Yeah yeah yeah, shame on me. I've also been distracted with other things in my life and finishing all of this is not a priority because I don't even have the players to get started on the campaign yet anyway. As for specific updates, nothing yet. Still trying to decide how I want to handle the fast movement vs. burrow vs. camoflage issue for the monk. In general though, I'm also trying to work out how each element's cleric will look and work. That's a separate problem. When my complete handbook is ready, I'll post it on here for critique. You can see my first draft at this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=148179 . Just be advised that I have many changes in the works frokm that version, but the geography sections and the introduction dividing the world into 6 subgroups should give you an accurate vision of the campaign world. I'll try and come back with another revision of this monk within the week.
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Earth Variant Monk - Critiques?
- Thread starter DamionW
- Start date
OK, see the first post for my new, completed revision. I fleshed out the class progression completely. Here's what I decided:
1) The bonus feats at first level are either Imp Sunder or Grapple. At 2nd level they're Deflect Arrows or Imp Trip. Depending on what you picked at 1st, you get either Eagle Claw Attack (boosted Sunder ability), or Earth's Embrace (boosted grapple ability), both from CW.
2) After looking back and forth at the ranger and monk, it came to me to give the ranger the speed boost and the monk camo related and other movement abilities. So for every 10' of speed the monk would have gotten, I gave them a different ability following this chain: Stability -> Up the Walls -> Stone Hue (Dark Hunter PrC{CW}) -> Camouflage -> Hide in Plain Sight -> Earth Glide (As an elemental)
3) Sticking with the slow and deliberate idea, I took away Evasion and Improved Evasion, as well as Still Mind to give them the three tier Earth Mastery feat chain from Races of Stone: Earth Sense -> Earth Adept -> Earth Mastery
4) Instead of Purity of Body (disease resistance), I give them Breathless (extended held breath and immunity to gas effects)
5) Instead of Diamond Body (poison immunity), I give them the Power Drop special attack, doing full unarmed damage with a trip or overrun attack a limited number of times per day.
6) The Wing Cripple special attack (limiting winged creatures ability to fly) replaces Abundant Step (a dimension door effect)
7) Grounding Stance (Resistance/10 to electricity and air based damage and a +4 to saves vs other wind effects) replaces Diamond Soul (SR 10)
8) Stone Touch petrifies instead of Quivering Palm killing
9) Ki Strike progression is changed to Lawful/earth, cold iron, adamantine from magic, lawful, adamantine.
10) Earth Press (extended rounds to prone or immobilization from trip/overrun, pin) replaces Tongue of Sun and Moon (speak all languages)
11) Leap Tackle (enhanced jump to bring flying enemies down) replaces Empty Body (Etherealness limited times per day)
12) Earth Self replaces Perfect Self, making the 20th level monk an elemental, not outsider.
There. That's my complete conversion. Let the balance discussion commence. What has too much power, what didn't go far enough?
1) The bonus feats at first level are either Imp Sunder or Grapple. At 2nd level they're Deflect Arrows or Imp Trip. Depending on what you picked at 1st, you get either Eagle Claw Attack (boosted Sunder ability), or Earth's Embrace (boosted grapple ability), both from CW.
2) After looking back and forth at the ranger and monk, it came to me to give the ranger the speed boost and the monk camo related and other movement abilities. So for every 10' of speed the monk would have gotten, I gave them a different ability following this chain: Stability -> Up the Walls -> Stone Hue (Dark Hunter PrC{CW}) -> Camouflage -> Hide in Plain Sight -> Earth Glide (As an elemental)
3) Sticking with the slow and deliberate idea, I took away Evasion and Improved Evasion, as well as Still Mind to give them the three tier Earth Mastery feat chain from Races of Stone: Earth Sense -> Earth Adept -> Earth Mastery
4) Instead of Purity of Body (disease resistance), I give them Breathless (extended held breath and immunity to gas effects)
5) Instead of Diamond Body (poison immunity), I give them the Power Drop special attack, doing full unarmed damage with a trip or overrun attack a limited number of times per day.
