Path of Mastery

The Path of Mastery is followed primarily by those with the dedication required to pursue the numerous Combat Styles offered. Combat Styles are unique fighting positions that you may only enter during combat, as a Swift Action. When combat ends, your active Style also ends. By default, you may only have one Combat Style active at a time, though as a character progresses through this Path, they will gain the ability to activate and fuse multiple styles together. For every move, he seeks a counter. For every style, he has a riposte. Ultimately, he seeks perfection through the fusion of styles.

When you follow the Path of Mastery, you gain the following Key Skills:

• Athletics
• Acrobatics
• Intimidate
• Perception
• Stealth

Below is a list of all Combat Styles. Each Style is an individual Trail of Talents. You may not take any Style Talents without possessing the Path of Mastery, though Style Fusion is not required.

• Ascetic Style - You blend arms and martial arts, using weapons with the same ease as unarmed strikes.
• Boar Style - A tribe of orcs who disdained the use of weapons originally developed this savage unarmed fighting style. They preferred to slaughter their enemies with their bare hands and teeth.
• Charging Stag Style - This style originated among shamanic monks who spent their lives in the wild, allowing them to quickly subdue both game and poachers using the element of surprise.
• Cloak and Dagger Style - Your attacks effortlessly inflict debilitating conditions on unaware opponents. You devastate enemies that you catch off-guard and your increased martial skill allows you to take advantage of distracted foes to easily impose conditions, and even steal items without being noticed.
• Crane Style - Crane style focuses on defense and agile counterattacks. Practitioners are known for graceful, one-legged stances and folding arm techniques that mimic a crane’s enormous wings.
• Dragon Style - Dragon style captures the overwhelming power, grace, and ferocity of dragons. Practitioners use acrobatic footwork and strong attacks to overwhelm foes.
• Elven Battle Style - You wield traditional elven weapon techniques as old as time.
• Grabbing Style - A wrestling and grappling style that favors powerful one-handed grabs, fast repositioning of those grabbed, and the ability to move and damage one or two opponents.
• Jabbing Style - This style favors rapid punches and kicks, typically while the fighter circles her opponent. Many of these jabs land in the same general area or in debilitating areas of the body, delivering more pain and damage with each successive jab.
• Kraken Style - This grappling style mimics the powerful crushing blows of the many-tentacled kraken. This style focuses on pulverizing holds around a creature’s chest, limbs, and throat.
• Monkey Style - Renowned for its speed and agility, monkey style blends jumping strikes, rolling blows, and ground fighting into a continuous onslaught aimed at disorienting and damaging an opponent through superior mobility.
• Octopus Style - You anticipate the attacks of more than one enemy at once. Your arms flail about in a confusing pattern of strikes that trips and batters your foes and the more enemies that surround you, the more accurate your attacks become.
• Pummeling Style - Seemingly wild and powerful haymaker punches and extended kicks are the hallmark of this style. Deeply rooted in its martial philosophy is the concept that landing one powerful strike in the right area will send an opponent painfully sprawling.
• Shikigami Style - Your skill with improvised weapons makes you the most dangerous one in any tavern.
• Snake Style - Snake style emphasizes quick, shifting movements. Its practitioners normally hold their hands flat with the fingers together to mimic the head of a snake. Able to strike when least expected, snake stylists are known for opportunism and blinding speed.
• Spring-Heeled Style - You cunningly dart across the battlefield from foe to foe, taking advantage of your flexibility to duck blows.