RPG Superstar – Early Start Round 1

Paizo, the good people that bring us Pathfinder, have for two years now hosted the RPG Superstar competition. It is with shame that tenletter has to admit that it hasn’t made enough effort to compete in the dog-eat-dog cutthroat world of the hyper-elite RPG game designers. But no longer will we lower our heads dejectedly! Today I will start a process of development and refinement that will surely lead tenletter to the zenith of RPG superstardom!

As such I will follow the rules and regulations of the RPG Superstar 2009 competition in an attempt to create the perfect wondrous item for round 1 of the competition. Turns out that the 200 word limit was a surprisingly hard restriction to comply with – early designs of the item were significantly more verbose. Nonetheless, I hope I can get a lively set of responses and constructive criticisms that can help to fine tune my current submission. Kudos  to Neal Herbert for his extensive advice to improve the suggestion.

Pact Pendant of Life

Aura faint universal; CL 3rd
Slot neck; Price 200 gp; Weight -

Description

Few realize that these aptly-named pendants forge a contract with the bearer and the church of Asmodeus. Pact pendants of life create weak conduits of positive energy that, collectively, act as a reservoir of life force into which Asmodeus can tap. The pendants are designed to be subtly addictive and life preserving to ensure their continued use. Despite the creation cost of pendants, the church of Asmodeus commonly sells them for as little as 100 gp.

Equipping a pact pendant of life has no effect initially. After 24 hours the wearer of the pendant suffers a -2 penalty to Constitution. Additionally the wearer may add her hit die to any roll a number of times a day equal to her Constitution modifier (minimum 1). Finally, the wearer of a pact pendant gains Fast Healing 1 while her hit points are below 0.

Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cleric of Asmodeus; Cost 100 gp

Alternate abilities: Barbarian

Edit: changed the new rage powers to be accessible to all barbarians, regardless of whether they use rage or frenzy based powers. Additionally adjusted the effect of the Swift Step rage power.

In a recent post I discussed potential development for future class rules within the Pathfinder rules framework. One of the things that became apparent in the process of writing that post was how desirable it would be to have the core classes possesses alternate class abilities that allowed attributes that are commonly neglected to become more prominent. For example, a barbarian that didn’t have brutish hulking strength but rather nimble agility; or a sorcerer that utilized her very life force (in other words her constitution) to power her magic rather than her innate presence.

This post is the first of hopefully many that discusses each core class in turn and presents alternate class abilities – at least one of which is designed to allow a different attribute to shine on that specific class. In today’s post the discussion falls onto the barbarian. As always I’m keen on feedback, so don’t be afraid to let me know what you think.

Alternate Class Abilities

Barbarian

1. Frenzied rages

Not all barbarians call upon the primal rages that their more typical brothers and sisters do. Instead of inner strength and ferocity they call upon an inner reservoir of heightened speed and reaction. These barbarians utilize a power akin to rages, but rather than the brute power of a bear they gain the feral grace and speed of the wild cat.

At level 1 a barbarian may choose to forgo the Rage, Greater Rage and Mighty Rage class abilities and, if she does, she may instead gain Frenzy, Greater Frenzy and Mighty Frenzy class abilities at the appropriate levels. The Frenzy class ability may be used to qualify for feats and prestige classes that have the rage class ability requirement. While in a frenzy, a barbarian cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except Acrobatics, Fly, Intimidate, and Ride) or any ability that requires patience or concentration.

Frenzy

The Frenzy class ability provides the barbarian with the same amount of rage points as the normal Rage class ability, and a frenzy costs the same activation and upkeep cost as its corresponding rage. Additionally rage powers function in the same way for frenzies as for rages. While in frenzy the barbarian gains a +6 bonus to her Dexterity. Additionally all weapons function as if they were one size category smaller than they are for the purposes of determining whether a weapon may be finessed and off-hand penalties. While in a frenzy a barbarian may deal one additional attack at her highest attack bonus when making a full-round attack.

