[3.5] Revamping the Monk and trying not to steer too off from the established path...

[T.G. Oskar]

Alright ladies and gents (and children and demihumans and outsiders)...

Following the recent and rising trend of people who are attempting to find solutions to the monk through homebrewing (to dispel that unnerving feeling of "just play unarmed swordsage"), I decided to swim in direction of the flow and try my chance at it. I saw most of the stuff around, and I didn't felt most of them struck the cord, or rather were too different that they disrupted the further set of feats and prestige classes that are meant to be inclusions to the Monk (with some exceptions that I feel are very good alternatives, which I'll mention soon enough). I might probably fall into the same path, but at least I'll minimize that impact by working roughly at the parameters and not making much changes to the classes.

While I go, I'll explain the thoughts that made me keep or replace each of the monk's capabilities, as well as from where I stole the stuff took the inspiration from. That should give you an idea of why I made the change or added the concept. As a general idea, I went with the ki pool concept first introduced with the Ninja class from Complete Adventurer, and later adapted by the Monk version of Pathfinder. You'll probably notice I drew a bit from it, but I find it a very reasonable choice; you're free to argue if that's fair or unfair.

MONK

http://www.lucioparrillo.com/images/Aemberwizards.jpg
By Lucio Parrillo. First appeared in Dragon Magic.

"I cannot say how it ends, and I shall spare you how it began. Nor I shall speak of my travel itself. What I can say, is where it will lead." - Ember of the Thousand Steps, wandering Grand Master of the Lotus of Eternal Rivers, to a passersby seeking enlightenment.

MAKING A MONK (or, how it has - or hasn't - changed)
Abilities: The Monk's favorite stat is Wisdom. They use Wisdom for everything: attacking, defending, holding, walking, leaping, flying, going ethereal...everything. Other favored ability scores are Dexterity because of the bonus to Reflex, AC and Initiative, and Constitution because of the bonus to hit points, Fortitude and Concentration checks. Strength is less needed now, but it still retains its utility.
Races: Humans have no penalties to ability scores and a bonus feat, which can help the Monk a lot. Half-Orcs can make great Strength-based Monks (although they may still favor Wisdom), and Dwarves are good because of their bonus to Constitution and their penalty to a score that's not needed (Charisma). Outside of core, despite their LA any Wis-based race such as Buomman, Githzerai and Aasimar are good picks for Monk.
Alignment: As base Monk; any lawful. Consider it a bit of tradition I'm still unable to drag upon.
Starting Gold: as base Monk
Starting Age: as base Monk

Class Skills
The Class Name'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), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skills Per Day at 1st Level : (4 + Int) x 4
Skills Per Day at Each Additional Level : 4 + Int

Unlike the base monk, this revision added Intimidate to the list, as it's pretty odd that someone that should be capable of shattering a fist with its own hands isn't particularly intimidating enough. The amount of skill points may change, as there's a slight increase in skill dependency. So far, consider that Jump and Balance are very important skills to raise.

Hit Dice: d8

Table: The Monk
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|
Slow Fall distance|
Unarmed Damage|
AC Bonus|
Speed Bonus

1st|+1|
+2|
+2|
+2|Bonus feat, Unarmed strike, Ki power|
0 ft.|
1d6|
+0|
+0 ft.

2nd|+2|
+3|
+3|
+3|Evasion, Wholeness of body|
0 ft.|
1d6|
+0|
+0 ft.

3rd|+3|
+3|
+3|
+3|Fleeting step, Touching the ripples (blindsense 30 ft.)|
0 ft.|
1d6|
+0|
+10 ft.

4th|+4|
+4|
+4|
+4|Art of the deadly wind, ki strike (magic), slow fall|
20 ft.|
1d8|
+1|
+10 ft.

5th|+5|
+4|
+4|
+4|Purity of body, Unburdened path (1/round)|
20 ft.|
1d8|
+1|
+10 ft.

6th|+6/+1|
+5|
+5|
+5|Bonus feat, Still mind|
40 ft.|
1d8|
+1|
+20 ft.

7th|+7/+2|
+5|
+5|
+5|Path of the conqueror|
40 ft.|
1d8|
+1|
+20 ft.

8th|+8/+3|
+6|
+6|
+6|Deadly weapons, ki strike (lawful), walk the clouds|
40 ft.|
1d10|
+2|
+20 ft.

9th|+9/+4|
+6|
+6|
+6|Improved evasion, resilient body|
60 ft.|
1d10|
+2|
+30 ft.

10th|+10/+5|
+7|
+7|
+7|Flurry of blows, path of the spiritual chains|
60 ft.|
1d10|
+2|
+30 ft.

11th|+11/+6/+1|
+7|
+7|
+7|Bonus feat, Diamond body|
60 ft.|
1d10|
+2|
+30 ft.

12th|+12/+7/+2|
+8|
+8|
+8|Abundant step, ki strike (adamantine)|
80 ft.|
2d6|
+3|
+40 ft.

13th|+13/+8/+3|
+8|
+8|
+8|Art of the deadly gale, diamond soul|
80 ft.|
2d6|
+3|
+40 ft.

14th|+14/+9/+4|
+9|
+9|
+9|Unburdened path (1/2 class level)|
80 ft.|
2d6|
+3|
+40 ft.

15th|+15/+10/+5|
+9|
+9|
+9|Path of denial|
100 ft.|
2d6|
+4|
+50 ft.

16th|+16/+11/+6/+1|
+10|
+10|
+10|Bonus feat, Touching the ripples (blindsight 30 ft.)|
100 ft.|
2d8|
+4|
+50 ft.

17th|+17/+12/+7/+2|
+10|
+10|
+10|Timeless body|
100 ft.|
2d8|
+4|
+50 ft.

18th|+18/+13/+8/+3|
+11|
+11|
+11|Diamond mind|
any|
2d8|
+5|
+60 ft.

19th|+19/+14/+9/+4|
+11|
+11|
+11|Empty body|
any|
2d8|
+5|
+60 ft.

20th|+20/+15/+10/+5|
+12|
+12|
+12|Perfect self, mastery of ki|
any|
2d10|
+6|
+60 ft.[/table]

The table has a bunch of changes. I'll explain on the way most of them, but there's two I must discuss now: the hit die size and the base attack bonus.

The hit die size is roughly decent for the monk, as it's not the kind of HP a tank would have, but neither the kind of HP a rogue would have; it's roughly in-between. You'll see later why that may seem odd, but so far, it seems pretty decent.

Base attack bonus, however, is one of the things that needed a change. Look for any thread that says "what's with Monks?", and the first thing suggested is usually "they have little BAB". And that's true; they're meant to be melee combatants, not exactly burst damage dealers (such as Rogues), so they need to hit with precision. Most important, it settles part of an issue I expect to handle; the trouble of grappling. There's several "patches" scattered around that deal with the grappling problem, but this is the first; the higher the BAB, the higher the grapple modifier.

Class Features
All of the following are class features of the monk.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with all simple weapons plus the kama, kukri, nunchaku, sai, shortsword, shuriken, siangham and spiked chain. Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields.
When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a heavy load, a monk loses her AC bonus, as well as her fast movement, slow fall, and all her ki abilities.

Ah, the weapon and armor proficiencies. You'll notice I rose the encumbrance limit to heavy load; this is an idea I know I found somewhere. It's either Pathfinder, the Penny Dreadfuls, or Fax's fix. Whomever did it, I find it's pretty considerate since this reduces dependence on decent Strength ever so slightly. I've found myself having to measure the wealth and weight of my (few) Monk characters because they're weakened by this aspect. Monks shouldn't carry a heavy load, but they can more than enough hold a medium.

Also, NO ARMOR PROFICIENCY. I'll attempt to explain later, but I don't find that the Monk has to draw that from its brother the Unarmed Swordsage.

UPDATE: After revising my notes, I realized I had given the Monk proficiency with all simple weapons. Let's fix that boo-boo, alright?

AC Bonus (Ex): When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC. In addition, a monk gains a +1 bonus to AC at certain intervals, as shown on Table: The Monk. The bonuses are not cumulative.

These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears any armor, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a heavy load.

I'll have to resume this because it's pretty big. So; here it goes: AC bonus to Wisdom stays with no armor. Reasons are varied, but essentially, you're fighting with the equivalent of a chain shirt with unlimited Dex, which increases in "enhancement bonus" as you grow on levels. So there's no need for light armor or something in that regard. Also, found a better way to deal with armor special properties, so flavor can overcome crunch this time.

Still, if there are undefeatable arguments to giving Monks at least light armor proficiency, I'll listen and deliberate on the matter.

Unarmed Strike: At 1st level, a monk gains Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat. As well, a monk’s unarmed strikes may use her Strength or Wisdom modifier for her attack and damage rolls, whichever is the highest.

A monk’s attacks may be with either fist interchangeably or even from elbows, knees, and feet. This means that a monk may even make unarmed strikes with her hands full. Exception: a monk may not use unarmed strikes if she holds a weapon in each hand (or a double weapon) if she is using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat. She may, however, use unarmed strikes with the Two-Weapon Fighting feat if she holds only one weapon or none (in the case of none, treat each unarmed strike as a separate weapon for purposes of qualifying). There is no such thing as an off-hand damage penalty for a monk striking unarmed, she may thus apply her full Strength (or Wisdom) bonus on damage rolls for all her unarmed strikes.

Usually a monk’s unarmed strikes deal lethal damage, but she can choose to deal nonlethal damage instead with no penalty on her attack roll. She 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 her unarmed strikes than a normal person would, as shown on Table: The Monk. The unarmed damage on Table: The Monk is for Medium monks. A Small monk deals less damage than the amount given there with her unarmed attacks, while a Large monk deals more damage; see Table: Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage.

Table: Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage
{table=head]Level|Damage (Small Monk)|Damage (Large Monk)
1st–3rd|1d4|1d8
4th–7th|1d6|2d6
8th–11th|1d8|2d8
12th–15th|1d10|3d6
16th–19th|2d6|3d8
20th|2d8|4d8[/table]

Another resuming for Unarmed Strikes. Basically, you can add your Wisdom to attack and damage rolls but keep the ability to apply Str if that is somehow higher, and you can use TWF (and only TWF) with Unarmed Strikes. Aside from that, as normal Monk (except that the increased damage will also apply to other weapons; hence the resuming).

Ki Power (Su): A monk can channel her ki to enhance her mobility, defense, and special attacks through a variety of powers. She can use her ki powers a number of times per day equal to half her class level plus her Wisdom bonus (if any). Ki powers can only be used if the monk is wearing no armor or shield and carries no more than a heavy load. As long as a monk’s ki pool isn’t empty, she may use all of her supernatural abilities (except Ki Strike, Resilient Body and Diamond Soul which are always active). A monk’s ki powers are described under separate entries below.

This is the core concept of the Monk now. Flurry of blows has ceded its space for this. Going nova with your ki pool is not recommended at all, since it makes you pretty much suck (as it doesn't suck now...) For relief of you people, I decided that some of those abilities are exempt from the prohibition: the legacy abilities Slow Fall, Ki Strike and Diamond Soul.

Bonus Feat: At 1st level and every 5 levels, a monk gains a bonus feat. The monk may choose from the list of fighter bonus feats. A monk is considered as a fighter of her class level -2 for feats that have a fighter level prerequisite.

UPDATE: The monk's effective fighter level for feats is equal to her class level -2. Also, most of the fixes I had promised are now posted below.

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, she 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.

No change with Evasion. Why spoil one of the best qualities of a Monk, anyways?

Wholeness of Body (Su): At 2nd level or higher, a monk can heal her own wounds with nothing but a thought. As a swift action, the monk can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to her current class level times her Wisdom modifier; she may choose to spend all points or spread them during the encounter, but she replenishes her pool of healing at the beginning of a new combat encounter. She also gains a +5 bonus to AC and all saving throws until the beginning of her next turn, but only once per encounter (the monk may choose when to activate this ability). This ability acts like the paladin’s lay on hands for the purpose of items and spells that affect it.

By expending a daily use of her ki power as part of the same action used to activate this ability, she gains her bonus to AC and saves from this ability even if she has activated her bonus during the encounter (this is an exception to the rule mentioned above).

UPDATE: Give thanks to Seerow, and the development of Project Heretica for this one.

The P-Heretica Paladin's Lay on Hands works now as a burst heal, so it makes sense that Wholeness of Body worked in a similar way. The big bonus is that it also provides a bonus to AC and saves, because it temporarily increases your resilience. You can choose to completely expend your pool of healing or spread it around multiple uses, relying on your ki to gain the bonus. This is so that feats like Hands of a Healer and items like Caduceus Bracers work as intended, but also make it close to a burst heal.

Fast Movevent (Ex): At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to her speed, as shown on Table: The Monk. A monk in armor or carrying a heavy load loses this extra speed.

Fast Movement remains the same, but there's some advantages from having a higher speed. Some of the abilities below depend on your base land speed, and having such a boost to speed is never bad.

Fleeting Step (Su): At 3rd level, a monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a swift action to move up to her land speed.

This seems like an odd ability. Perhaps too odd. You don't have any reasons to move at your speed by that level, I presume you ask (or perhaps think). This is a preparation, given that the idea is to make better use of the mobility and full attacks of the monk. You can make a triple move, which is almost like running, or you can expend that while running. It gets better, though.

Touching the Ripples (Su): At 3rd level, a monk gains a supernatural awareness that allows it to feel the emotions of her opponents, sensing their presence even at the loss of sight. The monk gains blindsense to a distance of 30 feet, which can be activated or deactivated as a free action (by closing her eyes). If the monk already has blindsense (by means of a racial ability, for example), the range of her blindsense increases by an extra 30 feet. By spending a daily use of her ki power, she may instead gain blindsight, but limited to 30 feet (regardless of whether she originally has blindsense or not), for a number of rounds equal to half her class level. Both her blindsense and blindsight are not impaired by entering a zone of silence, or by being deafened, unless the monk already has a form of blindsense (and even then, it only applies to the extended blindsense).

At 16th level, a monk gains permanent blindsight to a distance of 30 feet, and her blindsense extends to a distance of 60 feet. If she already has blindsight (by means of a racial ability, for example), her blindsight instead increases by an extra 30 feet. If she had blindsense by any means other than this class ability (such as a racial ability, her range doubles instead. If she expends a daily use of her ki power, her blindsight extends an extra 30 feet (this replaces the original ability)

Resuming for shortness: blindsense is cool and useful against invisible, ethereal and illusion-protected creatures, then they get blindsight so they can hit well despite not seeing the enemy. It's cool, it's thematic, and it's actually useful (even if a bit late), and it's a permanent class ability.

Consider that you're also technically partially immune to blind at 3rd level, and almost fully immune at 16th level. That's a really worthwhile immunity.

Art of the Deadly Wind (Ex): At 4th level, the monk’s expertise with martial arts improves. When she uses seemingly weak ranged attacks, her strikes are much more lethal and reach a greater distance than usual.

When the monk uses a dart, a sling, or a shuriken, the monk deals damage with the weapon as if she was using an unarmed strike, but of a monk of her level -3 (thus, she deals 1d6 points of damage if Medium). She may use her Dexterity or her Wisdom modifier for her attack rolls with these weapons, and she may use either her Strength or her Wisdom modifier to the damage roll (even if the weapon does not normally allow it). As well, her range increment is equal to 50 ft. if it doesn’t have that range increment already; at every 4 levels after the 4th, the range increment of the weapon increases by 20 ft. Finally, she is treated as if having the Quick Draw feat for purposes of making extra attacks with these weapons.

If the campaign has the following available, the monk may provide the benefits of this ability to the following weapons: blowgun, greater blowgun.

Alright, simple and concise: ranged potential for Monks sucks. Badly. At the first few levels, this may not be the case, but as the campaign progresses, the Monk will find flying creatures and creatures outside its range, and the Monk will not have enough to face them. Flying? Sure, but how about doing something a bit different?

You'll notice that, while the Monk can now use crossbows, I decided to go for the simplest weapons: darts, slings, shuriken. Why? Well, they're cheap, shuriken are already monk special weapons (and thus apply for Flurry of Blows), darts are almost pointless to use but a cool thing to have, and you can just enchant the sling and use pretty much any stone as a weapon. So, I decided to do the most sane thing to do: enhance their damage potential to scale with monk levels, and increase their range. Now, you can shoot a single shuriken at a range of 50 ft. and let it deal 1d8 points of damage plus your Wisdom modifier, which is basically what you can pull off with a composite longbow but at half the distance. At 20th level, you don't need composite longbows; you already deal far much more damage with your simple weapons anyways. What's the best part? Slings are costless, stones are found anywhere, and darts and shuriken are dirt cheap.

Ki Strike (Su): At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the character’s monk level. At 8th level, her unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. At 12th level, her unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness).

Furthermore, starting from 4th level the monk’s unarmed attacks are more accurate and strong. A 4th level monk gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls when attacking with an unarmed strike; this bonus increases by 1 every four levels. Treat this bonus as an enhancement bonus for purposes of which abilities stack with it (thus, a 4th level monk wouldn’t benefit from magic weapon or magic fang, but it could take benefit from greater magic weapon or greater magic fang if it so desires).

By expending several daily uses of her ki power, a monk’s ki strike temporarily improves. At 4th level, the monk may spend one daily use to increase the bonus on attack and damage rolls from her unarmed strikes by 1 (but the bonus cannot exceed +5 until 20th level). At 8th level, the monk may spend two daily uses to grant her unarmed strikes gain the lawful weapon special ability, and at 12th level she may spend three daily use to grant her weapons ignore all kinds of damage reduction. These enhancements are cumulative (a monk need only spend two daily uses to gain the enhancement bonus and the lawful special ability, and three daily uses for all effects), and last for a period of rounds equal to half her class level. If the monk gains the lawful special quality or the ability to ignore all damage reduction as an enhancement, she need only spend one or two daily uses of ki and gain the remaining enhancements.

If a class progresses ki strike, levels in monk stack with levels in that class to determine the effective enhancement bonus with unarmed strikes, but not with the other provided abilities (such as bypassing DR or ki expenditures). A monk cannot extend her ki strike ability to her natural weapons (unarmed strikes are not considered as natural weapons for these purposes, nor slam attacks).

More resuming! Basically, the same as the old ki strike, except you can expend ki to add enhancement bonuses to your unarmed strikes, the lawful special quality, and the ability to ignore damage reduction. This is nice, because one of the claims of monks was that they couldn't enhance their unarmed strikes which made them weaker. You still can't add some of the nifty weapons, but between making monk special weapons much more attractive (see below) and this ability, I think I hit the nail on that problem. With an unarmed strike dealing huge damage, of course.

UPDATE: I gave up and did what most people do: give Monks free enhancement bonuses to their unarmed strikes. No natural weapon freebies, though; slam attacks, on the other hand, are similar to unarmed strikes so they're fair play.

Slow Fall (Ex or Su): At 4th level or higher, a monk takes damage from any fall as if it were shorter. The amount of distance reduced by this ability is shown on Table: The Monk. As well, a monk may expend one daily use of her ki pool as an immediate action to gain the effect of a feather fall spell; this last ability is considered a supernatural ability.

A wizard makes Slow Fall useless by 1st level. A Monk makes Feather Fall useless by 4th. You no longer need to stand on a wall to work that; you merely fall like a leaf.

UPDATE: Slow Fall is now Extraordinary, as it should always have been. Hence, you can pretty much ignore Feather Fall: it doesn't work on an AMF, mind you :P.

Purity of Body (Ex):At 5th level, a monk gains immunity to all poisons and diseases.

If you're going to do it, do it right. Poisons, as most people suggest, are pretty useless; diseases are almost useless as well. However, at least you can resist Cloudkill if you see a character use it, and that's painful enough. That's two immunities and a half, thus far.

Unburdened Path (Su): At 5th level, a monk may spend one daily use of her ki power as a swift action to ignore any effects that hamper or impede movement, as if having a freedom of movement spell cast upon itself, until the next round. At 14th level, the effect lasts instead for a number of rounds equal to half her class level.

No, it's not crazy. You get Freedom of Movement for one whole round. By that moment, you can escape from such stuff as Evard's Black Tentacles, Solid Fog, Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Web, Grease...well, pretty much anything. As well as grapples.

14th level makes it a bit more reasonable, since it lasts for several rounds. By the time you get it, it pretty much lasts for the entire battle. Or for a considerable amount of time. A ring still beats it, but the ring is quite expensive, mind you.

Still Mind (Su): A monk of 6th level or higher may expend a daily use of her ki power as an immediate action to become immune to spells and effects with the fear or mind-affecting descriptor until her next round.

This is what I say Still Mind must have been. Not a mere +2 to Will saves (even if the Monk has insane Will saves), it means you begin to resist such things as domination, fear, charming, and whatnot. For one round, though.

Don't worry, later I provide with more benefits.

Path of the Conqueror (Ex): At 7th level, a monk’s knowledge of the martial arts greatly increases. She may apply her Wisdom modifier instead of the Strength modifier and add half her class level to the touch attack roll and opposed rolls (if any) when using the disarm, grapple, sunder or trip special attacks. A monk is also treated as one size larger for purposes of determining the size bonuses for these special attacks, but not for the penalties.

Another shortening of my explanation (sorry if it hurts you people). Basically, this is meant to help the combat options you have, by using things that people already use in their games. You add your Wis or your Str to all of the maneuvers, and you're treated as one size higher (which nulls some weaknesses and grants some strengths). This is basically between 4-8 points to the opposed checks, which with the Monk's full BAB means you can do them reliably. You can now choose most feats without trouble since hte Monk is no longer so feat-starving, so you can use the class for becoming a super-grappler, a super-tripper, or even the odd disarmer or...sunderer (*shudder*).

Deadly Weapons (Ex): At 8th level, a monk can use certain weapons with such grace, that she can deliver far deadlier blows than others who pursue her arts.

When using a club, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai or siangham, the monk deals damage with the weapon as if she was using an unarmed strike, but of a monk of her level -3 (thus, she deals 1d8 points of damage if Medium). She may use her Strength or her Wisdom modifier for her attack rolls and damage rolls with the weapon. As well, she gains a special ability when using any of these weapons:

Club: a monk may use a club to deliver daily uses of her Stunning Fist feat (if she has it).
Kama: upon a successful trip attempt, the monk may deal damage with the kama as if she had succeeded on a melee attack, but she only deals half the damage she would have usually dealt. This applies even if she has the Improved Trip feat.
Nunchaku or Sai: when using a disarm attempt, the monk may decide to “lock” the weapon instead of merely disarming. She may make this special disarm attempt even when her enemy uses natural weapons, but it applies only to one such natural weapon (thus, if the enemy has two claws, she may apply this effect only to one of the claws). Until the creature attempts to move away from the monk, the creature may not use this weapon, nor the monk may use her nunchaku or sai (but she may still use her unarmed strikes if she so desires); if the creature wields a manufactured weapon and attempts to move away, the monk may force another disarm attempt to remove the weapon from the creature’s hands. If using a sai, she may choose to deal piercing damage instead of bludgeoning damage.
Quarterstaff: the monk may use a quarterstaff as a reach weapon if she so desires. If she has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, she may not fight with the quarterstaff as a double weapon and apply the reach; only one or the other. However, her damage with both ends of the weapon increases as indicated above.
Siangham: the monk may use a feint attempt with a siangham. She may use her base attack bonus plus her Wisdom modifier or her Bluff check plus her Wisdom modifier for the feint, whichever is higher. She may use this special feint with the siangham as a swift action, and the loss of the creature’s Dexterity modifier to AC applies to all attacks she makes until the end of her turn (thus, she may apply this to a single attack, or to a full attack action).

I'll try to make this short: I wanna give some love to Monk weapons. Why choose a kama or a nunchaku, since you'll deal so little damage? Well, now you can deal more damage and use your Wis for them.

What? Still not enough? I know; thus, I decided to grant a Monk-exclusive benefit for each special weapon. This should give options to the Monk users, since they can either go for unarmed strikes or use any of these weapons, although they'll still deal greater damage with the former. The latter will have some nice things, though, such as automatic damage or reach. The important thing is that you can enchant weapons to gain magic effects, something you can't do with unarmed strikes (unless you're using a Necklace of Natural Attacks or enchanting with ki or using Greater Magic Weapon/Fang), AND gain a special thing that other classes need to multiclass to obtain.

So...why not weapon styles? For one reason: weapon styles need a serious, conscious revamping. Also, I decided to be a little bit greedy in terms of what Monks can do; essentially, they get stuff no other class, not even Unarmed Swordsage, can get without entering the class (and the next steps are ??? and Profit!). You decide if they work better as Weapon Style feats, but take heed that Weapon Style feats are pretty complicated to pull off.

Walk the River and the Clouds (Ex or Su): At 8th level, a monk is capable of leaping and moving with such grace that she seems to move through the air. She adds her Wisdom modifier to all Balance, Climb, Jump, and Swim checks.

