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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 283656" data-attributes="member: 158">Matt, I believe you are missing the point here: no class has ALL of these things at the same time. And for one class to have them all, they are GOING to shine. In numerous games I have played, Monks excelled at being "special forces" to the fighter's "grunt front line." No mere fighter can dodge effectively in and out of combat as the monk can - a rogue doesn't pack the punch of a monk unless sneak-attacking, and no other class can evade damage as effectively as a lightly armored monk.On the contrary, if a rogue and monk have equal levels of magic, the monk will be slightly more effective in mobile skirmishes, because a monk's powers are independent of the ability to get sneak attacks, and they will have (due to the wisdom AC ability of the monk) slightly better armor class to deal with counterattacks.I will say one thing: in a party without a fighter-type, a cleric-type, a rogue-type, and a wizard-type, ANY of the other classes will be forced into role they are unsuited for. A bard in a party of nothing but bards cannot shine; a wizard in a party of druids cannot shine as well. a party must be well-balanced in order for the other classes to  show off their abilities. Note that the same arguments made here about a monk also have by other posters applied to a bard: "he's too weak", "he's not a rogue," "he's a healre wanna-be" etc. All this misses the point that as the role they are suited for, that of mobile melee combat, monks are fantastic.As for monks being traditionally unarmed, I take disagreement with you. Precedent in history and legend has been set for whole orders of monks who are built around armed combat - the kama and nunchaku sprang from martial variants of common farm tools orginally, anyway! Hwa Rang Do, for instance, offers training in over ONE HUNDRED weapons. Finally, keep in mind that the grand-daddy of D&D monks, the 1978 AD&D Monk, was a weapon master. They did improved damage with melee weapons, due to their extensive physical body knowledge. So, the precedent was there in D&D, even from the beginning.(I had a friend of mine who favorite character to play in 1st edition AD&D was a monk with a halberd - it was his trademark! Anytime he was allowed to play a monk, he would do so - and along comes the 5'5" asian monk with his European-bladed halberd. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />)</blockquote>

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