Mind of tempest
(he/him)advocate for 5e psionics
would focus work?
also although I doubt it would work, I will watch this with great interest.
also although I doubt it would work, I will watch this with great interest.
Chi means breath. It isn’t actually the same thing as prana.Yeah, that works as a catchall term for prana, chi, and ki - all of which are basically the same thing, just in different languages.
My only quibble, though, is that "essence" implies that which is central - the core, if you will. Prana, chi and ki aren't the essential self - they are the subtler, energetic bodies that are part of the total being.
In the Vedic traditions, the "prana-maya-kosha" is the second of five layers or sheaths to the being. It is the second most dense, after the "anna-maya-kosha" (or physical self). But there are three subtler sheaths, so prana isn't really the "essence" of a person.
Actually prana means breath, too, or "breath of life." They are basically synonymous, just different systems and languages, and understood differently by their respective traditions.Chi means breath. It isn’t actually the same thing as prana.
There is a great discussion of chi from the perspective of a Eastern martial artist in the podcast Three Black Halflings with James Mendez Hodes.
I definitely wouldn’t use “essence” for it.
“Understood differently by their respective traditions” = different concepts.Actually prana means breath, too, or "breath of life." They are basically synonymous, just different systems and languages, and understood differently by their respective traditions.
To me, that is more work to build and to use than making a new class, but something like that would be a really cool idea to explore fully as a Paladin.Have you considered an unarmed subclass of Paladin?
Lose heavy armor and gain the ability to add Charisma to AC (while not wearing armor or using a shield).
Lose the usual weapon proficiencies of a paladin, instead being limited to unarmed, club, and quarterstaff.
Gain a small pool of ki points, and allow spell slots and ki points to be exchanged with each other (like the sorcerer).
Allow channel divinity, lay on hands, protective auras, and Shield of Faith* to be powered with ki.
*Allowed anyway via exchanging ki and spell slots, but I'd specifically spell it out.
Ki could be renamed to Indulgences if deemed necessary.
This is a rough idea which I just now considered. In my mind, it's loosely based on Friar Tuck being a "monk" but being one which is tied to more occidental views of spirituality.
I understand where you’re coming from, but isn’t (part of) the goal here to come up with a unified power source that can work for esoteric martial arts characters of any cultural tradition?“Understood differently by their respective traditions” = different concepts.
We aren’t Ancient Rome, there’s no need to tell other people that their thing is actually just a different facet of this other thing from outside their culture.
They’re similar, not the same. And that similarity is most likely largely a result of breath being the starting point of nearly all esoteric traditions that focus on physical movement and forms, because breath is physically central to all exertion of the human body.
It actually might.I understand where you’re coming from, but isn’t (part of) the goal here to come up with a unified power source that can work for esoteric martial arts characters of any cultural tradition?
I don’t suppose calling them “breath points” would work?
I don’t know why I didn’t dig into this idea more fully when you first posted it. This is great stuff.Maybe steal some disciplines from the Mystic to have them as ''ki'' fueled maneuvers, such as Celerity, Brute Force, Aura Sight, Adaptive Body, Iron Durability, Mantle of Fear, Mantle of Command, Mantle of Fury, Nomadic Arrow, Third Eye, etc (The 4E monk could have the different elemental mastery disciplines). Each ''Adept'' would know 2-3 disciplines and some archetypes might give access to 1 or 2 special ones.
Each disciplines comes with a focus which is a passive ability that must be focused on to use the related discipline. I'd change the name to Stance.
For the name of the class, I would suggest something like Exemplar or Challenger.