Giving the monk more choices: the Mystic, version 1.6 -- post #41

[Cheiromancer]

CRGreathouse,

I have incorporated my suggestions into the attached PDF. I have tinkered further with the wording in a few places, and have added a few powers of my own. Tell me what you think.

Arkhandus,

You need a bigger bonus to balance checks. To walk on water is a DC 90 Balance check. And I think that the feat chain is a little too long. But I haven't had much time to look over your suggestions; they may have merit.

[edit]The Run on Water mystic power should also give a +30 competence bonus to jump checks. It is too much trouble to edit and repost the PDF, though. [/edit]

 

[CRGreathouse]

How about simply "She gains the ability to prepare and cast one first-level spell from the cleric list."

Later on you can write "This path may be taken up to 9 times, each time granting a spell one level higher." This avoids a vague referent and simplifies the wording.

You have to adjust the wording of the Domain Mystic Power. If the mystic is on the priest path she automatically can cast spells, and does not need to take the magical talent mystic power. In fact, magical talent is no longer on the mystic powers list. Instead of



say that "The domain spells can be selected as if they were on the cleric list."

Your suggestions would change what the abilities were intended to do (slightly), but I like the clearer new wording enough to change the mechanics behind them. This is a slight power-up, but I think the class probably needs it.

And I notice that a fighter5/mystic 5 can cast a 5th level spell if she devotes all her mystic power slots to the task. Is this intentional?

Yes, it's intentional. It provides a way for spellcasters to multiclass if they desire, though at a pretty hefty cost (all mystic powers go toward spell slots).

I like your compromise on multiclassing. It retains the flavor of monkly discipline, but allows exceptions. I like the improvement to abundant step. Camaraderie is also a nice boost to the empath path. Lawgiver is a good continuance to the lawful ki strike ability. Skill mastery is a good idea, too, since mystics will often have skills they need to be able to use reliably.

I made multiclassing possible since there are reasons mystics should have other classes, even with the broadening of the class. I did want to make it hard, though, so I made it a path (with another ability).

Similarly, I wanted to keep to the flavor of lawful-only without actually requiring it, so I made several abilities require a lawful alignment. Ethically neutral mystics just get to choose other abilities.

Rogue abilities like skill mastery are worth more than a feat in general, and since this was just a low-level mystic power I opted to make it one skill only.

The only thing I don't like about Camaraderie is saying "empath path". I couldn't find a good way around it.

I am not sure about Focused Mind, though. On the one hand, it is very powerful, more powerful IMHO than Slippery Mind. On the other hand, it works only once per day, and can be triggered (and wasted) by a trivial spell or effect. I think it is simultaneously too strong and too weak, and so I would recommend replacing it with Slippery Mind. If you adjust it so that the mystic can use it in response to a strong attack (before rolling, but after learning what the target DC is), then you could keep it in a weaker form. (Make the bonus equal to the class level, say.)

I think that the particulars of the ability make it very flavorful and appropriate. The intent is to make the monk concentrate for a moment before having the door kicked in. It's not always a good thing -- you need to resist the first Will-requiring effect, so even a cure light wounds would trigger this.

Slippery mind is a great ability, but it just doesn't seem to fit flavorwise. It seems much more appropriate for the rogue.

I'll give this some thought.

And I think you should just make diamond soul the 12th level ability. It fits well with still mind/purity of body/timeless body, is about the right power level for a 12th level ability (it comes at 13th level for a standard monk), and is something that, for all we know, Li Mu Bai and Pai Mei both had. If people want more paths, they can take one at any level.

I have a personal vendetta against SR*, so diamond soul will never be an automatic ability in my mystic class. I agree that it's a fair fit in general, although I can't speak to your references -- I saw KB2 once (not a fan) and never even saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

* As a DM, I change monsters' feats to include GSP if they're casters, even though I know the PCs don't have SR. As a player, whenever I take casters I take GSP by third level at the latest, with only rare exceptions -- and even then I end up taking it eventually. I don't like the mechanic and I hate to lose a spell to SR in a way that losing them to saves doesn't provoke.

