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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6165244" data-attributes="member: 4937">ok, but...The monk has serious problems IMO.  First, it is in most forms hugely inflexible, with a fixed progression of class powers gained every level in a fixed order.   Giving it a bunch of little 'kits' helps provide some choice but doesn't actually solve the problem because it is now up to the DM to provide the choice rather than the player to create the concept.  Secondly, its fundamentally tied not only to real world eastern monastic traditions that are hardly universal to monasticism, but to an arguably singular instance of that tradition, and even more to the point to 1970's movies inspired by though traditions.  It's hugely specific to a cultural setting.  Moreover, it silo's 'martial artist' into a very narrow philosophical tradition and even personality that is far more narrow than the range of martial artists found in the source material, much less that could be imagined.   Is the entire cast of 'Kill Bill', for example, to be considered lawful aligned characters motivated primarily to achieve personal self-actualization through honing their discipline?  What about the cast of Five Deadly Venoms?  Enter the Dragon?  Moreover, does every setting even have a good justification for these kinds of characters existing, and what are the economics of making fighters just as capable without weapons and armor as those that must by expensive weapons and armor?  Does this really work, especially when we consider that at no point did the Shao-lin ever actually treat unarmored combat as preferable to having a weapon?   But the existing ranger class probably carries more non-essential and annoying baggage than any other class in the game.  Not only does it historically require the character to be a champion of some philosophy, but also that anyone particularly skilled in ranged combat also end up being a divine spell-caster.  And why must all ranged combatants ultimately have some relationship to nature and a duty to protect it?   Wait, what?  So the class evoked by characters like Lancelot, Gwain, Orlando, and other chivalric heroes is now to be defined primarily as a spellcaster?  What if your concept is 'defensive spell caster' and you don't want to be saddled with the tropes of a Paladin?  What if your concept is 'champion of good', but you don't really want to be defined primarily by having spells?  What if your concept is 'champion of evil', does it make sense to have a suite of protective magic as your primary shtick?Why can't a wizard do necromancy?  Cast enfeebling spells?  Have pets? The druid is nearly as bad as the ranger.  The underlying concept is animist or pantheistic priest and or wizard.  But why must all animist spell-casters be defined primarily shape changers?  For example, suppose I wanted to do a 'Voodoo Man'.  Does it make sense that my primary powers are related to changing into animals?   Why is my class for animist spell-casters primarily defined by the archetype of only such spell-casters from a small section of northern Europe?  It makes sense to have shamans for Siberian, Polynesian, Australian aboriginal, American aboriginal, and African peoples. Does it makes sense to have them all be 'druids'?  Does it make sense to make them primarily nature priests and specifically temperate forest nature priests?   Is 'maintaining a balance' really an essential aspect of every imaginable shaman?</blockquote>

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