Any good Homebrew Monk Variants? [3.5e]

[hunterofjello]

One of my players that I'm DMing for has insisted on playing a Monk even though he's a powergamer and the class is horrible. The end result is that he has a character that's underpowered compared to the rest of the party even though he's the type of player that is motivated by being the most powerful.

So, does anyone here have a good homebrew variant of for a Monk that works well 3.5e? I'm thinking something along the lines of higher BAB, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Aus_Snow]

One option is to create a variant Fighter (so, full BAB,) with AC and unarmed combat per the normal Monk, no armour or shields allowed, still gets bonus feats per the normal Fighter, ignore the really weird stuff (i.e., most of it) from Monk levels. Oh, and maybe good Fort and Ref saves, just for good measure? d10 HD sounds reasonable.

Another is to use the Bruiser class, courtesy of 'Dr Awkward' (albeit now with a different EN World name.)

[Dannyalcatraz]

You might want to search ENWorld (either by site based search or an advanced Google search) to look for other Monk threads here- there have been lots, many with excellent ideas.

I've managed to collect some of them in the Monk Database listed in my sig.

One post of mine, from
Revised Monk


2) You might want to give the class a wider variety of "monk weapons," either by virtue of looking up the various Feats that add a particular weapon to a PC's list of monk weapons, or by giving them a little cafeteria list to choose from at 1st level to simulate the weapon choices of various schools of martial arts.

Consider this from my homebrew, for example:

[milo]

Animal Monks is an ENworld Download, has some interesting variants in there. I think it was $1. Well worth it I think.
And if he is a powergamer he should be able to use the standard monk and at least make him equally as powerful as other characters.

[Celebrim]

The entire concept of the monk is dumb IMO, in as much as the guy is asking to balanced with his bare hands against 40' long dragons and guys with magic swords in magic armor. It's just not going to happen, and its kind of unreasonable to imagine it happening both for 'realism' reasons and game balance reasons (a monk actually balanced naked against a fighter with the best equipment would be no balance at all, since not needing equipment itself represents a huge advantage).

But, if you want a completely broken powergamer's monk, may I suggest the Oathbound from Monte Cook's 'Unearthed Arcana'/'Arcana Evolved'. I wouldn't introduced it to my campaign, on the grounds that the character ends up with immunities roughly equivalent to that of a lesser diety by 20th level. It still won't bring the damage of other martial classes, it's certainly a 'playable monk'.

[Arkhandus]

Any dumber than a 4-foot dwarven fighter with a pointy stick killing 40-foot dragons and surviving what they dish out? Any dumber than a wizard gibbering nonsense he read in a book somewhere and thereby somehow nuking said dragons into radioactive dust (okay, so just ashes, but same difference)? Any dumber than a 3-foot halfling rogue stabbing said dragons in the feet with his 3-inch dagger (...against their probably-3-inch-thick scales that provide more AC than steel plate armor....) and crippling it in the process? I don't think so.

Dude's kung fu is strong. He punches a dragon in the shin and those scales crumple like the stones he practices on every week. The price he pays is that his kung fu still isn't quite as strong as a highly-magical sword, he can't make effective use out of most magic weapons and armors, and he needs more high ability scores to compensate for his uselessness with combat gear. He tends to be more squishy, and he only really comes close to the magic-sword-wielding magically-armored dude after a long time of training and fighting; at most levels, the monk is just outright worse than any other melee class at fighting in melee (and surviving there).

It's all about skill and intense dedication/training as opposed to reliance on objects. Trained martial artists can and do survive blows that would kill or break the bones of other men. And they break freaking concrete and stuff with their bare hands.

Anyway, explanation aside....... It's the Oathsworn in Monte Cook's books, and it's not much better than the Monk, just kinda different, with both pros and cons. They are tougher than a Monk, anyway, but no better in offense and with less utility/mobility and less mystical stuff.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything especially useful to contribute here right now, since I haven't gotten around to completing my Aurelia revision/variants for the Monk class yet and haven't done any notable tweaking of the class in my other campaigns so far.

One minor option, though, would be to either play a Swordsage or Warblade from the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, or simply take a few feats from that book with the Monk; Superior Unarmed Strike is useful until upper levels (since Monk base unarmed damage caps at a certain level), Snap Kick is kinda handy, and some martial stances/maneuvers through the Martial Study and Martial Stance feats could help a Monk out.

[Matrixryu]

It isn't homebrew, doesn't have higher BAB, and is a little more complex, but have you tried looking at the pathfinder variant of the monk? The tweeks in that version of the class look pretty good to me, they get a few more feats and have a ki pool to spend on their various special abilities. Monk (Pathfinder_OGC)

[Ashtagon]

Monk - Fax Encyclopedicus

Best monk variant I've seen yet.

