Zaydos
2015-03-07, 02:16 PM
The Way of the Darting Viper
Poisonous and quick the viper is one of nature's deadliest animals. Its powerful fangs sink into creatures and inject them with deadly poison. The martial discipline of the Darting Viper is similar in nature to the snakes they imitate, focusing on sudden strikes and crippling wounds. Where a master of Stone Dragon will lay a foe down with a single mighty blow, or at least try to, a follower of the Darting Serpent will inflict a strike to a vital point of the target disrupting their life flow so as to open them up to more and more powerful strikes in the future. Pioneered by hobgoblins, the Darting Viper is far from their most famous martial discipline, but its focus on anatomical knowledge and exploiting even the smallest opening is showing as to the nature of those who invented it.
Associated Skill: Heal. The Darting Viper relies heavily on striking vital points of its targets, disabling the body piece by piece and it uses an understanding of the way bodies work to enable these precise strikes.
Discipline Weapons: Unarmed Strike, Rapier, Shortsword, Nunchaku, Kusari-Gama, Spiked chain, Staff of Three Parts, Dagger, Kukri. Darting Viper weapons rely on speed and finesse over brute power, striking the precise point desired and nowhere else.
Gaining Access to Darting Viper: A character may trade access to Desert Wind, Setting Sun, Tiger Claw, or White Raven to gain access to Darting Viper. A class with native access to Protean Hunter or Feral Hunger may also trade access to those disciplines to gain access to Darting Viper.
Darting Viper Maneuvers:
Hamstringing Blow: 1st, Strike. Attack reduces target's speed for 1 minute.
Hemorrhaging Blow: 1st, Strike. Target bleeds, taking 1 damage/round for 1 minute.
Lunging Strike: 1st, Counter. Make attack of opportunity from 5-ft further.
Metabolic Control:1st, Stance. Gain bonus to Fort saves, increased versus poison, based on Heal ranks.
Deafening Blow: 2nd, Strike. +2d6 damage, deafens a creature momentarily and give it a penalty to Listen checks.
Exploit Opening: 2nd, Counter. Bonus damage and free Feint to Attack of Opportunity.
Nerve Stab: 2nd, Strike. +2d6 damage and target is wracked with pain.
Coiled Viper: 3rd, Stance. Use martial maneuvers as AoOs.
Muscle Tearing Strike: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 and 2 Strength damage.
Sickening Blow: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 damage, sicken foe.
Stopping Blow: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 damage and immobolize for 1 round on failed save.
Crippling Fang: 4th, Strike. Cripple target's ability to move freely (entangle) for 1 minute.
Qi Interrupting Technique: 4th, Strike. Attack inflict negative level.
Striking Viper: 4th, Boost. Gain +5-ft reach till next turn.
Vessel Bursting Blow: 4th, Strike. Attack deals 1d6 damage/round for 1 minute to target.
Serpent Dodge: 5th, Counter. Gain +4 AC, counterattack if they miss you.
Stomach Churning Strike: 5th, Strike. +4d6 damage and nauseate for 1 round.
Waiting Serpent: 5th, Stance. As long as you do not move, make attacks of opportunity against creatures entering your threat range and it is harder for foes to avoid AoOs for movement.
Disrupt the Heart: 6th, Strike. Attack deals 4 points of Con damage.
Muscle Rending Blows: 6th, Boost. Your melee attacks inflict strength damage for 1 round.
Sudden Strike: 6th, Counter. Make a melee attack or use a standard action strike.
Fatal Opening: 7th, Counter. Render target flat-footed against attack of opportunity and deal +8d6 damage.
Qi Burning Technique: 7th, Strike. Deal +4d6 damage and inflict 1d3 negative levels.
Body Freezing Strike: 8th, Strike. Deal +8d6 damage and target is stunned for 1 round.
Vicious Viper Stance: 8th, Stance. Attacks against you provoke AoOs.
Qi Destroying Blow: 9th, Stance. +6d6 damage and 2d4 negative levels.
Darting Viper Feats
Viper's Fang:
You capitalize on any moment of weakness, striking hard and unexpectedly against foes who leave themselves open in the slightest.
Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes, Darting Viper maneuver.
