#unchained monk

 The way of the monk revolves around the perfection of body and mind, and for many, that includes wholeness of body and mind, which is why many monks are able to use ki to heal their injuries, and prove superhumanly resilient to disease, poison, and effects that would twist the body and mind.

Of course, while asceticism is about self-perfection first and foremost, there will always be those whose altruism cannot be suppressed, and who wish to share, however briefly, their personal perfection with others.

Thus, these disciples of wholeness seek to show the benefits of their monastic ways by healing others and temporarily imparting their immunities to others, at the cost of their own immunities being easily compromised.

Of course, this isn’t the only healing-focused monk archetype out there. Unlike the Monks of the Healing Hand, however, they do not focus on self-sacrifice to heal others, and can still learn to heal themselves.

This archetype is usable both with the standard and the unchained monk without any modification, so it could be a tempting choice if you want to play a monk that can also heal.

 With a touch, these monks can heal others, and if they learn to heal themselves, they can expend more ki to heal others at the same rate as their personal healing.

They also possess a more tenuous version of the immunity to disease and poison, one that relies on them having no physical or internal injuries. However, though it is hard to keep up, they can also briefly grant it to others with a touch as well for a whole day, though they cannot give immunity against a disease that is already present.

Another application of ki allows them to dispel and remove magic afflicting a creature, healing and protecting their spirit.

A good example of a melee class that blends in healing support and providing immunities, this archetype can be fun to play, though the fact that they lose their own immunities when damaged can be annoying, especially depending on your GM’s ruling about whether said immunities fade before or after an attack that would poison you would resolve. You’ll definitely want to take the Extra Ki feat at least once, so you have a nice deep pool of energy to draw from.

 I probably don’t have to explain to folks that there is some unfortunate potential to use the whole “wholeness of body equals purity of body” thing in a distinctly ableist way, So be mindful of that when choosing to include the monk class, and especially this archetype in your games. However, at the same time, these are characters that choose to share the benefits of their conditioning with others through a transfer of ki, making them healers and protectors as well.

  When plague came to the imperial city, the Monastary of the True Body came to offer their aid, providing healing, as well as warding fellow healers against the disease itself. As such, they earned a place of honor in the empire, and many mortals go there for treatment just as often as they do the temples of goodly gods.

 The Yellow Healer is a recluse who is hard to reach, but worth it for those in need of his healing arts. He keeps his yaddithian features hidden, marking him as a being from beyond the stars, but he does not turn away those who truly need his aid, regardless of their reaction.

I meant to post this a few days ago when it was done, but I never did

I needed to get a better reference picture for Nephris since the last time I drew him, I was still figuring out my style and it didn’t look very good. I’m not terribly proud of this picture though, something about the face irks me and I had a tough time trying to get it right. 

Oh well. here’s a bonus froggy image

 (art by PhoenixLu on DeviantArt)

 The Monastery of the Unblinking Flame, one of the three Houses of Perfection in Jalmeray, seeks to emulate the element of fire in their arts to create a unique style. After all, fire can deal grievous harm, but it itself is immaterial, unable to be touched.

With this in mind, disciples of the style learn to be agile and deceptive in their maneuvers, while also striking powerfully when they get the chance. Getting into the school means outwitting an efreeti in the initiation trial, which sets a pretty high bar.

Those that succeed oftentimes become brazen disciples, learning to deceive and befuddle their foes in combat, and even emulate some of the fiery power of the efreet.

An efreet-linked monk archetype is not a bad idea, and could easily be adapted to most settings as well, I feel.

In any case, this archetype is officially available to both standard and unchained monk without any homebrewing required.

 These monks are adapt at deception, and can even lead off their strikes with a feint to open a foe up.

They also gain a different set of potential techniques that they pick up as part of their monk training, particularly those that improve their agility, ability to deceive, perform various combat maneuvers to befuddle foes, and learn the elemental efreeti fighting style.

Using raw cunning, rather than confidence, these monks are quite adept at deceiving others with their words and with disguises.

Their trickery reaches into the supernatural when they learn to channel ki into a riddle or logical paradox, temporarily befuddling the mind of the listener.

While most monks at their zenith transcend mortality and become an avatar of law, brazen disciples become decidedly more efreeti-like, becoming immune to fire but vulnerable to cold, and even able to grant minor wishes.

Interested in a monk that fights like a feint-focused combatant? This archetype has you covered. You could focus on the efreeti style for extra fire damage, go for the Unblinking Flame variant of Perfect Style to gain bonuses on the ambush and on feints, or even both, switching up depending on what you wish to do. In either case, the strategy with this archetype is to control the fight and remove your foes offensive and defensive advantages with combat maneuvers and feinting.