[Mon]

In our games, we've added two class features to the monk that take care of the Flurry of Misses and M.A.D. They may have been yoinked from elsewhere, but if so it was so long ago I forget. Sorry if one or both are your idea.

Inner Strength (Ex):
When a monk of 3rd level or above attacks with an unarmed strike or a special monk weapon, he can substitute his Wisdom bonus for his Strength bonus to modify his attack roll (if it is better). He still uses his Strength to modify damage.

and

Channel The Void (Su):
Starting at 4th level, a monk can enhance his own unarmed strikes and unarmoured AC. This works like the Craft Magic Arms and Armour feat except that it only works on the monk's own body. In place of spending time crafting, he retreats to a secluded location (often a cloister) for meditation. In place of spending gold on materials, he makes an equivalent sacrifice of material wealth (to the poor, a donation to a temple, or something similar).

The monk can apply enhancement bonuses and special weapon or armour properties, but must make a Concentration check with a DC of 15 + spell level in place of any spell prerequisites he fails to meet. Success means the enhancement works, failure means it stalls for one day. Three successive failures ruins the attempt and half of the sacrifice is wasted.

---

These two features address the core of the monk problem - weak attacks and MAD.

The first reduces MAD by removing strength from the mix, without making it a complete dump stat (it still modifies damage). With one less ability score to pour resources into the monk can be more effective at hitting things. Sure, it makes Wisdom uber for monks. But that is fine by me, since it reflects the whole "don't judge me by my size" thing flavour-wise and requires three full levels to get so it isn't a no-brainer for clerics and druids to dip. Why 3rd level? To shift it away from first level, and because Still Mind isn't such a cool power that it couldn't handle a bit of company.

The second improves the monk's ability to hit and gain cool ki powers without relying on external factors such as magic items and spells. Why 4th level? Because thats when a monk gets Ki Strike, and that's when the good samurai class (the one from OA :P) gets their similar feature of Ancestral Daisho. Oh, and it gives a monk a reason to take the thematically appropriate Concentration skill.

Both make for good flavour as well as a quick workable fix.

[milo]

I don't think the monk needs a fix to be a playable character myself. They make a great class on their own. The animal monks has the demon monk variant, you give up some of your other class features for wings, strength and con boosts, nat armor gain, fire and elec resistance, darkvision 120 ft, see invis, and you can drop points of wisdom to gain spellcasting levels as a sorcerer. If you do that you can take ascetic mage to use your charisma instead of wisdom for your monk abilites, if you start with a 15 or 16 in wisdom you can eventually have a 20th level caster without ever taking a level in sorcerer. I would suggest taking steadfast determination with that variant though. put all of your points into wisdom for leveling up(yes this takea even more stat points, but at level 16 you have a +4 to str and con from the class so those aren't as important when building the character). This is just a quick build.
I will be back with more ideas as I have time.

[Celebrim]

Originally Posted by Arkhandus

Any dumber than a 4-foot dwarven fighter with a pointy stick killing 40-foot dragons and surviving what they dish out?

Yes, considerably dumber.

If you'd bothered to read, you would have seen I'd already briefly answered this entirely predictable objection.

To begin with, your argument seems to be that if I accept 'fantastic' things then I can no longer object to 'unrealistic' things. This draws a false contrast between 'fantastic' and 'unrealistic', because once I accept the premise of the 'fantastic' world where 40' long firebreathing lizards exist and people can conjure fire from thin air by mumbling the right words and even where I accept people's 'kung fu' is strong, I can still object to a lack of 'realism' within such constraints.

In the case of the open-hand fighting monk, I can point out that back in the real world were we get all the stories, myths, and ideas that we are creating our fantasy from, the idea that someone with strong 'kung fu' is not disadvantaged when forced to fight with only their bare hands just doesn't exist. It doesn't exist in wuxia. It doesn't exist in eastern martial arts. It just isn't found, because even amongst people who believed strongly that by practicing kung fu you could do magical, mystical things, they still understood that someone with equally strong kung fu but also wielding a sword, spear, or other weapon had the advantage.

Even if you believe and accept that someone can move with magical speed, float above the ground with the power of their ki, or strike with such force to break bricks, you still find yourself led to believe by the internal logic of the setting that said person ought to be able to move a sword with magical speed, float above the ground with the power of their ki, and strike more heavily holding a weapon than they would with their bare hands. You might well believe someone's kung fu let them beat non-heroic armed and armored individuals with only their bare hands, but any familiarity with actual Shaolin, Kung-Fu, Karate, Jute-Kwan-Do, or whatever and the myths around them would lead to you to think being armed was better than not being armed. The monk in 1e was recognized as badly designed almost universally and immediately, but it is this badly designed peice of crap that created the whole 'unarmed attacks ought to be better than armed attacks' nonsense.

