Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Stormonu" data-source="post: 6194220" data-attributes="member: 52734">The 1E monk is clearly the shoalin monk of 70's martials arts film and Caine of the Kung Fu TV series.But nowadays, I see monks including the likes of Ken, Ryu and gang from the various Street Fighter games (and Mortal Kombat, etc.), as well as Neo of the Matrix series, and the &quot;classical&quot; monk we see in movies like Hidden Lion, Crouching Tiger, Hero and the dozens of Hong Kong action films passed to us over the years.&nbsp; I love Diablo 3's take of a Russian &quot;Orthodox&quot; (Rasputin?) Monk and I could even see creating &quot;western&quot; orders of martial, spiritually minded Franscian monks who use unarmed combat or &quot;common tools&quot; to defend their brethren or the local masses.&nbsp; Imagine a Friar Tuck who used unarmed combat instead of a mace and actually had the &quot;power of god&quot; behind him.I think 3E failed - and that Pathfinder followed suite - in not giving us monks with options.&nbsp; All of the monk's abilities are fixed, and a bit too spread around across so many diverse tropes that it's difficult to make it useful unless you play the one-true-way of making them a shoalin monk sort of character.&nbsp; The way I would build a monk class, the 3E version is a &quot;Travel Domain&quot; Monk.&nbsp; I think the monk should have most of its abilities stripped out, and replaced with a sort of spell point system (ki pool).&nbsp; You basically give them access to a handful of spells like the Paladin or Ranger and perhaps a Cleric Domain to create a &quot;theme&quot;.&nbsp; A Monk of War (War domain - enchanted unarmed attacks, self-buffs) would have a very different feel to our Monk of the Path (Travel domain - movement-related abilities), and so on.Now, most people would probably balk at monks &quot;casting spells&quot;, but I think in the end it's a better fit; fluff them that they aren't cast like spells but brought into being by intense inner focus and will - much in the same way we often visualize bards singing or playing a musical instrument to weave their magic.&nbsp; Katas would essentially replace somatic components and verbal components would instead be either a battlecry or a very disciplined breathing technique (the release of chi).&nbsp; Most of their &quot;spells&quot; I'd imagine would be ones without material components, but those that did need them would probably remain the same (I could see a monk staring into a calm pool to scry, for example).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Stormonu, post: 6194220, member: 52734"] The 1E monk is clearly the shoalin monk of 70's martials arts film and Caine of the Kung Fu TV series. But nowadays, I see monks including the likes of Ken, Ryu and gang from the various Street Fighter games (and Mortal Kombat, etc.), as well as Neo of the Matrix series, and the "classical" monk we see in movies like Hidden Lion, Crouching Tiger, Hero and the dozens of Hong Kong action films passed to us over the years. I love Diablo 3's take of a Russian "Orthodox" (Rasputin?) Monk and I could even see creating "western" orders of martial, spiritually minded Franscian monks who use unarmed combat or "common tools" to defend their brethren or the local masses. Imagine a Friar Tuck who used unarmed combat instead of a mace and actually had the "power of god" behind him. I think 3E failed - and that Pathfinder followed suite - in not giving us monks with options. All of the monk's abilities are [I]fixed[/I], and a bit too spread around across so many diverse tropes that it's difficult to make it useful unless you play the one-true-way of making them a shoalin monk sort of character. The way I would build a monk class, the 3E version is a "Travel Domain" Monk. I think the monk should have most of its abilities stripped out, and replaced with a sort of spell point system (ki pool). You basically give them access to a handful of spells like the Paladin or Ranger and perhaps a Cleric Domain to create a "theme". A Monk of War (War domain - enchanted unarmed attacks, self-buffs) would have a very different feel to our Monk of the Path (Travel domain - movement-related abilities), and so on. Now, most people would probably balk at monks "casting spells", but I think in the end it's a better fit; fluff them that they aren't cast like spells but brought into being by intense inner focus and will - much in the same way we often visualize bards singing or playing a musical instrument to weave their magic. Katas would essentially replace somatic components and verbal components would instead be either a battlecry or a very disciplined breathing technique (the release of chi). Most of their "spells" I'd imagine would be ones without material components, but those that did need them would probably remain the same (I could see a monk staring into a calm pool to scry, for example). [/QUOTE]

Verification