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Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 07:53 PM
okay. me and my DM were in a small argument. He claimed that Monks are one of the most overpowered classes in the PHB.

Okay, we all know that isn't true. However, I need a good argument for that other than its multiple ability dependancy.

can somebody help?

Dr.Epic
2010-02-28, 07:55 PM
Firstly, I love monks but here are some of the aurguements I've heard against them:

Low BAB for a combat class.
Low HD for a combat class.
They do a lot of things well but don't excede in any one area.

sofawall
2010-02-28, 07:56 PM
Class features don't work together well (Flurry+Fast Movement).
Abilities are basically useless (Tongue of Sun and Moon).
The core improver for natural attacks costs 3 times as much as a weapon.
Even with the core enhancer, no enchantment equivalents like Flaming or Holy.
3/4 BAB.
Poor HD.
Bracers of armour cost more than equal armour.
Don't exceed in one area.
MAD.
Not proficient with fists.
Weaker returns for STR and Power Attack.
Quivering Palm is once per week, needs a save and an attack roll (with damage the gets past any applicable DR). Contrast: Finger of Death is 3+ times per day, and only needs a save (which, due to aforementioned MAD, is likely to have a higher DC), and works on more creature types.
Perfect Self: DR10/magic, and outsider type. Outsider type can be gotten at least 3 ways with no LA, and DR10/magic at level 20 is being bypassed by almost every single monster ever printed of a CR 15 and up, and most of the ones below that too.

Touchy
2010-02-28, 07:57 PM
okay. me and my DM were in a small argument. He claimed that Monks are one of the most overpowered classes in the PHB.

Okay, we all know that isn't true. However, I need a good argument for that other than its multiple ability dependancy.

can somebody help?

I'm in the same situation. I've told them they don't really do much, but I had trouble finding sources for my knowledge as well. :smallannoyed:

Foryn Gilnith
2010-02-28, 07:58 PM
A short playtest should get some number proofs. But a few questions for you...

What are your DM's supporting points for his arguments?
Why do you care?
Why do you need help from the internet?

Crafty Cultist
2010-02-28, 07:58 PM
monks are also quite MAD. they need decent scores in str, dex, con, and wis to be effective

sofawall
2010-02-28, 07:59 PM
No *2 Power Attack and *1.5 str (without a feat, I believe).

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 07:59 PM
If he doesn't like monks because they're "overpowered" and you don't like monks because you "know" they're "underpowered"... just don't play monks and ignore the issue.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 08:00 PM
Wait, aren't they technically not proficient with their fists?

BRC
2010-02-28, 08:00 PM
It's supposed to be a frontline combatant, along the lines of a Fighter or Barbarian. Yet it does not have full BaB, it has D8 hit dice, it's difficult to get enchantments on it's weapons, and it's Armor Class is difficult to improve. It, however, has no other method of being effective, it can't cast spells like a cleric, it dosn't have a rogue's skills or sneak attacks, or any of the Ranger's stuff. In battle it's basically limited to punching things, which it dosn't do very well.

It's really a class built around Fluff (Hey, let's make a mystic martial artist type) without thinking about Crunch (But he can't hit as well as a Fighter, or take as much damage. And he dosn't wear armor...)

One way to help Monks is to let them buy magic gloves/brass knuckles that affect their Unarmed Strikes, and let them treat normal clothing as essentially Armor with a +0 AC bonus, so it can be enchanted like normal armor.

sofawall
2010-02-28, 08:00 PM
Wait, aren't they technically not proficient with their fists?

Technically, you are correct.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 08:02 PM
A short playtest should get some number proofs. But a few questions for you...

What are your DM's supporting points for his arguments?
Why do you care?
Why do you need help from the internet?

1. Quivering Palm and perfect body.
2. I don't know.
3. because you guys know more than me about this.

sofawall
2010-02-28, 08:03 PM
Quivering Palm is once per week, needs a save and an attack roll.

Finger of Death is 3-4 times per day, minimum, and only needs a save (which, due to aforementioned MAD, is likely to have a higher DC)

Perfect Self: DR10/magic, and outsider type. Outsider type can be gotten at least 3 ways with no LA, and DR10/magic at level 20 is being bypassed by almost every single monster ever printed of a CR 15 and up, and most of the ones below that too.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 08:03 PM
If he doesn't like monks because they're "overpowered" and you don't like monks because you "know" they're "underpowered"... just don't play monks and ignore the issue.

Somebody else is playing a Monk and he seems to think they're overpowered too. I just want some ammo in case the issue ever comes up again.

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 08:04 PM
Somebody else is playing a Monk and he seems to think they're overpowered too. I just want some ammo in case the issue ever comes up again.If he's happy with his "overpowered" monk, why take that away from him? :smallconfused:

sofawall
2010-02-28, 08:05 PM
I'm gonna make a list for you, Kyuubi, in the third post.

Foryn Gilnith
2010-02-28, 08:06 PM
If Perfect Self and Quivering Palm are the reasons Monk is overpowered, then just have the monk-player offer to leave Monk before 15th level. It's not like the campaign is destined to get that far, anyway, and there are some nice alternatives (prestige classes and stuff).

Haven
2010-02-28, 08:07 PM
If he doesn't like monks because they're "overpowered" and you don't like monks because you "know" they're "underpowered"... just don't play monks and ignore the issue.

I don't think it can really be considered an isolated issue. Thinking that monks are overpowered probably means he overvalues some things and undervalues others, a situation that's likely to create other problems down the line.

Ninja'd: Or that.

Dr Bwaa
2010-02-28, 08:07 PM
There is a shirt someplace that is not armor but provides a +1 armor bonus to AC, so it can be enchanted. A decent way to get your fists to have decent effects is with Kensei (but then you're not taking any more monk classes...)

As far as what it is that makes them bad, everyone has already said it. MAD as a Paladin or worse, low BAB, low HD, unsynergistic class features (slow fall+flurry of blows+fast movement = ?!?! :smallfrown:), lots of mediocre abilities that are guaranteed to be performed better by anyone else in the party (mediocre skills (and it's not like you're going to have an int score), mediocre HP & attack & damage & AC, no abilities to buff/otherwise aid party members, Quivering Palm is the same as Finger of Death, but worse and at higher levels...). I think that's really what it comes down to--they can do a lot of stuff pretty badly, instead of doing any of it well.

The Dark Fiddler
2010-02-28, 08:07 PM
Class features don't work together well (Flurry+Fast Movement).

Good, another Monk thread. Cause I've been meaning to ask about this (to anyone, really, not just you, sofa).


Flurry of Blows (Ex)

When unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round.

I see nothing implying it can't be used with Fast Movement. The way I read it, it applies to all attacks, since it doesn't specify it takes an action to activate or that it only works with full attacks.

BRC
2010-02-28, 08:09 PM
1. Quivering Palm and perfect body.
2. I don't know.
3. because you guys know more than me about this.
The "Body" Chain of stuff is fairly useless. Diseases and Poisons are fairly uncommon as things go, and are easy to cure anyway. Perfect Body is nice, but by level 20 everything has magic weapons or DR/Magic, or deals enough damage that a measly DR 10 dosn't cause it to blink.
As for quivering palm, "Oh no, an SoD that can be used once a week at level 15."
Wizards get Phantasmal Killer at Level 7, at which point they WILL have at least 18 int, so they can use it twice per day, and it deals damage on a successful save. That's not counting the hundreds of other "Save or _____" abilities out there. Yes it takes 2 saves, but still.

sofawall
2010-02-28, 08:10 PM
Good, another Monk thread. Cause I've been meaning to ask about this (to anyone, really, not just you, sofa).



I see nothing implying it can't be used with Fast Movement. The way I read it, it applies to all attacks, since it doesn't specify it takes an action to activate or that it only works with full attacks.


A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.

Right there.

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 08:11 PM
I see nothing implying it can't be used with Fast Movement. The way I read it, it applies to all attacks, since it doesn't specify it takes an action to activate or that it only works with full attacks.

"A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows."

(edit - ninja'd)

The Dark Fiddler
2010-02-28, 08:11 PM
Right there.

God I'm blind sometimes.

krossbow
2010-02-28, 08:13 PM
basically, nothing the monk gets synergizes with one another, and crippling MAD.

Felyndiira
2010-02-28, 08:14 PM
1. Quivering Palm and perfect body.

Quivering Palm: Here's a few spells for your DM's consideration
Destruction - Fortitude Save or Die off Cleric's spell list, can be casted at range multiple times a day rather than 1/week.
Finger of Death - Fortitude Save or Die off Wizard's spell list, can be casted at range multiple times a day rather than 1/week at.
Slay Living - Fortitude Save or Die off Cleric's spell list at level 5 (level 9 rather than 15), can be casted multiple times a day rather than 1/week.
Baleful Polymorph - Fortitude Save or You Might As Well Be Dead off Druid's spell list at level 5 (level 9 rather than 15), can be casted multiple times a day rather than 1/week.

That being said, quivering palm is nothing. A single save or die that depends on both an attack roll (to hit) and a fortitude roll (to kill) is painfully weak as a level 15 skill when compared to even a base psion.


Perfect Self: Go ahead and show your DM shapechange or greater visage of the deity. Then show him the plethora of prestige classes that have outsider type capstones, and make him realize that a +1 weapon is considered magic. His argument is now invalid.

Note: Psions are a Tier 2 class max, so it's a fair comparison.

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 08:15 PM
I don't think it can really be considered an isolated issue. Thinking that monks are overpowered probably means he overvalues some things and undervalues others, a situation that's likely to create other problems down the line.Maybe. IMO and IME, attempting to address every single "misconception" someone might have "according to the internet" is a waste of time that could be better spent gaming.

The truth is, the majority of games, again imo and ime, don't fall anywhere near the optimization levels expected in the internet vacuum of RAWness. Some games obviously do, but as evidenced by these threads and ones along similar lines, a fair number, if not the majority, don't have optimized wizards that dominate every encounter by sheer virtue of being awesome while the groundpounders are left to do little more than poke things.

By the numbers, yes, the monk does not match up with the majority of other classes. If the things that the DM and player are concerned about are shiny things that happen at level 15 and 20, then just have the monk player PrC out before then, you'll be doing him a favor anyway.

Volkov
2010-02-28, 08:16 PM
Quivering Palm: Here's a few spells for your DM's consideration
Destruction - Fortitude Save or Die off Cleric's spell list, can be casted at range multiple times a day rather than 1/week.
Finger of Death - Fortitude Save or Die off Wizard's spell list, can be casted at range multiple times a day rather than 1/week at.
Slay Living - Fortitude Save or Die off Cleric's spell list at level 5 (level 9 rather than 15), can be casted multiple times a day rather than 1/week.
Baleful Polymorph - Fortitude Save or You Might As Well Be Dead off Druid's spell list at level 5 (level 9 rather than 15), can be casted multiple times a day rather than 1/week.

That being said, quivering palm is nothing. A single save or die that depends on both an attack roll (to hit) and a fortitude roll (to kill) is painfully weak as a level 15 skill when compared to even a base psion.


Perfect Self: Go ahead and show your DM shapechange or greater visage of the deity. Then show him the plethora of prestige classes that have outsider type capstones, and make him realize that a +1 weapon is considered magic. Also show him the banishment spell. His argument is now invalid.

Not to mention, even if you save against destruction, you will take a healthy amount of damage. Also, monks are considered native outsiders at level 20, banishment won't work on them. Also, Psions are a top tier class.

Swok
2010-02-28, 08:21 PM
Chances are, they won't believe you even if you explain it's flaws well. I've noticed that with a guy in my group that thinks Green Star Adept is overpowered. No matter how much I tried to explain that it isn't, he still thinks it is.

Lycanthromancer
2010-02-28, 08:31 PM
Chances are, they won't believe you even if you explain it's flaws well. I've noticed that with a guy in my group that thinks Green Star Adept is overpowered. No matter how much I tried to explain that it isn't, he still thinks it is.Play a warforged. Take Adamantine Body if you want. You just got what it took him 10 PrC levels and a huge amount of money to get, AND you have an actual Con score.

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 08:34 PM
can somebody help?
Link him to this thread? =P

krossbow
2010-02-28, 08:35 PM
Maybe. IMO and IME, attempting to address every single "misconception" someone might have "according to the internet" is a waste of time that could be better spent gaming.

The truth is, the majority of games, again imo and ime, don't fall anywhere near the optimization levels expected in the internet vacuum of RAWness. Some games obviously do, but as evidenced by these threads and ones along similar lines, a fair number, if not the majority, don't have optimized wizards that dominate every encounter by sheer virtue of being awesome while the groundpounders are left to do little more than poke things.

By the numbers, yes, the monk does not match up with the majority of other classes. If the things that the DM and player are concerned about are shiny things that happen at level 15 and 20, then just have the monk player PrC out before then, you'll be doing him a favor anyway.





Here's the thing: even when non-optimized, the monk isn't that good. Due to mad, the monk runs a much, MUCH bigger risk of sucking absolute balls if you don't build them right.
A Barbarian, a cleric, a rogue are hard to screw up; all you need is a basic understanding of what their role is. but a monk? mess that up, and you are on a one way trip so suck city.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 08:37 PM
Play a warforged. Take Adamantine Body if you want. You just got what it took him 10 PrC levels and a huge amount of money to get, AND you have an actual Con score.

I think this will prove it to your friend.

there's seriously nothing you get from that class that you don't get from just making your character a construct in the first place.

Swok
2010-02-28, 08:38 PM
Play a warforged. Take Adamantine Body if you want. You just got what it took him 10 PrC levels and a huge amount of money to get, AND you have an actual Con score.

Oh, I know. I'd also be up 5 CL on him.

Also, lycanthropes make surprisingly decent monks. Of course, the character in question would be better off with almost any other class, but he's still (mostly) pulling his weight.

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 08:39 PM
Here's the thing: even when non-optimized, the monk isn't that good. Due to mad, the monk runs a much, MUCH bigger risk of sucking absolute balls if you don't build them right.
A Barbarian, a cleric, a rogue are hard to screw up; all you need is a basic understanding of what their role is. but a monk? mess that up, and you are on a one way trip so suck city.Which is great in theoryville, as I already said and never contested, but Kyuubi has also already said:

Somebody else is playing a Monk and he seems to think they're overpowered too.

So, yeah. Someone's playing a monk in the game right now and thinks they're overpowered. Ergo, in this particular game, the monk is probably not in "suck city".

erikun
2010-02-28, 08:40 PM
Monks have 3/4 BAB, and their fists receive no enchantments. This puts them at -5 to hit behind similar classes like the Rogue, and -10 to hit behind the Fighters and other "front line" classes. Yes, that means the Monk will have the same attack bonuses as the Wizard.

Because they are not enchanted, the Monk's fist cannot overcome Damage Reduction, they cannot overcome Regeneration, and they will never be able to hit an incorporeal creature.

Monks can use enchanted weapons, but doing so deals pathetic damage. A Monk flurrying a +5 quarterstaff deals 1d6+5 damage, or 5d6+25 if all attacks hit. A Ranger with a pair of +5 short swords deals 7d6+35, while a rogue with a +5 rapier deals 40d6+20.


