Seba's Martial Classes Rework

[wintry flame]

Seba's Martial Classes Rework

[wintry flame]

MONK
My favorite class, the one that started all of this. At first the idea wasn't to make it stronger, but give it more ki points and MANY MORE ki features to choose from. Years later I said "fuck it!" and upgraded its power. This class defined the structure I'd use for the rest.

This class' theme revolves around mysticism and martial arts, allowing you to specialize in unarmed (meant for dps), grappling (meant for CC) or armed (meant for defense). Then you unlock Ki points and ki features (which behave like a hybrid between maneuvers and invocations). To compensate a bit for the increase on ASIs, their damage no longer scales with Dexterity for melee attacks (consider this will apply to finesse weapons too). Also, they can't expend ki or benefit from any ki feature if you don't have the benefits of your Martial Arts.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HJys_qVgDJdo

FIGHTER
This one was tough, because I wasn't able to capture the essence of the class at the start, until a friend helped clarifying it, along with the rogue one.

This class is meant to be a mundane warrior, aka, the one class without magical abilities on their own. How do they compensate that? They become a combat specialist, as well as a combat generalist.

How can they accomplish it? They become competent with every armor and weapon, as always. They gain a tool proficiency for good measure, which demonstrates their flexibility and keen mind. A Martial Background to capitalize on a combat style/tactic and out of combat/roleplaying feature. They also gain Combat Superiority to represent their mastery on the art of combat. With this, they have a lot to personalize their character with.

To accompany that, they have various features to help them push their limits and adapt to the situation.

Previous ver.:
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Mfm047ZBQP-_

Current ver.:
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/IgYlBcKRHPOG

BARBARIAN
I got tired of the "ARGH, ME ANGRY!" concept this class was based upon, so I gave it a twist. They are primal warriors, meaning they answer the call of their instincts and emotions, instead of their reasoning. I was heavily inspired by the show Primal for that.

Thus, they gain many features that call on their more bestial/primal side, like Adrenaline, Frantic, Strong Scent and Growth Spurt. At the same time, they are savage fighters, they have to so that they can survive in such a harsh world. Thus they have the Adrenaline and Frantic features, which makes them more powerful the more hurt they are.

No longer limited to Strength attacks, only to melee weapon attacks.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/yfAcMViuAcug

ROGUE
This one's a doozy. The criminal focus is not intact, I tried to keep some of it, but push the theme towards luck. You are a talented individual that can use luck in your favor to get away with whatever you want. I also wanted to make something really different with it, so I made it noncombat oriented. That's right, a martial class whose role is not to shine in combat, but in everything else.

How did I do that? By giving them Talents, a feature which they can use to improve their odds at various tasks they try. They are also a very adaptable class, they have multiple skills proficiencies, an expanded tool prof list, they later gain an additional skill prof (which they can change every long rest), and their expertise was moved to 3rd level (in exchange they can use it for any tool prof they have). I also expanded its Cunning Action a little, which later allows for the use of certain consumable magic items, as to give it some leisure during combat.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/n2tYW7RfrS6T

So far that's all I can show you. At some point I will add a subclass to the others.

[wintry flame]

@torpid bobcat
Excuse me, could you please pin these messages in order for me?

[torpid bobcat]

Sure, on it

That look right?

[wintry flame]

Sorry, but could you pin them in the opposite order? I want the oldest one to be first

[torpid bobcat]

sure, can do but yeah that'll be in the reverse from how discord normally pins

so if you add anything in the future and have it pinned it'll be at the top

@wintry flame that look right now?

[wintry flame]

I never payed attention to that, but don't worry

It's perfect now, thanks

[hazy laurel]

Checking the monk rn

[wintry flame]

Hey, welcome, nice to see you

[hazy laurel]

Ayoo

I see a fan of martials, I can't past the opportunity to check the homebrew

I finished the base monk, it feels a bit empty tho?

And it has 9 ability score improvements?

[wintry flame]

Yeah, just as a heads up I became really crazy and decided to make this silly stuff. I was getting frustrated with the martial experience and I went on to make big changes.

[hazy laurel]

SO, you might like my monk

[wintry flame]

I will check it as I get time

[hazy laurel]

I also went a bit crazy with it

Not 9 ability scores crazy

[wintry flame]

Today is heavy because I have a test tomorrow

[hazy laurel]

Yeah no hurries

good luck with that

I'll leave it here and keep checking your stuff

[wintry flame]

So you're Batman levels of crazy. You can call me Joker

Send it Private too, so I don't miss it

[hazy laurel]

Got it

[wintry flame]

To answer this. The reason for this is the increased amount of ASIs. My last step in this rework is expanding on feat selection, not so much as in combat feats, but with more interesting adventuring and roleplaying ones. I already have combat feats (for martials) settled with a system called Martial Techniques, so you get a half feat to increase one physical stat and you get a MT which further customizes your combat performance. And you can choose several with increasing tiers. It's another chunky system.

Besides that, monk's chunkiness comes from Ki features. They are like 50 options, so... Yeah.

[hazy laurel]

I get what you are saying

and I'm not one of em math folk, with their shiny tables and calculators

but I do feel like 9 ASI might be a lot if left unatended

I maybe you could change it so some of the levels are strictly feats?

and not ASI

[wintry flame]

Let's just say I'm intending to increase the overall power of classes, but hoping to reach a point where they are balanced between them.

[wintry flame]

Like PF? I did consider it. But I don't have an answer as to why I'm not using it. Maybe because I'm just learning that system and upon reading it I want to try something different

[hazy laurel]

Fair and same

[wintry flame]

@hazy laurel
I read your monk rework.

[hazy laurel]

Wh-what?

[wintry flame]

So, if you want my opinion on how I would have done it, here it is:

• Versatility is Key. Tho I like it, it shouldn't be handed at 1st level, it's an incredibly strong ability. To fill this spot, I would give them an ability like the other two, but related to treating illness: medicine, nature, and sleight of hands checks.
• Patience Defense. The additional effect could be simplified to "While you have the Dodge benefits, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against a creature that misses you with an attack." However, I'm not personally fond of this ability.
• Step of the Wind. I happened to see a really cool version for this, it combined Dash and Disengage into a single action, and tripled your jumping distance. By the way, you don't need to say you can't end your movement inside another creature, that's just regular rules.
• Quickened Healing. I actually like this one, but personally I would make it function the same as Song of Rest, the difference being it applies to any rest where creatures spend Hit Dice (in case they are playing with the variant rule), but them needing to meditate for half an hour in order to receive the benefit at the end of it. (Upon reading on the improved version, it might be fair to keep the once per long rest restriction).
• Arts of Battle. Versatility is Key should go here. Some wording can be cleaned up, but I won't go over that this time.
• Evasion. This is just a side note, from the same brew I read, they buffed Evasion to cost a ki, but it worked with any kind of save to resist damage.
• Stillness of Mind. I just make them spend a ki at start of turn, no action.

• Improved Movement. You know? For just 2 ki points at the end of a long rest for a permanent freedom of movement spell, that is too much. There are many other ways you can tackle this, like letting them cast it on themselves for 4 ki points, giving SOME of the spells benefit by spending an adequate amount of ki points which last until you rest, or even let them ignore difficult terrain when they Dash for free.
• Mind Palace. Prof in all saves is strong enough to not need an additional feature. Specially since immunity to Charmed and Frightened take away one of your unique abilities.
• Timeless Body. My only nitpick here is that you take away their iconic "old man that actually beats your ass with kung fu" image, because you don't age.
• Empty Body. Why the increased cost in astral projection? And personally, I would reduce the regained amount, seems a bit excessive. You could also change it to a small amount every turn.

That's my appreciation on the core class

I might check the subclasses another time

[hazy laurel]

So, versatility is key was already going to retire, it was strong on the oneshot it was tested in

It wasn't there originally

Why don't you like patient defense's thingy?

[wintry flame]

I have to say, I have been playtesting my current version of monk (one of my players) and despite how I miss that extra attack as bonus action, watching them last hitting the bosses with their Vital's Hit is so satisfactory

[wintry flame]

I can see where it's coming from an offense/defense combination, making up for the 2 attacks you could have made, but I think Dodging as bonus is really strong in on itself.

More often than not, I like it better when the player has to choose their strategy, sacrifing one approach for another. For instance, you either charge in with 4 attacks, or do 2 realiable ones and hold your ground with a Dodge.

[hazy laurel]

Yes but, ideally, my monk wants to move around and hit as many enemies as possible on a turn

[wintry flame]

Which is fair

[hazy laurel]

The theoretical difference with the usual playstyle is which made me add that mini attack for the player that was playtesting it

And more often than not, it was still an important strategic decision

I do like the evasion you suggest

[hazy laurel]

I was gonna make it more like song of rest

But song of rest is not really a used ability due to the scarcity of short rests people take

I had this monk and a hexblade on the same party and still they wouldn't take short rests until it was extremely needed

So, this being a bit more strong is an incentive to short resting

It worked intermittently

Which is more than what I can say about song of rest btw)

[hazy laurel]

"you can't end your turn on blah blah" is just standard wording for these kind of stuff

[hazy laurel]

Should I specify it lasts for the usual duration of the spell?

I thought that was unnecessary but, might have overlooked it

[wintry flame]

I feel that. But lately I have learned a few things. I have to manage my resources better if a party doesn't take as many short rests, forcing my hand to spend 1 or 2 ki points per encounter or 1 maneuver (which means not doing anything for the vast majority of the fight, but not for three consecutive fights, still hurts). Stand our ground and force the short rest, otherwise they have to understand I will be death weight for them (if they force your hand, next fight do nothing, stand far away from the danger).

I understand when there's a narrative time limit, so each short rest means failing or dying entirely, that's a special case.

And when I mean lately, I mean like just now

So I haven't been able to put it in practice yet

I did share this thought with my partner monk (double monk party members, yeaaaahhh, baby!) and we plan on doing that.

[hazy laurel]

Dual monks sound fire! people are so scared of playing the same class

There's this idea of having to fulfill every "role"

[wintry flame]

That's Wizard's of the Coast fault rather than ours. They tend to be bad at writing and rules layout. If you can tweak any wording to be better than the official one, more power to you.

[hazy laurel]

Yeah, 5e sometimes feels like english

[wintry flame]

We were so close to greatness, we could have been 3. Alas, we couldn't convince the rogue to change to monk, and she actually changed to sorcerer.

[hazy laurel]

"we have this rule that works this way! except in the many many cases where it doesn't"

There are a lot of weird wording choices in many places

I'm making my own system (very very simple low magic system) and it's so much easier when you just say what you wanna say

Instead of findind weird ways around it

"you may deal additional damage equal to your proficiency bonus"
"Add proficiency to damage"

[wintry flame]

This one is different from what I just said. Because magic rules are weird. You said "to gain the benefits if the X spell", instead of "to cast X spell." Which means you aren't following spellcasting rules, aka, no duration limit

[hazy laurel]

fair

[wintry flame]

And frankly, after finishing a long rest seems like a missed opportunity

If it only lasts 1 hour

[hazy laurel]

It says between long rests

It's not immediatelly after you finish a long rest

[wintry flame]

In my case, I'm rewriting some and adding other rules in a single place. That way I can streamline wording and make these rules easier to find. I am placing some of those rules inside these separate brews, cause as long as people doesn't have access to it... People barely open many brews at once, and I don't feel like posting additional content when the review is focused on this one thing, you know?

[hazy laurel]

Ye ye

I getcha

I was gonna suggest

have you though of making vital's hit -pb +2xpb?

[wintry flame]

I personally avoid PB scaling features

And -5/+MA+Wis works rather nice mathematically

And it also crits

[hazy laurel]

I do think your martial arts thingy are very very clean

Fighting style

that

I really really like them

[wintry flame]

The one thing I haven't been certain is if I should replace the Unarmed Arts improvement with more dice for Vital's Hit, but then again, I don't want to give them MORE damage than it already has

[wintry flame]

Why thank you, it took me the last of my brain cells to come up with those.

[hazy laurel]

All other features seem fine, can't really give you an indepth look on ASI

Diamond soul and your enlightment might get stolen...

[wintry flame]

I'm honored to hear those words

[hazy laurel]

I don't think I can give ya feed back on the 20 pages of extra stuff

but I did skim over the rest

the ki features

Do you want to move over to the Rogue?

We can exchange rogues

Btw, if you want more people here, a small advice I can give ya is that, if you have other people you regularly interact with on the server, you can usually just ask them to check your stuff out

Maybe ask for notes on a lighter class than the monk

[wintry flame]

To be fair, all other classes do be lighter

I was concerned on core class after all

And I can't say I have someone I usually interact with

Or at least, people that would be interested in the project

Someone DMed me about martials rework, so there's that

[wintry flame]

If you read any, saw anything you like?

