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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rhyyss" data-source="post: 2009427" data-attributes="member: 22221">The Monk is my favorite D&D class.  Always has been since.  One of my complaints with the 3rd edition version of the monk, is that, while it does a good job of creating a template for a classical philosophical martial artist, the ability to create more exotic fighters is very limited.  The Quintessential Monk from  Mongoose Publishing offers a well-balanced range of customization options for your D20 monk character, and is highly recommended for anyone who wants to take their character beyond the standard monk character offered in the D&D Player’s Guide.The Quintessential Monk is book seven in Mongoose’s “Collector Series” of books, each detailing a different race or class for D20 fantasy games.  I am generally hesitant to buy a class specific supplement, and this is the first one of this series I have read.  I must say I was pleasantly surprised, and found it far more useful and interesting than the comparable Wizard’s of the Coast publication. The nine chapters of the book cover character concepts including new prestige classes, new skills feats and weapons, and rules to cover tournaments, founding a monastery, and fame.  Not all of these are intended for player characters, but taken together, they provide tools for creating a much broader range of martial artist than the standard D20 monk.  Character concepts are tweaks available at character creation, and allow minor changes in the monk template to account for different backgrounds.  For example, a monk could be a Wanderer, trading Diplomacy for Wilderness Lore as a class skill.  More substantial changes come through the chapter on Alternative Fighting Schools.  These schools are major departures from the standard monk class, and reflect some of the diversity of martial arts traditions.  Basically these offer a different series of class skills as the monk progresses in rank.  The Double Hammer, for examples, sacrifices some of the subtler monk abilities for more powerful attacks.  There are also alternative schools for grapplers, and softer, internal martial arts.  As a nice touch, each of these alternative schools provides a short background, explaining the history of the school.At the upper end of the spectrum are new prestige classes.  Some of these offer intriguing ideas for higher level monks, and some, like the Enlightened Scholar and Blind Master let the DM create NPCs to fill the some classic roles in martial arts lore.  The prestige classes were interesting, and mostly designed as minor departures from the monk’s training.  Few of the prestige classes had more than five levels, and all were designed to stack with the monk’s existing levels.No book on martial arts would be complete without a raft of new skills, feats and exotic weapons, and here the Quintessential Monk  delivers nicely.  The range of weapons includes historical favorites and some new fantasy based oddities.  New skills and feats are well thought out and fairly well balanced.  Throughout the chapter the author avoids the pitfall of attempting to catalog hundreds of possible weapons and maneuvers, instead listing a broad enough sample to provide variety and new combat options without overwhelming the reader.  The Quintessential Monk also has detailed rules for tournaments and school building, which will be of interest if the monk is a primary focus of the campaign.  Otherwise it seems unlikely that the rules for push-hands or sumo wrestling will come into play in most games.  The rules for lion-dancing in particular, are beautifully designed, and include their own prestige class and special equipment, but might take some work to fit into most standard adventuring scenarios.  The concept of Renown, introduced in this book, has value beyond the monk character.  Basically, Renown is a measure of how famous a character is, and effects NPC reactions, ability to attract followers, and other interesting events like people challenging the PC to duels.  Although designed with the monk in mind, the idea of character renown could easily be applied to any other class to add some wrinkles to a character’s day in town and provide lots of opportunities to role-play.  One of my favorite parts of the Quintessential Monk was the section on Lost Forms.  These are essentially new feats to add variety to your monks abilities.  Instead of a simple list of new gee-whiz feats, each lost form has a unique history.  The chapter has ideas about how these lost arts may be rediscovered, providing adventure hooks for several mini-quests.  Although these lost forms are not necessarily more powerful than standard feats, the experience point cost, training time and other requirements will keep these arts rare and impressive.Physically the Quintessential Monk is very well done.  The layout of the document is clear, and easy to read.  The index is comprehensive.  The only complaint is that art is a little uneven.  Most of the illustrations are very good, and some of the illustrations are superb, really capturing the feel of unorthodox fighters (the halfling monk in action, and the young mounted archer truly stand out).  A couple of the pieces fell short of the standards of the rest of the book and brought back (with a  shudder) memories of the very first Greyhawk supplement.  But this is a minor complaint in an otherwise excellent publication.Armed with the Quintessential Monk, I’m looking forward to training my character, Kesh, with a wide range of new techniques, and putting the smack-down on the minions of evil with  style, grace, and devastating speed.  Orcus-worshipers beware.  The Quintessential Monk by Patrick Younts is available from Mongoose Publishing for  $ 19.05 (US).  Softbound, 128 pages.</blockquote>

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