A tribute to Bruce Lee and Ang Lee: The Wire Fu Monk

[Jack Daniel]

Ah, what a great summer this has been... I spent most of it introducing my friends to Bruce Lee movies, and then watching them over and over again. Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection, Return of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, and finally Game of Death, make up the Dragon's canon filmography. It was this list, along with a whole pile of classic Jackie Chan and fantasy wuxai films that brought me to an important conclusion (well, relatively important, as far as D&D goes and all; more important that why bards or rangers suck, for example). The monk is based on Chinese kung fu experts, and “ki” is a Japanese word. Yeah, I know, minor aesthetics, but hey, I’m a perfectionist. This monk variant doesn’t change a whole lot, short of the addition of a few extra fantastic abilities and more flexibility, in exchange for lower saves. The epic feats at the end are as much a nod to the Crouching Tiger fans as they are to the Dragonball lovers (you know who you are – the ones who will take my monk and rename “Chi Blast” and “Chi Wave” to “Ha Dou Ken” and “Kame Hame Ha”). But the class itself is mainly a little face lift that goes out in honor of the Knuckle himself, the guy whose movies I’ve seen way more times than would be considered healthy, Bruce Lee.

The Wire-Fu Monk

     Base           F/R/W
Lv   Attack Bonus   Saves   Specials
1    0              +1      Kung Fu, Fists of Fury, Crane Stance (Wis to AC), 
                            Jab (1d6), Evasion, Stunning Attack
2    +1             +2      Bonus Feat, “Detect Imbalance”
3    +2             +2      Still Mind, Speed 40’
4    +3             +2      Slow Fall (20’), Snapkick (1d8)
5    +3             +3      Purity of Body, “Chi Blast”, Tiger Stance (+1)
6    +4             +3      Bonus Feat, Slow Fall (30’), Speed 50’
7    +5             +4      Wholeness of Body, Leap of the Clouds
8    +6/+1          +4      Slow Fall (50’), Uppercut (1d10)
9    +6/+1          +4      Improved Evasion, Speed 60’
10   +7/+2          +5      Bonus Feat, Snake Stance (+2)
11   +8/+3          +5      Diamond Body
12   +9/+4          +6      “Abundant Step”, Spinkick (1d12), Speed 70’
13   +9/+4          +6      Diamond Soul
14   +10/+5         +6      Bonus Feat
15   +11/+6/+1      +7      Quivering Knuckle, Leopard Stance (+3), Speed 80’
16   +12/+7/+2      +7      Way of the Dragon (1d20)
17   +12/+7/+2      +8      Timeless Body, Tongue of the Sun and Moon  
18   +13/+8/+3      +8      Bonus Feat, Slow Fall (any distance), Speed 90’
19   +14/+9/+4      +8      Empty Body
20   +15/+10/+5     +9      Dragon Stance (+4), Perfect Self

Kung Fu: As ‘Unarmed Strike’
Fists of Fury: As ‘Flurry of Blows’
Bonus Feats: At level 2 and every fourth level after that, the monk earns a bonus martial arts feat (see the list on page 79 of oriental adventures). Added to that list is a new feat, Chi Strike, described below.
Detect Imbalance (sp): At level 2, the monk can sense the presence of good and bad chi, and knows where life force has been tainted by an imbalance between the two. A 2nd level monk can detect chaos at will.
Chi Blast (sp): At level 5, the monk can use a blast of force (as the 3rd level cleric spell) by spending two stunning fist charges. The blast is a long-range ray that deals 1d6 points of force damage per two monk levels (max 5d6), and if it hits, forces a Fortitude save vs. DC 13 + the monk’s wisdom modifier. If the save is failed, the target is knocked prone.
Quivering Knuckle: As ‘Quivering Palm’

All other class features are as per the PHB and Oriental Adventures. Gotta love the extra monk weapons and open multiclassing...

Lv   Bonus Unarmed Attacks*
1-5  --
6    +1
7    +2
8    +3
9    +3
10   +4/+1
11   +5/+2
12   +6/+3
13   +6/+3
14   +7/+4/+1
15   +8/+5/+2
16   +9/+6/+3
17   +9/+6/+3
18   +10/+7/+4/+1

*Unlike normal bonus attacks, which are based on total attack
bonuses, a monk’s bonus unarmed attacks are based on monk
levels only.

