I was a little iffy on 'Per Encounter' durations. Now I was very skeptical about getting Dreamscarred Press' Path of War because as much as I wanted some now stuff for martials 'Vancian Fighting' was not on my list, but nothing wrong with being different as long as non-vancian martials was on the table so I went ahead and subscribed to the Work-in-progress pdfs. The range doubles if the opponent is upwind, and is halved if the opponent is downwind.Before I get on to asking what everyone thinks of the power level in Path of War I wanted to describe where I'm coming from. Wolf: The creature gains the scent ability with a range of 10 feet. Tiger: The creature gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity. Stag: The creature gains a 5-foot enhancement bonus to its base land speed. Snake: The creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls when making attacks of opportunity and a +2 dodge bonus to AC against attacks of opportunity. Owl: The creature gains a +4 competence bonus on Stealth checks. Mouse: The creature gains evasion, as the rogue class feature. Monkey: The creature gains a +4 competence bonus on Climb checks. I don't know about Path of War, but I'm particularly fond of picking up a level of "Feral Hunter" for the no-duration Feral Focus ability that you can switch around as a Swift Action:īat: The creature gains darkvision to a range of 60 feet.īear: The creature gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Constitution.īull: The creature gains a +2 enhancement bonus to Strength.įalcon: The creature gains a +4 competence bonus on Perception checks.įrog: The creature gains a +4 competence bonus on Swim checks and on Acrobatics checks to jump. If you use traditions to get other disciplines, Golden Lion is great for support and Silver Crane for survivability. Counter Step (and other counters) are also great for defense against strong opponents. Fading Strike from Veiled Moon, for instance, is not a good attack, but is a standard action teleport up to your movement speed that doesn't cost any Ki. Instead, there are many maneuvers that allow you to do cool things that I would recommend instead. You will not be lacking in damage with Pugilist's Stance. It does have a 1-turn cooldown due to stalker recovery mechanics, but if you do go with primarily Broken Blade, I would recommend going no further than Pugilist's Stance if you have any other melee in your party. Adding Pugilist Stance and Bronze Knuckle to a flurry of blows sequence is +3d6 (+10.5) damage per attack, which can add up to a ton very quickly. However, I would be very careful with Broken Blade: while it is an excellent discipline, it is in process of being errata'd due to being a bit excessive in damage, and for a very good reason. I'd recommend stalker as well, since it has the best synergy with monk. Thus, the best levels to take the initiator dip are 5 and 9 (7), since you immediately get access to the next level of maneuvers. And at level 2 you get to add your WIS to your initiative and your Reflex saves, on top of your DEX bonus! SCORE!įirst of all, there's one vital PoW rule that you have to remember: all non-initiator classes count as 1/2 of an initiator level. Oh and the Stalker Arts are pretty good, piled on top of the Deadly Strike at level 1. Steel Serpent isn't bad, either, as it places emphasis on ki (which you have stacking levels in, woot), Thrashing Dragon is good for increasing the number of attacks you have, and Veiled Moon gives you some good stealthy/sneaky supernatural abilities. Because your other class levels count half towards your initiator level, you'll end up with access to 2nd-level maneuvers at level 5, third-level manuevers (and more importantly, the 3rd-level stance) at level 8, and then sink as many levels into Monk as you can before achieving your final level of Stalker to get 6th-level maneuvers (Initiator Level 11).Īs for which disciplines to focus on, obviously Broken Blade is a good choice for a monk, with its focus on unarmed-ness. So my recommendation is Monk 4/Stalker 1/Monk +2/Stalker +1/Monk +11/Stalker +1. Well because Stalker also runs on WIS (what with being the Swordsage equivalent in PoW), possesses a ki pool, and has a number of monk-synergistic abilities, I'd highly recommend taking 3 levels of Stalker, strategically placed to allow you to abuse the rules of initiator levels to get up to 6th-level maneuvers.
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