As well, the monk may walk in water or in air, as if having the benefits of both a water walk and an air walk spell. The monk must spend a move action concentrating to remain aloft; if she so desires, she may make a Balance check to remain afloat or aloft as a swift action if she still has a move action left. The skill check DC to succeed is 45 for liquids and 60 for air, and a failed check still allows her to use her remaining move action to remain aloft.

If she instead expends one daily use of her ki power, she does not need to retain concentration while moving over a liquid or through the air for 10 minutes per monk level. Removing the need for concentration by expending ki is a supernatural ability, and rounds spent on an antimagic field or dead magic zone count against the duration.

UPDATE: I always thought this idea was cool, but somehow I found it was too complicated. I think that, after some time raising the bar, felt that the Monk deserved that little oomph! that it missed.

Now, this ability is a bit more awesome than before. You add your Wisdom modifier as a slight bonus to some key class skills (specially those with Strength as a key modifier), but you can also float in water AND in air. However, the key modification was making it an extraordinary ability. You still need to concentrate, but now you can pretty much walk on the air without fearing the Antimagic Field or the dead magic zone. After all, the worst you can imagine is somehow being aloft and suddenly falling.

Resilient Body (Su): At 9th level, a monk is capable of strengthening her mind to partially ignore the effect of the elements in her body, but at a very limited scale. She gains resistance 20 to a single element of her choice. She may change her elemental resistance by concentrating as a full-round action.

By expending a daily use of her ki power, her resistance improves to 30. At 20th level, her resistance to all elements improves by 20, and spending a daily use of ki instead grants immunity to a single element.

I don't know why I didn't add this, since it was on my notes after a few revisions. Yes, Monks are now quite resistant to one type of energy which they can change, and they can improve that to 30 with a daily use of ki. At level 20, they gain resistance 20 to all elements and immunity to one by means of ki expenditure.

Improved Evasion (Ex): At 9th level, a monk’s evasion ability improves. She still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks, but henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless monk does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

See Evasion above.

Flurry of Blows (Ex): When unarmored, a 10th level monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her 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 her next action. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows, and the extra attack cannot be replaced by a disarm, grapple, sunder or trip attempt. This extra attack is cumulative with other effects that add extra attacks, such as the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, the haste spell or the speed enhancement (overriding the normal restrictions for these effects when applying to this ability).

When using flurry of blows, a monk may attack only with unarmed strikes or with special monk weapons (kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham). She may attack with unarmed strikes and special monk weapons interchangeably as desired. When using weapons as part of a flurry of blows, a monk applies her Strength or Wisdom bonus to her damage rolls for all successful attacks, whether she wields a weapon in one or both hands. The monk can’t use any weapon other than a special monk weapon as part of a flurry of blows.

So one of the monk's legacy abilities finally re-appears. Since you have both the chance of TWF and an extra attack at your disposal, it makes sense to push Flurry a bit farther. Sadly, it doesn't get the reduction, even though it takes the advantage of a higher BAB. So, while it doesn't hit as much, it's capable of hitting a bit more. I'd say it's a fair exchange.

Path of the Spiritual Chains (Su): At 10th level, a monk’s attacks cannot be resisted by magical effects. By expending two daily uses of her ki power, she may ignore the effects of freedom of movement or similar abilities when initiating a grapple and prevents a grappled creature from teleporting or escaping to another plane, as if under the effects of a dimensional anchor spell, for a number of rounds equal to half her class level. A creature grappled by the monk under this effect may not escape unless it wins an opposed grapple roll to exit the grapple (or pin), or may attempt an Escape Artist check as usual. As well, she denies a spellcaster the use of the Still Spell metamagic feat (if a spell is modified by this feat). If the monk has Stunning Fist or a similar binding ability, she may ignore any immunity to such bind of a creature with a CR no higher than her character levels for the same number of rounds.

UPDATE: This ability is now gained earlier. So you can make Freedom of Movement and anything short of Abrupt Jaunt pointless defenses. And also null Still Spell.

Diamond Body (Ex or Su): At 11th level, a monk’s skin becomes unnaturally resilient. She gains damage reduction 5, which can only be bypassed by magic weapons made of adamantine. As well, may expend a daily use of her ki power to gain temporary increased resiliency to damage. The monk increases her DR to 10/magic and adamantine for a number of rounds equal to half her class level plus her Wisdom modifier; this increase is treated as a supernatural ability. At 20th level, this changes to DR 20/epic and adamantine.

UPDATE: The Monk now has a limited, yet permanent amount of DR. Makes Diamond Body much, much more useful. Also, have to trim the fat load of exposition from somewhere.

Abundant Step (Ex or Su): At 12th level or higher, the monk can move to half her land speed as a free action once per round. She may not use a 5-foot step in the same round she uses this ability. Her movement while using this ability is affected as usual, except she does not provoke an attack of opportunity when moving out of a threatened space. She may also use the Balance, Jump and Tumble skills as part of this movement.

As well, a monk may expend a daily use of her ki power to slip magically between spaces, as if using the spell dimension door, except as a move action instead of a standard action, and the monk may act after using this ability. Her caster level for this effect is one-half her monk level (rounded down). This latter ability is a supernatural ability.

UPDATE: The Monk's ability to move half its land speed is now Extraordinary. Why deny the Monk the ability to move faster? Dim Door is still Supernatural, though.

Art of the Deadly Gale (Ex): A monk gains greater expertise when using seemingly worthless weapons, by taking advantage of her lethal arts and the size of her weaponry. She may strike twice with her weapons, or deliver a deadly swarm of her attacks upon as many enemies as she can.
When attacking with a dart or shuriken only, the monk may use two of the weapons instead of one. She may strike two different targets, or she may decide to use the two projectiles upon the same individual with every attack, be it a single melee attack or a full attack action. As well, as a full-round action, a monk may make a single ranged attack with darts or shuriken against all opponents within range of her weapons at her highest attack bonus. When using this secondary ability, she forfeits any extra attack she may have gained by means of feats or abilities (such as Rapid Shot or the haste spell).

Remember what I did to simple ranged weapons? Well, darts and shuriken get more love! Extraordinary love!

If you are asking where did I got this idea; look at the Soulknife's Bladewind ability. Then look at Adamantine Hurricane. This is what I was looking for.

Diamond Soul (Ex): At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to her current monk level + 10. By spending one daily use of her ki pool, the monk may add her Wisdom modifier to her spell resistance for a number of rounds equal to half her class level. Beneficial spells (those with the [harmless] descriptor) are not affected by this kind of spell resistance, even if the spell is originally subject to it.

One of the bigger complaints of the Monk's spell resistance is not the size, but that it's nearly entirely useless. It can be easily countered, and it blocks the important spells out of the water. The disclaimer of allowing beneficial spells was made with that in mind; you can cast such spells as Haste or Fly without much trouble. The expenditure of Ki allows to add the Wisdom modifier to the spell resistance, which makes the Monk hardier to get. It doesn't make much for Assay Spell Resistance, but it still allows most harmful spells to bounce off. I'm sure you've not neglected the Wisdom by now, haven't you?

I might think raising to 15 + class level, or even make it 10 + character level.

Path of Denial (Su): At 15th level, a monk’s ability to react improves to inhuman levels. Any immediate action done by a creature in response of a monk’s action is delayed until the end of the monk’s action.

...and this is the moment when I say "screw Abrupt Jaunt". Late, sure, but the ability to one-up action economists is an ability that's golden. Took that from the Retooled Samurai. So now, you can't escape as an immediate action, and you can pre-empt contingencies. So no; you can't suddenly say "I teleport to my sanctum when I say 'fiddle-diddle-doo'" without the Monk breaking a bone you didn't even knew it existed.

Timeless Body (Ex & Su): Upon attaining 17th level, a monk no longer takes penalties to her ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that she has already taken, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the monk still dies of old age when her time is up.
As well, by spending three daily uses of her ki power as an immediate action, a monk may ignore the effects of any spell that affects the passage of time, but only for herself. For example, a monk that uses this ability may ignore the effects of temporal stasis, and may act as normal while under a time stop spell cast by another. The use of this ability is considered a supernatural ability.

Three daily uses of ki can be a pain. But denying the Wizard the benefit of Time Stop, one of the abusive spells, right at the moment it happens, can be truly satisfying. It lasts for a number of rounds, and it's an immediate action so you can pretty much pre-empt a Wizard from pulling that move. This also affects Time Hop, Temporal Regression and such spells.

Now, all the Monk would need is to beat the Wizard at the initiative modifier. Or pre-empt by activating the move right before initiative.

Diamond Mind (Su): Upon reaching 18th level, a monk becomes immune to all mind-affecting spells and effects. She may gain the benefit of mind-affecting abilities such as inspire courage, or positive morale effects.

I think Fax's Monk has this. Except it's Mind Blank. I wish to make it a bit more unique, so I made it only so that it affected all mind-affecting spells and effects, which is the strongest point of Mind Blank.

Count the immunities now. (Technical) Immunity to blindness, immunity to poisons, immunity to diseases, and now immunity to mind-affecting spells and effects. That should make the monk a tough cookie.

Empty Body (Su): At 19th level, a monk may expend one daily use of her ki power to gain the ability to assume an ethereal state, as though using the spell etherealness, for a number of rounds equal to half her class level. While ethereal (through this ability or similar effects), a monk may attack creatures on the Material Plane using her unarmed strikes or special monk weapons.

Another resuming (I can't post something that doesn't have 50,000 characters when dealing with a Monk!!). Empty Body is basically the same as the Monk's original ability, except that it lasts longer, it's saner, and you can attack while ethereal. It's no longer an escape move; it's a defensive move. A bit late, but hey; a 9th level spell usable several times per day is pretty good, no?

Perfect Self: At 20th level, a monk becomes a magical creature. She 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/epic and adamantine. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if she were a member of her previous creature type.

For all of those who may seem worried...yes, it is incomplete. I was thinking of adding a capstone ability to reduce the expenditure of ki abilities for the monk by one, which would make the bulk of all Monk abilities free to use. I was also thinking of resist 30 to all elements, since the monk really deserves such an ability.

Mastery of Ki (Su): At 20th level, a monk’s mastery of ki reaches a pinnacle. She may reduce the cost of all abilities that require daily uses of her ki power by one. As well, she does not lose her supernatural abilities if her daily uses of ki power are completely expended.

So yeah, if you manage to reach the end of this post, see if it's a worthwhile brew to use or just one of the many. I am willing to accept recommendations, but be warned that I might not apply them too quickly.

Also, sorry if it seems like a self-critique most of the time. I made it intentionally so that I could face most of the typical critiques that make the Monk a weak class, and face them bit by bit. So it may seem like sometimes I'm contradicting myself; this is also intentional. That's a method of making sure I'm aware of a possible answer, no matter how bad or good such awareness is; it's all meant to build upon possible weaknesses and how can they be faced, to make this iteration of Monk better than most, or at least the core/Pathfinder versions.

I was about to go with a small disclaimer to those fellow homebrewers, but I broke the 50k letter mark. Maybe later I'll add it. But, in a nutshell: all of those are great options, and I hope I can be a source of discussion for them all.

[Samurai Jill]

I'm not expert on these kinds of detailed rebalancing, but it seems a fairly solid effort to me. Well done.

[T.G. Oskar]

Um, thanks. It's not as detailed as it may seem, you see. If you make a simple read through the class without reading the spoilers, you'll see it's pretty simple. There's some stuff that I added (airwalking, Wis to attack and damage, ki powers, Wis and level to special attacks), some stuff I removed (Tongue of Sun and Moon, Quivering Palm), and some stuff I moved (Wholeness of Body) or altered (Slow Fall, AC bonus). It may seem elaborate since I provided the reasoning behind my move and options, and it's mostly part why I did it, part pre-empting what people may say.

If you see something that you don't understand or that you feel might be wrong, feel free to say so. Albeit not here (mostly on the Test of Spite chatroom, located at Tide's/Doc Roc's sig), I've heard some stuff I might change, but I wish to hear a bit more on the matter.

[Cute_Riolu]

I think that this is quite well done; it doesn't change what the monk is, but it seems to me that it can now stand up well against other martial characters. However, mind sharing those changes so we might have input on it?

[T.G. Oskar]

I think that this is quite well done; it doesn't change what the monk is, but it seems to me that it can now stand up well against other martial characters. However, mind sharing those changes so we might have input on it?

Sorry that I couldn't answer up until now, since I was trying to figure out how to answer this. Also, I did promised I'd do a slight change to the feats and whatnot. But mostly feats and magic items; I'd need to have a basis on how to work with the Monk-based PrCs, since all of them act very differently.

Mostly, the big changes to the original one are explained on the spoilers, but in a nutshell:
--The monk has less dependance on several ability scores. As a bare minimum, it works very well only with Wisdom (since it can add the modifier to attack, damage, AC and the special attacks). It still can do very well with a high Dex and Con, but they grant secondary benefits compared to the primary benefits of Wisdom.
--The class abilities have changed. Some are currently gone (Quivering Palm, Tongue of Sun and Moon) because they're either best as a feat or needless at all. Some have been collapsed into a single class ability (such as Purity of Body and the original Diamond Body), or moved much earlier (Wholeness of Body)
--The ki pool allows a small-time use of abilities that enhance already existing or new class features. Most class features can be used without expending a daily use of the ki pool (except for the new Diamond Body, Still Mind, Unburdened Path and Empty Body), but they are enhanced by having the daily uses of the ki pool. This makes them somewhat stronger in supernatural terms but without delving too much into magic.
--Finally, some of the usual concerns with the Monk have been dealt with. Their MAD problem is lessened a bit, and they can have the equivalent of magic weapons, "flight", and enhanced sight at all moments; acquiring DR, several "immunities" and enhanced defensive capabilities, as well as enhanced mobility while using the ki pool.

The monk looks and feels like the old one, but it fares slightly better than the original one by its own. I could explain a bit more on detail, but the spoilers are a good place to look at; if you have any question on the particular class ability, the spoiler should have the reasoning behind it)

--

As promised, I'll be adding some of the changes I've worked with the feats and magic items. I'm still working with some stuff, so it's not complete. These changes work as some sort of "errata" if you decide to implement this version of the Monk.

Core:
Improved Disarm (feat): A monk may select Improved Disarm as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. (Replaces second sentence in Special)
Improved Grapple (feat): A monk may select Improved Grapple as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. (Replaces second sentence in Special)
Improved Trip (feat): A monk may select Improved Trip as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites. A 7th level monk can apply the feat bonus to the check even if she applies her Wisdom modifier instead of her Strength modifier. (Replaces second sentence in Special)
Stunning Fist (feat): A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a free action to expend uses of Stunning Fist. (addition)
A monk may select Stunning Fist as her 1st level (or higher) bonus feat even if she doesn’t meet the prerequisites, as long as she has Wisdom of 13 or more. A monk who selects this feat may attempt a stunning attack a number of times per day equal to her monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels she has in classes other than monk. (Replaces second paragraph)
Ki Focus (weapon special ability): The magic weapon serves as a channel for the wielder’s ki. If the user is a monk, this weapon allows her to use her Wisdom modifier to attack and damage rolls and gain all the benefits of ki strike, as if it were her unarmed strikes. As well, if she has the Stunning Fist feat or feats that expend a use of Stunning Fist, she may channel these abilities through the weapon; this last ability can be used by any character so as long as it has the requisite feats. (Replaces description)
Amulet of Mighty Fists (wondrous item; necklace): Useful for characters who rely on their fists but desire an added boost, amulets of mighty fists enchant the user’s fists with magical properties. Treat the amulet of mighty fists as a masterwork weapon for purposes of adding enchantment bonuses and weapon special qualities. An amulet of mighty fists almost always has at least a +1 enhancement bonus, and must comply with most requisites regarding weapons (for example, since unarmed strikes usually deal bludgeoning damage, they cannot be enhanced with the keen weapon special ability); however, an amulet of mighty fists cannot be enhanced with the throwing or returning qualities (or qualities for thrown or projectile weapons).
Cost: 300 plus the enhancement costs (2000 for an amulet of mighty fists +1, 8000 for an amulet of mighty fists [+1 flaming], and so on). (Replaces description and cost).
Monk’s Belt (wondrous item; belt): The wearer’s AC and unarmed damage, as well as all class abilities that rely on class level, are treated as a monk of five levels higher. (Replaces 2nd sentence in description)

Non-Core:
Axiomatic Strike (feat) (CW 96): By expending one daily use of your ki power or Stunning Fist as a swift action, you briefly turn your unarmed strikes into the bane of chaotic creatures. Your unarmed strikes are considered to have an effective enhancement bonus of +2 higher (if any) against chaotic creatures, and your attacks deal an extra 2d6 points damage to such creatures for one round. This damage stacks with the extra damage from the lawful weapon special ability. (Replaces the Benefit)
Clever Wrestling (feat) (CW 97): Prerequisites – Dex 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (replaces prerequisites)
When your opponent is larger, you gain a circumstance bonus on your grapple checks. The size of the bonus depends on your opponent’s size, as shown in the following table:

{TABLE]Opponent Size|Bonus
One size higher|+2
Two sizes higher|+4
Three sizes higher|+6
Four sizes higher|+8[/TABLE]

(replaces the Benefit)
Fists of Iron (feat) (CW 99): By expending a daily use of your Stunning Fist as a swift action, your attacks deal an extra 1d6 points of damage with a successful unarmed strike for one round. (Replaces the Benefit)
Special - A monk may choose this feat as one of her bonus feats. If she has the ki strike (adamantine) class ability, this damage ignores damage reduction as if adamantine (or ignores any damage reduction). (addition)
Freezing the Lifeblood (feat) (CW 99): A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a free action to use this feat. (Addition to Special)
Rapid Stunning (feat) (CW 105): You may use one additional stunning attack (or feat or special attack that counts against your daily limit of stunning attacks) per round. If the feat lasts for more than one attack, it still cannot be used more than once per round, but it allows the use of more than one feat (replaces the Benefit)
Weakening Touch (feat) (CW 106): If the character is a monk, she may expend one daily use of her ki power to gain the benefit of the feat. (Addition to Special)
Sun School (tactical feat) (CW 112): Prerequisites – Flurry of blows ability, Stunning Fist, base attack bonus +11. (Replaces the Prerequisites)
Flash of Sunset: To use this maneuver, you must move adjacent to a foe instantaneously, as with a dimension door spell or the monk’s abundant step feature, and expend a daily use of your ki power (or another if you’re using the abundant step). If you do so, you can do a full attack at your opponent (but not any other full-round actions). (Replaces one of the tactical maneuvers)
Special – a monk may choose this feat as one of her bonus feats. (Addition)
Ascetic Hunter and Ascetic Rogue (feats) (CAdv 105 & 106): add Stunning fist to the list of prerequisites.
Fiery Fist (feat) (PHBII 79): A monk may select Fiery Fist as one of her 6th level or higher bonus feats, even if she does not meet the other prerequisites. (Replaces 2nd sentence in Special)
A monk gains an extra daily use of her ki power instead of a daily use of Stunning Fist. A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power to gain the benefit, as if it were using a daily use of her Stunning Fist attempt. If she has the Stunning Fist attempt, she retains this benefit. (Addition to Special)
Fiery Ki Defense (feat) (PHBII 79): A monk may select Fiery Ki Defense as one of her 11th level or higher bonus feats, even if she does not meet the other prerequisites, as long as she has Fiery Fist. (Replaces 2nd sentence in Special)
A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power to gain the benefit, as if it were using a daily use of her Stunning Fist attempt. If she has the Stunning Fist attempt, she retains this benefit. (Addition to Special)
Ki Blast (feat) (PHBII 80): A monk may select Ki Blast as one of her 11th level or higher bonus feats, even if she does not meet the other prerequisites, as long as she has Fiery Fist. (Replaces 2nd sentence in Special)
A monk gains an extra daily use of her ki power instead of a daily use of Stunning Fist. A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power to gain the benefit, as if it were using a daily use of her Stunning Fist attempt. If she has the Stunning Fist attempt, she retains this benefit. (Addition to Special)
Water Splitting Stone (feat) (PHBII 85): A monk can select Water Splitting Stone as long as she has a base attack bonus of +9 (other prerequisites can be ignored) (Replaces 2nd sentence in Special)
Fist of the Heavens (exalted feat) (BoED 43): Prerequisites – Wis 15, Stunning Fist, either Sanctify Ki Strike, Sanctify Martial Strike (unarmed attack) or Sanctify Natural Attack. (Replaces prerequisites)
Holy Ki Strike (exalted feat) (BoED 44): Prerequisites – Wis 15, Sanctify Ki Strike. (Replaces prerequisites)
This damage does not stack with the extra damage from Sanctify Ki Strike (but see below). (Replaces last sentence in Benefit)
By expending a daily use of your ki power, your unarmed strikes gain the bane special property against evil outsiders or undead (your choice). This replaces the secondary benefit from the Sanctify Ki Strike feat. (Addition to Benefit)
Sanctify Ki Strike (exalted feat) (BoED 46): Prerequisites – Wis 15, Improved Unarmed Strike, ki strike (lawful) (Replaces prerequisites)
By expending a daily use of your ki power, your unarmed strikes gain the holy special property. You may replace acquiring the lawful special property as well, without expending extra daily uses. The extra damage from the special weapon property replaces the damage from the feat. (Addition to Benefit)
Vile Ki Strike (exalted feat) (BoVD 50): Prerequisites – Wis 15, Improved Unarmed Strike, ki strike (lawful) (Replaces prerequisites)
By expending a daily use of your ki power, your unarmed strikes gain the unholy special property. You may replace acquiring the lawful special property as well, without expending extra daily uses. (Addition to Benefit)

--

Evidently, this does not include all of the feats or magic items. I'd be thankful if you guys help me to find out any feat I might be missing out.

[CaptainPlatypus]

Wow, Oskar, this is pure awesome. I wrote up a revamped monk of my own recently, but it not only breaks compatibility with existing monk-friendly prestige classes and such, it "feels" nothing like the original monk - it's designed to be a nonmagical martial artist, not a mystic warrior. If I'd seen this first, I never would have bothered.

On the other hand, one can never have too many options! Would you mind if I used this as one of the character classes in the campaign setting I'm working on? You never specifically state open gaming license or anything like that, so I hesitate to steal borrow it without permission.

[T.G. Oskar]

Wow, Oskar, this is pure awesome. I wrote up a revamped monk of my own recently, but it not only breaks compatibility with existing monk-friendly prestige classes and such, it "feels" nothing like the original monk - it's designed to be a nonmagical martial artist, not a mystic warrior. If I'd seen this first, I never would have bothered.

On the other hand, one can never have too many options!

Uh, thanks. Not used to praise, actually...

You don't have to give up on the idea. There's more than one way to work a monk, and you can revamp that idea into a new and unique class. Or, you can take this one, change the name, and use your own as the original Monk. Or work the earlier's features as class features to complement this one (or the original Monk, actually). There's more than one way to rework the classes.

There were certain things that I wanted to work with, and one of them was the compatibility with existing sources. Most of the fixes are roughly self-contained; it's not a bad idea, but it cuts on some of the various things that have applied to the Monk during the era of 3E/3.5. There's some stuff I still need to work around (there's ACFs that need to be fixed in order to be used for this version of the Monk, some prestige classes, and also some magic items), but I'm showing my work bit by bit.


Would you mind if I used this as one of the character classes in the campaign setting I'm working on? You never specifically state open gaming license or anything like that, so I hesitate to steal borrow it without permission.

Certainly! I'd love to see some playtesting on this version, see if it's a bit problematic to handle or if it's a good choice. Just make sure that you give credit to where's due, or I'll be a sad man.

[CaptainPlatypus]

You don't have to give up on the idea. There's more than one way to work a monk, and you can revamp that idea into a new and unique class. Or, you can take this one, change the name, and use your own as the original Monk. Or work the earlier's features as class features to complement this one (or the original Monk, actually). There's more than one way to rework the classes.Never even considered giving it up, actually; I'm doing some strange things with classes in this setting, so it's easy to use them side by side. If I was going to use standard class names, though, yours would definitely be the monk; mine doesn't really fit the term, as I said.


There were certain things that I wanted to work with, and one of them was the compatibility with existing sources. Most of the fixes are roughly self-contained; it's not a bad idea, but it cuts on some of the various things that have applied to the Monk during the era of 3E/3.5. There's some stuff I still need to work around (there's ACFs that need to be fixed in order to be used for this version of the Monk, some prestige classes, and also some magic items), but I'm showing my work bit by bit.I'm honestly amazed at the extent of modifications to monk prestige classes and feats you've provided. I'm far too lazy; I'd just leave it as an exercise to the reader. The whole thing is very well done.


Certainly! I'd love to see some playtesting on this version, see if it's a bit problematic to handle or if it's a good choice. Just make sure that you give credit to where's due, or I'll be a sad man.Of course! I'll make sure to let you know how it works out, and giving you credit needs no mentioning. :)

[Cieyrin]

Interesante. Interesting changes that certainly amps up the monk to on par with the other martial classes.

