Way of Aeons (Chronomancer Monk) PEACH

[Vogie]

Monks of the Way of Aeons are those who have dedicated their lives to understanding the stream of time, with hope to one day be achieve mastery by being able to start, stop and manipulate time itself.

http://magic.wizards.com/sites/mtg/files/image_legacy_migration/magic/images/cardart/10E/Telling_Time.jpg

Time in a Bottle
Starting at 3rd level, if you take the attack action on your turn, and have advantage on an attack roll against one of the targets, you can forgo the advantage for that roll, storing that advantage as Potential.

If you have Potential, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your Potential gives you advantage on that roll.

You can store up to two Potential at any time. This increases to 3 Potential at level 14.

Staggering Strikes
At third level, as a bonus action, you can begin concentrating on a target creature within 30 feet, mystically marking it as your quarry. Whenever you make an unarmed attack on the marked creature, you can impose one of the following options on a hit:

The marked creature's speed is halved
The marked creature has -2 to AC
The marked creature has -2 to dexterity saving throws
The marked creature can't use reactions
The marked creature can't take more than one melee or ranged attack during its turn
On it's turn, if the marked creature attempts to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, roll a d20. On an 11 or higher, the spell doesn’t take effect until the creature’s next turn, and the creature must use its action on that turn to complete the spell. If it can’t, the spell is wasted.
The marked creature, on its turn, can use an action, or bonus action, but not both.
Each time you hit your quarry with an unarmed strike, choose an additional effect that hasn't been chosen. The mark fades early if the target dies, your concentration is broken, or the marked creature succeeds a Wisdom Saving throw at the end of its turn. The DC is 8 + Your Proficiency modifier + your Wisdom modifier.

You can expend a Potential to mark a new creature with your Staggering Strike feature. You can use this ability only if your concentration hasn't broken.

Rapid Acceleration
At 6th level, as an action, you can concentrate to briefly hop the flow of time, disappearing from the world for a brief moment. While in between time, you may take an action to Use an object. At the beginning of your next turn, you return to the space you occupied (or, if that space is occupied, in the nearest unoccupied space). For the next 30 seconds (5 rounds), as long as you continue concentrating, your speed is doubled, you gain a +2 bonus to AC, have advantage on Dexterity Saving throws, and you gain an additional action on each of your turns. That action can be used only to take the Attack action (one weapon or unarmed attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action. When the duration ends, you can’t move or take actions until after your next turn, as a wave of lethargy sweeps over you.

You regain this feature after a long rest. Starting at level 12, you can expend 2 two Potential during a short rest to regain this Feature.

Chronoshift
Starting at 11th level, you can use your reaction to spend 3 ki points or a Potential to do one of the following:

Cancel disadvantage on a saving throw, attack roll or ability check
Reduce the damage taken by an attack by 1d10 + Your Dexterity Modifier + your monk level. If you reduce the damage to 0, you gain a Potential
Use your Deflect Missiles ability twice
When a creature misses you with an attack roll, you cause that attack to hit one creature of your choice, other than the attacker, that you can see within 5 feet of you.

In addition, you can spend 8 ki points to cast the Wind Walk spell, without needing material components. When you do so, you can’t take any other creatures with you, and your form cannot fly (your land speed increases instead).

Chronobreak
At 17th level, as a reaction, you can attempt to interrupt a creature in the process of casting a spell by spending 6 ki points. If the creature is casting a spell of 3rd level or lower, its spell fails and has no effect. If it is casting a spell of 4th level or higher, make an wisdom saving throw. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level. On a success, the creature’s spell fails and has no effect, and you gain Potential.
You can increase the level of the break by spending ki points. The interrupted spell has no effect if it's level is less than or equal to half the number of ki points spent in this way. (8 points to counter a 4th level spell, 10 points to counter a 5th level spell, and so on)


