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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 854914" data-attributes="member: 554">Just play a regular monk. All of the skills that the "Five Animals Fist" class improves are monk class skills -- so just use your monk levels to purchase ranks in those skills. You (or your character) can then discuss your training in the skills you choose as representative of the "teachings of the five animals," or something.Except for the tiger's charge benefit (and there are monk-oriented feats in Sword and Fist and Oriental Adventures that improve charging abilities), all of the special abilities that the class provides are conceptually or functionally pretty close to the standard set of monk abilities, perhaps backed up with careful feat selection. The monk's increasing AC can be interpreted as a combination of Crane-like defensive skill (especially if you've also got Expertise) and the body hardening represented by Natural Armor; the Leopard's quickness is easily duplicated by the monk class's increasing speed and the Improved Initiative feat; and the Snake and Dragon are already described by the monk's stunning fist and ki strike.So this prestige class really doesn't do anything that monks can't do. It might do them better, but a prestige class that's just a better version of an existing core class is clearly unbalanced and unnecessary.</blockquote>