Quietus
2007-11-18, 06:26 AM
Here's the deal, guys - I'm retooling an old character of mine, a blind monk by the name of Jacob. For various reasons, I can no longer play him with the partner he was with, and I'd like to improve him somewhat. A brief overview of his backstory :
When he was younger (I believe we settled on 8 years old), the small, misty village of Kallen Moor was attacked by a bloodthirsty group of bandits. Jacob has no idea why they came, but he was there when his parents were cut down, and a moment later, a Blindness spell that was meant for someone else struck him instead. In that moment, his world went dark, and very much alone. He was taken in by a local woman, a monk, by the name of Keri, who strived to teach him how to cope with his new disability, as no one in the small town, or any of the neighboring ones, was capable of casting the spell that would fix his eyesight, nor could any of the more mundane doctors that they could reach do anything for him.
It's now been 15 years, and Jacob has been through... well, through hell, with Keri. Not to say that she's been a bad guardian, but she's an extremely unforgiving teacher, demanding in the extreme. She would brook no excuse when Jacob was learning to cope, and trained him the same way she would train any other monk - long hours of combat form practice, followed by equally long hours spent with the two of them out in the wilds, Jacob balancing on a log over a river. Due to his lack of sight, and the slowness that that's brought to him, he's spent a great deal of time under that water, but he's finally reached the point where he's as capable at such things as most of his sighted peers.
Keri, at this point, has decided that she's taught him everything she can, for now. She's told him that if he wants to continue his training, he'll need to come find her at the Glass Spire Monastery, once his instincts have been honed to the next level (Mechanically, the level 5 AC bonus). Now, Jacob is left to fend for himself, to find his way to this monastery, if he dares - and if nothing else, Jacob is stubborn.
Yeah, okay, that was a bit longer than I expected... anyhow, here's what I have to work with. He's second level, and I intend to take him straight Monk - he needs to get that AC bonus, from some source, and then after that he'll need to get the Abundant Step ability once he's sent out beyond the Glass Spire. As a result of this, he'll likely be going straight monk. He's built on 40 point buy, with the explicit requirement of having 8 dex; He was originally rolled-stats, with 7 dex, and I'm trying to keep him as close to the original as possible. As things stand now, he has :
Str : 16
Dex : 8
Con : 14
Int : 14
Wis : 17
Cha 13
This means he has two Monk bonus feats, which have been houseruled to allow him to have both Stunning Fist and Improved Grapple, since neither Combat Reflexes nor Deflect Arrows would make any sense for him at all. In addition, since he's blind, he's been given the feats Blind-Fight and Keen-Eyed Scout (PHB2) to make up for that. He's got two feats, since he's human, and one is Skill Focus (Listen). The other is up for grabs, as I'm removing a homebrewed feat. I've been toying with Ability Focus (Stunning Fist).
Now, what I'm aiming for, fluffwise, is this - a Monk who actually focusses on the idea of ki, taking it to heart and utilizing subtle, but supernatural, talents on the rare occasions he gets into combat. All of the Monks I've seen played so far play up the "I'm so physically awesome, check this out!" angle; with Jacob, I want to play up the fact that he's learned to look beyond the physical, and utilizes that which the physical can't produce. Where most monks I've seen play Stunning Fist as pressure points, or just another strike, Jacob forces his own energy into his foes, which disrupts them for a short period of time.
What I'm looking for from the forums is help in producing this mechanically. I'm thinking of focussing on the Stunning Fist extra options; My thoughts were something along the lines of :
1 : Ability Focus
3 : Pain Touch (Fluff : Strengthening of Jacob's Ki)
6 : Falling Star Srike (From Oriental Adventures, spend a SF attempt to blind the target. Fluff : Turning the magical energy that still keeps him blind against his opponents)
9 : Blindsight, 5-foot radius (Fluff : Jacob's field of awareness has expanded to encompass space outside of just himself)
I'm not worrying TOO much about what happens past there, but I'd certainly be interested to hear ideas. That's what I've got so far, I'd love to hear what you guys think of that series of ideas, and if anyone has a mechanically stronger method of producing this fluff, that would be spectacular. I'm not wholly against multiclassing, but if multiclassing does happen, Jacob needs to gain both a miscellaneous AC bonus which can be fluffed as being "intuition", along with a Dimension-Door-like ability.
((As for his blindness; He's come across a band of higher-level PC's now, fifteen years after he was struck by that errant spell. The cleric cast Remove Blindness on him, and it failed. The spell has been with Jacob for so long that his body has simply accepted it as part of him, and barring some incredibly powerful magic, it will remain in place. Even if it WERE to be lifted, Jacob would likely keep his eyes covered; His worldview no longer includes sight. It would be like if we were to suddenly be capable of perceiving an additional dimension; The revelation, thrilling and incredible as it might be, would leave us confused, at best.))
