Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight

[JoeGKushner]

Beyond Monks is for those players and GMs who want a core character class whose abilities more closely reflect the physical intensity of the action heroes of the screen from the 80's and 90's rather than the Monk and its nod to Kung Fu and other mysticism influences.

The core martial artists class is a full twenty levels. Meant as a fighter replacement, similar to a barbarian, ranger or paladin, the martial artists specializes in up close melee combat. They gain a wide variety of special abilities like Finishing Blow, a special attack that inflicts more damage to Surge, 'a natural state of perfect coordination', that grants the character a bonus to speed, dexterity and melee attack rolls, with some penalties afterwards. Overall the Martial Artists is a formidable killing machine but doesn't get a great AC bonus and has no ability to bypass damage reduction unlike other classes. The book notes this as being one of the reasons why the class is balanced.

A big part of the book is spent specializing the martial artist through prestige classes. Well, that's not quite true. A big part of the book is spent adding martial art based PrCs to the game. Some of these are perfect for other core classes and there appears to be little directly preventing a Monk from taking most of these PrCs. The PrCs are ten level classes that include sample characters. The background information is enough to add to a campaign easily.

One PrC that I was glad to see updated is the Blade Artist. I like the idea of a competent knife fighter but the d20 system is not kind to those who use daggers. Now other PrCs have handled this before ranging from the legendary class in Path of Shadow to the PrC in the Scarred Lands book, Shelzar, but I've always had a fondness for the Blade Artists.

I think part of my enjoyment is because they are deranged individuals who attribute intelligence to their blades and talk to them. These characters get dagger specialization and treat the dagger as a monk weapon, gaining monk effective levels for flurry of blows when using the dagger.

The Blade Artists is one of many PrCs that breaks the away from the rules to inform the GM that it's okay and even recommended that you makes changes to your PrCs to make them fit with your campaign. Have the Blade Artists use a hatcher or Spiked Fist for example. This is a good move on the author's part as it makes the PrCs immediately more useable.

For those who want to mimic the energy blasts from martial artists in popular anime and video games, I recommend the Ki Adept, a class that can generate an energy blast. The blast isn't very powerful, relying on a ranged touch attack that grants a saving throw for half damage. Coup this with limited use and a very short range and you've got a fantastic but limited power. One class that may be too powerful is the Ki Mystic, a monk-mage who gains levels of ability in both monk and spellcasting with each level.

There's a wide amount of PrCs so if you're looking for something specific from the martial art world, it's probably here. Perfect Weapon, a true master of unarmed combat? Covered. Ghost Killer? Covered. Drunken Master? Covered, but latter. Because of the NPC sample characters, a GM has an immediate way to introduce many of the concepts and characters here without having to spend a lot of time in set up.

Another big section of the book is feats and styles. Now the feats are meant to augment a martial artists but many are perfect for fighters are well. For example, Artful Dodge is listed as both a general and a fighter feat, requiring the user to have a Dex 13+ and the Dodge Feat, allowing you to use your Intelligence bonus instead of your Dex bonus for your AC. I can easily see a Mage intending to multi-class taking this as it provides a quick boost to defense. I am surprised though that it's not an Int 13+. I mean if you've got a Dex 13+, you've already got a Dex bonus, why sacrifice it unless you've got a really high Int stat?

Many of the feats are designed to make the game more cinematic in feel like Dancing Charge where you don't have to charge in a straight line or Channeling Ki to augment your spellpower. One of my favorites in this regard is Expert Weapon Grab, where you disarm the enemy and use that weapon to attack them in the same round as an attack of opportunity. Now that's style!

The addition of the Style Mastery Feast is a nice touch. Similar to the Martial Arts presented in Dragon magazine where you get a bonus ability for following a chain of feats (and other prerequisites) or the Heroes of High Favor: Dwarves, the Style Mastery gives you what is in essence a bonus feat or power. For example, Hawk Wing requires Jump, high Wis, Feats and Monk Abilities, but in turn, gives you the ability to fly at 60 ft.

