* A monk wearing light armor that he is proficient with, but carrying no shield, and suffering from no armor check penalty from any source, is treated as a monk 3 levels lower for the purpose of fast movement, loses his monk level bonus to AC (but not wisdom bonus), but otherwise retains all of his monk abilities. Note that the monk class does not gain armor proficiency, so you will have to gain it from another source in order to make use of this.
I'm considering implementing the above. Is there some balance issue I'm overlooking? At low levels, this will be an advantage to the monk who obtains light armor proficiency and a mithril shirt somehow, but at later levels it will offer him no edge in AC, and slow him down to boot. Which is kind of what I was going for. The *true* masters don't need armor, but the monks just starting out might benefit from a bit of leather.
Thoughts?
I like this. I also feel at an armor's Max Dex Bonus should be changed to Max Dodge Bonus to AC instead. This would allow monks to wear armor without going overboard.