Ye Olde Inn

Alright all you homebrewers... I have a number of custom heroes including rogues, druids and more. However, my group has asked if I can make a monk. Now the typical eastern flavor monk is not my cup of tea, so I am leaning towards adding a Friar type monk if I decide to fulfill their wishes.

I'm thinking like tubby Friar Tuck type monk from robin hood, keg of ale on his back and all. so far this is what I have (again, not even sure I want to create this, but I'm at least going to honor their request and toy with the idea)

A hybrid hero: wears cloth gear only but can use heavy weapons like mauls or staves.
he has 3 spell classes.

the first is Eat or feast cards. these are designed to give buffs of defense or bp healing or temporary bp buffs. Ihave not hammered out specifics though on them so ideas are appreciated.

the second group is Drink or libation cards. This would be attack based buffs but maybe at the cost of movement or accuracy or mind points. for example, a few I toy with would be:
some type of name regarding being intoxicated and more aggressive, but also seeing double so chance of hits goes down. maybe increase the number of dice thrown but only hit on white shields when under the influence of this drink. or maybe throw less dice but double damage? (just throwing out ideas in the preliminary phase here)
warming liqour - prevents frost damage for x turns

the third group would be Be Merry or some other named group of cards. this group would essentially be a few other buffs or maybe a prayer for healing or something like a cleanse of poison or something of that nature.

anywho, that is the idea of the hero. needs A LOT of flushing out. could be a fun themed hero, but I'm not sure on it.

A while ago, I was playing a Robin Hood game, in which Friar Tuck had a funny special attack: he could throw a bee hive towards an enemy. The bees would then harass the enemy soldier it was thrown at for a while, distracting the soldier during that time. Your Monk could feature something similar.

Another figure that the player controlled, was someone who could throw apples and nets. The apples would cause the soldier to harass some kids for throwing it at them, distracting him for a while - and in HeroQuest, it could cause monsters to pick a fight amongst themselves. The net would immobilize enemies until someone removed the net from them. Robin Hood himself had an ability with which he could throw a small pouch of coins amongst a few enemy soldiers; they would start to collect the money, inadvertently ending up in them fighting eachother by fist, knocking eachother out until one was left standing to collect the rest of the money still on the ground.

Those all sound like fun abilities for your Monk, to create some variations in gameplay. The net could immobilize an enemy, until a nearby enemy spends a turn to remove the net. The apples could cause an enemy to launch a single punch at another nearby enemy and if the damage roll is exceeding that enemies' hitpoints, that enemy gets knocked out; this could possibly be mind point damage instead. The coin pouch could start a brawl amongst the enemy units, with similar effect, until only one monster is left standing. The Monk would carry a limited number of nets and/or apples and/or coin pouches (and keep in mind that the coin pouch itself also requires money to fill the pouch!). Of course, the trick with the apple and the coin pouch only works against living monsters, that haven't yet engaged in combat.

I'd say an ability along the lines of collecting alms could be an interesting fit thematically.
Say something like "any time this hero searches for treasure, in addition to the normal treasure found, he draws 2 treasure cards and chooses one it's effects apply immediately. The other is shuffled back into the deck. After any quest in which this ability is used the hero must tithe 10% of any gold he found to the poor."

On opted to make a friar that had three decks. An eat deck, a drink deck and a be merry deck which includes a great prayer. The decks are all buffs but have some costs to them as well... Such as becoming lethargic if you read to much. The decks can be found in my home brew card topic post.

I did include a skill where he can renounce worldly possessions and sacrifice one item to heal for for body points during a quest

so even for 1 gold coin?

Sorry I should have been more specific, gear like weapons armor or artifacts.