One thing that I've enjoyed about Dragon and the Heroes of High Favor, is the use of multi-classing to showcase different concepts. That idea is represented here as well with three new archetypes with a full level by level breakdown that includes saves, bab, and hit points with advantages and disadvantages. For those who felt that the changes in 3.5 weren't enough in terms of change, there are ideas here on how to customize the monk even further.

Chapter Four, New Options, includes ideas on using Campaign Feats, abilities that every hero and major villain starts off with, as well as how to increase the pace of the game. It's good, simple stuff but isn't goi8ng to be appropriate for everyone. For example, the idea that players have unlimited ammunition and food and water is good for those fast paced games but as noted in the text, isn't going to be for those grim and gritty style settings where every arrow and ale is vital.

There are some other little bits here and there like the new race, the Hecavir, a six armored race that doesn't possess strength and endurance, but agility and wisdom, as well as new magical items specific t to the theme of martial arts.

Another nice touch is the Appendix on Modern Martial Artists. The Nimble Fighter and Warrior Philosopher will both make good additions to the d20 Modern Game and show that the author is trying to help out not just the 3.5 crowd, but also those of the d20 Modern game with fun elements.

The book generally uses a two-column format save when statting out the NPC sample characters. The tables look like they were done in excel with different shading and broken out into the file for printing. Not too pretty. The book makes good use of white space and has decent margins. The art is better than the pdf version but still isn't up to say Green Ronin or Fantasy Flight Games. The cover is a sore spot for me as I didn't like it on the pdf and certainly don't like it here. Editing is good for the most part but in some instances, when a class has a new feat required, that feat isn't noted as being new in this book. Not an issue in and of itself but sometimes it is mentioned and sometimes not. Consistency is the key.

The revisions here for the 3.5 game system seem sound. The material feels not only very complete, but also opens up a lot of possibilities for the GM and player willing to explore different game mechanics in the core rules by using variance as opposed to making new rules that aren't compatible with the standards. The art and layout are above the original PDF and the kung-fu feel of the product still shines through, even more since it include material for the d20 Modern Game.

If you want a fighting class that specializes in unarmed combat that strives for physical perfection, than Beyond Monks is for you.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight adds the excitement of the martial arts to any campaign. Expanded and revised from the best-selling PDF sourcebook, this 96 page resource features:

The new Martial Artist core class. The Martial Artist is a combat expert who relies on precision, knowledge, and skill to win rather than brute force or supernatural powers.
Thirteen new prestige classes that specialize in unarmed combat, each complete with a sample NPC: Armor Pugilist, Blade Artist, Blood Hunter, Crooked Monk, Ghost Killer, Ki Adept, Ki Mystic, Perfect Weapon, Psynergist, Serpent Underfoot, Storm Seeker, Sylvan Monk, and the Tanterist.
Over 100 new feats for monks, martial artists, and other classes, including new types of feats such as the Stance and supernatural Ki feats. Plus an additional 21 Style Mastery feats available only to the most skilled warriors.
Archetypes for the multiclass martial artist are detailed, including the beast observer, ninja, and weapon master.
Advice for creating and playing an effective monk, and customizing the monk class to suit your campaign.
Rules and guidelines for running cinematic combats. Make your game run like a movie instead of a novel!
Dozens of other options, including additional rules for weapon improvisation, special effects for characters that can move at very high speeds, a new race, and new magic items.
And, of course, an extra prestige class: the Drunken Master, complete with drinking rules!
A bonus modern d20 section includes two new advanced classes designed for Fast and Dedicated heroes: the Nimble Fighter and Warrior Philosopher, plus variant rules for non-lethal combat and three new feats.
Go beyond the monk. Bring the martial arts to life in your d20 game!


Awards:

Honorable Mention, Best Rules Sourcebook, ENnies 2002

 

[Psion]

Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight (Print Edition)

Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight (by James Garr) was originally released as a PDF product by Chainmail Bikini Games, detailing a new core class, dozens of new feats and prestige classes, and guidelines and rules variants for running martial arts style games.

The print version is published via Goodman Games, and contains updates to the revised edition rules as well as all new material.

A First Look

Format: 96-page perfect bound softcover book; $20.00.

