Four fantasy characters, including a dwarf warrior, a bearded man with a shield, a man with a feathered hat, and an elf with a staff, standing near an old ruined stone building with a castle in the background.

Welcome to Curious Quill, an original content resource for d20 roleplaying.

Choosing a class typically is more about its capabilities: what will it allow the character to do? But when building your character, theorycrafting on why the character, versus the player, followed that path can play a large role in creating an interesting back story. Some classes are more straightforward, while some are more open-ended. In these Class Theory features we will explore and present ideas to help illustrate the reason a character follows a class path.

Kevin Frank 2/15/26 Kevin Frank 2/15/26

Class Theory: Monk Concepts

In this feature we will explore what separates a heroic Monk character from your average unarmed combatant or even trained martial artist.

Kevin Frank 2/19/25 Kevin Frank 2/19/25

Sub-Classes: Alternative ‘Monk’ Builds

In the substitute classes (Sub-Classes) features we will look at ways to make different classes work in similar ways through combinations of backgrounds and class and subclass selections along with class feature and spell selection. This time we will look at how to build unarmed, or lightly armed and unarmored, characters similar to the monk class.

Read More about making an alternative martial artist.