Mystic (Monk)

Mystics are monastic humans who follow a strict discipline of meditation, denial, seclusion, and mastery of the human body. Mystics are skilled in unarmed combat. They live in cloisters, or monastic communities.

Mystics adventure to gain spiritual growth and learn the lessons of life outside the cloister. They rarely adventure with other mystics; they prefer to attach themselves to adventuring parties consisting of many different types of adventurers.

Mystics receive experience from treasure only if they donate it to the needy. Also, they must donate (tithe) ten percent of their treasure to their cloister.

A mystic's oath is their bond. They must be true to their oath and strive to repay all debts. Should they forswear themselves (break an oath they havemade), they are expelled from the cloister, may not gain any new experience levels, loses one level per year away from the cloister, and may not join any other, similar, cloister. The DM may allow them a grand quest to regain their honour and his standing in the cloister.

Most mystics (75%) are Lawful, though other alignments are represented. All are utterly devoted to the mystic discipline, which is neither good nor evil, similar in that respect to druid philosophy. However, the mystics rely on inner strength and believe in extraordinary but non-magical powers (rather than the powers of nature, as the druids do).

Mystics can often be recognized by their robes or other unusual garb, but another distinctive feature is their salute. Upon meeting another creature presumed to be peaceful, the mystic raises a fist, covers it with the other hand, and bows slightly. This symbolizes greetings (the bow), readiness to fight if necessary (the fist), but peaceful intentions (the covered fist).

Mystic Class Abilities

Prime Requisite: The mystic has two prime requisites, Strength and Dexterity. But since they must have a score of at least 13 in Dexterity to be a mystic in the first place, it is the Strength score that determines their bonus to experience. If a mystic has a Strength score of 13-15 the character gains a 5 % bonus to experience points earned in every adventure; if their Strength is 16-18, they earn a 10% bonus to experience points.

Minimum Scores: A mystic character must have scores of 13 or better in both Wisdom and Dexterity abilities.

Hit Dice: Roll a 6-sided die (1d6) to determine a mystic's hit points. A mystic starts with 1d6 (1-6) hit points (plus Constitution bonus, if any) and gains 1d6 more hit points (plus bonus) with each level of experience. Two hit points are gained for every level beyond 9th level.

Armour: Mystics can never wear armour of any type, nor can they ever use protective magical devices (such as rings, cloaks, etc.); they rely on their discipline for protection. Weapons: Mystics are trained to use all weapons, but not all mystics carry them; higher level mystics especially travel unarmed, or armed only with a walking-staff which doubles as a quarterstaff.

Special Abilities

Mystics have a lot of special abilities, which help compensate for their inability to wear armour or own personal possessions; we'll describe them below.

• Level: This column shows the mystic's experience level.
• AC: This column shows the mystic's armour class. Mystics cannot wear armour, but their ACs become lower as they gain in experience due to their skill in manoeuvring
• Move: This column shows the mystic's movement rate. First level mystics move only as fast as any other unarmoured characters, but higher level mystics learn to move very, very fast indeed.
• Hand Attacks—#Att: Mystics are very effective fighters; as they go up in levels, they are able to attack multiple times per round, and this column shows how many times per round they may attack. Mystics use this column when attacking either bare-handed or when using melee weapons.
• Hand Attacks—Damage: When mystics fight bare-handed, they use this column to find the amount of damage they do. They do add Strength bonuses to the amount of damage shown.

Martial Arts

Mystics are able to fight very effectively without using weapons or magic. They utilize a form of unarmed combat as part of their mystical training. They call this training "the discipline," but others often call it "martial arts." The discipline involves physical training, meditation, philosophy, and comprehension of the forces of the universe, and mystics are taught to resolve difficult situations peacefully whenever possible; for these reasons, mystics do not care to have their lifestyles referred to as "martial arts," as the term suggests that all they do is fight. The mystics' discipline is presumed to integrate and vastly improve upon the bare-handed combat techniques described in Chapter 8.

As you can see in the Mystic Special Abilities Table, mystics can strike more often than normal humans, elude attacks better (their enhanced AC), and deal more damage when fighting barehanded. They can also fight with weapons, and can use their multiple attacks per round with melee and thrown weapons (but not missile weapons).

In addition, when fighting unarmed, they can often hurt monsters which can ordinarily only be hit by magical weapons. Though a mystic's hands are not magical, an experienced mystic can use them effectively against creatures immune to normal weapons, as shown in the Unarmed Attack Equivalents Table.

These attacks don't gain the attack or damage bonuses of their magic-weapon equivalents, but can hit creatures as if the indicated weapon were used. For example, a 5th level mystic can hit and hurt a gargoyle when fighting barehanded.

Mystics can dodge or block missile attacks with a successful save against Death Ray.

Acrobatics

Some mystics may also possess a special ability called acrobatics. This specialized ability, while useful, detracts a mystic from fully focussing on his combat abilities; this is why acrobatic mystics have a -20% penalty on all earned experience.

Acrobatics allows a mystic to perform the following actions:

• Jumps/Leaps
• Tumbles/Flips
• Catches (to prevent oneself from falling)
• Swings
• Balancing

The game effects of this ability are these:

First, the mystic's acrobatics ability includes every feature of the Acrobatics general skill mentioned in Chapter 5.

