Goblin Squad Member
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Now that people are fired up about playing a wizard (and hopefully GW will be just as brilliant with clerics, sorcerers and druids) I would like to discuss how to make the monk archetype just as fabulous.
from Your Pathfinder Online Character
"Monks—masters of ki power. These warrior-artists search out methods of battle beyond swords and shields, finding weapons within themselves just as capable of crippling or killing as any blade."
I know that this description of the monk may change; the blog reference is over a year old. However, one of the Daily Deals was the Staff of Circles. Unless they change this completely GW has introduced with this item the idea of force-based damage. I think the monk could be an excellent vehicle for expanding that concept into an archetype.
What if there were two aspects of ki. The first would be personal buffs: strength, enhanced movement speed, evasion, improved armor-like abilities (think Brass Body from "The Man with the Iron Fists", even if it was bad), moving (tumbling) past an opponent without threat of attack, passing without trace, maybe even enlarge and reduce person effects. These would be internal aspects.
The second aspect would be external. This is where the "crippling" comes in. One of the oldest myths about martial arts is using ki to affect things at a distance. At lower levels, exerting ki externally would be adding more damage to unarmed attacks. At higher levels of skill the monk could strike through distance, possibly execute combat maneuvers like ki throw, trip, bull rush without having to touch their opponent. The monk could use ki to accelerate thrown weapons for more affect. They could do a burst of ki force to drive a mob back.
These types of abilities would have to be balanced with the need for consumables. Also, there may need to be a weakness associated with each ki ability. For example, using ki to harden the body for improve damage resistance may reduce speed. Executing a throw at a distance may keep the monk rooted to the ground for a small time making it difficult to move to attack an opponent while they are prone.
Thoughts?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm seriously considering playing a Monk for my Destiny's Twin. I like the idea of playing a character that will be a bit lower key (no pun intended) than my "main" bandit character.
I fully support the threads here on the forums, pushing for unarmed combat as well as non lethal damage. However, I believe the "unarmed" is more likely than the non letal, and we will probably have to settle for crippling affects as you suggest.
Time to watch some dragon ball Z
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Goblin Squad Member
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(think Brass Body from "The Man with the Iron Fists", even if it was bad),
I enjoyed watching it. Certainly a fun kung-fu movie.
Anyways, as a fan of monks, I certainly think those would be cool. The personal buffs sound a lot like what monks already do and are in PnP. Having seen their take on wizards I trust their take on monks will be good as well, though I suppose we'll see.
I'd support both monks focused on unarmed attacks, and ones focused on ki powers, and balanced ones. I'd say PnP monks would be more balanced, with some of the archetypes moving it more this way or that. Just gotta make sure they're not just fast, punchy fighters.
I just checked and was happy to see I pledged on Christmas Day, one day before the Staff of Circles!!
My question, without time to research it myself, what region includes Asian ethnic groups, and what regional traits would be best suited for a Monk?
In Pathfinder, the monk class is not limited to Asian ethnic groups. Though the class comes from an area that is fairly closely linked with that theme, it was introduced to the rest of Golarion centuries ago. Just look at how quickly eastern martial arts have spread in American in less than 100 years.
Also, in the Pathfinder RPG the deity Irori has a pretty large following and a VERY large percentage of his followers are monks. So pretty much, you can find monks of any ethnicity and race. Also, most of the Lawful deities(including Asmodeus) have monk order's dedicated to them. So, aside from the limitation forcing them to be lawfully aligned(and there is even an alternate advancement path - the Martial Artist - which doesn't require this!) a monk can be found in all the different parts of the PRPG society.
This being said, I genuinely hope they do a great job of representing monks in a manner that gives them unique options while fixing some of the problems with them in past incarnations of them. Making a significant number of their abilities based off of their gear(armor, weapons and some kind of 'ki focus' for their special powers) will go a long way towards keeping monks from being what they are in NWN and DDO... a class that lots of people take 2 to 4 levels in because of all the awesomeness they get out of those few levels, and almost no pure monks. While I realize this is supposed to be a classless system, I believe they still don't want people cherry picking skills and powers from among the best options to make an Uberl33+ d00d build. While everyone may be able(after a few years) to swap between playing as a fighter, rogue, mage, and cleric it looks like they're going to avoid allowing everyone doing all of those things at once. Monks have(in past online games) been the worst of the core classes for this.