NEW: Added the Take Your Own Luck Time in a Bottle feature at level 3 - allowing the monk to store advantage for later, as inspiration Potential, and made the archetype collect inspiration, which is design space that hasn't ever been mined yet. The main way to generate advantage later on is via attacking a stunned creature from level 5 on.
Staggering Strike: The level 3 feature is just the spell slow, modified for a single target, and broken into 7 parts. The reason for the strange duration of the mark is because of the 11th level feature. (UPDATE: I realized after the fact that having a time-manipulation class care about durations was kind of silly. )
The level 6 feature is a combination of Haste and the Astral Refuge feature from the Seeker Warlock. I've included the ability to cast spells on oneself solely to help multiclassers, as this monk does not have the ability to cast spells. I made sure it used concentration to make the monk have to choose between the Slow and the Haste effect.
The level 11 feature is a less powerful combination of the Drunken master features, and allowing the monk to move the Staggering Strike mark around like Hunter's Mark. UPDATE: Added the ability to use either Ki or Inspiration Potential, as the first option is basically cancelling disadvantage.
The Level 17 feature is just a Ki-based counterspell. It's written that way that you can burn lots of ki into it (they'll only have 20 per rest), but it stops being useful as soon as any one spell is cancelled.

[Vogie]

Made some updates to the subclass

I was thinking that there had to be an elegant way of time manipulation that couldn't be horribly broken, and the oft-unused inspiration came to mind.

Added the Take Your Own Luck feature at level 3 - allowing the monk to store advantage for later, as inspiration, and made the archetype collect inspiration, which is design space that hasn't ever been mined yet (that I've run across, at least).

Moved some other things around to accommodate the new mechanic.

I realized that the idea of a time-manipulating monk had to worry about durations of their combat mark seemed kind of odd - they are time-manipulators, aren't they?? - so I removed it and really like the concept so far.

Would love some feedback.

[Wisefool]

I find the addition of inspiration weird and at odds with the monk's ki mechanics. The power of ki comes from within, while inspiration seeks to empower others. The abilities should use one or the other, not both. Personally, I would leave inspiration to the bards.

Haste on a monk is very, very good. As such, I would likely limit that ability to once a long rest to prevent a PC from spamming short rests. Perhaps open it up to short rests at later levels, but not every table follows the 2 SR for every 1 LR guideline. Furthermore, I would limit the spell they can cast on themself in the time shift to a spell with a bonus action casting time. They already used their action this turn to time hop, but you could argue "hey, time monk - 2 actions." Consequently, I am fine with the Use an Object caveat, but my DM house ruled that was a bonus action in my game. Also, I would keep the Haste ability as is and not tack on the option to cast a spell after the monk returns from the time shift. Most monks won't have the option anyway, no need to make the ability better than the spell. Lastly, what happens when the space the monk left is inevitably occupied when the monk returns 6 seconds later? Say a mage brings up a Wall of Stone where the monk once stood or even worse when an ally steps into that spot?

The mention of the Wind Walk ability that comes online at 18 with the 11th level feature is strange. At 18 all monks get a self only Astral Projection spell, which is 9th level. Here you give them a self only Wind Walk, which is 6th level, but also nerf it further by removing the flying portion, effectively turning Wind Walk into Land Walk. I would either scrap it or have it unlock at 11th level without nerfing the flying. Being a self only plus out of combat spell, it will have such a limited use in game.

Chronobreak I would change to one successful break per short rest or even eliminating that req altogether. It is so ki-intensive that the PC will already debate over using it vs. saving ki for other abilities. Unlike Rapid Acceleration which only costs skipping a turn, there is little fear of a PC abusing this capstone.

[Vogie]

I find the addition of inspiration weird and at odds with the monk's ki mechanics. The power of ki comes from within, while inspiration seeks to empower others. The abilities should use one or the other, not both. Personally, I would leave inspiration to the bards.

That's true - I had envisioned it as being able to push the temporal energies onto your other party members, but I can see the confusion, especially since it shares vocabulary, but not mechanics, with bardic inspiration.

Fixing this would require merely a name change, which is fairly effortless.


