Playtest (A5E) Level Up Playtest Document #10: Adept

Welcome to the 10th Level Up playtest document. This playtest contains a candidate for the first 10 levels of the game’s adept class. The adept is a renaming of the monk of O5E, and allows us to portray a wide variety of unarmed combatants.

Level Up Playtest Document #10: Adept — Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)

Welcome to the 10th Level Up playtest document. This playtest contains a candidate for the game’s adept class.

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When you have absorbed the playtest document, please take the survey and let us know what you think!

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[StirFriar]

The info is in the Fighters packet. You get twice your proficiency bonus in exertion points, and you gain them all back after a rest.

Having to consult the Fighter packet to play an Adept is unhelpful design.
Having to calculate a central resource when an existing column could give me the number instead is unhelpful design.

 

[tetrasodium]

I love love love the fact that a lot of abilities now refer to the spell they are invoking rather than duplicating it with some thinly veiled chunibyo type "this is better than weapons & magic because it's ki" excuses. There is a big problem with adroit defense>brutal defense though in tat it doesn't say anything about that light armor+strength explicityly counting as being unarmored... Namely because adept speed & many o5e monk archetypes include the words "while you are no wearing armor" making it kinda like rage for a berzerker who chooses the heavy armor option. Every version of the d&d monk has been a mess to fit into a campaign without bein the main character in a game that doesn't have those but the adept looks like it will be as simple & trivial to fit into any campaign setting as nearly any other class.

 

[Marandahir]

You basically want a perfect melee character who uses their body as a weapon and armor. An exemplar of unarmed engagement.

There is not a single easy way to describe such concept as there are probably as many there are cultures in the world. Or maybe even more.

So an adept - with a little twist - like adeptus (from Latin, "one who has achieved") is pretty adequate.

How about Lodestar, to borrow from En5ider?

 

[Faolyn]

I love love love the fact that a lot of abilities now refer to the spell they are invoking rather than duplicating it with some thinly veiled chunibyo type "this is better than weapons & magic because it's ki" excuses.

Ugh; I actually hate that. I mean, I guess it makes sense if you're removing ki as the singular reason for the abilities--it's not like magic, it is magic, but I would rather it simply be a nonmagical ability that reflects the adept's sheer physical mastery.

(This, of course, is entirely personal taste here; you're not wrong with your opinion.)

 

[tetrasodium]

Ugh; I actually hate that. I mean, I guess it makes sense if you're removing ki as the singular reason for the abilities--it's not like magic, it is magic, but I would rather it simply be a nonmagical ability that reflects the adept's sheer physical mastery.

(This, of course, is entirely personal taste here; you're not wrong with your opinion.)

the problem with that bolded bit is that the d&d monk exists in a world where those spells are a thing. There are plenty of different ways for casters to gain & trigger their spellcasting powers including a bunch not yet ported from older editions I'm sure. There's nothing wrong with fitting the class into the settings & it too cast those spells somehow through its "sheer physical mastery". Casting those spells through sheer physical mastery only helps to make the class fit the worlds it gets played in.


Naruto serves as a perfect example of why this is a good thing in how there were a zillion different characters demonstrating what could be called classes while all of them fit the world rather than reinventing the wheel with genjutsu but not genjutsu. The only character in that entire series that actively put effort into not fitting the baselines of the setting was rock lee who was basically a backhanded slap ateverything that made the d&d monk obnoxious

 

[Faolyn]

the problem with that bolded bit is that the d&d monk exists in a world where those spells are a thing.

Well yeah--but there's also other abilities that other classes have that are similar to spells in some ways (a paladin's Lay On Hands and Smite abilities, for example). And part of the monk is that they have trained themselves to amazing levels.

So this is basically just one of those things that can go either way. They're either casting spells or they're just doing cool stuff that other people can only do by casting spells. I just happen to prefer the former is all.

(Which reminds me, @Morrus, y'all need some focuses or whatever for a Parkour Adept, in addition to the boxing and stick-fighting focuses I mentioned in my survey.)

 

[Tinker-TDC]

I don't have a real problem with the name "Adept" but it doesn't evoke any feeling in me (that is, hearing the name fighter tells me they fight, hearing the name berzerker makes me think they'll go berzerk, hearing the name wizard or sorcerer makes me think of casting spells).
Since the Monk class was first introduced it's always meant an unarmed martial artist, though for a name I'd just say Martial Artist is probably the most instantly descriptive (even though technically fighters, paladins, rangers, and barbarians are all martial artists the instinct when you hear about a martial artist is geared towards an unarmed martial artist).

 

[Marandahir]

I don't have a real problem with the name "Adept" but it doesn't evoke any feeling in me (that is, hearing the name fighter tells me they fight, hearing the name berzerker makes me think they'll go berzerk, hearing the name wizard or sorcerer makes me think of casting spells).
Since the Monk class was first introduced it's always meant an unarmed martial artist, though for a name I'd just say Martial Artist is probably the most instantly descriptive (even though technically fighters, paladins, rangers, and barbarians are all martial artists the instinct when you hear about a martial artist is geared towards an unarmed martial artist).

This is why Martial Artist doesn't work great (it's also a two-word Adjectnouner, the only thing worse for a full class name in my book would be a Nounverber).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Sadly, the best name for them is probably Fighter. But then you have to call the fighter something else (like Warrior), but of course, now you've made things confusing.

 

[Stalker0]

Sadly, the best name for them is probably Fighter. But then you have to call the fighter something else (like Warrior), but of course, now you've made things confusing.

It also brings up a question, though probably too late in the design process, on whether unarmed combat should really be the purview of the monk/adept....or whether it should just be a fighter motiff.

Aka just give the fighter a solid unarmed attack, and let him be the pugilist with this manuevers and skill and xyz. In that case, you actually go harder on the wuxia aspects of the monk. The adept truly becomes a supernatural warrior, probably with wisdom as the primary stat at that point.

Now levelup inherited the 5e aspect of the class, and I think has done a good job letting people try to dial in their level of wuxia vs pugilist. But I think a good case could have been made at the beginning of the project to just give all the puglist stuff to the fighter, and then ask what a 100% wuxia/supernatural fighter type class could look like for the new monk.