6) The Wing Cripple special attack (limiting winged creatures ability to fly) replaces Abundant Step (a dimension door effect)
7) Grounding Stance (Resistance/10 to electricity and air based damage and a +4 to saves vs other wind effects) replaces Diamond Soul (SR 10)
8) Stone Touch petrifies instead of Quivering Palm killing
9) Ki Strike progression is changed to Lawful/earth, cold iron, adamantine from magic, lawful, adamantine.
10) Earth Press (extended rounds to prone or immobilization from trip/overrun, pin) replaces Tongue of Sun and Moon (speak all languages)
11) Leap Tackle (enhanced jump to bring flying enemies down) replaces Empty Body (Etherealness limited times per day)
12) Earth Self replaces Perfect Self, making the 20th level monk an elemental, not outsider.
There. That's my complete conversion. Let the balance discussion commence. What has too much power, what didn't go far enough?
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Aus_Snow
First Post
Well, it's probably down to intuition as much as logic - determining how balanced this class variant is, that is.
One thing though - are you going to have Clerics at all?
If so, you might want to check out the elemental domains, and do something about them, or about Earth Self, one or the other.
Grounding Stance doesn't look anywhere near as powerful as SR (which is 10 + class level in the case of Monks). Is that deliberate (i.e., are other abilities more powerful than the Monk's to counterbalance this) ?
Also, Wing Cripple strikes ma as much weaker overall than Abundant Step. Again.. deliberate?
The big thing I can see 'missing' - as in something I would feel to be essential for this style of class - is DR. Or am I just not seeing it somewhere there?
Of course, this is all IMHO, etc. Basically, it still looks very cool, though weaker than the base Monk class, I would (intuitively) say.
One thing though - are you going to have Clerics at all?
If so, you might want to check out the elemental domains, and do something about them, or about Earth Self, one or the other.
Grounding Stance doesn't look anywhere near as powerful as SR (which is 10 + class level in the case of Monks). Is that deliberate (i.e., are other abilities more powerful than the Monk's to counterbalance this) ?
Also, Wing Cripple strikes ma as much weaker overall than Abundant Step. Again.. deliberate?
The big thing I can see 'missing' - as in something I would feel to be essential for this style of class - is DR. Or am I just not seeing it somewhere there?
Of course, this is all IMHO, etc. Basically, it still looks very cool, though weaker than the base Monk class, I would (intuitively) say.
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Well, I will have clerics, and they can turn/rebuke elementals, but by the time the character gets Earth Self, he's already 20HD, so you'd need an epic cleric to even effect him, so I really don't have a problem with that.
As for the other abilities being weaker, it isn't by intention, but that's kind of why I posted this, is to help work on balance issues. Here's how I feel:
1) Imp Sunder < Monk's Stunning Fist. The original stunning fist is powerful, but I wanted to make Earth Monks good at destroying items because most solid weapons come from the earth
2) Imp Trip@2nd level >= Combat Reflexes. While extra AoOs are useful, tripping is central to this monk design and getting it for free at 2nd level is a great boost
3) Earth Sense <= Evasion. The earth sense feat is useful when vision is impared, but having a boost to any relex save is very useful, so it's a tough call
4) Earth Adept > Still Mind. Having a damage boost near constantly while on the ground seems more effective than occasionally running across mind effecting magic.
5) Stability < first 10' extra movement. Avoiding bull rushing is central to earth flavored creatures/characters, but being able to close to fighting distance is helpful to a monk
6) Ki Strike Lawful/Earth@4th lvl = Ki Strike Magic. In this particular campaign world, there will be more need for lawful/earth damage than specifically magic damage.
7) Breathless > Purity of Body. There in my mind seems to be many more instances where not needing to breath would be more useful than avoiding disease.
