Do we really need Monks?

[Seeten]

Having listened to this all the way through, I think Monks need to be more generic, able to become the oriental wandering master, or to be able to become the martials arts masta(tm) or the hulking bruiser, or whatever unarmed fighter you want, and I think the rules need a tweak to make it happen. I like the idea of a new core class with a selection system, ala the defender, where you can pick of the options to be mystical, or whatnot.

I also dislike how the PrC's for monk basically steal my progression as far as the special powers go, then they, I feel, to balance all my saves/etc, give me practically no benefits except for some flavor. I find this with many PrC's tho, that they are vastly inferior to the core class. In the case of monk PrC's, I find them hilariously so. Monks have so many powers, to take 1 level outside monk means you lose your dmg reduction 10/magic, and thats pretty outstanding, so it had better give something back for that.

So, when I play the monk, I am stifled into continuing as the monk. Basically, if you stray from the path you "lose your cool powerz" and get nothing in return, for "balance" reasons. Its all part of lack of options. You get none. A couple of basically prechosen feats, this or that, this or that, and then you must follow it through to the end or get weaker. It is a choiceless process, which pigeonholes you into a specific sort of character. You can be a Fighter thats a Knight, with platemail, sword, shield, lance, horse and mounted combat + cleave, or a fighter with leather, bow, bow feats and fast movement feats + mounted combat for a plains horsewarrior, or anything in between, why does my monk have to be Shaolin/its FR equivalent?

Roleplaying isnt just about "I'm Jet Li, except nicer, and abused as a child" but about being more than just Jet Li. Sometimes I want to be an unarmored raging half-orc, who learned to fight better, and went barbarian/fighter, but still wears little armor, and has a massive axe. Sometimes I want to be a knight. Sometimes I want to be a martial artist, but not a temple raised ascetic. I can do it with the fighter. I cannot with the Monk. To me, thats the travesty here.

 

[JVisgaitis]

JVisgaitis, are you publishing your martial artist sometime?

Yes, but as a product. We're going to release a PDF which will explore unarmed combat to the fullest. We will of course have our unarmed combatant core class (I would kill for a cool name for this), new feats which will enhance unarmed combat for all classes, and maybe prestige classes that will outline more defined unarmed combatants outside of the new classes framework.

We're going to introduce a new set of feats that will work off of a new mechanic. Kinda like the feats needing Bardic Music, Turning Undead, Rage, etc. That way our unarmed combatant will have more of a schtick. I feel they should do unarmed combat better then anyone else, just like a Fighter can fight better then anyone else.

 

[Seeten]

Double Post

 

[JVisgaitis]

Seeten, most concise post I've read on this yet.

Sometimes I want to be a knight. Sometimes I want to be a martial artist, but not a temple raised ascetic. I can do it with the fighter. I cannot with the Monk. To me, thats the travesty here.

Amen.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Campaigns that rely exclusively on the core rules tend to be that way because the core rules are overwhelmingly European-flavoured. My argument is not that I don't want to use D&D to do Asian-style stuff but that in order to do that stuff, additional materials beyond the core rules are required.

See, I don't get this. Unless you've got a jones for setting-specific rules, there's pretty much all you need in the core books. I've run games based on India, Istanbul, Norway, Japan, Greece and Europe without ever using a setting-specific ruleset. Sure, not all of those were 3e but there's been virtually no work involved.

The vast majority of weapons tend to follow general trends and the differences tend to be in usage, something D&D doesn't model well at all. Take katana's & bastard swords: one was more for hacking the other for draw-cuts but both are slashing. Real world usage: significantly different, in-game difference: nil. Those foreign names are generally the same dang name just in a foreign language. Sometimes I wonder if the english word "longsword" has some weird connotations in japan the way katana does in the 'States.

At most you adjust some weapons' categories. Some weapons are martials in some regions and exotic in others. Simple weapons should always be simple but whether or not the weapon is part of the regular combat training or not is cultural. In general, however, the effort is minimal.

 

[Afrodyte]

I'll concur with a previous poster(s) who said the main problem with the core monk is its rigidity. Even for an Asian campaign it's too rigid, both in concept and execution. It's also frustrating that the monk is the only viable martial artist in the game, and you have to pick up baggage you neither need nor want to do it. The alignment and multiclassing restrictions don't help either. I believe the monk's role can be expanded to include not just unarmed martial artists, but also non-tank melee warriors. Arcana Unearthed has the Unfettered and the Warmain. Perhaps the PHB could do with a parallel class.