This can probably be fixed very easily with "enchanted Monk gloves" or +X Ki Strike abilities or several other options. It won't make the Monk top-tier, and they will still have bad MAD, but it will at least let the Monk keep up with everyone else.

Androgeus
2010-02-28, 08:44 PM
Because they are not enchanted, the Monk's fist cannot overcome Damage Reduction, they cannot overcome Regeneration, and they will never be able to hit an incorporeal creature.


Ki Strike (Su)
At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki. Her unarmed attacks are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. Ki strike improves with the character’s monk level. At 10th level, her unarmed attacks are also treated as lawful weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. At 16th level, her unarmed attacks are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction and bypassing hardness.

While not regen, they do overcome some DRs

erikun
2010-02-28, 08:55 PM
While not regen, they do overcome some DRs
Very few, very specific DR though. While they can overcome basic magical DR, it still fails against basic defenses like DR/silver or DR/cold iron. I can't think of anything that has only DR/Lawful (Slaad, perhaps?) as most demons possess DR/Lawful and Good, which the Monk still cannot overcome. DR/adamantine is, of course, good against Golems but little else.

Temotei
2010-02-28, 09:02 PM
Monks can survive, but they're no good offensively or otherwise compared to other classes a lot of times.

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 09:03 PM
Monks have 3/4 BAB, and their fists receive no enchantments. This puts them at -5 to hit behind similar classes like the Rogue, and -10 to hit behind the Fighters and other "front line" classes. Yes, that means the Monk will have the same attack bonuses as the Wizard.

Because they are not enchanted, the Monk's fist cannot overcome Damage Reduction, they cannot overcome Regeneration, and they will never be able to hit an incorporeal creature.

Monks can use enchanted weapons, but doing so deals pathetic damage. A Monk flurrying a +5 quarterstaff deals 1d6+5 damage, or 5d6+25 if all attacks hit. A Ranger with a pair of +5 short swords deals 7d6+35, while a rogue with a +5 rapier deals 40d6+20.


This can probably be fixed very easily with "enchanted Monk gloves" or +X Ki Strike abilities or several other options. It won't make the Monk top-tier, and they will still have bad MAD, but it will at least let the Monk keep up with everyone else.
There's a "set" weapon in MIC, part of Gharryn's Monastic Array, called the Scorpion Kama. It lets you use your unarmed strike for damage, but can be enchanted with properties like Good, Evil, Flaming, etc. It should be possible to make Silver and Adamantine versions of it too. Cold Iron too, but that'd get expensive fast.

Jacob Orlove
2010-02-28, 09:18 PM
If you want to see whether a class is balanced, run it against a bunch of CR appropriate encounters. Balanced classes should win about half their fights, underpowered classes will do worse, overpowered classes will do better. I can explain the math behind that if you want, but it's basically how the CR system works.

Here's a reasonably varied list of CR 10 encounters, let's see how a level 10 monk fares. We'll assume reasonable gear (ie, some bonuses to AC, saves, stats, etc, but no items of at-will Polymorph).

The Same Game test, level 10:
A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant.
A Young Blue Dragon.
A Bebilith.
A Vrock.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
An Evil Necromancer.
6 Trolls.
A horde of Shadows.


A hallway filled with magical runes.
The monk has no way to detect or disable the runes. Improved evasion helps if we're looking at reflex saves, but the monk is very likely to fail at least one save here. Probable loss.
A Fire Giant.
The monk has 7 bab at this point, if they can scrape together another +8 from stats and magic items, then they hit on an 8 or better (60% chance). For 1d10+str+magic. The fire giant has 142 hp, +20 to hit, and hits for 3d6+15 with its greatsword (before Power Attack). I'm not seeing the monk winning in a straight up fight, and the giant has a +25 grapple mod. 10' reach and a +14 Fortitude save makes Stunning Fist hard to pull off. The giant's rocks have a huge range, so the monk can't even run away. Probable loss.
A Young Blue Dragon.
The dragon can fly around and shoot the monk with lightning every 1d4 rounds. Improved Evasion is actually a huge help here. If the monk has some kind of ranged weapon (javelin or sling has enough range to match the breath weapon), they can probably out damage the dragon, driving it off. In a toe to toe melee, the monk can just grapple. Probable win.

edit:

I'd like to point out that a Young Blue has a grapple of +15 to the Monk's(assuming a generous 22 STR) +10 and can use it's natural weapons in a grapple just like the monk.
Grapple is BAB + STR + Size. If the monk has 22 str, that's 7 + 6 = 13. Improved Grapple and a Potion of Enlarge Person boost the monk to a +21, but those natural weapons are a problem. Still, it's -4 to hit with them in the grapple, and the dragon only has 85 hp, around the same amount as our monk. I still think the monk has the advantage here, but it's not as clear cut.
A Bebilith.
Poison and Dr 10/good make this a tough fight for the monk. +29 grapple (and Plane Shift) and +16 Fort make it nearly impossible for the monk to grapple/stun. The raw numbers are similar to the fire giant, but the demonic abilities make things even worse. At least the monk can run away. We'll call it even because the Bebilith is slow.
A Vrock.
Dr 10/good again. Flurry of blows isn't so good when you get -10 damage on any hits that connect. Numerically, this fight is better for the monk, but Mirror Image, Telekinesis, and Greater Teleport tilt things back to team monster. Probable loss.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Okay, so we'll say the monk makes his will saves against the two mind blasts (even a 75% chance of success means he barely has a 50-50 shot at making both saves). What then? Grapples/Flurry just won't take them down quickly enough. One failed save and it's over. Probable loss.
An Evil Necromancer.
Ouch. 5th level spellcasting and a horde of undead minions = one dead monk. Probable loss.
6 Trolls.
Even if our monk can punch out one troll every 2 rounds, the first troll will have regenerated 50 hp by the time the monk finishes with troll #6. I don't see the monk dishing out 50+ damage a round, so those trolls aren't staying down. Even if they only hit on a natural 20 (which would require some heavy gp investment in AC by our monk), the monk will eventually get torn to bits. Probable loss.
A horde of Shadows.
Our monk should only be hit on a natural 20, but that's not really enough to stop a horde of these. The monk would be lucky to take down one shadow per round, and 1d6 str damage adds up. Probable loss.

That's 8 probable losses, one 50/50 fight, and one probable win. Even if we tilt a few of those fights towards the monk, it's still not going 50/50 overall. That means a level 10 Monk is weaker than average.

Edit: I added a CR explanation below (as did several others, thanks!). If anyone has suggestions on improving these fights, let me know and I'll edit them in.

Edit2: added more to the blue dragon analysis. Thanks, ZN!

Greenish
2010-02-28, 09:20 PM
If you want to see whether a class is balanced, run it against a bunch of CR appropriate encounters. Balanced classes should win about half their fights, underpowered classes will do worse, overpowered classes will do better. I can explain the math behind that if you want, but it's basically how the CR system works.Isn't encounter CR supposed to be balanced for a group of adventurers, not a single one?

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 09:27 PM
Isn't encounter CR supposed to be balanced for a group of adventurers, not a single one?
Gah. That's not how CR works.

CR 10 means, on average, an ECL 10 party of four should beat it soundly, not lose half the time. It means the thing's powerful enough to pose a threat, but is unlikely to win without outside factors. A party of four should be able to beat several fights of that level throughout the day before they hit any serious risk of death. You're looking for CR 14 before you've got 50/50 odds against the party, in theory at least.

Jacob Orlove
2010-02-28, 09:33 PM
Isn't encounter CR supposed to be balanced for a group of adventurers, not a single one?
Sure, but a CR 10 encounter isn't that much of a threat to party of four level 10 characters. It'll deplete 20% of their resources, but they should survive.

It's when you get to CR 14 that the encounter becomes "overwhelming" with a 50-50 chance of the party dying. Conveniently enough, four CR 10 monsters makes a CR 14 challenge (doubling the number of monsters adds 2 to the CR, double twice to get four monsters and CR14). If four CR 10 monsters should go 50-50 with four level 10 characters, then one CR 10 monster should go 50-50 with one character. That doesn't mean the character has a 50% of winning every fight, just that they should win about half the time overall.

If it helps, consider that a mirror match of four level 10 adventurers would *also* be a CR 14 challenge that wins half the time (which makes sense). Likewise, a character should expect to go 50-50 against a single level 10 foe (mirror match again).

In real games, characters cover for each other and the party very rarely loses a fight. That's intentional--encounters are scaled to be tough, but winnable. But for that to work, each character has to pull their own weight. The monk doesn't.

Temotei
2010-02-28, 09:36 PM
Isn't encounter CR supposed to be balanced for a group of adventurers, not a single one?

As said above, CR works differently than that.

A level 10 character is CR 10. A level 10 party of four should, in theory, be able to take them down by using up ~20% of their resources, including HP, spell slots, etc.

A CR 10 encounter against a level 10 character, then, means that that character should be able to take down that CR 10 encounter about 50% of the time, because they should be about equal in strength.

Of course, that's where it starts getting a bit screwy, with the wizard versus the monk, etc.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

Greenish
2010-02-28, 09:38 PM
Gah. That's not how CR works.

CR 10 means, on average, an ECL 10 party of four should beat it soundly, not lose half the time. It means the thing's powerful enough to pose a threat, but is unlikely to win without outside factors. A party of four should be able to beat several fights of that level throughout the day before they hit any serious risk of death. You're looking for CR 14 before you've got 50/50 odds against the party, in theory at least.Perhaps balanced was a wrong word. I meant, "designed with a group of PCs in mind", as opposed to just one guy.

A party that works together ought to be more than the sum of it's parts, so it seems weird to peg a single player against opponents designed to be defeated by a party.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 09:42 PM
Ah, so that's why this Monk is performing better. The DM made custom items and the player and DM probably aren't aware that they aren't proficient with their fists.

That and the player got a 3 LA and 1 RHD template for just 1 LA :smallannoyed:

lsfreak
2010-02-28, 09:45 PM
Ah, so that's why this Monk is performing better. The DM made custom items and the player and DM probably aren't aware that they aren't proficient with their fists.

That and the player got a 3 LA and 1 RHD template for just 1 LA :smallannoyed:

That would do it. That's nothing to do with the class, and everything to do with that they're not following the rules. (Not that that's a bad thing - monks need a bit of a boost. Attributing his awesomeness to the monk when he's got extra items and 3 free levels is rather... ignorant, though).

EDIT: And lack of proficiency with fists isn't much of anything. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that no one actually uses that rule, but even with that monks have a long ways to go before being good.

Apropos
2010-02-28, 09:46 PM
You asked that like a question? How do you make a slip-up like that? Or did they give him the template for free on purpose?

Greenish
2010-02-28, 09:49 PM
Ah, so that's why this Monk is performing better. The DM made custom items and the player and DM probably aren't aware that they aren't proficient with their fists.WotC is not aware that they aren't proficient with their fists. It's an obvious design mistake.

That and the player got a 3 LA and 1 RHD template for just 1 LA :smallannoyed:That's +2 NA, +2 Wis and DR 5 (or 10)/Silver, scent and LLV. It's not a bad idea to help out a monk with something fancy like that.

I assume the DM also houseruled the forced alignment change.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 09:54 PM
he did it on Purpose. I'm aware that affects the power curve quite a bit.

also, the Template is actually half dragon not were/whatever

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 10:00 PM
Wait... so he's saying Monks are overpowered, and then he gives one a template without the RHD and with way less LA than it's supposed to have, and makes up custom items to boost him further?

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 10:04 PM
Wait... so he's saying Monks are overpowered, and then he gives one a template without the RHD and with way less LA than it's supposed to have, and makes up custom items to boost him further?It's possible that other characters also have custom items, although the template thing is certainly suspect in any protestations of overpoweredness.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 10:04 PM
Wait... so he's saying Monks are overpowered, and then he gives one a template without the RHD and with way less LA than it's supposed to have, and makes up custom items to boost him further?

......yes?

Greenish
2010-02-28, 10:05 PM
also, the Template is actually half dragon not were/whateverAh, my mistake, someone just mentioned lycanthrope monks earlier in the thread.

Well, that's quite a boost, no wonder he feels powerful.

Yuki Akuma
2010-02-28, 10:06 PM
Also, Psions are a top tier class.

No, they're on par with Sorcerers - tier 2.

Erudites are tier 1, though.

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 10:08 PM
......yes?
That's......... uh, special. Wow. You sure there hasn't been a miscommunication somewhere?

I'd be very interested what he'd have to say to this thread. :smalltongue:

Dusk Eclipse
2010-02-28, 10:10 PM
he did it on Purpose. I'm aware that affects the power curve quite a bit.

also, the Template is actually half dragon not were/whatever

Minor nitpick, half dragon doesn't have Racial HD, just LA +3

Kylarra
2010-02-28, 10:11 PM
Minor nitpick, half dragon doesn't have Racial HD, just LA +3Maybe he's an awakened Half-dragon something or other.

Frosty
2010-02-28, 10:17 PM
If you want to see whether a class is balanced, run it against a bunch of CR appropriate encounters. Balanced classes should win about half their fights, underpowered classes will do worse, overpowered classes will do better. I can explain the math behind that if you want, but it's basically how the CR system works.

Here's a reasonably varied list of CR 10 encounters, let's see how a level 10 monk fares. We'll assume reasonable gear (ie, some bonuses to AC, saves, stats, etc, but no items of at-will Polymorph).

The Same Game test, level 10:
A hallway filled with magical runes.
A Fire Giant.
A Young Blue Dragon.
A Bebilith.
A Vrock.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
An Evil Necromancer.
6 Trolls.
A horde of Shadows.
So would you say there is some form of formula or rough guideline to determine the class's Tier based on how many of these test encounters it wins on average? Dueto the fact that the Monk seems to lose most of these he should be extremely low tier. Could you do these evaluations for other classes like the Paladin and the Beguiler?

Flickerdart
2010-02-28, 10:21 PM
So would you say there is some form of formula or rough guideline to determine the class's Tier based on how many of these test encounters it wins on average? Dueto the fact that the Monk seems to lose most of these he should be extremely low tier. Could you do these evaluations for other classes like the Paladin and the Beguiler?
The Tier system isn't based on killing dudes, but versatility. Those encounters are pretty varied, but they'd have to be expanded a bit more to properly gauge for the tier system. I'd add an overpowering opponent in there, and stuff like infiltrating a fortress or fighting alongside an army against another army.
But now I wanna see how the Beguiler does, just cause...hang on a sec.


A hallway filled with magical runes.

Know: Arcane and Trapfinding in-class help the Beguiler find the runes and figure out what they do, if they'll kill him and hopefully how to avoid them. Mind control magic could clear the hallway with some hapless victims if he can't disarm or dispel them. Probable win.

A Fire Giant.

Fire Giants have a Will save of +9. 10th level Beguilers will have save DCs of 10 + 5 (spell level) + 8 (INT) + 2 (Greater Spell Focus) = 25. If he sneaks up on the Giant (which he will, because he can cast Invisibility and the Giant has no Listen skill) that's another +1. The Giant has to roll a 17 or higher to overcome that save in the surprise round, and then because his Initiative is so low, will have to do it again. Probable win.

A Young Blue Dragon.