Benefit: While wielding a Darting Viper weapon or in a Darting Viper stance you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls for attacks of opportunity and add your Dexterity modifier (if positive) as a bonus to damage with attacks of opportunity.
Viper's Precision
Your knowledge of anatomy extends beyond the minimum necessary to perform the attacks in the way of the Darting Viper allowing you to capitalize on it to make them even more crippling.
Prerequisite: Heal 8 ranks, 1 Darting Viper maneuver.
Benefit: Darting Viper maneuvers you use have their save DCs increased by 2. In addition for every 3 ranks in Heal beyond 8 you possess they gain an additional +1 to their save DC up to +1 per level below the highest level maneuver you have available it is (for example if you had 23 ranks in Heal and access to 9th level maneuvers your 4th level or lower Darting Viper maneuvers would gain +7 to their save DCs, while those above 4th level would gain 1 less per level above to a minimum of +2 for level 9 maneuvers; if instead you had 11 ranks all maneuvers level 8 or lower would gain +3 and level 9 merely +2).
Viper's Venom [Tactical]
The Darting Viper is a style of patiently biding one's time followed by a flurry of activity in which you strike fast and hard against opponents. As a skilled practitioner you have learned how to conserve and concentrate your power to trap your prey with a flurry of devastating strikes.
Prerequisites: Viper's Fang, BAB +6, 2 Darting Viper maneuvers.
Benefit: The Viper's Venom feat enables the use of three tactical options.
Watching Serpent Seizes Prey To use this option you must spend a move action to do nothing. On your next turn you must charge an opponent. For 1 round any attack or movement from that target, including 5-ft steps and the withdraw action, provokes attacks of opportunity from you.
Conserve Venom To use this option you must refrain from taking one or more attacks of opportunity against a single opponent. On your next turn your first attack against that opponent gains a +2 bonus to hit and deals 2 points of Strength damage in addition to its normal damage for each attack of opportunity you forewent against them.
Strike the Enfeebled Prey To use this option you must deal ability damage to a target with a melee attack or strike, or through poison delivered with one. On your next turn you gain a +4 bonus to hit and a +4 bonus on opposed Strength and Dexterity rolls against that opponent.
Poisonous and quick the viper is one of nature's deadliest animals. Its powerful fangs sink into creatures and inject them with deadly poison. The martial discipline of the Darting Viper is similar in nature to the snakes they imitate, focusing on sudden strikes and crippling wounds. Where a master of Stone Dragon will lay a foe down with a single mighty blow, or at least try to, a follower of the Darting Serpent will inflict a strike to a vital point of the target disrupting their life flow so as to open them up to more and more powerful strikes in the future. Pioneered by hobgoblins, the Darting Viper is far from their most famous martial discipline, but its focus on anatomical knowledge and exploiting even the smallest opening is showing as to the nature of those who invented it.
Associated Skill: Heal. The Darting Viper relies heavily on striking vital points of its targets, disabling the body piece by piece and it uses an understanding of the way bodies work to enable these precise strikes.
Discipline Weapons: Unarmed Strike, Rapier, Shortsword, Nunchaku, Kusari-Gama, Spiked chain, Staff of Three Parts, Dagger, Kukri. Darting Viper weapons rely on speed and finesse over brute power, striking the precise point desired and nowhere else.
Gaining Access to Darting Viper: A character may trade access to Desert Wind, Setting Sun, Tiger Claw, or White Raven to gain access to Darting Viper. A class with native access to Protean Hunter or Feral Hunger may also trade access to those disciplines to gain access to Darting Viper.
Darting Viper Maneuvers:
Hamstringing Blow: 1st, Strike. Attack reduces target's speed for 1 minute.
Hemorrhaging Blow: 1st, Strike. Target bleeds, taking 1 damage/round for 1 minute.
Lunging Strike: 1st, Counter. Make attack of opportunity from 5-ft further.
Metabolic Control:1st, Stance. Gain bonus to Fort saves, increased versus poison, based on Heal ranks.
Deafening Blow: 2nd, Strike. +2d6 damage, deafens a creature momentarily and give it a penalty to Listen checks.
Exploit Opening: 2nd, Counter. Bonus damage and free Feint to Attack of Opportunity.
Nerve Stab: 2nd, Strike. +2d6 damage and target is wracked with pain.
