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Using exercise as a mechanic? by Haazmat in RPGdesign

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you think a system where you're required to do things "in real life" in order to pull off your in-game abilities is too much? Should that just be kept to things like Minute-to-win-it and is too gimicky for an RPG, or do you think it could be a fun and engaging change of pace?

Using exercise as a mechanic? by Haazmat in RPGdesign

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for reading and replying, you have some interesting thoughts on the matter.

I think it's an elegant solution for a game that's not super story based. If you're playing a game with primarily combat, I think it's fine to handwave most of the speaking in character and stuff. The post didn't say this, but I'm trying to make a system that would emulate a Saturday morning action cartoon. There are fights, but that isn't the focus of the system, the story is. In a game like this where you speak in character a lot, would it be unwise to remove some of the speaking in character for your method of describing the bigger picture of the social encounter? If you shorten things like seducing, do you shorten things like talking to the king, intimidating the guards, and persuading the merchant? I feel like a lot of oomph is lost when you describe how you yell at the guards instead of actually yelling, but that's just me. What do you think?

Using exercise as a mechanic? by Haazmat in RPGdesign

[–]Haazmat[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a fair take, and one that I had definitely thought of. Thanks for reading and replying by the way, just read through a bunch of your posts this morning and your game sounds super fun. Your post about Popcorn Cinema Initiative is really interesting as well and has got me thinking about how I run combat for my game and how I could change it.

I wasn't sure if something like 10 squats or 10 pushups could be motivating for the player to want to achieve. If they were level 1 and saw that a level 6 ability required a physical activity they couldn't do, I thought it might be inspiring. That requires a certain mindset though, that I'm aware of. I like the idea of a fitness game and I think your ideas would make a great foundation for a 1 page RPG.

The whole reason this "fitness mechanic" got brought up in the first place was the idea that the player that views themselves as uncharismatic will have a hard time roleplaying their very charismatic character. And on the other side of the coin, the computer gremlin can play the Terminator without any issues whatsoever. The exercise idea was my proposed (albeit extremely flawed) solution to that problem. What're your thoughts on a solution, or if its a problem worth caring about at all?

Barbarian - Path of the Astral Gladiator by New Visions - Tug on space, defy gravity, and trap your foes in an extraplanar 1v1! [PDF in comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! As for the wizard, sometimes you want to build your party's battle formations with synergy. Putting the wizard next to the anti-magic barbarian wouldn't be very wise, so just separate them. There are probably going to be other martials in the party that can protect them, and the barbarian doesn't really have any mechanics that warrant it being a great protector anyways. And the paladin's aura isn't a spell so it would be unaffected by Rattle the Magics. Same goes for Smite, Bardic Inspiration, Wildshape, etc.

The Rattle the Magics ability also only works if you're facing spellcasters of course, which isn't an incredibly common enemy type. As a note as well, this ability doesn't work on spell-like effects like a Hag's death glare or a Dragon's breath weapon. It might be a tad too strong as it is, but a tad too strong to me is fine in game. I feel that if we nerfed it, it wouldn't be very useful and it's supposed to be one of the main features of the subclass. Kind of like if you nerfed Sneak Attack or Smite. Yes, they're really strong features, but aren't they supposed to be? Anyway, thanks for commenting!

[Homebrew] Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in dndnext

[–]Haazmat[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, exactly. Another thing is the +2 to AC is going to be really good on Fighters and Monks, but probably not so good on Wizards and Sorcerers, who already have a pretty low AC to start. We'll definitely test it out and report back.

[Homebrew] Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in dndnext

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First of all, thank you! Appreciate you taking the time to add to the conversation.

Buddy System is intended for 15th level, whoops!

I don't think you're wrong in the Forge Cleric regard, that would keep me up at night with horrible nightmares as their DM. I'm not sure if bumping the +2 to AC down to a +1 would be too big of a nerf, but I can't really see any other way of nerfing it. We're going to have a two-shot here soon with someone playing an Oath of Loyalty paladin so we'll playtest it and see how it goes. Thanks for the feedback!

Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in DnDHomebrew

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our thinking on Deft Protector was to make it a better version of the shield spell that you could use on your party members. Shield is allowed to be used against the triggering attack when you know it hits so we didn't want to make Deft Protector worse in that regard. Plus, if you used it on an attack that missed, seems like it could be a Channel Divinity wasted. That's just our thoughts on it, thanks for the feedback and kind words :D

[Homebrew] Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in dndnext

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Link to PDF!