Second, with a successful ability check, the mystic can cross rough, broken terrain at no modification to his movement rate: He flips over obstructions, leaps across trenches, handsprings over low fences, etc. This doesn't affect his long-distance movement rates; it only affects his encounter speed and running speed.

Third, the mystic can cross a line of enemy warriors without having to go around or break through it. With a successful ability check, he can roll between the legs of one opponent, or handspring over the line, or pole-vault using his spear, and thus cross a distance equal to his encounter speed's movement rate. He suffers no AC penalty when he performs this action. The mystic's chance to perform any of these actions successfully is calculated this way: Three times the mystic's Dexterity score plus two times the mystic's experience level equals the mystic's percentile chance to perform the action.

Acrobatics Check =

d% roll vs. ([3 x Dex] + [2 x Level])

For example, a 3rd level mystic with Dexterity 15 would have a 51% chance to perform an Acrobatics feat.

The DM, if he prefers to make acrobatics an easier and more commonly useful ability, can decide to use some alternate means to check success. For example, he might have the player roll 1d20 against his Dexterity score, with any roll equal to or less than the Dexterity score indicating success.

Whatever type of roll he uses, the DM is free to adjust any individual roll to reflect the difficulty of the action being attempted. Doing a back flip on the street to entertain a flock of children is much easier than doing one while walking on a wire ten stories in the air; the DM might wish to improve the mystic's chance to perform the former task and make the latter task harder.

Thief Abilities

Any mystic can use the following special abilities of thieves as if he were a thief of the same level:

• Find Traps
• Remove Traps
• Move Silently
• Climb Walls
• Hide in Shadows.

Mystic Abilities

Mystics gain the following special abilities as they progress in experience levels:

• 2nd Level: Awareness
• 4th Level: Heal Self
• 6th Level: Speak with Animals
• 8th Level: Resistance
• 10th Level: Speak with Anyone
• 12th Level: Mind Block
• 14th Level: Blankout
• 16th Level: Gentle Touch

Explanations of Mystic Abilities

Awareness: The mystic is only surprised on a roll of 1 (on 1d6), or gains +1 against any surprise penalty (i.e. if a creature normally surprises on 1-4 on 1d6, the Mystic would only be surprised on 1-3).

Heal Self: The mystic may, once per day, cure himself of 1 point of damage for each experience level they have. He does this simply by concentrating for 1 round. Example: a 10th level mystic can concentrate for one round and will heal (regain) 10 hit points of damage.

Speak with Animals: The mystic may speak with any normal or giant animal as often as desired; animals understand his speech and he understands theirs, though no animal is forced to talk to him.

Resistance: The mystic takes only half damage (round down) from all spells and breath weapons that inflict damage, or one-quarter damage (round down) if the saving throw is successful. Any attack that does them damage will do a minimum of 1 point of damage, even if rounding indicates 0 points of damage.

Speak with Anyone: The mystic may speak with any living creature that has a language of any sort, as often as desired. The creature being spoken to does not have to converse with him.

Mind Block: The mystic is immune to ESP, hold and slow spells, magical charms, quests, and geas spells.

Blankout: By concentrating for 1 round, the mystic causes their presence to "disappear." No living or undead creature can see him; there is no saving throw. The effect lasts for 1 round per level of the mystic; it is dispelled automatically if he attacks. He may only do this once per day.

Gentle Touch: Once per day, the mystic may use the Gentle Touch on any one living creature (it requires a normal roll to hit; if he fails to hit, he can try the Gentle Touch again). The mystic must declare he is using the Gentle Touch before he rolls to hit, and must declare which result (explained below) he is seeking. The victim does not get a saving throw, but a victim which has more Hit Dice than the mystic's experience level is not affected.

The Touch will have one of the following results (the mystic decides and announces which before he rolls to hit): charm, cure-all, death, quest, or paralysis. These effects mimic the same effects of the following spells in all respects except duration: charm person, cure-all, death spell, quest, and hold person. The effect lasts for 24 hours—except for death, which is a permanent effect.

Special Restrictions

Mystics may not use protective magical devices (such as rings, cloaks, etc.).

All the material goods (money, magical items, etc.) won, purchased, or acquired as treasure by the mystic are actually owned by his cloister, not by the mystic himself. Should the cloister have need of something "owned" by a mystic, the head of the cloister need only ask for it.

Higher Experience Levels

A mystic of Name (9th) level is addressed as master (if male) or mistress (if female).

There are many mystics of 1st to 9th level, but only seven each of 10th to 12th level, five each of 13th to 15th level, and three of 16th level. When the character gains enough experience points to reach 10th level, he must find and challenge one of the seven 10th level mystics; they will fight bare-handed (weapons are not allowed). If the player character loses, he stays at 9th level, losing enough experience points that he is 1 experience point short of 10th level. Once he's regained 10th level, he may try again, but cannot issue another challenge until three months have passed since his first challenge. (Note: If a DM's campaign world is particularly large, he might declare that there are seven 10th and so forth per continent in his world.)

At Name level, the mystic may desire to build a stronghold, or cloister. If his Grand Abbot (i.e., the mystic in charge of his current cloister) agrees that he is fit to manage one, the cloister will pay for construction of the new cloister. The new cloister remains a branch of the old one until the PC achieves 13th level, at which time the PC is called a Greater Master and can declare independence. At that point, he may wish to teach his mystics-in-training in techniques and philosophies different from those of the other cloister—that is, he may wish to establish his own "school" of the discipline.