1001 Monk Fixes

[Vaern]

The fact that monks are more a collage of cool-ish abilities that don't mesh particularly well than a well-rounded and thought out class is a common topic of discussion. I've seen plenty of ideas for how to improve the class, but rarely in a thread dedicated to the specific topic which makes it rather difficult to return and review those ideas.
I've even seen a couple of total rewrites of the class, but in this thread I'm not looking for a fully re-imagined 20-level progression. I'm just looking for ideas to improve on individual abilities. Whether that is by buffing the ability to make it more on-par with what another class might be capable of at the level the ability is unlocked, or merely tweaking the ability so that it meshes with another ability in a way that makes it feel more complete. This way, people can be free to look through a list of suggestions, pick what changes they like, leave what suggestions they dislike, and write up their own version of the class to use at their table.

I'll have a bit more in the morning, but for now I'll start off with two suggestions I've made previously regarding Flurry of Blows:

1) In addition to the free 5-foot step that is allowed when making a full attack, a monk using Flurry of Blows may take an additional 5-foot step for every 10 feet of bonus movement speed he has gained from his monk levels.

2) Flurry of blows counts as a single attack. If a target is struck multiple times during a single use of Flurry of Blows, it takes the combined damage of those strikes at the same time and applies damage reduction only once against the total damage. The total damage taken from Flurry of Blows is also regarded as a single attack for the purposes of massive damage.

And, of course, the most common, obvious, and inevitable suggestion...
3) Give the monk full BAB.

[nonsi]

.

If I had to choose a single aspect in which the Monk should shine above all other classes, it's the ability to move unhindered while attacking.
This means that a monk should be able to make full attacks - including flurry - while moving at his speed and without being constraint to dividing his movement in any particular way.
Do that and the Monk can finally benefit from its elevated speed.
To make this aspect stand out for the Monk in specific, no PrC should improve this ability.

There are plenty of ways to make the Monk better, but unfettered movement comes first.



The next immediate fix would be to make Monk weapons count for something.
With elevated unarmed damage, a monk never really has any motivation to use manufactured weapons.
Now, since the Monk doesn't really have the build-resources (feats) to improve weapon damage in any significant way, Monk weapons should inherently improve with the accumulation of Monk levels.
I've found the following progression to be both satisfying and within reason:


Monk Level Unarmed Strike, Quarterstaff, Kama, Nunchaku & Tonfa Damage Sai Damage Shuriken & Throwing Iron Damage (&Rng Inc.)

1st-3rd
1d6
1d4
1d3 (15')

4th-7th
1d8
1d6
1d4 (20')

8th-11th
1d10
1d8
1d6 (25')

12th-15th
2d6
1d10
1d8 (30')

16th-19th
2d8
2d6
1d10 (35')

20th
2d10
2d8
2d6 (40')




Anything on top of the above is basically a matter of personal taste.

[Corenthius]

Instead of Tongue of the Sun and Moon at level 17, give the monk Out of Mind. That skill is just stupid.

Out of Mind: A monk may spend 10 minutes meditating to project their consciousness outward to a distant place. The monk gains the benefits of a scrying spell as a caster level 20. He may use this benefit once per day.

Yes to full BAB.

Here is an idea that just popped into my head. Maybe for every 4 levels allow a monk to add 2 stat points instead of 1. Both points may not be spent on the same stat. If during any of those 4 levels they take a level in a class that isn't a monk, they do not gain this benefit. This could help with the MAD part.

What do you guys think about d10 hit die? Could help them more with tanking.

[rel]

I have spent an amount of time thinking about the monk and my first and easiest suggestion is to key the monks class abilities on either DEX or CON instead of WIS to make the monk less MAD.

Of my various monk rewrites the following Flurry of Blows ability is a fairly stand alone.

Flurry of Blows
As a standard action a monk can unleash a special attack or simply flourish dramatically. The special attack is made unarmed or with monk weapons that adds the characters monk level as a bonus to hit and twice that value to damage.
A monk that has used the standard action component of its Flurry of Blows ability during a turn gains access to a number of Extra Hits equal (monk level / 2 + 1).
An Extra Hit is special unarmed attack or attack with monk weapons that takes a free action to use and adds the monks level as a bonus to hit and twice that value to damage.
An Extra Hit cannot be used on a creature that the monk has already damaged using its Flurry of Blows ability.