Art: The cover has the same art by Monte Moore that the PDF bore, a depiction of a woman in some sort of dancer's outfit kicking some butt of some miscreants. The interior is black-and-white with all new art by Scott Drouin, Brian England, Michael Erickson, Blaine Taggart, and David Zenz. The art is decent, overall an improvement over the interior art in the first revision of the PDF edition.

Layout: The book has two columns through most of it, with the exception of some sidebars and characters, which are one column. A conservatively sized body font text is used, with close line and paragraph spacing. The table layout is generally well done, with the exception of the fact that some class progression tables jumble in bonus caster/manifester levels with other abilities, making them a bit more difficult to read.

A Deeper Look

Beyond Monks is organized into four chapters, like the PDF edition. However, the print edition has two new appendices (for a total of 3.)

Chapter 1: New Classes

The chapter on classes contains the new Martial Artist core class and thirteen new prestige classes, three more prestige classes than the PDF version.

The central edifice of Beyond Monks seems to be its new core class, the Martial Artist. While the monk is the definitive unarmed martial artist of the default d20 system, many fans (myself included) believe that the rules elements paint too specific a picture of a martial artist for those who wish to make a less monastic and rigorously disciplined martial artist.

The Martial Artist class has good attack bonus progression and good Fortitdude and Reflex saves as well as four skill points per level (with primarily number of athletic skills like jump and tumble.) The Martial Artist has improved unarmed strike ability and an unarmed damage progression slightly faster than that of a Monk, but do not gain bonus attacks as quickly. The removal of the monk's alternate unarmed attack progression makes it more consistent with the traits of the martial artist class.

At first level the martial artist receives an ability called surge. The ability is similar to the barbarian's rage ability in that it lasts a short amount of time and leaves the character fatigued. The benefits are different, however. The character receives a bonus to their base speed, a dexterity, and melee attack rolls.

As Martial Artists progress, they receive bonus feats (from a list of martial arts feats), as well as two other types of class abilities: martial secrets and finishing moves.

Martial secrets are chosen from a list of abilities, much like feats but exclusive to martial artists. Martial secrets give the player a tool to customize the martial artist's style. The first such secret is gained at third level, and the martial artist gains an addition secret every four levels thereafter.

Finishing moves are a spin on the sneak attack ability. Like the sneak attack, the finishing move inflicts one or more additional dice of damage. However these dice don't depend on the target being flat-footed of flanked. Rather, the character sacrifices all of their own dodge and dexterity AC bonuses until their next turn. Further, the ability can only be used once per round. The first dice of finishing move damage is acquired at second level, and an additional dice of damage is gained every 4 levels thereafter.

The martial artist also gain some other minor abilities, such as iron palm (improves damage of attacks against objects) and an improvement of the number of times per day the character can use the surge ability.

The martial artist does seem a little strong to me compared to the monk, though its class abilities seem to be less defensive, and the author is quick to point out the weaknesses in defense and in utility of magic weapons. Nonetheless, I think that the martial artist will be difficult to slot into a normal game, its primary role being in specific martial arts oriented games.

Fortunately, there is an improvement here over the original print edition if you don't care to use the class. If you don't care to use the martial artist class, there are notes on making some of its martial secret abilities as feats.

The class provides a martial artist starting package, in keeping with the core classes in the PHB.

There are thirteen new prestige classes introduced in this chapter. Even if the martial artist wasn't your cup of tea, most of these are useful without the martial artist class, being usable with the monk or other classes. Three new classes appear in this chapter that were not in the PDF edition: ki mystic, perfect weapon, and serpent underfoot. Another improvement over the PDF edition is the inclusion of sample characters for each class (only selected classes had them before).

