D&D 5E The Monk - What is the monk to you and why?

[Jeff Carlsen]

For me, the monk has always been a bit out of place in D&D fantasy, and woefully underdeveloped for oriental fantasy.

I too, would like to see the monk renamed to Martial Artist (with monk as a background). The various schools of fantasy martial arts would then be the martial artist's subclasses. The core elements of the class would be supernatural agility, the ability to fight without weapons, and a lack of armor. That said, martial artist weapons should still be used to great effect (something I think the monk class has always failed at).

At high levels, I would like the martial artist to start gaining clearly magical abilities, like thrown balls of energy, short term flight, and short range teleportation (depending on subclass).

All that said, I'd be comfortable omitting the monk from the core game and moving him into an Oriental Adventures expansion where the various concepts can be done justice.

 

[Celebrim]

For me, the monk has always been a bit out of place in D&D fantasy, and woefully underdeveloped for oriental fantasy.

I too, would like to see the monk renamed to Martial Artist (with monk as a background). The various schools of fantasy martial arts would then be the martial artist's subclasses. The core elements of the class would be supernatural agility, the ability to fight without weapons, and a lack of armor. That said, martial artist weapons should still be used to great effect (something I think the monk class has always failed at).

At high levels, I would like the martial artist to start gaining clearly magical abilities, like thrown balls of energy, short term flight, and short range teleportation (depending on subclass).

I think that there is a far far stronger option and it involves recognizing that 'Martial Artist' isn't a class.

If we are imagining an Eastern setting, who knows eastern martial arts? Well, basically... everybody. Eastern martial arts wouldn't be the exclusive domain of any class. Some classes might no more, and some less, but everyone would know some. This has a very simple reason - 'martial artist' is pretty much exactly the same as 'knowing how to fight'. Eastern martial arts aren't special except when viewed from the outside. In the eastern setting, they are just normal fighting arts.

And for this reason, a western inspired setting is exactly the same. Who knows how to fight? Well, to some extent, everybody does. Some fight less well than others, but fighting is not the exclusive domain of any class - even the fighter. In an eastern setting, 'Martial Artists' are just 'Fighters', and therefore there really isn't any need for a different class than Fighter to represent them. All that is needed is access to combat maneuvers and abilities that feel distinctively 'eastern' in their style and presentation.

As for the Western romanticism of oriental martial arts, I think that the original 1e AD&D Oriental Adventures guide recognizes the essential problem well when it considers the 'Ninja' class. When people say 'Ninja', they mean just too many things. Some are meaning 'warrior ninjas', and some are meaning 'stealthy ninjas', and some are meaning 'magical ninjas'. There is no way to create a remotely balanced single class that lets players fulfill all of these imaginations and wishes. Instead, the designer recognized that Ninja wasn't a single class, but inherently a multi-classed option that extended the abilities of another class. You could be a Bushido/Ninja a Thief/Ninja or a Wu Jen/Ninja. What you couldn't possibly be is a warrior/thief/wizard/ninja because well, then you were everything.

But of course, at some level, that's what the fans of Ninjas wanted. I mean, after all, the whole concept behind the Ninja was they were just better than everyone else. Because well, ninja, duh.

It doesn't work for an RPG to work that way. It violates the fundamental law of RPGs- 'Thou Shalt Not Be Good At Everything'.

So sure, you can play a priestly martial artist, or a warrior martial artist, or a rogue martial artist or a martial artist with wizardly powers. It's called multiclassing. Or you could just realize that the priest, rogue, warrior, and wizard are all martial artists.

We all have Kung Fu.

 

[SageMinerve]

Well sure, but I'm a programmer by trade and I'm not a big fan of "there is more than one way to do things". There is a significant cost to the game in the approach of "more is better". You end up in the situation of late 3.5 where you have literally 600 classes [...]

When I say "more", I'm talking about the class roster as it stands now: about a dozen classes. I too absolutely hate class-bloat such as was seen during the 3.5 era. Each class should have a strong-enough archetype that: 1) is sufficiently different from other classes and 2) is not merely a rebranding of something that could be obtained via multiclassing.

In any event, while I do dislike the class, the central reason for removing the Monk wasn't my dislike of the class. And in particular, if you think my 'orientalism' argument was

(emphasis mine)

Words, especially when they are the only means of communicating as is the case in an internet forum, have power. You chose the word "orientalism", you can't blame people for thinking that your point revolves around the culture-specificity of the Monk. If that's not your point (and I believe you when you say it ain't), you should be more prudent in choosing how to brand the object of your argumentation.