Example 1:
A second level monk attacks a creature using his Flurry of Blows standard action. The attack misses but the monk gains access to two Extra Hits. The monk attacks again as a free action and hits. The monk cannot use the second Extra Hit against the creature because it just took damage from the monks Flurry of Blows ability via the first Extra Hit.
So the monk uses his remaining movement to get closer to another enemy and uses the second Extra Hit, again as a free action, to make a shuriken attack against them.

Example 2:
A fourth level monk starts her turn not in range of any enemies. She uses her standard action to use the flourish component of her Flurry of Blows and gains access to three Extra Hits. Then she takes a move action.
Fifteen feet into the move she comes adjacent to a goblin and uses a free action to attack the goblin with an Extra Hit killing it. She then continues moving.
After a further ten feet of movement she is adjacent to another goblin and again uses a free action and her second Extra Hit to attack it.
The goblin is again killed and the monk uses her remaining movement and Extra Hit to repeat the process a third time.


The following ability was designed to work with a more complete class rewrite but I have modified it to be stand alone

Fast Movement
A monk has access to a pool of fast movement equal to 5 feet per monk level. This special movement can be consumed in a number of ways and is always used in increments of 5 feet.
Aside from the specified differences, fast movement represents the monk moving normally using any applicable movement modes.
A monk regains all spent fast movement at the end of each of their turns.

As part of normal movement a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move further than normal.

As a swift action a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move that distance.

As an immediate action a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move that distance.

Example 1:
An enemy moves up to the monk and makes an attack. The monk responds by taking an immediate action to move five feet away from the enemy using the tumble skill to negate the attack of opportunity.
The creature is no longer in range so its attack misses automatically.

Example 2:
A monk begins her turn not adjacent to any enemies. She uses her swift action to move 20 feet ending adjacent to an enemy. The monk then attacks the enemy with her Flurry of Blows.

[Vaern]

I have spent an amount of time thinking about the monk and my first and easiest suggestion is to key the monks class abilities on either DEX or CON instead of WIS to make the monk less MAD.
As far as I'm aware, their only feature based on wisdom is their armor bonus and saving throw DCs. If anything, I'd give them features that allow more of their abilities to scale on wisdom to make them less reliant on other ability scores. For example, make their first ki strike feature also apply their wisdom bonus to damage rolls, and allow flurry of blows to use add wisdom instead of strength for their attack bonus modifier. Then they're pretty much free to focus on wisdom and not worry about strength at all.


Fast Movement
A monk has access to a pool of fast movement equal to 5 feet per monk level. This special movement can be consumed in a number of ways and is always used in increments of 5 feet.
Aside from the specified differences, fast movement represents the monk moving normally using any applicable movement modes.
A monk regains all spent fast movement at the end of each of their turns.

As part of normal movement a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move further than normal.

As a swift action a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move that distance.

As an immediate action a monk can expend any amount of fast movement to move that distance.
Letting them use bonus movement on someone else's turn is horribly broken. Especially considering that the amount of bonus movement they have by level 6 would make make evasion completely useless, since they could simply use fast movement as a spell is being cast to casually step out of the blast radius of any area spell or trap they can expect to encounter at that point.

[Bohandas]

Also, change the name of the class to something more appropriate. That's the part of the class that bugs me the most.

And maybe add some kind of minor initiator/tome of battle abilities


Letting them use bonus movement on someone else's turn is horribly broken. Especially considering that the amount of bonus movement they have by level 6 would make make evasion completely useless, since they could simply use fast movement as a spell is being cast to casually step out of the blast radius of any area spell or trap they can expect to encounter at that point.

Not if they're fighting more than one opponent. Then it could totally turn into something like the end of Chronicles of Riddick

[Ashtagon]

My own thoughts on the monk class...

1. Monk bonus to damage should be changed to effective size class increases (or at least, step increases in damage die size). This enables my second point.

2. Monk damage bonuses should be applicable to monk weapons. Without this, weapon proficiencies (and monk weapons generally) rapidly become meaningless.

3. Flurry of Blows Misses needs to be replaced with Swift Strike. As a swift action, a monk who spent their standard or full action attacking with unarmed strikes and/or monk weapons can make one extra melee attack with an unarmed strike or monk weapon at their full BAB. This removes the poor damage output (it's statistically worse to flurry than to full attack in level-appropriate fights through to 8th level) and lets it interact well with monk's fast movement.

