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The best Monk variant I have seen is the one from The Dungeonomicon. It looks like this:
Monk
"I am a Grand Master of Flowers. You are not."
Fantasy literature's view of the "martial artist" has about as much to do with a real martial artist as its view of salamanders has to do with real salamanders. But let's face the facts: Monks are totally sweet. They flip out and kill people with their hands. A Monk does not practice any "real" martial art, we call those people "Fighters" – a Monk practices an entirely magical martial art that only works in areas where badgers can talk and winged horses can fly.
Every Monk follows a different martial path that involves jumping super high and having glowing things coming off of their hands when they perform their super moves. Some monks use weapons, but most just use their hands and feet to devastating effect. Some Monks shout the names of their techniques in battle to demoralize their opponents, others stay aloof and silent during even the toughest of challenges.
Alignment: Monks may be of any alignment. Really. If a bar brawl breaks out, some Monks will try to break it up, other Monks will join in. Whatever.
Races: Because the martial paths of a Monk embrace all manners of comportment, from Stoic Lawfulness to Boisterous Chaos, almost every sapient race has those who take up the monk's path. With its lack of emphasis on ranged weaponry, few of the slower races turn towards these magical combat styles, and halflings and dwarves rarely become monks. The discipline emphasizes physical strength as much as it emphasizes perceptiveness and inner strength, so orcs are as likely to become monks as Kuo-Toa are.
Starting Gold: 2d4x10 gp (50 gold)
Starting Age: As Monk.
Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: The Monk's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good
Level, Benefit
1 Armored in Life, Fatal Strike, Willow Step, Fighting Style
2 Rain of Flowers, Abundant Leap
3 Fighting Style
4 Diamond Soul
5 Fighting Style
6 Walk of a Thousand Steps
7 Fighting Style
8 Immaculate Diamond Soul
9 Master Fighting Style
10 Leap of the Clouds
11 Master Fighting Style
12 Master of the Four Winds
13 Master Fighting Style
14 Master of the Four Seasons
15 Grand Master Fighting Style
16 Master of Diamond Soul
17 Grand Master Fighting Style
18 Perfect Mastery
19 Grand Master Fighting Style
20 Grand Master of Flowers
All of the following are Class Features of the Monk class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with all simple weapons, as well any weapon defined as a special monk weapon, such as the sai, the nunchuka, the kama, the shuriken, and the triple staff. Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields of any kind.
Armored in Life (Su): A Monk has a special Armor bonus whenever they are not using armor or shields that he is not proficient in. This Armor Bonus applies against Touch Attacks and Incorporeal Touch Attacks, and has a value of +4. Every even numbered class level, the Armored in Life bonus increases by 1. If the Monk wears armor which he is proficient in (for example: normal clothing) that has an enhancement bonus, that enhancement bonus applies to his Armored in Life Armor Bonus.
Wilow Step (Su): A true monk does not seek to outrun the fist, but to anticipate it. If a Monk would be allowed to add his Dexterity modifier to a Reflex Save or Armor Class, he may add his Wisdom bonus (if positive) instead.
Fatal Strike (Su): A Monk has a natural weapon Slam in addition to whatever else he is capable of doing. As a natural slam attack, if he uses no other natural or manufactured weapons he adds his Strength and a half to damage and may make iterative attacks if he has sufficient BAB. If the slam is used with other weaponry, it becomes a secondary natural attack, suffers a -5 penalty to-hit, and adds only half his Strength modifier to damage. A monk's slam attack does a base of 1d8 damage for a medium sized monk and does more or less damage as appropriate if the Monk is larger or smaller than medium size.
Fighting Style (Su): At levels 1, 3, 5, and 7, the Monk learns a Fighting Style. Each Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Fighting Style Abilities:
- Fighting Style Abilities
- While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +4 Dodge Bonus to AC.
- While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +4 Dodge Bonus to Saving Throws.
- While Active, your Fighting Style forces any opponent struck by your slam attack to make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wisdom Modifier) or become stunned for one round.
- While Active, your Fighting Style allows you to make an attack of opportunity against any opponent who attacks you. This attack of opportunity must be a trip or disarm attempt.
- While Active, your Fighting Style provides you with concealment.
