Tell me about Monks in your world.

[Aaron L]

Interesting. Have you modified the monk to reflect their more psionic nature?

No need to, they are plenty psionic already, although they have a strictly defined list of powers they gain. Focusing ones mind, body, and inner self to perform supernatural feats is psionics by definition . There is no disctinction made between Ki and psionics, as they are the same thing, and they were discovered as such.

Monks developed as the first psionic discipline, Psychic Warriors branching out from them as practitioners learned to manipulate thier Ki in more and different ways and abandoning the focus on unarmed combat mastery (the claw powers developed from attempts at a more powerful Ki strike and started the diversification of psionic powers), and finally Psions came about, abandoning the warrior aspect of bodily focus and developing an almost purely intellectual mastery of thier internal energies.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Hmmm. Skilled unarmed combatants would fit very well in a setting with a hellenistic flavor, but not as implemented by the core monk.



Interesting. Are you thinking of dropping some of the more mystical monk abilities and just using them as a martial arts mixin/template?

Sam

To your first point; exactly and I don't think any soldier/adventurer would go into battle with neither armor nor a weapon given a choice most of the time(in real life anyway ). But I have had a fighter in my games who took alot of unarmded feats and was a wrestler. But he died.

As for the gesalt monks; I'll probably keep alot of their mystical abilities or let the players switch them out for some equally powerful stuff.

 

[Turjan]

But i think - the two trends are not necessarily exclusive. in my gaming environment, my friends and I draw from the Occidental, if you will forgive my use of the term, tradition to imbue our games with lots of energy and ideas from traditions far from my own. i think... perhaps most of you could draw some ideas from the home cultures of the monk, as "imagined"?

In this age of globalisation and rapidly closing borders - (heck, i'm writing this on a message board in real-time, from singapore, on campus) - let us embrace what we can offer to each other, with open minds?

It's always fascinating to realize that our real world is often much more exotic than most fantasy settings . As I was one of those people voting against the inclusion of the monk in his campaign, just a few words of explanation.

If I look at the religious aspects of the monk, I see that we have some kind of "philosophy" built into the D&D class, but this is completely irrelevant for the game itself. It stays somewhat blurry, so the monk is more or less reduced to an unarmed fighter with funny feats. Btw, I have also difficulties with the D&D cleric as fighting priest; thsi does not ring true to me either. However, we need some healer in the game, so he stays.

Looking at the cultural aspect of the game, the exclusion of the monk is due to the fact that I try to keep some regional focus. My homebrew represents only a smaller part of "my world", and here you will find mostly European/"Near East" aspects with some (East) Indian and Sibirian overtones (as far as humans go). I suppose that this is already more than enough for a limited geographic area, and I just like to avoid some kind of hodgepodge a la "everything goes". The exclusion of psionics goes into the same direction.

I could imagine to use the monk in some different kind of game. However, for me this would mean to give other classes the boot, like clerics, paladins, bards and druids. But this is a completely different story .

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I removed the multi-classing restrictions, as well. IMC, they belong to a human culture that was once a servitor race for the former rulers in the setting. While now integrated into the current culture, they kept their traditions and language secret during their long enslavement, and are now free to practice their methods and beliefs. Today, there are several "academies" where they practice their skills and techniques. While highly regulated by the "modern" regime, they are not discouraged and many of the ruling class send their children to the academies for the discipline that is taught.

 

[Psion]

No need to, they are plenty psionic already, although they have a strictly defined list of powers they gain. Focusing ones mind, body, and inner self to perform supernatural feats is psionics by definition . There is no disctinction made between Ki and psionics, as they are the same thing, and they were discovered as such.

I do this as well. Ki powers = psi-like abilities IMC. Though I picture monks as a step towards the divine.

 

[mythusmage]

(Re Ki Monks) Did you make any modifications to these monks to more closely represent their pursuit of mental and spiritual perfection?

Not in any mechanical sense. I tend to use group/culture/societal measures instead. A member of an order acts in a manner contrary to the teachings of that order, he could well find himself without access to the resources provided by the order. Training and equipment for instance. Making it harder to continue advancing in a particular profession or vocation.

(Re Dragon Earth Templates) I'd be interested in seeing this. Would you also be able to describe your conditional template as a cultural template? I think I discussed something similar when cultural stereotypes where brought up in a thread on Eddings' trash fantasy books.

Very much a work in progress. I have a thread elsewhere I'll be adding to by this time tomorrow. At which point this posting will get edited to show where it is.

As to cultural templates. I didn't think of that. So the scheme gets expanded to, everybody has four templates; racial, cultural, societal, and vocational. In addition a character may have a fifth, conditional template, indicating possession of qualities and flaws peculiar to a particular condition. Vampirism, lycanthropy, having dire qualities are all examples of conditional templates.

