Elemental Monk Variants

[John Cribati]

The Kinetic Monk

Alignment: Any lawful or chaotic
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), 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).
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) ×4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.



Kinetic Monk:
{table]Level|Base Attack Bonus| Fort Save| Ref Save| Will Save| Special| Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus| Unarmed Damage| AC Bonus| Unarmored Speed Bonus
1st| +0 |+2 |+2 |+2 |Bonus feat, flurry of blows, unarmed strike, Imbue Self| +0/+0| 1d6| +0 | +0ft.
2nd| +1| +3| +3 | +3| Bonus feat, evasion |+1/+1 |1d6 |+0 |+0ft.
3rd| +2| +3| +3| +3| Kinetic Guard (5)| +2/+2| 1d6| +0| +10ft.
4th| +3| +4| +4| +4| Ki strike (magic), slow fall 20 ft.| +3/+3| 1d8| +0| +10ft.
5th| +3| +4| +4| +4| Purity of body| +3/+3| 1d8| +1| +10ft.
6th| +4| +5| +5| +5| Bonus feat, slow fall 30 ft., Kinetic Guard (15)| +4/+4| 1d8| +1| +20ft.
7th| +5| +5| +5| +5| Wholeness of body, | +5/+5| 1d8| +1| +20 ft.
8th| +6/+1| +6| +6| +6| Slow fall 40 ft., Ki Strike (Energy+1d6)| +6/+6/+1| 1d10| +1| +20 ft.
9th| +6/+1| +6| +6| +6| Improved evasion, Kinetic Guard (20)| +6/+6/+2| 1d10| +1| +30 ft.
10th| +7/+2| +7| +7| +7| Ki strike (Lawful/Chaotic, Energy+2d6), slow fall 50 ft.| +7/+7/+2| 1d10| +2| +30 ft.
11th| +8/+3| +7| +7| +7| Diamond body, greater flurry| +8/+8/+8/+3| 1d10| +2| +30 ft.
12th| +9/+4| +8| +8| +8| Abundant step, slow fall 60 ft. Ki Strike (Energy +3d6) Kinetic Guard (25)| +9/+9/+9/+5| 2d6| +2| +40 ft.
13th| +9/+4| +8| +8| +8| Diamond soul| +9/+9/+9/+5| 2d6| +2| +40 ft.
14th| +10/+5| +9| +9| +9| Slow fall 70 ft.| +10/+10/+10/+5| 2d6| +2| +40 ft.
15th| +11/+6/+1| +9| +9| +9| Quivering palm, Kinetic Guard (30)| +11/+11/+11/+6/+1| 2d6| +3| +50 ft.
16th| +12/+7/+2| +10| +10| +10| Ki strike(adamantine), slow fall 80 ft.| +12/+12/+12/+7/+2| 2d8| +3| +50 ft.
17th| +12/+7/+2| +10| +10| +10| Timeless body, tongue of the sun and moon| +12/+12/+12/+7/+3| 2d8| +3| +50 ft.
18th| +13/+8/+3| +11| +11| +11| Slow fall 90 ft. Kinetic Guard (35)| +13/+13/+13/+8/+3| 2d8| +3| +60 ft.
19th| +14/+9/+4| +11| +11| +11| Empty body| +14/+14/+14/+9/+4| 2d8| +3| +60 ft.
20th| +15/+10/+5| +12| +12 |+12| Perfect Self, Kinetic Guard(full), slow fall any distance| +15/+15/+15/+10/+5| 2d10| +4| +60 ft.[/table]

Kinetic Monks are specifically trained to tap into the energy of The Elemental Planes of Air, Fire, Water, and Electricity.

