Monastic Priest - looking for ideas

[Sir Brennen]

So, in my campaign setting's previous incarnation (3.5), I did something a little different with the Cleric class and made it more of a cleric/monk blend. A monastic priest, if you will.

They didn't wear armor, instead gaining the armor bonuses of a monk. They used simple weapons and could make un-armed attacks, also like a monk. They could spend Turn Undead uses to do things like slow their fall or turn their fists into flaming weapons (hey! waitaminute...) Some of the Turn Undead alternate uses were pre-selected effects/features based on their deity's domain, others could be gained by feats similar to the Divine feats in the 3.5 splat books. Spell-casting progression remained the same as a regular cleric.

For the new edition, I'm looking for ideas on how one might make such a hybrid class. A sub-class of cleric, which in turn would have variations based on deity domain? A sub-class of monk, which would have most of it's core class features replaced by spell casting? Or a separate class altogether, whose core features would be a combination of the two, probably with significant divergences? Would they use Channel Divinity or Ki, or both?

(And once that's squared away... anyone worked on a conversion of the Sohei class yet? )

 

[Li Shenron]

It would have been easier if they had kept the earlier versions of the Cleric from playtesting, since the starting point was no armor proficiency, while now it they all start with at least medium.

Cleric subclasses (domains) grant a few additional spells, Channel Divinity at 2nd level and then more abilities at 1st, 6th, 8th and 17th. I think it would be easy to design a Cleric subclass that grants something similar to the Monk, and you'd still be able to keep the spells of any existing domain, if you want to create several Monastic Priests corresponding to different domains.

As for the armor, you could just make it a special rule that these Clerics don't have armor prof, and instead they have Monk's armor bonuses, and this would be their 1st level feature. Alternatively, you don't even have to take the medium armor prof away, but just say that their 1st level feature is Monk's armor bonuses that work only when no armor is worn at the same time.