4. Remove the "unarmed strike" as a monk weapon (or at least, re-categorise it as the "boxing" martial art). Instead, design a small sample of "martial arts" (similar to those presented in 1e OA and PHBR15). These martial arts could then have various feats that operate in conjunction with them for advanced effects, similar to how some feats interact with specific weapons. Monks at 1st level get one of these martial arts free, and can gain more either with their bonus feats or as an EWP feat.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

If I had to choose a single aspect in which the Monk should shine above all other classes, it's the ability to move unhindered while attacking.
This means that a monk should be able to make full attacks - including flurry - while moving at his speed and without being constraint to dividing his movement in any particular way.
Do that and the Monk can finally benefit from its elevated speed.
To make this aspect stand out for the Monk in specific, no PrC should improve this ability.

The most monk-like monk I ever played was one who dipped Binder to bind Paimon for Dance of Death, which lets you move your speed and make a single attack against every creature you move past. Giving the monk something like that, instead of a clunkier and more limited "You have X attacks and can move up to Y feet between attacks" setup, would really let the monk take full advantage of its speed and be a nightmare for large groups of enemies.


Of my various monk rewrites the following Flurry of Blows ability is a fairly stand alone.

Flurry of Blows
As a standard action a monk can unleash a special attack or simply flourish dramatically. The special attack is made unarmed or with monk weapons that adds the characters monk level as a bonus to hit and twice that value to damage.
A monk that has used the standard action component of its Flurry of Blows ability during a turn gains access to a number of Extra Hits equal (monk level / 2 + 1).
An Extra Hit is special unarmed attack or attack with monk weapons that takes a free action to use and adds the monks level as a bonus to hit and twice that value to damage.
An Extra Hit cannot be used on a creature that the monk has already damaged using its Flurry of Blows ability.

3. Flurry of Blows Misses needs to be replaced with Swift Strike. As a swift action, a monk who spent their standard or full action attacking with unarmed strikes and/or monk weapons can make one extra melee attack with an unarmed strike or monk weapon at their full BAB. This removes the poor damage output (it's statistically worse to flurry than to full attack in level-appropriate fights through to 8th level) and lets it interact well with monk's fast movement.

Along these lines, simply making Flurry of Blows work like Snap Kick (whenever you make one or more attack, you get a free Flurry attack, whether it's a standard attack, full attack, AoO, whatever) would improve the monk's mobility synergy as mentioned above, while requiring less tracking outside the player's turn.


As far as I'm aware, their only feature based on wisdom is their armor bonus and saving throw DCs. If anything, I'd give them features that allow more of their abilities to scale on wisdom to make them less reliant on other ability scores. For example, make their first ki strike feature also apply their wisdom bonus to damage rolls, and allow flurry of blows to use add wisdom instead of strength for their attack bonus modifier. Then they're pretty much free to focus on wisdom and not worry about strength at all.

The main problem is making everything based on Wis is that if you give those abilities at 1st level monk becomes an amazing dip class, but if you delay them until later levels then the monk is still MAD until it reaches those levels at which point its investment in Str/Dex/Con is useless.

What might be better is to decouple those class features from Wisdom entirely. Increase the AC Bonus progression from +1/5 level to 3+1/2 level or so and remove the +Wis from AC Bonus, then let monks add the same bonus to attacks and damage in addition to AC when unencumbered and attacking with monk weapons. That makes the bonus sufficiently large at higher levels to make up for the lack of enhancement bonuses from magic weapons, and you can start using or adding that bonus in other ways at higher levels (e.g. add to class skill checks for amazing athletics, add to saves in place of a cloak of resistance, etc.).


4. Remove the "unarmed strike" as a monk weapon (or at least, re-categorise it as the "boxing" martial art). Instead, design a small sample of "martial arts" (similar to those presented in 1e OA and PHBR15). These martial arts could then have various feats that operate in conjunction with them for advanced effects, similar to how some feats interact with specific weapons. Monks at 1st level get one of these martial arts free, and can gain more either with their bonus feats or as an EWP feat.

There's actually a bunch of these feats in 3.0 OA and corresponding Dragon material. Just giving bonus feats from that list every other level would go a long way toward making the monk more thematic, if not particularly more powerful.

