D&D (2024) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"

[SkidAce]

You own Supremacy? My friends and I played the hell out of that game in the 1990s. Go ahead and develop nukes, I dare you! We'll all attack if you do.

Yes, my best friend was a rat bastard player...he would develop one nuke, and threaten to detonate it to keep any of us from getting a 5 Star Victory!

(You remember the different victory levels?)

 

[MGibster]

Yes, my best friend was a rat bastard player...he would develop one nuke, and threaten to detonate it to keep any of us from getting a 5 Star Victory!

(You remember the different victory levels?)

It's been almost 30 years since I've played, so I barely remember. This was the first non-miniatures board game I can remember that had expansions and we owned most of them. The game pieces reminded me of chopped up vegetables.

 

[mamba]

Further, it's the job of 3pp to add to games, not fill in deficiencies in the system.

agreed, but I see ‘not fill in deficiencies’ as ‘not be needed to fix bugs’

The lack of psionics in 5e is a deficiency that WotC should address

disagree, not a deficiency to me, no more than e.g. not having a Gunslinger

The 3pp should add to WotC's system by making new disciplines or subclasses, or a modification to the system.

or new classes, spells, monsters, … I see no reason why a Psionicist cannot fall in here as well but has to come from WotC

Same for Asian (or any other culture) themed takes on the official classes

 

[Yaarel]

Further, it's the job of 3pp to add to games, not fill in deficiencies in the system.

Well said.

The lack of psionics in 5e is a deficiency that WotC should address, not a 3pp.

It seems 2024 is positioning to translate psionic traditions, into normal magic traditions. Such as spells like Mind Sliver, innate spellcasting, and the Psi Warrior with features that are nonspell magic.

If I can have the slot 9 effects and the right flavor for my psionic character concept, I can probably be ok with this approach. It depends on how well the implementation is.


One thing, 2024 must rip away "costly spell components" so they are never seen again in any future version of D&D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That is extremely generous.

I agree that WotC definitely doesn't know what 'martial arts' is and should bring in a consultant that does. It really wouldn't be hard to find some people that practice some form of martial art and play D&D. I know several, including myself and I live in a small town of less than 10000.

Yes, Unarmed Strikes should be a major focus of the class, but many martial arts have a rich history of weapon use. I do not understand why WotC can't grasp that and insists on handicapping a monk should they choose to use weapons. They are part of the Warrior group - give them martial weapons, but also allow Weapon Masteries on unarmed strikes.

This. It’s totally wild to imagine them as just unarmed and simple weapons. So few martial arts traditions lack armed fighting styles, and focus on the specialized and very much not basic farmers weapons, even if they also train with stuff derived from farm implements.

 

[Clint_L]

Don’t think what’s compatible with it, armor? Yeah, I agree. My point is that the reason it’s incompatible has nothing to do with realism. It’s about class identity, same as all class-based weapon and armor restrictions. There’s no realistic reason a monk shouldn’t be able to wear armor or a wizard shouldn’t be able to use a sword or a rogue shouldn’t be able to use a greataxe. It just doesn’t fit with the archetypal image of the class for them to do so.

No, I'm saying there are very good realistic reasons why a martial arts-style fighter should not wear heavy armour. Have you ever done any martial arts? You're just not going to be able to move like you need to in heavy armour, and you're going to be exhausted trying. Plus you'd probably blow out your knees or back in a hurry. And your balance would be all messed up.

If you've even boxed a bit you know how tiring it gets just keeping your gloves up in guard after a few rounds - imagine if you were also carrying chain mail on your arms!

If you were super strong, you could maybe do some forms of martial arts effectively in heavy armour for a very short time but it would be really risky and I can't imagine trying to fight that way wearing 40+ pounds of chainmail, let alone plate. Heavy armours were designed for specific types of fighting with weapons, not for fast striking, side kicks, and so on.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Here's some good reference material...

 

[billd91]

You're totally right, but I swear it often seems to me that the designer's lack of martial experience tends to have them limit what a martial character can do, just as often (if not more; or at least, to me, more annoyingly) as they allow them to do something fantastical.

I think the hope would be that the design would start at a base in "realistic" and move to fantastical at higher levels. Frankly, you could get a martial artist to influence the design from L1-9 and an expert on traditional lore/wuxia to work on L10+. (With a good mechanical designer getting the D&D mechanics to work right, as well, naturally).

The problem with sticking too closely to real martial arts experience in designing the monk is that you're almost certainly not going to get a class that nods at or invokes any of the wuxia media or Shaw Brothers films like Invincible Shaolin. And those are much closer in spirit to the fantasy literature that inspired D&D in the first place than reality or MMA fights.

 

[CapnZapp]

would it give the impression that all the Eastern identities and concepts were "shunted off" to the "lesser" game?

No?

(Translate this East game into Chinese and you might get a different result)

 

[nevin]

Go watch modern oriental movies. They are lot like the stuff we watched in the 80's and 90's. they are not politically correct, even in china by our version. Politically correct in china is what the chairman wants. the monks aren't much different than than in hokey 80's martial arts films, or the old "kung fu". You've also got more mythic version of the monk in movies like the sorcerer and the white snake or the movie Green snake.

In most oriental myths , heaven and hell wars are more like two versions of the feywild, the lawful upper feywild or the upper kingdom and the lower kingdom which could be the dnd feywild and the middle kingdom where all the mortals live as the border of thier war.

Monks in this kind of mythology fill the same role as paladins in a western game. they enforce the laws of heaven and that sometimes means sending the demons back home or imprisoning them for a 1000 years as punishment for entering the mortal realm. (because magic is viewed as bad for mortals. Just like western churchified fey stories.) Youd get a version of the monk that like the paladin had magic attacks, magical protection equivilant to plate armor. I think in the end it would be a paladin that could move like the wind and smite those pesky demons and bad guys. I think a lot of people would be horrified at how similar the character concepts might be if you translated the game to an EASTERN view.)

Most people want to be a hero and while the gods and details are different the myths of eastern and western mythology all dance around the same human desires, wants and needs.