I designed this variant monk class with the following goals in mind:
1. Make the monk a viable melee combatant;
2. Parallel the class mechanics of other melee classes with mystical side powers, like the ranger and paladin (and also remove a page or so of class feature descriptions);
3. Provide options for monk abilities.
Full BAB; all good saves; AC bonus, unarmed strike damage, and speed bonus as in the Beta.
I apologize in advance for the awkward table formatting in this view.
Class Features:
1st - Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike
2nd - Bonus feat, evasion
3rd - Still mind
5th - Purity of body
6th - Bonus feat
7th - Wholeness of body
9th - Improved evasion
10th - Bonus feat
11th - Diamond body
13th - Diamond soul
14th - Bonus feat
15th - Quivering palm
17th - Timeless body
18th - Bonus feat
20th - Perfect self
Class Skills
The monk’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (history) (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Stealth (Dex), and Swim (Str).
Skill Ranks Per Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with unarmed strikes, and with all simple weapons. Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields. When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses his AC bonus, as well as his fast movement and flurry of blows abilities.
AC Bonus (Ex): When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds his Wisdom modifier (if positive) as an insight bonus to his AC, to a maximum bonus equal to his class level. In addition, a monk gains a +1 dodge bonus to AC at 4th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every four monk levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +5 at 20th level. These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. He loses these bonuses when he is immobilized or helpless, when he wears any armor, when he carries a shield, or when he carries a medium or heavy load.
Flurry of Blows (Ex): When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, he may make one extra attack in a round at his highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a –2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the monk might make before his next action. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.
When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with simple weapons. He may attack with unarmed strikes and simple weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies his full Strength bonus to his damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether he wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a simple weapon as part of a flurry of blows unless he selects the Temple Weapon feat.
In the case of the quarterstaff, each end counts as a separate weapon for the purpose of using the f lurry of blows ability. Even though the quarterstaff requires two hands to use, a monk may still intersperse unarmed strikes with quarterstaff strikes, assuming that he has enough attacks in his flurry of blows routine to do so.
When a monk reaches 11th level, his flurry of blows ability improves. In addition to the standard single extra attack he gets from flurry of blows, he gets a second extra attack. This extra attack is treated as a second iterative attack (i.e., it uses the monk’s base attack –5, not including the –2 penalty for the flurry of blows. For example, an 13th level monk would flurry at +11/+11/+6/+6/+1.
Unarmed Strike: At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. A monk’s attacks may be with either fist or with elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may make unarmed strikes with his hands full. There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed. A monk may thus apply his full Strength bonus on damage rolls for all his unarmed strikes.
Usually a monk’s unarmed strikes deal lethal damage, but he can choose to deal nonlethal damage instead with no penalty on his attack roll. He has the same choice to deal lethal or nonlethal damage while grappling. A monk’s unarmed strike is treated both as a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either manufactured weapons or natural weapons.
A monk also deals more damage with his unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown on the table. The unarmed damage shown 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, according to the normal size adjustments for weapon damage.
When using a weapon with which he is proficient, instead of an unarmed strike, the monk gains a damage bonus equal to half his class level.
Bonus Feat: At 1st level, 2nd level, and every 4 levels thereafter, a monk may select a bonus feat. These feats must be taken from the following list: Caught Off-Guard, Combat Ref lexes, Def lect Arrows, Dodge, Improved Grapple, Scorpion Style, Stunning Fist, Temple Weapon, and Throw Anything. At 6th level, the following feats are added to the list: Gorgon’s Fist, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Trip, and Mobility. At 10th level, the following feats are added to the list: Improved Critical, Medusa’s Wrath, Snatch Arrows, and Spring Attack. A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them.
Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level or higher, if a monk makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, he instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a monk is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of evasion.
Fast Movement (Ex): At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to his speed, as shown on the table. A monk in armor or carrying a medium or heavy load loses this extra speed.
Still Mind (Ex): A monk of 3rd level or higher gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and effects from the school of enchantment.
Ki Powers (Su): At 4th level, a monk’s gains a pool of ki, supernatural energy he can use to accomplish amazing feats. These ki powers are treated exactly as divine spells, although they rely on the monk’s inner resources, rather than being granted by a deity. To learn or use a ki power, the monk must have a minimum of wisdom of 10 + the level of the power. The monk’s caster level is equal to half his class level. Unless otherwise noted, these powers can be made to affect only the monk using them.