8) Eagle Claw/Earth's Embrace > Imp Disarm. Both feats are higher in the feat chain than disarming and allow to do some impressive extra damage in the appropriate situation (sundering or pinning)
9) Up the Walls = 2nd 10' speed boost. While extra speed is useful in closing furher, having the number of tactical options available into you in a mountain environment that Up the Walls gives you can open many interesting maneuvers.
10) Earth Mastery >= Imp Evasion. The feat gives a near constant boost to strike while Imp. Evasion only affects damaging spells with Ref saves.
11) Stone Hue >= 3rd 10' speed boost. This ability is where the monk starts catching up with the speed boost ability because they can hide and wait out their enemies.
12) Ki Strike Cold Iron = Ki Strike Lawful. The end result is basically the same, but fits the image more.
13) Power Drop > Diamond Body. Having the ability to make a trip attack do the monk's full damage and cause the enemy to be prone makes it a great lead-off to a full attack action. Add the later Earth Press ability and a stonefist's enemies will nearly always be brought down to the ground. This outweighs poison immunity to me.
14) Wing Cripple < Abundant Step. The wing cripple is vital as part of the stonefists inventory of special moves, but a short range teleportation effect is extremely useful in most cases. I just had a hard time finding another 4th level arcane spell effect to replace Abundant Step with that made sense.
15) Camouflage @ 12th level > 4th 10' speed boost. This gives the monk camo faster than the ranger would even have gotten it and lets them venture further from their mountain homes and still get a drop on their enemies before they can flee.
16) Grounding Stance < Diamond Soul. Again, the grounding stance flavor wise makes good sense vs. their intended enemies, but I hadn't noticed that the SR was 10 + monk level. Would the grounding stance be better if I made the energy resistance 10 + class level and the bonus to saving throws half of their monk level, or some other variant?
17) Stone Touch = Quivering Palm. This is a simple swap. Being turned to stone is effectively the same as being slain.
18) Hide in Plain Sight > 5th 10' speed boost. This is a full two levels sooner than the ranger would have gotten it and lets a stonefist nearly fight invisibly in stone/mountain terrain. The little extra speed that would have been given by this level is not that much of a bonus.
19) Earth Press > Tongue of Sun and Moon. Unlimited languages have some RPing advantages, but when the monk's life is on the line, it helps making his opponents held effortlessly through a single trip or pin attack is useful.
20) Earth Glide > Last 10' of speed boost. The ability to swim through solid rock and dirt effortlessly opens many many more combat possibilities than another two squares of movement would give the monk at 18th level.
21) Leap Tackle < Empty Body. The ability to take flying enemies out of the air is again very necessary for a warrior who's advantages come from his connection to the soil beneath him, but to become ethereal makes the normal monk almost invulnerable while its active and lets them bypass many obstacles.
22) Earth Self >= Perfect Self. I think it's a simple swap, with some extra advantages for the elemental. Both are immune to "person" magic effects, while the outsider gets DR 10 magic, the elemental ceases to need food, water or air as well as becoming immune to critical hits and flanking. This is only offset by being susceptible to turning effects or other elemental magics, but this is at 20HD.
So, by the numbers, I see there are 12 things that are at least marginally better by my view, and 6 things which are worse. However, those six are fairly big losses in strength. So it come back to that intuitive feeling of matching up values. Do other people see my analysis differently?
As for the other abilities being weaker, it isn't by intention, but that's kind of why I posted this, is to help work on balance issues. Here's how I feel:
1) Imp Sunder < Monk's Stunning Fist. The original stunning fist is powerful, but I wanted to make Earth Monks good at destroying items because most solid weapons come from the earth
2) Imp Trip@2nd level >= Combat Reflexes. While extra AoOs are useful, tripping is central to this monk design and getting it for free at 2nd level is a great boost
3) Earth Sense <= Evasion. The earth sense feat is useful when vision is impared, but having a boost to any relex save is very useful, so it's a tough call
4) Earth Adept > Still Mind. Having a damage boost near constantly while on the ground seems more effective than occasionally running across mind effecting magic.
