Hi I was hoping to get some ideas and suggestions on a subclass for monk having to do with portlas and maybe even the planes. I was thinking maybe stuff like, he can punch through a portal, which will attack a creature 30 feet away. Or maybe on top of that he can punch through a portal, forming a large Astral fist that can knock creatures back. I'd love to get some feedback and suggestions.
My initial reaction is that making Monk attacks ranged is super-powerful. Making them multi-dimensional, even more so.
You could definitely play with the concept of Ki being able to affect items and opponents at a distance - but I'd look at the various monastic traditions, and see if you could come up with thematically appropriate powers, of roughly the same power level, at 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 17th level.
Consider that Ki Empowered Strikes only kick in at level 6, and those are +0 magic attacks.
Shadow Step deals with mystically closing distances, so it's not beyond the realm of plausibility - but consider that Shadow Stepping puts the Monk in the midst of the battle that they're reaching, which put them at risk, whereas just punching 30' away gives them all the punch, and none of the risk.
Searing Sunburst does monk damage at a distance, but that's an 11th level ability.
I think the overall concept - a Monk using Ki to manipulate space and distance - has some interesting possibilities - but it would be very easy to make this idea unbalanced and over-powered, so tread with care here.
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The way of the sun soul monk can fire radiant darts (martial arts die) 30 ft at level 3. In fact, the sun soul has a lot of abilities that can sort of 1-to-1 this concept.
At level 3, 30 foot punches.
Level 6, spend ki for portaly spell i.e. misty step
Level 11, "portal punch wave": 15 ft cone originating from a point within 30 feet. Targets make save or take force damage, shove, and prone. Half damage and no shove/prone if save success. Should probably cost 3 ki, plus more ki to increase damage.
Level 17, can be more, higher level spells. Unless you think of something better.
The way of the sun soul monk can fire radiant darts (martial arts die) 30 ft at level 3. In fact, the sun soul has a lot of abilities that can sort of 1-to-1 this concept.
At level 3, 30 foot punches.
Level 6, spend ki for portaly spell i.e. misty step
Level 11, "portal punch wave": 15 ft cone originating from a point within 30 feet. Targets make save or take force damage, shove, and prone. Half damage and no shove/prone if save success. Should probably cost 3 ki, plus more ki to increase damage.
Level 17, can be more, higher level spells. Unless you think of something better.
Good catch.
Would you allow them to have some sort of re-skinned Plane Shift where their "portal punch wave" opens up a rift into another plane? Have it close after the "you and eight willing creatures" pass through? Or is a 7th level spell too low power for a top-level Monk ability, here?
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I had an idea of altering base monk abilities, or maybe giving them some flare.I was thinking maybe the ranged punches could be a bonus for furry of blows. So its still required to punch some people up close, but maybe for coolness, after punching an enemy down, the monk would just blindly punch to his left, taking out another guard 30 feet away. Maybe for the ability to deflect missiles, a portal could open up and redirect the projectile.
For contex, and this may be very convoluted, but the monk early on in the campaign went through a door in time and taught himself the ways of being a monk. Years later after having a mental break due to some memories of his past being brought up, he secluded himself in his own mind where he met another version of himself that offered to take up control of his body. The alter ego takes control but reveals he has no intention of giving back his body. He also reveals that after every decision he made after he went back in time, has made an infinite amount of versions of himself. Every dice roll, every line of dialogue, he's a walking paradox. I've already talked with the character and he said he'd be fine if his subclass changed. I was thinking maybe in the future he will regain control of his body, and able to harness the power of all these different dimensions, allowing him to tap into the astral plane or something, allowing him to do these abilities. This is all hypothetical tho, as if he never regains control of his body, then I won't need to use this, but just to be safe, in case it does happen.
If you're just going to add an additional ability on top of flurry-of-blows, you run into possible class balance issues. You've essentially converted a close up melee attack into a ranged one, with no balancing "drawback" for the Monk. You're essentially giving them two level 3 abilities. If you re-skin the sun soul monk ability, as per DxJxC's suggestion, you're balancing it by it being the distance punch be the monk's 3rd level ability - which is already built into the class archetype balance.
Re-skinning the deflect missiles ability actually has the opposite problem - aren't you taking away the ability of the Monk to throw missiles back, if they've been sent to another plane?
Overall, It definitely sounds cool from a story point-of-view, not sure how well it works from a balanced game-mechanical point-of-view.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
The monk is already sun soul currently, so i guess it could mainly be a re-skin, maybe a few changes here and there. Like the ranged attacks don't have to be as powerful as his regular punches. And for the deflect missles, I was thinking that the projectile would go in one portal and with a ki point you can open another portal to fling it back.(kinda like the game portal) I think there could be a few mobility changes, but I like the idea of creating large astral projected constructs to do things. For example what if the monk goes to punch through a portal, and then another portal open up with a huge fist coming through. Maybe a high level ability could be some sort of zenyatta form from overwatch, where multiple arms come out of his back to help him fight. I like the idea of all the different versions of himself coming together in unity to accomplish these task, that's the reason why he can do theses things.
