Horbagh's Monk Revision (v1)

Goals:  The goal of this monk revision is to increase the ability of the monk to deal damage in melee combat without otherwise altering the feel of the class.  Currently, the monk has difficulty dealing damage due to the following reasons:

1) Attack and Charge actions force the monk to use his ¾ base attack bonus

2) His unarmed strike weapon equivalent is 25% over-priced and takes up an amulet slot

3) He has no weapon training/smite/favored enemy/self-buffs sort of bonus to help land blows

4) His unarmed strikes can't bypass three of the most common DR types

Design Constraints: This revised monk is intended to look and feel exactly like the original core monk.  It is not an attempt to rewrite the class from the ground up.  It also aims to break no existing content.  Existing monk archetypes (and feats like Spider Step) require that the monk gain the same set of abilities with the same names at the same levels.  Therefore, abilities like Still Mind and Slow Fall have to stay.  Furthermore this revision is intended to be compatible with existing pagination allowing it to serve as a drop-in replacement for the current class writeup in the hardcover book.  By eliminating excess verbiage, the sections of the writeup presented here come to 4955 characters (not including tables) whereas the equivalent sections of the current writeup total 5218 characters, leaving 263 characters to add clarifying text as necessary.  The class summary table expands horizontally by one column (that lists unarmed damage for small monks) for which there should be room in the print version.  The Monk's Unarmed Strike Enchantment replaces the Small or Large Monk Unarmed Damage table.

The particular changes I’ve made here were based off of DPR calculations I made in this spreadsheet.  If you’re looking at the changes and think the monk is now too powerful, the easiest way to fix it is to decrease the unarmed damage die size.  If you think it needs more damage, having ki strike grant some sort of insight bonus to damage is an easy band-aid.

Caveat: I don't claim to be the first person to have thought of any or all of these fixes.  There are probably dozens of monk fixes floating around that incorporate these changes (most of which are common sense anyway).  The idea here is to apply a small number of changes and one or two quality-of-life that might actually see the light of day in publication.

Table: Monk

        Unarmed Strike:  At 1st level, the monk receives Improved Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat.  His unarmed strikes also deal more damage than those of an ordinary creature of his size.  Table: Monk lists unarmed damage for medium and small sized monks.  When attacking with unarmed strikes or special monk weapons the monk also uses a higher base attack bonus (Monk Attack Bonus).  A monk may use this enhanced base attack bonus during a full attack action or other action in which he performs multiple attacks if and only if all attacks are made with unarmed strikes or special monk weapons.  The Monk Attack Bonus is also used for calculating the numeric effects of feats such as Deadly Aim, Combat Expertise, and Power Attack provided the monk is fighting with appropriate weapons.  For all other purposes, including qualifying for feats or prestige classes, the monk uses his regular base attack bonus.

        Rationale:  A monk is supposed to be a master of a an exotic fighting style focused on unarmed combat.   The normal rules mean that a monk making a unarmed charge attack (think flying kick) loses out on a bunch of accuracy.  The monk has ¾ BAB progression to keep him away from the higher levels of feat chains but he shouldn't have to stand still and flurry in order to hit anything.  By granting the monk full BAB with unarmed attacks and monk weapons, the monk can actually land blows so long as he sticks to a thematically appropriate combat style.  He can now charge and Spring Attack without attack roll penalties.

        A monk's unarmed strike is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for purposes of spells and effects such as magic fang and magic weapon that enhance or improve either manufactured or natural weapons.  Furthermore, his unarmed strike can be permanently enchanted as if it were a masterwork weapon (see sidebar for requirements).  The enchantment may be dispelled or destroyed by any effects that would normally affect a magic weapon (for example, by mage's disjunction) but this does not otherwise harm the monk.  The effects of this enchantment do not stack with those of other spells or magic items such as greater magic fang or an Amulet of Mighty Fists; only the effect with greater total enhancement bonus applies.

        Rationale:  One of the monk's biggest problems currently is itemization.  With core rules, a monk only has two ways to enhance his unarmed strike.  The first is permanent castings of (Greater) Magic Fang.  The wording of this spell indicates that it only effects one unarmed strike (such as a fist) making it unclear exactly how many castings would a monk need to cover all possible options.  Is it four (two hands, two feet)?  Eight (adding in knees and elbows)?  What about a head butt?  The other option is the Amulet of Mighty Fists which over-priced and has strange properties such as allowing special abilities without enhancement bonuses.  It also occupies the slot where every other class puts an Amulet of Natural Armor depriving the monk of armor class.

        Because a cleric can already cast Magic Weapon on a monk's unarmed strike, why not go all the way and let him permanently enchant it?  This way a monk can spend his WBL to enhance his unarmed strike like a regular magic weapon.  A monk is essentially a two-weapon fighter specializing in unarmed strike.  Therefore, the enchantment is budgeted at twice the cost of a single magic weapon.  The caveat is added that the monk's class level has to be greater than or equal to the caster level of the enchantment to help keep his power from scaling too quickly if the character somehow comes up with a glut of treasure early in his career.