I have 2 complaints, the first is that there's so much ki usage in the class that should you run out you'll be screwed. Perhaps that's not that big a concern, as the same could be applied to the Factotem with their inspiration points, so maybe a moot point.

The other is that abundant step is all well and good as a move action but your turn ends after activating. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

My other thoughts are that Quivering Palm, if it makes it back as a feat or feature, should be Ki powered, not a 1/week or 1/day ability, as that was the particular sticking point for me in the Pathfinder reversion that it wasn't. It'll hardly get used 1/week and 1/days annoy me these days.

For other monk feats that need reworking, Sandstorm has a couple: Pharaoh's Fist, Rattlesnake Strike and Serpent Fang, also possibly Scorpion's Grasp. Stormwrack has Curling Wave Strike and Toothed Blow and you forgot Versatile Unarmed Strike in PHB2.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

[T.G. Oskar]

Interesante. Interesting changes that certainly amps up the monk to on par with the other martial classes.

Um, thanks. That was well meant the intention.


I have 2 complaints, the first is that there's so much ki usage in the class that should you run out you'll be screwed. Perhaps that's not that big a concern, as the same could be applied to the Factotem with their inspiration points, so maybe a moot point.

Well, there's the Extra Ki feat (which works mostly the same as Font of Inspiration), as well as the fact it is based on Wisdom. I didn't wanted to stray too far from the Ki power class ability of the Ninja, so I kept the amount of uses and gave an amount of daily uses relative to the power of the ability.

It's not like the Factotum, though. Since the inspiration points recover each encounter, the Factotum can do much more than a Monk on longer encounters. The bulk of the ki powers appears quite early, but considering a real average score of 14 (conservative to the mostly reasonable amount of 16) Wis, by the time the first ki powers appear, you should have around 2 to 4 daily uses of ki. By the time the first ability that consumes more than two daily uses appears (8th level), that's roughly 6 to 8 uses per day of the ability, which can be stretched for about 3 battles at most, unless you find ways to complement those uses.

The ki powers are options, which can make a monk considerably stronger when unarmed and unarmored, but it doesn't ignore the power that magic items bring to the mix.


The other is that abundant step is all well and good as a move action but your turn ends after activating. I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

I wasn't aware of that until a few days ago, when I really looked at the Dimension Door ability. I'll make the change eventually, while keeping the benefit of the tactical feat of Sun School intact (technically, you can do one standard action after using Abundant Step, or two for the equivalent of shadow-pouncing.


My other thoughts are that Quivering Palm, if it makes it back as a feat or feature, should be Ki powered, not a 1/week or 1/day ability, as that was the particular sticking point for me in the Pathfinder reversion that it wasn't. It'll hardly get used 1/week and 1/days annoy me these days.

I was working on that yesterday, actually. It's based on Stunning Fist, but it allows for daily uses of Ki (much like Stunning Fist and related feats). This expands Quivering Palm for use by Fighters with insanely high Wis, but made much easier for Monks. Here's how it should end, but consider this may change if deemed appropriate:

QUIVERING PALM [GENERAL]
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 17, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist, base attack bonus +15.
Benefit: By expending two daily uses of Stunning Fist, you can force an opponent to die at your command. If you succeed on a melee attack and the target takes damage from the blow, the quivering palm attack succeeds. Thereafter you can try to slay the victim at any later time, as long as the attempt is made within a number of days equal to your character level. To make such an attempt, you will the target to die (a free action), and unless the target makes a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wis modifier), it dies. If the saving throw is successful, the target is no longer in danger from that particular quivering palm attack, but it may still be affected by another one at a later time. Constructs, oozes, plants, undead, incorporeal creatures, and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be affected.
Special: A fighter may select Quivering Palm as one of his fighter bonus feats.
A monk may select Stunning Fist as a bonus feat at 16th level, even if she does not meet the prerequisites, so as long as she has a Wis of 17 or more and the Stunning Fist feat. A monk who selects this feat may expend two daily uses of her ki pool to activate this feat.


For other monk feats that need reworking, Sandstorm has a couple: Pharaoh's Fist, Rattlesnake Strike and Serpent Fang, also possibly Scorpion's Grasp. Stormwrack has Curling Wave Strike and Toothed Blow and you forgot Versatile Unarmed Strike in PHB2.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

Also working on them, actually. Mostly finished the fixes on the Sandstorm feats (noticed when I was looking at one of Person Man's guides, and noticed that Scorpion's Grasp was exactly what I wanted for an enhancement to Grapple, which led to the rest. Since this is a good moment to add them:

Pharaoh’s Fist (feat) (Sandstorm 51): You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus, a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). By expending one Stunning Fist use for the day, you force an opponent successfully struck by your unarmed attack, and all creatures adjacent to that opponent, to make a Fortitude saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your character level + your Wis modifier) or be stunned for 1 round. All opponents struck by the stunning attempt are dealt damage normally. You can replace the main benefit of this feat (stunning) with other feats that replace the Stunning Fist feat (such as Pain Touch, Weakening Touch and Freezing the Lifeblood) by expending another daily use of the Stunning Fist feat. (Replaces Benefit)
A monk may select Pharaoh’s Fist as a bonus feat at 6th level or higher even if she does not meet the prerequisites, so as long as she has the Stunning Fist feat. A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a free action to use this feat. (Addition to Special)
Rattlesnake Strike (feat) (Sandstorm 51): A monk may select Rattlesnake Strike as a bonus feat at 6th level or higher even if she does not meet the prerequisites, so as long as she has the Stunning Fist feat. A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a free action to use this feat. (Addition to Special)
Scorpion’s Grasp (feat) (Sandstorm 52): Prerequisites - Str 15, Dex 13, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike. (Replaces prerequisites)
If your attack with an unarmed strike, natural weapon or a light or one-handed melee weapon hits, the strike deals normal damage and you can attempt to start a grapple as a free action; no initial touch attack is required. If you succeed in starting the grapple, you must drop your one-handed weapon, but if you started the grapple with a light weapon, you can use it in each round to make an attack against the creature you are grappling without taking the normal –4 penalty on the attack roll.
You have the option to conduct the grapple normally, or you may hold a creature one or more sizes smaller than you with your off hand. If you choose to do the latter, you take a –20 penalty on grapple checks against that creature and you cannot deal damage with your grapple checks, but you are not considered grappled yourself. You don’t lose your Dexterity bonus to AC, you still threaten an area, and you can use remaining attacks against other opponents. While maintaining this latter type of hold, you can move normally (possibly carrying your opponent away), provided you can drag the opponent’s weight.
(Replaces Benefit)
Normal - You may only initiate a grapple as a standard action or as part of a full attack action (by replacing one of your attacks) (Addition)
A fighter may select Scorpion’s Grasp as one of his fighter bonus feats. (Addition to Special)
A monk may select Scorpion’s Grasp as a bonus feat at 6th level or higher even if she does not meet the prerequisites, so as long as she has the Improved Grapple feat. (Addition to Special)
Serpent Fang (feat) (Sandstorm 53): By expending one Stunning Fist use for the day, you can project your ki to strike an opponent that is 5 feet beyond your normal unarmed reach for one round. You can use this extended reach for actions that require a melee attack, disarm, grapple, sunder or trip. You can combine this effect with other feats that expend daily uses of Stunning Fist (including the feat itself) (Replaces Benefit)
A monk may select Serpent Fang as a bonus feat at 6th level or higher even if she does not meet the prerequisites, so as long as she has the Stunning Fist feat. A monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a free action to use this feat. (Addition to Special)

I was currently watching the Stormwrack feats, so I'll be dealing with them eventually. Also, I almost entirely forgot about Versatile Unarmed Strike, but I believe it's a Fighter bonus feat (so that means the Monk can gain it as a bonus feat), so that shouldn't be much trouble. Consider that, by default, if a Monk-related feat can be chosen as a Fighter bonus feat, and it doesn't have a replacement, it can be used as a Monk bonus feat as-is. The feat & magic item "errata" is going with the idea that specific trumps general.

[T.G. Oskar]

Shameless bump, but I made a few changes to the Monk's movement modes.

Originally, Walk the Clouds was a rather complex ability. I made it so that Balance and Jump remained useful, but somehow it always was complicated. The ability pretty much required you to make odd calculations to work. Now, the ability was vastly improved: you can move above water, above acid, above lava, and even through air as if having Water Walk and Air Walk spells. The expenditure of ki is only to remove the concentration factor.

Another thing is some descriptor changes. Slow Fall, Walk the Clouds and Abundant Step were originally Supernatural only. That meant that any kind of AMF could leave them out of function. Now, their base abilities (reducing fall damage, movement through liquid or air, and "land-foot" step or moving part of your base land speed as a swift action) are Extraordinary abilities. After doing some more homebrewing and pretty much bending the limits of extraordinary, and after checking the class again, I think it's something they deserve a bit more.

I might post one or two ACFs to support this, the first homebrew I posted in here (but not my actual first homebrew) eventually. However, I should let this serve as a bump for those who hasn't seen the class retooling already. As well...as adding the [Retooled] tag that I like to use so much.

[Lord_Gareth]

I'll comment on the actual class later. I just had to note that when I first glanced at "touching the ripples" on the table, the lack of a capital "R" made me see "touching the nipples" at first.

[T.G. Oskar]

I'll comment on the actual class later. I just had to note that when I first glanced at "touching the ripples" on the table, the lack of a capital "R" made me see "touching the nipples" at first.

Don't blame me for that, blame that on the official table format (where basically every letter save for the first one is lowercase).

Talk about a non-intentional reading, huh?

[NineThePuma]

Slowfall seems to have a slightly odd progression. It has 2 levels where it's 20 but everything else has 3. I would recommend moving it slightly earlier or altering the progression a touch.

AC Boost has a similar problem, but you already provided an explanation.

I like the class as a whole. I'm not sure about change balance, but... yeah. I'll see if I can play test this in a game some time.

[T.G. Oskar]

Slowfall seems to have a slightly odd progression. It has 2 levels where it's 20 but everything else has 3. I would recommend moving it slightly earlier or altering the progression a touch.

Well, it's odd because it's on the same progression as the old Slow Fall, but it progresses much faster (20 ft. per three levels instead of 10 ft. per two levels), exceeds the old Slow Fall much faster and the any-distance requirement is achieved much, much faster. That, and expending ki for a Feather Fall effect...so it's strictly much better. Though, yeah; those first levels of slow fall are pretty weird. Maybe if I reduce it from 4th level to 3rd level it gets into a much more reasonable progression


AC Boost has a similar problem, but you already provided an explanation.

That doesn't mean you have to forcefully agree with it. Theoretically, the AC bonus should represent the exchange of wearing light armor and the enhancements, but people might just consider that wearing actual armor is better because it provides for enhancements you otherwise wouldn't get by means of the class. Perhaps stuff like Shadow, Silent Moves and perhaps the resistances may not seem much, but when you consider stuff like Healing, Death Ward, Fortification and others, you might consider that wearing at least light armor is far more beneficial than applying Wis to AC.

Any disagreement should be mentioned, and is more than welcome. I consider that the AC bonus in the end is much better than a regular light armor in terms of AC given, but that doesn't mean it's actually better than wearing light armor. I personally see that the monk shouldn't wear any armor, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't wear robes, or even outfits, that provide the same benefits while still counting as body items (Ghost Shround and Shadow Veil are examples). Anything that contributes to enhancing the class and make it useful is welcome, so as long as something can be done with it (and don't expect me accepting all requests, but I can certainly consider them).


I like the class as a whole. I'm not sure about change balance, but... yeah. I'll see if I can play test this in a game some time.

In theory, it should be strictly better than a Monk since it solves some of the problems the class has. However, it doesn't mean it will compare to, say, a Swordsage in terms of power. It does allow for a high Wis character to gain loads of benefits, and it makes some combat maneuvers such as grapple and trip much more attractive (adding Wis to opposed rolls, treating character as one size category larger, nullifying Freedom of Movement at higher levels) which is something I wanted to issue with the class, but it doesn't mean it's automatically more powerful than a Wizard or Cleric, and certainly not as weak as the classic Monk. At most, it should be one tier higher, or perhaps the same tier but much higher than before (I agree on the one tier higher, since it can do much more stuff than it did before). Also, consider that I've since done other homebrew, and embraced other paradigms so changes are certainly welcome. Just...no similarities to the Swordsage: Swordsage is its own class, and one I find suits better not to unarmed characters but to people like Li Mu Bai, perhaps Jade Fox, and other main characters from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ironically, I find those to be swordsmen and weaponsmasters other than actual Monks, but that's me.

[LemonFarmer]

wow this is probably the best monk redux i'v seen. awesome job, I just hope that my dm will let me switch characters :smallbiggrin:

[Cieyrin]

That doesn't mean you have to forcefully agree with it. Theoretically, the AC bonus should represent the exchange of wearing light armor and the enhancements, but people might just consider that wearing actual armor is better because it provides for enhancements you otherwise wouldn't get by means of the class. Perhaps stuff like Shadow, Silent Moves and perhaps the resistances may not seem much, but when you consider stuff like Healing, Death Ward, Fortification and others, you might consider that wearing at least light armor is far more beneficial than applying Wis to AC.

On that front, monks can somewhat make up for that by noticing in the Arms and Equipment Guide that there's a sidebar for adding armor special abilities to Bracers of Armor, which also extends the bonus of the Bracers up to 13, for a max of +8 armor and +5 special abilities. Following that logic and seeing the Common Item Effects in the MIC allowing you to add Armor bonii to proper body slots, I could see monks and other unarmored characters gaining armor special abilities by applying them to the proper body slots. Not sure if that's strictly RAW (probably not) but I think it's reasonable, since pumping AC via magic items tends to get expensive compared to just putting on armor.

[T.G. Oskar]

Decided to make another slight modification to another ability: Wholeness of Body.

In short: Wholeness of Body is now a Swift Action! Thus, you can decide to heal yourself off some points, and then keep fighting as necessary. As well, you can now use ki to recharge the pool.

At 2nd level, this means you have a pretty solid ability to fight onwards, while later this ability mostly allows you to shrug off some lucky hits while you use your defenses and movement.

As I said, I was thinking of Fast Healing, but that's far too strong at that level. I remained kinda true to the sources of the change (mostly D&D Tactics and DDO: Eberron Unlimited), but whether the change is favorable or not I leave to you to consider.

I was also planning on another slight modification: unarmed strikes are NICE, and with Ki Strike they're much better (using ki for enchanting weapons), but I decided to give some love to the "special Monk weapons": kama, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken and siangham (as well as, I'd say, sling because it'd be really cool). Basically, increase the power of these weapons as if they were unarmed strikes, but having slings and shuriken get the benefit first (as well as a range increase) and other weapons afterwards. That way, while you'd still prefer unarmed strikes, those weapons would get more love and you'd have more reasons to have weaponry around. So...whaddya think of this slight change? I might also add, if I find them, other monk weapons and apply the benefit (and the proficiency) to their D&D equivalents (thinking of the Shaolin Monk in Deadliest Warrior).

[NineThePuma]

I like the idea of a damage boost to those weapons. It fits, thematically, better than "My hands get tough!"

[T.G. Oskar]

I like the idea of a damage boost to those weapons. It fits, thematically, better than "My hands get tough!"

I already got the ideas done, so I'll just post them here instead of immediately adding them so that you may determine whether they are reasonable or not.

Art of the Deadly Wind (Ex): At 4th level, the monk’s expertise with martial arts improves. When she uses seemingly weak ranged attacks, her strikes are much more lethal and reach a greater distance than usual.

When the monk uses a dart, a sling, or a shuriken, the monk deals damage with the weapon as if she was using an unarmed strike, but of a monk of her level -3 (thus, she deals 1d6 points of damage if Medium). She may use her Dexterity or her Wisdom modifier for her attack rolls with these weapons, and she may use either her Strength or her Wisdom modifier to the damage roll (even if the weapon does not normally allow it). As well, her range increment is equal to 50 ft. if it doesn’t have that range increment already; at every 4 levels after the 4th, the range increment of the weapon increases by 20 ft. Finally, she is treated as if having the Quick Draw feat for purposes of making extra attacks with these weapons.

If the campaign has the following available, the monk may provide the benefits of this ability to the following weapons: blowgun, greater blowgun.

Deadly Weapons (Ex): At 8th level, a monk can use certain weapons with such grace, that she can deliver far deadlier blows than others who pursue her arts.

When using a kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai or siangham, the monk deals damage with the weapon as if she was using an unarmed strike, but of a monk of her level -3 (thus, she deals 1d8 points of damage if Medium). She may use her Strength or her Wisdom modifier for her attack rolls and damage rolls with the weapon. As well, she gains a special ability when using any of these weapons:
Kama: upon a successful trip attempt, the monk may deal damage with the kama as if she had succeeded on a melee attack, but she only deals half the damage she would have usually dealt. This applies even if she has the Improved Trip feat.
Nunchaku or Sai: when using a disarm attempt, the monk may decide to “lock” the weapon instead of merely disarming. She may make this special disarm attempt even when her enemy uses natural weapons, but it applies only to one such natural weapon (thus, if the enemy has two claws, she may apply this effect only to one of the claws). Until the creature attempts to move away from the monk, the creature may not use this weapon, nor the monk may use her nunchaku or sai (but she may still use her unarmed strikes if she so desires); if the creature wields a manufactured weapon and attempts to move away, the monk may force another disarm attempt to remove the weapon from the creature’s hands.
Quarterstaff: the monk may use a quarterstaff as a reach weapon if she so desires. If she has the Two-Weapon Fighting feat, she may not fight with the quarterstaff as a double weapon and apply the reach; only one or the other. However, her damage with both ends of the weapon increases as indicated above.
Siangham: the monk may use a feint attempt with a siangham. She may use her base attack bonus plus her Wisdom modifier or her Bluff check plus her Wisdom modifier for the feint, whichever is higher. She may use this special feint with the siangham as a swift action, and the loss of the creature’s Dexterity modifier to AC applies to all attacks she makes until the end of her turn (thus, she may apply this to a single attack, or to a full attack action).

I also made a new ability for level 13th, since Diamond Soul feels so alone right there...
Art of the Deadly Gale (Ex): A monk gains greater expertise when using seemingly worthless weapons, by taking advantage of her lethal arts and the size of her weaponry. She may strike twice with her weapons, or deliver a deadly swarm of her attacks upon as many enemies as she can.

When attacking with a dart or shuriken only, the monk may use two of the weapons instead of one. She may strike two different targets, or she may decide to use the two projectiles upon the same individual with every attack, be it a single melee attack or a full attack action. As well, as a full-round action, a monk may make a single ranged attack with darts or shuriken against all opponents within range of her weapons at her highest attack bonus. When using this secondary ability, she forfeits any extra attack she may have gained by means of feats or abilities (such as Rapid Shot or the haste spell).

So yeah, it's Palmstrike and Bladewind at the same time. More exciting options for the Monk, and all three are Extraordinary! Yay for more extraordinary power!

[NineThePuma]

Wouldn't the ranged ones be thematically appropriate for the Ninja as well? I can't judge balance, but it looks good.

[T.G. Oskar]

Wouldn't the ranged ones be thematically appropriate for the Ninja as well? I can't judge balance, but it looks good.

In part. Ninjas have a set of other weapons in which they are good with (namely shortbows), and they have Sudden Strike which means they won't need the damage boost. Thus, they would mostly benefit from the increased range, the application of Wis to attack and damage rolls, and the shuriken, darts and blowgun would benefit from Quick Draw. Maybe I could do so that the effective range for Sudden Strike (and Sudden Strike only) increases with these weapons, but not so sure of that.

As for balance...that's what I wait for others to measure. Having a shuriken that deals 2d8 points of damage at a distance of 130 ft. at level 20th isn't necessarily broken, given that the shuriken will break up at the end of the path (being treated as a projectile weapon), but it'll work well with the issues of ranged weapons and Monks; that way, they'll have several good weapons to use between darts, slings, shuriken and crossbows, so there's actually no way to protest that Monks are caught unaware at range. Though, they may not be as good as a dedicated archer in that sense. But, that's my opinion; it seems strong at first, but once you really analyze it in-game, it's not as powerful. Perhaps Art of the Deadly Gale, which allows for double consumption of darts or shuriken for either doubled damage or striking two enemies, but even that's not game-breaking as, say, Iron Heart Surge or White Raven Tactics or spellcasting, period. It may be as good as, say...Crippling Strike from the Rogue, or Sweeping Strike from the War Mind, perhaps a bit better but never overpowered.

[UserShadow7989]

Ah, the Monk. How I love the class so. As a result, I love reading Monk remixes.

This one has to be my favorite. At first I rolled my eyes when I spotted 'Ki Power' on the table, thinking it would be another Psionics system knock off. Then I remembered who was making this set, and read on. I can say I'm pleasantly surprised.

The system is simple. Uses per day equal to Wis modifier, Su abilities use 1-3 uses. This is important, as martial classes shouldn't require rocket science to say 'I punch this guy in the face'. You didn't just throw it in, either. You took each of the Monk's horribly underpowered class features and buffed them up greatly at the cost of a use or two.

You even fixed the lack of synergy; a use to move your speed as a swift action, meaning one CAN move and flurry in the same turn. The fact the core Monk lacks this is a crime. You gave it Full BAB, which is vital for a good Monk fix. You gave it the ability to push through barriers and restraints, and follow into the air and over water- two of the major obstacles facing warrior types, flying enemies and magical walls/restraints are nullified wonderfully.

Since most of what I have to say is glowing praise (love the blindsense ability, always loved the idea of the blindfold monk), I'll skip to the nitpicks. While you've given them a strong focus on the Wisdom attribute, taking the stress of other attributes, this monk still suffers from MAD a bit. Perhaps an ability that takes one use to substitute a your strength modifier with your wisdom modifier for X rounds? And you already did that too. I need to stop posting so late at night.

And... that's about it. I really, really like this Monk fix. You took the weaknesses of the Monk and fixed them, and gave it even more flavor then it had before. While I tilted my head from time to time when I saw you run with it in a direction I didn't expect, I think they came out fantastic. You did a much better job then I ever did. Even the side material is brilliant, such as all the Ki Strike variations.

Since I really didn't offer much criticism in this post, I want to apologize. I would go over the three new abilities you proposed, but I can't find anything wrong with them, either. I'm just not skilled enough yet, I guess. Great job, and I hope to see more of your work.

[Cieyrin]

The new proposed features look fine to me currently and their proposed spots in the progression don't seem overburdened, either. So, I say good on you for giving monks their weapons back.

This doesn't solve a build idea I've had for years that I don't think I'll ever resolve without adapting Raptor Arrows but that's something else entirely.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

[T.G. Oskar]

Ah, the Monk. How I love the class so. As a result, I love reading Monk remixes.

This one has to be my favorite. At first I rolled my eyes when I spotted 'Ki Power' on the table, thinking it would be another Psionics system knock off. Then I remembered who was making this set, and read on. I can say I'm pleasantly surprised.

The system is simple. Uses per day equal to Wis modifier, Su abilities use 1-3 uses. This is important, as martial classes shouldn't require rocket science to say 'I punch this guy in the face'. You didn't just throw it in, either. You took each of the Monk's horribly underpowered class features and buffed them up greatly at the cost of a use or two.

You even fixed the lack of synergy; a use to move your speed as a swift action, meaning one CAN move and flurry in the same turn. The fact the core Monk lacks this is a crime. You gave it Full BAB, which is vital for a good Monk fix. You gave it the ability to push through barriers and restraints, and follow into the air and over water- two of the major obstacles facing warrior types, flying enemies and magical walls/restraints are nullified wonderfully.

Since most of what I have to say is glowing praise (love the blindsense ability, always loved the idea of the blindfold monk), I'll skip to the nitpicks. While you've given them a strong focus on the Wisdom attribute, taking the stress of other attributes, this monk still suffers from MAD a bit. Perhaps an ability that takes one use to substitute a your strength modifier with your wisdom modifier for X rounds? And you already did that too. I need to stop posting so late at night.

And... that's about it. I really, really like this Monk fix. You took the weaknesses of the Monk and fixed them, and gave it even more flavor then it had before. While I tilted my head from time to time when I saw you run with it in a direction I didn't expect, I think they came out fantastic. You did a much better job then I ever did. Even the side material is brilliant, such as all the Ki Strike variations.

Since I really didn't offer much criticism in this post, I want to apologize. I would go over the three new abilities you proposed, but I can't find anything wrong with them, either. I'm just not skilled enough yet, I guess. Great job, and I hope to see more of your work.

Heh. That's...a tear-dropping elegy to the work, but it does touch some of the points I wanted to deal with the Monk.