[wintry flame]

Sure

[hazy laurel]

Hardened fists

if you check my weapon's rework

(You might be interested in checking them, the idea is also to help martials in a more broad sense than class specific features)

I'm a sucker for siege damage

I love breaking stuff

[hazy laurel]

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/T_0ZDqGtVSVy

I'll probably review it tomorrow, I gotta go sleep now

I've been listening to King Julien singing As the word caves in on repeat for the past 2 hours and I'm going mad

[wintry flame]

Good night

[wintry flame]

Should'va gone for 24 hours nyancat

[wintry flame]

One of the things I still haven't figured out, the right amount of Talent Pool and how many you can expend on a single go.

[scenic totem]

putting in a comment here so I'll remember to view it later; prepping my session now

[wintry flame]

Will you be testing your brew? In any case, good luck and have a nice game

[scenic totem]

there are aspects of my brew being tested, but it's for an established campaign so I don't wanna give them wholly experimental stuff

those aspects are already quite popular, so

[shell hound]

okay ima keep it real

Ummmm the assassian is just bland and uninteresting

its either the type of think that is too strong or literaly a dead feature

yk

[hazy laurel]

I think you might have reviewed my rogue rework instead of Seba's

[shell hound]

Probs

yeah i did lol

[hazy laurel]

but you're right, upon playtesting it was kinda bland

Seba's subclasses are pinned

[shell hound]

Bad luck always strikes at the worst possible time, unless it happens to someone else.

I like it though the removal of the dodg tanking hurts imo

[shell hound]

however this line feels "weird" to me

It makes sense dont get me wrong but it feels disjointed i feel

good shit tho

[opal radish]

Doing a read-through of these now

Btw, there are a bunch of neat changes I'm super into (Like super speedy unarmored movement, or ki is wis + levels), but I'm gonna withhold that for now so the critiques are in one place

[opal radish]

Monk

Core:
Martial Arts:

• Tweak the wording of "In addition to your grapple and shove attacks," this implies that you already could use dex on these rolls.
  Fighting Style:
• It's odd that Grappling Style is entirely based on strength, when nothing else in the class is
• Unarmed style feels vastly superior to grappling (Since grappling is fairly weak inherently) and notably strong than weapon style. Not to mention, the damage from it was buffed.
  Ability Score Improvement:
• Yo wtf...
  Inner Strength:
  Vitality Steal:
• I love options, but I think that this begins bordering on difficult to keep track of. You need to consider max HP on both enemies and allies, duration, and remembering to use the effect each turn, on a class that has lots of ways to modify its attacks and things to do on each turn. I'm not entirely against this, but I'm worried about playability.
  Roaring Nature:
• Out of all of the options, water feels the weakest consistently.
  Elemental Stance/Elemental Manifestation:
• Can these elemental abilities (Water, earth especially) just be conjured anywhere? I think it's interesting if your ability to use them is based on the proximity to the element. I don't know how big of a nerf that would be, but it would also make sense that you can't summon a stone pillar on an airship.
• Very small, but I'd change Rocky Strike to just bludgeoning - Wherever you can remove unnecessary complexity here would be helpful
  Primal Stances:
• I read earlier that you want to buff the class overall, but damn... these are busted AF.
• Flame stance reflect damage is annoying to keep track of each round IMO

Drunken Master
Tipsy Sway:

• Drunkards luck is super cracked - It's effectively free disadvantage against all attacks for most turns.
  Redirect Attack:
• Redirect attack feels like it should still be part of Tipsy Sway, its not impactful enough on its own.
  Intoxicated Frenzy:
• Why the nerf? Its rare that you'll be around 5 to dish out each attack. Also, does this currently stack with flurry?

[wintry flame]

I'm just turning in and that was confusing me as well. I couldn't remember what I gave the name "assassin" if I didn't have any rogue subclass yet

hahahaha

[wintry flame]

I understand what you mean, it was one of the points I couldn't decide if I wanted a mundane or magical approach

[wintry flame]

Good news is you can combine that ability with the blocking talent for extra effect

Disadvantage and dmg reduction

Alternatively Defensive Duelist feat, since Shared Misfortune doesn't expend reaction

[opal radish]

Long Death
Mark of Demise

• At 11th level you're basically saying "Pay 2 ki for double damage." I'd also specify in the wording whether the extra ki points need to be stacked to get each effect (IE pay 1 for mark, 2 for mark + 10 minutes, 3 for mark + 10 minutes + double damage)
  Hour of Reaping:
• Love the start of this ability, but permanent fear every round with no immunity is both super powerful and difficult to run

Finally gonna read through ki features now

Nothing jumped out at me as imba in astral self or mercy

Some of the features are very strong, notably the 5th level offensive ones

I'm not gonna go over each one in detail since damn I'm exhausted

Overall, I do really love the shear amount of options

You got me to actually wanna play an elemental monk

But I think it's definitely a bit overtuned, as of now

Will do the others later, probably starting with fighter - For now, 💤

[wintry flame]

• You have no idea how much I welcome rewording fixes, it's something I struggle a lot. Specially when I try to keep it somewhat similar to the official one.
• FG: Grapple: Well... considering now your melee attack damage doesn't scale with Dexterity. And Finesse weapons won't either. I'm using the PF rule for this in which Finesse and similar abilities only let you replace Dex for Str in atk rolls, not dmg rolls.
• Although I have a certain bias towards Unarmed Arts, I do believe grappling will hold its ground as a very viable choice. Grapple + shove combat should be seen as a ground fighting style, in which you lock your enemy when they are prone and hit them hard. They will most likely not get up, your other melee allies will benefit from it as well, and you won't think you're wasting actions by not attacking, since you are still dealing damage with them. There's also ki features (one of which restrains a grappled creature) and Martial Techniques to further improve your G+S (Grapple + Shove) combat.
• ASIs... Yep. I'm giving more focus on feats and ASIs. With MT I have the combat side covered, I need to tackle at the other preexisting martial feats, because I still don't know if I'm going to delete, keep or turn them into MTs. That's a problem for future me.
• Subclasses in General. You do have a point, I have a lot of conflicting views myself on the added complexity with each subclass, despite going over and over on how to make them more simple, while following a strong, clear theme with each subclass, trying to differentiate them. For the vast majority I'm happy with the results, I am a mechanics focused person and I did intend on increasing the complexity to some degree. That's why I'm constantly and forever reviewing my projects to perfect them. Although I need to take a break from Monk.

• Inner Strength: Vitality Steal. Frankly, I thought of it as a mix of the aid and harm spells. And couldn't think of a better way to convey this taboo theme on how they manipulate vitality

[opal radish]

I'll point out more rewording things in the future then, I stopped since I didn't wanna clutter it 👍

I'll probably end up running the monk btw - I know one of my groups might not welcome it, but the other loves complexity and one player already wants to play a monk, so he'll love this sort of thing

So I'll keep you posted when things become official/how that goes

[wintry flame]

Understandable. I was gonna say it could be a good idea to keep them separated, but sometimes you have to put it with the rest of the feedback. Regarding this topic, I need help rewording the Astral Self's Quick Recall feature

[opal radish]

will check out after 💤 was getting water and checked pc haha

[wintry flame]

I'm happy that someone shares my enjoyment of complex classes, hehe

[wintry flame]

Good night, sleep well, you deserve it

I'll keep checking your review

[wintry flame]

• Roaring Nature. Elemental Manifestation. I was surprised you said that about earth manifestation, cause it states you can only conjure the pillar on a solid surface made of soil or stone. It was sorta the only one I deemed neccessary to state the terrain condition, cause all the other manifest come out from you specifically. (Continues...)
• Roaring Nature. Elemental Stance. Following the same concern, I didn't consider it. This subclass was designed far longer before the class rework, a time where monk was weaker. Between that, being heavily inspired by the 4 element subclass remaster and keeping wording at a minimum (you should have seen its earlier stages) I didn't want to put further restrictions. Nevertheless, I highly encourage you to apply those restrictions, because thematically it's awesome. I might as well give it a little side note for that.
• Roaring Nature. Water is Weak. I... I didn't realize that. Gelid Strike is not weak tho, since some abilitites don't work when the creature's speed is 0 (like Dodge), they can't move (so you can easily keep them at bay) and they will suffer if they have no ranged attack option. I could tweak the Water Swirl numbers, but I don't know how. Same goes for River Stance and Water Master, but it shouldn't compete with a 30 ranged attack.
• RN. Fire Strike. More of a side note, I intended it at first to be a frightening attack (also to justify the Wis save), but then changed it to the present penalty to represent pain. I wanted really hard to keep the Wis save and not give it extra damage, but it could use a more thematic effect.
• RN. Primal Stances. Yeah, as I mentioned before, I overlooked this aspect since I brought it from the older design and thought "yeah, this looks fine, watevs, I have to focus on the other subclasses, let's increase the ki cost just in case".

[wintry flame]

I'll say Drunken Master is not one subclass I'm happy with how it turned out. I couldn't make it right. Regarding IF, it's more a rework rather than a nerf, since you don't have Flurry of Blows as a standard, which it can stack with. Also I prefered the "multiple hits are harder to hit on the same target" approach instead of the "you can't hit the same target twice"

[wintry flame]

• Mark of Demise. I know it looks confusing, but it's actually choosing to spend 1 extra ki point for increased duration/1 extra ki for increased damage/2 ki for both. I can't figure out how to fix that wording.
• Hour of Reaping. What about spending 1 ki point at the start of the creature's turn to attempt to frighten it?

[wintry flame]

Nah yeah, that's a titanic task for anyone. Unlike elemental monk, trust me that each one is unique and powerful enough (globally balanced). And the offensive options debuffs duration (including Stunning Strike) only last until the start of your next turn.

[wintry flame]

At least my concern with it as of now is Fire Strike, Water numbers and Primal Stances. This last one I have a few options: once/twice per rest, 3 ki points to use, 2 ki points and reduce the benefits to 1. It's hard to choose, haha.

Man, I am so happy with this feedback

Lots of work to do

MONK URGENT FIXES (Summary)

• Vitality Steal in Inner Strength, can it be simplified?
• Fire Strike effect in Roaring Nature
• Water Element numbers in Roaring Nature.
• Primal Stance balance in Roaring Nature.
• Drunken Master in general
• Mark of Demise wording in Long Death
• Hour of Reaping in Long Death, should the fear cost 1 ki at the start of a creature's turn?
• Quick Recall wording in Astral Self

[hazy laurel]

For vitality steal, you can simplify it a lot by removing the taking away max hp

that adds nothing mechanically IMO, most monsters are one-offs or, if they were to be recurrent, you wouldn't encounter them twice in a day

Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack and have spent at least 1 ki on your current turn, you can draw from its life essence. Immediately after you roll damage, choose a creature you can see within 30 feet of you, that creature's maximum Hit points and current Hit points increase by an amount equal to the damage dealt. A creature cannot benefit from this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Does that work?

[wintry flame]

Yeah, I overlooked this simple solution. However, I still have some doubts, if I were to limit it to once per long rest, then I wouldn't give it an additional ki cost.

One thing to note is that grapples and shoves are attacks, but you don't hit with them. Another one is that since damage can get big, then the extra hit points shouldn't be higher than half the damage the creature takes (so damage reductions are taken into account).

An alternative that comes to mind from this is that, if I were to make it once per long rest (your long rest), then I could change it so that you can choose up to 5 creatures and distribute those additional hit points between them.

[hazy laurel]

Maybe instead of full damage and healing, /2 damage dealt and temp hp

Way easier to balance imo and you don't have to worry about limiting to rests per creature

[opal radish]

Classic case of me not reading the earth bit, although having elements restricted to channeling is just cool from an RP perspective IMO, and creates unique restrictions

As for water, I agree - Gelid strike isn’t weak, but the other options tend to be much stronger

The one that stands out the most is earth

If you knock them prone with the first attack, you’ve got advantage on each following attack

Which is nutty when you have so many attacks and on-hit abilities

Have you/would you post the classes to something like r/dndhomebrew? I’d be curious to see online advice and thoughts

[opal radish]

So I decided to do a read of pathfinder’s feat system, since IIRC that’s what inspired the 9 ASIs

And I haven’t played or read the system

But pathfinder feats look much weaker than 5e feats - That’s why you get a lot of them

I understand the want to diversify the class in terms of roleplay, but that would require an entire feat rework due to the balance of 5e feats and their limited number

Plus, the fact that they’re ASIs as well means that you can very easily just take a handful of powerful feats, then get 20 in 3 stats

(Which is very plausible currently)

(and busted >_<)

[scenic totem]

"you reduce damage you take from attacks by creatures grappled by you equal to your Strength modifier" might be more in line with 5e wording

"attack damage rolls" isn't really a thing afaik

oh wait, you intend for this to be its rolls on everyone and not just you, i assume?

