[ELH] Monk: My fists are useless!

[Pylar]

We came across the same problem in our home campaign. And the player was happy with Greater Magic Fang, and a Permentency spell cast. He had the magical weapon, and kept the open slot for the bracers he used. The hardest part was convincing the spell caster to spend the XP for the permentency spell.

 

[Stalker0]

Well the monk may have gotten the shaft on DR, but they sure got santa's bag of goodies on everything else. Hell they have saves through the roof, improved evasion, they are the fastest class in the game, they are immune to disease and toxins, they don't age!! (which can be damn handy in an epic level campaign, when you start getting all those nice bonuses to wis), mad spell resistance, and can jump down the grand canyon without a stratch.

They're not fighters, if you want that kind of power, I say suck it up and get them a kama of ungodly godliness As a fighter I don't get a choice to use my fists (unless I want 1d4 +str of course

I've always thought monks got too much in terms of their special abilities, and its good when something comes up that actually balances them, IMHO.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I hear what you're saying and it sounds a lot like
"wah wah wah, monk can't do everything, wah wah wah".

Sure, the monk, without using a weapon, spell or other magic item cannot overcome significant DR.

Well, surprise surprise, noone else can either. In fact, the fact that the monk is able to overcome ANY DR is a mark in his favour, not a point to complain about.

Break out the cash, and actually spend it on making up for a weakness. Other characters have to.

 

[FANGO]

Monks have the ability to use kamas, etc. for a reason. This reason is significant DR. The monk is mostly a melee class, and yet they have the advantage of not needing to have magical weapons to keep up (their base damage goes up, they get lots of attacks, they can overcome some DR...). However, they needed to give the monk some incentive to buy weapons, because otherwise they would just have too much money to spend on bracers of armor and rings of protection for ungodly ACs. So they let monks bypass some DR, but if they want to be any help vs that pit fiend they'll have to buckle down and get themselves a kama, or figure out some other creative way to contribute to the battle (and there are plenty of these...aid another, flanking while in full defensive, tripping, all sorts of fun things).

 

[Anubis]

Why don't you just get Vestments of Faith as early as possible?

Since creatures can overcome DR equal to their own when using natural weapons, Monk would have DR at 5/+5 and be able to hit creatures with up to x/+5 DR.

 

[Stalker0]

Why don't you just get Vestments of Faith as early as possible?

Since creatures can overcome DR equal to their own when using natural weapons, Monk would have DR at 5/+5 and be able to hit creatures with up to x/+5 DR.

A creature can bypass its own innate damage reduction. So something with a 10/+1 DR could hit another 10/+1 normally without invoking DR.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

I hear what you're saying and it sounds a lot like
"wah wah wah, monk can't do everything, wah wah wah".

I was trying to have a rules based discussion, if you don't have anything to add you do not have to post.

No class can do everything. I'm merely examining the ki strike ability and finding it to be useless.

Honestly, I would rather remove it from the class then have it as it is. Then introduce items that perform the same functionality with a scaling formula.

All the suggestions I've seen so far back up my misgivings about ki strike. Some common solutions:
- Use a magic weapon (monk weapons)
- Get gloves/greater magic fang
- Use other Misc. Magic item

All of these suggestions simply discard ki strike and replace the ability by a magic item. I'd rather just drop ki strike and force unarmed monk's to get a magic item (much like fighters and magic weapons), as opposed to having a class ability that is inadequate.

To many times I've seen players go "I could be a monk and fight with my fists!" As a character concept, it's pretty neat. They focus their feats on unarmed combat, but when it comes to fighting a creature with DR, there is nothing the character can do.

Just recently I played a one shot, another player and myself as the party, where the other player wanted to do this at Epic levels. I told him flat out it wouldn't work and had the DM arrange for him to "pick up some gloves", otherwise he would serve no purpose in combat. He only got three feats at Epic levels and he did not want to spend *all* of them on Improved Ki Strike.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Why don't you just get Vestments of Faith as early as possible?

Since creatures can overcome DR equal to their own when using natural weapons, Monk would have DR at 5/+5 and be able to hit creatures with up to x/+5 DR.

I dunno... if stoneskin won't work, why would vestments of faith?

 

[Shalewind]

Since creatures can overcome DR equal to their own when using natural weapons, Monk would have DR at 5/+5 and be able to hit creatures with up to x/+5 DR.

Is this accurate??? Wow! That seems like a pretty kickin' ability. Is this a mis-use on the intended purpose of an item or were all things with a DR meant to function like this?

 

[CRGreathouse]

Is this accurate??? Wow! That seems like a pretty kickin' ability. Is this a mis-use on the intended purpose of an item or were all things with a DR meant to function like this?

It's wrong; see DMG page 74 (bullet #4). Only innate DR helps.