Why not combine the Fighter and Monk Classes?

[TrippyHippy]

8 classes, people, I keep telling you... and they aren't 4 true classes and 4 demi-classes. Traditional D&D has 8 main flavors - diplomatic jack-of-all-trades, divinely-inspired warrior, pious worker of miracles, shapeshifting elementalist, trained martial combat specialist, disciple of arcane arts, tough woodland guerrilla warrior, and stealthy skillmonkey. Every other flavor can be done with backgrounds, themes, feats, and multiclassing.

Fighter
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
Bard

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing.

 

[Tovec]

This is going to be a little all over the place, hopefully the quoting works properly.

I say get it out of the way. People will WANT Paladins, Rangers, Bards, Warlords, and Monks, and they should be allowed to have them. D&D is famous for them. Leave the generic classes for the Fantasy Heartbreakers and OGL spinoffs. If I'm playing D&D, I want Paladins, Monks and Rangers as full-bodied classes, not Generic Fighting Man (Flavor to Taste).

This is starting to look like a "certain builds that were stand-alone classes in 3.X must be executed exactly as they were in 3E / Pathfinder or I'm taking my ball and going home," argument.

I'm sorry, where exactly is the 3E/PF Warlord?
It seems more like a "if it shows up more than once it should be in the PHB" argument. Which is actually a far cry from WotC's own "if it has ever shown up in the PHB it'll be in Next" comments made months ago.

Will you have some senseless edition-warring by people who demand D&D conform to their semantic definition of class to mirror their AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3E, or 4E experience? Sure. You have -ahem- "Unique" people still stumping for returning to Elf and Dwarf as classes. You could still play Elves and Dwarves in AD&D - even ones that resemble OD&D race-classes versions.

So in OD&D Dwarf and Elf were classes - they got replaced in AD&D with Dwarf Fighters and Elf Fighter/Mages. In AD&D the Paladin and the Ranger weren't classes - they were Fighter Sub-classes. In 2nd Edition several classes became kits. In 3E everything became a class and got multi-classed and prestige-classed out the Yin-Yang.

Honestly, I've seen this argument before and I really don't care either way if elf and dwarf shows up as a CLASS in 5e. I care if they are balanaced against other classes but otherwise I wouldn't mind them being in the PHB. I DO mind when a class which has existed in a number of editions suddenly is just a fighter. Especially since... it isn't.

If you can build a character that feels like an old-school monk when you play it then you've lost nothing. People who pitch deal-breaker fits over every detail of the build not being included directly into a stand-alone class aren't going to be happy with anything you do in 5E so they aren't potential customers.

Give me a quote of where we have said it is a dealbreaker, in those exact words. Otherwise that comment is just silly. We have legitimate concerns which you aren't even trying to discuss. You instead assure us that monks are just reflavoured fighters and tell us to move on.

Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.

I'll have to fall back on the "if it shows up more than once" argument for how valid a class is. Honestly I would love if illusionists and thiefs (who aren't rogues) show back up too but I fear they would be too similar to the classes they got rolled into.

Honestly if I have to build a character out of component parts to achieve what an earlier version of D&D did with classes then I don't want classes at all. If you don't have classes then I see no reason to buy or play D&D because I already have a couple of choices in games that do that.

Contrariwise, if Next is going to deliver a game that lets me emulate the feel of 1e AD&D then it will have to deliver a set of classes that can get the job done without using themes/backgrounds/feats/skills or any other decorator they may come up with for this edition.

It is funny how mlund's only solution is to use an OPTIONAL rule to get close to what we want. Instead of just allowing us what we want. And without the optional rule you can't get it at all his way. It is like "here add this cherry flavour to your yugurt, but you can't have actual cherries. All good?"

I think @Remathilis was on the right track upthread. If a class has appeared as a full class through multiple editions it should stay as a full class in Next. I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.

I completely agree here. I don't think this idea was really clear earlier but I do agree.

Unarmed combat that delivers multiple attacks and damage comparable to a steel weapon.
Armor Class bonus that grants a monk an unarmored AC equal to armor.
Speed, movement, or Agility/Acrobatic ability.
Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.
Special Strikes using unarmed attacks that can debilitate, stun, or even kill.
Mystical abilities that grant the monk healing, supernatural senses, or even magical movement.

Minor nitpicks.
In my edition it is BETTER than steel - adamantine, lawful and magic at reasonably low levels.
Which relates into my, "they shouldn't try to BE LIKE fighters, they should try and do it differently" comments earlier.
Flurry should be a real choice that is different from full attack with a longsword. It should have completely different damage and attack structure. You get pretty close if you ADD pounce or full BAB in 3e, but remove the chance to upgrade with 8 different methods.

