Way of Harmonious Spirit Monks of the Way of Harmonious Spirit’s goal is to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. Striking against an armored opponent proved ineffective, so practitioners learned that the most efficient methods for neutralizing an enemy took the form of pins, joint locks and throws. These techniques were developed around the principle of using an attacker's energy against him, rather than directly opposing it.
Technique over Power Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, your teachings have taught you that proper applied techniques can help you in a Grapple, throw, or knocking your opponent to the ground more than brute strength alone. You may now add your wisdom modifier to all Grapple and Shove Checks. In addition, when you have an enemy grappled you may spend Ki for any of the following effects as a bonus action:
-1 Ki point: you may use the Shove attack. In addition if you decide to push your opponent, the distance your opponent is moved is increased from 5 feet to up to 15 feet.
-1 Ki point: It must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be disarmed of an object you choose. The object lands at its feet.
Deflect Blows At 6th level, you can manipulate your enemy’s weight and power and redirect the momentum to get them into a Grapple. You may now use your Deflect Missiles ability against melee attacks. If you would reduce a melee attack's damage to 0, instead of catching and making an attack with the weapon, you may initiate a grapple against the attacker for 1 Ki as part of the same reaction.
Harmony of Body and Soul At 11th level, you are able to use your ki to reinforce your body or your soul. As an action you may spend 4 ki to do one of the following effects, Body or Soul. You can end this affect as a bonus action or it automatically ends after 1 minute. You cannot use Harmony of Body and Soul again until you finish a short or long rest.
Body: You use your own ki and send it through your bones and muscles growing in size and strength. For 1 minute your size doubles in all dimensions, and your weight is multiplied by eight. This growth increases your size by one category from Medium to Large, for example. If there isn't enough room, you attain the maximum possible size in the space available. You gain advantage on strength checks and strength saving throws. You magical weapons and equipment grow to match your new size. Melee attacks deal 1d4 extra damage.
Soul: Your soul assists you in your grapple by grabbing onto the soul of your opponent. For 1 minute you have the ability to initiate a grapple against creatures that are immune to the Grapple condition. In addition any creature grappled by you is prevented from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.
Soul Clench At 17th level, you learn to squeeze the life out of an opponent and force your own ki inside of them, slowing and weighing down their soul. At the beginning of your turn or when you succeed in a Grapple check any creature Grappled by you takes damage equal to your unarmed damage. In addition at the beginning of your subsequent turns that a creature is grappled by you, you may spend 2 ki and force that creature to make a constitution saving throw. If it fails, it suffers one level of exhaustion; if it succeeds there is no effect.
Thanks for taking a look at this. I felt that there was a pocket and a need for a monk grappler. This is my first attempt at creating an archetype and i'm happy to think about what other things that i can make. let me know what you guys think, constructive criticism is always welcome. this will probably be the last and final update to this class, unless something major happens. I hope you all enjoy this as much as i did creating it.
I was working on an Irish Brawler monk (open hand) and took the feat that allows grapple to be a minor action.
That being said I would have to play this to see how balance would work, I know there would be several things that would come up for example What if the melee attack hits two people? would you stop the second attack if you where to grapple successfully?
would this break if you took feats that gave you advantage on grapple (there are two grapple feats I can' recall right now though)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.
i would have to see case by case for the melee attacks, but i would say no. being grappled doesn't stop the opponent from attacking. at level 11 it could potentially stop other attacks assuming that they all dropped to zero damage. I know of no feats that give Advantage to Grapple checks. The Grappler feat gives advantage to attack rolls while you are Grappling, and the tavern Brawler allows you to Grapple as a Bonus action. there are however some classes/spells that do give you advantage on athletic checks such as the Barbarians rage, enlarge spell and hold person spell.