"when a creature that is grappled by you (hits with an attack? makes an attack roll? both? not sure of your intent here), it subtracts your Strength modifier from the roll"

pilfered the wording from Bane, Cutting Words, and Synaptic Static

also mega based on dealing damage on a grapple

and allowing medium armour with martial arts

based, slow down stacks

[hazy laurel]

I think that they missed an "and"

attack and damage rolls

[scenic totem]

mmh, as tempting as it is to just dump a bunch of ASIs on monks, it's worth noting that each subsequent ASI has less value than the last

like, by definition, whatever your 5th priority ASI was will be less valuable than your first

[hazy laurel]

You'd end up with +5s where you don't care to have them

[scenic totem]

enlightenment looks good. i'd have personally put it at an earlier level, as by 13th you're generally not starving for ki, so it can feel late.

5e has a weird tendency to put resource conservation features reaaaal late, which is just counterintuitive

[scenic totem]

yeah if there's an "and" then it needs no other change

[scenic totem]

yeah, and monks still only want like 2 feats at most, here. unarmed style doesn't even really want feats. maybe bludgeoner?

[hazy laurel]

You'd end up taking stuff like chef

if we assume standard array, you'd have a 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8; 15 is 17 and 14 is 15 cuz ratial options. You'd need 1 +1/2 asi to get a 20, 2+ 1/2 to get another 20

pbbly dex and wis

Maybe you then get what I'd assume would be your 13 con to 20?

[scenic totem]

"worst case" scenario for needing a truckload of feats, you could be a cbe/ss shadow monk, for example. with point buy, 8 15+1 15+1 8 15 8, crossbow expert, for example. sharpshooter by 4, maxed dex by 8 like a fighter in 5e (you don't need resilient like a fighter would often get)

so the rest of those points are just for faffing about more or less. maybe a half feat for wisdom or three

a 6th level ASI is actually quite welcome, and it coincides with a monastic tradition feature anyway, so no loss there

i like how the ki features give you a build-a-monk. kinda kibbles-esque. i'm personally a fan of such things, and really enjoy the design of 5e warlock (though not so much artificer due to some ambiguities), but some people dislike the added complexity

it might be a good idea to have some recommended ki features listed next to tradition or fighting style

light reflection is gigabased

okay, ground fighting is really strong

it becomes very tempting to just be prone off your turn and become nearly invulnerable to missiles

the intention here is probably to not give "free" temporary hitpoints, but it's not very hard for a PC to rest twice consecutively, for example

that said, eh

should be fine, it's one ki saved

no duration given

same issue with 5e's freedom of movement. your speed is 0 when grappled or restrained

my own wording for a fixed FoM was uhh

"You can automatically escape from nonmagical restraints and effects that reduce your speed to 0, such as manacles or a creature that has you grappled. Doing so reduces your speed by 5 feet for this turn."

so you could word that as "at the start of your turn, you can automatically escape one effect on yourself that is causing you to be grappled or restrained. Doing so reduces your speed by 15 for this turn"

ngl this reads like a trap feature. the only potential exception is grappling style, dumping dex

while it doesn't actively weaken you, i generally dislike giving trap options as it punishes players for weak mechanical knowledge

also, you might wanna specify it can only be cast on yourself

deadly precision is gigabased btw

oh wait it's before you make an attack

it's alright i guess

i'm not looking through the subclasses much, but from accidentally scrolling to long death, hour of reaping is frankly too strong

automatic fear aura completely dunks on melee enemies, for example

hm, i will say that i'm overall not a fan of almost all the utility options having associated costs

free options encourage more roleplay in general

[wintry flame]

Whenever I have a finished project, I post it on r/UA, and it always goes unnoticed. My feedback always comes from here, and even that is sometimes hard to find

[wintry flame]

I'm not sure if they are weak, at least in 2e they look to pack quite some punch, even noncombat feat are interesting. However, I am aware it's because its design plays a huge factor on it, having ASIs separated from feats, getting a feat every level (be it ancestry, general, skill or class), your customization depends on it.

I have my eye on feats, once I have this rework covered I will move to feats. I want to have a good core with classes first.

[opal radish]

I shouldn’t say weak, more like less impactful - 5e feats tend to provide a large list of bonuses and often an ASI

Granted, this is also the result of me skimming a system I’ve never played for 5 minutes on my phone while in the parking lot

[wintry flame]

Nope, I missed a <'s>, cause attack's damage roll is very much a thing, except I can't recall where I took it from. It might have been maneuvers

[wintry flame]

That's the word, impactful, meaningful.

Weak/Strong is for combat feats.

[hazy laurel]

Does sound familiar

[wintry flame]

I did put some in the quick build, ones that would work with any FS.

[wintry flame]

Btw, would this fix the wording?

You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack rolls of your unarmed strikes and monk weapons, as well as your grapple and shove checks.

[opal radish]

Yeah, reads a lot better

The first time I saw that I did a double take thinking I had already missed a feature

Is it technically #wotc_wording? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I think it's good enough

[wintry flame]

I did overlook that, mainly cause from experience parties don't tend to chain short rests. The DM starts throwing threats at them. I might give it a 1 hour duration.

[wintry flame]

Neat

[wintry flame]

Or until you finish another rest, so it resets.

[wintry flame]

That first half, I might return it to being a Drunken Master feature, cause it's funnier. But first I need to redesign that sub. In exchange, I will add grapple to ground fighting.

[wintry flame]

So it seems, I forgot to specify it's the duration of your Weapon Arts: Slow Down.

Pinning Attack (Weapon Style). When you use your Slow Down, you can spend 1 ki point to further disrupt the enemy's movement. When you do so, the speed reduction is increased to 15 feet, instead of 5.

[wintry flame]

You're right, the order should be the other way around. I got messed thinking how breaking free from a grapple restores your speed.

Break Bindings (5th level). At the start of your turn, you can spend 1 ki point to end one effect on yourself that is causing you to be grappled or restrained. When you do so, your movement speed is halved until the end of your turn.

[wintry flame]

It's kinda meant for builds where you want to dump Dex and have no means to compensate for it. Not so much of a trap, but rather a just in case option. I didn't consider deleting even after the ASI increase, because I see a build where you want to focus Str, Con and Wis, as well as any that focuses on your mental stats rather than physical, why would you do that? Idk, but this is to incentivize it.

I might give it a third thought.

[wintry flame]

Fuck, you're right

[wintry flame]

You made me remember one thing about the balance of this feature. I intentionally made it so that it affects ANY creature, including allies. It was a "use it at your own risk" (a kind of thing I'm a sucker for). But like I mentioned before, I have an idea to fix it.

[wintry flame]

@here
First of all, I want to thank everyone for your help so far. This is some really helpful insight and feedback you've given me so far. I will address some of the changes I've made so far:

• Fixed a lot of the wording.
• Fixed the ki features you mentioned.
• Long Death. Hour of Reaping (2nd paragraph). While this aura is active, you know the ascending order of creatures inside it based on their current hit points. In addition, "if a creature starts its turn within the aura, you can spend 1 ki point to impose it to succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn." A creature marked by your Mark of Demise has disadvantage on the save.
• LD. Agonizing Death. Now replaced with Quivering Palm (I'll explain in a moment).

I should mention that the thought process you did with how to distribute ASIs is also what I went through when making these reworks, and it's what I intended. I want martials to have that big room for increasing their stats and then accessing some feats to further customize themselves. Just like I said before, the current state of feats is conflicting, but I will fix it in its due time. I have to do one thing at the time.

There's something about the amount of ASIs between classes I want to discuss, but I'm not ready for it yet. Once this step is ready I will move towards it.

[wintry flame]

Now, for the changes I intend to make:

• Inner Strength subclass. This needs a makeover, I was already having conflicts designing it by having Mercy and Long Death around. What do I want this subclass to accomplish? "Monks of the Way of the Inner Strength are dedicated to cultivating the true potential of ki." Simple as that, the question is how? For starters, getting rid of Expanded Ki Control, they don't need more ki features available. Second, Quivering Palm is moved to Long Death, it just makes more sense.
• Roaring Nature. Earth Strike. Could use a change, I have nothing in mind that's more fitting than proning a creature.
• RN. Fire Strike. Another headache. In summary to what I said before: I wanted one option to have a Wis save, fire was intended to frighten, but changed it to those disadvantages as to represent a pain so big you could't act properly. It's hard to think of something else that doesn't involve pushing or dealing extra damage. Really the only thing I can think of is either afterburn or a small explosion that deals extra dmg and pushes the enemy a little bit.
• RN. Water Swirl. Increase the radius and pull by 5 feet? Since these abilities replace an attack I didn't want to make them too big. Alternatively, keep size and reduce affected creature's speed by 15 feet. Actually, this needs a little redesign to fit any FS.
• RN. Primal Stances. I either reduce the benefits to one and keep the 2 ki cost, or increase the cost by 1 and keep the benefits as they are. If going for the first rute, the kept benefits would be: +AC for air, dmg red for earth, +atk roll for fire, increased reach with water tentacles for water.
• RN. PS (Water). Speaking of tentacles, the buff I propose is increasing the reach, the push and pull by 5 feet.
• RN. Water Master. Well... Increasing the reach by 10 feet instead of 5, including push and pull. In addition to increasing the sphere by 5 feet.

[opal radish]

My main current concern about running the monk in my game is that the monk's class progression will feel radically different to other classes with the way ASIs are set up around it, as if they're almost playing a different system

And the only way I can think about rectifying it is reworking all classes/feats as a whole to be in line with this philosophy

[wintry flame]

Yeah, I'm aware

[opal radish]

I just bring it up since its the main concern I've got on my mind as of now

[wintry flame]

What do you think about either giving them no features at the 10th, 14th and 18th ASIs? Or giving them a Martial Technique in place of the extra ASIs?

[opal radish]

It's tough to fully say

[wintry flame]

Uh, that gives me an idea... dammit

[opal radish]

I think the idea of the second option is better - Cut down on ASIs, and give other types of choices (Or just class features in general)

The less systems you need to overhaul to make it work, the better IMO

For balance, but also for ease of implementation

[wintry flame]

I can think of so many alternatives it hurts my brain. I really didn't want to go this route because I wanted to make it more unique, but there's also the pain of half feats, anyways, here's the draft:

OPTION A

ASI's can't be replaced for feats. Casters have the standard 4,8,12,16,20 ASIs (meaning they can max two primary stats at 16th). Half-casters have 1 more at 10th (so they max 2 at 12th). Martials have 1 more at 6th and 10th (so they max 2 at 10th and a 3rd at 20th).

Classes will have additional spots for feats. But then so many questions arise, and I'm faced with the feats balance problem again.

OPTION B

Same ASI progression as A, but these can be replaced with Feats. Fill empty spaces depending on the class, like free Martial Techniques for martials, Empowered Casting for casters (think of it as martial techniques, but casting). Maybe more thematic features. Idk

So far, B is safer

[opal radish]

I definitely like the consistency, it gives me a much better overview at a glance at how classes will balance fair in terms of ASIs

Hmm

My main issue with implementing martial techniques/empowered spells alongside this is that it gives 2 giant pools of options, each being gained at different levels

I'd much rather fill blanks with specific class features

Or even class features with options

And then just have one, overall "pool" of feats/techniques to draw from

This is in the mindset of "least work implementing and changing" again

[wintry flame]

Yeah, I can't really fit those appropriately in the current tables. Following that line of thought, and since I showed you the Martial Techniques system, what do you think if the feats for learning MT techniques would:

• Martial Initiate. Give 3 rank I choices, instead of 1.
• Advanced Combatant. Give 2 rank II, instead of 1.
• These feats can't be taken again.

That way I could define that rule as the standard one.

[opal radish]

You'd definitely have to take out the ASI included IMO

Actually, I think you could serve to lose the ASI with them as is

For reference, the martial adept and fighting initiate feats feel quite similar, and don't have an ASI

[wintry flame]

I personally think Martial Adept is a bad feat

[opal radish]

I've been thinking this over and looking at the techniques

[wintry flame]

And Fighting Initiate is a curiosity for me. I sometimes can't fathom when Wizards think a feat should have or not the half ASI

[opal radish]

I think this would be fair

[wintry flame]

I mean, look at Fey/Shadow Touched

[opal radish]

My main concern is that it makes it difficult to keep within the number of techniques you can have

IE 3 + up to 3 more based on requirements

[wintry flame]

I always wanted to make it a ladder: 3 of RI, 2 of RII, 1 of RIII

[opal radish]

Yeah, I'm into that

I think the current implementation of 3 + reqs is a bit janky but sorta works

Actually I just got an idea

I like the current ability to jump between ranks (IE get a RIII before maxing on 3 RI)

So here's a concept for a feat:

[wintry flame]

I could never come up with better reqs

[opal radish]

I don't mind them, they make sense on a technical level

But something about them also doesn't sit right with me

Can't put my finger on it

[wintry flame]

With noone I have showed it, which is why I removed it as a default rule

The reason people give me: it punishes caster characters, so instead of rewarding characters for reaching that point, it punishes them for the route they chose.

