Is there any way for non-sohei to flurry in armor? I presume not.
I would ask for ideas to desing light armor enchantment that allows to flurry, not overpowered and have flavor to it. Or maybe what do you think about:
Flexible
Aura: faint transmutation; CL 5th; Price +2 bonus
Flexible armor feels lighter that normal and does no restrain user's movement. Character wearing flexible armor and proficient in it can use their Flurry of Blows ability despite normal armor restriction. Monk in flexible armor does not lose her Fast Movement bonus to speed, but still loses her AC bonus. Also, Dexterity bonus to AC allowed by such armor is increased by 1. Flexible ability can be applied only to light armor.Craft Magic Arms and Armor, cat's grace; Cost +2 bonus
The idea is for it to be inferior to using Bracers of Armor, so not all monks will be running around in this. This is done for flavor purposes.
I also would rule that it must be natively light armor, not mithral medium. So maximum you can get from it is +4 (chain shirt), same you can get with 14 wis monk wearin +2 bracers of armor at lvl 1. Since monks bonus AC increse with level i wonder if i should decrease the price to +1 bonus. Also, they have to waste feat for Light Armor Proficiency.
I also thought about ACP penalty decrease but that is covered by Comfort armor and i am hesiant to make new things that stack.
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I haven't thought this through, but maybe it would be easier to simply have monks in your world chose a "path". Either they use the no armor path (as represented by the stock monk) and get WIS to AC plus bonuses from level OR they use the armored path (a new path) where they give up their WIS to AC plus bonuses from level and can use Light Armor and retain their other monk abilities (like Flurry) and get AP: Light on their list of bonus feats that they can take at level 1. I would restrict it to Light Armor only (though Mithral Breastplate would be fine), and no shield.
Armored Monk: Elven Chain +5 (31,500 gp) +11 AC, Max Dex +4, ACP -2
Unarmored Monk: WIS 20 & Bracers +6 (36,000) +11 AC + Level Bonus, No Max Dex, No ACP
The armored monk could add armor enchantments, but the unarmored monk can add DEX and WIS to get higher AC and/or get +7 or +8 bracers, plus more level bonuses, so can potentially get a higher AC than the armored monk. The armored monk adding DEX is capped at +4 AC from DEX and adding WIS doesn't help his AC.
Now that I've thought about, I might even NOT make it a path and just let monks use Light Armor with flurry, but they lose their WIS bonus while they wear light armor. In this latter case, I would add Light Armor Proficiency to the list of bonus feats they can take.
All this assumes a change in your world and that you have control over that (or that you have a GM who allows it). This is most definitely not allowed under the existing rules.
Personally, I am waiting with GREAT anticipation the rebuild of the monk in the upcoming How we would have done it if we weren't trying to be compatible with 3.5 book.
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In our games we just allow monks to wear a haramaki. Its only a +1 to AC and can be enchanted. This way the monk players don't lose the armor slot for magic items.
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The enhancement is worse than useless as written.
As a normal monk you have 3 options.
- Ignore armor bonuses to AC, and rely totally on other sources of AC
- Get mage armor off a caster or a wand, which is an effective means from level 3 or so (when the caster can afford a single slot for the monk or the monk can afford a pearl/wand) to level 20. Btw, yes this doesn't count as armor - mage armor is a spell that provides an armor AC bonus; it isn't armor that is being worn by the monk
- Spend large sums of money for Bracers of Armour, which will cost 25k before they even start to beat Mage Armour, and still cost a slot.
Your enchantment adds a 4th option.
- Wear flexible armor
Lets compare it to bracers. I am assuming a 14 wis starting monk with increases going into str and up to 20% of PC wbl going into armor.
level 10 (earliest the monk can afford it) - 12400 WBL for 10100 +1 flex chain shirt (5AC).
assuming +2 wis headband for +7 total to AC from monk class feature (+2 base, +3 wis, +2 levels).
The monk is equally better walking around with no armor - it is literally worse than useless.
Costs the same as +4 Bracers btw.
level 12 - 17000 out of 21600 for a +2 flex chain shirt (AC=6)
assuming +2 wis headband for +8 total to AC from monk class feature.
Once again, nekked is better.
Note that a monk could afford +4 bracers with that money
level 14 - 17100, just over 17000 wbl, for a +3 flex chain shirt (AC=7)
the monk should have had a +4 wis headband 3 levels ago, +9 bonus
Armour is still valueless.
level 16 - +5 flex chain shirt(highest the bonus will go) for +9 AC- 51100gp out of 63000gp.