Thanks for the polling action guys its really helps. looking over the archetype I'm thinking about changing some things in a big way. I'm probably going to be removing implacable guard, well the first part anyway that allows unlimited reaction. i will probably be replacing it with things already in the archetype by moving things around. ill keep the wisdom modifier part of deflect blows at 3 and move the damage reduction up to 6. speaking of 6 ill be moving the ki chart down to 3 so that it matches more with way of the open fist, then grappling incorporeal or creatures immune to grapple condition up to 11 with grappling 2 sizes larger than yourself. i will be keeping lvl 17 the same. roughly it would look like.
3rd: add wisdom modifier to grapple checks + while in a grapple spending ki to do a thing
6th: deflect blows against melee attacks
11th: ability to grapple ghosts and creatures 2 sizes larger, maybe have a ki expenditure in order to do so
17th: stays the same.
if i do these changes do you think it would make the archetype more balanced? let me know please
It seems balanced, but might get busted if you have someone feat that can take advantage of it ( like dexterous grapple that allows you to grab two things )
Alright guys due to some of your feedback i've made some changes to my monk archetype. I have re arranged some skills gotten rid of skills and i added some new ones. again keep your constructive thoughts coming so i can makes this better. Let me know which abilities are too strong, which one are too weak, so that i'm able to make changes appropriately.
Just as a suggestion, I feel the Giant Form portion of Inescapable Grasp is a little too overtly magical. Might I suggest the following: Titan's Grip. For 1 minute, when you hit a creature with your unarmed strike you may choose to grapple them as part of the same action regardless of their size.
The goal for giant form was a way for me to justify being able to grapple creatures 2 sizes larger than your own size instead of the standard 1 size larger than your own, i want to avoid grappling creatures of any size as it doesn't seem practical and most creatures that are Gargantuan usually have a strength or dexterity of 30. I like the idea of grappling a creature as a free action after hitting with a unarmed strike, but i feel that that takes away from the feat Tavern Brawler.
Having a bit of martial arts experience, this archetype is very interesting to me, and it seems like you have put a lot of thought and research into it! I'd definitely be interested in seeing how it plays out in-game sometime.
Thanks for that. I have a little bit of experience with knife fighting, wrestling, and ju jitsu. From what play testing I have done it seems fairly fun, very good single target control. Damage out put is the same If not less than a regular monk since you'll spend a turn setting up the grapple.
You mention Ju Jutsu, but the first thing I thought was Aikido - I am biased, of course, but that goes to say that your class' design is adaptable to similar ways of thought (and roleplay) - markings of a good class, in my opinion. :)
Overall, I'd say it needs a little bit of language cleanup to more closely match official wording - for clarity and consistency, if nothing else.
3rd and 6th level abilities are excellent - 3rd offers options but remains balanced, and 6th is an excellent match when you think "use their strength against them", isn't it?
My thoughts become a little more complicated on the latter two options.
Soul Touch, I love - but I think it would be a better match for the 17th level ability; that's when you transcend petty limitations such as "the target is immune to that".
Giant Form: This one I dislike. It feels off theme, and the way its bonuses work is very heavy handed in my opinion (pun obviously intended). When I think Ju Jutsu or Aikido (or what have you) masters, I don't think of massively muscular, large guys. The opposite: everyday, often on the small side (and always elderly) people that can spin a larger person three times and hold them immobile by pressing their thumb. I could very easily see this as another "soul" effect, making you count as one size category larger for grappling concerns, but even more preferable, perhaps a means to avoid another's grapple, or prevent knockdown/pushes, or even allow you to grapple any size. I think there are a lot of ideas to draw from.
Soul Clench: This one is tricky. Remove Exhaustion, and it can very easily swap places with Soul Touch. Keep exhaustion, and while some creatures are immune to it, it makes it very difficult to define on a power scale. It's both powerful and weak. Why powerful? Because reaching 6th level of exhaustion is instant death. Why weak? Because you'd normally need 6 rounds (with failed saves) and 12 Ki to do that on a clean slate. I'd prefer to see it keep the damage, drop the exhaustion, add a bit such as "harder to escape" or "damage increases per subsequent round until escape", and trade it with Soul Touch in the trait list.