Indeed, one of the key points was to address some of the concerns of the Monk by providing abilities and improvements that have been suggested over the years. If it pleases the crowd, why not provide? The new content that allows it to use a bit more of the weapons works even better for the Monk, as it allows it to do something I've eventually wanted to touch ever since I made this retooling: make a class, not a build, that didn't merely involve "get Unarmed Swordsage". Certainly, it's looking less like a build and some of the concepts are slowly starting to spread out (now you don't have to forcefully fight with unarmed strikes, you can add some of the weapons), but it still could diversify a bit more and still have its own feel. Directly enhancing the weaponry, or providing a general boost to the combat maneuvers that so many people seem to flinch about gives the Monk its own, happy niche: fight without weapons (or use the simplest and lesser known weapons) with impressive skill, fight without armor, and deal with some of the troubles that baffle other martial classes. In fact, some of the constructs from this class have migrated to others with the same amount of effort (such as the Retooled Ninja and Retooled Samurai, which have both proper uses of ki which I find a great, but largely underused, mechanic).

Granted; I feel it could still improve a lot, address some issues that are best represented as class features and not as feats, things that should be better left to a single class than to a multitude of the classes, and things that are better to have, essentially, at all times instead of not having it at a certain round in the encounter (and have stuff that can be used out of encounters). Call it "the Monk's enlightenment", when it can finally escape the shadow of the Swordsage; this doesn't mean that the Swordsage shouldn't have existed, but I feel the latter fills a different concept that exists parallel to the Monk's own.


The new proposed features look fine to me currently and their proposed spots in the progression don't seem overburdened, either. So, I say good on you for giving monks their weapons back.

This doesn't solve a build idea I've had for years that I don't think I'll ever resolve without adapting Raptor Arrows but that's something else entirely.

Them's my 2 coppers. Take as you will.

Raptor Arrows...you mean returning projectiles? Well...Art of the Deadly Gale could certainly have a (Su) addition in which you can imbue weapons with ki to make them return. On the other hand, I feel that things like returning projectiles (in the case of shuriken) should have existed as an option for magical equipment, given that an archer consumes arrows like nobody's business and the ammunition could be done cheaper (because a pack of 50 +1 flame arrows is expensive as heck).

However...darts are treated like thrown weapons, are small enough to be used with the flick of fingers, and can be imbued with a returning (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#returning) or even teleporting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#teleporting) quality...

Oh, that should also improve the monk weapons from other places (namely, the Oriental Adventures monk weapons and the Arms & Equipment Guide weapons, alongside other 3.5 sources). You know, let stuff like butterfly swords, twin hooked swords and three-sectioned staffs have their love too.

[Cieyrin]

Raptor Arrows...you mean returning projectiles? Well...Art of the Deadly Gale could certainly have a (Su) addition in which you can imbue weapons with ki to make them return. On the other hand, I feel that things like returning projectiles (in the case of shuriken) should have existed as an option for magical equipment, given that an archer consumes arrows like nobody's business and the ammunition could be done cheaper (because a pack of 50 +1 flame arrows is expensive as heck).

However...darts are treated like thrown weapons, are small enough to be used with the flick of fingers, and can be imbued with a returning (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicWeapons.htm#returning) or even teleporting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#teleporting) quality...

Oh, that should also improve the monk weapons from other places (namely, the Oriental Adventures monk weapons and the Arms & Equipment Guide weapons, alongside other 3.5 sources). You know, let stuff like butterfly swords, twin hooked swords and three-sectioned staffs have their love too.

On Raptor Arrows, it's specifically that ammo is normally destroyed upon impact, which Raptor Arrows specifically negates. I agree that the Raptor Arrow quality should have been available from the get-go but that's neither here or there.

Also, I was not aware of the teleporting quality. I suppose I should have guessed something like it existed, given the Telekinetic Boomerang power does, though that's awesome. I shall henceforth replace any returning weapons with teleporting ones henceforth, so I don't have to deal with the headaches of not moving when engaging in ranged combat so i get my ammo back or having intervening terrain negate returns. The only issue I see is in areas where teleportation is unavailable, though I believe there's magic gloves that empart returning, anyways, so no big deal.

I do look forward to seeing other monkish weapons getting some love, such as lajatangs, hooked swords and cutting wheels. They're great weapons, you just don't see them often, since they came out in late/obscure books of 3.5, plus the whole "Exotic weapons aren't worth it" thing that rears its ugly head when weapons aren't spiked chains, the bedamned stupid weapon that that is. I'd rather have a meteor hammer than one of those. At least I won't bleed trying to wield one...:smallmad:

[T.G. Oskar]

On Raptor Arrows, it's specifically that ammo is normally destroyed upon impact, which Raptor Arrows specifically negates. I agree that the Raptor Arrow quality should have been available from the get-go but that's neither here or there.

Hence, "returning" projectiles. To have a projectile with the returning quality, you essentially have to negate the projectile being destroyed. But, the quality is best left as a weapon special quality, or as magic items that grant that quality.

That reminds me...conjuring arrows and Arcane Archer...



Also, I was not aware of the teleporting quality. I suppose I should have guessed something like it existed, given the Telekinetic Boomerang power does, though that's awesome. I shall henceforth replace any returning weapons with teleporting ones henceforth, so I don't have to deal with the headaches of not moving when engaging in ranged combat so i get my ammo back or having intervening terrain negate returns. The only issue I see is in areas where teleportation is unavailable, though I believe there's magic gloves that empart returning, anyways, so no big deal.

Yeah, it's pretty awesome, although teleporting weapons don't return as a free action. Then again, returning should have worked like teleporting, homing to your destination after a move (and then teleporting weapons worked sorta like phasing, allowing you to cut the distance between user and target even if line of effect is broken). That way, both are useful and unique and one doesn't unfairly supplant the other :P


I do look forward to seeing other monkish weapons getting some love, such as lajatangs, hooked swords and cutting wheels. They're great weapons, you just don't see them often, since they came out in late/obscure books of 3.5, plus the whole "Exotic weapons aren't worth it" thing that rears its ugly head when weapons aren't spiked chains, the bedamned stupid weapon that that is. I'd rather have a meteor hammer than one of those. At least I won't bleed trying to wield one...:smallmad:

From the top of my head: cutting wheels work like unarmed strikes in terms of how many damage you can deal (so you can start at 8th level dealing 1d10 slashing damage). Hooked swords have an implied TWF trait; I was going for reach, but then again that's what Flying Tiger grants. Not so sure about lajatang, but a close weapon (monk's spade) has the benefit of Whirlwind Attack (times two, so you deal two strikes with it a lá Adamantine Hurricane). Arguably, Monk's Spade was the hardest of the weapons in Secrets of Sarlona to deal with, since the rest was quite easy. Now, I just have to dig off my copy of Oriental Adventures and develop cool stuff for the monk special weapons in there (including, for some reason, butterfly swords which I oddly like, though not as much as a hand-and-a-half non-katana sword or a big zweihander).

UPDATE: Added the Art of Deadly Wind, Deadly Weapons and Art of Deadly Gale to the list. Since I was already almost at the 50k word limit, I had to trim most of my explanations (I know, I also feel it too) and edit a bit to retain clarity on most of the verbose abilities. While doing that, I noticed that there were two abilities that I had neglected adding: Resilient Body (yay, Resist Energy!! And then Energy Immunity!!) and Path of Denial (take that, Abrupt Jaunt!). As well, Path of Spiritual Chains was lowered to 10th level, which means that one level after everybody gets Freedom of Movement and Shadow Jaunt and all that, the Monk just spends ki and says "you were saying?" before grapple-beating you to oblivion. I guess I owed that to our little Monk, didn't we?

[Cieyrin]

Looking through, you seem to be missing some action types in Resilient Body and Path of Spiritual Chains, at least, for spending Ki. I assume Resilient Body is Immediate and Path could either be Swift or Immediate, depending on whether you want it to be a 'No!' button or not.

[monkman]

T.G oscar Could you post the ac bonus,speed bonus,the Unarmed attack damage( for a large) creature at epic levels?Would it be to much to ask for you to post the damage for a huge creature as well?

[T.G. Oskar]

T.G oscar Could you post the ac bonus,speed bonus,the Unarmed attack damage( for a large) creature at epic levels?Would it be to much to ask for you to post the damage for a huge creature as well?

Well...I think I mentioned in another thread that I'm not so keen with the Epic rules, since they can be all sorts of mad stuff (specifically with spellcasters). However, like on that time, I accepted and gave a bit of a pointer on how to deal with epic characters. I'll do my best on that, but they should be pretty easy.

The AC bonus follows an irregular pattern, but by all means it's a mathematical pattern: at first it progresses every four levels, then later it progresses every three levels, ending with the last three levels giving a pretty swift progression. For epic, you'd progress AC pretty much every three levels, starting with level 20 (hence, you'd get progressions at level 23rd, 26th, 29th, 32nd, etc...)

Fast movement follows an even simpler progression: 10 ft every 3 levels. So, you'd advance speed at level 21st, 24th, 27th, 30th, etc.

As for unarmed strike damage, the Epic Level Handbook doesn't recommend increasing it (which means a Medium character stays with 2d10 damage, while a Large creature would remain with 4d8 damage. I can't tell you whether I'd increase the unarmed strike damage or not (which would also increase the damage of other weapons such as small throwing weapons and special monk weapons), but currently I incline to no increase to damage (otherwise, the next step of increase in Medium would be 3d8, while on Large it would be 5d8). So, epic Monks don't get an increase in unarmed strike damage, though they might get Improved Natural Attack if they want to at those levels.

Thus, it'd look something like this:
{TABLE=head]Level|Special|AC Bonus|Speed Bonus
21st|Bonus Feat|+6|70 ft.
22nd||+6|70 ft.
23rd||+7|70 ft.
24th||+7|80 ft.
25th||+7|80 ft.
26th|Bonus Feat|+8|80 ft.
27th||+8|90 ft.
28th||+8|90 ft.
29th||+9|90 ft.
30th||+9|100 ft.[/table]

Where they'd get bonus feats every 5 levels, even if they don't get new class abilities, because of all the class abilities that improve (Ki power, wholeness of body, diamond soul, duration of unburdened path, duration of walk the river and the clouds, duration of empty body, effective CL of abundant step). As for art of the deadly wind and deadly weapons, the damage doesn't progress after 20th level (so a shuriken or a nunchaku for a Medium creature would stay at 2d6, and the same weapons on a Large creature would still deal 3d8), but the range increase of art of the deadly wind still applies (so you'd get an increase in range of 20 ft. at level 24th, 28th, 32nd, etc...)

As for damage with Huge creatures...well, that'd be a bit hard to deal with but the general result would be starting at 1d10, then progressing as if being a Medium character, alternating between a d8 and a d10 I'd say. Something like...
{TABLE=head]Level|Huge Monk size damage
1st-3rd|1d10
4th-7th|2d8
8th-11th|2d10
12th-15th|3d8
16th-19th|3d10
20th|4d10[/TABLE]

Hopefully that'll work. Maybe this'll see a revision at any moment, so it isn't 100% certain.

[monkman]

Thank you and a very nice job for the earlier post but could you explain to me what does this do?

Fleeting Step (Su): At 3rd level, a monk may expend one daily use of her ki power as a swift action to move up to her land speed
I dont really understand, do you get your move action as a swift action? Do you gains X3 your speed? Or is it something else?

[T.G. Oskar]

Thank you and a very nice job for the earlier post but could you explain to me what does this do?

I dont really understand, do you get your move action as a swift action? Do you gains X3 your speed? Or is it something else?

Basically you expend a daily use of your ki power as a swift action to move up to your speed. Thus, you can make a triple move (double move then expend to move up to your speed again), a double move and attack, a pseudo Spring Attack (move, attack as a standard action, then move again using your swift action), or a move-as-swift and then full-round action (which addresses some of the problems with the monk, namely having Flurry/full attack require a full action and thus requiring to stay still, while the class is geared towards mobility). It's meant to be really simple: you move up to your land speed (so if you move 60 ft. because of Fast Movement, you move 60 ft. by using this ability). You don't get a move-equivalent action of another kind (such as, say, if you were a spellcaster you'd be capable of moving Flaming Sphere as a move-equivalent action), just a simple movement.

Think Lesser Celerity, except you're expending a slightly more expensive ability for it and you don't get dazed afterwards. Or Travel Devotion, except you can divide the rounds per day (so to speak). That's the general idea.

Funny enough, moving up to your speed as a swift action may enable a rare Monk/Scout MC combination, where you expend a daily use of ki to move, enable Skirmish, then add your unarmed strike damage and your skirmish damage.

[monkman]

Mastery of Ki (Su): At 20th level, a monk’s mastery of ki reaches a pinnacle. She may reduce the cost of all abilities that require daily uses of her ki power by one.
What happens with the abiltyies that cost 1 ki?

As well, she does not lose her supernatural abilities if her daily uses of ki power are completely expended
With this pharse it seems to tell us that we gain almost all the abilties that the monk gets.I really think that you should reword it a bit.Also the only thing that is more than 1 Ki is the Ki strike.

[T.G. Oskar]

What happens with the abiltyies that cost 1 ki?

With this pharse it seems to tell us that we gain almost all the abilties that the monk gets.I really think that you should reword it a bit.Also the only thing that is more than 1 Ki is the Ki strike.

Path of the Spiritual Chains requires the expenditure of two daily uses of ki, and Timeless Body requires three daily uses. So Ki Strike is not the only ability that requires more than one use of ki; this also applies to some feats in Dragon Magazine that expanded the uses of ki (though they only last for one round or so).

Mastery of Ki is a bit of an oddball, tho. The original intention was that, since you got half of your class abilities active at will anyways, you'd get the bulk of your abilities aside from the most powerful ones mechanically speaking always working. For example:

Still Mind, which you get at 6th level, becomes useless when you get to 18th level since you get Diamond Mind, which is basically Mind Blank but permanent.
Fleeting Step is something that you'll want your Monk to do always, and Abundant Step's extraordinary part of the ability is basically half of Fleeting Step anyways. So you'd be capable of moving up to your land speed as a swift action at will, but you already could move up to half your speed so that's no problem at all.
Touching the Ripples grants Blindsight at 16th level anyways, and you only expend ki to increase the range of your visual mode.
As you progress on Epic levels, and even before Epic, you can use your Balance skill to attempt moving without concentrating while using Walk the River and the Clouds.
Dimension Door may seem a bit too good if used permanently, but considering it still takes a move action to use, it means you can't use your actual move action for anything else.
Diamond Soul and Diamond Body are essentially boosting your already existing class abilities; in the case of Diamond Body, since you get DR 10/epic and adamantine at later levels, you're basically getting the same benefit you got from expending ki permanently.

The only two abilities that may benefit from being used at-will would be Unburdened Path and Empty Body (since you get Freedom of Movement and Ethereal Jaunt from them), but their durations are reduced (Unburdened Path lasts for a number of rounds equal to half your class level, Freedom of Movement lasts for 10 minutes per caster level; Empty Body lasts almost 5 times more than Ethereal Jaunt but less than Etherealness). Thus, you won't be getting extremely powerful abilities from that (not to mention that Empty Body should have had expended more than one daily use of ki anyways). You may add Abundant Step, but I already mentioned the move limitation; great for long jaunts while outside of battle, not that much for in-combat abilities unless you expend your feat slots in Sun School. If it worries you: the Monk gains effective at-will abilities at 20th level, 19 levels after the Warlock gains its first at-will abilities (Eldritch Blast + lesser invocations).

However, I've gone back and forth on the exact reach of that ability. At its core, it's meant for Ki Strike, Path of Spiritual Chains and Timeless Body to be less expensive, and thus easier to use. What I've explained above makes a strong argument for both sides; stuff like (reduced duration) Freedom of Movement and Ethereal Jaunt, plus Dimension Door at will are strong arguments for abilities that could be mostly exploited, but the rest of the abilities aren't equally exploitable. So I'm still undecided whether I should keep the wording as-is, or change it. I'll keep it as is while I make a firm decision.

Still, the most important thing is that it allows you to retain your supernatural abilities even if you expend your ki, which means you retain Touching the Ripples and Resilient Body and Diamond Mind even if you end up expending all your daily uses of ki. It's meant to correlate with the 1st level ability of ki power:


Ki Power (Su): A monk can channel her ki to enhance her mobility, defense, and special attacks through a variety of powers. She can use her ki powers a number of times per day equal to half her class level plus her Wisdom bonus (if any). Ki powers can only be used if the monk is wearing no armor or shield and carries no more than a heavy load. As long as a monk’s ki pool isn’t empty, she may use all of her supernatural abilities (except Ki Strike and Diamond Soul which are always active). A monk’s ki powers are described under separate entries below.

What Mastery of Ki does is effectively this:


Ki Power (Su): A monk can channel her ki to enhance her mobility, defense, and special attacks through a variety of powers. She can use her ki powers a number of times per day equal to half her class level plus her Wisdom bonus (if any). Ki powers can only be used if the monk is wearing no armor or shield and carries no more than a heavy load. As long as a monk’s ki pool isn’t empty, she may use all of her supernatural abilities (except Ki Strike and Diamond Soul which are always active). A monk’s ki powers are described under separate entries below.

Hopefully that clears your doubts a bit.

[Cieyrin]

Funny enough, moving up to your speed as a swift action may enable a rare Monk/Scout MC combination, where you expend a daily use of ki to move, enable Skirmish, then add your unarmed strike damage and your skirmish damage.

I actually have wanted to make one of those since Scout came out and I rediscovered the Sparring Dummy of the Master. This is actually far easier to pull it off with, though I just have to find a game that'll let me have a monk in it, which can sometimes be the hardest part. :smallwink:

[Newt]

Alright ladies and gents (and children and demihumans and outsiders)...
...


Several things.

Wholeness of body: I saw a great comment by another person, and still think it's fairly smart. They compared it to the Paladins Lay On Hands ability, and asked why it wasn't done similarly. I agree. Why make it use ki when you can just say Monk level + Wis mod x 4 number of hp? You make Wisdom a useful stat, which that ability to use Wis instead of Str on attacks would sync nicely with.

Flurry of Blows: Why take it out till 10? The main disagreement with FoB was that it was useless at lower levels, and that's a brilliant point. -2 to a BaB of +0 and you need an Str score of at least 12 and Weapon Focus just to get it to +0. Str of 14 to get a +1 on your hit, when Fighter's are hitting at +3/+4 for the same stats. Giving Monks a good BaB means that 12 Str gives them a +0 attack, with Weapon Focus it's +1. Not the greatest by any means, but it's not useless, it scales much nicer. So why not have it as a scaling attack? Instead of oh hey, you can now hit more times. Surprise!

Path of Denial: 1. That's.. Annoying. Sure, the monk is faster, but then why make opponents slower? That doesn't make sense dude. Allowing Monks to take immediate actions in response to an attack? That makes sense, slowing everyone opposing you doesn't. Think evil Wiz decides to tele out, if the Monk has a turn after a Rogue, then the Rogue gets to SA said Wizard, assuming the Rogue is close enough anyway. 2. Wait.. That doesn't make sense either. :S "So no; you can't suddenly say "I teleport to my sanctum when I say 'fiddle-diddle-doo'" without the Monk breaking a bone you didn't even knew it existed.", yes you really can. Unless the DM is ruling "in response to" very widely. If it's a quickened teleport in response to a Monk attacking, then yea, that makes slightly more sense, and now see 1.

Ignoring Time Stop? Interesting. You've just broken a broken spell. Nice.

Time Stop doesn't let you affect any creature whilst frozen, Monk however, with PoD can still attack Wizard. For 5 rounds. With an AC against a helpless Wiz.. 'Course, they can end early, I think.. But still.

Combat style esque abilities masquerading as feats, various abilities acting like feats, different uses with weapons.. I like them? But at the same time I'll stick to a default Monk and take 2 levels of Fighter and grab an Eberron feat to let me use a Double-Bladed Sword/Longsword/Spear as a Monk weapon. As is, this is variously underpowered, odd, or overpowered. Resistance 20 to all elements for example, plus SR instantly makes it an interesting talk with the DM. Funny thing is, DM's aware of the core Monks restrictions are generally more likely to consider thought experiments, unless it's "I get resistance to everything and SR, and 15 free feats". :P

I don't hate it, although I do like FoB and I like Ex for Slow Fall :P
It just looks like you've thought the Monk was weak and thrown various highly powered abilities at it to fix it, then removed basic Monk features to balance it. I like floating, I like the idea of being able to act faster than other people all the time instead of most of the time, I like being able to carry a medium load 'cause really.. Monks break bricks and pole vault in their spare time, 'sif they can't carry a medium load..

Good ideas, but overall some stuff doesn't make sense, and others seem overpowered. And the rest is annoying. Nice try though. Figure I'll just try go gestalt. That or Human with two Fighter levels works nicely for most ideas.

Having said all that, I like the idea of a Dimension Door at will, works nicely with a mental movie I had which turned into a thought experiment for Monk. Fits thematically too. Well.. Not at will, but more than once a day. Can already move faster than everyone else, able to move faster than they can blink isn't stretching it too hard.

[T.G. Oskar]

Several things.

Wholeness of body: I saw a great comment by another person, and still think it's fairly smart. They compared it to the Paladins Lay On Hands ability, and asked why it wasn't done similarly. I agree. Why make it use ki when you can just say Monk level + Wis mod x 4 number of hp? You make Wisdom a useful stat, which that ability to use Wis instead of Str on attacks would sync nicely with.

Hunh? Well...it works exactly like Lay on Hands. Except that you can only recover yourself. But otherwise, it works exactly the same: Monk level x Wis modifier. Much like the Paladin's Lay on Hands: Paladin level x Cha modifier.

The addition of recovering the pool with ki was mostly to make the ability useful at latter levels. It's partly what Paizo did in Pathfinder (expend 1 point of ki, recover HP equal to Monk level), except you instead add it to the pool. It's a bit more elegant, since that means you're constantly playing with a pool, and you can use your ki power to recover from certain wounds. And since it works exactly as Lay on Hands (except on yourself and using Wis), anything that would enhance LoH would enhance WoB: Caduceus Bracers, Hands of a Healer (with slight differences, but you'd be treated as having a +2 to your Wis score and thus a +1 to the modifier for WoB), and a few Paladin spells that enhance Lay on Hands, not to mention Action Healing from Faiths of Eberron which allows you to use at least Quicken WoB and Empowered WoB.

Monk level + Wis x 4, however, doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially how it stands: I presume you're intending (Monk level + Wis) x4 (which would mean you start with between 20-28 Wis compared), but if placed using correct mathematical definition, it would be horribly weak. Remember that by mathematical definition, multiplication goes before addition, so you'd have Monk level + (Wis x 4), which would be...more than half of what you get now. With the latter, you get a much higher amount of HP, but you wouldn't be capable of recovering it as easily.


Flurry of Blows: Why take it out till 10? The main disagreement with FoB was that it was useless at lower levels, and that's a brilliant point. -2 to a BaB of +0 and you need an Str score of at least 12 and Weapon Focus just to get it to +0. Str of 14 to get a +1 on your hit, when Fighter's are hitting at +3/+4 for the same stats. Giving Monks a good BaB means that 12 Str gives them a +0 attack, with Weapon Focus it's +1. Not the greatest by any means, but it's not useless, it scales much nicer. So why not have it as a scaling attack? Instead of oh hey, you can now hit more times. Surprise!

Actually, FoB is useful at low levels. The biggest problem isn't exactly that you had troubles with hitting (it's one of the BIG problems, but not the BIGGEST). The biggest problem was that you had to remain still in order to use it, while the Monk focuses on mobility (really, they actually intended to get you to use Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack and the Monk fits quite well with that idea). Getting it at 10th level means you have Fleeting Step, and then you get Abundant Step a level later which means you can really use it better.

As for attack bonus...you do notice they can use either Strength or Wisdom, right? I'll assume you did, since you did comment about how useful Wisdom was to the class, but here's the point: you could go Strength, even more Str than Wisdom, and get a good chance to hit. Or, you can go Wisdom, and get an equally high chance to hit. By the moment you get Flurry of Blows, you get essentially a +4~+5 (if not higher) to your attack rolls by means of either Strength or Wisdom; that, compared to a full BAB, means you get basically a +14~+15 to hit, if not higher. This doesn't include any bonuses by means of feats, class abilities, or even expenditure of ki (such as with Ki Strike enchanting your fists). A penalty of -2 may seem harsh to get permanently, but this is usually the path towards most non-magical extra attacks; give a small, non-reducible penalty to grant an extra attack at your highest BAB.

Furthermore...most people around here consider Weapon Focus to be a weak feat, since it only gives you a +1 to hit when you can use something like Owl's Wisdom or Inspire Courage to grant a +2 or even a +3 to that AND to damage. More power if you choose it (and the idea for granting effective Fighter levels is meant to allow you to get stuff like Melee Weapon Mastery and Crushing Blow, as well as GWF and Weapon Supremacy), but it's not a very strong comparative point.

