What's Up With The Monk?

[Victim]

Why on earth could no one else have done it? All it would require would be a high Jump check with a decent attack bonus, something that Barbarians, Fighters, etc. can all easily get. Hell, even a wizard or sorcerer, aided by the Jump spell, could reach the bad guy. And, of course, a Psychic Warrior can do far sicker jumps than the Monk.

And there is no way a 1st level Fighter can take Forsaker at 2nd. The Saving Throw feats aren't on the list of bonus feats.

 

[Squire James]

Heh. All of a sudden that Drunken Master doesn't look all that unfair anymore, does it?

I know Monks need 2 things:

1. Some way for Wisdom to benefit offense as well as defense. I currently favor a feat (Zen Hands?) that allows the Wisdom bonus to be added to unarmed damage instead of Strength. That would cut one score out of the Ability Dependency loop, for one thing. Maybe some monk-oriented PrC can let someone "stack it up" like Order of Bow Initiates can do with Zen Archery.

2. Non-moronic weapon options. The "monk weapons" are basically the worst weapons in the game! I currently favor allowing monks to use their unarmed damage base with "monk weapons". Swinging around a weapon that does a base of 1d6 damage and basic x2 crit isn't quite so insane if the monk at least has prospects of doing 1d8 or 1d10 with it later. I don't think I've seen a martial arts movie yet where the fighters started doing LESS damage because they picked up a pair of 'chucks! I mean, sheesh, Jackie Chan woulda NEVER made it as a D&D character (he'd still have to cajole the DM to make "ladder" a monk weapon, but I digress)!

 

[mattcolville]

Hmmm...some good ideas here. First, glad someone pointed out the Forsaker thing. The character's dead anyway, but it's still nice to know.

I think that allowing a monk to use his Wisdom bonus to ad to ATK and DMG and (a problem I have) allowing them to affect creatures that can only be affected by plus X weapons up to their Wisdom would be pretty cool. Might superpower them, but I tend to prefer my players be Superpowered than Underpowered. I'll have to think about it.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

monks are fine. If you want the monk th be a front line fighter put your best stat in str. Don't put a 12 there and then whine that the fighter does way more damage.

Two magic fang is your friend hire a dang druid to make you an amulet of magic fang for gods sake. The rules for them are in sword and fist. This isn't really a brillian idea, the monk in my group asked for them before sword and fist, I gave it too him apparently at a cheaper price than sword and fist recomends.

needing multiple stats can be bad, but all those benefits you gain from those stats are great when you get object of wisdom, and then boost you other stats for the standard benies. If in a point buy you actually luck out because with multiple small bonus stats you get multiple benefits. For example 25 point buy. 1/2 orc 16 str, 14 dex, 14 wis 9 int, 6 chr, 12 con. I get a decent str, and a good ac since my wiz and dex add too it, and low prime for my stun attack oh boo-hoo. lets say I have a small amount of money a +2 wis/+2 dex in two items equalls 8,000gp and gives +2 to ac if I wanted a +2 just from dex like those single stat dependent weaklings it would be a +4 item and cost 16,000gp. Those 8,000 I save help me buy bracers of armor, or amulet of magic fang, or whatever.

 

[Gizzard]

Yes, PHB Monks generally suck at combat. I have a 5th level Monk with pretty good stats (equivalent to a 40+ point point-buy!) like 15 STR, 18 DEX, 17 WIS and he's not at all a damage machine like either the Fighter or the Barbarian. Exactly why has been covered in similar threads before, but basically I get two swings at +3/+3 and do 1d8+2 damage for every hit. Its just not in the same league as what a Barbarian or Fighter can do at 5th level.

The Monk does have a nice selection of skills, but they dont have a huge amount of "party synergy". For instance, if a Rogue uses Disarm to fix a trap or open a chest, the whole party cheers. But if the Monk uses Balance or Jump to get across a difficult bridge, the rest of the party still has to cross behind him using their own pathetic Balance.

The Monk gets good saves, which again dont help the party as a whole. (Wouldnt we all rather that the enemy spellcaster Dominate the Monk rather than the Barbarian? Yes, indeedy!) He gets good movement, which is actually a good tactical advantage; though when your Barbarian is +11 to hit he doenst really need you to help him get another +2 Flanking Bonus.