The prestige classes are:

-Armor Pugilist: The Armor Pugilist is a class that hones the body to become more resilient. As the Armor Pugilist gains levels, it gains a natural armor AC bonus, energy resistance, DR, and resistance to critical hits.
-Blade Artist: The Blade Artist wields a signature dagger as a natural weapon and gains special attacks with it. Their blade eventually becomes sentient.
-Blood Hunter: Somewhat unusual, the Blood Hunter is the disciple of a vampire that learns an unusual style from their undead master called Cruorsh Style. The Blood Hunter gains several hideous combat maneuvers, including a faster advancing version of the Martial Artist's Finishing Move ability, a Wounding Strike (acts like a Wounding Weapon), a Vampric Strike, (restores damage to the character) and the dreadful Heart Strike (attempts to extract an opponent's heart.)
-Crooked Monk: The Crooked Monk is a rather unorthodox monk with some strange characteristics. Many of their class abilities are similar to those of a monk, but gains more contortion related abilities and a few other abilities, such as the ability to charge in a crooked line and use choas related spell like abilities.
-Ghost Killer: The Ghost Killer is a character with a connection to the spirits of his ancestors, and a penchant for eliminating ghosts. The Ghost Killer gets bonuses to knowledge skills derived from the knowledge of his ancestors. The character can channel positive energy through his unarmed strikes; these strikes can act as turning attempts, and gains other abilities for dealing with undead.
-Ki Adept: This class received a name change and is expanded to 10 levels from the 5-level ki blaster class from the original. The Ki Adept uses ki energy to produce visible, tangible bolts of energy.
-Ki Mystic: The first of the new classes, the ki mystic is built somewhat along the same lines as the revision PrCs of the Eldritch Knight and Mystic Theurge. The class receives a level of both monk abilities and spellcasting for each level past the first. There is a stronger synergy here than in the Eldritch Knight, since arcane spellcasters benefit from monk AC bonuses. However, the attack bonus progression is rather slow, which minimizes the effectiveness of unarmed combat.
-Perfect Weapon: Another class new to the print version, the Perfect Weapon is a specialist in unarmed combat. Their class abilities gain ki strike type abilities quickly as well as other unarmed combat related class abilities, such as the ability to do elemental damage with their fists.
-Psynergist: The Psynergist is a martial artist that combines martial arts and psionic powers. The psynergist only slowly gains psionic powers, but may enhance their psionics with ki energy, and can improve their saves and AC due to their focus.
-Serpent Underfoot: The third PrC new to this edition, the serpent underfoot is a member of a small race trained in fighting larger creatures unarmed.
-Storm Lord: The storm lord is a spellcaster with an affinity for storms that combine their art with martial arts. The storm lord receives electrical and cold resistance, weather sense, and spell like abilities related to storms.
-Sylvan Monk: The sylvan monk is a martial artist that studies nature and learns to avoid attacks by not being where the attack is. A very defensive martial artist.
-Tanterist: The Tanterist is an expert in the human anatomy who can manipulate nerve centers to great effect. The Tanterist can weaken or paralyze opponents with its strikes.

Chapter 2: Martial Arts Feats and Styles

The feats chapter is divided into two basic sections. The first is new feats, mostly describing various martial arts techniques. The chapter introduces a new category of feat, Ki feats. Ki feats involve mastery of supernatural ki energy, and many of these feats lean on the Stunning Fist feat or class ability.

A few examples of the feats include:
-Back to Back Fighter: If you are within 5 feet of an ally, opponents do not get a flanking bonus to hit you. If two characters have this feet and are within 5 feet, neither can be flanked.
-Charge Throw: If charged, you get an attack of opportunity that can only be used to trip. If the trip succeeds, the charge attack automatically fails.
-Expert Weapon Grad: If you successfully disarm an opponent, you may take an attack of opportunity against the victim with that weapon.
-Far Strike (Ki): You can use up a stunning attack to perform an unarmed strike as a ranged attack.
-Ki strength (Ki): Up to three times per day, you may add your wisdom bonus to strength related rolls, like attacks, damage, and strength checks.
-Master: A spin on the Leadership feat that lets you take followers as fighters, martial artists, or monks at one level lower.
-Perfect Reflexes: You can make more than one attack of opportunity against a single target per round, provided they provoke each such attack.
-Pounce: You can take a full attack action when you charge.
-Somersault Charge: If you make a tumble check (DC 20) during a charge, you ignore the -2 AC penalty.

I was pleased to see that some feats I had problems with the first time around were rewritten to be simpler or more sensible, making this an ever better source of feats than the original. I was disappointed to see improved deflect arrows go away, a feat which emulated a common ability in martial arts flicks, but considering the (nonsensical) changes in deflect arrows in the 3.5 revision, this change was probably unavoidable.