Finally...I don't seem to understand much about a scaling attack. Scaling implies that you either deal more damage (and your unarmed strike already scales), or that your attack bonus increases (BAB scales, Ki Strike scales, etc.), or that something else scales. FoB was meant to grant more attacks, not really to scale much. The idea behind FoB reducing the penalties was that at later levels, you'd be unable to hit with medium BAB and a focus on so many ability scores that you'd rarely hit at all. As for why at 10th level? Well, consider that it's a legacy ability (it was on the original Monk class at 3.5 and even available at the first iteration in AD&D), and that it wasn't the focus of the class at all, but another ability.


Path of Denial: 1. That's.. Annoying. Sure, the monk is faster, but then why make opponents slower? That doesn't make sense dude. Allowing Monks to take immediate actions in response to an attack? That makes sense, slowing everyone opposing you doesn't. Think evil Wiz decides to tele out, if the Monk has a turn after a Rogue, then the Rogue gets to SA said Wizard, assuming the Rogue is close enough anyway. 2. Wait.. That doesn't make sense either. :S "So no; you can't suddenly say "I teleport to my sanctum when I say 'fiddle-diddle-doo'" without the Monk breaking a bone you didn't even knew it existed.", yes you really can. Unless the DM is ruling "in response to" very widely. If it's a quickened teleport in response to a Monk attacking, then yea, that makes slightly more sense, and now see 1.

Perhaps I didn't phrase it too well?

Normally, an immediate action interrupts the flow of the game by allowing you a reaction before anything else happens. A free action outside of battle does the same thing.

Normally, let's say a Monk faces an Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer. Monk moves, makes a strike...and the Conjurer says "I activate Abrupt Jaunt!", Conjurer moves, Monk fails all of his attacks because the immediate action effectively halts time so that the action happens. It happens at the very exact same moment you say "I wanna do it", no matter at which moment you want to do it, and it goes before every single other action afterwards. That's how an immediate action works. Or a free action outside your turn.

Path of Denial essentially halts that. What it says is "sure, you can make your immediate action, but the Monk will go first". Note that it says "in response to a monk's action", although I should be clear that it doesn't mean EVERY action (talking is not covered in this ability, sadly, though you can deliver some words before the Wizard goes!). What it does is changing what happens above.

With Path of Denial, and a Monk against an Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer, this is what happens. Monk moves, makes a strike...and the Conjurer says "I activate Abrupt Jaunt!" The Monk makes his strike (being a standard action, he's allowed only one), then the Conjurer makes its move...probably landing dead because the Monk just baffled him. However, that doesn't mean that if the Wizard acts in his action, the Monk will interrupt him; that already happens if the Monk uses an attack of opportunity. Path of Denial only works during the Monk's turn, and only when the opponent uses an immediate action in reaction to the Monk's action. If, say, the Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer says "I activate Abrupt Jaunt" in reaction to a Rogue's sneak attack, the Monk can't do anything unless the Monk was that same Rogue. Otherwise, the Monk can't do anything because the Conjurer is reacting to the Rogue's action, not the Monk's action, and the Rogue still loses his attacks.

In the case the Monk acts after the Rogue...same thing happens. The Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt reacted to the Rogue's action, not to the Monk's action, and thus Path of Denial doesn't activate. Then the Monk can move, and if the Conjurer then says "I activate my Contingency Teleport by saying 'fiddle-diddle doo'!", then the Monk smacks him. Not before the Rogue, only during the Monk's turn.

I hope that was much clearer, though I think I phrased it pretty clearly. It stops stuff like Abrupt Jaunt, Contigencies, and immediate-action spells or magic items meant to stop the Monk from acting.


Ignoring Time Stop? Interesting. You've just broken a broken spell. Nice.

Time Stop doesn't let you affect any creature whilst frozen, Monk however, with PoD can still attack Wizard. For 5 rounds. With an AC against a helpless Wiz.. 'Course, they can end early, I think.. But still.

Timeless Body allows you to ignore Time Stop, sure. Why not? You're expending a sizeable amount of ki to deny a spellcaster part of its action. Path of Denial only works if the spellcaster uses Time Stop as a contingency or as an immediate action; otherwise, unless the Monk has Timeless Body active, it's still stuck as every other character.

Now, Timeless Body's unusual ability to allow a Monk to act under the Time Stop spell of a Wizard already exists. It's called the Spell Stowaway feat, which allows you to take advantage of the same spell any spellcaster casts at a very sizeable radius. Sure, you'll mention "but that's an Epic feat!" And I would agree; however, what you're doing is a bit different than what you think.

Without Time Stop, the Wizard has between 2 to 5 turns worth of actions, where it cannot touch any of its opponents but still buff himself or herself. With Timeless Body, the Wizard still has those actions, but the Monk enters the same timeframe; that means the Monk and the Wizard can smack each other, since it would be two people acting on the same timeframe instead of two different instances of Time Stop. The Wizard can still smack the Monk and use most abilities against the Monk, but the Monk can still allow his attacks and actions. And the Wizard isn't helpless at all; it still has swift actions and immediate actions to execute.

But the most important thing is that Path of Denial doesn't affect Time Stop; Timeless Body does. The only moment in which Path of Denial may affect Time Stop is if the spellcaster makes it an immediate action (not even a swift action), and only if the Wizard uses it to bypass the actions of a Monk (such as an attack, Path of Spiritual Chains + grapple, Stunning Fist, etc.)


Combat style esque abilities masquerading as feats, various abilities acting like feats, different uses with weapons.. I like them? But at the same time I'll stick to a default Monk and take 2 levels of Fighter and grab an Eberron feat to let me use a Double-Bladed Sword/Longsword/Spear as a Monk weapon. As is, this is variously underpowered, odd, or overpowered. Resistance 20 to all elements for example, plus SR instantly makes it an interesting talk with the DM. Funny thing is, DM's aware of the core Monks restrictions are generally more likely to consider thought experiments, unless it's "I get resistance to everything and SR, and 15 free feats". :P

Hmm...I don't seem I follow this statement. I'm sure it refers to Art of Deadly Wind, Deadly Weapons and Art of Deadly Gale, right?

Feats are something that has to be carefully considered. A feat is meant to be an option; if it's not meant to be an option, then it should be a class ability. Furthermore, you have to consider that the more specific the feat is, the weaker it is; hence, why stuff like Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, Whirlwind Attack, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are considered weak feats.

I'm sure you know of Natural Spell. It's a feat, sure. But it only works for Druids mostly, since it only affects wild shape. The only Core class that has wild shape is the druid, hence it's only a feat meant for a Druid. It's stupid to think that a Druid won't get Natural Spell, since it's tailor-made for it. In this case, this feat isn't an option; it's a class ability in disguise. Battle Blessing for the Paladin is something similar; it's a class feature AND a buff in disguise (unless you don't want to use spells, but you'd get a huge boost by using it along with the few Pally spells). Some feats work better as class abilities rather than feats, and some class abilities that may resemble feats work best as the former than the latter. That's the example with Art of Deadly Wind and Deadly Weapons.

Art of Deadly Wind may seem to be fit as a feat, but unfortunately it's not an option. It's a way to enhance the ability of the Monk to deal much better ranged damage, an option that the normal Monk sorely lacks. You deal part of your unarmed strike damage (which makes it a specific feature of the Monk, which is one of the few classes that grants this ability) with the weapon (or the damage of the weapon, whichever is highest), and you increase its range. If what worries you is that Art of Deadly Wind's range increase is exactly Far Shot in disguise, I have something to say to you about that: feat tax. The Monk has more feats at its disposal, but it still may suffer about not having enough feats, considering some of these feats may be compromised (INA, Snap Kick, Superior Unarmed Strike).

Deadly Weapons is similar, but with weapons that the Monk would rarely use: monk special weapons. Why give the Monk a bunch of special weapons, if their unarmed strike will ALWAYS be better? Why use kama, or nunchaku, or sai, or siangham, if what they offer doesn't compare to what you get through unarmed strikes? And again, if what worries you is that the abilities you can get with Deadly Weapons sound quite the same as weapon styles, consider that you don't have to expend several feats to get a single weapon style, and specifically feats that you may not be inclined to get anyways.

Those are interesting thought experiments: Monks are superb with weapons that others would consider weak, such as the humble sling (like David, whom was a Bard/Cleric/Evangelist of all things), or the rare shuriken, and it makes choosing the rare special weapons a much more palatable choice.

Resistance to one element (or eventually to all elements) is something I considered as reasonable for a Monk, but also considerable if they were forced to fight alone. One of the things that any spellcaster has over a non-spellcaster is energy resistance; all late-game monsters will use an energy attack sooner or later, and whomever has absolutely NO energy resistance is screwed badly. You can't always expect your friendly Cleric or Wizard to cast a Resist Energy spell (or even Mass Resist Energy) on you, so you need to have something that works similarly. Another thing is that, if you have a Fighter or a Samurai or a Warblade nearby, you may find yourself stripped of magic items that work the same way. Granting energy resistance to the Monk was a way to make them a bit more independent in the requisition of buffs, and much more solid for a scouting mission (which along with their speed, Abundant Step and mobility skills they can do quite nicely). Spell Resistance is another good ability for a durable scout, and also a legacy ability.

That doesn't mean you cannot experiment. I wish to rework the Eberron feats that grant you the ability to use longswords or other weapons as special Monk weapons, because I want them to be options that the Monk has available, not pseudo-options that exist only to fulfill a flavor requisite. Art of Deadly Wind and Deadly Weapons open options in case the Monk finds a cool Kama or Siangham to use, while Resilient Body and Diamond Soul are meant to provide better defenses.


I don't hate it, although I do like FoB and I like Ex for Slow Fall :P
It just looks like you've thought the Monk was weak and thrown various highly powered abilities at it to fix it, then removed basic Monk features to balance it. I like floating, I like the idea of being able to act faster than other people all the time instead of most of the time, I like being able to carry a medium load 'cause really.. Monks break bricks and pole vault in their spare time, 'sif they can't carry a medium load..

Umm...I'm either taking that as a sarcastic comment (read: no), or you don't know about the weaknesses of the Monk. Even with all the nice stuff they get, they cannot compare to a Fighter specialized in unarmed strikes, or a blaster spellcaster, or a scouting Rogue. Heck, a Fighter/Rogue can do the work of a Monk ages better (and that's exactly the niche of the Monk; a sort of Fighter/Rogue with some unique abilities tacked in), with the deliberate use of sneak attack and UMD and Fighter feats. The core 3.5 Monk has loads of issues, and I made an attempt to fix those in the best of my capabilities, trying to give it the same old flavor and retaining most of the legacy abilities of the Monk (if not all of them) but favoring the use of ki, as the CA Ninja does, as a mechanic to power up some of its abilities.

I don't intend anyone to love my work, and I don't mind having someone feeling it's a bit too powerful or broken; it gives me time to explain the purpose of the work and reach a happy medium, clear some doubts, and improve my work. I perceive my Monk to be a solid Tier 3 class, able to deny the abilities of Tier 1 characters to some extent and having a good amount of options, but still good exclusively on one thing and moderately good on others. I intended to raise it from Tier 5 which is where the Monk currently stands, and I hope I did a good work on that.

I also sought not to remove some basic Monk abilities. They still have Slow Fall, they still have Fast Movement, they still have huge unarmed strike, they still have Wis to AC and scaling AC by level, and they still have flurry of blows and more uses of Stunning Fist; they still have Wholeness of Body, Purity of Body, Diamond Soul, Abundant Step, and everything short of Quivering Palm and Tongue of Sun and Moon.

As for the latter two whom I removed, there were many reasons: Quivering Palm was an ability that worked better as a feat instead of a class ability, since it seemed like the natural extension of Stunning Fist. Really, look at it: you fill your weapon with ki in the same way as you would for a Stunning Fist, but instead of stunning the enemy you kill it instead (or hold the charge and then kill it). Once per week was ridiculously bad, and I decided that I would break with that; however, the more I saw it, the more I said to myself that it would work better as a feat than as a class ability, if only because otherwise I would have had to make Stunning Fist a class ability. Tongue of Sun and Moon made absolutely no sense, and you can get enough abilities to speak with animals, plants, and other creatures much, much earlier than before.

I'd also like to indicate my Monk retooling is not the ONLY revision to the class. Fax Celestis has his own version of the Monk for d20r, and then there's Jiriku whose Monk is even closer to, yet still stronger and better, than the core 3.5 Monk. There are other builds from other people that add Psionics and ToB Maneuvers to the Monk, and then there's the "Unarmed Swordsage" option that has turned into a strongly pushed choice. Unarmed Swordsage and Tashalatora Monk/PsyWar are both options that still exist in-game. However, I wanted to explore the idea of using the ki mechanic from Complete Adventurer's Ninja, because I felt a thematic link amongst the classes. I also wanted the class to be capable of existing within a vacuum, where it could contribute even if the character was alone and with no assistance from anyone (because if you can do that, then the class will cooperate no matter the composition of the group and thus opens options for players), but still remaining sensible enough. This meant some class abilities had to be gotten earlier, some gotten late, some gotten through different means, and some removed altogether, as well as adding stuff that would allow it to work better within a group without stealing the shine or become eclipsed by others.

That goes without mentioning that it's still a work in progress. Art of Deadly Wind and Deadly Weapons were added quite recently and weren't part of the original class. Mastery of Ki wasn't available in the original class, and was only part of its revision. Abundant Step and Walk the Clouds (not Walk the River and the Clouds), as well as Slow Fall, were originally Supernatural abilities and only later on I decided that they worked better extraordinarily. Resilient Body was added later on, when I found that they could still be singed badly by energy attacks unless they had some sort of protection against it, and Diamond Body was radically changed from the original since I felt that the benefit it provided was given quite too late (hence why it was absorbed into Purity of Body) and that they needed a bit of resistance against attacks if they were to be on the frontlines as a Fighter did. Even I admit it seems still like a mish-mash of abilities, but now I feel that the mish-mash is less of an unequal blend and more of a series of abilities with usefulness and meaning. Walk the River and the Clouds makes sense; they hone their bodies, minds and souls to ignore most constraints of the world, so why not allow them to walk in air and on water? That way, they could reach enemies that they wouldn't otherwise get. Resilience to Fire and physical hits? Faqir do that all the time, and they are real people with real abilities. The ability to throw a shuriken up to 100 feet and stick on their ribs? Perhaps not so realistic, but mechanically viable which is equally important, and also still retaining some of that general "defy the world" flavor. Abundant Step for short jaunts makes them highly mobile. Wholeness of Body is that kind of "second wind" ability that some martial characters would just dream of having. And so forth. Path of the Conqueror? Just how many martial arts stress using wits and wisdom over brute force? And stuff like Path of the Spiritual Chains and Path of Denial, while can be explained in the same frame of the class, are ways to handle the mechanical advantages of other classes, something very few feats and martial classes can do on their own. It's not something that seems arbitrary; these are carefully considered abilities, meant to work less as a build and more like a concept, which is what the class is meant to be. I still work to reduce some of the concepts that make it more of a build, adding options to allow various builds by using the same class, and giving it a flavor of its own.


Good ideas, but overall some stuff doesn't make sense, and others seem overpowered. And the rest is annoying. Nice try though. Figure I'll just try go gestalt. That or Human with two Fighter levels works nicely for most ideas.

Now, this is something I'd want to see. I've thought a lot on the Monk, and i want more ideas. I feel that the class doesn't completely fill your expectatives, and that it may seem constraint (or so I presume). Perhaps it could have some abilities that can open several builds; right now, the Monk works well as a frontline unarmed striker, a user of deceptively "weak" weapons, a strong scout, a mage-killer...those are good options, and the Monk can do all of them pretty well, but perhaps they may not be enough.

You constantly mention "ideas", but never fully expand upon them. I can see the use of Whirling Steel Strike and a dip into Fighter to get...something, but exactly WHAT is something I keep missing. Perhaps you're trying to make it a non-Swordsage wuxia character (such as Li Mu Bai, Nameless, or any other of the characters played by Chou-Yun Fat, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and many others), which is why you want the longsword. Perhaps you want to make some sort of dervish, or faqir-based character. Multiclassing can certainly help with that, and other classes may be what you're seeking, but just having hundreds of ideas running around and no concrete use of any of those may end up saying nothing (whether good or bad). I can accept that some stuff is annoying (hearing Unarmed Swordsage:Monk::Crusader:Paladin, while to an extent correct, is something that irks me), but it may just be a misunderstanding rather than an actual problem with the class (the first few complaints seem to indicate that).

[NineThePuma]

.... I don't intend anyone to love my work....

We do that anyways.

[Newt]

An in depth response? :O

Intriguing and appreciated. It seems some of what I thought was just me thinking differently.


Bit about Wholeness of Body
Heh, yea, I was ignoring maths. So (Monk level + Wis mod) * 4. The only reason I liked it was that it wasn't dependent on Ki, and since Ki powers most of the Monk abilities, it becomes something that isn't used as much when you can Abundant Step around the place. Although recovering.. That is indeed quite useful. I dunno. Ki rant later.


Flurry of Blows

If I was talking about Monk, I'd always point to FoB as one of their features. Sure, it was flawed in that it required a full action, made their speed useless, but it still fit thematically, historically and gave them an extra attack compared to Fighters. I know, you can get more attacks, but it was nice. 'shrugs' When I said scaling, I meant as in how it got higher as the class went up. Not very well, had to get to 20 for first attack to be +15, but still, it went up as the class went up. The -2 was a reasonable penalty, but again, useless at low levels with MAD.

I.. Can't see the original post -.- Database backup. If you can use Wis from the start, then it makes FoB even more usable. The whole no moving thing is still a pain, but it's no longer missing everything. Thematically, (pretend you're a monk. :P) there's no introduction, just ok, now you can hit repeatedly. :D A Fighter builds up to Spring Attack, Ranger to TWF, but Monk just gets it as an ability at 10th. Was annoying to my brain? And again, I saw it as one of their main features. FoB, Speed, Slow Fall and Unarmed Attacks were better than most other classes. Not quite as good as with Improved Unarmed Damage *being now not usable for a Monk, but still better than other classes.*

I agree with Weapon Focus being a weak feat, it's just useful at low levels for the +1 to offset the -2 to BAB with the FoB. Doesn't mean it's not weak. It does mean you're slightly less MAD since you can drop Str slightly, but if you can get Wis to attack and damage then you no longer need that feat. I was just using it to make FoB useful at low levels to hit. Doesn't address the staying still annoyance, but FoB isn't as useless.


Path of Denial

Ah kay, I saw it as couldn't go before an immediate action, instead the action was postponed till the Monks next turn. Which opens up the Rogue going first from high Dex and wasting said Conjurer. If the Monk gets an equivalent of an AoO straight away before the immediate action resolves, that makes much more sense. Since the Monk is still faster and everyone else is left out of it. You may explain it brilliantly, but my brain is strange, so I'll read it differently anyway. :P


Timeless Body

I don't dislike Time Stop being broken, it fits for a Monk, it was just interesting since it copied the epic feat. Which is a very nice feat, but again, epic. Nova'ing the Ki pool to do so.. That makes sense since they're very limited in copying the feat, so no disagreement there.


Art of Deadly Wind, Deadly Weapons and Art of Deadly Gale

I completely agree, feats that are class abilities should be class abilities, not paying extra for them. In regards to weapon styles, I was thinking of the Ranger at the time, so the first thing that came to mind was Combat Style, and while the Ranger got one focus, it looked like the Monk got both. It's less drastic than that of course, just what I was thinking. The Monk can get Spring Attack tree with the Cobra style Unearthed Arcana variant, not ideal since it makes Escape Artist a main skill, but not terrible. In theory, since Spring Attack only gives one attack, you'd also need Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz to get the full FoB in RAW. No idea if it would be allowed, but 3 attacks and a move could get you at least 4 attacks and a move.

Also agree Monks don't get enough feats to be good at what they do and this variant works well at fixing that. It just makes them look like a Ranger/Ninja. Although if it fixes Monk then sweet. The weapons did get some bonuses in one of the books, but again, they required feats. Kama can make a flaying attack, sai gets a bonus on damage or some such. You could also enchant them, which made them useful compared to unarmed since even that required large amounts of feats to be nice. Well, doesn't require per se, I'd just never use a Monk without them. Feats that give you bonus attacks, allow charges, etc.


Resistances, SR

I like the SR and resistances, since it fits with the eventual transcendence. I may have explained that badly. But most characters don't get resistances to everything. Although most characters aren't Monks, and it seems they can't use armor even if it weighs nothing, so resistances are good. Modifying them with Ki though removes the magical creature thing, and makes it a Ninja. And Ascetic Stalker already does that anyway.

I suppose my greatest annoyance is putting Ki in. The Psion has their PSP's, the Sorc has their spells, the Ninja have Ki, while the Monk is just really good at what they do. We may be arguing the same side here, I just like the Monk as an independent character. Sorc/Psion/Ninja does a dungeon, they're done for the day, Monk can keep going, and going, and going. It's not magical as such, they have more in common with a Fighter than a caster, and they're almost the epitome of a solo class. They're not reliant on anyone else, they don't need healing like a Fighter, and they don't need someone else protecting them like a Wiz/Sorc.

To have that same restraint on them makes them less awesome. Also makes the transcendence thing kinda strange. With the core Monk, they got more magical as they went up in levels. Able to speak with everything, their hands/feet/etc became more powerful, etc. With the Ki, the Monk isn't getting better, they're just.. Actually Ki may fit better thematically so my argument could be moot. But you get the idea? From that terrible explanation of my thoughts.

I do like them being able to use their weapons, and the worst thing about the Monk, from my point of view of course, apart from FoB being almost useless, is that they can't use both weapons and unarmed strikes feat wise. They just need another 20 feats to be able to do so. With the longsword, if it was instead made a scimitar, could call it a Dao and they're now practitioners of Chang Quan. Would need spear, staff and more unarmed variation but the idea is nice. So that part of your variant I like. The only part I was disagreeing with was that a Ranger focused on one form, the Monk got both. Although Rangers get spells so yea, both is alright. But then the Ki thing comes in again.


Slow Fall, Tongue of Sun and Moon

With Slow Fall, I liked it being Ex, since against a Beholder I think it is, with that AMF eye of theirs. The Monk excelled against other characters, simply because if an AMF canceled flight, he didn't plummet and die. When I looked at yours it was Su which meant it sucked again. That was annoying, but just me liking the Monk being good at something for once. It could work better as Su, makes it less powerful and might even fit better. I just like Ex. If you changed it back then brilliant. Especially if Walk the River and the Cloudsis also Ex. Means against a Beholder, it's still a great class. Hell, against any AMF it's outdoing casters. And I like that a lot.

Was just seeing core Monk as making more sense. Removing Tongue of Sun and Moon was annoying. As you said, it's not overly useful, it's not OP so it wouldn't count against anything they get, just a nice thing to get. Made some sort of sense thematically, especially now with Ki a part of the Monk. "Zen out" till you reach a moment before transcendence, become one with all, able to communicate with all. Removing it whilst introducing Ki makes them look more and more like a Ninja. Especially with all the weapon bonuses. Only difference is that Monks can go unarmed, Ninjas usually use specific weapons, or get granted XWP's depending on the version. Completely agree with Quivering Palm though, the DC was low and once a week? Historically, or perhaps mythologically, it was a very powerful ability. The core implementation was sooooo bad. Kinda like Monk in general. The only thing they got right was the overall theme.



Gestalt idea

Gestalt idea.. Was reading Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, don't usually read adventures since a novel is the same thing, was just interested in seeing how one was run. And a combination of ideas led to a mental movie which I'm trying to implement.

Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Rogue
Monk - Assassin
Monk - Assassin
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter


Feat Progression (7 normal - 1 race (Human) - 5 class)

1: Shadow Heritage
1(Human Bonus): Combat Expertise
1(Fighter Bonus): Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Two-Bladed Sword)
1(Monk Bonus): Dodge
2(Fighter Bonus): Weapon Focus(Two-Bladed Sword)
3: Double Steel Strike
3(Monk Bonus): Mobility
4(Fighter Bonus): Improved Feint
6: Undo Resistance
6(Monk Bonus): Spring Attack
9: Improved Initiative
12: Bounding Assault
15: Rapid Blitz
18: -undecided-


Monk suppresses Telepathic Stutter at the start of each round, studies opponent from the shadows, then initiates Death Attack and turns Telepathic Stutter back on. Doesn't kill them instantly, so they teleport. Use Stowaway to go along for the ride, then charges, Dimension Door's and wastes them. Using Double Steel Strike for the Double-Bladed Sword. Can't get TWF tree, but can get the Spring Attack tree using a Monk variant from UA. Giving them the Dark template from Tome of Magic to keep that shadowy killer theme. Assumption was that if a Ranger can use their class abilities in armor, and a Wizard can too, no reason a Monk can't. Then give them shadowweave leather armor, with the amount of -encumbrance there it should be in negatives which makes them more durable. A BAB of around +18 if my calculations are right, mostly thanks to Fighter and DC.

