Monks vs *big beasties*

[Sir ThornCrest]

Do any of you find it strange for a monk with his bare hand/foot to strike a dragon or like big beastie and cause damage? You would think the dragon gets splinters bigger than the monks arm/leg! If you house rule this you would severely handicap the class.

I am currently playing a monk and the above happened, I struck and hurt a dragon. Even from a players perspective it was strange and I was admittedly taken back for a moment to 2nd edit when a monks attacks were not effective vs. creatures over 9 or so feet tall...the higher level the monk the bigger the creature could be.

Just a thought...


Thorncrest

 

[der_kluge]

This is a strange question on many levels. I'd like to argue about realism, but we're talking about beating up dragons with our fists, so reality just flew out the window.

To start, yea I've house ruled monks. There are no monks in my game.


Now, from a realism perspective, in our world, martial artists can easily break boards and cinder blocks with their head, feet, and hands on a regular basis. That's some very real power that could inflict a very real amount of damage to something living.

If one takes the stance that it makes no sense that a dragon could be hurt by a kick or by a fist, then a cleric with a club, or a blunt mace shouldn't really be able to affect it either, by that argument.


Lastly, take a step back. It's a game. Furthermore - it's D&D. Any attempt at interjecting reality into it is going to fundamentally screw up the balance.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Not a problem for me.

If you can stab a dragon with a dagger and do damage (or a longsword!), then you can hit it really hard and do damage.

 

[Crothian]

Also, those splinters are going to be bigger then the Rangers arrows, the rogues, daggers, and the barbarians great axe. So, why limit it to ju7st monks being inefective? We can make all the physical attackers useless against them.

In game this is why dragons have DR. If you want to make them even more scarey though change the DR fromm X/magic to X/-

 

[fafhrd]

As die_kludge suggested the problem can be extended to combat with large creatures in general. I think it falls under the auspices of Hong's "don't look too closely at it". I just finished reading my first D&D novels in years and it seems like an open secret that there really isn't an answer. In one of the books a human is fighting a huge construct. He recognizes the futility of the task of acting like its just another mortal combatant. So were given descriptions of crawling up its back and jabbing it in odd spots, tricking it into hitting itself, and it getting caught on things. The construct is also depicted as being slow and rather poor at connecting.

None of this models over well to the D&D rules and you really have to stretch the imagination to achieve parity with our in-game expectations. If a novel written for D&D can't manage a reasonable explanation then the DM is going to be hard pressed to come up with an answer in the midst of keeping track of everything else. My suggestion is to just let the dice determine the outcome and you can reconceive the solution when it comes time to write the storyhour.

 

[Trickstergod]

I agree that it's a ridiculous image; thus, in part, why I don't use monks in a standard D&D game.

Of course, as others pointed out, the idea of a mace or the like doing the same can also be seen as silly. However, the concept of a magic sword sits better with me than magic fists.

If I want a game with Fujisawa's fists of justice, I'll play Exalted, not D&D. Or Oriental Adventures as opposed to the more Eurocentric standard D&D.

 

[Jdvn1]

Ant bites can hurt. Splinters can hurt. Now, a 15th level Ant? Boy, I'm going to be terrified.

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

Again this was something that just struck me as odd. I understand the monks bodies are basically supernatural weapons, capable of causing more damage than actual weapons.

I was just remembering how worthless monks were in 2nd edit vs. how they are now.

Die kluge said this question was strange on many levels? I don’t understand

Thorncrest

 

[fusangite]

Do any of you find it strange for a monk with his bare hand/foot to strike a dragon or like big beastie and cause damage?

This dovetails with the other argument we tend to have about monks on ENWorld -- are they portable to the West from East Asia as some kind of generic unarmed fighter?

The reason monks can do this kind of stuff is magic. The characters from East Asian myth and literature on whom they are doing supernatural things. So, a monk hitting a dragon is as likely as a wizard hitting it with a magic missile, or as likely as the dragon itself for that matter.

The only reason people could think this is weird is if they imagine that somehow a monk is a mundane, non-magical "unarmed fighter."

 

[Arkhandus]

I suppose you have no problems though imagining the fighter hacking through that same huge dragon's thick scales with a sword, or a rogue with a dagger, or a druid with a club? They're not significantly more powerful proportionate to a dragon's hide, no moreso than the monk's bare hands. The dragon probably gets splinters bigger than Mr. Fighter's greatsword, what of it? D&D is heroic fantasy!