-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight
- Thread starter Messageboard Golem
- Start date
Messageboard Golem
First Post
When I first saw this product I was ecstatic finally I would have some way in which to create a martial artist not weighed down with all baggage of the core rules monk. Not that I have something against the monk but it's far from general enough to fufill alot of the desires someone would have for a martial artist.
Well after further review I walked away with mixed feelings.
The class itself is solid and if circumstances were different I'd have no problem offering it to PCs in search of a "general" martial artist. But it has several abilities that only seem to exist so one can say that they're different than Monks. Namely the Surge and the finishing move abilities. But the similarities are still there no matter how much they're denied, for example a set progression of unarmed attack damages (which at higher levels render some of the cooler martial secerets useless because who'd want to use a katana (even with weapon finesse) when your bare hands to 1d12 points of damage). Several of the martial secerets simply give monk-like abilities. After some thought I didnt find the class general enough for my tastes, for that I'll use the Martial Artist class in Asgard #7.
The remainder of the product though is nice. If you need one reason to buy this product allow me to give it to you, Feats. The feats in Beyond Monks are simply some of the best that I've ever seen. They allow one to put whatever spin they like on their martial artist, this is one part of the product that I can see alot of people getting lots of mileage out of.
And what would a d20 product be without prestige classes. And this pdf has ALOT of them. Now I'm not going to say that they're all winners, because they aren't. But some of them are truly creative ideas that I can easily see using.
Now they bring up combat styles ala Oriental Adventures. I honestly didn't find much use for these myself. Then again the styles were never my idea of a good time, something like that should be more of a roleplaying aspect.
Bottom Line: If you're looking for the definetive martial artist look elsewhere, but if you're looking for prime scavenging ground they don't get much more fertile than Beyond Monks.
Well after further review I walked away with mixed feelings.
The class itself is solid and if circumstances were different I'd have no problem offering it to PCs in search of a "general" martial artist. But it has several abilities that only seem to exist so one can say that they're different than Monks. Namely the Surge and the finishing move abilities. But the similarities are still there no matter how much they're denied, for example a set progression of unarmed attack damages (which at higher levels render some of the cooler martial secerets useless because who'd want to use a katana (even with weapon finesse) when your bare hands to 1d12 points of damage). Several of the martial secerets simply give monk-like abilities. After some thought I didnt find the class general enough for my tastes, for that I'll use the Martial Artist class in Asgard #7.
The remainder of the product though is nice. If you need one reason to buy this product allow me to give it to you, Feats. The feats in Beyond Monks are simply some of the best that I've ever seen. They allow one to put whatever spin they like on their martial artist, this is one part of the product that I can see alot of people getting lots of mileage out of.
And what would a d20 product be without prestige classes. And this pdf has ALOT of them. Now I'm not going to say that they're all winners, because they aren't. But some of them are truly creative ideas that I can easily see using.
Now they bring up combat styles ala Oriental Adventures. I honestly didn't find much use for these myself. Then again the styles were never my idea of a good time, something like that should be more of a roleplaying aspect.
Bottom Line: If you're looking for the definetive martial artist look elsewhere, but if you're looking for prime scavenging ground they don't get much more fertile than Beyond Monks.
Hammerhead
Explorer
Since its impossible or dificult to enchant ones hands, a magical katana would be quite useful. A +3 Bastard Sword, for instance, averages 8.5 damage, compared to the d12 fists' 6.5. In addition, the magical sword hits more often.
Mathew_Freeman
Adventurer
I recieved this product for free from Crothian, who asked me to review as part of an ongoing plan to clear some of the backlog of .pdf's he has to review. So, here we are.
Firstly, I must reiterate what is said in the preface. This is an almost pure 'crunch' book. There is almost no information on the themes, protagonists or styles of a wuxia influenced game. What there is, however, is lots and lots of feats, Prestige Classes and rules on creating a character that would fit into such a game. This is extremely important.
