Edit: Bah stupid double post but add on

The Strike of the Bee will unlock all other focus you have and you can't lock or use any more focuses.

need some way to turn this off, otherewise, people will just run and stay try to hide for a minute and laugh as you die.

It be used for a group fight where they have precious targets to defend. Its an all or nothing move. Use it at your peril. Though it will NOT be pookable or dominatable.

For that Seren/Celest Tertiary, I'd recommend accupressure again.

Precisely delivered applications of pressure would reroute the flow of energy through the body, giving afflictions or benefits, depending.

The theme is clogging or unclogging the flow of energy in the body, so regeneration / paralysis / stupidity are all fair game, as is anything else that fits with that theme, and many things do. Distort the flow in the gut to produce vomiting, for instance, or hit nerve clusters to create hemiplegy. Heighten the flow to the skin and give them sensitivity. Crosswire a few things and you have egovice or manabarbs. Snarl up circulation and you get clots. Lots of options, no need or point to use everything that could possibly fit under this theme.

From a mechanics standpoint, some of the more advanced afflictions, which involve particularly precise manipulations, would require the foe to be immobilized or willing. Paralyzed, stunned, prone. Make sure there are some stunning / proning strikes in the katas, and assume that the pressure point for paralysis is not among the advanced afflictions with this prerequisite. Willing would be covered by allying.

Add in a death-touch instakill, which requires getting a series of afflicting touchs in specific sequence. Think Inquisition - you need to close this channel here, and then that one there, and then another one before the flow routes around your first blockage in order to get the kill. Alternately, work it more like Soulless - just get a number of death-touches in within a certain period of time to kill. I strongly prefer the former option.

If possible, increase bulimia-like situations where combining certain afflictions produces some emergent affliction - e.g. afflict fear, paralysis, and stupidity to get a free disruption, for instance, on the argument that being frozen in place when all you want to do is flee and you can't think straight doesn't help your concentration.

Look for synergies back to the katas - afflict hemiplegy, and now you can execute a joint lock, for instance.

For the defense and utility skills, regeneration, resistances, increasing maximum health/mana/ego (tosha-lite), ability to deliberately unbalance personal energies (like facepaints - increased balance means decreased eq. Or vice versa. With this tertiary, could be balance/eg, some two of health/mana/ego, or any other appropriate tradeoff).

The Kepherans are consummate jailors - having a skillset focused on restraining foes, as this is, fits.

On the Illithoid side of things, I can only hope Shamarah's psychic barbs are the chosen option.

*throws in spanner* How do we know that Tosha and the Kephera have no IC links? Its not like Master Quettle runs around telling us all the monastery's secrets. Perhaps a pack of Loboshigaru found their way into the Undervault years ago and helped the Kephera,who in turn taught them monk skills, after which they founded Tosha, whose entrance was also hidden in the mountains.

Ok, the concept of restricting the development of this archtype to one organization is really upsetting.

For one, you're getting in on the ground floor of the new archtype.
Two, you're deciding COMMON skills and skillsets that will be included in all org guilds?
Three, your reasons for restricting it is because you want to hide your guild structure and org-specific spec?

If I am off-base on these comments, please correct me.

Solution:
Have one committee dedicated to your particular guild development.
Have another committee open to those who are going to be founding the guilds in the other organizations.

QFT!

One: Nejii posted in his first post that started this thread all we know so far about this archtype. You're as far as we are (or me at least).

Two: We're not. Currently it's all been about the Seren guild structure and ranks. Nothing had anything to do with skills yet (aside from this thread). I've said this before though and I will again: If we -do- get to the point of deciding anything about the Celest/Seren skill I'd like Celestians in on it as it's their skill as well.

Three: Sadly, yes. You know that some people like to cry 'nerf' before things are even fully out or tried out and seen in practice. They do it just from hear-say. That's the point I'd personally like to avoid (not that I have a clue about the Seren spec yet).

