D&D (2024) Help Me Hate Monks (Less Than I Currently Do)

[Zardnaar]

I think this is the thing that makes Monk work for me and not for you.

DnD is a kitchen sink setting to me, as in, if you play DnD(and it's ilk) you should accept that a lot of anachronism and... analocalism? will(and should IMO) happen. Ninjas should be hireable by evil kings in their medieval castles, there should be Knights and wandering bards that duel using scimitars against Jaguar Warriors, steampunk Inventors peddling their wares to hags and witches. If someone makes their character look like a Roman Legionnaire that acts like a stereotypical medieval knight in my campaign about fighting an ancient Mummy king rising to conquer Not-Arab I would not care one bit.

Of course I'm fine that the Monk is an orientalist exoticism The Class. The only reason most people here accept that knights and purple worms and swashbuckling musketeers and cubic slimes and witch-burning salem-esque inquisitors fine is simple precedent of what works they took to heart as what 'fantasy' is in their early years. My idea of fantasy is Final Fantasy and Dragonfable(an old browser online RPG), so of course someone training in the mountains to the point that they can shoot laser beams(not as a spell) would fit medieval fantasy.

For me it depends. Interaction between east and west was very limited pre age of sail. Relative handful of merchants snd ambassadors.

So it's really up to the DM and if their world has the of sail equivalent or portals, airship etc facilitating long distance travel.

Or if Monks are available locally. I've got a tortle one atm in my games because I wasn't running anything specific that would exclude Monks. Eg Darksun would. My fate of Atlantis game (432BC)would probably exclude them

 

[Zardnaar]

Why? They had gunpowder in china long before the west. The only thing your gunslinger needs to change is his hat.

They didn't have 6 shooters though until late 19th century.

 

[Stormonu]

I went through a stint in 2E where I didn't want monks in my campaigns and wanted to limit them to Kara-Tur or L5R style games. I changed my mind in 3E and have just "gone with it" since then and it doesn't bother me a bit - I have in fact played at least two monk characters I found myself enjoying (a human Monk of the Dragon and a Dwarf Pugilist).

I've been thinking about investigating having some Czech or Romania themed orders (my currently poorly defined Brotherhood of Glory) in my homebrew, but I feel I need to do some further research on those cultures before committing to that idea.

 

[Zardnaar]

I went through a stint in 2E where I didn't want monks in my campaigns and wanted to limit them to Kara-Tur or L5R style games. I changed my mind in 3E and have just "gone with it" since then and it doesn't bother me a bit - I have in fact played at least two monk characters I found myself enjoying (a human Monk of the Dragon and a Dwarf Pugilist).

I've been thinking about investigating having some Czech or Romania themed orders (my currently poorly defined Brotherhood of Glory) in my homebrew, but I feel I need to do some further research on those cultures before committing to that idea.

We didn't use them in 2E for the simple reason we didn't have any product with the Monk class in it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

They didn't have 6 shooters though until late 19th century.

So, the PC is an inventor.

 

[Mistwell]

I appreciate the struggle with monks. I've had the same struggle, but on two fronts. I disliked the implied role playing aspect for the setting, which appears to be the OPs primary complaint. And then I also disliked the mechanical rules behind the monk in 5e 2014. So between the two, I just didn't like the monk. Though I did try out a Mercy monk and found ways to make it fun. That, coincidentally, was in a medieval fantasy Korea setting though for a one-shot. So the RP aspect wasn't nearly as much of an issue.

Now with 5e 2024, they fixed the mechanical problems with the class. The mechanics are now fun and versatile and fill a niche others don't fill well. So mechanically I find them attractive.

I still need to deal with the role playing aspects, and many in this thread have mentioned good ways to do that. The pugilist. The wrestler. The brawler. Etc.. These can all be fun fantasy tropes. And, they now use monk weapons pretty well. You will still be using your fists, headbutting, kicks, etc.. But you can use a weapon well. With some magical and possibly multiclass tinkering sometimes your weapon can be used very well. So even the punching/kicking theme can take a bit more of back seat to a versatile fast mover with interesting subclasses that can do all sorts of things like zap foes or heal people or teleport, etc..

 

[Bedrockgames]

They didn't have 6 shooters though until late 19th century.

I responded to this one earlier a lot of this depends on the era and campaign, because wuxia can be set in the late 19th century. So in that time at least, a cowboy with a 6 shooter is conceivable as a character (and definitely characters with guns from Europe would be).

Before that you might have had something like this: Xun Lei Chong - Wikipedia

Or something like this:

You can actually find videos online demonstrating the usage of a nine barrel hand cannon to see how it would look in practice.

