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

Pugilism specifically refers to boxing though.
Interestingly, up through the early 18th century, pugilists were trained in both unarmed fighting and some weapons (sword, dagger, buckler, and cudgel (and/or quarterstaff)). Their unarmed techniques included not only punches, but some kicks (e.g. shin-kicks), throws, chokes and grappling. They could even use techniques such as eye gouges, fish-hooking, head-butts, and groin shots.
An example of a James Figg fight involved One round would be fought with swords. Another round fought unarmed. The third round was fought with cudgels.

In 1743 Broughton introduced the first set of rules which included such things as no weapons, no eye gouging, no hair grabbing, no striking a downed opponent.
 
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Both should be called Fighters.

The Warrior Category of classes should be called the Fighter category.

They should have Fighter, Expert, and Magic-User. as overarching categories. And some classes can have multiple categories. Keep the Power Sources out of it, just highlight the roles.
 

If we can make a word like actor non-gendered, why not knight?
It depends. You could say a lot of things like, could we make this racist word into a non-racist word by using it in non-racist contexts? In my opinion, a group with less societal power can trend toward adopting a word that has been used hatefully to have a different meaning. But it's the social group with less power that should be looked to for its adoption of a word not the dominant hierarchy. If female-identifying individuals want to start using Knight to refer to both male and females who are "knighted" then I'll be fine with it. This is something that might change over a long time. But it shouldn't be pushed by male voices. Personally, I will avoid it because of the historical context plus the current term in England being "Dame" for females who are knighted. So it doesn't feel right to me. I'm just voicing my opinion.
 

Both should be called Fighters.

The Warrior Category of classes should be called the Fighter category.

They should have Fighter, Expert, and Magic-User. as overarching categories. And some classes can have multiple categories. Keep the Power Sources out of it, just highlight the roles.
Nah. They should embrace the Pathfinder model: just load the game with base classes. All the PHB classes, plus artificer, ninja, psion, warlord, witch, swordmage, gunslinger, blood hunter, occultist, templar, swashbuckler and knight. Each with a half-dozen subclasses each. Minimalism is for fancy French food and fine art. This is America, give my excess!
 

There are few points that are being repeated so I will try to adress them together:

  1. Many medeival knights could not afford armor or horse and had to think of different means of fighting. There were also members of nobility and royalty, who carried knightly titles. Knights served varied roles depending on personal position or financial need, so I don't see why would naming Fighter Knight imply only one style of combat over others.
  2. I do question everyone saying that Knight denotes specific social class, whenever they feel that about subclasses already using this word, like Eldritch, Echo and Rune Knight.
  3. I'm actually of opinion that all the supernatural stuff Monk can currently do should be moved to Ranger and the Monk shoud, indeed, become the MMA and traditional martial arts class. There is enough styles for many subclasses (even boxing has 4 different styles - pressure fighter, out-boxer, brawler and boxer puncher)
  4. The "they should all be subclasses for a single Warrior class" or "we should ditch classes altogether" would be a level of homebrew a bit beyond calling it 5e, or even d&d for that matter.
 

Nah. They should embrace the Pathfinder model: just load the game with base classes. All the PHB classes, plus artificer, ninja, psion, warlord, witch, swordmage, gunslinger, blood hunter, occultist, templar, swashbuckler and knight. Each with a half-dozen subclasses each. Minimalism is for fancy French food and fine art. This is America, give my excess!
nah,

just one class: Adventurer
and about 400 feats to pick from
 


Fine. Two dozen classes or No classes. Nothing in between.
actually I agree with this one.

there is so much potential in current classes, feats and multiclassing that 12/13 classes is really not enough,
or classes need more feat slots for customization and stealing features from other classes.
 

Here is how I see it:

Monk is an outdated term that is only kept around for the sake of nostalgia, it limits the class lore-wise (I had seen people who will reject any Monk backstory that doesn't tie them to a monastery of some sort) and harkens back to orientalist crap the class was once steeped in, that WotC now tries to step away from. Naming Monk Fighter would be a shortcut for Martial Arts Fighter, with subclasses named about different styles of fighting.

Fighter meanwhile should be named Knight. It's three strongest subclasses are already Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight and Rune Knight. Samurai, Cavalier are equivalent or form of a knight. Psi Warriro was originally named Psi Knight in Unearthed Arcana. Banneret is a generic name for class originally named Purple Dragon Knight. Champion and Battlemaster are only Fighter subclasses that aren't called Knights or similiar, and even that is debatable. Why not call it Kngiht at this point? We could even call the subclasses Orders.

Also, I disagree with the idea that Fighter should be go-to class for new players, that is simple to play. That's what Barbarian, literally first class in the book, is for.
I understand your position but I can't agree. Simply because they labeled things with the term "knight" just means they weren't using their thesaurus. ;) And you forgot Arcane Archer, not called a "knight" either. Champion is debatable as a "knight" term, but I don't think Battlemaster really is.

However, MONK is a term I would love to see changed! I agree it very misleading. Martial Artist is a better generic term, but classes are one-word titles, to it is a bit awkward IMO. You have martial artists from every culture I can think of who use their body are their primary weapon, or at least as much as any manufactured weapon. The monestary-Shaolin-type is very specific. A class "martial artist" could be a (Greco-Roman) wrestler, savateur, boxer, kickboxer, or whatever, including some "fantastic" non-mundane form. So, yeah, the term "Monk" doesn't really fit IMO.

Barbarian is not the simple class like fighter is. It is fairly simply, and I agree most of its subclasses are comparatively simpler than the fighter subclasses in general. But I've seen more confusion over using Rage correctly, for example, than I have with any core figter feature. Barbarians also have more features to learn and keep track of.

But, that is just my experience with the two.
 

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