The Crimson Binome
Hero
Now you're casting a spell, and not even swinging a weapon. In many ways, this situation is even less comparable to what the fighter is doing.
You can't compare (figurative) apples to oranges, and only a fool would try.
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D&D General The Hall of Suck: Worst Classes in D&D History (Spoiler Alert: Nothing from 5e)
- Thread starter Gladius Legis
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You can't compare (figurative) apples to oranges, and only a fool would try.
Gladius Legis
Legend
You're doing damage either way. And doing a better job of it than the martial class is, and the martial class' only real job is to do damage. It absolutely is a fair comparison.
Ok, agree in general but there are a few inaccuracies and a few caveats. First a Monk leveled up below average but still faster than a paladin. 2250xp to make level2 Monk compared to 2750 for paladin, 500k to make level 10 compared to 700k for a paladin.
The monk got a d4 but he also got more of them at high levels. A fighter and Paladin stopped getting hit dice at level 9, a wizard stopped at level 11. A monk got it all the way to level 17. At 17th level Monk with a 16 constitution has on average 81hp. A17th level fighter or Paladin with a 16 constitution had on average 97. A 17th level rogue with a 16 constitution had 69 and a 17th level wizard had 56.
A monk had a crapload of abilities, I agree he was not a good melee character, but he was better than a thief at melee ... and got all the thief abilities except open locks and pick pockets ....plus a slew of unique monk abilities to boot. At 10th level a 1E monk could outrun a horse and there were only a few monsters in the entire game that were faster than a 17th level monk.
The monk got crap attack rolls but did more damage. He got +1/2 damage with weapons per level and his open hand damage from level 7 on were more than any weapon (against small or medium creatures). The way to fight with a monk though was to get a pole arm so you could have a longer reach than attack and move away out of melee range.
Finally the 1e monk could dual class. Meaning he could go 7 levels in fighter or Paladin to get great hps and attack rolls and 3 attacks every two rounds against most foes and 7 attacks against low level monsters and then start his monk career. You needed high rolls for this but it was doable. Alternatively he could take some levels in monk and then dual to magic user and have unmatched mobility and a far better AC than a magic-user.
Neonchameleon
Legend
Were they? Because the thief levelled up significantly faster (overtaking the monk's HP at 1250XP and looking back only for two small 250XP windows and after the thief has levelled into the teens), had backstab, and (surprisingly importantly) could use swords, which were the best weapons in AD&D. For armour class it wouldn't be until level 6 that a monk would pull ahead of a DX 15 (minimum to qualify for a monk) rogue wearing non-magic leather armour.
If we retire our thief at level 10 (Master Thief) because that's when they get a guild our monk is still only at level 7 and making 3 attacks/2 rounds with an AC of 5. And hasn't yet had to duel to level up.
It's also surprising how important the ability to wield swords is in AD&D; the treasure tables are deliberately skewed towards swords as a way of favouring fighters - but thieves are along for the ride. Which is anothe problem for the aescetic monk with their maximum of two weapons and three other magic items.
The trick is, of course, getting to level 10 as a 1e monk. Winning three duels along the way. Our thief is, of course, level 13 by this point.
I'm not actually sure they could. As I recall the requirements to dual class involved a minimum prime attribute in both the class they were entered and the class they were leaving - and there was no attribute that gave the monk bonus XP
They also required three 15s (Str, Dex, Wis) to qualify as a monk - and a 17 in the prime attribute of whatever they were dual classing into.
Not so much. You couldn't actually use the AC of the monk when dual classing until the magic user's level overtook the monk's. Gaining just three points of AC beyond the one you give up for not being able to use your DEX bonus required reaching level 6 - and that means that the wizard could only start using this AC from level 7 onwards. Before that they just got extra hit points unless they wanted to give up all earned XP
If we're talking about cheesing into a wizard and then have to play the thing, and we get absurd stats, the munchkin play of choice is ranger. 2d8 hit points at 1st level. A further d8 at 2nd - and gets to specialise in a bow and the longsword. Then into wizard having given up only a handful of XP, and having 3d8 hit points to make it through 1st and 2nd levels - and serious sword and bow skills.
If you could start as a high level monk they were great - but they were sub-thieves for most of the 1-10 period.
Helldritch
Hero
@auburn2
For the Monk to be at level 17th the character needed 3 250 000 xp points. He had 10 challenge fights just to get there and for the sake of the arguement, let's pretend he won all fights and did not have to relearn the lost levels...
The thief would be level 24, assuming 16 in Con HP would be 83 not 69
The Cleric would be level 22, HP would be 85
The fighter would be level 21, HP would be 109
The Paladin would be level 17, HP would be 97
The Magic-User would be level 18, HP would be 55
For Dual Classing, the monk would have had to have 17 in Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom. Assuming fighter as the first class. Because a 15 is required before being allowed to even leave the class. That is a lot of prerequisites. I bet that almost no monks were able to Dual class.
Losing the 17th level fight once meant a loss of 500,000 exp. Or about 1 or 2 levels for any other characters. A high cost for such low rewards.
