So I've just gotten back into Pathfinder after an absence of a little over 2 years (College gaming group faded after graduation) and I was going through my old files and came across a Monk archetype I started messing around with while I was at the height of my Pathfinding. It's rough around the edges, but I wanted to get some thoughts on it before I look at possibly polishing it a bit more.
It's designed to capture the old trope of the blind old Kung Fu master who fells opponents with careful, impossible precision rather than flurries of blows.
The Blind Sage Monk
I know you're going for the Zatoichi Blind Samurai-esque thing (which I love), but: where's the Blind in his blindness? You made the Blinded condition necessary for the archetype, but do you impose any of the condition's drawbacks for which these perks are compensation? In other words, does he suffer: the -2 to AC, lose DEX to AC, need to move at half speed, etc., and slowly overcome them as he levels up? (Blind Fighting to overcome the loss of Dex to AC; Improved Blind Fighting to overcome the fact that all foes have concealment against you; and so on.)
I like a lot of the features you gave him. But "blind without the drawbacks" - while it fits the trope - simply becomes flavor with no mechanical impact. I could play a "blind" Rogue, or Magus, or any class for that matter, if the blindness is only there for flavor. A "blind" Kensai would be just as cool.
Otherwhere wrote: I know you're going for the Zatoichi Blind Samurai-esque thing (which I love), but: where's the Blind in his blindness? You made the Blinded condition necessary for the archetype, but do you impose any of the condition's drawbacks for which these perks are compensation? In other words, does he suffer: the -2 to AC, lose DEX to AC, need to move at half speed, etc., and slowly overcome them as he levels up? (Blind Fighting to overcome the loss of Dex to AC; Improved Blind Fighting to overcome the fact that all foes have concealment against you; and so on.)
I like a lot of the features you gave him. But "blind without the drawbacks" - while it fits the trope - simply becomes flavor with no mechanical impact. I could play a "blind" Rogue, or Magus, or any class for that matter, if the blindness is only there for flavor. A "blind" Kensai would be just as cool.
Would it be more interesting without the inclusion of the Blind-Fight chain as a part of the archetype? As I recall, I figured it'd be an auto-include for any build of this in any case, so I tried to factor its power level into the other features and just rolled it into the kit. But aside from those feats, he's as mechanically blind (and penalized) as any other blind character.
Rostiphan wrote: Would it be more interesting without the inclusion of the Blind-Fight chain as a part of the archetype? As I recall, I figured it'd be an auto-include for any build of this in any case, so I tried to factor its power level into the other features and just rolled it into the kit. But aside from those feats, he's as mechanically blind (and penalized) as any other blind character. No - as long as he's actually got the Blinded condition, then granting these as in-class feats totally makes sense. You've built in a progression for him to slowly overcome the disability - which is great!
Now, given that he's Blinded, he would also automatically be immune to visual Illusions, so that's another perk.
You might look at the Iaijutsu features of the Kensai magus or Uncanny Dodge as possible additions. Zatoichi iirc had that sort of preternatural instinct to react more quickly to danger (improve initiative), and being able to improve his AC beyond that of merely compensating for the auto -2 AC would be nice.
Oh, yeah, he's definitely blind. That's kind of the point of the design of Spider Sense - he can pick one guy to be supernaturally aware of and therefore gains bonuses that to a large degree counteract his blindness against that person. Everything else still has a pretty good chance at beating him to a pulp though.
I could see working things like Uncanny Dodge and Improved Initiative in, but I'd probably have to find something to exchange for it - he already gets a full chain of feats free-ish, I'd be nervous giving him much more without pulling things out.
Remember: the Blinded condition is, itself, a trade-off. To play this archetype, one has to accept that your foes will have total concealment (50% miss chance), you suffer a -2 to AC, and lose Dex to AC, and so on. So a few more perks should be justified - just don't put them all at 1st level. LOL
That's a reasonable point, I could see adding a protection agaisnt Flat-footed to With Eyes Unseeing at 3rd, maybe making it only against attacks made from within a 20 ft. radius?
So, I added limited Flat-Footed protection into With Eyes Unseeing, and gave Spider Sense a rounds-per-day limit (it seemed a little out there to have it be always active) but gave Greater Spider Sense at level 17 a mechanism for extending that duration (because it seemed fine for the end-game version to have a much wider access to it.)
Looks good.
Hopefully some others will chime in here with their input. There are people on these boards with truly amazing analytical powers and experience with the system who can point out how/where these may be unbalanced, OP, etc.
Have you given it a test run in a game?
I'm glad you didn't just go with the usual trite "I'm a blind monk with blindsight." However, the archetype needs a lot of work. Sneak attack is completely worthless because it doesn't work on enemies that have concealment (total concealment for an unchained rogue). It also doesn't make much thematic sense. Spider sense is such a bland ability for something that replaces the iconic flurry of blows.
Cyrad wrote: I'm glad you didn't just go with the usual trite "I'm a blind monk with blindsight." However, the archetype needs a lot of work. Sneak attack is completely worthless because it doesn't work on enemies that have concealment (total concealment for an unchained rogue). It also doesn't make much thematic sense. Spider sense is such a bland ability for something that replaces the iconic flurry of blows. The archetype has two abilities which remove the concealment as a factor, activating Sneak Attack. One of those is above-said Spider Sense.
Edit: No, I haven't run it in test games yet - the only Pathfinder I've been able to play of late is PFS.
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