Monk of the Single Strike (FoB-less Monk archetype)

[LoneKnave]

Most monks fight by utilizing a dizzying array of combination attacks to confound and overwhelm their foes. Not so the Monk of the Single Strike. These martial artists instead focus all their power into a single well placed strike, penetrating through the defences of their foes with overwhelming power.

Alternate class features

The Single Strike:

Starting at 1st level, when the Monk of The Single Strike makes an attack as a Standard Action, it is treated as a Single Strike.

When doing so, he may make that attack at BAB equal to his Monk level, and increase any static bonuses to damage (such as from a high STR score or Power attack) by 50% for each dice of damage rolled. This attack has to be made with a weapon he could flurry with if he had the Flurry of Blows class feature, and The Monk of the Single strike counts as possessing Flurry of Blows for the purpose of qualifying for feats that expand the list of weapons a monk can use for his Flurry of Blows class feature.

At 6th level he gains Vital strike as a bonus feat.

At 11th level he gains Improved Vital strike as a bonus feat.

At 16th level he gains Greater vital strike as a bonus feat.

He does not have to meet the prerequisites for these feats.

A monk of the single strike may spend 1 Ki point when making an attack action (such as during an Attack of Opportunity, Cleave, Spring attack, or a full attack) to treat it as a Single Strike/Vital strike/Improved Vital Strike/Greater Vital Strike (if he has those feats).

The Single Strike replaces the Flurry of Blows class feature.

[Gunsmith Paladin]

Feels like your giving up a lot for very little. Even with the 50% boost per each damage die doesn't mean a whole lot. For a standard action it's not bad, but trading in a full attack? Not so much.

[LoneKnave]

It's a trade up when you can't full attack, and a trade down when you can. That's intentional. It lends itself better to more mobile monk.

[showzilla]

I'd say give them the ability to stack attacks together like with the gunslingers dead shot (based more on the mysterious stranger than another gun slingers) like this

Single strike (ex): when a monk makes a single attack, it is treated as a single strike.

The Monk's BAB becomes equal to his class level with this strike (helps on power attack). The attack adds the monk's wisdom modifier to damage. The monk rolls all attacks, and for each one that hits, his single attack deals an additional unarmed damage. this attack counts a flurry of blows for qualifying for feats,prc and the such.

a monk with 1d8 unarmed strike damage that "hits" with three attacks deals 3d8 + str+wis

a monk may spend a ki point and add his wisdom modifier to all the extra damage rolls.

so it becomes 3d8+str+3xwis

so, assuming all attacks hit at level 20 or so.

a single hit deals 8d10+4xwisdom+str

this strike may be used in conjunction with the vital strike feat try.

[LoneKnave]

I did consider an ability like that, exactly because of Dead Shot.

However, I'd like to note that Dead Shot is a full round action, gained at lvl7, takes a grit point, and doesn't give any bonus to the damage and doesn't stack with vital strike.

I think as a first level ability that's probably way out of line (even if in the grand scheme of things it probably wouldn't be too good).

[Excaliburproxy]

Here is a synthesis of the two solutions for you (which is actually cribbed from a suggestion I gave in Barnes' Bravo class thread):
I like this idea a lot and I know exactly how I would execute it. Paladin is right about it being underpowered compared to monk full attacks.

1: Keep single strike as you have written it except I would double the strength modifier to damage and only the strength modifier to damage (as multiplying other weirder static bonuses by 1.5 may have unintended side effects and might unduly favor creating monks with equipment like brass knuckles).

2: Replace stunning fist with perfect strike as from the weapon adept archetype with the exception that perfect strike also functions with unarmed strikes

3: At level 4, instead of giving them the ability to spend a ki point to make an extra attack as a full round action, let them spend a ki point as a free to use perfect strike without expending a daily use of that ability.

4: Give them this ability at level 5,
Supernal Strike: Beginning at level 6, the single strike monk gains the ability to make a special "supernal strike" attack as a full round action. To use this ability, the monk must expend one use of his perfect strike ability; he rolls two attacks as normal (or three attacks when he reaches level 10 [my note: see weapon adept class]). However unlike the normal use, every attack that hits deals an additional 100% damage. Critical hits still use the second highest roll as the confirmation roll and no more than one attack from this ability may become a critical hit.

5: At level 6, let him charge
At level 6, the single strike monk may make a "single strike" as part of a charge and may use any standard action attack at the end of the charge (such as vital strike or cleave)

6: then upgrade the whole thing again at level 16,
Beginning at level 15, the single strike monk rolls 4 times when making a Supernal Strike.

[LoneKnave]

Eh, you can just stack it with weapon adept (who should honestly work like you describe, so best of both worlds would be to fix that archetype and then just take both).