5) Stability < first 10' extra movement. Avoiding bull rushing is central to earth flavored creatures/characters, but being able to close to fighting distance is helpful to a monk
6) Ki Strike Lawful/Earth@4th lvl = Ki Strike Magic. In this particular campaign world, there will be more need for lawful/earth damage than specifically magic damage.
7) Breathless > Purity of Body. There in my mind seems to be many more instances where not needing to breath would be more useful than avoiding disease.
8) Eagle Claw/Earth's Embrace > Imp Disarm. Both feats are higher in the feat chain than disarming and allow to do some impressive extra damage in the appropriate situation (sundering or pinning)
9) Up the Walls = 2nd 10' speed boost. While extra speed is useful in closing furher, having the number of tactical options available into you in a mountain environment that Up the Walls gives you can open many interesting maneuvers.
10) Earth Mastery >= Imp Evasion. The feat gives a near constant boost to strike while Imp. Evasion only affects damaging spells with Ref saves.
11) Stone Hue >= 3rd 10' speed boost. This ability is where the monk starts catching up with the speed boost ability because they can hide and wait out their enemies.
12) Ki Strike Cold Iron = Ki Strike Lawful. The end result is basically the same, but fits the image more.
13) Power Drop > Diamond Body. Having the ability to make a trip attack do the monk's full damage and cause the enemy to be prone makes it a great lead-off to a full attack action. Add the later Earth Press ability and a stonefist's enemies will nearly always be brought down to the ground. This outweighs poison immunity to me.
14) Wing Cripple < Abundant Step. The wing cripple is vital as part of the stonefists inventory of special moves, but a short range teleportation effect is extremely useful in most cases. I just had a hard time finding another 4th level arcane spell effect to replace Abundant Step with that made sense.
15) Camouflage @ 12th level > 4th 10' speed boost. This gives the monk camo faster than the ranger would even have gotten it and lets them venture further from their mountain homes and still get a drop on their enemies before they can flee.
16) Grounding Stance < Diamond Soul. Again, the grounding stance flavor wise makes good sense vs. their intended enemies, but I hadn't noticed that the SR was 10 + monk level. Would the grounding stance be better if I made the energy resistance 10 + class level and the bonus to saving throws half of their monk level, or some other variant?
17) Stone Touch = Quivering Palm. This is a simple swap. Being turned to stone is effectively the same as being slain.
18) Hide in Plain Sight > 5th 10' speed boost. This is a full two levels sooner than the ranger would have gotten it and lets a stonefist nearly fight invisibly in stone/mountain terrain. The little extra speed that would have been given by this level is not that much of a bonus.
19) Earth Press > Tongue of Sun and Moon. Unlimited languages have some RPing advantages, but when the monk's life is on the line, it helps making his opponents held effortlessly through a single trip or pin attack is useful.
20) Earth Glide > Last 10' of speed boost. The ability to swim through solid rock and dirt effortlessly opens many many more combat possibilities than another two squares of movement would give the monk at 18th level.
21) Leap Tackle < Empty Body. The ability to take flying enemies out of the air is again very necessary for a warrior who's advantages come from his connection to the soil beneath him, but to become ethereal makes the normal monk almost invulnerable while its active and lets them bypass many obstacles.
22) Earth Self >= Perfect Self. I think it's a simple swap, with some extra advantages for the elemental. Both are immune to "person" magic effects, while the outsider gets DR 10 magic, the elemental ceases to need food, water or air as well as becoming immune to critical hits and flanking. This is only offset by being susceptible to turning effects or other elemental magics, but this is at 20HD.
So, by the numbers, I see there are 12 things that are at least marginally better by my view, and 6 things which are worse. However, those six are fairly big losses in strength. So it come back to that intuitive feeling of matching up values. Do other people see my analysis differently?
