Why does nobody complain about the monk?

[Shazman]

All you needed to do was give a monk a simple item to enhance his unarmed strike like any other person can enhance their weapon at the regular costs, and the problem is "solved." Since the monk's entire body is a weapon and part of his singular "unarmed strike," I was always the most partial to making it a robe slot item.



I'll start. It's an extremely weak option for a monk along with basically every class, and even if it didn't cost two of your precious feats (it gives you free exalted feats back, but with only a few exceptions, exalted feats are garbage), I'd still not take it as a monk unless I expected the game to drastically deviate from the expected wealth by level (on the low end).

I've seen Vow of Poverty break a game. It can get pretty bad at higher levels.

 

[jefgorbach]

It is something different. Enchanting a weapon via creation feats =/= making it a subject of an effect from a spell/ability.

Not really.
Look at ANY magic item, be it armor, weapon, ring, rod/staff, or wondrous item. Each lists what the device does and what spells are involved in the enchantment process along with how experienced the corresponding spell caster/scroll needs to be to properly generate those effects.

For instance to create a Holy weapon, one needs the desired masterwork weapon, someone who knows how to prepare it for enchanting, and a cleric of at least 7th level with access to the Holy Smite spell.

Since its acceptable under RAW to purchase the base weapon to be enchanted, it seems reasonable to allow the above cleric perform whatever prayers/etc he would ordinary use when imbuing that weapon with Holy Smite to instead imbue that power into the monk since his unarmed strike qualifies as the manufactured masterwork weapon per RAW.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I've seen Vow of Poverty break a game. It can get pretty bad at higher levels.

Yes, actually. It does tend to suck more at higher levels than lower levels.

 

[Werebat]

OK, quick and dirty fix for the monk -- give it full BAB. That's what I did in 3.5.

Too good? Not enough?

- Ron ^*^

 

[Starbuck_II]

OTOH, the Kensai PrCl clearly considered it to be equivalent to a manufactured weapon for its Weapon of Choice enhancement ability, so I don't really see this as an unreasonable reading of the language in the Monk class description. "Spirit of the rules" and all that.

And if you still have a problem with that, you can always import the Hands as Weapons Feat from Monte Cook's AU/AE game.

If you give out everybody that ability: you take away power/ability from the Kensai class.
It'd be like stealing all Fighter Bonus feats and giving to monk: why play a Fighter if Monk gets its abilities?

So be a Kensai if he wants to enhance his arms.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you give out everybody that ability: you take away power/ability from the Kensai class.

Not quite.

The Kensai does it intrinsically as a class feature- without having to invest in craft magic arms and armor or meeting the spell requirements or XP costs- every other monk has to pay for that privilege unless he is also multiclassed as a spellcaster or has a PC in the party willing to do all that for free.

IOW, the base monk is prepped for the procedure, but he still has to go through all the other stuff any other PC would to get a custom magic weapon, a cost the Kensai doesn't pay.

Or to put it another way, it is my opinion that but for the language in the monk class saying that the monk's unarmed strikes can be considered a manufactured weapon for purposes of spells & effects, the Kensai would not be able to choose a monk's unarmed strikes as his weapons of choice.

 

[billd91]

For the OP:
The monk is the classic example of a weakness of theorycrafting. When the 3.0 rules debuted, there was a lot of discussion that the monk was too good based on reading the stats. That he was broken. Turned out to be a bit too weak in play.

If you and your friends read the monk in PF and thought he was too strong, withhold judgement until he's been actually tried at a few points in his progression.

 

[ffanxii4ever]

I like the monk, but as many have said, the Core monk is hardly overpowered.

Now with the APG out, there are more than a few nice little goodies for the monk, and one of them is particularly attractive: The Zen Archer

Why you ask? Well, its got a number of nice goodies (such as Weapon Specialization, Reflexive Shot, Trick Shot, and Ki Arrows), but there is one ability that outshines them all: Flurry of Bows!

 

[Azmyth]

I have not yet player a Pathfinder build of the monk, but I have judged many of them at Society tables. They are not terribly over powered.
With an advanced to expert player at the helm, they are formidable in combat (but then any class should be a player of that level).
I would echo Bill D's sentiment of, "withhold judgement until he's been actually tried at a few points in his progression."

 

[mxyzplk]

1. Because complaining is for wusses.

2. Because monks don't hit for crap. We have players play monks reasonably frequently. They have the highest ACs and CMDs of anyone, but just don't deal the damage. It's called "flurry of misses" for a reason, and stunning fist DCs are a joke. And it's a lot harder/more expensive to magic up the to-hit roll with unarmed.