Got to go... I think this is everything, but I might comment more later.

I really appreciate your comments; you have some great ideas.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Your suggestions would change what the abilities were intended to do (slightly), but I like the clearer new wording enough to change the mechanics behind them. This is a slight power-up, but I think the class probably needs it.

I don't see the difference in power with the rewriting of the priest path. Could you elaborate?

The only thing I don't like about Camaraderie is saying "empath path". I couldn't find a good way around it.

Empath path.... maybe rename it "nature's path" and add handle animal as well as sense motive to the skills known? After all, the mystic is either getting a familiar or an animal companion- sensitivity to animals would seem to be called for.

I have a personal vendetta against SR*, so diamond soul will never be an automatic ability in my mystic class.

It's funny how many features are looked at askance by one or the other of us. Diamond body, diamond mind, focused mind, multiclassing restrictions, fast movement... it's a wonder we are still talking at all.

Ok. So you don't like diamond mind. How about some other kind of immunity; maybe immunity to petrification and polymorph?

Or, less powerful but adding an ascetic flavor- maybe the mystic has to only eat, drink and sleep, say, 1/4 as much as normal (i.e. can go 4 times as long without penalty). Heck, make them hold their breath 4 times as long as well. Call it meditative focus, or something.

I think that the particulars of the ability make it very flavorful and appropriate. The intent is to make the monk concentrate for a moment before having the door kicked in. It's not always a good thing -- you need to resist the first Will-requiring effect, so even a cure light wounds would trigger this.

Now, I personally don't see the attraction in forcing the mystic to resist a cure light wounds that comes along unexpectedly. Mystics should have foresight, self control, exquisitely tuned reflexes. Context-insensitive reactions just don't do it for me. My take on focused mind (power #16) is to let the mystic reroll one failed will save each day. Maybe call it "refocus mind." It comes just before diamond body in my list.

In my PDF I also added "Heart of Fire"- deathward protection (26), and "Spiritual Journey" - astral projection that only affects the mystic (27). 27 powers all together. I'm not terribly attached to either of these, though. If a wuxia ability or two could be properly formulated, we could add those, too, but probably we shouldn't go higher than 30 powers or so.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't see the difference in power with the rewriting of the priest path. Could you elaborate?

Yes. Your version gives a first-level spell; mine doesn't. Mine gives an ability like the killer path -- you are able to give up a mystic power for a spell (if you qualify).

It's fairly moot now, though, as I've gone with your version.

Empath path.... maybe rename it "nature's path" and add handle animal as well as sense motive to the skills known? After all, the mystic is either getting a familiar or an animal companion- sensitivity to animals would seem to be called for.

I like the name pretty well, actually. I just hate that phrasing, and don't think it can really be avoided without renaming the ability (which I don't want to do). Thanks for the thought, though.

It's funny how many features are looked at askance by one or the other of us. Diamond body, diamond mind, focused mind, multiclassing restrictions, fast movement... it's a wonder we are still talking at all.

Heh. In a sense, though, it's for the best -- it forces us to come up with a more flexible class.

Ok. So you don't like diamond mind. How about some other kind of immunity; maybe immunity to petrification and polymorph?

Or, less powerful but adding an ascetic flavor- maybe the mystic has to only eat, drink and sleep, say, 1/4 as much as normal (i.e. can go 4 times as long without penalty). Heck, make them hold their breath 4 times as long as well. Call it meditative focus, or something.

I'll think about this.

Now, I personally don't see the attraction in forcing the mystic to resist a cure light wounds that comes along unexpectedly. Mystics should have foresight, self control, exquisitely tuned reflexes. Context-insensitive reactions just don't do it for me. My take on focused mind (power #16) is to let the mystic reroll one failed will save each day. Maybe call it "refocus mind." It comes just before diamond body in my list.

I'm open to ideas on revising my ability, but this just doesn't work for me. I did revise my bonus downward, though.

