Monk/Paladin PrC

[Jon Potter]

Okay. Here's the last of my multiclass Monk PrCs inspired by the Ascetic feats from Complete Adventurer. You can find the Monk/Rogue Shadowed Fist here, and the Monk/Ranger Stalking Fist here if you're inclined to seek them out. Along with the Enlightened Fist from Complete Arcane (and to a lesser extent the Sacred Fist from Complete Divine) these three PrCs round out the multi-class niches set up by the Ascetic feats.

The Exalted Fist is essentially a retooling of the existing Initiate of Pistis Sophia from Book of Exalted Deeds. I removed the Sacred Vow nonsense and made a few other tweaks, but the exisiting skeleton of the class is still visible without too much difficulty.

I'd be interested in hearing opinions.

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Exalted Fist

HD: d8

Requirements:
To qualify to become an Exalted Fist, a character must fulfill all of the following criteria.

Alignment: Must be Lawful Good

Base Attack Bonus: +4

Skills: Concentration 8 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 8 ranks

Feats: Ascetic Knight, Stunning Fist

Special: Aura of Courage class ability, Still Mind class ability

Class Skills:
The Exalted Fist's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Tumble (Dex). See Chapter 4: Skills in the Player's Handbook for skill descriptions.

Skill Points at each level: 2 + Int modifier.

Table 1-1: The Exalted Fist
	Class	Base Attack	Fort	Ref	Will
	Level	Bonus	Save	Save	Save	Special
	1st	+0	+2	+2	+2	Monk Abilities, Aura of Good, Healing Hands
	2nd	+1	+3	+3	+3	Sanctify Ki Strike
	3rd	+2	+3	+3	+3	Smite Evil 1/day
	4th	+3	+4	+4	+4	Aura of Girding
	5th	+3	+4	+4	+4	Holy Ki Strike
	6th	+4	+5	+5	+5	Smite Evil 2/day
	7th	+5	+5	+5	+5	Diamond Body
	8th	+6	+6	+6	+6	Fists of Heaven
	9th	+6	+6	+6	+6	Smite Evil 3/day
	10th	+7	+7	+7	+7	Perfect Self, Aura of Fearlessness

Class Features:
All the following are class features of the Exalted Fist.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Exalted Fists gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor. Many of the Exalted Fists abilities depend on unfettered movement and an Exalted Fist loses access to these powers when wearing armor (as described below).

Monk Abilities: An Exalted Fist adds her class level to her monk level (if any) to determine her class-based AC bonus, her unarmed damage, flurry of blows bonuses, and the number of daily attempts of her Stunning Fist feat. If she has no monk levels, she gains the AC bonus and unarmed strike damage of a monk whose level equals her Exalted Fist level, but she cannot add her Wisdom bonus to her AC.
An Exalted Fist does not count her class levels for the purpose of determining when she gains other monk class features, such as improved unarmored speed, bonus feats, evasion, or other special abilities.

Aura of Good: The Exalted Fist has an aura of good (see the detect good spell) equal to her Exalted Fist level. If the character already has this ability, she adds her Exalted Fist level to the class which it is gained from to determine the total power of her aura.

Healing Hands: Beginning at 1st level, an Exalted Fist gains the ability to Lay on Hands as a paladin. If the Exalted Fist already has this ability, she adds her Exalted Fist levels to the paladin levels to determine how many hit points she can heal per day.

Sanctify Ki Strike: The Exalted Fist's unarmed strikes deal 1 extra point of damage to evil creatures, or 1d4 extra points to evil outsiders and evil undead. In addition they are considered good-aligned for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Smite Evil: At 3rd level the Exalted Fist may attempt to smite evil with one normal melee attack. She adds her Charisma bonus (if any) to her attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per Exalted Fist level. If the character already has this ability, she adds her Exalted Fist level to the existing class from which it is gained to determine the total amount of additional damage her smite does. This ability is identical to the Paladin ability by the same name.
At 6th level, and again at 9th, the Exalted Fist may smite evil one additional time per day

Aura of Stillness: Beginning at 4th level, an Exalted Fist's Aura of Courage offers even greater protection to allies. Each ally within 10 feet of her gains a +2 morale bonus on saving throws against against all spells and effects from the school of enchantment in addition to the normal +2 bonus against fear effects.
This ability functions while the Exalted Fist is conscious, but not if she is unconscious or dead.

Holy Ki Strike: Beginning at 5th level, the Exalted Fist's unarmed strikes deal 2d6 points of extra holy damage to evil creatures. In addition, his unarmed strikes are considered holy for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction. This extra damage does not stack with the extra damage from the Sanctify Ki Strike feat.

Diamond Body: At 7th level, an Exalted Fist gains immunity to poisons of all kinds. This is identical to the monk class ability of the same name.