Coiled Viper: 3rd, Stance. Use martial maneuvers as AoOs.
Muscle Tearing Strike: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 and 2 Strength damage.
Sickening Blow: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 damage, sicken foe.
Stopping Blow: 3rd, Strike. +2d6 damage and immobolize for 1 round on failed save.
Crippling Fang: 4th, Strike. Cripple target's ability to move freely (entangle) for 1 minute.
Qi Interrupting Technique: 4th, Strike. Attack inflict negative level.
Striking Viper: 4th, Boost. Gain +5-ft reach till next turn.
Vessel Bursting Blow: 4th, Strike. Attack deals 1d6 damage/round for 1 minute to target.
Serpent Dodge: 5th, Counter. Gain +4 AC, counterattack if they miss you.
Stomach Churning Strike: 5th, Strike. +4d6 damage and nauseate for 1 round.
Waiting Serpent: 5th, Stance. As long as you do not move, make attacks of opportunity against creatures entering your threat range and it is harder for foes to avoid AoOs for movement.
Disrupt the Heart: 6th, Strike. Attack deals 4 points of Con damage.
Muscle Rending Blows: 6th, Boost. Your melee attacks inflict strength damage for 1 round.
Sudden Strike: 6th, Counter. Make a melee attack or use a standard action strike.
Fatal Opening: 7th, Counter. Render target flat-footed against attack of opportunity and deal +8d6 damage.
Qi Burning Technique: 7th, Strike. Deal +4d6 damage and inflict 1d3 negative levels.
Body Freezing Strike: 8th, Strike. Deal +8d6 damage and target is stunned for 1 round.
Vicious Viper Stance: 8th, Stance. Attacks against you provoke AoOs.
Qi Destroying Blow: 9th, Stance. +6d6 damage and 2d4 negative levels.
Darting Viper Feats
Viper's Fang:
You capitalize on any moment of weakness, striking hard and unexpectedly against foes who leave themselves open in the slightest.
Prerequisite: Combat Reflexes, Darting Viper maneuver.
Benefit: While wielding a Darting Viper weapon or in a Darting Viper stance you gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls for attacks of opportunity and add your Dexterity modifier (if positive) as a bonus to damage with attacks of opportunity.
Viper's Precision
Your knowledge of anatomy extends beyond the minimum necessary to perform the attacks in the way of the Darting Viper allowing you to capitalize on it to make them even more crippling.
Prerequisite: Heal 8 ranks, 1 Darting Viper maneuver.
Benefit: Darting Viper maneuvers you use have their save DCs increased by 2. In addition for every 3 ranks in Heal beyond 8 you possess they gain an additional +1 to their save DC up to +1 per level below the highest level maneuver you have available it is (for example if you had 23 ranks in Heal and access to 9th level maneuvers your 4th level or lower Darting Viper maneuvers would gain +7 to their save DCs, while those above 4th level would gain 1 less per level above to a minimum of +2 for level 9 maneuvers; if instead you had 11 ranks all maneuvers level 8 or lower would gain +3 and level 9 merely +2).
Viper's Venom [Tactical]
The Darting Viper is a style of patiently biding one's time followed by a flurry of activity in which you strike fast and hard against opponents. As a skilled practitioner you have learned how to conserve and concentrate your power to trap your prey with a flurry of devastating strikes.
Prerequisites: Viper's Fang, BAB +6, 2 Darting Viper maneuvers.
Benefit: The Viper's Venom feat enables the use of three tactical options.
Watching Serpent Seizes Prey To use this option you must spend a move action to do nothing. On your next turn you must charge an opponent. For 1 round any attack or movement from that target, including 5-ft steps and the withdraw action, provokes attacks of opportunity from you.
Conserve Venom To use this option you must refrain from taking one or more attacks of opportunity against a single opponent. On your next turn your first attack against that opponent gains a +2 bonus to hit and deals 2 points of Strength damage in addition to its normal damage for each attack of opportunity you forewent against them.
Strike the Enfeebled Prey To use this option you must deal ability damage to a target with a melee attack or strike, or through poison delivered with one. On your next turn you gain a +4 bonus to hit and a +4 bonus on opposed Strength and Dexterity rolls against that opponent.