Monks Broken or Not

[Persiflage]

What Dandu said. I play full spellcasters (and never, incidentally, suffer from the 10-round adventuring day problem [1]) or fairly optimised ranged-attacking types.

I'm fully of the opinion that melee characters being able to full-attack more often than not is a good thing, because it means they can still contribute meaningfully at mid-to-high levels. As a DM or a player, I really feel the pain of the beatsticks when enemies just refuse to stand still for a full attack.

I was going to go for a point-by-point rebuttal of some of the previous posts, but stopped when I realised that it really does all boil down to how you want the power levels in your game. It's a matter of what you're used to and comfortable with, not what's right or wrong. If you're in a group where wizards throwing around d6's of damage dice is the gold standard for contribution to a battle (which is just about the least-effective thing they can be doing under most circumstances in a well-balanced party) then yes, you are going to see pounce as a high-powered ability.

Personally, I don't.


[1] For the record, the 12th-level party I'm currently playing with has just gone through its 7th back-to-back encounter - every one of them at our adjusted CR or significantly higher - and my arcane spellcaster hasn't got anywhere near running out of spells. Hell, I haven't even broken out any of my major mojo yet. Our record is 11 encounters in a day (at 8th level) and we only stopped then because the melee types were out of raging, shifting and whatnot. Usually we stop long before that because everything's dead and we need to talk about what to do next, or because we need to take a day out for divinations and information-gathering, not because the party's out of resources.

 

[Deset Gled]

Doesn't the NPC monk in the DMGexamples have improved natural attack after a certain level?

The example is in the PHB2, and gives the monk INA before he meets the BAB requirement. Hence it does not meet the "primary source" requirement and already shows that the author failed to understand the prereqs for the feat. It was later addressed in errata (see point #5 above).

 

[radmod]

Pounce essentially gives any melee type the ability 'All Full attack, all the time'.

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't Pounce require a Charge?

As a DM, I don't have a problem with it. If you want to charge into combat, it's your suicide, um, I mean it's your choice.
As a Player, I don't particularly want it. Currently I have a scout and thought maybe Two-Weapon Pounce (not the same thing, I know) would be good. Then I realized it would be good maybe once an encounter and I would have to suffer the consequences.

I can't tell you how many times the chaotic stupid Barbarian or lawful stupid Paladin yelled "Charge" and the rest of the party said, "yeah, right." It rarely happened again.

 

[rusty2667]

You can take Intuitive Attack for +Wis to attack, then go into Shiba Protector for Wis to attack and damage, but not everyone has the source books to do it and it requires a decent investment to pull off.

It seems to me that using a Monk's wis rather than str as a melee hit/damage modifier would solve a lot problems with multiple ability dependency. It wouldn't be too over powering to just give the monk these feats right from the start, would it?

 

[Dandu]

No.

 

[Deset Gled]

It seems to me that using a Monk's wis rather than str as a melee hit/damage modifier would solve a lot problems with multiple ability dependency. It wouldn't be too over powering to just give the monk these feats right from the start, would it?

If you want to do this, I would recommend limiting the maximum bonus that you can apply from Wis to Str at 1/level. That is, at level 1, even if you have an 18 Wis, you can chose to use your Str mod or +1 from Wis. At level 2, you can chose Str mod or +2, etc. At level 4, your bonus from Wis would still top out at +4 as normal. Also, add in a clause that it would only work when unarmored.

These limitations prevent druids and clerics from dipping into monk for one level to get the bonus.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'd rather just give the benefits a few levels in to prevent dipping. I was considering a while back doing the following:

Ki Precision: At level 3, Monk can use Wis for unarmed attack rolls (along with maneuvers that are resolved with attack rolls, lie Disarm and Sunder) instead of Str.

Ki Power: At level 5, Monk can use Wis for unarmed damage rolls and Strength checks instead of Str.

Or maybe a little earlier than that. Levels 3 and 5 just seemed kinda bad to me (level 4 means freebie good aligned attacks and +1d6 damage vs. evil, thank you C.Champion!, so level 4's decent), so I thought those would be good levels to put them at.

 

[Persiflage]

EDITED: Didn't read the previous post properly. I'll just say: good idea, I like it

 

[akbearfoot]

Letting monks use wis mod for hit/damage sounds ok if it scaled slowly. But I wouldnt recommend letting them use it for all strength related checks. Seems like a drastic overcompensation. Entirely taking out one of their standard ability scores.


I knew I had seen the monk example with INA somewhere. I vaguely remember the part about it not actually having the required BAB too. Thats a common mistake all over 3.x.


It's funny, nobody in my gaming groups have ever gated in Solars or tried to Magic Jar Balors, or planar binded armies of Genies or epic critters. And shapechange always seems to get limited to forms the characters have actually encountered and are familiar with. So we could never turn into rediculous things like chronotryns because we never encountered them. Although there was that spell-weaver lich that one time. Thats the great thing about role-playing I guess. That we gamers come in all sorts of varieties.

The notion that 200 damage from 1 character is 'trivial' just boggles my mind. I mean it's pretty sad that my martial adept gets his Strike of Perfect Clarity next level and the players of the Psion/slayer, FotF monk, and shifter druid were pretty much going 'awe isnt that cute'.

 

[Dandu]

The notion that 200 damage from 1 character is 'trivial' just boggles my mind.

Try doing something from that long list of things you never did before and see what the balance of power is after.

Here's a tip, use Planar Binding and/or Gate to meet new and exciting races.