Issues with Summon Monster/Summon Nature's Ally (2004 Thread)

[Darklone]

One "hongs hat" to Ovinomancer

And a red nose to the DM who is not able to give the monk his spotlight now and then.

 

[Thanee]

In our last campaign the monk had his spotlight once... he died. Best thing, that ever happened to him.

j/k

Bye
Thanee

 

[Scion]

In our last campaign the monk had his spotlight once... he died. Best thing, that ever happened to him.

j/k

Bye
Thanee

Spotlights are hot, play with fire and you are going to be burned

Luckily though, the monk has more than enough going for him to get an equal share of the spotlight. Some spotlights are different colors even.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

To be fair, part of the problem is not the monk: It's every single warrior class.
Every single advantage the pure warriors had from second ed was removed in third, intentionally. Unlimited constitution based hitpoint gain? Even mages get this now. Fighter BAB at 20 used to be more than three times as good as the cleric. Fighter saves used to be THE BEST IN THE ENTIRE GAME. A base fighter. They changed the power of every melee in the game, fundamentally, and the sad part is people argue the monk is balanced. I dare say, the BARBARIAN isn't balanced, and the monk can't hold a candle to him.

Take a look at the iconic D&D party, as an example of this: Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Fighter. Guess who's by FAR the most dispensible? Thats right, the fighter. Hell, you could replace him with a Cleric, Barbarian, Druid, hell just about any class (except an average monk or bard) is gonna do here folks.

Honestly ask yourself, if you had to lose 1 party members skills/abilities (FOREVER) out of the Cleric / Rogue / Wizard / Fighter party, who would it be? The fighter of course, because every other class in the game can fight, but the cleric, rogue, and wizard all have things unique to them. Stinks, doesn't it? Sorry for the rant, sore subject for me after 4 years of this melee-biased crap

This I somewhat agree with and have been saying for a while. And yet at the same time I complain at the nerfing of spells in 3.5. See I say the fighter especially, and then the other fighter classes suck, and should be massivley upgraded. The fighter the most though because all the fighter does class design wise at least is fight. And really that's all they can do on a effective CR appropriate level, and quite frankly they don't come close to owning combat enough for them to be limited outside of a fight so much. Monks are relatively solid outside of combat, about ranger level outside of a fight, but they don't equal the ranger in a fight.

So monks are my #2 need a fix class. Also wierdly enough wiz/sor are high on my list of classes that need a fix. 1. 3.5 killed lots of spells either making them worthless or making them more boring than any spell should be. 2. at high levels wizards vaunted spellcasting ability gets stopped by SR, energy resistance and high saves way too often. I've seen a ton of teams do without the wiz/sor because they don't need some of the frills like teleport or other cool utility spells, and combat wise the cleric delivers the save or dies just as good, and most classes can deliver the damage on par with the direct damage spells. So the wizard just isn't worth it to them because they are too fragile and need protection too much for what they deliver. Or all they want is for the wizard to be some potion of fly dispensor.

 

[beaver1024]

Take a look at the iconic D&D party, as an example of this: Rogue, Cleric, Wizard, Fighter. Guess who's by FAR the most dispensible? Thats right, the fighter. Hell, you could replace him with a Cleric, Barbarian, Druid, hell just about any class (except an average monk or bard) is gonna do here folks.

Actually you can pretty much remove both the fighter and the wizard and replace them both with the cleric/druid. The only reason why the rogue remains is because of trapfinding. I've had parties pretty much consisting of all clerics/druids or at most with 1 rogue.

 

[smetzger]

heh, heh, you can tell that Hong has hung out on rec.games.frp.dnd

 

[Epametheus]

Rogues can be done without thanks to the utility of arcane magic. The damage from sneak attack can be a rather vicious thing, though; getting caught between a rogue and a proper fighter is a much more serious deal than getting caught between a monk and a proper fighter. I'd say that bards can't out-do monks in combat, but the rest of the classes can.

The main advantage of fighters is that it's rather easy for them to get into any fighting prestige classes that have some obnoxious skill requirement. Most other classes have to allot about half of the feats that the character will ever get into prestige requirements, should they want one. A barbarian can choose between a feat tree or a neat PrC, except in the happy coincidence that the neat PrC requires a useful feat tree. The fighter can qualify for a PrC and also climb a couple feat trees without breaking a sweat.

In the game I'm currently playing, I've got a druid, with the rest of the core PCs being a barbarian/shaman, a wizard, and a fighter. My druid could easily stomp the barbarian or the wizard, but I'd have to go all-out (bull's str, bear's endurance, greater magic fang, wildshape, and animal growth is what I currently define as "all-out") to defeat the fighter, and even then it might come down to initiative.

