Monk Design Idea: Flurry (combo) Dice

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I may be the only one interesting in these theoretical class designs (based solely on what I think would be cool with little or no playtesting), and I'll be glad to let this thread fade into oblivion if that's the case. But I was watching some Hong Kong kung-fu movies after reading this forum the other day, and it got me thinking about what makes monks cool to players. If I'm playing a monk, what do I want to see?

The first thing that comes to mind is mobility and balance. Whether you're watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Legend of Drunken Master, there's a ton of jumping around and balancing on improbable objects. The next is rapid attacks. Everyone in a kung-fu movie attacks somewhere north of 5 times a second.

Now obviously none of this is new to D&D. 3e monks had Evasion, rapid movement, unlimited jumping, and the infamous Flurry of Blows.

So the first design hurdle is: how do we model a flurry of blows in a system designed to be streamlined with fewer attack rolls? My solution to this is a combo system. Basically, you roll to attack, and if you hit you roll your damage (1d6+Dex or Str if you're unarmed, by default). If the result of the damage die is 3 or higher, you get to add another Flurry Die of damage (an additional d6). If the result of THAT die is 3 or more, rinse and repeat, up to a limit determined by your level.

Then, to make it sexy (and allow the class to keep pace with fighter/rogue damage), you get finishing moves that you can trigger automatically when you get enough flurry hits in. The basic finisher might just be extra damage or a free 10-foot shift, with more earned or chosen as you level up.

This leads to the final essential portion of the class: fighting styles. These are necessary to model the many different types of monks people might want to play: "realistic" hand-to-hand fighters, wuxia wire-fighters, or even mystic warriors shooting blasts of ki energy. They're also a central part of the kung fu mythos: "Your Northern Fist is no match for my Flying Serpent Style!" And finally, they're a good basis for class expansions that don't require screwing up the base class too much.

I also changed the 3e Wisdom bonus to AC to a static bonus, to cut down on MAD.

One more note: this writeup stops at level 10 because it seems clear that WOTC isn't designing classes beyond that right now.

So here's the writeup so far:

The Monk

HP/HD: d8
Armor Proficiencies: None (but see Unarmored Fighting)
Weapon Proficiencies: Unarmed Fighting and see Fighting Style

Level 1 Abilities:
Unarmored Fighting: You may add 2 to your Armor Class when fighting without shield or armor. This increases to +3 at level 3, +4 at level 6, and +5 at level 9.

Unarmed Fighting: Your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 damage and you are considered proficient with them.

Flurry of Blows: When you hit with your unarmed strike or another weapon you are granted proficiency with through your Fighting Style, when the damage die for that attack is 3 or higher, you may roll an additional Flurry Die of the same die size (i.e. 1d6 for an unarmed attack). At level 4, if the result of that first Flurry Die is 3 or higher, you may add another. The maximum number of Flurry Dice increases to 3 at level 6, 4 at level 8, and 5 at level 10.

Finishing Move: After you have added one or more Flurry Dice of damage, you can trigger a Finishing Move that may add more damage or have another effect. Every monk starts with Ki Strike, Quick Step, and one other finishing move chosen from their Fighting Style's techniques. You can only trigger one Finishing Move per turn.

Fighting Style: At level 1, you choose your style (or school) of training. Your style can modify several aspects of your class. It also provides the list of techniques that your monk can master. Techniques are finishing moves and other special abilities you learn by training in your unique style.
You start with one technique of your choice from your style's list at level 1 and learn an additional technique at each even-numbered level.

Techniques
The techniques below marked with the "Finisher" tag can only be used after you have added one or more Flurry Dice to an attack. You can only use one finisher per round, but you can use other Techniques in conjunction with them. Except for Quick Step and Ki Strike, you can only learn Techniques that are part of your Fighting Style.

Ki Strike (Finisher): Deal an additional 1d6 damage per Flurry Die.

Quick Step (Finisher): Shift up to 5 feet per Flurry Die without drawing any attacks of opportunity.

Crane Stance (Finisher): When you get 2 or more Flurry Dice, you can shift into a reactive stance that allows you to make an opportunity attack against the next enemy who makes a melee attack against you. (You make your attack before he gets the chance to strike.)

Iron Body: When an enemy attacks you, as a reaction you can take on a defensive stance that hardens your body against incoming damage. You reduce damage from that attack by 1d6 (increasing by +1d6 at level 3 and every 3 levels after), but cannot gain any Flurry Dice your next turn.

Push Kick (Finisher): Push the enemy back by 5 feet per Flurry Die.

