Here Comes . . . the Monk!

[Bluenose]

Having just read "The Church" supplement for Ars Magica I'm feeling an irritating disconnect when looking over the D&D Monk. The class has absolutely nothing to do with the Monastic Orders of the (European) Middle Ages. Why don't they just call the class Martial Artist?

Duh. It's always been called Monk in D&D, and Next is trying very veery hard to show how traditional it is by giving everything it's "proper" name.

 

[Minigiant]

Overall I like it. Though having a Str monk will suck. Bad AC and all.

The alignment thing is upsetting. I don't like the idea of alignment being in class description. Alignment restrictions should be in the alignment module.

I like ki.
I also like hurrican strike and iron wood defence. Very monky.

I don't like Monks having Deadly strike. Give them sneak attack instead. It fits more.

 

[FireLance]

One interesting thing about the monk which hasn't been pointed out yet (as far as I can see) is that for some maneuvers, spending more expertise dice makes them magical. (Although, IMO, there is nothing particularly magical about being able to push someone one size larger than you 30 feet - WotC may be pandering a bit too much to the "realism" faction here.)

This could be a way to introduce quasi-magical abilities to some builds of fighters and rogues: maybe swordmages and spellthieves?

 

[Bluenose]

Something I just noticed. The Monk has Deflect Arrows, effective against missile attacks. The Fighter can no longer Parry them, only melee blows. I guess you can't raise your shield to block incoming arrows after all.

And so the process of ensuring "mundane" classes have an increasingly restricted range of things they can do begins.

 

[TerraDave]

Since when is Jackie Chan chaotic? Funny is not the same as chaotic (if only that was the case!).

And how often does he really fight ninja's?

Speaking of Lawful: He does fight pirates.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GXyLzA_E5A[/ame]

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

In his movies, Jackie Chan is either on the side of the law (Police Story, Rush Hour, Shanghai Noon), or he's an innocent caught up in events who happens to be a ninja (Twin Dragons, Twins Effect, The Tuxedo). His characters are usually honorable, even when criminal. Of course, it depends whether you look at the axis on a small or large scale, as often the specific plans to achieve things are pretty wacky. I'd say he was at worst neutral good, often paired with someone who is chaotic good in recent movies.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If they're trying to reflect martial artists, are they aware that some Martial Art styles are actually tied to Taoism instead of Buddhism, and Taoism is not a religion that could be reflected by "lawful only". While there are many branches of variations of the religion, and some might be lawful, one of the main things is "balance in all things" which definitely sounds more Neutral than lawful anyways. And the fact that some could be described as Anarchists, which could be Chaotic.

But even moving beyond the discussion of certain religions, if the Monk requires discipline and no-one who isn't lawful can advance as one. Why is it that any alignment can advance as a Wizard? The Wizard also requires a lot of discipline too. But somehow Monk discipline is a lot more restrictive than Wizard discipline.

The best place for alignment restrictions to be decided period is by the DM, and never by the default core rules. Just like how a DM can say that Dwarves can't be Wizards or Rogues, even if there's nothing in the rules that say a Dwarf can't be of those classes.

 

[gyor]

Excellent point, all classes require discipline, except Barbarians maybe.

I like Flurry of blows, at first I though it seemed weaker, but then I thought about the possible flexiblity.

 

[tuxgeo]

< snip >
IOW alignment is a TOOL for the players, it's not that players must become a tool for their alignment.

With this in mind, it's totally fine to have alignment suggestions in a class description, just like we have equipment suggestions. But binding restrictions? No thanks!

Except perhaps for those very few cases when the entire class concept is built around alignment. If the Paladin concept is "champion of Good" then obviously it should be good. But if the Paladin concept is "champion of an ethos" then even the Paladin shouldn't be restricted. I really don't think a Monk's concept is or has ever been "champion of Law".

[There are a couple of good posts in this thread about monkish lawfulness-or-not. I'll reply to this one.]

The Tendai Buddhist Monks of Mt. Hiei -- the famous "marathon monks" -- were extremely ascetic but not exactly lawful:
During the US television broadcast of the 1998 Nagano Olympic Winter Games, there was included a fluff piece by Charles Osgood about those monks. One of the points he made during that fluff piece was that the official bureaucracy at the capital of nearby Kyoto was terribly corrupt at the time, and they had the habit of taking larger than necessary tax levies from the populace; yet they were "lawful" because they were the government. In response to the corruption, the Mt. Hiei monks got into the habit of going into the capital and robbing the corrupt bureaucrats; and the capital got moved from there to Tokyo so the bureaucrats could escape the monks' depredations.

I don't know how accurate the TV description was, nor whether that was actually even a contributing reason for the move of the capital. If true, that's a good historical example of non-lawful monks.

 

[Remathilis]

Initial thoughts: I like it. I dunno if its balanced (yet) but I like it.

I'm growing warm to the idea expertise dice for martial PCs. I still think the damage/cool stuff abilties of paladins and rangers can be handled via smite/favored enemy and spells, but for monks, fighters, rogues, and perhaps warlords its fine.

I like the frickin alignment restriction! All WotC needs to do is introduce a "martial artist" specialty (which dovetails with the monk as default) and you can have all the fighter and rogue martial artists you want. But if you want ki abilities, unarmored AC, and the like, pony up and play a lawful PC.

Do the same to druids, paladins (esp), barbarians and assassins WotC!

Bear in mind the monk, sorcerer and warlock aren't as customizable as fighters rogues or clerics. That's fine. You are "specializing" and that limits a few of your choices.