On the opposite end of that spectrum was a monk played by an incredibly obnoxious and disruptive player who outright cheated at the table (changed his feats on the spot, had 18's across the board for stats, never missed an attack, and did maximum damage on every hit). Even when he attacked my druid with surprise and basically got 2 free rounds of attacks, I didn't have any trouble smearing him with no further prep than wildshaping into a brown bear.

I have no idea why WotC decided that druids needed a buff.

 

[Scion]

Rogues can be done without thanks to the utility of arcane magic.

Find traps is a divine spell

In the game I'm currently playing, I've got a druid, with the rest of the core PCs being a barbarian/shaman, a wizard, and a fighter. My druid could easily stomp the barbarian or the wizard, but I'd have to go all-out (bull's str, bear's endurance, greater magic fang, wildshape, and animal growth is what I currently define as "all-out") to defeat the fighter, and even then it might come down to initiative.

seeing as how incredibly bad I know the fighter is I'd love to know what sort of setup that he has going that he could beat you hands down Also, I'd love to know why the barb apparently cant do anything. The wizard is all too understandable, one round of attack and he'd be completely dead. So, what does this fighter and your druid look like? feel free to pm me with it if you will! thanks!

 

[Epametheus]

Find traps is a divine spell

seeing as how incredibly bad I know the fighter is I'd love to know what sort of setup that he has going that he could beat you hands down Also, I'd love to know why the barb apparently cant do anything. The wizard is all too understandable, one round of attack and he'd be completely dead. So, what does this fighter and your druid look like? feel free to pm me with it if you will! thanks!

Traps are easy to deal with -- just have the fighter set them off and keep a wand of cure light wounds handy

The barbarian can be handled mainly because I don't think the player really knows what he's doing. The barbarian is a barb5/shaman 5 now, but the player almost never uses his spells, relying mainly on rage and lucky crits to carry the day. He's certainly made some impressive crits, but without real prepping we're comparable in power and with real prepping (5th level spells + wildshape vs. 3rd level spells), I blow him right out of the water.

The fighter, on the other hand... Oh, he's certainly dependant on his equipment (what non-spellcaster isn't?), but he averages 30 damage a round without power attacking, critting, or using his two-weapon fighting. When he fights seriously, he usually shoots up to 60 damage a round. My druid flat-out can't kill him as quickly as he could kill me.

Granted, in a real fight between the fighter and my druid, I'd stay 100 or so ft away from him at all times (thanks to my dire wolf companion) while I blast him to death with my wand of flame strike. Taking 15 damage a round or so from arrows beats the hell out of getting chopped in half.

My experience with fighters is that they're rather scary dudes, and you should take care to make sure that the enemy never, ever Dominates them. Granted, almost every fighter I've ever seen moved into a PrC after 8th level and got even better at killing things. But anyways, it's fighters and fighters with PrCs that deal the heavy damage. Where fighters get screwed isn't in their power; where they get screwed is that it's too easy for clerics and druids to play at being fighters.

But the topic here is monks, and so I'll chip in two semi-related points:

1) Characters that aren't true spellcasters need gear. Monks are kinda weird, since some of their more notable abilities (like the increasing punch damage and Stunning Blow) are totally nullified if the monks use weaponry, and the weapons that are compatible with Flurry are kinda subpar (1d6 damage, 20/x2 for crits).

2) There are two classes with heavy multiple stat dependencies: monks and paladins. A monk that manages to get high across-the-board stats (by whatever means -- rolling, half-celestial, whatever) is kinda comparable to a fighter of equal level who has normal stats. On the other hand, a paladin that manages to get high across-the-board stats is truly a magnificent beast, able to adapt well to many situations and perform excellently in them.

IMO, the closest class for comparison with the monk is the rogue, and the only real advantage that a monk has over a rogue in the general scheme of things is movement speed. Monks might be better defensively, but you need an odd party make-up (like that one party mentioned earlier that only has a monk as the frontline) for a monk to be a priority target. Tanks, even light tanks, aren't any good when they can just be ignored.

 

[Scion]

Traps are easy to deal with -- just have the fighter set them off and keep a wand of cure light wounds handy

You have some very easy traps in your games I see Some traps are there to make things impassible, hit multiple people, or simply to warn everyone that you are there. If the whole complex now knows where that you are there, and possibly where, that is the problem. Cure light wounds wont help at all!