Some people say that OA or S&F helps things out; I'd tend to believe that. (It certainly cant hurt to have more Feats available; although one of the reasons the Fighter gets good rapidly is because she can choose her Feats while the Monk is getting Deflect Arrows and Still Mind.) FRCS helps a bit by having Monk organizations that allow limited multiclassing; though I think its a sad commentary on the state of the Monk that one way to make your Monk better is by taking your next level in anything other than Monk. ;-)

 

[Acmite]

And not to go even more heretical, but TECHNICALLY a mithril buckler (with no arcane spell failure percentage) DOES NOT impact their special abilities or the wisdom-based armor. Also, TECHNICALLY if your wisdom + class AC bonus is not very high, there is nothing saying that decent leather armor (with a relatively low arcane spell failure) couldn't be used.

Just don't think you must ONLY do unarmed...

PHB, 1st printing, p. 39, 1st column, 2nd-last paragraph: "A monk's special skills all require freedom of movement. When wearing armour, a monk loses her AC bonus for Wisdom, AC bonus for class and level, favorable multiple unarmed attacks per round, and heightened movement."

Technically, according to the rules as written (and I believe the spirit of the rules), a monk cannot wear any armour and still add her Wisdom bonus to AC. Nor can she use her unarmed BAB (even with monk weapons). Arcane spell failure (and armour check penalty) have no real bearing on any of the monk's "core" abilities save skills (tumble, balance, etc).

 

[CRG]

Yep. Like I said - my comments were nigh heretical.

(1) A shield is not armor, if you want to get picky.

(2) If you're willing to screw the Wisdom and Class based AC bonuses, you can suit up in light armor. At low levels, these bonuses may not amount to anything or if you want to do damage and pump strength you can keep your wisdom low and wear armor. The arcane spell failure applies to things like evasion, etc. At low levels you're not going that fast anyway, so again, a trick to stay livable until you progress higher.

And, regardless of spirit or letter of the law, there's nothing saying you can't just take proficiency and use a bow. Or a spear. Or a sword.

The key to the post was more to remind people that, whereas unarmed attacks are cool and YES, I do agree it would be nice for them to get the unarmed attack rate with more than just the weapons listed, there is nothing that says in the rules "since you can do unarmed combat, you must". You can pick up weapons.

As far as the post about barbarians and fighters being able to jump as well as monk, I'm not so sure. The monk isn't limited by her height, etc. on distance and can jump at all sorts of wierd angles (vertical and horizontal).

 

[Maldur]

The monk in our party is very usefull in a fight, even with low damage.

Harrasing the enemy, granting flanking bonusses, using improved trips to put the enemy down. Using stun to make enemies defenseless and disarming them.

And with a simple bull strenght from the wiz he can even dish out some damage.

 

[rounser]

A shield is not armor, if you want to get picky.

Why perpetuate this myth? Haven't a couple of the core designers already stated that they intended shields to be considered armor? Looks distinctly like you're trying to exploit an unintended loophole, really.

 

[CRG]

Like I said, I was being extremely picky and nigh-heretical.

The main points is that - YES monks are good unarmed but that does not mean you must ALWAYS use unarmed combat. Suit up to protect yourself. Use weapons when you need to. So you run into something with DR and your DM hasn't blessed you with the perfect weapon that gives you great magical bonuses and allows you to use your unarmed attack rate? So what, use a dagger or a spear!

Not trying to be a pain, but any class is going to suck if you pigeon-hole yourself. The monk is a very survivable class and respectable in combat, but in no way is it supposed to be able to go up against all foes and put the beat-down on them with your bare fists.

And in any event, so what if it is armor? So you loose some abilities while you wear it at lower levels to stay alive...what's the deal? Its like expecting the ranger to always dual-wield just because he can, or for the barbarian to never-ever get proficiency in or wear heavy armor because he looses some class features. Sure, they are useful. Its also like expecting every cleric to have a high charisma to turn lots of undead - how many clerics slack off in that department? Is it unheard of?