[wintry flame]

What did you want to say?

[opal radish]

Was bouncing between channels, typing it now

[wintry flame]

Btw, this is how the Monk table is looking. Don't know if I should leave Enlightment there, move it up at an early, or down at 18th (and buff it slightly).

[opal radish]

Martial Technique

With some training you achieve a basic form to improve your combat skills. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• (Wording needed) You gain 3 skill points. You may spend these skill points on learning martial techniques, spending points equal to the technique's rank.
• You can select this feat up to three times in total. The third time you select this feat, you gain 4 skill points instead of 3.

(Incorporating existing rules for techniques, such as requirements)

The main reason I like this is that it gives you flexibility in how you take techniques

Instead of being like "Alright, I get one shot at taking all my level 1 feats, and then that's it," you can opt to take a level 1 and a level 2

The second time you take the feat, you could then instantly get a level 3

[opal radish]

It's the same as this, but allows player agency in the order its approached

The main issue is the wording (I don't think it should use points) and the scaling (The 4th point on the 3rd feat is to allow for 3 RI, 2 RII, and 1 RIII - The math just barely doesn't work out)

[wintry flame]

I love it, I only have the concern that the techniques have ranks because they are intended to be learned at certain points to avoid getting something as strong as a 3rd or 2nd rank at 1st (or a 3rd at 4th level).

If I overlook that, your feat is very spot on

[wintry flame]

To be fair, there's nothing more fitting than "points"

[opal radish]

I think it's balanced around the fact that you can only get 1 for the whole campaign, and you forgo 2/3 smaller boosts doing so

[wintry flame]

If you say so.

[opal radish]

Uh oh

[wintry flame]

Oh?

https://tenor.com/view/scared-im-gif-19003096

[opal radish]

DND has given me an instinctive reaction to that string of words

Along the lines of "Are you sure you want to do this?"

[wintry flame]

hahahahaha

[opal radish]

The other thing to consider is that with martials getting more ASIs, its would technically only be a 2 level difference between when rank 3s would come online

IE 6th vs 8th

(Assuming only this feat was taken)

It would also allow players that don't want to max out this feat methods of getting at R IIs and R IIIs

[wintry flame]

The majority of RIIIs aren't troublesome, however.

[opal radish]

Yeah 100%

Nothing really jumped out at me as crazy

Which I appreciate

[wintry flame]

But you know what? I'm no longer worried

I say let's do it baby

[opal radish]

🫡

[opal radish]

I think enlightenment is in a good position

Not fully sure what would go at 18th, hmm

Oh wait

idea

Ah nvm

I was gonna say bring back Tongue of the Sun and Moon, but that's a ki feature now

(Not to go at 18th btw)

(To replace enlightenment at 13th, and move enlightenment to 18th - Or something similar)

[wintry flame]

I was gonna joke about bringing Superior ToftSaM, and thought of Kung Pow. The guy with a face on the tongue

[wintry flame]

Fixed a typo

[opal radish]

Neat

This is how I'll be running techniques

[wintry flame]

Neat

[wintry flame]

I'm going to let my mind rest for now and leave it like this

[opal radish]

Sounds good

I'll do the same 👍

[wintry flame]

I'm gonna take a nap, my sleeping schedule is a mess

[opal radish]

I feel you

Its 6 AM for me

As in, I didn't sleep last night

Finals week ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[wintry flame]

Wait...

6am?

How many countries have the same hour?

[opal radish]

I dunno

I'm east coast American

[wintry flame]

I'm surprised how many countries share the same hour

At least 19

Anyways, g'night everyone

[wintry flame]

@here
Just so everyone is up to date, this is currently going on. Aside from that:

• Removed ASIs at 14th and 18th on all the classes.
• The monk's features got redistributed as a result.
• Enlightment got buffed as a result.

[scenic totem]

interesting. regardless, that 's is probably necessary to conform the wording to 5e norms

[scenic totem]

can you see why i call myself illiterate 👀

[scenic totem]

i was especially thinking long rest -> thp -> short rest

that "abuse" case is even more minor, though, as it's functionally a single instance of "free" tho in a day

[scenic totem]

i might make it contingent on the Grappler fighting style just in case

since Grappler is the only fighting style that actively encourages strength, then you butt up against the unarmoured/medium armour/light armour options. 14 dex is doable but not ideal, in which case this ki feature would be good

[scenic totem]

it does still work on allies, but that just makes this monk a really, really good frontliner. as an example, you could build a real frontline tank by taking deflect missiles, ground fighting, long death. approaching melee nakes a save against being able to approach the party at all in a huge area, ranged attacks are always at disadvantage and get their missiles thrown back at them

it's almost like a cleric's spirit guardians but arguably better

[scenic totem]

@here doesn'y work, just so you know

[scenic totem]

i think that only having an extra ASI at 6 is good, then having different high level features entirely

again, the issue is that each subsequent ASI has less and less value, especially later into the game

rather, higher level features shoyld have something that actually reflects your heavy investment into the class, which have the same value as or greater than your first asi

[scenic totem]

B is good

what i'm personally doing on my rework, though that rework has very different goals and assumptions, is giving an ASI+feat at ASI levels, ASI is at 4 8 12 16 20 for every class, but start introducing scaling and class-locked feats that increase their class identity

i'm going to be working on these feats only after i've finished the base classes, so that i can figure out a good power level for them, but as a bit of a sampler i have uhhhh

paladins can choose a feat to get "improved fighting style" at 8 (archery becomes +3 and increases range, defence becomes +2, GWF explicitly works on all weapon and other damage rolls when attacking with a 2h weapon, etc), or they can choose to add a bunch of spells to their list, or they can enhance the flexibility of their aura of protection

at 12, they can give their normal divine smite a spell smite property (gonna work on the exact wording, but basically you can replace a divine smite with a branding or wrathful or whatever smite, so no bonus action or casting a spell needed, though the damage dice and concentration requirements are kept), add even more spells to their list and cast some for free, or buff allies when restoring hitpoints to them

so it's kind of like 1d&d's level 2 choices where it functions as a sub-sub class, so you can focus on being more martially competent, a better spellcaster, or a better support character

[scenic totem]

generally, in high-difficulty play, casters will always opt to shore up their defences before bothering with things to make them more castery

like, let's say enemies have a 50% success rate against your spells (quite generous for the pro-ASI arguments). increasing your casting stat modifier will mean they have a 45% success rate. enemies will have 9/10 of the actions they did before

[scenic totem]

on the other hand, let's look at something like the moderately armoured feat on a warlock or bard. assuming some smart enemies will make ranged attacks twice per round at you, with a -2 modifier compared to their "standard" accuracy because monsters tend to be weaker at range than at melee, and base AC15, fighting CR 4 monsters (a tier below your tier 2 creatures, but not literal trash mobs)

CR4 creatures with -2 accuracy will usually have 45% accuracy against you, which drops to 25% when you reach AC19. With a +2 constitution modifier, you fail on conc checks against dc10 about 35% of the time. 4 round encounters, with 2 attacks per round in the first two rounds then 1 in the last two. you fail 0.2901 conc checks in the first two rounds, and 0.1575 in the next two. So, assuming you've controlled 50% of monsters in a 5,4,3,1 monster encounter, you're losing 0.55x(0.3x5+0.3x4+0.16x3+0.16x1) monsters controlled due to dropping concentration. 1.837 monsters controlled. in return, you gain 0.05x(5+4+3+1)=0.65 additional monsters controlled.

with 25% accuracy, these drop to 0.1673 and 0.0875 chance to drop concentration. you're losing 0.5x(0.17x5+0.17x4+0.09x3+0.09x1) monsters due to dropping concentration. 0.945 monster.

basically, you control an extra 0.65 and less 1.837 monsters by bumping your charisma up to empower your hypnotic pattern, vs losing only 0.945 monsters by increasing armour class. the "net loss" will be 1.187 vs 0.945 monsters controlled

so even with pretty generous assumptions that would favour +ASI over +AC, you actually end up denying more actions by bumping your defences up, because enemies are more likely to stay in your control for longer

in actual high difficulty play, it's more common for a DM to throw very many ranged capable enemies, but of a lower CR so the fight is less swingy yet the party can go through more of then, like a horde of kruthiks or something, and the likelihood for the enemies to fail a save on a given CC spell tends to be closer to 70% than 50%.

the reason Fey Touched is often favoured by casters in high-difficulty play is because it's actually a defensive feat. It's a good insurance against being grapple-restrained by creatures like giant crabs or shadow dancers, and you often take a spell like gift of alacrity to let you go first in combat to have better placement on your AoE effects and restrict enemy threats before they can act in combat

[scenic totem]

this is one of the things i was talking about for free use of utility features. iirc it costs 3 ki to use to cast Tongues, which makes it a very dear cost that penalises a monk that tries for a peaceful resolution with orcs, and therefore encourages more unga bunga fighting

maybe you could make it free or very cheap to cast tongues on the monk, but prohibitively expensive to cast it on other creatures (if possible at all)

this way, casters still have the overall upper hand if they decide to expend precious resources, while martials get less versatility in exchange for more consistency

casters will need to expend a spell slot, a spell known/prepared, and often an action to use a utility spell on the fly, vs a monk who can always have it up, but can't use it on others, like if they need to mediate between warring goblins and kobolds, or the ability to send the silver-tongued rogue or bard forward with it

[scenic totem]

hm, i'm normally a fan of having such resource features coming in early but being weaker, but 2 ki per turn is quite significant and lets monks do a lot in this system, so i'm fine with it

that said, although there aren't turns outside of combat RAW, it might be good to clarify that you mean 2 ki at the start of turns in combat

[wintry flame]

I mean, noone reads that. And still different than having a set for each particular FS

[wintry flame]

I was curious why my message didn't turn yellow

[wintry flame]

Sounds awesome

[wintry flame]

The question is more related to the feat power and the need of a half asi. You have Magic Initiate that gives you 2 cantrips and a 1/day 1st-level spell, no ASI. Fey/Shadow Touched gives you a 1/day 2nd and 1st-level spells (that you can spend slots to recast), plus ASI.

Doesn't seem fair to me.

Compared to Fighting Initiate which is a passive, we could argue that being always on is why it doesn't get an ASI, but then you have the sorcery points and the martial adept feats which are very limited in use, yet no ASI.

So in the end it's an entirely arbitrary choice

[wintry flame]

Well, at least I didn't go for the spell level + 1 ki cost approach

[wintry flame]

Good idea

[scenic totem]

that's sort of what i meant by trap options

it doesn't even need to be actively harmful in many cases; if it's very significantly and visibly worse, especially if it's close to categorically worse then another option, like magic initiate, then it just punishes players for not reading every single feat from every single sourcebook

[wintry flame]

I will say you have some leisure thanks to the +Wis ki points, and if you can spend 3 ki points to avoid a couple combats, then you are actually saving ki points, since you usually spend more than 3 in those.

[scenic totem]

certainly, but it's a bit of an uncertain gamble, and arguably remains overall more expensive for the monk to grab tongues than the warlock or something

[wintry flame]

I wouldn't say worse per se. I'm conflicted with that one case since MI still has some uses and advantages over Touched. I guess it depends on the spell you want.

However, Martial Adept vs any of the dmg type feats. Yeah, that's definitely a worse choice through and through

And don't get me started with the weapon proficiency feat

[scenic totem]

yeah, MI (or especially artificer initiate) can net you some unique cantrips that can significantly strengthen builds, most notably magic stone (hand em to summons like animated dead or tiny servants)

yeah weapon master is a joke

[wintry flame]

Well, for one that puts me at ease. Assuming the warlock can spam it for free, then I'm satisfied with current design.

[scenic totem]

fair enough

different goals i guess

[wintry flame]

And not a funny one

[scenic totem]

tasha recommending it for fighters in TCE was though

hilarious even

[wintry flame]

I forgot they did that

Wizards having no idea how their game functions, it's more sad than funny reading that

[scenic totem]

still has a degree of funny though

[opal radish]

We still working on monk, or are you good if I move onto fighter later?

I'm gonna do it anyways

But I'd rather round out monk while its fresh on my mind

[wintry flame]

If you put it like this. Then let's check on this thing that's left.

[opal radish]

Sounds good, I'll give it another read-through later tonight

[wintry flame]

I'm not sure if I should tag everyone, I won't do this time

[opal radish]

It's fine if you do ¯_(ツ)_/¯

That's what I love about this server

People are super friendly about pings and what channel you talk in

No BS moderator powertripping, we love the DOMT mods

[wintry flame]

I forgot to mention that I also want to redo Drunken Master

Alright then, I guess I'll ping them, but I probably won't be active until far later.

