Earth Variant Monk - Critiques?

[DamionW]

Aus Snow, glad to hear from you and glad you like what you see. As for the Air-Ranger Earth-Monk dispute, my picture is that the wind rangers are rangers of the open savannahs and deserts (the areas of the world owned by the air powers in my campaign). They literally are more of a "range"-er than the RAW ranger, hunting over vast areas and moving quickly. This falls closer to the scout base class, but I wanted to give them spells, so I used the ranger instead.

And the Earth cultures are the representation of the law axis, so monks being the most lawful class felt naturally to go into the Earth realms when I designed things. When I came up with the concept of them training as an air warrior would in order to defeat them, it made even more sense. Hope that helps picture where I'm going with these.

 

[Wyrmcrest]

I had this idea in regards to the Fast Movement issue:

What about giving them a supernatural camoflage type ability? Something specific where they can only blend in against rock or dirt. I think the Dark Hunter in Complete Warrior has the kind of feature I'm thinking of, but can't think of the name right now.

Anyway, instead of having to quickly charge in to a group of enemy air rangers, the monks wait in hiding until the front line of the enemy has advanced past them. Then they can suddenly spring into action (almost as if they're spawning right out of the ground), attacking the enemy where they are most vulnerable, and immediately engaging in melee combat where the monks have the best advantage.

The rangers can always train themselves to be more vigilant (read as max out their spot and search checks) as a counter to this tactic.

 

[DamionW]

Good idea Wyrmcrest. Also, I considered giving them a burrow speed. That way they could tunnel under an enemy on the ground and come up to grapple/trip them. What about that?

 

[Wyrmcrest]

That totally fits for the dwarves and gnomes, but I have a hard time seeing humans and half-orcs doing this. Perhaps if it is treated like a supernatural ability as opposed to an extraordinary one. Something higher-level like its a hint of his Earth Self ability to come.

 

[DamionW]

Hmmm. Well, I'll go take a look in CW and see the ability to you referenced and get some ideas. I just need to find a way to let these guys get into melee range and not get picked off by a hail of arrows or have the wind characters speed off first.

 

[Wyrmcrest]

If you have Races of Stone, you might find a lot of inspiration there too.

I've come a bit late to these threads, so forgive me if I missed a concept here or something. I was just thinking that now that you have a basic idea of what all 4 of these classes are going to be, you might want to take a look at how they're balanced against each other.

What I mean is: the water paladin can turn fire creatures and can detect fire creatures. But what abilities does the barbarian have that are specific attacks or defenses against the water element? On the same track, the earth monk has wing cripple and leap tackle, which are specific against flying creatures (air), but what do the rangers have that specifically deals with earth?

I propose that each class should have one attack feature and one defense feature that deals specifically with its opposing element. Each of those abilities should be effective against the actuall opposing class as well (i.e. paladin's turn fire works on fire barbarians).

Anyway, just some ideas - hope they help.

 

[Thia Halmades]

*opens mouth, shuts it*

I was going to chime in here, but I'll let DamionW defend this one. Thing is, I see both sides, but the question is (to everyone, really) -

Is the consensus that this should be balanced for PVP (everyone can counter) or that it should be balanced against RAW? If you look on some of the other threads, Wyrmcrest, you'll note that I challenge a lot of what DamionW is doing, in part because I would've done it differently, and in part because I saw things that didn't jive with me, mentally.

But whether he wants to actively balance them against each other, the one I will say (there I go, opening my mouth again...) is that RAW isn't balanced for PVP; it's balanced for group dynamics. i.e., everyone has a niche and they fill it, with the capacity to change it up. If anything, I'm of the mind that this leans too heavily towards powers that exist in opposition, and not enough towards merely enhancing the structure that the element gives naturally.

Hence my regular Pokemon references; that's a game that manages to combine both PVP and party dynamics, but its limited in scope; we only ever see one Pokemon battling it out at any given time.

Thia's idea of the day: A full Pokemon RPG, where large groups of Pokemon go toe to toe in a classic RPG, turn-battle sequence. Rewrite the whole thing, with the capacity to import trained Pokemon from Diamond/Topaz.

Back on topic. RAW isn't balanced that way, but I concede the other side of the argument, that the entire set up screams for it; Water/Fire, Earth/Air. If you lean too much in one direction, or you putting the general balance of your character in peril? If we make you GREAT at fighting, say, Wind creatures, would you then suck at fighting Fire creatures?