But look further at your argument. You say, "Maybe they taught Hunting there (go Ranger go)". Ok, probably they did, but why in the world should we think that learning to hunt has anything to do with being a protector of nature, or having the ability to cast spells? Ranger is itself a very specific background laden with non-generic abilities specific to a very particular (at this point highly self-referential) notion. I wouldn't expect primitive hunter-gather groups to be crawling with Rangers just because they value the ability to Track and have great knowledge of animals. The larger concept here isn't 'Ranger', but 'Hunter'. That way we can play a demon slayer, big game hunter, undead slayer, magistrate, bounty hunter, or assassin without being laden with the flavor and mechanical burden of a class originally (and rather badly) attempting to model Aragorn from 'The Lord of the Rings'. Not particularly that when we revert to the more flexible Hunter archetype, we find ourselves suddenly loosing the need for the literally dozens of 'slayer' and 'ranger' variants classes that 3.X produced to cover for the fact that the base class was a prestige class in disguise. Done well enough, and we even lose the need for specialty prestige class hunters.

I agree with you regarding the ranger. I was trying to make a point and I took a shortcut, mea culpa​.

 

[Celebrim]

When I say "more", I'm talking about the class roster as it stands now: about a dozen classes. I too absolutely hate class-bloat such as was seen during the 3.5 era. Each class should have a strong-enough archetype that: 1) is sufficiently different from other classes and 2) is not merely a rebranding of something that could be obtained via multiclassing.

Then I'm not sure what you want. You say you want 12 classes. You say 'more is better', but apparently not when it comes to classes. What do you want? 13 classes? 15 classes, and then we stop? That's not 'more is better'. 20 classes? If 'more is better', why not 600?

Words, especially when they are the only means of communicating as is the case in an internet forum, have power. You chose the word "orientalism", you can't blame people for thinking that your point revolves around the culture-specificity of the Monk.

Ok, let's start from scratch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism

Orientalism isn't about the east per se, as it is about how the east is depicted by the west. Now, I have plenty of problems with some of the uses to which 'Orientalism' as a term is placed, since sometimes it is simply used to decry depictions that conflict with the person's particular world view or as a blanket rejection of any attempt to analyze or understand or critically examine eastern cultures by person's within western cultures.

However, if my point is that the usual argument that, "The Monk isn't appropriate for D&D unless you are playing a setting specifically inspired by eastern culture.", is fatally flawed because the Monk isn't appropriately designed for an oriental setting either and really makes no sense with in it. The only settings where a Monk makes the remotest sense are those that are specifically inspired by D&D (say Diablo) where the archetype is entirely self-referential, or if you are specifically playing a setting like that of the Kung Fu TV series. In either event, both settings aren't the product of eastern culture, but of particular western views of eastern culture - that is, orientalism.

Moreover, the whole notion that an eastern or western setting requires different base classes strikes me as orientalism. Well designed base classes should be robust enough to sustain changes in the cultural trappings without the need to change the class. Second edition interestingly enough tried this approach, albeit with the somewhat flawed mechanism of a 'kit class'. Although I'm not a fan of the kit class concept, and I reject Pathfinder's similar approach to building diversity within a class, the fundamental idea that a 'fighter' ought to encompass the fighter and fighting styles of every culture is one I champion. Likewise, there is no real need for separate tables of eastern and western weapons given the granularity of D&D weapons, except in the very rare cases of there being no counterpart. (And these are really rare, say the Urumi.) My personal preference would be to put all weapons on a unified table and note in the description, as Gygax did in the 1e PH, some of the different regional names for weapons of this sort.

If that's not your point (and I believe you when you say it ain't), you should be more prudent in choosing how to brand the object of your argumentation.

I just assume most readers will employ a dictionary when they don't know what a word means.

 

[Sadrik]

Well designed base classes should be robust enough to sustain changes in the cultural trappings without the need to change the class.

This I agree with, to make this work you have to find what the essence of each class is and then allow the player to determine what class they want and then allow them to determine there background. Are you an ascetic foreigner from a distant land? I think that can be applied to many classes not just monk. I certainly do not want to see new classes based on new cultures. That would be a backwards facing thinking.

