monks have been broken at low levels since 1e. In 1e and 2e I just let monks have damage bonuses from ST. that pretty much fixed them at lower levels though by 8 or 9 you needed a girdle of giant strength. But yeah Monks were built like mages in 1E, They sucked till the point where most people stopped playing them. That and the 1e dynamic where some classes leveled faster have turned into a big problem in game design as people don't want the old monk with new abilities. The real problem is the Monk is just a combat class, they don't heal, they don't magic (but some nice abilities), and they are designed to function well at high level and not so good at any other level. Best case you can say they are one or two trick ponies at low levels and your still better off with a fighter. But till we decide if we want the action movie monk, or the classic Oriental monk, or the Occidental monk we can't even agree on how to fix it because those are Three vastly different fixes.
D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
When it comes to monks all I can say is that I had a lot of fun playing mine and we always use point buy. The campaign ended at level 11, but even at that point he still contributed just as much as anyone else in the group.
Maybe they fall behind in whiteroom analysis without sky-high stats but in actual play? They worked just fine for us.
Maybe they fall behind in whiteroom analysis without sky-high stats but in actual play? They worked just fine for us.
That's the real problem there.
Same with the fighter.
It might work at certain levels It might work with certain police offices but it doesn't match how any fighter works in media but d&D
and yet the fighter as currently designed is one of the most popular classes. do you see the problem for the Devs and these whiteboard analysises. RealWorld vs balance vs what players say they want vs what they actually play never ever match. Ask any marketing person. What people actually buy or use is the target. Not what they actually ask for. Strangely the two are almost never the same.
The issue isn't white room.
It's that the mechanics don't match the fantasy. Only the names do.
MuhVerisimilitude
Hero
But we know that the class has always been popular regardless of balance.
And? That just means that given the design philosophy of the edition, the fighter works for a lot of people. It's meaningless to say that it was popular in previous edition because no one has proven that it was unbalanced in previous editions either.
I can say that in 3.x, the fighter was amazing at lower levels and around 15th or so they couldn't compete with casters. Linear fighters, exponential casters was absolutely a thing. Also something I don't hear people complaining about with people I actually play with any more.
Just because it's popular or people play something doesn't mean people are satisfied with WOTC's implementation of it.
WOTC's implementation of a noticeable amount of 5e's mechanics are heavily criticized.
However D&D's strength is that DMs and tables can fix it.
It also does not make the overwhelming majority of fans satisfied with the implementation of WOTC's version.
For example as @nevin said, the community hasn't chosen between the Oriental, Occidental, or Action Movies monk. And WOTC only supports one of them and flopped at supporting a 4th Brawler monk. And the Pro Wrestler monk and Pugilist monk are unseen.
So by definition WOTC is leaving someone unhappy.
WOTC's implementation of a noticeable amount of 5e's mechanics are heavily criticized.
However D&D's strength is that DMs and tables can fix it.
It also does not make the overwhelming majority of fans satisfied with the implementation of WOTC's version.
For example as @nevin said, the community hasn't chosen between the Oriental, Occidental, or Action Movies monk. And WOTC only supports one of them and flopped at supporting a 4th Brawler monk. And the Pro Wrestler monk and Pugilist monk are unseen.
So by definition WOTC is leaving someone unhappy.
But Monks are not really as well defined in media either.
When I was growing up as a Catholic, a Monk to me meant a Fransiscan, Benedictine or Jesuit. Translating that into D&D would mean some kind of mystic, spiritual class. Perhaps with an educator vibe as far as the Jesuits go.
If you go back to the middle ages there were militant Monks (Templars) but they are a lot closer to the D&D Paladin than to any other class.
That's kinda the point
There 5-7 popular ideas of what a Monk is. WOTC choose maybe the 2nd least popular one and built the whole class around it because of tradition. Then they and everyone else have been throwing kludges at it to fulfill the other 5.
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