D&D 4E Question about a 4E Monk and their skills or feats.

[AbdulAlhazred]

They would have once and for all established culture as a flavor difference ie... removed both the potential glorification and degradation over flavor.... by maintaining the cultural difference is mostly flavor.

I do not think cultural appropriation is the term you are looking for (and that is kind of its own sort of nonsense for a different discussion altogether)

Heh, you and me both. Nobody owns culture, and one of the VERY few ways to earn my utter intellectual contempt is to utter the words 'cultural appropriation' in a context that suggests that someone else has more rights to express something simply because they happen to have been born with a certain skin tone or whatever, or in a certain place. I guess this verges on being a taboo subject, but few things in this world I've encountered are based on more ridiculous 'reasoning', lol.

So, I massively agree. There should be no classes that are strictly based on cultural flavor. They can be based on doing a particular shtick that is perhaps prevalent in one culture's depictions of some sort of legendary/mythical/fictional material, but the basis of the class should be the mechanical instantiation of that into the game world. It should be entirely possible for any fighter to do the same things as any other fighter, and maybe when the 'Samurai' whacks you hard with his sword he emits a great 'ki yai' and maybe when Buster to Viking does it he just screams a battle cry, but there's no reason for it to be mechanically a different thing. Likewise equipment. A katana or odachi are just swords, not really materially much different from an arming sword or a bastard sword wielded by a character equipped in a Western European inspired setting. You may get one or the other when you plonk down your 15gp depending on the setting, but its just color really.

Now, the Monk is an interesting case. While you could argue that a character could be based on an assassin or whatever and evince the same capabilities in a western setting its undoubtedly true that such characters really don't exist in western culture before modern times. Nor do they ENTIRELY fight into the mold of characters that in western fiction are 'Martial'. I think its very reasonable to equate Ki and Martial (having done so several times here) but lets imagine some character like Li Mu Bai. Can you call this character Martial? He does a number of things that are not usually considered martial, and are rather divine really. It does seem like that's a bit different from say Sir Launcelot, who is pretty thoroughly a sword-swinger. I think it can work as long as you don't take power source too strictly, but that is perhaps my ultimate ending point, power source is there to keep designers thematically focused, not to nail everything down into tight little boxes. Li Mu Bai is martial, just a bit different. A western character of the same class could exist, though its hard to see exactly how you'd flavor him.

 

[Garthanos]

Can you call this character Martial? He does a number of things that are not usually considered martial, and are rather divine really.

I have only actually seen the second show of that I know I am terrible... Chi use is nominally tapping in to that heroic extreme life force concept and not seen as being divine. Possibly related to that divine element I have been reading where they had to differentiate heroic outside the law types vs crime syndicate in the linguistics associate with Wuxia and in the process transformed chivalric into divine.

See here is my trick - I see the Paladin as quite Martial (very old fashioned of me) with a few oath bound boons and for Lancelot possibly grandmaster trainings.

I think the best way to give Cuh Culaine his daemonic transform is a legendary boon. CC is another oath bound hero, very much based on learning his feats (the story had a lot of fun with him seeking out teachers and doing better than them at their own arts) with a more "4e Barbarian" fighting style.

This type of hero had a lot of manifestations ... Samson (brawling fighter lightly armored I suspect), Lancelot (weapons master in plate) and CC (mobile barbaric possibly even naked).

And interesting correlation each arguably engaged in Berserkergang and were arguably blessed/cursed by their source and based on oaths.

Even ignoring the oath elements

These characters also have magical bloodlines or heritage Lancelots being the Joseph of Arimethea thing. CuCulaine being the child of Lugh Lamfada of the Tuatha de Danaan (who was half Fir Bolg arguably both Fae and Giant Blood) . In fact every Arthurian Main Player also has these extraordinary blood lines. Wizards had it too with Merlin being Daemonic. Morganna and Gawaine(also Gaheris and Gareth) being Fae either by oath or birth.

Bloodlines seem to be in 4e land the province of Feats

I am fine with the core class being Martial with whichever add ons... and given your HoML yeah.

But back to martial artists...

For me the Dragon ball Z fans need a Ki based waves which scale very nicely and are derived from expending healing surges / potentially with CON as the dominant attribute with a Wis kicker available as a Grandmaster Trainings.

In function this could be added to any base class but I think would fit the best for rather Martial Classes. (mayhaps some Con-locks too)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Swordmage really springs to mind for me as a class that can pull off a decent amount of that kind of stuff without much trouble. Its easy to add some wizard to it to get more of that. I think an Avenger/Invoker combo would probably work reasonably well too.

The equivalent of the Fire Monk is fairly easy too. Genasi is pretty obvious, maybe a Flaming weapon enchantment, etc.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Now, the Monk is an interesting case. While you could argue that a character could be based on an assassin or whatever and evince the same capabilities in a western setting its undoubtedly true that such characters really don't exist in western culture before modern times.

Obviously, western culture had Monks - orders of religious ascetics. It even had monks who trained in martial arts and fought in wars, though most of 'em were more into illuminating manuscripts. The big difference is the veneer of exoticism. Well, that and there weren't a lot of 70s exploitation flicks featuring bad-ass illuminated manuscripts playing at the grindhouse. ;P Western culture had styles of unarmed combat, too, savate, boxing, wrestling, and ancient pankration. The west also had overblown stories aplenty. The feats expected of the Fianna were as physically improbable as any wire-fu.

