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Message: <blockquote data-quote="harpy" data-source="post: 5042826" data-attributes="member: 85243">Yeah, I guess it just comes down to overarching design goals.  I'm rather charmed with Star Wars Saga and how they really try and build unique effects out of the five base classes.  The system does have feats, but the game is primarily about multiclassing in the core base classes to build up ideas.  It ends up with a tradeoff system that, at least for me, feels right and avoids crazy power combos that make the system get out of hand.Here are some further ruminations I've had with some of the other forums I've been posting this material on:Starting at Level 1?One of the things that I keep going back and forth on is whether the iterative movement should be something that is simply baked into Flurry of Blows, rather than it being it's own class ability.If you bake it into FoB and let it just happen at level 1 then you do get the immediate effect of "the monk does things differently" which I really like.  Still, there is always this caution of trying to avoid doing too much front loading and causing dipping nightmares.I'd think that by restricting the iterative movement to only being used when a character is unarmored helps solve a great deal of that, but I guess I'm being conservative right now and trying to avoid cascading effects.  By putting it at 6th level it settles any unforseen overpowered dipping combos, and gives a carrot to sticking with the monk class.Still, there might not be any problem.  It does come down to whether Druids or Wizards can abuse it... but of course, to have a druid or wizard be tempted to multiclass is actually a good way of toning down their power curve.Ki PoolThe ki-pool point is a good one to bring up and how it would interact with the iterative movement.  Rather than having exceptions dumped on top of exceptions a clean rule would simply be that if you get an extra attack from using a ki point then you also get that extra 5-foot step.How far can the Monk move?The potential movement that Iterative Movement could allow would be:1st +5'/one extra 5-foot step2nd +5'/one extra 5-foot step3rd +5'/one extra 5-foot step4th +10'/two extra 5-foot steps5th +10'/two extra 5-foot steps6th +15'/three extra 5-foot steps7th +15'/three extra 5-foot steps8th +20'/four extra 5-foot steps9th +20/four extra 5-foot steps10th +20'/four extra 5-foot steps11th +25'/five extra 5-foot steps12th +25'/five extra 5-foot steps13th +25'/five extra 5-foot steps14th +25'/five extra 5-foot steps15th +30'/Six extra 5-foot steps16th +35'/Seven extra 5-foot steps17th +35'/Seven extra 5-foot steps18th +35'/Seven extra 5-foot steps19th +35'/Seven extra 5-foot steps20th +35'/Seven extra 5-foot stepsI added in the numbers above of levels 1-5 just for completeness, but the numbers above reflect at level 4 and beyond the use of a ki point to gain an additional attack, and thus add another 5' step of iterative movement.One of the things that is interesting is that depending on your level, you're basically also getting your fast movement bonus or less.  So in any given round you'll potentially be moving more than any other class, which is the feel I'm trying to go for.So the chart above answers Master Of Desaster first and second questions.As for the third, should the speed bonus for the monk be modified?  That's a bit more work.  All of the extra movement in the above chart assumes that you've got this long chain of opponents to be able to shift along, which is highly unlikely most of the time, so while you can potentially move pretty far those situations are going to be rare.  The iterative movement is less about zipping across the map, and more about being able to full attack while also shifting around to gain a flank, or to plow into a cluster of opponents and smack several of them in a single round, even if they are spread out just a bit.One of the images that I do like with this rule is that the monk can shift behind larger creatures fairly easily, representing him running under legs or dogging big limbs.TumblingIt does detract from using acrobatics to tumble through some situations.  You could make the iterative movement require tumble rolls, but that becomes a nightmare of lots and lots of rolls, plus analysis paralysis as the monk player not only tries to map out how many guys he can hit in a round, but also his odds of avoiding AoO between each iteration.  That sounds awful in terms of gameplay.Interaction with normal 5-foot stepThis is probably the murkiest part of the ruling.  Can you take your normal 5-foot step and also one of the iterative 5-foot steps in sequence?  Thus getting a 10-foot step?  Making Scouts salivate? The major problem I'm having here is one of elegance versus cascading effects.  You can write a whole paragraph trying to sort out when and how the standard 5-foot step interacts with the iterative movement 5-foot steps, but that ends up being clunky and tends to make even more questions.  So making it simple and allowing people to stack two 5-foot steps together is far easier to remember.  The flip side is that whether or not this makes the game blow up in your face.  The scout would greatly benefit from multiclassing with the monk.  You could flurry around doling out extra damage per hit once you've triggered the movement threshold, or blaze away with shurikens, making them worthwhile above the first few levels.  All in all I don't think it screws up the game, but I can see some DM's freaking out with all that stacking of abilities.  I suppose this would be one argument to have the iterative movement start at 6th level to tone down the dipping element to the game.Beyond that I'm not sure what other issues crop up if you can potentially be 10-foot stepping every round you're doing flurry of blows.  Maybe it isn't a real problem.</blockquote>

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