Exhaustion is a powerful mechanic not only because it can kill, but it has non killing abilities that take in game days to recover from. 12 ki is a lot to kill a single target, even more so if you consider the open hand monk can do it for 3 to 4 ki in a single turn at the same level (they drop creatures to zero hp on a failed save or they do 10 d10 points of damage on a successful save). I could see changing it so that an opponent could recover from this form of exhaustion faster say 1 round/ level. So if at anytime they escape the grapple they have a chance of running away. I got the idea of Giant Form from watching dragon ball, king piccollo users his ki to change in size and starts squeezing Goku, its this that I wanted to replicate. Plus enlarge self gave me access to growing a full size to increase what I was able to grapple and granting advantage, things I could have just written in, but felt it easier to reference a pre existing spell.
Taking the advice of friends and people in this forum I'm thinking about swapping and altering lvl11 and lack 17 abilities.
Grappling opponents and twisting limbs to the breaking point and beyond are common place so I feel a damage bump sounds reasonable turning it into this.
Clench: Lvl 11. When ever you succeed in a Grapple check and at the beginning of your turn creatures grappled by you take your unarmed damage.
Harmonious Soul: lvl 17. Your soul assists you in your grapple by grabbing onto the soul of your opponent. As an action you may spend 4 ki, when you do, for 1 minute you have the ability to initiate a grapple against creatures that are two sizes larger than yourself and creatures that are immune to the Grapple condition. In addition any creature grappled by you is prevented from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.
Taking the advice of friends and people in this forum I'm thinking about swapping and altering lvl11 and lack 17 abilities.
Grappling opponents and twisting limbs to the breaking point and beyond are common place so I feel a damage bump sounds reasonable turning it into this.
Clench: Lvl 11. When ever you succeed in a Grapple check and at the beginning of your turn creatures grappled by you take your unarmed damage.
Harmonious Soul: lvl 17. Your soul assists you in your grapple by grabbing onto the soul of your opponent. As an action you may spend 4 ki, when you do, for 1 minute you have the ability to initiate a grapple against creatures that are two sizes larger than yourself and creatures that are immune to the Grapple condition. In addition any creature grappled by you is prevented from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.
Do that. Definitely.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Way of Harmonious Spirit
Monks of the Way of Harmonious Spirit’s goal is to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury. Striking against an armored opponent proved ineffective, so practitioners learned that the most efficient methods for neutralizing an enemy took the form of pins, joint locks and throws. These techniques were developed around the principle of using an attacker's energy against him, rather than directly opposing it.
Technique over Power
Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, your teachings have taught you that proper applied techniques can help you in a Grapple, throw, or knocking your opponent to the ground more than brute strength alone. You may now add your wisdom modifier to all Grapple and Shove Checks.
In addition, when you have an enemy grappled you may spend Ki for any of the following effects as a bonus action:
-1 Ki point: you may use the Shove attack. In addition if you decide to push your opponent, the distance your opponent is moved is increased from 5 feet to up to 15 feet.
-1 Ki point: It must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be disarmed of an object you choose. The object lands at its feet.
Deflect Blows
At 6th level, you can manipulate your enemy’s weight and power and redirect the momentum to get them into a Grapple. You may now use your Deflect Missiles ability against melee attacks. If you would reduce a melee attack's damage to 0, instead of catching and making an attack with
the weapon, you may initiate a grapple against the attacker for 1 Ki as part of the same reaction.
Harmony of Body and Soul
At 11th level, you are able to use your ki to reinforce your body or your soul. As an action you may spend 4 ki to do one of the following effects, Body or Soul. You can end this affect as a bonus action or it automatically ends after 1 minute. You cannot use Harmony of Body and Soul again until you finish a short or long rest.
Body: You use your own ki and send it through your bones and muscles growing in size and strength. For 1 minute your size doubles in all dimensions, and your weight is multiplied by eight. This growth increases your size by one category from Medium to Large, for example. If there isn't enough room, you attain the maximum possible size in the space available. You gain advantage on strength checks and strength saving throws. You magical weapons and equipment grow to match your new size. Melee attacks deal 1d4 extra damage.
