Monk - what do you like and dislike?

[Fishbone]

Likes:
The Flavor. I think a monk is very much appropriate to the setting and it is a much better alternative than a fist-fighting fighter.
All the little things you get: Unlike some classes like Marshal, Fighter, etc you always get a little sumpin' sumpin'. Fist dice bump, movement, armor, more stunning, quivering pal,. bonus feat, more healing, poison immunity, etc.
That an unarmored, non-swashbuckling class can be pulled off relatively well because of the untyped wisdom bonus to AC.
They rule anything Large or smaller hardcore more often than not and totally make the bard, magic user, or anything with a small hit dice its beeyotch. Nice at harrying, too.
Decent skill list and skill points.
They are a total pain for the enemy to take out. All nice saves, with emphasis on Fort and Will make it hard to land something that will do more than just damage. Fast movement, nice armor class.
Unless you sweet-talk the GM into allowing Necklaces of Natural Attacks it costs a kabajillion GP to get enhancement bonuses on your attacks. This leads weapons to be better than smacking with fists, which is counter to what the Monk is all about.
Rare is the time where I've ever flurried on a non-humanoid. 3/4 BAB and a d8 means I"m constantly popping in and out for my 20 or 30 damage. Meanwhile the pally, fighter, ranger, or barb gets to wail the guys into next tuesday. Displacement is a real nice help as is the good AC but it just never seems to be worth it.
I think the monk is great flavorwise but it seems I'm in the minority. Its hard to integrate a monk storywise without it coming off as schlocky or forced. Digs on the monk by others are common, too.
They just don't seem to make good villains.
And last but not least...
Wisdom, even though it runs several major abilities is still 3rd behind Strength and Constitution. I'd like for a high Wisdom, high Dex character to viable but they just aren't as good as Str/Con/Wis fighters.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Welcome to the boards, Fishbone!

Just for the record, I run my Dex/Wis/Str monks just fine.

 

[jbuck]

sorry i made i mistake with the name of the spell, i ment 'shield' not 'shield of faith'
none of the bonuses are stacking illegally either, least not so far as i can see, dex stacks with everything, wis is unnamed, shield is a shield bonus, and mage armour is an armour bonus, and there is an exalted bonus there too. far as i can see non of these shouldent be stacking.
you are probably right with VoP being slightly overpowered in the hands of a monk, but i can't really see how the game designers missed it. its not like the monk is in a suplement like oriental adventures, the only way i see that it could be not intended for use by monks is if the game designers at wizards are REALLY forgetfull, and i do try to give them some credit

 

[Fishbone]

Thanks.
It just never seems to work for me. I hate blowing a feat on Weapon Finesse, I prefer to take Improved Natural Attack. I dislike having an already damage light character deal less damage. DR that I can't punch through really sticks it to the Dex fighter. I know the monk shouldn't get hit a lot but I really am a HP junkie.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

sorry i made i mistake with the name of the spell, i ment 'shield' not 'shield of faith'
none of the bonuses are stacking illegally either, least not so far as i can see, dex stacks with everything, wis is unnamed, shield is a shield bonus, and mage armour is an armour bonus, and there is an exalted bonus there too. far as i can see non of these shouldent be stacking.
you are probably right with VoP being slightly overpowered in the hands of a monk, but i can't really see how the game designers missed it. its not like the monk is in a suplement like oriental adventures, the only way i see that it could be not intended for use by monks is if the game designers at wizards are REALLY forgetfull, and i do try to give them some credit

Shield is a personal spell. How did you get it?

My understanding is that Exalted bonuses to AC do not stack with armor bonuses, which just goes to show why rules should be explained clearly in a book.

WotC employees have - gasp - made errors before.

 

[Gizzard]

Ooops, I forgot about this thread. I appreciate Cactot throwing some more numbers into the fray; I generally agree with them even if I am going to poke at them a bit. ;-)

I played in a campaign where my monks highest starting stat was Str, and he performed very well indeed. Not gimped at all in fact.