I like making archetypes so they combine with as many as possible and replace as few features as possible. This class feature would easily combine thematically with any of the monk "Stunning Fist" replacements. Elemental fist? Punch someone so hard it's fire! Awesome! Punishing kick? Punch someone so hard they fly away! Awesome!

I was thinking Single Strike could just count as a two handed attack regardless of the number of hands used maybe? Would be more simple, but I kinda like the scaling.

[Excaliburproxy]

Well, that would be simple. You are still left with the problem of piss poor full attacks then, though. I maybe disagree about how weapon adepts should work as I describe. Making multiple attack rolls is really not bad even if there is no increase to damage. It gives them the option to "go nova" and attempt to ensure that every attack they make that round will hit and a few will probably even threaten critical. They are still underpowered (cuz monk) but they are probably comparable to similar builds.

Without my suggestion, you still have the problem of their full attack being kind of weak. If you really want to go crazy, then you could write different full attack glosses for the three most common monk ability variants (stunning fist, elemental fist or whatever, and perfect strike)

For instance
For stunning fist: a monk using stunning fist as a full attack would force an opponent to make a will save and a fort save and if it fails either it is stunned. You could make this ignore stun immunity (and other kinds of immunity when the monk gets the higher level versions).

For elemental fist: a monk using elemental fist would do extra damage equal to her level in d6s of elemental damage.

These special effect would probably be limited to the kind of monk special attack that a monk would get at level 1. I like the idea but it is sort of wordy and complicated.

[LoneKnave]

Well, his full attacks are supposed to be kinda eeeeh in exchange for being good at making single attacks (which gives him better mobility, which is boosted by his other class features). And he can still just throw Ki at problems if he wants.

Maybe I could rewrite the Ki ability to be essentially deadshot deed. But I kinda don't want to. It'd be all up-sides and no downs.

[Excaliburproxy]

Frankly, the single punch full attacks that I have suggested, don't even approach the power of a real monk's full attack.

You can pull back on the power of Deadshot a lot of ways too.

Their full attacks are just laughable as it stands. It makes the weak monk even worse.

How about instead of a full attack they can do this,
Focus Ki: Starting at 6th level, a single strike monk may focus his ki as a move action. When he does so, the next melee attack the single strike monk delivers in the next 3 rounds deals an additional 1d6+wis damage if it hits. On a miss, the ability is wasted. A monk must have at least one ki point left to use this ability. This damage increases by an additional 2d6 at levels 12 and 18.

Starting at 12th level, focus ki extends the critical hit range of the next unarmed strike to 18-20. This effect stacks with the improved critical feat (increasing the threat range to 15-20) but not other effects.

Starting at 18th level, the single strike monk may add his wisdom modifier to the attack roll that delivers the ki strike.

I am giving you game design gold here. Goooooold.

[LoneKnave]

But when can a monk full attack? Until they can get dimensional dervish, they can't, at all, unless they are fighting a goshdarned sandbag. They have no pounce-like ability at all, even with their increased movespeed.

The entire point of the archetype is that now they can make use of their movespeed and other mobility options without having to saddle down for a full attack.

When they can do a full attack, they may still spend some Ki to get multiple Single Strikes, which does improve the damage drastically.

The move action buff is a good idea for some other archetype that trades away fast movement though. I quite like it.

Extended crit range for unarmed attacks is also something the monks sorely lacks but it's not the purview of this archetype to fix. This is just to trade Flurry for a comparable ability, but an opposite theme.

[Excaliburproxy]

Are the second and third attacks in your model not at a negative 5 each? I am sort of confused by what you just said.

[LoneKnave]

Unless you take TWF, they are.

Or you could go for Greater trip/Vicious stomp and use the two full BAB attacks from those instead. Add Felling Smash for three.

Being bad at full attacking doesn't matter when you don't want to full attack. If you have a standard action that deals a lot of damage, why would you want to full attack? Nobody goes up to wizards/sorcerors and says "well, yeah, you can deal about 20d10 damage as a standard action to the entire room, but you suck when you full attack".

Because they don't need to take full round actions, because their standard actions are good. The idea here is to replace the full round action with a standard action that's as worthwhile. Unlike normal monks, you are not married to your full attack.

[Excaliburproxy]

I get it man. But sometimes the monk will start his turn next to an enemy and proceed to feel like weak sauce. I think in a perfect world, this should be the tradeoffs:

Normal Monk Standard Attack< Single Strike Monk Standard Attack<Single Strike Monk Full Attack (without very large expenditure of resources such as 2 ki points and two weapon fighting feat tax)< Normal Monk Full Attack. <<<<the ki focus model (where the "full attack" is actually a separate move action and standard attack)

Or this:
Normal Monk Standard Attack< Single Strike Monk Standard Attack< Normal Monk Full Attack = Single Strike Monk Sneak attack (with the expenditure of some small amount of resources, such as a "uses per monk level" ability) <<<<The supernal strike model.