Why not combine the Fighter and Monk Classes?

[Ratskinner]

Funny, I've always seen the monk as a fusion of cleric and rogue, not fighter. Back in 2E, they even shuffled the monk into the complete Priest's handbook (though bereft of his signature abilities).

Didn't "monk" show up in two or three of those books?

A fighter-monk to me would be more of a general martial artist, like from a jackie chan or bruce lee movie, and less of Cain, the shoulin monk of Kung Fu. A quicker temper, less mystical abilities, but a meaner punch.

I think that's part of the desire to de-classify monk.

 

[Tovec]

Look at what was done with the Essentials classes I referenced earlier. In Essentials, "Fighter" isn't a class; it's a category of related classes. The two types of Fighter, the Knight and the Slayer, are really two entirely separate classes with almost no direct overlap. This isn't a bad approach at all. The broad categories like Fighter or Wizard point people in the right direction and preserve classic names and ideas, but the actual classes are free to be diverse and unique within that umbrella.

Ideally there would be as many different variations or choices of monks as there are for the current fighter.

A fighter can be a knight or a slayer, or many other types; but a monk could be a elemental first, or martial artist or spiritual devotee, and more.

If it were a matter of using all the classes as a start here and select from the following packages, that is fine. But what would I have to sacrifice in order to make a fighter-monk which I could otherwise use to specialize if it were a monk-monk?

 

[Remathilis]

Didn't "monk" show up in two or three of those books?

Three times to my knowledge.

1.) A feeble kit in the Complete Priest's Handbook.

2.) A Priest class in Faiths & Avatars (and Spells & Magic) which gave them priest spells (with access to weird spheres), unarmored AC bonus, specialization in unarmed combat (with support for Combat & Tactics and PHB/Complete Fighters martial arts) and a few odd powers (free action and mind blank iirc). A fun class which played a bit like a priest-bard than a chopy-socky warrior.

3.) A proper looks-like-the-1e-class monk with unarmed combat, mystical abilities, and such in the Greyhawk book Scarlet Brotherhood (Assassin-as-a-class is there too). He was pretty much the prototype of the 3e monk, and he was a member of...the Priest group despite not being able to cast any spells. (He use their HD, saves, Thac0 and XP table).

So in 2e, every major monk iteration was a Priest, barring some obscure kit somewhere I'm not familiar with.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Ideally there would be as many different variations or choices of monks as there are for the current fighter.

Absolutely, though I'm not entirely sure if Monk is more equivalent to the Fighter or the Slayer... If Monk is the category, then what do you call the class? If Monk is the class, then what category does it belong to? Either way, what goes along with it? It would be interesting either way, I suppose.

A fighter can be a knight or a slayer, or many other types; but a monk could be a elemental first, or martial artist or spiritual devotee, and more.

I'd be a fan of making Swordsage-esque weapon-masters who use similar concepts to the classic-style barehanded monk. Maybe variants with different levels of ability to perform Hadoken-like energy blasts or ranged energy slashes and the like.

If I get thinking about this too much I'll remind myself why the decision to omit the Ki Power Source from 4E hurt me as much as it did... I should stop.

If it were a matter of using all the classes as a start here and select from the following packages, that is fine. But what would I have to sacrifice in order to make a fighter-monk which I could otherwise use to specialize if it were a monk-monk?

I hope we never have to learn the answer to that last question.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You really don't have to remove much of the 'mystical' baggage. Most of it's more exotic than mystic, anyway, and very little is beyond what legendary heroes might be reputed to do in other cultures, it just has an exotic, philosophical bent to it. That can be handled with fluff.

 

[TrippyHippy]

To reiterate a bit, there are two issues here:

- that Fighters are a bit dull when they simply develop with no bells and whistles beyond accumulating HP and bonuses to hit.

- that Monks remains distinct to the other Classes, insofar that it's a cultural (oriental) archetype rather than a generic 'Class'.

The latter issue is a matter for debate and personal inclination, but to me Classes like: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, etc are pretty universal (applying to any culture), in ways that the Monk is not. Monks seem to be out of place in many fantasy settings, and draw attention to a western bias in the other classes by virtue of being so distinct.

The first issue is simply 'how to make the Fighter more interesting?'. I'm saying, look at the model used by Monks (with combat styles and special maneuvres learned at escalating levels), and apply that model to the Fighter. I'm saying, rebuild the Fighter Class from the ground up to be a 'Martial Artist' in the sense that they can all master their own combat styles. That is, a 'Fighting Man' literally becomes that archetype.

