monks . . . we don't need no stinking monks

[FreeTheSlaves]

Surely you exaggerate Zerovoid, you make them sound like an annoying mossie that won't go away.

Hmm...

 

[Sagan Darkside]

You would need to really min-max a monk to even get close to the power that an average fighter has.

That is because a monk is not a fighter- they are not supposed to fill that role.

SD

 

[ghettognome]

I agree that they look unbalanced, but I think they are underpowered also to a degree. I played one at 20th level once, I ended up grappled and drowned in very little time.
I have seen them played by other people, unless there is an expert at min/max playing the monk, they get pretty hurt pretty quick. In one group in particular that I played in, there was a Thri-Kreen monk that came close to death often enough to make a new character. The module we played was City of the Spider Queen. Everytime he tried to hit, he took damage, and almost everyone was immune to electricity damage which made that special abiltiy useless.
There is also of course the factor of coming up against monsters that can''t be hurt by physical damage. At high levels, despite all the really cool abilities a monk has, they are not as helpful in battle as they would look to be on paper.

 

[Olive]

Re: Re

The monk has always boggled me as well.

Where is the monk from? What is it based on? Why did they make a class that was a "mish-mash concept" that seemed to have no real focus or direction?

The monk seems way out of place in this game. I use it on occasion to capture some character concepts, since the monk seems to be their idea of a martial artist, but I definitely wish WotC would come up with some alternative to the monk.

the monk, like heaps of stuff, is a hold over from the early days of DnD... and if you got rid of it, it would getting rid of some of the history that makes up the game.

now, to me it seems obvious that monks are based on the kung fu movie interpretation of the shaolin monk, and i doubt that if was designing a medieval european fantasy game i'd put them in, but they're here, and they're not going anywhere.

 

[coyote6]

Re: Re

Where is the monk from? What is it based on?

The original monk class was based on "The Destroyer", a series of action-adventure books featuring Remo Williams, student of Chiun, Master of Sinanju. There was a movie.

The original monk's abilities (at least a subset of 'em) match Remo's abilities (or at least a subset of them; I think later books gave him more tricks) fairly well, IIRC.

Again IIRC, there's a fairly early (i.e., before issue 100) Dragon article that discusses the monk & mentions that the creator was a fan of The Destroyer.

But that's where the monk's weird set of abilities came from.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Re: Re: Re

But that's where the monk's weird set of abilities came from.

You move like a pregnant yak.

SD

 

[Black Omega]

Re: Re: Re: Re

You move like a pregnant yak.

And you breath like a monkey in heat.

A fun movie and fun action series. Once the first couple books are past and they've figured out where they are going with it.

 

[Sagan Darkside]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re

Once the first couple books are past and they've figured out where they are going with it.

I had forgotten about this series- once I am done with my current pile of books (*pause for laughter*) I will have to see about tracking this series down.

SD

 

[Azure Trance]

You should pimp this one more often!

Aye, he doesn't pimp it quite often enough. And his webpage was only updated four days ago :/

 

[Celtavian]

Re

The original monk class was based on "The Destroyer", a series of action-adventure books featuring Remo Williams, student of Chiun, Master of Sinanju. There was a movie.

The original monk's abilities (at least a subset of 'em) match Remo's abilities (or at least a subset of them; I think later books gave him more tricks) fairly well, IIRC.

Again IIRC, there's a fairly early (i.e., before issue 100) Dragon article that discusses the monk & mentions that the creator was a fan of The Destroyer.

But that's where the monk's weird set of abilities came from

It's funny that you mention Remo Williams. That is exactly who I was going to mention the monk seemed like. Hehe.

The guy who sits on his thumbs while watching T.V.