D&D 5E 5th edition monks

[DragonBelow]

Ok,

Well, yeah. I think that it's just a little easier to see when people dump the "combat" stats. But think about it.

1. No one dumps Con. Ever. It's not going to be your highest score, but it's never the dump stat.

2. And while people often dump Intelligence (and, to a lesser extent, wisdom or charisma) you rarely see people RPing it. After all, it's hard to play Cleetus, the Slack Jawed Yokel. So you will often see threads here justifying ... er, explaining why an Intelligence Dump can actually be played all smart, and a Charisma dump doesn't mean you have to be a weak-willed jerkface.

3. So that leaves the other two; dex and strength. And becase Dex can now do almost everything strength can do, AND MORE, you see a bunch of 98 lb. weaklings rapiering the monsters to death.

It really doesn't bother me that much, because a rapier will never match the damage output of greatsword or a greataxe, so yes, you can add your maxed out dex to the damage, just a greatsword guy would add str, but the dice make a difference too.

 

[DragonBelow]

Ok,


It really doesn't bother me that much, because a rapier will never match the damage output of greatsword or a greataxe, so yes, you can add your maxed out dex to the damage, just a greatsword guy would add str, but the dice make a difference too.

I wish we had a simulator to test these

 

[Dausuul]

Yes that's a point that people miss. (I explored this in a thought experiment here - but people seemed to miss the point) Just bumping up the importance of all the abilities would ultimately lead to convergence around the middle. And once you reach that point there's little point in having them at all.

Congratulations, you have just sold me on bumping the importance of all abilities.

Ability scores and alignment are the two sacred cows I really, really wish D&D could slaughter.

 

[DragonBelow]

Find me a person who can break boards and bricks but struggles to carry a large sack of flour.

What if they had a bad back?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Exactly what I thought. What does @Jd Smith1 mean?

Probably nothing more advanced than to suggest that anything cool from Asia is actually somehow western in origin.

Perhaps not maliciously, but it’s the same sort of “scholarship” that does whatever gymnastics needed to somehow tie all advances of the Islamic Golden Age, or even ancient Chinese philosophy, to the west, or indeed to tie the origin of Kung Fu to Greece.

It’s a lot of nonsense and logical leaps so great that they would strain the abilities of even a very high strength monk with plenty of Ki to spend.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Also, am I really the only one in this thread who has only ever seen Str 8 characters in the cases of scholars and mages and such, who thematically are intentionally noticeably weaker than the average person?

I’ve never seen a rogue, Dex Fighter/ranger/Paladin, or monk, with a Str below 10. Often I see such characters put it at 12, so they feel a bit more confident with Athletics and such, or simply leaving it at 10, training athletics, and describing their character at athletic but lean, and thus not above average at lifting and carrying.

Which is reasonable. DnD doesn’t need to detailed realism. It shouldn’t strive towards it.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, yeah. I think that it's just a little easier to see when people dump the "combat" stats. But think about it.

1. No one dumps Con. Ever. It's not going to be your highest score, but it's never the dump stat.

There's a wizard in my current 5E campaign with an 8 Con. She's 12th level and has like 40 hp. She is the classic glass canon, and was very much designed to be that.

2. And while people often dump Intelligence (and, to a lesser extent, wisdom or charisma) you rarely see people RPing it. After all, it's hard to play Cleetus, the Slack Jawed Yokel. So you will often see threads here justifying ... er, explaining why an Intelligence Dump can actually be played all smart, and a Charisma dump doesn't mean you have to be a weak-willed jerkface.

Charisma is a very popular dump stat as long as the party has a Face of some kind. If there's someone else who can talk on everyone's behalf, then everyone else is free to dump CHA and bump up something else.

We have a couple of low Charisma characters in the group with the glass cannon mentioned above. I've had their mere presence impact the party bard's ability to positively interact with NPCs. The bard is schmoozing some local lord....and the fighter is clumsily hitting on courtiers, and the ranger's picking his nose....and the lord is like "umm....I don't know if we have any work for a group of.....wanderers such as you".

3. So that leaves the other two; dex and strength. And becase Dex can now do almost everything strength can do, AND MORE, you see a bunch of 98 lb. weaklings rapiering the monsters to death.

The. Horror.

I really don't see the issue here. It's not like monks are overpowered because of their high Dexterity. If monks outpaced the damage output or defense of other classes or something, then I'd see the issue. But as it is, the way it works creates characters who are pretty evenly balanced. The fighter edges the monk in damage output a bit, and likely in HP total, but the monk makes up for it with other utility abilities.

Pretty sure monk is still one of the least played classes.

I base this on no scientific evidence whatsoever.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Jd Smith1]

... ??

Japanese is not a tonal language.

I read it wrong. It is used to note a 'nasal pronunciation'.

き, in hiragana, キ in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent [ki] and are derived from a simplification of the 幾 kanji. The hiragana character き, like さ, is drawn with the lower line either connected or disconnected.

A dakuten may be added to the character; this transforms it into ぎ in hiragana, ギ in katakana, and gi in Hepburn romanization. The phonetic value also changes, to [ɡi] in initial, and varying between [ŋi] and [ɣi]in the middle of words.

A handakuten (゜) does not occur with ki in normal Japanese text, but it may be used by linguists to indicate a nasal pronunciation [ŋi].