Greater Frenzy

When entering a frenzy, the barbarian may choose to enter a greater frenzy instead, this costs 2 rage points to initiate and 2 rage points each round to maintain. While in a greater frenzy the barbarian gains a +8 Dexterity bonus and may perform two additional attacks at her highest attack bonus when making a full-round attack. Additionally all weapons function as if they were one size category smaller than they are for the purposes of determining whether a weapon may be finessed and off-hand penalties.

Mighty Frenzy

When entering a frenzy, the barbarian may choose to enter a mighty frenzy instead, this costs 3 rage points to initiate and 3 rage points each round to maintain. While in a mighty frenzy the barbarian gains a +10 Dexterity bonus and may perform two additional attacks at her highest attack bonus when making a full-round attack. Additionally all weapons function as if they were one size category smaller than they are for the purposes of determining whether a weapon may be finessed and off-hand penalties.

2. New rage powers

In addition to the normal rage powers, a barbarian that has the Frenzy class ability may additionally gain the following new rage powers:

• Swift Step: At the start of her turn the barbarian may expend a swift action to move 5 feet for every two points of Dexterity modifier she has (for example, a Dexterity of 18 corresponds to a modifier of 4 – which would allow for 10 feet of movement). This movement cannot exceed half the speed of the barbarian and the movement provokes attacks of opportunity normally, additionally using the rage power denies the barbarian her Dexterity bonus to armor class until the start of her next turn. If the barbarian is in a mighty frenzy she instead retains her Dexterity bonus to armor class. (4 rage points)
• Frenzied Wielding: As a free action the barbarian may consider any weapons she wields as finessable until the end of her turn. (2 rage points)

3. Effortless raging

A barbarian may choose to forgo the ability to reduce damage on her person, thereby giving up her damage reduction class ability. Instead she gains Effortless Rage 1 at level 7, at 10th level and every 3 levels thereafter the Effortless Rage increases by 1. When using a rage power the barbarian may reduce the cost of the power by her effortless rage rating – though this cannot reduce the cost of a rage power to less than half. For example, at 13th level a barbarian with effortless raging only requires to spend 2 rage points to activate the Quick Reflexes rage power, and only spends 9 rage points to activate level 3 Increased Damage Reduction.

What would you like to see in Pathfinder future?

Over at Paizo I saw a rather active forum thread covering the desired future of Pathfinder rules.

Many people request rules for psionics, for example, or epic-level rules.

Personally I would favor an extensive expansion on the existing core classes. More options on how I can play my rogue, monk, fighter, etc. Here’s a short list of possibilities I think would add a lot:

• Barbarians: more rage powers, ability to “dex-rage” (frenzy) instead of normal rage
• Bards: more bardic performances, and ability to ignore arcane spell progression in favor of divine spell progression (possibly bagging a domain in the process)
• Clerics: move away from good/evil dichotomy; option to reduce spells known and progression in favor of casting spontaneously (like a sorcerer) (yes, essentially a Pathfinder variant of the Favored Soul)
• Druids: option to replace wild shape with having a beast bloodline
• Fighters: optional “training” variants, instead of armor and weapon training – have options to have “war training”, “officer training”, “movement training”, “maneuver training”, etc instead
• Monks: more ki powers, option to have Intelligence (Kung Fu Genius) or Charisma (Fighting Spirit) based monk bonuses (rather than Wisdom based)
• Paladins: option to give up high BAB progression to gain more abilities to powerup the party as a whole (similar to the Bard and Marshal classes); option to give up some benefit to gain paladin spells from level 1 onward
• Rangers: more combat styles (for example “Skirmish”), option to give up some benefit to gain ranger spells from level 1 onward
• Rogues: option to give up sneak attack, but gain spell-casting as a sorcerer of level equal to the sneak attack (i.e. 10d6 sneak attack = cast spells as a 10th level sorcerer)
• Sorcerers: more bloodlines (additionally expand spells and bloodlines to include “psionic” flavored ones)
• Wizards: more schools (additionally expand spells and schools to include “psionic” flavored ones)

Thoughts and comments?