        Flurry of Blows (Ex):  A monk gains the use of a number of feats provided he is attacking with only unarmed strikes and/or special monk weapons.  He need not meet the prerequisites for these feats.  At 1st level, he gains Two-Weapon Fighting and Double Slice as bonus feats.  At 8th level he gains the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat.  At 15th level he gains Greater Two-Weapon Fighting.

        Rationale: Turning Flurry of Blows into a list of feats helps clarify exactly how it works; this change makes it clear, for example, that all attacks can't come from a single kama.  It also explicitly opens up other two-weapon style feats to the monk.  The fact that monks lose Flurry of Blows when armored, shielded, or wielding non-monk weapons makes this class feature less attractive for multiclass dipping.

        Bonus Feat:  At 1st level, 2nd level and every 4 levels thereafter the monk gains a bonus feat.  There feats must be taken from the following list: Blind-Fight, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Defensive Combat Training, Deflect Arrows, Dodge, Improved Grapple, Nimble Moves, and Scorpion Style.  At 6th level, the following feats are added to the list: Gorgon's Fist, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Disarm, Improved Feint, Improved Trip, and Mobility.  At 10th level the following feats are added to the list: Improved Critical, Medusa's Wrath, Snatch Arrows, Spring Attack, and Vital Strike.  A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them.

        Rationale:  No major changes here.  The improvised weapon feats were removed because monks have no mechanical or thematic reason for preferring to fight with improvised weapons.  Some thematically appropriate feats like Blind-Fight and Nimble Moves have been added to the list.        

        Fast Movement:  The monk gains a bonus of +10 feet to his base speed for every three class levels as shown on Table: Monk.  The 10 feet of this bonus gained at 3rd level is considered an extraordinary ability that stacks with all other movement bonuses.  The remainder is considered a supernatural enhancement bonus.

        Rationale:  The monk is supposed to mobile.  One of the most frustrating things about him monk is that the moment his party's arcane caster gets the haste he no longer stands out in terms of movement.  The reason is that the core monk's movement bonus is entirely an enhancement bonus and doesn't stack with anything else.  Once the party gets hasted, everyone moves at 60 and the monk is no longer the mobility king.  In fact, the barbarian is now out-pacing him at 70.  This tiny change to Fast Movement means that the monk at least keeps up with the barbarian and stays a bit faster than the other classes under the effects of the haste spell.  The rest of his fast movement comes in the form of an enhancement bonus (as granted by ki stride below) and his total movement sans haste spell at every level works out to be the same as that of the core monk.

        Combat Intuition:  The monk's martial training conditions his body and mind to act on an unconscious level.  He may use his wisdom score in place of his intelligence score to satisfy prerequisites of combat feats.

        Rationale:  This ability is added for the sole purpose of opening up the Greater Disarm/Feint/Trip trees to the monk without further exacerbating his MAD.  Adding this ability at 6th level means that the monk gets it in plenty of time to take the Greater maneuver feats at 8th level when his BAB reaches +6 but keeps it safely out of the reach of multi-class dipping.

        Ki Pool (Su): At 4th level, a monk gains a pool of ki points that power several of his other abilities.  The number of points in a monk's ki pool is equal to ½ his monk level + his wisdom modifier.  As a swift action, the monk can spend 1 point of ki to do any of the following: make one additional attack at his highest attack bonus when using flurry of blows, increase his base speed by 20 feet for 1 round, or gain a +4 dodge bonus to AC for 1 round.  Ki points are replenished each morning after 8 hours of rest or meditation; these hours do not need to be consecutive.

        A monk's ki also guides his attacks.  He receives a +1 bonus on attack rolls made with unarmed strikes and weapons with the ki focus ability at 4th and every 4 levels thereafter.  Whenever his ki strike bonus increases, the monk also chooses one of the following DR types: magic, silver, cold iron, adamantine, lawful, good, or evil (other DR types may be added to the list at the GM's discretion).  A good-aligned monk may not select evil and an evil monk may not select good.  A monk's unarmed strikes ignore up to his class level of DR of his chosen types.  For example, a 4th level monk with ki strike (magic) would have his unarmed strike damage reduced by only 1 against a foe with DR 5/magic.  A monk with ki strike (adamantine) likewise ignores object hardness up to his class level.

        Rationale:  The monk should be able to fight unarmed effectively during most encounters.  The attack bonus is a numeric band-aid to help the monk's hit catch up with a fighter's greater weapon focus and weapon training, a paladin's smite and self buffs, or a ranger's favored enemy bonuses.  The changes to ki strike also allow him to deal more effectively with damage reduction.  He will probably still want to carry around a few silver and cold iron monk weapons at lower levels (kama and sai are good for combat maneuvers anyway) but should need to rely on them less over time.

Abundant Step (Su): At 12th level, a monk can spend 2 points of ki as a move action to teleport short distances.  This ability functions as the spell dimension door using the monk's level as the caster level except that the monk can take the remainder of his action after teleporting and he may not transport other creatures with him.

        Rationale:  This is just a quality of life improvement to allow the monk to abundant step and attack/grapple on the same turn.