- While Active, your Fighting Style provides a +30' Insight Bonus to your movement rate.
- While Active, your Fighting Style allows your slam attacks to ignore hardness and DR.
- While Active, your Fighting Style provides any bonuses it gives to your slam attack to any attack you make with any weapon.
- While Active, your Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict piercing damage and to inflict 2 points of Constitution damage.
- While Active, your Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict slashing damage and to reduce your opponent's movement rate by 10' every time they suffer damage from it. This movement rate reduction can be healed like ability damage (treating 5' of movement as 1 point of ability damage).
- While Active, your Fighting Style allows you to move through occupied spaces as if they were unoccupied and you provoke no attacks of opportunity for your movement.
Rain of Flowers (Su): Any time a 2nd level Monk inflicts lethal damage, he may elect to inflict non-lethal damage instead. Any time a Monk inflicts non-lethal damage, he may elect to inflict lethal damage instead.
Abundant Leap (Su): At 2nd level, a Monk's ability to jump is unbounded by his height. In addition, the DC for any jump check is divided by two.
Diamond Soul (Su): At 4th level, the Monk gains Spell Resistance equal to 5 + his character level. At 8th level, his soul becomes immaculate and his Spell Resistance improves to 10 + character level, and at 16th level he masters his diamond soul and his spell resistance improves to 15 + character level.
Walk of a Thousand Steps: Once per day, a Monk of sixth level or higher may activate a Fighting Style and extend its duration to 1 round/level rather than 1 round. Activating this Fighting Style is still a Swift Action. Other Fighting Styles may be activated during this period, though their duration is normally going to be only 1 round.
Master Fighting Style (Su): At levels 9, 11, and 13, the Monk learns a Master Fighting Style. Each Master Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Master Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Master Fighting Style Abilities. When a Monk gains a new Master Fighting Style, he may replace one of his Fighting Styles with a different Fighting Style.
- Master Fighting Style Abilities:
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style allows you to teleport yourself and everything you are physically carrying 60 feet in any direction as a free action usable once per round.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style provides total concealment.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style transforms your slam attacks into Force effects that inflict Force damage.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any creature struck with your slam attack with a banishment effect that transports it back to its home plane unless it succeeds at a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier). Outsiders suffer a -4 penalty to their saving throw. A creature so banished, may not return to the plane it was banished from for a year.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style forces any creature struck by your slam attack to make a Reflex Save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or be helpless for one round.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style provides you the effect of an air walk spell, and gives you a +20' Competence bonus to your speed.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any opponent you successfully trip or bulrush with the violent thrust version of telekinesis, with a caster level equal to your character level. There is no saving throw against this effect.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style allows you to shoot fire out of your hands or mouth as a standard action. The fire can be shot out to medium range, requires a ranged touch attack, and inflicts 1d6 of fire damage per character level if it hits.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style causes your slam attack to inflict vile damage.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style forces every creature within 10 feet of you to make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or become panicked for one minute.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style affects any target you strike with your slam attack with a targeted version greater dispelling with a caster level equal to your character level.
- While Active, your Master Fighting Style causes 5d6 of Sonic damage to everything within 30 feet of you when you inflict damage with your slam attack against any target. You are immune to Sonic damage while your Master Fighting Style is active.
- Instead of gaining a Master Fighting Style Ability, you may choose two regular Fighting Style Abilties.
Leap of the Clouds (Su): At 10th level, the DC for any jump check is divided by 5.
Master of the Four Winds (Su): The Monk's breath of life is carried on the winds of fate. At 12th level, if the monk is restored to life, he doesn't lose a level for doing so.
Master of the Four Seasons: Time passes relentlessly in the world, but for a monk of 14th level, the change of seasons is as no change at all. He no longer appears to age, never accumulates any additional penalties for growing older and will never die of old age.
Grand Master Fighting Style (Su): At levels 15, 17, and 19, the Monk learns a Grand Master Fighting Style. Each Grand Master Fighting style requires a Swift Action to activate, lasts one round, and is usable at will. Each Grand Master Fighting Style must have a name (see Naming Your Fighting Style below), and provides two bonuses from the Grand Master Fighting Style Abilities. When a Monk gains a new Grand Master Fighting Style, he may replace one of his Fighting Styles or Master Fighting Style with a different Style of the same type.
