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Dralnu
2017-04-01, 11:21 PM
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force.

Way of the Jedi (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1pdYIcfHauwenpLdUF0N1BLblU/view)

You follow a monastic tradition that teaches you to use the mystical energies of the Force. With a lightsaber in hand and command of the ever-present and limitless potential of the Force, you are a force to be reckoned with in both might and magic.

Disciple of the Force
When you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you begin your path of enlightenment in the Force. You learn two disciplines of your choice, which are detailed under “Force Disciplines” below. You learn one additional discipline at 6th, 11th, and 17th levels.
Unlocking Greater Power. As your knowledge and mastery of the Force increases, you unlock greater powers within your chosen disciplines. For each discipline you learn, you automatically gain access to every ability that you meet the monk level requirement for. For example, when you choose the Force Persuasion discipline, you automatically gain access to Affect Mind, Mind Trick at 6th level, Force Illusion at 11th level, and Dominate Mind at 17th level.
Casting Force Spells. Some force disciplines allow you to cast spells. To cast one of these spells, you use its casting time and other rules, but you don’t need to provide material components for it. When you cast a spell with a discipline, it is cast at the spell’s lowest level unless otherwise specified.
Once you reach 5th level in this class, you can spend additional ki points to increase the level of a force discipline spell that you cast, provided that the spell has an enhanced effect at a higher level. The spell’s level increases by 1 for each additional ki point you spend.
The maximum number of ki points (its base ki point cost plus any additional points) that you can spend on the spell is 2, unless a discipline specifies otherwise. This maximum increases to 3 at 9th level, 4 at 13th level, and 5 at 17th level.

Lightsaber
At 3rd level, you learn an attunement ritual that transforms a one-handed melee weapon into a lightsaber. You perform the ritual over 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. The weapon must be within your reach throughout the ritual, during which the weapon breaks apart into thousands of tiny floating shards that reconfigure themselves into a lightsaber hilt. If the lightsaber was made from a weapon with magical properties, those properties persist.
The lightsaber is a martial melee weapon with the Finesse and Light properties and sheds dim light in a 15-foot radius. It is considered a monk weapon and can be used with any monk ability that requires an unarmed strike or free hand, such as Flurry of Blows and Deflect Missiles.
The weapon is comprised of a hilt that, while held in your hand, can emit a blade of pure radiant energy without requiring an action. The blade’s damage is radiant, and its damage die is a d6. This die changes as you gain Monk levels, as shown in the Martial Arts column of the Monk table.
You can have up to two lightsabers created this way. If you attempt to create a third lightsaber, you must break your attunement with one of the other two lightsabers, which reverts the transformation back into the weapon it was previously.

Force Disciplines
The force disciplines are presented in alphabetical order.

Augment Body. You apply your knowledge of the force to enhance your body, letting you strike harder, improve your sight and hearing, and move quicker.
Force Jump. Your jump distance is doubled.
Enhance Ability (6th level). You can spend 2 ki points to cast Enhance Ability.
Force Speed (11th level). You can spend 3 ki points to cast Haste.
Move with the Force (17th level). You can spend 4 ki points to cast Freedom of Movement.

Dark side. You draw power from raw emotions such as anger, hatred, greed, jealousy, and fear. You can then unleash these powers to crush your foes.
Pure Malice. You gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.
Force Choke (6th level). You can spend 2 ki points to cast Hold Person.
Force Lightning (11th level). Everything I come up with sucks for the Monk. Ideas?
Force Drain (17th level). Your melee weapon attacks deal an additional 1d4 necrotic damage and you regain hit points equal to half the amount of necrotic damage dealt.

Dueling. You hone your martial skills to become even more deadly with your lightsaber and other melee weapons. Your advanced training lets you effortlessly switch between martial strikes and force powers.
Saber Throw. Your lightsaber has the Thrown property (20/60) for attacks granted by your Flurry of Blows. The lightsaber flies back to your hand immediately after your attack.
Window of Opportunity (6th level). If a creature attacks you and miss or subjects you to a Dexterity saving throw and you succeed on it, that creature has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes against a spell you cast before the end of your next turn.
Bladeweave (11th level). When you use your action to cast a spell or use a force discipline, you can make one melee attack as a bonus action, or you can use your Flurry of Blows.
Insightful Strike (17th level). When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, the next force discipline you use before the end of your next turn has its ki cost reduced by 1. You cannot reduce the ki cost of an force discipline by more than 1 with this feature.

