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

[allenw]

You can only stun once a round in both 3.0 and 3.5.

You're quite correct, I missed that clause. I think Pally is still in trouble, though.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Weighing in on the issue, I fail to see how the monk could be considered a 'balanced' class because it can do many things, but not well. Every other class in the game has something that it can excel at. The fighter is tatically flexible with his massive feat choices, the sorcerer/wizard can bring the mighty fire, the ranger is good at both combat and woodcraft, the thief is a mighty skillmonkey able to overcome many challenges that others cannot, the paladin can lay out the mighty smite from atop his mount, the barbarian dishes damage like no other, the cleric's spells return the fallen and heal the wounded, the druid is arguably one of the most powerful classes, and even the bard cannot be outdone in social situations. The monk can perform all these things, but not even close to the level that the other classes can. Rather, the monk performs at a distictly lower level. It requires a specialized situation for the monk to shine, and even then he might still be outclassed by out of the box tactics from another class. I stand in the 'monk is not on a level field' group. Sorry if that offends.

 

[CPXB]

You're quite correct, I missed that clause. I think Pally is still in trouble, though.

Not really. Its extremely statistically unlikely, even if the monk does dump Pally on his butt, that Pally will be stunned. There's only a 20% chance.

More to the point, however, the monk won't be fighting Pally. They'd be in the same group doing stuff like fighting hill giants and packs of dire wolves. When comparing how Rashad would do vis-a-vis Pally fighting *those* foes it is clear who I'd rather have in my party.

 

[jgsugden]

I find it really odd that people are still claiming that a monk can not 'stand out' in combat when faced with numerous people that say that they see it on a regular basis. In fact, this isn't worth arguing anymore. The only people still arguing that monks are too weak will not be convinced by any argument.

Good luck, all.

 

[Gort]

I'm currently going through a phase of playing the more esoteric character classes. (I usually pick something very central to a party, like a fighter or a cleric or a paladin) I'd like to play a monk sometime, but up till now I've never gotten around to it. But here's a few things people haven't mentioned yet - things that my fighter experience tell me I'll love about the monk...

Touch AC! The monk has the same touch AC as his normal AC. I have a 16th level fighter with an AC of 40. His touch AC? 16. If something huge tries to grapple you, you're out of options. His grapple check will be twenty above yours, he's never gonna miss his touch attack, and even if he rolls a 1, he's got other attacks ready. Ditto tripping. Ray spells! Ray of enfeeblement and enervation don't even have saves, and both will severely neuter any fighter. I would love to have a touch AC of 40 to go with my normal AC of 40. It's hard to over-emphasise just how great having a big touch AC is.

Balance checks, moving silently, hiding, spotting stuff so you don't get stabbed in the back, all stuff a 1st level monk does better than my 16th level fighter. Even if he didn't bother to put skill ranks in it. What are my skills? Uh, climbing, jumping and swimming. All things I wouldn't need to put ranks in if it wasn't for my armour penalties. Hell, people can just blatantly lie to me and I'll believe every word they say!

Spell resistance is awesome. Especially monk spell resistance. Have you seen the pricetag on spell resistance items lately? Bloody hell!

Having a natural weapon for your main attack is great. You can be grappled and still fight. Heck, quite often you'd RATHER be grappled, so you can immobilise your foe! Oh, a rust monster! Oh wait, no metal gear to rust. Ah, a Bebilith - nope, no armour to rip open. Sunder? Not on me, mate.

Having lots of attacks is nice. Especially early on, where what you rolled is more important than what your actual bonus is. Later, when the bard is giving you +5 to hit and damage, you'll like getting it on each of your umpteen attacks, rather than four times.

I think there're better ways to look at a monk than to compare it in a damage dealing capacity to a druid, which is a very powerful damage dealer, especially in the situation you were given. I'd be in the boat with the people who say it was a very lucky druid that did all that damage with summoned animals - in my experience summoning's been pretty useless.

I would recommend to you the Defender class from Midnight if you want a Bruce Lee style monk - Full base attack bonus, and less mystic stuff, rather kung-fu stuff like disarming people when they hit you, grabbing their arm and breaking it when they miss you, all that kind of stuff. More of a front line fighter - exactly what you're looking for, in fact!

 

[hong]

Erm hong.. have you been at the mushrooms again.

Sigh.

First you say that noone can solo a dungeon because that is how the game is built.

Yes.

THEN you complain that the monk never gets to get his moment of totally and dominating glory.

No. The monk never really gets a chance to compete for spotlight time. This is a far, far cry from "total and dominating glory".

D&D isnt about glory, its about team play.

You have a remarkable way of telling me things I already know. How many times did you rehearse this line?

Everytime I read a thread where someone whines that their PC isnt good enough I just feel like telling them to stop being so selfish.

Yes, because D&D is really all about character building. BACK IN OLDEN TIMES I WALKED SIX MILES TO THE SCHOOL, IN THE SNOW, UPHILL, BOTH WAYS, WHICH WAS MADE ALL THE MORE REMARKABLE BECAUSE THERE IS, IN FACT, NO SNOW IN AUSTRIA. SO I HAD TO HAVE IT IMPORTED FROM AUSTRALIA, THAT'S HOW MUCH CHARACTER I BUILT.

Clue for the clueless: it is, in fact, possible for a class to be a bad design. This happens when its design precedents lead to the expectation that it should be able to do certain things, but its actual mechanics fail to deliver. This has nothing at all to do with the player, except if you think people are stupid for actually believing those precedents might have something to do with the game. In which case you should perhaps go back to playing chess.

Anyone who has played a high level cleric knows that 90% of the time you are just healing your ass off to keep the tank alive through the horrific damage output of the BBEG once the combat stats in earnist.

