This variant is meant to mimic the Monk character class from Hellfire. The monk specializes in staff combat and hand-to-hand fighting. Sadly, no other class has attack-speed as fast as the monk's, so we will have to make due with what we have.
Start a new character. Sell rogue's bow, war's club/shield/sword, or sorc's staff.. You may transfer to that character a non-spell short staff, otherwise they start off with fist/foot melee. Sorc may not use Fire Bolt until he finds a book of Fire Bolt first.
Use staves and hand-to-hand combat exclusively (certain dual-classes may make exceptions). The Monk is only trained in the ways of the staff and thus must always use it as a weapon. The Monk's other strength relies in magic.
Enchantments are all legal.
Armor class: A monk gets the most out of its armor by honing its abilities to make the best use out of the armor as possible. A female monk (rogue) must have Dexterity (this may be enhanced dex) of Dex/5 >= the base ac of armor in order to use it. A male monk (warrior) must have Strength (this may be enhanced strength) of Str/5 >= base ac of armor in order to use it. This does NOT apply to headwear.
Note: Even with 250 str/dex they can only use base ac of 50. 375 str/dex is needed to use armor with 75 base ac. Also notice that a rogue would double her armor class this way. Why? Dex/5 = naked ac. Dex/5 = Maximum base ac allowed on an armor. Thus, 50 dex = 10 ac, and if they had 10 ac quilted armor, then their ac would double to exactly 20. This is excluding any possible headwear that could be applied, in which case ac would be doubled and then some.
List of all possible enchantments on staves
1) For Damage Enhancement in Melee
Clumsy, Dull, Sharp, Fine, Warrior, Soldier, Lord, Knight, Master, Champion, King, Flaming, Lightning, Readiness, Swiftness, Speed, Haste, The Bear
2) For Spell Enhancement
Fool, Dyslexia, Magic, the Mind, Brilliance, Sorcery, Wizardry, Corruption, Hyena, Frog, Spider, Raven, Snake, Serpent, Drake, Dragon, Angel, Arch-Angel, Plentiful, Bountiful
3) For Resistance
White, Pearl, Ivory, Crystal, Diamond
Red, Crimson (both ranges), Garnet, Ruby
Blue, Azure, Lapis, Cobalt, Sapphire
Topaz, Amber, Jade, Obsidian, Emerald
That's right, no +to hit except from the Sharp-Kings line. Typically, these enchantments on staves can be quite costly. Be sure to keep a good full purse for when Adria has that King's War Staff of Haste for around 125,000! Remember, buying weapons is going to be difficult because Adria is your only source. You will HAVE to have the money at the time it's offered because Adria, unlike Griswold and Wirt, doesn't wait around for you to kill more demons and make more money.
Unfortunately, the enchantment "of the Dark "doesn't come on staves so no Warrior's War Staff of the Dark... but then again, you won't be finding horrible staves of Radiance either. Also, you won't be finding staves of ages.
I'm sure the rest of you have noticed this too, but I'll say it just to remind you. Non-spell staff drops in hell seem to be 70% speed/haste. Rarely are they prefixed, at least in my experience. This is another reason to keep a full purse: Adria's probably going to be your staff provider.
This section is just for some extra restrictions if you wish to have them. It adds a bit more flavor to the variant, in my opinion.
The Monk has learned ways of magic that exceed the knowledge of the warrior and the rogue. The Monk prefers to use spells that require little or no aiming on his part.
Spells
Fire Spells: FireWall, FlameWave, Elemental*, Guardian*
Magic Spells: Golem*, Bone Spirit*, Phasing, Healing, Heal Other*, TP*, Flash, Mana Shield*, Stone Curse*, Teleport*, Resurrect*
Lightning: Charged Bolt, Chain Lightning
*Require Quests first.
1) Quest to Aid
The Monk undertakes this quest so that it can help its companions. (HO, Res, TP, Teleport)
-To achieve level of Other Healer, the Monk must defeat Leoric and all his blasted minions. (Solo) (HO and Res learned)
-To achieve the level of Portaler, the Monk must defeat 5 unique creatures using only its feet. (Solo) (TP learned)
-To achieve the level of Planeshifter, the Monk must find a Teleport book and read it. Afterwards, the Monk must defeat Dreadjudge, The Visier, and Arch-Bishop Lazarus. (Teleport learned) To keep this title, destroy Lazarus by staying inside his room from the moment he speaks to the moment he dies. If you lose, you must try again. Use Teleport while doing this. You may not use Teleport anywhere else until you accomplish this.
2) Quest to Summon
The Monk undertakes this quest so that it can control certain summoned creatures. (Golem, Guardian, Elemental, Bone Spirit)
-To achieve the level of Serpentmaster, the Monk must defeat Fangskin, Viperflame, and Fangspier. (Guardian learned)
-To achieve the level of Elementalist, the Monk must destroy Blackskull, Gorefeast, and Windspawn. (Elemental learned)
-To achieve the level of Exorcist, the Monk must save a companion-in-need from undead minions or demons and resurrect them if dead. (NOTE: You fail if you resurrect them while the demons/minions are still around. Bone Spirit learned)
-To achieve the level of Life Giver, the Monk must kill diablo using only its feets of fury! (Solo. Golem learned) To keep this title, return and slay Diablo using your newly found Golem friend. You may not use Golem anywhere else until you accomplish this.
3) Quest to Preserve
The Monk undertakes this quest so that it can preserve itself while adventuring. (Mana Shield, Stone Curse)
-To use Mana Shield, the Monk must kill a dog boss.
-To use Stone Curse, the Monk must slay 4 goat bosses. Choices: Bloodskin Darkbow (dlvl 5), Bloodgutter (dlvl 6), Deathshade Fleshmaul (dlvl 6), Blightfire (dlvl 7), Blighthorn Steelmace (dlvl 7), Gorestone (dlvl 7). Bloodskin, Blightfire and Gorestone are archers. Bloodgutter, Deathshade, and Blighthorn are melee goaties. The last 2 can charge like horned demons.
4) Quest for a Staff
-You start off with no weapon. Since you may not use any weapon except for feet/fist melee and staff melee, you must find yourself a staff (Unless you're a Monk/Martial Artist combination. Mar/Monk may ignore this quest.)
--SNOB Monks may not use a unique staff if they are given it as a birthday present at this stage. Only after they have completed this quest may they use unique birthday present staves. (NOTE: SNOB Monks might want to get armor or helm as a b-day gift rather than a staff for clvl 1.)
Part 1
-FIND yourself a staff. If you have the statistics to use it, then see part two. If co-op, you must be in the dungeon and on that particular dungeon level when the staff is dropped.
Part 2
-Clear dungeon level one without returning to town. This part must be done solo.
Reward: You may progress to dungeon level two. SNOB-monks may now use birthday present staves.
Special Reward: If you have a Staff of Shadows that can be given to your monk, your monk may use it. I think that since this item is rare and pretty useless at higher levels, you might want to get use out of it with a low level character :o]