 

[Doctor Shaft]

Interestingly, I find the Unfettered class to also be one of those "unnecessary baggage" classes, just like the monk class -- only it avoids calling itself "Asian".

It's a creative idea, but ultimately, what's the difference between one unfettered and the other? Also, Unfettered is more akin to the swashbuckling class. The alternative "monk" class in AU is the Oathsworn... which is ironically just as rigid and stifling as the D&D monk class (in my opinion). Unfettered has great ideas, and CAN be about unarmed combat, etc., but it does not actually fill the "unarmed combat specialist" niche. That's the oathsworn classes position. And again, it has some of the same annoyances as the monk.

I like the monk as is. But only because I actually like the concept and idea. I have roleplayed with other "monk" players, and I can see what some people are talking about. Alot of people really want a "martial artist" ala Chan, Li, or even some other movie/storybook hand-and-foot fighter. Not necessarily a mystic ascetic.

Me, I love the ascetic mysticism. And I still disagree that the monk is hard to integrate into a fantasy world. For instance, some posters here have this vast array of European history and knowledge. I, on the other hand, along with others, don't really know that much about it. Or, if we do, we simply don't care to recount it. (Note, I'm not trying to take a jab here).

Hence, monks entering the foray with armored swordsman makes complete sense. Admitedly, the monk does require a bit of stretching. So no, the monk isn't just like fighters and rogues. It's like trains and guns in Eberron. You have to be willing to stretch the boundaries.

 

[fusangite]

I think that there is a deep flaw in demanding this personal interpretation be submitted to by everyone else.

I'm not demanding that anyone do anything. What I am saying is this: I know that a significant portion of people who play D&D share my priorities to a greater or lesser degree. For those people who share my priorities, the core rules are deficient in how they deal with Oriental material. People who share my priorities need more Oriental material in the core before the monk class is useable by us as a core class.

I'm not saying that people who don't share my approach and priorities are playing the game wrong when they include monks as written in the core rules, unsupplemented by other materials. What I am saying is that they have an opportunity that the rules do not provide people who share my priorities.

The core rules easily encompass a European flavor. But they are not remotely limited to that.

If you mean that the core rules do not limit people from adding material that lets their game be Oriental, African or Mesoamerican in character, I am in full agreement with you. But if you are saying that the core rules, by themselves provide sufficient material for people to run Oriental, African or Mesoamerican campaigns without either purchasing or generating large amounts of additional material, I must disagree with you. The archetypes provided are too rooted in Europe -- Samurai and Paladins might both be code-bound fighters but things break down after that. A dozen or so specifically non-European monsters and one specifically non-European class are insufficient resources by themselves.

D&D is not designed to be a Tolkein simulation exculsively. I received a bunch of new editions of Robert E. Howard stuff for Christmas. There seems to be more East Africa / Mid-East flavor going on there than Europe. But I've never heard anyone complain that D&D can't do Howard.

I'm not suggesting D&D is meant to be a Tolkien simulation. If it were, it would be awful. Robert E Howard is, in fact, a perfect example of what I'm talking about. His world is Europe, North Africa and the Near East as viewed through European mythic history. His Near Eastern and African places and cultures are not based on how people in those places saw themselves; they are based on how Europeans imagined them.

Hong,

You seem to be arguing that Monk = person capable of killing or fighting with their bare hands. And that any historical or mythological individual who has done this is best represented through the monk class.

You argue that the name of the monk class, its abilities that do not pertain to melee fighting, its weapon proficiencies and the text describing it are irrelevant. And that the only relevant thing about the monk is its allegedly unique capacity to kill things with unarmed strikes.

I do not accept this reasoning.

Any class can take the Improved Unarmed Strike feat, thereby enabling them to carry out the functions that you seem to perceive as the exclusive purview of the monk.

Because you somehow have got it into your head that Monk=anyone who can kill something with his bare hands, you then argue that the monk is suited to European-flavoured campaigns because of the many stories in which European heroes do fight creatures with their bare hands.

This is a cheap tactic. What you are doing is changing a necessary condition into a sufficient condition: a necessary condition for D&D monks is the ability to fight unarmed therefore if a character can fight unarmed, they meet the criteria for being a D&D monk. If that were the case then every character class capable of obtaining Improved Unarmed Strike (all classes) would therefore be monks.

Let me make an argument similar to yours: Saint Christina the Astonishing could detect evil at will. The paladin is the only D&D class that can detect evil at will. Therefore Saint Christina the Astonishing is best modeled as a paladin. This falls down immediately upon noting that Saint Christina could also levitate at will.