[wintry flame]

@opal radish @hazy laurel @shell hound @scenic totem

Let's finish this bad boy before we move on to the next class. Those are the changes I want to focus on, as well as the Drunken subclass makeover.

For a sec I thought the emoji wanted to stab me

[scenic totem]

ngl i havrn't looked all that much into the subclasses

and my sickness is mostly gone so i'll probably be busy tomorrow exvept when i'm procrastinating or my old busted ass laptop is having issues downloading anything more than a megabyte again

[wintry flame]

C'mon C'mon Get Down with the Sickness

[shell hound]

let me see

Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you learn how to twist and turn quickly as you attack. During your turn, if you make an attack against a creature, that creature can’t take opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn.

I would word this

"Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you learn how to twist and turn quickly as you attack. When you make an attack against a creature as a free action/in addition to the attack you may use the disengage action."

less words for the a better and more useable effect imo

[shell hound]

*useful

also im not sure where u get ur art but u should credit them

unless u made it lol

[wintry flame]

They are all credited in a single place

End of the doc

By end I mean Back cover

Anything past that is nonexistant

Forget you ever saw it

[shell hound]

i see

[wintry flame]

Starting with Tyrone's idea for DM sub:

• Drunken Technique (3rd). Take Attack action, spend 1 ki to take Disengage action as part of the same action.
• Tipsy Sway (6th). The more I think about this, the less I know what to do. Go through creatures as if it were difficult terrain and OA disadvantage.
• Drunken Imbalance (11th). Adv on checks and saves against being moved, knocked prone or pushed. And maybe 5 feet to stand up.
• Capstone? Capstone?

Another idea is to put this Drunken Imbalance at 6th and at 11th it is the redirect a failed attack.

However, I want the features to focus on the theme of you being an alcohol enjoyer first and a skilled, coordinated, hard to knock fighter second.

[hazy laurel]

For tipsy sway I allowed my monk to just ignore non magical difficult terrains and be able to crawl at full speed

The fantasy it is based off of is jackie chan style martial arts right?

Where you fall and stumble your way to victory

Also, creatures don't have adv against you if you're prone

[obsidian forge]

I also heard someone saying they allow all Improvised Weapons as Monk weapons for Drunken Master

[hazy laurel]

I did that

[wintry flame]

That's like a universal rule, you can't have drunken fighter without Jackie Chan as a reference

[obsidian forge]

https://tenor.com/view/true-truth-orange-weird-true-that-gif-14308761

[wintry flame]

I was gonna ask about this point, if it would fit the archetype or if it should be thrown into a future "ground fighting" subclass.

[wintry flame]

I also added that, with the feature that gives them brewer supplies prof.

[hazy laurel]

Jakie chan iirc was known for this kind of thing

he'd be pinned down by 5 people

and still keep his ground

so, both can coexist

[obsidian forge]

wait are u sure?

wait nvm that was a hb suggestion

[wintry flame]

I had the same thought process

[hazy laurel]

I also added this to Drunkard's luck:
Whenever you fail with an unnarmed strike or melee weapon attack roll, you can spend your reaction in order to atack again, adding your Wisdom modifier to the second attack roll. You may use this reaction a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and you regain all uses when you finish a short or long rest.

[wintry flame]

I never understood the idea behind Drunkard's Luck

Or rather, the justification

[hazy laurel]

Me neither but, I based myself off the idea that you pretend to fail

to hit harder

[opal radish]

Haha me as well

[wintry flame]

We on a roll

[opal radish]

My heart sank since I had just mentioned the strength of prone on earth element

And I thought I was about to be wrong

The worst fate known to man

[wintry flame]

hahahahahahah

Well, guess what, you were wrong on thinking you were wrong

[opal radish]

https://tenor.com/view/starwars-no-darth-vader-yell-noooooo-gif-5858146

[wintry flame]

There's probably a way to keep simplifying it, but at the moment I think it's alright

[hazy laurel]

I think its too weak?

Might be sleep depravation speaking but, It doesn't seem like you get much out of it really

At least comparatively

[wintry flame]

Your sleep depraved demon is right tho

[hazy laurel]

Don't fully listen to me, I've been making a class for the last 4 hours

I think I'm delirious

[wintry flame]

You should listen to it more often

[hazy laurel]

Do you want to check it out to take a break from the monk?

[wintry flame]

Yeah, send it

[hazy laurel]

Its a weird one

[wintry flame]

I have a lot of other people's brews to check

So I take a rest reading those

[opal radish]

I'm gonna help out on this some more - School just got out, and I had to clear out my dorm. I'm road tripping right now, but I might be able to take a peak tomorrow

I know yall are working on drunken master, are there any other high priority areas?

[wintry flame]

I just finished assigning a Spongebob episode to each of Faye's class he just showed me

[opal radish]

lmao

and we don't get to see this masterwork?

[wintry flame]

Ok, if Faye shares the link here I will repost every gif I sent

[opal radish]

@hazy laurel do you have a forum post? I'd check it out if you did.

[hazy laurel]

Ahhhh

gimme like

15 min

It ain't finished

[wintry flame]

Drunken and Inner Strength's makeover. Some Roaring Nature's tweaks.

[wintry flame]

This

You know, I'll just ask for it to be pinned

Will edit as we fix things

[hazy laurel]

Its done

[wintry flame]

@torpid bobcat
Given how you are this thread's guardian, could you please pin this message for me?

[hazy laurel]

https://discord.com/channels/113801089362558983/1114457130888601620

[opal radish]

joined 👍

[scenic totem]

So is the priority on checking monk subs or the fighter?

honestly, there are immediately apparent issues with pump action. this makes fighter the dip class for free dodge actions at the very least

limiting the scope of the action taken would be nice

yeah, limiting the reaction means you won't get rogue double sneak or anything anyway

martial archetypes page broken

is precision attack meant to not work before or after the roll like 5e's?

superiority pool scaling is also kind of awkward

i get that you're trying to maybe supplement weaker levels of progression with an additional die, but the scaling is really slow, and as i've mentioned regarding ASIs, each successive die is worth less than the last one

going from 5 to 6 is a 20% increase. Going from 9 to 10 is almost half of that.

i somewhat like the know your enemy and history stuff, but the timing and scope seem to limit it a fair bit

i've honestly never seen know your enemy used, and even if i did, it wouldn't be very impactful

not a mandatory suggestion, but it'd be nice if martial backgrounds had a more uniform scheme. at 13th level, some of them get defensive features, and others get offensive ones, and yet others a mix, for example

a unifying scheme can let players know what's expected of the 13th level bump

(this is a very important level overall, being +5 proficiency, and the level where casters get forcecage, simulacrum, conjure couatl, conjure korred)

[scenic totem]

also, while i'm a fan of diversity, there is a notable difference in power between the options, and with it being the one major option a player takes at 1, i wouldn't want to punish people who failed to understand 5e mechanics or disproportionately reward someone for knowing them well with a level 1 decision on an otherwise simple class

[wintry flame]

Broken? I mean, there aren't any

[wintry flame]

You can check any you want, we were focusing on the Monk so that we got the job done first ans didn't have to worry later. Otherwise it becomes messy having to review the feedback of many different things at once, it also causes some urgent changes to be missed.

[wintry flame]

I forgot to add the rule note in the class, as well as rogue's, but in the Monk class, at the end of the doc you'll see the rule I'm refering to. It's called "Can I add this bonus?"

[scenic totem]

will get there

[wintry flame]

You're mistaken, you want to supply as many of your actions with Sup Dice as possible. However, the pool increase was super arbitrary, since I had to decide the final amount I wanted at the time of the capstone, then writing each pool increase as a feature before moving it on its own column.

[scenic totem]

so anything lacking hit, succeed, miss, or fail, gotcha

dang monks back to real strong

[wintry flame]

Timing and scope?

[scenic totem]

awkward to actually pull off know your enemy

slightly less so if it's attached to the day of research

on the other hand, even if it's pulled off, the benefit isn't significant

[wintry flame]

It is meant to be an out of combat feature, for important npcs or the monsters you have to spy from a distance. The feature, while it seems weak, it provides with meta gaming information, allowing you to learn an amount of strengths and vulnerabilities of your target, with some lesser options for roleolaying.

It's also not meant to be powerful since the power budget goes to the subclass feature.

[scenic totem]

i suppose

it's just very very close to a non-feature

[wintry flame]

Yeah I agree that is a major point of discussion for Fighter, I'm on board with it. I failed to balance them as my intent was to focus on their themes before power level. Regardless, it's not possible to actually make all options equal, I'm fine to have some relatively weaker/stronger than others, but to compensate they have to be interesting and enjoyable to use, or meaningful (aka, they are useful for the situation they are meant for, a situation that would come up rather frequently).

But I would rather we revise that in depth later

[wintry flame]

As for this, if I'm understanding correctly, you are suggesting all of the improvements fall into a single category (offensive, defensive OR utility)? In which case I don't agree.

If what you mean is that the improvement should fall in line with the category/role of the first feature (aka, both being offensive, defensive, etc.). I agree to some extent. The limit being if it can be accomplished or not.

If what you mean is that each background should have some sort of identification as to what role it fulfills. I can sort of do that, I'm not sure how it will look.

[scenic totem]

i meant the first one

it's kinda like how most paladins get an aura improvement at 7, or rangers get an offensive boost at 11

it's not universal, but things that stray from the schema are those that tend to have issues, like redemption and vengeance being big nothingburgers

with such a theme, it becomes relatively easier to both balance and evaluate such features with each other, and it gives the class more congruence as a whole

again, the balancing doesn't have to be perfect, but the lack of commonalities can obscure how bad some things are to beginner players, which i always consider a big minus

[scenic totem]

wait, i think i misunderstood you

what i mean is that it'd be good if each background gave some form of attack/defence at the same levels, in the same order on the bullet pointsa

that way, someone can look at grappler and rider and immediately think "hm, ambushers can get a bonus when going first, then are better at disengaging, while riders get a bonus when charging, and help their mounts survive longer," or something

then you can say "okay, at 13th level i know for a fact that my fighter will get a significant offensive boost no matter which background i took"

the respective expected values of the offence, defence, and utility of each background doesn't need to be the same, but it makes it far easier to see how they stack up when you list them out uniformly

farmer gets a minor weapon boost and the ability to craft decent barricades over a short rest, while the archer gets a decent accuracy boost and minor boost to keeping enemies away, for example

vs the ambusher being ostensibly good at dealing damage because it gets two bullet points of damage features, but they're actually fairly situational and not very large

[torpid bobcat]

idk if I'm so much the thread's guardian but yeah I got this just now ahaha

[wintry flame]

Thanks

[wintry flame]

To be fair, a player reaching that level wouldn't be a beginner anymore, and they will have many more options to fall on their back in case one feature turns out weaker than expected.

Even then, a beginner player will have the DM and other experienced players to guide them as they build their character. People who can explain why a feature is better or worse for whatever reason.

You will never (or highly unlikely) have a player blindly building a character.

[wintry flame]

I think I understand better. The thing is, the second bullet point is more or less a roleplaying/non combat feature, and that's set on stone. I do need to work a lot more on the Martial Backgrounds in general.

I often think about how I want to get rid of the Monk's Martial Arts feature

For the only thing that actually matters in it is the ability to use Dex instead of Str for attacks. I would just make unarmed attacks have the finesse prop and call it a day. I have changed that prop after all to be just that, swap Dex and Str for the atk roll, not dmg.

[wintry flame]

This is how it's currently divided

[scenic totem]

martial background is a level one feature though?

[wintry flame]

And this is how I think it would work better

[scenic totem]

honestly, my experience with 5e says otherwise. it's not as bad as 3.5 where not building to charge means a worthless melee martial, but the difference between a moderately optimised and an uninformed build often becomes like a factor of 4 difference, and that between a hardcore and a moderately optimised build comes down to another factor of 10+

[wintry flame]

@opal radish
I need Lod to check on this

[wintry flame]

I have been busy all day, and I'm now at a game so I haven't been able to write down some of the changes I want yet. However, I will check anything you propose later.

[wintry flame]

Also, @opal radish this is an important change I'm planning and I need your opinion.

In any case, I have a nonchanged version backed up.

[opal radish]

Don't rely on my opinion for the changes, full classes are probably my least proficient area in homebrew

That said, I'll take a look at it

I got back from coolege the other day and I'm catching up on a lot of stuff

First issue I see is that your monk weapons and proficienies are seperate, meaning weapon style doesn't have proficiency in many of their weapons

An issue I've had with the current balance of the styles is that grapple is currently very weak. The boons given to unarmed and weapon are comparatively very strong

The biggest issue is that grapple is quite a weak condition RAW - No movement is bad, but if that grappled target has any martial prowess, it's not that big a downside.