- Grand Master Fighting Style Abilities:
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style makes you and everything you are carrying incorporeal, your slam attacks are incorporeal touch attacks.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style slows down time to the point where you can act twice each round, you do not gain an extra Swift Action during your extra actions.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style allows you to punch a hole through space and time, allowing you to open a travel version of gate with a slam attack.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style prevents all [Teleport] effects from entering or exiting within 1 mile of your location.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style causes your slam attacks to reduce the spell resistance of enemies by an equal amount to the damage the slam attack inflicts.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style forces every creature struck with your slam attack to make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or die.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style affects any target you strike with your slam attack with a disintegrate effect, with a caster level equal to your character level.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style causes you to regenerate. You recover a number of points of nonlethal damage each round equal to your character level. Unarmed or Slam attacks inflict regular damage.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style forces any opponent you strike with your slam attack to make a Willpower save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or become feeble minded.
- While Active, your Grand Master Fighting Style affects every target you strike with a slam attack with the violent thrust version of telekinesis, with a caster level equal to your character level. There is no saving throw against this effect.
- Instead of gaining a Grand Master Fighting Style Ability, you may choose two Master Fighting Style Abilties.
Perfect Mastery: Once per day, a Monk of 18th level or higher may activate a Fighting Style, Master Fighting Style, or Grand Master Fighting Style and extend its duration to 1 round/level rather than 1 round. Activating this style is still a Swift Action. Other styles may be activated during this period, though their duration is normally going to be only 1 round
Grand Master of Flowers: At 20th level, the Monk becomes an Outsider, and immortal of legend. He gains the augmented subtype of his previous type, and has Damage Reduction of 20/Epic.
Naming your Fighting Style: Roll a d10, or choose an adjective, an animal, and a noun:
Adjective Chart:
- Running
- Hungry
- Angry
- Naked
- Drunken
- Fortunate
- Lazy
- Swift
- Powerful
- Enlightened
- Ox
- Tiger
- Dragon
- Crane
- Monkey
- Turtle
- Manticore
- Serpent
- Hummingbird
- Demon
- Fist
- Stance
- Spinning Kick
- Attack
- Technique
- Style
- Dance
- Movement
- Touch
- Fu
- Note from the authors: Feel free to add any adjectives, animals, or nouns that you want. There's no reason that your character's fighting style has to be called "Naked Tiger Stance" rather than "Astonished Centaur Defense".
-Frank
While that variant is nice theres justt something about it that bugs me and causes me to not like it.
While that variant is nice theres justt something about it that bugs me and causes me to not like it.
?
OK. The majority of Monk variants are basically just a way to give a player with no equipment the ability to fight as if they had basic equipment (sword, armor, horse). As their level goes up, they get better armor, horse, and sword equivalents, but in no way do they get these improvements as fast or as meaningfully as characters normally get weapons, armor, and steeds.
Basically, so long as the game presupposes that player characters will have a parallel increase in equipment as they gain levels, there really isn't much room for getting equipment instead of character abilities as you go up in levels.
If we want the Monk to have a place in the party, we have to go outside the box. He can't just be a mounted halfling who doesn't need a sword - because that's already covered by the mounted halfling. The game seriously assumes that he will have his sword. The above Monk variant makes the Monk into more of a "melee wizard" than a "fighter replacement." It stakes out new territory and gives the monk a real niche.
Now that doesn't mean that you have to like it, or that it's the only new niche a Monk could have. But whatever you decided upon would have to use that kind of methodology in order to give him something to do.
-Frank
I'm working on a redone monk class that borrows from the barbarian rage points hinted at in the Pathfinder blog description of Amiri.
It's not nearly done yet, but here are the big changes I'm considering;
Ki Points
- Monks build up a pool of ki points as they level, which they can use on specific abilities. Example: Praying Mantis Strike - spend 2 ki points, and you may add your Wisdom modifier to your next attack roll; if it hits, add it to your damage as well.
- Some powers would also grant additional abilities for having ki points; for example, a 1st level monk power would give a +1 AC dodge bonus so long as the monk has at least 1 point in their ki pool.
Same BAB, HD as a fighter
- Makes the monk a martial character, and emphasizes the physical training many monks must go through.
