Inigo Carmine
First Post
Monks are caster killers.
They aren't meant to be tanks. They are highly mobile combatants. They're supposed to take care of the problem enemies (usually ones that do lots of damage, but can't take much damage; like a wizard).
After the early levels, wizards will rock a fighter's world 9 times out of ten (and clerics will rock a fighter's world 11 times out of 10). This is where you send Mr Monk in. They have the speed to get around the caster's front line defense (without taking 4 rounds to do it). Even if they can't use that to get to where they need to go, they can dimension door, slowfall, or go ethereal to do it. They have 3 high saves, + evasion and spell resistance, meaning that they're extremely difficult for wizards to harm.
They are excellent at grappling (a fighter or barbarian can sometimes beat a monk in a grapple, but the monk will kill a wizard in a grapple faster than a fighter or barb could, especially a monk made for grappling), which is a caster's worst nightmare. Conc check just to cast a spell, can't cast spells with somatic components, material components require a move action to get (and they have to win a grapple check to do so) and verbal component spells can't be used if pinned (unless monk allows them to).
Outside of combat, the monk isn't useless like a fighter is either. They have good skill points and a decent skill list.
The monk is far from useless. In fact, in most games I've seen (where people roll their scores instead of using Point Buy and just happen to have 3-4 18s) the monk is overpowered because they can make extreme use of every stat except charisma.
They aren't meant to be tanks. They are highly mobile combatants. They're supposed to take care of the problem enemies (usually ones that do lots of damage, but can't take much damage; like a wizard).
After the early levels, wizards will rock a fighter's world 9 times out of ten (and clerics will rock a fighter's world 11 times out of 10). This is where you send Mr Monk in. They have the speed to get around the caster's front line defense (without taking 4 rounds to do it). Even if they can't use that to get to where they need to go, they can dimension door, slowfall, or go ethereal to do it. They have 3 high saves, + evasion and spell resistance, meaning that they're extremely difficult for wizards to harm.
They are excellent at grappling (a fighter or barbarian can sometimes beat a monk in a grapple, but the monk will kill a wizard in a grapple faster than a fighter or barb could, especially a monk made for grappling), which is a caster's worst nightmare. Conc check just to cast a spell, can't cast spells with somatic components, material components require a move action to get (and they have to win a grapple check to do so) and verbal component spells can't be used if pinned (unless monk allows them to).
Outside of combat, the monk isn't useless like a fighter is either. They have good skill points and a decent skill list.
The monk is far from useless. In fact, in most games I've seen (where people roll their scores instead of using Point Buy and just happen to have 3-4 18s) the monk is overpowered because they can make extreme use of every stat except charisma.
