Emanresu

How about Monks being lightly-armored warriors that focus more adeptness rather than force (almost like Rogues) but focus on mastery of either exotic weapons or a very small number of specific weapons that the player can choose? Initially the Monk could have fists bonuses that rival real weapons, but after a few levels those diminsh as the Monk begins training in his weapon(s) of choice. I'm not sure how the Souls concept of PE would be worked into it but I'm positive that someone could fit it in.

I liked the way Titan Quest dealt with spears/lances. They were slower but bigger damage and could be used with a shield. Their main draw was that it would do a large percentage of piercing damage where a percentage of your damage would always ignore the enemies' armor no matter what. Other weapons like swords and axes tended to do more damage but didn't have piercing damage and therefore were less effective against highly-armored foes. When you got up to the higher difficulties, using piercing damage tended to be increasingly more important than straight damage.