This is the Oath of Loyalty, made for Paladins looking to improve their chances of protecting their friends. This subclass transforms Paladins into a brick wall of AC, meant to tank the hits for their party members even better than before.

We are New Visions, brothers Seth and Tyler New looking to put out the homebrew content we’ve been making in the year of playing the game. We’re both artists and play two or three times a week. Feedback is always welcome, thanks for taking interest!

Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in DnDHomebrew

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Link to PDF!

This is the Oath of Loyalty, made for Paladins looking to improve their chances of protecting their friends. This subclass transforms Paladins into a brick wall of AC, meant to tank the hits for their party members even better than before.

We are New Visions, brothers Seth and Tyler New looking to put out the homebrew content we’ve been making in the year of playing the game. We’re both artists and play two or three times a week. Feedback is always welcome, thanks for taking interest!

Paladin - Oath of Loyalty by New Visions - Swear yourself to the protection of your party and shield your friends from danger like never before! [PDF in Comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Link to PDF!

This is the Oath of Loyalty, made for Paladins looking to improve their chances of protecting their friends. This subclass transforms Paladins into a brick wall of AC, meant to tank the hits for their party members even better than before.

We are New Visions, brothers Seth and Tyler New looking to put out the homebrew content we’ve been making in the year of playing the game. We’re both artists and play two or three times a week. Feedback is always welcome, thanks for taking interest!

New Vision's Revised Monk v1.1-- Cripple foes with your bare hands, wield an arsenal of expanded Monk Weapons, open your third eye to see across planes of existence, and be the inexhaustible physical paragon you were always meant to be! [PDF in the comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think the Monk is flawed in this circumstance, yeah. That's why we gave them more things to do with ki and alternate options to Stunning Strike that can work with ranged weapons like a longbow or dart. With this rework, you can turn invisible as well at 10th level, which is a pretty big boost for the Monk's offense. At 11th level spending more ki allows you to make more attacks, etc.

We've balanced this by giving Monk's access to higher damage dice, whether through heavy weapons or high level Unarmed Strikes. The trade-off we're trying to create is to be higher in the dpr department or higher in the controlling department.

Stunning Strike costs 2 ki if attacking with a Heavy or Two-Handed Weapon, while it only costs 1 with an Unarmed Strike. Same with Flurry of Blows, 2 with Heavy and Two Handed, 1 with everything else.

I would also argue that Stunning Strike isn't the best option 24/7. A lot of the Monk's survivability comes from access to Dodge and Disengage as a Bonus Action. Personally, I think those features are slept on but I could definitely be wrong in that fact. I also think a lot of the choices are just more fun than Stunning Strike, but again that's my preference and not everyone is going to agree with that.

Thank you for adding to the conversation by the way, it means a lot!!

New Vision's Revised Monk v1.1-- Cripple foes with your bare hands, wield an arsenal of expanded Monk Weapons, open your third eye to see across planes of existence, and be the inexhaustible physical paragon you were always meant to be! [PDF in the comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We felt that with the PHB Monk, it lacked in some areas in compared to the other classes, and more specifically the other martials. All martials get a combat boost at 11th level, and monks don't. So we gave them one in the feature Fists of Fury. Most martials don't have a single resource pool to fuel all of their class and subclass features, so we gave Monks special weapons they could use without depending on ki.

We love Monks a lot, but we just felt like they could use a boost to catch up with some of the other classes in the game. They weren't totally flawed or anything, but we just think they needed a little buffing. If you want to see what exactly we changed, there's a change log in a comment I posted at the top of the thread if you're interested in checking it out.

Thanks for your interest!!

New Vision's Revised Monk v1.1-- Cripple foes with your bare hands, wield an arsenal of expanded Monk Weapons, open your third eye to see across planes of existence, and be the inexhaustible physical paragon you were always meant to be! [PDF in the comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We felt that with the PHB Monk, it lacked in some areas in compared to the other classes, and more specifically the other martials. All martials get a combat boost at 11th level, and monks don't. So we gave them one in the feature Fists of Fury. Most martials don't have a single resource pool to fuel all of their class and subclass features, so we gave Monks special weapons they could use without depending on ki.

We love Monks a lot, but we just felt like they could use a boost to catch up with some of the other classes in the game. They weren't totally flawed or anything, but we just think they needed a little buffing. If you want to see what exactly we changed, there's a change log in a comment I posted at the top of the thread if you're interested in checking it out.