The first part of the pdf details a new 20 level class - the Martial Artist. The Martial Artist is a lightly armed and armoured fighter type character, with strong BAB, Fortitude and Reflex saves, and several new abilities. These include the Finishing Move, which grants additional damage in combat by sacrificing dodge bonuses to AC. There is a useful sidebox on timing the use of this power, which is extremely useful and the kind of little detail I appreciate. The Martial Artist also gains several Martial Secrets and Bonus Feats, making the class extremely customisable. Looking through them, none of them induvidually look too powerful, but combining them would no doubt create a very interesting character. In addition, there is a useful list of feats, organised into categories that are needed to make certain Martial Secret choices. Again, this is useful and pertinent detail. I like this class, it seems interesting and well-balanced compared to a straight fighter. Like most melee orientated classes, it sacrifices the sheer power of a straight fighter for more flexibility and interesting tricks, and compared to the straight monk it offers different powers and no alignment or multiclassing restrictions.
Next section is a group of Prestige Classes. These range from the Blade Artist (a knife weilding specialist) to the Ki Blaster (throw Streetfighter style Hadokens at the expense of stunning attacks). These range in length from 5-10 classes, with one coming in at thirteen classes, and mostly seem to be concentrated on very specific references or areas of expertise - exactly what a Prestige Class should do. I enjoyed the Blood Hunter, a martial artist who studies under a vampire martial artist to learn his secrets, and then has the opportunity to kill his master at 10th level to gain further bonuses. An excellent dark hero type character could be created, or an extremely interesting villain. Several of these Prestige Classes come with examples of a mid to high level NPC of that class - extremely useful in seeing what sort of feats and skills would go with the class.
Chapter 2 introduces many new martial artist feats and styles, all clearly labelled and in the standard format. The feats are excellent, giving some extremely interesting powers such as the ability to attack at a distance, to take bonuses to Balance checks by sacrificing stunning attacks. In fact the mechanic of using stunning attacks to power other abilities is very much the core idea here, coming up several times.
The fighting styles are similar to those published in Oriental Adventures and Dragon magazine - take certain feats and skills and gain a synergy bonus for free. I like this mechanic, since it often asks for sub-optimal feats or skills that you wouldn't normally use as prerequisites, forcing the player (in a good way) to make very deliberate choices about their character. Again, the prequisites for the Style Mastery feats are all clearly labelled, a good point.
Chapter 3 explores iconic masterclasses using the Martial artist. For example, they use the Martial Artist/Rogue multiclass to create the Ninja idea. This is something I've seen before, and I think it helps players to understand just how useful multiclassing can be in the new 3.x rules set. Each example is well supported with ideas on feat selections, skills and even styles of play. There is also some suggestions on making the Monk customisable.
Chapter 4 suggests new options for encouraging the players to play in the Wuxia style. Examples include a feat that allows monks to create magical weapons with certain powers without having the spell prerequisites. An entirely obvious idea - but only once you've seen someone else come up with it. There are also suggestions of Drinking and Fighting, Improvised Weapons and Wuxia style combat.
The main drawback with this product is the presentation. This updated edition of the .pdf has no interior artwork at all. Given that this book deals with rules only, it's not too bad, but it would have been pleasant to break up the text a bit more. After a while, I found my attention wandering during the long list of feats - however, complaining that there are too many feats would be unfair on the product!
Overall, I give this product a 4/5. It has enormous amounts of solid rules work, would give players and DM's plenty of fresh ideas about running a martial artist style game, and does exactly what it says in the preface. It could do with updating to 3.5 rules, but I honestly don't think that it would take more than about thirty minutes or so to clear up any problems with the rules as written for 3.0.
Firstly, I must reiterate what is said in the preface. This is an almost pure 'crunch' book. There is almost no information on the themes, protagonists or styles of a wuxia influenced game. What there is, however, is lots and lots of feats, Prestige Classes and rules on creating a character that would fit into such a game. This is extremely important.
The first part of the pdf details a new 20 level class - the Martial Artist. The Martial Artist is a lightly armed and armoured fighter type character, with strong BAB, Fortitude and Reflex saves, and several new abilities. These include the Finishing Move, which grants additional damage in combat by sacrificing dodge bonuses to AC. There is a useful sidebox on timing the use of this power, which is extremely useful and the kind of little detail I appreciate. The Martial Artist also gains several Martial Secrets and Bonus Feats, making the class extremely customisable. Looking through them, none of them induvidually look too powerful, but combining them would no doubt create a very interesting character. In addition, there is a useful list of feats, organised into categories that are needed to make certain Martial Secret choices. Again, this is useful and pertinent detail. I like this class, it seems interesting and well-balanced compared to a straight fighter. Like most melee orientated classes, it sacrifices the sheer power of a straight fighter for more flexibility and interesting tricks, and compared to the straight monk it offers different powers and no alignment or multiclassing restrictions.