Potentially some ability that will automatically hit a grappled target at the start of the monk's turn could be a solution

If you are grappling a creature at the start of your turn, you you can deal bludgeoning damage to the target equal to one roll of your Martial Arts die + your Strength modifier.

Also, consider that unarmed and weapon style are universally good against all enemies - Anyone can take a hit. Grappling is much more difficult.

• Is your enemy a big beefy hunk o' meat? No dice
• Is your enemy REALLY BIG (beefyness may vary)? Tough luck
• Does your enemy excel at melee combat? Have fun being permanently in range bucko.

[opal radish]

I'm curious why you're focusing on changing the monk from dex based to str based? Str needs more uses, but monks have always been about being nimble about how you hit, not how hard you hit.

Not to mention it makes them very MAD due to their unarmored defense

I’m also considering the change you mentioned, I just need a bit more time to parse it fully

[wintry flame]

My concern comes from you chosing my brew for playtest, and I need to inform you on changes as big as this one. Because I wouldn't want there to be a problem that ends in a bad experience for everyone.

[wintry flame]

Coolege is the college all cool kids go

[opal radish]

That’s why I’m there 😎

I’m nonmatriculated tho 😔👊

[wintry flame]

Yeah, I didn't give much thought to it other than "it would make sense they learn only a handful of weapons, following their theme. This rule is only for those special cases like multiclass or outside profs like feats or races."

[opal radish]

That’s the point of play testing baybee, if stuff doesn’t work we’ll change it on the fly and I’ll let you know

Btw - 2 players have picked monk 👀

At least as of now, very early still

[wintry flame]

I have no reaction pic that can express how happy I am, so this will have to do

If both choose it, it will be beyond my expectations, specially since we can test how different they can build each other

[opal radish]

One of them had the concept beforehand and is using a homebrew sub, fair warning

It’s a kibblestasty one that shouldn’t be too difficult to port over

I’ll send it here in a few minutes

But other than that, super excited

Especially since one is going roaring nature

[wintry flame]

https://youtu.be/V96StFr8xTs

[opal radish]

Lmao yeah

[wintry flame]

This is it, that's how enraptured I am

[wintry flame]

(Tell them I love 'em) Tell them they have great taste and they made someone really happy

[wintry flame]

By itself is weak, but then you have a combo I highly respect: Grapple + Prone. I have been at the end of it a couple times, it is frightening

Most people would be discouraged from it, since they can only do it on one creature, otherwise they lose damage. Speacially due to action economy. Grappling monk instead has no such worries. They can grapple up to 2 creatures and 3 in the ground. With the concern of hitting you can instead spam push and grapple.

I'm not gonna consider the ki feature to turn grapple into restrained, because that wouldn't be fair.

[wintry flame]

Uh, probably why I had to put Dex for gra/sho checks in the first place. I'll get to that in a sec

[wintry flame]

I didn't want to do this because there was the Fighter's Unarmed Fighting Style, which did the same, but less dmg.

I was between many choices for that one:

• Grapple with legs because that's part of real wrestling techniques and adds more CC'd creatures (fairly weak).
• Gra/Sho as reaction (I had not idea what to give as a ki feature for this style)
• The extra dmg you said, but I was heavily discouraged from accumulating automatic damage.
• When Unarmed Style still gave you an attack as a bonus, Grappling did much the same (I said fuck it and made a ki feature to make one unarmed, weapon attack, or g/s check as a bonus action, called Chain Attack)

That reminds me, I have to rewrite the Flurry of Blows ki feature.

I also made a 17th level Ki feature for GS that deals two extra MA die of damage on a successful g/s check, plus an additional dice for each size difference.

Thus, I had to restrict myself, trying to make each option unique, and having no idea what to do with that first grappling ki feature, I went with that.

[wintry flame]

There are many reasons I started implementing this change, one that I myself was reluctant to do in the past:

• In reality, despite the principle of rotation and redirecting the force projection, in reality strength is fundamental in combat, you can't rely only in speed and fancy acrobatic moves.
• I saw this was how it worked on PF2, I was discouraged by it, but then I saw how your stats increase there and I realized "Fuck, that makes sense."
• The moment I gave martials so many ASI I said "Wait, no, monk damaging with Dexterity is too much."
• I ended up liking it.

[wintry flame]

Lastly, regarding this. Considering how it has been up to this point, you can pretty much max up to 3 stats, 2 at the first half of the class. So in the case of monk 4 stats are important, you can max 3, but you need to focus on 2 and adapt based on that.

Strength is for precision and damage
Dexterity for precision and evasion
Constitution for hit points
Wisdom for evasion and saves.

It's harder to pull it off since we removed 2 ASIs, but it shouldn't change what I envisioned too much:

A combination of Dex and Wis would make for a pretty evasive monk with high precision and to hit effects. Str as a 3rd for some damage or Con for some endurance.

A mix of Str and Dex for precision, evasion and damage. Wis as 3rd for some to hit effects or Con for endurance.

A mix of Str and Con for full sturdy melee combatant. Either Wis or Dex is used for evasion.

Lastly, I previsioned the lack of AC to be troublesome, which is why I gave the Ki Coat ki feature. You also gain access to abilities like Deflect Missiles/Blows at 2nd level.

[wintry flame]

Regarding why I wanted this change, it's because I just thought between Unarmed Defense, Martial Arts and Fighting Style, it was too much. Sure it's just a bunch of small benefits, but still.

[scenic totem]

mind if i yoinked your grappling ideas for the monk for my monk's feats?

funny issue i randomly realised - you don't naturally gain proficiency in your monk weapons

which is relevant to weapon style

this also doesn't specify it causes the attack to miss

might be worth changing this to work like stalker's flurry, just so it conforms to 5e wording more (you make an extra attack)

[opal radish]

My bad, it's griffon's saddlebag

[opal radish]

I can live with this then, I was undervaluing lock

[opal radish]

I do think grappler is still situationally weak for this reason

But better than I was initially giving it credit for

[scenic totem]

oh, important thing to note for grappling and disadvantage on checks to escape

forced movement to bring the grappled target out of reach also break the grapple

like the grappled target's own shove attempts, a third party, forced movement effects like repelling blast or telekinetic, etc

[opal radish]

Shoves wouldn't push them out of range for prone though right?

That's for the condition, not movement

Oh wait, the target's attempts

Misread

Huh, that's interesting

Yeah that's lame, it just completely defeats the purpose of the disadvantage

Same roll but without dis if I'm reading this correctly?

[scenic totem]

my point was uhh

you grapple+shove a target, end turn

enemy creature 2 yoinks the target out of your reach, now it's prone but not grappled

or enemy creature 1 takes its own turn, shoves you away, no longer grappled

etc

[opal radish]

How come you want to remove the bonus ki features? I don't mind this, I like having a baseline class that just does the class but "better"

[opal radish]

This effectively means there's no point to the disadvantage on grappled then, right?

[scenic totem]

kind of

there are ways aroudn it from a design perspective

increasing your reach with regards to grapples is one

(very funny to have a melee creature shove you away, only to end up still grappled and now incapable of reaching)

increase your own resistance to forced movement is another

not much can be done about enemies' allies getting them out, but those features are pretty rare

[opal radish]

I think enemies helping fine, all things considered

Not really the biggest issue I have here

But if you can just fully circumvent a feature of the class by pushing instead of breaking grapple, that's kinda lame

Lock. Creatures have disadvantage on skill checks made to escape your grapples and to shove you while grappled by you.

pretty simple fix IMO ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[scenic totem]

also works

[opal radish]

Concept for 17th level, kinda just ripping from wizard:

Second Nature. Select 2 level 1 ki features you know. These features become your signature features, and can be used without expending ki.

[opal radish]

I think the removal of Max HP here is a great way to make Vitality Steal more readable and playable. There are very few monsters can cure a disease, so this added complexity of max HP is for a very niche case

Does Slow Down on weapon style stack? A player is wondering.

I'm 99% sure RAW it doesn't

But I'm curious as to your intention

[opal radish]

Drunken Master also feels pretty WIP rn, Rolling Back feels incredibly weak especially considering you still have disadvantage on attacks

Tipsy Sway needs a buff, it's weaker than RAW as is

Raw - Activated on flurry of blows (IE no need to spend additional key), +10 movement speed
Rework - Activated by spending additional ki

I don't mind just keeping it RAW for me

Yeah, I'm curious as to why the subclass as a whole is nerfed

Comparing RAW and Rework, many of the features are just delayed, weakened, or removed

I also wanna find a fix for prone here, so for anyone else - I'm not crazy in thinking earth is much stronger than the other options here, right?

These are all quite strong options, but advantage from prone is devestating, and it also works to remove mobility, similar to water

[wintry flame]

Suit yourself, buddy

[wintry flame]

Because it's not a reaction like Defensive Duelist

[wintry flame]

So far is not really an issue, I just trimmed a lot of words

[scenic totem]

oh i misread

it said "that targets you"

i skimmed and read "that hits you," which would've been funny if it didn't cause the hit to miss

[opal radish]

Right, never got back to you on this

[wintry flame]

You've got some time, I'm still reading the rest

[wintry flame]

That would have been so derpy

"HAHA, NOW I HAVE MORE AC"
And the enemy is like "Don't care, didn't read"

And hits you the same

[opal radish]

To my understanding, the big change you’re proposing is merging fighting styles with martial arts, making your martial arts die specific to your fighting style, and removing the ability to use dex for shove, grapple, unarmed strikes, and monk weapons

I could be misreading/misinterpreting this

But if not, it seems just like consolidating and moving to a str focused class, which you’ve already said your reasons for

[wintry flame]

You guys mean the grappled creature shoving you? Might have been an oversight on my side, I can't remember. Anyways, it should be included.

Other creatures that aren't grappled by you, trying to shove you to free a creature grappled by you? Yes, that's a normal roll.

How did it work if someone grapples you while you are grappling someone? Does it become a conga line or do you instantly let go if you are moved this way?

[opal radish]

I’m still not totally sold on fully strength monk but I’m also not not sold on it, so everything there is fine

[opal radish]

You instantly let go if your grappler moves you, since it’s forced movement

[wintry flame]

My fear of it being just boring, feeling like they already have enough known ki features (let's call them kife) per base class.

For comparisson, I gave Fighter 10 known maneuvers (because his list is small in comparison), the Rogue has 10 known talents (small list in comparison), but with certain subclasses (or maybe all) this would turn to 11.

Meaning, that sub having 14 would feel unfair?

[opal radish]

Fair, it also gets at what @scenic totem keeps mentioning about ASIs

As in diminishing returns if you have more

[wintry flame]

Thanks

[wintry flame]

@hazy laurel @opal radish @shell hound @scenic totem
Guys, before I forget, I want to put you in the credits, unless you don't wanna. With what name should I put you there?

[scenic totem]

Illiteratepig works

[hazy laurel]

Faye is fine

[wintry flame]

You're right, I will have to reword it, it's intended to stack

Slow Down. Whenever you deal deamage to a creature with an attack using a monk weapon, the target's speed is reduced by 5 feet until the start of your next turn.

I changed when to whenever, don't know if that's enough

Oh wait, I screwed up, now I got myself confused

I don't know when or why I made this change. Originally, you had to activate this feature with your first attack and laster for your turn, which is why this kife reads:

Pinning Attack (Weapon Style). When you use your Slow Down, you can spend 1 ki point to further disrupt the enemy’s movement. When you do so, the speed reduction is increased to 15 feet, instead of 5.

Let me think for a sec

I have two choices:

A) Keep Slow Down as is, but reword Pinning Attack so that you can only activate on your first attack of the turn and lasts for that turn.
B) Reword Slow Down so that you have to activate it on your first attack and lasts for the turn and keep Pinning Attack the same

It's basically the same, the question being which one makes more sense

[wintry flame]

The problem being Flurry of Blows not being a core feature

[wintry flame]

Don't worry, Drunken feels like that because it's very WIP. I put those features in an attempt to reduce the... uhm... Idk the word, is it padding, filler, clutch? I can't remember.

Anyways, what I was trying to say is reducing the stuffed features, making them more straightforward and according to the thematic. To give an idea of what I want to accomplish.

[wintry flame]

Pretty much the strongest so far, it has some small cons like being a Dexterity save, to my understanding that's a very resisted save (I would need to recheck) and that it gives disadvantage on ranged attacks, but a versatile enough party means it would be an issue for only one person.

Air is a good reposition tool, but it won't shine unless the map has a lot of falls

Rock one was the only thematic choice without repeating air

Which I won't do by the way, I won't make two abilities the same

[wintry flame]

You are correct. This way instead of having Unarmored Defense (1) + Martial Arts (2) + Fighting Styles (3) for a total of 6 benefits, you only have Unarmored Defense (1) + Martial Arts (3) for a total of 4, which feels more in line with everything else. Not counting Martial Arts die, cause that's more of a clarification.

