Monk of the Empty Hand

The monk of the empty hand eschews normal weapons in favor of whatever is lying around—rocks, chair legs, flagons of ale, even a simple quill pen all become deadly weapons in the hands of such a monk. A monk of the empty hand draws on his own ki to infuse his improvised weapons with power, and can transform a broken bottle into a magical weapon.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

Monks of the empty hand are proficient with the shuriken only. A monk of the empty hand treats normal weapons as improvised weapons with the following equivalencies (substituting all of their statistics for the listed weapon): a light weapon functions as a light hammer, a one-handed weapon functions as a club, and a Two-handed weapon functions as a quarterstaff.

This replaces the normal monk weapon proficiencies.

Flurry of Blows (Ex)

Starting at 1st level, a monk of the empty hand can make a flurry of blows using any combination of unarmed strikes or attacks with an improvised weapon. He may not make a flurry of blows with any other weapons, including special monk weapons.

A monk of the empty hand’s flurry of blows otherwise functions as normal for a monk of his level.

Bonus Feat

A monk of the empty hand adds the following feats to his list of bonus feats at 6th level: Improved Dirty Trick*, Improved Steal*, and Improvised Weapon Mastery.

Versatile Improvisation (Ex)

At 3rd level, as a swift action, a monk of the empty hand may use an improvised weapon to deal damage as if it were another type (bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing) for 1 round, regardless of the weapon’s normal damage type.

This ability replaces still mind.

Ki Pool (Su)

At 4th level, in addition to the normal abilities of his ki pool, a monk of the empty hand may spend 1 point from his ki pool to increase the range increment for an improvised thrown weapon or shuriken by 20 feet for 1 round.

Ki Weapons (Su)

At 5th level, a monk of the empty hand may spend 1 point from his ki pool as a swift action to deal damage equal to his unarmed strike damage with an improvised weapon for 1 round. At 11th level, the monk may spend ki to grant an enhancement bonus or magical weapon abilities to an improvised weapon for 1 round, at the rate of 1 point of ki per +1 bonus or its equivalent. The monk may not spend more than 3 points of ki at one time for this purpose. For example, a monk can spend 2 points of ki to give his improvised weapon a +1 enhancement bonus and the ki focus quality, or just the flaming burst quality. At 15th level, the limit increases to 5 ki per round. The monk may use this ability to add magical weapon qualities to improvised weapons that could not normally have such a quality, such as adding the disruption quality to a slashing weapon, or the vorpal quality to a bludgeoning weapon.

This ability replaces purity of body and diamond body.

Section 15: Copyright Notice
Advanced Player’s Guide. Copyright 2010, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Author: Jason Bulmahn.
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