And Flavor Friday is back! This week, we’re continuing with our rebuild of the monk. Wait, what’s that? We’re doing design work on a flavor Friday? Blasphemy! Nah. I’m just kidding. This is part of the monk’s rebuild, but, in fact, I will include (next to) no design work today.
One of the things I ran into while I was working on the new monk was that I was going to have to accommodate all (or most) of its archetypes. And, instead of completely rewriting the archetypes to fit with the new system, I thought I’d create a system within the class itself that would accommodate switching out all of these abilities. To find inspiration, I looked to other classes that had similar systems. Classes like the sorcerer and its bloodlines, or the wizard and its schools, or the cavalier and its orders.
And so I came up with the idea of Paths. At level 1, the monk selects a path—a set of beliefs and practices by which the monk lives his life. He then gains set abilities at set levels based on that path. Remember yesterday, when I said that the Still Mind, Purity of Body, Diamond Body and Timeless Body abilities would all be rolled into one thing? That would be the…
Path of Self Perfection: Monks who follow the path of self-perfection focus on disciplining their bodies and minds in order to harden themselves against all forms of attack.
And in addition to that, I have several other paths that the base monk can choose from.
Path of the Drunken Master: Powered by strong wine, mead, ale, liquor, or anything alcoholic he can get his hands on, the drunken master uses his intoxication to reach a state where his ki is more potent, if somewhat fleeting.
Path of the Hungry Ghost: The hungry ghost monk sees the life energy of the universe as a resource to be manipulated, even stealing it from other creatures to achieve his ultimate goal: Power.
Path of the Ki Mystic: Through meditation and spiritual visions, a ki mystic can see beyond the veil of reality to the underlying truth of all existence.
Path of the Empty Hand: The monk of the empty hand eschews normal weapons in favor of whatever is lying around—rocks, chair legs, flagons of ale, even a simple quill pen all become deadly weapons in the hands of such a monk.
Path of the Healing Hand: By focusing their meditations on the flow of life within themselves and all creation, monks of the healing hand gain an understanding of how to share their ki with others, healing wounds and even bringing the dead back to life.
Path of the Sacred Mountain: Rather than spinning though the battlefield with the fluid motion of the river, the monk of the sacred mountain roots himself to the ground, as immovable and unshakable as the stones of the mountain.
--
You’ll notice that I didn’t include the Monk of the Four Winds, the Monk of the Lotus, the Weapon Adept, the Zen Archer, the Quinggong Monk, the Flowing Monk, the Maneuver Master, the Martial Artist, the Master of Many Styles, the Sensei, the Sohei, or the Tetori. This is for a multitude of reasons, but primarily because either the archetype just doesn’t fold well into the new Path system (Four Winds, Lotus, Weapon Adept, Quinggong, Flowing Monk), or because it is a major departure from the monk’s flavor and play-style as a whole (Zen Archer, Maneuver Master, Martial Artist, Master of Many Styles, Sensei, Sohei, Tetori).
--
And there you have it! The path system. Hopefully, this will satisfy you all long enough until I’m able to compile it all and post my new monk next week on Tuesday.
-Chris
No comments:
Post a Comment