But it's more dumb than that. The basic problem here is that reliance on arms and armor represent a serious drawback. Arms and armor are expensive. They can break. They can be dropped. They can be a hinderance. They are heavy. They give away that you are prepared for battle. If some dude could compete on equal terms in a fight without weapons with the guy who had weapons, then why would anyone use weapons at all? In such a world, where you could do just as well without them, who would bother to invent weapons? In such a game, where you could do just as well in combat without weapons as with them, why would anyone play the martial class that had the disadvantage of needing breakable, theftable, dropable, encumbering implements?

Dude's kung fu is strong. He punches a dragon in the shin and those scales crumple like the stones he practices on every week.

Great. That's believable in the light of fantasy. What's not believable is the expectation that some dude next to him with equally strong kung fu, but also a magical spear can't use that same kung fu thrust to skewer said dragon like a shish-kabob.

So the entire idea that you can somehow balance an unarmed fighter against an armed fighter in any granular game system is just dumb, as is any complaint that your unarmed fighter can't compete with armed fighters. If the Monk is a subpar fighter, that's the only way it can be balanced.

They are tougher than a Monk, anyway, but no better in offense and with less utility/mobility and less mystical stuff.

Right. Because not needing to breathe, eat, sleep, or drink and being immortal and completely immune to pain, poison, disease, nausea, energy drain, ability damage, compulsion and virtually every other thing (off the top of my head I don't remember the whole list) doesn't involve anything mystical at all.

[milo]

In most one on one fights between a monk and a fighter the monk will lose. You lock them in a small room where the monk can't use his superior movement and skills he will lose. You throw them in an obstacle course or a place with some loose tiles where balance and tumbling might be useful the monk will stand a chance. I know it is odd that the fighter might be a superior fighter, just crazy. But the monk can do other things that help balance them in the long run. Like evade fireballs, make will saves, charge 180 ft in a round and stun a wizard at the end of the charge. They don't stand toe to toe with things as well as a fighter does though, they don't replace a fighter in a party. They are a utility character and if you have the main 4(fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric) then they are a great addition. This isn't always true though, just what I have seen in my experience. What does the rest of the party have in it? If he can get some help from the rest of the party like mage armor, heroism, magic fang, greater magic fang, etc he can get other items that he may need to help his combat ability. Custom made items are great for monks like a ring of divine favor +x (Spell levelxcaster levelx2000x2) 4000 for a +1, 24000 for a +2, 36000 for a +3, 48000 for a +4, 60000 for a +5, 72000 for a +6.
Then there is always the way you use monks, standing up in a straight fight they are useless, but they can do so much more than stand toe to toe and duke it out like a barbarian or a fighter, and if he tries to do that he will be greatly disappointed.

[Sylrae]

If youre looking for a non-ridiculous Monk Variant, look at the Monk in Project Phoenix. Search Google for Project Phoenix d20, and it should be right at the top.

It's got different martial schools.

I cant remember if it fixed the flurry of misses, but it's definitely a good improvement.

The Martial Arts techniques are loosely based on Avatar the Last airbender fighting styles (which are in turn based on real fighting styles), but without the magic and elemental stuff avatar has.

[ValhallaGH]

I like the Trailblazer monk variant.

Basically, as long as you fight like a monk (gaining the AC bonuses and using monk weapons) you get an attack bonus that places you on a virtual full BAB. This doesn't increase your iterative attack rates, or your feat access, since it's not a BAB increase, but it does shore up the attack bonus of a class that's supposed to fight. (+1 at first level, +2 at fifth level, +3 at ninth level, +4 at thirteenth level, etc.)

Add in the Weapon Kata feat (Benefit: gain proficiency with weapon and treat as special monk weapon) and you've got a pretty nifty class.

[Celebrim]

Originally Posted by ValhallaGH

Basically, as long as you fight like a monk (gaining the AC bonuses and using monk weapons) you get an attack bonus that places you on a virtual full BAB. This doesn't increase your iterative attack rates, or your feat access, since it's not a BAB increase, but it does shore up the attack bonus of a class that's supposed to fight. (+1 at first level, +2 at fifth level, +3 at ninth level, +4 at thirteenth level, etc.)

Add in the Weapon Kata feat (Benefit: gain proficiency with weapon and treat as special monk weapon) and you've got a pretty nifty class.

That's a pretty simple fix that you could drop into pretty much any monk class roughly on par in power with the SRD monk. In my very limited experience DMing Monks in 3e, they are a tad bit underpowered at everything but running away (which sucks for the rest of the party).

