I hate monks

[Heckler]

I don't get all the monk-hating.

1) Monks are not exclusive to Asia.

2) D&D is not Midieval Europe, nor is it Tolkien. (Heavily influenced by, yes. But not the only influence.)

3) No one seems to have a problem with the other non-Euro/Tolkien influences in the game.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

My vision of the monk is a peasant warrior. He doesn't have armor, so he has to dodge. He is't allowed to train with weapons, so he uses his body and his tools. (most of the special monk weapons are just fancied up farm tools with better stats. Kuri = sickle, nunchucks = grain flail.) To get this good at it takes inner focus, hence lawful allignment. Works fine for me without any monestaries popping up.

 

[LostSoul]

1) changing the monk weapons

I think you could just change the fluff of the monk weapons and turn them into swords and daggers (or whatever).

Nunchaku could be replaced by a short, thin sword that's meant for disarming.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Are there any good "handcrafted" monk alternatives out there? I do like the idea of having a pugilist/brawler/wrestler class, but I do find that all the "asian" flavour rubs some people the wrong way, and demands a bit of handwaving or altering to fit a more occidental idiom. A generic unarmed fighting class would solve that problem, as well as provide the option to multiclass, which makes sense if all you want is to be a bit better of a bar brawler.

If nobody's got one, I'm feeling a bit motivated to work one up. If I do, I'll stick it over in House Rules.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm curious.

Do you dislike them for mechanics reasons? Flavor reasons? Both? Something else entirely?

I'm not a huge monk fan myself, but that's simply because the class doesn't appeal to me, not out of any intrinsic dislike for it.

[/quote]

I'm a fan of Asian history, so it's not the "flavor" that bothers me. Of course, it's not accurate Asian flavor, but Asian monks didn't use dimension door any more or less than Western Knights used Smite Evil. I don't like the lawful ascetic stuff either (See the stealing of niche part).

I don't like the inflexibility of the abilities. There's virtually no choice in the matter. You get a little bit of choice when it comes to two bonus feats. Whoopee. It doesn't matter how powerful the abilities are if the player doesn't want to use them.

I don't like how it stole a niche. Improved Unarmed Strike just sucks. In order to be a reasonable unarmored unarmed warrior, you have to be a monk. Improved Unarmed Strike could have been improved (see mechanical complications below) but there's almost nothing you can do about the light armor without playing D20 Modern.

So we get some players who want to kick arse in unarmed combat getting saddled with abilities they don't want and an alignment they don't like. It's not like monks challenge fighters in the power compartment, so their alignment couldn't possibly be some kind of nerf.

As for mechanical complications... there's a long list of them. I doubt I can get them all here.

AC - starts low, ends high. Like any other light fighter. Low-level monks are wimps. I hear on these boards that high level monks can get crazy high AC scores of 50+, but I never see that. For starters, I've never seen a high level PC monk - no one wants to play them. The examples here are always using some broken monk PrC as well.

Low BAB - because of all the (frequently unwanted) special abilities that monks get, their BAB has been nerfed. A higher BAB would keep them from sucking. They also fail grapple checks on a regular basis because of this kind of thing, even though they're supposed to be good at it or something. Worse, because there's no fair way of enhancing monk natural attacks without being a druid (or taking up a druid's resources), your attack bonus falls even further behind. The amulet of mighty fists just costs too much (about 50% too much, by my estimation, but it's actually too cheap if you give it to an elder wyrm dragon or thri-kreen) and it takes up the same slot as the periapt of Wisdom. Good job.

Monk unarmed damage is simply too high. The D20 Modern Martial Artist class actually increases unarmed damage at pretty much the same rate, but it's only ten levels, capping at 1d10. This keeps the damage sane. Because monk damage is so high, it becomes difficult for players to ask for reasonably priced enchancement bonus items because DMs get scared at their high damage potential. (Despite their inability to hit anything.)

Monk speed is just ridiculous. I like being fast, but a jet engine?

The AE Oathsworn is a bit better mechanically - they can effectively get a full BAB with those ritual warrior abilities, and Hands as Weapons is a feat that should have been available in DnD (this feat lets you pay XP and maybe gold to enhance yourself as a magical weapon at what seems to be a more reasonable exchange rate). However, the flavor is even worse, and again, there's no choice about what abilities you get to have. Also, the iterative attack modifiers for that class are terrible - at least as bad as the 3.0 monk's.

 

[ForceUser]

You know what this thread is really about? Eurocentrism. It's obnoxious--so there's a small amount of genre-blending in the core rules. So what? It's not like a single swinging crank in this thread is running an historical Western Europe campaign. And it's not like the monk is the only non-Euro component of D&D--crack a Monster Manual sometime.

If you don't like the monk because of the mechanics, that's cool with me. It's a funky class. If your dislike is rooted in the idea that the monk class does not accurately depict a true martial artist, then you might as well throw out the druid too, because he has exactly squat in common with the historical priest caste upon which he is based.

If, however, your dislike is rooted in some half-baked notion of what "belongs" in core D&D, you might want to think about from where that idea is originating. The answer probably has very little to do with the game and much more to do with your cultural bias.

 

[Psion]

If you don't like the monk because of the mechanics, that's cool with me. It's a funky class. If your dislike is rooted in the idea that the monk class does not accurately depict a true martial artist, then you might as well throw out the druid too, because he has exactly squat in common with the historical priest caste upon which he is based.

This might be better for another thread, by my personal theory is that Druid is the "Disney Princess" class. Think about it. Most disney princesses have birds flitting about them, can speak to animals, have an empathy for animals, have animal companions, and an affinity for mother-like fey figures.

 

[Stalker0]

I wonder if the Monk's inclusion into 3e is explained in the DMGII.

The DMG II talks about player archetypes, and one of them is the type of player that likes playing the same concept over and over. And what's the most common archetype for these players? The ninja. There are a lot of people who like playing these kinds of characters.

 

[ForceUser]

I wonder if the Monk's inclusion into 3e is explained in the DMGII.

My sense is that the monk was included as a way to hearken back to 1E and draw some of those grognard players back into the fold--same with the barbarian (and the druid too? Been a while since I threw away my 2E PHB. Were there druids in 2E?)

As for druids being fairy princesses--explain that to my one-eyed orc tribal shaman PC (barbarian/druid/nature's warrior.)

 

[Ranger REG]

I just don't like em.
They just don't seem to fit.
I am going to take them out of my games.

If you want to play a guy that fights with martial arts, you can take a fighter, ranger or barbarian and take the "combat martial arts" feats from d20 Modern.

In my games the monk is getting replaced with the Archivist.

Meh.

Your prerogative.

My campaign is less emphasis on Euro-centric. I guess yours is more.