The Monk Class (Revised)
A downloadable game
This supplement offers rules to play the Monk class, a mystical martial artist that is defined by unarmed & unarmored combat, as well as qigong techniques - each based on an animal from the Chinese zodiac - that enable them to perform supernatural feats. Your monk will grow in power as they adventure, growing faster & stronger as they level up, and learning new qigong techniques from Kung Fu masters they encounter & prove themselves worthy to.
This new class draws inspiration from Kung Fu and Wuxia media like Ip Man and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, as well as various video games and anime like Final Fantasy and Avatar: The Last Airbender. The design of the class incorporates some elements from the Fighter, Ranger, and Ras Godai - while offering a playstyle that is fully unique.
In addition to the 2 page class description, there are guidelines for the DM to adjudicate the learning of new qigong techniques, as well as 2 pages of monk-themed magic items. These include various fist weapons to enhance your unarmed strikes, magical tattoos in the form of the "Marks of Madeera", as well as legendary weapons such as The Jade Destiny, and the deadly qigong technique known as the Dim Mak (a.k.a. The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique)!
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I really enjoyed your work! Excited to test it!
Thank you! Please let me know how it goes 👊
As a lifelong fan of martial arts media, I've always been a big fan of the Monk class ever since I first encountered it when playing Final Fantasy Tactics. But, historically, it has been a class which has consistently been underserved in tabletop RPGs; many don't include it (I also had to write my own homebrew monk for Old School Essentials and Dungeon Crawl Classics), or the monk which they present is completely imbalanced and broken. D&D is no exception, with most editions presenting a monk which is poorly designed and underpowered, with the occasional potentially game-breaking feature sprinkled in (I'm looking at you here, Stunning Strike). It seems like many designers are afraid of making the Monk too powerful, and as a result, produce a class which is ultimately disappointing.
Game balance is not a core design conceit of Shadowdark - classes are primarily defined by "being the best there is at what they do", i.e. having a particular gameplay niche, and excelling at it. The Monk may appear to be an odd fit for this design paradigm, as it traditionally is defined by a hodge podge of features - but my goal was to create a class that fulfilled the genre fantasy of a martial arts master, but without necessarily overshadowing any of the other classes. Yes, the Monk can hit both accurately and powerfully, but neither its to-hit or damage can reach the heights of the Fighter. If anything, a high level Monk, with high physical stats and the right combination of qigong techniques, could be said to be the class which is best at damage evasion/negation - but that is different than the Pit Fighter, which is straight up the best class at not dying.
Let the Monk be awesome! (But, hopefully, not game-breaking)
As always, playtest feedback is greatly appreciated, and will help to inform future revisions of the class. Look forward to seeing it in its (hopefully) final form in my upcoming supplement, Fatal Folklore: Kunlun.