Light Side. You draw power from positive emotions such as compassion, honesty, and calmness. Your powers can be used for protection, healing, and to inspire.
Animal Friendship. You gain proficiency in Animal Handling.
Lesser Restoration (6th level). You can spend 2 ki poinst to cast Lesser Restoration.
Force Valor (11th level). You can spend 3 ki points to cast Crusader’s Mantle.
Ask the Ascended (17th level). You can spend 5 ki points to cast Commune, asking the Force or the ghost of a specific jedi ancestor that has become one with the Force.

Force Persuasion. You learn to influence the thoughts of sentient creatures with the Force, from planting subtle suggestions to complete domination of their minds.
Affect Mind. You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill.
Mind Trick (6th level). You can spend 2 ki points to cast Suggestion.
Force Illusion (11th level). You can spend 3 ki points to cast Major Image.
Dominate Mind (17th level). You can spend 4 ki points to cast Dominate Beast and 5 ki points to cast Dominate Person.

Force Sense. The Force binds all living things together. You’ve learned to recognize these bonds and how they interact, allowing you to connect with creatures on a higher level.
Telepathy. You can cast message at will.
Read Emotions (6th level). As an action, you concentrate on the aura of one creature you see. While concentrating, you learn its basic emotional state and have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) and Charisma checks you make against it.
Object Reading (11th level). If you hold an object and concentrate on it for 10 minutes, you learn a few basic facts about it. You fain a mental image from the object’s point of view, showing the last creature to hold the object within the past 24 hours.
You also learn of any events that have occured within 20 feet of the ojbect within the past hour. The events you perceive unfold from the object’s perspective. You see and hear such events as if you were there, but can’t use other senses.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
Locate Creature (17th level). You can spend 4 ki points to cast Locate Creature.

Future Sight. You can use the Force to reach through time and space, getting glimpses of possible future events and impending danger.
Danger Sense. You have advantage on Initiative checks.
Alertness (6th level). Other creatures don’t gain advantage on attack rolls against you as a result of being hidden from you.
Precognition (11th level). You gain brief glimpses of insight as to where the next strike will hit you, and can use this knowledge to avoid it. When you are hit by an attack, you may spend 1 ki as a reaction to impose disadvantage on that attack roll, possibly causing it to miss.
Always Ready (17th level). You can’t be surprised while you are conscious.

Telekinesis. You can manipulate the physical world with the force, creating and/or controlling physical impulses and forces such as pressure, friction, kinetic energy, and even gravity.
Move Object. You can cast Mage Hand at will as a bonus action.
Force Push (6th level). As a bonus action, choose one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. The target must make a Strength saving throw. On a failed save, you push the creature up to 10 feet away from you and knock it prone. You may target additional creatures that are within 15 feet of the first target by spending 1 ki point for each additional creature.
Force Lift (11th level). Choose one object you can see within 60 feet of you that isn’t being worn or carried by another creature and that isn’t secured in place. It can’t be larger than 20 feet on a side, and its maximum weight depends on the ki points spent on this ability, as shown below.
As an action, you move the object up to 60 feet, and you must keep the object within sight during this movement. If the object ends this movement in the air, it falls. If the object would fall on a creature, the creature must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or take damage as listed on the table below.
Ki Spent Maximum Weight Bludgeoning Damage
1 25 lbs. 2d6
2 50 lbs. 4d6
3 250 lbs. 6d6
4 500 lbs. 7d6
5 1,000 lbs. 8d6

Master Gravity (17th level). You can spend 5 ki points to cast Telekinesis.




I originally made a Way of the Jedi monk subclass as a 1/3 spellcaster that parallels what the Eldritch Knight is to Fighter and what the Arcane Trickster is to Rogue. This time I'm going for something very different: a subclass that chooses from a list of disciplines, and those disciplines unlock new abilities at each milestone. The disciplines are a mix of spells learned and other iconic jedi abilities. The design goal is for the subclass as a whole to be at the same power level as Way of the Open Hand and Way of Shadow subclasses.

