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Before there were style feats, there was a series of feats for monks and unarmed builds that didn’t have a name or special rules, but still evoked the idea of special martial techniques. Some of them even had “style” in the name. It’s pretty clear from the fact that some of these were in the core rulebook that A. The writers liked the idea of martial artists having more special techniques than just stunning fist and quivering palm, and B. They really wanted to express martial arts styles somehow, but hadn’t fully figured it out yet. Heck, give it a few more years, and we wouldn’t have had to wait for Starfinder 1e and later Pathfinder 2e to get martial artists using their ki to do their best Dragonball Z/fighting game impression with flight and energy blasts and such.

But it is those early technique feats that we’ll be focusing on today and the sort of tricks and debuffs that they could deliver with them, among other things. If you pay attention, you might even see in them the precursors of a few other things that bore fruit in Second Edition too, such as martial art styles including special strikes with their own damage type when one enters the stance for one.

Obviously, most of these require Improved Unarmed Strike to even take in the first place, either by way of the feat or by being a monk or brawler. A few others require Stunning Fist as well.

The first set of these are Scorpion Strike, which lets the warrior target the limbs to hamper speed, followed by Gorgon’s Fist to stagger them. Next up is Medusa’s Wrath, which if a follow-up granting extra attacks to a hindered foe. Finally, there is Cockatrice Strike, that can actually turn a foe to stone on a lucky strike against a hindered foe, dipping into actual supernatural territory.

Next up is Adder’s Strike, which allows them to effectively use poison on their unarmed strikes without poisoning themselves, as well as Pinpoint Poisoner, that adds darts to the mix.

Inspired by the devils of hell, there are also several techniques named after them. Belier’s Bite gives them training on dealing bleeding wounds. Next is Hamatulatsu, which lets them deal stabbing wounds with stiffened fingers, followed by Hamatula Strike, which lets them grapple and hold foes they’ve stabbed, and Hamatula Grasp, that improves the harm they do.

Other techniques are more mundane, like the Ki Throw line, Punishing Kick, Perfect Strike, and so on.

Others are blatantly supernatural, such as Nightmare Fist, Nightmare Weaver, and Nightmare Striker, which improve the ability to fight in darkness, intimidate foes while creating magical darkness, and punish foes marked by faerie fire, all of which makes sense as a martial art created for and by the drow.

Stepping aside from those requiring knowledge of punching, Spider Step and Cloud Step are both monk only feats that are clearly special techniques, allowing the monk to run on walls and even air briefly.

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Next on the docket, we have a set of feats that I’m kinda surprised I haven’t talked about before on the blog: Meditation feats!

In the real world, meditation is a practice where a person tries to relieve stress by emptying their mind. A lot of people mistakenly assume this means “don’t think anything for hours”, but that’s not entirely true. What it really means is to let go of the thoughts that are lingering in your head and just experience the world around you, observing every sight, sound, and feeling, to be present in the moment, to just take a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet. Sure, you may have thoughts during that time, but you let them come and go rather than focus on them. There are obviously variations and goals, but that’s the general idea, and it’s not for everyone.

In fantasy media, meditation comes with the trappings of sometimes superhuman displays of power that can colloquially be referred to as “monk bullshit.”

However, meditation is not solely the purview of monks, and many other characters might gain benefit from the practice and find uses for a cinematic and fanciful take on stillness of the mind.

Which is why these meditation feats exist. While certainly having a monk vibe, they are open to pretty much any class, requiring only a decent wisdom score and character level.

This set of feats begins with one that serves as the prerequisite for everything else. Meditation Master, as it is called, lets you meditate during your daily prep, and by doing so, you get a little bonus you can use once in the day for any d20 roll. It’s not much, but it’s basically a free guidance casting that lasts all day. However, from there we get feats that let you add even more effects thanks to that morning meditation.