As for the bonus of dmg on weapons. That was crap. Hand to hand was 8d4! With an average of 20 pts of damage, it was better than the bonus damage. Especially if the monk was properly enlarged to do 2x dmg or for an average of 40 per attacks or 160 dmg if all attacks would hit.
The same monk with an halberd would do 15 dmg in average. Give him a +1 halberd and it is 16. 4 points shy of his open hand damage and if enlarged it is only 22 dmg that the monk would do. The downside of enlarge is of course, being hit as a large creature and thus, taking more damage in return. We limited the damage to 100% of dice damage but the spell does state that a creature would be enlarged up to 200%...
For the Monk to be at level 17th the character needed 3 250 000 xp points. He had 10 challenge fights just to get there and for the sake of the arguement, let's pretend he won all fights and did not have to relearn the lost levels...
The thief would be level 24, assuming 16 in Con HP would be 83 not 69
The Cleric would be level 22, HP would be 85
The fighter would be level 21, HP would be 109
The Paladin would be level 17, HP would be 97
The Magic-User would be level 18, HP would be 55
For Dual Classing, the monk would have had to have 17 in Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom. Assuming fighter as the first class. Because a 15 is required before being allowed to even leave the class. That is a lot of prerequisites. I bet that almost no monks were able to Dual class.
Losing the 17th level fight once meant a loss of 500,000 exp. Or about 1 or 2 levels for any other characters. A high cost for such low rewards.
As for the bonus of dmg on weapons. That was crap. Hand to hand was 8d4! With an average of 20 pts of damage, it was better than the bonus damage. Especially if the monk was properly enlarged to do 2x dmg or for an average of 40 per attacks or 160 dmg if all attacks would hit.
The same monk with an halberd would do 15 dmg in average. Give him a +1 halberd and it is 16. 4 points shy of his open hand damage and if enlarged it is only 22 dmg that the monk would do. The downside of enlarge is of course, being hit as a large creature and thus, taking more damage in return. We limited the damage to 100% of dice damage but the spell does state that a creature would be enlarged up to 200%...
For me this fell under seems awesome but was severely underwhelming in play!
Cleric kept trying to persistent spell big time buffs to "outdo" the fighter:
Problem 1 - this took so many turn attempts he couldn't properly do his job as a cleric. Did we just encounter undead - oops!
Problem 2 - mid/high level 3.5 is so magic heavy that basically both sides lead with dispel magic. It's pretty amusing to see the cleric fully buff up only to see a round 1 dispel magic flush it all down the toilet - something that won't happen to the fighter.
The buffed cleric didn't work out as well as the player expected.
Gladius Legis
Legend
First off, counterspell is a thing.
And even if the dispel gets past counterspell, it's still not guaranteed on a Cleric. Dispels worked off caster level of both dispeller and dispellee. An equal-level enemy spellcaster has a 50% chance of dispelling the Cleric. If the Cleric has multiple buffs going, the enemy dispeller might dispel some of them, but most likely not all of them. And it only takes one given buffing spell for a Cleric to be at least on par, if not still better than, a martial class in melee.
Compare that to the Paladin, who casts at half class level and will always get dispelled because of it.
And if a Persisted buff gets dispelled, that's where Quicken comes in, to instantly pop it back up while still having an action to play with.
All these anecdotes of players being "disappointed" in the buffed Cleric in 3.5 were from players who didn't consider and use the vast wealth of options the Cleric has for every single situation.
In 3e/3.5? Yes it's a thing, but it's a complicated mess and a total joke(this wasn't 5e, counterspelling was much trickier). I saw dispel magic get used ALL the time. I saw counterspell used once or twice in a 20 level campaign.
It's been many years so my memory/knowledge is hazy on the details (haven't played 3e in a while) But I'm just going by what happened. The cleric was not nearly as effective as the concerns were.
2 things:
1. By the time all the buffed up cleric stuff happened my players were using the Book of 9 Swords - maybe the cleric could outfighter a fighter, they were not going to outfighter a warblade or crusader!
2. The bigger problem - the cleric who went this route spent enough resources that they couldn't play the role of the cleric nearly well enough - that's a problem,.
But as to your general concern - Spellcasting classes outperforming and sometimes even completely pushing into the niche of a nonspellcasting character? Yes, this was a huge problem in 3.5 and certainly did happen. It was one of my biggest problems with the system.
Gladius Legis
Legend
Yes, BO9S classes were good at what they did. Which is why it got made in the first place. Clerics were still much stronger overall classes, mind you, but at least the BO9S classes could do one thing very, very well.
On the other hand, instead of a Fighter (or Paladin) and a Cleric in the same party, you could have two Clerics in the same party, one who devoted most of its resources to outdoing whatever it was the martial class was supposed to do, and another Cleric who was more focused on doing Cleric things. The two Clerics would end up doing much better.
The designers of 3e/3.5 were clearly concerned that in prior editions clerics were perceived as just the healbot, and nobody wanted to play the healbot. They wanted to ensure clerics could heal and also contribute in other ways that were attractive to players. Clearly you believe they overcompensated!
But here's the thing, IME (and, again, it's been a while - haven't played 3e since 4e came out) people were STILL reluctant to play the cleric because of their perception as the party healbot - maybe they HAD to overcompensate.
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