Class Acts: Monk - Pushing the boundaries of Full Disciplines.

UPDATE: Darn, the errata bugbear hit this article hard! It turns out that movement techniques with immediate actions were deemed too confusing, after all, as they all got changed to minor action shifts in the compilation. Good news is, minor action movement techniques are still there, and the article is still full of awesome.

I haven’t been writing much about Dragon Magazine lately, due to the overall mediocrity of last month’s content. Only two of the articles in June's issue (#388) were of interest to me: an intriguing Winning Races for Dragonborn, featuring an alternate encounter power for the race (which you can take without any kind of feat cost, an idea I fully support, and which I’d like to see more of), and a Class Acts dedicated to fire Wizards that introduced some cool ideas, but irregular mechanics.

It seems like issue #389 may be a different story, though, as we start the month with a great article for the Monk class, signed by Peter Schaefer. Subtitled "Fallen Needle Itinerants", the article features some amusing backstory on a monk master called Fat Aloisus, as well as really inspired mechanics. I already talked about my love for monks when we got to see one half of the class and, after reading the rest, I think they are easily the best thing to come out of Player’s Handbook 3, and one of the coolest strikers in the whole game. However, there is one thing that PHB3 didn’t get completely right but this article redeems: the use of Full Disciplines.

Don't let him deceive you, it's all muscle. Really.

For those not versed in the Way of the Monk, a full discipline is a special kind of attack that actually includes two powers in one: an attack technique, and a movement technique. The attack technique is pretty much your standard 4E attack power, but the other one is the cool part - a special mode of movement that can only be used on the same round you use the associated attack, typically granting effects such as increased movement speed or shifting, but also jumps, teleports, switches, and other tricks that you’d expect from utility powers.

The Full Discipline mechanic shows a lot of potential, as both parts of a power can be tied thematically or mechanically, having special synergies with one another and even resulting in powers with sub-standard attacks that are nevertheless worth taking due to a strong movement effect. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see too much of this in PHB3 - but this short article makes up for it in spades.

The greatest innovation of the new powers in this Class Acts (one At-Will and six Encounters) lies in breaking an unwritten rule of Movement Techniques: that they have to cost a Move Action. By using triggered free and immediate actions, and even minor actions, these disciplines add even more variety and dynamism to your monk, and can result in great frustration for monsters trying to engage in melee.

This kind of powers can be a little confusing, in that many players tended to assume that you could only activate a movement technique in the same round as the corresponding attack technique. However, looking closely at the rules text, we find that the limitation is actually to use them in the same round, so it’s perfectly possible to use the reaction moves as long as you made an appropriate attack during your turn. Also, you should be aware that the rules only prevent you from using different full disciplines, but nothing stops you from spending your standard action on a different kind of attack (like basic attacks or multiclass powers) and choosing any of your at-will movement techniques. This should prove particularly useful for hybrid characters.

Anyway, I hope we can see more DDI material of this quality in the future. Now I just need to get my hands on a monk PC, to try out the new stuff...

Read More......

Player's Handbook 3 preview: Cloth Armor becomes playable!

A character using Cloth Armor in D&D 4E is a rare occurrence. Right now, there are only two kinds of cloth-wearing PCs: those who are forced to do so because of their class features, like Avengers and Monks, and those who are waiting to level up and grab Armor Proficiency (Leather). The truth is that the upgrade from Cloth to Leather armor is one of the best conceivable uses for a feat slot, rivalling even the almighty Expertise (and arguably even better, at Heroic Tier). Because of this, dresses, robes and vestments have banished from the wardrobes of most adventurers, as even Wizards go around wearing leather jackets. Thankfully, Player's Handbook 3 is going to put an end to this madness, by allowing players to remain unarmored without incurring in significant mechanical penalties. Let's see how this will happen.

Remember how the Brawler Fighter from Martial Power 2 was sneakily previewed in a FAQ page? Well, it appears that they liked the trick, because they are doing it again with Player's Handbook 3. This time, we are shown a simple heroic feat called Unarmored Agility. It has no requirements, and grants you a +2 bonus to AC as long as you are wearing cloth. This is, very conveniently, just as good as Leather Armor Proficiency, and has three major implications for the game: a change in aesthetics, the redeeming of an entire magic item category, and an unexpected AC boost for certain strikers.

The aesthetic change

Wizards, Sorcerers and Psions are no longer punished for wearing their iconic robes. Hooray! Sure, we could (and did) use Leather for the mechanics while saying that our character was dressing as we liked, but this is the real deal. I'm glad this has changed.