Bullcrap. If you're healing in combat, and blowing off spells to do so, you're being stupid. The achilles heel of a high-level cleric is not lack of spells or healing in combat, but prep time. Without a few rounds to do the divine favour/div power/righteous might thing, a cleric is mediocre. Why do you think Persistent Spell was almost universally derided as broken?

Where is the glory in healing the fighter, but it has to be done and the party dies veryveryVERY quickly if it isnt.

Have you somehow never noticed how the class is powered up exactly because few people want to play the party medic, and need to be bribed to do so?

Pepople complain about the "power" of high level mages, but have you SEEN the SR of highlevel mobs, or their saves ?

The fact that one complaint may be unjustified does not imply another complaint is similarly unjustified.

The last highlevel game I played in all our mages needed to roll 12+ to defeat teh LOWEST enemy SR and most of the enemy were then saving on 1s ?

If you insist on dropping spells that target enemies' high saves, you're again being stupid.

What use are you spells when they mobs are basically spell immune ?

Bullcrap. I have never seen a mob of _mooks_ that were immune to high-level magic. BBEGs, maybe. Mooks? Pah.

Thats when melee people step up. No this doesnt happen every fight, it would be BAD if it did, but it happens in plenty of fights.

And noone usually complains that melee tanks are lacking in the ability to take the spotlight. They may observe that spellcasters are better able to decide a fight in one round, but overall, tanks do quite well, thankyouverymuch. At least to the extent that being a tank is possibly the most dangerous position in a party, anyway.

Stunning first is awesome, far better than sneak attack, and noone bitches about sneak attack.

What planet are you on?

One game I was stuck in a corridor with a drow rogue either side of me, with single figure hp. My mage was reduced to fighting defensively as he was almost out of spells. The monks stunning fist kept one of the rogues permanently stunned, and that saved my characters life.

And this shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that stunning fist is good, because you stopped immediately after that and never played D&D ever again.

Question. Why don't you play the monk, and go around saving other people's lives?

Monks get lots of neat tricks and in return they give up some BAB progression. That really is all they give up, the monk attack pregression means they dont even lose iterative attacks.

Nonsense. Hint: multiple stat dependency. Hint 2: weapon enchantments.

So stop bitching about the monk already.

So cease babbling about matters of which you know nothing.

 

[hong]

I find it really odd that people are still claiming that a monk can not 'stand out' in combat when faced with numerous people that say that they see it on a regular basis.

"Stand out" is a funny thing. It's really about what you, as a player, want out of the game, and the enjoyment you derive from the things your character does.

Being able to stand out has no necessary link with being a kick-butt combatant, true. If what you want your monk to be is as a character whose main niche is outside combat, then you're likely to be happy to play a support guy in combat. You're there to give flanking and other benefits for the real tanks, run interference for the wiz, take out annoying spellcasters, etc. This is fine.

However, the fact remains that this often isn't want a monk player wants. As has been repeated ad nauseam, the monk's roots are found in characters who kick butt, and so a player is likely to want to do the same. The class, however, doesn't support that style of play. If you try standing toe-to-toe with monsters, you'll typically do pissy damage and/or get whomped. You'll notice that everyone who's said their monks stand out in combat has also said it happens by the monk NOT kicking butt, but by contributing in other ways that help OTHER people kick butt. And really, that's fine. But that's not the same as saying the monk is a class that works. Just because a workaround exists doesn't mean the class has no problems.

 

[CPXB]

I find it really odd that people are still claiming that a monk can not 'stand out' in combat when faced with numerous people that say that they see it on a regular basis. In fact, this isn't worth arguing anymore. The only people still arguing that monks are too weak will not be convinced by any argument.

Good luck, all.

Hmm. I find it really odd that people are still claiming that a monk can stand out when faced with numerous people who say they see it on a regular basis. The only people still arguing that monks aren't weak will not be convinced by any argument.

I mean, neither side lacks for adherents.

Tho' I do agree that most folks who are still with us are basically decided. And I think that both sides might be right. Clearly a goodly number of people are wholly satisfied with the monk as written. It works for their temperments in their games. Clearly, a goodly number of people are not satisfied with it. It doesn't work for their games or their temperments.

 

[Epametheus]

Monk is a support class.

Kwai Chang Caine, the Iron Monkey, the Drunken Master, and other kung-fu heroes, who are presumably the inspiration for the class, most certainly aren't support characters.

I think part of the problem is that people who select monk because they're expecting to play a cool fighter-type are generally in for a really nasty surprise. I'd rather have a rogue in the party than a monk, myself.

 

[Bauglir]

The monk is a blunt swiss army knife.. Lots of seemingly useful abilities that might be nice if they actually worked..

For example, in a similar discussion back in 3.0, I took a level 5 monk (16 dex, wis, weapon finesse) and compared it to each and every CR 5 monster in the monster manual. The average chance to land a successful stunning fist attack came out at around 13%. 13%!. Now I appreciate that that was 3.0, and that the dynamic of a class often changes from level to level, but really I can't say I've noticed this of the monk. Feel free to do a similar study and prove me wrong..

On another note the monk does appear to be defensively strong, at high levels at least, when their AC, saves and SR really start to stack up. But the fact is that this contributes next to nothing to the party dynamic. It reminds me of a 'melee sorcerer' character I once made as a kind of experiment. He took every single buff he could get (including a few custom spells - basically enhanced versions of mage armour) and would then wade into melee with a longsword. As a result he had an extremely high incorporeal touch AC. When the party was attacked by spectres I figured this was the perfect scenario for this character, and waded in. The high AC worked like a charm - after missing me once or twice they decided to ignore me and killed the cleric instead. Now if my character had been able to deal more than trifling damage then perhaps they may have considered me enough of a threat and that cleric might have survived..