Monk - what do you like and dislike?


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At higher levels, that -4 to hit is almost immaterial...and anyway there are ways around it.

The Oversized TWF helps, and the Multiheaded Template erases it entirely (we've ony used THAT for NPCs, though).
 

Dannyalcatraz said:
At higher levels, that -4 to hit is almost immaterial...and anyway there are ways around it.

The Oversized TWF helps, and the Multiheaded Template erases it entirely (we've ony used THAT for NPCs, though).

Oversized TWF isn't in the core rules, though. I figured that if we're discussing core classes, we should stick to the core rules. (I should also say something about the posts going on about Two-Weapon Rend and stuff like that.)
 


Aus_Snow said:
I like many of the abilities - I think they're cool and reasonably interesting.

I dislike the fact that Monks are in the core rules at all, not in Oriental Adventures, where (in my opinion) they belong, right alongside Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Sohei, etc.

On the assumption you are looking for a multitude of opinions - this sums mine up pretty well.
 

I like many of the abilities - I think they're cool and reasonably interesting.

I dislike the fact that Monks are in the core rules at all, not in Oriental Adventures, where (in my opinion) they belong, right alongside Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Sohei, etc.

I think I said as much earlier, but since it came up again...I'll agree again.
 

i love monks, though i do agree that they would probably be better suited to an oriental campaign.
i cant see how you came to the conclusion that monks are terrible. i've currently been banned from playing monks by our DM because he has scerious issues with killing my monks.
in our last game i made a VoP monk that had 30AC at FIRST level (10 base, 4 dex, 4 wis, 4 mage armour, 4 exalted armour bonus and 4 from shield of faith)
granted that i did have 2 18s to play with there, but still thats still 27 if i only had a 16 and a 14 to put in my AC stats.

and for our 20th level game i did worse, 5th level monk human paragon.
the stats (after items and racial ajustments) were
STR: 30 (w/t +2 ion stone)
DEX: 36 (w/t +6 gloves of dex)
CON: 32
WIS: 38 (w/t +6 amulet of wis & my 1 lonesome stat point)
INT: 27
CHA: 22
(the origional stats i rolled were: 17, 16, 15, 12, 13, 7)
& the best part was that even with only 5 HD i had 155 HP (i got 31 per lvl: 8 from monk always max cause of paragon, 12 bonus from paragon, and 11 con)
my AC was just huge: 10 base +15 luck +10 natural + 13 dex + 13 wis + 1 monk AC + bracers of armour +8 + 5 ring of deflection + 4 mage armour + 1 dodge = 80, 70 for touch attacks. and couse i had a +25 luck bonus to hit & damage it killed stuff good too, even though i only had 2 attacks.
 

Any 1st level Character can hit 30 AC with all 18s, Buffs from a 12th level spellcaster, and illegally stacking bonuses. That doesn't make the monk not underpowered.
 


One aspect of the monk that hasn't been talked about a great deal are his bonus feats:

1) Improved Trip - Knocking someone prone gives you a +4 to those many many attacks of yours, allowing them to hit more often. Also prone weakens an opponents offense against your low AC, and forces him to spend actions fixing the condition. With a +4 to trip attacks, that equivalent of a +8 strength, meaning your going to win against even burly fighters and barbarians most of the time.

Now if the monk is fighting big creatures all of the time, this is weak. But against npcs and the like, the monk can do very well.

2) Improved Disarm - Pretty much only a good idea if your going quarterstaff monk, but can be good with this weapon. You get a +4 for a Two handed weapon and another +4 for the feat, so even with a medium BAB your looking good against fighters without two handed weapons.

3) Deflect Arrows - The best thing about this feat is it turns a hit into a miss, making it very good against archers.

4) Stunning Fist - As many have noted, the save DC on this isn't that great, you shouldn't expect a creature to fail very often. But hey, its a free action to use, and you get a fair number of them. A 5th level monk gets it 5 times per day. And one stun means an automatic disarm, and a whole round of attacks avoided. We all know how much damage that can save.

5) Improved Grapple - A +4 to grapple checks counters the BAB gap until high levels, flurry allows you more grapple attacks, and the fact you negate teh AOO for grappling makes the monk a decent grappler.

Now, I still think even with these feats the monk is a little weak in the melee department, however...this is an important part of the monks abilities that cannot be overlooked.
 

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