Beyond Monks: The Art of the Fight
Beyond Monks is an electronic product by Chainmail Bikini Games distributed in PDF format. It provides new classes, feats, and other options for martial arts in a d20 fantasy game. Beyond Monks is available at www.rpgnow.com.
A First Look
Beyond Monks is a 67-page PDF product, including the mock "cover," a blank page, and a copy of the Open Game License. The going price for the book is $8.00 US. I already am not too keen on the recent upward trend of PDF product prices; customers are conscious of the fact that they are not getting a printed product and don't expect to pay a comparable price. Even given the reality of this trend, Beyond Monks is priced at a dollar more than the two most popular d20 products of comparable size: The Book of Eldritch Might II and Wild Spellcraft.
Beyond Monks does utilize the bookmark feature of PDFs with convenient telescoping folders.
The "cover" picture is color. The picture is detailed but otherwise unimpressive and depicts a woman slamming one ruffian with a piece of furniture while kicking another ruffian.
The interior art is rather sparse, being confined to chapter headers. Each illustration depicts some of the items and options in the chapter it is attached to. The artwork is somewhat mediocre.
Overall, I think that Beyond Monks seems a little costly for a PDF of this size, but still cheaper than a comparable size print product if you don't factor in printing costs.
A Deeper Look
Beyond Monks is organized into four chapters, plus an appendix and an index.
Chapter 1: New Classes
The chapter on classes contains one new core class and ten new prestige classes.
The new core class is the martial artist. This is a somewhat curious choice. The monk has already been established as the definitive unarmed martial artist of the default d20 System. However, I too have had concern about how well it fits that role. Though you really cannot make an effective unarmed martial artist without taking monk levels, the more specific archetype of a more contemplative and spiritual monk shines through in the name of the class, its alignment requirements, and its esoteric powers. The argument that the monk really isn't general enough to cover the role of all would-be practitioners of exotic unarmed fighting styles strikes a chord with me.
The martial artist class is a fighting type class, with good attack bonus advancement, good Fortitude and Reflex saves, and four skill points per level and access to a number of athletic skills. The martial artist has Improved Unarmed Strike ability and an unarmed damage progression slightly faster than that of a monk. They also receive the flurry of blows ability of the monk, but not the monk's faster unarmed attack progression.
The martial artist also has its own unique class abilities. At first level, the martial artist receives an ability called surge. This ability is similar to the barbarian's rage ability in that it lasts a short amount of time and leaves the character fatigued. The benefits are different, however. The character receives a bonus to her base speed, a haste bonus to AC, and a reduction of penalties when using the flurry of blows ability.
As martial artists progress, they receive other class abilities. There are three main class abilities: Martial Secrets, Bonus Feats, and Finishing Moves.
Martial Secrets are a list of class abilities that the martial artist may select from as she progresses. The abilities are somewhat similar to feats and give the player a tool to customize the martial artist's style. The first such secret is gained at 3rd level, and the martial artist gains an additional secret every four levels thereafter.
Bonus feats are granted from a list martial arts feats. Some of these feats exist in the PHB, though many are new feats introduced in this book. The first bonus feat is gained at 5th level, and one more is gained every fourth level.
Finishing Move is a spin on the rogue's sneak attack ability. Like the sneak attack, the Finishing Move inflicts one or more additional dice of damage. However, these dice don't depend on the target being flat-footed of flanked. Rather, the character sacrifices all of her own dodge and Dexterity AC bonuses until her next turn. Further, the ability can only be used once per round. The first die of Finishing Move damage is acquired at 2nd level, and an additional dice of damage is gained every 4 levels thereafter.
The martial artist also gains some other minor abilities, such as iron palm (improves damage of attacks against objects) and an improvement of the number of times per day the character can use the surge ability.
The martial artist does seem a little strong to me compared to the monk, though its class abilities seem to be less defensive. I have a hard time picturing shoehorning an existing campaign where the monk already exists and is serving the role of a martial artist. However, I think it would be an interesting and flexible class that could serve as the basis or a highlight in a fresh martial arts related game.
The martial artist provides a martial artist starting package, in keeping with the core classes in the PHB. The package has a singular error: it lists a Martial Arts Secret for the character although the class does not get such abilities until third level. One of the contributors says that this is an error; the package should not have a Martial Arts Secret.
There are ten new prestige classes introduced in the chapter. Even if the martial artist wasn't your cup of tea, most of these are useful without the martial artist class, being usable with the monk or other classes. The prestige classes are:
- Armor Pugilist: The armor pugilist is a class that hones the body to become more resilient. As the armor pugilist gains levels, it gains a natural armor AC bonus, energy resistance, DR, and resistance to critical hits.
- Blade Artist: At last, a class specializing in fighting with daggers. I had expected to see something like this some time ago from somebody! The blade artist wields a signature dagger as a natural weapon and gains special attacks with it. Their blade eventually becomes sentient.