 We’ve seen “sneaky” monk archetypes before, but unlike others we have covered, this one feels like the deceptive element is out of a general respect as a valid fighting style, rather than being purpose-built for killing or other illicit activity. How it’s practitioners actually use it is another story.

  Stories tell of an aged master of martial arts living in seclusion, a syrinx warrior who long became disillusioned with the continued brutality of his people. Those who seek him out might be able to learn his fiery style, flickering like a flame in and out of reach.

 With the flow of time, whole worlds change. Oceans become deserts, and occasionally, the reverse. Though the monastery of the Efreeti Fist now rests beneath the waves, the style remains with those who fled the region. Still, there might be relics central to the style hidden in the ruins. Unfortunately for any explorers, it is guarded by a magical sea cucumber-like monster called an atuikakura.

This character idea is interesting, because I came up with it as a sort of mentor figure for an all-occult party (i.e. being either all occult classes, or using archetypes that give them occult and psychic powers and casting, or else just using one of the subsystems from Occult Adventures, Occult Origins, Occult Realms, or Psychic Anthology). The idea being that while this old man wasn’t a true psychic, he would accompany the party, either as an NPC or as a player character, in the latter case, his leveling up being flavored as him using more and more of his true power as the threats they faced became greater.

In any case, Katasane, family name unknown, is an elderly human man who has founded a school dedicated to teaching those with a talent for psychic power how to master their power.

Katasane doesn’t speak of his origins, but in truth he was once a soldier and before that, a monk. In his younger days, he was an idealistic young disciple, having spent much of his childhood in a monastery that taught it’s students the secret of combining latent psychic power with mastery of ki to channel the power of chakras and the serpent-fire ki of the earth below their feet.

He was a young adult when soldiers came seeking recruits for a coming war. The head monks were hesitant, but Katasane wanted to offer his services, and joined the army with others from the monastery to lend their support.

The things he saw and did in those times he does not speak of, but he returned home to find the monastery burned to the ground. There, he vowed to guide others, teaching them how to control their power, but also to protect them from being used as weapons of needless war.

 Though time has aged him, the balding Katasane has not let it dull his smile. The human is an athletic build despite his age, and he keeps his graying beard and hair trimmed. His features are broad and flat, and his earnest smile is infectious.

While he typically wears the simple robes of a monk, he does keep a supply of hand and leg wraps for those times when he chooses to get serious.

 For this character, I want to use the unchained monk class, but using the sensei archetype (technically, the sensei archetype hasn’t officially been cleared for use with the unchained version of the class, but the archetype does actually replace things that the unchained monk does get at the same levels, so I’d argue that it could work). From there, I would focus of the psychic sensitivity and chakra adept feat tree, as well as feats to master combat maneuvers and buff not only rounds of performance but also ki points. The idea being that mostly Katasane stays back and advises allies to bolster their abilities, occasionally delivering powerful strikes and combat maneuvers. However, when the chips are down and he is needed, he can tap into the serpent-fire, opening chakras to pick and choose buffs and abilities as he finds necessary each round. Depending on how the story goes, if the party proves they don’t need instruction anymore, he could potentially retrain as a serpent-fire adept monk instead, focusing more on his chakra-based powers.

Unchained Monk

 So like the barbarian, the monk got an alternate version whenever Pathfinder Unchained came out, rebuilding the class from core concept upward, retaining some of the same class features, but re-tweaking others to fall more in line with the design logic of Pathfinder rather than simply porting the class over from 3.5 with some changes.

The unchained monk might replace the monk in your setting entirely, requiring you to alter certain archetypes to go with it, or they might represent a more aggressive, more free-form discipline free of many of the trappings of the old ways, sort of like the quinggong monk archetype, only more so.

 The first thing those curious about this class will notice is the unchained monk has better attack bonuses, and weaker saves that its predecessor, having a weak will save compared to the strong saves in all categories of the original.

Secondly, the way flurry of blows works has changed, going off a different method to determine the bonuses.

Next up, the way that a monk can spend their ki by default is limited only to extra attacks in the new version of the class.

Instead, the monk can learn a multitude of ki powers that expend ki to fuel various abilities, including many that were once passive abilities of the core monk, made into use-based versions, such as diamond body purging a single toxin, rather than granting blanket immunity. These also include completely new abilities, such as the ability to channel elemental power through their strikes, see glimpses of the future, and even bat back hostile spells at foes, and so on. They can even take powers associated with the quinggong monk.

In addition to ki powers, these new monks can also learn more mundane style strikes, various maneuvers that make them all the more versatile in combat, including such things as leg sweeps, defense-shattering blows, and defensive spinning.

All in all, the monk remains a cunning and powerful combatant, albeit one with a lot more tricks and more aggressive baseline stats than before. They still function quite well as defensive walls though. Their multitude of new ability choices should make them more interesting to build, though.