A Young Blue has the same Will save as the Giant, no Spot/Listen in-class, and an initiative of +0. He's toast. The easy access to Mindsight means that the Beguiler will find the Dragon even if it's burrowed underground, and if we're not allowing dips, then the Beguiler can Spot the traces from the burrow. Solid Fog makes the Dragon stall if it takes to the air. Freedom of Movement negates grappling. Probable win.

A Bebilith.

Also a +9 Will Save. Decent Spot/Listen are made pointless by Silence and Greater Invisibility. Decent Hide/Move Silently are opposed by equal or better checks from the Beguiler (+16 vs +13 from ranks alone). The Scent ability favours the Bebilith, but not enough to tip the scales in its favour, since it still can't pinpoint. Probable win.

A Vrock.

Ooh, this one's tough. A slightly better Will save and an initiative bonus. It might take the Beguiler as many as three turns to subdue it if the dice aren't in his favour. The SR is useless; not only does the Beguiler get an extra +2 to overcome it, but only 17 points? We have a +12 to this roll, only failing on a 4 or lower. Probable win.

A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Harder, because the SR is actually challenging to overcome, spells which allow it failing over half the time. You know what doesn't allow SR? Glitterdust and illusions. +9 will saves here again, which we tear to shreds. Once one or both are blind or distracted, we can either try and punch through their SR or cheese it. There's a fair chance things won't end well, but the Beguiler can run away pretty much whenever he feels like it.

An Evil Necromancer.

Oh dear. Undead are immune to our fun tricksies, so we'll have to fool them with illusions that they can't disbelieve if they're mindless, sneak up to their master and Dominate or otherwise remove him. The Necromancer doesn't have much in the way of senses, so we can sneak up on him all quiet-like. This, like the Illithids, can go wrong but probably won't.

6 Trolls

Will save of +3. Spot +5, Listen +6. Charm these guys and have them occupy the zombies in the previous example while you and Gothman duke it out. The easiest win yet.

A horde of Shadows.

The Shadow is undead, and STR is going to be your dump stat. On the plus side, there's no way they can find you if you're hiding. Get a move on and hope you still get XP.


So, one fight we'd lose for sure if we had to fight it, and two that could go sour. Everything else is a joke. Seems appropriate as a Tier 3: good against various foes, but has weaknesses that you have to play smart to shore up.

ZeroNumerous
2010-02-28, 10:22 PM
A Young Blue Dragon.

I'd like to point out that a Young Blue has a grapple of +15 to the Monk's(assuming a generous 22 STR) +10 and can use it's natural weapons in a grapple just like the monk.

Jacob Orlove
2010-02-28, 10:30 PM
So would you say there is some form of formula or rough guideline to determine the class's Tier based on how many of these test encounters it wins on average? Dueto the fact that the Monk seems to lose most of these he should be extremely low tier. Could you do these evaluations for other classes like the Paladin and the Beguiler?
Sure, you could do these evaluations for most classes. Greenish did highlight the flaw in the system, though--because you're looking at the characters in isolation, it won't work as well as a measure for classes like Bards or Beguilers. Bards, because their signature ability is a party buff, and Beguilers, because spells like Glitterdust and Slow aren't much use if you don't have someone around to kill your debuffed enemies. Basically, anyone who is a force multiplier (buffs/debuffs) won't do as well if there's no force (damage dealers) for them to multiply.

And it won't measure the class's overall ability, just how effectively they contribute versus a variety of combat encounters (plus maybe a trap). If your games include important activities like figuring out the sinister plot, tracking down the bad guys, or even just talking to people in town, that won't show up on the same game test.

Anyway, there's more on the Same Game test over at the gaming den (where I cribbed that encounter list from), but here's a few other sample encounter lists, also by Frank Trollman:

CR 5
A huge Animated iron statue.
A Basilisk.
A Large Fire Elemental.
A Manticore on the wing.
A Mummy.
A Phase Spider.
A Troll.
A chasm.
A moat filled with acid.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
A Grimlock assault team.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)

CR 15
A Marut.
A Hullathoin (with its army of skeletons and bloodfiend locusts).
A Nightmare Beast deep in a hedge maze.
A Windghost in the sky.
A Yakfolk cleric with a party of Dao.
A Drow Priestess with an army of ghouls.
A warparty of Cloud Giants.
A Mature Adult White Dragon.
A Death Slaad riding a Titanic Toad.
A Cornugon.
A Gelugon and his Iron Golem bodyguard.
A Rube Goldberg series of contingent weirds triggered to a set of symbols of pain surrounding the artifact.
A pair of Glabrezus
A harem of Succubi.
Twenty Dire Bears.
A dozen Medusa mounted archers on Hellcats.
A forest made out of lava and infested with hostile fire-element dire badgers.
A pair of Beholders.

edit: ZN, I edited that into my original post, with my response.

Mystic Muse
2010-02-28, 10:36 PM
Minor nitpick, half dragon doesn't have Racial HD, just LA +3

Ah. I was misinterpreting "increase racial HD by one size"

Temotei
2010-02-28, 10:37 PM
Ah. I was misinterpreting "increase racial HD by one size"

I don't think it says racial.

Guess it does. Just checked. Odd. Good thing no one has ever used a half-dragon when I've played/been DM.

Flickerdart
2010-02-28, 11:02 PM
Beguilers, because spells like Glitterdust and Slow aren't much use if you don't have someone around to kill your debuffed enemies.
You don't have to kill the encounter in order to defeat it, dominating everything works too. Also, Friend to Foe and Confusion mean that they could readily kill each other for you. If not, CdG works just as well.

Starbuck_II
2010-02-28, 11:05 PM
Plus, you just have to bypass an encounter since the same hgame test doesn't mention we must kill them.

So blind them then grab the macgriffin.

ZeroNumerous
2010-02-28, 11:29 PM
Grapple is BAB + STR + Size. If the monk has 22 str, that's 7 + 6 = 13. Improved Grapple and a Potion of Enlarge Person boost the monk to a +21, but those natural weapons are a problem. Still, it's -4 to hit with them in the grapple, and the dragon only has 85 hp, around the same amount as our monk. I still think the monk has the advantage here, but it's not as clear cut.

Young Blues have 102 HP. The Monk, assuming a CON of 18, average HP and no dips into higher HD classes will be sporting 54(8+5*4.5+6*4). Being nice and giving the Monk a full list of 18s(and a +4 STR item/+2 bracers) we get an AC of 20 with no other items(19 with the potion of enlarge). The Dragon swings +11/+6/+6/+6/+6 when grappled, giving it a hit on a 9(8 with potion) and then subsequent hits on 14(13 with a potion). Conversely, the monk will be swinging +19/19(assuming he flurries his grapples) at 1d8+6 each. This means the monk deals 2d8+12 each round, or an average of 21 damage per round for a total of 5 rounds(rounded up) to off the bad guy.

In the meantime, the dragon will have gotten 20-25 attacks hitting with an average of 35(40 with potion)% of the time plus 55(60 with potion)% for the bite. On average, it will take the dragon 8 rounds(rounded up) to kill the monk with it's bite alone, 13 rounds with it's claws and 18 rounds with it's wings. This averages out to 13 rounds to kill the monk. So it's very likely the monk will win, if we're very generous to him.

lsfreak
2010-02-28, 11:36 PM
In the meantime, the dragon will have gotten 20-25 attacks hitting with an average of 35(40 with potion)% of the time plus 55(60 with potion)% for the bite. On average, it will take the dragon 8 rounds(rounded up) to kill the monk with it's bite alone, 13 rounds with it's claws and 18 rounds with it's wings. This averages out to 13 rounds to kill the monk. So it's very likely the monk will win, if we're very generous to him.

Wait, averaging out? Shouldn't you be adding all the damage together, giving you something like 3-5 rounds to off the monk?

sofawall
2010-02-28, 11:38 PM
In the meantime, the dragon will have gotten 20-25 attacks hitting with an average of 35(40 with potion)% of the time plus 55(60 with potion)% for the bite. On average, it will take the dragon 8 rounds(rounded up) to kill the monk with it's bite alone, 13 rounds with it's claws and 18 rounds with it's wings. This averages out to 13 rounds to kill the monk. So it's very likely the monk will win, if we're very generous to him.

If Bite alone wins in 8 rounds, how does using 4 times the dakka make the time increase?

Jacob Orlove
2010-02-28, 11:43 PM
You don't have to kill the encounter in order to defeat it, dominating everything works too. Also, Friend to Foe and Confusion mean that they could readily kill each other for you. If not, CdG works just as well.
Right, Beguiler wasn't the best example there, because of how brutally effective charm/dominate effects are. The beguiler has a harder time with the CR 5 list, because those spells aren't available.

A Sorcerer might actually have been a better example. If they fill up their spell list with battlefield control and utility (which they usually will, those are the best/most flexible spells), they could easily have a hard time soloing some of the challenges on the list.

edit: gah, more posts while I was posting. ZN, our sample monk is 10th level. With a constitution of 10, he has 48.5 hp. Giving him 18 con boosts that to 88.5. I was figuring about mid-20s for the monk's ac, but I didn't feel like actually tallying up all his gear.

You're right about the dragon's hp, though--I double checked on the srd, but didn't scroll down. It's young blacks that have 85.

tyckspoon
2010-02-28, 11:46 PM
Young Blues have 102 HP. The Monk, assuming a CON of 18, average HP and no dips into higher HD classes will be sporting 54(8+5*4.5+6*4). Being nice and giving the Monk a full list of 18s(and a +4 STR item/+2 bracers) we get an AC of 20 with no other items(19 with the potion of enlarge). The Dragon swings +11/+6/+6/+6/+6 when grappled, giving it a hit on a 9(8 with potion) and then subsequent hits on 14(13 with a potion). Conversely, the monk will be swinging +19/19(assuming he flurries his grapples) at 1d8+6 each. This means the monk deals 2d8+12 each round, or an average of 21 damage per round for a total of 5 rounds(rounded up) to off the bad guy.


Grappling is weird. The dragon doesn't get the option of making a Full Attack sequence against the monk- what it can do is attempt the 'Attack your opponent' grapple action 3 times, at iterative BAB (this is one of the few situations where natural attacks will use the iterative structure.) You should be calculating 3 Bites at 11/6/1. I'm pretty sure the Monk comes out ahead if you assume he's buffed for grappling, since he can use his superior grappling check to do his damage instead of taking a penalty against the Dragon's high AC.

sonofzeal
2010-02-28, 11:51 PM
A Sorcerer might actually have been a better example. If they fill up their spell list with battlefield control and utility (which they usually will, those are the best/most flexible spells), they could easily have a hard time soloing some of the challenges on the list.
Well sorta. I mean, he has Solid Fog and Cloudkill at that level. One focussed purely on BC/buffing might not solo them, but he could easily justify his own contribution. He'd be able to affect them reliably with stuff that would be encounter-ending in a group. Going through the examples for the Monk, most of those he really can't do much of anything useful against. Some hp damage, but if he's trading blows he loses bigtime. All his other tactics either don't apply or don't work reliably against that particular creature. It doesn't matter so much if the Sorc can solo them or not, the fact remains that the Sorc can handle and contribute to almost all of those; the Monk can't. Big difference.

Jacob Orlove
2010-03-01, 12:00 AM
It depends a lot on the sorcerer's specific spell list. I've seen sample lists that would be fine, and others that would have trouble (eg, taking Teleport or Wall of Force as their first 5th level spell). But both sets of sorcerers would certainly pull their weight in a party.

In general, it's not going to be a big weakness in the test, but it's worth remembering that some classes may be stronger than the test results show. The monk, as you noted, is not one of those classes.

Frosty
2010-03-01, 12:05 AM
Sure, you could do these evaluations for most classes. Greenish did highlight the flaw in the system, though--because you're looking at the characters in isolation, it won't work as well as a measure for classes like Bards or Beguilers. Bards, because their signature ability is a party buff, and Beguilers, because spells like Glitterdust and Slow aren't much use if you don't have someone around to kill your debuffed enemies. Basically, anyone who is a force multiplier (buffs/debuffs) won't do as well if there's no force (damage dealers) for them to multiply.

And it won't measure the class's overall ability, just how effectively they contribute versus a variety of combat encounters (plus maybe a trap). If your games include important activities like figuring out the sinister plot, tracking down the bad guys, or even just talking to people in town, that won't show up on the same game test.

Anyway, there's more on the Same Game test over at the gaming den (where I cribbed that encounter list from), but here's a few other sample encounter lists, also by Frank Trollman:

CR 5
A huge Animated iron statue.
A Basilisk.
A Large Fire Elemental.
A Manticore on the wing.
A Mummy.
A Phase Spider.
A Troll.
A chasm.
A moat filled with acid.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
A Grimlock assault team.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)

CR 15
A Marut.
A Hullathoin (with its army of skeletons and bloodfiend locusts).
A Nightmare Beast deep in a hedge maze.
A Windghost in the sky.
A Yakfolk cleric with a party of Dao.
A Drow Priestess with an army of ghouls.
A warparty of Cloud Giants.
A Mature Adult White Dragon.
A Death Slaad riding a Titanic Toad.
A Cornugon.
A Gelugon and his Iron Golem bodyguard.
A Rube Goldberg series of contingent weirds triggered to a set of symbols of pain surrounding the artifact.
A pair of Glabrezus
A harem of Succubi.
Twenty Dire Bears.
A dozen Medusa mounted archers on Hellcats.
A forest made out of lava and infested with hostile fire-element dire badgers.
A pair of Beholders.

edit: ZN, I edited that into my original post, with my response.

So does the Gaming Den already have results of different classes going through the tests?

Ozymandias9
2010-03-01, 12:07 AM
Edit: Just finished the rest of the thread-- yeah, a free template and some custom items will do it.


So, yeah. Someone's playing a monk in the game right now and thinks they're overpowered. Ergo, in this particular game, the monk is probably not in "suck city".

My guess is that the table is operating under some different conventions than most people tend to assume.

Some things that could help the monk player at a table:

Encounter size:
If the CR for an encounter is met with a larger number of lesser foes (even if the difference isn't vast), the monk's front line weakness becomes less drastic. It's an uncommon encounter setup, but not unheard of (I use it frequently if the table is heavily composed of martial PCs). The reason for this is twofold: it increases the value of the full attack (and thus flurry) by making subsequent attacks more likely to hit, and it decreases the problems with the monk's all-over-the-place needs. It might also increase the usefulness of the monk's DR, but that's a bit more of a stretch.

A good rule of thumb is that if anyone other than a ranged attacker is making full attacks as a matter of course, then the encounter setup or play-style is more favorable to melee than most abstract optimization assumes.


Character Creation:
As stated, the monk is a bit MAD. The importance of this can be limited by the method of character creation. A limited point buy (24pb) will be most punishing, while the more generous rolling systems (5d6-2) can make it less noticeable (though you risk being unlucky). If the table isn't heavily optimized as a whole, this boost will seem more noticeable (the benefits of higher tier classes tend to be more dependent on planing and preparation than an extra couple stats, where as the more limits of a heavily MAD class like Monks tend to be basically mechanical).

