PsyBomb
2014-10-05, 08:54 PM
SAGE OF THE OPEN HAND
For some monks, the path of meditation and focus leads to feats of unimaginable martial skill. Their katas become stances, their techniques become Maneuvers. They meditate and strike, showing their perfection and focus in every move they make on the battlefield.
Skills: Add Bluff, Heal, and Knowledge (Martial) to the list of class skills. Lose Perform, Knowledge (Religion), and Ride
-Accounting for schools known.
Maneuvers: The Sage of the Open Hand uses an Initiator chart like the Warder, subtracting one from the Maneuvers Known and Maneuvers Readied columns, and has full Initiator Level. Their schools are Broken Blade, Iron Tortoise, Steel Serpent, Thrashing Dragon, and Veiled Moon. Their initiation modifier is Wisdom. This replaces the Still Mind, Slow Fall, Maneuver Training, Quivering Palm, Abundant Step, Tongue of the Sun and Moon, and Empty Body abilities.
-Just took Veiled Moon, plus the ones that allowed Close and Monk weapon groups. Seemed appropriate, and though it's a wide variety they have relatively few known. This forces them to focus. Dropped most of their offensive abilities, plus some defenses.
Moment of No Thought: The Sage of the Open Hand can take a round to order his mind, while allowing his body to act on pure reflex and instinct. This has several effects. He loses the ability to utilize Boosts and Strikes for that round. Second, he makes an additional attack at his highest attack bonus whenever he makes an Attack or Full-attack action. At 8th and 15th level, this increases by one. Finally, at the end of the Moment, he recovers a number of maneuvers equal to his Wisdom Mod (minimum 2). The Sage of the Open Palm also gains the ability to recover one maneuver as a Standard action. This ability replaces Flurry of Blows.
-Flurry replacement tied to Recovery mechanics, since on a normal round an Initiator is going to have better things to do than a standing full-attack in most cases.
AC Bonus: Through training or specialized bracers, the Sage of the Open Hand's forearms have become greatly toughened and unable to feel pain. He adds his Wisdom bonus to his AC as a Shield bonus. This gains a +1 Enhancement bonus at 4th level, increasing by 1 every four levels (to a maximum of +5 at level 20). This counts in all ways as being proficient with and using a light shield (including the ability to make a Shield Bash attack), but does not interfere with their other class features and cannot be thrown or disarmed. This modifies the Monk's AC Bonus.
-Meant to enable Iron Tortoise, while keeping that critical AC boost in place. Making the bonus increases into Enhancement to his Shield enables a couple of feats, as well as boosting shield bashes.
Stunning Fist: Does not gain its alternate debuffs. Still has one use per level per day
-Losing the alternate uses is the last of the major trade-offs, if they want to inflict status effects they can get them through maneuvers known instead.
Bonus Feat: At 2nd level and every fourth level thereafter, the Sage of the Open Hand gains a bonus Combat or Style feat that they meet the prerequisites for. This modifies the Bonus Feat class ability.
-Simultaneously allows the new feats to be used, plus the plethora of Style feats out there, and ends the cherry-picking nature of their old version that encouraged not taking prerequisites. This just makes more sense to me.
(for reference, the remaining unmodified base abilities are Unarmed Strike, Fast Movement, Evasion/Improved, Ki Pool, High Jump, Purity of Body, Wholeness of Body, Diamond Body, Diamond Soul, Timeless Body, and Perfect Self)
CHANGELOG:
5 OCT 2014: Posted
6 OCT 2014: Reverted BAB change, gave Greater Unarmed the ability to count class level as BAB (like Flurry before it), removed first-turn recovery from the Kata and gave it the second-Immediate ability, and gave back the Standard-action recovery.
26 OCT 2014: Reverted Unarmed Strike. Replaced Kata with Moment of No Thought. Noted no throwing or disarming on AC Bonus.
For some monks, the path of meditation and focus leads to feats of unimaginable martial skill. Their katas become stances, their techniques become Maneuvers. They meditate and strike, showing their perfection and focus in every move they make on the battlefield.
Skills: Add Bluff, Heal, and Knowledge (Martial) to the list of class skills. Lose Perform, Knowledge (Religion), and Ride
-Accounting for schools known.
Maneuvers: The Sage of the Open Hand uses an Initiator chart like the Warder, subtracting one from the Maneuvers Known and Maneuvers Readied columns, and has full Initiator Level. Their schools are Broken Blade, Iron Tortoise, Steel Serpent, Thrashing Dragon, and Veiled Moon. Their initiation modifier is Wisdom. This replaces the Still Mind, Slow Fall, Maneuver Training, Quivering Palm, Abundant Step, Tongue of the Sun and Moon, and Empty Body abilities.
-Just took Veiled Moon, plus the ones that allowed Close and Monk weapon groups. Seemed appropriate, and though it's a wide variety they have relatively few known. This forces them to focus. Dropped most of their offensive abilities, plus some defenses.
Moment of No Thought: The Sage of the Open Hand can take a round to order his mind, while allowing his body to act on pure reflex and instinct. This has several effects. He loses the ability to utilize Boosts and Strikes for that round. Second, he makes an additional attack at his highest attack bonus whenever he makes an Attack or Full-attack action. At 8th and 15th level, this increases by one. Finally, at the end of the Moment, he recovers a number of maneuvers equal to his Wisdom Mod (minimum 2). The Sage of the Open Palm also gains the ability to recover one maneuver as a Standard action. This ability replaces Flurry of Blows.
-Flurry replacement tied to Recovery mechanics, since on a normal round an Initiator is going to have better things to do than a standing full-attack in most cases.
AC Bonus: Through training or specialized bracers, the Sage of the Open Hand's forearms have become greatly toughened and unable to feel pain. He adds his Wisdom bonus to his AC as a Shield bonus. This gains a +1 Enhancement bonus at 4th level, increasing by 1 every four levels (to a maximum of +5 at level 20). This counts in all ways as being proficient with and using a light shield (including the ability to make a Shield Bash attack), but does not interfere with their other class features and cannot be thrown or disarmed. This modifies the Monk's AC Bonus.
-Meant to enable Iron Tortoise, while keeping that critical AC boost in place. Making the bonus increases into Enhancement to his Shield enables a couple of feats, as well as boosting shield bashes.
Stunning Fist: Does not gain its alternate debuffs. Still has one use per level per day
-Losing the alternate uses is the last of the major trade-offs, if they want to inflict status effects they can get them through maneuvers known instead.
Bonus Feat: At 2nd level and every fourth level thereafter, the Sage of the Open Hand gains a bonus Combat or Style feat that they meet the prerequisites for. This modifies the Bonus Feat class ability.
-Simultaneously allows the new feats to be used, plus the plethora of Style feats out there, and ends the cherry-picking nature of their old version that encouraged not taking prerequisites. This just makes more sense to me.
(for reference, the remaining unmodified base abilities are Unarmed Strike, Fast Movement, Evasion/Improved, Ki Pool, High Jump, Purity of Body, Wholeness of Body, Diamond Body, Diamond Soul, Timeless Body, and Perfect Self)
CHANGELOG:
5 OCT 2014: Posted
6 OCT 2014: Reverted BAB change, gave Greater Unarmed the ability to count class level as BAB (like Flurry before it), removed first-turn recovery from the Kata and gave it the second-Immediate ability, and gave back the Standard-action recovery.
26 OCT 2014: Reverted Unarmed Strike. Replaced Kata with Moment of No Thought. Noted no throwing or disarming on AC Bonus.