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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 1122641" data-attributes="member: 463">Monks are certainly a strong class IMC (PCs have higher stats & generally less magic items than standard).  I can see 2 reasons why Monks are often rated a poor class:1.  Monks are very stat dependent.  They need high STR, DEX, WIS, CON, and INT never hurts.  Many other classes can get by with 2 high stats.  This means that in a 25-point-buy (or even 30-point buy) game, Monks can't cover all their bases well, and look weak.  Monks gain the least benefit from having lots of magic items, also (as Fighters gain the most) so high-magic disfavours monks.2.  Monks are survivors, they are _Excellent_ at not dying.  Taken as individual characters, they look very powerful.  However their abilities are not very synergistic with other party members - and if everyone else dies, the Monk usually lacks the ability either to resurrect them or the offensive power to trash the baddies and recover the bodies.  That said, the high-level Monk in my current game (StalkingBlue's Monk-10) has certainly proven very effective as a party member in an 8-person party (6 PC 2 cohorts); her 60' movement has run down and eliminated several fleeing foes (I find the PCs previously had lots of trouble preventing defeated NPCs escaping); and her high Will save enabled her to disbelieve an illusionary pit fiend that would otherwise have killed the party's two Fighters.In all, I think your rating of the Monk as one of the stronger classes is reasonable, given the above.  I think you've rated Clerics too low though, their spontaneous healing makes their spellcasting pretty much as good as the Wizard, plus they're vastly tougher & better at fighting.  A 3.0 party with lots of Clerics really demonstrates this - it's a ridiculously powerful combination class.Edit: Off-hand I'd say a Cleric in 3.5 was roughly worth a Fighter 1 level higher, which under the CR system implies they're around 50% more powerful!  In 3.0 before the nerfing of the Buff spells I'd have said the Cleric was worth a Fighter 2 levels higher, ie around 100% more powerful.  However if you surprise and attack an NPC Cleric in a dungeon, they're no better than an NPC Fighter of similar level, so that's one way to justify the equivalent CR rating.</blockquote>

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