The Martial Artist (GLOG Class)

    I've always had a deep and obsessive love of the bullshit wuxia fantasy of Exalted and similar content, and one of my favorite D&D classes has always been monk. I find the insane fights and magic of Naruto to capture my interest enough to trudge painfully through its non-fight scenes, and that's truly impressive given how much I hate everything about that show that isn't them fighting someone. There's something about long pretentious-sounding move names and reality-defying martial prowess that makes me beam at the screen like a toddler with marshmallows in their mouth. So- inspired by many of the other takes on martial artists in the Glogosphere, in particular the monk of Rise Up Comus and the re-hash of that by Wayspell. In the tradition of the GLOG, I snipped them up into pieces and scurried away into a dark alley with the bits I liked. Presented at the end of the class is also one School inspired partially by a random Exalted fan-made sidereal martial art I once read on the internet that I will never be able to locate again. I've got a few others baking in the ol' think-pan but I might get distracted with a shiny new idea before they're fully cooked through.

The Martial Artist

Starting skills: 1)Riddles 2)Meditation 3)Gardening 4)Endurance Running 5)Painting & Calligraphy 6)Dance
Starting Equipment: flowing unhindering robes (as unarmored), 20 ft of thin rope belt, shaving razor, letter of recommendation from your previous master, skilled but unscrupulous rival

A: Backhand Strike, Eternal Student
B: Chi, Unlocking the Gate
C: Candle-smoke Prana, +1 Chi
D: Temple-Shattering Insight, +1 Chi

Backhand Strike: If you make a successful maneuver against an enemy combatant, you may also make a free unarmed attack against them.

Eternal Student: Whenever you defeat an enemy combatant in a fair fight, you may formalize your insights against them into a Stance. Choose an identity of your defeated opponent and then name your Stance and write it down somewhere. After that, you may as an intelligence-based maneuver adopt that stance whenever you please, and it is obvious to regular people that you are a kung fu dude and to kung fu dudes exactly what Stance you are in. You get +2 defense and +2 to attack or perform maneuvers against enemy combatants the Stance is strong against. For example, you defeat a gnoll thief named Steve. After the fight, you note the Scorpion Stings the Nose Stance, which gives you +2 to fighting gnolls. Alternatively, you could note the Watchful Hound Stance, which gives +2 vs thieves, or the Humility-Breaking Fist Stance, which gives +2 vs people named Steve. Those trained in martial arts can trivially overcome these Stances by changing their own- you and other kung fu dudes can get a Stance's +2 bonuses against a martial artist regardless of identity, but only for the round you switch to it, and you get a -2 penalty afterwards as they learn to overcome it. You may know any number of Stances and be in only one at a time.

Chi: Through inner centering and mastery of each individual muscle and nerve of your body, you can consciously control the flow of life energy throughout yourself and turn it to other means. You start with a maximum of 4 Chi, -1 for each object worth more than a fresh apple in your inventory. Valuable possessions weigh down your thoughts and focus your energy around themselves, disrupting the delicate patterns necessary for kung fu shit. Your starting items from this class are below this limit. When you take a long rest or meditate unmoving for an hour in a location of spiritual significance, you regain all lost Chi. You may spend 1 Chi to immediately re-roll a failed check to high jump, balance, do flips, catch a fly with chopsticks, run up walls, or otherwise do crazy kung fu shit.

Unlocking the Gate: You are initiated into the secrets of the Martial Schools. The letter of recommendation from your previous master contains within it encoded katas (that you can now read) that will teach you one technique from their school (roll 1d6 on their school’s table), and you may contact them to learn more. You may also learn more by: defeating significant kung fu opponents and learning their techniques through combat; seeking out ascetic or mendicant masters and learning from them; receiving revelations through significant study of the natural world and its secrets; acquiring secret scrolls of kung fu hidden within temples or dungeons; being gifted divine inspiration by gods or spirits as rewards for your help. If you are still an active student of a school and pay obedience to a master, they often teach one technique of their school each time you acquire a new template, as you prove yourself more capable of handling kung fu’s devastating power.

Candle-smoke Prana: You have trained your Chi to keep your body in perfect balance. You may run along any surface, even ones that will not support your weight, so long as you do not stop moving. You could run along laundry lines, treetops, a hail of arrows, the tops of a crowd’s heads, etc., and balance a perfectly full teacup in each hand without spilling. By spending 1 Chi, you may run along things that are not surfaces, like water, candle-smoke, spiderwebs, or fire, for three rounds or until you stop moving, whichever comes first.