Haste on a monk is very, very good. As such, I would likely limit that ability to once a long rest to prevent a PC from spamming short rests. Perhaps open it up to short rests at later levels, but not every table follows the 2 SR for every 1 LR guideline. Furthermore, I would limit the spell they can cast on themself in the time shift to a spell with a bonus action casting time. They already used their action this turn to time hop, but you could argue "hey, time monk - 2 actions." Consequently, I am fine with the Use an Object caveat, but my DM house ruled that was a bonus action in my game. Also, I would keep the Haste ability as is and not tack on the option to cast a spell after the monk returns from the time shift. Most monks won't have the option anyway, no need to make the ability better than the spell. Lastly, what happens when the space the monk left is inevitably occupied when the monk returns 6 seconds later? Say a mage brings up a Wall of Stone where the monk once stood or even worse when an ally steps into that spot?

That's a good point... I'll simplify and add the "or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied" from Banishment


The mention of the Wind Walk ability that comes online at 18 with the 11th level feature is strange. At 18 all monks get a self only Astral Projection spell, which is 9th level. Here you give them a self only Wind Walk, which is 6th level, but also nerf it further by removing the flying portion, effectively turning Wind Walk into Land Walk. I would either scrap it or have it unlock at 11th level without nerfing the flying. Being a self only plus out of combat spell, it will have such a limited use in game.

Okay, 11th level it is


Chronobreak I would change to one successful break per short rest or even eliminating that req altogether. It is so ki-intensive that the PC will already debate over using it vs. saving ki for other abilities. Unlike Rapid Acceleration which only costs skipping a turn, there is little fear of a PC abusing this capstone.

Cool. That certainly makes it cleaner.

[thegreatone5224]

How long does the effects of Staggering Strikes last? I don't see a time limit as it just says that it ends early under some conditions.

I don't think the archetype is too bad, I think the archetypes capstone is too ki intensive and I can't see it being used much, especially for higher level spells since you'd have to give up your entire Ki Pool for it.

My main beef would be with Staggering Strikes. In theory, you could apply 4 of those effects in a single turn which would completely cripple the creature for however long the effects are suppose to last. Honestly I would pretty much always aim for the same 3 effects as well. No reactions, only one attack, and only an action or bonus action and not both.

This may come from the way my group typically plays vs yours but those 3 are so much better than each of the other options and can easily turn a boss into a normal creature with more HP that hits hard.

[Vogie]

How long does the effects of Staggering Strikes last? I don't see a time limit as it just says that it ends early under some conditions.

I don't think the archetype is too bad, I think the archetypes capstone is too ki intensive and I can't see it being used much, especially for higher level spells since you'd have to give up your entire Ki Pool for it.

My main beef would be with Staggering Strikes. In theory, you could apply 4 of those effects in a single turn which would completely cripple the creature for however long the effects are suppose to last. Honestly I would pretty much always aim for the same 3 effects as well. No reactions, only one attack, and only an action or bonus action and not both.

This may come from the way my group typically plays vs yours but those 3 are so much better than each of the other options and can easily turn a boss into a normal creature with more HP that hits hard.

It's a concentration effect, so that's the limiter there - you Staggering strike will knock you out of the Haste effect, for example, as well as all of the normal way a person could lose concentration. It also gives the creature a wisdom save at the end of each of their turns, that allows them to shrug it off, and have you start all over.

I don't think it's that broken - as it says in the notes, it's just the spell Slow broken into component parts, and made single-target. While you certainly CAN apply up to 4 conditions in a single turn (basically, a half-slow), but it would require a ki point, and require all of those attacks to hit... and the target could just as easily shrug it off for a single wisdom save.

I made the subclass very resource-hungry for that explicit purpose. You can make sure the first couple of hits connect by burning potential, and things like -AC will just make that more happening... but then you're losing that potential and ki for other things.

I'd love to hear other people's experiences with it if you decide to use it for a one-shot!

[Gydian]

I’m a huge fan of Terry Pratchett and therefore the monks of time. This doesn’t look like it takes any reference to that but I could see this as the mechanic for making one of them. When you make the pdf I want one.