D&D (2024) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"

[Tales and Chronicles]

I don't know what you mean by an Iron Rider

Mongolian/Chinese heavy lancer cavalry. I imagine an armored barbarian who can share its rage bonus with their fully plated warhorse!

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Clearly the solution is to bring D&D back to B/X. Just plain fighter covers all cultural archetypes and call it a day.

That's why I prefer only 4 core classes. Make those cultural archetypes...well...archetypes:


Fighter: Champion, Paladin, Berserker, Totemist, Samurai, Ranger, Brawler
Rogue: Thief, Scout, Duelist, Bard, Ninja, Outrider, Warlock
Wizard: Scholar, Onmyo mage, Geomancer, Alchemist, Exorcist, Warmage, Seer
Cleric: Priest, Druid, Shaiir, Animist, Avenger

 

[Micah Sweet]

If they hadn't done away with specialty priests in 3rd ed we could have just applied that type of thing to Monks and had specialty monks based on function and beliefs. I really do miss specialty priests. It added so much meat to religous orders.

2e had it right.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But we're not talking about encounters. We're talking about campaigns themselves, and how the Player Character classes fit into the fabric of the world and story, and how it might therefore inform their design. Well, at least I am.

I was talking about things likely to happen in a game, with real players.

 

[Yaarel]

In the European Animistic cultures, the Bard is spot on. But in some of the Asian Animistic traditions the Daoist elementalism and alchemy can be a significant feature, so the Druid class elementalism can be a better fit. Popculture probably thinks of "transmuting led into gold" when thinking about alchemy. But actually, alchemy is interested in all kinds of things, including medicine, even medical treatments that make a human free from sickness and death, whence methods of immortality and so on. The Druid being both elemental and healing is excellent here.

Both the European Hellenist elementalism and the Asian Daoist elemenalism have five elements.

Daoist Elements	Hellenist Elements	Medieval Elements
Metal ≈ Crystal	Earth	Solid
Tree ≈ Air	Air	Gas
Water	Water	Liquid
Fire	Fire	Plasma ("heavenly fire" of sun, etc.)
Soil ≈ Space (Fifth Element)	Ether (Fifth Element)	Force (gravity, substance that lacks matter)

The main difference between the Daoist elements and the Hellenist elements is, the Daoist describes elemental ways of moving, while the Hellenist describes elemental particles of substance. But by the Medieval Period, protoscientists (such as Maimonides) interpret the Hellenistic elements as referring to states of matter (solid, gas, and liquid) rather than kinds of atoms. Thus the Hellenistic system too ends up describing elemental ways of moving, much like the Daoist system does. (The medieval descriptions of "heavenly fire", namely plasma, including the sun and the "dark fire" cold plasmosphere around the Earth, plus the descriptions of the immaterial "force" that keeps the planets in orbit, are amazingly modern.)

Both Tree and Air are ways of moving that expand and encompass other elements within it, thus are understood as the same element, the same elemental way of moving. For example, the Tree element correlates oracles about winds in the I Ching.

Similarly, both Soil and Space are understood as the same element, being motionless, where the other elements are able to have place and exist.

Originally, in the Greek language, Air (aēr) refers to the atmospheric haze of the clouds and below corresponding to weather patterns, while the Ether (aithēr) is the purity above clouds without weather or debris. As such, the Ether came to associate with the stuff that immortals are made out of as well as the stuff of the heavens generally. Explanations for what ether is range from the proto-matter that preexists the other four elements that form from it within it, to the stuff that the soul, spirit, and consciousness are made out of, to invisible immaterial force that keeps the planets in orbit. In some alchemical formulas, the alchemist adds "ether" as an ingredient by focusing their mental intention on the alchemical process. In other words, the spirit of the alchemist is the stuff of ether.


The D&D Druid class can handle all of this elementalism.

Both the Druid and the Wizard exhibit elemental themes. In contexts where the traditions focus on nature, healing, body and soul, the Druid can be a better fit.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not wrong, and you know it.

Mod Note:

Everyone- let’s not be needlessly provocative with our rhetoric, OK? Thanks.

 

[Yaarel]

Clearly the solution is to bring D&D back to B/X. Just plain fighter covers all cultural archetypes and call it a day.

What usually happens with this "one size fits all" approach is, European cultures (for D&D, mainly Britain whence the US) tend to assume ones own sensibilities are "universal", thus force them onto other cultures thus misrepresenting them. Most of this happens unconsciously and every culture is guilty of this kind of ethnocentrism.