An alternate fix, and one that would be more in my style, would be to make a feat where as long as you fought like a monk (no armor, monk weapons), you gained the monk's special defensive bonus. Then if you wanted to be a warrior monk, you'd just build a fighter with the appropriate feats. (That claim would be more believable if I posted some of my other house rules.) The Weapon Kata feat would translate well here to. The advantage of going this way - other than the fact that you get rid of the monk class entirely - is that its less specifically tied to flavor, so that if you wanted to make a swashbuckling fencer, you could go this way it it made sense for your character without picking up unwanted monk baggage. This would be especially true if you made the base 'monk weapons' definition somewhat broader to suit the weaponry of your campaign.

[ValhallaGH]

Originally Posted by Celebrim

That's a pretty simple fix that you could drop into pretty much any monk class roughly on par in power with the SRD monk. In my very limited experience DMing Monks in 3e, they are a tad bit underpowered at everything but running away (which sucks for the rest of the party).

An alternate fix, and one that would be more in my style, would be to make a feat where as long as you fought like a monk (no armor, monk weapons), you gained the monk's special defensive bonus. Then if you wanted to be a warrior monk, you'd just build a fighter with the appropriate feats. (That claim would be more believable if I posted some of my other house rules.) The Weapon Kata feat would translate well here to. The advantage of going this way - other than the fact that you get rid of the monk class entirely - is that its less specifically tied to flavor, so that if you wanted to make a swashbuckling fencer, you could go this way it it made sense for your character without picking up unwanted monk baggage. This would be especially true if you made the base 'monk weapons' definition somewhat broader to suit the weaponry of your campaign.

Feat bloat? Yech.

[Celebrim]

Originally Posted by ValhallaGH

Feat bloat? Yech.

On some level I agree, but as the alternative is class bloat, I take feat bloat as the far lesser of two evils.

[Aus_Snow]

In a system wherein feats represent not only tweaks to the spreadsheet, but entirely new things your character can do - only with a given feat - or, even more commonly, things your character can now do without copping some awful knid of penalty or hampering factor. . . I think it's just as well that there are many, many feats.

I realise that some feats could be made class abilities. I see C&C as one of several systems that're practically made for this. Likewise, class (and race, etc.) abilities can become feats. M&M presents a nearly flawless execution of this.

But, with 3e (and PF, et al) you're basically going to have to rely on feats, more than a little. Because, yes, otherwise you have gazillions of base classes - oh joy.

[Ashenboychild]

(@ post 11)


I used to think like that, but now I disagree. In the real world, weapons are always superior, but in a fantastical world this isn't always true. Imagine if all the weapons you had available were paper fans and rolls of newspaper, or were so heavy as to slow you down. If equipment limitations are so important, then mages (who never wear armor and only use weapons at lower levels) should never exist.

It seems silly and distant from the 'real world' but it's not necessary dumb, and is far less illogical that spells (by logic i refer to internal consistencies- mirror image being a prime example). For a monk, they are their own magic weapon and armor, and whether or not that is 'dumb' is more a matter of opinion than one of fact.

[Celebrim]

Originally Posted by Ashenboychild

In the real world, weapons are always superior, but in a fantastical world this isn't always true.

Why not?

Imagine if all the weapons you had available were paper fans and rolls of newspaper, or were so heavy as to slow you down.

Then what you imagine is nothing like the usual fantasy worlds. Certainly, if everythinig in the fantasy world but the fighter was no harder than paper and heavier than lead, then we would be forced to rely on no weapons at all. But of course, in such a world weapons wouldn't even exist and no one would have thought of them. Everyone who relied on melee attacks would be a monk.

However, this is not what fantasy worlds are like. We know that in fantasy worlds their exist magical metals which are much harder and stronger than the hardest steel and yet which are also lighter than aluminum. We also know that in such fantasy worlds, those magical materials are harder than the monk. The monk may well be as hard as steel, but mithril or adamantium is much harder still.

If equipment limitations are so important, then mages (who never wear armor and only use weapons at lower levels) should never exist.

That's like saying that if rifles were so important, accountants shouldn't exist. How does that follow? Mages don't strike with their fists (usually) nor are they generally melee combatants. They aren't competing in the same sphere as an armed and armored man.

It seems silly and distant from the 'real world' but it's not necessary dumb, and is far less illogical that spells

Why?

(by logic i refer to internal consistencies- mirror image being a prime example)

I'm not sure I follow.

For a monk, they are their own magic weapon and armor, and whether or not that is 'dumb' is more a matter of opinion than one of fact.

I'm fully capable of accepting that in a magical world some people might have acquired the skill to be their own weapon and armor. That doesn't really challenge my point, which is either that monks are inferior melee combatants to fighters or else armed and armored warriors should either never come to exist or else should fade from use a sufficient time after the arts of monks were known.