A monk can learn only a limited number of powers, as shown in the table. Monk spells are used spontaneously, as are bard and sorcerer spells. The monk’s wisdom modifier applies to the number of uses per day, exactly as if the powers were spells. The ki pool is replenished each morning after 8 hours of rest or meditation.
As long as he has at least one 1st level ki power use remaining, he can make a ki strike. At 4th level, ki strike allows his unarmed attacks to be treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the highest-level ki power the monk has an available use of. If he has a 2nd level power slot available, his unarmed attacks are treated as lawfully-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. If he has a 3rd level slot left, his unarmed attacks are also treated as cold iron and silver weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. If he has a 4th level slot available, his unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and bypassing hardness.
The monk’s ki power (spells) list is as follows.
1st Level: Expeditious retreat, feather fall, jump, swift shield of faith (1 round duration).
2nd Level: Bear’s endurance, bull’s strength, cat’s grace, cure light wounds, swift divine favor (1 round duraton), owl’s wisdom, swift haste (1 round duration).
3rd Level: Cure moderate wounds, dimension door, greater magic fang, tongues, vampiric touch (damaging creature touched).
4th Level: Cure serious wounds, ethereal jaunt, slay living against creature touched (effect can be delayed up to 1 day per monk level).
Purity of Body (Ex): At 5th level, a monk gains immunity to all diseases, including supernatural and magical diseases.
Improved Evasion (Ex): At 9th level, a monk’s evasion ability improves. He still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth he takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.
Diamond Body (Su): At 11th level, a monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds.
Diamond Soul (Ex): At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to his current monk level + 10. In order to affect the monk with a spell, a spellcaster must get a result on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) that equals or exceeds the monk’s spell resistance.
Timeless Body (Ex): Upon attaining 17th level, a monk no longer takes penalties to his ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that he has already taken, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when his time is up.
Perfect Self: At 20th level, a monk becomes a magical creature. He is forevermore treated as an outsider rather than as a humanoid (or whatever the monk’s creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magical effects. Additionally, the monk gains damage reduction 10/magic, which allows him to ignore the first 10 points of damage from any attack made by a nonmagical weapon or by any natural attack made by a creature that doesn’t have similar damage reduction. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if he were a member of his previous creature type.
Ex-Monks
A monk must be lawful. A monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities.
I like the ki "spells". They're really cool. It'll make the monk slightly more complicated to play, but the monk was always difficult, so I'm fine with that.
What's on the table associated with their ki powers though?
What's on the table associated with their ki powers though?
Alas, that part got cut in the reformatting...
Level Ki Powers Known
1st
2nd
3rd
4th 1*
5th 1
6th 2
7th 2
8th 3/1*
9th 3/1
10th 4/2
11th 4/2
12th 4/3/1*
13th 4/3/1
14th 4/4/2
15th 4/4/2
16th 4/4/3/1*
17th 4/4/3/1
18th 4/4/3/2
19th 4/4/3/2
20th 4/4/3/3
Level Ki Powers Per Day
4th 0
5th 1
6th 2
7th 3
8th 3/0
9th 3/1
10th 3/2
11th 3/3
12th 3/3/0
13th 3/3/1
14th 3/3/2
15th 3/3/3
16th 3/3/3/0
17th 3/3/3/1
18th 3/3/3/1
19th 3/3/3/2
20th 3/3/3/2
Don't forget that Pathfinder's "Slay Living" usually doesn't slay anything that a 16th level character might face, so you might want to change that reference to something else.
Don't forget that Pathfinder's "Slay Living" usually doesn't slay anything that a 16th level character might face, so you might want to change that reference to something else.
Oh, god, you are so right. I forgot the save-or-die spells have been essentially turned into saubstandard evocations.
I also like the idea of ki spells. It reminds me of Big Trouble in Little China.
If Jason is willing to go that far great, but if not the monk still needs some customizability and hopefully some expansions.
To that end (and with backwards compatibility in mind) I came up with the following progression.
