Has anyone managed to make the monk less oriental?

[Enforcer]

The Abellican monks in R.A. Salvatore's Corona setting (not his FR Drizzt books, please refrain from any literary criticism) are a group of pious, martial artist monks that seem very occidental in flavor to me, mostly because their religion is so Western in feel. They might be a good place to get some inspiration. In fact, they're very much how I imagine the Church of Ilmater in the Forgotten Realms to function.

 

[Navar]

I think the oathsworn are a great class to replace the monk if that is what you want. They are in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed (and Evolved.)

 

[Mercule]

One of the issues that I run into when thinking about re-monking the monk is that the swashbuckler and (non-mystic) monk concepts really seem to be good examples of different implimentations of the same root concept -- a light warrior who favors specialization and unusual styles to be as good of a fighter as the "fighter" class, but poorly represented by the fighter class.

Are there any published classes that fit that build -- without throwing in any mystical garbage?

 

[F5]

I got away from the Oriental Monk in my game world (which has no orient), with just a slight alteration in the flavor text. Since monks make such good mage-killers, I just made that their intent. The elves, who have centuries to master things like martial arts, created the fighting styles and monestaries that give rise to them as a non-magical way for the ruling magocracy to strike out at tehir rivals. Not that all monks are elves, just that the elves started the tradition, rather than having it come from some mysterious land to the east. I didn't even bother re-naming the abilities, just hand-waving it by saying that "abundant step" and "tongue of the sun and moon" are just the closest translations from Elvish into Common.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Ironically, I could see development of the monk class as a reaction to the extensive presence of clerics, gods, and dependence on divine magic. What if the monk adopted the philosophy of human beings being the pinnacle of creation through reason and philosophy as a reaction to an older, mythological, god-centured view of the universe like the Greek philosopherys did. In Ravenloft they have a Divinity of Mankind sect that believes in only the ability of mankind through reason and discipline to improve upon themselves, make themselves akin to gods. The monk class could, with these explanations, be used as semi-militant philosophers, keeping their mystical monk abilities.

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I've found that a monk 1, 2, or 3/fighter, barbarian, or whatever X works. Allow a feat that increases your unarmed damage by one step (no higher than a monk of your HD) and it's all good.

 

[Driddle]

How about "Arcane Internalist?" Use precisely the same mechanics, but change all the naming references -- ki shout, dance of a thousand petals, diamond soul, whatever -- to arcane-sounding terms.

The basic concept is something like this: The wizard has to study spells, a sorcerer has innate access to magic but he still has to cast spells, the warlock taps into magical effects without spells, and the internalist's connection to mana is the most elemental level of all -- every act he performs is almost arcane, fueled by unshaped magic itself. His body is the spell.

 

[tetsujin28]

I think that without the Ki powers, a pugilist (fighter with feats designed around unarmed combat) will always come off weak vs. your typical armed and armored opponents. Realistically, the only way to make an unarmed assailant a viable warrior in typical D&D combat is to give him mystical abilities.

If you can do that without the "oriental" trappings that bother you, then you are on to something.

Removing the ki powers makes the monk a very underpowered class. As far as "westernizing" the monk, has anyone mentioned the Thomas Covenant books (horrible series, but relevant to the discussion)?

 

[Samothdm]

I think that trying to make the monk occidental is about as productive as trying to make the barbarian oriental.

I can't believe we're on page two and no one commented on this yet.

The 1E Oriental Adventures book had a barbarian class in it which was similar, but slightly different, to the barbarian class presented in the 1E Unearthed Arcana.

Honestly, any class can be made to fit any culture. It might not be historically accurate, but we're just playing a game. And, how historically accurate are the "western" classes in the Player's Handbook, anyway?

I like the stuff from Owl and Turansil. That's exactly the kind of work that I do for my campaign world, and I find it a fun diversion to the other kind of game writing I do. Taking a class and reworking the "fluff" to fit a particular culture, religion, region, or race in my world is something I do all the time. I've got "oriental" paladins, western monks, desert-dwelling dwarf horselord barbarians... it's all good.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I think that Paradigm Concepts does a fantastic job of de-orientalizing the monk class in their Player's Guide to Arcanis. If you basically like the PHB monk as a class but don't like the flavor, they've got a horde of different orders from the Order of the Bronze Sepulchre--a group of Myrantians who learned to subdue their undead ancestors when they got out of line and later came to use their abilities against their Coryani conquerers to the elemental paths followed by Elori which focus on awakening their elemental ancestry and attuning their bodies to the element of their birth. And then there are the Ssethren (ECL+0 lizardfolk) monks who don't feel the least bit oriental. Some orders like the Order of the Blade--monks who focus on the worship of Hurrian and perfecting the use of his chosen weapon--have a bit of a asian, Shaolin monastery feel to them, but even they fit into the world quite well.

If you're interested in taking the oriental feel out of the monk class but keeping the basic ability progression, I'd recommend checking it out.