What does a rat have in common with a snake and a rabbit?

Just a short post to let you know that my 3.X monk project has been updated. Still looking for good Rooster ideas.

Next time, I will reveal level 2 and 3. Stay tuned.

- jatori

miniDotA 1.04 nearly ready for release

As usual tenletter is one of the first places to hear about miniDotA developments – and as it turns out, I’m nearly ready to release 1.04 – there are only two (major) issues still outstanding.

First is a new loading art in development by Ambra-Lioness (find her on http://ambra-lioness.deviantart.com/ ) who is creating an outstanding image that really is looking promising at this stage (line art). And may I add that she’s in recent weeks developed and mastered the technique to increase bust size on the girls she draws. A very important feature that.

The second issue is that I’ve had a fair amount of contact with them Chinese DotA fans. Apparently the scene is so big there, that they have enough space for a miniDotA project. As I found out they had enough energy to go and crack the protection on 1.03 and change the strings to Chinese to make the map more accessable to their non-english-speaking countrymen. Well, not one to ignore such efforts – I’m hoping to get the strings officially translated into Chinese and have an actual CN-version of the map available.

So – you ask – what is new?

Map-wide changes, many balance fixes, and a new hero!

Dawneyes, the Spiritmender

Who possesses these wonderful abilities:

• Peaceful Departure – enemies you kill gain you a 10hp/s healing and immolation aura for 4/8/12/16 seconds. The magnitude stacks, so if you kill 10 creeps using cleaving attacks, you’ll have 100hp/s regen and immolation for a duration.
• Ghost Evasion – when Dawneyes is dealt damage, she has a 15% chance to gain “Ghost” for 1/2/3/4 seconds. In “Ghost” mode the hero is invisible but can STILL attack without losing invisibility.
• Spirit Force – on target point cast an AOE spell, the area increases with every passing second for 6/8/10/12 seconds. Enemies inside the area of effect are dealt double damage (from all sources). The AOE is very small initially and grows for its duration.
• Soul Scar (Ultimate) – target enemy has its soul ripped from its body. This has the effect to give Dawneyes “Ghost” for 5 seconds, but also, the further the enemy moves from his soul, the more armor he loses, and the more the Spiritmender becomes empowered (increasing movement speed). The rate is -1/-2/-3 armor lost for every 100 units away from soul and 5% movement speed gained. Caps at -10/-20/-30 armor and 50% movement speed bonus.

I’ll let you know when the final map is released, but it shouldn’t be more than a few weeks from now.

Designing from Flavour to Mechanics [3.X Monk Project]

This post continues my exploration of the monk class of Dungeons and Dragons 3.X. You can view the previous entries here:

• Design Goals
• Part 1 (Level 1)
• Part 2 (Expanded Design Goals)
• This post, first published: 28 May 2009; last edit: 08 June 2009 – latest updates in red.

Flavour First; Mechanics Later

I’ve received a little bit of positive feedback regarding this project, especially on combat stances and qi surges. However, trying to design mechanically sound stances and surges has proven to be difficult. Therefore, I’ve decided to tackle things differently. I am going to start with the flavour (you know, the role playing bit of the game) and work backwards from there to the mechanics.

For this project, I’ll be using the Chinese zodiac as the theme behind 12 different schools of martial arts (one school for each of the animals). Each school’s fighting style will be based on the connotations (probably incorporating both Occidental and Oriental viewpoints) surrounding each animal. The list is currently incomplete, but I shall be making repeated edits to this post (being sure to alert interested readers either via comments on this post or through other posts)

TC has also suggested that this monk revision not be restricted solely to what I write. Consider customizing the schools and stances to suit your own campaign world. Perhaps your styles are based on the teachings of your world’s  many deities, other fantasy creatures , dragon colours, as examples.

First, though, let’s get just a bit of the mechanics out of the way. The following table lists, by class level, the number of stances a monk knows and the number of stances she may have active simultaneously. A monk knows all qi surges, but each surge has certain prerequisites that need to be met before it can be used (previously, qi surges were tied directly to specific stances).

