Building a monk tradition based on the scenary of my current campaign. Review, criticism, suggestion. All welcome : )
(Fighter Blood Archetypal soon)
Ps: English isn't my native language so i had some trouble writing the lore. any help will be apreciated.
Way of the Blood
It was long ago, in the first era of man, when humans were merely new children of the land. The times were dark, and the first tribes of man were weak.
Mankind needed power to claim their place among other creatures. Desperate and in need, a cult of monks forged a pact with the most vile children of the night, the Oni.
The new alliance was more then enough. Empowered by the bloodlust savagery of the Oni, the trained monks killed every single enemy that threatened mankind. Blood was spilt, and peace was achieved.
As time passed, there was no more need for the Oni oath, and the tribes began to fear its power. An act of betrayel from the clan leaders eliminated all masters of the blood oath. The knowledge, forbidden; the arts, lost.
Legends say that some of the knowledge was saved and hidden until today. The matter is still taboo though, and from time to time, folk speak of a different type of Oni... hovering over the monastery in search of another human servant.
Level 3
Blood Oath - The monk who discover the ancient art need to make the pact with an Oni. To do so the monk must spill his own blood as payment in a salt circle and meditate for 1 hour. The Oni then will be summoned to the circle and accept the pact, offering some of it's powers to the monk in trade of blood offerings.
As the deal is fixed, the oni will summon a Kabuki Mask as seal of the trade. The kabuki is a common theather tradition made in the first era to celebrate the alliance beetween man and oni, as such the oni's still use it as a symbol of pledge. The mask will resemble the apearence of the demon and will be attuned to the monk. You can as a free action summon the Mask to your face from any distance even if it's in another plane of existance, also, you can dismiss the mask to the Demon dimension as a free action. If the Mask suffer any damage spilling your own blood in it will fix it.
To use any of this tradition's unique features you must wear the mask.
An Oni can communicate through its mask at any time. Monks who take the Blood Oath hear its quiet, sometimes unintelligible whispering every day, urging them toward violence to uphold their side of the bargain. The Oni may speak clearly, or appear in dreams, to give more urgent direction.
The monk can speak with the Oni by meditating with the mask. The Oni has its own interests, and will usually consider the monk expendable, but is always greedy for more blood tribute. If it sees the promise of carnage, it may offer information that will allow the monk to achieve it. The Oni cannot lie, but it is not all-knowing, its answers may be vague, as it may be unwilling to part with information if it doesn't see profit in it.
Oni Hunger - The oni is always hungry, as such, in return of the borrowed powers, the monk must make once per week a little ritual to spill the blood of an enemy in the kabuki mask. If you can't do it for any reason, the Oni hunger will feed from your living energy and you can't spend hit dices to heal until you manage to do the ritual.
Oni Magic - Starting when you choose this tradition at 3rd level, you can use your ki to draw some of your oni magic and duplicate the effect of certain spells. As an action, you can spend 2 ki points to cast darkness, invisibility, disguise self or charm person without providing material components. Additionally, you gain the thaumaturgy cantrip if you don’t already know it.
The saving throw DC is 8 + proeficiency bonus + wis Mod.
Level 6
Taste for Blood - As the oni powers merge with the body, your taste for savagery and blood will rise as well. The weak and ill become your favored prey.
At 6th level, When you spend a ki point to use Flurry of Blows, and target a single stunned, frightened, blinded or proned enemy with both attacks, you can spend 1 additional ki to heall for 1d8 + wis mod HP.
Level 11
Oni Flame - At 11th level, you can draw more of your oni's magic and summon the oni's flame. The oni's blood magic allows you to use blood as fuel to ignite your weapons or unarmed attacks. To use this feat you need at least a drop of blood as if it is a material component to a spell.
As a bonus action you can spend 1 ki points to ignite your weapon (only monk weapons) in magical blue flames. Ignited weapons will deal an extra 1d4 magic fire damage for 1 min. You can choose to ignite your both hands instead, but you will take 1d4 damage everyturn. ignited unarmed attacks wil deal extra1d8 magic fire damage.