There are also a couple common misreadings and house rules that benefit the monk:
Normally, Flurry of Blows is only available on a full attack: that may not be the case at your table.
Normally, monk weapons (despite being predominantly 1d6 like the monk's initial unarmed strike) do not advance as the monk's unarmed damage does. That may not be the case at your table.

taltamir
2010-03-01, 12:09 AM
OP, I get the feeling that your DM thinks monks are overpowered because "perfect body" gives them "immortality" (pure fluff that doesn't matter at all). Not because it gives DR 10 / magic.
Ask him to clarify that point :P

Kylarra
2010-03-01, 12:11 AM
My guess is that the table is operating under some different conventions than most people tend to assume.
That is frequently the case, and as explained later on, the monk indeed does have some massive non-standard bonuses.

ZeroNumerous
2010-03-01, 12:13 AM
Wait, averaging out? Shouldn't you be adding all the damage together, giving you something like 3-5 rounds to off the monk?


If Bite alone wins in 8 rounds, how does using 4 times the dakka make the time increase?

Because I screwed up on my math and calculated as if the dragon was using claws/wings on their own.


edit: gah, more posts while I was posting. ZN, our sample monk is 10th level. With a constitution of 10, he has 48.5 hp. Giving him 18 con boosts that to 88.5. I was figuring about mid-20s for the monk's ac, but I didn't feel like actually tallying up all his gear.

I assumed our monk was CR 6, as that is the CR of a Young Blue Dragon. However, if our monk is CR 10 then that would pit him against a CR 10 Juvenile Red Dragon, Adult White Dragon, Young Adult Bronze, or Juvenile Silver. And that Juvenile Red is throwing around 168 HP with a +29 to Grapple...

Jacob Orlove
2010-03-01, 12:24 AM
Yeah, except the CRs for dragons are all kinds of messed up. Since they're in the name of the game and all, Wizards wanted dragon encounters to be "memorable." They decided the easiest way to make that happen was to set all the dragon CRs way low. A young blue is arguably a fair fight for our level 10 monk (it might be a little on the low side, I guess), but one of the dragons with a printed CR of 10 absolutely would not be fair. A CR 10 young adult brass dragon already has level 5 casting, on top of crazy good dragon stats!

The Big Dice
2010-03-01, 12:25 AM
Where does the idea of a Monk as a front line warrior come from? I've always thought of them as a backup for another character, rather than being on the front line. They can sneak a bit, so they can get the Rogue or Ranger's back. They can fight a bit but not great, so they use their Fast Movement to get into flanking positions for the main beatstick. And so on.

Sure they may not be the best choice for a small party. But if you've got a group where all the expected bases (full Arcane and Divine caster, trapfinding skillmonkey and beatstick) are covered, a Monk makes a reasonable addition to the party. But I wouldn't want to see an inexperienced player trying to handle one.

Tinydwarfman
2010-03-01, 12:37 AM
Where does the idea of a Monk as a front line warrior come from? I've always thought of them as a backup for another character, rather than being on the front line. They can sneak a bit, so they can get the Rogue or Ranger's back. They can fight a bit but not great, so they use their Fast Movement to get into flanking positions for the main beatstick. And so on.

Sure they may not be the best choice for a small party. But if you've got a group where all the expected bases (full Arcane and Divine caster, trapfinding skillmonkey and beatstick) are covered, a Monk makes a reasonable addition to the party. But I wouldn't want to see an inexperienced player trying to handle one.

But how do they actually contribute? All flanking does is give +2 to hit... yay...
Anyone who has tumble as a class skill can flank as well as him.

In a full party a monk will just do piddly damage until he is offed by a stray power attack. He may actually hinder the party, as the DM designs harder encounters, and the healer must now either do something useful or heal the monk.

Apropos
2010-03-01, 12:39 AM
Where does the idea of a Monk as a front line warrior come from? I've always thought of them as a backup for another character, rather than being on the front line. They can sneak a bit, so they can get the Rogue or Ranger's back. They can fight a bit but not great, so they use their Fast Movement to get into flanking positions for the main beatstick. And so on.

Sure they may not be the best choice for a small party. But if you've got a group where all the expected bases (full Arcane and Divine caster, trapfinding skillmonkey and beatstick) are covered, a Monk makes a reasonable addition to the party. But I wouldn't want to see an inexperienced player trying to handle one.

Because their trademark abilities are hitting things faster and harder?

krossbow
2010-03-01, 12:39 AM
Yeah, except the CRs for dragons are all kinds of messed up. Since they're in the name of the game and all, Wizards wanted dragon encounters to be "memorable." They decided the easiest way to make that happen was to set all the dragon CRs way low. A young blue is arguably a fair fight for our level 10 monk (it might be a little on the low side, I guess), but one of the dragons with a printed CR of 10 absolutely would not be fair. A CR 10 young adult brass dragon already has level 5 casting, on top of crazy good dragon stats!



Overall, i have to say i rather dislike how WotC made dragons. They gave them respectable magical abilities without realizing that, given how overpowered magic was in D&D, that made them fight more like shape changed wizards than iconic dragons.

I mean, i get that D&D dragons traditionally have sorcerous abilities, but magic in D&D tends to completely override everything else in us (even draconic bodies).
If that dragon decides to actually use its breath weapon rather than a spell, i breathe a sigh of relief; the meat shields can soak the damage with their hp, the rogue has evasion, and the wizard should have a myriad of defenses set up. But if it were a well thought out spell? bleh, that would have been nasty.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 12:53 AM
Where does the idea of a Monk as a front line warrior come from? I've always thought of them as a backup for another character, rather than being on the front line. They can sneak a bit, so they can get the Rogue or Ranger's back. They can fight a bit but not great, so they use their Fast Movement to get into flanking positions for the main beatstick. And so on.

Sure they may not be the best choice for a small party. But if you've got a group where all the expected bases (full Arcane and Divine caster, trapfinding skillmonkey and beatstick) are covered, a Monk makes a reasonable addition to the party. But I wouldn't want to see an inexperienced player trying to handle one.
But.... what do they actually do? I mean, if the best thing you can do is flank, then you're rendered entirely obsolete by a 1st level spell. Congratulations.

krossbow
2010-03-01, 01:01 AM
Actually, thats the CORE of the problem with the monk. Everyone has their own idea.

What WotC basically tried to do was chuck a buttload of different stuff they'd heard that monks were supposed to do (be enlighted, do martial arts, slow fall on walls, ect.) and thew them at a class with no real idea of how they were supposed to work together.

Due to this you have a mishmash of various cliches about many different types of monks, and trying to "fix" the monk means essentially cutting away part of one of many different styles of monks.



Should monks be frontline fighters who ninja dodge everything and are in the fray with the barbarian? or should they be stealthy and opportunistic like a rogue? Should they be designed as caster killers, or should they simply have quasi-magical abilities to make up for their melee drawbacks?




The only thing that people really agree on is that the monk should hit things with their fists. and, unfortunately, it fails at that.

ZeroNumerous
2010-03-01, 01:10 AM
But if you've got a group where all the expected bases (full Arcane and Divine caster, trapfinding skillmonkey and beatstick) are covered, a Monk makes a reasonable addition to the party. But I wouldn't want to see an inexperienced player trying to handle one.

Thing is: The bard does all that -and- better. +2 to hit when flanking? Even Core Bard gives +2 to hit -and- damage. +2 more to hit if he flanks. The bard can sneak a little, the bard can cast a little and the bard can fight a little. Even the argument that the Monk is an addition to the party is poor because a bard is mechanically better in almost every reasonable situation.

PhoenixRivers
2010-03-01, 01:28 AM
Young Blues have 102 HP. The Monk, assuming a CON of 18, average HP and no dips into higher HD classes will be sporting 54(8+5*4.5+6*4). Being nice and giving the Monk a full list of 18s(and a +4 STR item/+2 bracers) we get an AC of 20 with no other items(19 with the potion of enlarge). The Dragon swings +11/+6/+6/+6/+6 when grappled, giving it a hit on a 9(8 with potion) and then subsequent hits on 14(13 with a potion). Conversely, the monk will be swinging +19/19(assuming he flurries his grapples) at 1d8+6 each. This means the monk deals 2d8+12 each round, or an average of 21 damage per round for a total of 5 rounds(rounded up) to off the bad guy.

In the meantime, the dragon will have gotten 20-25 attacks hitting with an average of 35(40 with potion)% of the time plus 55(60 with potion)% for the bite. On average, it will take the dragon 8 rounds(rounded up) to kill the monk with it's bite alone, 13 rounds with it's claws and 18 rounds with it's wings. This averages out to 13 rounds to kill the monk. So it's very likely the monk will win, if we're very generous to him.

Assuming the monk hits 95% accuracy, at 1d8+6, that's 9.975 average damage per attack, or 19.95 damage per round.

Assuming the young blue dragon (BAB 12, total Attack bonus with Str and size +15) has multiattack (a very common sense feat for a dragon), those attacks go up to +15/+13/+13/+13/+13. Now it hits on a 3 (with potion), followed by a 5. The bite hits 90% of the time, for 1d8+4, the claws 80% of the time for 1d6+2, and the wings 75% of the time for 1d4+2.

Incidentally, the monk loses 2 AC for being enlarged. 1 for size, and 1 for dex loss.

Mystic Muse
2010-03-01, 01:31 AM
also gets done by a first level stance from the swordsage

magic9mushroom
2010-03-01, 03:17 AM
Somebody else is playing a Monk and he seems to think they're overpowered too. I just want some ammo in case the issue ever comes up again.

Then go Evil on his butt and smoke his character. He'll probably realise he's not that powerful when his character fails utterly at doing anything to you.

:smallamused: I kid, I kid.

Mystic Muse
2010-03-01, 03:28 AM
Then go Evil on his butt and smoke his character. He'll probably realise he's not that powerful when his character fails utterly at doing anything to you.

:smallamused: I kid, I kid.

Sorry. No can do. I'm a Paladin.

specifically this one http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133737

magic9mushroom
2010-03-01, 04:17 AM
Sorry. No can do. I'm a Paladin.

specifically this one http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133737

Oh, come on, they're made to go evil. What's Blackguard for? :smalltongue:

Did you notice the white text in my first post?

lord_khaine
2010-03-01, 04:41 AM
Then go Evil on his butt and smoke his character. He'll probably realise he's not that powerful when his character fails utterly at doing anything to you.

I kid, I kid.

I think you missed the part where the monk got a 3 level template for only 1 level, its in no way sure he would win.

Also, regarding Monk proficiency, then their unarmed strikes count as both manufactured and natural weapons, depending on whats best for the monk, and since creatures are automaticaly proficient in the use of their natural attacks, then the monk is proficient in the use of his fists.

Also do note that the monk is able to use silvershine if he wants the silver propety on his attacks.

Ravens_cry
2010-03-01, 04:42 AM
Also do note that the monk is able to use silvershine if he wants the silver propety on his attacks.
Is there a cold iron equivalent to silversheen?

PhoenixRivers
2010-03-01, 04:46 AM
I think you missed the part where the monk got a 3 level template for only 1 level, its in no way sure he would win.

Also, regarding Monk proficiency, then their unarmed strikes count as both manufactured and natural weapons, depending on whats best for the monk, and since creatures are automaticaly proficient in the use of their natural attacks, then the monk is proficient in the use of his fists.
Not for all things. The line about manufactured/natural weapons is specifically for "spells and effects that enhance them". Not for "determining proficiency". It's a fun, yet flawed, argument that you use.

And BTW, I think you missed the part where he said "I kid, I kid".

Mystic Muse
2010-03-01, 04:50 AM
Oh, come on, they're made to go evil. What's Blackguard for? :smalltongue:

Did you notice the white text in my first post?

Yes. Yes I did.

And I could probably take him in a fight. I have a Charging Paladin build and a flying mount. Him dealing damage to me would Require him reaching me.

magic9mushroom
2010-03-01, 05:41 AM
Is there a cold iron equivalent to silversheen?

No. It's stated somewhere that they deliberately left out a cold iron equivalent because for magic to duplicate resistance to magic would undermine verisimilitude.

Jon_Dahl
2010-03-01, 05:46 AM
My biggest problem with Monks is this:

http://www.tv-flip.com/wp-content/uploads/clone-wars1.jpg

To put it mildly: They are so hard to customize!
Basically two ways you can go is a machinegun-like kickboxer or a grappler. Otherwise their abilities follow extremely narrow path. With all the splat books you can get some variation, like that "Decisive Blow" from PHBII and some fighting Style from UA, but if you make five monks and try to make them different, it's very hard!

If you make a wizard, you can specialize and get huge amount of variation with different spells.
With fighter and paladin you have lot of different weapons and armor, all kinds of nice toys. With Barbarian you can also get a lot of variation, but with limited armor. And even if you use armor for a barb, it still doesn't hinder him too much...
With Roque, you have lot of skill points and skills. Monkey all you want.
Bard is the jack-of-all-trades. Specialize as you wish.
I could go on forever...

Let's play a little game. Make an epic level character and buy magical equipment for him/her. You will notice that you can use very little imagination with monk, but with other classes you can really make all kinds of stuff.

Monk would be great if I could make unarmed brawler without any supernatural scheisse or some kind of Ki-sage who fights without touching his opponent or sumo-wrestler who is the ultimate bullrusher or...

Now what we have is a class with very little variety. And it has been made to give it variety (unless you use ****load of splatbooks).

DJDizzy
2010-03-01, 05:56 AM
I agree with you in that the monk is a piece of **** compared to other classes, infact my own DM and the rest of the group think that it is the most overpowered class in the game. Their argument: Spring Attack
And their argument for their saying that a druid is underpowered is that it does nothing well.

Ossian
2010-03-01, 05:56 AM
2 chips about the monks:

In the dungeon crawling stories of adventurers having magic items available as long as they can pay for them, freedom of going around armored and armed, sure monks don't get the same share of spotlight.

Toss them in a world where you have to have a good reason to even own a weapon (let alone a magical one with runes and stuff) or to wear an armor, where there is some kind of law that punishes crimes (what the PCs do most frequently: break the law) and in general in a urbanized and low magic setting, and you will see how sweet it is not to depend on your holy sword of flames, on your flying anaconda (holy mount), on your huge spell book, on your assorted jewelry (rings of this, necklaces of that) etc...

They are martial artists, not soldiers. That is why we send soldiers in Iraq, and give security duties to martial artists. To each one his own!

Imagine a full on USMC in camo and cal. 50 barrett next to the US president as he gives a speech, or a ninja trying to stay alive one night in Falluja :)

And come on guys, hasn't cyberpunk 2020 taught you anything about style?
Sometimes it matters more than matter :)

M.

Math_Mage
2010-03-01, 06:07 AM
I agree with you in that the monk is a piece of **** compared to other classes, infact my own DM and the rest of the group think that it is the most overpowered class in the game. Their argument: Spring Attack
And their argument for their saying that a druid is underpowered is that it does nothing well.

Build a druid. Get a level-appropriate animal companion. Destroy the monk with *just* the animal companion. Okay, maybe a buff or two, like Bite of the Raptor Jesus or something. Then remind the group that your druid can be doing the same thing, WHILE full casting. This should fix their power misconceptions.

Yora
2010-03-01, 07:13 AM
Supposed you keep the monk as it is, but add a Psychic Warriors manifesting ability (and limit the power list to psychokinesis, psychometabolism, and psychoportation).
Would that make a balanced class, or would that be too much?

