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Ashtagon
2019-02-17, 04:28 PM
Overall Goals:

1) Create a series of "martial arts styles". For this purpose, a martial arts style is a "weapon" that a character can attack with, similar to the unarmed strike attack in that it does not require a specific manufactured tool to use. Their basic balance point should be along the lines of a "properly balanced" Exotic Weapon Proficiency, or to the 1st level monk's strike, which should be thought as in this model as simply one of many martial arts strikes.

2) Monk characters in effect, rather than get the RAW monk strike, get a free EWP feat in any one martial arts style.

3) As part of this scheme, there will be a series of feats, which represent advanced martial arts techniques. These feats may have prerequisites common to feats generally (e.g., skill ranks or BAB). In addition, they may require that the character be proficient (=have an EWP) in a martial arts style that has one or more of the tags listed below.

4) It is not intended that players be free to design martial arts styles. Instead, the GM should design (or re-fluff ones designed by others) those that will be available in their campaign, and the players should then be able to choose from a menu of pre-designed martial arts styles.

5) Non-monks should be able to choose a martial arts style as an EWP. However, the class features of the monk should interact with these martial arts styles in a way that synergises martial arts styles and monk levels. In particular, where the RAW monk class would get increased damage from their monk strike, they should instead get an increased damage die with any martial arts style they use.

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I'm considering a points-based approach for D&D 3.x similar to that presented in RPG Object's Blood and Fists.

We can consider the basic "unarmed strike" to be 1d3 bludgeoning damage with Non-Lethal (cannot inflict lethal damage), Finesse (interacts with Weapon Finesse feat), and Non-Threatening (treated as unarmed for purposes of threat ranges and attacks of opportunity) tags.

Important question: Would you allow a non-monk PC to kick (unarmed strike) if for some reason their arms were missing ("It's only a flesh wound!"), bound, or they simply wanted to TWF with a great sword and kicking for some mad reason? That is, would you consider the basic unarmed strike to have the "Any Limb" weapon quality?

The 1st level "monk strike" is 1d6 bludgeoning damage with Flexible Lethality (can choose lethal or non-lethal damage with no penalty), Finesse, and Any Limb (your monk strike can be used with any available limb).

Potentially, other tags available to the martial arts style (with points costs) would be as follows. These would modify the basic "monk strike" martial arts style.

Limb Choice


Any Limb (0): You may attack with your martial arts style as long as any one limb (arm or leg) is available to strike with.

Fist Only (-1): You may only strike with your hands. If your only available weapon is your feet (kicking), you may make unarmed strikes, but you are considered unarmed for purposes of attack of opportunity and threatened areas.

Kick Only (-1): You may only strike if you have both legs free and unrestricted. This means, for example, you can't attack with your martial arts style if you are prone or one of your legs is otherwise restrained. If your legs are restrained and you do not have a manufactured weapon in hand, you are considered unarmed for purposes of attack of opportunity and threatened areas.


Lethality


Flexible Lethality (0): You may choose to inflict lethal or non-lethal damage as you wish, with no penalty to the attack roll.

Non-Lethal (-1): Your martial arts style can only inflict non-lethal damage.

Ability Score


Non-Finesse (-1): You use Strength or Dexterity as the modifier for your attack rolls. This choice is made when the martial arts style is designed.

Finesse (0): If you have the Weapon Finesse feat, you may choose to use either your Strength or Dexterity modifier for your attack rolls.

Alternate Ability Score (1): You use Wisdom or Charisma as the modifier for your attack rolls. This choice is made when the martial arts style is designed.

Claw Strike (1): You may choose to inflict Bludgeoning, Slashing, or Piercing damage with your unarmed strike, as you choose.

Disarm (1): You get a +2 bonus on attempts to disarm if you are able to use your martial arts style. This can be taken twice.

Grapple (1): You get a +2 bonus on attempts to grapple if you are able to use your martial arts style. This can be taken twice. (n.b., this is not compatible with the Kick Only option.)

Trip (1): You get a +2 bonus on attempts to trip if you are able to use your martial arts style. This can be taken twice.

Dodge (1): You gain a +1 dodge bonus to AC against melee attacks while using your martial arts style. This can be taken multiple times.

Hard Strike (1): Your damage die goes up one step (e.g., from 1d6 to 1d8). This can be taken multiple times.

Vital Strike (1): You threaten a critical hit on a roll of 19-20 instead of 20. This can be taken twice (to threaten on 18-20).


(I considered adding Feint to the martial arts style options, but the RAW version of feint is very much designed to interact with sneak attack, so is a bit of a red herring when designing a martial arts style, even for those styles that do feature misdirection. Although B&F has skills as integral parts of its martial arts design system, since those aren't things used directly in a "weapon", they feel inappropriate as integral parts of the 'weapon' part of the martial art; rather, they would be things a character dedicated to the martial art would study in addition to the martial art itself.)

Is this worth developing further?

Ashtagon
2019-02-18, 02:24 PM
Anyone? Anyone at all?

