Eclipse Pathfinder – The Monk

   Duplicating the Monk – with it’s wide variety of highly-specific yet independent abilities – is always a bit of a tangle, even in Eclipse. You have to take the general abilities and pare them down to exactly what you want. That also means that – when you start making changes in the Monk build – it’s easier to simply rebuild the monk entirely rather than make a couple of dozen small changes.

   Ergo, here we have the complete ability breakdown for a level twenty Pathfinder-style Monk.

   If you want to duplicate the Pathfinder progression, simply take those abilities in the same order that a Pathfinder Monk does. On the other hand, given that this IS Eclipse, for the most part you’re free to mix up the order, to build up abilities gradually, to discard abilities that don’t fit your conception in favor of purchasing other abilities, or to expand on the abilities that you happen to like. Why bother with a point-buy system if you’re going to stick with premade builds?

   As a minor skillmaster, the Pathfinder Monk uses both Fast Learner and Adept – both of which are in Eclipse to allow older builds to be easily upgraded to later standards.

• Hit Dice: 20d8 (Effectively 40 CP after Fast Learner).
• Saves: +36 Total (108 CP).
• Warcraft (BAB): +15 (90 CP).
  • Additional +5 BAB. Specialized/only for use with a full attack with special monk weapons or unarmed techniques (including combat maneuvers) (10 CP*).
• Proficiencies: Proficient with a Limited Set of Monk Weapons (6 CP).
• Skills: 80 Skill Points (effectively 40 CP after Adept).

   Special abilities are, of course, the heart of a Monk build – which is why there are so many of them, and why they take up such a large chunk of a Monk’s available character points.

   Special Abilities (210 CP Total):

• Adept/Halves the cost of four selected skills (6 CP).
• Armor Class Bonus: Improved Defender (8 CP*) with Augmented Bonus/Adds Wis Mod to Dex Mod for AC and Combat Maneuver purposes (4 CP*)
• Diamond Body: Immunity/Poison (Common, Major, Minor, 6).
• Diamond Soul: Spell Resistance/Improved (10+Level) (12 CP).
• Fast Learner, Specialized in Larger Hit Dice (6 CP).
• Fast Movement: Celerity, +60′ Ground Movement (17 CP*).
• Flurry of Blows: Bonus Attack, Improved Bonus Attack, Corrupted/starts from secondary attack, Improved Bonus Attack/Specialized/starts from tertiary attack (11 CP*).
• Improved Evasion: Improved Fortune (Reflex Variant), 12 CP.
• Ki Pool: 4d6 Personal Mana, Specialized/does not include any form of natural magic, can only be used to power inherent spells (12 CP) plus Rite of Chi with +4 Bonus Uses, Specialized/only works given time to rest (6 CP). (This duplicates the 14-point Ki Pool and overnight recovery of a standard Pathfinder Monk with a Wisdom of  eighteen. It is, however, easier for a Monk using this build to increase his or her Ki Pool or to buy additional Ki Powers).
  • Basic Ki Applications: Inherent Spells (3x L1 Effects): Swift Strike (provides one bonus attack, use is a free action), Swift Step (provides +20′ to movement in the round, use is a free action), Swift Sidestep (provides a +4 dodge bonus through the next round, use is a free action). Each of these costs one Mana point to use, Corrupted/only one base use of each instead of two (6 CP).
  • Empty Body: Inherent Spell/Ethereal Stride#, Corrupted/costs 3 Mana instead of 2 Mana to use (4 CP).
  • Wholeness of Body: Inherent Spell/Cure Serious Wounds, Specialized/only works on the user, provides a maximum of one point of curing per level of the user. This costs 2 Mana to use (3 CP).
  • Abundant Step: Inherent Spell II/Dimension Door, Specialized/cannot carry other characters along. Costs 2 Mana to use (3 CP).
  • Ki Strike (Magic, Lawful, Adamant). Imbuement/Unarmed Strikes, Corrupted/only works while the Monk has at least one point in his or her Ki pool (4 CP).
• Perfect Self: Timeless Body / Transcendence (6 CP). The change from DR 10/Magic to DR 10/Chaotic is essentially irrelevant, since it’s part of the package.
• Purity of Body: Immunity/Disease (Common, Minor, Minor, 4),
• Quivering Palm: Trick (6 CP). In Eclipse, Trick represents a variety of special abilities that have a decent chance of taking an opponent out of a fight for a time; Quivering Palm is a powerful trick – but the once per day limitation fits that quite well. Stunning Fist – capable of stunning an opponent or (as per Dirty Tricks in Pathfinder) causing a variety of other afflictions is less potent than a “Death Touch” or similar, and so can be used considerably more often than once per day.
• Six Bonus Feats (36 CP). Unlike a standard Pathfinder Monk, there are no restrictions on what a Monk can spend these on.
• Slow Fall: Celerity/Additional Movement Mode/Flight, Specialized/only to eliminate falling damage and allow incredible leaps (+20, always considered to have a running start, additional +20 from spending a Mana point) (6 CP).
• Still Mind: Resist/+2 versus Enchantment Spells and Effects (3 CP).
• Stunning Fist: Trick (6 CP). See “Quivering Palm”, above.
• Timeless Body: Timeless Body (3 CP).
• Tongue of the Sun and Moon: Mindspeech with Beastspeech (Specialized: user must actually speak, cannot transmit emotions, 6 CP).
• Unarmed Strike: 2d10 (14 CP*).

   *Corrupted/not usable while wearing armor, using a shield, while immobilized or helpless, or when carrying a medium or heavy load.

   #Ethereal Stride is pretty simple; it’s a variant of Blink that – instead of allowing the user to shift back and forth between the material plane and the ethereal plane repeatedly – simply allows a pair of transitions; once to the ethereal plane and once back at the end of the spell. 

  Yes, this is far lower level than Ethereal Jaunt. There simply isn’t any way to make the facts that (1) remaining on the Ethereal Plane is a stable situation, as demonstrated by Plane Shift, (2) many creatures shift back and forth between the Material Plane and the Ethereal Plane with little or no trouble, and (3) the fact that Blink allows MANY such transitions at spell level three, with the notion that (4) a single shift-and-return requires a seventh level spell. Of course, you could get much the same effect by Specializing (affects the user only) and Corrupting (the same increased cost) to increase the effect and using Etheralness instead. It would cost 3 CP more though.

   That comes out to 504 CP, out of the 504 available at level twenty; a perfect match. Now I did use a slight tweak – Pathfinder does not specify that a Monk’s unarmed techniques will not work if they’re wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load – but since that eliminates most of their other martial abilities (fast movement, armor class bonus, and flurry of blows), it seemed appropriate. It also saved seven character points, which was exactly what was needed to balance the character.

   Personally, I picked Monks this time around because it seemed likely that they were likely to show up any spots where Eclipse couldn’t accommodate Pathfinder’s new builds. The fact that this comes out perfectly with a single simple tweak is fairly startling.

   Eclipse: The Codex Persona is available in a Shareware PDF Version, in Print, and in a Paid PDF Version that includes Eclipse II (245 pages of Eclipse races, character and power builds, items, relics, martial arts, and other material) and the web expansion. It will be updated with Eclipse III when that’s done as well.

   Finally, here’s the OGL on the Pathfinder SRD site I referenced