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Nyaricus
First Post
hey Damion! Here's what my opinion on this is. Say your six abilities are worth about 1 1/2 times their quantity - so ,in total, they are worth 9, maybe even 10 abilities. Now, i still don't see a save prog - so why not give them bad reflex save, and call it even? I thnk that is a pretty good fix, since we have concluded that this Stonefist will not be a quick class - and worse comes worse, your player can take lightning reflexes.DamionW said:
The thing is, these are first generation classes - so don't be surprized if some things come out to be more or even less powerful than what you assume they are worth; and that you have to change them up later. I like this monk and your analysis did a lot to convince me to say "just drop ref, and you'll be fine."
Nyaricus said:
Yeah that's what is in the back of my head that this is my first attempt at house ruled classes, so "so what if they're a tad unbalanced, the flavors good." Then my perfectionism kicks in and I want to try and make every choice reasonable for my players. Sigh. Oh well. BTW, check out the ranger thread, because I'm trying to decide how to give the ranger the speed boosts the monk would have had and still let them be armored/armed. Was thinking of lowering the BAB or some other way to make it even out.
Nyaricus
First Post
that's what i am thinking here - just go with it man ,it should be fine. Just wondering here, but is this going to be your default campaign setting, or are you making this just for fun, for a few longer games? Also, when are you planning to get a game running? Just a curiousity - i am just interested in how much prep you are putting into this.DamionW said:
i will have to check you ranger out. I kinda got turned off by the fighting style changes . . . they seemed pretty drastic, and i generally don't work with alot of the skills you are editing, like tumble, etc. I usually play fighters, when i playDamionW said:
Not sure what i am going to do for a post new-years game. One of my buddies is going to DM in my campaign setting, and i will get to play in it for the first time, so i am really excited to get some RPing in - something i haven't done for about 2 1/2 years. Nyaricus said:
Well, I don't know if it will be the default, but I have one extra long plot arc planned to take a PC party probably from 1st through 20th level or so. As for when that'll happen, probably not until springtime or so. I'm going to be out of my hometown area for awhile, so that limits my ability to get started, but I also have a lack of players in the area I'm in. Kind of hard to get things rolling when I only have one or two people e-mailing me saying they want in. Right now, it's as much a theoretical excercise in world building as it is actual prep work for a campaign. I'm having fun just trying to tweak out all of the different game elements I want to use so that the crunch syncs up with the fluff I want.
Nyaricus
First Post
cool, world building is a lot of work, but so much fun, and it pays off so well . I am currently building a straight-up medeival fantasy, low magic, tolkien/real world concept campaign setting [think > 1050 AD, with tolkien's themes and real-world myths and such], which will be my default setting, and a high-fantasy "kitchen sink" concept world, which will feature all my default settings races and such, but have other, pure fantasy races (like lizardfolk, and cat people, and a duelist class, and set in about 1550-1600 AD in our time)
so, yeah, i completely know how much fun it can be. most of the stuff i can work out on my own, but for the hard-to-runch ones, i post em up on EN world (like my berserker class).
anyways, i shall try to get to your airranger in the nest few days, but speaking of that berserker class, think you could take a look at him yourself? i am still not sure on some balance issues for him, and although he keeps getting more veiws, replys are non-existant.
cheers!
. I am currently building a straight-up medeival fantasy, low magic, tolkien/real world concept campaign setting [think > 1050 AD, with tolkien's themes and real-world myths and such], which will be my default setting, and a high-fantasy "kitchen sink" concept world, which will feature all my default settings races and such, but have other, pure fantasy races (like lizardfolk, and cat people, and a duelist class, and set in about 1550-1600 AD in our time)so, yeah, i completely know how much fun it can be. most of the stuff i can work out on my own, but for the hard-to-runch ones, i post em up on EN world (like my berserker class).
anyways, i shall try to get to your airranger in the nest few days, but speaking of that berserker class, think you could take a look at him yourself? i am still not sure on some balance issues for him, and although he keeps getting more veiws, replys are non-existant.
cheers!
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