You can't do that with a THEME. You can't even get close. Why? Because each of those abilities would have to be a single feat, and there is no way you can balance "extra attacks at escalating dice" with something like Reaper or Herbalism.

Talking about themes for a second. WotC has talked about the kinds of things they want to do with themes, which seems to be allowing new tricks like TWF and what not. The themes have been more a new set of skills, but you always retain the core of the class. I agree that themes can't get you there because the only way to get there is to REPLACE not augment the fighter class. There is so little overlap in the classes that replacing aspects is the only way to get there. And so far at least nothing I've seen from 5e seems to do this. There doesn't appear to be any options to turn the fighter into a ranger or paladin, but there does seem to be themes that can give them a horse, or a pair of swords, or improved proficiency with a bow.

I love that themes can get you partially the way there but themes can't and shouldn't ever be able to replace an entire class or even emulate an entire class. That would be a poor idea all around.

Acrobatics have been rolled into Skills since 3E reintroduced the Monk after his 2nd Ed hiatus. Land-speed bonuses by class haven't been a thing since after the 3E PHB was released with the Barbarian and Monk (no new classes introduced with it, no 4E classes I know about do it). I'm not even sure the AD&D Monk had a land-speed bonus or if was the OA monk, and people don't even want to talk about the 2nd Edition Monk kits.

I don't get this. 5e so far seems to be very rules light where skills go. And as previously brought up a +3 to Acrobatics won't exactly describe what monks are good at. You need something completely different here. Also, you keep making the point that monks and barbarians have quicker speed and that rogues have evasion - so what? Fighter's don't have those things. Even barbarians don't have evasion, nor rogues faster speed. That would seem to indicate pretty clearly that monk is unique as it brings a lot of different things under one roof.

Developer discussions have already put forward the idea that Fighters are supposed to be extremely resistant to a lot of this stuff. On top of that, monks weren't immune to disease, poison, psionics, etc. all within 5 levels either.

First, they have only discussed fighters being resistant to things. And if I recall that was mostly magic. That they should have an ability yo shrug off DAMAGE and impairments so that wizards don't start to completely rule them again. That has nothing to do with how monks do it.
Second, he didn't say IMMUNE he said RESISTANT. See..

Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.

Third, monks should be able to avoid those attacks in the first place, not be able to shrug them off in the same way the fighter can.
Here let me give an example.
Monk may be immune or gain advantage (or a +4 or something) to resisting mind controlling-effects. In this way they are more likely to NOT suffer any ill effects at all.
Fighters (assuming they can resistant in the first place) would get something along the lines of allowing them a saving throw after X number of rounds to throw off the effect. But getting nothing up front.

Combat Superiority - built in feature.

I hope to god this is an optional rule. If it isn't I'm going to start having an asthma attack. I didn't like any of what I read in the combat superiority article and I felt kind of dirty after reading it. I felt worse when I read the thread around here discussing it and how it seemed to be a thinly veiled attempt to reintroduce 4e concepts.

Seems like a "Harmony of Mind and Body" Theme to me, probably with an advanced theme.

Again, OPTIONAL rule.
Again, what do I have to GIVE UP to take this?

The "monk" monk is supernatural and fits more that the
unarmed robe guy. A monk could be an archer miko who can shoot upside down after a backflip or swordsman who catches an arrow with his hand and an offensive lighting bolt with the other hand or an old dwarf who can chug his ale and breath fire through his pipe. Less weaponmaster more Jedi.

Except in 4e fighters are all jedi. But I agree with your points Minigiant. That's one of the reasons I started playing monks in the first place.

Personally I think 3E's Psionic focus mechanics works better for a monk. The monk enters a meditative state of discipline and gets a host of choosable abilities while in the trance. Flurry of blows, increased AC, soul weapons, increased spedd, 40' jumps, spider climb, stunning strikes, fire breath, what ever. Then the monk can expel their focus to quickly perform a special action.

I could see this, makes a lot more sense. Also vaguely reminiscent of Tome of Battle. I'm not a fan of the book but they did have some interesting ideas.

I still don't know why, but there are people out there who, when they wanted to make a character who was an archery specialist in 4E, and they were told that they should pick the Ranger class to do so, threw a fit and went home because they had to have "Fighter" on their character sheet (and, for some reason, couldn't write "Fighter" but use Ranger rules)..

