D&D 5E Fighter should be called Knight and Monk Should be called Fighter, change my mind

[jmartkdr2]

What makes it a gendered word?

The feminine form is “dame.”

 

[Greg K]

What makes it a gendered word?

I think @Juxtapozbliss is referring to knighthood in our history, generally, being limited to men. Edit: ok, I think it is as jmartkdr2, wrote about dame being the female equivalent.

 

[MichaelSomething]

You're empowered to rename the classes into whatever best fits your game. You are the master of your game table and don't let WOTC tell you "you can't change that"!

 

[Laurefindel]

The feminine form is “dame.”

By curiosity, how do you feel about warlock and sorcerer (and to a lesser extent, paladin, cleric, and wizard)?

 

[jmartkdr2]

By curiosity, how do you feel about warlock and sorcerer (and to a lesser extent, paladin, cleric, and wizard)?

I feel meh. The idea of male witches doesn't bother me either, and frankly English isn't that gendered anymore. It doesn't irk me personally to call a woman a sorcerer rather than a sorceress. Heck, if we mean a female armored mounted medieval-ish warrior, then most people would just say "knight" anyways.

But I'm not against OP's suggestion re calling (most) fighters knights.

But if we're talking about ranks of nobility, there are no female knights, barons, earls, dukes or kings. There are dames, baronesses, countesses, duchesses, and queens.

 

[TiQuinn]

If we can make a word like actor non-gendered, why not knight?

 

[Quickleaf]

Monk should be called Knight, because they move so fast and jump so far they're clearly on horseback doing a barrel race.

 

[mellored]

Monk should be called Knight, because they move so fast and jump so far they're clearly on horseback doing a barrel race.

Can they only attack people who are 12' away?

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I am not familiar with those characters, but to be clear I was talking about boxing the sport (not sure if those characters are boxers or not---I can't weigh in on those in particular). But my point was really more that pugilist brings to mind figures like Muhammad Ali and Jack Dempsey or Jack Johnson, and there isn't the same treatment of boxing the way other martial arts have been treated in movies and books. You will sometimes see it. For example there are Chinese martial arts movies that have brought in western boxers as part of a broader martial world. And you will occasionally see boxing used to punch out a guy with a gun or something in American movies. But there isn't the monks deep lore and cinematic language for the pugilist. Jack Dempsey's championship fighting doesn't unlock the power in movies and novels that the Nine Yang Manual does. It is like the other poster said, we have long associated it with sport more than adventure stories. That isn't a comment on any of these things in real life.

Also something about pugilist feels a lot more limited than the monk. The monk is drawing on internal energy, pressure points, spirituality not just punching things really well or hitting people with liver shots. You can layer those kinds of things on a boxer/pugilist. But I think the buy in is steeper for most players

While not in these specific examples, a lot of fighting games or anime DO hve regular martial artists, boxers included, go toe to toe with superpowered beings and combat monsters. Some examples:

* Kaolan Wongsawat, a.k.a. Thai God of War, from Kengan Ashura. Muai Thai champion who went to dominate international boxing scene, and actualy prefers using boxing as his main style, keeping Muai Thai as last resort. He's a newcomer to a tournament of that series, one featuring actual superhumans, and fights on even ground and even pushes into the corner Kanoh Agito, who is basically a result of a sick experiment at creating MMA equivalent of a super soldier:

Spoiler: loses

Kanoh would only ever lose to Kuroki Gensai, an archetypical old master character and strongest character in the whole series so far, while Kaolan has only taken one other loss, through disqualification, to another boxer, Carlos Mendel, who uses Mexican boxing and whatever Capoeira he lerned "in a week, from a book with 3 star rating on Amazon".

• Balrog (known in Japan as M. Bison) and Dudley in Street Fighter are two boxers with opposite philosophies - Balrog is an aggressive thug, while Dudley is a proper gentleman. They're bitter rivals, but it should be noted in one of the game's endings Balrog kills a charging elephant with a single hit, and both characters regurally square up against dozens of outright superhumans this franchise is full of.
• TJ Combo from Killer Instinct, who can kill mutant dinosaurs, defeat deadly cyborg Fullgore or Orchid, a secret agent who single-handly killed army-slaughtering monster Eyedol.

So yes, the "boxer goes toe to toe with superhumans" is an established trope by now

 

[Shardstone]

I agree with OP, makes a lot of sense.