Skarn Monk ACF actually a stronger monk?

[RedDragons]

So saw the Skarn Monk ACF so a small lil overview, and then I would like feedback if am right or wrong.


So you can use a spike to replace your damage, but still does all the same affects anyways.


5th Affect you lose your AC bonus, and gain another AC bonus anyways, through investment points, in a way that if you find a way to get extra essentia, you actually can go beyond the normal monk AC bonus. 1 essentia = 1 AC / All day long


10th Level, you give up lawful strike, to gain it back anyways

In exchange you can shape soul stuff, and take up an arm slot ((which gives you lawful strike by the way of skarn racial abilities))

With this slot you can ...1d6 damage against undead , +2 Int , +2 STr checks, +4 handle animal/ride , +4 Swim, sailor,use rope or +4 slight of hands/bluff outside of combat.


While these are not huge omg we can play the monk , changes. They do seem to be abusable and a clear power up for the monk.

[Phelix-Mu]

It's telling that only one or two monk ACFs manage to not be a decent-to-big power boost for the monk.

[Venger]

usable? yes

abusable? I disagree very strongly. you can have a few little bonuses, but nothing that's going to help you recover from choosing monk.

[ArcturusV]

Hmm, probably not AS bad as you think necessarily. I mean for a monk to really get any power, you need to do more than just trade out a few subpar class features or trade features for strictly better features. Unless these ACFs equate to things like closing up the BAB gap, or putting Flurry of Misses as a Standard, or making it so your abilities are slightly more relevant, or closing up your MADness...

But basically, anyone who really wants to play a monk (In my at the table experience) is going to PrC out as soon as possible into a Monk PrC. So you're not going to hit those higher level ACFs. Because they're not taking monk 10, they're taking Monk to level 3, Fighter 2... then something like Shintao Monk, Henshin Mystic, Fist of Raziel, Tattooed Monk, etc, not really touching the Base Class again. After all, Monk PrCs already add to Monk abilities anyway, as they almost all have "Add your level of This Class to your Monk level for determining all your abilities as a monk".

So outside of contrived situations like Pickford's level 20 single classed monk he drew up to kill a level 20 single classed wizard, you just won't see those higher level ACFs come into play. Since most Monk PrCs don't actually require too many levels of Monk to obtain, usually saying something like "Monk's Stunning Fist ability" or "Still Mind" as their prerequisites.

[animewatcha]

Don't forget that if you take monk to 5th and are willing to not use something like flurry of blows ( basically unarmored stuff ), you can wear light armor ( i say light mainly due to stuff like evasion ) and have a heavy load and still keep the ac bonus. Though IIRC, the bonus type becomes insight if you do take the sub-level.

[thethird]

They are actually WORSE monks.

1st level: spine strike replaces unarmed strike, unarmed strike is a common prerequisite for unarmed/monk prcs that you surely want so trading it away is BAD because you will need to take it as a feat tax.

5th level: Seriously this is BAD, first of all you only gain one point of essentia, that means that unless you expend feats you won't be getting a bonus AC higher than 1. Also, essentia capacity is a thing, so with bonus essentia you are only slightly ahead than the vanilla monk. But in the end you end with the same, +4 to AC of course the vanilla monk didn't had to expend two feats on bonus essentia, you did.

10th level: This enters in a RAW vs RAI debate of the magic of incarnum that can totally destroy the class feature. It sure gains the ability to bind ONE soulmeld to the arm chakra. How many chakra binds can he bind? The substitution level doesn't say that it has one available bind, only that it can bind to the arms chakra. Also note that the soulmeld is picked once, and from a rather limited list. And again, to make it scale you must expend feats to feed it essentia.

Overall this class features are worse than going straight monk. The 10th level might have worked if it was a much lower level, of any list, and explicitly gave you one chakra bind.

[awa]

its even worse if i recall correctly you can only take extra esentia once