The monk. It will be mystical most likely

[Minigiant]

I am not certain but I'm pretty sure.

If the monk shows up as a class, in order for it to be unique and not be simply a warrior or rogue class with an unarmed strike theme, the monk will be rather magical.

"teleporting"
magical self healing
mystical health
and other mystical class features


Do you agree?

 

[Tallifer]

I certainly hope that the monk will reflect the fantastic elements of Chinese movies. Walking on walls, catching and blocking arrows with the hands, jumping so high and far it looks like short flight, meditative trances which heal or induce visions.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I'm hoping so. With Psion in the core, and hopefully absorbing Ardent, I'm hoping Monk remains a psionic class.

 

[Gold Roger]

Mystic is a rather broad word.

I completely agree that the monk isn't just a warrior who fights with his fists, designing him with the base assumption that it's a guy who teleports or a psionic class is taking things to far. These things are awesome as options of course.

The monk is one of my favorites, so I really hope they get him right. I want that his unarmed fighting means he doesn't just punch people in the face, but also lays down conditions and throws people around. He should have absolutely supreme mobility. His self centered mysticism should have a dial that goes from low (just a very strong will) to very high (levitating, teleporting and the good old hadoken).

[MENTION=9249]Viktyr Korimir[/MENTION] can you point me at where you take from that the psion is in the core game? I'd like to take a look at that.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Class list: "The goal at the moment is to include all the classes that were in the first PH style book for each edition." Specifically mentioned by WotC staff so far are: fighter, cleric, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, bard, paladin, psion, barbarian, monk, druid, warlord, assassin, rogue.

D&D Next: Classes - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine

It surprised the Hell out of me, too. Psionics has been a... contentious point in D&D history.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

D&D Next: Classes - EN World: Your Daily RPG Magazine

It surprised the Hell out of me, too. Psionics has been a... contentious point in D&D history.

The key phrase from that quote is "goal at the moment." I think it is highly likely that they will drop the psionic classes for space reasons if for nothing else.

Back on topic I do expect the monk to have a wuxia level of mysticism.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I hope monk is made psionic in essence and given clearly supernatural powers. It gives all those people who want a wuxia-style melee character an appropriate choice, and it brings a different flavor to the game.

 

[Abstruse]

I'm really not sure where I stand on the idea of highly trained martial artist vs. mystical ki wuxia warrior...but one thing I am sure of is that I want the monk class divorced from Eastern culture, especially in the "Mysterious Far East" sense.

For one thing, it's always taken a lot of mental gymnastics for me to include monks in my campaign worlds. If I build something that's modeled strongly on European culture and myth, I have to figure out a way to shoehorn something that's drawn almost exclusively from not just Eastern myth, but worse the Western idea of Eastern myth.

And this is where my biggest problem with the presentation of the monk in most editions and settings. It's very centered on this trend that popped up in the early 80s of the "mysterious far East" with the grindhouse obsession with wuxia films post-Bruce Lee and the just ramping up Japanese economic and technological domination. We'd been ignoring Asian culture in the US for the most part, and when finally started to notice, we kind of threw it all in a blender and hit frappe. Some of it was done well, but some of it was inconsistent and a good deal was borderline if not out-and-out racist.

It's now 2012. There are more anime conventions in the US than probably any other fandom. We've been exposed to that culture and its fiction directly and with care made in translations. We understand the culture better and more clearly, specifically that there is a difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, etc. On top of that, MMA especially is introducing us to the unarmed combat styles of many different cultures.

I want the monk to not be the stereotypical straight out of 36 Chambers style Shaolin Monk. I want to see that build type represented of course, but I also want to be able to make a character based off Ong Bak or The Streetfighter or Ranma 1/2...or a capoeira fighter or something build off krav maga or anything else. Give me the options without tying it directly to another culture. More choices, not fewer.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

As part of that vaunted and hyped modularity the designers keep going on about, I want the monk to be totally optional. Even if it's not, it is the very first thing I ban outright from almost any game I run.

It just doesn't fit. It never has and it never will, IMO. Including it isn't worth the effort.

Save it for the inevitable "Oriental Adventures" expansion, please.

 

[Argyle King]

Mystical Monk need not = Oriental.

Dhalsim from Street Fighter Dhalsim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Native American martial arts
Beowulf*
Professional Wrestling (especially in the case of certain characters)

Those are only a few of the other ways to portray a monk. It's also worth noting that not all martial arts are Oriental in nature.

*While he's traditionally give stats as a fighter, the fact is that he fought unarmed quite often. He defeated Grendel by ripping Grendel's arm off. To me, it sounds like he may have had a few levels of what D&D calls a monk.