Ki Jump: As an action, you jump with a +10 bonus to your check. You do not draw any opportunity attacks from this movement. Your jump checks are not limited in distance.

Ki Balance: You can balance or move on rough or even dangerous terrain (such as on the tip of a metal spike) as if it were flat ground. However, you cannot gain any Flurry Dice on the turn after (or while) moving on such territory.

Flying Strike (Finisher): After stunning your enemy with a flurry of blows, you leap into the air to deliver a devastating blow. When you've gained at least two Flurry Dice, you can leap up to 20 feet to deliver an attack against another target for normal damage. You do not draw any attacks of opportunity from this movement.

Fighting Styles

Island Fist
The Island Fist style seeks to be as smooth and hard as polished stone. (This is the Okinawan karate style - low-magic, hard-hitting. Strength-based, wuth higher HP to make up for the lower armor from Dex.)

Weapon Proficiencies: Shuriken, Nunchaku, Sai, Bo (quarterstaff), Tonfa, etc. (All of these should do 1d6 damage max.)

Special: You deal 1d8 damage with unarmed strikes, and use Strength rather than Dexterity as your key ability for unarmed attacks. However, you must roll a 4 or higher to trigger Combo Dice with any attack. In addition, your Ki Strike deals 1d10 damage per Combo Die instead of 1d6. Your HD and HP increases to 1d10 per level.

Techniques:
Crane Stance
Iron Body
Push Kick

Mountain Blade
(Basically the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wuxia swordfighter.)

Weapon Proficiencies: Finesse melee weapons, shuriken

Special: You gain advantage on all checks related to acrobatic movement, such as climb, tumble, and jump checks.

Techniques: Ki Jump, Ki Balance, Flying Strike

Obviously you'd need a bunch more techniques, and different fighting styles with different bonuses. But what do people think of the core mechanics here? The mixture of finisher and non-finisher techniques could (IMO) allow for a lot of flexibility in building your character, so that even within a given style different characters would play very differently.

 

[slobster]

One of my groups runs a 3.5 monk variant that works very much along the same lines. We call them combo dice, and you get one every time you land a hit. You can spend combo dice for things like super movement (flying your move speed instead of running), shifting 2 squares, free combat maneuvers, or just bonus damage. You can also save up combo dice to land finishing moves, inspired by the Mortal Combat games and wuxia in general (5 point exploding heart palm technique!).

It's a fun class. Looks like your outline here would be a good place to start building the 5E monk.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Sounds like fun, so long as it doesn't make the monk actually effective. "Flurry of misses" has been a class feature since 1E.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Sounds like fun, so long as it doesn't make the monk actually effective. "Flurry of misses" has been a class feature since 1E.

Don't worry, the monk has a level 1 attack bonus of -2.

 

[The Shadow]

I calculate that a 10th level monk does an average of 9.3 damage, or 15.4 if using Ki Strike. Of course, he has an enormous *maximum* damage - 60 - but he's very unlikely to get it.

That's assuming (what wasn't clear from your writeup) that the first die doesn't count as a "Flurry Die". If it does, then average damage becomes 8.7, or 17.8 with Ki Strike.

Meanwhile, a 5th level fighter using a 1d6 weapon is doing an average of 12.5 with Deadly Strike, and a 5th level rogue using a 1d6 weapon is doing an average of 24.5 with Sneak Attack.

It looks a little anemic, though it's definitely better damage than a cleric or sorcerer gets in melee. Does the monk add his Str bonus just the once?

 

[Nine Hands]

I wonder if adjusting the reroll number downward as the character gains level, thereby increasing the chance of a reroll at higher level would be a good idea. It will bring the damage upward without changing the die type.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

So the first design hurdle is: how do we model a flurry of blows in a system designed to be streamlined with fewer attack rolls? My solution to this is a combo system. Basically, you roll to attack, and if you hit you roll your damage (1d6+Dex or Str if you're unarmed, by default). If the result of the damage die is 3 or higher, you get to add another Flurry Die of damage (an additional d6). If the result of THAT die is 3 or more, rinse and repeat, up to a limit determined by your level.

I like this idea. It doesn't add much time to combat resolution and rolling exploding damage is fun for the player. I think it could use some tweaks though.

I think the chance for additional damage should be a bit higher, since it's a fun result. On a d6 I'd prefer a 4/6 chance.

On a d6 damage die, I'd prefer that you get an additional die on a 1-4 rather than a 3-6. This simulates making a bunch of jabs to set up your big hit. It also means that if you roll low damage you're happy because you get another shot, and if you roll high damage you're happy because you did a lot of damage.

