#hinyasi | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dailycharacteroption · 8 months

Text

Hinyasi (Brawler Archetype)

(art by FranLu07 on DeviantArt)

They often say that when you handle a weapon long enough, it becomes an extension of your arm, your body knowing perfectly how to compensate for it’s weight and all the little intricacies of how it interacts with the forces you subject it to.

It may be less glamorous, but that is also true for tools as well, your implements becoming a part of you as you use them to perform, whether it be a precision tool for precision work, or something strong and unyielding, like a farmer’s hoe.

Though it may come as no surprise to us, with any luck their enemies are very surprised when some warriors choose to use simple tools as weapons!

We’ve seen a few improvised weapon builds and archetypes before, but this one in particular is geared towards the brawler class and their gift of further improvising with their martial flexibility!

In the Lost Omens setting, the Hinyasi were a group of soldiers and guards that were formed with the nation of Yamasa seceded from Lirgen. The former being the breadbasket of the latter until they could no longer stand the neglect of the stargazing Lirgeni. And with their familiarity with farming, the Hinyasi were formed as a border guard, warriors that seemed like unassuming farmers that could catch would-be bandits and raiders by surprise, turning farming implements into deadly weapons.

Sadly, Yamasa as a nation collapsed, becoming the Sodden Lands when the permanent hurricane known as the Eye of Abendego appeared offshore. While some remained, degenerating into brutality, most fled and took their traditions, including the Hinyasi, with them.

Of course, while I do love the aesthetic of the farmer that can make a raider eat their leather straps, you need not use this archetype solely for the farming aesthetic. Any martial artist that specializes in using whatever is around as a weapon could use this archetype, whether they seemingly belong to any noncombat vocation, or they simply were trained to grab anything and everything like their name is Jackie Chan.

Regardless of where they are from or what they do as their day job, these warriors can prove that anything can be a weapon if you know it’s properties intimately and apply extreme force in the right way.

Naturally, these warriors are trained to use improvised weapons effectively, specializing in melee or thrown objects.

While most brawlers scale the damage their weapons do at a slower rate than their unarmed strikes, their improvised weapons improve at the same rate, making them shockingly deadly.

Improvised weapons are often known for their odd shapes and weight distribution, as well as other properties that make them shockingly good at befuddling foes. A threshing scythe hooked around the ankles to trip foes, a flag being wrapped around a weapon to yank it out of the foe’s grasp, or a heavy boulder forcing a foe to move back, all and more are possible. As such, these brawlers can get in a free combat maneuver in after a strike with their improvised weapons, though they tend to be more awkward than if they had focused on the maneuver first. Additionally, the brawler must choose which maneuver to specialize in, though they gain a second and third choice later on.

Finally, these warriors learn to specialize on different weight categories of improvised weapons, light ones, one-handed, or two-handed, becoming especially effective with them.

This archetype is fairly simple, but it offers good ways to combine improvised weapons with the brawler class, both by letting you use the brawler unarmed strike full progression, as well as letting them use a few types of combat maneuvers free as part of your attacks. If you’re going this route, I highly recommend feats like the entire Shikigami Style line, as well as Chairbreaker to get a little damage boost when you don’t care about breaking your weapon. Also, consider the Disposable Weapon feat as well, since it works with any weapon with the fragile trait, not just primitive weapons the way Splintering Weapon does. Also, be sure to make the improved and greater combat maneuvers that you’ve specialized in a mainstay of your arsenal as well.

It's interesting to think of the reason why someone would train themselves in this art. Some may see it as a way to demonstrate their own fighting skill by not even using tools meant for fighting, while others may seek to be inconspicuous but deadly at a moment’s notice. Others still might have a philosophical aversion to using weapons, but not against violence.

Klaubon’s big stick is his favorite thing, a strong reinforced fence post that he has added all sorts of metal bits to make it useful for nearly anything, from digging holes to tilling earth, to shattering a bandit’s skull. While not balanced right to be a weapon, the ogre doesn’t mind, and is quite adept at using it, this crude multi-tool of his in times of conflict and in peace.

Despite there being plenty of weapons available, Shofa swears by her “magic rock”, which sometimes discharges sparks of magic and lightning when she uses it as a crude bludgeon. What the young barbarian doesn’t know is that the rock is a fragment of a menhir from the back of a zarxorin, a massive elemental that resembles a hill capped with standing stones, and those flashes of power will one day attract its attention.

Though he swears it isn’t on purpose, Baulidare Farwalker often finds himself in situations where his life is threatened, and the athletic but seemingly mild-mannered man must defend himself with anything on hand with a shocking level of skill. Is he really a sap with incredibly bad luck, or is he hiding a past as a skilled warrior?

#pathfinder #archetype #brawler #hinyasi #ogre #zarxorin #Blood of the Ancients

10 notes · View notes