Pathfinder 1E Differentiating The Drunken Master Archetype from Level 1?

[Trickster Spirit]

So my PF group is finally starting up a new campaign after a hiatus of a couple of months due to crazy schedules all around, and during that time my girlfriend's younger brother has been looking forward to finally getting to play his first game of D&D. When I talked character options with him, he was torn between Samurai, Ninja and Monk, but ultimately went with Monk because he thinks the Shaolin Monks are awesome (which, of course, they are). I know he's a big fan of kung-fu movies, so after he settled on a Monk I mentioned that there was a Drunken Master archetype and his eyes lit up like it was Christmas.

(Full disclosure: I'm a not-terribly experienced PF DM who's heard things about underpowered monks on the Internet; my solution is to stack the Qinggong Monk Archetype with the Drunken Master, operating on the theory that since Qinggong can stack with basically every other archetype the two should play nice together. Please let me know if I'm horribly mistaken!)

The thing is, looking at the Drunken Master as written, there's absolutely nothing that differentiates it from the base Monk at all until level 3, when he gains the Drunken Ki class feature. Since he'll be starting at level 1 with the rest of the group, and a wandering, staggering-around-rip-roaring-drunk alcoholic youxia is a pretty distinct concept from a "monk" Monk, it seems a little strange that there's absolutely no differentiation between the two mechanically.

I don't want to tamper with the first two levels of Monk, so much as I want to add on a special mechanical effect that occurs when the character consumes an alcoholic beverage. According to the core rules (in the section on Afflictions), the base drinking rules are:

"In general, a character can consume a number of alcoholic beverages equal to 1 plus double his Constitution modifier before being sickened for 1 hour equal to the number of drinks above this maximum."

I'm sticking with that, with the caveat that I'm tracking this as drinks-per-hour as opposed to drinks-per-day, as the latter seems much too strict.

What I'd like to do is give the Drunken Master some kind of minor bonus to AC based on the number of drink's he's had, looking to the "Staggering Drunk" barbarian rage power for inspiration (+1 dodge bonus to AC per alcoholic beverage consumed per encounter, with a maximum of +1 per 4 barbarian levels). Right now, I'm thinking I'll just give it to him as written for free, just changing the references to barbarian class levels to monk levels.

It seems like a small bonus, but keeping in mind that this is a Qinggong / Drunken Master build, is this going to be too unbalanced? If so, is there some sort of penalty I could give him to offset it, besides just rigorously enforcing the Sickened condition he'd get after too many drinks?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

[Deset Gled]

I would try something like this (important changes in bold):

Dunken Ki (Lesser)

At 1st level, a drunken master can drink a tankard of ale or strong alcohol and gain one temporary ki point. The act of drinking is a full round action that provokes an attack of opportunity. The monk can have a maximum number of 1 drunken ki point. The monk can gain this temporary ki even before he gains a ki pool at 4th level. These drunken ki points last for 1 minute or until spent, whichever is shorter. As long as he has at least 1 drunken ki point, the monk can spend 1 ki point as a swift action to move 5 feet without provoking attacks of opportunity.

The full round action and short use time should make it just useful enough to be interesting, but difficult enough to use to be balanced. And rigorous enforcement of the Sickened condition is definitely key.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Thanks for the reply! I'm thinking of running with something like your suggestion, but have a quibble. The player is brand new to the game, so I doubt he'd notice the difference even if it came up in play, but to my eye drinking booze taking a full round action could raise questions when the exact same character could chug a potion and only need to spend a standard action. I suppose I could live with spinning some BS about "Being the lush you are, you can't help but savor the taste of the exquisite plum wine you're guzzling for your entire round," but I'm inclined to make it a standard action instead (though still provoking an AoO). Of course, that's not all that terribly different from regular Drunken Ki at 3rd level, even with the quicker expiration of drunken ki points, so maybe the BS is a necessary evil.

Also, a question about Drunken Ki, both as written and in your suggestion: Is the five-foot-step the only thing they can be used for, at least before level 4 when you gain a proper Ki Pool? Or could they be spent on the other uses described under Ki Pool (making an extra attack with Flurry of Blows, increasing your speed by 20 ft. for 1 round, getting a +4 dodge bonus for one round, etc.)?