Paladin.. monk?

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I've a new character that I'm quite keen on. He's a level 1 paladin - but he dresses in plain brown robes, has a tonsured head and hides his broadsword and shield, preferring the simpler life of a pilgrim. most of his skills lie in diplomacy and Perform: Song.

At any rate, I was introduced and described as a "Monk". Fair enough - I was from a monastery after all.

First meeting with the other player characters, I'm immediately challenged to a test of skill in combat with another character - this time the class "Monk". Now, there's no monks in this particular medieval brand of world, though there are skilled unarmed fighters (With the class Monk. Their powers are divine in origin.)

The guy, thinking he has to be asian, spouts peaceful buddhist philosophy and acts as if he has an asian accent. He's confused why my character (A "Monk") has so much charisma and diplomacy. We finally get into combat, and starts acting all wacky japanese about death before dishonour and so on.

Note - I shall repeat, this world is heavily medieval. Monks are treated differently. He's told this repeatedly. Still, the guy acts asian. He's confused why I'm called a 'Monk'.

*sigh*.

What is it with this Monk class? I've read some things about people trying to make it more western in flavor - but no matter what, any monk that plays in our games tends to have asian ideas and philosophies.

So. Here's the question - Is the Monk really suitable for a standard Fantasy game?

 

[dave_o]

Call it a "Pugilist."

If the guy still can't get it down, define "pugilist" for him physically.

 

[NeutralGood]

Yes, the Monk is a suitable class for a fantasy game. It is just a common misconception that all Monks are Jacky Chan.

Knights during Medievil times still trained in hand to hand combat, it was the foreshadowing of boxing and wrestling.

Some people just cannot get the idea of a non-oriental monk, too many Bruce Lee movies.

 

[fusangite]

So. Here's the question - Is the Monk really suitable for a standard Fantasy game?

The class is unsuitable for a European style fantasy game because there is no European fantasy archetype to which it corresponds.

Monks will always be Asian because there is nothing in Western tradition upon which to base the class. There were western monks and friars who would correspond nicely to unarmoured clerics. But the West lacks a specialist unarmed fighter. People have cast about desperately for European examples of such things but they end up falling apart because there is just no tradition of any type of European fighter being more effective when they eschew armour and weapons than when they use them -- and that's what the monk class models. A centurion who went to the gymnasium on the weekend to wrestle still preferred to have a gladius. Hercules and Beowulf, though highly competent at unarmed fighting were more proficient with weapons than without.

Only in Asian theories of magic does the eschewing of weapons and armour make one a better unarmed fighter. For this reason, the monk class will always be Asian and always be magical. This point to a basic underlying truth here that we all basically know: people with thick armour and big sharp metal weapons will always be better at killing people than people without those things, barring some kind of magical agency.

 

[hong]

Only in Asian theories of magic does the eschewing of weapons and armour make one a better unarmed fighter.

What?

 

[hong]

Note - I shall repeat, this world is heavily medieval. Monks are treated differently. He's told this repeatedly. Still, the guy acts asian. He's confused why I'm called a 'Monk'.

*sigh*.

What is it with this Monk class? I've read some things about people trying to make it more western in flavor - but no matter what, any monk that plays in our games tends to have asian ideas and philosophies.

So. Here's the question - Is the Monk really suitable for a standard Fantasy game?

Sure. Your fellow players have problems absorbing clues without the application of physical violence, that's all.

 

[Tonguez]

So. Here's the question - Is the Monk really suitable for a standard Fantasy game?

Yes because its FANTASY and a GAME

otherwise what Fusangite said (but hong said it better)

 

[Stormborn]

One of the people in our group can't get past Monks being oriental either. And therefore never plays them or includes them in games she runs. But as has been stated its FANTASY, in the typical DnD game there are lots of possible explinations for the Monk class, as there are for dwarves and sorcerers and other things not commonly found in 12th century Germany. Perhaps it would be better if those explinations were spelled out in the PHB, but a quick look through Dragon will find some.


I question why, if the setting is so heavily Midieval European in flavor, did the DM allow a Monk in the first place, or at least w/o providing some explination or making the player do so. (Like saying that this is a lone hermit who has devoted himself to the gods by the mortification of his flesh and the rigorus discipline of his body. Shame he keeps having problems with all those pesky bandits and had to learn to fight.)

I love your character description, BTW.

Ultimatelly though, it is the DMs call on what characters to allow in the world, and if the other player doesn't get yours thats his problem. He challanges you to combat, and the DM allows PvP combat, then fight him the way a Paladin would - whip out your sword and shield, slide off the robes to reveal the chain shirt beneath and yell "Have at thee!" He will learn.

 

[Kuld]

The occidental monk question. Hey, you can say that the unarmed martial arts techniques originated in "Asia" and a few millennia ago an unnamed traveler brought their secrets to the west, or something. You just have to make up a story that all your players can swallow. Sorry, I’m trying to write w/ a one year old on me lap..

Edit: Thats better... Any way, it’s pretty much up to the GM to say when the "Marco Polo" of the campaign set off on his adventures. Maybe he brought back more than pasta.

 

[fusangite]

it’s pretty much up to the GM to say when the "Marco Polo" of the campaign set off on his adventures. Maybe he brought back more than pasta.

This is exactly what Gary Gygax had in mind with the original class in 1E, at least according to his recent response to my question on the subject. Monks in original D&D were supposed to be outsiders from outside the European-style area in which the characters were adventuring.

Outsiders from another place certainly have a place in D&D and avoid the many difficulties associated with trying to graft these peculiar guys onto a traditional European fantasy world.