New Feats

Chi Strike [Special]
Prerequisites: Monk level 10+
Benefit: Your unarmed strikes are treated as magical weapons for determining what sort of damage reduction you can bypass. This feat may be taken up to three times, causing the monk’s fists to be treated as +1, +2, and +3 weapons each time the feat is taken. No actual enhancement bonus comes to the unarmed strike’s attack or damage rolls.
Note: A monk can have boxing straps or gloves enchanted by a mage to gain both the damage reduction bypass and the bonus to attack and damage. This feat is primarily useful because it is a prerequisite to a number of epic monk feats, including Improved Chi Strike, Keen Strike, Vorpal Strike, and Shattering Strike.

Chi Wave [Epic]
Prerequisites: Str 25, Con 19, Wis 25, Chi Blast, Chi Strike +3, Improved Chi Strike +5
Benefit: You can execute a more powerful version of the chi blast by gathering all your latent energy and releasing it in a massive attack. It takes a full round action to gather the necessary energy and release the beam, making the attack slower and more prone to disruption than the chi blast, but the damage is much more devastating. For each stunning attack charge you add after the two required to use a 5d6 chi blast, +1d6 damage is added to the wave, so a level 25 monk who poured all his chi into the attack would release a beam that deals 28d6 points of force damage. Unlike the chi blast, the chi wave is an area-effect line that extends for only 120’ before veering off into space, and vanishing into the distance. Those caught in the area of effect may make a Reflex save vs. DC 20 + the monk’s wisdom bonus for half damage. Failing the save causes full damage and requires a Fortitude save (at the same DC) vs. being knocked prone.

Improved Wuxai [Epic]
Prerequisites: Wuxai, Dex 25
Benefit: Your flight maneuverability advances to good.

Wuxai [Epic]
Prerequisites: Leap of the Clouds, Chi Strike +3, Wis 23, Dex 21
Benefit: You can fly at a speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability.

 

[Buddha the DM]

Looks really good. Do you have this posted somewhere other than here?

 

[drowdude]

I really like alot of the changes you made...

Although some need more flavorful names (something other than jab, etc...). Also, even though I know you realize this, the saves your either be "good" or "bad"... while I like the medium saves they use in other d20 games, they really shouldnt be ported over into a D&D class IMO.

I really like the addition of the Chi-blast...

Maybe you can remove a few of the abilites, such as Tongue of the Sun & Moon, and bump the saves back up... or keep the all good saves and make Chi-Blast a feat... just some thoughts...

 

[Rasyr]

Chi Wave math

Umm..... I think you did the math wrong for that Chi Wave

Chi blast says that for two Stunning Fist charges, it does 1d6 for every two monk levels.

A 25th level monk (assuming he gets a Stunning Fist charge for each level above 20, and has nothing else that will give him even more charges) has 25 charges for Stunning Fist.

Thus, you subtract the initial 2 charges (leaving 23) for a 12d6 blast (25 divided by 2).

You then add in the other 23 charges gives you a total of a 35d6 attack!!!!! (23 +12)

Youch!!!!!!

 

[Jack Daniel]

Blast of force has a damage cap of 5d6. You can find it at the end of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in the appendix that details new spells, domains, and magic items.

 

[Jack Daniel]

As for the attack names, by no means do I want anything more poetic. I could have followed the Dragon Fist model (which I did, back when I made a 2nd edition monk) and called the attacks Iron Palm, Invincible Eagle Claw, Plum Blossom Fist, Five Elements Fist, Four Seasons Strike, etc. But 3rd edition has Iron Fist and Eagle Claw feats, and the others were just fancy names for Chi Strike (easy enough to change whith my monk using feats for Chi Strike). But if you watch a Bruce Lee movie, or play any game that knocks off his character (Forrest Law from Tekken, Jann Lee from Dead or Alive, Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat, Fei Long from Street Fighter...) his basic attacks are always simple jabs, snapkicks, knuckle-uppers, and the ever popular quivering-knuckle turkey-skwaking deathblow (hence my renaming of Quivering Palm). I rest my case.