What's Up With The Monk?

[Villano]

Ouch. That's pretty bad, but then (and I mean no offense) that was some pretty terrible teamwork on the druid's part, ESPECIALLY given your "mage bodyguard" role.

Bad teamwork was really the hallmark of that group. The monk (me), half-orc fighter, cleric, 2nd ranger, and rogue all worked well together, but the spellcasters and the original ranger all simply looked out for themselves.

The first ranger said in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to "carry" anyone. Now, this wasn't in character, it was the player saying that. He got into an argument with the fighter (I think) and quit the game.

The spellcasters all thought like fighters and chose defensive spells to protect themselves and went in with fireballs blasting. Part of the reason we ran into the dragon was that no one wanted to cast invisibility on either me or the rogue to scout the area.

The cleric didn't use any spells on anyone else except heal, but his domain was war, so pumping himself up and charging into battle himself made sense (and he had a 16 or 18 str, so he was effective both to hit and damage), so I didn't hold it against him.

However, nothing eventualy mattered because, after only 3 or so rounds with the dragon, the DM quit, stating that he was "bored".

All in all, a pretty crappy experience. Only half the people involved were serious, the rest just wanted to kill as many things by themselves as they could.

 

[S'mon]

But they are good at dying because of low HPs. ;-)

You need high stats to be a good monk. Their d8 gives them the same hp as a cleric, and once the wizard casts Mage Armor on them they have much better ACs. I agree that a 25-pt Monk is weaker than a 25-pt Fighter, I disagree that a 50-pt Monk is weaker than a 50-pt Fighter.

 

[S'mon]

No, not mooks. (The barbarian with the Cleave feat has always been better at that.)

Wizards & sorcerers. When you're a wizard, if you see a fighter/barbarian type charging you, hit him with a Will save spell. If it's a cleric, try one with a Reflex save. When it's a monk, hope you have a Fly prepared so you can escape. And hope you get it off before she gets there, because you may not get a second chance.

A monk can go in to take out the mooks, find that he's losing, and escape. When the barbarian or fighter go in to take out the mooks and find they're losing, they die - at least that's been my experience. Barbarians in particular seem to die like flies.

 

[ForceUser@Home]

A monk can go in to take out the mooks, find that he's losing, and escape. When the barbarian or fighter go in to take out the mooks and find they're losing, they die - at least that's been my experience. Barbarians in particular seem to die like flies.

Barbarians have low, low AC, especially when raging. If a person's going to go full barbarian, he needs to concentrate on items and feats that buff their hit points, followed by AC. I think the barb's whole gig is "yeah, I'm taking a lot of damage, but I'm going to kill you before you kill me."

 

[TroyXavier]

Rogues and Monks work really well together. A friend of mine and I double-teamed our opponents like that, the other party members sometimes never got a chance to hit.

That AC is a killer for Barbarians. One of my other friends couldn't stay alive for his life due to that problem(and he is not a great HP roller). He finally bulked his AC up to where it was finally difficult for most enemies to hit him. Before that, he was always in trouble of dropping.

 

[Gizzard]

I know just what you're talking about! In the online RttTotEE game I played, the damn druid refused to cast magic fang on me. He was "saving it".

Thats pretty weak.

A tangent to that thought: a lot of people have mentioned specific Spells (Magic Fang) or Items (Boots of Striding) that they feel really help the Monk. For a lot of different reasons, these things may not be available in a given campaign; especially a low-magic campaign.

So, do people think the Monk is more dependent on Buffs and Items than other classes?

Barbarians have low, low AC, especially when raging.

We have to be careful to specify what level we are talking about.

Chain Shirt and a good DEX means that our 5th level Barbarian is AC17. The Monk and the TWF Fighter are AC18, I think the Cleric might be even slightly higher since he has a Shield. The Barbarian is very comparable to everyone else at 5th, though I can see that AC is going to be a problem for him in the future. But for now, I'd rather have 57HP with 17AC (or 67 HP with 15AC raging) than 37HP with 18AC like the Monk.

I agree that a 25-pt Monk is weaker than a 25-pt Fighter, I disagree that a 50-pt Monk is weaker than a 50-pt Fighter.

We used the 4d6 method to roll up our characters; it comes out to be about a 40 point buy; so thats where my experience is.

Given that though, I dont think that more points is going to make the Monk better than a Fighter. Since every stat is much more useful in 3E, its not like the Fighter will have his extra points go to waste. If nothing else, he can dump them all in INT and start cross-classing into Monk skills. Or dump them into WIS just to improve his Will Save. I think you'd have to go over 50-pts before the Monk starts to close ground. Certainly, 40-pts is not enough.

Of course, I am thinking of low-level Monks here, since thats what the original question was about. High-level Monks might be a different story.

 

[S'mon]

The two very successful Monk PCs in my game, who definitely overshadowed similar-level fighters, had very high stats - one had both WIS & DEX 18 and with Evasion & Mage Armor could get his AC ridiculously high, I think 32 was the most... this being as a FTR1/MNK6 or similar. Meanwhile the Barbarian was AC 17 or so. The 1e Monk required extremely high stats. In 3e you can be a Monk without good stats, you just can't be a _good_ Monk (or Paladin) without good stats...

 

[S'mon]

The two very successful Monk PCs in my game, who definitely overshadowed similar-level fighters, had very high stats - one had both WIS & DEX 18 and with Evasion

Expertise not Evasion, sorry.

 

[Gizzard]

The backstory I was using for this encounter was basically along the lines of the monk thinking, "I have to defeat this giant or my friends die. How do I do it?".

The problem with the Monk's hit and run tactics are that he's not occupying an area. His foe is free to move around and do whatever he was planning to; and the Monk cant prevent him from doing it. A Barbarian can stand toe-to-toe and say, "Giant, you fight me here and we will see who walks away." He occupies the area, if you see what I mean.

I cant think of many situations where you can save your friends with hit-and-run tactics. But these two scenarios do leap to mind; I think they show why you have to be able to occupy area:

1) The Giant has your friends in his bag and he's taking them back to camp to CDG them and cook them.

2) You are on watch. The Giant charges into your camp and only you stand between him and the squishy, sleeping but valuable Wizard.

-edit-

I think LokiDR's 7th level Monk will run into the same problem. He is supposed to be guarding something; but he can't really stand and guard. He can harrass, but unless his harrassment blossoms into an actual threat, the party will just continue about their business looting his temple.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When a monk has to destroy a giant to save his friends, what does he do?

Runs in, grabs the body, runs out. goes back to town and gets them raised.

Monks Don't Kill Stuff. They stop people from getting killed.

Barbarians kill stuff. Fighters kill stuff. Druids, sorcerers, wizards kill stuff.

Clerics don't kill stuff...what would a Cleric do in the same situation (assuming his prayed-for spells are buffs like they should be)? Rogues don't kill stuff...what would a Rogue do in the same situation? How about a spellcaster without a big damage spell? How about a Bard?

None of these classes would be very effective in the situation. Having a monk stand guard is like having a Rogue stand guard...neither can exactly stay in one place while the Barbarian wails down upon them.

If you're going to use a monk, you may as well use them for what they're actually good at -- harassing players.