Level	Known	Active
1	2	1
2	3	2
3	3	2
4	3	2
5	4	2
6	4	2
7	4	2
8	5	3
9	5	3
10	5	3
11	6	3
12	6	3
13	6	3
14	7	4
15	7	4
16	7	4
17	8	4
18	8	4
19	8	4
20	8	5

Schools and Stances

EDIT (08 June 2009): I’ve added favoured skills to each of the classes, as suggested by TC. Bonuses/uses of favoured skills still to be determined.

Rat: According to legend, the Rat, being a small and weak creature, had to rely on his intellect, quick wit and cunning to overcome the many obstacles he faced. Monks that follow this school strive to emulate this quality and are often recognized as either wise diplomats and negotiators or cunning and crafty conmen. Favoured Skill: Bluff.

Stance of Cunning: The monk may add her Wisdom modifier to her Bluff, Diplomacy and Sense Motive checks as an Insight bonus (Effectively, she adds double her Wisdom modifier to Sense Motive checks).

Design note: I don’t see the stance of Cunning as a physical stance, but rather a state of mind, wherein the monk allows herself to better perceive (and thus manipulate) the thoughts and intent of others.

Ox: Work in Progress

Tiger: Work in Progress

Rabbit: Monks that follow this school are typically viewed as soft-spoken, friendly and amiable. They are generally cautious combatants.

Stance of Caerbannog: Attacks with your chosen weapons all deal slashing damage in addition to their normal damage types. Any chosen weapon you wield is considered to have the vorpal property.

Dragon: Work in Progress

Snake: Monks that follow the school of the snake move with  a sensual grace, making no unnecessary movements, preserving their energy, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Favoured Skill: Hide.

Stance of the Python: The monk may add her Wisdom modifier to any damage dealt through a successful grapple check.

Stance of the Viper: The monk may add her Wisdom modifier as an insight bonus to her Hide and Move Silently skill checks. She also adds her Wisdom modifier as an insight bonus to her initiative checks.

Horse: Work in Progress

Ram: Work in Progress

Monkey: Monks that follow the school of the monkey, quickly learn that mental strength and agility are as (if not more) important as physical strength and agility. Monks of this school tend to be quick thinkers and innovative combatants. Favoured Skill: Tumble.

Design note: I envision the melee monkey monk as a combatant that specialises in enfuriating other melee opponents, restricting their ability to strike back. I can’t decide if this should be portrayed mechanically as one stance that adds a bonus to disarm checks, or a stance that adds a bonus to grapple checks, or a stance that adds a bonus to both disarm and grapple checks. I’m favouring the third option.

Rooster: Work in Progress

Dog: Work in Progress

Boar: Work in Progress

I am also considering adding the 5 elements as seperate schools:

Wood: Work in Progress

Fire: Work in Progress

Earth: Work in Progress

Metal: Work in Progress

Water: Work in Progress

And, of course, we can’t forget:

Cat: Work in Progress

Surges

Finger Pointing A Way to the Moon: Requires: 1 rank in Bluff; Active Stance of Cunning; Improved Feint. Cost: 1 Qi Surge. You may feint in combat as a swift action.

Serpent’s Fangs: Requires: Active Stance of the Viper; (Other Dexterity or Speed-based requirement still to be determined. Suggestions?). Cost: 1 Qi Surge. As a standard action, the monk may make two attacks, using her full base attack bonus, against any flat-footed opponent or any opponent that she flanks.

Design note: I’ve always really liked the concept of Flurry of Blows, but never the implementation of it. Hopefully, Serpent’s Fangs can provide a less clunky alternative. Right now, I don’t want to enforce a penalty to the attack roll, as unlike Flurry of Blows, a monk only has a limited number of Qi Surges per day.

More to follow.

- jatori

[3.5 Monk Project 2009] Levels 2 and 3

This post forms part of my redesign of the 3.5 monk project. Previous entries on this topic can be found here and here.

