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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jordan" data-source="post: 282154" data-attributes="member: 3362">I disagree. Assuming the party already has the basic four classes, I think another fighter type, or cleric, or arcane caster (wizard or sorcerer, whichever one the party didn't already have) would all make better choices for a 5th man than a monk would. As Zerovoid noted, 3E is very heavily weighted towards offense. There are many monsters that cause damage way out of proportion to their hit points and CR in 3E (orcs, ettins, and girallons being just a few examples). Also, there are many instant death or near instant death attacks in 3E (finger of death or disintegrate on a wizard or rogue, paralysis attack or spell requiring Will save on fighter followed up by coup de grace). What this adds up to is that if you're fighting powerful foes and you can't kill them quickly, you are probably going to lose. So what you look for in an additional party member is either the ability to deal damage and/or instant kill attacks quickly, or the ability to repair damage and protect the party against instant kill attacks. A monk doesn't bring either of these things to the table.Also, any group of foes that's being played intelligently will very quickly realize two things when they're fighting a party that includes a monk:a) It's very difficult to hurt the monk, and more importantlyb) The monk isn't doing very much to hurt them.Thus, they'll ignore the monk for the most part and focus on the other party members. So much for the monk's defensive abilities being a factor.Really, the only way I think the monk could be a good class would be as a solo adventurer. Then their defensive abilities would really have a chance to shine. But since D&D is mostly a party-based game, I don't think the monk is a very good class. Not to mention the solo monk would have to survive the low levels - without a companion to mage armor him, a 1st level monk on a standard point buy probably isn't going to have a very good AC, and one hit from an orc could easily drop him (there's that 3E favoring offense game mechanic again).</blockquote>

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