One thing I will say is this, China has a lot more than people might imagine. I am not saying you would see a revolver in Song China, but it is often surprising how advanced China was by the 10th century, especially compared to Europe and in regard to things like bureaucracy and culture. Song China is pretty incredible interns of what heights it reached. A campaign set in historical China or an analog of it, actually fits D&D style fantasy more IMO than medieval Europe.

 

[Voranzovin]

You would need several classes to capture the full breadth of those genres. The monk is a very concentrated amalgam of these kinds of things and pretty directly inspired by a character in the Destroyer books (which are an American franchise). I think it comes from the "martial arts are magic" era of American media.

Oh certainly, if you wanted to model wuxia or cultivation fantasy with any kind of accuracy you'd need something pretty complex. But the same is true of a variety of other genres.

When I say it's a very specific fantasy, I mean that the class Monk, as we know it, tries to model only that fantasy, while most classes are a lot more generic and can be bent in a much wider variety of directions. I brought up Bruce Lee to demonstrate that it's not even a class meant to represent American perceptions of Asian martial arts in the 70s--it's more specific then that.

Yes, I know the Destroyer was the original inspiration, but throughout most of it's history the class has been presented as the wuxia class, right down to its name. There's only one association with the word "Monk" and martial arts that would have been present in the cultural ether in the 70s in America. Remo Williams did not study at a Shaolin monastery. He's an American secret agent!

I don't know that I would make Bruce Lee a fighter. I feel like his performances are too spectacular to just be like a character who swings a sword.

...that seems like a pretty damning indictment of Fighters. Who wants to play a guy who just swings a sword? If even Bruce Lee, who is doing relatively grounded martial arts with no supernatural elements, is too spectacular to be a Fighter, then what are Fighters even doing in Dnd?

Luckily that's not the only way to look at Fighters--every Fighter I ever played that rose above 5th level was a master swordsman every bit as spectacular as Bruce Lee!

If you like "Fighters" having traditions of combat, let players describe their tradition and give them a pool of exertion and let them freestyle how their character does various things. Then tell them it costs 1 exertion (2 if it's big) and let 'em do it.

Certainly, but personally I'm coming to prefer systems where even that pool of exertion isn't necessary. The question of what fighting style your character uses is largely irrelevant to basic PBTA mechanics, since dice rolls are primarily meant to provide forks in the narrative, and the system makes no attempt to "simulate" the fight or provide tactical options. If tactics and game balance aren't applicable concepts, then there's no purpose to a trackable resource.

In other words, I'm not looking to fix Monks myself--I'm just complaining about them.

 

[Shadowdweller00]

For members of the monastic Ordo Ventricula Sanctus, more popularly known as The Fat Boys, weight is a sign of one’s holiness. To most observers, these odd monks are gourmands, consumed by their desire to devour as much food as possible in an effort to expand their minds as well as the physical limits of their girdles. In reality, there is more to their eating than pleasure, though there is pleasure in it. Members of the Ordo believe that to consume a creature is to become one with it. These gastronomers seek out the most exotic of foods to become attuned to creation. And before you ask, no, they do not eat sapient creatures.

Anyone have any monastic orders you put in your game?

Interestingly enough, the last order of monks I think I created for a campaign were actually cannibals.

On the shores of the Astral sea, out in the far reaches of the outlands lie a number of islands. This desolate region is populated by the dregs of all sorts of species from across the planes; but primarily gith "degenerates" - a race of survivors descended from gith deemed too weak by the githzerai and githyanki to be worth saving. On one such island lies a secret monastery devoted to achieving immortality. I can't remember what I called the place exactly, but it was something like the Temple of Fallen Stars. Devotees strive to harden their bodies and wills by various extreme acts of deprivation. But also by consuming the life force of others - eating the flesh of sentient beings.

Over time, disciples achieve an increasingly undead-like state. Those who are not strong enough to handle the mental strain imposed by this transition degenerate into ghouls; who the order keep safely sequestered out tragic reverence and the hope they might one day be rehabilitated. (Secretly the cult has been also draining the power of a bound demigod to aid their transformation, kept below the monastery in a state of suspended animation). As infidel travellers in the region are unfortunately rare, the monastery has been forced to buy captives from pirates to fuel their dietary requirements.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, the PC is an inventor.

If I had a dime for every player who wanted to invent a machine gun in a time frame that seems far too early, I would be a very rich GM lol

Also let's keep in mind that D&D settings often have firearms (albeit matchlock usually). If you look at a typical D&D campaign, it really isn't that medieval it is much more 15th to 18th century usually)