Basically progression in this feat tree has three branches (and one straggler). The first alphabetically is Body Control. With it, the character uses their meditation to become more and more aware of their own body. Have you ever just taken a moment to ignore everything around you and feel your blood pumping through your body? It’s basically that, but more so. With it, the character gets a flat bonus to Fort saves, and can go longer without food, water and rest as they subtly control their own body consciously. With Bend with the Wind, this expands to temperature regulation, giving them some resistance to heat and cold, and with Body Mastery, their flesh becomes tougher and more resistant to injury. Also, as a small aside, while not needing Body Control, the Sensory Control reflects the meditating character sharpening their own senses by just paying attention to them more, enhancing their sense of smell and night vision.

Next up is the Mindful Meditation line. While real mindful meditation is about actively working to examine thoughts and let them go, this feat does harden the mind against mental subversion with a Will save buff, and makes it harder to trick or intimidate them as well. From there we have Perfect Awareness granting a once per day sudden burst of perceptiveness, picking up on things that might slip by them. Mindfulness Mastery meanwhile gives them a resolve that can help them try and overcome a mental effect a few moments after they would otherwise succumb. Finally, those who have a Perfect Center can resist all distraction, taking a normal amount of effort even in stressful situations.

And finally, we have the Combat Meditation, which in addition to granting focus to be able to succeed even when defeat seems assured in various rolls, but it also lets them briefly focus to gain the benefits of all their meditation feats for a short time if they were unable to properly meditate earlier. Spellcasters often learn Meditative Concentration, which naturally let’s them maintain focus more easily even when casting spells in hazardous conditions or when attacked by swarming creatures. Some become so focused they seem to Slow Time, or more accurately, boost their own speed and processing power to move and attack faster for a short time when they focus in combat. Additionally, that combat focus can be trained to last longer with Extended Combat Meditation. Finally, those with Greater Combat Meditation perfect it further, able to use more focus on a task to split a smaller amount of focus between two tasks.

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A funny thing about magic in both mythology and fiction is that is pretty much does anything that the writer feels it should. Sure, there are plenty of magic systems in fiction with their own rules for how they work, but all of that can fly out the window the moment the author had a neat idea to solve a problem in the story (or start one), they want to shake things up a bit, or they just forgot.

A result we sometimes see with this is magical items that seem pretty flexible in what they can do. Sometimes a magic item just does whatever the writer wants it to be able to do at the time, and sometimes it has established powers, but then the writer comes up with a clever application for that power or just pull a new power for it out of their patoot with varying degrees of justification.

And that’s all fine and good for storytelling (much to the disagreement of an army of internet armchair writers that think that internal consistency is somehow the point of writing stories), but this gets a little tricky in gaming, where the magical properties of the various doodads the party picks up not only obey the rules of whatever magical system is associated with the world, but with the rules of the game itself. A magic weapon only provides the benefits listed in it’s stats.

However, as we’ve established, a magic item that can do a lot of things isn’t necessarily bad writing, and there is an appeal in a character that can do a lot of things with their signature magic sword or staff or whatever.

Which is where we get the Item Mastery feats. Heavily associated with the Relic Master archetype for fighter, these feats are available to anyone who can meet the prerequisites, and are meant to emulate the vibe of a character being able to do a lot more things with a magic item that on paper has limited usage.

The reasons for why and how are deliberately left vague. Maybe they have a special quality that unlocks the items potential. Maybe the item could always do that and the character is innovative enough to exploit that. Or maybe it’s like the magical equipment of jury rigging a machine to perform a very different function. No matter the reason, these wielders can unlock various other exploits and tricks based on the schools of magic in the items they wield and wear.

So, the feats in this category can be subdivided into two major subsets. The first and most numerous of them are the feats that allow the wielder to replicate the effects of several classic spells that are indicative of a school of magic by fiddling with the workings of a magic item that includes that school among it’s aura. Energy Mastery lets you blast foes with cones and lines of elemental energy based on the elements associated with the item, Concealment and Illusion Master grant invisibility and minor image from illusion items, Teleportation Mastery let’s the user cast dimension door with a conjuration item, and so on.

