I made my own version of the Martial Artist, which can emulate the Monk, or be something quite different. It's from my hybrid system of D&D and D20 Modern, its class defense progression (the highest) is the same as the Fighter, Ranger and Rogue.
Martial Artist (Monk)
There are a myriad number of martial arts styles involving many different techniques, forms, weapons and philosophies. These martial artists are experts at unarmed combat and with the use of often exotic weapons. Many forms of martial arts were formed from religious sects, oppressed people, underground subcultures of fighting or hermits who were observing how animals fought. This class completely replaces the Monk.
Alignment: Any
Hit Dice: d8
Weapon & Armour Proficiency: Martial artists are proficient in all simple weapons, along with the following weapons butterfly sword, jitte, kama, nunchaku, sai, shuriken siangham and tonfa. Martial artist with the fighting focus are also proficient with the cutlass, kurki, long sword, rapier, scimitar, short sword, and wind-fire wheel. A Martial artist can use a spear as a double weapon (1d6 for the other end).
Class Skills: Balance (dex), Climb (str), Concentration (con), Craft (int), diplomacy (cha), Escape Artist (dex), Hide (dex), Jump (str), Knowledge (arcana, psionics, religion & spirits) (int), Listen (wis), Move Silently (dex), Perform (cha), Profession (wis), Sense Motive (wis), Swim (str), Tumble (dex)
Base Skill Points: 4
Level Fort Ref Will Def Rep Speed Special Abilities
1st +2 +2 +0 +1 +1 +0 Bonus feat, Special technique(*)
2nd +3 +3 +0 +2 +1 +0 Bonus feat
3rd +3 +3 +1 +2 +1 +10 Special technique
4th +4 +4 +1 +3 +2 +10 Ki strike (magic)
5th +4 +4 +1 +3 +2 +10 Special technique(*)
6th +5 +5 +2 +4 +2 +20 Bonus feat
7th +5 +5 +2 +4 +3 +20 Special technique
8th +6 +6 +2 +5 +3 +20
9th +6 +6 +3 +5 +3 +30 Special technique(*)
10th +7 +7 +3 +6 +4 +30 Ki strike (aligned)
11th +7 +7 +3 +6 +4 +30 Special technique
12th +8 +8 +4 +7 +4 +40
13th +8 +8 +4 +7 +5 +40 Special technique(*)
14th +9 +9 +4 +8 +5 +40
15th +9 +9 +5 +8 +5 +50 Special technique
16th +10 +10 +5 +9 +6 +50 Ki strike (adamantite)
17th +10 +10 +5 +9 +6 +50 Special technique(*)
18th +11 +11 +6 +10 +6 +60
19th +11 +11 +6 +10 +7 +60 Special technique
20th +12 +12 +6 +11 +7 +60 Special technique
(*) – Bonus special technique for Ability Combat Focus.
Combat Focus: A Martial Artist picks either the Ability Combat Focus or the Fighting Combat Focus as their approach to combat. This determines their unarmed damage, BAB, and Flurry of Blows Progression.
Ability Combat Focus
Level BAB Dmg Flurry
1st +0 1d6 -2/-2
2nd +1 1d6 -1/-1
3rd +2 1d6 +0/+0
4th +3 1d8 +1/+1
5th +3 1d8 +2/+2
6th +4 1d8 +3/+3
7th +5 1d8 +4/+4
8th +6/+1 1d10 +5/+5/+0
9th +6/+1 1d10 +6/+6/+1
10th +7/+2 1d10 +7/+7/+2
11th +8/+3 1d10 +8/+8/+8/+3
12th +9/+4 2d6 +9/+9/+9/+4
13th +9/+4 2d6 +9/+9/+9/+4
14th +10/+5 2d6 +10/+10/+10/+5
15th +11/+6/+1 2d6 +11/+11/+11/+6/+1
16th +12/+7/+2 2d8 +12/+12/+12/+7/+2
17th +12/+7/+2 2d8 +12/+12/+12/+7/+2
18th +13/+8/+3 2d8 +13/+13/+13/+8/+3
19th +14/+9/+4 2d8 +14/+14/+14/+9/+4
20th +15/+10/+5 2d10 +15/+15/+15/+10/+5
Fighting Combat Focus
Level BAB Dmg Flurry
+1 1d4 -1/-1
+2 1d4 +0/+0
+3 1d6 +1/+1
+4 1d6 +2/+2
+5 1d6 +3/+3
+6/+1 1d6 +5/+5/+0
+7/+2 1d6 +6/+6/+1
+8/+3 1d6 +7/+7/+2
+9/+4 1d8 +8/+8/+2
+10/+5 1d8 +9/+9/+4
+11/+6/+1 1d8 +11/+11/+6/+1
+12/+7/+2 1d8 +12/+12/+7/+2
+13/+8/+3 1d8 +13/+13/+8/+3
+14/+9/+4 1d8 +14/+14/+9/+4
+15/+10/+5 1d10 +15/+15/+10/+5
+16/+11/+6/+1 1d10 +16/+16/+11/+6/+1
+17/+12/+7/+2 1d10 +17/+17/+12/+7/+2
+18/+13/+8/+3 1d10 +18/+18/+13/+8/+3
+19/+14/+9/+4 1d10 +19/+19/+14/+9/+4
+20/+15/+10/+5 1d10 +20/+20/+15/+10/+5
Flurry of Blows: The progression of flurry of blows depends on the martial artist’s combat focus. Open hand progresses as the PHB Monk. Fighting Combat Focus improves to a -1 to all attacks at level 6 and loses the penalty level 11 and never gets greater flurry at all. Flurry of blows can be used with any light, finesseable or double weapon as well as shurikens, tiger-hook swords and three-piece rods. They may only use flurry of blows when unarmoured.