Basically, I'm all for monks having all of the cool options from tabletop. Elemental Fist, Style Feats, Qinggong monk powers and even the standard monk abilities give a monk lots of cool special abilities and let a creative player imitate virtually any of the cool stuff from fiction. You will probably never see any DBZ Z Fighters, Fairy Tale Dragon Slayers, or Bleach Shinigami running around, but you can get reasonable approximations of each of these 'themes' if you try hard enough.
That's what I really want... eventually. It's too much to expect this kind of specialization at launch, most likely. 2 or 3 years down the road, though? Doesn't seem impossible! :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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When I think of Monks, I think of someone like Kane, from the Kung Fu TZv series. Someone who travels around and helps those in need, regardless of who they are, what their position was, or even what they had done in the past.
Is have a hard time conceptualizibg a LE Monk, but they would probably make excellent assassins. Probably be closer to Ninjas, while I'm thinking about it.
Err, also to the OP I strongly suggest you look into the PFRPG Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic. Pretty much everything you're asking for is available as an alternate advancement path in Pathfinder already. Everything from using ki to harden your skin(the Qinggong monk ability that lets them use ki to cast Barkskin) to improving basic ranged attacks(a few of the alternate paths let monks use their flurry of blows with bows and go Jackie Chan with makeshift weapons, i.e. chairs, tables, water pitchers and so on).
There's a pretty awesome Drunken Monk path. The Qinggong monk lets a monk throw ki energy, breathe elemental attacks like a dragon, ki shout attacks, throw fire blasts, walk on walls and water, shrug off spells effortlessly, and even stun or kill with a touch. You name it, it's pretty much there already... Much of these are spell-like abilities so wizards, sorcerers, clerics, etc. do it better, but the ability to pull some crazy stuff out at random times can still be pretty awesome!
When I think of Monks, I think of someone like Kane, from the Kung Fu TZv series. Someone who travels around and helps those in need, regardless of who they are, what their position was, or even what they had done in the past.
Is have a hard time conceptualizibg a LE Monk, but they would probably make excellent assassins. Probably be closer to Ninjas, while I'm thinking about it.
Watch any kung fu movie set in ancient China. There's always some evil eunuch who uses a powerful, secret, evil technique to beat up the good guys. Or the evil kung fu master who killed the good guy's master, that the good guy has to train to beat. The former shaolin priest who has gone to the dark side, then betraying his brother monks.
My point is, there are TONS of examples of evil martial artists in fiction. Nearly as many, if not more than there are good guys. Heck, look at the whole rosters of the evil sides of Street Fighter, Mortal Combat and DOA. There's lots of inspiration there for evil monks. Evil doesn't have to mean no code of honor. As long as the evil monk follows that strict code, they're lawful - especially if they are in a position of authority where they are either immune to the laws(a Royal Guard working for an evil king) or ARE the law(the evil king/evil eunuch who is the power behind the throne) they're still being lawful... the laws just agree with their evilness. Kinda like how the laws would be in a lawful evil settlement...
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just checked and was happy to see I pledged on Christmas Day, one day before the Staff of Circles!!
My question, without time to research it myself, what region includes Asian ethnic groups, and what regional traits would be best suited for a Monk?
While, as was stated, you don't have to be "asian" to be a monk, Tian Xia would be the continent, and Tian would be the group. I didn't see it among the regional traits, at least not in the kickstarter pack though. I guess because it is pretty far away, even though we're not that far, I believe, from the Crown of the World.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Zanathas, what you say of the monk archetypes in Pathfinder PnP is true. Unfortunately, this will be Pathfinder Online, and for a number of reasons will not exactly mirror Pathfinder PnP. What GW puts into PFO for the monk archetype is up in the air as far as we know. I would like to see if anyone has some suggestions for how the monk archetype can be just as desirable to play as we see the wizard archetype developing into. Is there some new way of looking at the monk that we have not seen before in Pathfinder PnP, or other cultural stereotypes?
Dream.
There's a long discussion talking about the Monk's unarmed strike that's further down where we talked about a lot of this stuff. Looking at it again, I see that you posted in there as well.
Mostly, the point behind me talking about all the cool stuff in PFRPG already was simply to say that it's already present in the world that PFO is drawing from. They really haven't said anything about monks specifically, other than that they are likely going to use some kind of system that causes a monk's 'unarmed strike' to get all of it's stats from a piece of gear so that it's balanced with everything else in the game. I think Mr. Stephen Cheney also made a comment about something like a 'Diamond Body' kind of ability to give monks enough physical resistance to be front line melee combatants even though they were wearing cloth.