I would like to see the stats for this Monk; I've seen high STR builds touted before, but I've never seen one in play. (It certainly seems counter-intuitive to take a class whose prime attributes are supposed to be DEX and WIS and go high STR!)

After all - how many D&D games are just about arena combat? Not many I'll wager.

Yeah, but the Monk is supposed to be a combatant. :-/

...two weapon rend, double hit, robillars gambit...

Where are these feats from; I suspect some of that nice damage is from these non-core feats?

The L12 Fighter in my campaign pretty consistently dealt 40-50 points a round; his record was 92 points (which involved a couple crits against a Hezrou). The Monk was clearly second rate, never came close to that 92, maybe did 75% of the damage the Fighter did and was savagely abused by opponents with DR.

I suppose I can go looking for the stats for these characters; they were both point-buy, item-buy creations for a L12 campaign, and as such make a fairly good comparison.

 

[Fishbone]

The monk isn't meant for laying down heavy damage and because of that stupid 3/4 BAB they are "second rate" damage dealers. If you are a little tricky you can ramp the Monk damage pretty high. With Monk's Belt and Improved Natural Attack the monk should have been laying down 3d8 damage. Enlarge and it is 4d8. Heavy(a +1 enhancement) gauntlets and it is 6d6+enhancement. Have the spellcaster learn Greater Mighty Wallop for 3 more dice increases and that is 12d6 damage + enhancement and strength a pop!
And the fighter should be a little better at fighting. He fights.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The monk isn't meant for laying down heavy damage and because of that stupid 3/4 BAB they are "second rate" damage dealers. If you are a little tricky you can ramp the Monk damage pretty high. With Monk's Belt and Improved Natural Attack the monk should have been laying down 3d8 damage. Enlarge and it is 4d8. Heavy(a +1 enhancement) gauntlets and it is 6d6+enhancement. Have the spellcaster learn Greater Mighty Wallop for 3 more dice increases and that is 12d6 damage + enhancement and strength a pop!
And the fighter should be a little better at fighting. He fights.

Doing so requires dodgy rules interpretations, non-core rules, broken magic items (that would be the monk's belt) and sucking spells from other party members. And none of that seems to boost his attack bonus.

Even if you do enough damage over time to equal the fighter (or more!), it's going to be plenty boring because you miss most of the time.

 

[jcfiala]

The monk isn't meant for laying down heavy damage and because of that stupid 3/4 BAB they are "second rate" damage dealers. If you are a little tricky you can ramp the Monk damage pretty high. With Monk's Belt and Improved Natural Attack the monk should have been laying down 3d8 damage. Enlarge and it is 4d8. Heavy(a +1 enhancement) gauntlets and it is 6d6+enhancement. Have the spellcaster learn Greater Mighty Wallop for 3 more dice increases and that is 12d6 damage + enhancement and strength a pop!
And the fighter should be a little better at fighting. He fights.

a) Gauntlets are a weapon - a simple one, according to the PHB - and one that does 1d3 damage and with which a Monk is not proficient. Ergo, you're doing less damage, and hitting with a -4 non-proficiency penalty. Plus, you can't flurry.

b) Improved Natural Attack improves a Natural Attack, which I'm not convinced a Monk's attack is. For one thing, a Natural attack does not get iterative attacks due to high BAB, but a monk does, and a Natural attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity like most unarmed attacks do. (Admittedly, monks get Improved Unarmed Strike, but that feat removes a AOO, and I don't think it turns an unarmed strike into a Natural Attack.

c) You're forcing the spellcaster to buff you twice before you enter combat - how often is that going to happen, instead of the spellcaster casting offensive spells?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

b) Improved Natural Attack improves a Natural Attack, which I'm not convinced a Monk's attack is. For one thing, a Natural attack does not get iterative attacks due to high BAB, but a monk does, and a Natural attack does not provoke attacks of opportunity like most unarmed attacks do. (Admittedly, monks get Improved Unarmed Strike, but that feat removes a AOO, and I don't think it turns an unarmed strike into a Natural Attack.

Whether you agree or not, a Monk's Unarmed Strike has been ruled to be a valid target of INA, so he's on solid footing there.