Monk or Assassin, Which do you Dislike?

[aj3ai]

Its a very simple thing to add a 'China Town' to Waterdeep - I did in our old campaign. It worked well for introducing eastern styled classes such monk, ninja, samurai without getting weird.

I know they can fit in, there are even Monasteries detailed in the setting, but i've never liked the shoe-horned feeling they tend to bring with them. Like seeing a barbarian with a katana.

 

[gamerprinter]

I know they can fit in, there are even Monasteries detailed in the setting, but i've never liked the shoe-horned feeling they tend to bring with them. Like seeing a barbarian with a katana.

Actually the katana design is based on a sword wielded by Japanese Emishi 'barbarian' tribes that samurai were forced to fight in the latter Heian and early pre-Sengoku period. So that's more accurate than you realize.

Here's a photo of an Ainu (Emishi) chieftan bearing a traditional Emishi blade. It very much resembles a katana, doesn't it?

 

[Elf Witch]

I like the monk and I never had any issue making it fit in a fantasy game. The two aspects is the ability to fight unarmed and the discipline to use the mind to overcome things is easily fit into almost any game world.

In our Kalamar game we made monks part of the church of the three strengths. The first strength was faith, clerics paladins, the second strength was mind psions classes, monks, the third strength was body, monk.

In my current game a homebrew the elves have a very structured class honor bound society I took things from Japan feudal history and some from India. Monks are very common and the most chosen way to fight the majority of elves.


As for assassin I don't mind them and they work well in an evil campaign and I have seen them played in a non evil campaign as a character wanting redemption and is suing his skills for good.

 

[The Human Target]

Do people who dislike or ban monks based on their Asian flavor also dislike the idea of players who want to run characters of a non-European ethnicity?

I dunno. I just don't see how it matters.

The D&D world is hardly realistically medieval European as it is.

I mean even if you discount big stuff like elves and dragons and magic there are still a billion historical inaccuracies.

The way weapons and armor are represented and the fact that commoners tend to have shoes and teeth and yadda yadda yadda.

D&D has always been a lunatic mash up of a trillion different ideas and has only grown more so over the years.

 

[aj3ai]

Actually the katana design is based on a sword wielded by Japanese Emishi 'barbarian' tribes that samurai were forced to fight in the latter Heian and early pre-Sengoku period. So that's more accurate than you realize.

Here's a photo of an Ainu (Emishi) chieftan bearing a traditional Emishi blade. It very much resembles a katana, doesn't it?

Badly worded, I meant the classic style, western, fantasy barbarian.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well, I think technically barbarians are 'outlanders' no matter where they are from. Consider most 'barbarians' during the Roman Era 'came from the east' (usually the steppe) like the Huns or otherwise the fringe of the empire. There were barbarians in the north and northwest too. They weren't from one place in Europe or elsewhere. So I don't think there's one ethnic group that represents barbarian 'in the west' or otherwise. Barbarians are barbarians.

 

[1Mac]

The D&D world is hardly realistically medieval European as it is.

I mean even if you discount big stuff like elves and dragons and magic there are still a billion historical inaccuracies.

It's not an issue of simulating medieval Europe, but medieval European myth (and the Tolkien-esque fantasy which it inspired). Elves and dragons (and wizards and druids and paladins) fit in that milieu in a way that kung-fu masters don't.

Maybe you don't want a strictly European (or East Asian) flavored campaign, and prefer the kitchen-sink milieu that many DnD settings have. That's fine. But some campaigns benefit from a narrower tone. A setting or campaign is defined in part by what it excludes. If you include all possible fantastic influences, you haven't actually embraced all those fantasy genera; you have created a new one that imperfectly realizes all those influences because of all the other stuff mixed in, and it might not be everyone's preference. It's sort of analogous to this.

 

[1Mac]

And you do by learning kung fu? My entire gaming group, except for me, is made up of people are students of or student instructors of kung fu, and I have yet to see one of them be immune to diseases or poison.

You probably wouldn't, but again, we are talking about simulating fiction. There are lots of stories in Eastern and Eastern-inspired fiction about mystic martial artists who master control of their bodies to the point of never suffering illness. But that's not what we think of when we think of a Western brawler. Again, if it wasn't something Fezzik could do, it doesn't belong in the Western brawler class.

 

[Nostromos]

Just to add my 2 cents on this. As for monks, it can easily be the wandering traveller (ala Kane from the original Kung-fu TV series). There was plenty of far east influence in Europe (are we forgetting the Silk Road that was around since Roman times?). Following the same styling, they could have been an escort of a caravan from a distant part that practices a previously unknown form of fighting. Simple explaination to the backstory.

As for assassins...as previously stated its all about prospective. An assassin is someone whose contracts are up to the DM to decide the purpose of. They could be to kill criminals to protect the greater good, the corrupt mayor who is practicing necromantic arts on his townfolks, etc. If an assassin must be evil, wouldn't the same be true for rogues? They steal, break into houses, pick pockets...are these not evil acts as denoted by the morality our society has set? Also, in killing someone for your job...isn't that a soldiers duty too? To kill the enemy because they are told to/paid to do...the assassin just does it with a lot less general bloodshed and trys to strike the head off the snake rather than killing all the opposing soldiers. Thats how I see it, both as a DM and a player who has played with both 2nd and 4th Ed. Monks and Assassins (and enjoy the flavor both can add with the right roleplaying).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I dislike the assassin. When done well, it's really more like a ninja. So just call it what it is. When it really concentrates on "killing key people" as class features, it is too narrow. IMHO.

I can take or leave the monk. It doesn't do much for me, but it works as well as anything else for "unarmed guy with fancy moves".