Less Ability Juggling
- Monks will need Wisdom, and either Dexterity or Strength depending on their power selection. Using the powers provided, a higher Wisdom could buttress a weaker Str or Dex, such as noted above in Preying Mantis Strike. Constitution is still important, possibly the second-highest stat, but monks won't feel like they have to have a 40-point buy to be effective at early levels.
Trapfinding
- A different form of trapfinding using Wisdom to find and disarm traps, as well as open locks; it focuses on the mysticism inherent to many monk styles.
Fixed Flurry
- Flurry of blows grants one additional melee attack at the highest BAB, takes a standard action to use, and gives all your attacks a -2 penalty. That lets the monk take extra attacks while still having the freedom to move. The penalty is a bit onerous, and I may reduce it as the monk levels; -1 at 10th, gone at 20th (when the monk reaches Enlightenment...).
Weapon Style
- Some monks focus their training with one specific weapon; similar to rangers, monks could choose certain bonus feats or powers that represent that focus, or choose to have more options in combat when not wielding a weapon. One focus would be on Improvised Weapons, and allow the monk to turn anything around them into a potentially deadly item.
These ideas are raw, and untested; because of that, I do have several concerns:
- The weapon, BAB additions might give the monk too much martial prowess to go with its utility; If it's beating the fighter AND the rogue at both their games, why play either of them?
- Too many options might confuse players; hopefully I can simplify things to the point where you can pick a type of monk you want to play (Staff-fighting shaolin, speedy improviser, or hulking grappler) and follow a simple tree of choices to get there.
My wife is playing a monk in our adapted Rise of the Runelords game, so hopefully she won't mind me tweaking her character throughout the campaign. Feel free to comment, try a few things, let me know how they work.
Hello Frank,
thanks for all the work.Let me have my say.The overall picture looks good.I especially like the fighting styles though I would make some little tweaks:
- Spellresistance comes to early and it is too powerful to have +10 at Level 8
-the Fatal strike´s keyattribute should be Wis instead of Str so the monk does´t have specialize in to many attributes
-20/Epic is way to much DMG reduction 10-15 is just right and epic might even also broken.Magic and lawful is better
-Wisdom should be the keyattrbite to all his abilities.AC BAB instead of Str. and so on.
Cheers Julien
I like this, I'll post what I'm working on eventually. I actually don't worry too much about the BAB of the monk, focusing on providing alternate special abilities to reflect different styles.
Naming your Fighting Style: Roll a d10, or choose an adjective, an animal, and a noun:
I found this interesting.
One of the campaigns I'm currently in I play a psion/psychic warrior/monk and use a fighting style called Demon Claw Boxing. Flavor like this goes a long way IMO.
I guess one of the questions that needs to be asked is what sort of monk do you want?
Frank Trollman's proposal works for a "wire fu" monk, who is essentially a guy who does supernatural stuff under the veneer of quasi-eastern philosophy. I think his character works better with psionics.
I prefer the monk as a pankration wrestler, the epitome of human(oid) physical prowess whose power is through the delving into unarmed combat. He thinks me character works better as a fighter with lots of unarmed combat feats.
Frank, I'm pretty sure that your suggestions are a tad too powerful. Aside from that, I like them.
Frank, I'm pretty sure that your suggestions are a tad too powerful. Aside from that, I like them.
Yes I agree with Psychic Robot.For example Master of the Winds(?) is way tooo powerfull.NO gamedesinger would let that go through playtesting.
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OK,
Thought I'd take a stab here. I think there are three key problems that if fixed also cover the lesser issues.
The first is BAB which is an easy fix, just kick it up to a full progression. This makes the Monk hit more often and as such increases the monks damage output. This also kicks the Monk's HD up to a D10 per Pathfinder's BAB/HD parity.
The second is attribute spread. As it stands a monk needs too many high attributes to compete. My first suggestion is that a monk adds their Wis bonus to hit and damage when fighting unarmed or using a special monk weapon. This takes away the need for high strength but without turning it into a dump stat (encumbrance still relies on Strength). The bump in HD above alleviates the need for high Con and Dex is really already compensated for in the core design given that the Wisdom bonus is added to AC.
