3.5 Monk Feedback

[randomninja]

All right, now that we know more or less whats is happening to the monk, What do you think?

Personally, after comparing a monk to a fighter with the two-weapon fighting feats, I was pleasently suprised to find out the Monks new Flurry progression makes them competitive! The two-weapon fighter gets a slightly better BAB at all levels,( Only a 1 point advantage until high levels, where it climbs to 3) As well as more attacks overall. On the other hand, the fighter will spend 3 feats doing it, has to invest in two weapons(likely not much stronger than monk weapons) and makes about half his attacks with only half of his strength bonus to damage. The monk only needs one weapon or a fists booster, and gets full strength damage with every attack( or 1 1/2 with quarterstaff). In other words, the new Monks are on fairly even footing with dual-weilders. I really like it personaly, as I've allways felt the Monk needed a more useful combat role than High Speed Sissie Bashing. Now the Monk has some incentive to stick around and throw out some full attacks instead of spring-attacking all over the place. Hurray for Monks!

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Could you summarize the flurry/whatnot changes? That big long 3.5e thread looks awfully intimidating to wade through finding all the monk stuff.

I know that there's no longer a distinction between UAB and BAB (yay!), and that monks no longer have the improved iterative attack progression. I got that there was an improved Flurry, which I presume gives a second extra attack at -5. Anything else to it?

 

[SmCaudata]

new monk

I agree that this really improves the monk. It was done very well also. The way it was done was pretty creative also. Previously the monk BAB did not stack with other class BAB. Now it does from what we have seen, but without a many monk levels you don't get the favorable itterative attacks. So now it is 15/15/15/10/5 at lvl 20 instead of the old 13/13/10/7/4. A fighter with ITWF is at 18/18/13/13/8/3 (pulling this from memory so I may have messed something up).

Damage wise they should be good also. With damage of 2d10 per attack (average of 11+modifiers), it may be worth it for a monk to stick with it all the way through 20 levels.

I wonder how well it will actually scale the enitre way through the levels. My first 3e char was a monk up to level 10 or so when it was hard to fit him into the small party we had. I may try another one to see how it goes.

 

[Mike Sullivan]

So do the new Flurries not give an attack penalty at all?

 

[Christian]

According to that thread, the Flurry of Blows advances in stages:

Fifth level: flurry attacks are at -1 instead of -2.

Ninth level: flurry attacks are at -0.

Eleventh level: second bonus attack from flurry, all attacks still -0.

It wasn't clear, but it seemed to me that the second extra attack is at the full BAB. So a 20th level monk, BAB +15, will full attack unarmed at +15/+15/+15/+10/+5. Even on the more conservative idea that the second extra attack is at the second attack bonus, that's still +15/+15/+10/+10/+5, which sure doesn't suck.

 

[randomninja]

Rather than explaining it again, I'll just type up the flurry progression for you. On a side note, you'll notice that at early levels, the reduction in penalty for flurry compensates for halts in the 3/4 BAB progression, giving the monk a steady increase.
Cool No?

1. -2/-2
2.-1/-1
3. 0/0
4. 1/1
5. 2/2
6. 3/3
7. 4/4
8. 5/5/0
9. 6/6/1
10. 7/7/2
11. 8/8/8/3
12. 9/9/9/4
13. 9/9/9/4
14. 10/10/10/5
15. 11/11/11/6/1
16. 12/12/12/7/2
17. 12/12/12/7/2
18. 13/13/13/8/3
19. 14/14/14/9/4
20. 15/15/15/10/5

 

[Destil]

I don't remember exact the levels monks get these at, but here's the benifits of the new unarmed rules:

They start with normal flurry, -2 to all attacks, 1 extra attack at highest BAB. Then their penelity drops to -1 (around 5th) and finaly to 0 (9th?), then (around 10th-11th ) they get improved flurry, which is an third attack at their highest BAB,

So a 20th level monk should look like this:
+15/+15/+15/+10/+5

While a 20th level two weapon fighter should be something like this (I'm not sure abouut the the new two weapon fighting high level feat, which could change this a bit):
+18/+18(off hand)/+13/+13(off hand)/+8/+3

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Thanks Christian, randomninja, and Destil.

 

[Burne]

Just to clarify:
As far as we know monks have no restrictions on unarmed attacks in regards to multiclassing.

Suddenly a 4 fighter 16 monk, or even that monk/weaponmaster are suddenly valid.

Can monks still flurry with "monk weapons"?

Thanks for the answers if ya know them.

 

[Voadam]

Does a monk's unarmed damage change? Someone mentioned 2d10 which sounds different (I haven't played a high level monk yet)

Do they still get evasion at level one?

I remember reading that instead of stunning fist they get the actual feat stunning blow or improved grapple their choice. If they go stunning do they get the feat's reduced number of stuns per day or the old monk 1/level?

Still must be lawful and multiclassing restricted?