Today, I shall  continue the discussion on level 2 and introduce my ideas for level 3. Hopefully, after some discussion, I can develop this into a playtest 3-level class. More on that as things develop.

Additions to level 2:

Combat Style:

Swift: This style focuses on speed and agility. A monk that follows this path is infuriatingly difficult to hit in combat. A swift monk’s attacks do less damage than those of other styles, but she is able to attack far more often and far more accurately.

Favoured Qi Flows: Qi Defense

Bonus Feat List: Agile, Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Mobility, Run, Quick Draw, Spring Attack, Snatch Arrows, Stealthy, Weapon Finesse.

Balanced: A monk that follows the balanced style combines both offense and defense into a highly adaptive fighting style.

Favoured Qi Flows: ???

Bonus Feat List (A balanced style monk may use her wisdom score, instead of her intelligence score, as the prerequisite for any of the feat): Blind-Fight, Dodge, Combat Expertise , Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Disarm, Power Attack.

Level 3:

Unarmoured Speed Bonus (Ex): At level 3, a monk gets a +10ft (enhancement?) bonus to her speed.

Enhanced Qi Strike (Ex): As she gains experience, a monk learns to better control her body and qi in order to deliver powerful attacks. The type of attack depends on the monk’s combat style.

Strong: After a successful Qi Strike, a monk may make expend 1 qi point as a free action to either make a grapple or bull rush attempt against the same foe. The bull rush or grapple attempt is resolved as normal (incurring attacks of opportunity if applicable).

If you succeed with a grapple attempt, you deal extra damage equal to your wisdom modifier.

If you succeed with a bull rush attempt, you may push your opponent back an additional distance equal to your wisdom modifier, rounded up to the nearest multiple of 5 feet. When moving your opponent this extra distance, you do not have to travel with him.

Swift: After a successful Qi Strike, a monk may make expend 1 qi point as a free action to make another Qi Strike  against the same foe without having to deactive an additional Qi Flow. At level 3, you are limited to making only two Qi Strikes per round. At level x, you are limited to making only y Qi Strikes per round.

Balanced: After a successful Qi Strike, a monk may make expend 1 qi point as a free action to make either a disarm or trip attempt against the same foe. The disarm or trip attempt is resolved as normal (incurring attacks of opportunity if applicable).

You may add your wisdom modifier to your disarm attempt roll.

If your trip attempt is successful and you have the Improved Trip feat, you may add your wisdom modifier to the damage dealt to your follow up attack.

Other Notes:

After thinking about it, I think Stunning Fist is a rather silly feat. TC  made some comments about it in part 2, providing an alternative. I still need to consider this.

- jatori

[3.5 Monk Project 2009] Level 2

I am once again attempting to redesign the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Monk class. This post continues the project. See here for the design goals.

~~~

Just to let you know, I shall be compiling everything I’ve written about the monk (and the various comments and inputs from others) into one central place. I shall let you know when that’s done. For now, though, let’s have a look at the class skill list and my ideas for level 2.

A monk gets [(6 + intelligence modifier) * 4] skill points at level 1. A monk gets 6 + intelligence modifier skill points at each additional level. The following skills count as class skills for the monk:

Balance, Climb, Craft, Escape Artist, Heal, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (Arcana, History and Religion), Listen, Move Silently, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, Swim, Tumble and Use Rope.

In addition a monk may choose one of the following to add to her skill list: Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate.

Now for level 2:

Evasion (Ex)

At 2nd level or higher if a monk makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Combat Style (Ex)

At 2nd level a monk chooses to follow a particular approach to her martial arts training and development. Each style has a list of preferred Qi Flows. A monk may add +1 to her wisdom modifier when calculating the benefit gained from a favoured Qi Flow. A monk’s combat style also determines the list of feats from which she can choose bonus feats. A monk can choose from the following styles:

Strong: This style focuses on delivering individually powerful and damaging attacks.

Favoured Qi Flows: Qi Body; Qi Offense.

Bonus Feat List: Athletic, Cleave, Diehard, Endurance, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical, Improved Grapple, Improved Overrun, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Stunning Fist, Toughness, and Weapon Focus.

Swift: (still under development)

Balanced: (still under development)

Bonus Feat: At 2nd level, a monk gains a bonus feat from the list provided by her combat style. She still needs to meet all the prerequisites for the feat.