Unarmed Strike: Martial artists get improved unarmed strike for free, their attacks to the damage listed above for their combat focus.
Bonus Feat: At 1st, 2nd and 6th level a martial artist may pick any martial arts feat they qualify for.
Fast Movement (Ex): A martial artist gets a bonus to speed as listed above under speed bonus. They lose this if wearing armour or carrying more than a light load.
Ki Strike (Su): The martial artist’s unarmed strikes count as magic weapons at 4th level. At 10th level a martial artist’s unarmed strike counts as a weapon of one part of their alignment, unless they are true neutral in which case it counts as a weapon of whatever alignment type they decided on at the start of the day. At 16th level a martial artist’s unarmed strike also counts as adamantite in regards to bypassing hardness as well.
Special Techniques: A martial artists has a number of special techniques to choose from. A martial artist who has chosen the Ability Combat Focus gets bonus special techniques at 1st, 5th, 9th, 13th and 17th level. Some techniques have minimum levels they can be chosen at, and can usually be only chosen once. Some require other techniques. Special Techniques can be picked from martial artist bonus epic feats at epic levels.
Abundant Step (Su): (Minimum level: 11) A martial artist can slip magically between spaces, as if using the spell dimension door, once per day. Her caster level for this effect is one-half her martial artist level (rounded down).
Acrobatics (Su): (Minimum level: 11) A martial gains a +10 competence bonus on Balance, Jump and Tumble checks, and can take 10 on those skills even in circumstances that wouldn’t allow otherwise. This can be chosen multiple times with the bonus stacking, but must be picked at least 4 levels apart.
Bonus Feat: Pick any bonus martial arts feat, this can be chosen as many as five times.
Combat Awareness (Ex): A martial artist may add their wisdom modifier to defence when not wearing armour. This bonus applies even when flat-footed or against touch attacks.
Crippling Blow (Ex): (Minimum level 11) On a successful critical hit you can also inflict 2 points of strength damage.
Deflect Incoming (Ex): (Minimum level 13; requires deflect arrows, combat reflexes) By taking a full action you can deflect all incoming ranged attacks (but not rays, spells, or artillery) directed towards you, if you succeed on one reflex save (dc 12 + number of incoming ranged + the highest enhancement bonus of all the attacks). You must be armed with a melee weapon to do this.
Diamond Body (Su): (Minimum level: 9) Gain immunity to poisons of all kinds.
Diamond Soul (Ex): (Minimum level: 13) Gain spell resistance equal to martial artist level + 10.
Empty Body (Su): (Minimum level 17) A martial artist may assume an ethereal state for 1 round per martial artist level per day, as though using the spell etherealness. She may go ethereal on a number of different occasions during any single day, as long as the total number of rounds spent in an ethereal state does not exceed her monk level.
Evasion (Ex): When not wearing armour a martial artist suffers no damage or partial effects on a successful reflex save.
Fist of Balance (Su): (Minimum level 11; neutral alignment) The martial artist’s unarmed attacks counts as a weapon of all alignments.
Flight (Su): (Minimum level 15; requires: leap of clouds) You can fly at your land speed with an average manoeuvrability.