The third problem is monks and magic items. The fix for this is relatively simple as well. First allow normal clothes and robes (AC 0) to be enchanted as armor. Secondly, create a set of items called "hand wraps". Hand wraps are treated as weapons for the purpose of enchantment but transfer their enchantment to the unarmed attacks of the individual wearing them. This now means the Monk has to spend his gold on the same magic items that any other warrior class would.
I think these three things balance out the monk quite nicely and should allow them to hold their own akin to a fighter of equal level. They loose out a little on defense against normal attacks but gain significantly in resisting spell attacks so I think that balances out.
In any case let me know what you think.
I just don't think the BaB can be changed without heavily effecting backwards compatibility. HP on the other hand seems fair game.
Maybe I'm wrong on that.
The only problem I see with handwraps is how difficult the are to roll back up after you have washed them, or how bad they smell if you leave them balled up in the bottom of your gear-bag after practice. :P
A change in BAB shouldn't be too much of a problem with Backward compatibility.
As for the monk in and of itself I beleive Belkar Bitterleaf said it best...
Belkar: "Hey, listen buddy, sure you can hire Friar Tuck over here, but I was underder the impression you wanted somebody that could, you know fight. A little."
Monk: Hey, I can fight! I can make four attack per round!
Belkar: Yeah, and you have the same Base Attack progression a a tree sloth, so are any of them going to actually HIT?
Monk: That's not the point! Four attacks! With my bare hands no less.
Belkar: Right, fight, so you'be got a metric ton of class abilities that make you fight unarmed and naked almost as well as an armed warrior does.
Monk: Correct.
Belkar: Why not be armed?
Monk: Excse me?
Belkar: Why not be armed? It takes a lot less training and you fight better. Even you, who spent years studying this, do more damage and hit more often when using a big honkin' greatsword. So what's the point?
Belkar: Face it: A lifetime of discipline, and you still get owned by schmuck with chainmail and an axe.
Monk: But..four attacks!
Belkar: What a waste. WHile the rest of us were having fun and talking to girls, you were at home in the monastery, learning to use your "bare hands", if you catch my drift...There, there. ITs not your fault your class fails to achieve its basic design intent.
The Order of the Stick: On the Origin of PCs by Rich Burlew, 2005
One thing that would help monks out a lot is a magic item which allows them to add enchanments like flaming or holy to their unarmed strikes. There are a few magic items in 3.5 which could possibly be used for this, but most of them are a little controversial. I also think Monks should be able to use Dex instead of Str for CMB if it benefits them. I find I can build a powerful Str based monk pretty effectively in 3.5, but that doesn't fit all the Monk archetypes people like to play. Giving Monks Weapon Finesse as one of their choices for bonus feats also might make sense.
One worry for the Monk in PFRPG is how they will give him back the tools they've taken away by altering the combat manuevers. 3.5 Monks get Improved Trip or Disarm for free, and the trip can be pretty effective. By raising the average DC, nerfing Improved Trip, and adding BAB to the trip equation PFRPG appears to have made the Monk worse at tactical combat. Of course they might give him full BAB or a scaling bonus to CMB. A powerful alternative to the scaling bonus would be to let the Monk add his Wis bonus to CMB just like AC. Thus a wise old monk would be very good at martial arts manuevers.
I don't see the 3.5 Monk's reduced BAB as a terrible problem given his ability to put enemies in bad positions. If he tumbles into flanking position (+2), and knocks you prone (+4) he's probably got a very good chance to hit. He can also make you flat footed with Stunning Fist. This can become very effective with Pain Touch. Grappling might not seem like an effective option for the 3.5 Monk since grapple has always included BAB, but it can be useful against spellcasters or if you get enlarged. As long as the PRPG Monk can be successful with CMB or other tactical manuevers I don't think he'll need full BAB.
The idea of a monk moving up and flurrying isn't bad. It could also be implemented by just giving him a certain number of extra move actions per day. I'd rather see him get something along the line of "special moves" though. This stuff needn't have names like Tiger Uppercut, Super Deadly Ninja Bees, or Hurricane Punch, but I guess players could shout "Hadoken!" if they felt like it. What I'm thinking of is basically something like the strikes from Tome of Battle though perhaps a little more limited. They'd probably be fueled by Stunning Fist attempts and do a little extra damage plus force a save to prevent some negative effect.