The other set is pretty much “everything else” but includes the likes of Implement Mastery allowing an occultist to use their implements for the other item mastery feats even if they themselves aren’t technically magic items, or firing beams of various flavors of divine wrath from a holy symbol with the Symbolic Mastery feats.

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Something that I don’t think people give asura a lot of credit for is how some seek their own form of enlightenment separate from what the gods offer. It’s a bit tainted due to coming from a place of spite and vindictiveness, but it is a form of asceticism in its own way… and for some it even works, creating lawful good asura bearing the wisdom of the cosmos.

Today’s subject is a martial art style that emulates the asura and their rage against the gods. It might have been inspired by their hatred of the gods, or it might have actually been invented by the fiends as a weapon for themselves and their followers against the gods and their servants. Either way, the result is a martial artist that seems purpose-built to hinder and slay divine casters.

Like yesterday’s style, this one too is open to both hand to hand and weapon-based maneuvers, albeit limited to monk weapons in this case.

Overall, this style incorporates the graceful poses and stances some asura are known for striking with the incorporation of a multitude of gestures and statements that are considered blasphemous in many religions, either by decrying the deity of onlookers specifically, or by mocking the ritualistic gestures of a religion’s prayers and spellcasting. All of this making for a style that flows from grace and balance to crass disruption and back again fluidly.

This, I imagine gives rise to monks, brawlers, and other hand to hand specialists that have a deep knowledge base of religious lore, since one must know a faith to blaspheme against it.

The basic Style teaches the user to incorporate blasphemous actions into the swing and follow-up of their strike, a pose parodying the target’s faith, a casual blasphemous phrase, and other such hurtful acts that leave the religious reeling, hampering divine casters so struck.

Less aggressive is the Sight technique, which focuses on emulating how some powerful asura have multiple faces and eyes. With it, they unfocus but remain attentive with all their senses, letting them notice hidden dangers more easily.

Finally, they can learn the Spellrend strike, which lets them use their inner energies, blasphemous handsigns, and the like to dispel divine magic on a foe as they strike them, robbing them of bluffs.

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If there is anything that the armies of Heaven can be praised for, it is for their willingness to risk their own safety to protect others. That may be innocents, or it may be their direct allies in the conflict, forming a cohesive unit that watches the backs of each other.

That dedication to duty is appealing to many would-be guardians, be they monks, paladins, or otherwise. And so it gave rise to the Archon Style of martial arts.

As the name suggests, the style is meant to emulate the defensive fighting forms used by the servants of law and good, and can be done with both unarmed combat and with a one-handed weapon, the other hand left open not to guard themselves, but to guard others. Indeed, this style is unusual in that the wielder is meant to draw attacks towards themselves rather than deflect them away, the better to protect those they fight alongside.

That does, however, make the style ineffective when fighting alone, but no warrior banks on one move, so it is often supplemented with other fighting techniques and styles to suit the situation.

The base form of the Style allows the warrior to designate a foe within their reach, which they proceed to hinder with blocking motions to give allies a measure of protection at the cost of opening up their own defenses.

With mastery, they learn a Diversion maneuver as the gaps created by the base forms close. With this technique, they can redirect their designated foe’s attack against their own defenses rather than allies, grabbing weapon hafts and sword arms and whatnot. In doing so, regardless of whether the attack succeeds against them, they pull their foe so far out of alignment that this opens up the attacked ally to make a strike of their own.

Finally, with true mastery, their protective maneuvers no longer leave a gap in their defenses and letting them set up the technique faster. Additionally, when they themselves are successfully by any foe, not just a designated one, they can use the Justice technique to grab and hold the weapon that struck them for an extended period, opening up their foe for all nearby allies to punish.

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