It is better to have each reallife culture represent itself. If one of the Asian cultures is an inspiration for a concept in D&D, it enriches the game to include contributions from that reallife culture.

That said. It helps if the 2024 core base classes start with a multicultural flavor, where the subclasses and other design spaces can bring to life more specific cultural inspirations.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's why I prefer only 4 core classes. Make those cultural archetypes...well...archetypes:


Fighter: Champion, Paladin, Berserker, Totemist, Samurai, Ranger, Brawler
Rogue: Thief, Scout, Duelist, Bard, Ninja, Outrider, Warlock
Wizard: Scholar, Onmyo mage, Geomancer, Alchemist, Exorcist, Warmage, Seer
Cleric: Priest, Druid, Shaiir, Animist, Avenger

Wait. We're burning it all down and the Champion still gets to hang around wasting ink, paper and the general stuff of existence it doesn't deserve?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Wait. We're burning it all down and the Champion still gets to hang around wasting ink, paper and the general stuff of existence it doesn't deserve?

Well, not the champion as-presented by WotC, but the Champion as a warrior-athlete, probably stealing a few things from the glory paladins.

Migthy jumps, lift tons, grapple huge baddies and all that.

 

[nevin]

In the European Animistic cultures, the Bard is spot on. But in some of the Asian Animistic traditions the Daoist elementalism and alchemy can be a significant feature, so the Druid class elementalism can be a better fit. Popculture probably thinks of "transmuting led into gold" when thinking about alchemy. But actually, alchemy is interested in all kinds of things, including medicine, even medical treatments that make a human free from sickness and death, whence methods of immortality and so on. The Druid being both elemental and healing is excellent here.

Both the European Hellenist elementalism and the Asian Daoist elemenalism have five elements.

Daoist Elements	Hellenist Elements	Medieval Elements
Metal ≈ Crystal	Earth	Solid
Tree ≈ Air	Air	Gas
Water	Water	Liquid
Fire	Fire	Plasma ("heavenly fire" of sun, etc.)
Soil ≈ Space (Fifth Element)	Ether (Fifth Element)	Force (gravity, substance that lacks matter)

The main difference between the Daoist elements and the Hellenist elements is, the Daoist describes elemental ways of moving, while the Hellenist describes elemental particles of substance. But by the Medieval Period, protoscientists (such as Maimonides) interpret the Hellenistic elements as referring to states of matter (solid, gas, and liquid) rather than kinds of atoms. Thus the Hellenistic system too ends up describing elemental ways of moving, much like the Daoist system does. (The medieval descriptions of "heavenly fire", namely plasma, including the sun and the "dark fire" cold plasmosphere around the Earth, plus the descriptions of the immaterial "force" that keeps the planets in orbit, are amazingly modern.)

Both Tree and Air are ways of moving that expand and encompass other elements within it, thus are understood as the same element, the same elemental way of moving. For example, the Tree element correlates oracles about winds in the I Ching.

Similarly, both Soil and Space are understood as the same element, being motionless, where the other elements are able to have place and exist.

Originally, in the Greek language, Air (aēr) refers to the atmospheric haze of the clouds and below corresponding to weather patterns, while the Ether (aithēr) is the purity above clouds without weather or debris. As such, the Ether came to associate with the stuff that immortals are made out of as well as the stuff of the heavens generally. Explanations for what ether is range from the proto-matter that preexists the other four elements that form from it within it, to the stuff that the soul, spirit, and consciousness are made out of, to invisible immaterial force that keeps the planets in orbit. In some alchemical formulas, the alchemist adds "ether" as an ingredient by focusing their mental intention on the alchemical process. In other words, the spirit of the alchemist is the stuff of ether.


The D&D Druid class can handle all of this elementalism.

Both the Druid and the Wizard exhibit elemental themes. In contexts where the traditions focus on nature, healing, body and soul, the Druid can be a better fit.

ummmmmmm no it's not. The bard was a celtic job that held the knowledge of the people and shared it. They were honor bound to repeat the songs and the knowledge that they had exactly as they'd learned it. Everything you see about the Bard in DND has just turned them into the slightly magical rock star of the game. There is nothing in the bard class in dnd that matches the historical or even mythical Bard. The bard has less of the original culture that spawned it than the monk does.

Edit: And there is some but no difinitive evidence that suggests they were considered members of the Druid orders.