~~~

OK, this was missing from part one, but unless otherwise specified all class abilities are to be considered extraordinary.

I’m still unsure of how to incorporate Stunning Fist.

Comments/suggestions?

- jatori

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

In fantasy literature, the hero’s sword often features prominently in the tale of the hero’s journey. Belgarion and the Sword of the Rivan King; Aragorn and Narsil (later reforged, of course); and Lion-O and the Sword Omens are all examples. However, within role playing games, the idea of the hero’s one sword doesn’t always translate well into the rules, especially when game balance, power levels, wealth per level tables and so forth are critical to the game’s rules system running smoothly. In these games (I’ll use Dungeons and Dragons as my primary example), characters often have to discard their older equipment (no matter the sentimental value) for better, sharper and more magical equipment. In doing so, magic items lose their quality of ’specialness’, as the +1s are discarded as soon as the +2 comes along. This is a relatively old and well recognised problem, but discussion about it has recently popped up again.

One of the oldest fixes for this issue invloves the growth of the hero’s weapon alongside her own growth, or the ability of the hero to unlock more power from her weapon as she, herself, gains in power. I have often used this in my own games, with moderate levels of success. Today, however, I’d like to introduce two other ideas which may help put back the magic into magic weapons.

Idea 1: Change the world in which the heroes find themselves.

Make it easier for the hero to enhance or upgrade his own weapon. Over the years, WotC has releasesd several (prestige) class ideas that did just this. However, I would suggest that you wouldn’t need such classes if we made the ability to enhance your own equipment more easily acceptable to all classes. Perhaps in your game world, cultural restrictions (or enablers) may make owning and maintaining your one sword more attractive.

In our example game world, it’s culturally unacceptable to use or trade in stolen (or looted) weaponry. It is instead passed on to the owner’s beneficiaries, or buried with her, if no beneficiary can be found. Paying somebody else to forge or maintain your weapon is considered poor taste and reserved for the socially detatched nobles. Instead, the recipes and rituals required to enhance the weapon are acquired through ancient, hidden-away scrolls or are unlocked once a hero gains wisdom through experience and is better able to understand the artform of maintaining and using her weapon.

Idea 2: It is not the sword; it is the swordsman.

Once, long ago, I remember reading (can’t remember the source though) that character X could treat any weapon he wields as a magical weapon with properties A, B and C. I believe the article was trying to place  a non-WotC-copyrighted heroic figure into the DnD ruleset. The author realised that for the character to still be effective in the DnD game, he needed to have kickass magical equipment. However, in the original works, the character got away with just using a barstool or some broken masonry. So, instead of relying on an external source of power, it all came from one internal source – the hero.

So, consider giving your player characters such abilities, especially for high fantasy, high action games. Perhaps you could balance it through cost of training or ritual, if you so desire. Tie some personal attachment to grandpa’s rusty old blade and you’re ready to play.

- jatori

Awesome begins with ‘M’ and ends in ‘onk’.

It’s been almost a year since I last posted on my attempts at redesigning the 3.5 monk. Recently, I’ve been reinspired to once again tackle this task. If you’re interested in seeing what was discussed last year, you can review the following posts:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

No need to read through all of the above though, because here’s a list of updated design goals:

• Reduce the MAD (multiple attribute dependancy)! A monk needs a good strength, dexterity, constitution and wisdom score to perform adequately. A fighter could get away with just a good strength and constituion; a rogue can fulfill  most of her expected duties with dexterity alone; and a wizard can get away with just a good intelligence score.
• Make the class unique! The 3.5  monk is a horrible mix of various effects that can be easily duplicated by other classes or magical items.
• Stick to the theme of unarmoured, martial artist.
• Wisdom still needs to be the defining attribute of the class.
• Rethink flurry of blows as it directly conflicts with the increased speed and mobility of the class.
• Keep the design simple, but allow for complex builds (not complicated) that can accurately portray a large variety of fighting styles.
• Remove the silly alignment and multiclassing restrictions.

