What's Up With The Monk?

[I'm A Banana]

Monks are the ultimate decoy...

Send Mr. Flying Fists of Fury into a dangerous situation dressed in robes and wearing a pointy cap and maybe even with a long pretty stick in their hands....

Then, let the rest of the world waste turns forcing the Monk to save over and over again.

Then, bring in Mr. "I get charmed so often I may as well be on the other team" fighter. Y'know, *after* they've wasted all their charming and/or disintegrates on the Monk. Heck, have the monk fight defensively, and see if even the sword-swingin' yobbos in the enemy party can come close to touching him. He doesn't have to deal out damage. He can piss off people and get them to attack him without ever raising a fist. Maybe taking AoO's, disarming, if they'd like.

Depending on what you want to suck outta the opposition, send in the Monk looking like a wizard (for disintegrates, poisons, and the like) or looking like a fighter (for charms, illusions, and brain-frying)...a low-level illusion spell should be enough for some cheap armor.

The thing is, with a monk, getting the fists flying shouldn't be option #1. It should be plan B, when the monsters come to you. Allow them to spend their energy while you sit there, take it, and ask for some more.

You'd be surprised how effective a monk could be at drawing attacks away from the more vulnerable members of the party.

Even against big, tough monster types. Since most monster types generally fit into the "Combat Machine"/"Magic Beastie"/"Buffer"/"Sneaky One" motif as well, it works fairly well. Monks are as good at killin' mind flayers as they are at killin' wizards.

The thing to remember is that a Monk isn't supposed to be in the ranks of the Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger. They aren't the "combat machine." They come closest to the Cleric and the Rogue in their type...the "secondary striker," the "sneaky one," the "buffer." And in this role the Monk is fairly effective. They're great decoys, superb movers, and good at doing things that other classes can already do well...just like the Cleric and the Rogue.

Really. Sneak attacks? Pheh. Fighters can do more, more often. Turning Undead? Whoop-dee-doo. Healing? Yay. I can be everybody else's HP-pimp.

Clerics and rogues both make for decent backup fighters, and that's what monks do too.

 

[hong]

Matt, you should conceive of monks as versatile combatants, not unarmed combatants. That's paradigm shift numero uno.

Why "should" he conceive of monks as anything other than what he wants them to be? Why should one paradigm be considered more worthy than any other paradigm out there?

Matt has made it quite clear that the monk doesn't fit the concept he has of them. This indicates that there's a problem, but the problem is with the class, not him. The rules are there to facilitate an enjoyable game, and if the rules get in the way, to hell with the rules. It doesn't matter if other people can have fun with the monk as-is, no-one's asking them to change the way they play their game.

Heck, _I_ don't like the monk. That has nothing to do with whether the monk can fill a useful role in the party. It has to do with how that role isn't the role I _want_ the monk to fill.

There are several monk weapons that monks are allowed to use with their unarmed attack rate. Second, any masterwork weapon a character possesses he can take to spellcaster and get it enchanted as per core rules.

Many of the monk abilities are tailored around unarmed combat. Their damage dice increase by stacks, and their stunning attacks (and related attacks, eg the ones in OA) require unarmed strikes. If what you're saying is that the monk routinely needs to use something other than unarmed strikes to make an impact in combat, that's an implicit admission that the monk class needs work.

 

[hong]

Thats because they have been doing it for years, so are probably higher level.

This is a problem when you try to translate the martial arts stuff into a game, especially when it's encrusted with decades of myth and hoo-ha about the fantastic stunts that martial artists can do. Ideally, you want a character that can do most of these stunts, but that brings the problem of shadowing everyone else.

True, a 6th level monk could kick the butt of any 1st level character, whether it's a fighter, barb or whatnot. The problem is that not many adventures pit 6th level PCs against big groups of 1st level mooks, and when they do, the 6th level fighter and barb STILL plow through them faster than the monk.

Think about it, Jacky runs up, smacks a guy 40 times in a second, then steps back. The bad guy growls at Jacky and steps up to riposte. Hey, thats just like my Monk! I Flurry of Blows, don't hit crap, and look cool! Plus all the leaping and tumbling, Monks are pretty spot on. If they were more fighter types in the DnD sense all we would see is Jacky moving up and dropping guys in a single blow. And thats no fun

Jackie is a comic relief monk. He's the kender of monks. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with kender monks, but not all monks are kender. Jet Li is not a kender, and neither was Bruce Lee.

 

[Left-handed Hummingbird]

Ah...

This thread is pure nostalgia.

 

[ForceUser@Home]

Why "should" he conceive of monks as anything other than what he wants them to be? Why should one paradigm be considered more worthy than any other paradigm out there?

Matt has made it quite clear that the monk doesn't fit the concept he has of them. This indicates that there's a problem, but the problem is with the class, not him. The rules are there to facilitate an enjoyable game, and if the rules get in the way, to hell with the rules. It doesn't matter if other people can have fun with the monk as-is, no-one's asking them to change the way they play their game.

Point. My assumption here is that he's trying to make it work conceptually without house-ruling it to hell.

Heck, _I_ don't like the monk. That has nothing to do with whether the monk can fill a useful role in the party. It has to do with how that role isn't the role I _want_ the monk to fill.



