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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ashkelon" data-source="post: 7147546" data-attributes="member: 6774887">The monk starts of seemingly martial, but quickly developed supernatural abilities. At level 5 they gain a supernatural stunning attack for example. At level 18 they can become invisible which is clearly not martial. All of the subclasses for the monk also possess obviously supernatural capabilities such as quivering palms, shadow teleportation, or control of elemental powers.On top of that, the high level abilities monks do get are not based around defeating foes through strength of arms. Timeless body is a neat ability, but doesn't really seem very thematic for a master of martial combat. In fact many monk abilities seem downright silly given the concept for a martial master. Tongue of Sun and Moon? Empty Body? Purity of Body? They all seem like a bastardized western misconception of a cheesy king fu martial artist more than anything you would expect a warrior who is devoted to defeating foes through skill at arms. The monk also suffers from the obvious flaw in that it is primarily restricted to unarmed attacks based on dexterity. It is thus a little too narrow in its approach to combat to truly be considered a martial character. I feel that the purely martial characters are those that defeat foes through strength of arms and mastery of weapons without relying on supernatural abilities. As such, I would not really consider the monk to be a fully martial character. That is not to say that the monk doesn't share many of the same flaws as other martial characters however. It is largely fighting enemies the exact same way it does at level 20 as it does at level 5. The wizard has upgraded from Burning Hands to Meteor and from Prestidigitation to Wish. The monk has upgraded from flurry of blows and stunning fist to more flurry of blows and stunning fist.</blockquote>

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