Barbarian and Monk are the two classes where I feel like the essence of what they are is not captured. What does a barbarian do, and is it a full class or a subclass of fighter? Raging fighter subclass, the barbarian/savage/nomad cultural caricature should be made a background. Then the monk, I think there is a class here after you strip out the eastern trappings. I think the paladin treads in the same water as the monk, both the trained mystical warrior.

I also appreciate the notion that every fighter can do mystical things through their training at high level. That takes a concerted effort by game designers to make that paradigm shift though. It adds the book of nine swords mentality to fighters.

One other thing, monks as they have been in every edition thus far are clearly in the rogue group. In a pinch they can pull off some spectacular fighting, but they are not front line fighters. They are more dextrous than strength based, though can be both.

The rogue is not designed well currently in my estimation. The fighter should have few tricks but be solid and front line. The rogue should have many tricks and be less front line. The monk should be like the rogue, lots of tricks but not front line. Conceptually I can see them as warriors too though. I would like to see the monk split into subclasses for fighter and rogue. Then pull the ascetic "monkish" background out and let anyone select it, for any class.

 

[am181d]

I like having the option for unarmed combatants, but I prefer a more flexible build that can also support big brawler types.

 

[SageMinerve]

Then I'm not sure what you want. You say you want 12 classes. You say 'more is better', but apparently not when it comes to classes. What do you want? 13 classes? 15 classes, and then we stop? That's not 'more is better'. 20 classes? If 'more is better', why not 600?

It comes from the fact that, a couple posts up-thread, you wrote that you had removed the barbarian, paladin and some other classes from your game because you judged that they had the same problems as the monk. To your POV, not having those classes in the core roster would be a good thing (unless I'm misinterpreting?) My POV is that since it doesn't really hurt people like you to include them in the core roster, they should be included. Thus the "more is better than less"; it was never about including an absurdly large number of classes in the game.

Ok, let's start from scratch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism

Orientalism isn't about the east per se, as it is about how the east is depicted by the west. Now, I have plenty of problems with some of the uses to which 'Orientalism' as a term is placed, since sometimes it is simply used to decry depictions that conflict with the person's particular world view or as a blanket rejection of any attempt to analyze or understand or critically examine eastern cultures by person's within western cultures.

However, if my point is that the usual argument that, "The Monk isn't appropriate for D&D unless you are playing a setting specifically inspired by eastern culture.", is fatally flawed because the Monk isn't appropriately designed for an oriental setting either and really makes no sense with in it. The only settings where a Monk makes the remotest sense are those that are specifically inspired by D&D (say Diablo) where the archetype is entirely self-referential, or if you are specifically playing a setting like that of the Kung Fu TV series. In either event, both settings aren't the product of eastern culture, but of particular western views of eastern culture - that is, orientalism.

Moreover, the whole notion that an eastern or western setting requires different base classes strikes me as orientalism. Well designed base classes should be robust enough to sustain changes in the cultural trappings without the need to change the class. Second edition interestingly enough tried this approach, albeit with the somewhat flawed mechanism of a 'kit class'. Although I'm not a fan of the kit class concept, and I reject Pathfinder's similar approach to building diversity within a class, the fundamental idea that a 'fighter' ought to encompass the fighter and fighting styles of every culture is one I champion. Likewise, there is no real need for separate tables of eastern and western weapons given the granularity of D&D weapons, except in the very rare cases of there being no counterpart. (And these are really rare, say the Urumi.) My personal preference would be to put all weapons on a unified table and note in the description, as Gygax did in the 1e PH, some of the different regional names for weapons of this sort.



I just assume most readers will employ a dictionary when they don't know what a word means.

Quoting you:

In any event, while I do dislike the class, the central reason for removing the Monk wasn't my dislike of the class. And in particular, if you think my 'orientalism' argument was essentially a case of me arguing that I don't like chocolate in my peanut butter, I think you are missing the point entirely. My objection to the monk is not at all that an eastern inspired class doesn't belong in a game with largely western mythic flavor. My objection to the monk is that even in the context of game with an eastern inspired setting, the monk is bad design. To my knowledge, I am the first one that used the term 'orientalism' and I didn't merely mean by it 'oriental'.

(emphasis mine)

If your point is that the monk is badly designed, why not say so instead of using a word like "orientalism"?

 

[Tovec]

Okay I want to make a few things clear before I get into the replies.

