The monk. It will be mystical most likely

[Abstruse]

I'm sorry, I'm just getting a little fed up with people saying that this thing doesn't belong in D&D and that thing doesn't belong in D&D when most of the things they're bitching about were part of D&D since before they were-- it's one thing to say that something new and different "isn't D&D" or "doesn't feel like D&D" and it's quite another to run around saying that things that have been part of D&D for thirty goddamned years aren't legitimate parts of D&D because they don't fit inside this tidy little Eurocentric wankfest they've constructed, that D&D itself has never actually fit into and was never actually intended to fit into.

He wants to run a particular kind of game at his table, that's fine-- I'm not even saying that, as a matter of taste, I even particularly disagree with him. I've run different kinds of D&D with different kinds of rules all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if someone is sitting there saying that such-and-such class or such-and-such culture "doesn't fit" or "doesn't belong" in D&D, when it has been a part of D&D for as long as there has been D&D, then the problem isn't the class or the culture-- it's their narrow perception of what D&D is and what it's supposed to be.

It's all well and good for us to have our individual tastes and our individual wants and needs for the game, and I don't mean to imply that people shouldn't express those desires-- of course we should all be telling the designers what we want and don't want in our D&D.

I'm just baffled how anyone could have played D&D and read any of the D&D rulebooks published in the last thirty-some years and still somehow come away with the misapprehension that any D&D setting ever was supposed to look like Middle Earth.

You understand that people aren't saying "I want this out of the game and banished to the void!" and are actually saying "I don't want this in the core edition and would prefer if it were put in a sourcebook or PHB2", right?

The game changes with each edition. There are people who thought that having races and classes separate ruined the game. Then that removing to-hit tables to use THAC0 (and removing assassins and monks for the record from the game) ruined it. Then that using ascending AC ruined it. Then that releasing a glorified errata as a "new edition". Then powers (in an edition which also didn't have monks as a core class).

If you're going to use the argument that "D&D has always been like this", then you're probably wrong because almost every aspect of the game has been different in each edition. The only things that pretty much have been constant are attributes, hit points, armor class, classes, and rolling funny-shaped dice. That's pretty much it.

 

[Argyle King]

I'd like more robust grappling rules so I can make a monk who is more of a wrestler than a striker.

 

[pemerton]

Monitor: To learn these forbitten techniques the user must travel deep into the underdark and live among its inhuman residents. At the high cost of loosing their sanities, the users bend the laws of reality at their touch, becomming a force to be recogned with. That is, if they can still remember their original purpose

Apparently I can't XP you again yet - but I wanted to call out this nod to D2.

 

[Plane Sailing]

For the record, have you ever tried to limit classes in a game?

All the time. Never a problem.

 

[El Mahdi]

The monk was mentioned in the fighter's design goal article.
Another goal mentioned was to include all the classes that were in the first PH style book for each edition.
Many designers have claimed that a goal is to make each class unique.

I still don't see how the statement "A monk can match a fighter’s skill when it comes to unarmed combat", the fact that since it's in the first PHB that it will be a class in 5E, and that the designers want to make each class unique in 5E, combines to mean "the 5E Monk will most likely be mystical"...

Considering that the information I just included in the previous paragraph is pretty much the sum total of what we know about Monks for 5E, that's a pretty big leap...like Evel Knieval trying to jump the Snake River type of leap.

 

[Minigiant]

I still don't see how the statement "A monk can match a fighter’s skill when it comes to unarmed combat", the fact that since it's in the first PHB that it will be a class in 5E, and that the designers want to make each class unique in 5E, combines to mean "the 5E Monk will most likely be mystical"...

Considering that the information I just included in the previous paragraph is pretty much the sum total of what we know about Monks for 5E, that's a pretty big leap...like Evel Knieval trying to jump the Snake River type of leap.

It's the unique part that sends signals of mysticism.
If the monk is just an unarmed warrior in no armor, it could be replicated with a theme on fighter or rogue.
If the monk is more mystical, a theme wouldn't add enough to create a decent monk.

 

[El Mahdi]

It's the unique part that sends signals of mysticism.
If the monk is just an unarmed warrior in no armor, it could be replicated with a theme on fighter or rogue.
If the monk is more mystical, a theme wouldn't add enough to create a decent monk.

Yeah, like I said, a pretty big leap.

I don't think you're going to reach the other side of the canyon. Might be time to pull the chute...

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, like I said, a pretty big leap.

I don't think you're going to reach the other side of the canyon. Might be time to pull the chute...

A monk can make that jump and negate a lot of the falling damage.
And that is if it doesn't use one of his mystic powers.

 

[Steely_Dan]

A monk can make that jump and negate a lot of the falling damage.
And that is if it doesn't use one of his mystic powers.

At a certain level he/she could just jump off and negate all falling damage, walk across the canyon floor, and climb up the other side.

 

[grimslade]

Yay Mystic monk! Bring on some D&D Jedi! Scarlet Brotherhood wanna-bes. Githzerai squid-head punchers. PCs of iron will and flurrying fists. Mystic Brotherhoods in mountain Monasteries honing their body and spirit to perfection. Faerie Warriors who disdain using any weapon that might contain iron.

