Martial Archetypes pt1 - Way of the Single Strike Monk

Martial Archetypes - Redesigning

I've done a few homebrew classes and archetypes in my time as a DM and player. 5th Edition has proven a pretty easy format to work in, with all the spell casters sharing from a set spell list. Since all of the Homebrew stuff was either based off or used elements of pre-existing homebrew, that i found didn't quite fit my play style, i have never seen fit to share any of it - as they weren't really wholly original works. 

The Need for Complex Martial Archetypes

I recently started playing in a campaign, that used powerful abilities inherent to your character, fuelled by a daily pool of power points. In order to access these powerful, essentially 'super powers', we had to forgo using spellcasters, and stick to melee classes.

While this is so far proving interesting; its been a little difficult adapting to the Melee class play style. I've played a monk before, and while it offered excellent one-on-one potential, i often found myself falling into the habit of 'okay, its my turn, i will...attack'. Flashback to playing a bard, and i would have several (hundred) different options each turn; and sure, the Bard is great at battlefield control, so she should have a ton of options. But even the glass-cannon sorcerer has so many more things to choose from than a fighter or barbarian.

Now it is, in many ways, probably intentional. In a role-playing game you need different play styles to cater for everyone - some people don't like min-maxing battlefield tactics, or keeping track of various effects. Some people just like to hit things - they don't care too much for the mechanical side of the game.

Now this is all well and good; until you notice that all the simple and straightforward to play classes are Martial; and while some of the archetypes buff up the complexity a bit, its no-where near on par with the magic users. I thinks its good to have a mix of complex and simple classes, i just wish that choosing to play barbarian because of the theme and idea, didn't limit you mechanically. I  want to play him because he's cool, not because he's simple.

And so this first series is aimed on re-vamping the Martial classes with some archetypes that add a bit more complexity and tactics to the class; with a strong focus on new, interesting playstyles, that differ not just from their class, but from the overall playstyles of pre-existing 5th edition.

And so i present: the first draft of the Monk archetype - Way of the Single Strike.

Delaying and stacking attacks

There was a Nintendo 3ds game a while back; Bravely Default. Squeenix's attempt to return the jrpg to its oldschool roots (think FFVI). The core mechanic of the game, intended to shake things up, was the default system. You had your 4 heroes, who all had their attacks each turn; but on each of their turns you could choose to instead be 'Brave' and borrow their actions from their next 3 turns. Front stacking 4 turns worth of a characters actions would deal a large amount of damage, or healing, but leave them useless for the next 3 turns. Alternatively you could Default on an action, effectively storing that heroes action for later, where they could unleash their multiple actions at once with no further penalty.

The System, though simple, allowed for some interesting interactions with enemies. If you knew a boss would be weak after a massive attack, you could forgo your attacks, storing them for an opening later. If you knew a creature was low lvl, you could have everyone spend all 4 turns of their attacks, hoping that it would be enough to blast the creature down, before  it had 3 free turns of attacks. Or if things looked dire, your healer could burn his next few actions at once getting everyone up to full.

When attempting to design classes that 'play' differently, not just have a different theme; the idea of delaying attacks for more powerful attacks, is one that influenced the mechanical implementations of my Homebrew. The Way of the Single Strike is an attempt at creating an acrhetype wholly based around sacrificing your constant damage output for key moment deadly strikes. Those of you familiar with Iaido, the Japanese martial art of swift sword drawing, or the recent Anime One punch man, might find this archetype a spot of fun.

This is, of course the first draft, so it might not work quite as intended. I would very much appreciate any feedback: thoughts, ideas, and experience from playing with it.