I hate monks

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Except that 1) the psionic Soulknife class doesn't require anything outside of the core rules. It has no access to the rest of the psi system at all. The same could be said of the Pyrokineticist PrCl.

The soulknife has access to a vast array of psionic feats, including Psionic Meditation, and can also use Autohypnosis. I don't think it would be that confusing to add to the game - but it's more than just the class.

Essentially, that class has an inherent magic weapon that improves over time.

And Psionic Weapon the feat. And Deep Impact. Etc.

Arguably much easier to introduce than the monk, less complicated than the Warlock.

I think it's more balanced than the monk anyway.

And 2) considering it was part of the 1st Ed PHB, it can't be THAT confusing and didn't bog things down THAT much.

Well, wasn't 1e psionics horribly complicated? And a lot "smaller" than the current edition of psionics?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not sure the Warlock or Soul Knife existed when 3E came out.

They weren't- or at least weren't published until later. They very well could have been sitting on a designer's desk, awaiting other material so they could be published in the supplements in which they were eventually

My point was that those (and other) classes are just as flavorful and arguably less complicated than the Monk. They are both acultural classes, easily adaptable to any campaign. As such, they are just as/more worthy of inclusion and are either less disruptive or no more disruptive of internal consistency than the monk.

Another pointless argument. 1E Psionics was in an appendix and not nearly the well-thought out, integrated and extensive system we have in 3E - and it sure as hell confused a lot of people.

Not pointless at all. While it was an appendix, it was still part of the core rulebooks...as was the oh-so-complicated bard.

I personally don't know anyone who was confused by it. In fact, while my primary game group used Psionics in 1st edition, they were dissalowed in 2nd and 3rd.

Logically the fact that the 3Ed version is so much better designed cuts against your argument for exclusion. If the bigevilscary 1st edition version rated an appendix, then surely the "integrated and extensive" 3Ed version could rate AT LEAST an appendix in the PHB, if not outright inclusion in the core rules.

That inclusion wouldn't have to be complete: 1 class and a few feats would be all you need for a fully functional SoulKnife. Then you could offer the XPH as a true expansion on the basic rules, as opposed to the "appendage" that some people perceive it to be.

Give people some credit- this isn't rocket science.

The soulknife has access to a vast array of psionic feats, including Psionic Meditation, and can also use Autohypnosis. I don't think it would be that confusing to add to the game - but it's more than just the class.

While true, all that is NEEDED to run a Soulknife is the class and 1 feat- Wild Talent, and perhaps 1 or 2 skills.

With all of the melee oriented feats out there, you can run a fairly nasty Soulknife without taking any Psionic Feats.

Well, wasn't 1e psionics horribly complicated? And a lot "smaller" than the current edition of psionics?

Complicated? No moreso than the spell system.

While not as developed as the 3Ed version, at 8 pages, its just a page or so short of the section on Cleric spells.

The main difference is that it was just a set of powers that could be added to any PC (and determining whether you had it or not was essentially random)- there were no Psionic classes.

 

[Ranger REG]

My issue with the Monk is just that it isn't generic enough. IMO the core classes should be just that "core"...Fighting Man, Magic User, Man of God & Jack of All Trades (skill dude, rogue whatever)....everything else should be a subset of that, INCLUDING the Monk.

To me including the Monk was a step backwards from what the 3E designers set out to accomplish.

You could make the same argument for martial specific classes like the ranger, barbarian, and paladin ... all variants of the fighter.

How generically low do you want to go?

 

[Imperialus]

If you think about it in a lot of ways the monk or unarmed martial artist makes even more sence in a D&D world than it does in the real one. Look at it this way, boiled down to the basics (all mystical mumbo jumbo aside) the idea of learning how to fight effectively barehanded evolved from pesants who were not permited weapons feeling the need to defend themselves from their overlords.

Now imagine if you will a typical D&D esque world. Even if pesants are permited to carry weapons (which for the most part they were not in fudal europe) your average pesant has a lot more to worry about than a spoiled rich kid using you and your daughter for target practice (admitedly different kinds).

Orcs, goblins, and all other manner of nasties are pretty common, at least on boarder regions and unless a goverenment is powerful enough to have a standing army to protect the pesantry then the pesants would be pretty much on their own with the risk of attack present at almost any time.

Now it isn't praticularly practical for a pesant to plow his fields with a longsword at his belt, a shield across his back and a chain halburk on so it would only make sence that the long lived pesants would eventually evolve an effective efficant method of defending themselves from orc and goblin raiders either without weapons or with simple farm implements.

Do this for a few generations and a few will begin to stand out. They might even have legends built around them (pesants do after all like gossip) and possibly even set up schools to teach others how to fight like they do. Perhaps they could even get the backing of a church adding a mystical/religious element to the mix. Pretty soon you could have someone a lot like Jet Lee but his name is Bob and he has sandy blond hair.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've been working on a campaign setting where humans and dwarves are very intermixed. That is a fantastic idea, completely. You could probably substitute a few abilities and make a 'Monk' class for each elemental type. Kind of like the Witch class in Arcana Unearthed.

That's a pretty cool idea, actually. I'm seeing four rival orders of monks, all of which have similar (if not identical) abilities, but very different beliefs and practices.

Heck, that's almost enough to build an entire campaign setting, right there...

 

[tetsujin28]

How generically low do you want to go?

