Monk Tradition Training Question

[SMac8988]

I'm my newly started game I have a player who is playing a monk if the open hand. In his back story he set that each tradition is actually more like shanghai monks, just scattered around world with each training in their set style.

My idea is that once they start traveling more he would be able to visit the other temples and learn some of their abilities and tricks.

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for some of the things he could pick up from the other school without making him to over powered. Looking like maybe one or two per other school, but idk how strong to make them.

[Easy_Lee]

I'm my newly started game I have a player who is playing a monk if the open hand. In his back story he set that each tradition is actually more like shanghai monks, just scattered around world with each training in their set style.

My idea is that once they start traveling more he would be able to visit the other temples and learn some of their abilities and tricks.

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for some of the things he could pick up from the other school without making him to over powered. Looking like maybe one or two per other school, but idk how strong to make them.

In theory, archetype benefits at each level should be equally useful, if not as synergistic with the other archetypes. Just swap abilities from this archetype with abilities from that other. When you hit level 6, instead of learning the open hand ability, learn the shadow monk ability, for example.

[RickAllison]

I'm my newly started game I have a player who is playing a monk if the open hand. In his back story he set that each tradition is actually more like shanghai monks, just scattered around world with each training in their set style.

My idea is that once they start traveling more he would be able to visit the other temples and learn some of their abilities and tricks.

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for some of the things he could pick up from the other school without making him to over powered. Looking like maybe one or two per other school, but idk how strong to make them.

Flavor and balance them as magic items/blessings. Borrow something from the caster staves for Shadow (he has X charges, which can be spent to activate the teleport or the spells) and 4elements (activate some of the effects, etc.), and make them take attunement slots. Long Death could give you a 1/day ability to not drop to 0HP, with maybe a single-target version of be fear ability. Sun Soul can get a Super Monk mode, a 1/day transformation where the users hair glows like the sun and he can use Radiant Sun Bolts and the Masenko-Ha thing for one minute.

Really, magic items are one of the best ways to indulge people who want to borrow abilities from other classes. You get to have a system for trying to ensure equality while also keeping the option to revoke them late on the table.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Flavor and balance them as magic items/blessings.

Don't you mean "flavour his magic items/blessings as things he's learned from other monasteries"? But yeah, I agree with the principle. Also, if he picks up a feat, you could explain it as something he learned from another monk.

[RickAllison]

Don't you mean "flavour his magic items/blessings as things he's learned from other monasteries"? But yeah, I agree with the principle. Also, if he picks up a feat, you could explain it as something he learned from another monk.

Yeah... I'm off my A-game today!

[JellyPooga]

My idea is that once they start traveling more he would be able to visit the other temples and learn some of their abilities and tricks.

Fluff it as just your basic leveling up. At level 4 he gains enough XP to get to level 5. In the course of the last adventure he visited a school or found a master of a different tradition; BAM! He learns Stunning Fist from that guy instead of going back to his home school to train or just through self training. It's something he didn't know before and now he does. Perhaps his old school didn't know that technique or thought him too young or brash to be trusted with it. The new master, on the other hand, might have a different philosophy or simply know something they didn't.

The XP and level system is an abstraction of exactly the sort of thing you're talking about. It's why adventurers are on the fast-track to power; they travel, they train under many masters, they learn the maneuvers, spells and modes of thought from dozens of cities, realms and lands, they develop techniques that haven't even been invented yet and perfect them against a thousand foes. Learning "Tiger School" moves when you originally trained at the "Crane School" is just fluff and you can tell that story any way you like.

The game mechanics don't need to change to reflect this unless it's a drastic departure from the style of combat you currently adopt, in which case you're looking at a multiclass build. A Monk learning Monk things just goes up a level in Monk. If he picks up a longsword and starts adopting "western" fighting techniques or reads some spellbooks and learns magic; that's when you look at multiclassing or houserules for different abilities.

[SMac8988]

My idea was to give him like some of the lower level abilities as he gets higher. Like give him the shadow meld but at the cost of a ki point or something.

Idk just an idea, he didn't request it I figured it would be a cool reward for him when he finally shows up to one of the other temples

[Sigreid]

My idea was to give him like some of the lower level abilities as he gets higher. Like give him the shadow meld but at the cost of a ki point or something.

Idk just an idea, he didn't request it I figured it would be a cool reward for him when he finally shows up to one of the other temples

Since you seem to be onboard with this, I'd say treat each ability he learns from another tradition as a boon. An extra power. If you do this though, be prepared to do something cool for the other players so they don't come to resent him.