Yet ANOTHER Alt.Monk

[Sadrik]

Monks have other things that they can do with their unnarmed attacks that they cannot do with their weapons- Stunning Fist, Fists of Iron feat, Flying kick feat and I am sure their are more. So, if the difference in the modes (still havent done a level by level breakdown of your chart) by your estimation is not enough to warrant the difference in power of using a monk weapon, what should I do?

I would like the monk weapons to be usefull at low levels to get bonus damage but at upper levels they dont need them they might as well spend their money elsewhere.

If a 20th level monk has a flaming frost shock fist make his attacks do 1d3 + 1d12 + 3d6 I think that is pretty decent. However you are right the money that you have at that level you could have two +7 items at least and that does out do the modes. What about increasing the modes? So that it makes them more inline with the soulblade psionic class? I believe they can get up to +5 by twentieth level.

What about combining Ki Mode and Ki Power into the same ability. The player can decide to either to add +1 to his max or add a second ki mode equal to the other one. So, a monk has a +1 then he picks up asecond mode and can either increse his mode to +2 or get an additional +1. Or better yet, he gets the +2 and he gets a +1. Then on the next one he gets a +3, +2 and a +1. I dont know if that will work...

 

[Spatzimaus]

If a 20th level monk has a flaming frost shock fist make his attacks do 1d3 + 1d12 + 3d6 I think that is pretty decent. However you are right the money that you have at that level you could have two +7 items at least and that does out do the modes. What about increasing the modes? So that it makes them more inline with the soulblade psionic class? I believe they can get up to +5 by twentieth level.

You're comparing apples with oranges. What I was saying was this: a Monk using these Ki Modes effectively has two options.
1> Use his fists, which have a huge base damage but relatively weak enhancement, OR
2> Use a monk weapon, which will have a substantially higher enhancement but lousy base damage.
Option #1 is unique to the Monk class, and option #2 is the same path all the other classes use. This was even more pronounced in the PHB Monk, which didn't use Ki Modes.

These are balanced, IMO. The fists do a little better on raw damage, overall, but they're far less flexible (you can get a weapon made out of silver or cold iron, and you can pick and choose your enhancements more). A Soulblade, on the other hand, simply mimics option #2; his blade isn't any more damaging than a normal sword of a comparable level.

If you give a flat "monk damage" bonus that applies to both fists and weapons, then option #1 loses its only advantage, the huge base damage; while increasing the enhancement would balance it, it removes the flavor of the class. I was trying to keep the trend intact.

Or think of it this way: a +3 Ki Mode on level 20 fists is comparable to a +3 flaming shock kama (+5 equivalent). Both deal about the same damage, both have +3 to hit. And, this is balanced with the PHB version.
If you boost the kama damage by +1d12, you'd need to up the Ki Mode to +5 to balance it, and now you'd end up with a class that's far superior to other weapon-using classes. The fundamental goal of this redesign was to end up with something that wasn't drastically stronger than the PHB Monk, just more flexible.

 

[Sadrik]

Ok, lets assume that the bonus damage will only apply to the monks unarmed damage. How would you suggest I proceed with it?

Sadrik

 

[Acid_crash]

Cool idea, but since you originally posted this for 3.0 psionics and not the XPH, could you kindly repost it with the updated rules since the new rules don't use psionic modes and the monk class was redone slightly a bit. Up to you.

Your idea is awesome, by the way. I like the versatility and customization you've put into the class. I'd like to see how you did this with the other classes you've said you've done it with.

 

[Sir Brennen]

An interesting take on the customizable monk (or any of the other classes) is over on the Wizard's boards: The Ultimate Monk.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Cool idea, but since you originally posted this for 3.0 psionics and not the XPH, could you kindly repost it with the updated rules since the new rules don't use psionic modes and the monk class was redone slightly a bit. Up to you.

There were really only four or five things that weren't XPH-compliant.

At Monk 3, the Monk previously got empty mind at will, but that was mainly because he became a Psionic creature at that level, and we needed SOMETHING to replace the nonpsionic buffer he lost. Since combat modes went away in 3.5E, the need for empty mind did as well, so the level 3 ability is now simply "The Monk is now a Psionic creature, capable of selecting [Psionic] feats and gaining Psionic Focus." It also slightly affects various divination abilities (detect psionics), of course, but that's not enough to really matter for balance. The Psionic Focus follows the same rules as for Psions, and is mainly needed for the Psionic Feats.