In my PDF I also added "Heart of Fire"- deathward protection (26), and "Spiritual Journey" - astral projection that only affects the mystic (27). 27 powers all together. I'm not terribly attached to either of these, though. If a wuxia ability or two could be properly formulated, we could add those, too, but probably we shouldn't go higher than 30 powers or so.

I liked spiritual journey. Death ward is sufficiently powerful that I've thought about doing something about it as a spell, but I suppose it's a good ability.

Would you drop me an email, please? I have a thought... (username @ gmail.com)

 

[fuindordm]

I just found this thread... really good stuff here. I've always thought the monk path should have more variety to it!

Why is Slow Fall an ability of all mystics? It sounds more like something on the acrobat path, and it's always been my least favorite of all monk abilities. Just make it a single mystic power, and have it scale up with level once it's taken.

Unearthed Arcana suggests a variant monk that trades fast movement and the Wis Bonus to AC for DR similar to a barbarian's. I think DR would be a good mystic power too (another one to take multiple times).

How about a Hermit path? This could be a variant on the Empath:
-4 to all Bluff checks
Gain Sense Motive, Knowledge (nature), Survival, Handle Animal as class skills.
Animal Companion
Can take Wild Empathy as a mystic power.

Enough of the paths seem to add additional powers and options, that I would like to see a unified table of all mystic powers and their descriptions. Every power would be given a required level + Wis bonus rating, but some would be restricted to certain paths.

I agree that Diamond Body could be replaced with something like a Death Ward ability, perhaps simply along the lines of
The mystic gains +4 to saves vs. magical effects that cause death, level draining, and abilitiy score damage. In addition, even if such effect does not normally allow a saving throw they may make a Will
save to negate the effect.

Other powers commonly assigned to mystics:

Asceticism: need only one-quarter the usual food and drink to stay healthy

Levitation: as the spell, self only, at will, but requires continuous concentration to maintain.

Endure Elements: as the spell, always active.

Death Trance: the stereotypical 'feign death' ability, slowing down your body's metabolism greatly. Allows you to survive without food and water for extended periods, delays the effects of poison in your system, and at higher levels could become true stasis, negating the need even for air.

Really good work, keep it up! I'll be reading.

Ben

 

[CRGreathouse]

Why is Slow Fall an ability of all mystics? It sounds more like something on the acrobat path, and it's always been my least favorite of all monk abilities. Just make it a single mystic power, and have it scale up with level once it's taken.

I don't much like it either, but I was trying to give it out somehow. Remember, it's not possible to get all the abilities of the standard monk with the mystic as written, and this would make it harder to keep up yet.

I would like to make it an ability just as you state, but I want to see if the class is powerful enough first -- if it's good I can change it, if not i'll need more not less.

Enough of the paths seem to add additional powers and options, that I would like to see a unified table of all mystic powers and their descriptions. Every power would be given a required level + Wis bonus rating, but some would be restricted to certain paths.

I'm not sure what you want here -- I thought I already had such a table.

I agree that Diamond Body could be replaced with something like a Death Ward ability, perhaps simply along the lines of
The mystic gains +4 to saves vs. magical effects that cause death, level draining, and abilitiy score damage. In addition, even if such effect does not normally allow a saving throw they may make a Will
save to negate the effect.

I like this pretty well. I think I'll use it as my replacement ability for Diamond Body.

Asceticism: need only one-quarter the usual food and drink to stay healthy

Levitation: as the spell, self only, at will, but requires continuous concentration to maintain.

Endure Elements: as the spell, always active.

Death Trance: the stereotypical 'feign death' ability, slowing down your body's metabolism greatly. Allows you to survive without food and water for extended periods, delays the effects of poison in your system, and at higher levels could become true stasis, negating the need even for air.

These are great ideas. I'll see what I can add to the next draft.

Really good work, keep it up! I'll be reading.

Thanks, I appreciate the comments.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I concur with the fuindordm's idea about the weakened deathward for the 12th level ability.

