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

[Bedrockgames]

There's been some discussion about why you don't need a Samurai class when the Fighter will do just fine. But it got me thinking, it's a bit odd the words martial arts are used almost exclusively to describe traditions that come from the east. Boxing is every bit the martial art that Taekwondo is. Ludwig von Liebenzell was a knight of the Teutonic Order in the 13th century, and the dude started training in the art of war at a young age. It's not like western warriors just flailed about randomly on the battlefield (okay, sometimes I'm sure they did), they were trained very often within the context of an established martial tradition.

I think it is because of genre conventions (samurai movies, kung fu movies, etc). Also the emphasis on things like Qi/Ki and the concept of meridians in many east asian martial arts. But I think something like the monk is primarily a product of the Kung Fu craze and as well as American films influenced by it. Also the ninja craze in the early 80s. Rocky doesn't translate quite the same into a class as say the 36 Chambers of Shaolin. There is a lot of very RPG friendly concepts in kung fu movies, wuxia movies, samurai movies, etc. It is a recognizable trope the way a medieval knight is a recognizable trope. Neither is all that connected to the history they are drawing on (they come out of genre)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I get that. I just think it's odd that martial arts is a phrase almost exclusively used to describe eastern traditions. I know WotC didn't invent that.

Yeah, I think most Americans just call it "fighting".

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Nothing should be like modern MMA.

MMA is like Survivor: it was cool and interesting at first when everyone was doing their own thing and feeling things out, then someone figured out the One Strat to win and sucked all interest and variation out of the room, turning it into the Midwest Money Hug to match Boxing's Out West Money Dance.

Amen. Those that are too into MMA like to think that juijutsu is the most powerful/impressive martial art ever invented. It just happens to be good at accomplishing the goals of MMA - under the rules of MMA.

Yeah, I get that. I just think it's odd that martial arts is a phrase almost exclusively used to describe eastern traditions. I know WotC didn't invent that.

At their biomechanical core, eastern martial arts are not really all that different from western ones. Loosely, there might be a -slight- focus on DEX over STR (in D&D terms) in east-vs-west, but even that is a gross oversimplification (not to mention that DEX & STR are far more intertwined than D&D pretends).

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Nothing should be like modern MMA.

MMA is like Survivor: it was cool and interesting at first when everyone was doing their own thing and feeling things out, then someone figured out the One Strat to win and sucked all interest and variation out of the room, turning it into the Midwest Money Hug to match Boxing's Out West Money Dance.

D&D martial arts is about being able to use lethal force to kill potentially fantastic, if not monstrous enemies.

Modern MMA is a curated experience that bans the more lethal martial arts options so that humans can more safely compete in nonlethal violence against other humans. It is not a good representation to base D&D martial arts upon. Sure, rules for humans grappling humans is good to get reasonably right, but for a Medium-sized bipedal monk to strike or grapple Large creatures (whose carnivorous mouths may open wide enough to fit the monk's head or limbs inside), or many-limbed creatures, or creatures that are heavily armored, or made of stone, or emanate harmful energies like fire, is wholly in the fantastical realm.

In order to be unarmed and unarmored combatants in D&D, Monks should be magical martial artists because it is a magical world with magical threats. Non-magical pugilism doesn't work in D&D unless you're hand-waving the logical problems that present themselves in such an environment.

Maybe if all "warriors" get maneuvers, it opens design space for Monks (and even Fighters and Barbarians) to get optional magical maneuvers like 2014 elemental attacks, or Bo9S-like maneuvers. This could also be the design needed to help the Mythic Warrior tropes come to life.

 

[Emberashh]

Yeah, I get that. I just think it's odd that martial arts is a phrase almost exclusively used to describe eastern traditions. I know WotC didn't invent that.

Prior to the popularization of kung fu (and subsequently other eastern martial arts), Western takes were generally just called (and still are) combat sports, and earlier than that simply "the arts of war", if there was a context to refer to multiple nations practices in one phrase anyway.

Most western cultures just used the names of the specific practices being referred to, and outside of the China-Korea-Japan sphere Id actually wager thats how basically everyone referred to their various martial arts, not by a general name but by the names of the specific practices. In that sphere theres just so many across those three cultures that it makes sense why there was a more general term, then and now.

And thats still mostly the case today, now that martial arts has such a heavy connotation. You don't really call Boxers "martial artists", because it sounds weird; just call them Boxers.

 

[Vaalingrade]

In order to be unarmed and unarmored combatants in D&D, Monks should be magical martial artists because it is a magical world with magical threats. Non-magical pugilism doesn't work in D&D unless you're hand-waving the logical problems that present themselves in such an environment.

Again, you can be fantastical without being magical. We need to stop ignoring the difference if we're ever going to get anywhere with good martial characters.

 

[Emberashh]

Again, you can be fantastical without being magical. We need to stop ignoring the difference if we're ever going to get anywhere with good martial characters.

No I think the bulk of people are going to just keep chasing after that one-sentence solution that solves all these problems and upsets no one, especially all those people that totally exist that would flip the tables if we changed a single thing about the game, including the things we're fixing.

Change is bad and also we need to change this but not in a way that makes it even remotely different.

Its simple if you understand that 2+2=Fish and that the opposite Forwards is Cranberry.

 

[Vaalingrade]

No I think the bulk of people are going to just keep chasing after that one-sentence solution that solves all these problems

'Delete the Wizard.'?

 

[Emberashh]

'Delete the Wizard.'?

I often thought about talking about the Wizard like some people talk about Rangers.

They say Rangers have an identity crisis but at least they do more than one literal thing.

"I cast spells" isn't a class identity.

 

[mamba]

"I cast spells" isn't a class identity.

that is why we have three of them

It is as much one as ‘I hit stuff with weapons’, neither one is supposed to be