You offer the following example:

D00d, I just gave you an example of a heroic fighter who fought one of his most famous battles unarmed. Here's another: Beowulf killing Grendel's mother. How much longer are you going to continue redefining this thing into oblivion?

Beowulf did not kill Grendel's mother with his bare hands. He struck he with his sword. It broke. He then wrestled her with his bare hands for a while. Then

He saw a blade that boded well,
a sword in her armoury, an ancient heirloom
from the days of the giants, an ideal weapon,
one that any warrior would envy,
but so huge and heavy of itself
only Beowulf could wield it in battle

He then beheaded Grendel's mother with the sword. This makes my point very nicely. Beowulf killed Grendel's mother with a weapon for which the monk does not have a proficiency.

Irrelevant. You said that unarmed combatants with superhuman abilities were not part of European tradition. I gave a counterexample.

That's right. Unarmed fighters with superhuman abilities were not part of European tradition. Proficient swordsmen who, when deprived of their weapons, could still fight absolutely were. But no -- there is no mainstream Western tradition of the martial fighter who eschews arms. That is a particularly Oriental thing -- one of the most interesting and exciting features of Oriental settings.

A single episode in a swordsman's life in which he defends himself ably after being disarmed does not make him an "unarmed fighter." The monk class is one that does better without arms than with; European tradition does not contain this as an heroic archetype.

Irrelevant. The point is that it _can_ be represented using a monk, without requiring any oriental mysticism or similar out-of-area handwaving. That _was_ your primary beef, was it not?

Oh yeah -- this is really reminding me of that alignment thread. Yes -- I happily acknolwledge that if you change the rules to eliminate the problem I'm having, I won't have a problem with the rules. Just don't pretend that your rule changes are the core rules.

D00d, you have to rework D&D wholesale to make it emulate _any_ specific culture rigorously.

I'm not arguing for rigour; if I were, I wouldn't be playing D&D. I'm just arguing for functionality. I'm asking: is this class close enough to an available cultural archetype that I can use it? The druid is. The monk is not.

The same applies to oddities like druids, sorcs, drow, etc.

No they don't. You're using another hackneyed rhetorical strategy:
1. You claim I want classes to map to cultural archetypes with 100% accuracy (not a demand I am making)
2. You then argue that classes that map to cultural archetypes with 65% accuracy and classes that map to cultural archetypes with 10% accuracy are effectively the same because they share the attribute of mapping with greater than 0% accuracy and less than 100% accuracy.

This then allows you to say

To that extent, I fail to see the distinction between monks and any other anachronism in the game. The point is that since you seem willing to use Celtic precedents to justify including druids in the game (despite actual druids being a few centuries out of time relative to a pseudo-medieval setting), there should be no problem in using Greek precedents to justify unarmed fighters as well. And it's not a huge step from unarmed fighter -> monk.

But the fact is that the monk class doesn't really resemble anything in European tradition and the druid does.

After I gave you some information on Greco-Roman wrestling, you asked:

Make up your mind. Are we talking myth, or history?

I'm talking myth. I gave you the history of this group in order to offer some explanations for why something that was very much part of Mediterranean Hellenistic and Roman culture did not find its ways into European myth. I then suggested that if someone wanted to do a campaign with such individuals, it would therefore be best sited in Antiquity.

Do you know where you can regularly find accounts of flying, teleporting, blasting mages?

Generally, read documents from the Middle Ages. I'm not going to assemble a reading list for you but I will give you one example because it's sitting on the shelf next to the computer and therefore doesn't force me to ask myself, "Why am I going through my files for Hong?" So, here's one example: Agobard of Lyons writing on Weather Magic in 815 AD. The weather wizards (tempestarii) described by Agobard have abilities essentially identical to the following D&D spells: Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud, Gust of Wind, Sleet Storm, Fly, Ice Storm and Call Lightning.

I'm a little confused about the last part of your response.

I'll repeat this for emphasis: How do Improved Unarmed Strike, Weapon Focus (Unarmed), Weapon Specialization (Unarmed), Greater Weapon Focus (Unarmed) and Greater Weapon Specialization (Unarmed) not get the job done? If you do that, then when one reads about Beowulf or Hercules wrestling some horrible creature, him picking up a sword in the next scene makes a whole lot more sense than if one depicts this person as a monk who doesn't have proficiency in that weapon.

Irrelevant.

…for many people, what something represents is the archetype to which it refers. What do you mean by "represent"?

What can be modelled by its class abilities. What in-game rationale can be thought up for the class. What cool powers it brings to the character-creation toolkit. Etcetera; pick the answer that suits you best.