So one could play a wandering peddler, (societal) intinerant tinker (cultural), goblin (racial), werebadger (conditional), scout (vocational) character for example. Really broadens and deepens a character, don't it?

 

[Samuel Leming]

The fighter IS the martial artist of D&D

The place of the monk in my world has changed slightly since I started this thread. Which is a good thing, as I began this discussion to learn.

Before I proceed I should clarify that by martial arts I'm refering to studied, and perhaps systemized, techniques for conducting combat and/or warfare, not just unarmed combat.

The fighter class, with their numerous feats, ARE the martial artists of D&D. They excel at all forms of physical combat except for unarmed. IMO, this is a problem. A problem that I will solve before my next campaign by creating a set of balanced feats that will allow fighters to improve their unarmed damage and unarmored defense. When a player's character concept is a variation of "He's good at the kicking of the butt", the fighter class should be high on his list of choices even when unarmed combat is considered. Characters with other classes will be able to take these feats also, particularly rogues, and if their concept requires a consideral amount of unarmed skill they'll be able to multi-class as a fighter without having to worry about any of the excess baggage that comes with the monk. The single worst thing about the D&D monk is that people play it when they really want to be playing something else.

The western style divine monk I discussed in an earlier post will be the default monk type in my world. I'll make more use than I originally thought of the standard D&D monk and variants, which I'll refer to as mystic monks for now since I haven't thought of a better name yet.

The divine monk usually desires a quiet life of contemplation and service, but sometimes duty and circumstance demands more of him. I still intend to base this class on the cloistered cleric from Unearthed Arcana with the spontaneous divine caster option. These monks will be able to freely multi-class. Monasteries will be common and monks will most likely be more numerous than clerics. Most of the NPC holy men of my world will belong to a priest NPC class, the adept class not being quite right.

Mystic monks will be very rare. After reading all the posts here I've decided to keep the multi-class restrictions for mystic monks. Shao sums up the reason better than I could:

Monks are different from laypeople in that they have sworn to follow the way of enlightenment to the exclusion of all else - through the path of practising their road to enlightenment, they attain different fruits of merit.

Since I'm allowing any class to pick up some skill with unarmed combat, multi-classing the monk is no longer needed. I'm not claiming that multi-classing in someone else's game is bad and it wouldn't bother me one bit to play in someone's game where monk multi-classing was unrestricted, but for my game it will be restricted until a character has over twenty hit dice. In my next game unless a player's character concept includes "I'm on a personal quest for enlightenment and perfection" the mystic monk is not for him. I'll make sure there are other ways for him to play what he wants.

There will be three variations on the mystic monk. The monk as presented in the PHB is a path towards physical perfection, so I'll introduce mystic monk variations for the paths to spiritual perfection and mental perfection. The mental mystic monk will be easier to design. This philosopher monk will be to the psion as the warrior monk is to the fighter. The spiritual mystic monk will be more difficult to pin down since there are so many examples: Fakirs, yogis, hermits and all those buddhist & hindu monks Shao mentioned.

Well, monks in my world.

Sam

 

[Samuel Leming]

Though I picture monks as a step towards the divine.

Ooh! An ambiguous statement... And both obvious interpretations are true.

As to cultural templates. I didn't think of that. So the scheme gets expanded to, everybody has four templates; racial, cultural, societal, and vocational.

Really broadens and deepens a character, don't it?

Yeah, trust me to make things even more complicated for you.

I look forward to seeing the write-up.

Sam

 

[mythusmage]

Yeah, trust me to make things even more complicated for you.

I look forward to seeing the write-up.

Sam

I gave it more thought, and decided that culture and social rank can be covered by the same template. So the sample character would be a wandering peddler from a tribe of wandering tinkers (cultural), goblin (racial), werebadger (conditional), scout (vocational). So it isn't as complicated as you thought.

 

[Psion]

Ooh! An ambiguous statement... And both obvious interpretations are true.

Pretty much the same thing from m standpoint.

AFAIAC, the transition between life and death is the province of divine magic. That divine magic has the market cornered on the more straightforward ways to overcome death sort of plays into this view.

My classical image of monks is somewhat closely tied to Buddhism, and the act of self perfection is really steps along the path to a higher spiritual state in the life hereafter. Which makes it skirt closely to the territory of divine casters.

Incidentally, related to meaning #2, sufficiently enlightented monks may reach an altered state during their existence in the world. The 20th level monk ability is just a reflection of this ability. IMC, some few powerful monk/spellcasters take the Ti Hsien prestige class, which grants them immortality after a fashion... if they are slain, they are automatically reincarnated in a foetus elsewhere in the world. (As you can see, this class is more plot device than anything else). Upon reaching their teen years, they recall their former life and regain their former abilities.