Sidewinder Monk
The Sidewinder Monk is a Monk Variant Class in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition found in the pages of Dragon Magazine #331. Sadly, we're given little fluff to this alternate monk, but what we are told is that they are members of a monastic school called the Order of the Sidewinder, who practice a fighting style based on and inspired by the sidewinder snake. Ironically, this would make them a pretty good fit at least on a lore level for the Snake Shen Prestige Class.
As a variant class, Sidewinder Monks use the same rules and chassis as the regular monk, with the following exceptions:
- Your bonus feats at levels 1, 2 and 6 must be either Persuasive or Stealth, Improved Feint or Mobility and Improved Disarm or Improved Trip respectively.
- At 2nd level, you gain the class ability Silver Tongue.
- At 3rd level, you replace Still Mind with Fast Movement and Sneak Attack.
- At 4th level, you replace the Ki Strike (Magic) and Slow Fall features with Earthbound and Fangs. This means you don't gain any of the Slow Fall "powerups" at subsequent levels, in case it ain't obvious.
- At 5th level, you replace Purity of Body with Ki Strike (Magic).
- At 8th level, you gain Intimidating Stance.
- At 15th level, you replace Quivering Palm with Fangs of Death.
- You don't gain access to Empty Body at 19th level.
So, what are these new features, you ask? Well...
Silver Tongue is an Extraordinary Ability that gives you a +1 competence bonus to Bluff checks, increasing by +1 at every even-numbered level starting from 4th level.
Sneak Attack is the same as the Rogue ability; it does +1d6 to start, and powers up by +1d6 damage at every 3rd level.
Fangs is a Supernatural Ability that lets you use a free action to grow a set of fangs, imbuing you with a Bite Attack (1d4 for Medium, 1d3 for Small); these fangs last for (1 + Con bonus) rounds. You can use Fangs once per day per 4 sidewinder monk levels. A bite attack made from Fangs uses your highest attack bonus, and if used as part of a flurry of blows, you suffer a -2 penalty to it and all other attacks.
Earthbound is an Extraordinary Ability that gives you a +4 competence bonus on Strength checks made to oppose being bull rushed or overrun.
Intimidating Stance is an Extraordinary Ability that gives you a +4 competence bonus to Intimidate checks, increasing to +6 if you're using Fangs at the same time.
Fangs of Death is a Supernatural Ability that can be used once per day whilst you have Fangs active. This lets you make a poison attack as a secondary aspect of your bite, forcing the target to pass a DC (10 to + 1/2 your sidewinder levels + your Con modifier) ori die instantly. As a poison attack, it is of course useless on anything immune to poison, but then, Quivering Palm didn't work on anything immune to death attacks, did it?