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Message: <blockquote data-quote="marelion" data-source="post: 5787706" data-attributes="member: 6679828">I don`t really think that the D&D monk is tied to eastern mythology.  I mean, sutre, there are his special weapons in 3E like the Kama or the  Shuriken but what keeps the monk from being a western-style brawler?  Nobody forces you to pick weapons of asian origin and call yourself  "Sensei Shiguero Iyamoto". My current monk is a halfling from Baldur`s  Gate. He`s had a hard time and accordingly has fallen into bad company.  He joined a gang of halfling thugs and subsequently learned how to empty the pockets of the passers-by and  dish out lots of hurt to them on the rare occasions he got noticed. Since he  couldn`t bring up enough money to bribe the city guards into loking away  from his weapons and petty theft he had to rely on the power of his fists and kicks and the natural athleticism of the halflings. Et  voilà, here we have the quintessential features of a D&D monk and (regarding the fact D&D is still a heroic fantasy game) a plausible story how he aqquired a certain degree of melee prowess even without formal monastic training. He can  fight barehanded, he has learned how to disengage from melee (after all,  he had to escape from the guards more than once), he is faster than most elves and he has the agility to stay out of harm`s way.I tend to think of classes as offerings of flavourfull collections of  game mechanics. When I skimp through the PHB I take a look at the  classes that grant access to the powers I would like my character to  posess and care about the 'official flavour' later. There is definetely  more than one way of skinning the cat. A 4E rogue might just as well be a  Cormyrean scout of noble birth who keeps a close leye on the borders to  Sembia in order to help his father fight off Shadovar spies. His  fighting style probably is not all that different from the scum they  lock up in Wheloon, so he can share a mechanical base with them (i.e. be  a member of the same class)while flavorwise being an antithesis.</blockquote>

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