A wholly different approach, this time with less “Monk” and more “monk.” You will have everything notable about the monk class, but you won’t actually have levels in any class *called* “monk.”

This relies on a feat from *Secrets of Sarlona* called Tashalatora. Tashalatora requires Monastic Training, a feat in *Eberron Campaign Setting* that has you choose some non-monk class, and then allows you to multiclass that class freely with monk (since monks, for no good reason, have a rule that if you are a monk and then multiclass to another class, you cannot return to the monk class—as if you would want to). Tashalatora says that if you chose a psionic class with Monastic Training, your levels in that class stack with monk levels for determining your AC bonus, flurry of blows, and unarmed strike damage—read, everything remotely good about monk (well, other than the bonus feats and evasion).

Tashalatora means that psionics is far easier to mix with monk class features than any other subsystem in the game. But psionics, you may have noticed, is not meldshaping. The solution to *that* is [soul manifester](http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a), a psionics–incarnum “theurge” prestige class. Soul manifester can advance both your psionic powers and your meldshaping, which is very nice. So you take 10 levels of that, and choose it for Tashalatora, and you have the AC bonus, flurry of blows, and unarmed strike of a 10th-level monk.

Because, oh yeah, Monastic Training and Tashalatora? They don’t actually require you to *be* a monk at any point. Monks can take those feats as bonus feats, but you can take them as regular feats without being a monk. (I would call this cheesy, but honestly two feats for those benefits is pretty steep—really, it’s just a sign of how weak the monk class is that it can be almost-entirely replaced by two feats and that’s a kind of dubious trade. And you’re taking Vow of Poverty, so all the cheese in the world isn’t going to save you.)

Now then, the question becomes, what psionic class do we want to progress with soul manifester? Psychic warriors are very nice—Wisdom-based, bonus feats, very nice combat-oriented powers—but they take 4 levels to get the 2nd-level powers that soul manifester requires. Thus, I suggest the ardent class from *Complete Psionic*. The ardent is *also* Wisdom-based, and while it does miss out on bonus feats and some of the combat powers of psychic warriors, it gets much better manifesting (including 2nd-level powers at 3rd level instead of 4th), and it *does* get a fair bit of combat power. It is also a rather philosophical class, taking on “mantles” which are vaguely similar to cleric domains—great fit for a monk (in fact, ardents are a very common suggestion for replacing monks).

Ardents don’t have the same alignment requirements that monks do, so you *could* do a good incarnate here, but totemist synergizes far better. Plus, you need two levels of either incarnate or totemist to qualify for soul manifester, and incarnate 2nd gets the crown chakra—which soul manifester redundantly offers at 3rd—while totemist gets the excellent and exclusive totem chakra. So I go with the totemist here.

Again, azurin is the top choice for race.

\begin{array}{l|l}
\text{Level} & \text{Class} & \text{Special} & \text{Feat} \\ \hline
1^\text{st} & \text{Totemist} & & \text{Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty}^B_h\text{,} \\
 & & & \quad\text{Nymph's Kiss}^B_{ex} \\
2^\text{nd} & & \text{Totem chakra bind} & \text{Intuitive Attack}^B_{ex} \\
 & & \quad\text{(+1 capacity)} \\ \hline
3^\text{rd} & \text{Ardent} & \text{Assume psionic mantle (2)} & \text{Azure Talent} \\
4^\text{th} & & \text{Assume psionic mantle} & \text{Touch of Golden Ice}^B_{ex} \\
5^\text{th} \\ \hline
6^\text{th} & \text{Soul Manifester} & \text{Psionic investment 1} & \text{Monastic Training (soul manifester),} \\
 & & & \quad\text{Knight of Tyr's Holy Judgment}^B_{ex} \\
7^\text{th} \\
8^\text{th} & & \text{Chakra binds} & \textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
 & & \quad\text{(crown, feet, hands)} \\
9^\text{th} & & & \text{Tashalatora} \\
10^\text{th} & & & \textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
11^\text{th} \\
12^\text{th} & & \text{Psionic investment 2} & \text{Practiced Manifester (ardent),} \\
 & & & \quad\textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
13^\text{th} & & \text{Chakra binds} \\
 & & \quad\text{(arms, brow, shoulders)} \\
14^\text{th} & & & \textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
15^\text{th} & & \text{Psionic distillation} & \text{Double Chakra} \\ \hline
16^\text{th} & \text{Ardent} & & \textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
17^\text{th} & & \text{Assume psionic mantle} \\
18^\text{th} & & & \text{Open Greater Chakra,} \\
 & & & \quad\textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
19^\text{th} \\
20^\text{th} & & & \textit{any exalted feat}^B_{ex} \\
\end{array}

With this, at 15th you have the AC bonus, flurry of blows, and unarmed strike damage of a 10th-level monk, the meldshaping of a 12th-level totemist, and the manifesting of a 13th-level ardent (with manifester level 15th, allowing you to choose 8th-level powers). After 15th, things kind of drop off—you stop gaining monk or meldshaping features—but you can still take Open Greater Chakra at 18th to get your throat or waist. And you wind up with 19 psionic powers at manifester level 20th, including up to four 9th-level powers. That’s a pretty big win.

This approach plays pretty similarly to the stalker of Kharash monk version, but replaces Nemesis—evil with ardent manifesting. As shown here, lack of flaws isn’t *as* painful as it would be in that build, but you would still really like them—you could take Azure Talent and Monastic Training at 1st (yes, you can take it and choose soul manifester before you have levels in soul manifester), allowing your 3rd-level feat to be Practiced Manifester and your 6th-level feat to be Tashalatora, securing you monk class features *much* sooner (unfortunately, since you don’t have Monastic Training—ardent, Tashalatora before 6th does you no good). That allows you to take Bonus Essentia and perhaps Track to qualify for [slayer](http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/slayer.htm) when you finish soul manifester—that’ll help your BAB, anyway.

Fair warning, though: you will have basically zero combat ability at 1st level, since you’ll have BAB +0, only simple weapon proficiency, and don’t have Intuitive Attack yet. This is a problem with totemists generally, but dumping Strength and then not having Intuitive Attack until 2nd makes it a lot worse. Things get a lot better at 2nd, and then much better again at 6th with Tashalatora, but you should be aware.