• First, I think conceptually the monk is a priest in spirit. It deals with the mysticism of the universe. However it is not a divine caster..
• Second, I think it is probably a warrior. A warrior who uses very different tactics but a warrior nonetheless. Especially since people aren't going to stop using them as warriors no matter how you build them - so you need to build them well enough to survive in combat.
• Third, I think that as the class groups are defined now the monk is a trickster. That is, he has a lot of tricks, he fights using ways that warrior classes do not.
• Fourth, I think monk is related to paladin, for what that is worth. BUT I think it is related as a cleric is related to a druid. He has a similar feel as a paladin (holy warrior), but a very different bag of abilities (slow fall/wild shape) and thus cannot be made from a paladin.
• Fifth, monk as I'm talking about here is a class. It is a 'ascetic' background primarily, which others say is a monk background. Just in I would say a barbarian is a class, but a nomad or berserker is the background. I say this for ease of comprehension more than anything else. I agree in theory that the class should be called berserker and the background barbarian.. but that isn't what we have at the moment and so using those terms confuses things.Sixth, martial artist =/= monk. Again here I might be splitting hairs but I'm using martial artist/s to mean "fights unarmed" or whatever package people are using to say monks should be brawlers.

[sblock=mlund]

I have to concur with the bulk of what Celebrim wrote. That said, there's nothing wrong with some goofy nods to Orientalism - as long as it doesn't irradiate a ton of fertile design space like the Monk-as-class paradigm has for the last three decades. Monk is a Background - coming from a monastery. That's it. Maybe they taught Kung Fu there. Maybe they illuminated manuscripts. That's a setting / background thing.

The combat / stunt abilities of the monk are Martial Arts. Those same Martial Arts from the Orentalism influence were taught to (and taught by) people who were not monks. Many dojo and family traditions passed on martial arts to people from many different walks of life.

Someone mentioned martial artists from video game. Almost none of the signature icons of that genre are monks. They learned from teachers who most often learned from family members and never set foot inside a monastery.

So I just wish the Monk would stop poisoning the well of Martial Arts in D&D. You want to be Caine, go on. Here's the Martial Artist class, Aesthetic Tradition, and the Monk or Pilgrim background. Go nuts. Just don't stop Larry over here from playing his Dwarven Bear Wrestler or block out Joe's drunken boxer

Marty Lund

I disagree, obviously.

Monk has many tricks that make it its own. Those tricks can be reflavored and repackaged to apply to other people of other traditions. The monk (class) could be Caine, the street fighters, jedi, or the classic monk I'm familiar with (3e style). That is the versatility of a monk class.

The backgrounds and specializations make all that possible, taking a base class and retuning it for campaign specific needs. I just don't see how you can get those versions of monk from something else. Just as I don't see how you can get a nature's protector, wild shaping master, animal master, nature magic expert, and so on, from the cleric. It is a distinct class with things that are uniquely monkish.[/sblock]

[sblock=Salamandyr]

I wasn't talking in game terms. My point is that the monk, as popularly conceived, isn't a distinct archetype, it's a higher power version of an already existing archetype...which isn't the rogue, but the warrior (the analagous comparison to the rogue would be the ninja).

Even if it was the rogue, that's not really the important bit. The important thing is that monk abilities are high level abilities. They are, within the fiction, what happens when you train your body long enough and hard enough. So when you've got a guy who has trained his body so hard that his hands are as dangerous as swords, what does that say about the guy who has to use a sword to be dangerous?

If the world allows you to train hard enough to be able to fight naked as well as someone in full armor with weapons, it says that the guy who uses armor and weapons is obviously not all that highly trained.

The monk as you conceive is only a higher level monk. That is fine. But others see a low level version. And what is more the game has long had lower level versions too, so it isn't like you shouldn't be able to see where those lower level versions come from. I'm a little confused by you here.

I do agree that a monk is probably a warrior (see above) instead of a 'rogue'. I think you are skipping a step though.

My big issue is the 'as good as a guy with a sword.' Assuming you mean fighters, then I think there is a false dichotomy here. In 3e for example, the monk honed his training to gain fists as strong as swords. Those swords are short swords, 1d6. The fighter is typically using either TWF (2 short swords (1d6)), 2H (greatsword at 2d6+1.5 STR), even a sword and board (1d8 longsword and a shield). So, while "as sharp as a sword" is in play that is hardly what defines the difference. The monk, historically, didn't have the same BAB, or likeliness to hit. And so on. I think that you are overly worried about the guy who has hard fists when looking at this issue -as even when his fists went up to 2d10 (I believe, don't have my books with me atm) he was still woefully underpowered compared to the fighter who had his 2d6 greatsword with up to +10 enchantments on it. Not to mention that the monk only had bludgeoning fists, whereas the fighter has a wider range.

