Allow Monks to take martial feats

[Starfox]

I can understand why WotC did it they way they did.

• It sells more books. Martial heroes are very popular, and extra stuff for them appreciated, like martial rituals and feats.
• It lessens the load on future rule writers. By limiting the combinations, it becomes somewhat feasible for a designer (or player) to grasp the options available to each class.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Because Swordmages, Bards, Avengers, Paladins, and Clerics aren't weapon using classes, and so their power source feats should be denied them?

That doesn't make sense.

Umm. You're right. What ARE you talking about?

I'm saying to change any feat which requires a martial class and re-type it as requiring a weapon (or nothing at all).

Most of the arcane and divine feats can be redone to require an implement. Some of the swordmage specific ones would require weapons.

I mean why shouldn't an invoker get access to something like arcane reserves? Getting better because you ran out of spells isn't really a defining 'thing' of arcane spells... the opposite is true in fact.

Why shouldn't martial classes get benefits from following up a ranged attack with a melee one? (Closing Advantage).

Why should it be only fighters and rogues who can pick up a +4 to damage vs surprised foes?

etc.

There will be some feats that hinge on a specific class feature, like...

And how do you rework the Channel Divinity feats?

this. Obviously they still require the class feature. There's going to be martial ones that work similarly: it's no good getting larger quarry dice if you can't quarry, for instance.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yes it would, but then the monk is spending an extra feat they may not want to...
Why should a monk have to focus on non-monk training to learn feats perfectly suited to a monk?

I guess that the issue is that the designers view of monks doesn't match with your view of monks. You see them as a martial artist, and they see them as a psionic artist, effectively.

It seems that it will be difficult to answer this question well until the Monk class is finally visible; I could imagine that a Monk/Fighter hybrid might work well for a more traditional martial artist though.

Cheers

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't know if it would be particularly unbalanced. Probably not, until the point where there will be a host of psionic feats that stack with the martial feats in unexpected ways.

 

[hvg3akaek]

My personal crazy "flavour vs rules" moment was when I realised that my Razorclaw shifter Monk couldn't make use of Blurring Claws to do extra damage, seeing all his attacks were 'implement' based, not weapons...never mind that he's attacking with fist and claw!

 

[Saeviomagy]

My personal crazy "flavour vs rules" moment was when I realised that my Razorclaw shifter Monk couldn't make use of Blurring Claws to do extra damage, seeing all his attacks were 'implement' based, not weapons...never mind that he's attacking with fist and claw!

Wow. Monks sound totally stupid.

 

[hvg3akaek]

Wow. Monks sound totally stupid.

nah, the one crazy rule (which is very easily house-ruled) doesn't make the rest of the class less fun to play. I still enjoy having a guy who can somersault through the air and move upwards of 15 squares a round!

 

[eriktheguy]

I'm finding this meta-discussion more interesting than the original post. Someone feel free to make it a thread.

 

[Grimgrin]

The existing martial classes can be converted into a "monkish" class a couple of ways. For unarmed attacks I would extrapolate that the enhancement bonus given to armor also counts as a "magic weapon" enhancement to unarmed attacks (similar to magic staffs used as a quarterstaff).

1. Pair of Spiked Gauntlets: Great for Two Weapon Fighter (MP1) and better for the Brawler Fighter (MP 2).
2. Belt of Brawling (AV): Turns unarmed attacks into "clubs", good for Ruthless Ruffian rogue.
3. Quarterstaff used as a double weapon with a the Staff Fighting feat (Dragon Mag 368) with the ranger's twin weapon powers.