Tinydwarfman
2010-03-01, 09:09 AM
I agree with you in that the monk is a piece of **** compared to other classes, infact my own DM and the rest of the group think that it is the most overpowered class in the game. Their argument: Spring Attack
And their argument for their saying that a druid is underpowered is that it does nothing well.

In response to number 1 you say, readied action.

In response to number two be a first level druid with a riding dog. That is better than the party fighter.

Tell me their response.

Also:

Build a druid. Get a level-appropriate animal companion. Destroy the monk with *just* the animal companion. Okay, maybe a buff or two, like Bite of the Raptor Jesus or something. Then remind the group that your druid can be doing the same thing, WHILE full casting. This should fix their power misconceptions.

I totally need to homebrew a bite of the Raptor Jesus spell! And the cleric deity and domain that goes with it... and of course Lesser Visage of the Crystal Dragon Jesus

Math_Mage
2010-03-01, 09:18 AM
I ran into that nickname for Bite of the Werebear in LogicNinja's Dragonfire Adept CO Diary (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19855934/CO_Diaries:_a_Dragonfire_Adept_in_Dark_Sun?pg=7). It fits.

Gnaeus
2010-03-01, 09:29 AM
2 chips about the monks:

Toss them in a world where you have to have a good reason to even own a weapon (let alone a magical one with runes and stuff) or to wear an armor, where there is some kind of law that punishes crimes (what the PCs do most frequently: break the law) and in general in a urbanized and low magic setting, and you will see how sweet it is not to depend on your holy sword of flames, on your flying anaconda (holy mount), on your huge spell book, on your assorted jewelry (rings of this, necklaces of that) etc...

They are martial artists, not soldiers. That is why we send soldiers in Iraq, and give security duties to martial artists. To each one his own!

Imagine a full on USMC in camo and cal. 50 barrett next to the US president as he gives a speech, or a ninja trying to stay alive one night in Falluja :)

And come on guys, hasn't cyberpunk 2020 taught you anything about style?
Sometimes it matters more than matter :)

M.

That would be cool... if only it were true.

The much vaunted equipment independence of monks is, like so many other monk "Strengths" a myth.

In a world where weapons are banned, the fighter, with his full BaB, can outgrapple and out-unarmed strike damage a monk. He has more hp and way more relevant feats. There are other threads that have proven that as far as combat goes, the fighter can outmonk the monk. He normally doesn't, because using weapons is usually better, but he can.

The barbarian can give himself a 20+ strength and get free grapple from a totem and rip the monk a new one.

A Paladin can pick up a chair leg and turn it into a holy magic weapon with spells. He can take his ordinary horse mount and make it fly with spells.

In a world without spellbooks, yes, you have nerfed the wizard into oblivion (until he digs through splatbooks and uncovers the many ways a wizard can operate without spellbooks). But the Sorcerer doesn't need anything but a component pouch, and most divine casters can get by with a holy symbol or an acorn. In low magic world, they all completely own any melee without spells, because the melee will not have the tricks (like flight) to compete at all.

To reply to your example, the president will not have monk bodyguards. He will have Sorcerer or Favored Soul bodyguards. If you ban those, he will have unarmed swordsage bodyguards. If you ban those he will have paladin bodyguards with "shield other" running all the time. In any world with rules resembling D&D, the president will not have monk bodyguards if there are other characters of equal levels available if he wants to live.

Or maybe "low magic world" means you are banning all characters in tiers 1, 2, and 3, and feats from tome of battle. In that case, monk isn't MUCH weaker than his contemporaries. But saying "monk is a strong class because if we remove all the actual strong classes and play in a world specifically geared to his strengths he is about as good as the other not-strong characters" isn't much of an argument, is it?

Edit: This is assuming that you CAN ban weapons. I mean, sure, you can ban swords and bows, but you can't effectively ban walking sticks (staves), or rake or broom handles (staves), or canes (clubs) or torches, etc..... A 2h power attacking barbarian with a walking stick can still outperform a monk by a fair bit.

Indon
2010-03-01, 09:48 AM
Monks can survive, but they're no good offensively or otherwise compared to other classes a lot of times.

This.

Monks are a very strongly defensive class in a game dominated by powerful offensive options. You can't win rocket tag without a rocket, even if you're better at dodging rockets than most.

Now, in a D&D game not dominated by powerful offense, where the non-PAing Barbarian is doing more damage than the Magic-Missile-spamming Wizard, then yes, Monks will stand out there naturally because you don't need to try to use most Monk class features, because they're passive.


Ah, so that's why this Monk is performing better. The DM made custom items and the player and DM probably aren't aware that they aren't proficient with their fists.

That and the player got a 3 LA and 1 RHD template for just 1 LA :smallannoyed:

It sounds like you're running in the kind of game I'm talking about even if the Monk was run RAI. (Nonproficiency with unarmed weapons may be RAW in some convoluted sense, but it's so incredibly stupid that you aren't going to get a DM that doesn't fix it)

A template and some magic items wouldn't make the monk overpowered in a high-power game, not compared to higher-tier characters anyway. They might end up more powerful than other low-power classes, admittedly, such as the Paladin, who like the Monk must be built in a highly specific way to be competitive in higher-power games.

Lysander
2010-03-01, 10:52 AM
Monks are not optimized as solo killing machines. They're optimized for three things:

1)Surviving
2)Making Opponents More Vulnerable To Allies
3) Exploration/Stealth

Survival: High saves across the board, a move speed so they can keep their distance from melee opponents, self-healing, deflect arrows to laugh off attacks from ranged attackers, immunity to poisons/diseases, improved evasion, ethereal escape/teleportation

Making Opponents More Vulnerable to Allies: Stunning Fist, Grapple, Trip/Disarm

Exploration/Stealth: Move Silently/Hide, Ethereal travel, Slow Fall, Dimension Door

Here's how you're supposed to use the monk. Forget running into the fray as a front line attacker. Instead you're hanging in back, sniping with your sling, sizing up targets. You wait for your party's barbarian/fighter to get locked in melee combat with an enemy swordsman. Then you run up from 60 feet away and snatch the enemy's sword away. The barbarian and you now beat the living daylights out of an unarmed opponent. Or, you trip them, leaving them open to attack and cost them their next move action. Or you run up and deliver one punch that costs them their next turn.

They're also great for taking on enemy spellcasters. You know the soft squishy things standing behind all the beefy bad guys? Tumble past their guards, make the saving throws of whatever spells they throw at you, and start laying punches on them. Flurry of Blows to disrupt their concentration, or better yet Stunning fist...wizards aren't exactly known for their fortitude saves.

Monks are also the last one standing if something else incapacitates the party. Mass Hold Person? Guess who has +2 vs enchantments. Web? Guess who made their reflex save and can still move. Cloudkill? Guess who isn't poisoned. The monk is the one left to distract the enemy while the party breaks free or drinks their healing potions.

Gametime
2010-03-01, 11:11 AM
Survival: High saves across the board, a move speed so they can keep their distance from melee opponents, self-healing, deflect arrows to laugh off attacks from ranged attackers, immunity to poisons/diseases, improved evasion, ethereal escape/teleportation

The self-healing is pitifully low, and the teleportation can be done better by anyone with a modicum of casting. Beyond that, their hit points are quite low; since they really need more high ability scores than most classes, it isn't unlikely that they'll have lower health than a rogue of the same level, and they'll certainly be outclassed by any actual melee or divine casters.



Making Opponents More Vulnerable to Allies: Stunning Fist, Grapple, Trip/Disarm

A fighter can do the latter three just as well (probably better, given a higher strength and higher BAB), and a barbarian can do at least one or two (better still thanks to the extra strength from raging). Stunning Fist is decent at low levels, but once half the enemies you meet are immune to stunning and another third have high fort saves, it becomes pretty worthless.



Exploration/Stealth: Move Silently/Hide, Ethereal travel, Slow Fall, Dimension Door

The spell-like abilities are usable a pathetic amount of the time. A rogue can do the stealth thing far better, along with actual dealing a decent amount of damage once he's engaged the enemy.



Here's how you're supposed to use the monk. Forget running into the fray as a front line attacker. Instead you're hanging in back, sniping with your sling, sizing up targets. You wait for your party's barbarian/fighter to get locked in melee combat with an enemy swordsman. Then you run up from 60 feet away and snatch the enemy's sword away. The barbarian and you now beat the living daylights out of an unarmed opponent. Or, you trip them, leaving them open to attack and cost them their next move action. Or you run up and deliver one punch that costs them their next turn.

A fighter or barbarian could do pretty much the exact same thing. So could a rogue. They'd have to be thirty feet away, but who cares? If they're being engaged by other melee, they wouldn't reach you if you were ten feet away. Meanwhile, the fighter/barbarian/rogue can also do more damage and take more punishment in return.



They're also great for taking on enemy spellcasters. You know the soft squishy things standing behind all the beefy bad guys? Tumble past their guards, make the saving throws of whatever spells they throw at you, and start laying punches on them. Flurry of Blows to disrupt their concentration, or better yet Stunning fist...wizards aren't exactly known for their fortitude saves.

Flurry of Blows doesn't disrupt their concentration better than any other full attack. Actually, it doesn't disrupt their concentration at ALL unless they're casting a really long spell...and concentration checks are pitifully easy to make anyway. A fighter with a big honkin' sword might do enough in one shot to end the spell, but the piddling taps the monk hands out aren't going to cut it.

Again, a rogue can do it all and do it better.



Monks are also the last one standing if something else incapacitates the party. Mass Hold Person? Guess who has +2 vs enchantments. Web? Guess who made their reflex save and can still move. Cloudkill? Guess who isn't poisoned. The monk is the one left to distract the enemy while the party breaks free or drinks their healing potions.

Monks do have good saves, I'll give you that. The problem is that they use their extra time to stand around and do diddly squat. The monk contributes hardly anything to a combat situation, and what little they do another melee could do better. For that matter, mass hold person? The bard makes that save and can start casting spells to help break out everyone else. Web? The bard makes that save too! So does the rogue, who can use the bard's buffs and flanking to eviscerate the enemy. Cloudkill? I guess the fighter takes 1d4 con damage, STILL has more hitpoints than the monk, and moves out of the cloud on his turn.

The problem with monks is that they don't do anything that other classes can't do better. They can't even do many of the things they're supposed to be good at all at once; they need to specialize a lot to be good at any one thing. Don't even try to compare the monk to casters, or ToB classes; they actually have the tools to respond to and impact multiple situations, while the best response a monk can EVER muster is "Well, I can run away!"

Human Paragon 3
2010-03-01, 11:11 AM
My biggest problem with Monks is this:

http://www.tv-flip.com/wp-content/uploads/clone-wars1.jpg

To put it mildly: They are so hard to customize!
Basically two ways you can go is a machinegun-like kickboxer or a grappler. Otherwise their abilities follow extremely narrow path. With all the splat books you can get some variation, like that "Decisive Blow" from PHBII and some fighting Style from UA, but if you make five monks and try to make them different, it's very hard!

If you make a wizard, you can specialize and get huge amount of variation with different spells.
With fighter and paladin you have lot of different weapons and armor, all kinds of nice toys. With Barbarian you can also get a lot of variation, but with limited armor. And even if you use armor for a barb, it still doesn't hinder him too much...
With Roque, you have lot of skill points and skills. Monkey all you want.
Bard is the jack-of-all-trades. Specialize as you wish.
I could go on forever...

Let's play a little game. Make an epic level character and buy magical equipment for him/her. You will notice that you can use very little imagination with monk, but with other classes you can really make all kinds of stuff.

Monk would be great if I could make unarmed brawler without any supernatural scheisse or some kind of Ki-sage who fights without touching his opponent or sumo-wrestler who is the ultimate bullrusher or...

Now what we have is a class with very little variety. And it has been made to give it variety (unless you use ****load of splatbooks).


I homebrewed a bunch of better monk fighting styles that improve their power at low levels and make them way more customizable.

Check them out here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143252).

Gnaeus
2010-03-01, 11:44 AM
Monks are not optimized as solo killing machines. They're optimized for three things:

False, x3.



1)Surviving
Survival: High saves across the board, a move speed so they can keep their distance from melee opponents, self-healing, deflect arrows to laugh off attacks from ranged attackers, immunity to poisons/diseases, improved evasion, ethereal escape/teleportation

First, in D&D, optimizing for surviving is actively worse than optimizing for killing enemies. The goal is usually for the party to win, not to not lose by as much.

Second, monks aren't really well optimized for surviving. Well, they are better than fighters are, but not good on the ultimate scale. A wizard can easily give himself a faster move speed (expeditious retreat, Alter self, Polymorph, etc) that is better optimized for retreating (the wizard can likely fly or levitate). The wizard can make himself immune to most arrows (Protection from Arrows) or all projectiles (Wind wall) He can D Door 5 levels before the monk, he can plane shift long before the monk.

Favored souls or clerics or druids or are all better at surviving attacks, healing themselves afterwards, and fleeing quickly with spells than monks are.

Even the lowly paladin is a better survivor than a monk. With divine grace he has better saves. He has his own immunities, which are actually better than the monks (immunity to ALL diseases is much better than immunity to non-magical diseases, for example). He has better armor than the monk, more hit points, can heal himself better, and he can summon a superfast warhorse if he wants to run away.



2)Making Opponents More Vulnerable To Allies

Making Opponents More Vulnerable to Allies: Stunning Fist, Grapple, Trip/Disarm

Some of those things are good, but monks aren't actually good at any of those things.
Stunning fist requires being in melee, hitting an opponent, and a failed save. Any decent caster has save or lose spells on their first or second level spell list that only require either a save or a touch attack. They probably have more such spells than the monk has stunning fist attempts at any given level.

Grapple and Disarm both use your BaB. Monks have mediocre BaB, so they are worse at either maneuver than a fighter or barbarian. Worse, Monks, being MAD, are likely to have lower strength than the fighter or barb.

Monks do not have the feats to be a good battlefield control tripper. A fighter with EWP spiked chain is better at this. Again, Trip checks use Str, so the Monk with his MAD problems is likely to be at a disadvantage at this.

Grapple, Disarm, and Trip are all highly situational. There are lots of monsters that are either completely immune to them or de-facto immune due to large strength or size.

Finally, any druid of over level 8 (probably level 5) can assume forms that are better at tripping or grappling than any monk of equivalent ECL.



3) Exploration/Stealth
Exploration/Stealth: Move Silently/Hide, Ethereal travel, Slow Fall, Dimension Door

They aren't really good at Move S/Hide. Those are on the monk list, but Int is a monk dump stat, and their dex isn't likely to be as good as a thief or ranger of equal level.

D Door 1/day would be good at level 7. The monk gets it at level 12. The swordsage gets a similar power once per encounter at level 3.

Slow fall is weaker than cheap magic items (ring of f fall, Qualls feather token). It is weaker than spells. And falling damage isn't really a threat to most PCs anyway.

Ethereal travel for 2 minutes per day at level 19? You know that wizards have had that power since level 13, right?



Here's how you're supposed to use the monk. Forget running into the fray as a front line attacker. Instead you're hanging in back, sniping with your sling, sizing up targets. You wait for your party's barbarian/fighter to get locked in melee combat with an enemy swordsman. Then you run up from 60 feet away and snatch the enemy's sword away. The barbarian and you now beat the living daylights out of an unarmed opponent. Or, you trip them, leaving them open to attack and cost them their next move action. Or you run up and deliver one punch that costs them their next turn.

