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Message: <blockquote data-quote="molonel" data-source="post: 1526826" data-attributes="member: 10412">Thanks for your thorough comments, DanMcS. You confirmed several things I saw, and also caught something I missed: that thing with any weapon doing the monk's unarmed damage. Sheesh. I'm going to have to thunk this player in this forehead when I see him. What a crackmonkey.This is my gut reaction that I sent to the player. My thoughts may change, but I wanted to go ahead and present them here.My initial thoughts:Simply opening up this monk to use any weapon with which he or she is proficient is way the heck beyond broken. That means a fighter can take one level of this class, and gain the ability to flurry with any martial weapon. That also means a Sun Monk can take one level of fighter, and flurry with any martial weapon. Normal monks can flurry with 6 weapons: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken, and siangham. The strength bonus thing is a nice attempt to balance it, but flurrying is a powerful ability, particularly at upper levels, and I think the expansion is too broad. I think a more balanced effect would be special exotic monk weapons that allow you to flurry specifically with that weapon. They represent a special level of training.The Awareness of Body ability provides no explanation of how the Healing skill works, or what the required DC’s you need to hit are. What is a successful Heal check? Is it the same for a papercut or a mortally wounded character bleeding to death? Also, it claims to use knowledge of the body, but it’s a supernatural ability. Does it channel Ki? How does it work? Healing, more often than not, is divine in nature in D&D. With the exception of bards, IIRC, no arcane casters gain access to it.The Light Step ability is too powerful. Neither the Ring of Jumping nor the Ring of Jumping (Improved) nor the Jump spell completely remove the limit of height when using the jump skill, and this class removes it for free at 5th level. There is also no explanation of how the jump skill can be used to avoid some or all of the damage from a fall. There are no DC’s, nor any explanation of how the mechanic works, or scales with level.Improved Evasion should stay at 9th level, as it is for normal monks.Have you actually sat down and read the Heal skill? It provides for the opportunities you’re talking about here, including working with poisons and diseases. I personally don’t see a need to create new mechanics for abilities that already exist.There is no explanation of the Crippling Strike, or how it works. Does it provide a saving throw? Fort or Will? Is there a penalty for attacking creatures with a larger anatomy than yours, or should it be just as easy to cripple a great red wyrm as it is to cripple an orc? Add:Ex-MonksA monk who becomes nonlawful cannot gain new levels as a monk but retains all monk abilities.Like a member of any other class, a monk may be a multiclass character, but multiclass monks face a special restriction. A monk who gains a new class or (if already multiclass) raises another class by a level may never again raise her monk level, though she retains all her monk abilities.Compared the light step listed in this draft with the feat Light Step from the materials you sent me:Light StepYour mastery of ki allows you to reduce the impact of your footsteps to a bare minimum.Prerequisite: Base Reflex save bonus +7, Balance skill, Spider Climb, Dex 19+, Wis 13+.Benefit: You gain a +10 competence bonus on Balance and Move Silently skill checks, and to Reflex saves to avoid pits and similar traps. You can also always take 10 on Balance and Move Silently checks, even if circumstances would normally prevent you doing so. It’s practically impossible to track you (–20 penalty), unless the tracker is using scent or some other non-visual means of tracking. You can stop using Light Step and deliberately walk with normal steps if you so desire. This is a supernatural ability.Extreme BalancingCharacters with very high levels of the Balance skill can walk across seemingly impassable surfaces with a successful skill check:DC Task30 Thin ice, upright, at normal speed35 Rim of an empty cauldron without tipping it over40 Bamboo saplings45 Rice paper, without scuffing it50 Grass tops55 Flowing lava (DC 20 Ref save to avoid taking 2d6 fire damage each round)60 WaterOverall, I think you want this class to do too much at low levels. I know I encouraged you to add everything you wanted it to do, but I look at this, even with toned down mechanics, and I can't think of a single reason to play a standard monk, by comparison. I'd play this over a monk from Oriental Adventures, too.It needs to be toned down. I think looking at the material in OA, and creating DC's for demonstrations of balance, jumping and movement would be good.Also, remember that monks receive huge bonuses to jumping because of their increased rate of speed.</blockquote>

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