Soul: Your soul assists you in your grapple by grabbing onto the soul of your opponent. For 1 minute you have the ability to initiate a grapple against creatures that are immune to the Grapple condition. In addition any creature grappled by you is prevented from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.
Soul Clench
At 17th level, you learn to squeeze the life out of an opponent and force your own ki inside of them, slowing and weighing down their soul. At the beginning of your turn or when you succeed in a Grapple check any creature Grappled by you takes damage equal to your unarmed damage. In addition at the beginning of your subsequent turns that a creature is grappled by you, you may spend 2 ki and force that creature to make a constitution saving throw. If it fails, it suffers one level of exhaustion; if it succeeds there is no effect.
<img src='http://i.imgur.com/ZkFHuAn.jpg'
style='position:absolute;bottom:222px;right:px;width:280px' />
<div class='pageNumber'>1</div>
<div class='footnote'></div>
Thanks for taking a look at this. I felt that there was a pocket and a need for a monk grappler. This is my first attempt at creating an archetype and i'm happy to think about what other things that i can make. let me know what you guys think, constructive criticism is always welcome. this will probably be the last and final update to this class, unless something major happens. I hope you all enjoy this as much as i did creating it.
I was working on an Irish Brawler monk (open hand) and took the feat that allows grapple to be a minor action.
That being said I would have to play this to see how balance would work, I know there would be several things that would come up for example What if the melee attack hits two people? would you stop the second attack if you where to grapple successfully?
would this break if you took feats that gave you advantage on grapple (there are two grapple feats I can' recall right now though)
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination. I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.
i would have to see case by case for the melee attacks, but i would say no. being grappled doesn't stop the opponent from attacking. at level 11 it could potentially stop other attacks assuming that they all dropped to zero damage. I know of no feats that give Advantage to Grapple checks. The Grappler feat gives advantage to attack rolls while you are Grappling, and the tavern Brawler allows you to Grapple as a Bonus action. there are however some classes/spells that do give you advantage on athletic checks such as the Barbarians rage, enlarge spell and hold person spell.
Thanks for the polling action guys its really helps. looking over the archetype I'm thinking about changing some things in a big way. I'm probably going to be removing implacable guard, well the first part anyway that allows unlimited reaction. i will probably be replacing it with things already in the archetype by moving things around. ill keep the wisdom modifier part of deflect blows at 3 and move the damage reduction up to 6. speaking of 6 ill be moving the ki chart down to 3 so that it matches more with way of the open fist, then grappling incorporeal or creatures immune to grapple condition up to 11 with grappling 2 sizes larger than yourself. i will be keeping lvl 17 the same. roughly it would look like.
3rd: add wisdom modifier to grapple checks + while in a grapple spending ki to do a thing
6th: deflect blows against melee attacks
11th: ability to grapple ghosts and creatures 2 sizes larger, maybe have a ki expenditure in order to do so
17th: stays the same.
if i do these changes do you think it would make the archetype more balanced? let me know please
It seems balanced, but might get busted if you have someone feat that can take advantage of it ( like dexterous grapple that allows you to grab two things )
you don't require a feat in order to grab multiple people just an open hand, so for most characters that is a max of 2.
Alright guys due to some of your feedback i've made some changes to my monk archetype. I have re arranged some skills gotten rid of skills and i added some new ones. again keep your constructive thoughts coming so i can makes this better. Let me know which abilities are too strong, which one are too weak, so that i'm able to make changes appropriately.
I'm enjoying this current moderation of my class thank you everyone for your assistance.
Just as a suggestion, I feel the Giant Form portion of Inescapable Grasp is a little too overtly magical. Might I suggest the following: Titan's Grip. For 1 minute, when you hit a creature with your unarmed strike you may choose to grapple them as part of the same action regardless of their size.