You can't disarm a level equivalent swordsman. He has higher str, better BAB and a magic weapon. If you are snatching his sword you have a -4 penalty for attempting a disarm with a light weapon. If he has locked gauntlets or a 2h weapon, forget about it.

You may be able to trip him, thats a strength check and he is only a couple strength above you (at low levels), and you have +4 for improved trip. A trip fighter can do it better.

You can't stunning fist the fighter. He has good AC and a good fort save.


They're also great for taking on enemy spellcasters. You know the soft squishy things standing behind all the beefy bad guys? Tumble past their guards, make the saving throws of whatever spells they throw at you, and start laying punches on them. Flurry of Blows to disrupt their concentration, or better yet Stunning fist...wizards aren't exactly known for their fortitude saves.

No, wizards are known for being invisible, or casting mirror image, or flying up in the air where you can't follow, or abrupt jaunting 10 feet away from where you are punching.

Monks are actually really bad at fighting enemy casters. You know who is good at fighting casters? Casters.


Monks are also the last one standing if something else incapacitates the party. Mass Hold Person? Guess who has +2 vs enchantments. Web? Guess who made their reflex save and can still move. Cloudkill? Guess who isn't poisoned. The monk is the one left to distract the enemy while the party breaks free or drinks their healing potions.

*Shrugs* It is good to be the last one standing. But again, other classes are better at the survivor role than monk, and more importantly, it is better to be good enough at killing or disabling the enemy that you can drop them BEFORE the party is left with only 1 person standing.

Edit: Mostly ninjed.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-01, 11:48 AM
I think you missed the part where the monk got a 3 level template for only 1 level, its in no way sure he would win.

Also, regarding Monk proficiency, then their unarmed strikes count as both manufactured and natural weapons, depending on whats best for the monk, and since creatures are automaticaly proficient in the use of their natural attacks, then the monk is proficient in the use of his fists.

Also do note that the monk is able to use silvershine if he wants the silver propety on his attacks.

Incorrect, a humaniod with racial Hd would be, but a non-RHD monk would not be (which is why Druids gain profiency).

Thrice Dead Cat
2010-03-01, 11:53 AM
They're also great for taking on enemy spellcasters. You know the soft squishy things standing behind all the beefy bad guys? Tumble past their guards, make the saving throws of whatever spells they throw at you, and start laying punches on them. Flurry of Blows to disrupt their concentration, or better yet Stunning fist...wizards aren't exactly known for their fortitude saves.

I'm contesting this sooooooo hard. As others have already said, Mirror Image, Fly, Invisibility of the Xth variety, Summon Mooks with moar SLAs to do what I need when I need it, Not dieing ability 23 (Contingency) and so forth.

Now, on the off chance a monk actually finds a wizard with just his all day buffs up, catches him flat-footed and hits him with a stunning fist, the wizard either has Con -, because being dead is rock awesome, has a Con of +yes, like all classes with d4s should, or has something like Superior Resistance up for +6 to saves.

If he also has some way to "cheat it", he uses Concentration instead of Fort saves.

lord_khaine
2010-03-01, 11:57 AM
Not for all things. The line about manufactured/natural weapons is specifically for "spells and effects that enhance them". Not for "determining proficiency". It's a fun, yet flawed, argument that you use.

And BTW, I think you missed the part where he said "I kid, I kid".

So, its for the "effect" of proficiency, and its not more flawed than the arguments regarding non-proficiency.

And no, i did not miss the part in white.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 12:04 PM
No, wizards are known for being invisible, or casting mirror image, or flying up in the air where you can't follow, or abrupt jaunting 10 feet away from where you are punching.

Monks are actually really bad at fighting enemy casters. You know who is good at fighting casters? Casters.


Yeah, I hear the "monks are good at killing casters" all the time, but yknow, I haven't seen them do jack against any caster played decently at all. At least, if the rules are being followed at all.

See, con is generally considered a secondary stat for all casters. Thus, something like a +3 modifier can be expected. At higher levels, much more.

Casters also have buffs. Even unoptimized casters can make use of the Resistance line(split between core and SpC). Thats another +3 to +6, depending on level, all day without shenanigans or metamagic.

And it assumes the monk can get to the caster and hit them. Monks have partial BaB, and are MAD, so their attack bonus suffers. Even unoptimized casters can be expected to make use of Mage armor or it's greater cousin(core and SpC again). Again, effectively all day buffs without shenanigans or metamagic. A slightly smarter caster(still core), can make use of miss chances and shorter term buffs such as shield or Prot(alignment) when he's in danger of being attacked.

The monk needs to get in striking range, get lucky and roll a hit, and have the caster get unlucky and fail his save.

The caster only needs one of these things to go his way.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 12:12 PM
Actually, thats the CORE of the problem with the monk. Everyone has their own idea.

What WotC basically tried to do was chuck a buttload of different stuff they'd heard that monks were supposed to do (be enlighted, do martial arts, slow fall on walls, ect.) and thew them at a class with no real idea of how they were supposed to work together.

Due to this you have a mishmash of various cliches about many different types of monks, and trying to "fix" the monk means essentially cutting away part of one of many different styles of monks.

Should monks be frontline fighters who ninja dodge everything and are in the fray with the barbarian? or should they be stealthy and opportunistic like a rogue? Should they be designed as caster killers, or should they simply have quasi-magical abilities to make up for their melee drawbacks?

The only thing that people really agree on is that the monk should hit things with their fists. and, unfortunately, it fails at that.This is also why swordsages (and the whole ToB] are so awesome: the classes can be built to match several different archetypes easily by customizing maneuvers and schools you use. A given swordsage can be made to fit just about any mental image you have about monks or ninjas. *gushes ToB*

You can't win rocket tag without a rocket, even if you're better at dodging rockets than most.:smallbiggrin: Mind if I sig that?

Lysander
2010-03-01, 12:13 PM
I'm contesting this sooooooo hard. As others have already said, Mirror Image, Fly, Invisibility of the Xth variety, Summon Mooks with moar SLAs to do what I need when I need it, Not dieing ability 23 (Contingency) and so forth.

Now, on the off chance a monk actually finds a wizard with just his all day buffs up, catches him flat-footed and hits him with a stunning fist, the wizard either has Con -, because being dead is rock awesome, has a Con of +yes, like all classes with d4s should, or has something like Superior Resistance up for +6 to saves.

If he also has some way to "cheat it", he uses Concentration instead of Fort saves.

To be fair to the monk though, pretty much any non-caster in that situation is screwed. It also depends whether we're talking about a BBEG who outranks the party, and thus it's suicidal for anyone to approach solo, or a lower level caster of equal/lesser level than the party. If the latter their spells would limited, or your own party's caster could hit them with a dispel.

Actually, a monk/wizard working together is a nice combination. The wizard disables someone at a distance with a spell like hold person or web, the monk quickly runs up and attacks them while they're disadvantaged. The wizard can also take advantage of monk immunities and high reflex saves. Let enemies swarm the monk, then saturate the area with cloudkill spells and fireballs.

There's no question that the monk is a lot worse than other classes. Especially full casters. But used cleverly you can do a lot with it.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 12:16 PM
To be fair to the monk though, pretty much any non-caster in that situation is screwed. It also depends whether we're talking about a BBEG who outranks the party, and thus it's suicidal for anyone to approach solo, or a lower level caster of equal/lesser level than the party. If the latter their spells would limited, or your own party's caster could hit them with a dispel.

Yes, casters typically have an advantage, but other classes are much better at ambushing casters. They all still have the problem of catching him in an accessible location, but an ubercharger or similar is going to have a much easier time hitting him, and the damage will be sufficient to drop him instantly, bypassing the save portion.

Yeah, there's quite a list of counter tactics by the wizard, but it's clear that say, a barbarian, is going to be much better off than the monk in this position.


Actually, a monk/wizard working together is a nice combination. The wizard disables someone at a distance with a spell like hold person or web, the monk quickly runs up and attacks them while they're disadvantaged. The wizard can also take advantage of monk immunities and high reflex saves. Let enemies swarm the monk, then saturate the area with cloudkill spells and fireballs.

Feh, this is what giant centipedes are for.

Xenogears
2010-03-01, 12:23 PM
Yeah, there's quite a list of counter tactics by the wizard, but it's clear that say, a barbarian, is going to be much better off than the monk in this position.

Considering either way you have to hope and pray that the god of luck himself personally designed the encounter just to let you win wether your a monk or a barbarian doesn't matter all that much.

A 1 to Million chance of victory is not very different from a 1 to Million+1 chance of victory.

Gnaeus
2010-03-01, 12:31 PM
Considering either way you have to hope and pray that the god of luck himself personally designed the encounter just to let you win wether your a monk or a barbarian doesn't matter all that much.

A 1 to Million chance of victory is not very different from a 1 to Million+1 chance of victory.

What is your point? Casters > Non-Casters? We agree.

Barbarian is only a little better at killing casters than Monk (while at the same time being vastly better at killing most other things)? O.K. Sure. That doesn't make monks less bad.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 12:34 PM
Also? Massive damage save. Would you rather your target be making a Fort save to be stunned a few times per day, or a Fort save and die, as many times as you have attacks? Granted, the save's a bit lower, but the beatstick gets it for free, so it's no loss if it fails.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 12:37 PM
Ah, but it's not the difference betwen 1 in a million and 1 in a million and 1. It's a much, much bigger difference.

Lets say this is a early-mid level fight...You've got a sorc wandering around with a +5 con due to a combination of enhancement and it being his secondary stat. Say...level 8. That's what, 61 hp? Not bad at all. We'll assume he has a +5 dex due to the same mix, and has only Gtr Mage Armor and the +3 Resistance up, and is of medium size. We'll assume no other bonuses to AC or saves.

Sorc: 61 hp, 21 AC, Fort Save +10.

Monk: We'll assume he has a +3 to wis and str, despite being MAD. After all, may as well be generous. Likewise, we'll assume he has proficiency with his fists. His stunning fist is thus made at a +9 attack roll, and so he needs to roll a 12 to connect. 55% failure rate at this step. His stunning fist DC is 17, so the wizard only needs to roll a 7 to pass it. Thus, this step has a failure rate of 70%. The total odds of stunning the sorc are only 13.5%

Barb: Obviously, he'll rage. He's also much less MAD than the monk, so he will invariably have a higher str. 20 is quite conservative by level 8, so we'll go with that. He'll also have a minimum of a +1 weapon. So, we can assume he'll be attacking at a +16 on the attack, at a bare minimum. Thus, he only needs to roll a 5 to connect. Since this tactic relies on damage(probably via power attack and shock trooper), chance of pounding the sorc is 80%.

While both still face the problem of finding and getting to the sorc, it's pretty clear that the monk is definitely subpar even once this has been overcome.

Gnaeus
2010-03-01, 12:45 PM
Ah, but it's not the difference betwen 1 in a million and 1 in a million and 1. It's a much, much bigger difference.

While both still face the problem of finding and getting to the sorc, it's pretty clear that the monk is definitely subpar even once this has been overcome.

To put words in Xenogears mouth, I think he is saying that the chance of either one actually dropping the sorcerer approaches 0. Maybe it isn't 1 in a million and 1 in a million and 1, maybe it is 1 in 100,000 for the barb, 1 in 1 million for the monk. Its a big difference, but if both get shut down in play before they make an attack roll it doesn't matter much...

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 12:50 PM
See, the thing is, the comparative odds of those tactics being successful hold true for any target with those AC and saves. Leaving aside the caster bit of the equation(which only came up because someone claimed monks were caster killers), the point is pretty clear. The barbarian can kill people, and the monk cant.

ZeroNumerous
2010-03-01, 01:12 PM
In a world without spellbooks, yes, you have nerfed the wizard into oblivion (until he digs through splatbooks and uncovers the many ways a wizard can operate without spellbooks).

No real need to search around: Domain Wizard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizardVariantDomainWiz ard) + Spell Mastery. Pick the Conjuration Domain. Be a human and pick up Eschew Material Components. Sure, you only have nine spells and only get new spells every 3 levels, but you still get Gate at level 18.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 01:17 PM
I believe there's also an additional domain feat. So you could get a decent amount of variety if you were so inclined.

For the more creatively minded, MotAO gives you access to pretty much anything for added versatility.

Nero24200
2010-03-01, 01:18 PM
Theres a pretty simply way to show how the monk's overpowered.

Main Class Features: Flurry of Blows, Increased Unarmed Damage, Bonus to AC and Fast Movement.

They get these class features at 1st level and they continue to scale up to 20th level. They scale in power but not versitility (for instance, the unarmed strike progession increases damage directly, but not other unarmed combat assets, such as critical threat ranges etc).

Let's look at the main abilities then.

Flurry: You take a penalty to attack for more attacks. Additional attacks are nice, but you're taking a penalty to attack rolls whilst still having a medium base attack bonus.
Increased Unarmed Damage: Again nice, but compare it to other classes. A monk has to be 11th level before he can match a Two-handed martial character for damage (and that's before adding other factors in, such class features, strength (which will be lower for monks due to MAD) and Power Attack, which scales based on Base Attack Bonus). Also, adding enhancment damage to unarmed strikes is waaaaay more expensive than adding to a weapon.
Bonus to AC: Pretty good actually. I don't think anyone would argue that the AC bonus is a bad thing for a monk, but since I'm discussing their class features it should be mentioned anyway.
Fast Movement: A decent bonus, but it shouldn'tbe noted that in making use of this you forfiet Flurry of Blows. One is only any use if you plan on moving alot, and the other requires you to take no more than a 5ft step per round.

So there it is. The class features are sub-par and/or don't sync well. Now these aren't minor aspects of the class - these are the class's main class features, gained from level one and will likely be used all the way to level 20 if you remain a single classed monk. Granted, a handful of house rules would be enough to sort these out, but as they are they're pretty weak.

Usual "fixes" include
Making flurry applicable to a standard action (so monks can move and use the ability) or allowing some other way for monks to use it on the move.
Increasing BAB to make it more of a competent martial class. Three of it's four main class features are tied directly to combat, so it should be a combat class
Changing some of the abilities gained later to be a little more useful. Quivering Palm and Tongue of the Sun and Moon are often-used examples, though they aren't the only offenders.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 01:20 PM
Or just Spell Mastery. INT modifier spells you know, you don't need a spell book to prepare them. Prerequisite: Wizard, level one. SRD. Not very complicated.

ZeroNumerous
2010-03-01, 01:21 PM
Or just Spell Mastery. INT modifier spells you know, you don't need a spell book to prepare them. Prerequisite: Wizard, level one. SRD. Not very complicated.

Not quite. Spell Mastery lets you pick one spell you already know(emphasis mine) to be able to prepare without a book. You need to know the spells from somewhere, and Domain Wizard grants you your domain spells as spells known without concern for your spellbook.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 01:23 PM
Not quite. Spell Mastery lets you pick one spell you already know(emphasis mine) to be able to prepare without a book. You need to know the spells from somewhere, and Domain Wizard grants you your domain spells as spells known without concern for your spellbook.
Yes, you do need to already know it. But you can still have a spellbook buried in the backyard, and come back to it every level to scribe your two free spells. It still needs a spellbook, but if owning one is a criminal offence, then at least you won't be as obvious.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-01, 01:24 PM
Wizard without ability to pick new spells is just Sorceror without stunted progression + less spells/day. Heck you even get more spells/known.

