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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ZombieRoboNinja" data-source="post: 6004577" data-attributes="member: 54843">I may be the only one interesting in these theoretical class designs (based solely on what I think would be cool with little or no playtesting), and I'll be glad to let this thread fade into oblivion if that's the case. But I was watching some Hong Kong kung-fu movies after reading this forum the other day, and it got me thinking about what makes monks cool to players. If I'm playing a monk, what do I want to see?The first thing that comes to mind is mobility and balance. Whether you're watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Legend of Drunken Master, there's a ton of jumping around and balancing on improbable objects. The next is rapid attacks. Everyone in a kung-fu movie attacks somewhere north of 5 times a second.Now obviously none of this is new to D&D. 3e monks had Evasion, rapid movement, unlimited jumping, and the infamous Flurry of Blows.So the first design hurdle is: how do we model a flurry of blows in a system designed to be streamlined with fewer attack rolls? My solution to this is a combo system. Basically, you roll to attack, and if you hit you roll your damage (1d6+Dex or Str if you're unarmed, by default). If the result of the damage die is 3 or higher, you get to add another Flurry Die of damage (an additional d6). If the result of THAT die is 3 or more, rinse and repeat, up to a limit determined by your level. Then, to make it sexy (and allow the class to keep pace with fighter/rogue damage), you get finishing moves that you can trigger automatically when you get enough flurry hits in. The basic finisher might just be extra damage or a free 10-foot shift, with more earned or chosen as you level up.This leads to the final essential portion of the class: fighting styles. These are necessary to model the many different types of monks people might want to play: "realistic" hand-to-hand fighters, wuxia wire-fighters, or even mystic warriors shooting blasts of ki energy. They're also a central part of the kung fu mythos: "Your Northern Fist is no match for my Flying Serpent Style!" And finally, they're a good basis for class expansions that don't require screwing up the base class too much.I also changed the 3e Wisdom bonus to AC to a static bonus, to cut down on MAD.One more note: this writeup stops at level 10 because it seems clear that WOTC isn't designing classes beyond that right now.So here's the writeup so far:Obviously you'd need a bunch more techniques, and different fighting styles with different bonuses. But what do people think of the core mechanics here? The mixture of finisher and non-finisher techniques could (IMO) allow for a lot of flexibility in building your character, so that even within a given style different characters would play very differently.</blockquote>

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