Personally, I'd like to see it the classes go generic, like d20 Modern, and have everything else be part of a 'pick and choose' system. But that would get rid of silly arguments over what classes belong in D&D, and we can't have that.

 

[Krieg]

You could make the same argument for martial specific classes like the ranger, barbarian, and paladin

Yep.

Personally, I'd like to see it the classes go generic, like d20 Modern, and have everything else be part of a 'pick and choose' system.

Personally I wouldn't want to go quite that far. I'd be happy with a middle ground somewhere between the current set up and the generic archetypes put fort in Blue Rose/T20 and Unearthed Arcana.

Give me four base classes and then a number of "example" classes that are subsets of those (ie Ranger, Paladin, Druid etc) either as templates, PrC etc.

 

[fusangite]

If you think about it in a lot of ways the monk or unarmed martial artist makes even more sence in a D&D world than it does in the real one. Look at it this way, boiled down to the basics (all mystical mumbo jumbo aside) the idea of learning how to fight effectively barehanded evolved from pesants who were not permited weapons feeling the need to defend themselves from their overlords.

Except that fighting that well without weapons, moving that fast, etc. are intrinsically magical. When people can shoot magical bolts of fire out of their hands, D&D has to provide a magical explanation otherwise suspension of disbelief collapses. The same is true of people running up walls, etc. You can't sell the monk without the ki/chi. Any ability the monk has that is not simply a consequence of being really really really strong is essentially a magical ability. The monk doesn't become more credible shorn of flavour text anymore than the sorceror would.

As for your anthropological reasoning...

An overlord is far more likely to crack down on secret societies who teach his peasants to kill people with one blow than he is to start confiscating farm tools.

Now imagine if you will a typical D&D esque world. Even if pesants are permited to carry weapons (which for the most part they were not in fudal europe)

Not true at all: (a) feudal lords were incapable on a personnel basis of running a weapons control program (for goodness sake, the Canadian government today doesn't have enough resources to actually regulate who has guns despite spending billions of dollars over 10 years!); (b) feudal lords liked having peasants they could march into battle; (c) northern European farming methods required the use of potentially lethal iron tools.

your average pesant has a lot more to worry about than a spoiled rich kid using you and your daughter for target practice (admitedly different kinds).

Orcs, goblins, and all other manner of nasties are pretty common, at least on boarder regions and unless a goverenment is powerful enough to have a standing army to protect the pesantry then the pesants would be pretty much on their own with the risk of attack present at almost any time.

So, explain to me why lords would set up a system whereby they couldn't defend their assets or make a profit for themselves. Nobody is going to tolerate a system where their labour supply is constantly being killed, their crops burned, etc. unless they absolutely have to. They are simply not going to enact laws, on a large scale, that will decimate their own economic base.

Now it isn't praticularly practical for a pesant to plow his fields with a longsword at his belt, a shield across his back and a chain halburk on so it would only make sence that the long lived pesants would eventually evolve an effective efficant method of defending themselves from orc and goblin raiders either without weapons or with simple farm implements.

Do this for a few generations and a few will begin to stand out. They might even have legends built around them (pesants do after all like gossip) and possibly even set up schools to teach others how to fight like they do. Perhaps they could even get the backing of a church adding a mystical/religious element to the mix. Pretty soon you could have someone a lot like Jet Lee but his name is Bob and he has sandy blond hair.

That sounds like it could be a neat idea for a particular game world but that doesn't make it a legitimate core class.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

You know, I keep forgetting that Dannyalcatraz is a lawyer by trade and loves to argue--hell, it's his profession.

Danny, you're throwing an encyclopedia of information at us as though it is relevant. It's a smokescreen--tricks and mirrors, logos as red herring. There's as much a reason to include the monk in D&D--Asian or otherwise--as there is any other class. D&D is not Eurocentric just because it was designed by a bunch of white Americans. Default D&D is what it is, like it or loathe it (cue diaglo). What bugs me is that Euro-purists insist on bumping the monk from their D&D games because the class as written pays homage to Asian culture. Those same Euro-purists, I guarantee, aren't gunning for historicity in other areas of their campaigns. They're Euro-snobs.

Yeah, I'm sure everyone hates Asia and wants to purge all trace of other cultures from their books, lives, and games. Or, they just don't want wire-fu in their fantasy game. That they don't appreciate certain kinds of genre mixing is not too hard to wrap one's head around, and certainly no reason to accuse them of racism. There's a reason someone wrote Oriental Adventures in the first place.

Anyway, I posted an alternative to the standard monk over in house rules. Why? Because I think that the standard monk doesn't make a good generic unarmed fighting class for the same reason the oathsworn doesn't make a good generic unarmed fighting class. It's not generic. It's really specific to a particular idiom, and if I want to play, for example, a guy who lives in a cave and kills bears with his bare hands, a monk doesn't work that well. And neither does a fighter or barbarian. I think there's a need for a plain vanilla unarmed fighting class, perhaps in addition to the monk, perhaps to replace him, depending on the campaign

 

[ForceUser]

Yeah, I'm sure everyone hates Asia and wants to purge all trace of other cultures from their books, lives, and games. Or, they just don't want wire-fu in their fantasy game. That they don't appreciate certain kinds of genre mixing is not too hard to wrap one's head around, and certainly no reason to accuse them of racism. There's a reason someone wrote Oriental Adventures in the first place.

I specifically posted that I was not accusing anyone of racism. Open mouth, insert foot.