Also due to the nature of how he got this ability, I don't know if its game breaking but i thought of an ability that allows him to tap into the different versions of himself. Maybe for some ki points, he can become proficient in a certain ability for an hour,(like he is accessing another version of himself for that knowledge)
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Hi I was hoping to get some ideas and suggestions on a subclass for monk having to do with portlas and maybe even the planes. I was thinking maybe stuff like, he can punch through a portal, which will attack a creature 30 feet away. Or maybe on top of that he can punch through a portal, forming a large Astral fist that can knock creatures back. I'd love to get some feedback and suggestions.
My initial reaction is that making Monk attacks ranged is super-powerful. Making them multi-dimensional, even more so.
You could definitely play with the concept of Ki being able to affect items and opponents at a distance - but I'd look at the various monastic traditions, and see if you could come up with thematically appropriate powers, of roughly the same power level, at 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 17th level.
Consider that Ki Empowered Strikes only kick in at level 6, and those are +0 magic attacks.
Shadow Step deals with mystically closing distances, so it's not beyond the realm of plausibility - but consider that Shadow Stepping puts the Monk in the midst of the battle that they're reaching, which put them at risk, whereas just punching 30' away gives them all the punch, and none of the risk.
Searing Sunburst does monk damage at a distance, but that's an 11th level ability.
I think the overall concept - a Monk using Ki to manipulate space and distance - has some interesting possibilities - but it would be very easy to make this idea unbalanced and over-powered, so tread with care here.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
The way of the sun soul monk can fire radiant darts (martial arts die) 30 ft at level 3. In fact, the sun soul has a lot of abilities that can sort of 1-to-1 this concept.
At level 3, 30 foot punches.
Level 6, spend ki for portaly spell i.e. misty step
Level 11, "portal punch wave": 15 ft cone originating from a point within 30 feet. Targets make save or take force damage, shove, and prone. Half damage and no shove/prone if save success. Should probably cost 3 ki, plus more ki to increase damage.
Level 17, can be more, higher level spells. Unless you think of something better.
Good catch.
Would you allow them to have some sort of re-skinned Plane Shift where their "portal punch wave" opens up a rift into another plane? Have it close after the "you and eight willing creatures" pass through? Or is a 7th level spell too low power for a top-level Monk ability, here?
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I had an idea of altering base monk abilities, or maybe giving them some flare.I was thinking maybe the ranged punches could be a bonus for furry of blows. So its still required to punch some people up close, but maybe for coolness, after punching an enemy down, the monk would just blindly punch to his left, taking out another guard 30 feet away. Maybe for the ability to deflect missiles, a portal could open up and redirect the projectile.
For contex, and this may be very convoluted, but the monk early on in the campaign went through a door in time and taught himself the ways of being a monk. Years later after having a mental break due to some memories of his past being brought up, he secluded himself in his own mind where he met another version of himself that offered to take up control of his body. The alter ego takes control but reveals he has no intention of giving back his body. He also reveals that after every decision he made after he went back in time, has made an infinite amount of versions of himself. Every dice roll, every line of dialogue, he's a walking paradox. I've already talked with the character and he said he'd be fine if his subclass changed. I was thinking maybe in the future he will regain control of his body, and able to harness the power of all these different dimensions, allowing him to tap into the astral plane or something, allowing him to do these abilities. This is all hypothetical tho, as if he never regains control of his body, then I won't need to use this, but just to be safe, in case it does happen.
If you're just going to add an additional ability on top of flurry-of-blows, you run into possible class balance issues. You've essentially converted a close up melee attack into a ranged one, with no balancing "drawback" for the Monk. You're essentially giving them two level 3 abilities. If you re-skin the sun soul monk ability, as per DxJxC's suggestion, you're balancing it by it being the distance punch be the monk's 3rd level ability - which is already built into the class archetype balance.
Re-skinning the deflect missiles ability actually has the opposite problem - aren't you taking away the ability of the Monk to throw missiles back, if they've been sent to another plane?
Overall, It definitely sounds cool from a story point-of-view, not sure how well it works from a balanced game-mechanical point-of-view.
That may - or may not - be of concern to you.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
The monk is already sun soul currently, so i guess it could mainly be a re-skin, maybe a few changes here and there. Like the ranged attacks don't have to be as powerful as his regular punches. And for the deflect missles, I was thinking that the projectile would go in one portal and with a ki point you can open another portal to fling it back.(kinda like the game portal) I think there could be a few mobility changes, but I like the idea of creating large astral projected constructs to do things. For example what if the monk goes to punch through a portal, and then another portal open up with a huge fist coming through. Maybe a high level ability could be some sort of zenyatta form from overwatch, where multiple arms come out of his back to help him fight. I like the idea of all the different versions of himself coming together in unity to accomplish these task, that's the reason why he can do theses things.
Also due to the nature of how he got this ability, I don't know if its game breaking but i thought of an ability that allows him to tap into the different versions of himself. Maybe for some ki points, he can become proficient in a certain ability for an hour,(like he is accessing another version of himself for that knowledge)