but has little use beyond a +4 to a particular skill chosen at 2nd level.
It gives the monk options. Have you noticed that Ki-rin Style focusses on Knowledge skills the monk largely does not have? That to scout the monk has to take traits to give him the extra skills he needs? This is the fix for that.
7) I like the way you handle fast movement. It shows up more smoothly in smaller bursts and stacks with effects like haste and expeditious retreat.
I felt that the existing system was too much but too limited with it.
8) Maneuver training. Pretty much the same suggestions as with Zen Strike. Completely removing Strength from the equation removes both the athletic qualities of a monk, while also further implying to newbies that monks will not need Strength, but in turn hurt their ability to contribute, and their CMD.
Monk CMD has never been a problem, really. Again, it's not a case of not needing strength as not requiring a monk be a mountain of muscle in order to function. The idea is that like other MAD classes, the monk only needs one good and two moderate scores to work (or in some cases two good scores), rather than three good scores.
9) Still mind. Still here...still...*shrugs*
Have to keep it for monk vows to still work.
10) Ki-Pool is ki pool. I don't think it's as necessary with this monk because you have methods of overcoming DR built into the monk's features. Otherwise ki pool is pretty much a limited resource preventing monks from doing cool things all the time. I generally prefer systems that allow you to use little resources like this, but ki pool feels very tacked on (which isn't surprising as it was just thrown into the monk from 3.5 to PF) with little regard to the playability of the class.
I did think about boosting ki pool, but I was giving the monk so many goodies, and I wanted to not mess up existing concepts like vows which also add to ki, so I opted not to. Glad you like the extra little tricks, though.
11) Iron Body is nice and cool. However, you may wish to adjust the wording a bit. It could easily be read that it actually reduces the damage reduction of a creature with no duration. IE - monk with DR 3/- hits a werewolf. The werewolf's DR drops from 10/silver to 7/silver with no end duration. You might instead write it as they ignore an associated amount of DR.
Check.
12) Physical perfection seems very "meh" to me. A trap even. A +1 inherent modifier as a class feature is horrible. By 20th level you should have +5 inherent modifiers to all your statistics through the use of wish spells provided by the party's arcanist as early as 13th level, or through spellcasting services, or through overpriced magic items. This is a class feature that is going to go obsolete later and has very little benefit immediately.
I did wonder...problem is I didn't want to break the limits on base scores. Perhaps, given that it operates on the lowest scores it could be a slat bonus and not inherent. Fixing that.
13) Pierce Defenses seems a bit redundant with all the other new methods of piercing damage reduction that monks get, only functions against the two easiest to bypass DRs in the game (silver and cold iron are cheapsauce), and this ability will be completely overshadowed by their normal enhanced strikes ability at 11th level.
Don't under-rate it, being able to bypass ANY DR for 3 ki-points is not to be sneezed at. Admittedly that will be redundant by 19th level, but not all campaigns go that far.
14) Ring the temple bell needs some fierce cleanup on the writing but is a cute ability. :P
Fixed.
15) Weapon Training is a simple fix to their hit/damage problems. The weapon abilities you can choose are a mixed bag though.
Simple seemed good to me.
Haft strike is virtually useless and inferior to Catch off Guard (CoG as a bonus feat would do this without losing your reach, enhancements, and provide additional functionality).
Good point. I may ditch it or change it.
Ghost Palm actually strikes me as overpowered (which given that I'm very open to martial or player power is a bit odd), and while I think stunning fist needs help, effectively giving them at-will Deep Impact on stunning fist and quivering palm attacks seems a bit extreme. I think I'd rather see them treated more like spells where you can deliver them as part of an unarmed strike and not waste them on a miss.
How about not expending the use if the attack misses, but allowing further attacks until the end of the round?
Mighty fists I dislike for much the same reasons I dislike increasing the damage dice on core monks. It creates a very uneven progression of damage in the case of different sized monks, and is terrible when your GM uses monk levels on certain NPCs. Monk levels on creatures of greater than normal sizes can get very high damage dice values very quickly which scale better than static damage values. This also feels like overkill along with weapon training.
I originally skipped it completely, but feedback some time ago from people who love the monk's rising damage dice convinced me to put it back in as an option.
16) Perfect self. I like how this one doesn't turn the monk into an outsider (but you say "magical creature" and left the bit about being raised from the dead), but as with the old monk most of it is pretty "meh", doesn't really seem to demonstrate the nature of transcending mortality as perfect self is supposed to imply, and it's very racist towards non-humans since it gives +2 to all ability scores except those for which you have a racial bonus. Effectively negates the racial benefits (but not the drawbacks) of any race that you have.
I confess I had not thought of that. Should I make it +2 to all scores regardless, and d*mn the former limits, or should it be +2 except on racial bonuses and +4 on racial penalty attributes?
My overall thoughts on it are,I think it goes in some good directions in some places, but I feel it seems to be a mish-mash of different ideas that "could help the monk" with little rhyme or reason. Many of the abilities are redundant or serve the same purposes as others, some of them don't really work mechanically, and in the case of abilities pirated from other classes it uses those abilities even better (weapon training granting extra abilities with those weapons in addition to +hit/damage for example).
It needs a clean-up still, I agree. I may well remove some abilities entirely, reword others. With regard to weapon training, it's limited to monk weapons only, so in that respect not as good as fighter weapon training, but allows a few extra tricks that don't need to be tied to it but were for convenience.
1) Figure out just what you want your monk to be able to do and when.
Well, I basically wanted a modular monk that players could make into the monk they wanted. The thing is, everyone has a different idea of what a monk should be. The best concept is one that can be moulded to what the player wants - your own psionic monk does this, using the wide variety of psionic powers instead of crafted monk abilities. I love it, but sadly not every game allows psionics.
2) Remodel the monk to do those things (if you want them to be non-casting martials, adjust their HP/BAB, compare their capabilities with other martials to get some benchmark ideas, check low and high ends of optimization and resource management).
This I have been doing along the way. I wanted the monk to be able to hit, but not hit harder than the fighter. I wanted them to keep cool tricks, but have them work effectively.
3) Scrap everything that is not needed. Do everything you can in as few abilities as possible.
Good advice. Things I think should be given need to be built in automatically, options should be there but not so many they confuse.
Thanks for this Ash, it's been very helpful!
Here's an amended version of the mystic Monk, incorporating some of Ashiel's suggestions and other feedback.
Flagged to fix the title to be "Dabbler's Mystic Monk".
LOL, thanks Cheapy!
Here's the latest version, thanks to some more feedback.
Here's the latest version, thanks to some more feedback.
I'll check it out and comment when I get the chance. I've been so busy lately with some projects, RL stuff, and so forth, but still I apologize for not being more active in your thread here. ^-^"
Thanks for looking at it Ashiel.
Another update, slightly amending some abilities and doing away with others that are effectively redundant.
Not bad, just call it a monk for your home game:)
I actually want to play this over the other monk, but it wouldn't stop me from playing other frontline fighters. As usual dabbler awesome job.
Thank you, guys. If you want to comment in that thread, please do!
Duh! Above comment to the right people in the wrong thread! Serves me right for opening so many tabs...