New tidbit about spells and hit points.

[Grog]

A level 20 raging barbarian with base STR 20 and a nonmagical greataxe could pretty easily pour out the same straight-up damage than a level 20 monk, even with 1 less attack.

1d12+13 = 25 maximum damage, x4 = 100 damage.

That's before counting how a barbarian will have a much easier time getting a magic weapon, or how they only have to focus on Str and Con in general instead of Str/Dex/Con/Wis, or how a barbarian's full BAB means hitting more often...

Exactly. No 20th level barbarian would have a damage output that low. With a 34 STR (when raging) and a +5 greataxe, he's doing 1d12+23 per hit, and that's just bare bones - not even a little bit optimized for damage. Add in weapon enchants (holy, etc.), inherent bonuses to STR, Power Attack, etc., he can easily do double the damage of a monk, if not much more.

Granted, the monk has other abilities to compensate, but these are mainly defensive abilities which protect the monk himself and don't contribute much to the party as a whole. If I was in this party and had to choose who to bring along, I'd much rather have the barbarian.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes, the Monk has really proven to become a Paper Tiger in the experience of my D&D group.
His abilities look nice and powerful, but all the cool special abilities turn out to be near useless in combat. In a low-magic campaign, they might probably be pretty impressive, but that's not standard D&D. The medium BAB weakens them considerably, and the AC bonus isn't that impressive, either. The combination of great speed and many attacks doesn't work out that great, either, because you can't use the first if you use the last, and vice versa.

I would strongly recommend against comparing the abilities between editions in terms of power - Versatility, options available, might be okay. But the only important thing in regarding to power is power within an edition.