Way of the Rust Monster [PEACH]

[Llama513]

For the most part the name is self explanatory. This is a monk archetype based around using ki to emulate the effects of a rust monster and destroy your opponents metal equipment.

The link the to the homebrewery is here: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1-V7zPt7m

[Amnoriath]

The biggest issue I see is that it is an entire subclass devoted to slowly disarming and destroying metal armor meaning that it is a slow debuffer of a small pool of enemies.

[Llama513]

The biggest issue I see is that it is an entire subclass devoted to slowly disarming and destroying metal armor meaning that it is a slow debuffer of a small pool of enemies.

Should I make the armor destruction faster, they also hit harder then normal monks.

[Lalliman]

I like it. It's definitely highly-situational, as Amnoriath says, but since monks don't get that much power from their archetype it isn't too far from the desired balance point. I would suggest the following changes for clarification and improvement.

- Clarify the second part of Rusting Blows. What happens if you do wield metal weapons? Do they actually get destroyed, or is that flavour text? It doesn't sound like an ability you have no control over, since it only triggers on the FoB attacks. And what about wooden weapons, are those sworn off too? I'd also make it a separate feature (on the same level) so you can more easily discuss them separately, e.g. Rusting Blows and Empty Fist.

- Clarify what happens when you hit a creature made of metal with your FoB. 1d6 extra damage per hit perhaps?

- I would add some additional ability that doesn't rely on facing opponents with metal equipment. Maybe something that allows you to consume an unworn piece of metal to regain some HP, limited either by a ki cost or a per rest limit. I'd put it alongside Rusting Defence, which is fairly weak because monks don't (want to) get hit often. Make it maybe half as powerful as Wholeness of Body.

(Oh and, you misspelled "Rusting Defnese".)

[Llama513]

I like it. It's definitely highly-situational, as Amnoriath says, but since monks don't get that much power from their archetype it isn't too far from the desired balance point. I would suggest the following changes for clarification and improvement.

- Clarify the second part of Rusting Blows. What happens if you do wield metal weapons? Do they actually get destroyed, or is that flavour text? It doesn't sound like an ability you have no control over, since it only triggers on the FoB attacks. And what about wooden weapons, are those sworn off too? I'd also make it a separate feature (on the same level) so you can more easily discuss them separately, e.g. Rusting Blows and Empty Fist.

- Clarify what happens when you hit a creature made of metal with your FoB. 1d6 extra damage per hit perhaps?

- I would add some additional ability that doesn't rely on facing opponents with metal equipment. Maybe something that allows you to consume an unworn piece of metal to regain some HP, limited either by a ki cost or a per rest limit. I'd put it alongside Rusting Defence, which is fairly weak because monks don't (want to) get hit often. Make it maybe half as powerful as Wholeness of Body.

(Oh and, you misspelled "Rusting Defnese".)

Clarified the second part of Rusting blows in the flavor text for Empty Fist. Added that you do an extra 1d6 points of damage per hit to creatures made of metal, also made it so that each hit from flurry of blows gives a -1 penalty (can very easily change that back).

Added Iron Body which allows you to use your action to eat a piece of metal up to 1 lb. to restore your monk level in hitpoints and half your prof mod in ki points once per long rest.

and fixed the spelling of Rusting Defence

[Lalliman]

Clarified the second part of Rusting blows in the flavor text for Empty Fist. Added that you do an extra 1d6 points of damage per hit to creatures made of metal, also made it so that each hit from flurry of blows gives a -1 penalty (can very easily change that back).

Added Iron Body which allows you to use your action to eat a piece of metal up to 1 lb. to restore your monk level in hitpoints and half your prof mod in ki points once per long rest.

and fixed the spelling of Rusting Defence

Iron Body looks great, good call making it regain some ki as well as HP to set it apart from Wholeness of Body.

You also added Wisdom to damage to Empty Fist (or at least I haven't seen it before), which is quite excessive. When you get it at 6th level, a well-built character will be doing 1d8+7 damage per hit, which is the same average damage as a fighter with a greatsword, but you're making four attacks per round. I think the class is fine without that.

Lastly, the description of Rusting Blows has become a bit mangled, implying that a weapon can take a -1 to AC.

Those points aside, I think it's ready for playtesting!

[Llama513]

Iron Body looks great, good call making it regain some ki as well as HP to set it apart from Wholeness of Body.

You also added Wisdom to damage to Empty Fist (or at least I haven't seen it before), which is quite excessive. When you get it at 6th level, a well-built character will be doing 1d8+7 damage per hit, which is the same average damage as a fighter with a greatsword, but you're making four attacks per round. I think the class is fine without that.

Lastly, the description of Rusting Blows has become a bit mangled, implying that a weapon can take a -1 to AC.

Those points aside, I think it's ready for playtesting!

Thanks, I had added in the wis damage as a test, didn't think it was going to stay, but figured it is fairly easy to take back out, I will fix the wording for the weapons of rusting blows.