1 - Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike
2 - Combat style feat, evasion, ki pool (magic)
3 - Maneuver training, monk discipline
4 – Ki strike (magic), slow fall 20 ft.
5 - High jump, monk discipline
6 - Combat style feat, slow fall 30 ft.
7 - Monk discipline
8 - Slow fall 40 ft.
9 - Monk discipline
10 - Combat style feat, ki strike (lawful), slow fall 50 ft.
11 - Monk discipline
12 - Abundant step, slow fall 60 ft.
13 - Monk discipline
14 - Combat style feat, slow fall 70 ft.
15 - Monk discipline
16 – Ki strike (adamantine), slow fall 80 ft.
17 - Monk Discipline, timeless body
18 - Combat style feat, slow fall 90 ft.
19 - Monk Discipline
20 - Perfect self, slow fall any distance
The big changes are:
At 2nd level the monk decides to go open hand or fight with a weapon (there are many examples of martial arts to support these two, it mirrors the ranger dual track and the proposed bard dual track).
Also at 2nd level, the monk gets her ki pool. Barbarians rage starting at 1st level. Clerics channel positive energy at 1st level. Paladins smite at 1st level and lay on hands at 2nd level.
At 3rd level the monk starts to gain disciplines (this mirrors the rogue talents). The current monk abilities would be lumped into pools of disciplines available at certain levels. This way the existing monks are fully backwards compatible (just not very original).
The monk abilities that didn’t fit into the discipline progression were high jump, abundant step, and timeless body. The first two are staples of many Kung-Fu theater movies. Martial artists flying through the air (and often continuing their fight as they fly). The last stayed because I only propose one monk discipline at each odd level and 19th level had two. Of course the ageless martial arts master is also a staple of many movies and stories.
One monk ability that I think should be modified is slow fall. In another thread it was pointed out that this is a very situational ability. In that same thread I proposed that in addition to falling a fixed vertical distance the monk should be able to climb half the same distance as a move action (limited to their base movement rate of course). That way a monk could chase a flying wizard up a wall (or run up the wall and then leap off towards the flying wizard - making a charge attack and then the acrobatics roll to lessen the fall).
Cheers
While nice this is just to good. Throw in some find trap ability and no need for a party really. Only way this could work is if every other class is brought to this level. It is cool but it will not work with the other classes as they now stand.
While nice this is just to[o] good. Throw in some find trap ability and no need for a party really.
I intentionally erred on the far extreme end of changes I'd considered, feeling it was easy to scale back from there. Keep in mind, as written, at higher levels this class is little better (if at all) than a fighter-heavy eldritch knight. Things I might reduce or alter:
1. Limit number of power uses of each level per day (making the progression longer);
2. Remove purity of body, diamond soul, etc. and instead add remove disease, neutralize poison, and spell resistance to the ki powers list; and/or
3. (If necessary) give up the good BAB and d10 HD and go back to the 3/4 one with d8. If so, CMB training would be re-instated and some kind of boost to melee combat would be needed (maybe Epic Meepo's "maneuvers also deal damage" proposal).
The spells known actually take longer to acquire than the current monk gets, and the spells lists duplicate (or at least closely emulate) abilities the monk already has, so those don't get tweaked.
OK, in terms of class balance, we can start with a "model" class and work from there. For a full-BAB monk, we can start with paladin, swap out the auras and armor/weapon proficiencies for the fast movement, AC, and unarmed stuff, and keep 4 levels of spells (but trade the paladin list for a monk list). Alternatively, for 3/4 BAB we could start with bard, trade the bardic music for the basic monk shtick, and end up with 6 levels of spells. Thematically, I prefer the former, but in terms of what's overpowered/underpowered/just right, at least we have a baseline either way.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of starting with a paladin and see what it takes to turn him into a monk...
What are we left with? This monk has full BAB, and 2 skill points/level. If an extra 2 skill points (and a few more class skills) are worth the major hit to combat ability, OK. Otherwise, maybe we need to think about keeping full BAB for the monk and maybe making some other adjustment to justify the extra skill points.
Say we expand their spells list; a "quivering palm"-equivalent 4th level spell would be better than most of the paladin's 4th level spells, for example. So we drop the monk to 3/4 BAB, give them 4 skill points instead of 2, and give them better spell choices than the paladin gets. Et voila! We have a monk.