If you accept the solution to the first issue as being workable, and then accept that the background 'fluff' can, indeed, be handled by Background and Theme, then surely Monks can simply be an application of a type of Fighter?

 

[Remathilis]

The latter issue is a matter for debate and personal inclination, but to me Classes like: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, etc are pretty universal (applying to any culture), in ways that the Monk is not. Monks seem to be out of place in many fantasy settings, and draw attention to a western bias in the other classes by virtue of being so distinct.

The problem with that is the same problem re-applies to Druids, Bards, Paladins, and Barbarians; each implies a certain cultural element prevalent in only one type of culture (Celtic Europe some of in these cases) and not found in others (Bard, for example, not only is a Celtic name but the archetype of the wandering storyteller or singer isn't found in many cultures outside Europe; storyteller and lorekeeper is usually part of the shaman/priest role.

 

[SageMinerve]

About the "What class does the Monk most resemble?" debate...

If you forget about D&D for 1 second, what's... (definitions drawn from Wikipedia):

1) A fighter? It's a person that's skilled in combat, whether through professional training (like a soldier) or not. That's it.

2) A cleric? It's a person that is a member of a religion clergy, whether a priest, pastor, etc.

3) A monk? It's a person who practices religious asceticism (a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures and/or pursuit of spiritual goals).

I don't know about you, but such a definition for the monk sounds a little more like a Cleric than either a fighter or a rogue/thief... Personally, when I read that Monk definition, the class that I think about most is... the PALADIN! Especially when you apply a little Shaolin sauce to the monk concept; and since it's by far the most popular interpretation of the class...

Really, IMHO, if I were trying to group the monk with one of the 4 base classes (and I'm not saying that I would), I'd group it with the Paladin. In my mind, they are the two (western and eastern) sides of the same coin.

 

[Tovec]

About the "What class does the Monk most resemble?" debate...

If you forget about D&D for 1 second, what's... (definitions drawn from Wikipedia):

1) A fighter? It's a person that's skilled in combat, whether through professional training (like a soldier) or not. That's it.

2) A cleric? It's a person that is a member of a religion clergy, whether a priest, pastor, etc.

3) A monk? It's a person who practices religious asceticism (a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures and/or pursuit of spiritual goals).

I don't know about you, but such a definition for the monk sounds a little more like a Cleric than either a fighter or a rogue/thief... Personally, when I read that Monk definition, the class that I think about most is... the PALADIN! Especially when you apply a little Shaolin sauce to the monk concept; and since it's by far the most popular interpretation of the class...

Really, IMHO, if I were trying to group the monk with one of the 4 base classes (and I'm not saying that I would), I'd group it with the Paladin. In my mind, they are the two (western and eastern) sides of the same coin.

You do have a point here, but to me it seems more like paladins and monks are each perhaps one part priest and one part something else. The paladin is one part priest and one part warrior and the monk is one part priest and one part rogue - at least so far as to the tricks or general battle technique.

I said earlier up thread that I see monks NOT standing on the front line wailing on the enemy but instead using tactics, maneuvers or general luck, skill and talent to defeat enemies. One strikes me as very fighter/paladin/knight/slayer/barbarian and the other a very rogue/assassin/ninja/scout maybe even ranger in a lot of ways.

Monks can/are/do martial arts but they aren't defined solely by martial arts.
Fighters could perhaps also learn martial arts and be very proficient at it but they aren't monks either. Even a paladin who eschews weapons to fight with his fists isn't a monk though he is certainly closer than the average fighter by virtue of being partially religious and ascetic.

But all that said, I would have much less problems aligning monk with paladin even though that is still an improper fit IMO. Monks for me have always a nice niche and role, I only encounter problems when they are treated as fighters instead of relying on their other traits. If they do go the monk is a paladin (holy warrior/ascetic combination) then that is fine but I would expect to see kits expressly meant to further define this. I don't want to feel like a paladin who eschews weapons, even if that is ostensibly what I am, I want to feel like a man who eschews physical world possessions and hones their body to overcoming that limitation.

 

[Li Shenron]

After all, the Monk is basically just a pure, trained Fighter, with mystical abilities.

If this is true, then it is really sad, and a lot limiting. But personally I think this is untrue.

I am not a fan of the Monk at all in a traditionally western-medieval D&D setting, thus I always say I would prefer the Monk to belong to an Oriental Adventure sourcebook rather than the PHB.

But if the Monk was reduced to a "specialist unarmed fighter" I would not feel this would make it much better for such traditional setting either.

So I prefer to keep the Monk concept wide and use a separate class.