As for your solution. I've thought about this too and wanted to ask about it actually (at least to have another clan for the Celest-Seren skill. Nejii posted that the Mag-Glom is decided upon already and getting too many people is just chaos..).. I don't think Seren would mind, the question is if the Admin go along with this.. (plus we'd need another clan.. from somewhere). Personally, I'd welcome it though.

That is... Very forced indeed.

Thanks for the quick reply!

I was under the impression (and I think the rest of the players think this, too) that the committee would be actually helping to design the archtype, not the guild. If you're just working on your guild and guild-related skills, that's fine. However, to work on your guild-related skill (as I think Nejii said) you need to know the common skills first, then work from there. It seems backwards that the committee is restricting NOW, rather than after the common groundwork has been laid for the archtype itself.

As for just having the rest of us posting input on the forums, I would have to suggest that there are other ways of going about it. I think we all know how unproductive the forums can be, and the majority of threads just turn out to be slugging matches between one side or another. What about setting up a Wiki such as the envoys have? Perhaps so other medium, or maybe even a separate forum?

Just thoughts.

To be honest, I have no bloody idea what this committee is going to do and what not. We were told we'd get the information on this, we just haven't -yet-. For now, it's really just been Seren guild things. Not even skills as far as I know but only guild ranks/titles.

I'm also not sure how much of the monk archtype has been completed yet, and how much is decided upon, and how much is yet open.

EDIT: Estarra did say though it's going to be several rl months in her announce.

And I like the wiki idea too, that way Seren could keep their guild skill low and still have everyone work together on the overall monk design. If that is what Estarra even wants. Admin input would -really- help here.

Too abuseable as an escape skill. Activate when you are in a fight you know you aren't going to win (Forren appears) and teleport nexus, run, or snort spores. Org conglut ftw?

Its not forced at all.

The monestary was hidden away in the mountains for IG years before anybody found it, they could have just as easily found a secret tunnel. Who knows, maybe such a secret tunnel exists in the monestary right now. (*psspt builders, nows your cue!* )

See, I WOULD say I agreed with Daganev, but then he'd put the agreement out of context someplace, so instead I'll just say:

In my opinion, "It's not forced at all.

The monestary was hidden away in the mountains for IG years before anybody found it, they could have just as easily found a secret tunnel. Who knows, maybe such a secret tunnel exists in the monestary right now."

Shiri told me this is the best place to voice suggestions to monk skills, so... here I go.
I've got a psychometabolism suggestion or two. I -really- want the Illithoid/Kethara physic resistance to matter. I also want lower con high dex races (EI: faelings, furrikin) to have some compinsation. Anywho, my skill suggestions are based around those desires of mine, as well as ideas that poped into my head, smushed together.

You have gained the following abilities in psychometabolism :
Fear Remove all foolish fears from your being
Pain Cleanse your mind of pain to resist the dangers of the world
(I'm thinking around mythical/trans for pain, fear is around master or expert I'd say)

Syntax: RESIST FEAR
Force yourself to not give in to the fear that drives others. Become immune to: fear, omniphobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, vestiphobia, and hypochondria.


Syntax: RESIST PAIN
Constantly subject yourself to pain and reap the benefits of a higher state of mind. This enables you to...

Essentially this skill ticks HEALTH while it is active similar to how other skills tick mana. The Health damage inflicted is psychic (you are forcing the pain on yourself via your mental state) so having a racial psychic resistance would reduce the amount it ticks. Psychic damage reduction skills would affect it as well.

(Ugh, after ages of trying to come up with a benefit, I can't, but seriously, you could pair something really good with a skill that has a downside like this. Someone help me out. )

How about a straight convert cutting/blunt/magic damage to pyschic damage.

The skillset can then give other buffs to pyschic damage reistance.

