Core Monk Abilities

I have decided to retain four "core" abilities for the monk class that all monks possess and improve in, regardless of what sage abilities they've chosen to pursue.  These are armor class, number of attacks, open hand damage and number of proficiencies.  Here's a breakdown for the 17 levels that a monk can attain:

I wrote on Friday that back in the 1980s I had adjusted the monk's starting natural armor class from the Player's Handbook "10" to "8."  Now I'm adjusting it again, to "9," to create an ability for monks who want to concentrate on defense (they can improve the armor class listed on the table above by 1 point or even 2).

The AD&D rules have always limited the monk's weapon attacks to 1 per round.  I'm making adjustments to the weapon damage bonus in the PH (and making it a different sage ability), so now I can improve the number of times a monk hits per round with a weapon.  The list given is, in fact, the number of attacks a fighter can perform per round ~ so the monk is not better than the fighter in this regard.  But as I said in my last post, the monk is a fighter, so this is fair.

The open hand attacks per round are higher; this is intentional, as I prefer the monk to turn to their open hand rather than concentrate on weapons.  This, I have found in the past, is something that happens automatically as the open hand damage increases.  I hope that additional open hand/martial arts abilities that I will add with the sage abilities will encourage players to consider non-weapon attacks sooner.

Finally, proficiencies.  Monks are limited to staves, jo sticks, bo sticks, clubs, daggers, hand axes, javelins, pole arms, spears and crossbows.  The non-proficiency penalty for a monk is -3 to hit.