I think the best way to increase flurry chance is to increase the die type as a monk levels, with a d6 for lvl 1-4, d8 for lvl 5-8, and so on.

Here's a chart for levels 4,8,12, and 16. I don't know if it's balanced against other classes, but it seems like a reasonable starting point.

border = "1" {|
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''lvl'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''die'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''max # reroll'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''reroll on'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''reroll chance'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''avg dmg'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''max dmg'''
| align="center" style="background:#0000f0;"|'''avg # rolls'''
|-
| 4||6||4||1-4||66.67%||9.1||30||2-3
|-
| 8||8||8||1-6||75.00%||16.6||72||3-4
|-
| 12||10||12||1-8||80.00%||25.1||130||4-5
|-
| 16||12||16||1-10||83.33%||35.4||204||4-5
|-
|
|}

 

[mlund]

Keep the unarmed damage die low (1d4). Give the Martial Artist more of them (2d4). Make them Exploding Dice (re-roll whenever they show max values). Make the to-hit roll while unarmed Explode too (roll an additional attack on a crit).

- Marty Lund

 

[Rune]

When my brother and I created an essentials-style defender monk for 4e, one of the class features it got was a flurry (extra basic melee attack) that triggered every time the monk rolled minimum damage (even multiple times in a row, if applicable).

Since this was an essentials-style class, all basic attacks were further modified by whatever (at-will) stance the monk happened to be in. And since it triggered on minimal damage rolls, it gave incentive for the monk to chose a low-damage monk weapon like a kama, or somesuch.)

Always a fun surprise when it popped up (compared to the never-fun flurry of misses from 3e).

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I've been rethinking the math and I worry that The Shadow is right - there's a statistical diminishing return in adding additional dice, and having a max damage of 300 doesn't do much for you when you roll a 1 for damage at level 20 and get zero flurry dice that round.

Mishihari Lord's solution could work in theory, except (a) you're still stuck with very low minimum damage and crazy high max damage, which kind of breaks the system, and (b) you're stuck rerolling 16 times to get that crazy damage.

Plus, this system makes it really hard to balance finishers - even if you have a huge number of max flurry dice and a 2/3 shot of hitting with each of them, you only get 5 flurry dice 2^5/3^5 = 32/243 =13% of the time, which means that if you choose a super-badass 5-point finisher you'll barely ever see it.

Here's another approach:

Flurry of Blows
When you make an attack with an unarmed strike or with a weapon you gain proficiency in from your fighting style, you may choose to deal a flurry of blows instead of normal damage. At level 1, this means that instead of one damage die you roll two dice of the same type - but only the dice with a result higher than 2 deal any damage. (You do not add your Str or Dex mod to damage.) You gain a number of Flurry Points equal to the number of dice that deal damage, which can be used to trigger Finishers.

You roll 2 flurry dice at level 1 and an additional flurry dice every third level after that (3 dice at level 3, 4 at level 6, 5 at level 9).

And the finishers I listed in the OP would still work the same way.

This way, any d6 Flurry die deals an average of exactly 3 damage, and if you plan on using Ki Strike that raises it to 5 1/3 (5.33333).

Two dice at level 1 = 6 damage without Ki Strike and 10.6667 damage with it... versus a fighter with a greatsword doing 6.5+mod without Deadly Strike and 10+mod damage with it.

At level 5, the monk has 3 Flurry dice, so he'd do 9 damage without Ki Strike and 16 damage with it. The fighter still deals 6.5+mod damage without CS, but now deals 15.5+mod damage with it.

At level 10, the monk has 5 Flurry dice, so that's 15 damage without Ki Strike and 26.6667 damage with it. If the fighter really does have 4d10 CS dice at that point, he's still doing a lousy 6.5+mod average damage without Deadly Strike, but he's up to 28.5+mod average damage with it.

Overall, in other words, a monk going "all out" on damage is slightly behind a fighter going "all out" on damage, which strikes me as appropriate, but if both the fighter and monk dedicate all their CS/flurry points to other maneuvers, the monk will deal more base damage. And the monk can't flurry on opportunity attacks and other extra attacks, which might be big.

This approach is nice (a) because the math's easier (for me) to track, (b) it's quicker to roll because you can toss all your flurry dice at once (then see which ones hit), and (c) in this system, each new "max" flurry die increases the chance of getting at least one or two flurry points.

The downside is that you don't get the coolness of exploding dice. Sigh... Also, to make the math work here I've not added any str/dex modifier to damage with flurry. I'm thinking maybe the modifier should be added to Ki Strike damage... that way, a "mystic" monk could add Wis, a "hard-style" monk could add Str, etc.