Assume +6 headband for a +11 AC.
Still worse than useless.
I learned something valuable from that exercise. I learned that, based on standard WBL, +X * 1000gp bonus items are expected to upgrade every 2 levels. The monk's AC ability increases at about the rate of armor, but without costing the monk anything. No armor also lets the monk benefit from mage armor
As a thought experiment, lets make Flexible a +0 enhancement and see if it is worth it.
The +x on the armor costs as much as the +x to the bracers, so they cancel each other out in the analysis and can be disregarded.
Mithral Chainmail - Costs 1100, 4AC, max dex that will probably never be hit.
Monk ability - Free, stacks with mage armor, starts at 4AC and increases every 2 levels from about level 4 onwards.
The enhancement is never worth it, even for free
This means that for the enhancement to be worth considering at level 12, it would need to let the wearer use full plate with no penalties in any way (full speed, no acp etc), and it would need to be free.
The thing is that this enhancement can never really be balanced with bracers without changing what it takes away from the monk.
The only significant determiner of which is better is AC. This means that it is possible to decide between them based solely on number crunching - there are no real tradeoffs to be made.
I would personally seriously consider it making light armor count as no armor for monks with no drawbacks (monks need everything they can get). If you insist on making it not be strictly better than bracers, you could consider instead consider decreasing the move speed bonus. Decide how much AC you would give a monk for how much move speed, and then do an analysis like I did above and tweak the numbers till they hit what you want.
However you decide it, don't forget that a +x bonus is equivalent to a plain +x bonus in cost - a +2 ability that gives +4 AC is only giving +2 over a simple bonus. Bear this in mind when you are figuring out it's cost and drawbacks.
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Thanks for the analysis! It does seems overpriced.
Frankly - defense is the one area where monks don't need help. (So long as they're smart enough to be wis monks and grab Guided ASAP.) Especially if they have a wiz/sorc buddy willing to cast mage armor on them early. Without that their AC is weak for the first few levels.
There, fixed that for you. But you're essentially right, of course. There's the small detail in fine print that now your offense will suck instead - in fact your best bet will probably be to put that dex score to use with a crossbow for the first few levels.
Frankly - defense is the one area where monks don't need help. (So long as they're smart enough to be wis monks and grab Guided ASAP.) Especially if they have a wiz/sorc buddy willing to cast mage armor on them early. Without that their AC is weak for the first few levels.There, fixed that for you. But you're essentially right, of course. There's the small detail in fine print that now your offense will suck instead - in fact your best bet will probably be to put that dex score to use with a crossbow for the first few levels.
Don't be silly. All the monk needs to do is pick up dervish dance somehow. And wield a scimitar. But still punch things.
Monks are fine.
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Don't be silly. All the monk needs to do is pick up dervish dance somehow. And wield a scimitar. But still punch things.
Monks are fine.
I did this once. Crusader Cleric of sarenrae dip for a hungry ghost monk. Crusader's Flurry FTW.
Monks really are fine without this though. Pummeling Style makes the DR piercing of an AMOF unnecessary, and fixes the crappy crit profile of unarmed strikes.
This flexible would allow them to wear brawling armor.
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This flexible would allow them to wear brawling armor.
The scary thing is, it might be worth it.
+4 equivalent armour (+1 flexible brawling) costs 16,000gp, the same as a +2 AoMF, and Brawling stacks with any AoMF you have. Upgrading a +3 AoMF to +5 costs 64,000gp, compared to 51,000gp to upgrade a +7 equivalent armour to +10.
Your AC will probably be a few points lower than a monk using bracers of armour, since the monk's AC bonus caps out at 5+Wis compared to 4 for a chain shirt (or +6 with elven chain, which caps your Dex at 18), and your touch AC will particularly suffer. But the fact that it's worth considering brawling at an effective +3 equivalent value says something about the brawling quality.
level 10 (earliest the monk can afford it) - 12400 WBL for 10100 +1 flex chain shirt (5AC).
assuming +2 wis headband for +7 total to AC from monk class feature (+2 base, +3 wis, +2 levels).
What's the "+2 base"? The monk's AC bonus is 2+Wis at level 10.
Still, your numbers are about right.