Oni Rage - During your "Oni Flame" effect you can also spend 1 ki point to concentrate your flames and explode at a target. you must declare this feature before hit confirmation, the next attack will deal an extra 2d8 damage and push the enemy 20ft away, the target can make a constitution saving throw, on a sucess only takes half damage and is pushed half distance.
When you declare this feat any bonus from ignited weapon or unarmed attack will end even if you miss the next attack.
Each time beyond the fist you use "Oni flame" without a short or a long rest in beetween will damage you for 1 monk Hit dice.
Level 17
Increasing Savagery - You gain taste for brutal and savagery when fighting against enemies. Each slayed foe blood gives you strengh to pursue the next one. You also learn to draw power of the blood of your enemies.
At 17th level, When you kill an enemy or score a critical hit, you can use your reaction to move up to half your speed toward another enemy, and make an unarmed attack against it if you reach it. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks from the initial target. If you kill the second target or score a critical hit, you may repeat the movement and attack against a third target.
Aditionaly, everytime you kill an enemy or make a critical hit you gain temporary 1d10 + half your monk levels HP.
1.) Oni Magic should probably mention that you can use your Monk DC for the spells.
2.) Ok How do you see oni Hunger working out in game exactly? because it seems like You're just encouraging the DM to be a jerk here.
3.) Taste for blood is a bit disjointed. I woudl suggest you specify that you can use this on a target you have stunned with stunning first or a target that is stunned. Aslo the damage bonus seems liek an afterthought, and either insignificant or un needed.
4.) Demon flame should probably do d8 bonus damage if you choose to take the 1d6 every turn, and the secondary function doens't seem worth 2 ki points, and certainly not two ki points and ending the effect early. To say nothgin of the sheer aggravation involved in having to bath the target in blood first, how would you even do that in the middle of a fight?
5.) THird your total move is pretty slim pickings, the chain effect should probably trigger on crit or drop as well, and struck enemy probably works better than hitted, also the temporary HP, should probably be evened out, and maybe 1d10 or 1d8 Plus half monk level or somethign?
1.) Oni Magic should probably mention that you can use your Monk DC for the spells.
17th level power, half movement would be my suggestion for now, possibly more but half for now. As for crit or drop that means I think the ability should re-trigger continuing the chain if you crit an enemy or if you kill/reduce to 0 hp, i.e. drop them. Crits are pretty unreliable and don't have have much player input so I thought it would be good to increase the number of triggers.
Demon flame, ok how do you bathe the weapons in blood you never explain how to do that, especially since a lot of monk weapons aren't especially bloody weapons. Again I don't think the alternate use fo the demon flame is worth using most of the time. I'm assumign it counts as an action right? I mean 2d8 and 20ft push isn't hyper useful, especially compare dot the three boosted attacks you could get using the same point of ki.
17th level power, half movement would be my suggestion for now, possibly more but half for now. As for crit or drop that means I think the ability should re-trigger continuing the chain if you crit an enemy or if you kill/reduce to 0 hp, i.e. drop them. Crits are pretty unreliable and don't have have much player input so I thought it would be good to increase the number of triggers.
Good ideas so far. This is the stuff that jumped out at me.
First, because I find this kind of thing very helpful when studying another language, this is a revised version of the lore passage.
SDaken wrote:
1 - Thanks for the grammar help brother : )
"Kabuki" doesn't have any special meaning here. I would call it an Oni Mask, Oath Mask, Blood Pact Mask, something like that.
SDaken wrote:
One idea: you could add to the lore that "kabuki" was a type of performance created to appease the Oni, and people wore masks/makeup based on the Oni's faces. Then you'd have a solid lore reason to call it this.
SDaken wrote:
little tweaks this time, will focus on the fighter building a little
Oni hunger, oni flame and taste for blood modifyed.