Kind of silly to rail against Ki when I use a travel pool anyway. :P Just saw Ki as very much an eastern thing. OA, Lot5R, etc. And was trying to avoid having a class dependent on one pool for everything and keeping them as an.. Atheist? Independent of setting. Granted, Wiz/Sorc/Cleric rely on one pool, as does Ninja (which I like, every variant. :D) but. Eh, sentimental attachment to Monk. :P

Trying not to pit my idea against your variant, though I may have done so.. My apologies if I did because that's never fair. Even if it looks like we're going for the same thing.

The build just looked haphazard. Giving it Ranger combat style abilities, and FoB at 10. It looks like it could be a Prestige Class for a Ninja. Keeping their abilities as extraordinary made them unique.

But again, we may be arguing the same side and I do like your variant. I only dislike Ki for reasons stated above, and Tongue of Sun and Moon made that little bit of thematic sense. Almost completely useless too, especially considering that casters get spells like that way before the Monk. Which means leaving it in isn't killing the build. It isn't even making it OP since it's so late. Not necessary though, so I only dislike Ki, just for making it that little bit less independent.

*In regards to my build, going by another thread on this board Monks can't use armor, which doesn't make sense, but if that's the case, shadowweave leather armor is out, possibly also DC since half the reason for that was the Armored Ease.*

[T.G. Oskar]

An in depth response? :O

Intriguing and appreciated. It seems some of what I thought was just me thinking differently.

I tend to churn out in-depth and painstakingly long answers pretty easily, actually. Oddly enough, complex stuff is simpler for me than simplification of the answer most of the time.


If I was talking about Monk, I'd always point to FoB as one of their features. Sure, it was flawed in that it required a full action, made their speed useless, but it still fit thematically, historically and gave them an extra attack compared to Fighters. I know, you can get more attacks, but it was nice. 'shrugs' When I said scaling, I meant as in how it got higher as the class went up. Not very well, had to get to 20 for first attack to be +15, but still, it went up as the class went up. The -2 was a reasonable penalty, but again, useless at low levels with MAD.

I.. Can't see the original post -.- Database backup. If you can use Wis from the start, then it makes FoB even more usable. The whole no moving thing is still a pain, but it's no longer missing everything. Thematically, (pretend you're a monk. :P) there's no introduction, just ok, now you can hit repeatedly. :D A Fighter builds up to Spring Attack, Ranger to TWF, but Monk just gets it as an ability at 10th. Was annoying to my brain? And again, I saw it as one of their main features. FoB, Speed, Slow Fall and Unarmed Attacks were better than most other classes. Not quite as good as with Improved Unarmed Damage *being now not usable for a Monk, but still better than other classes.*

Hmm...I can notice that. Essentially, Flurry of Blows is an orphan feature, existing on its own. Couldn't have caught it easily, otherwise.

Part of why I migrated Flurry into 10th level was because I...actually had no idea what to do with it, but I didn't wanted it at 1st level and leave it stuck there. Flurry existed to salvage several things, such as the erratic 1/3 levels progression of the Monk's iterative attacks on 3rd Edition (before that was eliminated at 3.5), the lack of proper iterative attacks on a class meant to be a frontliner (unlike the Rogue, whose sneak attack added damage compensates for the lack of extra attacks), and minimize the penalties to counter the lack of BAB.

I could replace Flurry back to 1st level, but that would make the Monk a tad too frontloaded at that level, having four abilities (even if Ki Power doesn't enter play until 2nd level at most). Adding it as it was originally, with greater flurry at 10th or 11th level, would make a very, very, VERY strong Monk (three attacks at BAB +20 plus Wis, not to mention 2 or 3 extra attacks depending on the level), considering that as how Unarmed Strike works and the improvement of Monk special weapons, TWF also enters play. That would be my biggest hurdle, actually; Flurry + TWF is nasty, but not adding TWF to Flurry would be kinda beating the point of allowing Unarmed Strikes to count as two weapons for purposes of TWF. Three attacks at a -4 may seem a bit rough, but 9 attacks at a -2 seems like overkill.

That doesn't mean I won't consider it, though. I may delay ki power gain to 2nd level, since the Monk doesn't need ki until 2nd level.


I agree with Weapon Focus being a weak feat, it's just useful at low levels for the +1 to offset the -2 to BAB with the FoB. Doesn't mean it's not weak. It does mean you're slightly less MAD since you can drop Str slightly, but if you can get Wis to attack and damage then you no longer need that feat. I was just using it to make FoB useful at low levels to hit. Doesn't address the staying still annoyance, but FoB isn't as useless.

FoB isn't useless. It's actually a good method of combat, but it's flawed. Flawed doesn't mean it's useless; it means it's harder and less cost-effective (costs being standing still or expending various resources for swift-action movement) than, say, Snap Kick + regular standard attack. The issue of penalties to attack bonus was never an issue; after all, a Fighter with good Strength and Power Attack (and a good two-handed weapon) can use PA from the very 1st level and get huge gains. But PA is more cost effective with a 2-handed weapon and good Strength since you offset the costs (your Strength offsets the penalty to attack bonus) and you get a better gain (a 2:1 ratio of damage, and the loss of 5% to damage doesn't mean much since you can get a guaranteed hit).

Weapon Focus, on the other hand, is pretty much useless. At 1st level you get a good return (5% extra chance to-hit, hence returning a higher average damage), but since it doesn't scale properly (you need another feat to get another 5% increase, costing two feat slots), it's not cost-effective even to offset penalties from other classes. You may wanna take Weapon Focus (greatsword/greataxe) and Power Attack in order to offset the penalty to attack bonus at 1st level, but the more levels you gain, the bigger is the hurdle to surpass and the less effective Weapon Focus becomes in offsetting the damage. In the case of Flurry, that penalty (at least in the original) eventually disappears, leaving you with a net 5% better chance of landing a hit, with AC-to-attack bonus ratio usually higher than what you get from it. And it still doesn't make you "less MAD" since you don't get a damage increase, whereas Strength nets you an attack bonus increase and a damage increase. Feats are too precious to be wasted at 1st level, and Weapon Focus is a perfect way to waste that feat slot (unless you have retraining, but I usually measure utility of a class or build or feat or mechanic in the lack of need for retraining; this is a tabletop, not an MMO).


I completely agree, feats that are class abilities should be class abilities, not paying extra for them. In regards to weapon styles, I was thinking of the Ranger at the time, so the first thing that came to mind was Combat Style, and while the Ranger got one focus, it looked like the Monk got both. It's less drastic than that of course, just what I was thinking. The Monk can get Spring Attack tree with the Cobra style Unearthed Arcana variant, not ideal since it makes Escape Artist a main skill, but not terrible. In theory, since Spring Attack only gives one attack, you'd also need Bounding Assault and Rapid Blitz to get the full FoB in RAW. No idea if it would be allowed, but 3 attacks and a move could get you at least 4 attacks and a move.

I have a distinctive vision towards combat styles in general. I don't like self-promoting that much, but I can do this as a comparative; with my retooled Samurai and retooled Ranger, I changed the way combat styles should be. Some look and feel like feats, but their narrow foci and given abilities certainly don't make them feel like options, and allocating those to feat slots would remove some of the originality of the Ranger and forcing expenditure of feat slots for abilities that may not be as powerful as, say, devotion feats or Incarnum feats which are very, very nice.

In the case of the Monk, they may seem as combat styles, but they aren't; perhaps you noticed once again after a second look (or hopefully you did). They were meant to be enhancements to weapons that are normally ignored because of low damage and few knacks with it. They work better as Exotic Stunts, from the Exotic Weapon Master PrC in Complete Warrior; in fact, Art of Deadly Gale has integrated the Palm Shot ability from EWM in it. The difference is that while EWM deals only with exotic weapons, is meant for someone who specializes in a single exotic weapon, and is more of a detour than a conscious delve into a different "class", these abilities are meant to allow the Monk to use different weapons and use feats and other options to complement; you'd get the same kind of specialization, but in case you aren't with that weapon, you aren't completely helpless either.

As for Spring Attack; I feel that's another victim of the early 3.5 line of thought, and even from the very early 3e kind of thought. As it stands, Spring Attack doesn't offer a considerable benefit for what you need to expend, and wasting 5 feats to get 3 attacks and a double move is not very cost-effective either. With 6 feats (Snap Kick) you could do something useful, but it implies that you must remain in movement and probably expend all three attacks on different enemies. 6 feats absorbs pretty much the entire feat allocation of a non-human character without feat slots, and that hurts A LOT, more if you consider that one of the feats is useful in what you do but otherwise extremely situational (Mobility), and the other doesn't scale properly (Dodge) so they're not effective. Then came ToB and Bounding Assault and it shot Spring Attack out of the water, so...


Also agree Monks don't get enough feats to be good at what they do and this variant works well at fixing that. It just makes them look like a Ranger/Ninja. Although if it fixes Monk then sweet. The weapons did get some bonuses in one of the books, but again, they required feats. Kama can make a flaying attack, sai gets a bonus on damage or some such. You could also enchant them, which made them useful compared to unarmed since even that required large amounts of feats to be nice. Well, doesn't require per se, I'd just never use a Monk without them. Feats that give you bonus attacks, allow charges, etc.

The blood of all martial characters is their feats. Fighter would have been better if it had other class abilities than "a bunch of bonus feats", but because of that line of thought, other classes had fewer bonus feats thinking that their class abilities compensated. A martial character should have both class abilities and bonus feats geared towards combat in order to be successful (such as Warblade), and in the case of the Monk is doubly painful since the best way to make them useful is to provide them is to use loads of bonus feats to specialize in a very specific thing, and the few bonus feats they actually got were very, very, very limited in scope (two or three choices, more if you went on a martial arts path).

It's not bad to compare them to a Ranger or Ninja, tho. Ranger has its unique things (spells, favored enemy), and Ninja is an entirely different type of class altogether (the Ninja is a skill-monkey, not a frontliner like the Monk). Granting bonus feats as if they were a Fighter to the Monk strengthens them, never punishes them or cuts their flavor, precisely because it allows you to pull off stuff that you otherwise couldn't (such as getting Whirling Steel Strike and use a flurry with a longsword, but still have general feats for Travel Devotion, for example).


I suppose my greatest annoyance is putting Ki in. The Psion has their PSP's, the Sorc has their spells, the Ninja have Ki, while the Monk is just really good at what they do. We may be arguing the same side here, I just like the Monk as an independent character. Sorc/Psion/Ninja does a dungeon, they're done for the day, Monk can keep going, and going, and going. It's not magical as such, they have more in common with a Fighter than a caster, and they're almost the epitome of a solo class. They're not reliant on anyone else, they don't need healing like a Fighter, and they don't need someone else protecting them like a Wiz/Sorc.

To have that same restraint on them makes them less awesome. Also makes the transcendence thing kinda strange. With the core Monk, they got more magical as they went up in levels. Able to speak with everything, their hands/feet/etc became more powerful, etc. With the Ki, the Monk isn't getting better, they're just.. Actually Ki may fit better thematically so my argument could be moot. But you get the idea? From that terrible explanation of my thoughts.

That may be a little bit of a problem. You may want to check jiriku (sic) and his Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150122), which doesn't use ki at all but addresses some of the troubles with the class.

Reason is because I find that ki is fundamental to the Monk, and because I found the mechanic to be very useful but limited (in the scope that it got). Perhaps it doesn't have to be called ki; perhaps Psionics is ki, and the daily uses of the Monk's abilities are called in a different way. It's just that Psionics has a distinctive Western flavor (blame that on having Greek terms polluting psionic studies and that most "psychics" are Westerners), while ki has a more Eastern flavor, and since it bases on a concept that's not entirely Japanese (qi is the correct term, actually). But all you need is to reflavor it. Perhaps you are emulating the power of animals and magical beasts, and you have daily uses of "animal stunts" that power up your supernatural abilities. When you Walk the River and the Clouds and you expend one daily use of your "animal stunts", you are emulating animals that float on the air or over water. What made me fall in love with the mechanic is that it allowed the Monk to use abilities that fell between the extraordinary and the supernatural, that weren't spells, but that didn't merit having a limited list.

I find that most abilities fall under the range of "X + ability score" (such as Turn Undead; 3+Charisma makes for a good amount of uses) in order to have enough uses in-between daily and encounter-based. In the case of "ki", it's a pool from where you can draw those mechanics to use supernatural abilities that would be a tad too powerful to be used at-will or encounter-based, but too weak to be left as daily uses. I may argue that the amount of uses of ki should be expanded (3 for every 4 levels, or 4 for every 5 levels, or even one per level) as I see it more and more, but as it works, it allows you to consider very carefully when to use those powers (preventing nova'ing) but giving you enough uses of those abilities during the day, and preventing stocks of abilities that otherwise would be situational.

Speaking in simpler terms, and with examples: Wholeness of Body's recharge of the HP pool may not be used always, enchanting your unarmed strikes may slowly become situational or pointless if you get Necklace of Natural Attacks, and Still Mind eventually becomes a permanent ability through Diamond Mind; thus, having separate daily uses for each eventually becomes detrimental because you'll have abilities that you'll eventually stop using. On the meanwhile, Fleeting Step and Abundant Step are abilities that you may be using more and more, and limiting them to a very small amount (such as that granted by Turn Undead; 3 + ability score) would make them a risk. The Ki mechanic is a compromise between the two; you have a lot of abilities that draw upon a single pool, which allows you to expend what you need, when you need it. I liked that on the Ninja, and I found that it was a good mechanic that required a big load of improvement. I implemented it on the Monk, readapted it into the Ninja, and added it to the Samurai, and I find those additions work very well into the "chassis" of the class (the sets of abilities it acquires in every level).

Limiting the ki mechanic to the Ninja, or limiting the "aura" mechanic to the Marshal and Dragon Shaman were detrimental to them, since they could have had much more support. Ninjas only got support from Dragon Magazine and Complete Scoundrel; Dragon Shamans only got support from Dragon Magic, and Marshals got support...well, they got support from Player's Handbook II and Complete Champion, but Adrenaline Boost wasn't helping the aura mechanic and Mythic Exemplar doesn't help the Marshal at all, period (and I can prove it, and have someone that can support that statement). Those mechanics were good, but never fully pushed, and existed as one-off mechanics that were easily swept away (much like shadowcasting or truenaming, the latter specifically after having LOADS of support in Forgotten Realms, it was translated so badly that it hurts and afterwards no longer supported at all; the former at least had some support in Cityscape but only adding 9 more mysteries). I sought to rescue that ki mechanic (and eventually the aura, shadowcasting and truenaming mechanics) and expand it, finding it was a very elegant and useful system that had the ease of spellcasting but separated from it.

That is why I added the ki mechanic to the Monk. If the concept of ki seems far too flavored on the East, find a close concept in a fantastic world and use that term. Don't see ki as a flavor thing, but as a mechanical thing; however, ki is the closest association with it, and that is what I ascribe to. As it stood, the Monk was meant to be better than other martial characters (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassAbnormal) by means of intense training (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TrainingFromHell)which allowed them to trascend into the supernatura (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperpowerLottery)l; in practice, it ended up being weaker than other classes (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWorfEffect), including the Fighter that it was supposed to deal with.

Sorry if I stole a few years from your life with those links. It happens.


I do like them being able to use their weapons, and the worst thing about the Monk, from my point of view of course, apart from FoB being almost useless, is that they can't use both weapons and unarmed strikes feat wise. They just need another 20 feats to be able to do so. With the longsword, if it was instead made a scimitar, could call it a Dao and they're now practitioners of Chang Quan. Would need spear, staff and more unarmed variation but the idea is nice. So that part of your variant I like. The only part I was disagreeing with was that a Ranger focused on one form, the Monk got both. Although Rangers get spells so yea, both is alright. But then the Ki thing comes in again.

Well, again; the Ranger specializes in a way that no one else is meant to be better than him when using that combat style, while the Monk uses weapons that nobody would use in their right mind; the kama was a variant of a sickle, an agricultural tool much like the flail does but much harder to use as well; the sai wasn't meant to be used as a weapon at all just like the jitte; the dart and the shuriken serve better as carriers than as damage dealers... I made it so that they didn't have to spend their feat slots specializing in 20 different weapons, which you and I can agree that is beneficial to the Monk, but some weapons are not easily associated with the Monk (such as the longsword; that is associated to the Swordsage to be precise), and thus having them as a one-feat option makes them much more worthwhile, without relying on having loads of feats just to be good on one weapon. The feat changes on posts after the first are meant to address that a bit.


Was just seeing core Monk as making more sense. Removing Tongue of Sun and Moon was annoying. As you said, it's not overly useful, it's not OP so it wouldn't count against anything they get, just a nice thing to get. Made some sort of sense thematically, especially now with Ki a part of the Monk. "Zen out" till you reach a moment before transcendence, become one with all, able to communicate with all. Removing it whilst introducing Ki makes them look more and more like a Ninja. Especially with all the weapon bonuses. Only difference is that Monks can go unarmed, Ninjas usually use specific weapons, or get granted XWP's depending on the version.

You can find other ways to communicate with people, animals and plants, to "Zen out" to the world. Handle Animal is a rudimentary form of communication with animals; Speak Language is the way to handle speaking with other people; Speak with Plants could be handled by means of an incantation or magic item. Tongue of Sun and Moon was a purely flavor ability, much like, say, granting a castle or something like that; it's not something that can be used favorably in a battle, and that its best to make it something abstract and suitable for roleplaying instead. I could see Tongue of Sun and Moon as a Truenamer ability because they would need to have such a control over language to speak the Primordial language, the language of Creation, the language that effectively codes the world. But the Monk? That is a very, very, very specific ability that wouldn't be missed otherwise.

As for the similarities between Monk and Ninja: they exist in real life, but they are also quite diverse mechanically speaking. The Monk IRL is an ascetic, a warrior and an individual that improves himself, and mechanically I translated that as a strong frontliner character who can be both mobile and static, having huge skill with movement but equal skill at staying in one side and resisting everything they get hit with. The Ninja isn't an ascetic, but it focuses on similar martial arts and thrives on stealth and deception; that is mechanically translated as a skill-monkey who uses his martial art abilities to power stealth and deception. I dealt with both classes and attempted to make a huge difference from them, and I found that both classes had abilities they could share (Ninja could share the ki mechanic with Monk, Monk could share unarmed strike and Art of Deadly Wind). But they are strikingly different; the Monk can effectively fly, walk on water, withstand physical and energy damage, move swifter than anyone and hit like a truck while the Ninja can become invisible, strike on vulnerable spots, disguise almost flawlessly, breathe fire or acid, and so on. Again, don't perceive that their main similarities lie because of their unarmed martial arts, Wis bonus to AC and use of ki; Monks may use ki for self-improvement and Ninja uses ki for their ninjutsu. They are similar and at the same time different, and the fact that they share quite a lot doesn't mean they'll be played similarly or that I'm reducing any originality to the Monk.


Gestalt idea.. Was reading Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, don't usually read adventures since a novel is the same thing, was just interested in seeing how one was run. And a combination of ideas led to a mental movie which I'm trying to implement.

Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Fighter
Monk - Rogue
Monk - Assassin
Monk - Assassin
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Hellbreaker
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Dread Commando
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter
Monk - Jaunter


Feat Progression (7 normal - 1 race (Human) - 5 class)

1: Shadow Heritage
1(Human Bonus): Combat Expertise
1(Fighter Bonus): Exotic Weapon Proficiency(Two-Bladed Sword)
1(Monk Bonus): Dodge
2(Fighter Bonus): Weapon Focus(Two-Bladed Sword)
3: Double Steel Strike
3(Monk Bonus): Mobility
4(Fighter Bonus): Improved Feint
6: Undo Resistance
6(Monk Bonus): Spring Attack
9: Improved Initiative
12: Bounding Assault
15: Rapid Blitz
18: -undecided-


Monk suppresses Telepathic Stutter at the start of each round, studies opponent from the shadows, then initiates Death Attack and turns Telepathic Stutter back on. Doesn't kill them instantly, so they teleport. Use Stowaway to go along for the ride, then charges, Dimension Door's and wastes them. Using Double Steel Strike for the Double-Bladed Sword. Can't get TWF tree, but can get the Spring Attack tree using a Monk variant from UA. Giving them the Dark template from Tome of Magic to keep that shadowy killer theme. Assumption was that if a Ranger can use their class abilities in armor, and a Wizard can too, no reason a Monk can't. Then give them shadowweave leather armor, with the amount of -encumbrance there it should be in negatives which makes them more durable. A BAB of around +18 if my calculations are right, mostly thanks to Fighter and DC.

Kind of silly to rail against Ki when I use a travel pool anyway. :P Just saw Ki as very much an eastern thing. OA, Lot5R, etc. And was trying to avoid having a class dependent on one pool for everything and keeping them as an.. Atheist? Independent of setting. Granted, Wiz/Sorc/Cleric rely on one pool, as does Ninja (which I like, every variant. :D) but. Eh, sentimental attachment to Monk. :P

Trying not to pit my idea against your variant, though I may have done so.. My apologies if I did because that's never fair. Even if it looks like we're going for the same thing.

The build just looked haphazard. Giving it Ranger combat style abilities, and FoB at 10. It looks like it could be a Prestige Class for a Ninja. Keeping their abilities as extraordinary made them unique.

But again, we may be arguing the same side and I do like your variant. I only dislike Ki for reasons stated above, and Tongue of Sun and Moon made that little bit of thematic sense. Almost completely useless too, especially considering that casters get spells like that way before the Monk. Which means leaving it in isn't killing the build. It isn't even making it OP since it's so late. Not necessary though, so I only dislike Ki, just for making it that little bit less independent.

*In regards to my build, going by another thread on this board Monks can't use armor, which doesn't make sense, but if that's the case, shadowweave leather armor is out, possibly also DC since half the reason for that was the Armored Ease.*

You don't need to call it ki, you know. You can figure that there may be another way to use the pool and call it a different way. For example, the idea of "animal stunts". Perceive "ki" as a mechanic to allow the use of abilities, and allow the "Monk" to train by a different means; perhaps your character is a very disciplined member of a savage land, trained on a secret martial art that uses the power of the soul and counts their power through the use of "breaths" or "exhalations", but they don't use shuriken and kama but instead two-bladed swords and dashing movements.

First, I find Scout is more suitable than Rogue, and the Assassin's Death Attack isn't always that powerful (not to mention that you seem to ignore the utility of the Assassin's spell list, or at least use it to get to Jaunter). Swift Hunter allows Ranger and Scout levels to stack, you get Skirmish which is not Sneak Attack but pretty darn close, and you can land Skirmish in creatures such as Undead, Constructs, Plants, Oozes and others. That also allows you to enter into Ranger and get a few levels from it, getting TWF and ITWF and more Skirmish from that (perhaps even replacing the spells for more feats), not to mention that it also grants Wild Empathy (slightly better than Tongue of Sun and Moon since it allows you to negotiate with animals).

Second, I don't get the utility of Dread Commando: with Ranger + Scout and more levels of the former than the latter (maybe Ranger X/Scout 5, where you get Evasion which you can replace for Spell Reflection; maybe also replace Monk's Evasion for Invisible Fist and get to Ranger 9 for actual Evasion). Armored Ease would work only if you had armor, which you don't need, and Skirmish is much better than Sudden Strike even if you don't get much more damage (but your unarmed strikes compensate for that). Neither with Assassin: you're using it for...one spell, perhaps, and Imp. Uncanny Dodge. Jaunter is also another class that doesn't make much sense, since most of what you'd get with the Jaunter you get with the Monk (fast movement, Dim Door, Freedom of Movement), unless what you intend to is getting more uses of that (in which case, just pop off Extra Ki on a feat slot and just get more Ranger levels, since if you replace the Ranger spellcasting you'd get two/three more feats). Improved Skirmish would grant you more Skirmish damage so as long as you move more than 20 ft. (and you can do so as a swift action, so no worries), which would leave you with either TWF or Spring Attack. And since you have Skirmish, you still qualify for Hellbreaker (though you may not get enough Sneak Attack to pull off Steal Spell-Like Ability, but I don't see you using that though).