The problem is that unless you reflavour things like this the character went from playing a fighter to playing a ranger. And taking along all the fluff that went with each.

The problem is the GAME suddenly telling them a fighter couldn't use a ranged weapon, and that the ranger had to use a bow.

I've said all this before, but its a "get to" vs. "had to" kind of mentality which the game didn't do well in advertising. To me, and mine, we saw every bit of reflavouring as "having to" change the game to fit our needs and didn't like "having to" redesign things (or being stuck with things) when the previous game could so easily let us play a fighter using a bow, instead of "having to" a ranger to use one.
I keep seeing replies from 4e people how this is a good thing because you "get to" change things to suit you. But I don't like having to "get to" so often with a game. I like things out of the box with as little change needed as possible.

Fighter
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
Bard

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing.

I'm glad you would be happy with those. I'm not you, sadly. I want other classes too.

How would you react if I said:

"Fighter
Ranger
Barbarian
Druid
Sorcerer
Warlord

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing." ?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The problem is that unless you reflavour things like this the character went from playing a fighter to playing a ranger.

No, he didn't - that's my point! The player went from playing a character who was an archer (who happened to be expressed as a Fighter) to playing an archer (who happened to be expressed as a Ranger).

The character is the same - the metagame mechanics changed, but the character did not!

 

[mlund]

Fighter
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
Bard

I kept trying to think about it as a compass, but I think it actually makes a nice continuum if you trim it down to 7.

ARCANA -> FINESSE -> POWER -> DIVINITY

Magic-User -> Bard -> Rogue -> Ranger -> Fighter -> Paladin -> Priest

Evoker/Illusionist/Necromancer/Warlock get down into the weeds of the Magic-User. Invoker/Warpriest/Druid/Summoner get down into the weeds of the Priest/Priestess. There's plenty of room for Martial-Arts, Assassins, Weapon Specialists, Slayers, Knights, Pirates, Assassins, Avengers, Marshals, etc. under those general umbrellas as well as background and themes to combine with and multiclassing to make various Gishes and Theurgists and what-have-you.

- Marty Lund

 

[Minigiant]

Except in 4e fighters are all jedi. But I agree with your points Minigiant. That's one of the reasons I started playing monks in the first place.


I could see this, makes a lot more sense. Also vaguely reminiscent of Tome of Battle. I'm not a fan of the book but they did have some interesting ideas.

One of my favorite villains as a DM was an evil monk with all Psionic feats in an low optimization 3.5 game. He'd psi-focus, run really fast, jump from somewhere high, flurry poisoned shuriken at them, then teleport away before they could kill him. He was weak but they both hated and loved him.

I kept trying to think about it as a compass, but I think it actually makes a nice continuum if you trim it down to 7.

ARCANA -> FINESSE -> POWER -> DIVINITY

Magic-User -> Bard -> Rogue -> Ranger -> Fighter -> Paladin -> Priest

Evoker/Illusionist/Necromancer/Warlock get down into the weeds of the Magic-User. Invoker/Warpriest/Druid/Summoner get down into the weeds of the Priest/Priestess. There's plenty of room for Martial-Arts, Assassins, Weapon Specialists, Slayers, Knights, Pirates, Assassins, Avengers, Marshals, etc. under those general umbrellas as well as background and themes to combine with and multiclassing to make various Gishes and Theurgists and what-have-you.

- Marty Lund

Which one gets to sits under waterfalls because he cant catch a cold?

 

[Remathilis]

Fighter
Ranger
Cleric
Druid
Mage
Rogue
Paladin
Bard

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing.

If Enworld would ever let me have more than one line of text again in my signature, it would read:

"Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard".

I might be persuaded to give up Assassin and Warlord to Themes if space was at a premium.

Whereas I might be willing to see Avenger, Spellthief, Scout, Warden, Runepriest, Swashbuckler/Duelist, Crusader, Swordsage, Invoker, Illusionist, Seeker, Necromancer, Knight, Eldrich Knight, Mystic Theurge, Dwarven Defender, Arcane Archer, Samurai, Ninja, Sohei, Thief-Acrobat and Cavalier come back as Themes. Most of them are one-edition wonders or very niche, and easily condensed into a single theme. However, the big guns mentioned above should be the opening volley in the PHB.

I wish WotC would go back to the "X Class in Focus" write ups. We got them for the core four and paladin & ranger. I'd love to see whats cooking for some of the other classes.

 

[mlund]

Which one gets to sits under waterfalls because he cant catch a cold?

