Way of the Bow (Monk Archetype)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Way of the Bow

Some monks seek to become one with another weapon entirely—the bow. The zen archer takes a weapon most other monks eschew and seeks perfection in the pull of a taut bowstring, the flex of a bow’s limbs, and the flight of an arrow fired true.

Bonus Proficiencies: At 3rd level, you gain proficiency with longbows, heavy crossbows, and hand crossbows, as well as woodcarver's tools.

Zen Archery: Beginning at 3rd level, all ranged weapons count as Monk weapons for you, and you do not have disadvantage on the attack roll when making a ranged attack while you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature. In addition, you learn the following special archery techniques:*

• Meditative Aim: As a bonus action, you may add your Wisdom modifier to the damage rolls of your ranged weapon attacks until the end of your turn.
• Reflexive Speed: As a bonus action, you may spend 1 ki to make a ranged weapon attack, adding your Wisdom Modifier to the attack and damage rolls.
• Curving Flight: As a bonus action, you may spent 1 ki to induce your arrows to bend in mid-flight. Until the beginning of your next turn, your attacks with ranged weapons can turn up to ninety degrees in flight, allowing them to travel around corners and potentially ignore cover.

One With the Bow: Beginning at 6th level, your arrows count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage, and as melee weapon attacks for the purposes of your Stunning Strike ability.

Song of Endless Flight: Beginning at 11th level, you may spend 1 ki as an action and make a ranged weapon attack against a single foe. If you hit, your arrow deals its normal damage and continues on. Make a second attack roll against another target within 30ft of the original target. If you hit, your arrow deals its normal damage and continues on. You may continue dealing damage and making fresh attack rolls until you miss.

Oneness of Space: What is distance, but a construction of the mind? All places are one place, and all targets are one target. Beginning at 17th level, you may take an action to make a single ranged attack against any creature you are familiar with, regardless of the distance between you, intervening walls, or any other such obstacle (though they must be on the same plane of existance). If you do not know their approximate location (to within 500ft), you have disadvantage on this roll; if you can see them at the time you make the shot, either visually or through a scrying ability, you have advantage. If hit, the target takes an additional 5d10 damage. Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you have completed a short or long rest.

Spoiler: *A note on math

Show

My math showed that the increased DPS from +Wis to attack and damage roughly parallels that of the Martial Arts bonus action unarmed strike, and that the total DPS for a shot using Wis+Dex roughly parallels that of Flurry of Blows. But I'd appreciate a double-check.

Level	Assumed Dex/Wis	Martial Arts	Meditative Aim	Flurry (Martial Arts x2)	Reflexive Speed
1	+3/+3	.6*(d4+3)=3.3	(.6*3)=1.8	6.6	.75(d8+6)=7.9
5	+4/+3	.6*(d6+4)=4.5	(.6*3)*2=3.6	9	.75 (d8+7)=8.6
11	+5/+4	.6*(d8+5)=5.7	(.6*4)*2=4.8	11.4	.8 (d8+9)=10.8
17	+5/+5	.6*(d10+5)=6.3	(.6*5)*2=6	12.6	.85 (d10+10)=13.2

[jiriku]

Elegant, stylish, cool. Very powerful high-level abilities. Simple and intuitive to understand. Maybe a little too narrowly focused on combat abilities? I might like to see something that allows the character to engage with the world around him by means other than shooting at it. Then again, there are the woodcarver's tools.

[ATHATH]

Zen Archery: Beginning at 3rd level, all ranged weapons count as Monk weapons for you, and you do not suffer from disadvantage from using a ranged weapon in melee range of a foe. In addition, you learn the following special archery techniques:*

Ranged Attacks in Close Combat

Aiming a ranged Attack is more difficult when a foe is next to you. When you make a ranged Attack with a weapon, a spell, or some other means, you have disadvantage on the Attack roll if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature who can see you and who isn’t Incapacitated.

While they're very similar, these two conditions are different things. Also, technically/by RAW, while you're within melee range (yours or theirs?) of a foe and have this ability, you could make ranged attacks without disadvantage from ANY source (including, say, Blur), even when attacking another enemy who isn't in melee range of you. Specify that you don't suffer disadvantage from the ranged attacks in close combat rules or something.

Meditative Aim: As a bonus action, you may add your Wisdom modifier to attack and damage rolls of your next ranged weapon attack.

Is this supposed to be able to be used as a pre-buff before/after every fight, seeing as how it has no limit for how far apart in time you spending a bonus action on this ability and you making an attack roll can be?

One With the Bow: Beginning at 6th level, if you use your Zen Archery ability, your arrows count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage, and as melee weapon attacks for the purposes of your Stunning Strike ability.

Define "use your Zen Archery ability". Does using your bow as a monk weapon count? Does firing at a target within 5 ft. of a hostile creature that can see you and who is not incapacitated without disadvantage count?

Song of Endless Flight: Beginning at 11th level, you may spend 1 ki as an action and make a ranged weapon attack against a single foe. If you hit, your arrow deals its normal damage and continues on. Make a second attack roll against another target within 30ft. If you hit, your arrow deals its normal damage and continues on. You may continue dealing damage and making fresh attack rolls until you miss.