[Ashtagon]

There's actually a bunch of these feats in 3.0 OA and corresponding Dragon material. Just giving bonus feats from that list every other level would go a long way toward making the monk more thematic, if not particularly more powerful.

Not so much. Most (all?) of those feats are along the lines of "flying kick", where they reference a specific motion, rather than say, "kick boxing". It's kind of like the difference between using "longsword" and using "lunging step".

[Eldan]

My personal monk fix is to allow a psychic warrior to have hte monk's unarmed attack progression in exchange for weapon proficiencies and wisdom to AC in exchange for armour. Done.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Not so much. Most (all?) of those feats are along the lines of "flying kick", where they reference a specific motion, rather than say, "kick boxing". It's kind of like the difference between using "longsword" and using "lunging step".

This is true. When you said to "make various feats that interact with them," though, I thought you were referring to something like UA fighting styles (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les), which are just collections of feats similar to the Rokugan ones, and as I recall the Special Maneuvers for 1e OA martial arts are basically collections of feat-like benefits, too.

If you were mostly referring to the varying unarmed damage, AC bonuses, and number of attacks from the OA martial arts, that would be interesting from a differentiating-monks-of-different-styles perspective, but it's fairly fiddly mechanically and not much of a boost compared to just improving all of those stats across the board. You could certainly do a more powerful and worthwhile version of martial arts, with combos and stances and ToB-like levels of detail, but that's beyond the scope of the "one class feature at a time" sorts of fixes in this thread.


My personal monk fix is to allow a psychic warrior to have hte monk's unarmed attack progression in exchange for weapon proficiencies and wisdom to AC in exchange for armour. Done.

And then the psychic warrior can use the Soulbound Weapon ACF to "call" an unarmed strike, for enchanted fists with an anime energy aura effect! :smallbiggrin:

[rel]

Letting them use bonus movement on someone else's turn is horribly broken. Especially considering that the amount of bonus movement they have by level 6 would make make evasion completely useless, since they could simply use fast movement as a spell is being cast to casually step out of the blast radius of any area spell or trap they can expect to encounter at that point.

Broken compared to what? Even if you put both the powers I suggested; bonus movement and flurry into the same monk class the result would still be weaker than a cleric or druid of equivalent level. And those are both commonly played PHB classes.

The movement power does make evasion worthless but that was by design. It was part of a whole class rewrite that also replaced evasion.
I recommend doing the same thing when you go to adapt my power to your own monk rewrites.

Now seems like a good time to talk about my ideas on the monks grab bag of weak flavour Powers. Specifically that they must be stronger.
A spellcaster can choose the best and most appropriate spells from a vast list. Often tailoring their powers to perfectly address the problems of the hour.
By contrast, every monk in every situation has the exact same set of skills flavourful sure. But weak.

So, each monk ability should be STRONGER than a spell of the same level.
And no, being always available is not a very useful metric for the strength of a power.

[Maat Mons]

Here are three abilities that have tended to feature in my many aborted attempts to fix monk.

Ki Armor: A monk learns to toughen his body by channeling ki. He gains a +4 armor bonus to AC. At every even-numbered monk level, this bonus increases by +1.

AC Bonus: Beginning at ??? level <not 1st>, a monk adds his wisdom bonus to AC when wearing light or no armor.

Ki Weaponry: Beginning at 4th level, an monk gains a +1 enhancement bonus on attack and damage rolls with kata weapons <kata weapons = unarmed strike + special monk weapons>. At monk level 8, and every 4 monk levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +1.

Edit: And another one.

Zen Combat Training: A monk of 2nd level or higher may use his Wisdom score in place of any other ability score for purposes of meeting prerequisites for combat-oriented feats.

Also, maybe give the monk the option of two-weapon fighting with unarmed strikes, or treating unarmed strikes as two-handed weapons, but no both.

[Maat Mons]

Here's a very quick and very dirty framework for a sublime monk.


