Oh, is it Monkday already? How could we adapt the DDO Monk class to buff monks?

[Aliek]

Disclaimer: I actually did wait until monday to post this >.>

I'm not entirely sure whether that should be here or homebrew, but since I've seen my share of 'balance fixes' threads around, I think it's a fine place

Here's the thing, Monks in DDO are amongst the best melee characters, and in fact, the best single-class melee most likely. This comes from mostly reworked mechanics, but also from other factors(Power attack has a -5/+5 limit, there's no ubercharging, no attacks of opportunity, evasion is so much more awesome and mostly, MAD isn't that much of a problem when everyone's running stacked with stat items, amongst others.)

But its core mechanics could likely be adapted to make our Awesome but Impractical ones work better!

Here's the wiki page if anyone's interested, I'll try to do a quick summary of what's changed.

Unarmed strikes are considered two-weapon fighting without the to-hit penalties, and with full str bonus on the off-hand, but you do need the feats.
They get a scaling bonus to AC(which shouldn't be ported, it's mostly there because there's been a bit of a rework on the way AC scales), but the real kicker is the ki system, elemental strikes, elemental stances and finisher moves.

They've a maximum ki of 5 times their concentration, with 1x concentration being the stable amount. Every 6s they lose a bit, if it's unstable. Basically, for every 1x concentration you're above your maximum stable ki, you lose 1 per 6s.

How do we gain ki? A few enhancement trees(kinda like having PrCs, but you pick and choose extra skills based on your class and a few other requirements) increase your innate ki regen, thus counterbalancing the penalty for instability a bit, and when it's lower you actually regen some.
But more often than not, it's gained by attacking stuff. 1 ki per hit most of the time. Unless you're in the fire stance or have an item that gets you more.

Speaking of Stances, you get four to choose from - As cliche as that sounds, it's the four elemental ones. Fire stance gives a bonus to str with a penalty to wis, plus extra ki on hits, while the water stance is a bonus to wis with a penalty to str, plus a bonus to saves. Later on they get a few interesting abilities, but they cost nothing and are fast to toggle(Likely a swift action?)

So now you can get ki and know how much you'll have, what can you use it for? It's simple, really.
At 1st level you get a feat called "Initiate of Forms", that gives you the basic stances plus one of each elemental strike. Each of those cost 5 ki to use and add 1d6 elemental damage to your hit(Other than earth, which adds +4).
At levels 6, 12, and 18, you get the adept, master and grandmaster of forms respectively, which upgrades your strikes and your stances too. So it goes from 1d6 to 2d6/2d12/2d20 bonus.
Doing 3 of the same in a row nets you a finishing move. There are just a few of those, but I feel they'll be more useful in a pnp setting than a PC one.
And at 3, you can choose your philosophy. Either the path of harmonious balance or the path of inevitable dominion, which are "light" and "dark" respectively. These strikes don't level as you do, tough.
Lastly, you can use it for some prestige enhancement skills and a few things that are usually limited in uses per day(or week, in quivering palm's case).
Stunning fist costs 15 ki, quivering palm costs 30. There's a 1 minute invis+half incorporeal(you get 25% miss chance, basically) for 15 ki on one of the trees, along with some small force+fire ranged damage on another, and some stuff based on fighting undead, aberrations and chaotic outsiders.

All in all, I'd say doing a full conversion is a bit beyond my homebrew practice, but some concepts could be adapted!

Just how much of a difference would it make?(I'm looking at high tier4 to low tier 3)

~Aliek

[Vhaidara]

T.G. Oskar's Monk Retool pulled from DDO. It's a solid T3, and quite awesome.

[Aliek]

That's great, but monks have been redone circa 2013, I think. I'd say a good rule of thumb would be dividing the ki cost of stuff by 2.5. So you'd gain 1 ki per hit, and using an elemental strike would cost 2(Net loss of 1, since it's still an attack.) Makes stuff like quivering palm that much easier to use, and the strikes become a source of reliable damage.
Swift action stance switching would bring some tactical considerations, too. Now, if only they had other uses for their swift actions than that, so as to prevent mindlessly switching stances...

[Mato]

5th edition did this to the monk from what I hear, waiting on my phb still. :)

I think dandwiki has some homebrew on this too, I know I seen it somewhere.