I see your build working better a bit like this:
{TABLE=head]Level|Class 1|Class 2|Feats|Alternate Class Features
1st|Monk|Scout|Dodge/Expeditious Dodge/Midnight Dodge, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (two-bladed sword) (H), Weapon Focus (two-bladed sword) (M)|
2nd|Monk|Scout||
3rd|Monk|Scout|Mobility|Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil, replace Evasion)
4th|Monk|Scout|Combat Expertise(Sc)|
5th|Monk|Scout||
6th|Monk|Ranger|Spring Attack (M), Swift Hunter, Track (Rng)|
7th|Monk|Ranger|TWF (Rng)|
8th|Monk|Ranger|Endurance (Rng)|
9th|Monk|Ranger|Imp. Feint (Rng), Undo Resistance|Invisible Fist (replace Imp. Evasion), Nature's Warrior (Complete Champion)
10th|Monk|Assassin|
11th|Monk|Hellbreaker|Double Steel Strike (M)
12th|Monk|Hellbreaker|Bounding Assault
13th|Monk|Hellbreaker|
14th|Monk|Hellbreaker|
15th|Monk|Ranger|Improved Skirmish|
16th|Monk|Ranger|Improved TWF (Rng), Greater TWF (M)
17th|Monk|Ranger|
18th|Monk|Ranger|Rapid Blitz (Rng), 1 extra feat|Nature's Warrior
19th|Monk|Ranger||Spell Reflection (Complete Mage)
20th|Monk|Ranger|[/TABLE]

This way, you get both TWF and Spring Attack at maximum potential, while still getting pretty much the rest. You should use the Assassin level to spend as much as you can on Bluff, given that you'll have at least 6 points to spend on whatever you want and you'll spend at least one point on Disguise at earlier levels, before entering Hellbreaker. Invisible Fist will allow you to become invisible (and since Evasion/Imp. Evasion are on the same places, the ACF still applies), Spell Reflection will be strong coupled with your huge AC Bonus and the second tier of Invisible Fist, about 6d6 of Skirmish damage and +5 AC from Improved Skirmish and Swift Hunter (which can be applied on other creatures based on your favored enemy choices, of which you have 3), plus 2d6 Sneak Attack damage from Assassin and Hellbreaker, plus Death Attack which you still can use (though you'll need another method of study), and all the feats you needed except Shadow Heritage (which I find pretty weak unless you used it for fluff or unless you were intending to use Planar Touchstones) and Improved Initiative (and more than what you would have ever wanted, actually!).

[Newt]

Even more text


FoB
The whole point of FoB was no TWF. Rangers, Fighters and SA twinking Rogues get TWF, Monks get FoB which works even better theoretically. It's like that build you posted below, if I have TWF and all of the Spring Attack tree through to Rapid Blitz with a scalable Dodge feat, Midnight ftw, then I don't need FoB. And I'm limiting myself by playing Monk. Can go Ranger, Scout. Even a few levels of Ranger, some Fighter, then Rogue all the way with one level of Monk and the feat which lets Monk stack with Rogue. Or could have been Ranger.. Then I get the unarmed damage with no Monk. And I can wear light armor.

Hence why FoB was seen as important. Without it, they're just a Rogue/Ninja who TWF's unarmed.

Yea, Weapon Focus was bad. But I'm fairly certain it's required for the feat, and that +1 is a useful static bonus. It's not great, wand of Bulls Strength gives a better bonus to attack, but that doesn't work in an AMF. :P


Combat Styles

The weapons the Monk uses are below par, but that's kinda the point. Ascetic dude has a kama which beats the devils DR and can hit like a TWF Ranger. Granted, mechanically it's a pain. Can't get the same damage out of a sai as a greatsword, even with enchantments. And FoB was implemented badly. Eh, again, diverging from the original Monk to make a different version. I like the version, but it isn't a Monk. :P

Sure, Spring Attack is a fairly annoying feat tree. Rapid Blitz and Bounding Assault improved it, allowing 3 attacks and 2 targets for your Dodge feat. Which if you have access to Magic of Incarnum is definitely Midnight Dodge for the chance to up the bonus later with Bonus Essentia and a level in an Incarnum based class. It's kinda like what the Monks speed and FoB meld should have been, and the aim of the build I posted. Mobility and attacks.


Fighter's your blank slate, you're given feats and told to have fun. You know those people who say we need Rogue, Spellcaster, Warrior? It's for them. :P Like 1e and 4e, you have base classes, you build from that. You can build some decent classes with a Fighter, but class abilities do seem to do it better.


Monk isn't really a frontliner though, it's like the Rogue in aim. Again, FoB stuffed that, but instead of SA'ing around the place, it FoB's. Monk, Ninja, Ranger, Rogue. All from the same cloth, although it would be Monk/Rogue and Ranger/Ninja. One set operates by itself, the other has a pool it operates by. Can get by without it, but why would you?


Ki

Jiriku's.. Is actually what I was going for with that gestalt. Several abilities seem to have been mixed up, but it's still a core Monk. Yours is an OA Monk. Useful, highly resistant to pretty much everything but the Ki interferes with it. Explained more below. next paragraph actually

Yea, flavour is mutable, but it's still making the class limited. Oh no, ki's gone, we're done for the day. If you're up against monsters that have DR 10/x, and you spend all your Ki enchanting your arms, when the Ki is gone you're finished. Ignoring all DR is good, but as it is, the core Monk beats yours simply because it isn't stuffed after a few rounds. In effect, Ki Strike forces you to nova your Ki pool. Even at high levels, you're still nova'ing to bypass DR. May as well drop unarmed and just enchant a weapon.

And the reason I prefer Jaunter is because I'm not using a massive Dimension Door, I'm jumping behind an opponent, over a chasm, up a wall, whatever. That wall might only be 30ft up, 10 meters, sounds like a decent wall. That's not a full DD's worth, but I'm using that anyway. Granted, if I get some jump feats I can just jump up there. But that's just as bad.

I do think those systems are useful. I like them as a magic alternative, especially if they're completely separate from magic. Ki != Magic != PSP's != Shadowcasting != Truenaming != Binding != Incarnum and so on. Having multiple separate systems grants more variety and makes more sense in the DnD world. Shar and Mystra control the two weaves, and everything else? If they do that they're on par with Ao for power level, not as "weak" as they are now. In Forgotten Realms of course, but since that has Magic and Ki at least, it seemed a good reference point.

I do think Ki is mechanical, so I won't call it psionics. It's Ki. :P That's just me liking separate systems, if they're all exactly the same, then sure interchange the names, but then just scrap them altogether and call it magic.


Weapons

Kama _is_ a sickle. Asian sickle, but still a sickle. Sai worked as a weapon, but yea, was more for disarming. Although I'm sure someone decided to sharpen the point. Makes a perfect stabbing weapon with punching and disarming as a bonus. Shuriken were diversions. Have to be at that size. Throw a handful, enemy soldiers are going to at the very least turn their head away, thus slowing them down, so you can get away. Always thought jitte was a weapon? Could be wrong though.
But granting Monks bonuses with them isn't a bad thing. It even makes sense to limit certain weapons to Monks and Monks only. Kusarigama and manriki-gusari for example. For a normal person, it's like trying to fence with a kitchen knife, or attaching a piece of string said kitchen knife. They should be non-proficent with kama, and get massive penalties for trying to use a kusarigama. Which I think was in one of the Lot5R books. Monks, having trained with them, should get Weapon Focus as a minimum for their class level. Just my thoughts, but anyone who spends several thousand hours with a knife or sickle on a chain should get something for it.

Most weapons are associated with Monks though, a martial art of some description. France we have the foil, then the cane. Malaysia has the Kris, China has various forms using everything from spears to swords to a flail equivalent. To balls on each end of a string filled with oil and set on fire. :P

There was an idea I saw on.. Enworld I think it was, they suggested giving Monks a selection of weapons to choose from, granting them the XWP, I'd add Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, but then we're just ditching Fighter as even potentially useful. Possibly XWP at 1st level, WF at 5th, WS at 10th. That's only if modeling on real world forms anyway.



Tongue of Sun and Moon

lol, we agree, it's almost completely useless. I just see it as nice flavour and may as well leave it in since it's so under powered. Just opinion.


Ninja v Monk

Nah, Ninja was a commando equivalent in RL, Monk is just that, a Monk. Historically Ninja's wouldn't even have used most of the weapons people give them credit for. Kusarigama for instance, who attaches a chain to their sickle? Sure, if you're under cover in enemy territory a kama is fine. But anything that has no RL application would be way too dangerous to carry. May as well grab a sword and bow if you're sneaking in. Unless we're talking pop culture Ninjas, in which case think of the strangest and silliest thing you can come up with and go with it. Pajamas on your head for example.

Monks are much more likely to use something eosteric, simply because that's what they do. Finding perfection through mastery of a weapon that's not meant to be a weapon is a great way of learning patience at least. :P And it looks cool. It would also teach you more about how everything interacts. With a weapon on a chain, the weapon is kept moving, flowing, and no jarring motions. Otherwise you're more likely to cut yourself or smack yourself in the back of the head.

In game terms, Monks and Ninjas retain that difference. Albeit not with historical accuracy, but they tried. Ninjas are stealthy killers, Monks are ascetic warriors. Tumbling alongside Rogues who I see as closer to a Monk than a Ninja, so that could be where we're disagreeing.

So my opinion that it's a prestige class for Ninjas stands. On the one hand, they get better with their exotic weaponry, which is good. They also get their abilities improved, which is good. But they lose their ingrained Ki for a Ki pool which ruins their anti DR capabilities, they lose FoB and Tongue of Sun and Moon, again, flavour and only that, but it's the point of it. So now they're TWF Ninjas with Wis to AC and bonus to unarmed damage. Again, I do like the principles behind it, using Ki is great. It's just that making the class dependent on Ki means you need a lot of it to be useful. And you don't get a lot of it.



Build

Jaunter was for Dimension Door mostly, using a core Monk, you get one DD. Using Jaunter, you get 120ft, usable 10ft at once. Getting into Nightcrawler/Shadowdancer territory here, but it seemed more useful than one full DD. The bonus to movement, teleport, planeshift, etc all useful but extras. Although movement is nice since it's untyped thus stacks with Monk.

Assassin has a great spell list, but Death Attack is Int dependent which that build wasn't, it was more for the 1d6SA and skill points. The aim of Dread Commando was to ditch Dex all together, hence the Improved Initiative feat. Shadowweave armor also grants some hide/move silently bonuses which kept with the theme. But Assassin was more for the 1d6, gets to Hellbreaker which was for Stowaway and Telepathic Static. Undo Resistance and Steal Spell-like ability are useful but not always needed. If a party was running into trouble dealing with a spell like ability, then steal away and hold for as long as possible.

Dread Commando also gave Sudden Strike, only 3d6 but with 3d6/4d6 SA. Not sure if Skirmish counts as SA for entry into classes, hence Rogue and Assassin. TWF is useful, but with DD I can pull off a FoB since activating isn't a standard action I don't think.

So so far the stats needed are Str, Con. Wis to AC if it works with armor, otherwise not needed as much. Dex would almost be more useful than Wis since ACP would be 0. It's a usable Monk. :P Was tossing up between theme and usefulness, if useful then drop Weap Focus, XWP and Double Steel Strike for Roundabout Kick, Improved Critical for unarmed and feat of choice.

If I dropped DC, then would probably use more Assassin to up the SA, but then I'd need Int for spells. So.. Str, Con, Dex, Int. Wis for AC as well, we're back where we started. So ditch DC and get.. Kensai? From OA I think it is, grants improved critical again, and stacks with the feat. If I have enough levels, can get crit range for unarmed strikes to the point where Roundabout Kick is giving me more attacks on a regular basis. Can get the crit range for a scimitar to 13-20, with to hit 4-20. This would be much less, but still reasonable.

I could get Intuitive Strike and ditch Str, but I still need damage, which would have to come from enchants or SA/equiv. Keeping in mind this was with core Monk, not your variant. So it has all the drawbacks core has. And as said above, I have FoB, I don't want TWF. There's no point having FoB if I have to get the TWF tree, otherwise I'm rolling Fighter. Spring Attack.. Actually I feel the same way, but at least it isn't replicating a class ability I already have.

[T.G. Oskar]

Months later, all I can say is: you lose some, you win some. Really didn't intended to make a mobile, roguish kinda class (that's what I feel the Ninja is for anyways), but perhaps "mobile frontliner" or "mobile melee semi-tank" of sorts. With ki, that is.

Aaaaanyways...made a few changes (it seems I can't stop retooling this fella, ain't it?) Diamond Body, which was changed to granting DR, now grants a small but considerable amount of DR (5, but it can be upgraded to 10 if need arises), making the Monk slightly better when having to stay still. Furthermore, Ki Strike is now close to what most people envision it, and a sort of throwback to what they should have done with it in 3.0; basically, it grants a scaling enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls, so you get a +5 unarmed strike at 20th level. Late, sure, but with the ki enhancement you can get it at around level 16th, and probably much earlier with what I'll work with below. Plus, it makes you less dependent on expending ki so that your weapons are magical, but then again, it's basically "everything the Monk touches is magic" (resorting to The Police references!?).

Also, I was a bit lazy and didn't got to deal with the rest of the "special Monk weapons" as presented in other supplements. Here's the list of the remaining weapons in their own, convenient format:

--
SPECIAL MONK WEAPONS
Some weapons, such as the kama, nunchaku, sai, siangham and shuriken are considered “special monk weapons”, which allow the monk to wield them with proficiency and use them as part of their flurry of blows. This retooling grants more utility to such weapons, as well as other weapons that may not seem much use (darts and slings as simple ranged weapons, and quarterstaffs as a simple melee weapon). All of these are located in the Player’s Handbook, while the blowgun is located in the Asian Weapons section of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

In other supplements, several other monk weapons have appeared, which are not part of the core weapons. If the campaign has access to the following weapons, treat them as special monk weapons; thus, the monk automatically gains proficiency with them, and depending on whether they are ranged or melee, they increase the amount of damage they deal. In the case of melee weapons, the monk also has special features that apply exclusively to them by means of the Deadly Weapon class feature:

Butterfly Sword (OA p70): a monk may apply the benefits of special abilities and/or enhancement bonuses to attack and damage rolls when using a butterfly sword’s guard to make unarmed strikes (the monk does not actually make an unarmed strike, but uses the weapon’s guard as a knuckle duster and uses a punching motion). Using the butterfly sword in this way allows the monk to deal bludgeoning damage, and deals damage as if using an unarmed strike.

Cutting Wheel (SoS p135): a monk treats the cutting wheel as an unarmed strike for purposes of determining damage (thus, a monk deals 1d10 slashing damage with this weapon instead of 1d8). If the monk makes a successful disarm attempt with this weapon, she is treated as if she had succeeded on a melee attack, but she deals only half damage.

Jitte (OA p71): when fighting with a jitte, the monk gains a +2 bonus to Armor Class while fighting defensively, and a +4 bonus to AC if using total defense. This is in addition to bonuses to Armor Class gained by using these abilities, and stack with any other feat or ability that grants a similar bonus. A character with Improved Disarm may immediately make a disarm attempt with a successful block while using this ability; treat as if using an attack of opportunity, except the monk makes a disarm attempt instead.

Hook Sword (SoS p136): a monk is treated as if having the Two-Weapon Fighting feat when using two hook swords, and her hook swords are treated as light weapons for purposes of determining penalties to attack rolls exclusively. If she has the Flying Tiger weapon style feat (see Secrets of Sarlona page 117), she is instead treated as if having Improved Two-Weapon Fighting for purposes of determining extra attacks.

Lajatang (OA p73): as quarterstaff, but the monk deals slashing damage instead. Also, a monk gains a +2 bonus on disarm attempts when using a lajatang.

Longstaff (CAdv p116): as quarterstaff, but a monk using this weapon also gains a +2 shield bonus to Armor Class when fighting defensively, using the total defense action, or using Combat Expertise with a penalty of at least -2.

Monk's Cane (SoS p135): this weapon is treated as a throwing weapon for purposes of determining damage when thrown, and as a melee weapon to determine damage when making a melee attack. If she has the Ranged Disarm feat and makes a ranged disarm attempt, the monk is treated as if she had succeeded on a ranged attack, but she deals only half damage.

Monk's Spade (SoS p136): as a full-round action, a monk using this weapon may make two attack at all creatures adjacent to her by spinning her weapon, as if she was using the Whirlwind Attack feat. Both attacks are dealt at her highest base attack bonus, but the monk takes a -2 penalty on the attack. The first attack deals the weapon’s slashing damage, while the second attack deals the weapon’s bludgeoning damage (use this to determine which damage type and critical multiplier applies).

Nekode (OA p74): a monk treats the nekode (or baghnak) as an unarmed strike for purposes of determining damage (thus, a monk deals 1d10 damage with this weapon instead of 1d8). A monk may use the nekode to deal either bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage (even if the weapon normally allows only piercing damage).

Steel Flute (SoS p136): as club.

Three-Section Staff (OA p74): as quarterstaff. Also, a monk gains a +2 bonus on disarm attempts when using a three-section staff.

Tonfa (OA p74): when fighting with a tonfa, the monk gains a +2 bonus to Armor Class while fighting defensively, and a +4 bonus to AC if using total defense. This is in addition to bonuses to Armor Class gained by using these abilities, and stack with any other feat or ability that grants a similar bonus. As well, if the monk has the Two-Weapon Defense feat, the shield bonus to AC gained with this feat (and improved versions, such as Improved Two-Weapon Defense) when fighting with two tonfa increases by 2 (but only when using two tonfa). Finally, the monk treats the tonfa as an unarmed strike for purposes of determining damage (thus, a monk deals 1d10 bludgeoning damage with this weapon instead of 1d8).

CAdv: Complete Adventurer
OA: Oriental Adventures (some of the weapons are present in Complete Warrior as well.
SoS:Secrets of Sarlona

==

Furthermore, I decided to add commentary regarding Monks and their lack of weapons and armor. This basically addresses how to use gauntlets to enhance unarmed strikes, Bracers of Armor to address armor special enhancements (or some of the mages' robes), or using "handwraps" and "outfits" (darn you, Turbine!!!), or even directly enhancing the monk as if it were a Warforged (since so many people requested it, but this time, I went with armor special abilities as well):

--
MONKS AND EQUIPMENT
One particular benefit that most monks may not benefit from is the ability to enchant their unarmed strikes with weapon special qualities, or the ability to benefit from armor or shield special qualities. This is because monks are not proficient with any kind of armor or shield, and because they are better suited to use unarmed strikes. This fact makes monks usually dependent on allies for abilities that they would otherwise gain from a weapon, and causes them to lose their edge very quickly against other martial characters (of particular note the swordsage, whose unarmed adaptation as defined in the Tome of Battle: the Book of Nine Swords is often considered a clear replacement to the monk). Monks may benefit from items such as amulets of mighty fists and bracers of armor without losing their combat abilities (such as their AC bonus or their slow fall), but these are often costlier than wearing light armor.

One way to address this trouble is to allow some equipment to improve unarmed strikes. The deadly weapons class ability of the retooled monk grants a measure of power with special monk weapons, but it still leaves the monk’s signature weapon (her body) without benefit. One way is to allow gauntlets to count as unarmed strikes for purposes of determining damage and whether the monk may use special abilities with them (such as flurry of blows); that way, the monk may “enchant” her unarmed strikes with existing weapons. For purposes of armor, bracers of armor and robes that grant armor bonuses may be enchanted as if they were masterwork armor, with the cost of enhancements added to the general cost of the item (but this latter option is also quite expensive, even more than wielding armor).

Another option is to allow certain items to be enhanced as if they were weapons or armor which may be used by the monk. As a recommendation, a monk may wield special handwraps which may contain special enhancements and which cost is negligible; in this case, treat the handwraps as if they were masterwork weapons for purposes of enchanting them, but do not add the 300 gp cost. Similarly, treat monk outfits as if they were masterwork armor for purposes of receiving armor special enhancements, using the rules for handwraps. It is the DMs decision whether only the monk, or classes that have skill with unarmed strikes as the monk, may benefit from these special items or whether they are usable by anyone; in the former case, only monks, ninja, samurai, sohei and swordsages may benefit from these items (the latter regardless of whether it is adapted to gain the unarmed strike progression of a monk or not).

Finally, albeit a difficult method, is to directly enchant the monk’s body with the special enhancements, allowing the monk to gain weapon and armor special enhancements with the added benefit of always having them, instead of gaining them through a weapon or suit of armor. The way to do this requires a ritual in which the monk must meditate while the crafter imbues the arcane (or divine) energies to create magic items into the body through a series of unguents and etchings. Treat the ritual as if enchanting a masterwork weapon or armor (or improving an already magical item), except the monk and the caster must both be in the area, and both must refrain from making any other activities while the ritual is in place. Once finished, the monk gains the benefit of the weapon or armor special enhancement. A monk may have its unarmed strikes and body directly enhanced with special abilities after 4th level (when the monk gains the ki strike class ability and her first bonus to AC), and she is treated as if a weapon (or armor) with a +1 enhancement bonus. The DM may determine whether a monk’s body may be enhanced directly, albeit the former methods to provide monks with weapon and armor special abilities are recommended over this method.

==

Finally, remember where I made the "fixes" to feats in order to accommodate the changes to the Retooled Monk? Check it again; making a slight adjustment to Amulets of Mighty Fists (although they only work with unarmed strikes; you want the same for natural weapons, you get the Necklace of Natural Attacks instead).

One more thing, a bit extraofficially: what else should I post for this month (aside from applying the fixes to Ninja and Samurai, and the deities)? A new retooled class (I got a few nice ones), or a new retooled PrC, or even whatever few original classes and PrCs I have developed, or...even alterations to the PHB feats? Or Project Heretica, or the HAL System, or the retooled Marshal, or the retooled Soulborn, or the Summoner...

[drakir_nosslin]

Interesting, I'll go over this when I get back home, but I've been following this class for a while now (and your other retooled classes as well, I really like them.) but I haven't had a chance to try it out in a game yet, but I'm looking forward to the day that I do :smallsmile:

And Project Heretica sounds interesting, what's that?

[3SecondCultist]

... there is only one thing that really gets me about this. Why lawful? I never understood why monks could not be chaotic, and the ki strike at 8th level should count as your alignment. For example, a 12th level Chaotic Good monk's unarmed strike would count as magic, chaotic, good, and adamantine against damage reduction.

[NineThePuma]

Those multiclass feats you were working on from Complete Adventurer or whatever, please. =3

Or project Heretica.

[Ziegander]

I'm somewhat ashamed at myself for not having read this before. This is incredibly awesome and probably my all time favorite Monk fix. It adds a lot of depth, color, and most importantly, power to the class without, as the title says, steering far from the established path. Very, very nicely done.

[T.G. Oskar]

... there is only one thing that really gets me about this. Why lawful? I never understood why monks could not be chaotic, and the ki strike at 8th level should count as your alignment. For example, a 12th level Chaotic Good monk's unarmed strike would count as magic, chaotic, good, and adamantine against damage reduction.

Can't really give you an answer that will work, but "trying not to steer off the established path" is part of the answer. Monks are meant to be ascetic and disciplined individuals (not necessarily warriors, with martial arts meant to be a sort of meditative and actually useful form of meditation, with the concept of kata being strict and rigid). I could also claim that "Lawful" doesn't necessarily mean "not innovative", but rather someone whom at all occasions behaves under an established pattern. In a very unique way of explaining it: while a Lawful, or orderly, character reacts to changes, the Chaotic character flows with the change. The former reacts because it confronts the status quo, the latter flows because that is its natural state. It's roughly the same on the concept of following laws and guidelines; while a Lawful character feels natural to follow laws, a Chaotic character follows them so as long as it doesn't restrict them.

Plus, considering the true depiction of Monks, they should be Neutral. Period. They have an orderly, ascetic, disciplined way of life but they tend to care little for adhering to a set of rules or, conversely, actively defy them. It's just that, when someone understands the purpose of actively following something rigidly codified, it seems part of a Lawful attitude.

Still: if the peeve is not being Chaotic, you can just adapt that if using the 'brewed class. It's certainly not a bad idea, but it conflicts with tradition here.


Those multiclass feats you were working on from Complete Adventurer or whatever, please. =3

Or project Heretica.


And Project Heretica sounds interesting, what's that?

Can't say much about it, but it shouldn't be so hard to figure out. It's meant to be a little bit more meta than what might seem to be, though, In part, it's giving a unique name to a bit of homebrew I've done, but that I decided to give a bit more meaning. That's as much as I can say, and it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

As for the multiclass feats; it's not really just Complete Adventurer rather than, as many other 'brewers do alongside revisions of classes, revising the PHB feats. I just took it one step further and did revisions to lots of feats besides those from the PHB. The multiclass feats were just a natural result of that revision.

[Ziegander]

As for the multiclass feats; it's not really just Complete Adventurer rather than, as many other 'brewers do alongside revisions of classes, revising the PHB feats. I just took it one step further and did revisions to lots of feats besides those from the PHB. The multiclass feats were just a natural result of that revision.

Where are your magical feat rewrites, T.G.? I looked through your homebrewer's sig and couldn't find them. Since I've done extensive feats revisions before I'm interested to see what you've done.

[T.G. Oskar]

Where are your magical feat rewrites, T.G.? I looked through your homebrewer's sig and couldn't find them. Since I've done extensive feats revisions before I'm interested to see what you've done.

Oh, I haven't posted those revisions yet. I've done them, but they aren't released.

Thing is, I was just clarifying since I made a mention on someone else's multiclass feat 'brew (Nine, actually; I think his username was different before?), which is a consequence of a series of feats for the "Martial dabbler" and Martial Adepts, where I stated a specific set of rules for it. I was just clearing that it was a part of a larger feat revision.

In any case: the feat revisions in this thread are not exactly the way I've revised the feats in their entirety, but do take a lot from them. There's like two more tags, and work in a very similar way to the Tome revisions for feats, except not as mindblowing.