Many of the monk abilities are tailored around unarmed combat. Their damage dice increase by stacks, and their stunning attacks (and related attacks, eg the ones in OA) require unarmed strikes. If what you're saying is that the monk routinely needs to use something other than unarmed strikes to make an impact in combat, that's an implicit admission that the monk class needs work.

The cool thing about flurry of blows is when holding a monk weapon you can choose to divide up your flurry however you want between armed & unarmed attacks. If your foe doesn't have that troublesome DR, open up on him. If he does, and your ki isn't yet sufficient, use the weapon. Simple.

A route my DM allows is worth considering: allow the monk to enchant his own body as a magic weapon. Treat this as a non-slot item, meaning it costs double normal price. The monk player in that campaign got his right fist enchanted as a +1 holy weapon. It was pretty cool. Alternately - assuming you want to stay with the official monk - let your players use the tattooed monk PrC from OA. One of the tattoos that class can take gives the monk DR equal to 2 for each tattoo he he possesses/Con. Meaning if the monk has one tattoo and a 14 Con, his DR is 2/+2. When the monk has five tattoos, his innate DR is 10/+2. This circumvents a foe's DR. If the monk gets a +Con items, the "+" rises accordingly. It's a sweet ability.

 

[Hakkenshi]

The DR issue is an irrelevant one, because if the monk is the only one stuck without the ability to damage the creature, one of two things is happening:

a) The party's spellcasters are handing the buffs unequally, giving them only to the fighters, or
b) You're not doing your job as a DM properly, giving only non-monk equipment as treasure. If there's one monk in your world, there are going to be others. Where are those amulets of mighty fists? Or better yet, amulets of sure striking? Why are the warriors getting magic swords and armour while the monk gets nothing?

The other option you have is fixing the ridiculous notion that monks aren't trained to use quarterstaffs and spears to their fullest potential.

But the argument that strikes me the most in this thread is that monks can't do damage unarmed! I'd love to see whose fighter can attack as many times a round with a weapon that does a d12 damage! Or, better yet, d20! A monk's offensive capabilities are right up there with the fighters' if he's built correctly. What stats are you using, all 12s?

The point is that you can't just hand out powerful items only to the non-monk characters. Compare all those characters without their special items, and the monk slaps them all silly without breaking a sweat.

 

[Darklone]

Funny, some guys still assume that fighters and other persons get more magic items than monks...

And who said that a sorcerer is better than a wizard for a 4 player group? Playing to much Diablo2, eh? Ah, you call it D&D?

This was not meant to hurt anyones feelings but should be funny....

I simply wanted to add: Monks don't suck. Neither they are overpowered. I saw many badly designed monks yet, but some of these examples here only showed that the posters didn't have much experience how to built monks effectively.

Sure, a monk needs good stats. But then, who does not? Even a fighter should have Int 13 for expertise. That's not a problem if you only play with 40points pb chars, but it's a real problem if you use 25 points.

And the monk usually is easier to buff for spellcasters than a fighter. Mage armour and the monk will be a good tank. Cat's grace and he will hit as hell (if he is dex oriented). Stunning fist is not only good against wizards but may rock against fighters too. And as soon as the monk has his multiple unarmed attacks, he will start to grapple enemy fighters and dish out his usual unarmed damage while grappling. Just one AoO will not stop him. But this will disturb the barbarians greataxe!

 

[Zog]

Gizzard asked for a breakdown of the BAB of the monk I mentioned. 1 rog/5 Monk = Bab of 3. 20 Dex, +1 size as he is a puny halfling, weapon finesse unarmed. = +9. Also why his damage was only d6 at level 5, instead of d8. But hey, if he flanks something living, thats 2d6 +2, 2d6+2 at +9/+9 - and thats just skippy - for a puny halfling.

And an armor class of 18 without any magic. Sorry - but this character really makes me happy. Just the image of the harmless little unarmed halfling kicking monster butt.


The folks doing calculations of fighter vs. monk - if you give the fighter a +1 sword, give the monk a +1 bracer of armor. Give the fighter +1 armor, give the monk a ring of deflection +1. Give the fighter a str stat bonus item, give the monk a dex stat bonus item (which helps both AC, and to Hit, with weapon finesse).
The fighter has a certain amount of items per level - weapons and armor, generally. So does the monk - don't consider one without the other.

 

[TiQuinn]

Funny, some guys still assume that fighters and other persons get more magic items than monks...

And who said that a sorcerer is better than a wizard for a 4 player group? Playing to much Diablo2, eh? Ah, you call it D&D?

Actually, that was me, and I was being more than a little sarcastic when I made the comment.

I think monks do get fewer items than others classes, which is both the fault of the DM (who doesn't include any magical monk weapons) as well as the party (who doesn't craft any items for monks to use).

It seems the monk is the red-headed stepchild of D&D.

 

[TiQuinn]

On a somewhat related note, does anyone think it would be particularly unbalancing if a monk were allowed to multiclass without restriction, as with Rokugan? Why would one particular setting would allow players to alternate between Monk and another class, whereas core rules disallow it?

For that matter, would it be terribly unbalancing to remove this restriction from paladins as well?