Infinite Lotus (3.5e Martial Discipline)
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Mathematics is a way of describing the world, and everything that is connected to it. Through the esoteric studies of infinities, numbers, counting, geometries and things even more unusual, the mind becomes focused, strong and able to see things from a perspective few others can share. Those who practice the discipline of Infinite Lotus see that within mathematics' many facets, just like in the petals of a lotus, lies a beautiful harmony, unifying mind, body and soul to produce amazing and powerful effects that few other martial artists can even conceive of, much less understand or use. While learning these things is difficult, for mathematics of the level required to use the maneuvers of the Infinite Lotus is beyond many, those who persevere gain the ability to reshape reality with ever-greater facility.
Students of the style spend many hours studying unusual and theoretical mathematical principles, becoming foremost scholars of arithmetic and its many principles. Their meditations, sometimes hours long, require them to contemplate the infinite, the eternal, and things that the mortal mind was not meant to visualise, while at the same time internalising and learning these things at an instinctual level. The unusual, rigid and almost-impossible katas of the Infinite Lotus are based on unusual geometrical or mathematical forms, and their training techniques resemble contortionism, academic practice and martial arts in equal forms. At all levels, unity between the disparate needs of the scholar and the warrior, theory and practice, and the self and the world are stressed, and great awareness of subtle mental and physical shifts and precision is granted. Those who survive this regimen, and have sufficient mental and physical strength and flexibility to complete it, find that the world now responds to their actions.
History of the Infinite Lotus
The Infinite Lotus, like all disciplines of the Sublime Way, have origins shrouded in mystery. While most of its disciples are not historically-minded, those who know a little of its ways claim that the modrons first taught it to a few select individuals as part of some great plan that only they could know. While the modrons never truly revealed why they revealed the Infinite Lotus, the individuals to whom they revealed it became mighty warrior-scholars, who took on many disciples and attempted to fully understand everything the modrons had placed within their minds. Although they never succeeded before their deaths, their disciples expanded on this knowledge, filling in the gaps and constructing the disciple as it is known today. They became known as the Infinite Lotus Disciples, and while all of them had slightly different interpretations of the teachings, as they were based on sound mathematical logic and principle, they different only in focus, not basic content.
After many centuries, Reshar, the great uniter of the Sublime Way, began to walk the earth in his bid to learn more than any other master had before him. Reshar was not a scholarly individual - he lived his life for battle and the improvement of his fighting techniques, and while he was far from illiterate, he placed little hope on, and had little interest in, esoteric forms of knowledge. Thus, when he heard stories of the legendary martial prowess of the Infinite Lotus Disciples, he sought them out to try and learn their ways. However, he found that their emphasis on mathematics, its learning and appreciation, and only then the use of martial arts, were not to his liking. He found it strange how anyone could call themselves a warrior and yet spend so much time amid books and in meditation on concepts which had little relation to life, no matter how amazing their martial arts happened to be. After a year of fruitless efforts, Reshar left in disgust, never incorporating the teachings of Infinite Lotus into his school.
When the Temple of the Nine Swords fell, and its students were scattered among the four winds, some found their way to the Infinite Lotus Disciples. While many saw their studies as being excessively focused on esoteric numbers and not enough on fighting, and left in disgust just like Reshar had, a small number of swordsages could see the greater picture of the discipline, and stayed. Applying themselves to its studies, they eventually mastered its complex principles, and gained great power in the martial arts as a result. They later, thanks to their experience with the Temple of the Nine Swords, found ways to teach their brother and sister initiators how to use this rather difficult discipline.
Game Mechanics of the Infinite Lotus
Available To: Crusaders, swordsages and warblades
Discipline Skill: Autohypnosis (Wis)
Discipline Weapons: Chakram, Klein sword, Mobius whip, para-bow, swordplane, tri-dagger
Contents
Infinite Lotus Maneuvers
1st-Level Maneuvers
- Bounded Infinity: Strike [Mind-Affecting] — Deal additional damage, confuse opponent
- Eratosthenes' Sieve Defence: Counter — Gain a chance to resist spell or spell-like ability.
- Floating-Point Instability Process: Rush — Step and tap a target, make them unbalanced.
- Natural Number Understanding: Stance — Increase speed as long as you keep moving, improve charges, master arithmetic of natural numbers.
- Prime Understanding: Stance — You are particularly lucky when you roll a prime number.
2nd-Level Maneuvers
- Gaussian Property of Distribution: Counter — Deflect half of damage back to attacker.
- Integer Understanding: Stance — Gain resistance to elements, energies, master arithmetic of the integers.
- Interval of Confidence: Strike — Ignore concealment, deal extra damage
- Zeno's Lemma: Rush — Move halfway towards target, never quite reaching.
3rd-Level Maneuvers
- Diagonal Argument Proof: Boost — Empower your own abilities with diagonal argument logic.
- Flatland's Abstraction: Stance [X-Discipline] — Toy with the fabric of reality and make vertical space your bitch. A creature that flies can still be reached by your attacks, no matter how high above you it may be. In other words, just because a wizard uses fly doesn't mean you can't smack him.
- Irrational Number Inculcation: Strike [Mind-Affecting] — Deal extra damage, daze enemy.
- Know thy Enemy: Boost [X-Discipline Scrying] — The key to victory is to anticipate your opponent's moves, and make sure he can't perform them. Learn what your foe has in store for you, then selectively deprive him of his greatest assets!
- Mathematical Induction Principle: Stance — Anticipate action by observing opponent.
- Polyhedron Alteration: Counter — Turn a roll of d6s into d8s, or d4s, or any other dice one step up or down.
- Real Number Understanding: Stance — Punch through mind-affecting immunity, master arithmetic of real numbers.
4th-Level Maneuvers
- Axiom of Choice: Stance [Chaos] — Roll twice on d20 rolls, get insight when choosing the lower result.
- Axiom of Determinancy: Stance [Law] — Choose a fixed result for d20 rolls up to six times in a round.
- Crockpot Disproof: Strike [X-Discipline] — You talk an object out of existence.
- Hyperbolic Asymptote: Counter — Change the geometric axioms of the nearby area to prevent movement, teleportation, area and missile attacks.
- Reality is but a Stream: Rush — Walk through walls, similar obstacles.
5th-Level Maneuvers
- Incompleteness Theorem: Strike — Remove invisibility in a large area.
- Logic-Overriding Postulate: Strike [Charm Mind-Affecting] — Deal additional damage, change opponent's alignment, charm.
- Thought-Destroying Contradiction: Counter — Negate an ability being used.
6th-Level Maneuvers
- Equivallence: Boost — Attack all the creatures of the same species at the same time.
- Transcendental Geometry Realization: Stance — Gain fly speed, remains after stance ends.
7th-Level Maneuvers
- Parabolic Return: Counter — Curve space to turn any ranged attack against someone else.
8th-Level Maneuvers
- Anonymous Function Call: Strike — Make a request of the universe.
9th-Level Maneuvers
- Continuum Hypothesis: Strike [Death] — Give a target knowledge of true infinity, destroy, prevent resurrection.
- Flickering Presence: Stance [X-Discipline Time Shadow] — Move freely within your reach after each melee attack, and use both time and finesse to ensure you only act when most opportune.
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Class Ability Components → Martial Disciplines
| Identifier | 3.5e Martial Discipline + |
| Rated By | Surgo + |
| Rating | Rating Pending + |
| Title | Infinite Lotus + |
