What's Up With The Monk?

[arwink]

My players went for about a year with only a monk and a cleric/rogue as their frontline fighters, and they just about murdered the monks player when he stopped playing the monk and started playing a fighter.

The monk's skill is not doing massive damage in combat, it's tactical combat and doing lots of little bits of damage. Basically, the cleric/rogue and the monk were an all pupose tumbling and flanking machine, chasing down opponents and hammering them mercilessly. Stunning Fist, with a few potions of wisdom, pretty much detered any spellcasters they came up against, and they weren't afraid of using a magical kama or even dagger when it was necessary.

Monk's are good in team with other characters, although they do tend to be less effective when being relied upon as the parties sole combatent.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

We have an NPC Monk in our campaign after a player abandoned his monk saying he'd never play one again. I wanted to prove that the monk is a viable character and so far I'm sad to say it isn't. One change I'm considering is to make ki strike once every 4 levels so 4th, 8th, 12th, etc. This is because one of the reasons imo for playing a monk is the unarmed attacks but while most other characters will have +1 or +2 magic weapons the monk still can't hit the damage reduction creatures.

 

[Zarrock God of Evil]

In the RttToEE campaign we've been playing the monk has been the strongest character BY FAR until this point. Beware these minor spoilers:
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The cultists in town used lots of subterfuge and stealth in their dealing with their party. Druid was easy game alone in the grove - no chance of escape. The barbarian was charmed trying to rescue the druid. The monk easily escaped and made all his saves on the way out of the mill (where the druid was kept). During a hectic horse and wagon chase to the moathouse the monk really shone. Tumbling from cart to cart, engaging enemies off-balance, deflecting arrows and being the only survivor when the villains cart crashed mercilessly into a big rock after one of the horses was shot to death.

Against the Dragon, only a few of the party were still standing after the battle - among them the monk who had taken a lot of damage - but nothing compared to the fighter and paladin (who were both disabled). Monks ability to get out of the way of breath weapons and spell effects while still acting up-front and lightening the damage load of the fighters is terrific.

In the Moathouse Dungeon, the ghouls and ghasts ambushed the weakened party and paralyzed most of them. Only the extreme mobility and good saves of the monk and quick thinking of the remaining sorcerer saved the party from being annihilated. Still, two characters were lost to Coup-de-Graces....

Funny thing is: I rolled up an NPC monk before these adventures (levels 1-3) to show that the monk was a viable class. I didn't know before-hand that one of the players was dying to play the monk. So I decided to go with two monks in the group for the first series of adventures. My NPC monk never really shone - he did a fair job but nothing more - while the PC Monk was leading the group performance-wise from the beginning. Depends on the person playing the monk IMO...

 

[Eccles]

More in the defence of the monk

Are you guys kidding? The monk has more kudos than any other class! The guy practically plays himself! He comes complete with an attitude and style of fighting. You even get to do the silly voices, and how many times do you get to face up to a red dragon, confident in the knowledge that you might escape a full flaming breath unscathed, and tell it "my chi is superior!"?

They're fast and funny. Played right they can fill in for anyone except the spellcasters. At higher levels they self-heal to a degree, taking the weight off the cleric.

OK, they can run across the thin rope and leave the rest of the party behind. But of course they can also do that carrying another rope, and thus let the rest of the party get across fairly safely. Heck, that chasm? They could probably jump it!

The flurry of blows is wicked (once you've spent several hours getting your maths right), and although personally I only managed to get about 1 stunning blow in 5 to work (not my fault, the DC was in the 20s, but the DM kept getting lucky), when it worked, I was doing wicked damage with the liberal use of improved trip, and leaving a stunned, prone wounded villain on the floor for the barbarian to slice into a dozen tiny pieces. A villain who couldn't attack and would have to spend valuable time getting up in 2 rounds time!

And all this without mentioning the excellent saves, high manoeverability and massive mage-killing potential...

The monk rocks, damn it!

 

[S'mon]

Monks are the preferred class in my lowish-magic game; they don't have the awesome destructive power of a single-classed wizard or sorcerer, but they're very good at _staying alive!_ One thing my players did was start their monks at 4th level multi-classed - one with a level of Fighter, the other with Rogue & Sorcerer. The Sorcerer level wasn't much use but Rogue (sneak Attack!) and Fighter (weapon proficiencies!) levels have been very handy.

 

[Klaus]

Want to be less stat dependant? Put all you got in Wis and Dex then take Weapon Finesse (unarmed). With 18 Wis and Dex, a 1st level monk has an AC of 19, far better than a 1st level fighter in scale+shield. He will be adding +4 to his attacks (+2/+2 with flurry). A 1st level human monk could even add Weapon Focus (unarmed). Or maybe Improved Initiative (which goes up to +8), attacking and stunning flat-footed foes. Or he could pick up Dodge and Mobility, which paves the way for a Spring Attack at 3rd level. With a rogue in the group, there's even more reason to pick up Dodge and Mobility. Not only your AC against one foe goes to 20 (24 vs. AoO for moving), you flank him easily, and the 1st level rogue then gets his sneak in with every attack.

The point on monk weapons is well-made. If your game has monks, it's only logical that you make magical monk weapons available. A monk that doesn't comission a +1 kama at 3rd level or so just isn't being very wise...

 

[Kugar]

Or...
Give all monks the Heroic Powers feat from 4CtF, and pick a sub-set of powers that they can choose from. As the monks go up in level, they can donate money to charity - creating a gp deficit needed to buy cool powers with Hero Points (from 4 Color to Fantasy - Natural 20 Press pg 39). That should give them the sort of super-powered monk most people look for.

 

[Storminator]

Monks providing flanking for a fighter or barbarian is pretty trivial. A monk providing flanking for a rogue adds a lot of lethality.

Monks can sneak. Put ranks in MS & hide, and the monk and the rogue take out sentries all day long. Try that in half plate.

The monk's place in the group is harder to find than other classes, but it's there.

PS

 

[Psion]

Funny, normally the complaint is that monks are too powerful. Then someone else complains they are tepid. Good implication to me that all is right...

At any rate, I would agree that Monks depend a lot on a fairly good set of stats... 14+ in strength, dex, con, and wis is highly desirable. However, the monk in our game is very competent, and oft times even aggravating (villains running away to return another day? fuggitaboutit!)

I run games where stealth and mobility can be important. In this sort of environment, the monk is very strong. You run a straight up bash-fest, I wouldn't be surprised if the monk starts playing second fiddle to fighters and barbarians.

Then, it often falls in the PCs hands to decide how they approach challenges, so much of the responsibility falls in the players' laps.

 

[Staffan]

Want to be less stat dependant? Put all you got in Wis and Dex then take Weapon Finesse (unarmed). With 18 Wis and Dex, a 1st level monk has an AC of 19, far better than a 1st level fighter in scale+shield. He will be adding +4 to his attacks (+2/+2 with flurry). A 1st level human monk could even add Weapon Focus (unarmed).

No, they can't. Both weapon finesse and weapon focus have BAB +1 as a prerequisite, so the monk can't take either until level 3 and the second would have to wait for level 6.