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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Monastic Tradition - Way of the Carving Claw



quinron
2016-10-18, 01:43 AM
Designed to work well for aarakocra, but not to be exclusive to them. Made in a bit of a hurry; could use some feedback.

BONUS PROFICIENCY
When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with battleaxes, longswords, and scimitars. You treat these weapons as monk weapons.

KEEN CLAWS
Starting at 3rd level, you are especially deadly when striking to tear and cut. When you make a melee weapon attack and deal slashing damage with a damage die equal to or smaller than the die used for your unarmed strikes (as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table), you deal increased damage as shown on the table below.
If another feature, such as an aarakocra's talons or the Furious Form feature, causes your unarmed strikes to deal slashing damage, this feature can increase their damage once.



Normal Damage
Keen Claws Damage


1d4
1d6


1d6
1d8


1d8
1d10


1d10
1d12



DIVEBOMB
At 6th level, you learn to strike from above as decisively as from the side. When you fall at least 10 feet into another creature's space and use your reaction to reduce falling damage, the creature must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw. On a success, the creature is unaffected, and you land 5 feet away from the creature in a random direction. On a failure, the creature takes damage equal to the number of feet you fell divided by 10 (rounded down), up to a maximum of 20, and if the creature is Large or smaller, it is pushed 5 feet away from you in a random direction and knocked prone. The damage is of the same type as your unarmed strikes.

VICIOUS IMPACT
At 11th level, you gain the ability to turn your momentum into a mighty blow. When you move at least 30 feet straight toward a target and then hit with a melee weapon attack on the same turn, the target takes the attack’s maximum damage.

FURIOUS FORM
Starting at 17th level, you can channel your ki to alter your very body. As a bonus action, you can spend 3 ki points to transform for 1 minute. While transformed, your unarmed strikes deal slashing damage, and you gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with your unarmed strikes. You can spend additional ki points as part of your transformation to increase this bonus: 2 extra points to increase it to +2, or 5 extra points to increase it to +3.

EDIT: Added shove to Divebomb in accordance with post #3, removed 1 ki point cost from Vicious Impact.

DracoKnight
2016-10-18, 03:21 AM
I like this, it's fairly interesting. It's kinda funny timing, because I'm working on an aarakocra monastic tradition right now :smalltongue: :smallwink: :smallbiggrin:

DracoknightZero
2016-10-18, 04:04 AM
I am going to speak up despite my lack of knowledge of 5th edition, but theres a few questions:

Vicious Impact: This kinda sounds like the previous editions version of "Vital Strike" just that you need movement for it, are you sure it should cost a Ki-point instead of just being part of a "charge" ?

Divebomb: Just damage? How about a later version that lets you forgo the damage to knock down the creature you land on? Maybe not perfect with the theme of slashing with claws, but it sounds like something where you would knock someone down and stand over them slashing away in an ambush.

quinron
2016-10-18, 11:15 PM
I am going to speak up despite my lack of knowledge of 5th edition, but theres a few questions:

Vicious Impact: This kinda sounds like the previous editions version of "Vital Strike" just that you need movement for it, are you sure it should cost a Ki-point instead of just being part of a "charge" ?

Divebomb: Just damage? How about a later version that lets you forgo the damage to knock down the creature you land on? Maybe not perfect with the theme of slashing with claws, but it sounds like something where you would knock someone down and stand over them slashing away in an ambush.

Thanks, these are good thoughts. Like I said, I made this in quite a rush, so I didn't think too critically about some of these. Definitely implementing these.

I was concerned about monks' extra movement allowing too much damage with Shredding Impact, but they'll only ever get 2 per turn max; I don't think that's enough damage increase to merit a ki point cost if it doesn't come online until level 11.

DracoknightZero
2016-10-19, 12:31 AM
Thanks, these are good thoughts. Like I said, I made this in quite a rush, so I didn't think too critically about some of these. Definitely implementing these.

I was concerned about monks' extra movement allowing too much damage with Shredding Impact, but they'll only ever get 2 per turn max; I don't think that's enough damage increase to merit a ki point cost if it doesn't come online until level 11.

Give it a playtest and/or compare it to another class's damage output at around lvl 11 if its 50% above you might consider a ki-point cost, otherwise nah.

If you are worried about the amount of uses per turn you could limit that to "once per turn" and even if they manage to fulfill the criteria more than once you only get the effect once. You could even have a "upgrade" of it later that at "level X you can do it Twice/Unlimited"

So the questions you can ask yourself when it comes to designs are: "Is this interesting?" "Can i clearify its usage?" "Is the cost worth it?" "What combat tactics could this enable?" "What can this stack with?" "How would this work in a group?"

Its something you just have to poke around at, hell you could have put up a capstone that basically give you a form of "pounce & rake"... but as i said... 5th edition mechanics is something i havent read too much up on so my insight is merely general.

quinron
2016-10-19, 01:13 PM
Give it a playtest and/or compare it to another class's damage output at around lvl 11 if its 50% above you might consider a ki-point cost, otherwise nah.

If you are worried about the amount of uses per turn you could limit that to "once per turn" and even if they manage to fulfill the criteria more than once you only get the effect once. You could even have a "upgrade" of it later that at "level X you can do it Twice/Unlimited"

So the questions you can ask yourself when it comes to designs are: "Is this interesting?" "Can i clearify its usage?" "Is the cost worth it?" "What combat tactics could this enable?" "What can this stack with?" "How would this work in a group?"

Its something you just have to poke around at, hell you could have put up a capstone that basically give you a form of "pounce & rake"... but as i said... 5th edition mechanics is something i havent read too much up on so my insight is merely general.

I'm planning on playtesting a bunch of my new material once my group finishes up the current adventure in a few weeks. This archetype is part of a new setting I've been working on that I'm hoping to roll it out for a new campaign once everything seems balanced.

As in previous editions, most creatures have a movement speed of 30, and monks gain additional movement speed as they level up. The earliest a character could get 2 Vicious Impacts is level 14, when monks' bonus speed hits 25 ft. - wood elves get +5 movement speed, so they'd hit 60 ft. at that point. Most creatures wouldn't get it until level 18, when monks' bonus speed hits 30 ft., and small creatures with default 25 ft. speed won't ever get more than one. You could conceivably use a ki point to use the Dash action (doubling your movement speed) before that, but it uses up your bonus action and leaves you unable to use Flurry of Blows, which will (using average rolls and optimized damage) let you do more total damage in a round than 2 Vicious Impacts. Since monks only get 2 attacks in a round without Flurry of Blows, and since Dashing to get the extra speed necessary to turn more than 2 attacks into Vicious Impacts removes your ability to make more than 2 attacks in a turn, you'll never be able to do more than 2 without magical assistance like haste.

In short, a monk working alone can't use it more than twice, and it's not a crazy enough damage increase that a hasted monk able to do it more than twice is seriously outstripping a hasted great sword fighter of comparable level for damage.