The fighter, on the other hand... Oh, he's certainly dependant on his equipment (what non-spellcaster isn't?), but he averages 30 damage a round without power attacking, critting, or using his two-weapon fighting. When he fights seriously, he usually shoots up to 60 damage a round. My druid flat-out can't kill him as quickly as he could kill me.

Which is all well and good, but I'd still like to see what you both have. The fighter just doesnt live up to his name without some major dm help.

Granted, in a real fight between the fighter and my druid, I'd stay 100 or so ft away from him at all times (thanks to my dire wolf companion) while I blast him to death with my wand of flame strike. Taking 15 damage a round or so from arrows beats the hell out of getting chopped in half.

So the fighter is pure melee and nothing else, that starts to make more sense. But then, as the fighter is 'only' good in combat, he should be able to master both melee and ranged. Once again, not living up to 'fighter' status

But then he could hide behind something to avoid those flame strikes, attack from cover to get some bonuses to his saves, use a simple potion of flight to take the fight to you, or any number of other things. Still though, I would expect just about any class to win vs the fighter, so this is no real surprise.

But the topic here is monks, and so I'll chip in two semi-related points:

As you wish of course I'll try to reply as best I can, hopefully it will make sense (it is getting very late, and it has been a long day)

1) Characters that aren't true spellcasters need gear. Monks are kinda weird, since some of their more notable abilities (like the increasing punch damage and Stunning Blow) are totally nullified if the monks use weaponry, and the weapons that are compatible with Flurry are kinda subpar (1d6 damage, 20/x2 for crits).

Every class is 'heavily' dependent on gear. Different sorts of gear for different classes, but a class 'with' gear vs a class 'without' gear and the character with the gear should be able to win pretty much every time.

Spellcasters depend on their gear just as much as anyone else. In the case of wizards and sorcs they probably depend on their gear 'more' than most others.

Monks can penetrate a pretty wide range of DR with their base attacks anyway, so nothing to worry about there. Magic/lawful/adamantine, definately not shabby! As good or better than most equipment anyway So the monk has a bunch of money from not having to buy a really impressive weapon.

So, while everyone needs equipment, the monk is way ahead in some areas

2) There are two classes with heavy multiple stat dependencies: monks and paladins. A monk that manages to get high across-the-board stats (by whatever means -- rolling, half-celestial, whatever) is kinda comparable to a fighter of equal level who has normal stats. On the other hand, a paladin that manages to get high across-the-board stats is truly a magnificent beast, able to adapt well to many situations and perform excellently in them.

Needing multiple stats is definately a problem, but you can get by with only a couple decent ones. With as many attacks as they get, and gaining full str bonus on all of them, a medium str works out to about the same as a high str over the course of attacks. Plus it is better than the twf feat chain, much better.

So the monk is about the same with a 14str as the fighter is with a 16 str in a lot of ways. No problem there.

Plus, the belt of perfection, or whatever it is called, only costs 200k

Still, it is a problem, but in a way it is also a bonus. Not as big as the penalty most of the time, but the monk does gain lots of stuff from pretty much every stat. Straight 14's (36 point buy, strangely this is the same as the game I am in now) makes for a very interesting and fun monk. Lose a few points here and there to drop the point buy and pick which type of monk you want to play.

IMO, the closest class for comparison with the monk is the rogue, and the only real advantage that a monk has over a rogue in the general scheme of things is movement speed. Monks might be better defensively, but you need an odd party make-up (like that one party mentioned earlier that only has a monk as the frontline) for a monk to be a priority target. Tanks, even light tanks, aren't any good when they can just be ignored.

monk vs rogue? Monk has way better defensive capabilities at every level. Monk has better hp. Monk is less dependent on certain types of equipment. Sneak attack is largely irrelevant, it works now and then, but rarely. As levels increase it gets used less and less. Most creatures are either resistant or immune, the rest can become so easily.

So after sneak attack the monk is better in a number of ways. The rogue wins in breadth of skill selection, but the monks skills are pretty good anyway. The rogue can search for traps, the monk gets a list of special abilities.

The comparison isnt very straight forward, although it is interesting. Monks have their own strengths, but apparently most people just cant see them. It is an interesting demographic really

Monks can definately shine, they just need the proper chance. But that is the same for every character class so it isnt like that is special. There are threads about every class out there being too weak and others saying it is too strong. For the most part I think that the monk is done pretty well, they have a few items custom made for them (like the monks belt) that really help them out if they are going for certain build types. There are feats galore that can help them in the rest. Pick what you want the monk to be good at, within a very broad range, and you can do it. Try to be incredible at too many things and pay the consequences, just like any other character class. The monks are already 'good' at many things, and that is certainly something to be proud of, it takes very little work to excel at something within that area.