Preamble: This was posted to Reddit, but for some reason, posting something the evening of Christmas might not be the best idea if you want lots of people to read it.
I'm
trying something different for my Dragonlance campaign, and I came up
with the idea of a monk following the precepts of Zivilyn, a god of
Dragonlance.
The names marked with [temporary] will be changed for better flavored names. Suggestions are welcome.
Behind
the scenes, this heavily taps into the "many-worlds" interpretation of
quantum mechanics. The monk is able to briefly "visit" multiple possible
futures, and then choose the future that align with their aims. The
similarities with the video game Life is Strange is coincidental.
Zivilyn
is the Krynn's god of Wisdom, able to see the past, and all the
possible futures. The god exists both within time, and outside time.
The
Way of Zivilyn [temporary] is a Monk subclass in which the monk,
favored by Zivilyn, and through meditation, discipline, one-ness with
the universe, and mastery of ki, can briefly evoke the divine power of
Zivilyn.
Important:
Please note that this cannot be used to acquire information. For
example, cancelling a timeline where the character learns the name of
the traitor means the character forgets the name of the traitor. At the
GM's discretion, the character can retain the fact they can learn the
information by reproducing the steps, or that a mysterious traitor will
act. A good rule of thumb is to make a character roll Intelligence when
they want to remember something, with the difficulty increasing with the
specificity of the information.
Level 3: Prescience
As you sometimes get brief glimpses of the immediate future, it is exceptionally hard to catch you off guard.
You get a +5 bonus to initiative and to your Perception passive value.
You
can use your reaction to make an attack of opportunity against a
creature that moves out of your melee zone even if it uses the disengage
action.
Level 6: Superposition [temporary]
By
spending 2 ki points, the monk can do two turns instead of one,
happening simultaneously, instead of their normal turn, but with the
caveat that only one of them is real.
In
game terms, the monk player plays two simultaneous turns (with actions,
rolls, attacks, etc.), and at the end, must choose one between them:
The chosen one becomes what really happened, and the other is cancelled
(as if it never happened).
Note:
This is alike a quantum superposition of state, collapsing at the
moment, selecting the state preferred by the monk's player.
Note
2: A variant of this power might be using as much ki points (limited to
proficiency bonus) as desired simultaneous turns (i.e. spending 4 ki
points means 4 simultaneous turns, collapsing into one turn only).
Level 11: Déjà-vu
By spending one ki, the monk can have a premonition, enabling them to actually change that future by acting differently.
In
game terms, this enables the monk to cancel 1 turn. The play goes back
one turn before, but the cancelled turn will replay EXACTLY as it did
before BUT the monk can choose to act differently, thus causing what happens after to be altered.
For
example, if the party falls into a trap, the monk can spend one ki, and
the turn is cancelled, and replayed, but the monk can decide to
discreetly stay behind, and thus, all the party but the monk fall in to
the trap. Or the monk might warn everyone, and thus, the trap is
avoided.
Note:
The duration of the cancelled time could be extended by spending more
ki (max, the proficiency bonus), which could even extend that to the
day, but that would probably make this power too similar with Checkpoint
(see below).
Note 2: The cost might increase when using again before a long rest: 1 ki the first time, 2, the second, 3 the third, etc.
Level 17: Checkpoint [temporary]
By
spending 1 ki point, and meditating 1 minute, the monk can explore the
most probable immediate future (one hour max), and either let that
future happen, unchanged, or cancel it. The monk can add other
characters to that meditation group by spending 1 additional ki point
per character.
In game terms, this
means the state of the world is "saved", and the players can play for
one hour (in-character time, not real time). At the end of the period
(or before), the monk can either decide to accept that future, or refuse
it.
Accepting the future means it really happened, and the game continues as normal.
Refusing
the future means the game goes back to the moment of the meditation
(erasing all events after it), the monk and the other meditating
characters wake up, and the game restarts from that point.
This ability can only be used once per long rest of all the meditating characters.
