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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 655057" data-attributes="member: 545">A &quot;small&quot; digression...The major design flaw of a monk is they require 4 good attributes to be effective at melee.&nbsp; The net result is that they are very, very weak relative to all comparable classes for levels 1-6 with point buys in the 25-32 range.&nbsp; I am not making this up; I have seen multiple examples of this problem in play.For comparison, any of the basic 4 classes (fighter, rogue, wiz, cleric), is functional in their role with just two good stats, more good stats is just gravy.&nbsp; Not so for the monk -- if he wants to live.If you crunch the numbers you will find that a well designed 1st level 25 point Rogue fights in melee better than a 1st 25 point Monk.&nbsp; That seems rather odd considering that the Rogue has 16-20 more skill points and is a deadlier ranged combatant (for the price of lower saves).&nbsp; This gap doesn't really vanish until mid-levels.In theory having fours melee stats can be turned into an advantage.&nbsp; In practice, that is unlikely to be true until high levels (13+) unless you roll exceptional dice at chracter creation.High level monks are fine characters.&nbsp; The combination of great mobility and great defenses are valuable both to the PC and the party when many instant doom spells/effect are flying around.&nbsp; Note that I have seen zero evidence that high level monks are overpowered.The weird thing about monks is that they as &quot;pseudo-spellcaster&quot; melee combatants.&nbsp; What I mean is that their principal contribution to the party is melee fighting while their unique abilites scale as if they were spellcasters.&nbsp; The result is the power progression seems off compared to the other 10 core classes.What would I suggst to do to fix the monk is decouple the monk from such strong stat dependency.&nbsp; (1) Let monks uses Wis instead of Dex for AC (not a bonus) and increase the monk AC bonus.&nbsp; (2) Let monks use the Wis for determining &quot;to hit&quot; bonus in melee instread of Str (but let Str still affect damage bonuses).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 655057, member: 545"] A "small" digression... The major design flaw of a monk is they require 4 good attributes to be effective at melee. The net result is that they are [b]very, very weak[/b] relative to all comparable classes for levels 1-6 with point buys in the 25-32 range. I am not making this up; I have seen [i]multiple[/i] examples of this problem in play. For comparison, any of the basic 4 classes (fighter, rogue, wiz, cleric), is functional in their role with just two good stats, more good stats is just gravy. Not so for the monk -- if he wants to live. If you crunch the numbers you will find that a well designed 1st level 25 point Rogue fights in melee better than a 1st 25 point Monk. That seems rather odd considering that the Rogue has 16-20 more skill points and is a deadlier ranged combatant (for the price of lower saves). This gap doesn't really vanish until mid-levels. In theory having fours melee stats can be turned into an advantage. In practice, that is unlikely to be true until high levels (13+) unless you roll exceptional dice at chracter creation. High level monks are fine characters. The combination of great mobility and great defenses are valuable both to the PC and the party when many instant doom spells/effect are flying around. Note that I have seen zero evidence that high level monks are overpowered. The weird thing about monks is that they as "pseudo-spellcaster" melee combatants. What I mean is that their principal contribution to the party is melee fighting while their unique abilites scale as if they were spellcasters. The result is the power progression seems off compared to the other 10 core classes. What would I suggst to do to fix the monk is decouple the monk from such strong stat dependency. (1) Let monks uses Wis [i]instead[/i] of Dex for AC (not a bonus) and increase the monk AC bonus. (2) Let monks use the Wis for determining "to hit" bonus in melee instread of Str (but let Str still affect damage bonuses). [/QUOTE]

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