Imbue Self
The Kinetic Monk must meditate for one hour upon waking in order to access the power of any given plane. If he does not, or this initial meditation is interrupted, he will have only the abilities of a normal Monk until he does.
Once his initial plane is chosen, the Monk may meditate for two hours to access the energy of a different plane of energy. Doing so, he will be unable to access the previous plane until he sleeps for eight hours. If this meditation is interrupted, one of two things will happen:
1: If the interruption occurs during the first hour, the monk can still access the plane he was before the attempt, but not the plane he was trying to access until he sleeps for eight hours.
2: If the interruption comes in the second hour, he will be unable to access the power of either plane, and become a normal Monk until he completes two hours of meditation, or sleeps for eight hours and completes one hour of meditation.
If the Monk makes a DC 20 Concentration Check vs. distraction, he is not considered interrupted. If a creature attempts to interrupt the Kinetic Monk's Meditation, the creature's CHA modifier is added to the DC.

Depending on which plane the Kinetic Monk draws from, additional effects are granted in and out of battle:

{table]Plane|Effect
Water|Wis+4, Breathe Water, +4 to grapple checks
Air|Dex +4, Slow Fall Without Walls
Fire|Con +4, Fire Shield
Electricity|Str+4, Land Speed + 30ft.[/table]


Ki Strike
At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. His 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 10th level, his unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful or chaotic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. At 16th level, his unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness.
The Kinetic Monk's Ki strikes have an additional effect. At 8th level, the Ki strikes are empowered by Energy from whichever plane the monk is using and do an extra d6 of damage. The damage increases by 1d6 for every even-numbered level after that. Furthermore, beginning at 12th level, the monk may choose, as a free action, decided before declaring an attack, to take a -4 to his attack roll to impart an effect on the target of his attack. The attacked creature must make a Fortitude Saving Throw with a DC of (10+ Monk Level+ Monk's Wis. Modifier) or suffer an effect based on the plane the Kinetic Monk is channeling. If the attack fails, the effect is not granted.

{table]Plane|Effect
Water|1d4 freezing damage/round (1)
Air|Blown Away
Fire|1d4 burning damage/round(1)
Electricity|-2 Attack, -2 AC (1)
[/table](1):A successful fortitude save ends the effect.

Kinetic Guard
At 3rd level, a Kinetic Monk resists the first 10 points of damage from attacks that draw on the energy that they themselves draw on. This resistance increases by 5 every three levels after that. At Level 20, The monk completely resists any damage from that energy. He still takes normal damage from any other plane of energy.

[demidracolich]

If you are trying to make the monk better, give it full BAB and some other things. This does not make it go up a tier, it is still tier 5.

[erikun]

Bonus damage is good for multiple attacks like the Monk's flurry of blows. In that sense, you have a good idea. The bonus fire damage would, I assume, bypass damage reduction and help in that department a bit.

The loss of Ki strike (adamantite) and Ki strike (lawful) is a bit of a problem when fighting golems and... Slaad? Plus, it doesn't help much against anything fire resistent, which is a surprisingly large number of creatures. +3d6 damage is terrible at 20th level, especially when limited to fists which have a horrid attack bonus. (At least -10 compared to the fighter, more realistically -15, between lower BAB, no enchantment, and lower Strength.)

[Dilb]

Bonus damage is good for multiple attacks like the Monk's flurry of blows. In that sense, you have a good idea. The bonus fire damage would, I assume, bypass damage reduction and help in that department a bit.

The loss of Ki strike (adamantite) and Ki strike (lawful) is a bit of a problem when fighting golems and... Slaad? Plus, it doesn't help much against anything fire resistent, which is a surprisingly large number of creatures. +3d6 damage is terrible at 20th level, especially when limited to fists which have a horrid attack bonus. (At least -10 compared to the fighter, more realistically -15, between lower BAB, no enchantment, and lower Strength.)

There's really no reason for monks not to pump STR, and they can get +5 to hit, either from the amulet of mighty fists, or the much less expensive necklace of natural weapons, which is exactly as expensive as a weapon, and can have any special weapon quality. Core monks are maybe 80% the damage of core fighters when flurrying.

This monk still has ki strike (lawful) and ki strike (adamantine) (which is also helpful against casters with stoneskin) it's just not in the table.

