Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
So like many other people on these boards I've taken a crack at trying to fix up the monk (one of my favourite concepts, but always lacking in execution). You can find my attempt here. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
Well, it has the edge on monk in a few places, but still seems a bit flat or weak. Compare with, say, a ranger. Even without the spellcasting, a ranger has a few fields of skill and expertise as well as being competent on the field, while a monk is at best competent on the battlefield and...has no real relevance elsewhere.
Your methods of regaining Ki are a good step in the right direction, at least, but they'd need applications that, preferably, at least match that of a casting class at the same level in that specific regard.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
I was actually worried I had made it potentially too strong. It get's the brawler's flurry (though renamed and grouped up with a limited, though stronger, version of weapon training), full BAB, all good saves, a better mechanic for its ki abilities, the master of many style's fuse style and ability to snipe the best stuff from combat styles, and buffs to its ki abilities. I was worried that even with the especially lowered HD, less mobility, and decreased AC boost it would be more powerful than the combat focused tier 4 classes like the barbarian or paladin.
Nah, throw all the traditional monk goodies back in and you may have a fairly balanced class.
EDIT: and for the love of all that is holy make sure whatever movement bonus you give the monk stacks with Enhancement Bonuses to movement.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Which "traditional monk goodies" are you talking about cause the only things it misses from the core monk by my reckoning are Diamond Soul (more a hindrance than a benefit), Tongue of the Sun and Moon (which is useful only in certain campaigns), and Empty Body (which is strictly worse than the party wizard casting Etherealness).
I was referring to the places you toned it down.
HenshinFanatic wrote: I was worried that even with the especially lowered HD, less mobility, and decreased AC boost it would be more powerful than the combat focused tier 4 classes like the barbarian or paladin.
HenshinFanatic wrote: Which "traditional monk goodies" are you talking about cause the only things it misses from the core monk by my reckoning are Diamond Soul (more a hindrance than a benefit), Tongue of the Sun and Moon (which is useful only in certain campaigns), and Empty Body (which is strictly worse than the party wizard casting Etherealness). Larger ki pool. Quivering Palm for free. TWF substitute at 1st level.
Also, you should keep Empty Body, even if it's worse than the party wizard casting Etherealness. Otherwise, why would you ever keep a thing like Slow Fall around?
Paizo convention is d10 or d12 for full BAB classes.
Quivering Palm is really, really expensive for what it does- a 16th-level single target save or die that requires you to make a regular attack roll to hit the target. Wizards have been tossing these around since 9th level, without needing to touch the target (Phantasmal Killer). Clerics without special domain spells can toss a save or die that requires a touch attack at 11th level (Plane Shift). Quivering Palm, as written, requires a significant amount of your expendable resources, a far higher amount than what a typical Wizard or Cleric would be expending to do the same thing more effectively. At the very least, give the Monk a way to make touch attack punches (Like the Unchained Monk, anybody?) that can be used with Quivering Palm or Stunning Fist.
The ki costs should be reduced. Consider that the pool=WIS instead of pool=WIS+1/2 level. The things that cost 3 ki are likely to remain unused, because of the cost of spending such a significant fraction of your pool on it. Also, it's hard to monk-nova with a tiny pool that only supports 2 or 3 uses of ki before it runs dry. Maybe also a way to regain ki between combats, such as an hour of rest and meditation to fill up the whole pool?
Also, when are you ever going to critically hit with a 20/x2 weapon? The x2 on top of a 20 means there's very little incentive besides the ki pool to boost your crit rate. And it's hard to get a Bracers of Falcon's Aim or Keen for fists.
The monk is still MAD. Perhaps a way to get WIS to hit like Zen Archer or Evangelist of Erastil? Or DEX to hit and damage, like Unchained Rogue?
Out of combat versatility still suffers. For stats, a combat-optimized build might focus on STR, then WIS, then DEX, then CON, and dump INT and CHA. That means few skill points. However, none of the other class abilities even begin to make up for the lack of skill points and social attributes. Perhaps a way to use WIS for Diplomacy and monster knowledge checks, like the Inquisitor with the Conversion inquisition?
The bonus feat list is still pretty meh. Perhaps Combat Expertise, because it's a terrible prerequisite that unfortunately a lot of feats (including some of the feats later on the monk list) require? Or better yet, a way to count as having Combat Expertise and INT 13 without needing to have those. Also, Power Attack on the list would be amazing for a STR-dumped Monk who is using Agile and Weapon Finesse or a Guided weapon.
Whirlwind Attack would be amazing to have on the prerequisite-free Monk list, even if you have to wait until a later level. Same with Penetrating Strike, which is something the Qinggong Monk archetype can pick up.
Thanks for trying to fix the monk.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
@ kyrt-ryder
Well, it has the same HD as a core monk so in that sense it hasn't been toned down, I was more comparing it to other full BAB classes which get a d10 (with the barbarian being an exception getting a d12). I figured that all the buffs I gave it were worth downgrading the HD back to a d8. I mean, it is only an average of half a hit point per level.
As for the mobility, specifically speed. I guess I could change it to a different typed bonus so that it can stack with more things, but I don't want to make this able to go too high because the new version of High Jump it has also let's it move quite a bit all for a measly ki point. Being able to withdraw as essentially a swift action and move 80-120 feet on top of your normal move and standard, or full-round action is not that bad; alternatively the run feat starts to look like a semi-decent investment with the possibility of a swift action run for 5x move speed.