I don't really think, when examined closely, the Eastern vs. Western argument really holds up.

For instance, if you watch John Woo's excellent Red Cliffs, there's really not a lot to differentiate it from The Lord of the Rings, or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from Tristram and Isolde. The only real difference is that the Chinese stories assume a higher power level for individuals than we are used to assuming with the Western pulp fiction that feeds into D&D.

Li Mu Bai doesn't fit into a story with D'Artagnan and Conan, not because he's Asian, but because the fiction he inhabits has different assumptions about personal abilities. If Li Mu Bai were written by Howard or Dumas, he wouldn't fly or cut arrows with his sword. Likewise, if Conan or D'Artagnan were translated into the world of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, they would be able to jump fifty feet, balance on bamboo leaves, etc.

As written though, Li Mu Bai fits just fine with Western mythology...he could hang unchanged with Hercules, Thor, or Cu Chulain.

Actually, I happen to agree with the first and last paragraph here. You are comparing high level individuals (and gods) to mortal heroes of a different genre and then saying the problem is that they're... oriental and don't fit?

I also get the second paragraph. I disagree but I get it. In the crouching tiger movies, not everyone can do the crazy balance on a treetop acrobatics. Most can't in fact. D'Artagnan wouldn't have the training needed to do it. He would get schooled by the fighters in that world but I get what you mean. But again that has to do with high level/gods and a sword made of jade? (it's been a long time since I've seen the movie) vs. a guy in a blue tabard and a sword that would easily shatter in the same circumstances.

But I think all that has to do with campaign expectations and little or nothing to do with the classes that are used. Good try. But I think it fails because the monk isn't "oriental kung fu guy" he is ascetic (though not necessarily, see backgrounds) holy man/sage/warrior.[/sblock]

[sblock=Celebrim]

Well sure, but I'm a programmer by trade and I'm not a big fan of "there is more than one way to do things". There is a significant cost to the game in the approach of "more is better". You end up in the situation of late 3.5 where you have literally 600 classes each of which is offering various minor mechanical variations and front ended benefits which often overlap and virtually none of which have been tested in relationship to each other or even considered in relation to everything else that is already out there. It's too many moving parts, and its benefits ends up being not in that it lets players create more varied characters but that it lets players mix and match among mechanical benefits in order to make more optimized Johnny One-Tricks. There is increased rules overhead, decreased balance among characters, and increased difficulty for the DM in preparing a setting and particularly in preparing NPCs to be challenges to PCs.

Literally 600? Literally? List them, and if it is 601 or 599 you used the wrong word. I suggest you address that. You seem to value specificity in words and for people to "look them up in a dictionary" when they don't understand them. Even, as this case shows, if they think they understand them.

I just assume most readers will employ a dictionary when they don't know what a word means.

[/sblock]

 

[Celebrim]

Barbarian and Monk are the two classes where I feel like the essence of what they are is not captured.

Ironically, I feel the essence of the Barbarian and Monk are generally similar. Both are martial combatants who are powered as much by emotion - whether fierce rage or fierce inner discipline - as by expertise with arms. Both eventually find sufficient inner power through honing of their emotions to serve an end that their body becomes a magical item, able to shrug off blows as if made of metal or able to float downward as if light as a feather or otherwise perform amazing feats. Indeed, when I removed the Barbarian and started crafting a replacement, I looked into making variants powered by different emotions than rage, but found that mechanically it just wasn't very interesting or distinctive. I may revisit that at some point (I have an idea or two knocking about) to see if can find something as simple and evocative, but for now you can just redress 'rage' and call it 'ki focus' and I'd be perfectly happy with a PC implementing their Monk concept as a Fanatic. And the class that I borrowed the most from other than the Barbarian for my fanatic build, was Monte's Oathbound class - which was his Monk like variant.

What does a barbarian do, and is it a full class or a subclass of fighter?

So I've tried to give the Fanatic a distinctive niche based around engendering emotion and fueling his power in this way. The Fighter is based around the idea of the mastery of weapons, including for example, ones hands as weapons. Additionally, they also own a sub-area martial arts in the form of Warcraft and fighting along side others that is distinctly theirs and includes the idea of the Captain, Marshall, or Warlord. The Hunter approaches combat primarily from the opposite direction becoming master over ones prey, studying the target rather than the weapon(s) used to attack the target. They also have a niche stealth and in inflicting massive and traumatic damage, that shades them off toward the 'skill monkey/trickster' side of the triangle. I consider each a full class, though related, and they synergize well with each other though at a long term cost in depth of their potential powers.