I also like his feign death, levitation, and asceticism powers.

The constant endure elements, however, would seem to be subsumed under resistance; maybe endure elements would be a pre-requisite?

Endure elements would be a weak ability, perhaps a 3 or so, and feign death shouldn't be much higher than 5 on the scale. I don't think that that the abilities already in the draft should be pushed any higher. That means that we will need to "double up" some of the early powers; more than one powers whose pre-requisite (level + wisdom modifier) is the same.

I am still unsure what to do with the water walking/running ability. On the one hand, it seems plausible that only by running very fast can a mystic cross a liquid surface; but the rules give penalties to balance checks when moving quickly. According to the rules, it should be easier to stand on water than to run across it. But if this is right, then a movement bonus shouldn't help you, which differs from my current formulation. Instead, the levitation power would seem to be relevant.

Maybe a jump check would be better than a balance check; in the RAW a boost to your movement rate automatically boosts your jump check (but not enough- an extra bonus would have to apply). Crossing water would thus be jumping across it, and you are maintaining your height be kicking the water here and there. I'm going to have to play with the numbers a little.

I think we should be careful to include a lawful requirement to a few more abilities. The force of will mental defense (however it ends up) might require the self-discipline of a lawful alignment. The DR idea might be 1/chaotic instead of 1/-, and not function for non-lawful mystics.

We might also tie a few powers to particular paths. Powerful abilities can be limited to one or two paths, and weak paths can be strengthened by having powers exclusive to them. Some powers and paths might be incompatible, though none spring to mind. I wouldn't want to overdo these links, but a little would add flavor while improving balance.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I concur with the fuindordm's idea about the weakened deathward for the 12th level ability.

I also like his feign death, levitation, and asceticism powers.

It's settled, then: I'll use that for the 12th-level ability, and I'll try to include these powers.

The constant endure elements, however, would seem to be subsumed under resistance; maybe endure elements would be a pre-requisite?

The class is weak enough as is, I'll not weaken it so. (Of course it's still possible that the class is abusable while not being generally powerful -- I'm trying to find ways to break my own class.)

I am still unsure what to do with the water walking/running ability. On the one hand, it seems plausible that only by running very fast can a mystic cross a liquid surface; but the rules give penalties to balance checks when moving quickly. According to the rules, it should be easier to stand on water than to run across it. But if this is right, then a movement bonus shouldn't help you, which differs from my current formulation. Instead, the levitation power would seem to be relevant.

Maybe a jump check would be better than a balance check; in the RAW a boost to your movement rate automatically boosts your jump check (but not enough- an extra bonus would have to apply). Crossing water would thus be jumping across it, and you are maintaining your height be kicking the water here and there. I'm going to have to play with the numbers a little.

Keep brainstorming. Until then, I have a version eerily similar to yours in v.3.

I think we should be careful to include a lawful requirement to a few more abilities. The force of will mental defense (however it ends up) might require the self-discipline of a lawful alignment. The DR idea might be 1/chaotic instead of 1/-, and not function for non-lawful mystics.

I'm all with you here.

We might also tie a few powers to particular paths. Powerful abilities can be limited to one or two paths, and weak paths can be strengthened by having powers exclusive to them. Some powers and paths might be incompatible, though none spring to mind. I wouldn't want to overdo these links, but a little would add flavor while improving balance.

As you say this should be done sparingly, but i'm not opposed to it when there's a confluence of flavor and balance. I hesitate to bar particular paths from powers, though.


Here's my version 1.4. It's a little rushed, but I wanted to get my new ideas out.

 

[fuindordm]

It's looking pretty darn cool, I must say.

Some comments;

My intention for the death ward ability (Heart of Fire) was that in cases where a save is not normally allowed, the mystic could make a save to negate but not with the +4 bonus. Maybe limiting the power isn't worth the extra verbage to make that clear. What do you think?

I like the mechanics for Deep Trance and Walking on Water.