Temple-Shattering Insight: You may learn the secret 7th techniques of each school, though you still must be gifted or discover them as usual. You may also invent your own techniques, given a week of seclusion, a source of inspiration such as a natural feature, a recent epic battle, or the accoutrements of a philosophy, and the GM’s approval. You may formalize these creations into their own school , and other masters may give you the respect deserved of a kung fu school’s founder.

Mountaintop School: Granite Pillar of Love Style

    This style was developed by monks who bucked the philosophy of asceticism often embraced by the predecessor temples of this school. Having spent decades in seclusion on remote mountaintops in spiritual contact with the universe in its one-ness, they achieved an enlightenment: the universe loves us unconditionally. They immediately began to tear down the temple that housed them, casting its wooden foundations off the cliff sides and carving a new monument into the mountain- a giant statue, as large as the cliffs, arms open, repeating that same universal message. Then they descended into the world to preach compassion and unrelenting love. The statue still serves as an important pilgrimage site and training ground for artists of the style.

1. Guarding Mountain Breaks the Storm: Your glance is like a palm of chiseled stone, your love like a twenty-foot statue. Once per round you may interpose yourself between one attack  and its intended target, becoming the new target. You do not actually need to be adjacent, nor does your body move in a physical way. If you hold a bond of love towards the target, you may spend 1 Chi to harden that love into a skin of granite, reducing the damage by 1d4. Like granite, your love may chip or crack if the blow is strong enough.
2. Lips-on-Marble Attitude: Compassion is the bedrock of our world, the universe’s first kiss telling us “I want you to exist.” You never injure or kill a target you attack if you do not intend to, no matter the injury or weapon. If you dropped a mountain on your opponent, it would crack in half before it split their skin. By spending 1 Chi, you may focus the universe’s love for you in the same way. No thing that man did not shape out of hate or fear can harm you for one round. This means you could walk through an erupting volcano or have a building collapse on top of you, but a dagger would still cut you just the same.
3. Statue-Shaping Chisel Fist: If you kill your enemies they remain your enemies. If you love your enemies, you defeat them once and for all. Combatants you defeat must save vs CHA to attack living things for one day after their defeat as you teach them the compassion the world may hold for those who return it. Additionally, you may use your Chi to shatter the defenses around your target’s heart like a sculptor strikes a statue from stone. Spend 1 Chi as you make an attack to deal an additional 1d4 of damage on a hit. A target dealt additional damage this way must save vs CHA to attack living things until your next turn.
4. Boulder Becoming Pebble Method: The world will turn and the sun will rise on the day that you die, and you know this well. The universe you build today will continue after you are gone, and it thanks you for that work. Non-magical manufactured weapons that critically fail an attack roll against you shatter before they touch you, as their spirits rebel against their cause and join the side of love. By spending 1 Chi and touching a weapon, you may speak to it and convince it to become something else. Daggers become soup ladles, swords become umbrellas, spears become walking staves, halberds become a lantern-lighter’s pole. Non-magical manufactured weapons receive no save, magical items give their wielder a save vs CHA, and powerful magical items must be argued with to change, which often takes more than one round of discussion.
5. Stars-Embrace-Mountains Grasp: Your compassion for those around you, enemy or no, radiates out of you like starlight, and to be too close to it melts hatred and fear like snow from a mountaintop in spring. At the end of each round you have an enemy grappled, roll 1d8. If you roll equal to or over that target’s current HP, they surrender and lay down their weapons. By spending 1 Chi, you may make a special grapple maneuver against a target. If it succeeds, you cannot harm your target and they cannot harm you until your next turn. You may spend an additional Chi at the beginning of your turn to extend this effect for an additional round. 
6. Seven-Thousand-Stone Wall Strike: Like many bricks forming one wall, each thought of love alloys itself around your fist until it is shimmering with power. If you have not moved since the beginning of your last turn, your unarmed attacks deal an additional 1 damage. You may pay 1 Chi and make an unarmed attack to increase this damage to 1d4+1 and to send your target flying 5 feet back for each point of damage dealt. 

7. ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE: GRANITE PILLAR OF LOVE STYLE
   GRANITE WARRIOR STANCE: ANCHORING THE PILLAR 

   Your love has grown heavier and heavier over the years, drawing in the universe around it by its gravity. It sits like a mountain-heart in the center of your Chi and the world revolves around it. By spending 4 Chi, you manifest your love as an immense, 100 foot tall 250 metric ton warrior of stone that shimmers into being behind you. For as long as you concentrate on nothing but the absolute necessity of your actions, you weigh as much as the statue, the statue mimics your actions perfectly, and you cannot move from your location in the cosmos, though you may move the world in relation to you with ease , which to an observer may superficially resemble you walking. If two masters of the Granite Pillar style use this ultimate technique at the same time, they may cause enormous earthquakes and rips in the fabric of reality as the universal weight of their love tears existence like paper.