The forgotten treasures

There is quite a bit of space in both Player's Handbooks and Adventurer's Vaults devoted to Armor enchantments available solely for Cloth - I counted around 40 of them, and this will surely increase with PHB 3. Most of this space was as good as blank before, but now it will actually be of some use. I'd recommend to take a look at these books (or the Compendium, of course), because there are some real jewels waiting to be uncovered. Among my favourites are the extremely cool Robe of Eyes, the incredibly useful Shimmering Armor and the almost broken Bloodthread Armor.

AC Inflation (and erratas undone)

Avengers and Monks rejoice, for you have just gained 2 extra points of AC. Which is very odd in the case of avengers, since they just lost a similar amount a few months ago. In that occassion, I commented the following: "The Armor of Faith class feature has been changed to work only in Cloth Armor, removing the potential for ridiculously high AC ".

Well, I guess this change gives them back the potential for ridiculously high AC. Admittedly, this cuts 2-3 points off the maximum defense score that could be achieved through extreme optimization and feat investments, because upgrading to Hide Armor is no longer feasible. On the other hand, Bloodthread Armor will partially compensate for that, making the AC cap (getting hit on 20s only) dangerously close for bloodied, epic Avengers.

With the new feat, even an 'innocent', non-optimizing Avenger is going to have impressive defenses:

Level 1 Avenger, 18 Dexterity or Intelligence, Unarmored Agility: AC 19 (N18)

A *normalized AC* of 18 is equivalent to Scale Armor and a Heavy Shield, and other than investing a single feat, this character is not sacrificing anything - and certainly not the ability to wield a massive two-handed weapon. An additional feat (*Improved Armor of Faith*) brings this on par with Plate + Shield, or even better at Paragon and beyond.

Let's see a more extreme scenario, though:

Level 30 Avenger, starting 18 Dexterity or Intelligence, Unarmored Agility, Improved Armor of Faith, weapon with the 'defensive' property, +6 Starweave Bloodthread Armor, Demigod Epic Destiny and two-weapon Defense: AC 52 (N21), or 54 (N23) while bloodied.

It is virtually impossible for a defender character to match these results. And I'm pretty certain that you could get an extra point or two, with enough optimizing. This character, while bloodied, would be just 2 points below the cap (N25), which is a real nightmare for most monsters. This just feels wrong. Maybe Improved Armor of Faith should be changed into a flat +1 bonus, rather than a scaling one.

What about monks? It will depend on the feat selection they get. If there is anything like "Improved Unarmored Defense", I'm afraid they will also outperform shielded defenders on the AC department - otherwise, they will be more or less at their level.

Level 1 Monk, 20 Dexterity, Unarmored Agility: AC 19 (N18)

Overall, I can't say I'm happy with the way Unarmored Agility interacts with these classes. On the other hand, I do like what it does for casters with robes. I think those in charge of Errata should definitely be keeping an eye on the following items:

- Improved Armor of Faith

- Bloodthread Armor

- Any monk feat enhancing Unarmored Defense.

Read More......

Player's Handbook 3 Debut: The Monk

This month's PHB3 Debut consists in one of the builds for the final version of the Monk class. It is the same build (Centered Breath Monk) that we were presented six months ago as a playtest article, and the changes from one article to the other are nowhere near as many as I would have expected.

From my experience playing with monks, I had the impression that not only were they slightly underpowered as Strikers, but they were also missing something in the 'special' department. The thing is, they do have a unique, fun mechanic in full disciplines (which add both great mobility and flexibility), and the playtest version of flurry of blows was different enough from previously see striker damage mechanics, but still... that didn't seem to be enough. The Unarmed Combatant and Unarmed Defense features were basically a wash, since they changed the aesthetics of the class (no weapons, no armor) in a way that made no mechanical difference. Monks needed a power boost to become competitive, and some kind of new feature to become interesting.

They got their power boost all right, but it turns out that the feature that could make it all work was already there, and only needed a small tweak. Here is the complete list of changes from the playtest version.

• Changed all weapon powers to implement powers. The monk is now a purely implement-based class, though they can use any weapon they are proficient with as an implement.
• Monk Unarmed Strike is no longer enchantable, but the same effect can be achieved with a new Magic Item type, Ki Focuses (First seen in the Assassin class description).
• Overall damage increase, affecting a lot of powers as well as the Flurry of Blows feature.
• Centered Flurry of Blows now always slides your target, and can actually move it away from you if it wasn't the victim of your original attack.