Fists of Heaven: The saving throw DC of the Exalted Fist's Stunning Fist increases by 2 when he uses it against an evil creature. If the stunning attack succeeds, the creature is staggered for 1 round following the round it is stunned.

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

Aura of Girding: Any allies of the Exalted Fist that are within the radius of her Aura of Stillness now enjoy the extra blessing of complete immunity to fear.

 

[Quartz]

Interesting. After my comment in your original thread, I was working on a Prestige Class where the Paladin / armoured knight side was predominant - allowing the Wis bonus to AC even when armoured etc. I couldn't quite make it work.

Here's what I got:

Paladin / Monk: The Contemplative Warrior.

Requirements: Divine Grace, Purity of Body or Divine Health, Still Mind, Iron Will. BAB +7.

HD: D8
BAB: +3/4
Saves: all good.

Abilities:

L1: Paladin Abilities (Lay on Hands, Special Mount), Wis bonus to AC when armoured (max +1 / level).
L2: ??? (Fighter feat?)
L3: Diamond Body
L4: ??? (Fighter feat?)
L5: Diamond Soul

 

[whydirt]

First, I like this overall very much. Good job!

My only concern is the low amount of skill points. Most characters taking this class will likely have a low Int and have to invest 16 ranks in skills that aren't directly useful in most dungeon environments. Only getting 2+Int per level in this class makes things very tight.

 

[Jon Potter]

Interesting. After my comment in your original thread, I was working on a Prestige Class where the Paladin / armoured knight side was predominant - allowing the Wis bonus to AC even when armoured etc. I couldn't quite make it work.

Here's what I got:

Paladin / Monk: The Contemplative Warrior.

Requirements: Divine Grace, Purity of Body or Divine Health, Still Mind, Iron Will. BAB +7.

HD: D8
BAB: +3/4
Saves: all good.

Abilities:

L1: Paladin Abilities (Lay on Hands, Special Mount), Wis bonus to AC when armoured (max +1 / level).
L2: ??? (Fighter feat?)
L3: Diamond Body
L4: ??? (Fighter feat?)
L5: Diamond Soul

Maybe instead of Fighter feats you could give spellcasting +1 level of Paladin at levels 2 and 4? Or maybe have unarmed strike damage increase by 1 step at those levels?

It seems alittle odd to me to throw fighter feats into a paladin/monk class.

 

[Jon Potter]

First, I like this overall very much. Good job!

Thanks. I'm glad you like it.

My only concern is the low amount of skill points. Most characters taking this class will likely have a low Int and have to invest 16 ranks in skills that aren't directly useful in most dungeon environments. Only getting 2+Int per level in this class makes things very tight.

I agree to a point. The qualifying skill points is really the only thing that a character would have to work at in order to qualify for the PrC. Everything else (except for the Ascetic Knight feat) will just come as a result of taking levels in both Paladin and Monk. Both skills are class skills for both Paladin and Monk, so it's not that much of a hardship.

You're correct about the likelihood of a candidate for Exalted Fist having low intelligence, though. Both the paladin and the monk suffer from MAD; mixing them only makes it worse. I did not envision this PrC as being a big skill-user, though. It has lots of bells and whistles to compensate for the skill low points/level, and I thought adding more would make it too good.

 

[FireLance]

Interesting. After my comment in your original thread, I was working on a Prestige Class where the Paladin / armoured knight side was predominant - allowing the Wis bonus to AC even when armoured etc. I couldn't quite make it work.

If you have access to Faiths of Eberron, have a look at the Argent Fist.

 

[Quartz]

Maybe instead of Fighter feats you could give spellcasting +1 level of Paladin at levels 2 and 4?

The character will typically not have much, if any spellcasting ability at this point. And I see few characters going for more than 5 levels of Paladin. Paladin spellcasting usually gets the boot for fighter feats or a PrC like Divine Crusader or other Cha-monkey goodness. Like Sorceror then Eldritch Knight. Pal 4 / Sor 6 / EK 10 and Pal 4 / Kt 2 / Ftr 2 / Mk 2 / DC10 are nasty.

It seems alittle odd to me to throw fighter feats into a paladin/monk class.

Maybe Exalted or Divine feats?

 

[Jon Potter]

Maybe Exalted or Divine feats?

Well, that's the direction I took with the Exalted Fist. Sanctify Ki Strike, Holy Ki Strike and Fists of Heaven are all Exalted feats.

The Divine Feats are powered by Turning, and if prospective entrants to your PrC won't have any spells then they won't have any Turning either since paladins gain both those abilities at the same level.

Adding Fighter feats blurs the focus of the PrC in my mind. Maybe you could have decreased penalties for flurry of blows at those levels? That has a nice monk-ish flavor.