Level Attack Fort Ref Will Special Kata Damage Maneuvers Stances
1st 1 0 2 2 Kata weapons, ki armor, snap kick 1d6 ?? ??
2nd 2 0 3 3 Bonus feat, evasion 1d6 ?? ??
3rd 3 1 3 3 AC bonus 1d6 ?? ??
4th 4 1 4 4 Bonus feat, ki strike, movement ability 1d8 ?? ??
5th 5 1 4 4 Purity of body 1d8 ?? ??
6th 6 2 5 5 Movement ability 1d8 ?? ??
7th 7 2 5 5 DR 1/- 1d8 ?? ??
8th 8 2 6 6 Movement ability 1d10 ?? ??
9th 9 3 6 6 Improved evasion 1d10 ?? ??
10th 10 3 7 7 DR 2/-, ki strike, movement ability 1d10 ?? ??
11th 11 3 7 7 Diamond body 1d10 ?? ??
12th 12 4 8 8 Movement ability 2d6 ?? ??
13th 13 4 8 8 DR 3/- 2d6 ?? ??
14th 14 4 9 9 Movement ability 2d6 ?? ??
15th 15 5 9 9 2d6 ?? ??
16th 16 5 10 10 DR 4/-, ki strike, movement ability 2d8 ?? ??
17th 17 5 10 10 2d8 ?? ??
18th 18 6 11 11 Movement ability 2d8 ?? ??
19th 19 6 11 11 DR 5/- 2d8 ?? ??
20th 20 6 12 12 Movement ability 2d10 ?? ??


Kata Weapons (Ex):
At 1st level, choose a martial arts style from the list below. When using a weapon associated with this martial art, you deal extra damage.

Okinawa: Kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, siangham, unarmed strike
Escrima: Club, dagger, quarterstaff, short sword, unarmed strike
Ghurka: Club, kukri, short sword, unarmed strike
Krabi-Krabong: Club, quarterstaff, short sword, spear, short spear, unarmed strike

<use base damage from monk table or weapon's base damage, whichever is higher>
<or change the way monk damage works, that's fine too>

Ki Armor (Ex):
A monk gains an armor bonus to AC equal to 4 + 1/2 his monk level (rounded down).
<can't be enchanted, basically extraordinary inertial armor>

Maneuvers:
<include replacements for stunning fist, wholeness of body, abundant step, quivering palm, and empty self>
<include trip/disarm maneuvers>

Bonus Feat (Ex):
At each indicated level, gain a bonus feat from the following list. (Don't need to meet prerequisites.)

Combat Reflexes
Improved Grapple
Improved Trip
Versatile Unarmed Strike


AC Bonus (Ex):
Beginning at 3rd level, a monk adds his wisdom bonus to AC when wearing light armor or no armor.

Ki Strike (Ex):
At each indicated level, choose one of the following benefits.

Adamantine: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/adamantine
Cold Iron: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/cold iron
Evil: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/evil (must be evil to select)
Good: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/good (must be good to select)
Lawful: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/law
Magic: Attacks with kata weapons gain +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage
Silver: Damage with kata weapons overcomes DR/adamantine


Movement Ability (Ex):
At each indicated level choose one ability from the following list.

Balance Mastery: Gain a bonus equal to monk level on Balance checks and can always take 10 on Balance.
Fast Movement: <works as standard monk ability>
Slow Fall: <works like standard monk ability>
Standing Jump: Gain standing jump as a bonus feat.
Tumble Mastery: Gain a bonus equal to monk level on Tumble checks and can always take 10 on Tumble.
Wall Walker: <works as ACF>
Water Walk: <works as aquatic monk ACF>

<need at least 3 more>

[Vaern]

The main problem is making everything based on Wis is that if you give those abilities at 1st level monk becomes an amazing dip class, but if you delay them until later levels then the monk is still MAD until it reaches those levels at which point its investment in Str/Dex/Con is useless.
Allowing them to use wis as an attack bonus with flurry would give them a better chance to hit from level 1 while limiting its usefulness as a 1-level dip with its restriction of only being usable while unarmored and using monk weapons. Giving them wisdom as bonus damage with ki strike at level 4 (when they get their first bonus ability point to spend, mind you) is low enough that it's still a meaningful ability to look forward to gaining, but a high enough level that dipping that far into the class would be impractical for a build based primarily on another class.

Broken compared to what? Even if you put both the powers I suggested; bonus movement and flurry into the same monk class the result would still be weaker than a cleric or druid of equivalent level. And those are both commonly played PHB classes.