The Paladin, obviously. ;P

Seriously though, no monk sits under a waterfall "because he can't catch cold." Initiates learn to mediate under waterfalls as an exercise of mind over matter. They also don't have enough adventurer levels to be immune to diseases. Sitting under a waterfall just because you were immune to disease (a terrible class feature from a design perspective anyway), would be an exercise of vanity unbecoming a seeker of enlightenment.

As for who sits under a waterfall for a legitimate reason tied to his class (super or sub)? Almost all of them if it fits a contemplative theme. The philosophical sword-master meditates to become one with his art and inure himself to pain. The pacted arcanist observes a taboo requiring him to endure such things to keep his connection to an Lord of the Elemental Plane of Water. The priest offers up suffering to appease his deity, or the shaman does it to achieve oneness with the land. The Paladin endures such as the price of purity or penance. The Ranger may just do it to wash away his sent, having long ago become accustomed to extreme conditions in nature. It seems pretty fitting if your rogue happensto wear a pair of black pajamas to work too.

Really, the only class niche on the list where it can't fit a particular character motif is probably that bard / beguiler niche. They just seem a little too urbane to do it, though a skald might do it on a dare or to otherwise impress an audience with how badass he is.

Whereas I might be willing to see Avenger, Spellthief, Scout, Warden, Runepriest, Swashbuckler/Duelist, Crusader, Swordsage, Invoker, Illusionist, Seeker, Necromancer, Knight, Eldrich Knight, Mystic Theurge, Dwarven Defender, Arcane Archer, Samurai, Ninja, Sohei, Thief-Acrobat and Cavalier come back as Themes.

Actually, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of those wouldn't transition cleanly to themes. The Theurge really needs Multi-classing. Many of the others, however, just need at least a couple of build options under a main class, specialization on the core weapons/armor/spells/attacks features that make up classes in contrast to backgrounds or themes.

The distinction is pretty clear in the 4E Fighter design. Class options gave you a Weaponmaster vs. a Slayer vs. a Knight - all Fighters.

I agree with the Warlord and Assassin features going into themes, though.

- Marty Lund

 

[Valetudo]

All I have to say about this is Ive played alot of monks in different editions. The monk needs its own class.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I can see the angle of making the Monk a Theme (a series of Feats), though personally (which means nothing), I want it to be a class; also, much of what a Monk is seems a bit of a stretch for some feats:

Dodging missile weapons (every time a successful one hits them that they are aware of)
Enhanced speed
Evading magical effects completely
Falling great distances unharmed
Resisting ESP/Mental strength
Talking to animals
Talking to plants

And so on, just check out your 1st/2nd/3rd Ed monk, though none of them were ever quite up to scratch, but that is easily fixed (especially now that the ancillary THACO, BAB, and 1/2 level garbage is gone).

 

[TrippyHippy]

I'm glad you would be happy with those. I'm not you, sadly. I want other classes too.

How would you react if I said:

"Fighter
Ranger
Barbarian
Druid
Sorcerer
Warlord

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing." ?

I'd probably react by pointing out it's not really an argument you are presenting beyond just being faecetious.

The thing is for me, at least, 99% of all 'Classes' are indeed just minor adjustments on the fundaments represented by Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Druids, Mages, Bards and Paladins.

A Barbarian isn't really a 'Class' - it's a cultural background. The various abilities associated with the class are stereotyping. You could build a Fighter with the Background of 'Barbarian', the theme of 'Beserker' and have all the raging abilities bought as Feats, and all the survival abilities bought as skills. The same could be argued with a Warlord (simply a fighter that is built with a theme of Leadership and Inspiration, rather than a seperate Class). Assassins, likewise, are really just highly specialised Rogues, in effect. Sorcerers are just Mages with a more primal, spontaneous approach to magic. All of these concepts could, potentially, be built from the core eight classes with various Backgrounds and Themes.

Same thing with Monk, to a degree, although the other major problem with Monks have always been a lack of focus as to what the Class was really about. I'm saying that a Monk could be represented by a Fighter Class, with a Mystic Background and an Unarmed Combat Theme (say). If the Class/Background/Theme system is built carefully enough, no character concept ought to be left out.

Indeed, if it is done well, there is no reason to suppose it can't open up options rather than shut them down - imagine that afore-mentioned Barbarian Beserker? Imagine it being built on top of the Ranger Class instead of the Fighter as an option? Imagine a Barbarian Cleric? Imagine a Mage with a Background of Mystic and a Theme of Unarmed Combat? Etc