Monks deserve a slot at the PHB class party. Monks have always been a class of interesting mechanics and were one of the most identifiable classes in the game. The mechanics may have missed the mark, ie Flurry of Misses, but they were unique to the monk. The mystic, magical monk is very appropriate to a variety of D&D subgenres and a multitude of campaign settings. It would be difficult to replicate with themes and background alone. Class from the start.

 

[GreyICE]

I liked the 4E monk with his Movement/Attack powers that gave him unprecedented mobility and really insane attacks.

I wish he had a LITTLE more single-target stuff, but there's no question that the monk could just do things like vault over the ogre, land in the group of archers, and become a whirling wall of fists.

 

[Andor]

There are really three seperate things being conflated here:

1) Should there be unarmed fighting styles as a valid combat choice?

2) Should there be a mystical warrior class akin to Shao-lin Monks or Sohei?

3) Some rather confused notions about the 'historical purity' of D&D's vaguely-sorta-kinda european vibe.

My thoughts on these matters.

1) Yes. With multiple styles please, some mystical, some not. Some tied to classes and some not. A Theme is a perfectly lovely place to stick a few of these. Or possibly as a background for others or as an alternate weapon proficiency.
a) Yes, Europeans had unarmed fighting styles. Yes, some of them were as developed as Eastern ones. No they were not tied to mystical traditions, for the same reasons that Shao-lin monks did not carry around the bones of 'saints'.

2) Why not? We already have paladins and combat clerics. D&D theology/cosmology has never been nailed down enough to preclude the idea, so it only seems logical someone would have wanted to blend magic and buttkicking.

3) I'll try not to turn this into a rant.
a) D&D is not set on Earth in the past. It is a different world with multiple intelligent races and different geography, ecology, theology, and physics.
b) D&D society is not a good match for any historical culture or region on earth. Anywhere. Ever.
c) Crusaders and Shao-lin Monks along with Samurai, Ninjas, Chevaliers, Shamans, Witch-Doctors, Hassishim/Assassins, Mongol horsemen and Rabbis all lived right here, on Earth, at the same time.
d) Marco Polo, whose journeys would take a day or two on dragon-back or an instant for a teleporter.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Monks, presented as a culture-neutral, spiritually-inclined warrior fueled by inner power are fine. Most published versions of the class have not lived up to this.

In other words, if you get a player who only
wants to play a certain class, they're going to whine and bitch and complain and whine until they get it. The ranger's player? STILL keeps trying to talk me into letting him play a drow ninja even though I've told him no every time for the past 5 months.

I don't get this.

First, this problem player is not who we should be thinking about when we're talking about game design. D&D should be built with the assumption that its players are generally decent people, and are not muchkins/rules lawyers/various other destructive things.

Second, if the player is really this way, then he will have the same complaint regardless of whether the class is legally available or not. If it isn't, he'll find it in some third part product or convert it from another edition or write it himself and then complain he can't use it.

So the argument that having opt-out rules doesn't work because players complain too much doesn't hold water for me.

Good luck dealing with those players.

 

[IanB]

I just wish they'd switch from 'ki' to 'chi'.

 

[Vael]

3) I'll try not to turn this into a rant.
a) D&D is not set on Earth in the past. It is a different world with multiple intelligent races and different geography, ecology, theology, and physics.
b) D&D society is not a good match for any historical culture or region on earth. Anywhere. Ever.
c) Crusaders and Shao-lin Monks along with Samurai, Ninjas, Chevaliers, Shamans, Witch-Doctors, Hassishim/Assassins, Mongol horsemen and Rabbis all lived right here, on Earth, at the same time.
d) Marco Polo, whose journeys would take a day or two on dragon-back or an instant for a teleporter.

This alone deserves some XP.

 

[Minigiant]

I just wish they'd switch from 'ki' to 'chi'.

Ks are cooler

 

[Pheonix0114]

All I know is that if Monks aren't there then I have some Desert Dwarves who discouraged weapons and armor as a liability and gain "mystical energy" from a mildly poisonous flowering plant to find a new home for. And the elves that fight with only their bodies because "it is more graceful and sophisticated".

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm not sure I even want the monk to be explicitly unarmed. I like monks to use staves, sickles, small swords, spears, or the like without it being obviously inferior to their unarmed strike.

I think unarmed combat would best be served as a theme (certainly a suggested one for the monk, but not attached).

Mysticism or Ki or Psionic (though I don't really equate the latter with the monk) could be a matter of level, or a matter of fluff, but the class should allow people to opt-in on the level of "magic" involved in their monk. You should also be able to opt-in on the level of "asian-ness".

On the subject of the Psion, I really hope they include it as the ONLY psionic class in the game. I think there's room for psionics in D&D, but I think it would best be represented by a single, well-designed class.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I just wish they'd switch from 'ki' to 'chi'.

I hope neither is explicitly tied to the monk, thank god power sources have gone bye-bye.

 

[Steely_Dan]

On the subject of the Psion, I really hope they include it as the ONLY psionic class in the game. I think there's room for psionics in D&D, but I think it would best be represented by a single, well-designed class.

I totally agree, and I hope it's core, otherwise, it will once again feel tacked on. Psionics is in 5h Ed, as evidenced from the Grey Ooze.