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View Full Version : Best Homebrew/House Rules? + A Class of my own



Gwazi Magnum
2013-03-06, 09:55 AM
I'm just wondering what do you guys find are some of the best homebrew creations and house rules you know of? Both from a fun stance and things that just enhance the game may it be from more fun mechanics or just making things more simple/flow more easily?

Also I made a Monk class of my own called Martial Monk that trades unarmed damage and speed to specialize in weapons and avoid a few more attacks.

Meant to both create a different kind of Monk and make it less under powered.
What do you guys think?

Martial Monk (Variant/Not Replacement)

BAB: High
Saving Throws: All High

Hit Die: d10
Class Skills (4 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level)
Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently(Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex).

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the monk.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with all simple and martial weapons in addition to, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, katana & one other exotic weapon of the players choice.

Martial Monks are also proficient in light armor
Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields.

When wearing medium or heavy armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses her AC bonus, as well as her flurry of blows abilities.

Weightless Armor (Ex): A Martial Monk is considered unarmoured when wearing light armor in terms of Martial Monk abilities. Additionally any light armor being worn by a Martial Monk is considered to be weightless.

AC Bonus (Ex): When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC. In addition, a monk gains a +1 bonus to AC at 1st level & +2 at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every four monk levels thereafter (+3 at 8th, +4 at 12th, +5 at 16th and +6 at 20th level).
These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears any armor, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a medium or heavy load.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a –2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. The resulting modified base attack bonuses are shown in the Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus column on Table: The Monk. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the monk might make before her next action. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to –1, and at 9th level it disappears. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.

When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack with any weapon they are proficient in. She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength bonus (not Str bonus × 1-1/2 or ×1/2) to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows.

In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the flurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that she has enough attacks in her flurry of blows routine to do so.
When a monk reaches 11th level, her flurry of blows ability improves. In addition to the standard single extra attack she gets from flurry of blows, she gets a second extra attack at her full base attack bonus.

Bonus Feat: At 1st level, a monk may select either Combat Reflexes or Deflect Arrows as a bonus feat. A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them. At levels 5, 10 & 15 a Monk can pick Iron Will, Lightning Reflex or Great Fortitude as a bonus feat, each can only be taken once and the order in which they are taken is decided by the player.

Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level or higher if a monk makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Fast Movement (Ex): At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to her speed, as shown on Table: The Monk. A monk in armor or carrying a medium or heavy load loses this extra speed.

Still Mind (Ex): A monk of 3rd level or higher gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and effects from the school of enchantment.
Purity of Body (Ex): At 5th level, a monk gains immunity to all diseases except for supernatural and magical diseases.

Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal her own wounds. She can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to twice her current monk level each day, and she can spread this healing out among several uses.

Swift Attack (Ex): Beginning 8th level, a Martial Monk may make a full attack as a standard action.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 9th level, a monk’s evasion ability improves. She still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

Diamond Body (Su): At 11th level, a monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds.

Abundant Step (Su): At 12th level or higher, a monk can slip magically between spaces, as if using the spell dimension door, once per day. Her caster level for this effect is one-half her monk level (rounded down).

Diamond Soul (Ex): At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to her current monk level + 10. In order to affect the monk with a spell, a spellcaster must get a result on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) that equals or exceeds the monk’s spell resistance.

Timeless Body (Ex): Upon attaining 17th level, a monk no longer takes penalties to her ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that she has already taken, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when her time is up.
Tongue of the Sun and Moon (Ex): A monk of 17th level or higher can speak with any living creature.
Quick Attack (Ex): At 18th level, a Martial Monk gains an additional attack her highest attack bonus.

Empty Body (Su): At 19th level, a monk gains the ability to assume an ethereal state for 1 round per monk level per day, as though using the spell etherealness. She may go ethereal on a number of different occasions during any single day, as long as the total number of rounds spent in an ethereal state does not exceed her monk level.

Perfect Self: At 20th level, a monk becomes a magical creature. She is forevermore treated as an outsider rather than as a humanoid (or whatever the monk’s creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magical effects. Additionally, the monk gains damage reduction 10/magic, which allows her to ignore the first 10 points of damage from any attack made by a nonmagical weapon or by any natural attack made by a creature that doesn’t have similar damage reduction. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if she were a member of her previous creature type.

inuyasha
2013-03-06, 10:07 AM
uuh I dont know what world you live in but in greyhawk, monks are not underpowered :smallconfused: average BaB perfect saves, add wisdom to AC in addition to dex, have a really cool punch, flurry of blows, shall i keep going?

Djinn_in_Tonic
2013-03-06, 11:58 AM
uuh I dont know what world you live in but in greyhawk, monks are not underpowered :smallconfused: average BaB perfect saves, add wisdom to AC in addition to dex, have a really cool punch, flurry of blows, shall i keep going?

Monks are indeed underpowered. Their options come online late, work counter to themselves (movement speed encourages movement, but flurry encourages standing still and full attacking), their abilities have extremely limited utility much of the time...the list goes on. But that's a discussion for another thread. Still, most experienced designers on both this forums and other forums will agree that the monk is fairly lacking.

Keeper of Starlight
2013-03-06, 12:08 PM
This fixes one of the things monks lack, which is the ability to hit anything with their flurry of blows. With a full BAB that becomes much easier for them. However, what puts monks in tier 5 is not just their inability to hit anything, but instead what puts them in tier 5 is their inability to do anything other than not hitting anything. Monks become no more versatile with this fix as far as I can see. They can deal more damage now, but that remains just about all they can do, as far as I can see.

atomicpenguin
2013-03-06, 12:25 PM
Rpgs are more about roleplaying for me, so if I am playing a system that doesn't have mechanics that encourage roleplaying, I say that people who roleplay well recieve a point that lets them reroll a roll.

Guunshtaff
2013-03-06, 03:37 PM
All of my friends hate to have random ability scores for a character, so we threw out the dice rolling entirely and just pick an allotted total amount of points to give to a character within the range of what is possible to roll with dice. We play Pathfinder and 3.5, so we usually take enough points to get one, maybe 2 ability scores to 18 +/- racial modifiers with little to no ability score modifier penalties. An easy way to decide on the number is to pick what you want your average ability score to be and just multiply by 6.

Yitzi
2013-03-06, 03:41 PM
This fixes one of the things monks lack, which is the ability to hit anything with their flurry of blows. With a full BAB that becomes much easier for them. However, what puts monks in tier 5 is not just their inability to hit anything, but instead what puts them in tier 5 is their inability to do anything other than not hitting anything.

I believe a class that can only do one thing will still make tier 4 if it's really good at that one thing.