Then, there are the spell-like abilities in the Eye list. In XPH, the 2nd-level combat prescience was replaced by the 1st-level augmentable precognition, offensive, with a +3 cost needed to mimic the old power. precognition was toned down and changed to a more combat-oriented focus, with greater precognition as just a larger version. see invisibility was removed entirely, and the alternate spell we had considered for that level, vigilance, was as well. The only one to make it through intact was aura sight. So, rather than come up with a completely different list of powers and re-balance the whole thing, we just left those as their 3.0 versions. It's still balanced, and in practice it's not that awkward.
If I had to do it over again under XPH rules, I might use the new precognition at tier 2, detect hostile intent at tier 3, and true seeing at tier 5. The thing was, I LIKED the idea of the tier 5 ability being something that took 10 minutes to cast but gave lots of plot-related info; it made the Monk useful outside of combat. second chance might be a nice tier 5 power, but without see invisibility available, I think true seeing is a must. So it's a hard choice.

Then, there was Hardness (Mind 2). In 3.0, it reduced psionic damage (from attack modes) by 1; we simply changed it to "reduces ability damage from spells, powers, spell-like abilities, etc. by 1 point". I updated the first post with this one.

The 3.5E PHB Monk got three Bonus Feats, with the old abilities corresponding to one of the two at each step. We didn't change anything to adjust for that, since it was just a flexibility boost, but if you want you could switch out some of the tier 1 feats to the alternate versions.
Also, the 3.5E Ki Strike abilities give DR-bypassing by way of material/alignment. We didn't bother with that, due to the superior DR-bypassing ability of our Ki Modes. If you really want DR/adamantium, go buy a Kama.

Since the original version was posted we also updated a couple minor things; for instance, Foot 4 and Foot 5 were switched around, but I already updated the first post for things like that.

Oh, and we switched to the new Flurry progression, based solely on class level (just like the run speed, fist damage, AC, etc. are).

 

[Spatzimaus]

Your idea is awesome, by the way. I like the versatility and customization you've put into the class. I'd like to see how you did this with the other classes you've said you've done it with.

Short versions:
RANGER: We made it a d8 HD, 6+INT skill point class. The Favored Enemy points were boosted, and were a bit more freeform in how they were assigned. The 2-weapon feats were replaced with a short list of feats that could be picked at levels 2, 5, and 8.
In other words, we did almost exactly what THEY did in 3.5E, so once 3.5E came out we switched back to the "book" version, except for a couple really minor changes (like adding a few more combat styles; one for polearms, one for 2-handed swords, that sort of thing).
(Also, the Half-Orc's favored class was switched to Ranger, but that's because of other changes.)

PALADIN: We created four Paladin subclasses, one for each extreme alignment (LG, LE, CG, CE). In other words, very similar to the UA variants, with three exceptions:
1> The detect evil/good and smite evil/good abilities were switched to the law/chaos axis. detect evil had just become too much of a carte blanche to attack an enemy. Law/chaos is a bit fuzzier.
2> We totally reworked the mount rules. An old version of our rules was posted here. That post is a bit out-of-date; for one thing, we switched it to where most of the "passive" abilities increase on even dice and the "active" ones increase on odd dice (or maybe it was the other way around). If there's interest, I might fix that post.
3> We removed the disease immunity and remove disease. Instead, the Paladin now picks one domain of his deity, gets the domain's granted power, and can swap his spells spontaneously for the spells of that domain (like how a Cleric swaps for cure spells). We also added a few domains, including a Purification domain that includes remove disease.

BARBARIAN: We unofficially renamed it "Berserker", to imply that it's nearly as common in the "civilized" societies as it is in the more primitive ones, and removed the Literacy part. The Rage ability is very customizable, and is called a "rage", "trance" or "stance" depending on what abilities you choose for it. You pick a major drawback (like the "can't cast" of the existing rage), a couple minor drawbacks (like "-2 to AC" or "fatigued afterwards"), and three minor stackable bonuses ("+2 CON") at level 1. Every couple levels, you get to pick a new minor ability, upgrade a minor one to a major one (extra DR, fast healing), or remove a minor drawback (the major one never goes away).
Effectively, the PHB Barbarian becomes very close to one of the possible upgrade paths, but you could just as easily end up with something like the Dwarven Defender stance. Generally speaking, for flavor reasons each player picks an animal that seems appropriate for the abilities chosen. One player's Berserker picked a "Panther" trance that boosted DEX, gave darkvision, boosted run speed, that sort of thing.

The bottom line was that each of these classes now had decisions to make each time they levelled up, instead of the automatic increases the PHB versions forced on them. Sure, it might only be a matter of tweaking a Rage or Mount's abilities, but it's still something.