Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Monk: The Past, Present, and Questionable Future of an Iconic Class
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="TwoSix" data-source="post: 9061568" data-attributes="member: 205"><p>Good post. The history of the monk, and your takeaways of its design tropes from that history, seem pretty spot on to me. Probably my only point there is that I feel the monk has always had a secondary trope of carrying a bit of divine flavor; obviously it's origin as a cleric subclass in OD&D, but also unarmed fighting kits for clerics in 2e, and prestige classes favoring monk/cleric and monk/paladin combinations in 3e. That seems to mostly have gone away by 5e, with the psionic monk being a precursor of that flavor change when it was introduced in 4e.</p><p></p><p>I think your playtest observations are pretty on-point. I understand and support the impulse to have both unarmed and weapon-based monks as valid tropes that the playtest is following. But they need to be explicit as to if unarmed strikes are going to have magical item support. I don't feel that 5e's current "do what you want" magic item approach makes balancing intra-class specialties (like unarmed versus weapon-based monks, or Str vs Dex fighters) truly feasible within the rules; the DM needing to add weight to the scales somewhere seems like a near necessity if build balance is at all a play priority.</p><p></p><p>I would say that Monk Stunning Strike does give benefit to the Monk; assuming a Monk uses and succeeds on their SS use, they'll still be able to make 3 more attacks that turn benefiting from the Stunned condition (if their Di points hold out). Allowing the stun to extend to the end of a monk's next turn would give 7 attacks on a stunned target, which might be a bit too strong. (Although reasonable people can argue about the overall strength.)</p><p></p><p>I can understand why they choose to move a lot of the weird, wacky Monk flavor ribbon out of the base class, but I would like to see them moved into specific subclasses that support those ribbons. Weird immunities, strange movement abilities, and supernatural perceptive abilities should all be in the Monk's wheelhouse.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="TwoSix, post: 9061568, member: 205"] Good post. The history of the monk, and your takeaways of its design tropes from that history, seem pretty spot on to me. Probably my only point there is that I feel the monk has always had a secondary trope of carrying a bit of divine flavor; obviously it's origin as a cleric subclass in OD&D, but also unarmed fighting kits for clerics in 2e, and prestige classes favoring monk/cleric and monk/paladin combinations in 3e. That seems to mostly have gone away by 5e, with the psionic monk being a precursor of that flavor change when it was introduced in 4e. I think your playtest observations are pretty on-point. I understand and support the impulse to have both unarmed and weapon-based monks as valid tropes that the playtest is following. But they need to be explicit as to if unarmed strikes are going to have magical item support. I don't feel that 5e's current "do what you want" magic item approach makes balancing intra-class specialties (like unarmed versus weapon-based monks, or Str vs Dex fighters) truly feasible within the rules; the DM needing to add weight to the scales somewhere seems like a near necessity if build balance is at all a play priority. I would say that Monk Stunning Strike does give benefit to the Monk; assuming a Monk uses and succeeds on their SS use, they'll still be able to make 3 more attacks that turn benefiting from the Stunned condition (if their Di points hold out). Allowing the stun to extend to the end of a monk's next turn would give 7 attacks on a stunned target, which might be a bit too strong. (Although reasonable people can argue about the overall strength.) I can understand why they choose to move a lot of the weird, wacky Monk flavor ribbon out of the base class, but I would like to see them moved into specific subclasses that support those ribbons. Weird immunities, strange movement abilities, and supernatural perceptive abilities should all be in the Monk's wheelhouse. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Monk: The Past, Present, and Questionable Future of an Iconic Class
Top