The movement power does make evasion worthless but that was by design. It was part of a whole class rewrite that also replaced evasion.
I recommend doing the same thing when you go to adapt my power to your own monk rewrites.
You're comparing a martial class to T1 classes. Compare the monk to a fighter, rogue, or a two-weapon-fighting-style ranger. Having bonus movement is fine, but allowing them to use that movement on someone else's turn will make them literally untouchable in one-on-one combat against any other average melee character past level 6 or so.
Realistically, if the monk sees an enemy approaching to attack, he's not going to wait until he attacks to move five feet. He's going to respond to the enemy approaching him by moving backwards 30 feet, forcing the enemy to make a double move action to get within range. The enemy no longer has an action to make an attack with. On the monk's turn, he punches the enemy in the face a couple of times, takes a 5-foot step back, and then uses a swift action (as a 5-foot step prohibits a move action on the same round) to move an extra 25 feet. He ends his turn 30 feet away to bait the enemy towards him while holding onto 5 feet of movement to simply step back to the 35 foot mark in response to the enemy declaring movement towards him again, forcing a double move action and causing the enemy to forfeit his attack for the round again.

[Maat Mons]

Realistically, if the monk sees an enemy approaching to attack, he's not going to wait until he attacks to move five feet. He's going to respond to the enemy approaching him by moving backwards 30 feet, forcing the enemy to make a double move action to get within range. The enemy no longer has an action to make an attack with. On the monk's turn, he punches the enemy in the face a couple of times, takes a 5-foot step back, and then uses a swift action (as a 5-foot step prohibits a move action on the same round) to move an extra 25 feet. He ends his turn 30 feet away to bait the enemy towards him while holding onto 5 feet of movement to simply step back to the 35 foot mark in response to the enemy declaring movement towards him again, forcing a double move action and causing the enemy to forfeit his attack for the round again.

If the monk used an immediate action to move on the enemy's turn, he no longer has a swift action to use on his own turn. So he actually can't do that.

I don't see any particular reason the enemy couldn't charge the monk. That's 60 feet of movement and an attack in the same round. For some barbarian builds, it's a full attack.

[rel]

Well, if the aim here is to balance monk against fighter then I'm not sure I can help.
All my rewrites aim to raise materials to tier 2 at least (with addmitadly questionable success).

The example of a monk kiting a fighter has issues but I don't think going over the specifics is helpful.

In general, the monk movement ability when used out of turn is pretty similar to the abrupt jaunt wizard ACF. Strong, but not unbeatable in actual play.

If people want to use it but curtail it's power then it might be helpful to look into discussions of Abrupt Jaunt.

I was going to post an answer to slow fall next but I feel like that would be thread crapping at this point.
It definitely isn't leaving the monk equivalent to an unmodified fighter or rogue.

[Vaern]

If the monk used an immediate action to move on the enemy's turn, he no longer has a swift action to use on his own turn. So he actually can't do that.

I don't see any particular reason the enemy couldn't charge the monk. That's 60 feet of movement and an attack in the same round. For some barbarian builds, it's a full attack.
Ah. My bad. I couldn't find anything skimming the SRD about immediate actions. There was a bit in the Rules Compendium that said an immediate action used in your own turn takes the place of a swift action, but I must have stopped at that point and missed the bit saying that an action on another person's turn uses your swift action for your next turn. The monk can still, likely with a bit of risk of failure at this level, simply attempt to tumble away to avoid an AoO and use his normal movement to create the 30-foot gap. Then this leaves him with much more than just the extra five feet of bonus movement to use on his opponent's turn.

But, in regards to charging, that's partially why the monk banks that extra 5 feet instead of just using it right away.
If the enemy moves to attack, he simply moves in response to the movement to force a double move and negate the attack altogether.
If the enemy declares a charge, on the other hand, the monk knows that they will have enough movement to catch him and make their attack anyway if he only shifts five feet in response to their movement. Instead, he lets the enemy complete their movement and instead shifts in response to the first attack. It misses automatically. The movement still provokes an AoO, but the mini still has the opportunity to avoid it with tumble and charge only grants its attack bonus for the charge attack.
In the case of the pouncing barbarian, I'm not sure if he'd be able to get his full attack. I know you can use a 5-foot step as part of a full attack in exchange for sacrificing your move action for the round, but since charging involves movement I'm not sure if the option would be available. I'm on my phone at the moment and it isn't ideal for checking up on this kind of thing. But, since the monk is now tumbling away from an AoO on his own turn instead of burning bonus movement with a 5-foot step, he now has enough bonus movement to simply shift 10+ feet on the enemy's turn instead, putting himself solidly out of range and making it a moot point.