Those are the kinds of decisions that the game (d20) doesn't have you make just yet, outside of the Feat system, but something that would work incredibly well for DamionW's setting.

Hoo-rah.

 

[Wyrmcrest]

Good points, Thia, and yeah - I see both sides of this too. However, either way there still seems to be an imbalance that needs to be addressed.

Let's look at this from a group dynamic standpoint. Let's say you have 1 PC of each of the four elemental classes. A Water Paladin, a Fire Barbarian, an Air Ranger and an Earth Monk. When the party encounters a group of fire elementals, the Paladin has a chance to shine with his turn fire feature. On the other hand, if they encounter a group of water elementals - guess what, the Paladin is the hero again with rebuke water. This is where the barbarian should have his or her chance to save the day, but right now the barbarian doesn't have anything that makes him more powerful versus water creatures than any other creature.

 

[Fists.o.Fury]

Hey everyone,

I really like what you're trying to do with this. I've always liked the idea of 'specializing' core classes or changing their overall flavor. A number of these ideas above are fantastic but I feel like putting in my 2 cents. The only problem I see with some of this stuff is pretty basic and was mentioned before - Why would I choose this over a normal monk? You should try and replace each ability wiht something comparable (Not equivelint but comparable.) Why can't you change some of the things that make monks weak or stronger to get the flavor you're looking for?

Diamond Body - To me this is something that you would keep just for the flavor. Poison resistance to a earth based creature is just a given IMO. On top of that Diamonds come from the earth - there is no need to even change this abilities context!

Fast movement - This should probably go, or be toned down a bit. I don't picture any Earth creatures moving to hastily at all. Keep in mind that they're dwarven breathren could have simply been slowed by their equipment. The monks, having no need for such equipment, are just faster as it is. Perhaps you could replace this with...
- an increased AC bonus. (I'm thinking Natural instead of Dodge in this case)
- an increased BAB - Why can't they be more effective in combat then your traditional monk?

Perhaps you can replace the Evasion with some sort of DR.

I like the idea of burrowing. Perhaps this could be a supernatural ability to replace the abundant step ability?

In any case I'm not terribly familiar with the elemental perspective you are talking about. I'm just used to having the ability to switch even some of the character mechanics and still come out with a similar class.

 

[DamionW]

Well, these are very valid points, but I think it should be referenced against what I'm trying to do here. I'm not looking to balance these clsses for PvP; I'm trying to balance variant class vs RAW class. The anti-elemental aspects just came from the idea of what struggles have been going on in the campaign world. That's usually been how fighting styles and weaponry has evolved: in response to the threat at hand. When I do get a campaign started, I'm expecting there to be a cross section of several different elements. Just because there's a wind ranger and a earth monk in the same party I'm not going to mandate they go at it right away because that's what they're designed for. They will naturally feel a distrust because they're natural enemies, but that's just RP opportunities for them to develop a kinship over time (a la Gimli/Legolas).

The only reason I'm doing these variants at all is to make the campaign world more my own. If forests are few and far between, but I like the stalker/hunter feel of a ranger, how do I make it fit into one of the elemental cultures? Well if I alter their spell list and some of their combat style abilities (thanks Kisanji) I can make them have more of a Wind feeling. If there are no real undead wandering around and demons/devils are few and far between, how would paladins look? Well there are sure a lot of Fire creatures burning crop land, and that's something a common man would appreciate a holy crusader putting a stop to, so let's make paladins water-based. Barbarians are typically savage and come from wild, orc-dominated lands. Well the orcs in my world chose to worship fire because its powerful and destructive, and the lands they live in are the most ashen, savage place of all. Model their rage as a flame that they can keep throwing psychological "logs" onto and you can make a fire barbarian. As for the monks, they are very rigid orderly warriors that try and improve themselves. Well, the Earth cultures in my game are the most lawful and most monastaries I imagine in my head are on cliffsides, so I make these warriors to both be rigid like a rock yet fast like the chaotic air characters that fight the earth characters. Hence the earth monk.

So, these classes don't exist to specifically take down the other class. Not every barbarian is going to go hunt down paladins and try and kill them, nor windstalkers go hunting down earth monks. They just happen to come from cultures that regularly struggle with each other, so that's how much of their combat ability would be geared. In the end though, I'm only hoping to make valid replacements for the core classes that look like cool elemental versions, but don't pigeonhole characters into picking one or the other because it's too powerful to pass up.