D&D (2024) Monks Are Not Tanks And Shouldn’t Be

[Chaosmancer]

The fiction matters FAR MORE than the mechanics. The mechanics needs to support the fiction, not the other way around.

Nope. If you are saying "the fiction is that the monk is a high mobility fighter, dodging enemy attacks" and you represent that by giving them a high movement speed... the mechanics have failed. You need a good mechanic first, then figure out how the fiction of the monk can be highlighted by that mechanic.

I think a big problem with the monk has been it has a very clear story it wants to tell... and no idea what mechanics are actually useful AND highlight that story. That's how you get a bunch of half-baked mechanics that don't hang together into a cohesive set of abilities.

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

You will need to go back much further than d&d. The times of Shakespeare and probably Greek plays were when the root of that term started with playwright's and director's girlfriend/wife/mistress. You have a huge hill to climb there .

Yes a monk with a few levels who digs in to push for a short rest every fight or three so they can spam flurry stunning strike and so on as a cantrip is absolutely just as broken as the warlock and action surge spamming fighter digging in beside the monk

Women didn't appear on the Elizabethan stage as actors.

 

[Emberashh]

Ive been reading through DND Next whilst sitting on the toilet today and an interesting tidbit about the Monk (at least as presented in packet 6) is that it actually did have some decent tanking ability in the Path of Stones Endurance, in being able to burn Ki to absorb entire attacks, and the base Monk could become Ethereal, absorbing half damage from most sources in exchange for dealing half damage.

And thats all before you chew on the Martial Feats giving you a few options there as well.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The fiction matters FAR MORE than the mechanics. The mechanics needs to support the fiction, not the other way around.

For a more or less sandbox roleplaying game like D&D, the fiction is primarily controlled by the DM and the players, not the game designers. This is D&D working as intended.

Outside of published adventures, the most meaningful way the game designers can influence fiction is through the mechanics they create.

 

[Marandahir]

For a more or less sandbox roleplaying game like D&D, the fiction is primarily controlled by the DM and the players, not the game designers. This is D&D working as intended.

Outside of published adventures, the most meaningful way the game designers can influence fiction is through the mechanics they create.

Right. Hence why the fiction of character archetypes should be directly supported by the mechanics of character archetypes. They should generate exciting ideas because we relate them to tropes and concepts we're familiar with. It's fiction forward, not mechanics forward.

 

[Marandahir]

Mechanics drive fiction, so the two need to match. Mechanics create opportunity for narrative, and narrative should inspire mechanics.

You're correct that mechanics create opportunities for narrative, and narratives should inspire mechanics. However, fiction drives mechanics. The fiction is and should always be first and foremost in an RPG like D&D. It's subtle, but important.

Not all Monks should be Tanks, because the fiction doesn't say that all Monks tank. But there are clearly Monks that tank in the fiction, and the mechanics don't currently exist to support this. This is a classic opportunity for subclass design.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You're correct that mechanics create opportunities for narrative, and narratives should inspire mechanics. However, fiction drives mechanics. The fiction is and should always be first and foremost in an RPG like D&D. It's subtle, but important.

Not all Monks should be Tanks, because the fiction doesn't say that all Monks tank. But there are clearly Monks that tank in the fiction, and the mechanics don't currently exist to support this. This is a classic opportunity for subclass design.

But fiction first is also how you get things like Tongue of the Sun and Moon, or the various "you don't suffer the effects of old age" abilities. Those make perfect sense in the fiction.... and they are useless mechanically. Maybe you could argue Tongue is kind of useful, but do you know what the effects of old age are?

Ready, it's a doozy...

Nothing. There ARE no effects from Old Age. You don't suffer the nonexistant effects of a condition that they didn't put into the game. They gave an ENTIRE leveled ability to what is essentially meaningless flavor text. Unless SOMEHOW at level 15, you somehow end up in situation where you can't get food and water.

Yes, you don't want to design the monk as a master of arcane magic, or a divine servant of the gods, but since we are already talking about "the monk" who we know is a master of unarmed combat... we've got enough story and fiction to stop and instead focus on "what would be mechanically good and interesting for them, as a class" rather than focusing on telling an even more specific story. Because doing something like "at X level, your monk finds a wise old master who begins tormenting them and will die a heroic death to save them" makes for great fiction, but would be a crappy mechanic.

If we were starting from nothing? If we were starting from "design any class" I would agree with you. But we aren't. We are starting from "redesign the monk" and the monk doesn't need any more specific fiction. Their fiction is handled. Now we need mechanics to make the monk worth caring about the fiction.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Maybe the Dodge Action is a mistake.

Perhaps in 6e, the next edition of D&D, we go back to Total Defense action and get +2 to AC.
The Monk gets +Wis mod (minimum +2).

Why, when Monks could just get more from the Dodge action?

 

[Gammadoodler]

Right. Hence why the fiction of character archetypes should be directly supported by the mechanics of character archetypes. They should generate exciting ideas because we relate them to tropes and concepts we're familiar with. It's fiction forward, not mechanics forward.

The fiction designers want to support with game mechanics does not matter if the mechanics aren't fun or relevant or are cripplingly bad (e.g. berserker exhaustion).

Players and DMs create the fiction in-game non-stop. That fiction is diverse and flexible to the needs of the table and can accommodate nearly any implementation of game mechanics, since the mechanics are almost always "just the way things are" in the setting.

If the mechanics are fun and relevant, the fiction will follow as needed.

 

[Dausuul]

Asking whether fiction or mechanics is more important is like asking which is more important to a car, the wheels or the engine. You need both or you're going nowhere. And if they aren't connected solidly, you're going to break down in short order.