In general, the monk movement ability when used out of turn is pretty similar to the abrupt jaunt wizard ACF. Strong, but not unbeatable in actual play.
The key problematic difference between the two is that the wizard's use of abrupt jaunt ability is limited by his int modifier, while the monk has no such limitation. Rather than building the ability directly into fast movement and allowing it to be used every round, why not rework it into a new version of abundant step? Make abundant step teleport the monk up to his bonus movement speed as an immediate action, usable a number of times per day equal to his wisdom bonus. It's a much shorter range than the standard version, but still offers better range than abrupt jaunt. Giving it multiple uses per day plus making it an immediate action also gives it more versatility as an in-combat tool than the standard version.

[Maat Mons]

I'd like to revise my earlier suggestion for a basic sublime monk progression.


LevelAttackFortRefWillSpecialImproved DamageManeuversStances
1st 1022Improved unarmed strike, ki armor, snap kick1d6 ????
2nd 2033AC bonus, evasion1d6 ????
3rd 3133Movement ability, purity of body1d6 ????
4th 4144Ki strike1d8 ????
5th 5144+wis to fort saves?1d8 ????
6th 6255Bonus feat1d8 ????
7th 7255Movement ability1d8 ????
8th 8266Ki strike1d10 ????
9th 9366Diamond body, improved evasion1d10 ????
10th 10377Bonus feat1d10 ????
11th 11377Double snap kick, movement ability1d10 ????
12th 12488Ki strike2d6 ????
13th 13488+wis to damage?2d6 ????
14th 14499Bonus feat2d6 ????
15th 15599Movement ability2d6 ????
16th 1651010Ki strike2d8 ????
17th 1751010filler?2d8 ????
18th 1861111Bonus feat2d8 ????
19th 1961111Movement ability2d8 ????
20th 2061212Ki strike, capstone?2d10 ????


Improved Damage
use listed value in place of normal base damage for unarmed strike/special monk weapons (if better)
these values are for medium-sized monk

Improved Unarmed Strike
gain improved unarmed strike as bonus feat
can also treat unarmed strike as both natural weapon and manufactured weapon

Ki Armor
gain armor bonus to AC = 4 + 1/3 monk level

Snap Kick
treated as having snap kick when using only unarmed strike/special monk weapons
don't need to meet prerequisites

AC Bonus
add wis to ac when wearing light/no armor

Movement Ability
gain one ability from list at each indicated level

Acrobatic Skill Mastery
Fast movement
Slow Fall
Wall run
Water Step

Ki Strike
at each indicated level, chose one from list

Adamantine: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/adamantine
Cold Iron: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/cold iron
Evil: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/evil (must be evil)
Good: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/good (must be good)
Lawful: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/lawful
Magic: unarmed strike/monk weapons gain enhancement bonus to attack/damage = 1/4 monk level
Silver: unarmed strike/monk weapons overcome DR/silver

Bonus Feat
from list, don't need to meet prerequisite

Combat Reflexes
Improved Disarm
Improved Grapple
Improved Initiative
Improved Trip
Intuitive Attack
Versatile Unarmed Strike
Zen Archery

Double Snap Kick
when using snap kick, 2 extra attacks instead of just 1

[khadgar567]

Here is another fix idea gave monk kama surta profiency and spheres of might access along with ability to sneak attack with monk weapons that will solve major issues

[dreadnotanecro]

Wow, you guys put a lot of thought into this. Let me read it over and see if I have anything to add. If I don't forget my password again I'll be sure to post. I keep having to make new accounts because I'm dumb.

[dreadnotanecro]

hmmm. seems like the internet is full of these sorts of threads. I wish I could offer more insight into this, but I don't know if I can.
I like the idea of taking the thematic Jackie Chan esque monk and putting it into d and d. The whole bit where he gets hit by someone and is able to keep fighting no problem, but then at the end he steps out of range of the other guy and is all like, oww. (I had more than 3 w's initially, apparently this was flagged as a link for some reason)
The way I could see that playing out is say when the monk gets smacked he gets a certain amount of temp hp until the end of combat, and then has to deal with the damage?
I dunno, I'm spit balling here.