I did have one problem with the direction that my design was heading towards last year: Many of the ideas I had started to show a strong resemblance to ideas found within Tome of Battle (DnD 3.75) and 4e. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d rather see if there are other design options available within the 3.5 ruleset, if possible.

And now, here is the 1st level of my 2009 design:

Hit Die: d8

Base Attack: 0.75 (progression as a cleric)

Saves: All good.

Armour Proficiencies: A monk is not proficient with any armour and wearing armour restricts or prevents the monk from using some of her class abilities.

Weapon Proficiencies: A monk is proficient with all simple weapons and all martial weapons.

Bonus Feat: At level 1, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.

Chosen Weapons: At level 1, a monk chooses any three weapons from her list of weapon proficiencies. A monk specialises in the use of these weapons and many of the monk’s special attacks can only be performed when she uses one of her chosen weapons as part of the attack. A monk may change her list of chosen weapons (replacing one weapon with another, including weapon proficiencies gained by later taking the appropriate feats) whenever she has the time to refocus and retrain herself, but she may never have more than 3 chosen weapons. A monk may choose unarmed strike as one of her chosen weapons.

ChosenWeapon Damage: A monk does increased damage with her chosen weapons. Whenever a monk deals damage with her chosen weapons, she may choose to roll damage using either the  weapon’s standard damage die or the damage die from the following list:

• Monk level 1 – 3: d6
• Monk level 4 – 7: d8
• Monk level8 -11: d10
• Monk level12 – 15: 2d6
• Monk level16 – 19: 2d8
• Monk level20: 2d10

For example, a level 4 monk, using a short sword could choose to use the standard weapon die of a d6 or  rather the d8 granted from this ability, when determining damage.

Qi Pool: A monk has the ability to channel her qi, which allows her to perform acts far beyond the abilities of the average human. A monk’s qi pool is equal to her class level + her wisdom modifier. A monk may only spend a number of qi points per round equal to her class level.

Qi Flow:At level 1, as long as a monk has 1 point remaining in her qi pool, she may have any one of the following qi flow abilities active. As long as a monk has 3 points remaining in her qi pool, she may have any two of the following abilities active. As long as a monk has x points remaining in her qi pool, she may have any y of the following abilities active. A monk uses a swift action to activate a qi flow. When activating a qi flow, if a monk does not have enough qi points remaining to maintain the additional qi flow, she can deactivate one of her other qi flows as part of the same action.

Qi Body: A monk may add her wisdom modifier to her constitution modifier when determining her hit point total.

Qi Defense: A monk may add her wisdom modifier to her dexterity modifier when determining her dexterity bonus to AC. A monk may not use this ability while wearing armour or wielding a shield. If a monk is denied her dexterity bonus to AC, she also loses the bonus granted by qi defense.

Qi Offense: A monk may add her wisdom modifier to her strength modifier when determining the strength bonus to any damage roll.

Qi Mage: A monk may add her wisdom modifier to the effective spellcasting level of one of her spellcasting classes. Her effective spellcasting level cannot exceed her character level.

Qi Soul: A monk may add her wisdom modifier to all of her saves.

Qi Skin: A monk of level x, or higher, gains damage reduction equal to her (wisdom modifier)/-. This ability counts as maintaining 2 qi flows.

Qi Strike: As a swift action, a monk may end any one qi flow she has active and spend 1 qi point to perform a basic attack, using her full base attack bonus, but with a -x penalty. A monk may not use this ability while wearing armour or wielding a shield.

Of course, not all the maths has been worked out yet (hence the x and y variables). I’m also considering applying only half the wisdom modifier bonus to certain qi flows (for example qi offense) until a higher level.

- jatori