Munchkins and power gamers. I want you to attempt to stress test the following changes to the monk.

First, under unarmed strike replace the last paragraph and the chart with:

"A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown above on Table: Monk. The unarmed damage values listed on Table: Monk is for Medium monks. A Small monk deals less damage than the amount given there with his unarmed attacks, while a Large monk deals more damage; see Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage on the table given below."

with

"A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would. At first level a monk's unarmed strike does 1d6 hit points of damage. At 4th level the monks unarmed strike gains a +1 enhancement bonus. For every four levels beyond 4th, the monk gains an additional +2 enhancement bonus to a maximum of +5 at 20th level."

Second replace:

"Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. He can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to his monk level by using 2 points from his ki pool."

With

"Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. A monk may spend one ki point to heal himself as if casting cure light wounds. At 11th level the monk may spend 2 ki points to heal himself as if using cure moderate wounds. At 15th level the monk may spend 3 ki points to heal himself as if using cure serious wounds. At 19th level the monk may spend 4 ki points to heal himself as if using the spell Heal."

And finally add to the end of Diamond Soul:

"Spell resistance may be raised or lowered as a swift action."

Wholeness of body being a swift action effectively gives you an average of 40 hp at level 7.

Might want to make that a standard action.

Diamond body's addition is really nice, makes it worth something.

Wholeness of body being a swift action effectively gives you an average of 40 hp at level 7.

Might want to make that a standard action.

Diamond body's addition is really nice, makes it worth something.

It is a standard action, same as the spell.

I've toyed with the idea of making wholeness of body more like a paladin's lay on hands, just without undead harming, mercies or being able to be used on others. I don't think it would be overpowered in that case to allow it as a swift action and maybe even beef it up some.

Maybe add to Diamond Soul that the monk can spend a ki point to lower SR as an immediate action, so they can get that surprise haste or something.

I also really like the change to adding enhancement bonuses instead of increasing damage die. Static bonuses are so much better. But I'd actually make it a d8, so it's 2d6 for large and 1d6 for small.

I'm looking for testing or discussion of the changes on the table as they are.

This would represent a bump to the class as is. Before you add more, you have to make sure this isn't too much first.

I've toyed with the idea of making wholeness of body more like a paladin's lay on hands, just without undead harming, mercies or being able to be used on others. I don't think it would be overpowered in that case to allow it as a swift action and maybe even beef it up some.

Maybe add to Diamond Soul that the monk can spend a ki point to lower SR as an immediate action, so they can get that surprise haste or something.

I also really like the change to adding enhancement bonuses instead of increasing damage die. Static bonuses are so much better. But I'd actually make it a d8, so it's 2d6 for large and 1d6 for small.

I definitely need to change the wording, but I have some room. One of the things the Devs said they don't want to do is bump the damage to much, so I think it needs to stay 1d6 so the damage stays more or less the same per attack, but the DPR goes up and the monk can get the enhancements to overcome damage resistance.

Part of the goal was to use the same space or less than what is currently used for the monk so it could be an straight swap in core. Losing the unarmed chart gives me some room.

Any suggestions on wording.

Second replace:

"Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. He can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to his monk level by using 2 points from his ki pool."

With

"Wholeness of Body (Su): At 7th level or higher, a monk can heal his own wounds as a standard action. A monk may spend one ki point to heal himself as if casting cure light wounds. At 11th level the monk may spend 2 ki points to heal himself as if using cure moderate wounds. At 15th level the monk may spend 3 ki points to heal himself as if using cure serious wounds. At 19th level the monk may spend 4 ki points to heal himself as if using the spell Heal."

#1 and #3 we are discussing in a separate thread.

#2: no this is not brokenly good. Neither is it any real improvement on the wholeness of body as is, save at the very highest level. Oh, but it costs more Ki then. The problem with wholeness of body is that it serves no real purpose like this, it's just replacing one standard action (drink a potion) with another (use the power). It replaces one relatively common resource (gold for a potion) with a much more constrained one (ki points).

Unless your monk is stuck far from a source of potions, with no healer around, and is spending days resting up, it has no real useful utility. As self-healing it sucks because the real problems you run into require restoration spells, and lifting conditions, not cures.

I would suggest have it like Lay on hands, with mercies, but all of them only applying to the monk himself and not others. Or restructure to include lesser restoration with CLW, and scale up the levels of condition-removing spells with the cure spells.

It costs less ki for cure light (1d6+5 for average of 8.5) which will heal more on average than wholeness on as is up to 17th if you burn the same amount of ki. It is the same ki for cure mod (2d8+10 average 19) up to 19th level. It is more for cure serious, but cure serious is more healing(3d8 +15 average 28.5) and heal is obviously a lot.

I know some of this is still being discusses in various separate threads, but I felt ready for a test of this set up, and I didn't see testing likely in the other threads.

The problem is the action economy and ki cost don't really make this option useful in combat except in corner cases where a potion would serve as well, and out of it there are other options.

If we need to keep word count down, then the lay on hands/mercy option is as good and works better as self-healing because it removes conditions, even if it only works as a standard action.

The problem is the action economy and ki cost don't really make this option useful in combat except in corner cases where a potion would serve as well, and out of it there are other options.

If we need to keep word count down, then the lay on hands/mercy option is as good and works better as self-healing because it removes conditions, even if it only works as a standard action.

Except we would spend as many words with exceptions from Mercy as we would just spelling it out.

Go read mercy, it isn't a simple "Like" reference that would work.

I did, and I think it can work without imposing exceptions. It's like lay-on-hands, save it only effects the monk themselves.

I did, and I think it can work without imposing exceptions. It's like lay-on-hands, save it only effects the monk themselves.

Yes, but lay on hands itself needs modifications to work with the monk, specifically the whole undead part, the levels it applies to...you can't just reference it for it to work.

Undead part not applicable, as it only works on the monk himself (unless the monk himself is undead). The only things you need to specify are the mercies.

Undead part not applicable, as it only works on the monk himself (unless the monk himself is undead). The only things you need to specify are the mercies.

Which would take up space, as you would have to either change the level the monk gets it, or change all of the "at X level" stuff.

It is a fairly big change that will take a good amount of text to go that way.

I seem to recall that in another thread we did in two extra lines than the current ability takes up.

I seem to recall that in another thread we did in two extra lines than the current ability takes up.

Feel free to link, but I don't see it.