[T.G. Oskar]

Greasing the wheels and working this a little bit more. This time, I decided to update Wholeness of Body a bit, so that it works somewhat between Lay on Hands (but only to self) and Second Wind from 4E, as suggested in the Project Heretica thread. The language at the moment is different, hoping that the way it's mentioned makes sense; if not, the idea is this:

Swift Action -> Activate Wholeness of Body
Step 1: Choose amount of healing (a number between 1 and current_healing_pool*; if current_healing_pool = 0, go to step 5) (Go to step 1A)
-Step 1A: Check for abilities, feats or magic items that improve Lay on Hands applying to monk (E/NE)
--E: Apply benefit? (Y/N)
---Y: Activate benefit as mentioned.
---N: Go to step 2
--NE: Go to step 2
Step 2: Heal # of HP equal to chosen amount (+ or - modifications to healing)
Step 3: Expend ki? (Y/N)
-Y: Expend daily use of ki, gain +5 bonus to AC & saves. Go to step 5.
-N: Go to step 4
Step 4: Apply bonus? (Go to step 4A)
-Step 4A: Has the bonus been applied during current encounter (flag 4A check Y/N)
--Y (flag raised): Go to step 5.
--N (flag not raised): Go to step 4B
-Step 4B: Apply bonus this turn? (Y/N)
--Y: Gain +5 bonus to AC & saves (raise flag 4A). Go to step 5
--N: Go to step 5.
Step 5: End.
*current_healing_pool: a number equal to (character level x Wisdom modifier) minus the number of points removed from the pool

A bit erratic for an algorithm, but this should be funny and concise enough. You may extrapolate any interpretation from it, but it HAS to follow the algorithm as intended. Essentially, you expend points from the healing pool (for healing or for activating Caduceus Bracers, empowered by a feat that empowers Lay on Hands, or modified by any ability that enhances LoH), then you decide whether you want to expend ki to gain the temporary bonus or not, then you activate the bonus per the encounter (if necessary). Hopefully it's explained enough to make sense, and at the same time make it badass.

[Elfstone]

Wow that is an... eccentric algorithm. Works though..

Can't believe I never read this, this is the second monk fix that has made me actually want to play one. Congratz.

[NineThePuma]

Oh, I haven't posted those revisions yet.

Is it bad that I'm waiting for those feat revisions?

[T.G. Oskar]

Is it bad that I'm waiting for those feat revisions?

Not really. I could go for that later on, but I want to nudge another class before it, and I *still* haven't finished with Project Heretica (it's about 50% complete, tho). I'd only be able to post the PHB ones once I do it, and it'll need some serious explanation. It's like another project by itself.

[T.G. Oskar]

Well, it's been a while, but I have a confession to make: despite all the nice stuff I added to the Monk, I still feel uncomfortable with it. While it has a lot of nice stuff (basically better defenses, better damage and whatnot), I felt it still was a one-trick pony, one that had little variety.

After a much more extense revision, I realized a few things, which I think I mentioned somewhat. First, playing a Monk on Dungeons & Dragons Online really opened my eyes; the class is extremely diverse, and you can play anything from an extremely resilient, HP/AC/DR focused character, to a flurry of hits (yes, hits; I'm dead serious) that deal absurd amounts of damage, to part-time trapfinders (not trap defusers, tho), to ninjas (Ninja Spy) to vanquishers of evil creatures (Shintao Monk). The way they handled it was impressive, so I made a slight change to the Monk and added the stuff I knew it worked from my revision.

But, there's a slight problem with it, and that's basically this: how many of you people really are interested in this version of the Monk? The extensive revision I offer makes it exist on its own, even within the advent of the Swordsage (or so I believe), and still allow it to exist with a modicum of magic items (or on its own, actually; I'd need to place it upon revision). It offers options outside of battle (something I was a bit irked about), improves basic combat maneuvers, and allows for a diversity of builds (something I realized when I wrote the rant about chassis; that really made me realize what I felt was wrong with this). Obviously, this implies I will make a new thread with the newer revision, and probably request closing this one.

So, in the interest of really providing some love to the Monk: would you be interested in seeing this revised retooling, or does this revision has merit enough to exist on its own? Don't worry about missing some stuff: the real nice things will prevail (such as the Art of the Deadly Gale and the Deadly Weapons traits, which I feel give some serious love to simple weapons), and some will be pretty amazing.

[NineThePuma]

I... really like this version, but if you have something better, go for it. I would make a new topic though, unless it can fit into the Trinity of Ki.

[Cieyrin]

Nothing wrong with having two revamps or perhaps renaming of one to separate the two. If going with the former, just have a disclaimer that the game should probably stick with one version, less confusion that way.

[gkathellar]

I have to say, this is one of my favorite revisions of all time, even if the monk special weapons still do make absolutely no sense. I've had players use this monk to everyone's satisfaction.

[BrowncoatJayson]

I know you are looking at posting another complete revamp, but thought I'd chime in. This is well done. Only one thing stood out to me:


Diamond Soul (Ex): At 13th level, a monk gains spell resistance equal to her current monk level + 10. By spending one daily use of her ki pool, the monk may add her Wisdom modifier to her spell resistance for a number of rounds equal to half her class level. Beneficial spells (those with the [harmless] descriptor) are not affected by this kind of spell resistance, even if the spell is originally subject to it.

One of the bigger complaints of the Monk's spell resistance is not the size, but that it's nearly entirely useless. It can be easily countered, and it blocks the important spells out of the water. The disclaimer of allowing beneficial spells was made with that in mind; you can cast such spells as Haste or Fly without much trouble. The expenditure of Ki allows to add the Wisdom modifier to the spell resistance, which makes the Monk hardier to get. It doesn't make much for Assay Spell Resistance, but it still allows most harmful spells to bounce off. I'm sure you've not neglected the Wisdom by now, haven't you?

I might think raising to 15 + class level, or even make it 10 + character level.

I'm not sold on spending ki to raise spell resistance by their Wisdom mod being enough to make a difference. Maybe spending ki to raise it to 20 + character level, or raise it by 3 + their Wisdom modifier (i.e., 13 + Wis mod). And an option to spend additional ki to raise it by 2 per additional point. I think that would push it to being useful in the majority of situations.

[T.G. Oskar]

This'll be probably the last post I'll do on this thread, so I'll ask the mods to have it closed.

After some workout, the Monk has been revised to exhaustion and I'm finally happy with the end results. I will admit, it is quite complex (a monster of a class, really), but the way it's built fits perfectly with my vision of what a class should be.

Once I make the next thread, I'll ask you something real simple: read the class, and simplify it a bit more. I'll post here a draft of the work, and the thread will have the tables and whatnot, so you can start figuring out just how to tackle the complexity of the class.

I expect this next revision to fulfill three goals:
To provide the player with options to make several different Monks, not just the same Monk-ish build
To make it at least mechanically distinct to the unarmed Swordsage, while keeping it between Tier 3 or Tier 4
To reach a point between rewarding system mastery and allowing simplicity of play (though I incline towards the former over the latter)

Any questions or comments, don't post them here: post them via PM or when I make the next thread.

Thus, before asking the mods to close the thread, I'll leave you with the schematics (on a nifty spoiler, of course):
Monk
Hit Dice: d8
Base Attack Bonus: Medium
Fortitude Save: Good
Reflex Save: Good
Will Save: Good
Skill Points: 4+Int modifier
Skills: Balance, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Hide, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (religion), Listen, Move Silently, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Spot, Swim, Tumble
Weapon Proficiency: Simple, plus kama, kukri, nunchaku, sai, shortsword, shuriken, siangham, spiekd chain
Armor Proficiency: None

Mundane abilities
Unarmed Strike: Imp. Unarmed Strike + increased unarmed strike damage.
AC Bonus: +1 AC/4th, 8th, 12th, 14th, 17th, 20th. Add Wis or Con to AC.
Martial Training: Treat as if having full BAB when using unarmed strikes or special monk weapons.
Evasion (2nd): as Rogue
Wholeness of Body (2nd): heal (Monk level x Wis, Str or Con) HP as swift action, pool replenishes at beginning of combat encounter.
Fast Movement (3rd): +10 ft. to land speed (not enhancement bonus) every 3 levels
Touching the Ripples (3rd): blindsense up to 30 ft. (or blindsense range +30 ft.), defeated by sound. At 15th level, blindsense up to 60 ft. and blindsight up to 30 ft. (or blindsense range x2 and/or blindsight range +30 ft.), defeated by sound.
Art of Deadly Wind (4th): When using dart, sling or shuriken, damage as unarmed strike (Monk level -3) and range increment 50 ft., +10 ft./4 levels
Ki Strike (4th): unarmed strikes become magic weapons (+1 enhancement bonus/4 levels), lawful-aligned at 8th level, adamantine at 12th level
Slow Fall (5th): ignore 20 ft. falling distance, +20 ft. fall/4 levels above 5th, full range at 16th level.
Purity of Body (5th): immunity to poisons and diseases
Resilient Body (7th): Energy resistance 10 against single element; Energy resistance 20 against 1 element and 10 against 2 elements at 11th level; Energy resistance 30 against 1 element, 20 against 2 elements and 10 against opposing element at 15th level.
Deadly Weapons (8th): When using certain weapons, deal damage as unarmed strike (Monk level -3)
Walk the River and the Clouds (8th): Permanent Air Walk and Water Walk (works on all liquids) but must end in solid surface (concentration as move action or grapple); Balance DC 25/30 to remain afloat in water/air by moving at half speed (-10 to check to move at full speed).
Improved Evasion (9th): as Rogue special ability
Diamond Body (11th): DR 10/Magic or Chaotic; DR 20/Epic and Chaotic at 20th level.
Abundant Step (12th): move at half speed as swift action (replaces 5 ft. step, ignore AoO when moving out of threatened space)
Diamond Soul (13th): SR 10 + Monk level
Timeless Body (17th): gain no penalties to ability scores by means of age and cannot be magically aged.
Diamond Mind (18th): immunity to all mind-affecting spells and effects, may be affected by beneficial effects
Perfect Self (20th): become Native Outsider, keep subtypes


Ki Abilities
Ki Power: Daily Ki pool equal to class level + Wis, Str or Con
Way of the Elements (2nd): spend 1 Ki, imbue unarmed strike with elemental energy for (Monk level/2) rounds
Wholeness of Body (2nd): spend 1 Ki, gain special quality based on choice of element
Fleeting Step (3rd): spend 1 Ki, move up to land speed (+10 ft. speed increase for Air Monks)
Touching the Ripples (3rd): spend 1 Ki, gain Blindsight (defeated by sound) within 30 ft. (within 60 ft. at 13th level)
Ki Strike (4th): spend Ki, gain +1 to enhancement bonus, Axiomatic weapon property, or ignore all damage reduction (1 Ki for 1 property, 2 Ki for two properties, 3 Ki for all three)
Slow Fall (5th): spend 1 Ki, gain Feather Fall until landing
Unburdened Path (5th): as Freedom of Movement, lasts 1 round; (Monk level)/2 rounds at 14th level
Still Mind (6th): as immediate action, spend 1 Ki to become immune to fear or mind-affecting effects until next round.
Resilient Body (7th): expend 1 Ki to gain +10 energy resistance (attuned element at 7th, element of choice at 11th) for (Monk level) rounds; energy resistance +10 for all energy types (except Sonic) at 15th level
Walk the River and the Clouds (8th): spend 1 Ki to remain afloat for (Monk level)*10 minutes
Diamond Body (11th): Spend 1 ki, increase DR to 15/magic and chaotic by (Monk level/2 + Wis or Str modifier) rounds, Earth Monks gain 15/chaotic and adamantine
Diamond Soul (13th): Spend 1 ki, SR becomes (Monk level + Wis, Con or Str modifier +10)
Timeless Body (17th): Spend 3 ki, ignore effect of spell that affects time
Empty Body (19th): Spend 1 Ki, become ethereal for (Monk level)/2 rounds, may attack with unarmed strikes or special monk weapons while ethereal


Combat Styles:
Cobra Strike
Bonus Feat: Spring Attack
Level Bonus: +1d6 damage/5 levels on one attack when charging or using Spring Attack
10th level boon: spread damage points between attacks when charging or using Spring Attack, Bounding Assault or Rapid Blitz

Denying Stance
Bonus Feat: Combat Reflexes
Level Bonus: +1 on opposed disarm/trip checks
10th level boon: daze enemy instead of dealing damage with AoO (DC=damage dealt)

Empty Hand
Bonus Feat: Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike)
Level Bonus: +2 damage with unarmed strikes
10th level boon: as Decisive Strike (PHB II)

Flurry of Blows
Bonus Feat: Snap Kick
Level Bonus: Penalty on Snap Kick reduced by 1 (5th and 15th level only)
10th level boon: make extra attack at highest BAB on full attack action

Invisible Eye
Bonus Feat: Blind-Fight
Level Bonus: +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when blinded
10th level boon: roll three times for concealment; three successes outline the creature for 1 round

Meditation of War
Bonus Feat: Stunning Fist
Level Bonus: +1 to Stunning Fist DC
10th level boon: creature succeeding on Stunning Fist saving throw by 5 or less are dazed for 1 round

Overwhelming Assault
Bonus Feat: Power Attack (works on unarmed strikes and special monk weapons)
Level Bonus: +1 to opposed bull rush and overrun checks, ignore 1 point of hardness when making sunder attempt
10th level boon: when using Power Attack with unarmed strikes or special monk weapons, gain +2 to damage for every -1 to attack. Monk is treated as if having full BAB when using Power Attack

Passive Way
Bonus Feat: Combat Expertise
Level Bonus: +1 insight bonus on AC when fighting defensively, using total defense or Combat Expertise feat
10th level boon: when fighting defensively, using the total defense action or the Combat Expertise feat, any creature that attacks Monk takes an AoO

Vicious Grip
Bonus Feat: Improved Grapple
Level Bonus: +1 bonus on all opposed grapple checks, damage when grappling
10th level boon: treated as one size category larger when making a grapple check, which stacks with other abilities that increase size


Way of the Elements:
Air
Ability Score: Dexterity (attack and damage rolls, disarm or trip checks)
Elemental Fist: Electricity (Monk Level/2)
Wholeness of Body: +5 dodge bonus to AC and Reflex saves
Art of Deadly Wind: +20 ft. increase to range increment per 4 levels; add Dexterity to damage rolls
Resilient Body: Electricity resistance, opposed by acid
Walk the River and the Clouds: remain afloat in Air
Finishing Move: 1d6 electricity damage/2 class levels, Will save or paralyzed for 1 round
Extra traits: +10 ft. land speed (Fleeting Step); ignore 10 ft. falling distance (Slow Fall); +10 ft. to increase in land speed (Fast Movement); Freedom of Movement for 2 rounds (or Monk Level rounds at 14th level) (Unburdened Path)

Earth
Ability Score: Constitution (AC bonus, saving throw DCs, Stunning Fist DC, Diamond Soul)
Elemental Fist: Acid (Monk Level/2)
Wholeness of Body: DR 5/adamantine
Art of Deadly Wind: darts, sling bullets, shuriken and stones deal full unarmed strike damage; take no penalty when using stones with slings
Resilient Body: Acid resistance, opposed by electricity
Walk the River and the Clouds: remain afloat in acid, take no damage from walking in acid
Finishing Move: 1d6 acid damage/2 class levels, Fortitude or nauseated for (Monk level/2) rounds
Extra traits: -10 ft. to increase in land speed (Fast Movement, gained at 6th level); tremorsense 30 ft. (60 ft. at 13th level) (Touching the Ripples); take one less dice of damage while falling (Slow Fall); Mind Blank effect for (Monk Level/2) rounds (Still Mind); DR 10/Chaotic or Adamantine, increased to DR 15/Chaotic and Adamantine by spending 1 Ki (Diamond Body); DR 20/Epic, Chaotic and Adamantine (Perfect Self + Diamond Body)

Fire
Ability Score: Strength (1-1/2 damage, Ki pool, saving throw DCs, Stunning Fist DC, Diamond Soul)
Elemental Fist: Fire (Monk Level/2)
Wholeness of Body: +5 competence bonus on attack and damage rolls
Art of Deadly Wind: use Strength instead of Dexterity for attack rolls; 1-1/2 Strength for damage rolls
Resilient Body: Fire resistance, opposed by cold
Walk the River and the Clouds: remain afloat on lava, take no damage from walking in lava
Finishing Move: 1d6 fire damage/2 levels on 15 ft. cone (as Burning Hands), Reflex save or catch on fire
Extra traits: concealment (20% miss chance) for 1 round (Fleeting Step); return fear or mind-affecting spells to caster (Still Mind); 5 ft. radius burst of flame (1d6/2 levels fire damage) when teleporting (Abundant Step)

Water
Ability Score: Wisdom (attack and damage rolls, bull rush, overrun and trip checks)
Elemental Fist: Cold
Wholeness of Body: +5 bonus on all saving throws
Art of Deadly Wind: use Wisdom for attack and damage rolls
Resilient Body: Cold resistance, opposed by fire
Walk the River and the Clouds: remain afloat on water
Finishing Move: 1d6 cold damage/2 class levels, Reflex save or slowed for(Monk level)/2 rounds
Extra traits: +10 ft. to increase in land speed (Fast Movement); Blindsense/Blindsight not defeated by lack of sound (Touching the Ripples); Freedom of Movement for 2 rounds (or Monk Level rounds at 14th level) (Unburdened Path); SR 15+Monk Level (Diamond Step)


Way of the Beasts
Clever Monkey
Level Bonus: +2 to Climb checks
Extra Traits: Trap Sense
Ki Benefit: Spider Climb at (Monk Level/2) CL; climb speed (half base land speed)

Devious Predator
Level Bonus: +5 to Hide and Move Silently checks to cancel penalties for movement
Extra Traits: Hide/Move Silently bonus applies to attacks (choose 3 times), remain invisible after attacking (as Greater Invisibility at [Monk Level/2] CL)
Ki Benefit: Invisibility at (Monk Level/2) CL

Elegant Crane
Level Bonus: +2 on Diplomacy checks when speaking as a full-round action
Extra Traits: Speak Language
Ki Benefit: Suggestion at (Monk Level) CL; DC = Diplomacy check -10

Faithful Hound
Level Bonus: +2 on reflexive Listen and Spot checks
Extra Traits: Uncanny Dodge, Imp. Uncanny Dodge
Ki Benefit: Scent, Track feat, apply bonus to Survival checks

Graceful Swan
Level Bonus: +2 on Swim checks
Extra Traits: Hold breath for (Concentration + 2xConstitution) rounds, make Concentration checks instead of Constitution checks, battle underwater without losing air
Ki Benefit: Water Breathing at (Monk Level) CL; swim speed (half base land speed)

Leaping Dragon
Level Bonus: +2 on Jump checks
Extra Traits: Always make a running leap, +10 on Jump checks if running, halve DC of high jump checks and ignore maximum distance (choose 3 times), add 5 feet to leaping distance with quarterstaff or polearm with reach
Ki Benefit: Levitate at (Monk Level) CL; move with Jump checks

Patient Tortoise
Level Bonus: +3 HP, +1 Concentration checks
Extra Traits: None
Ki Benefit: Make Concentration checks instead of Fort/Will saves 1/round for the remainder of the encounter

Sagacious Owl
Level Bonus: +2 on all Knowledge checks
Extra Traits: make Knowledge checks untrained; use Wis instead of Int for Knowledge checks, lore (choose 3 times; Monk Level + Wis)
Ki Benefit: Legend Lore at (Monk Level) CL; must have object or person at hand, creature level or CR equal to (Monk Level -4) or 11, whichever is higher

Tenacious Badger
Level Bonus:+2 to Intimidate checks to demoralize enemies
Extra Traits: +2 to damage when under 50% HP
Ki Benefit: Rage for (Monk Level)/2 rounds as (Monk Level -3) barbarian


Philosophy
Path of Harmonious Balance (Light)
Benefit: Aura of Peace (as Sanctuary)
Ki Benefit: Healing burst in 30 ft. range (heal 1d4/2 level HP)
Perfect Self: fast healing 5

Path of the Riddle of Equilibrium (Balance)
Benefit: attune to good or evil alignment-based abilities
Ki Benefit: targeted Dispel Magic as part of attack, max +20 to dispel check
Perfect Self: attune to positive/negative energy, all alignment-based abilities

Path of Ineffable Dominion (Dark)
Benefit: Frightful Presence on creatures with CR equal or greater than Monk Level +2
Ki Benefit: fatigue creature with attack, gain 5+target HD temporary hit points for (Monk Level)/2 rounds
Perfect Self: on natural 20 attack roll, creature makes Fort save or die; creature immune to instant death takes 100 damage


Way Between the Ways:
Aligning the Heavens (Water/Balance): +1 bonus to caster level, manifester level, meldshaper level or initiator level for (Monk Level)/2 rounds on allies within 30 ft.
All-Consuming Flame (Fire/Dark): Reflex save or catch on fire, take 1d6/3 levels fire damage for (Monk level)/2 rounds
Dance of the Clouds (Wind/Balance): as Blur spell for (Monk level)/2 rounds
Difficulty at the Beginning (Water/Light): as Lesser Restoration when using healing burst
Grasp the Earth Dragon (Earth/Balance): immunity to daze, stun and sleep for (Monk level)/2 rounds on allies within 30 ft.
Lifting the Veil (Air/Light): as Remove Blindness when using healing burst
Porous Soul (Earth/Dark): -1/3 levels penalty on Armor Class and Fortitude saves for (Monk level)/2 rounds
Restoring the Balance (Fire/Light): as Remove Curse when using healing burst
Static Charge (Air/Dark): -1/3 levels penalty to attack rolls, damage rolls, saves vs. stun for (Monk level)/2 rounds
The Receptive Earth (Earth/Light): as Remove Disease, plus remove poisons, when using healing burst
Walk the Sun (Fire/Balance): as Heroism on allies within 30 ft. for (Monk Level)/2 rounds
Winter's Chill (Water/Dark): -1/3 levels penalty to all damage rolls and Reflex saving throws for (Monk level)/2 rounds


The Ways Unite:
Path of Conqueror: ignore resistance to energy types, deals half damage with energy attacks against creatures immune to energy type
Path of Denial: ignore immunity to daze, fear, stun, energy drain, instant death, etc.; creature with immunity gains a bonus to saves equal to (10-Monk's Wis,Con,Str; minimum +0)
Path of Embodiment: immunity to primary element, heal 1/3rd of damage taken, ignore weakness from subtype


Deadly Weapons:
Butterfly Sword (OA p19): make "unarmed strikes" with weapon, using weapon's enhancements
Club: deliver Stunning Fist via weapon.
Cutting Wheel (SoS p135): deal unarmed strike damage, deal 1/2 damage on successful disarm attempt.
Hook Sword (SoS p136): as if having Two-Weapon Fighting feat, treat as light weapons; as Improved Two-Weapon Fighting if monk has Flying Tiger style feat.
Jitte (OA p19): +2 bonus to Armor Class while fighting defensively, +4 bonus to AC if using total defense; stack with any other feat or ability that grants a similar bonus; make "disarm of opportunity" if monk has Imp. Disarm feat
Kama: deal 1/2 damage upon successful trip attempt as if melee attack.
Lajatang (OA p19): becomes reach weapon, cannot be used as double AND reach weapon; +2 bonus on disarm attempts.
Longstaff (CompAdv p116): becomes reach weapon, cannot be used as double AND reach weapon; +2 shield bonus to AC when fighting defensively, using the total defense action, or using Combat Expertise with a penalty of at least -2.
Monk's Cane (SoS p135): as thrown weapon when thrown, melee weapon when attacking in melee; deal 1/2 damage on successful ranged disarm attempt.
Monk's Spade (SoS p136): as Whirlwind Attack feat, but makes 1 slashing & 1 bludgeoning attack, all attacks are done at -2 penalty.
Nekode (OA p19): as unarmed strike, deal bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage.
Nunchaku or Sai: lock weapon instead of disarming, preventing use of weapon
Quarterstaff: becomes reach weapon, cannot be used as double AND reach weapon
Siangham: feint as swift action, use BAB +(Wis,Con,Str) or Bluff +(Wis,Con,Str) for feint, effect lasts for 1 round
Steel Flute (SoS p136): deliver Stunning Fist via weapon.
Three-Section Staff (OA p19): becomes reach weapon, cannot be used as double AND reach weapon; +2 bonus on disarm attempts.
Tonfa (OA p19): as unarmed strike, +2 shield bonus to AC when fighting defensively, using the total defense action, or using Combat Expertise with a penalty of at least -2; increase shield bonus by 2 when using two tonfa with the TWD or ITWD feats.

P.S.: Would you like to see the Ninja retooled this way, or as an archetype of the Monk? Also, most of the names of the abilities are based on the interpretation of the Monk class from Dungeons & Dragons Online, but their effects are completely different (in case you recognize them).