 

[Garthanos]

The feats expected of the Fianna were as physically improbable as any wire-fu.

Needs illustration

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Obviously, western culture had Monks - orders of religious ascetics. It even had monks who trained in martial arts and fought in wars, though most of 'em were more into illuminating manuscripts. The big difference is the veneer of exoticism. Well, that and there weren't a lot of 70s exploitation flicks featuring bad-ass illuminated manuscripts playing at the grindhouse. ;P Western culture had styles of unarmed combat, too, savate, boxing, wrestling, and ancient pankration. The west also had overblown stories aplenty. The feats expected of the Fianna were as physically improbable as any wire-fu.

The sorts of martial arts styles practiced in the East however have almost no precedent in the West. Savate is one of very few traditions you can name, and it dates from the early 19th Century, there's little evidence that there was anything like a 'style' or taught practice in older times (doubtless people did kick each other, but there's no history of masters or students or anything like that). Boxing and wrestling of all sorts of forms are of course quite ancient, but in the West were never seen as really serious offensive or defensive techniques, but almost purely as sport even in ancient times. Certainly there were martial arts in the sense of training people to fight professionally with weapons (and ancillary techniques that are somewhat similar to some Eastern techniques). Still, there just wasn't the sort of tradition of practice and widespread practice that existed in the East.

Its quite true that certain individual mythical heroes were accredited with great feats of combat that are similar in some ways to Eastern fantastical martial arts, but the tradition is vastly less prevalent and dissociated from everyday practice. A person in medieval China could actually go to a place where they could find extensive training in armed and unarmed combat within a school that had a recognized tradition.

You could look at some Western 'monks' or more like religious military orders during the High Middle Ages (mostly) and see some degree of parallel with something like Eastern monasteries training people in whatever-fu, but I don't think the parallel is all that great. In the West these things never evolved into formal martial arts schools and traditions in any way. In fact they were simply armed militias of a sort that carried out various religious and ethnic pogroms. Usually they fought in the manner of armies, not individualistically.

So, I would say there's not really a Western equivalent of the 'Monk' class. You could build a character and have his background be that he studied with the Teutonic Knights or something, but they'd have taught him to be a 'fighter' not really a 'monk' in the D&D sense. Obviously in a fantasy world that's all colorable and its not BIG issue, but if you're creating campaign settings around particular temporo-geographical portions of the real world, then D&D Monks don't fit well with Western European settings. Not to say that using the 4e monk class might not be a good way to portray certain fictional characters. You might for instance use it for a D'Artagnion or whatnot, or maybe some of your cited Celtic crazy men possibly, though I'm hard pressed to really pigeonhole Chu Cullain enough to put him in ANY one class...

 

[Garthanos]

maybe some of your cited Celtic crazy men possibly, though I'm hard pressed to really pigeonhole Chu Cullain enough to put him in ANY one class...

Well I am thinking they were shooting for him with the Barbarian. He is definitely a super mobile one... with berserkergang of some sort, though Battlerager fighter with some extras would also be a possibility. The story does partake of paladin like oaths .. something I think they sort of took in 5e didnt they? But a non-plate using paladin seems contrary in D&D land.

 

[Garthanos]

The sorts of martial arts styles practiced in the East however have almost no precedent in the West. Savate is one of very few traditions you can name, and it dates from the early 19th Century, there's little evidence that there was anything like a 'style' or taught practice in older times (doubtless people did kick each other, but there's no history of masters or students or anything like that). Boxing and wrestling of all sorts of forms are of course quite ancient, but in the West were never seen as really serious offensive or defensive techniques, but almost purely as sport even in ancient times. Certainly there were martial arts in the sense of training people to fight professionally with weapons (and ancillary techniques that are somewhat similar to some Eastern techniques).

European Knights I would argue at their peak were every bit like the Bushi/Samurai... including floridly described techniques quite related to the Eastern ones.

The purely unarmed western combatants however I would call limited much as you say.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well I am thinking they were shooting for him with the Barbarian. He is definitely a super mobile one... with berserkergang of some sort, though Battlerager fighter with some extras would also be a possibility. The story does partake of paladin like oaths .. something I think they sort of took in 5e didnt they? But a non-plate using paladin seems contrary in D&D land.

Yeah, I agree, he may have been one of the inspirations for the barbarian, though I suspect REH is sufficient to take credit for THAT...

In my game I don't have a 'barbarian' class, just a 'berserk' class, though it can definitely cover a number of different variations on that theme without much trouble. Not that I really dislike the barbarian thematically, but more that the whole cultural baggage is kind of annoying.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

European Knights I would argue at their peak were every bit like the Bushi/Samurai... including floridly described techniques quite related to the Eastern ones.

The purely unarmed western combatants however I would call limited much as you say.

Oh, yeah. Samurai and Knights have very much in common. Slightly different equipment and techniques, but not even THAT much different there either. The Japanese didn't quite develop the extremes of plate armor, but then again most of the really 'full plate' stuff was for dress or tournament use anyway. Knights pretty much eschewed archery as a battlefield thing, and Samurai weren't so much into the idea of charging en-mass into close combat, but the basic core concept is the same.