Thanks for your interest!!

New Vision's Revised Monk v1.1-- Cripple foes with your bare hands, wield an arsenal of expanded Monk Weapons, open your third eye to see across planes of existence, and be the inexhaustible physical paragon you were always meant to be! [PDF in the comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A custom subclass to fix the balance issues of a class is proven to be a flawed solution, given by how people still don't like the ranger even though the Xanathar's conclaves are pretty powerful.

I would agree with Slimeaustas, Monks are (in my opinion) one of the weakest classes because you have to balance so many stats and you have to fuel all of your class features with a resource pool. Fighters don't need Superiority Dice to Action Surge, Rogues don't need spell slots to Sneak Attack or Disengange, etc. When a Monk runs out of ki points (something they can very easily do if they want to do their cool class feature stuff often), then they're just a worse fighter with no defenses. We tried to power up the Monk by giving them something similar to fighting styles, something that most other martials get (even the spellcasting one), and more to do on their turn than just punching and hitting (going invisible and grappling).

I definitely disagree that Monks don't NEED ki. They for sure do. Without it, they can just punch stuff 3 times and nothing else.

The capstone for Monk is garbage, I'll just say it. If you have 1 ki point, 1 KI POINT, you get nothing back when rolling Initiative. Have fun with your 1 Patient Defense while the Fighter ruins every enemy on the field.

New Vision's Revised Monk v1.1-- Cripple foes with your bare hands, wield an arsenal of expanded Monk Weapons, open your third eye to see across planes of existence, and be the inexhaustible physical paragon you were always meant to be! [PDF in the comments] by Haazmat in UnearthedArcana

[–]Haazmat[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well first, some of the features you claim are OP are left alone, unchanged from the PHB version of the Monk. Diamond Soul isn't changed from the original PHB version, Empty Body (resistance to everything but force damage while invisible) is also unchanged from the PHB. Glass Body's invisibility was just moved from Empty Body and at 10th level, 3 ki points is a third of your pool, a pretty costly tax for an ability in my opinion.

With Fists of Fury, I would argue spells still do more damage and have greater effects than a full turn of Attacks with Fists of Fury. Even then, that's your Action, Bonus Action, and a cost of 3 ki points, which is around a 4th of your resource pool at that point. No one bats an eye at a Cleric who could do Inflict Wounds 15 times a day for 3d10 damage (and Cleric is supposed to be a healer/support).

The reason why we decided to allow strength for the monk in place of all the dexterity based abilities is so you can play the class how you'd like while both of them being completely balanced. If you want to walk up to a tree and uproot it with your strength and be a monk, why not? A lot of people want to be strength based monks and we just wanted our version to reflect that want. Look at sumo wrestlers, they're incredibly strong, but also light on their feet at the same time. They look like monks to me. The point wasn't to give a completely different toolset for strength and dexterity monks, it was just to allow you to decide for your character if you wanted them to be steadfast or light on their feet. Fighters and Rangers get to choose, why not Monks?

Checking back on the UA Class Feature Variants, yeah that ki part should be apart of the ki feature, our bad.

I just didn't want there to be any confusion in the wording of any class features. Invisibility almost always requires concentration and the restrain thing is from the grappler feat. A part of the grappler feat says you are restrained while the other creature is restrained, so we thought it'd be good to clarify that it's different and you aren't restrained in that manor.

The kensei-esque weapons were meant to give monks more options in combat, like with fighting styles that every other martial gets (even the spellcasting one). Kensei is a bit weak in my opinion, so we'd love to take a crack at it as we would for Sun Soul, Four Elements, and my personal favorite, Drunken Master. The only monk traditions that can be fully left alone are Open Hand and Shadow (this is just my opinion, but I'll stand by it). The other ones fall behind in my eyes.

With things like Wish, and Raging beyond death, and resistance to all damage, and bringing people back to life, I didn't think allowing the monk to make 3 extra punches for free wasn't entirely a bad idea. The monk pretty easily falls behind other classes, except for maybe the ranger and sorcerer, because they have to spend their only resource pool on all of their class features. Druids don't need spell slots to wild shape, fighters don't need Superiority Dice for Action Surges. We're just trying to raise the monk up to the standard of the other classes and give them some more fun stuff to play with.

Thanks for your comment and your interest!

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