While I'm more than happy to spit out ideas and speculation, I'd prefer to have them give us some kind of idea about what they have in mind for the monk class before I go too crazy with it. I'm sure the GoblinWorks developers can read the PFRPG source material just as well as we can. While I don't expect absolutely everything from that to be available, it seems to me that, except for the base monk abilities(including the ki system) and the Style Feats nearly everything else is just spells that should already be in the game or simple variations off of other feats, stats, and abilities.
The most difficult decision for them will be how they will design the ki system and how they'll deal with the monk's unarmed strike abilities and their defenses. Maybe their extraordinary mobility, as well. In PFRPG, a 9th level monk moves twice as fast in a round as other characters. Three times as much as someone in medium or heavy armor. An 18th lvl monk moves three times as others, and 4.5 times as fast as someone in medium or heavy armor. In NWN, each +10' increment got translated into a 10% increase. This was pretty obnoxious all by itself. While I'd love to see the PFRPG numbers translated, I can understand where it might cause some issues to have a player be able to move between 3 and 4.5 times faster than others. Faster, depending on how they do haste items.
As far as making it as desirable as the wizard and other classes, I'm not to worried about that part. My opinion says that fast should be the operative word when it comes to monks. Fast movement AND fast attacks. I'd like it if they differentiated between monk ki based abilities(spell like abilities) and the spells they're based on... even just some kind of recolor would be enough to differentiate a monk's abilities from a wizard or sorcerer.
That's all I can think of right now. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Zanathos, I think what I was asking (in an unclear way) if there was something different than the functions we have talked about that would make the monk archetype a more interring character to play. For example, what if there were incentives for the character to be a peace-maker? This game is all about conflict creating content. The resolution of conflict can also create content. How could the monk be built to aid in that resolution? An idea that punishment (via the Enforcer or Champion long term PvP flags) is not the only resolution? I don't think that I want to make the monk a lawyer or judge. But what if the monk could successfully interrupt conflict? The monk might become the most hated character in town.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Zanathos, I think what I was asking (in an unclear way) if there was something different than the functions we have talked about that would make the monk archetype a more interring character to play. For example, what if there were incentives for the character to be a peace-maker? This game is all about conflict creating content. The resolution of conflict can also create content. How could the monk be built to aid in that resolution? An idea that punishment (via the Enforcer or Champion long term PvP flags) is not the only resolution? I don't think that I want to make the monk a lawyer or judge. But what if the monk could successfully interrupt conflict? The monk might become the most hated character in town.
Why would something like this be related to a class-role though?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know, just trying to dream some new points of view. Using ki to generate calm or a hold on combat would be in the same class as dominate person or charm person. As has been pointed out, making a player do something they don't want to do (like being in jail of paralyzed) isn't "fun" as the devs class it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't feel any roleplaying goals such as peacemaking should be tied to class abilities. And basically, being able to stop someone from acting for a few rounds is already a core part of the Monk design with the Stunning Fist ability. I've always felt that it was a pressure point technique to cause temporary numbness/paralysis.
Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil monks do exist, and I don't think any of them will necessarily follow the pacifistic leanings of shaolin. For examples of Lawful Evil monks, see The Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Bill in Kill Bill, or The Operative in Serenity. For Lawful Neutral monks, Pai Mei in Kill Bill, or Chiun in Remo Williams.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't describe Bill as being LE, certainly not lawful. He was probe to over reaction if you recall. He may have been a monk at one time, but certainly shifted to NE in my mind.
I'll agree with that interpretation. I think he was still LE while the DVAS was running, but he seemed to have lost some of his discipline by the time the Bride woke up.
I though of a better example anyway: Ra's al Ghul, at least in the film version.
@Zanathos, I think what I was asking (in an unclear way) if there was something different than the functions we have talked about that would make the monk archetype a more interring character to play. For example, what if there were incentives for the character to be a peace-maker? This game is all about conflict creating content. The resolution of conflict can also create content. How could the monk be built to aid in that resolution? An idea that punishment (via the Enforcer or Champion long term PvP flags) is not the only resolution? I don't think that I want to make the monk a lawyer or judge. But what if the monk could successfully interrupt conflict? The monk might become the most hated character in town.