Next section is a group of Prestige Classes. These range from the Blade Artist (a knife weilding specialist) to the Ki Blaster (throw Streetfighter style Hadokens at the expense of stunning attacks). These range in length from 5-10 classes, with one coming in at thirteen classes, and mostly seem to be concentrated on very specific references or areas of expertise - exactly what a Prestige Class should do. I enjoyed the Blood Hunter, a martial artist who studies under a vampire martial artist to learn his secrets, and then has the opportunity to kill his master at 10th level to gain further bonuses. An excellent dark hero type character could be created, or an extremely interesting villain. Several of these Prestige Classes come with examples of a mid to high level NPC of that class - extremely useful in seeing what sort of feats and skills would go with the class.
Chapter 2 introduces many new martial artist feats and styles, all clearly labelled and in the standard format. The feats are excellent, giving some extremely interesting powers such as the ability to attack at a distance, to take bonuses to Balance checks by sacrificing stunning attacks. In fact the mechanic of using stunning attacks to power other abilities is very much the core idea here, coming up several times.
The fighting styles are similar to those published in Oriental Adventures and Dragon magazine - take certain feats and skills and gain a synergy bonus for free. I like this mechanic, since it often asks for sub-optimal feats or skills that you wouldn't normally use as prerequisites, forcing the player (in a good way) to make very deliberate choices about their character. Again, the prequisites for the Style Mastery feats are all clearly labelled, a good point.
Chapter 3 explores iconic masterclasses using the Martial artist. For example, they use the Martial Artist/Rogue multiclass to create the Ninja idea. This is something I've seen before, and I think it helps players to understand just how useful multiclassing can be in the new 3.x rules set. Each example is well supported with ideas on feat selections, skills and even styles of play. There is also some suggestions on making the Monk customisable.
Chapter 4 suggests new options for encouraging the players to play in the Wuxia style. Examples include a feat that allows monks to create magical weapons with certain powers without having the spell prerequisites. An entirely obvious idea - but only once you've seen someone else come up with it. There are also suggestions of Drinking and Fighting, Improvised Weapons and Wuxia style combat.
The main drawback with this product is the presentation. This updated edition of the .pdf has no interior artwork at all. Given that this book deals with rules only, it's not too bad, but it would have been pleasant to break up the text a bit more. After a while, I found my attention wandering during the long list of feats - however, complaining that there are too many feats would be unfair on the product!
Overall, I give this product a 4/5. It has enormous amounts of solid rules work, would give players and DM's plenty of fresh ideas about running a martial artist style game, and does exactly what it says in the preface. It could do with updating to 3.5 rules, but I honestly don't think that it would take more than about thirty minutes or so to clear up any problems with the rules as written for 3.0.
Psion
Adventurer
"It could do with updating to 3.5 rules, but I honestly don't think that it would take more than about thirty minutes or so to clear up any problems with the rules as written for 3.0."
Odd. CBG sent me an updated 3.5 version via RPGnow after I purchased it, presumably the version that any new purchasers of the PDF version would be getting.
Odd. CBG sent me an updated 3.5 version via RPGnow after I purchased it, presumably the version that any new purchasers of the PDF version would be getting.
Messageboard Golem
First Post
re: Hammerhead:
All this to say nothing of damage reduction or enemies that you'd rather not touch.
This has been, on the whole, a very incomplete review (which feels indicative of the play experience behind it) and fails to consider many imporant aspects of the writing. The similary between the monk and martial artist, for example, is not a bad thing by any means.
I don't even want to get started on it, in fact.
All this to say nothing of damage reduction or enemies that you'd rather not touch.
This has been, on the whole, a very incomplete review (which feels indicative of the play experience behind it) and fails to consider many imporant aspects of the writing. The similary between the monk and martial artist, for example, is not a bad thing by any means.
I don't even want to get started on it, in fact.
Similar Threads