- Blood Hunter: Somewhat unusual, the blood hunter is the disciple of a vampire that learns an unusual style from his undead master called Cruorsh Style. The blood hunter gains several hideous combat maneuvers, including a faster advancing version of the martial artist's Finishing Move ability, a wounding strike (acts like a wounding weapon), a Vampric Strike, (restores damage to the character), and the dreadful Heart Strike (attempts to extract an opponent's heart).
- Crooked Monk: The crooked monk is a rather unorthodox monk with some strange characteristics. Many of its class abilities are similar to those of a monk, but it gains more contortion related abilities and a few other abilities, such as the ability to charge in a crooked line and use chaos related spell-like abilities.
- Ghost Killer: The ghost killer is a character with a connection to the spirits of his ancestors and a penchant for eliminating ghosts. The ghost killer gets bonuses to Knowledge skills derived from the knowledge of his ancestors. The character can channel positive energy through his unarmed strikes; these strikes can act as turning attempts, and gain other abilities for dealing with undead.
- Ki Blaster: I'm not too impressed with the class name, but the ki blaster seems to be inspired by the likes of Dragonball Z and Streetfighter, where ki energy becomes a visible, tangible force. The ki blaster can project bolts of energy using his ki, and is a short (5-level) prestige class.
- Psynergist: Once again, not my favorite name, the psynergist is a martial artist that combines martial arts and psionic powers. The psynergist only slowly gains psionic powers, but may enhance her psionics with ki energy and can improve her saves and AC due to her focus.
- Storm Lord: The storm lord is a spellcaster with an affinity for storms that combine their art with martial arts. The storm lord receives electrical and cold resistance, weather sense, and spell like abilities related to storms.
- Sylvan Monk: The sylvan monk is a martial artist that studies nature and learns to avoid attacks by not being where the attack is. A very defensive martial artist.
- Tanterist: The tanterist is an expert in the human anatomy who can manipulate nerve centers to great effect. The tanterist can weaken or paralyze opponents with its strikes.
Sample NPCs are provided for some of the classes.
Chapter 2: Martial Arts Feats and Styles
The feats chapter is divided into two basic sections. The first is new feats, mostly describing various martial arts techniques. There is a new category, Ki feats. Ki feats involve mastery of supernatural ki energy, and many of these feats lean on the Stunning Fist feat or class ability.
There are by my count 80 feats in this section. Given that many feats, I haven't analyzed all of them for balance, but so far I can actually say a fair amount of them fail on the weak side. A few samples are in order:
- Back to Back Fighter: If you are within 5 feet of an ally, opponents do not get a flanking bonus to hit you. If two characters have this feet and are within 5 feet, neither can be flanked.
- Charge Throw: If charged, you get an attack of opportunity that can only be used to trip. If the trip succeeds, the charge attack automatically fails.
- Expert Disarm: If you successfully disarm an opponent, you may grab the weapon instead.
- Far Strike (Ki): You can use up a stunning attack to perform an unarmed strike as a ranged attack.
- Foot Sweep: You can perform a trip attack that does one half your normal damage (um, I always assumed Improved Trip performed unarmed was a foot sweep).
- Improved Deflect Arrows: You can deflect a number of arrows up to 1 plus your Dexterity bonus per round.
- Ki Strength (Ki): By giving up a stunning attack, you may substitute your Wisdom bonus for your Strength bonus for one round. (For giving up a stunning attack, that seemed a little weak to me; perhaps it should have been add your Wisdom bonus to your Strength bonus.)
- Master: A spin on the Leadership feat that lets you take cohorts as PC classes, namely fighters, monks, or martial artists, at one level lower. The bit I don't like about this is that 1st-level followers become followers with "no levels and d4 hit dice." This is an extremely bent way of doing things. I'd just stick with warriors for the 1st-level followers.
- Melee Spell (Metamagic): By taking a spell slot at one level higher, you can launch an unarmed attack after casting the spell.
- Perfect Reflexes: You can make more than one attack of opportunity against a single target per round, provided they provoke each such attack.
- Pounce: You can take a full attack action with a charge, provided this is your first attack or you did a refocus. This feat is the only one right off the bat that struck me as possibly overpowered, and if not that, overcomplicated.
- Somersault Charge: If you make a Tumble check (DC 20) during a charge, you ignore the -2 AC penalty.
The feats are easily the most worthwhile aspect of the book. There seem to be very few outright flawed feats, and most of them seem rather interesting. Not to mention, there are so many of them.
The next section is entitled Style Mastery Feats. Style mastery feats are a not-so-well-disguised re-invention of the style mastery abilities in Oriental Adventures. Basically, if you have the right combinations of feats and other prerequisites, you get the style mastery feat for free. I don't like this for the same reasons I don't like the style mastery abilities in Oriental Adventures. Basically, I really didn't see the point of not making them feat chains or prestige classes. Further, it seems like you would be limited in how many styles you can make before you get a number of styles with minimum investment. Ironically, Beyond Monks lists this last point as a point to watch out for.