Well, one of the alternate advancement paths in Advanced Player's Guide actually incorporates this already. It is a pacifist monk - I forget the name of the path. It's replacement for Stunnign Fist is called 'Touch of Serenity' and it basically forces an opponent to stop hostile actions for a set period of time - but it gets negated if any type of hostile action is used against him. Will save negates. While I wouldn't mind something like this being in the game, it's not something that I personally have much interest in.
That being said, why would you want to make the monk into a class whose entire purpose is to keep everyone else in the game from pursuing IT'S main purpose. The kind of resolution you're speaking of wouldn't create more content, it would just make other people angry... especially if that resolution is FORCED onto other players. The only way something like this would work would be some kind of crazy AoE Touch of Serenity type of power. That would be stupidly overpowered, incredibly open to abuse and make monks pretty crazy KOS to most people in the game.
It would certainly make monks popular. Every single merchant caravan would want a dozen of them. Bandit uses SAD? Say no, then when they attack have the monk use his uber peace powers and go your merry way!
Just no. In so many ways no. I understand that you're trying to think outside the box. What I don't understand is why, and why you're trying to make monks into the Buddha + 'insert anti-violent religious figure of your choice here'? That's not what I want from a monk. I want super kung fu action. Throwing fireballs. Moving more quickly than my opponents can follow. Paralyzing or stunning with a touch. Running up walls and across water. Catching bullets(or arrows) in my teeth.
Please, try to explain to me where you're coming from because I just don't get it.
Well if Monks have anywhere near the cool abilities discussed in this thread then I'm going to have to check them out! Normally Monks are just lightly armored fighters who might get an extra attack with their fist or a kick. I'd love to see the Monk role handled the way it was intended to be (as its written of in PnP lore).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Zanathos, even poor ideas can simulate good new ones. As much as I get bored with the tone of some threads where the defense of point-of-view supplants creative exchange, sometimes the hair-brained idea can generate enough conversation that a good idea emerges. Sort of like I Fell into a Burning Ring of Fire.
Well if Monks have anywhere near the cool abilities discussed in this thread then I'm going to have to check them out! Normally Monks are just lightly armored fighters who might get an extra attack with their fist or a kick. I'd love to see the Monk role handled the way it was intended to be (as its written of in PnP lore).
This is my greatest problem with most D&D based video games, and D&D itself before the PFRPG. It is one of the biggest reasons I love Pathfinder. I've studied a variety of martial arts most of my adult life, but the reason I began doing that was because of Hong Kong kung fu movies, comic books, anime and manga! I may never be able to throw a chi blast in real life, or run up the side of a cliff to get at a bad guy, but I LOVE being able to do it in PFRPG!
I'd really love it if I could do it in PFO! That's what I'm hoping the GW Devs will take a look at one of these threads and see that their fanbase wants this kind of awesomeness included in their game!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really hope GW does dedicate a lot of thought to monks. I intend to be a Flow Monk or as close to one as I can be.
I would try to convince my attackers the wrong choice of their path, while dodging and evading their attacks, perhaps to the point that they stop. Or maybe after redirecting enough of their own attacks back at them, they will become incapacitated.
I really hope there is a brief period between 0 hit points and death. This would allow me to heal my attacker and offer to show them a different path.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As an example of non-asian types of monks, I would recommend looking at Capoeira, in particular it's history and philosophies. For those not familiar with it, it's a brazilian martial art developed by the african slaves in the 17th century. The art combines martial aspects (primarily focused on deception, evasion, and subdual) with language, song, music, dance and mysticism (loose relation to candomblé and catholicism). For example, there's a concept called corpo fechado, or sealed soul, where the practitioner cannot be harmed except by a knife carved from a special kind of tree. Legends of practitioners being able to vanish into shadows, walk on water, pass through jungles without leaving a trace, walk on the smallest branches of a tree, and even on the wind itself, slip from manacles and jail cells, dodge bullets, run up walls and trees and move faster than the beasts of the jungle, and know their opponent's intent even before they do can be found.
Most of the maneuvers in capoeira can be performed even while manacled and shackled, and while the majority of the focus is unarmed combat, there are things like maculele, where machetes are used, and jogo di focao, game of knives, that have weapons involved. Stories from the prohibition era of capoeira (it was illegal to practice capoeira until 1937) tell of capoeristas holding razors between their toes as they fought.