Dralnu
2017-04-03, 03:02 PM
I've added Force Sense and Future Sight disciplines. I've also moved the baseline abilities into a force discipline, Dueling. The only thing every Jedi gets is the lightsaber and the rest is pick what you want.

I still have no idea how to do Force Lightning. Witch Bolt is a terrible spell and even if you buff it, at what point does a Monk actually want to use it over Attack + Flurry of Blows with the option of Stunning Strike? It just doesn't seem like something a Monk would ever be interested unless it's hilariously overpowered. I might just reskin something like Burning Hands with lightning damage and be done with it.

Amnoriath
2017-04-03, 05:43 PM
I've added Force Sense and Future Sight disciplines. I've also moved the baseline abilities into a force discipline, Dueling. The only thing every Jedi gets is the lightsaber and the rest is pick what you want.

I still have no idea how to do Force Lightning. Witch Bolt is a terrible spell and even if you buff it, at what point does a Monk actually want to use it over Attack + Flurry of Blows with the option of Stunning Strike? It just doesn't seem like something a Monk would ever be interested unless it's hilariously overpowered. I might just reskin something like Burning Hands with lightning damage and be done with it.

1. To me this means that any effective Jedi build will choose Dueling as it is only way to synergize your force abilities with your martial capability in all aspects. Though it only takes up one of the five, still I am not sure how I feel about every time taking a discipline means getting each previous ability. While I don't see brokenness by the numbers for the most part but it does make it far more versatile than any other monk tradition.
2. Agreed especially since it is a 1st level spell, though keep in mind Dueling helps solve this issue. Keep in mind Force Lightning also greatly debilitated its victim so changing to a single target save such as Constitution inflicting an effect similar to Slow with half damage on success will greatly increase its ability. You could then experiment with while concentrating on it paying additional to make a cone effect.
3. The one ability that kind of worries me is Force Drain as it could lead to Murder Hobo Healing time(I swear I didn't type this with peanut butter jelly time in mind).

Ziegander
2017-04-04, 01:39 AM
[...] I am not sure how I feel about every time taking a discipline means getting each previous ability. While I don't see brokenness by the numbers for the most part but it does make it far more versatile than any other monk tradition.

Same.

Five disciplines means, at 17th level, the Jedi likely has something like two cantrips or two bonus proficiencies and one or two special passive powers and at minimum six special, spell-like uses of Ki along with likely at least one or two other special activated powers, for a total of something like twenty "level-appropriate" class features at every Tradition level.

The only way I could see this working out is if every Jedi discipline feature was like... 1/5 as strong when compared to a Tradition feature of an appropriate level.

For example, compare a 6th level Jedi with 6th level Open Palm Monk.

At 6th level, the Open Palm Monk has Open Hand Technique and Wholeness of Body whereas the Jedi has chosen three disciplines, let's say Dark Side, Dueling and Force Persuasion. This gives the Jedi:


Bonus Proficiencies: Intimidation and Persuasion
Hold Person (2 ki)
Lightsaber
Saber Throw
Window of Opportunity
Suggestion (2 ki)

I'd place Lightsaber and Saber Throw easily on par with Open Hand Technique and then we're comparing an 18pt heal once per long rest against Intimidation and Persuasion plus Hold Person and/or Suggestion up to three times per short rest with Window of Opportunity to cast against Disadvantaged saves. And things spiral more or less out of control from there. 11th level gives a whole three new features to compare vs Tranquility and 17th level four features vs Quivering Palm (two actions and 3 ki to deal 10d10 necrotic isn't bad, it's just not outstanding).

Something's got to give somewhere.

Dralnu
2017-04-04, 06:14 PM
1. To me this means that any effective Jedi build will choose Dueling as it is only way to synergize your force abilities with your martial capability in all aspects. Though it only takes up one of the five, still I am not sure how I feel about every time taking a discipline means getting each previous ability. While I don't see brokenness by the numbers for the most part but it does make it far more versatile than any other monk tradition.
2. Agreed especially since it is a 1st level spell, though keep in mind Dueling helps solve this issue. Keep in mind Force Lightning also greatly debilitated its victim so changing to a single target save such as Constitution inflicting an effect similar to Slow with half damage on success will greatly increase its ability. You could then experiment with while concentrating on it paying additional to make a cone effect.
3. The one ability that kind of worries me is Force Drain as it could lead to Murder Hobo Healing time(I swear I didn't type this with peanut butter jelly time in mind).

