Fist of Legend-prc

[Lord Ravinous]

This is my updated attempt at making a Monk prc that depicts the martial arts style practiced by the late, great Wong Fei Hung. I've tried to make this class attainable by 6th to 7th level, at the expense of having alot of flexibility early on in levels, and chose prereqs that have fundamental similarites to the five animals of Hung gar (Power Attack for Tiger, Improved Initiative for Leopard, and Expertise for the Crane), and I added Endurance and Purity of Body because the Fist of Legend must be in terrific health and have excellent stamina to withstand the rigorus training of Hung gar.

Hung gar attempts to emulate upon five animals: the tiger, for his strength and ferocity; the leopard, for his speed and agility; the crane for its grace and fluid-like motions, the snake, for its quick and sometimes deadly strikes, and the dragon, for its mysticism and cunning. If you would like a more historical viewpoint please take this link for info on Wong Fei Hung, if you would perfer info on the actual martial arts style of would perfer info on the actual martial arts style of Hung gar Kung Fu

I have no flavor text for the class at this time, so I hope that doesn't turn any of you off. Also, I've barrowed alot of my ideas for class abilites from the "5 Animal Fist" from Quinisential Monk, I liked the idea of that class and felt it did a very good job of depicting a Hung gar practitoner, but also felt it was grossly overpowered and should have been spread out over 10 levels, I also thought that losing out on Quivering Palm at the expense of making this class 10 levels was unfair because the Quivering palm goes along with the Snake. The Natural Armor bonus is an effort to show the body conditioning that the Fist of Legend undergoes to toughen his skin and bones.

Well, anyways, have at it ya'll, I hope yuns can give me some help at balancing this out, cause I know its still overpowered (or atleast imo it is).

Thanks in advance,
Lord Ravinous

 

[comrade raoul]

Just play a regular monk. All of the skills that the "Five Animals Fist" class improves are monk class skills -- so just use your monk levels to purchase ranks in those skills. You (or your character) can then discuss your training in the skills you choose as representative of the "teachings of the five animals," or something.

Except for the tiger's charge benefit (and there are monk-oriented feats in Sword and Fist and Oriental Adventures that improve charging abilities), all of the special abilities that the class provides are conceptually or functionally pretty close to the standard set of monk abilities, perhaps backed up with careful feat selection. The monk's increasing AC can be interpreted as a combination of Crane-like defensive skill (especially if you've also got Expertise) and the body hardening represented by Natural Armor; the Leopard's quickness is easily duplicated by the monk class's increasing speed and the Improved Initiative feat; and the Snake and Dragon are already described by the monk's stunning fist and ki strike.

So this prestige class really doesn't do anything that monks can't do. It might do them better, but a prestige class that's just a better version of an existing core class is clearly unbalanced and unnecessary.