That said, 3d6 fire damage and resist fire 5 are not that great. To continue in this vein, I'd simply steal everything from the pyrokineticist (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/pyrokineticist.htm), changing anything relying on CHA to WIS, and removing the psionic bits as appropriate.

And since a lot of things have really good fire resistance or fire immunity, also add in the energy variant (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040625e), so the monk can change energy types either after 8 hours rest or whatever. Maybe no acid, as that's kind of silly as an "energy". Locking them into one energy type means they will resent going to at least 1 elemental plane, as well as fighting many types of outsiders.

[John Cribati]

I intend for the Flame guard to go up as the monk levels too. Though, allowing the monk to switch energy types Would make it better. I'll fix that.

[Waargh!]

What does "Blown away" actually do? Does the burning/freezing damage stuck per round?

The Ki-Strike seems actually too powerful. You can do it as a free action, thus with every attack. I think the DC is kind of high. On lvl 11 it is Fort 31+WIS. The Monk himself has 7+CON+1d20. Even if you have a +5 resistance we are talking about having to take a 19 on a d20 for WIS=CON. Make it 10+level+WIS. Add feat to increase DC if you want.
Rolling 4 fort saves for a monster if all the monk's attacks hit, is cumbersome. Make the effect usable once per round.
Dazing a creatures is far far far more powerful than 1d4/round. Change the dazing effect by giving it a penalty (-2 attacks/-2 AC for example).
Ki-Strike already adds extra damage, change the effects for Fire/Cold types as well. Or make them deal a one time damage.

[Corporate M]

If you are trying to make the monk better, give it full BAB and some other things. This does not make it go up a tier, it is still tier 5.
I think that wasn't the intention, he just wanted to make a bender class.

http://sites.google.com/site/avatard20/bending-version2.0

I'd personally just combine the monk class with bending skill, and able to take seeds, and then they're pseudocasters... It's kind of a clunky change. Just slapping something new on it and making it more powerful. They could afford it though.

[John Cribati]

What does "Blown away" actually do? Does the burning/freezing damage stuck per round?

The Ki-Strike seems actually too powerful. You can do it as a free action, thus with every attack. I think the DC is kind of high. On lvl 11 it is Fort 31+WIS. The Monk himself has 7+CON+1d20. Even if you have a +5 resistance we are talking about having to take a 19 on a d20 for WIS=CON. Make it 10+level+WIS. Add feat to increase DC if you want.
Rolling 4 fort saves for a monster if all the monk's attacks hit, is cumbersome. Make the effect usable once per round.
Dazing a creatures is far far far more powerful than 1d4/round. Change the dazing effect by giving it a penalty (-2 attacks/-2 AC for example).
Ki-Strike already adds extra damage, change the effects for Fire/Cold types as well. Or make them deal a one time damage.

It's not like the monk can switch energy types mid-battle. He's stuck to one type of energy for the rest of the day, unless he wants to try to meditate to access a new one, and in that case, he risks being unable to access the energy at all.

Though I guess I should lessen the DC a bit, now that I think about it.

[John Cribati]

Added a few more things.

[Dilb]

10 + monk level + WIS is unusually strong, but then the abilities aren't very good.

Normal DCs are calculated 10 + 1/2 HD + ability mod, or 10 + spell level + ability mod, which is almost the same. As it is, if a monk 20 has +10 in WIS (not that hard), the DC is 40, which a fair number of enemies will fail on everything but a natural 20 (solars, pit fiends, most undead and aberrations).

On the other hand, 1d4 damage per round at level 12 isn't very much, as things have 150+ HP (i.e. it would take 60 rounds to kill it). -2 to hit and -2 to AC is alright, but if the DM is supposed to roll fort saves every round that's rather tedious to work out.

I think imbue self is needlessly complicated. Taking advantage of the appropriate energy puts the monk on par, in terms of damage output. He doesn't need to be handicapped for a day because 1.5 hours after he started meditating he was interrupted by a succubus.

Also, I'm guessing the flurry at level 12 and 13 should be
+9/+9/+9/+4