The next section is entitled Style Mastery Feats. Style Mastery Feats are a not-so-well-disguised re-invention of the style mastery abilities in Oriental Adventures. Basically, if you have the right combinations of feats and other prerequisites, you get the style mastery feat for free. I don't like this for the same reasons I don't like the style mastery abilities in Oriental Adventures. Basically, I really didn't see the point of not making them feat chains or prestige classes. Further, it seems like you would be limited in how many styles you can make before you get a number of styles with minimum investment. Ironically, Beyond Monks lists this last point as a point to watch out for.

That said, inasmuch I don't like the general idea, the benefits do look fairly balanced compared to the style abilities in Oriental Adventures.

Chapter 3: Building a Master

The third chapter is split into two sections. The first section consists of multiclass archetypes. These are very similar to the multi-class combo character concepts by James Wyatt and others in various Dragon magazines. All of the multi-class archetypes include Martial Artist as one of the classes. The archetypes are beast observer (a Barbarian/Martial Artist that learns her style from animals), mystic warrior (a wuxia style warrior with inexplicable powers, modeled as a Martial Artist / Sorcerer), Ninja (Martial Artist / Rogue as a member of a secretive guild of puissant assassins), Temple Guardians (Cleric/Martial Artist) and Weapon Master (Fighter/Martial Artist.) Each of these has a table describing the progression and abilities from 1st to 20th level.

The second part covers the customizing of the Monk class. The chapter provides suggestions for creating different orders of monks such that they are not so pidgeon-holed. As with the Oriental Adventures book, it suggests allowing the character to swap out the Monk's class abilities. However, it suggests that you might even go further when it comes to customizing the Monk. It has suggestions for trading martial arts feats for other class abilities, for sacrificing the Monk's good will saving throw, or by giving up the movement and slow fall abilities.

In addition to these general guidelines, some ideas are provided for making custom monk orders to fit the campaign, along with a "standard" package of changes to monks that are members of the order.

Chapter 4: New Options

The last chapter provides new ideas, options, and rules variants for running a campaign filled with martial arts mayhem. This chapter is also expanded from the PDF edition with expanded drinking rules and a new race.

The first section contains options aimed at making combat more cinematic. This includes techniques like limiting time for player decisions, making all parties "take 10" on initiative and seating characters in initiative order, minimizing bookkeeping, enlisting player help when you need to look up rules, glossing over details like item identification, making the possibility of fubles, or giving PCs and important NPCs one reroll per day, and so forth.

The second section discusses using improvised weapons and means of getting players to use such weapons. This includes variant rules to encourage their use such as making it hazardous to attack creatures with armor or natural armor with unarmed attack, or by reducing the effectiveness of the improved unarmed strike ability. It also provides GM techniques for facilitating the environment, such as making descriptions vivid enough to suggest what might be used as improvised weapons. Rules are provided for improvised weapons, along with equivalent weapons for a variety of improvised weapons.

The drinking and fighting rules are expanded from the PDF version of the book. The rules that were in the PDF version have been replaced with the more detailed rules for drinking, open game content from ENPublishing's Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns. The drinking feats from the original version, Down the Hatch and Hard Drinking are revised for the new drinking rules. However, the Drunken Boxing style mastery from the original version has been converted to a Drunken Master prestige class in this book, which give the character bonuses when inebriated.

The book presents a variant providing optional effects of characters with high speed. If the character's speed is sufficient, the character may make tumble checks to do things like run up walls or across water.

The new race presented herein is the Hecavir. Hecavir are a tall, gangly, contemplative folk. They have three set of arms and racial abilities that let them take ki feats.

Finally, the chapter has a decent selection of new magic items. As you might expect, many of the new items are weapons. There are several new weapon abilities such as blinding, indestructable, matched pair (removes two handed penalties when created as a pair and both weapons have this ability) or stunning. The author is even sharp enough to not require abilities that do not directly impact the weapon's combat effectiveness a market price modifier that is applied as a bonus to the weapon's plus for cost purposes.