ZeroNumerous
2010-03-01, 01:32 PM
Yes, you do need to already know it. But you can still have a spellbook buried in the backyard, and come back to it every level to scribe your two free spells. It still needs a spellbook, but if owning one is a criminal offence, then at least you won't be as obvious.

True, but Domain Wizard lets you get spells despite the attempted nerf and with no added risk.

Either way it's a moot point as wizard can function without a spellbook. Would he prefer a spell book? Of course, but removing it won't destroy the class.

Doug Lampert
2010-03-01, 01:36 PM
I'd like to point out that a Young Blue has a grapple of +15 to the Monk's(assuming a generous 22 STR) +10 and can use it's natural weapons in a grapple just like the monk.

And all dragons have spot and listen as class skills and SPECIFICALLY sighted in the description as almost always maximum, so the claim that it won't notice the Beguiler is nonsense.

They also have Blindsense, double range vision, and numerous other advantages in detection.

From the SRD:
All dragons have skill points equal to (6 + Int modifier, minimum 1) × (Hit Dice + 3). Most dragons purchase the following skills at the maximum ranks possible: Listen, Search, and Spot. The remaining skill points are generally spent on Concentration, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device at a cost of 1 skill point per rank. All these skills are considered class skills for dragons. (Each dragon has other class skills as well, as noted in the variety descriptions.)

Eldariel
2010-03-01, 01:54 PM
Wizard without ability to pick new spells is just Sorceror without stunted progression + less spells/day. Heck you even get more spells/known.

To be fair, they still have better class features (multiple bonus feats, better ACFs, etc.), better PrC access (Incantatrix is built for Wizards, for example) and one level faster spell progression.

Like, you have:
- Elven Wizard Subs (esp. 3)
- Focused Specialization (and same spells per day than Sorc)
- Master Specialist-class
- Incantatrix is far better for them
- Collegiate Wizard (if you can't learn extra spells, this effectively doubles your Spells Known)
- Abrupt Jaunt
- Rapid Summoning
- Higher K: Arcana and Spellcraft-checks
- Easier access to most PrCs (Loremaster and all)


So yeah, they would be very close (Sorc has unique spells available, the Dragonblood substitutions, etc.) but I'd still place Wizard over Sorc.

Doug Lampert
2010-03-01, 02:10 PM
Wizard without ability to pick new spells is just Sorceror without stunted progression + less spells/day. Heck you even get more spells/known.

A wizard with no access to other spells knows: (1) EVERY wizard cantrip. (2) Int Mod + 3 level 1 spells at level 1, and (3) two additional spells per level gained.

Assume starting int of 16 (low, very low), let's compare (non-cantrip) spells known at every level: [Note: Adding cantrips vastly improves the wizard's superiority.]

Level by level counting only non cantrips:
Level 1: Wiz 6, Sorc 2
Level 2: Wiz 8, Sorc 2
Level 3: Wiz 10, Sorc 3
Level 4: Wiz 12, Sorc 4
Level 5: Wiz 14, Sorc 6
Level 6: Wiz 16, Sorc 7
Level 7: Wiz 18, Sorc 10
Level 8: Wiz 20, Sorc 11
Level 9: Wiz 22, Sorc 14
Level 10: Wiz 24, Sorc 15
Level 11: Wiz 26, Sorc 19
Level 12: Wiz 28, Sorc 20
Level 13: Wiz 30, Sorc 23
Level 14: Wiz 32, Sorc 24
Level 15: Wiz 34, Sorc 27
Level 16: Wiz 36, Sorc 28
Level 17: Wiz 38, Sorc 30
Level 18: Wiz 40, Sorc 31
Level 19: Wiz 42, Sorc 33
Level 20: Wiz 44, Sorc 34

There is never a level where the sorcerer knows as many spells of ANY LEVEL or above as a wizard of the same level who's had no opportunity to learn additional spells. A wizard doesn't need to learn extra spells beyond those he gets for free to outdo a sorcerer on spells known.

Gnaeus
2010-03-01, 02:16 PM
No real need to search around: Domain Wizard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizardVariantDomainWiz ard) + Spell Mastery. Pick the Conjuration Domain. Be a human and pick up Eschew Material Components. Sure, you only have nine spells and only get new spells every 3 levels, but you still get Gate at level 18.

I don't really consider going to the SRD to pick up a variant class which was originally printed in Unearthed Arcana and which is clearly better than the normal (unspecialized) class printed in the PHB to be either avoiding splatbooks or something that is likely to be available in every game. Especially in such low magic games as were under discussion. But yes, that is one of the ways you can make a wizard without a spellbook.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 02:17 PM
And all dragons have spot and listen as class skills and SPECIFICALLY sighted in the description as almost always maximum, so the claim that it won't notice the Beguiler is nonsense.

They also have Blindsense, double range vision, and numerous other advantages in detection.

From the SRD:
All dragons have skill points equal to (6 + Int modifier, minimum 1) × (Hit Dice + 3). Most dragons purchase the following skills at the maximum ranks possible: Listen, Search, and Spot. The remaining skill points are generally spent on Concentration, Diplomacy, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Knowledge (any), Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device at a cost of 1 skill point per rank. All these skills are considered class skills for dragons. (Each dragon has other class skills as well, as noted in the variety descriptions.)
Invisibility makes Spot moot. Silence makes Listen moot. Blindsense doesn't have the range to matter because the Beguiler won't need to go within 60 feet (Close range is 50ft, so the Beguiler can easily close and cast in the surprise round). The Beguiler will also have higher Hide and Move Silently than the Dragon will have Spot and Listen, because a Young Blue has a WIS of only 13, while Dexterity is an important Beguiler stat.

faceroll
2010-03-01, 02:18 PM
The Tier system isn't based on killing dudes, but versatility. Those encounters are pretty varied, but they'd have to be expanded a bit more to properly gauge for the tier system. I'd add an overpowering opponent in there, and stuff like infiltrating a fortress or fighting alongside an army against another army.
But now I wanna see how the Beguiler does, just cause...hang on a sec.


A hallway filled with magical runes.

Know: Arcane and Trapfinding in-class help the Beguiler find the runes and figure out what they do, if they'll kill him and hopefully how to avoid them. Mind control magic could clear the hallway with some hapless victims if he can't disarm or dispel them. Probable win.

A Fire Giant.

Fire Giants have a Will save of +9. 10th level Beguilers will have save DCs of 10 + 5 (spell level) + 8 (INT) + 2 (Greater Spell Focus) = 25. If he sneaks up on the Giant (which he will, because he can cast Invisibility and the Giant has no Listen skill) that's another +1. The Giant has to roll a 17 or higher to overcome that save in the surprise round, and then because his Initiative is so low, will have to do it again. Probable win.

A Young Blue Dragon.

A Young Blue has the same Will save as the Giant, no Spot/Listen in-class, and an initiative of +0. He's toast. The easy access to Mindsight means that the Beguiler will find the Dragon even if it's burrowed underground, and if we're not allowing dips, then the Beguiler can Spot the traces from the burrow. Solid Fog makes the Dragon stall if it takes to the air. Freedom of Movement negates grappling. Probable win.

A Bebilith.

Also a +9 Will Save. Decent Spot/Listen are made pointless by Silence and Greater Invisibility. Decent Hide/Move Silently are opposed by equal or better checks from the Beguiler (+16 vs +13 from ranks alone). The Scent ability favours the Bebilith, but not enough to tip the scales in its favour, since it still can't pinpoint. Probable win.

A Vrock.

Ooh, this one's tough. A slightly better Will save and an initiative bonus. It might take the Beguiler as many as three turns to subdue it if the dice aren't in his favour. The SR is useless; not only does the Beguiler get an extra +2 to overcome it, but only 17 points? We have a +12 to this roll, only failing on a 4 or lower. Probable win.

A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Harder, because the SR is actually challenging to overcome, spells which allow it failing over half the time. You know what doesn't allow SR? Glitterdust and illusions. +9 will saves here again, which we tear to shreds. Once one or both are blind or distracted, we can either try and punch through their SR or cheese it. There's a fair chance things won't end well, but the Beguiler can run away pretty much whenever he feels like it.

An Evil Necromancer.

Oh dear. Undead are immune to our fun tricksies, so we'll have to fool them with illusions that they can't disbelieve if they're mindless, sneak up to their master and Dominate or otherwise remove him. The Necromancer doesn't have much in the way of senses, so we can sneak up on him all quiet-like. This, like the Illithids, can go wrong but probably won't.

6 Trolls

Will save of +3. Spot +5, Listen +6. Charm these guys and have them occupy the zombies in the previous example while you and Gothman duke it out. The easiest win yet.

A horde of Shadows.

The Shadow is undead, and STR is going to be your dump stat. On the plus side, there's no way they can find you if you're hiding. Get a move on and hope you still get XP.


So, one fight we'd lose for sure if we had to fight it, and two that could go sour. Everything else is a joke. Seems appropriate as a Tier 3: good against various foes, but has weaknesses that you have to play smart to shore up.

You just made me want to play a beguiler.

Kylarra
2010-03-01, 02:19 PM
If owning a spellbook is a crime, Eidetic Spellcaster is your best bet.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 02:21 PM
Silence makes Listen moot.I disagree. A competent sneak would be harder to "hear" than a 40ft sphere of complete silence, in nearly all situations.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 02:24 PM
I disagree. A competent sneak would be harder to "hear" than a 40ft sphere of complete silence, in nearly all situations.
Why are you coming within 40ft of the dragon, again? 50ft on the shortest range of your spells.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 02:26 PM
Invisibility makes Spot moot. Silence makes Listen moot.

They help immensely, but do not make them moot. For example, invisibility is only +20 to the DC. Sure, you still get concealment, but that may or may not be of any help vs breath weapons/aoe.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 02:29 PM
Why are you coming within 40ft of the dragon, again? 50ft on the shortest range of your spells.You're missing the point. 40ft sphere of total lack of sound should be rather easy to notice if you have good listen check, in any environment where there are miscellaneous noise, such as singing birds, wind in the trees, people or something else like that. I'm not arguing about the dragon vs. beguiler match, but against using Silence spell to Move Silently.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 02:31 PM
They help immensely, but do not make them moot. For example, invisibility is only +20 to the DC. Sure, you still get concealment, but that may or may not be of any help vs breath weapons/aoe.
The dragon doesn't get a turn, and couldn't make such a high DC check anyway. He gets full ranks (15) +1 Wisdom. Beguiler gets Hide in-class, plus items and good Dex.


You're missing the point. 40ft sphere of total lack of sound should be rather easy to notice if you have good listen check, in any environment where there are miscellaneous noise, such as singing birds, wind in the trees, people or something else like that. I'm not arguing about the dragon vs. beguiler match, but against using Silence spell to Move Silently.
Well, yes, generally it's not necessarily a good idea. Zone of Silence, another Beguiler spell, is only 5ft radius, though. So, better.

Indon
2010-03-01, 02:32 PM
:smallbiggrin: Mind if I sig that?

Go for it.

Gametime
2010-03-01, 02:32 PM
I disagree. A competent sneak would be harder to "hear" than a 40ft sphere of complete silence, in nearly all situations.

Only if the enemy was specifically wary of spheres of silence. Unless the beguiler was approaching from a particularly noisy direction, the removal of a small amount of background noise from a single direction is unlikely to be noticed by any but the most wary of opponents. If the dragon already knows you're coming, the whole "ambush" thing probably isn't going to work out anyway, and if he doesn't then there's no believable reason why he would notice the loss of a tiny amount of inconsequential noise.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 02:34 PM
You're missing the point. 40ft sphere of total lack of sound should be rather easy to notice if you have good listen check, in any environment where there are miscellaneous noise, such as singing birds, wind in the trees, people or something else like that. I'm not arguing about the dragon vs. beguiler match, but against using Silence spell to Move Silently.

I agree with this. Or, to be even more pedantic, I disagree that silence == not noticable.

Listening can be used to determine that a sound exists, yes. By extrapolation, we know that listening can be used to determine that a sound no longer exists.

In any environment with noise, a person with silence up can easily give himself away by accidentally covering up something audible(and its not like he can hear it to avoid it). Thus, a listen check at that point would no longer detect that noise, and the listener would be aware that something was wrong.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 02:35 PM
Why are you coming within 40ft of the dragon, again? 50ft on the shortest range of your spells.
Er.... Shivering Touch maybe? Y'know, the spell that everybody and their uncle recommends for Dragon Slaying?

(even here there's Spectral Hand and Ocular Spell and whatnot, but you get the idea and not everybody always has those)

Gametime
2010-03-01, 02:36 PM
You're missing the point. 40ft sphere of total lack of sound should be rather easy to notice if you have good listen check, in any environment where there are miscellaneous noise, such as singing birds, wind in the trees, people or something else like that. I'm not arguing about the dragon vs. beguiler match, but against using Silence spell to Move Silently.

Ears do not work that way. Environmental noise is extremely easy to ignore. Unless you are actively focusing on where each individual sound is coming from, you are unlikely to realize which bird is singing in which direction, and so on.

Further, dragons live in mountains. There are few singing birds in mountains, and the ambient noise tends to be widespread and distant.

Further, even if the dragon is specifically listening for an intruder, their senses are likely to tune out the ambient noise - that's how we try to pay attention to any given sound. If you're worried about someone sneaking up on you, you're going to listen for footfalls, not wind, and thus the sudden silencing of that wind is unlikely to attract attention. Thus, the only way a Silence spell would be obviously noticeable is if a) the dragon was unusually enamored with the ambient noise coming from the EXACT DIRECTION that the beguiler approaches from, or b) the dragon was specifically listening for a sudden silencing somewhere nearby.

Neither of those situations is remotely probable.

faceroll
2010-03-01, 02:36 PM
Er.... Shivering Touch maybe? Y'know, the spell that everybody and their uncle recommends for Dragon Slaying?

(even here there's Spectral Hand and Ocular Spell and whatnot, but you get the idea and not everybody always has those)

RAW, Shivering Touch only lowers a dragon's AC by 5. Immunity to paralysis ftw.


Ears do not work that way.

They do if you make your listen check. Unfortunately, the DC is 80 (epic listen check to defeat an illusion).

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 02:37 PM
Er.... Shivering Touch maybe? Y'know, the spell that everybody and their uncle recommends for Dragon Slaying?

(even here there's Spectral Hand and Ocular Spell and whatnot, but you get the idea and not everybody always has those)
Beguilers haven't got Shivering Touch. People that have got it will probably use their familiar to deliver it, because getting within range of a dragon is suicide to the nth degree.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 02:37 PM
Only if the enemy was specifically wary of spheres of silence. Unless the beguiler was approaching from a particularly noisy direction, the removal of a small amount of background noise from a single direction is unlikely to be noticed by any but the most wary of opponents.I still maintain that it is more noticeable than a competent sneak in most situations, but since there are no official guidelines (that I know of) for noticing spheres of silence, it's just my opinion.[Edit]: This thread moves fast. Anyway:
Ears do not work that way. Environmental noise is extremely easy to ignore. Unless you are actively focusing on where each individual sound is coming from, you are unlikely to realize which bird is singing in which direction, and so on.