When he was younger (I believe we settled on 8 years old), the small, misty village of Kallen Moor was attacked by a bloodthirsty group of bandits. Jacob has no idea why they came, but he was there when his parents were cut down, and a moment later, a Blindness spell that was meant for someone else struck him instead. In that moment, his world went dark, and very much alone. He was taken in by a local woman, a monk, by the name of Keri, who strived to teach him how to cope with his new disability, as no one in the small town, or any of the neighboring ones, was capable of casting the spell that would fix his eyesight, nor could any of the more mundane doctors that they could reach do anything for him.
It's now been 15 years, and Jacob has been through... well, through hell, with Keri. Not to say that she's been a bad guardian, but she's an extremely unforgiving teacher, demanding in the extreme. She would brook no excuse when Jacob was learning to cope, and trained him the same way she would train any other monk - long hours of combat form practice, followed by equally long hours spent with the two of them out in the wilds, Jacob balancing on a log over a river. Due to his lack of sight, and the slowness that that's brought to him, he's spent a great deal of time under that water, but he's finally reached the point where he's as capable at such things as most of his sighted peers.
Keri, at this point, has decided that she's taught him everything she can, for now. She's told him that if he wants to continue his training, he'll need to come find her at the Glass Spire Monastery, once his instincts have been honed to the next level (Mechanically, the level 5 AC bonus). Now, Jacob is left to fend for himself, to find his way to this monastery, if he dares - and if nothing else, Jacob is stubborn.
Yeah, okay, that was a bit longer than I expected... anyhow, here's what I have to work with. He's second level, and I intend to take him straight Monk - he needs to get that AC bonus, from some source, and then after that he'll need to get the Abundant Step ability once he's sent out beyond the Glass Spire. As a result of this, he'll likely be going straight monk. He's built on 40 point buy, with the explicit requirement of having 8 dex; He was originally rolled-stats, with 7 dex, and I'm trying to keep him as close to the original as possible. As things stand now, he has :
Str : 16
Dex : 8
Con : 14
Int : 14
Wis : 17
Cha 13
This means he has two Monk bonus feats, which have been houseruled to allow him to have both Stunning Fist and Improved Grapple, since neither Combat Reflexes nor Deflect Arrows would make any sense for him at all. In addition, since he's blind, he's been given the feats Blind-Fight and Keen-Eyed Scout (PHB2) to make up for that. He's got two feats, since he's human, and one is Skill Focus (Listen). The other is up for grabs, as I'm removing a homebrewed feat. I've been toying with Ability Focus (Stunning Fist).
Now, what I'm aiming for, fluffwise, is this - a Monk who actually focusses on the idea of ki, taking it to heart and utilizing subtle, but supernatural, talents on the rare occasions he gets into combat. All of the Monks I've seen played so far play up the "I'm so physically awesome, check this out!" angle; with Jacob, I want to play up the fact that he's learned to look beyond the physical, and utilizes that which the physical can't produce. Where most monks I've seen play Stunning Fist as pressure points, or just another strike, Jacob forces his own energy into his foes, which disrupts them for a short period of time.
What I'm looking for from the forums is help in producing this mechanically. I'm thinking of focussing on the Stunning Fist extra options; My thoughts were something along the lines of :
1 : Ability Focus
3 : Pain Touch (Fluff : Strengthening of Jacob's Ki)
6 : Falling Star Srike (From Oriental Adventures, spend a SF attempt to blind the target. Fluff : Turning the magical energy that still keeps him blind against his opponents)
9 : Blindsight, 5-foot radius (Fluff : Jacob's field of awareness has expanded to encompass space outside of just himself)
I'm not worrying TOO much about what happens past there, but I'd certainly be interested to hear ideas. That's what I've got so far, I'd love to hear what you guys think of that series of ideas, and if anyone has a mechanically stronger method of producing this fluff, that would be spectacular. I'm not wholly against multiclassing, but if multiclassing does happen, Jacob needs to gain both a miscellaneous AC bonus which can be fluffed as being "intuition", along with a Dimension-Door-like ability.
((As for his blindness; He's come across a band of higher-level PC's now, fifteen years after he was struck by that errant spell. The cleric cast Remove Blindness on him, and it failed. The spell has been with Jacob for so long that his body has simply accepted it as part of him, and barring some incredibly powerful magic, it will remain in place. Even if it WERE to be lifted, Jacob would likely keep his eyes covered; His worldview no longer includes sight. It would be like if we were to suddenly be capable of perceiving an additional dimension; The revelation, thrilling and incredible as it might be, would leave us confused, at best.))