A fallen monk is one that chooses to abandon the teachings of zen and purity to instead pursue more unholy powers. Be it by drawing on negative energy, ancient rites, or worship of foul entities: The fallen monk weaves the sickening chi of undeath at the cost of its own wavering life.
Fallen Monk is an archetype of the Monk class.
Deathly Empathy (Ex)
By understanding the regrets that bind the dead to this world, a fallen monk can better communicate and placate even wrathful spirits. A fallen monk adds half of his monk levels on Diplomacy to improve the attitude of an Undead creature. This can only affect sentient undead. Mindless Undead may be convinced that you're either not a threat or worth ignoring at a - 10 penalty, though this may be up to GM discretion.
Living Death (Su)
At 1st level, The fallen monk draws on the energies of the Undead and Unsent, using the memories of regret, malice, and purpose to fuel their powers. Instead of gaining a ki pool, the monk can enter a state of pseudo-death to perform amazing and uncanny feats. As a swift action, the monk takes in the energies of undeath; forcefully afflicting himself with the Zombie condition. This state is known as Living Death. While in this state, the monk’s unarmed strikes deal additional +2 points of shadow damage. This additional damage increases by +2 at 3rd level, 5th level, and every 2 levels thereafter (+20 shadow damage at 19th level), the shadow damage inflicted by a fallen monk’s unarmed strikes cannot heal creature’s who absorb shadow damage, nor can it heal races with an affinity to shadow energies (it instead treats those creatures as simply having immunity to its shadow damage). Living Death also bypasses any immunities to the Zombie condition the fallen monk may have.
Additionally, a fallen monk must spend hit points in place of ki points to use blitz techniques. A fallen monk can only sacrifice a maximum amount of hit points equal to half his monk level (minimum of 1) in this fashion and must wait 1 round before doing so again. A fallen monk that enters Living Death can only heal themselves normally through their own Monk class abilities (such as blitz techniques), feats, and magic items so long as the healing does not count as harmful to Undead (such as the Cure spell or healing provided by positive energy). The fallen monk cannot reduce his hit point total past 1 hit point when paying to use blitz techniques. A fallen monk can end Living Dead as a free action once per turn.
At 4th level, so long as he has more than 10% of his hit points, his unarmed strikes are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At 7th level, his unarmed attacks are also treated as cold iron and silver for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At 10th level, he chooses one alignment component: chaotic, evil, good, or lawful; his unarmed strikes also count as this alignment for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. (This alignment component cannot be the opposite of the fallen monk’s actual alignment, such as a good fallen monk choosing evil strikes.) At 16th level, his unarmed attacks are also treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction and bypassing hardness.
This ability alters Ki pool.
Unsent Fortitude (Ex)
At 4th level, the fallen monk’s body becomes closer to undeath; gaining the relentless fortitude of the dearly departed. The monk adds his half his monk level as a bonus to his Constitution score for the purposes of determining how much damage he can sustain before dying. In addition, the fallen monk adds his Wisdom modifier as a profane bonus on stabilise checks and saves against death effects, energy drain, ability drain and ability damage.
This replaces Ready for Anything.
Gift of the Departed (Su)
At 8th level, by entreating the dead with emotions, prayers, and reverence, the fallen monk can call on the departed to sustain the living. As a move action, the fallen monk can call on a small, 10ft cloud of deathly spirits to appear within 30ft. Allied creatures that start their turns in the cloud gain 3 temporary hit points per turn spent in the cloud. The cloud of spirits lasts for 1 minute. The fallen monk can spend a standard action to make the cloud swarm with more spirits, providing concealment (20%) to allied creatures instead of the temporary hit points and occupying a 15ft space. Additionally, the Fallen monk can activate this ability as a full round action, to grant his allies half of his bonus to saves against death effects, energy drain, ability drain and ability damage for the duration instead of concealment or the temporary hit points (but retains the area growth). The temporary hit points bestowed by this ability last for 3 rounds. This duration is refreshed for each turn spent in the cloud of spirits.
The fallen monk can use this ability a number of times per day equal to his Wisdom modifier.
This replaces Open Chakra.
Furious Death (Ex)
At 10th level, the fallen monk’s proximity to the border of Unlife grows ever closer. When the monk is in Living Death and has less than or equal to 50% of his hit points, he may add an additional point to his limit break gauge each round he is beneath this threshold. In addition, once per day when the fallen monk is reduced to -1 hit points or less but is not outright killed, they may immediately stabilise and be at 0 hit points (although they remain unconscious).
This ability replaces Greased Lightning.
Oversoul (Su)
At 16th level,The fallen monk can gather the souls of the recently slain to empower himself. Whenever the fallen monk slays a living or undead creature, he can spend a swift action to absorb their essence. Doing so gifts the fallen monk a +2 profane bonus to all his physical ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) for 1 minute. For each creature he slays beyond the first, he increases this bonus by an additional +2, to a maximum of +10 and refreshes the duration. The Monk can only gain this effect by slaying a creature with four more or less hit dice than the monk. Creatures without souls, such as constructs, cannot be affected by this ability. The fallen monk must be within 30ft of a slain enemy to gain the benefits of this effect. A fallen monk cannot absorb the essence of a creature if it has been deceased for more than 1 minute.
This ability replaces Quivering Palm.
Unsent Avatar (Su)
At 20th level, the fallen monk becomes a more complete fusion of living and dead. The fallen monk gains several benefits:
The fallen monk is immune to non-lethal damage.
The fallen monk absorbs shadow damage from all sources except from his Living Dead ability or blitz techniques.
The fallen monk is no longer subject to Fortitude saves unless the effect states it can affect undead or objects.
This ability replaces Full Meter.
