Monk - what do you like and dislike?

[Greg K]

Blood & Fists' "Martial Arts Master" scratches my itch much better.

Mine too!

 

[Particle_Man]

What would be good for a monk would be something like a reverse Power Attack, where they would increase their attack roll at the cost of damage.

 

[Felon]

I like:

• Good skill list.
• Exotic defenses. A warrior class designed to have defenses against foes with spells and supernatural powers. Barbarians and tank-fighters can go toe-to-toe with the giants; monks are the guys who pin down the mind flayers and liches.
• Fast movement. Provides the monk with an area where it clearly excels relative to other classes.

I dislike:

• AC too low--or is that AC too high? Without the right magic items, a monk has one of the worst AC's. With the right magic items, it has one of the best.
• Damage output that scales insanely. A spectrum that ranges from two 1d6 attacks with a -2 penalty to five 2d10 attacks with no penalty (three of them at full BAB) is ridiculous.
• Damage output that only scales with unarmed strikes. A monk shouldn't become weaker just by virtue of putting nunchaku in his hands. However his damage scales, it should scale with weapons as well. To be honest, I think the base class should rely on weapons by default, with unarmed mastery reserved for a prestige class. One of the things prestige classes can do well is provide the focus needed to make otherwise weak choices efective.
• Flurry of blows...well, it blows. D&D's combat system creates big a discrepency between how good a full-round attack action is versus how good a standard action attack is. The flurry of blows ability makes this gulf intolerable. A monk is designed to be the mobility expert of the group, with the best movement bonuses by far. But his offense relies on taking a full-round attack to deliver a flurry of blows. Which is it going to be?
• Slow fall is a silly waste of text. Drop this 10 foot increment every two levels nonsense and just say a monk within reach of a wall doesn't take falling damage. Maybe make a Tumble check or something.
• Lack of mobility and offense against flying targets. Monks are weak in the area of ranged offense, and mobility is supposed to be their niche. Thus, I'd say monks should be able to use Jump and Climbs skills to reach ariborne foes.
• Multi-classing restrictions are LAME. The worst part of this is that the designers probably thought they were doing this prevent players from objecting to the idea of a multi-classed monk. Why they didn't take 3.5e as an opportunity to ditch the restrictions I can't fathom.

 

[marune]

I like:

• Lack of mobility and offense against flying targets. Monks lack ranged offense, and mobility is supposed to be their niche. Thus, I'd say monks should be able to use Jump and Climbs skills to reach ariborne foes.

The best for a monk is to have a way to get an air walk casted on him, because yeah, Sling sucks.

 

[Mad Mac]

I love Monks. They model my favorite character archtype and have oodles of cool and unique abilities you can't get anywhere else.

Now, mechanically speaking, they have serious issues. I don't regard that as paticularly suprising or disappointing considering how completely different they are than the rest of the PHB classes.

Personally, when the class first rolled out in 3.0, I'm sure the designers were concerned that the monk would be too good. People still sometimes glance at that ability list and go "Whoa! Monks are totally broken!".

The trend since then has been to slowly improve and strengthen the class, as actual play experience continues to show it more on the weak side of the class spectrum. Some good changes were made to the Monk class from 3.0 to 3.5, and I'm relatively confident that the class will continue to be improved on with time.

 

[Gadget]

*De-lurk*
I think the problem with the monk is one of genre conflict, rather than East vs. West flavor conflict. Sure, the monk is probably tied a little too closely to the Shaolin monk concept, but I think there is room in D&D for the mystic, jedi-esque, discipline-of-the-mind type of archetype. The problem comes from—setting aside the specific mechanical issues--making the monk a ‘martial artist’. A mobile, acrobatic light-fighter? Fine. Having martial arts ( and by martial arts I mean bare-handed techniques such as kung fu, etc.) skills there when the situation calls for it? Fine. But to make that the monk's main schtick? No thank you.

D&D tries to cover a rather wide base of fantasy genre and conventions, but I just don’t see plain vanilla D&D covering the chop-sockey kung fu well without major clashes...at least not without an Oriental Adventures type supplement that focuses on such a campaign. Outside of a campaign that is very humanoid-centric, where the characters engage in little more than tavern brawls and street fights, I have a hard time accepting the guy who runs around fighting with his bare hands and whopping skilled warriors armed to the teeth, let alone monsters. If your 'martial arts' master is handing my skilled and highly trained fighter/barbarian/paladin/knight/Ranger his backside in any put very unusual circumstances, he better be either one of two things: have a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo going on, or be much higher level.

That said, I think the monk could focus more on cool, more psonic-like abilities, such as the psonic focus feats, or the newer, similar feats for fighter types in PHBII (forget name) and less on bare handed techniques and be much more palitable. Sort of more of a psychic warrior arch-type.

 

[Drowbane]

...I have a hard time accepting the guy who runs around fighting with his bear hands and whopping skilled warriors armed to the teeth, let alone monsters. If your martial arts master is handing my skilled and highly trained fighter/barbarian/paladin/knight/Ranger his backside in any put very unusual circumstances, he better be either one of two things: have a lot of mystical mumbo-jumbo going on or be much higher level.

Which is probably why the Monk sucks so hard. Put your average Monk (25-32pt buy) up against your average Barbarian or Fighter-Tank and see what happens. Ranger? Yea a monk can likely hand him his ass... but the Ranger sucks too. (Rangers were so awesome back in the day :/)

As to the OP's question:

I like the Monk's flavor. I will always have room for diverse cultures in my D&D. And fie to those who can't play outside of western europe! (heh, no offense meant)

Mechanically speaking, the Monk is a train wreck. As others have mentioned, this class has no idea as to wtf it is supposed to do.

I much prefer Dragon Compendium vol. 1's Battledancer. I also allow Martial Arts feats from SWd20

 

[Thunderfoot]

Monks stink! - Not only has the flavor of a European society been invaded by "Kung Fu", but it just doesn't size up with the "adjustable" classes of the core. 3.X was supposed to clear-up "cookie-cutter" characters, but even though you can sort of choose feats, they are all basically the same.

In OA at least the fit, as for the adaptability, they have the potential to be so, but they were written wrong. What about fighting styles - not just unarmed attacks; or specialized ki attacks, not just a carte blanche system. The writers tried to bring back a 1st edition class, without limiting it the way the 1E did. (ie class quals)

 

[Felon]

I am of the opinion that martial arts should be housed entirely within the feat subsystem, rather than attempting to embed it into the monk class. D&D's designers did a sort of half-arsed job by making Improved Unarmed Strike available as a feat, but making the base damage so pathetic that taking monk levels are the only way to make a real go at it.

IMO that's where the big mistake with both the monk as a class and unarmed combat as a fighting style got off on the wrong foot in 3e. A fighter dedicated to martial arts should be the best at it, just as a fighter dedicated to archery or two-weapon fighting is better at it than a ranger. The monk should be a character that delves into martial arts, but is a combination of martial art techniques and its own unique spiritual secrets (such as its various supernatural abilities) and physical disciplines (such as evasion, slow fall, and fast movement).

Instead the designers hemmed and hawed, tried to build it up into the only viable unarmed combat path, but at the same time they weren't wiling to pony up a better BAB and hit die because a monk isn't supposed to be a front-line fighter. Think about it.

 

[Question]

I dont like how its a half-done attempt at emulating martial arts.......some parts are done right, some arent, some are left out.