Onto AC. I didn't actually decrease it that much. In fact, only by a single point. That's only a 5% increased chance of being hit. A dexterity focused monk can still be quite tricky to hit, they'll just be doing less damage until they get both weapon finesse and one of the Dex-to-damage options.
@ My Self
You want a larger ki pool? There's always the Extra Ki feat. While I never wrote up a revised version because I figured it was kind of obvious what changes would be needed with Extra Grit and Extra Panache existing.
Regarding quivering palm; you do realize that by the time you get it you have at least a +20 attack bonus (+16 BAB + 4 from Martial Arts) so it isn't as hard to land an unarmed attack as you make it out to be. If I gave One Touch or a variation thereof, it would be trivially easy to hit anything (the only way you could miss most things is if you rolled a 1, the unchained monk gets away with it by not having other accuracy boosts like from a weapon training variant).
I fail to see why the ki costs should be reduced, by the time you get to the levels where you get the expensive ki abilities you should have something like a 22 wisdom between stat boosts and enhancement/inherent bonuses. Add on Extra Ki one or two times and you've got anywhere from 8 to 10 ki points. Though I guess I should make it explicit that Ki Wave does grant you ki points for any kills you get through it so it does have the potential to plus.
The other stuff I'll give some more thought to.
HenshinFanatic wrote: @ kyrt-ryder
Well, it has the same HD as a core monk so in that sense it hasn't been toned down, I was more comparing it to other full BAB classes which get a d10 (with the barbarian being an exception getting a d12). I figured that all the buffs I gave it were worth downgrading the HD back to a d8. I mean, it is only an average of half a hit point per level.
As for the mobility, specifically speed. I guess I could change it to a different typed bonus so that it can stack with more things, but I don't want to make this able to go too high because the new version of High Jump it has also let's it move quite a bit all for a measly ki point. Being able to withdraw as essentially a swift action and move 80-120 feet on top of your normal move and standard, or full-round action is not that bad; alternatively the run feat starts to look like a semi-decent investment with the possibility of a swift action run for 5x move speed.
Onto AC. I didn't actually decrease it that much. In fact, only by a single point. That's only a 5% increased chance of being hit. A dexterity focused monk can still be quite tricky to hit, they'll just be doing less damage until they get both weapon finesse and one of the Dex-to-damage options.
@ My Self
You want a larger ki pool? There's always the Extra Ki feat. While I never wrote up a revised version because I figured it was kind of obvious what changes would be needed with Extra Grit and Extra Panache existing.
Regarding quivering palm; you do realize that by the time you get it you have at least a +20 attack bonus (+16 BAB + 4 from Martial Arts) so it isn't as hard to land an unarmed attack as you make it out to be. If I gave One Touch or a variation thereof, it would be trivially easy to hit anything (the only way you could miss most things is if you rolled a 1, the unchained monk gets away with it by not having other accuracy boosts like from a weapon training variant).
I fail to see why the ki costs should be reduced, by the time you get to the levels where you...
Why shouldn't Ki Wave let you get ki points? It's not like that or Quivering Palm are automatic kills. It's only really useful against large crowds of enemies. You'd need to kill 3 people to recoup your spent ki. Also, with martial characters, don't keep them from being able to do cool things. Casters already have all the fun toys, why can't martial?
Still, can Quivering Palm be free? I liked it as a free regular monk thing, instead of tied to Ki.
Recall that wizards/sorcerers/arcanists are still far, far better at bypassing HP damage and killing by the time you get Quivering Palm. They're 1 spell level from Wail of the Banshee, Weird, and Power Word Kill, and they have a boatload of other effective kill spells at far lower levels. Even if it's not your job to be a wizard, at least you could get an ability that lets you occasionally be almost remotely as useful as the wizard in combat.
I feel like Ki Wave would be some sort of positive energy or force blast. Fire/electricity feels weird as ki, I've always thought of it more like life energy.
Perhaps selective spell resistance for Diamond Body (immune to enemy spells), or immunity to certain types of spells?
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
If it was free it would have to go back to being only once per day. This version you can potentially use multiple times a day. Speaking of, I lifted this version straight from 5E.
Ki Wave, and Ki Blasts for that matter are fire/electricity as a reference to this video where MatPat basically goes over how the ki attacks from Dragonball are pretty much plasma. Plasma being very basically a supercharged gas I figured fire/electricity would make sense. Though now that I've looked up how plasma is handled in Pathfinder, I can see arguments for bludgeoning/fire if only for consistency's sake.
Totally disagree with the plasma theory on Ki Blasts. IMO it's more a release of pure force. Sure they are hot, there's a lot of energy bundled up in there, but they certainly aren't THAT hot. You see far more explosive force style damage from ki blasts [with traces of fire] than you do ashes or molten materials.
But your homebrew, your call.
EDIT: also, if they were simple plasma I don't believe releasing it would be able to provide propulsion in the manner Kamehameha did during Dragonball's first World Martial Arts Tournament. Plasma might provide lift but not much if any horizontal movement.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Updated with a few things, including changes to ki wave, an additional deed at 2nd level, and my take on what the monk weapon group should be (not including stuff from player's companions as a:I don't have many of them and b:I'd rather encourage people to support the company that's so chill with us fans doing these kinds of things).
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