Design Day: The Artificial

Last week on Design Day, I presented a new, shadowy race known as the Shadowkin. This week, I'm still on a races kick, so I decided to throw something else together...well, not exactly that. I'm actually updating an old race I designed: The Gearman.

Except these guys got a pretty major face-lift. They've been re-designed from the bottom-up, right down to the name. In addition, they have some new flavor that I hope you'll enjoy. I've been meaning to adjust them for a while now, since they're one of the player races in my home campaign setting. So here it is:

Flavor Friday: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 3

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…

Design Day: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 2

Hey there, everybody! Well, last time, we took a look at the monk, and some of the problems with its current design. Today, we’re going to take those problems and start a-fixin’ em! Keep in mind that this is all in preparation for a brand new monk build (which is almost complete, but I though I’d go through the whole process). That said, some of the “fixes” I’m about to propose wouldn’t really fit in with the standard monk. I’ll note the changes that work and the changes that don’t as they come. Just keep in mind that each of these will be incorporated into the final monk next week.

Let’s start with the basics, just like we did before.

Design Day: Rebuilding the Monk, Part 1

A while ago, I mentioned that I was working on a total rebuild of the monk. Well, today we’re taking our first step toward that goal, today. And, when you’re rebuilding something that you think is broken, your first step should always be the same.

Identify the problem.

And that is exactly what we plan to do, today.