Other interesting items include the braid blade (a blade that can be wielded when worn in a long braid of hair; it seemed like this one deserved an exotic weapon proficiency), Belt of the Monkey (once per day allows the character to imitate another feat the character sees used), and the Cloak of Shadow Boxing (allows you to conujure a weaker duplicate of yourself from your shadow that can engage in combat.)

Appendices

The first appendix contains two martial artist advanced classes for the D20 Modern game. The nimble fighter represents a martial artist that relies more on mobility and agility than the martial artist class in D20 Modern does. The Warrior Philosopher is a more contemplative martial artist, and a seemingly styled after the monk class from D&D.

The second appendix contains statistics for stock Martial Artist NPCs, with statistics for characters from 1st to 20th level. The stock NPC here follows the "less complete" format of the 3.5 rules.

The final appendix has a summary of all the feats in the book, including requirements and classifications.

Conclusion

The book pleased me the first time around, and it continues to do so this time. The martial artist fits more neatly with the revised rules than the prior edition. Further, it is very obvious that the author is listening to feedback and several improvements were made in the mechanics of the book since the print edition.

As mentioned, the martial artist will be primarily useful if you are playing a game that features unarmed fighting styles prominently, or if your issues with the monk run deep. However, the book is written in a matter that much of the book is usable even if you don't use their core class. Finally, it is worth reinterating that this is one of the most interesting and balanced sources of new combat feats for the d20 System.

Overall Grade: B+

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Plane Sailing]

Although d20modern is a slightly different genre, given that both have d20 rules for martial arts how would you compare this with "Blood and Fists?

It reads as though this one is more specific and Blood and Fists is more generic (but allowing specific results, IYKWIM)

Regards,
Plane Sailing

 

[Psion]

Well, that's a tough call since they are written for different spins on the d20 system, so obviously Beyond Monks is written to a more D&D style game, but I think you analogy is accurate. Everything in Blood & Fists is built around the styles, whereas here, the "styles" as they exist are optional, and you sort of build your own style by your feat selection.

 

[BryonD]

Plane Sailing,

I wrote these classes. They were designed to compliment the single Martial Artist class in the core book by providing a couple other archetypes.

Blood and Fists is a very good full martial arts system. It is far more generic.

Psion is correct and I think his assessment is fair and accurate. Beyond Monks is a D&D book. If you are satisfied with the MA in the core D20 modern book, but want a little archetype variety, then the two classes in the back of Beyond Monks are an attempt to provide that.

But Blood and Fists is a complete book dedicated to detailing martial arts in a D20 modern game. I wouldn’t want to try to compare my classes to that.

Bryon

 

[Chainmail Bikini]

Thanks for the review Psion.

One thing I would like to add is that there is a small errata for the book at:

http://www.chainmailbikini.com/files/bm-errata-6-22-03.pdf

I mention it here because it addresses some feats you mentioned, notably Perfect Reflexes and Greater Deflect Arrows (called Improved Deflect Arrows in the PDF). The errata was needed because of the consequences of some rules changes to Combat Reflexes and Deflect Arrows in 3.5 that we just didn't catch until after press time.

We had a lot of fun writing this book, and if anyone has any questions, comments, or suggestions about it, please contact us at help@chainmailbikini.com.

 

[Psion]

Gah. That one slipped by me.

I prefer "improved" to "greater" unless you are talking about creatures or something.

At any rate, I like the new text. It's virtually transparent to those of us who decided never to use the 3.5 version of deflect arrows in the first place.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I just loved the book in my D&D games and it isn't much different in d20 Modern. The spin is indeed toward a more high-fantasy feel, but the huge (huge!) array of martial secrets and style masteries (another good concept) keep the system very open-ended for modern games. The brawling supercop doesn't have to play second fiddle to Jet Li, for instance.

The coolest things about this book IMHO were the myriad new concepts introduced (new to me at least) from style mastery feats to the character concept guidelines (multiclass path suggestions such as Beast Observer). I thought these were the coolest things. The campaign guidelines were also a really nice little extra that I don't see any reviews heralding, to a little personal dismay.

It's very difficult to use the bulk of the book all in one campaign, even with a wuxia setting; the sheer amount of high-quality material is past the scope of a simple splatbook. The book doesn't really come into its own, though, until you try it in a mostly-martial-arts campaign.