As a capoerista myself, I thought it would be fun to play one in a pathfinder game, monk with the weaponmaster archtype and ranks in perform (dance) and bluff, and some alignment-bending to suit the flavor of the character. Capoeristas aren't necessarily a lawful bunch.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I've already posted something about Capoeira before, so allow me to quote myself:
For non-unity users :)
I just wasted a LOT of time on this site. Thank you! :)
And for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE use the Capoeira animations for monks.
I would love for some monk attacks to use these animations. I'm a big fan of Capoeira. It's one of the arts I want to study but haven't been able to yet, although my sister does.
Lol. When did this turn into a 'encourage everyone to try my martial art' thread? I've studied 6 of them for anywhere between 6 months and 10 years(as in actively studied and attended classes with a professional instructor).
Don't let me get started! ;P
Capoeira is a style I've had an interest in, in the past. What I would really like to find is a genuine Wing Chun teacher... heck, most any of the traditional kung fu styles. The only reputable instructor in the area I live now that teaches any Chinese martial arts only teaches Tai Chi, and I'm not really interested in that. In New Orleans, where I first started training, there were lots of schools that claimed to teach 'kung fu'. Most of them were really tae kwon do or karate, named something different in order to try to make a buck. :(
When did this turn into a 'encourage everyone to try my martial art' thread?I didn't notice it, but allow me to add my voice.
I strongly encourage everyone to study a martial art. Aikido is a great choice if you're older, weaker, smaller, or simply not in great shape.
It really depends on what you want out of it. Aikido is a wonderful martial art, but there are many wonderful martial arts. Anyone who begins training and takes it seriously won't be weak or out of shape for very long. It also has many other benefits, besides physical fitness and self-defense. Discipline, values, and self-control are wonderful benefits that come from studying most traditional martial arts as well.
If you have children, I cannot encourage you enough to get them to try it. It worked wonders for me, even in my late teens. I wish I had begun much sooner. I've seen it do wonderful things for many young men and women. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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The only reputable instructor in the area I live now that teaches any Chinese martial arts only teaches Tai Chi, and I'm not really interested in that.
The T'ai chi ch'uan artist were some of the fastest I've seen. I studied Sun school T'ai Chi for about 6 years at the end of my martial arts studies.
Bringing this thread back on track, what things in your styles would you like to see as monk feats/skills. [Warning, only my opinions follow, they may not be true.] Aikido uses large circles in its moves, getting in close to exert leverage for a throw. Hapkido uses medium sized circles but focuses more on joint locks to gain mechanical advantage rather than the momentum leverage of Aikido. Wing Chun uses smaller circles ("sticky hands") to fight and strike up close with few throws. Filipino Kali uses two sticks with lightning fast strike patterns, as many as 4-5 per second. Shuai jiao (Chinese wrestling) is one of the oldest forms and used punches and strength throws, a little heaver than judo. Muay thai uses knees, shins and elbows along with some grappling to make them more effective.
How would you like to see your styles represented in PFO monks?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Aikido uses large circles in its moves, getting in close to exert leverage for a throw.
I would take issue with the last part. In Aikido, you should always be at Maai. That is, you should always be in a position where your attacker must commit to a movement before he is able to strike you. There is no need to get inside of Maai to throw your attacker.
Throws in Aikido shouldn't require any force to be exerted. The proverbial 98-pound weakling should have no problem throwing Clay Matthews. The throw happens as a natural extension of the movement and energy that the attacker has already committed, with only a very slight redirection or extension from Aikidoka.
For example, when you throw a punch that you expect will hit me, and you actually put enough force into it to do me serious harm if the punch lands, your mind quite subconsciously calculates a lot of different factors to determine how to keep you in balance when the punch lands. If I can step off the line of attack, and maintain Maai, and apply just the right amount of pressure (a light hand resting on your wrist) at just the right time (the precise moment your lead foot strikes the ground), I will change your system enough so that the muscle movements your brain subconsciously calculated to maintain balance will no longer be adequate. Depending on how much energy you put into the attack, you should be off-balance and have no choice but to fall forward.
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Goblin Squad Member
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How would you like to see your styles represented in PFO monks?
I've asked before about Defensive Wizards, who use their magic to make themselves harder to kill. I'm hoping (but not really expecting) to break away from the Glass Cannon stereotype.
On a similar vein, I'd like to see Defensive Monks, that use a skill like Aikido to avoid taking damage, rather than focusing on offensive styles.
There's been some interesting discussion in the past about the problem of Tanks in most MMOs, so I suppose there's at least a little hope.
