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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2114110" data-attributes="member: 3146">Ducking through the flames to get here, I think my analysis of the situation is this: the problem with the monk class in a lot of games is that people tend to toss archetypes from radically different backgrounds and cultures together in a kind of comic-book superhero crossover issue style without addressing the philosophies and cultures behind the classes or providing a convincing alternative. The paladin and the monk, as the most philosophically and religiously defined classes in the Player's Handbook are the cases where this is the most obvious and that is why you have "paladin" threads and "monk" threads.If a setting incorporated not only the monk class, but some of the Taoist principles (not necessarily as game-world physics, but as a belief system/culture in conflict with the other belief systems and cultures of the world), I think it might successfully integrate the monk class into a D&D that included paladins and barbarians. However, doing so could demand explanations or why the implicit theories of realities presented by all sides of the conflict seem to work. Such a setting would not, of course be closely modelled on any historical or mythic setting, but it could be a convincing setting in its own right.</blockquote>