Focussed Mind: A martial artists will save is now a good save.
Immortal State: (Minimum level 20; requires: timeless body, purity of body) You’ve achieved a higher state of enlightenment by joining the exalted ranks of the Xian (Immortals). You no longer can die from old age. After reaching venerable age you gain +1 to wisdom, intelligence and charisma every 500 years.
Improved Evasion (Ex): (Minimum level 9; requires Evasion) As Evasion, except they only suffer half damage or partial effects on a failed reflex save.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): (Minimum level 7) You can no longer be flanked, and only someone with 4 or more rogue levels than your martial artist levels can sneak attack you.
Improvised Fighting: A martial artist is proficient in all improvised weapons.
Iron Skin (Ex): (Minimum level 11) You gain damage reduction 1/-, you can take this multiple times (as long as it’s 2 levels apart) increasing the damage reduction by +1/- each time. You can’t exceed damage reduction 5/- though.
Ki Push (Su): (Minimum level 13; requires: improved bull rush) With a full action you can initiate a bull rush with an unarmed attack. You remain in your own square regardless of the result, and can use your wisdom instead of your strength in the bull rush attempt. If you’re successful you can push an opponent 10 feet back and knock them prone at the same time.
Ki Strike (Cold Iron) (Su): (Minimum level 7) The martial artist’s unarmed strikes count as a cold iron weapon for the purpose of damage reduction.
Ki Strike (Silver) (Su): (Minimum level 7) The martial artist’s unarmed strikes count as a silver weapon for the purpose of damage reduction.
Leap of Clouds (Su): (Minimum level 7) There’s no limit to how high you can jump. The DC for high jump distances halved, and you reduce the falling damage when you jump down by 40 feet. And you only need to move 5 feet instead of 20 for any running jump.
Mental Training: A martial artist can purchase psionic feats (such as Mental Leap or Up the Walls) as martial arts feats. For the purposes of power points they have a number of power points equal to their martial artist level. They are considered to have the psionic feat Speed of Thought for the purpose of qualifying for other psionic feats if they have a speed bonus.
Perfect Self : (Minimum level 20; requires: timeless body) A martial artist becomes a magical creature. Her type becomes Outsider (native). Additionally, the martial artist gains damage reduction 10/magic.
Purity of Body (Ex): (Minimum level 5) A martial artist gains immunity to all diseases except for supernatural and magical diseases.
Quivering Palm (Su): (Minimum level: 15) A martial artist can set up vibrations within the body of another creature that can thereafter be fatal if the monk so desires. She can use this quivering palm attack once a week and she must announce her intent before making her attack roll. Incorporeal creatures and creatures immune to critical hits cannot be affected. Otherwise, if the strike is successful and the target damaged from the blow, the quivering palm attack succeeds. Thereafter she can try to slay the victim at any later time, as long as the attempt is made within a number of days equal to her martial artist level. To make such an attempt, the martial artist merely wills the target to die (a free action), and unless the target makes a Fort save (DC 10 + 1/2 the martial artist’s level + Wis modifier), it dies. If the saving throw is successful, the target is no longer in danger from that particular quivering palm attack, but it may still be affected by another one at a later time.
Slow Fall (Ex): A martial artist within arms reach of a wall may reduce their fall by (martial artist level) x 5 feet. At 20th level they can fall from any distance near a wall without any harm.
Still Mind (Ex): (Minimum level: 3) Gain a +2 bonus on saving throws against spells and effects from the school of enchantment.
Timeless Body (Ex): (Minimum level: 13) A martial artist no longer takes penalties to her ability scores for aging and cannot be magically aged. Any such penalties that she has already taken, however, remain in place. Bonuses still accrue, and the martial artist still dies of old age when her time is up.
Tongue of the Sun and Moon (Ex): (Minimum level: 11) A martial artist can speak with any living creature.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): (Minimum level 3) You retain your dex bonus if flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. If you already have Uncanny Dodge you gain Improved Uncanny Dodge instead.
Weapon Forms: A martial artist gains proficiency in 3 martial or exotic weapons of their choice. This can be chosen multiple times.
Wholeness of Body (Su): (Minimum level 7) A martial artist can heal her own wounds. She can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to twice her martial artist level each day, and she can spread this healing out among several uses.
Multi-classing: A martial artist can freely multi-class. Should they multi-class in a psionic class they are considered to have the psionic feat Speed of Thought for the purpose of qualifying for psionic feats, if they have a speed bonus.