The first three points are fine, addressing balance concerns and cleaning up the class mechanics. The last one, though, is what finally made everything click for me. Sliding someone every turn is exactly the kind of trick that could make the class stand apart, and the only reason I didn't think of it before is because it was already there, but didn't work quite right.

See, the early implementation was terribly clunky, in that you could only slide a guy if you hadn't targeted him with an attack, and he had to end adjacent to you. So you ended up adjacent to at least two enemies, which is an uncomfortable position for a striker, as even with the monk's increased mobility, it's not that easy to get away from that without taking multiple opportunity attacks. The slide was still a cool maneuver, particularly in any scenario with hampering terrain, but it took a bit too much effort to pull off.

The new version of the flurry slide may not seem too much at first, but it is way, way better. First of all, moving someone away is more often than not what a Striker wants to do with forced movement, particularly when that someone isn't your main target. Depending on your at-will selection, you could have the option of pushing your primary target and running away, or knocking him prone and shifting just short of charge range, which combine well with the ability of sliding away another enemy (or enemies, at Paragon tier and beyond). And second, but also important, moving one or more enemies every turn grants you an amazing control of the battlefield.

Overall, Monks look like a really fun class that can pull its weight in a battle. They have great mobility, and decent single-target damage, but they also have pretty good area attacks, and can kill minions like nobody's business. I'm pretty certain that the Centered Flurry's slide will drive many DMs crazy, and turn any map with a pit into a celebration for PCs. Which is a pity, because I will probably be on the DM side when I see it. My only complaint is that they have only released one feat for the class so far, but thankfully we can houserule some more while we wait for PHB3.

Read More......

A bunch of feats for the Monk playtest

The playtest article for the Player's Handbook 3 Monk class came out this week, and it's as good as you could expect. I'll post a detailed review soon (the short review is: I love it, but find it slightly weak) for those who haven't read it yet. Today's article, however, is for those who have.

The Monk Playtest, like all previous playtests, has the frustrating limitation of lacking feats. I guess you can call it an improvement, though, as it features a brand new feat, which happens to be a mix of Weapon and Implement Expertise. Since that's hardly enough for me, I've made a bunch of my own, which you can see below. Most of them are basic, almost obvious ideas that I wouldn't be surprised to find in PHB 3. A few (like Unarmored Mobility) include mechanics that I'd like to see in the base class. Enjoy!

Monastic training (Monk Multiclass)
Requisites: Dex 13, Wis 13
Benefit: You gain training in one skill from the monk's class skill list.
Choose one monastic tradition. Once per encounter, you can use the flurry of blows power associated with that tradition as an encounter power.
In addition, you gain the Unarmed Combatant class feature.

Monastic defense (Monk Multiclass)
Requisites: Dex 13
Benefit: You gain training in one skill from the monk's class skill list.
You gain the Unarmored Defense class feature.

Unarmored mobility
Requisites: Monk, Unarmored Defense class feature
Benefit: While you are wearing cloth armor or no armor and aren't using a shield, you gain a +1 bonus to AC against opportunity attacks, and have resist against those attacks equal to your Wisdom modifier.

Improved Flurry of blows
Requisites: Monk, Flurry of Blows class feature
Benefit: When you use a Flurry of Blows power, you deal 1 extra damage. Increase this extra damage to +2 at 11th level, and +3 at 21st level.

Improved Unarmored Defense
Requisites: Monk, Unarmored Defense class feature
Benefit: Increase the bonus to AC from your Unarmored Defense by 1.

Centered Breath mastery
Requisites: Monk, Centered Breath tradition

Benefit: When you slide an enemy with your Centered Flurry of Blows power, increase the distance of the slide by 2. You can't move the target into squares not adjacent to you this way.

Fierce Unarmed Strike
Requisites: Monk, Unarmed Combatant class feature
Benefit: You become proficient with the Fierce Unarmed Strike, which is a weapon with the attributes shown below. You must have both hands free to use your Fierce Unarmed Strike.
Special: Each time you make an unarmed attack, choose one type of Unarmed Strike that you can use.
Special: Any enhancenment bonus or magic ability affecting your Monk Unarmed Strike also applies to your Fierce Unarmed Strike.

Weapon	Prof.	Damage	Range	Price	Weight	Group	Properties
Fierce Unarmed Strike	+2	1d12	-	-	-	Unarmed	-

Read More......