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At first level, a monk chooses their path to perfection from among Body, Heart, or Spirit. This choice determines which key ability scores they may choose from, which ability they receive at first level, as well as which possible tradition their ki powers may arise from. The Monk depicted in the Core Rulebook is assumed to have chosen the path of Body, and in all ways functions identically:
Body
You have chosen to hone your martial technique, capable of delivering strikes that combine high speed with coordinated force. You may choose Strength or Dexterity as your key ability score, gain the Flurry of Blows ability at first level, and may choose from the Divine or Occult traditions for your Ki class abilities (if any).
Heart
You have chosen to sharpen your meditative prowess, capable of delivering single powerful strikes with an outward display of inner tranquility. You may choose Dexterity or Wisdom as your key ability score, gain the Meditated Strike ability at first level, and may choose from the Arcane or Occult traditions for your Ki class abilities (if any).
Spirit
You have chosen to attune to the fullness of all your senses, capable of avoiding dangerous blows as if gifted with precognitive foresight. You may choose Strength or Wisdom as your key ability score, gain the Danger Sense ability at first level, and may choose from the Arcane or Divine traditions for your Ki class abilities (if any).
Meditated Strike
You attack slowly and with determination, focused on penetrating your foes defenses with a single, well-placed strike.
(Flourish, Monk)
(Single Action)
Make an unarmed strike. You may use your Wisdom modifier in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier when rolling to strike. You may give this ability the concentrate trait to do one of the following: Either remove the flourish trait, or, give this ability the fortune trait.
Danger Sense
Your senses elevate your attention just outside of your body at all times, allowing you to dodge incoming blows with relative ease.
(Monk)
Requirement: You are unencumbered and not wearing armor.
Your may substitute your Wisdom modifier for your Dexterity modifier to your Armor Class.
Stunning Fist
(Monk 2)
Prerequisite: Flurry of Blows or Meditated Strike
The focused power of your flurry or meditation threatens to overwhelm your opponent. When you target the same creature with two Strikes from your Flurry of Blows, or with one strike with your Meditated Strike, you can try to stun the creature. If one of these Strikes hits and deals damage, the target must succeed at a Fortitude save against your class DC or be stunned 1 (or stunned 3 on a critical failure). This is an incapacitation effect.
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Is giving Meditated Strike the Fortune trait intended to make it a roll-twice ability, or simply cancel out misfortune effects? Currently, the number of misfortune effects in the game is quite small, which makes it a very situational benefit (which is fine, if that's the intent). If it's supposed to allow you to roll twice, I think it needs to spell that out; fortune is a tag applied to things like Assurance and True Strike that affect how you roll the dice (or don't, in the case of Assurance), but does not on its own have any rules effect aside from the cancel-out effect with misfortune and to indicate that it doesn't stack with other fortune effects.
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By tapping into a supernatural inner reserve called ki, you can create magical effects. Certain feats grant you special spells called ki spells, which are a type of focus spell. It costs 1 Focus Point to cast a focus spell. When you gain your first ki spell, you also gain a focus pool of 1 Focus Point. You refill your focus pool during your daily preparations, and you regain 1 Focus Point by spending 10 minutes using the Refocus activity to meditate in order to reach inner peace.
When you first gain a ki spell, decide whether your ki spells are divine spells or occult spells. You become trained in spell attacks and spell DCs of that tradition...
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At first level, a monk chooses their path to perfection from among Body, Heart, or Spirit. This choice determines which key ability scores they may choose from, which ability they receive at first level, as well as which possible tradition their ki powers may arise from. The Monk depicted in the Core Rulebook is assumed to have chosen the path of Body, and in all ways functions identically:
** spoiler omitted **...
I like your ideas Rainzax. I made a few changes for myself though. It is a small increase in power because it includes 1 free feat for each type of Monk. Let me know what you think:
Monk:
(pg 155): You may chose to focus in 1 of 3 areas as a Monk: Flurry, Ki, or Stances.
Flurry: You use the rules as presented in the core book, and may choose Strength or Dexterity as your key ability. You get the Flurry of Blows ability and the Monastic Weaponry feat at level 1 for free.
Ki: You may choose between Dexterity or Wisdom as your key ability. Instead of Flurry of Blows you get the Ki Defense ability. You get either Ki Strike or Ki Rush at level 1 for free.