Elricaltovilla
2019-02-18, 04:49 PM
How many points to spend does a martial artist's style get? 1? 5? 10? you have a lot more +1s than -1 options leading me to think you need a positive total score to make a martial art. How does one gain more points? Can they gain and/or spend more points later in their career? Outside of that missing information, I think your idea is pretty fiddly for not really providing much benefit, and the Non-Finesse option is actually better than the Finesse option as it means I can use dexterity to attack rolls as a monk without having to waste a feat on weapon finesse (should I choose to do so), and if I'm not doing that it basically gives me a free point to spend for being STR based (which is the default mode in the rules).

Ashtagon
2019-02-18, 05:02 PM
How many points to spend does a martial artist's style get? 1? 5? 10? you have a lot more +1s than -1 options leading me to think you need a positive total score to make a martial art. How does one gain more points? Can they gain and/or spend more points later in their career? Outside of that missing information, I think your idea is pretty fiddly for not really providing much benefit, and the Non-Finesse option is actually better than the Finesse option as it means I can use dexterity to attack rolls as a monk without having to waste a feat on weapon finesse (should I choose to do so), and if I'm not doing that it basically gives me a free point to spend for being STR based (which is the default mode in the rules).

I'm guestimating that a martial arts style would be built on 2-3 points, with the monk strike being the base from which it is built. Note that it isn't intended that styles be player-designed, but rather that this is a GM tool for designing martial arts styles to be used in their setting. Otherwise, which ability score a particular style is keyed towards would be a function of a player's min-maxing for a given character. Generally speaking, a martial arts style should be thought of as a "weapon" that cannot be disarmed (short of disabling the required limbs).

The whole finesse rules are a bit clunky. I set the Finesse option as the default zero-point value because that's what unarmed strikes (and by extension the standard monk strike) are by default. However, the way finesse weapons have been written up generally is a hot steamy mess. Since choosing which stat gets to work is logically better than having the stat chosen for you, having it fixed as Str or Dex should be cheaper, but I agree it just makes things weirdly cheap.

I'm thinking that advanced martial arts training would depend on using a martial arts style that has one (or more) of these "switches" enabled. For example, "Iron Claw Strike" might add +2 damage die steps but require that your style have Claw Strike (detailed in first post) as a prerequisite.

Indigo Knight
2019-02-19, 10:22 AM
Would you mind, pretty please, to add at the start of your initial post, a few sentences detailing the goal you wish to fulfill?
Like, what are you looking at? what needs changing? why?

not a full paragraph, just a simple intro.

Ashtagon
2019-02-19, 11:11 AM
Would you mind, pretty please, to add at the start of your initial post, a few sentences detailing the goal you wish to fulfill?
Like, what are you looking at? what needs changing? why?

not a full paragraph, just a simple intro.

Done. Hopefully that clarifies my design goals.

PairO'Dice Lost
2019-02-19, 05:39 PM
Is this worth developing further?

The idea sounds interesting, but the current options presented are...uninspiring. Right now, a martial art is essentially just 1-3 bonus feats:
Alternate Ability Score is Intuitive Attac.k
Claw Strike is Versatile Unarmed Strike.
The combat maneuver options are half of the Improved [Combat Maneuver] feats, and can double up into the full feat.
Dodge is...Dodge, but the commonly-houseruled version where you don't have to pick a single target.
Hard Strike is Superior Unarmed Strike.
Vital Strike is Improved Critical.
It's nice that you can turn one Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat pick into multiple useful feats, but a "properly balanced" EWP, as you put it, is one that no one actually takes because all the existing exotic weapons except the spiked chain are underwhelming at best.

If you were to take some of your ideas for the advanced martial arts feats and fold those into the basic styles, that would make this system much more interesting and might make EWP worth taking.

Morphic tide
2019-02-20, 01:05 PM
The biggest issue with this is the lack of exotic properties that justify a feat slot. Maybe have the basic weapon properties of damage dice, type and crit values handled by the selection of ability score, done for free as the "core" of the style, with the alterations to these basic properties being tied to the effects. Something like this:



Ability Score
Damage
Critical
Damage Type


Strength
1d12
2x
Bludgeoning


Dexterity
1d8
19-20/2x
Piercing


Constitution
2d4
2x
Slashing


Intelligence
1d8
19-20/2x
Slashing


Wisdom
2d4
2x
Piercing


Charisma
1d10
3x
Bludgeoning



The exact numbers could be switched up, but by starting with above-average weapon statlines, before getting into the modifiers, you have some decent value to build on. The options need to involve stuff like letting you use it as the second weapon in TWF while you're using a two-handed weapon, or conversely letting you use it as a two-handed weapon itself, to be worth a feat slot. I'd prefer the list to be entirely non-standard properties, with adjustments to the basic properties being tied to the various qualities.

I'd also like it to scale, such that there's a few "tiers" to it, with particularly problem-causing potential combinations being locked behind the higher-"tier" options. As a consequence, the feat becomes more valuable at higher levels, and the option to repeat picks to get higher-end Martial Arts arises to let Unarmed Fighters get scary by having essentially every type of weapon they could ever need at all times, getting special qualities from a single item.

Ashtagon
2019-02-20, 02:38 PM
@Morphic Tide

That is going quite far away from my plans.