Without taking brawling into account, the ability to wear armour as a monk is most useful on strength monks, or lower level dex monks. A chain shirt gives you +4 base AC, and costs the same to enchant as bracers with +0 base AC, so if the monk's Wis bonus + AC from levels is higher than 4 they'll have a better AC with bracers than with the chain. Note that the monk AC bonus applies to touch, while the chain doesn't, so even with a +3 monk AC bonus it may not be worth it to wear armour, and a dex based monk will want to spend an extra 1000gp on mithral. By level 7 a monk is very likely to have a +3 AC bonus (if their Wis is 14 including any headband) and may have a +4 AC bonus, so that's around the level the chain stops helping.
This means that making an expensive enchantment allowing the monk to wear armour is pointless, since the low level monks that would benefit from armour cannot afford the enchantment.
A strength monk will be able to wear elven chain without the max dex causing problems. If they're also not increasing their Wis above 14, the armour could be a better call until about level 16, though if someone wanted to play such a monk I'd probably suggest they consider a brawler.
(The brawler is, BTW, a really good argument for either banning Brawling or letting monks have it on Bracers of Armour - if it's appropriate for light armour wearing brawlers, it's appropriate for the monk.)
Not to be that guy but Sacred Fist can wear Armor and flurry. As it doesn't state they can't.
Not to be that guy but Sacred Fist can wear Armor and flurry. As it doesn't state they can't.
Yes and the Brawler can too kinda. But the OP is asking about Monk specifically.
Not to be that guy but Sacred Fist can wear Armor and flurry. As it doesn't state they can't.Yes and the Brawler can too kinda. But the OP is asking about Monk specifically.
Other classes are still somewhat relevant when it comes to considering game balance, as is the Sohei's armored flurrying. It does rather nicely indicate that the monk getting armored flurry options isn't a big deal.
The Brawling enchantment on light armor would be a big boost for unarmed monks, certainly. But then again it's something other monk-esque classes have gotten without causing problems, the monk has some accuracy issues, and unarmed monks tend to be rather weak compared to the weapon-using archetypes like Sohei and Zen Archer.
Honestly I would have them trade a class feature of the ability to flurry in light armor while not carrying a medium or heavy load and be done with it.
As far as armor goes, it's really not that difficult to duplicate light armor with wisdom and bracers of armor. Since Bracers of Armor are exactly the same cost as enhancing actual armor, it comes down to how much wisdom and Monk AC you can stack up.
By level 8, even a Sohei with 14 Wisdom and Bracers of Armor of whatever enhancement you would have put on a light armor might as well just go unarmored - it's improving his CMD as well that way. If that Sohei has a +2WIS headband and/or Dual Talent or another +2WIS racial thing going on, then they're actually doing better without armor.
For something with the 'flavor' of a Monk armor, Monk's robes are basically that anyhow; in the long run cheaper than adding a point of enhancement to armor.
Thanks for the feedback! As i see, monk can afford this only when his wis bonus is better anyway, so i decided to just allow monk flurry in darkleaf armor.
Brawling enchantment seems to be the thing, but since i banned pummeling style it should not be the issue.
What's the "+2 base"? The monk's AC bonus is 2+Wis at level 10.Still, your numbers are about right.
Without taking brawling into account, the ability to wear armour as a monk is most useful on strength monks, or lower level dex monks. A chain shirt gives you +4 base AC, and costs the same to enchant as bracers with +0 base AC, so if the monk's Wis bonus + AC from levels is higher than 4 they'll have a better AC with bracers than with the chain. Note that the monk AC bonus applies to touch, while the chain doesn't, so even with a +3 monk AC bonus it may not be worth it to wear armour, and a dex based monk will want to spend an extra 1000gp on mithral. By level 7 a monk is very likely to have a +3 AC bonus (if their Wis is 14 including any headband) and may have a +4 AC bonus, so that's around the level the chain stops helping.
...Derp
I added the bonus from the monk's initial wisdom mod (+2) twice. I don't know how I managed to screw up that bad.
Subtract 2 from all the monk AC numbers.
Looking at my numbers, that means that the monk's AC increasing class feature is about the same as the enhancement.
Still not really worth it. Even just letting the monk lose their AC bonus in exchange for light armour isn't really worth it past about level 6-8, since a monk should get 4AC from their class ability by about this stage, and bracers don't have a Dex limit or ACP.
So after about a year i just found 3.5 feat Armored Monk, look just perfect for me. Still not worth a feat for sure, but for flave purposes it works.
Just putting it here in case someone finds this thread.
What you need is a Shozoku of the Nightwind.