I could however definitely see justification in unifying them as a single martial class and making things like 'rage' and 'favored enemy' merely one of many options. It was a near call, but ultimately I think there was enough design space to fit the three comfortably together. I admit you could cut the lines differently.

I also appreciate the notion that every fighter can do mystical things through their training at high level. That takes a concerted effort by game designers to make that paradigm shift though. It adds the book of nine swords mentality to fighters.

I'm not a big fan of Book of Nine Swords. I've strived hard to as much as possible avoid turning martial classes into spell-casters in disguise. Much of the mechanics in Bo9S felt very gamey to me and where ultimately justified for game reasons, and not for any other that I could see. If you want to play a fighter that also does mystical things, I tried to provide outlets for that through multi-classing. I have a few mystical fighter related feats, like The Riddle of Steel (it turns every weapon you use into a magical weapon with an enhancement bonus that depends on your BAB), but they tend to be subtle rather than flashy and the never have use limitations based on out of game concepts.

The rogue is not designed well currently in my estimation. The fighter should have few tricks but be solid and front line. The rogue should have many tricks and be less front line. The monk should be like the rogue, lots of tricks but not front line. Conceptually I can see them as warriors too though. I would like to see the monk split into subclasses for fighter and rogue. Then pull the ascetic "monkish" background out and let anyone select it, for any class.

I'm exploring those concepts myself right now. I bought a pdf for a Pathfinder class called the Deductionist, and though I was a bit disappointed, there are a couple of ideas that it opened up that I'm playing with. There is still room for two classes in my design space - the 'Expert' and the 'Paragon'. Both are very difficult to pull off but both feel like holes the character space - iconic heroes that you can't quite yet play.

However, I consider 'combat tricks' to be primarily the domain of the Fighter. 'Combat tricks' are part of the general 'mastery of technique' concept that I feel is central to the Fighter class. The Rogue I see based more around mobility, stealth, deception, and the application of non-combat skills to combat situations. The Monk I don't really see at all - a sort of Fighter, Fanatic, multiclass Fighter/Shaman or Shaman/Fanatic with a distinctive background where the exact build depended on what you wanted to emphasis. If I was developing a distinctively eastern feeling setting, I'd keep the classes I had and just develop some new feats with kung fu type names to represent eastern style martial arts - although really I've got some of that already, like 'Size Is No Obstacle'.

 

[Celebrim]

Literally 600? Literally? List them, and if it is 601 or 599 you used the wrong word. I suggest you address that. You seem to value specificity in words and for people to "look them up in a dictionary" when they don't understand them. Even, as this case shows, if they think they understand them.

Please, use a dictionary. You are confusing 'literally' with 'exactly'. I know there are not exactly 600 classes, or I would have said 'exactly' and not 'literally'. Literally doesn't exactly mean 'exactly'. Literally, literally and exactly, means in a plain sense without exaggeration or metaphor. I meant I do not exaggerate or speak figuratively to say that there are 600 classes. Used in reference to quantity, so long as there are at least 600 classes, then the plain sense of my statement is true. If I say, "I have literally 600 apples.", and you say, "Give me your 600 apples.", if I have 900 apples I still can fulfill the plain sense of your request. If I had but 400, you'd have a valid cause for complaint, "I thought you said you had 600 apples."

The opposite of literally is figuratively, which means 'metaphorically' or as a figure of speech. But you wouldn't say that the opposite of figuratively is exactly, because it is not. There is a difference between being figurative and being inexact.

Incidentally, the whole pedantic 'I'm smarter than you' thing of criticizing people who use literally for emphasis in figurative statements is itself really silly and pedantic, since the whole point of using literally in a figurative statement is to increase and emphasis the hyperbole and make the statement more ridiculous and extreme - just like hyperbole is supposed to be. This is clear to most people who aren't overly literal minded. However, in this case I was not using the number "600" as hyperbole. In fact, I was being cautious, since I remembered the number being somewhere between 900 and 1100 but couldn't recall the exact figure I took a number I new would be underneath the exact count deliberately and precisely to avoid the sort of ridiculous attack I'm enduring now. So much for that.