D&D 5E (2024) Help Me Hate Monks (Less Than I Currently Do)

[TiQuinn]

You didn't specify that. The rules have dropped that flavour. It might help people if the name was changed for the benefit of those people who don't read the current class descriptions.

Okay I hereby specify that.

 

[MGibster]

I don't understand why monks are problematic when most D&D settings are effectively global, if not interplanetary or interdimensional. Like in Forgotten Realms it's possible to get on a space ship and fly to another planet, or open a portal to Hell and go shopping in the literal City of Dis.

I wouldn't say Monks are problematic mainly because I hate that word, but if I told my players I was running adventures in Kara-Tur and someone showed up with an Eagle Knight from Maztica I'd be fairly unhappy. I'd be equally unhappy with a player who brought in an Arthurian style knight in shining armor character. It's not about realism or anything, it's about the tone of the campaign. But then again it can be fun to mix things up. Red Sun starred Charles Bronson and Torshio Mifune and it was about a samurai in the old west on a quest to recover a stolen sword. Good times.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

but if I told my players I was running adventures in Kara-Tur and someone showed up with an Eagle Knight from Maztica I'd be fairly unhappy. I'd be equally unhappy with a player who brought

Why? People have always travelled, especially adventurers, and stories about people from one culture encountering another are commonplace.

But the Eagle Knight is culturally specific. The monk has had what faint cultural baggage it ever had stripped away. A better comparison would be if the Eagle Knight had the word “Eagle” removed.

 

[Mistwell]

I am to Monks as Snarf is to Bards.

Oh so you actually adore them!

 

[Guest 85555]

I wouldn't say Monks are problematic mainly because I hate that word, but if I told my players I was running adventures in Kara-Tur and someone showed up with an Eagle Knight from Maztica I'd be fairly unhappy. I'd be equally unhappy with a player who brought in an Arthurian style knight in shining armor character. It's not about realism or anything, it's about the tone of the campaign. But then again it can be fun to mix things up. Red Sun starred Charles Bronson and Torshio Mifune and it was about a samurai in the old west on a quest to recover a stolen sword. Good times.

Chang cheh’s Marco Polo is a good example of a character from the west in an Asian setting

 

[RealAlHazred]

There was a Will Shetterly novel from 1986, Witch Blood, that made me see how to incorporate monks into a European-inspired fantasy setting, if you want to remove the Asian flavor. As it is, most people don't take into account the amount of travel and cross-pollination people have always had on Earth. You had a Samurai community in Mexico City in the early 1600s, shortly after the fall of the Aztec Empire. An emissary from Beijing was sent to Europe by the grandnephew of Kublai Khan in the late 1200s. If someone wants to play an exotic character in a medieval-inspired D&D campaign, its a valid option, speaking from a historical-nerd perspective.

 

[Willie the Duck]

<quotes clipped and moved around to touch on individual themes>

Maybe it's because they sucked so much in the first edition of AD&D? I don't remember them at all from 2nd edition, though it's possible they were introduced in a supplement I didn't own, but I do remember being blissfully Monk-free until 2000 and the Monk reared it's ugly, quivering palm in 3rd edition.

They were in oD&D, AD&D, and BECMI (there called 'mystic') in roughly the same form. 2e made monk 'kits' for most classes and introduced martial arts concurrently but tied to expending weapon proficiency slots instead of a discrete class.

* I see the Monk was inspired by a series of books called The Destroyers, one of which was adapted into the classic movie Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins in 1985 and Captain Janeway costars.

While the Monk class can encompass a wide swath of non-Asian warriors, the fact is, the class has always been very heavily coded and marketed as "Kung Fu Guys", I mean, look at most of the Monk art that's been produced over the years. Or the need for some older editions to add every wacky martial arts "weapon" (sometimes using the term very loosely) to the game!

it is not designed to mimic east Asian martial arts very well and certainly not the story versions from legends, books and visual media.

the quiet part out loud.

The quiet parts out loud is that the Monk class was based on a 1970s Western pop culture pastiche of wuxia media and (Eastern) martial arts tropes and legend, as seen through the lens of a 25 year old fanboy (Brian Blume). Yes, The Destroyer series is the referenced direct inspiration, but everything from Kung Fu to old samurai movies* are in the mix. It is a grab bag of tropes that seemed iconic at the time that got written down and ossified into the game.
*seen in B&W on Saturday afternoons on some old UHF station.

People correctly point out that A) you can re-flavor to fit your own needs, and B) the most recent ruleset has tried to strip out the explicit quasi-Asian framing. The won't change that no small part of your players who want to play a monk probably want to be playing some level of the above concept.

I'm with you on not liking monks in the pseudo-medieval fantasy that is D&D. They just don't fit the vibe.

I don't understand why monks are problematic when most D&D settings are effectively global, if not interplanetary or interdimensional.

{back}

={and forth}

{and back}

{and forth}

Here's the other quiet part out loud: -- Some people like playing quasi-medieval Europe* if magic and mythical creatures were real (plus exceptions A, B, and C); and some people like playing globetrotting (if not planehopping) adventures. Early D&D certainly did conform a lot more to the former than modern versions -- except for all the exceptions. The monster manual certainly never shied away from including whatever Japanese or Native American critter Gygax thought interesting. However, character creation did lean heavily on knights in shining armor and pointy hat wizards... but then monks and psionics.
*with some renaissance equipment somehow coinciding with classical/iron/bronze-age stuff, but not firearms
**or a spell-point magic system at least, in psionics' case.