Possibilities-

- Putre-like skill- take damage in exchange for taking less damage from attacks
- A certain percentage of damage done to you is done to mana or ego instead (possibly reduced, such as 20% less damage taken, half of which comes from mana or ego)
- Give yourself one level 3 resistance to cutting/blunt/fire/cold/poison/asphyxiation/magic or whatever other damage types I might be forgetting, or maybe limit what it can be.
- Chance of shrugging off all damage done in a attack, or all of a certain type of damage, or half of all damage, or something.

Not great at skill ideas, but maybe those will inspire other ideas in someone.

If you wish to set up a wiki. i.e envoy wiki style, that is entirely up to you, just note that the administration is not going to manage it. It will be your own venture, which you can if you like discuss ideas and such and bring them to the forum thread. Though I see no real reason why you can't cut out the middle man and bring your ideas to the thread already. AS long as you don't clutter this thread with commentary about what you think a monk's eyes should look like on every second tuesday, then it will be easily read by those working on the Monk archetype and your ideas are better read.

In other words, derailing this thread will result in deleted posts very swiftly.

Well I'd have absolutely no problem if the committee was only dealing with seren-only stuff (ranks, titles and skills) and everything else got discussed here (or in a wiki. Wikies can be structured better) for example.

But I think what everyone was asking about rather is whether Seren will be privy to information (and decisions) that affect the whole archtype and the others won't get a say on it.

Also.. finding out what the committee is now supposed to do and especially what -not- would really help too. Although I think it's just a matter of time until we get told (hopefully).

Well here are some ideas I have been mulling over. Note these aren't complete thoughts, but just.... thoughts.

1) Kata: I like that you can specialize in an org-specific weapon. That's really awesome. To add versitility (and individualism/RP), what about also created a pure unarmed combat specialization that people can choose instead? Someone I talked to brought up the question of parrying with no weapon or shield. Just put it under a "super-dodge" skill. Would work like parry, but you dodge the blow rather than actually meet the weapon.

I think it would also be interesting to see each specific guild's specialization to be based around a certain lifeform or symbol. The only obvious example which comes to mind is a spider for Glomdoring. It would be interesting to see forms and skills which revolve around that central theme.

2) Psionics: Awesome idea of creating another spec for psionics. My question is if it will be channel-based like the existing ones? I guess they have to, seeing how it will be based on the skills of the current Psionics skillset. I hope there are considerations given as to how psionic channels will synergize with the monk offense. For example, you do a psionic combo and can't do a kata form or other attack for 6-8 seconds. Seems a bit unweildly. On the other hand, usage of locked channel skills will easily complement the monk. The only drawback I can see with this is that there are only 3 skills you can lock, making the majority of the specialization useless in a fight. I've heard others also bring up the idea that the two existing specilizations (Telepathy/Telekinesis) could be offered as a skill choice, to give more variety and individualism to the player.

3) Acrobatics: I think it goes without saying that this is a natural choice for any monk. I'd be interested to see how the RP of each guild develops. I would hope there is some distinction between the monks of the mind (Psionics) and body (Acrobatics).

4) The elusive third skill set: I've had a couple of ideas (again, none of them complete or by any means feasible. My opinion is that the more ideas you have to choose from, the better the end result will be).

4a) The Glomdoring-Magnagora skillset: Though it has been apparently decided on, I would think the skillset would revolve around the inner worm, be the monk Illithoid or not. Perhaps there are interesting abilities the inner worm grants the host which could be passed down to the non-Illithoid monks.

4b) The Celest-Serenwilde skillset: When I think Kephera, I think of the hive and mindsense. I think these are interesting ideas that should be explored further. What about a utility skillset that allows the monk to benefit from his fellow warriors (monk or otherwise)? I'm still brainstorming this area. I like Vaerhon's ideas above.

5) HighMagic vs LowMagic: Will there be a requirement for one or the other? Perhaps the cities could require HighMagic, the communes LowMagic. I don't know, but it something that needs to be discussed.


Still thinking.