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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6338544" data-attributes="member: 4937">Let me try to explain where I'm coming from.I legitimately feel that using my house rules despite all the 'bans' there aren't less options for characters to play than the stock 3.X rules but in many ways more options.  Yes, some of the more far out options of 3.X aren't immediately available (but since many involve PrC's and/or +X LA templates, +X LA base races, or racial HD you couldn't play them from 1st level anyway), but a lot of the options that should be present - like a good aligned 'assassin', a smart fighter, or a CG paladin - but aren't, are baked into my rules.The reason that so much is banned is less because I want to restrict the number of concepts the players can have, than it is to restrict the number of mechanical ways you have to get there, and part of that is in itself because I believed the mechanics from getting to where you wanted your character to be required you to not be who you wanted to be from 1st level too often (Stone Giant Lycanthrope Monks aside).  So far in my campaign I've had the following PC's - a Templar of the god of death, a pirate, a barbarian who could talk to dinosaurs, a lay brother of the goddess of beauty who was actually a heretic assassin/undead slayer, an immortal children's nursemaid turned beserk killer, a fey blue skinned hobgoblin who could grow into 12' tall giant, a drawf princess sword mage who was the daughter of the high thane, an androgynous prostitute, a priest of the sun goddess, a priestess of the sun goddess (yes, yes, pile of dead bards), a half-elf witch for which it is taboo to touch a man, a hobgoblin rake/gentle-men in waiting working for an archmage, an elf arcane archar, and a half-elf telepathist sorcerer.Monk is interesting because it represents the only concept I can think of off the top of my head where I'm specifically squashing it.  It's not that it is impossible to make an unarmed combatant/martial artist under my rules or that there is nothing to support it.  It's that I've deliberately made it inferior and subpar compared to making the same character as a weapons master.   I have gotten a little push back on that, and I really am wrestling with whether I can add the choice happily even though it makes no real sense logically. But even if I do, it will become a valid build of a Fighter - one flavor of which might be a monk martial artist (which fits for the god Jord actually) - but not a new 'monk' class carrying all that unnecessary mechanical baggage and generally lacking in build options.   The setting trappings are easily enough stripped away but the class is what it is however you paint it.I am as well, but trust is earned.  I'd break my rules but only for a player who has shown me that the trust they are asking for is well placed.  If you can't be happy with all the options I first offer you, then truly you probably aren't a good fit for the table.There is a lot more too it than that.  There isn't really a precedent for the D&D monk in eastern civilization either.  Shoalin didn't preferably fight without weapons when they had the option.  It's the notion of balancing unarmed attacks with armed attacks that is most critical to my problem with the monk, though there are several other problems that are nearly as bad.Well for one thing, knights in heavy armor really did fight alongside musketeers.   There is nothing inherently hard to imagine about that.   But yeah, it's impossible for me to imagine an unarmed fighter fighting alongside them by choice.   Pretty much no trained warrior ever has ever gone, "Oh yeah, I'm going to use my fists instead of this sword right here."</blockquote>

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