That said, inasmuch I don't like the general idea, the benefits do look fairly balanced compared to the style abilities in Oriental Adventures.
Chapter 3: Building a Master
The third chapter is split into two sections. The first section consists of multiclass archetypes. These are very similar to the multi-class combo character concepts by James Wyatt and others in various issues of Dragon. All of the multi-class archetypes include martial artist as one of the classes. The archetypes are beast observer (a barbarian/martial artist that learns her style from animals), mystic warrior (a wuxia style warrior with inexplicable powers, modeled as a martial artist/sorcerer), ninja (martial artist/rogue, as a member of a secretive guild of puissant assassins), temple guardians (cleric/martial artist), and weapon master (fighter/martial artist). Each of these has a table describing the progression and abilities from 1st to 20th level.
The second part covers the customizing of the monk class. The chapter provides suggestions for creating different orders of monks such that they are not so pigeon-holed. As with the Oriental Adventures book, it suggests allowing the character to swap out the monk's class abilities. However, it suggests that you might even go further when it comes to customizing the monk. It has suggestions for trading martial arts feats for other class abilities, for sacrificing the monk's good Will saving throw, or by giving up the movement and slow fall abilities.
In addition to these general guidelines, some ideas are provided for making custom monk orders to fit the campaign, along with a "standard" package of changes to monks that are members of the order.
Chapter 4: New Options
The last chapter provides new ideas, options, and rules variants for running a campaign filled with martial arts mayhem.
The first such section contains options aimed at making combat more cinematic. This includes techniques such as limiting time for player decisions, making all parties "take 10" on initiative and seating characters in initiative order, minimizing bookkeeping, enlisting player help when you need to look up rules, glossing over details such as item identification, making the possibility of fumbles, or giving PCs and important NPCs one reroll per day, and so forth.
The second section discusses using improvised weapons and means of getting players to use such weapons. This includes variant rules to encourage their use such as making it hazardous to attack creatures with armor or natural armor with unarmed attacks, or by reducing the effectiveness of the Improved Unarmed Strike ability. It also provides GM techniques for facilitating the environment, such as making descriptions vivid enough to suggesting what might be used as improvised weapons. Rules are provided for improvised weapons, along with equivalent weapons for a variety of improvised weapons.
A section called "Drinking and Fighting" provides rules for drinking, including some fairly straightforward rules for drunkenness. Three new drinking feats are also introduced: Down the Hatch, Hard Drinking, and the Drunken Boxing Style Mastery Feat.
The next section is entitled "New Options for Skills." This includes a short "new uses for existing skills" section for Balance and Concentration, and a section on simplifying Jump checks.
There is also a section providing optional effects of characters with high speed. If the character's speed is sufficient, the character may make Tumble checks for actions such as running up walls or across water.
Finally, the chapter has a decent selection of new magic items. As you might expect, many of the new items are weapons. There are several new weapon abilities such as blinding, indestructible, matched pair (removes two-handed penalties when created as a pair and both weapons have this ability), and stunning. The author is even sharp enough not to require abilities that do not directly impact the weapon's combat effectiveness as a market price modifier that is applied as a bonus to the weapon's plus for cost purposes.
Other interesting items include the braid blade (a blade that can be wielded when worn in a long braid of hair; it seemed like this one deserved an Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat), belt of the monkey (once per day allows the character to imitate another feat the character sees used), and the cloak of shadow boxing (allows you to conjure a weaker duplicate of yourself from your shadow that can engage in combat).
Appendix and Index
The appendix contains statistics for a stock martial artist NPC, with statistics for characters from 1st to 20th level. It was nice to see this bit of support, but it is slightly flawed. Unlike the NPCs in the DMG, the stock martial artist doesn't use the default array. Also, the stock martial artist lists a speed increase, which was not included in the final version of the martial artist.
The index contains a listing of all the classes, feats, and other options in the book. Each option has a little circle with which the GM can indicate which of these is being used. This is a minor enhancement, but potentially useful.
Conclusion
Although I felt this book was a bit on the expensive side for a PDF, if you have a taste for Asian style martial arts, this book is definitely worth a look. Though I have some reservations about the martial artist class, in the right sort of campaign it should fill the bill of a martial arts flick style warrior rather well. Further, the fact that the book offers such details as class combos, starting packages, and stock NPCs supports it well.
The real strength of the book is the feats. If you have a hankering for exotic fighting styles in your game, it is hard to go wrong. Though there are a few feats I wouldn't use in my game, I found the hit/miss ratio of the feats to be higher than most print products.
All this is shored up by a nice selection of options and ideas that you should definitely consider if you are thinking about making a wild martial arts style campaign.
-Alan D. Kohler
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