And those did stand out -- not least of which because Gygax wasn't 100% thrilled with their inclusion, but did so because others wanted them. So plenty of people spent many years gaming with them seeming like outliers (because they were). More to the point, the game itself never really got around to integrating them cohesively into the game world and system the way other things Gary wasn't fond of (PC demihumans, for instance) were.

So I vaguely get why someone would not wanting monks in their game because of their vibe -- particularly when D&D monks aren't a great representation of IRL Asian culture (again, Western 1970s pop culture pastiche). If someone said they didn't want non-pseudo-Europeans in their game, that would be different -- and people have rightly brought up how much world travel did happen bitd.

That said, if you are one of those people, but have successfully integrated psionics, or artificers, or swashbucklers (also something early D&D didn't support, and breaks the knights-in-shining-armor vibe), or interplanar nexus cities and dragonborn/tiefling/warlocks/whatever else has been introduced in the past 30 years -- at least contemplate your reasoning as to why this lift is the one that is too hard.

After more than thirty years of playing D&D off an on, it's time I just accept that Monks are here to stay.

In the game? In the game at all, yes, monks are here to stay. Do you need to have them in your game/utilize them heavily? No. Plenty of people don't use psionics or artificers (or only have them around when someone wants to play one, etc.).

the problem is more that no one seems to be willing to do the leg work of explain the basic metaphysics the makes these things tick and then just work outwards.

If 3E 3PP are any indication, plenty of people have been willing to do the legwork. None of them have gained universal traction. I think that's the underlying problem with 'fixing' the monk -- much like psionics, no two gamers agree on what they want out of them. So even though the current product is unsatisfactory, there isn't a strong incentive to greatly reexamine it.

And before anyone says "it's not that hard/just do X,Y,Z", just keep in mind that few other classes ask you to go out of your way to make room for them.

All you need for Clerics is Gods willing to reward faith. All you need for Barbarians are tough people who live in harsh environments. All you need for Wizards is people who can learn magic from books.

I would argue that clerics are at least as much a lift, at least the ones we landed on with late 1E-modern D&D. Clerics from oD&D, early AD&D, and the B-BECM lines were pretty generic -- they tended to worship 'gawds*.' However, once settings like the Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms boxed sets came out, you got whole pantheons and clerics started choosing gods and then eventually other PCs were encouraged to choose their own specific god within the pantheon**. To my mind, that's more worldbuilding requirement for a given class than monks, druids, or paladins have. We're just really really used to it.
*Mornard's recollection of 'Church of Crom, Scientist' coming up when someone finally asked who the clerics worshipped is pretty hilarious
**despite that not being really how polytheistic religions work.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Cause when you tell your players you're excited to run an adventure about knights in shining armor with dragons and wizards and elves---and then Ben shows up with a ninja. Thanks Ben. I guess you're just payin' me back for showing up with a knight in shining armor to your Legend of the Five Rings campaign.

counterpoint ninja are cool and based on their myths are the thing elves would totally invent

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Why? People have always travelled, especially adventurers, and stories about people from one culture encountering another are commonplace.

But the Eagle Knight is culturally specific. The monk has had what faint cultural baggage it ever had stripped away. A better comparison would be if the Eagle Knight had the word “Eagle” removed.

Look, you can go to the planes before level 5, but surely not another country. Those sailing ships and mounts are only for combat!

The Complete Shair'sHandbook in 2nd edition has The Mystic of Nog that might help you visualize another form of monk. They were wizards who sublimated their spells for physical power. Man that book rocked. I like it when an edition gets to the weird/experimental phase of design.

 

[GobHag]

I wouldn't say Monks are problematic mainly because I hate that word, but if I told my players I was running adventures in Kara-Tur and someone showed up with an Eagle Knight from Maztica I'd be fairly unhappy. I'd be equally unhappy with a player who brought in an Arthurian style knight in shining armor character. It's not about realism or anything, it's about the tone of the campaign. But then again it can be fun to mix things up. Red Sun starred Charles Bronson and Torshio Mifune and it was about a samurai in the old west on a quest to recover a stolen sword. Good times.

I think this is the thing that makes Monk work for me and not for you.

DnD is a kitchen sink setting to me, as in, if you play DnD(and it's ilk) you should accept that a lot of anachronism and... analocalism? will(and should IMO) happen. Ninjas should be hireable by evil kings in their medieval castles, there should be Knights and wandering bards that duel using scimitars against Jaguar Warriors, steampunk Inventors peddling their wares to hags and witches. If someone makes their character look like a Roman Legionnaire that acts like a stereotypical medieval knight in my campaign about fighting an ancient Mummy king rising to conquer Not-Arab I would not care one bit.

Of course I'm fine that the Monk is an orientalist exoticism The Class. The only reason most people here accept that knights and purple worms and swashbuckling musketeers and cubic slimes and witch-burning salem-esque inquisitors fine is simple precedent of what works they took to heart as what 'fantasy' is in their early years. My idea of fantasy is Final Fantasy and Dragonfable(an old browser online RPG), so of course someone training in the mountains to the point that they can shoot laser beams(not as a spell) would fit medieval fantasy.