[wintry flame]

I am sad to do this change as well, I know noone has complained about this before, but it feels like the fair thing to do. Given the many things this class receives, then comparing it to other classes. Otherwise my mind gets gunned down with the idea it would have to give the other classes more 1st level features, and I don't want to do that.

Thus I considered making unarmed strikes finesse (reminder in my system it doesn't add Dex to dmg). On the same note, I was gonna expand the weapon list, and thought of weapons for fist and feet (simple), like cestus, knuckles, claws, metal point shoes, etc. Then weapons for arms, legs, head and other exotic body parts (martial).

I'm gonna add a Tier II technique to replace Str with Dex for grapple and shove checks. Not Tier I because Dex builds are pretty good already.

When I see it that way, I have peace of mind

But if you prefer the other version of that rule, I have the document saved just in case

[wintry flame]

Btw, I went with A), made more sense to me

[shell hound]

ShyTyVA

[shell hound]

Fair nuff

[opal radish]

LodtheFraud works with me

[opal radish]

This currently is very risky and not very good - it reads as “When you make your first attack, do this” before it determines if you hit

And if you miss your first attack, you’re locked out of the ability

I’d instead just limit it to a once-per-turn

[opal radish]

I forget which sub/ability does this, but you could always word it as “If you spent a ki this turn”

[scenic totem]

there's ki fuelled strike

[wintry flame]

Locked out? What does that mean?

I worded it based on Barb's Reckless attack, and 1 ki point for an ability that works with every attack on your turn seemed fair to me.

[opal radish]

As in you lose the option

Maybe I misread? Gimme a sec

[wintry flame]

I could have worded it poorly

[wintry flame]

It was Drunken Master before the rewording

[opal radish]

Right now, you said it only works on your first attack

This is great for reckless, which makes that first attack more likely to hit - it immediately affects the game

But slow down/pinning attack don’t affect the chance for an attack to hit, instead affecting the creature after the hit

Meaning if your first attack misses… no pinning attack

Instead, it should be the first attack that hits, or rather just once per turn

[wintry flame]

So, do you suggest I change Slow Down to work 1/turn, increase the speed red to 15 ft, and Pinning should cost 1 ki to further reduce to 30 ft.

The trigger to Slow Down is still that the creature takes damage from your weapon attack.

[opal radish]

Slow down is fine as is

That’s my bad

It’s that pinning attack is very inconsistent

Hold on gtg

[opal radish]

Alright so:
Combining Game Effects (DMG)

Different game features can affect a target at the same time. But when two or more game features have the same name, only the effects of one of them—the most potent one—apply while the durations of the effects overlap. For example, if a target is ignited by a fire elemental’s Fire Form trait, the ongoing fire damage doesn’t increase if the burning target is subjected to that trait again. Game features include spells, class features, feats, racial traits, monster abilities, and magic items. See the related rule in the “Combining Magical Effects” section of chapter 10 in the Player’s Handbook.

The two current issues are thus:

• Slow Down, even with whenever added, doesn’t stack on itself. You need to explicitly word that it stacks, IE: The effects of slow down may be applied to a creature already affected by slow down (Or something like that, someone better with wording can clarify)
• Pinning Attack, as written, can only be activated on the first attack. What if you miss the first? You simply can’t use it, which feels arbitrary and not fun for the player. Instead, specify that it only applies once per turn when you use slow down

Pinning Attack (Weapon Style). When you use your Slow Down, you can spend 1 ki point to further disrupt the enemy’s movement. When you do so, the speed reduction is increased to 15 feet, instead of 5. You may only use Pinning Attack once per turn.

[wintry flame]

It certainly is better, I never considered having a once per turn ki feature

With that, I'll pump it to 20. Thus at 5th level, if you have Chain Attack, you could reduce a creature's speed by 30 on your turn.

There we go

[opal radish]

Good with me!

[wintry flame]

Ok, now that that's finished, and seeing as there are no objections to the change on Martial Arts, I would like us to move to Roaring Nature

First step: Elemental Strike. Here we have the following issues: rock and fire.

Rock being more powerful than the rest, and fire not being very thematic.

Here's the feature

Air was given push, so prone had to go to rock since it was very thematic

Fire had Wisdom save because I was dead set into giving it a strong save, and having a different save on each. So it shifted from being extra damage to a save for a -2 AC, to a save for frightened, to a save for disadvantage on attacks and checks.

Now, my idea is for a fire explosion, engulfing the enemy in flames

These come at the top of my head

One is very simple, but extra damage is very strong in comparison to the others. While the other makes it more elaborated (than what's probably necessary), but makes for some cool interactions.

[opal radish]

On now - Gonna brainstorm rocky strike for a bit

Hmmm - Do the abilities need to be single target effects against the enemy?

Stone makes me thing defense and armor, so something along the lines of chunking up some defensive rocks for THP = martial arts roll makes sense

Alternatively, an AOE difficult terrain might make sense - Although that's 3/4 on anti-movement abilities

[opal radish]

Personally I wanna avoid making fire just +damage as much as possible - It just isn't as interesting as the other options to take

Oooh

Idea

What does fire do?

Grow

Technically this is +damage

You deal extra fire damage, and your martial arts die increases by one size until you miss an attack. This effect can stack with itself.

Lends fire to a playstyle of stacking its dice big, and then using its stronger abilities with more dice - Each stack being +1 damage on average

Again - This does take away from the theme of "Hit enemy, make save, or negative effect" - But I think it'd be cool :)

Yeah looking at the sub, that's perfect for fire - It consistently rolls the most martial arts dice and creates a cool theme

[wintry flame]

Short answer yes.

Long answer: In order to achieve the 17th level feature prerequisites it is necessary to have 2 features at 3rd level. Thus why one is single target and the other an AoE. Also because the single target is personal preference for, let's call it game feel. It's what I like to visualize when using those strikes.

In addition to that, it was to further incentivize the duality between a physical and a mental based attacker. Y'know, in case you want some way to harm an enemy with high AC.

Alternatively: While keeping both 3rd level features, the elemental strikes could have AoE effects, while the 2nd one is some self-buff. However, this would require some rebalance.

I have to prepare me food, so I'll read the rest later

[opal radish]

👍

also damn, but fair enough

Also preparing food

If inspiration hits me while I cut this cucumber, I’ll let you know

[wintry flame]

I'm afraid the kind of inspiration you could get

[opal radish]

The 5th element - cucumber bending

[opal radish]

I think the main issue I'm having here is that when the only differentiator between the abilities is what they do, you're always gonna have some stand out options.

Not to mention 5e's framework that strips out many conditions, modifiers, and types of rolls makes it very difficult to granularly adjust similar options to a point of balance. This means the limitations have to be placed on how the abilities work overall, and if that how is restricted to how it affects 1 enemy after a hit has been achieved (considering theming and level appropriate balance), its very hard to create unique options that are also balanced

With that said - You could include prone at the end of the day. Battlemaster gets trip attack after all.

[wintry flame]

Yes a thousand times, it has been the bane of my existance

Would it be valid if we invent (or check for) new conditions?

Imagine replacing 0 speed with Slow

Or blablabla fire for Burning

I know many have made those

Damn, I still have to read the other messages you left

You saw how deep I was with that other convo

hahahahaha

[wintry flame]

You know, this take is very interesting

I didn't venture into that field before, never thought of that

[opal radish]

My DND official wishlist is more conditions - I love extensive lists of conditions (Just as much as I love keywords)

The main problem is that there's not much point in defining a new condition unless you plan on using it in many places

It's the "Sweep the problem under the rug" approach, where it compounds and compounds until you have loads of spells and features that could be summarized in a succinct condition, but aren't

[opal radish]

lmao wasnt expecting that

but very relatable 😎

[wintry flame]

One of the jokes I like is when a bender asks a non-bender what element they can bend, and they respond "your spine"

[opal radish]

I slightly stole the idea from heavy arms gunslinger, in which each successful hit drops your crit range by 1

[opal radish]

Thinking about it again, it might be better if the damage dice resets whenever you decide not to spend ki on igneous strike - It becomes much more tactical, is much more about "Feeding the fire," and allows the monk to have more control over when they wanna keep their dice up

[wintry flame]

I was just thinking about that

[opal radish]

Oh as far as conditions go - Go nuts, I'd be super down for more conditions - I'd just make them general enough that you'd use them elsewhere

[wintry flame]

I.. also remembered one thing I was aware of when I made these, but it's probably easily fixed. Since these kife were save based, you wouldn't be able to use another save kife on the same attack

Which was a way for balance. But let's do the changes and revise that later

[wintry flame]

I wasn't thinking anything crazy as of now. The only funny cond I have made (and not planning to use yet) was confusion, in which there was a chance you spend your action hitting yourself

[wintry flame]

Checking on this, my only concern is that increasing MAd actually increases the power of pretty much every other feature you have, like the majority of you kife. And that MAd caps at d12

Here I would probably just give it a stackable +1 fire dmg (capping at 5). You miss you take it instead. Resets when you don't use this feature on a turn.

[opal radish]

"You miss you take it instead" you take the fire damage? That's a pretty big downside IMO

Ik what you mean about the scaling, it could get nutty

[wintry flame]

Just the bonus

[opal radish]

But I do think it's reigned in by the fact you need to use Igneous Strike on every attack lest you want to lose the bonus

If it's just +1, you're spending 1 ki for 1 damage

5 ki for 15 if you hit max charge

And that's just a lot worse

No downside needed

[wintry flame]

Actually 6 ki

It stacks after the first, right?

[opal radish]

Eh, I'd let it have an immediate effect

I think that's just a wording thing

[wintry flame]

I was under the idea of "you get an extra +1 fire damage for each consecutive time you use this feature after the first"

[opal radish]

eh, that just doesn't feel exciting

I'd rather it build in the moment

two eh's

i'm becoming a creaky door

[wintry flame]

hahahahahaha

I see your point

I guess 15 dmg over 5 attacks is not a big deal

[opal radish]

Either way, each tier of martial arts dice is just another +1 damage mathematically (And technically worse for unarmed style, as it moves away from improved strike range)

The only difference being it affects more things (So +1 damage on base attack rolls, and then +1 damage on rolls with ki features), and FEELS a lot better as a player

[wintry flame]

(Probably a net loss since it strengthens Vital's Hit)

[opal radish]

True ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[wintry flame]

I'm not sure if you are still refering to improving MAd with fire punch. The issue with that is that once you hit d12 (specially if you're 15th level) then the feature becomes useless. Unless you start stacking d12s, which I would rather not, cause it gets wacky

[opal radish]

Yeah, I was a bit worried about d12s 😬

I have a habit of ignoring high tier play features

It could always be ruled as +1 (stacking) to MAd rolls over d12, but I won't die on that hill

[wintry flame]

Yeah, and this wording is easier

I'm still hung on the no damage back to yourself tho.

[opal radish]

The ability is currently weak enough as is

I'd argue it's still too weak (+1 per martial arts die rolled?)

If we get stuck on some of these elemental abilities, we can always take it to #homebrew as well

[wintry flame]

True, true

On the other hand, the ability being too weak could be a good thing

If the rest of strikes follow the same line, then we can keep the sub fun without overshining the rest of subs

[opal radish]

The problem is that it isn't just balanced against strikes

It's balanced against ki

[wintry flame]

Also, remember it still has a +MAd extra dmg as base

So it's +MAd +bonus fire damage

[opal radish]

True - That said, the chance to push, slow, or prone (TBD) are all much more powerful than this as is

So those would need nerfs as well

[wintry flame]

Mmmmhhh even with the total damage? I'm not sure how to take it into account, but without any other ki features, at 3rd level it means an additional 3.5+1; 3.5+2; 3.5+3 extra dmg over the course of 3 rounds, a total of 16.5 extra dmg for 3 ki points. An average of 5.5 extra dmg per ki point (no hit chance taken into account).

At 5th level that turns into a 2x4.5+1+2; 2x4.5+3+4; 2x4.5+5+5 for a total of 47 extra dmg with 6 points, an avg of 7.8 dmg per ki point.

The extra dmg per ki point seems to not upgrade as nicely. But overall, it is devastating

I do need to fix some wording tho

It would take level 12 and chain attack to make 3 attacks per turn, each with Igneous Strike

I wonder how crazy the damage can get.

84.5 which means 7 extra dmg per ki point on avg

I am... Conflicted, really. The worth of each ki point spent is lesser, but the total result is greater

What do you think about it?

[opal radish]

Forgot about that yeah

The extra martial arts is quite good

Still, it needs to be balanced around the other strike - Currently, fire is the weakest effect, but also the most consistent - You have full control over when the damage stacks, and there's no save involved

So with that considered - Yeah, I think it's fine

[wintry flame]

Yeah, we can either make fire stronger, or we can make the others weaker. We could also get rid of the save effects, see if we can get more interesting effects

It's what struck my interest, if we get the other strikes on the same line, wouldn't that make this subclass equally good than the others instead of straight better?