1. If dueling feels mandatory I can make it baseline like it originally was. As for too much stuff, I understand the concern. I tried to parallel it to the EK/AT which both get 21 abilities, the features + all the spells. Those too are far more versatile than the other subclasses, which is an advantage, but the end result is hopefully balanced.

I can tweak the numbers, tone down abilities and whatnot. My first concern is if the formatting feels right. If the method of acquiring these abilities -- by picking up discipline trees and unlocking more abilities through them -- doesn't feel good, then I can try and pull off my goals in other ways.

2. My problem with Witch Bolt and its spinoffs is that it must compete with the Monk's baseline abilities of Attack (+Extra Attack) + Flurry of Blows and enhancing any of those attacks with Stunning Strike. For spellcasters like the Wizard, who don't have this baseline option, a slightly enhanced Witch Bolt could be a nice option to have, but it's tougher for it to be appealing to a Monk.

Having Witch Bolt place status effects similar to Slow might work. Alternatively, I could just give them the Lightning Bolt spell, since the baseline Monk has no such area of effect capabilities.

3. It was originally the Vampiric Touch spell that can be cast/activated as a bonus action but I figured this was a cleaner method. Do you think it should be changed?



Same.

Five disciplines means, at 17th level, the Jedi likely has something like two cantrips or two bonus proficiencies and one or two special passive powers and at minimum six special, spell-like uses of Ki along with likely at least one or two other special activated powers, for a total of something like twenty "level-appropriate" class features at every Tradition level.

The only way I could see this working out is if every Jedi discipline feature was like... 1/5 as strong when compared to a Tradition feature of an appropriate level.

For example, compare a 6th level Jedi with 6th level Open Palm Monk.

At 6th level, the Open Palm Monk has Open Hand Technique and Wholeness of Body whereas the Jedi has chosen three disciplines, let's say Dark Side, Dueling and Force Persuasion. This gives the Jedi:


Bonus Proficiencies: Intimidation and Persuasion
Hold Person (2 ki)
Lightsaber
Saber Throw
Window of Opportunity
Suggestion (2 ki)

I'd place Lightsaber and Saber Throw easily on par with Open Hand Technique and then we're comparing an 18pt heal once per long rest against Intimidation and Persuasion plus Hold Person and/or Suggestion up to three times per short rest with Window of Opportunity to cast against Disadvantaged saves. And things spiral more or less out of control from there. 11th level gives a whole three new features to compare vs Tranquility and 17th level four features vs Quivering Palm (two actions and 3 ki to deal 10d10 necrotic isn't bad, it's just not outstanding).

Something's got to give somewhere.

I think you're greatly downplaying Open Hand here. Open Hand Technique is a free passive upgrade to your Flurry of Blows which gives you two free knockdowns plus other options -- yeah I'll take that over Lightsaber and Saber Throw any day. Wholeness of Body is pretty lame agreed, but Open Hand Technique is so good that it compensates for a weak 6th feature. Tranquility is Sanctuary except instead of lasting 1 minute it'll last until you end it, which can be hours. And Quivering Palm is 10d10 necrotic if they save; if they fail, they die. Quivering Palm is insanely powerful and is not limited to short or long rests.

Despite my disagreement with your analysis on Open Hand, I agree that I should tone down my own brew. The question is what is the best way to do so.

Option 1: Remove a discipline known from 5 to 4.
Option 2: Tweak the disciplines so benefits are overall weaker and add up to something balanced compared to the other subclasses.
Option 3: Forego this approach to the Jedi. Work on 1/3 Spellcaster that directly parallels EK and AT.

What approach would people like to see? Is this Discipline Tree layout something you want to see developed further, or would you prefer to see the Jedi be to the Monk like what the Eldritch Knight is to Fighter?

Ziegander
2017-04-05, 01:46 PM
I like the discipline abilities as presented, I just think the system of gaining each tree wholecloth, even up to four times, just seems excessive and not right. I think going spellcasting would be lame, so I do want to see the discipline idea developed further, I just don't think I like how it's working right now.