The goal for giant form was a way for me to justify being able to grapple creatures 2 sizes larger than your own size instead of the standard 1 size larger than your own, i want to avoid grappling creatures of any size as it doesn't seem practical and most creatures that are Gargantuan usually have a strength or dexterity of 30. I like the idea of grappling a creature as a free action after hitting with a unarmed strike, but i feel that that takes away from the feat Tavern Brawler.
Having a bit of martial arts experience, this archetype is very interesting to me, and it seems like you have put a lot of thought and research into it! I'd definitely be interested in seeing how it plays out in-game sometime.
Thanks for that. I have a little bit of experience with knife fighting, wrestling, and ju jitsu. From what play testing I have done it seems fairly fun, very good single target control. Damage out put is the same If not less than a regular monk since you'll spend a turn setting up the grapple.
I'm late for this one, but I really like it.
You mention Ju Jutsu, but the first thing I thought was Aikido - I am biased, of course, but that goes to say that your class' design is adaptable to similar ways of thought (and roleplay) - markings of a good class, in my opinion. :)
Overall, I'd say it needs a little bit of language cleanup to more closely match official wording - for clarity and consistency, if nothing else.
3rd and 6th level abilities are excellent - 3rd offers options but remains balanced, and 6th is an excellent match when you think "use their strength against them", isn't it?
My thoughts become a little more complicated on the latter two options.
Soul Touch, I love - but I think it would be a better match for the 17th level ability; that's when you transcend petty limitations such as "the target is immune to that".
Giant Form: This one I dislike. It feels off theme, and the way its bonuses work is very heavy handed in my opinion (pun obviously intended). When I think Ju Jutsu or Aikido (or what have you) masters, I don't think of massively muscular, large guys. The opposite: everyday, often on the small side (and always elderly) people that can spin a larger person three times and hold them immobile by pressing their thumb. I could very easily see this as another "soul" effect, making you count as one size category larger for grappling concerns, but even more preferable, perhaps a means to avoid another's grapple, or prevent knockdown/pushes, or even allow you to grapple any size. I think there are a lot of ideas to draw from.
Soul Clench: This one is tricky. Remove Exhaustion, and it can very easily swap places with Soul Touch. Keep exhaustion, and while some creatures are immune to it, it makes it very difficult to define on a power scale. It's both powerful and weak. Why powerful? Because reaching 6th level of exhaustion is instant death. Why weak? Because you'd normally need 6 rounds (with failed saves) and 12 Ki to do that on a clean slate. I'd prefer to see it keep the damage, drop the exhaustion, add a bit such as "harder to escape" or "damage increases per subsequent round until escape", and trade it with Soul Touch in the trait list.
Exhaustion is a powerful mechanic not only because it can kill, but it has non killing abilities that take in game days to recover from. 12 ki is a lot to kill a single target, even more so if you consider the open hand monk can do it for 3 to 4 ki in a single turn at the same level (they drop creatures to zero hp on a failed save or they do 10 d10 points of damage on a successful save). I could see changing it so that an opponent could recover from this form of exhaustion faster say 1 round/ level. So if at anytime they escape the grapple they have a chance of running away. I got the idea of Giant Form from watching dragon ball, king piccollo users his ki to change in size and starts squeezing Goku, its this that I wanted to replicate. Plus enlarge self gave me access to growing a full size to increase what I was able to grapple and granting advantage, things I could have just written in, but felt it easier to reference a pre existing spell.
Taking the advice of friends and people in this forum I'm thinking about swapping and altering lvl11 and lack 17 abilities.
Grappling opponents and twisting limbs to the breaking point and beyond are common place so I feel a damage bump sounds reasonable turning it into this.
Clench: Lvl 11. When ever you succeed in a Grapple check and at the beginning of your turn creatures grappled by you take your unarmed damage.
Harmonious Soul: lvl 17. Your soul assists you in your grapple by grabbing onto the soul of your opponent. As an action you may spend 4 ki, when you do, for 1 minute you have the ability to initiate a grapple against creatures that are two sizes larger than yourself and creatures that are immune to the Grapple condition. In addition any creature grappled by you is prevented from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)