In attempt to revive discussion about an idea I had earlier, this post was born. The ideas along with some discussion are here: http://realm.tempusmud.com/forum/4/323/1225745034

I thought monks could use their mana more and that's what I thought of. I'll re-list them here along with some adjustments.

Obtaining a zen should actually cost mana. Mana is listed for them, anyway.

"zen of celerity (superb) ( 20 mana)"

Zen of translocation should be reworked so that if the monk is attacked while meditating and has zen of translocation, the monk will dodge that attack at the cost of 100 mana per dodged attack.

>Grey is meditating here.

>Grey disappears and reappears somewhere else, averting your punch!

As a remort effect, zen of motion allows the monk to travel while meditating. North, east, south, west, up, down, future, past are all commands that will not interrupt meditation. (Can also follow). Costs 10 mana per room moved. As another remort effect, zen of awareness will allow the monk to 'look' while meditating. Moving while meditating with zen of motion will not show room titles, descriptions, mobs or objects unless zen of awareness is obtained.

Kata would no longer add hitroll and damroll but add damage for each attack by spending mana per attack. Typing 'kata' will activate or deactivate it. At the cost of 20 mana per attack it will add damage per attack. mort - 5D2, gen 5 - 10D3, gen 10 - 15D4. Skills like whirlwind or combo will do more damage at the cost of more mana. For example, a gen 10 monk will deal an average 337.5 points of extra damage from a 9-hit combo at the cost of 180 mana.

In an attempt to buff mages, I can think of ways Mages can use more of their mana as well.

For instance, you put a number after your prismatic spray, and that is how much mana it will drain, and how much damage it will do.

< 1205H 3119M 1594V -950A > cast 'prismatic spray 3000' You stare at a mutilated retriever and utter, 'sfugwihuq gsfil'. You drain 3000 mana from a mutilated retriever! You blast a mutilated retriever with a prismatic spray of light! < 1205H 119M 1594V -950A >

Honestly, this sounds like: WTB: Buffs for Monks, oh and mages too.

I agree with the idea that Monks could utilize mana in some instances to help them with their zen of translocation and zen of motion. Those seem like non-trivial additions.

However, the idea of having kata be like a "borg like" buff, where you activate and it drains mana per use, doesn't seem fair. Monks already can obtain easily over 80 Damroll. Remorting borg also makes this easier to obtain. They're already one of the fastest classes in the game as well. This just seems over kill.

And with the mage idea, I think that'd make us way OP. We'd basically walk in to a super hard mob, drain all our mana, flee out, locust on an elemental, walk back in, drain all our mana, repeat. I wouldn't be objective to a passive spell that would increase the amount the "baseline" mana cost to add some damage, but being able to variably add your own amount of damage seems a bit overkill.

-Aconite

your monks can already get 80 damroll argument is pointless cause you can easily get 80 damroll on any class if you eq for it.

while the idea for translocation is pretty sweet there is a lot of risk if it just randomly teleports you since you can get stuck in walls with it.

and having zens actually take mana when you achieve them is the way it should be. i never understood why they have the mana cost on them if it dont even take it. kata costs 40 mana to do at gen 10. other then that 40 mana monk/borgs dont need mana at all. if you add the mana cost into getting zens it would keep them from being able to pretty much supplement all but 40 mana for reconfigure.

What's overkill about my suggestion about kata?

As far as the numbers go, the highest the bonus damage can get is 75 and an average of 37.5 at gen 10 and it's at the cost of mana. It will lose the 10 damroll and 14 hitroll bonus.

I think the damage ends up being roughly the same. In fact, this might do the opposite of buffing monks, especially with their current mana pool.

I do agree with you that it's too much like a borg program. I was thinking the same thing when I first thought about it. However, the basis of the idea was for the player to decide when and when not to use it rather than it being a no-brainer and use it all the time. I could think of no other way than to turn it on and off by typing 'kata'.

Any character class can easily obtain over 80 damroll.

However, is that character class effective in killing / surviving? No.

Why? For example, mages typically have two "routes", they can either go a ton of AC, or a ton of Damroll. Now, they can typically survive either way (Although, the consequences of Damroll is less Dam redux).

Monks on the other hand, if they went all AC, that wouldn't be very practical. They are made for high hit, high damroll packages. Since they don't have any real protection mechanism (Other than hiptoss constantly), they typically need to kill their mobs fast and effectively. Which is why Monks are just plain awesome. They can deal out so much damage in so little time, they're just a powerhouse of damage. Giving them easily accessible damroll on top of this would prove OP in my opinion.

-Aconite

Considering that kata would lose the damroll bonus, the only way that any monk wouldn't suffer from that is if they had high enough damroll (through EQ) that using the current kata wouldn't be fully beneficial. i.e. a monk with 125 damroll without kata.

I don't know any monks with that much damroll.

Changing kata like this wouldn't make monks overpowered. In fact, with the mana cost of 20 per attack the bonus damage isn't nearly high enough to even out its lose of damroll.

I forgot to mention about zen of translocation to Bushido. I didn't for it to sound like you dodge an attack and move into another room, although I don't think it did come off that way. The idea was you just dodge an attack, still meditating and still in the same room (maybe just behind the dude who's swinging his sword at you.)

What about the zen of motion idea? I thought it'd be awesome to move while you were meditating.

The ideas about the zens (both about them costing mana and about the different uses for the zens of awareness, translocation, and movement) are pretty cool. It's logical, and can give monks something to do while meditating.

As for kata, if you wanted to make those changes, I think there would have to be a name change for the skill. It looks like a kata is a choreographed "dances" in martial arts, and it wouldn't be something you could turn on and off (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata). It's an interesting idea though, and I could see myself turning it on when I'm in a hurry to clean up a zone or something, or doing a power move.

The only time I can see an empowered Kata really coming in handy if it only worked for 10-15 hits based on the max mana you had is if you were trying to pk someone. Imagine the power of a boosted combo after a stun or such. Might be a bit op depending on how it was done.

I actually think taking the normal effect away from kata would disadvantage those who are just starting out because they would have less damroll and hitroll to start out in the low gens.

I skimmed this topic, sorry if I misread anything.

It seems like everyone thinks that the bonus damage I suggested for kata is overpowered. In fact, I believe it to be a huge step back for monks and their damage.

As stated before, gen 10 kata with a 15D4 bonus damage and a 9-hit combo will produce 540 damage more at the most (60 damage at most for each hit). This doesn't include damage reductions and the fact that 9 hit combos don't always happen (random number and prismatic spheres stopping monks from completing the whole combo). Also, the damroll lost produces more damage per attack than the bonus damage.

Taking out the normal effect of kata wouldn't be much of a difference for those who are just starting out because they wouldn't have the mana to maintain kata since it doesn't last very long and it doesn't give much damroll and hitroll as a mort.