Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Warrior Monks in T&T

Warrior Monks, characters like David Caradine in Kung Fu, Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, and many heroes of martial arts and wuxia movies are a common trope in some RPGs. With the notable exception of the Blood Guard in the Chronicals of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever they are rare in sword and sorcery fiction.

Portraying such characters in T&T 7th Edition will require a bit of rules tinkering. Warrior Monks can perhaps best be thought of as a sub-Type of the Specialist. In this case a Specialist devoted to mental and physical training in a monastic setting developing disciplines that may manifest as a variety of effects.

Warrior Monks typically shun the use of armour entirely, although the use of some of the lighter and less restricting types, such as bracers, greaves, steel caps, arming doublets or leather jerkins may be considered. Some may even wear full or partial suits of armour suited to their discipline such as the bogu worn by modern Kendoists.

The use of weapons is broad and varried. Some practitioners shun the use of any weapons beyond the body itself. Others will specialize in the use of a set of weapons particular to their monastic affiliation.

Warrior Monks do not cast spells per se, but they do gain control over body, mind, and spirit that manifests itself in spell like effects.

So there is just a brief synopsis of what Warrior Monks are all about. Still to come specific game mechanis to make them work, and a ground up example of a temple and its monks.

3 comments:

  1. I always felt the monk was a bad fit for the type of medieval fantasy we usually encounter in FRPGs. I will be interesting to see if you can do something fun with them. I'd say doing them as a specialism would be the way to go. Maybe having SPD be their base stat and let them do wacko stuff based on SPD?

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  2. Your point is well taken.

    My own T&T games are not as similar to medieval Europe as some so I hope this gives me a little breathing space.

    The mechanics will be pretty much standard RPG fare, but when I when I write up the background I hope to show how they fit into the world.

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  3. Sounds cool, will really like to see what you can conjure.

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