By having powers to target Will and Reflex saves as well as Fort the Monk would become a lot more versatile. An adjunct to this idea is to add a little damage to Stunning Fist. It can be kind of frustrating to watch the enemy make Fort saves over and over, and an extra d6 or so of damage should make it feel like less of a waste without changing the game much. Sorry for the long post. I've played a lot of Monks and have a lot of Monk ideas. I disagree with the idea that the Monk is a 3rd rate character in 3.5, but I'd like to see him be more versatile for sure.
Oh, one more thing - It would be really nice if the Monk didn't have to use a standard action to drop his SR for "harmless" spells like healing from his own party's cleric. It has always seemed silly to me that these spells bother to say "SR: Yes (harmless)" instead of "SR: Yes" if the "harmless" doesn't change the way SR works with the spell at all.
Well yeah, the basic failure of Monks has been known for some time. For example, Here is a discussion of the inadequacy of Monks back from 2002 on a board that Rich Burlew and I used to frequent. Obviously, it's a discussion of the inadequacy of the 3rd edition Monk rather than the 3.5 Monk, but it's really not that different in terms of failure points.
-Frank
[SNIP]We just need the monk to perform at the ranger's level while spending the same amount of money. [/SNIP]
Shisumo, are you proposing something like the samurai's ancestral swords for monk? Personally, I'd have gone with something like Mindblade, where their strike gains new abilities as they level up. The advantage I see to your option (spend gold for new abilities) is that it gets rid of the 'monk in masterwork silk robes' syndrome.
I would, however, advocate that the 'cap' for spending be level based, and tied in some manner to creation costs for magic weapons.
Cordelia: We've reached rock bottom.
Xander: I have a plan.
Cordelia: No, wait, we've reached a lower place.
I have a happy bubbling pot of ideas. Let me fend off the dauchaund of barbarian rage so I don't recommend a 'Ki Reserve' to power the monk's abilities. Although that idea is cool, it is clear that the monk deserves better.
Argh! Or the monk needs a wider selection of gear of various levels to keep up with the other party members with similar cost items. Okay, that's out. I'm taking a break from monk for a bit.
I call mine Drunken Ox Dance....
Anywho I like the idea, alittle fix here and there and this would be perfect, mostly id like to see you bleed alittle of the oriental flavor out of it. If you keep it in neutral it wont get shunned from the european setting players. (cause there is always that kid who wants to play the ninja, and thinks he can travel with a band of european mercenaries. Bless is lil wee-a-bo heart.)
Im not saying its a bad setting its just classes should be able to go both ways.
While D&D isn't strictly medieval European, a lot of the published settings sure skew that way.
My group and I just get annoyed at the assumption that to be a martial artist, you HAVE to be an Asian flavored martial artist. We currently have a Paladin/Monk dual class who specializes in the local Savate variant. Another who is a pankration expert, and a third who uses a style similar to boxing crossed with wrestling and nicknamed "Panzerfaust".
It's a personal thing for our group, but it also means that when we do make it ot the other side of the world and encounter an Asiatic setting, it becomes a point of similarity as opposed to familiarity. "Ah, interesting, your whipping cat's tail is similar to my order's fouette." As opposed to, "Oh, yeah, Joe knows Leaping Moon Tiger, they have an exchange monastery in Greyhawk City."
I firmly believe that since Pramas owns Dragonfist that the monk should be Dragonfisted. Strip out all the class features except the ki strikes (which a monk must have to hit stuff) and the bonus feats (which should be made a bit more regular) and give him the maneuvers from Dragonfist (adapted to 3.5, of course), possibly one per level (two or three starting) with a maximum level like the psion and his powers.
What I feel the Monk needs is this
1)able to wear light non-metal armor
2)Bonus feats at 10th, 14th, and 18th LV
3)Wholeness of Body heals Monk LVxWis. Mod.
4)Quevering Palm useable 1/day
5)Perfect Self Granting DR 10/Chaotic
6)Quevering Palm 2/day at 20th LV
7)Expanded bonus feat opions and the ability to take some bonus feats without meeting all prereq.
8)able to use Monk weapons well with some bonuses