Rather than the contemplative path, why not have an artist path that grants the bardic music chain for real, usable on others? This would give them some use for having Perform as a class skill. When I think of a contemplative, I think more of a monk inclined to deep meditation for days at a time, but I'm not sure what you could do with that.

Priest path: this is, I think, too good. At least make it so that a mystic needs Wis = 10+spell level, not that most mystics will be neglecting Wis anyway--it powers a lot of their abilities. It just feels wrong to break what is so far a universal rule for no good reason.

How about this for the Contemplative path:
Gain Spot and Listen as class skills, +2 to rank for choosing mystic powers, with a DC 15 Concentration check their meditation is as restful as sleep but they retain full awareness of surroundings.

Then Artist:
Can sing, chant, pray or dance so as to duplicate bardic music effects: countersong, fascinate, inspire courage, inspire competence, and inspire greatness as a bard of equal level. The mystic uses an appropriate perform skill to activate these abilities, and must maintain sufficient ranks in the skill as a bard.

I also think that adding spot and listen to the scholar path is inappropriate, and Contemplative seems like a good place for them. Maybe give the scholar path search instead, or else merge Lorekeeper and Scholar which seem somewhat redundant. Bardic Knowledge is entirely in the DM's hands, it's not a very powerful ability after all.

The mystic power Prowess is at a very high level for its effect, don't you think?

I've already complained about the slow fall ability being part of the core, so I won't do it again. But adding the monk weapons to their proficiencies also seems inappropriate for any but the warrior and killer paths. I'd be inclined to just give them access to simple weapons and no armor proficiencies, and have those two paths add some proficiencies on top of that.

I'd like to be able to use this class to represent everything from a peasant spiritual hermit to the warrior-monk traditions--the only unifying theme is a special strength of spirit due to their focus on contemplation, mental and spiritual discipline, as seen in the fixed powers (heart of fire, purity of body, etc.)

Benl

 

[Cheiromancer]

That was my understanding too, for heart of fire, but I agree the wording might be ambiguous. As written it also has the odd feature that if an effect gives a save for half, the mystic will take damage, but if there is no save there is a good chance that the mystic will take no damage at all. If a mystic saves against inflict light wounds, she should take no damage at all. IMHO.

I'm trying to sort through the mechanics for jumping, to see if I can get something that suits me more for the Walk on Water mechanics. If someone is long-jumping their movement rate each round, they are only touching down momentarily. I propose that with the right DC, they can touch down on water or branches, and then jump right away again. I think I'm ok with that momentary touch being a balance check, but I feel that jumping and running should have a role to play too.

I don't think the reasoning was ever given, why mystics didn't need Wis = 10+spell level. It does seem strange that the mystics would be an exception to the rule, especially since Wisdom would seem to be their thing.

I like your comments about the contemplative path, and about merging scholar and lorekeeper. I don't think the mystic should have bardic abilities, though. I would rather they lost the perform skill.

I think too that the mystic has a physical discipline, not just a mental and spiritual discipline. Some kind of martial arts thing, even if it is disguised as "movement exercises." Although not all mystics will be able to dodge fireballs, I think they would know how to fall without hurting themselves too much.

And monk weapons, I think, were designed to mesh well with the "movement exercises"; mystics have a natural affinity for them. It is not like they have to train specially to use them; they pick them up and find it fits their hand, is balanced properly, etc.. So I would say that the weapon proficiencies should stay.

I also think that the mystic's discipline affects their physical form. This is obvious with the higher level abilities (especially empty body and perfect body, and in their resistance to disease and poison), but I think the transformation and purification of their bodies is also manifested in the fact that they fall more slowly than one might expect. If we could fit levitation in somehow, that would make it more obvious.

Furthermore, mystics are in harmony with the elements, so that the air holds them up and the ground does not punish them when they land on it from a height. The harmony with the elements is also a theme in the resistance power.

Not that your arguments don't have merit, but I think one can make a case for the opposite. It is not strictly necessary for a revised monk class to have all these features, but it is not inappropriate.