Monk Prestige Class (Nembotikisika)

[Nareau]

One of the players in my game has written up a prestige class for his monk/rogue. It's more or less a "ninja" type class--lots of sneaking, scouting, and sneak-attacking. Please give me some feedback, good or bad.


Monk of the Shattered Path
Nembotikisika

The Nembotikisika have a long history in Najoban. I’ll write it up here later.

Hit Die: d8
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Nembotikisika gains no new weapon or armor proficiency
Skill Points/level: 4 + Int Modifier
Class Skills: Athletics, Concentration, Escape Artist, Sneak, Perceive, Sense Motive, Survival, Tumble, Use Rope

Required Feats: Blindfighting, Improved Unarmed Attack, Dodge, Any Feat on the Martial Arts Feats list (OA 79).
AL: Any non-True Neutral
Skills: 10 ranks in Sneak, Tumble, and Athletics
Special: Sneak Attack and Evasion Class Features

BAB Fort Ref Will
1st +0 +2 +2 +2
2nd +1 +3 +3 +3
3rd +2 +3 +3 +3
4th +3 +4 +4 +4
5th +3 +4 +4 +4
6th +4 +5 +5 +5
7th +5 +5 +5 +5
8th +6 +6 +6 +6
9th +6 +6 +6 +6
10th +7/+2 +7 +7 +7

1st Sneak Attack +1d6; Monk Abilities
2nd Acrobatics (+5); Ki Strike (Alignment)
3rd Improved Evasion; Bonus Feat*
4th Spell Resistance (10 + twice Nembotikisika level); Sneak Attack +2d6
5th Acrobatics (+10); Bonus Feat*
6th Blindsense 5 ft/ Nembotikisika level
7th Sneak Attack +3d6; Ki Strike (Alignment)
8th Greater Invisibility (1/day/3 Nembotikisika levels)**
9th Timeless Body; Acrobatics (+15)
10th Sneak Attack +4d6; One with the Path; Ki Strike (Adamantine)

Monk Abilities
For the purposes of determining the character’s Unarmed Damage, AC Bonus, and Unarmored Speed Bonus, Nembotikisika levels stack with Monk levels. For example, Pedibastet is a 3rd level Rogue, 7th level Monk, 1st level Nembotikisika; his Unarmed Damage is 1d10, his AC Bonus is +1 and his Unarmored Speed Bonus is +20. When he gains a level in Nembotikisika, his Unarmored Speed Bonus will increase to +30.

Acrobatics (Ex)
At 2nd level, the Nembotikisika gains a +5 competence bonus to Balance, Climb, Jump and Tumble checks. This bonus increases to +10 at 5th level, and to +15 at 9th level. Furthermore the Nembotikisika may take 10 on these three skills no matter the circumstances.

Ki Strike (Alignment) (Su.)
At 2nd level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as either lawful or chaotic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the character’s monk level. At 7th level, her unarmed attacks become either good or evil. At 10th level, her unarmed attacks are also treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

Bonus Feat
The Nembotikisika gains a bonus feat, to be selected from the Martial Arts Feats list (OA 79). She gains a bonus feat at 3rd level and 5th level.

Spell Resistance (Ex)
At 4th level the Nembotikisika gains SR equal to 10 + twice her Nembotikisika level.

Blindsense (Ex)
At 6th level the Nembotikisika gains Blindsense in a radius equal to 5 ft. for every Nembotikisika level he has. When the ability is acquired at 6th level, the Nembotikisika has Blindsense in a 30 ft. radius around her.

Greater Invisibility (Sp)
At 8th level the Nembotikisika can use Greater Invisibility as per the spell once per day per three Nembotikisika levels she has. She casts this spell as a Sorceress, with a caster level equal to her total levels in Monk and Nembotikisika. It can only affect the caster. For example Pedibastet is a 3rd level Rogue, 7th level Monk, 8th level Nembotikisika. His total Monk level is 15. Therefore his caster level is 15

One with the Path
At 10th level, the Nembotikisika becomes a magical creature. She is forevermore treated as an outsider rather than as a humanoid (or whatever the monk’s creature type was) for the purpose of spells and magical effects. Additionally, the monk gains damage reduction 10/alignment (select lawful, chaotic, good, or evil), which allows her to ignore the first 10 points of damage from any attack made by a non-aligned weapon or by any natural attack made by a creature that doesn’t have similar damage reduction. Unlike other outsiders, the monk can still be brought back from the dead as if she were a member of her previous creature type.

Spider

 

[med stud]

It would be easier to see what you lose from taking this class if you had a líst of monk abilities that you wont get with this PrC. IMO it looks like you get more by taking this class than if you would go monk all the way.

 

[palleomortis]

Nice, I say if he loses stuff he loses stuff. He did it to himself. But the one thing that I see different of a ninja is that he is versitile. He uses wepons rarely seen by others, kill quiqly and silently. I would say give him proficiency with exotic wepons or somthing of the sort.

 

[Storyteller01]

I'd question the installment of spell resistance (unless this is a 3.5 monk ability). Why would this PrC need a SR of 30 (10 + [10 x 2]) at 10th level? Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I've never seen this in other PrC's.

Othr than that, it looks okay. I agree that this PrC gives out more than the standard Monk, but I don't know about your campaign. For all I know, standard monks may not exist (styles are represented by PrC's).

 

[Sigurd]

Wonderful shopping list of pluses: Automatic Blindsense, All Good saves, Continued Monk Abilities, and ageless body and Magic Resistance. I don't see him giving up anything from the monk side of the class. I wonder what those lazy monks aren't doing that they can't fit all this stuff into their training regiement as well.... (I assume he continues to get his 1per 3 level bonus feat as well.)

What is he prepared to give up? Is this a prestige class with no responsibilities? What does he think the presige class would do better than the average monk to gain these advantages?

Maybe they take more time in training - how about a 10-30% experience tithe to be paid to a major force? And a vow of poverty.

Maybe they are supernaturally guided. Perhaps if a character with this as a class achieves 20 class levels he/she leaves game play to become a heavenly figure.

I know these sound like serious negatives but you should consider a downside when you are presented with a class without one.

S

 

[Nareau]

Thanks for all the feedback. This is the first PrC that any of us have really worked on from scratch, so it's good to hear. I've got a list of monk abilities to match at each level, I'll post those tomorrow. But you're right--it does seem a little on the powerful side. I think the SR might be one of the first powers to go. As it is, the character in question is pretty hard to touch--extremely high saves and AC mean very few attacks land against him. Adding SR would make it all that much more difficult.

Spider