monks . . . we don't need no stinking monks

[Black Omega]

Monks have never really bothered me. DnD is a fairly generic fantasy world. If well known series like the Thomas Covenant books can have monks, why not DnD?

 

[ForceUser]

I've played and played with and DMed 3E monks since August 2000, and my friend, they are most definitely NOT overpowered. In fact, they are somewhat underpowered until mid levels (9th or so). Heh, if you think they are too much now, wait until 3.5E; they are going to get boosted.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Monks ... we don't need no stinking monks!

- - -

Now, I KNOW that came from an IRL expression.
It's just I've forgotten the expression.

What was that expression?? (thinks furiously, but cannot remember.)

 

[William Ronald]

The line you are thinking of is "Badges. We don't need no stinkin' badges." I believe the line is from the movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" starring Humphrey Bogart.

My first D&D character, way back in 1980, was Saruk, a human monk. I have found that monks in 3rd Edition have some strengths and drawbacks as well. (Not always useful in a fight with outsiders.)

Also, here is a line based on a Peter Gabriel lyric: Shock the monk -eee!!

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Hey, thanks William.

 

[hong]

Re: monks

my beefs with monks:
too many special abilities
special abilities that no core class should have ie spell resistance and poison imunity, not to mention EVERY save is FAVORED!
at higher level they are too unbalanced ie:d20 hand damage, fast movement, safe fall, sr, dex AND wis to ac etc

Bullcrap.

yes they cant wear armor but why would you? it would only slow you down. these are all old arguements I have posted here

Oh. Okay. But it's still bullcrap.

before and I am not looking to start a flame war on why I should allow monks or why I dont. I just think that as writen they have no place in a "mid-evil" fantasy game. If I were to run an oriental adventure then I would allow them.

That's a perfectly fine reason not to allow monks, if they don't fit your desired campaign flavour. However, it also has nothing to do with whether or not monks are balanced against the other classes.


Hong "refuses, point blank, to pimp the martial artist" Ooi

 

[Quinn]

So...a monk won't fit your medieval flavor campaign setting, but a martial artist will?

 

[hong]

So...a monk won't fit your medieval flavor campaign setting, but a martial artist will?

Depends on what you mean by "martial artist".

Technically a member of any fighting class is a "martial artist", since the term just means someone who's trained to fight. But let's not get into semantic quibbles.

If you consider a "martial artist" to be an unarmed fighter, then it's true that your typical kung fu master would be slightly out of place in most stock pseudo-western settings. There are western bare-handed martial arts like pankration, but such character archetypes typically aren't high on the list of candidates that people want to populate their campaign with. (The fact that the standard D&D monk's special abilities are obviously taken from chop-socky Shaolin kung fu/ninja folklore doesn't really help in terms of making it broadly applicable.)

On the other hand, if you consider a martial artist to be an _unarmoured_ fighter, then there are plenty of examples of such. Swashbuckling types (eg the duelist prestige class) can be considered martial artists by this definition, and nobody ever complains that they're out of place. Further afield, you have the Jedi to use as a starting point; just think of Yoda in Ep 2. Then you have characters like the swordsmen in A Chinese Ghost Story and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; but for some reason that's too "foreign" for some people.

Heck, it seems to be almost a tradition in fantasy that pragmatism (in terms of protection) has no bearing on armour use, at least for heroes. Just think of LOTR: Aragorn never seems to be wearing more than leather, while tramping from one end of Middle-Earth to the other. Gandalf doesn't need armour at all, nor does Legolas. Characters who _do_ wear heavy armour, such as Gimli or Prince Imrahil, do so because it's part of their character concept, not so much because they need it.

 

[Quinn]

Typically, I think of martial artist as the unarmed fighter using a fighting style such as tae kwon do, judo, karate, etc. Basically, I associate it with an Asian setting. In a medieval milieu (European medieval), the only things I can really think of would be boxing or wrestling. And martial artist still wouldn't be the first terminology that comes to mind.

 

[DDK]

I'll ask you the same question I ask everyone who believes monks are unbalanced.

-snip-

But experience has shown that, in actual play, they are absolutely not unbalanced. For all their abilities, they don't actually turn out any better, in the final analysis, than anyone else.

Good call. I had a similar problem with sorcerers initially, thinking them underpowered: then I saw one being played...

On paper and in-game are two VASTLY different things and one should always test things out in play before judging them. Personally, I think in some instances, the monk is a little underpowered, after having seen it be useless in many situations due to AC and inability to do damage, or enough damage, to creatures with DR. A d20 sounds great, but when you factor in the fact that anyone with a weapon is both getting a +5 to hit and a +5 to damage (potentially), that changes the odds significantly in favour of the weapon wielder. And that's only one instance.

The monk is very versatile and that is a strength of the class but at the same time it has some huge weaknesses which make it less than perfect.

All the alternative martial arts classes or 'fixes' I've seen suffered much along the same lines as alternate ranger classes; they just don't work well in play.