Stances: You may choose between Strength and Wisdom as your key ability. Instead of Flurry of Blows, you get the Meditative Strike ability. You may choose any level 1 Stance as a free feat.
Ki Defense (1 action)
(Requirement: Unarmored and Unencumbered): You may spend 1 action and 1 Ki point to add your Wisdom bonus to your Armor Class until the end of your next round. Each time you spend another Focus point while Ki Defense is still active, it extends the Duration of Ki Defense an additional round. You get +1 Focus point in your Focus Pool.
Meditative Strike (1 action)
(Concentrate, Flourish, Fortune): Make an unarmed strike. You may use your Wisdom bonus instead of your Str. bonus for the attack roll if it is higher. Roll the attack twice, using the better result. This ability replaces Flurry of Blows in all feats. It only counts as a single attack for MAP.
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At first level, a monk chooses their path to perfection from among Body, Heart, or Spirit. This choice determines which key ability scores they may choose from, which ability they receive at first level, as well as which possible tradition their ki powers may arise from. The Monk depicted in the Core Rulebook is assumed to have chosen the path of Body, and in all ways functions identically:
** spoiler omitted **...I like your ideas Rainzax. I made a few changes for myself though. It is a small increase in power because it includes 1 free feat for each type of Monk. Let me know what you think:
** spoiler omitted **...
Interesting ideas, the only thing that concerns me is how powerful these abilities can be. A well built monk using ki defence could be adding +3 to ac at 1st level, on a chassis that is only just behind an optimal fighter. Add in access to the shield cantrip (from ancestry feat) and 20% miss chance from ki rush and suddenly they’re untouchable. While my concerns may turn out to be unfounded, it does seem a little op. And at this stage, the build hasn’t even used a class feat.
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Interesting ideas, the only thing that concerns me is how powerful these abilities can be. A well built monk using ki defence could be adding +3 to ac at 1st level, on a chassis that is only just behind an optimal fighter. Add in access to the shield cantrip (from ancestry feat) and 20% miss chance from ki rush and suddenly they’re untouchable. While my concerns may turn out to be unfounded, it does seem a little op. And at this stage, the build hasn’t even used a class feat.
At first level, a monk chooses their path to perfection from among Body, Heart, or Spirit. This choice determines which key ability scores they may choose from, which ability they receive at first level, as well as which possible tradition their ki powers may arise from. The Monk depicted in the Core Rulebook is assumed to have chosen the path of Body, and in all ways functions identically:
** spoiler omitted **...I like your ideas Rainzax. I made a few changes for myself though. It is a small increase in power because it includes 1 free feat for each type of Monk. Let me know what you think:
** spoiler omitted **...
The plan was not to make them completely untouchable, but to give them a few rounds per day with a big boost. This is in place of Flurry of Blows, so it really hurts their attack abilities. The way I figure, they could use it at the start of round 1 and then, during round 2 use another Ki Focus power (which bumps the duration 1 more round, and then by the end of round 3 he's out of Focus points and his defenses do back to normal, I too worry about it being too strong, but I didn't want to just give him a constant boost like "use Will in place of Dex if it is better" for 2 reasons: 1) he is supposed to be focused on Ki, and 2) what if his Will is not any better than his Dex? Dex is still useful for a lot of Monk things, so I didn't want people to think they could just dump it.
I could tone it down, say "you get half your Wisdom bonus added to your AC". That could eventually be a +3 bonus with a Wis of 20. Do you think that is more balanced?
Edit: Change made, it's now half your Wis mod in my house rules!
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Ok, I though about it a bit further and I decided to change the whole "Ki focus" ability. Now, you can exchange your Wisdom mod for your Dex mod to AC if it is better. It follows all the same penalties and restrictions as your Dex mod. You get the Ki Rush feat for free.
Flurry of Blows is replaced by Soul Strike (a modified version of Ki Strike, and you may thus never take the Ki Strike feat). It has the Verbal and Flourish traits. You shout while you make an unarmed strike. If it hits, you deal +1d6 extra damage that can be your choice of positive or negative damage. The rest of the blow deals it's normal amount and type of damage.
I like this better than Ki Defense because it is a strike ability like Flurry of Blows and Meditative Strike. That makes it easier to compare and balance. I added the Verbal and Flourish traits and removed the +1 bonus from Ki Strike. Do you think it is balanced compared to the other 2 options?
This reminded me of all the anime where a character shouts while attacking. Now we know why!