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Goblin Squad Member
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On a similar vein, I'd like to see Defensive Monks, that use a skill like Aikido to avoid taking damage, rather than focusing on offensive styles.
I suggest you look at the Flowing Monk archetype, with feats like Deflect Arrows and the Crane Style feats, especially Crane Wing. I think you'll like them. =P
The truly horrific combo I played in one game was a combination of Flowing Monk and Master of Many Styles... It was just... I don't know? Terrifying. Crane Style and Snake Style simultaneously, plus the Flowing Monk abilities.... it was disturbing. I was so tanky it was silly. The bad part was I annihilated my attackers for daring have the temerity to try to even touch me.
At least against most opponents. Once I had to fight recurring villains and they knew that simply ignoring me reduced my effectiveness by like 70%, it got more interesting. :)
My gaming group made that particular combination of advancement paths off limits after the game reached a certain point, and made me reroll. I was destroying the power curve by a large degree. As much fun as it was, I had to agree :)
All that aside, I reiterate that I'd just like to see them do a good job of translating the stuff already in tabletop over to PFO. If they do that, I think that most anything we discuss here will be nearly moot. There are alternate advancement paths to satisfy any but the most diehard of purists when it comes to how any martial art should be represented in the game mechanically.
Animations are the biggest thing I foresee being a problem. Any style you name has different stances and combinations of stances. Styles like capoeira really change things up from the norm. They have different variations on kicking techniques and hand striking techniques. They have different theories on using other types of strikes. Then you have the differences between 'hard' and 'soft' styles, then the styles that try to combine the two.
We have to try to be somewhat realistic in our expectations. While it seems some of us might want it to be, this is a fantasy themed game and not a martial arts themed game. The martial arts are a subcategory in this case, but we can't expect dozens of different variations on attack animations. That's a LOT of work. I'd personally be really happy if we could choose between unarmed punch and kicking techniques for each attack animation. i.e. An unarmed Power Attack can choose to be a double palm strike or a kick of some type. I think much beyond that is really asking a lot, considering the size of the team and the amount of content they're trying to push out.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I started a thread a few months back about Grappling and it's challenges. Grappling, Tripping, Reposition, Bull Rush and most of the other combat maneuvers that are in place in the TT game will be very difficult to translate to PFO due to collision mechanics, animations, and model size differences. For example, a standard shoulder grab grapple opener would hit much lower when initiated by a gnome or halfling.
I started a thread a few months back about Grappling and it's challenges. Grappling, Tripping, Reposition, Bull Rush and most of the other combat maneuvers that are in place in the TT game will be very difficult to translate to PFO due to collision mechanics, animations, and model size differences. For example, a standard shoulder grab grapple opener would hit much lower when initiated by a gnome or halfling.
GW will likely have to do an animation for each size. i.e. Medium vs medium. Medium vs. small. Medium vs. large. Small vs. medium. Large vs. medium and large vs. small.
I supposed you can use these maneuvers versus tiny and smaller creatures too. The REAL problem comes in versus nonhumanoid opponents. That's just going to be a nightmare... Tripping a centaur? A horse? A dire wolf?
Talk about a pain. I'm not envious some of the decisions that GW will have to make with these things.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Yeah, the art issues with combat maneuvers are prohibitive. I remember the way I once handled a tiny will-o-wisp in 3.5 that was too dodgy to hit: true strike, then grapple.
Now imagine needing an animation that shows every legal grapple and indicates the various stages of grappling. Wouldn't that work be better spent making more animations for things that aren't edge cases?
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you remember the video of the demo when the fighter and rouge fought the goblins, the strokes looked like they were made against a medium target, not a small one. Initially the graphics may be very generic, one set of moves per maneuver. That might be sufficient in early enrollment.
If you remember the video of the demo when the fighter and rouge fought the goblins, the strokes looked like they were made against a medium target, not a small one. Initially the graphics may be very generic, one set of moves per maneuver. That might be sufficient in early enrollment.
As long as my monk's unarmed strike doesn't look like I'm swinging a weapon instead of punching and kicking, I'll probably be fine. I'm much more interested in having lots of the alternate advancement path stuff, specifically the Qinggong monk, Elemental Fist and the Style Feats implemented as early as possible. If they can get those things in, I think pretty much everything else will just fall into place.
What can I say? I like my over-the-top super kung fu powers!
:)