Why Did The Game Wimp Out On Monks?

[DonTadow]

Never really understood the complaints about the Monk class...everytime I've seen them in play, they've been slippery little buggers that were tough to kill. Monks are useful for harrowing the enemy, halting retreats, and generally outlasting many opponents due to their difficulty to hit (especially when built for defensive). I've seen frustrated GMs/DMs because their bad guys can't seem to get a lock on them.

That said, Ultimate Combat has a lot of monk goodness. The Fighter Archetype: Unarmed Fighter seems to do a lot of what some folk in this thread are wanting, or the Martial Artist Archetype for Monk if you want a monk removed of the supernatural abilities. A couple pages of Monk Archetypes covers more ground, and I like them a little better than the ones in the AGP.

I"m with you monk, yes is not a favored class, but still fills balanced. I believe Paizo and dnd has always tried to blend martial artist monks with sacred monks and thus our monk class. The pathfinder version feels more sacred (supernatural). Archetypes can make it more kungfu.

As is, if you really use your combat maneuvers right (you can really take advantage of hte monk's advantages). Disarming enemies left and right, tripping and controlling the battlefield. Monks can flip off DMs that like poison.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

As is, if you really use your combat maneuvers right (you can really take advantage of hte monk's advantages). Disarming enemies left and right, tripping and controlling the battlefield.

What advantages? They're worse than the other martial classes at combat maneuvers! And due to MAD, they pretty much will never get the Greater combat maneuver feats. Even if they could afford to, they'd have to wait till level 9 to get any of them at all. How are they better than Fighter or Barbarian, or hell, even Ranger at combat maneuvers? You know what controls the battlefield? Reach weapons.

Monks can flip off DMs that like poison.

So can Alchemists and Druids. Or the entire party once the Cleric can cast Heroes' Feast.

 

[Fishbone]

The monk is in a weird position because of a number of things I think.

One is that players think that a monk should be a super dodging guy who has a better AC than everybody. He usually doesn't. Bracers of Armor cost more than bucklers and can't have other 3.5 and Pathfinder abilities added to them. The brass knuckles debate still rages so if you want to punch somebody better in Pathfinder you could lose out on Natural Armor to your AC while paying more to hit with attacks. Full Plate had another point added to its AC and it is difficult for Monk Wisdom, Monk AC bonus and Dexterity, depending on how how that is, to match +10 to AC out the gate usually. So for some reason it is easier to hit and damage the guy with Improved Evasion, a good reflex and 60+ movement than the Fighter wearing 50 pounds of body armor and moving at 20 feet.

The class is still confused. Like, what does it want to do? Does it want to get in and get out and land the Stunning Fist monster charge attack or Spring Attack, or does it want to stand toe to toe and trade Flurry of Fists with a monster's full attack routine? Not quite sure.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

There's nothing wrong with having more than one "path." Ranger chooses a combat style for feats, fighter has enough feats to do several things well, and so forth. Monk just...can't do skirmishing OR "the 5 ft shuffle" (full attacking) OR combat maneuvers OR ranged, or anything else...well.

 

[frankthedm]

Or the entire party once the Cleric can cast Heroes' Feast.

Thankfully Pathfinder fixed the problem of blanket poison immunity from Heroes Feast changing it to a reasonable...

+4 morale bonus on saving throws against poison and fear effects for 12 hours.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Huh, didn't realize they nerfed that. Never really minded the blanket poison immunity by that level myself, poison was never a good tactic for the PCs anyway (and PF made that worse!), so it sort of leveled the playing field with NPCs. *sigh*

 

[Summer-Knight925]

I figure it was to balance things out.

And technically, the fighter spends his life preparing for battle, fighting all day every day.

Historically, the monks spent as much time in meditation and prayer as they did fighting, usually more time in prayer and meditation.


Coming from a gamer who always saw monks as cool but overpowered, seeing of Pathfinder did them made me feel a bit better about them.

 

[frankthedm]

Huh, didn't realize they nerfed that.

Really? Heroes Feast was one of the first spells i check up on after seeing Neutralize Poison stopped being 100% effective.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

Coming from a gamer who always saw monks as cool but overpowered, seeing of Pathfinder did them made me feel a bit better about them.

Overpowered in 3.5? Have you seen them in play or came to the conclusion from reading the rules?

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Overpowered in 3.5? Have you seen them in play or came to the conclusion from reading the rules?

I have a player who plays monks non-stop.

All he does

and then tries to break rules to get his unarmed attack to do more damage.
And by break rules, I mean he "'didn't see why his unarmed attacked couldn't be made magical like the fighter's sword'"