Do we really need Monks?

[Arcane Runes Press]

D&D is not designed for historical adventuring. It is oriented towards fantasy/mythic adventuring. Thus, in most D&D stories, people are adventuring in a mythic past. Regardless of whatever cases people might find of unarmed fighters in European history, there is no presence of such individulas in European myth or mythic histories. For this reason, monks are inappropriate for most D&D settings because most D&D settings are grounded in a shared mythic European past.

Not as soon as they start using core rules magic, magic items and monsters, they aren't.

Djinni sit next to dragons, which sit next to mind flayers which sit next to beholders which sit next to trolls (which have nothing to do with their historical counterparts).

There are magic carpets, and magical scimitars, and spells that have as much in common with a shared mythical European past as the game Doom does.

Personally, I think the monk fits fine in the core rules.

 

[ivocaliban]

I don't generally allow players to "dip" into the monk pool. My concept of a monk requires far too much dedication for people to simply pick up a few levels of the class along the way. I'm a bit more lenient for those who begin as monks, but only if the storyline takes them in a direction that would allow more than a convenient excuse for multiclassing.

"Sure, if you want your Rogue to take a level in Monk, that's fine. Your character spends the next five years with Master Woah studying the Way of the Flaccid Snake. Meanwhile, everyone else in your party continues the current adventure."

 

[Darkness]

"Sure, if you want your Rogue to take a level in Monk, that's fine. Your character spends the next five years with Master Woah studying the Way of the Flaccid Snake. Meanwhile, everyone else in your party continues the current adventure."

So monk is a prestige class IYC?

 

[Deadguy]

I have traditionally been of the mindset that said Monks have no place in a standard D&D game. Recently however, when designing my new Talyr setting, I managed to fit in both Monks and Psionics in one package! I simply make ki powers a form of Psychic power, and thus related the Monk to the Psychic Warrior. Indeed I now think there's a niche for a reworked Monk that does this expressly. After doing this I no longer had the uncomfortable feeling of including an Eastern archetype in a Western setting.

 

[ivocaliban]

So monk is a prestige class IYC?

It would be, if i cared enough to give it requirements. Instead, I just use the traditional DM requirement: "You can be a Monk when I say so."

 

[Doctor Shaft]

I've never understood the aversion to monks, or oriental culture for that matter. I find it bizarre that someone can so readily mesh all the "western" worlds together with little or no provocation, but anything remotely "oriental" is suddenly earth-shattering in concept and flavor. Or even accept all the bizarre monsters that D&D has in it. Really, a lot of the gods and creatures have no real relations to each other (although it is very easy to simply use the monsters you want). So in that way, I've never seen D&D as "expressly western" fantasy.

I found Monte Cook's Oathsworn to be very wanting. It was like "here's a monk who's basically only powerful with his hands because he's lost his mind." He had cool ideas, but it was like he just sucked all the fun and mysticism of the monk right out of the class.

I can understand when people want a strictly "medieval" setting though. It's like the Psionics. Some people accept it, others deny it entirely.

Me? I'll have to just come out and admit that I play monks almost every time I get involved in some kind of campaign, which admitedly isn't very often, although I've been playing a monk character now for close to a year. It's very fun. I think the class is great because it goes beyond simply "butt-kicking" if you take the class seriously. I've always seen the class as a very 'internal' or insightful class. Some people don't care for characters like that of course, and rather have a group of chaotic evil thieves and thugs. But hey, to each his own.

And is it just me, or is there always a stealthy "why monks suck" thread that comes around on fantasy boards every so often?

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

- AD&D 2nd Ed. (~1990) removed them from the core rules.
- And then they came back in some 2nd Ed. supplement book (~1995, probably in the cleric class kit book).

It actually came back in the AD&D2 accessory The Scarlet Brotherhood. The monk class is rather integral to the Greyhawk setting. There is a significant nation run by evil monks and assassins called, not strangely, "The Scarlet Brotherhood". The Scarlet Brotherhood also reintroduced the assassin class to 2nd ed.

Greyhawk assumptions were at the front of the 3e design team minds. And it was Greyhawk where many of the first impressions of D&D were made in the early years of the game, so many out there wished for certain Greyhawkian conceits to return to the game.

IMO.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[pogre]

I do not allow Monks for flavor reasons. Sounds like you want to do the same. It has never been an issue in my campaigns. I have a couple of players who wish I would use psionics, but nobody really cares about Monks.

It's your world do what you want.

 

[wingsandsword]

In defense of Monks

Yes, Monks aren't in line with a strictly Tolkien inspired fantasy setting, but while Tolkien is a large part of the D&D inspiration, it's not even close to all of it. Teleportation magic isn't in-theme at all with Tolkien either, but it's an integral part of D&D and people would be outraged if the next edition left out Teleport because it "wasn't thematic".

As has been said, Monks have been left out of D&D, and it didn't quite feel right, it's just part of a tradition composed of quasi-historic elements, a healthy dose of Tolkien, flavored with Vance, a few notes cribbed from Howard, some bits copied from old Kurosawa films and 70's Kung Fu movies, the thumbprints of Judeo-Christian faiths, some pages from the legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood, a few shades of Lovecraft along the way, and the purely original ideas from everyone from Gygax to Salvatore. D&D isn't just Tolkien, after all this time it's truly something unique to itself.

The concept of a monk, of a religious person devoted to a life of spiritual pursuits and perfection of body and/or soul isn't strictly eastern. Monks were very much a western concept, except the western Monk was typically much more intellectual, as opposed to the martial-arts warrior stereotype of the east (speaking in broad stereotypes). Of course, since this is D&D and not a historical reenactment, we already change around a lot of things from normal historical standards, so swapping out a Western Monk for an Eastern Monk is hardly the biggest change.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't see what you gaijin are making a big fuss about. Personally, it wouldn't be D&D without the monk class. Otherwise, name the RPG something else.