Help me out here: I have conclusively demonstrated that every European hero you have offered as an example can be modeled with the Fighter class and cannot be modeled with the monk class without taking a heap of speculative weapon proficiencies. So, how does the monk class help us to model European heroes if you can't come up with one that wouldn't be better modeled with the Fighter class?

The idea of evil or dark elves is represented in Norse myth. Change their god and you're good to go.

You seem to have either forgotten the colour reversal, or confused metaphorical "dark" with literal "dark".

Remember the Xvart in the 1E Fiend Folio? That was supposed to be Norse dark elf. Note the dark blue skin.

you basically don't want to play D&D. Didn't I say this before?

No. I just want to play D&D with a different emphasis than you do. Fortunately, your way of playing D&D is not the only way.

The fact that you consider Asian myth FROM THE SAME GENERAL TIME PERIOD to be "incompatible" strikes me as rather myopic.

No. It just indicates a different cognitive organization than you have.

3) I look forward to seeing laser guns in your next game. After all, they don't appear in any incompatible culture/myth system.

Ah… I want to comment on this as the third shopworn rhetorical tactic you fall back on. You did it when I argued that I had a problem with the name of the class too. You argued then that because I had a problem with the class's name, that was the only thing about the class with which I had a problem. Now, you're arguing that because I do not automatically reject things that that are brand new and not specifically referential to any particular myth tradition, that I must therefore accept uncritically everything that is new and does not refer to a specific myth tradition.

Just as the fact that a dictionary defines the word "monk" in a particular way has no implications for setting.

Of course the name of a class has implications for the setting. You acknowledge that immediately by suggesting that I can solve my problem by renaming the class. Unfortunately, the name of the class is one of a very long list of things I would need to change about the class to make it correspond to Beowulf or Hercules -- an enterprise rendered especially quixotic because Beowulf and Hercules are already modeled perfectly well using other classes in the core rules without any changes.

Klaus,

You have gone through my list and kindly replaced all the Oriental references with references to Greek mythology. It doesn't alter the fact that
(a) the class doesn't actually correspond to an archetypal Greek hero archetype;
(b) many of the class abilities (e.g. fast movement) do not in any way correspond with the mythical abilities of Greek pugilists;
(c) the class still can't use most of the weapons Greek fighters (including those trained in wrestling) actually used;
(d) faith in self was not a principle associated with any Greek philosophy or viewed as a reservoir from which power could be drawn;
(e) still being good in your old age does not correspond to not aging; and
(f) you have not demonstrated that practice of this art was a full-time occupation.

Unless you've got a jones for setting-specific rules, there's pretty much all you need in the core books. I've run games based on India, Istanbul, Norway, Japan, Greece and Europe without ever using a setting-specific ruleset. Sure, not all of those were 3e but there's been virtually no work involved.

I think you're GMing for a set of players with different standards than mine for what makes a setting feel authentic and believable.

The vast majority of weapons tend to follow general trends and the differences tend to be in usage, something D&D doesn't model well at all. Take katana's & bastard swords: one was more for hacking the other for draw-cuts but both are slashing. Real world usage: significantly different, in-game difference: nil. Those foreign names are generally the same dang name just in a foreign language. Sometimes I wonder if the english word "longsword" has some weird connotations in japan the way katana does in the 'States.

If the weapons and people having different names is the only difference you perceive between settings then I imagine this would be very easy for you. Unfortunately, my players and I require more substantial differences in order to make a setting work.

As I have said to other posters, the arguments I raise are the arguments of people who share my priorities. I'm not asking you to share my priorities; what I'm saying in this thread is that the core rules, as they stand, do not enable people with these priorities to use the Monk class.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Not that I think the unfettered makes a good martial artist, but what baggage did it have?

 

[Doctor Shaft]

Well, okay. The Unfettered doesn't have nearly "as much" baggage, but in terms of character outlook and personality, it still has more than say D&D fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric. then again, when I believe that AU is a very thematic game in terms of how its classes are built which adds something different to d20, but isn't super general.

Basically, The Unfettered are "generally" very swashbuckling types. They eschew the careful planning of warmain's, or magisters, etc. Basically, Unfettered's are like pirates and bandits of all kinds. It's alot more flexible than the monk, so I guess I did misrepresent it a bit.

But, at the end of the day, unless of course you "bend the rules to your imagination" a core Unfettered is a wild, seat-by-the-pants swashbuckler that enjoys treasure and adventure, and generally avoids the more retrospective, internal natures of some of the other classes. In essensce - Unfettered is not generic.

At least, that's my opinion.