(And obviously that goes for other changes we might accomplish as well)

[wintry flame]

Ok so, the only ideas that come to mind are:

• Swift Strik (Air): You gain a +1 bonus to AC when you use this strike. It stacks (up to +5 maximum) and it lasts for that turn (I was gonna say on your turn, but I remembered reaction attacks). Basically, you enter strong and run away with safe AC, however, this bonus is only for hit and run combat, not meant for you to become a bastion of AC.
• Hardened Strike (earth): You push the enemy up to 5/10 feet, no save. I wanted to say the damage type is the same as your weapon attack, but then I have to add some extra wording about it only being limited to b,p,s. I guess I could just give the choice of b,p,s. Also automatic push is really strong.
• Gelid Strike (water): Despite havin seen a couple of effects that auto reduce speed to 0, I'm not sure if that's really fair in this case. I would probably lean towards half speed, but that doesn't sound fun. Disadvantage on an attack? How to word it in a way that stacks? It could be an attack modifier penalty that caps at -5, which lasts until the end of the creature's turn. But that would be too strong, and if I make it work with only the first attack, then it's better to just give disadvantage, so you are inclined to spread your punches.

[scenic totem]

ngl i'd completely overlooked the subclasses and apparent issue with martial arts as a whole because i thought we were basically done with the monk

anything in particular i could be helping with?

[wintry flame]

We just slowed down the message rate

[wintry flame]

The last thing with martial arts was fixing some issues with the wording I guess and improving the synergy of one particular feature.

We deemed Grappling Style to be oke with the wording fix. It might be the one to have the hardest time as of now if you don't want to focus on Strength. Because Dex as a replacement for Str was removed from Monk. As instead, using Dex for grapples was turned into a Martial Technique (a separate brew that we talked a bit on here, but I haven't posted the link to avoid distractions).

Meaning, if you want a pure Dex grappler, you need at least level 4 to take the Martial Technique feat (a half feat for physical stats and lets you pick from a massive list of martial combat abilities).

One the other hand, the issue of Str focus instead of Dex would imply you have lower AC, but only on first level. You can rely on the disadvantage of the prone condition and many ki features that increase your AC or reduce damage.

And uhm... Yeah, we just let them be for now to move on to the next pending changes. Roaring Nature.

We are currently redesigning Elemental Strikes

[wintry flame]

Original state

[wintry flame]

Current Igneous Strike

[wintry flame]

Brain storm for the other 3

[scenic totem]

so martial arts and technique don't need changes?

[wintry flame]

Nope

Playtest will tell us

[scenic totem]

as in, i don't need to help there for now?

[wintry flame]

Exactly

[scenic totem]

igneous strike ramping up seems like a weird design choice

it gets prohibitively expensive to use all the way up there, and early rounds in combat are significantly more impactful than later ones

pushing and slowing without saves are generally quite strong

especially since it now works on ranged weapon monks with your class changes

think repelling blast + lance of lethargy, but with stronger attacks

[wintry flame]

The idea was based on how fire grows steadily. I tried some simple maths to check the worth of each ki spent. As I said before I am conflicted, because the avg extra dmg worth of each ki doesn't grow significantly (and going all out at 12 for 3 rounds decreases it a little), but the total extra damage is incredible

[wintry flame]

Here

[scenic totem]

round weighting is also a very important consideration

damage early is much more impactful than damage late

it's why swift quiver is often scorned, for example - sure you'll get 2 extra attacks by round 4, but you'll have 1 less by round 1, and break even by round 2

[wintry flame]

Well, what changes can be made without getting too crazy?

I was already reluctant to giving it an starting +1

[scenic totem]

i just think that ramping up effects in general are a trap

or like, a 2 step limited ramp up at most

ramp up effects basically
-don't have many effects early on by design
-leave players feeling trapped, like their next set of actions has to continue the effect (sunk cost)
-in this specific case, get really expensive
+can be great later

hm, also worth mentioning, uh, 1 ki point for 5 (guaranteed) damage?

compare that to the uhh

deadly precision

which just works early on, doesn't have some kind of sunken cost, and has very high value already

1d8 is like 4.5 damage, which is between +4 and +5

not to mention how powerful it is to add to misses, as iirc you have your features without specified on-hit stuff work that way?

so 1 ki point becomes, conservatively, 1d8+4 more damage

[wintry flame]

I'm pretty sure Deadly Precision still states you have to use it before the attack

So there's still some risk to it

Unlike Elemental Strike, which trigger is upon a hit

Although better chance to hit is usually better than the same amount in dmg

The other option could be a +1/+3/+5 progresion

Still within limits, just quicker

But here on I do feel like asking in the homebrew channel just to be safe

[scenic totem]

oh right yeah it does specify that

still, conservatively stating that you get 0.65 of your damage die's value, or you add (4.5/20)th of a hit gives you uh

2.92 and 1.9 damage respectively

well, if you apply precision to vitals hit, more like 3.6 value

let's say the value of deadly precision is a 3 overall

if you spend 5 ki on fire, you'll get +(1+5)/2x5=15 damage total added, vs spending 5 ki on deadly precision... also giving you 15 damage

plus the damage is more prevalent later than earlier, which is very important

takes 5 ki over 2-3 rounds to just break even, and that's by expending a truckload of ki and with ungenerous assumptions for deadly precision

2/4 progression at a minimim, but even if you kind of balance the numbers assuming high ki expenditure, it remains a "trap" because it makes players think a specific way and requires significant resource input

1/3/5 means you break even by the third hit, which is 3 ki and a lot of attacks

so probably like 1.5 whole rounds of attacking to break even

[wintry flame]

Well, asking in homebrew didn't work

And what you say does bring a good point.

However, this mindset that you call it might be in line with the fire theme, unintentionally.

@opal radish
Check out what IlliteratePig says, what is your opinion about the ramp up numbers?

I do lean towards +1/+3/+5 more, but it's because the numbers are better looking than +2/+4/+5

[scenic totem]

i'm saying just 2/4, no need for 5

first hit is behind, second hit is tied, further hits are ahead

[wintry flame]

For the moment I'll leave it as +1/+3/+5, so we can move to the others

[wintry flame]

So, let's talk about the other options, on an unrelated thread they talked how automatic movement is strong, thus I'm thinking that 1 ki point for 5 ft might be a bit low, but then I can make water reduce 15 feet speed.

Otherwise, 10 ft push vs a 15 ft speed reduction won't have that big of a difference, and then I would have to pump that speed red to stupidly big numbers

Ugh, then I would have to reevaluate the Pinning Attack kife.

[wintry flame]

@scenic totem @opal radish
I reached a block here

[scenic totem]

if you're spending resources, forced movement is fine

don't gorget 5e open hand gets it, repelling blast and grasp of hadar get it

5e crusher gets it

[wintry flame]

Open hand is a save, and everyone deems Repelling Blast op

And Grasp of Hadar is once per turn

Which is why I don't think 1 ki for extra damage and pushing 10 feet would be crazy, my problem comes next with Cold Strike

[scenic totem]

Y'know, maybe i should refresh my memory on ki per level

that's two things in a row where my issues stem from ki costs (i thought fire costing 4 to begin to outperform deadly precision was too pricey, and now think 1 ki to push is fine)

i'll be out for most of the day, but i'll check the monk document again before commenting on ki costs

[wintry flame]

Sure

[wintry flame]

To be fair, you also argued about the economy of action and forcing the player to jist attacking

[scenic totem]

those too yes, but the ki was also a point

[wintry flame]

So... I made a quick comparison between using DP and IS

In summary, lower than 20 AC it's always better to use IS. At AC 20 they seem to be on par, with a tendency towards DP. Above that it's better to use DP.

I added the ver 2 of the feature

In the end, not a great difference, that's interesting

[opal radish]

Sorry for the wait - I'm on vacation with friends rn

I'm gonna go over everything hopefully tomorrow night, definitely wednesday morning

[wintry flame]

It's fine

I'm glad to know you're still around, but I understand we all have other things in our lives.

I hope you're having fun

[opal radish]

@wintry flame @scenic totem Worth noting that here, this damage/bonus gained from ki is guranteed. Yeah, mathematically deadly precision + vital hit is stronger (Assuming that the monk is both unarmed fighting style and level 5), but requires you to expend ki before you hit. No hit? That's ki wasted.

Elemental strikes ensure the ki is put to use, and I'd add some value to that consistency. The options for damage don't need to be mathematically identical if you consider how they interact with the rest of the class.

---

On a separate note, I think Pig raises some interesting points about "trapping" players with the sunk cost of fire attacks. A solution would be building in a payout of sorts - For example (Hypothetically assuming elemental manifestations are taken alongside elemental strikes), having Flaming Blast's damage scale off of the current tier of fire (IE 1 die at +0, 2 die at +2, 3 die at +4, etc). That said, that's not how the class is currently built, so this exact implementation wouldn't work, requires the tracking of two modifiers, and isn't very finely tuned anyways.

---

With that said, I'm gonna have to go with 1/3/5 for the following reasons:

• Cooler scaling, 3 tiers feels much more like growth than 2
• Marginally lower damage is greatly made up for in ki consistency

Investigating an payout/exit mechanism to stop sunk cost from taking over would be something to consider, but with only 3 tiers, I think it's fine as is.

Also - Does the damage bonus apply to the first non-igneous strike hit? IE does the attack that breaks the chain still get the bonus? This could also serve as a small payout/boost.

[opal radish]

Worth noting, repelling blast is ranged while monk needs to stay in melee to make most of their attacks

That said, repelling blast also doesn't double the damage dice ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Going off the of the discussion in homebrew, it's funny that earth and air are opposite elements but both contend for the same effects

That said, I do think that air should be push and earth should be AC

But I'm not bent on either

[opal radish]

That's the main issue with movement reduction and push actually - The latter's effect will often be invisible since you're already in melee, while the former pushes them out of your effective range

That said, I'd imagine 10-15 feet reduction is completely fine without save

I almost want to say that it should be 15 feet reduction on gelid, and a 10 feet push on thunderous, considering you can only use the push at the end of a chain of attacks

Actually, that's pretty iffy design, since if you miss the last attack, then it mega sucks that you didn't get to use the push to reposition your enemy then dart away, especially if you were planning on it

That said - Flurry of blows/chain strike effectively gives you two attempts to get a hit on the last strike for a push

I think its fine, but if someone has an idea to work around these inherent problems (Pushing removes the enemy from melee, meaning it needs to hit on the last attack), then it would greatly increase thunderous strike's viability and fun-factor

[wintry flame]

Oh, I have to read a lot

[wintry flame]

That could work

[wintry flame]

@opal radish
Ok, so, answering to your points:

• While insecure for the longest time, I enjoy the idea that IS improves your fighting against low AC enemies, while you resort to DP for high AC enemies. So I'm happy with the 1/3/5 progression.
• That said, I will implement your idea of the bonus lasting for 1 attack after the last IS.
• Note: I was going for the AC on air approach to represent a "dance" of sort, in which you enter into your enemy's range and use the movements of air to evade attacks. And since I couldn't give earth a knock without a save, I chose pushing to represent sheer force. Hence why I said they were interchangable, because rock AC means you become sturdier, while air pushing is a blast of wind.
• On that note, whichever element gets the pushing effect, monk has more than enough speed to push and chase. On the other hand, pushing could be seen more of a defensive tool, to keep enemies from reaching certain allies, or allowing them to disengage without an action.
• I could consider making it a single push, but like you mentioned, it's troublesome. I would have to make it super wordy and wouldn't be fun: "You can push X amount for each consecutive attack you hit on a creature. You can choose when to push it." But no, just no.

So far we agree on the numbers, there's still some debate around Thunderous and Rocky Strike. I don't have an issue with inverting them, but then here comes some questions I have:

• I feel weird with earth AC lasting only on your turn, more so for a thematic reason, so I don't know if there's a way to circumvent this. Stackable damage reduction for a round? Stackable AC against the first attack targeting you before your next turn? What if the stacks decrease whenever you take damage? Temporary hit points? This last one actually makes sense.
• After all that discussion we had about Pinning Attack, wouldn't Gelid Strike have a problem too?

[opal radish]

Pushing and chasing is fine, but the problem is that if you push, you lose all following attacks as a part of that attack action

I see what you mean about earth - You can either go the THP route, or just swap it with air again, and the problem is solved

If Gelid is problematic, you could also just do THP instead, akin to avatar healing water

I’m blanking on what happened with pinning, and I’m in the car rn, so I’ll check it out in a bit

[wintry flame]

But you can move between attacks.

Right?

Current version

[opal radish]

You’re right, my bad

Not sure where I pulled that other ruling from

[wintry flame]

Sometimes you can't, but that's with certain abilities

Which can be confusing