Within 30 ft. of what? The previous target?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Elegant, stylish, cool. Very powerful high-level abilities. Simple and intuitive to understand. Maybe a little too narrowly focused on combat abilities? I might like to see something that allows the character to engage with the world around him by means other than shooting at it. Then again, there are the woodcarver's tools.

Monk subclasses usually are, but I can throw something in, yeah.

While they're very similar, these two conditions are different things. Also, technically/by RAW, while you're within melee range (yours or theirs?) of a foe and have this ability, you could make ranged attacks without disadvantage from ANY source (including, say, Blur), even when attacking another enemy who isn't in melee range of you. Specify that you don't suffer disadvantage from the ranged attacks in close combat rules or something.

I couldn't remember the right wording; I'll fix.

Is this supposed to be able to be used as a pre-buff before/after every fight, seeing as how it has no limit for how far apart in time you spending a bonus action on this ability and you making an attack roll can be?

Define "use your Zen Archery ability". Does using your bow as a monk weapon count? Does firing at a target within 5 ft. of a hostile creature that can see you and who is not incapacitated without disadvantage count?

Shoot-- interdraft garbling. The former should be "for the rest of the round," the latter was structured around an old version of Zen Archery where it was just a single thing.

Within 30 ft. of what? The previous target?

Yes.

[Vogie]

Really well-done, and that 17th level feature will be amazing on a Find Familiar pickup, via MI, RC, or class dip.

Song of Endless Flight will make an excellent Yondu.

Some notes:

• Most Monk subclasses with some sort of attack alterations will include a way to flurry with the new technique, or have a feature that somehow uses it - what was your reason of not having a ranged flurry, and opting for +Wis instead?
• Seeing how this subclass could also be used for a dart or sling thrower, would you be interested in changing the name to something more broad? It could be an nature allusion (Way of the Hornet) or technique (Way of Flying Death, Way of Endless Flight)
• Do you want to include a buff/expansion to Deflect Missiles for this subclass as a feature?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Most Monk subclasses with some sort of attack alterations will include a way to flurry with the new technique, or have a feature that somehow uses it - what was your reason of not having a ranged flurry, and opting for +Wis instead?

Reflexive Speed is the Flurry equivalent. The difficulty was that "one extra ranged attack" started out on par with Flurry and quickly fell behind, while "two extra ranged attacks" never fell behind but started out way better-- and there was no easy point to add a second shot. The current version was the simplest way I could come up with of keeping the damage roughly consistent. Besides, I think it's kinda neat to have it be a non-direct port.

Seeing how this subclass could also be used for a dart or sling thrower, would you be interested in changing the name to something more broad? It could be an nature allusion (Way of the Hornet) or technique (Way of Flying Death, Way of Endless Flight)

Eh.

Do you want to include a buff/expansion to Deflect Missiles for this subclass as a feature?

I considered it--perhaps making the "return missile" bit free--but it didn't seem to quite go with the rest of the subclass. It's not defensively oriented, like, at all.

[SleeplessWriter]

I really like this subclass, it looks like a lot of fun.
The third and sixth level abilities look solid, and I like the higher level abilities, but I can already see a few abuses.
Song of Endless Flight is my favorite ability from the class, but it's a bit cheap for so many potential hits if you have an easy source of advantage on all your attacks. Such as a three level dip into rogue to get assassinate. And there's nothing stopping you from bouncing it back and fourth between two targets as it is at the moment. First round of combat with four or five autocrits between two targets for a single ki point? Ouch. And it just gets worse if there's a war cleric in the party to help you keep the arrow going along with crusader's mantle boosting the damage.
I would probably just add a line to limit it to one hit per target and raise the cost to two ki points, but I would also add another ability to it that lets you spend another ki as a bonus action to try to hit the last guy again and then go back up the list in reverse order. Could be fun.
The last ability is great, but doesn't have enough limits on what it can hit. Personally I would limit it to a ten mile range, but for goodness sake keep it on the same plane of existence! I shouldn't be able to shoot Vecna in his bloody good eye from some dinky mountaintop on the material plane! Of course, that's assuming I'm familiar with Vecna, and that he didn't kill me when I met him. Okay, yeah that's a bit far fetched, but you get the point.
Also, that same three level dip into rogue means you can almost always get a decent shot at your target with an autocrit and sneak attack. And crusader's mantle from the war cleric. And a plus ten to hit from their channel divinity. And a plus ten to damage from sharpshooter. A reroll from luck. And an extra 2d6 doubled to 4d6 from a bugbear's surprise attack.
And you can do that three or four times a day.
I love the ability, but it's a bit overpowered at the moment, especially without even having a cost to use at all.
Personally I think it should take a ten minute meditation to do this, or at least to do it without disadvantage, just because it would add to the feeling of making a truly epic shot, then you can gain advantage if you see the target. I'd also limit it to once a long rest instead. But I can understand if you think it's fine as is.

All in all a really great subclass. Thanks.
Sincerely, a SleeplessWriter.