…I don't know how dragon ears or brains work, and I'm not going on just about dragons, either. Sure, if there's little ambient noise, Silence is hard to notice, but then, a character with high Move Silently is always hard to notice. You might've noticed how I've always used a qualifier, not a blanked statement that Silence is always bad for sneaking.

The dragon vs. beguiler is largely inconsequential for my point, which is that most of the time, a high Move Silently check is harder to detect than a huge sphere of complete silence. There are situations where it doesn't apply, sure, but there are loads of situations where it does, given how unnaturally silent a PC focused on it can be.

faceroll
2010-03-01, 02:40 PM
I still maintain that it is more noticeable than a competent sneak in most situations, but since there are no official guidelines (that I know of) for noticing spheres of silence, it's just my opinion.

It just got bumped to the end of the previous page, but check out the epic rules for listen- DC 80 to defeat an illusion which has an auditory component. Arguably, you could defeat silence with a DC 80 listen check.

Optimystik
2010-03-01, 02:40 PM
RAW, Shivering Touch only lowers a dragon's AC by 5. Immunity to paralysis ftw.

Being immune to paralysis does not negate the following: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#abilityScoreLoss)


Dexterity 0 means that the character cannot move at all. He stands motionless, rigid, and helpless.

faceroll
2010-03-01, 02:45 PM
Being immune to paralysis does not negate the following: (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#abilityScoreLoss)

So it doesn't.

Tyndmyr
2010-03-01, 02:48 PM
Ears do not work that way. Environmental noise is extremely easy to ignore. Unless you are actively focusing on where each individual sound is coming from, you are unlikely to realize which bird is singing in which direction, and so on.

The rules do not work that way. By raw, a listen check involves everything you can hear. There isn't sufficient granularity to seperate out background noise as different. Things like "an owl gliding in for the kill" would certainly be considered background noise to a dragon, but receive no DC modifier for it. They're always the same(30 in this case).

If you hear stuff, hear stuff, hear stuff, then hear nothing, you should be worried. The rules, interestingly enough, replicate reality fairly well here. In a busy street, the DCs for hearing things are extremely low, and thus, a silence would make you stand out like a sore thumb. In a quiet environment, they are quite high.

So, silence is situationally useful(and smaller versions of it are better for sneaking), but it's not a replacement for move silently, really.

Doug Lampert
2010-03-01, 02:50 PM
I still maintain that it is more noticeable than a competent sneak in most situations, but since there are no official guidelines (that I know of) for noticing spheres of silence, it's just my opinion.[Edit]: This thread moves fast. Anyway:I don't know how dragon ears or brains work, and I'm not going on just about dragons, either. Sure, if there's little ambient noise, Silence is hard to notice, but then, a character with high Move Silently is always hard to notice. You might've noticed how I've always used a qualifier, not a blanked statement that Silence is always bad for sneaking.

The dragon vs. beguiler is largely inconsequential for my point, which is that most of the time, a high Move Silently check is harder to detect than a huge sphere of complete silence. There are situations where it doesn't apply, sure, but there are loads of situations where it does, given how unnaturally silent a PC focused on it can be.

For the dragon case the Beguiler is screwed unless he has initiative and knows where the dragon is, because the dragon can detect him from WELL outside the range where he can detect the dragon, so how does he know to have short duration spells like silence up? For that matter how does he cast in the silence? Do beguiler's not need verbal components or something?

Greenish
2010-03-01, 02:51 PM
It just got bumped to the end of the previous page, but check out the epic rules for listen- DC 80 to defeat an illusion which has an auditory component. Arguably, you could defeat silence with a DC 80 listen check.Listen check of 80 can tell if the source of noise (or absence of noise, we can assume) is an illusion. You don't need that much to notice the illusion, or otherwise almost no one could hear Magic Mouth (for example).

[Edit]:
For the dragon case the Beguiler is screwed unless he has initiative and knows where the dragon is, because the dragon can detect him from WELL outside the range where he can detect the dragon, so how does he know to have short duration spells like silence up? For that matter how does he cast in the silence? Do beguiler's not need verbal components or something?So the bloody dragon eats the bloody beguiler, fine! Complain about that to someone who cares! It's so far from my point you'd need epic Spot check to even notice I have a point! :smallfurious:

Saph
2010-03-01, 02:55 PM
For the dragon case the Beguiler is screwed unless he has initiative and knows where the dragon is, because the dragon can detect him from WELL outside the range where he can detect the dragon, so how does he know to have short duration spells like silence up? For that matter how does he cast in the silence? Do beguiler's not need verbal components or something?

Beguilers get Silent Spell, so they can manage without verbal components . . .

. . . which doesn't make it a good idea or anything. If you're going to try to go through a dungeon using Silence and Silent Spell non-stop, you're going to run out of spell slots real fast, and you'll make every other caster in your party hate you. Besides, as pointed out, to any smart enemy a sudden globe of silence is as good as a notice saying "Spellcaster Here." Silence is a very useful spell, but you're not going to have it up 24/7.

Frosty
2010-03-01, 03:14 PM
1) Do note that Silence won't stop all ambient sound. I mean, unless you're standing in the cavern entrance and it's small enough for your Silence to cover the entire entrance, chances are ambient sound is going to stop above and around the Silence radius. Now, it may still sound different, but sound will get by.

2) A Beguiler wandering a dragon's cave complex alone may notice clues that he is indeed in a dragon's cave. That would probably cause the Beguiler to start actively using stealth (and search for traps). At this point it's really who can sense the other first. Assuming that the dragon does NOT know that there is an intruder, I think the Beguiler can beat the dragon's Move Silently check. Won't work all the time, but it can work.

PhoenixRivers
2010-03-01, 03:20 PM
1) Do note that Silence won't stop all ambient sound. I mean, unless you're standing in the cavern entrance and it's small enough for your Silence to cover the entire entrance, chances are ambient sound is going to stop above and around the Silence radius. Now, it may still sound different, but sound will get by.

2) A Beguiler wandering a dragon's cave complex alone may notice clues that he is indeed in a dragon's cave. That would probably cause the Beguiler to start actively using stealth (and search for traps). At this point it's really who can sense the other first. Assuming that the dragon does NOT know that there is an intruder, I think the Beguiler can beat the dragon's Move Silently check. Won't work all the time, but it can work.

Assuming the dragon isn't incompetent, it'll know whenever anyone enters its lair.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 03:25 PM
Assuming the dragon isn't incompetent, it'll know whenever anyone enters its lair.
Assuming the Beguiler is competent, they won't go after a dragon known to be competent in the first place, and will be equipped to deal with "Alarm" spells and whatnot if they do.

Optimystik
2010-03-01, 03:32 PM
Assuming the dragon isn't incompetent, it'll know whenever anyone enters its lair.

UMD a Hide From Dragons scroll.

PhoenixRivers
2010-03-01, 03:35 PM
Assuming the Beguiler is competent, they won't go after a dragon known to be competent in the first place, and will be equipped to deal with "Alarm" spells and whatnot if they do.

If the dragon's competent, it won't be known that it's competent.

If it's really competent, any attempt to bypass or dispel a ward will alert it.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 03:48 PM
A Young Blue doesn't have spellcasting. Unless it pulled a trap of Alarm from its arse along with some means of monitoring said trap, it's not going to know the Beguiler is coming reliably. This is a CR6 critter we're talking about, not a Great Wyrm. Don't attribute to it abilities beyond its means.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 03:52 PM
If the dragon's competent, it won't be known that it's competent.

If it's really competent, any attempt to bypass or dispel a ward will alert it.
Point is we can't bring competence into this. A competent Dragon would know how to guard his lair, and a competent Beguiler would know how to deal with that. The Dragon can't cast spells at this stage, so the adaptability edge goes to the Beguiler. It can counter what the Dragon does more easily than the Dragon can counter what it does.

HunterOfJello
2010-03-01, 03:57 PM
on paper Monks look nice with all the small special abilities they can get, but in play they're pathetic

dragonfan6490
2010-03-01, 04:04 PM
on paper Monks look nice with all the small special abilities they can get, but in play they're pathetic

See, I've never seen a Monk in play that wasn't the most (arguably) powerful character in the game. Everytime I see one of these threads, I wonder what ya'll are talking about the Monk being underpowered or sub-par. I mean, I've seen Monks in the hands of both newbs and veteran players alike, and everytime that a Monk is involved, he or she becomes the V.I.P. I understand that from the point of view for the MAD, but that seems to come up mostly from people using point-buy.

Just my two coppers.

faceroll
2010-03-01, 04:10 PM
See, I've never seen a Monk in play that wasn't the most (arguably) powerful character in the game. Everytime I see one of these threads, I wonder what ya'll are talking about the Monk being underpowered or sub-par. I mean, I've seen Monks in the hands of both newbs and veteran players alike, and everytime that a Monk is involved, he or she becomes the V.I.P. I understand that from the point of view for the MAD, but that seems to come up mostly from people using point-buy.

Just my two coppers.

Huh.
Are they straight monk or do they have casting in there?
I've seen monks with nothing lower than a 16 in any of their stats, and they were easily the worst party member.

Flickerdart
2010-03-01, 04:11 PM
See, I've never seen a Monk in play that wasn't the most (arguably) powerful character in the game. Everytime I see one of these threads, I wonder what ya'll are talking about the Monk being underpowered or sub-par. I mean, I've seen Monks in the hands of both newbs and veteran players alike, and everytime that a Monk is involved, he or she becomes the V.I.P. I understand that from the point of view for the MAD, but that seems to come up mostly from people using point-buy.

Just my two coppers.
Yes, if the Monk just happens to roll amazing stats, then he doesn't suck quite as bad. But even Paladin, the other MAD poster boy, gets something useful for every stat.

Roland St. Jude
2010-03-01, 04:11 PM
Sheriff of Moddingham: Please drag this thread back on track. A page and a half of arguing about Beguiler v. Dragon doesn't seem relevant to a thread on the power of monks.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 04:22 PM
See, I've never seen a Monk in play that wasn't the most (arguably) powerful character in the game. Everytime I see one of these threads, I wonder what ya'll are talking about the Monk being underpowered or sub-par. I mean, I've seen Monks in the hands of both newbs and veteran players alike, and everytime that a Monk is involved, he or she becomes the V.I.P. I understand that from the point of view for the MAD, but that seems to come up mostly from people using point-buy.

Just my two coppers.
- What level range? VoP Monk can be very powerful in the lvl 1-4 range (but kinda sucks endgame).

- Were you guys ignoring the "can only flurry on full attack" rule?

- Was there a spellcaster who focussed on buffing the Monk and/or nerfing the enemies?

- Any insight into the builds in question and how they actually contributed?



I've seen three or four monks in play, and pretty much all of them stank up the joint despite much effort. The only one I've seen actually contribute was a Monk1/DruidX, and a Monk1/PsiWarX with Tashalatora. I suppose a Monk1/WizardX could be good too. And then there's always Unarmed Swordsages who just call themselves Monks.

HunterOfJello
2010-03-01, 04:33 PM
- What level range? VoP Monk can be very powerful in the lvl 1-4 range (but kinda sucks endgame).

- Were you guys ignoring the "can only flurry on full attack" rule?

- Was there a spellcaster who focussed on buffing the Monk and/or nerfing the enemies?

- Any insight into the builds in question and how they actually contributed?



I've seen three or four monks in play, and pretty much all of them stank up the joint despite much effort. The only one I've seen actually contribute was a Monk1/DruidX, and a Monk1/PsiWarX with Tashalatora. I suppose a Monk1/WizardX could be good too. And then there's always Unarmed Swordsages who just call themselves Monks.

levels 1 to 5

flurry of blows counted as a full attack

the spellcasters weren't going to waste their spells on the monk when there was a fighter outdoing his damage and actually hitting mobs every single turn

the build was a basic monk build using only the PHB

~~~~~~~~~~

the player wanted to be a powergamer but did a terrbile job at it. he was always pissed off because he could never hit any monsters and whenever he did he did a pathetic amount of damage.

with Full BAB, flurry of blows as a standard action and a large number of other changes his monk could have held his own a bit better.

however, the current campaign i'm doing now has players using ToB and a monk would never be able to keep up with any of them

Da'Shain
2010-03-01, 04:34 PM
We're currently playing with an Ogre Mage Monk who pulls his weight pretty well. Thinking about it, though, he pulls his weight well mostly because his Ogre Mage abilities seem to complement his Monk ones almost perfectly. And I'm not sure what items he's got, either.

The one other time I've seen a monk played, it was rather underwhelming. I remember my deinonychus animal companion being more successful in a couple encounters than he was.

HunterOfJello
2010-03-01, 04:36 PM
also, there's plenty of info on why Monks are subpar at

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4869.0

Starbuck_II
2010-03-01, 04:49 PM
We're currently playing with an Ogre Mage Monk who pulls his weight pretty well. Thinking about it, though, he pulls his weight well mostly because his Ogre Mage abilities seem to complement his Monk ones almost perfectly. And I'm not sure what items he's got, either.

The one other time I've seen a monk played, it was rather underwhelming. I remember my deinonychus animal companion being more successful in a couple encounters than he was.

I think that has more to do with the word Ogre than Monk. Large size and Str big.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 05:03 PM
I think that has more to do with the word Ogre than Monk. Large size and Str big.
Ogre Mages are a famously weak monster though, for their CR. They're also ECL 12. I suspect these guys were massively lowering their ECL somehow, which would help a lot.

dragonfan6490
2010-03-01, 05:03 PM
One went from 1 to 23, one from 12 to 18, and one from 1 to 17, all were straight Monks, no VoP, core only. The caster never buffed him, stats between 13 and 20, and we weren't ignoring the "Flurry only on full attack" rule.

In these three instances where a Monk was played, here were the other party members:
1-23 Monk: Rogue, going into the Dashing Swordsman, Druid/Warmage/Geomancer, Ranger/Green Knight, straight Wizard.

12-18 Monk: Druid, Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, Barbarian.

1-17 Monk: Sorcerer, Rogue/Scout (who may have been the more MVP party member in that game), Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 05:10 PM
One went from 1 to 23, one from 12 to 18, and one from 1 to 17, all were straight Monks, no VoP, core only. The caster never buffed him, stats between 13 and 20, and we weren't ignoring the "Flurry only on full attack" rule.

In these three instances where a Monk was played, here were the other party members:
1-23 Monk: Rogue, going into the Dashing Swordsman, Druid/Warmage/Geomancer, Ranger/Green Knight, straight Wizard.

12-18 Monk: Druid, Rogue, Fighter, Wizard, Barbarian.

1-17 Monk: Sorcerer, Rogue/Scout (who may have been the more MVP party member in that game), Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue.
I have to imagine favourable houserules, or something else really weird going on.

What made him so effective? What was he actually contributing to the party that nobody else was?

dragonfan6490
2010-03-01, 05:23 PM
I have to imagine favourable houserules, or something else really weird going on.

What made him so effective? What was he actually contributing to the party that nobody else was?

We didn't have any houserules and everyone was contributing. Why is it so hard to believe that a straight Monk can be a powerful character? The best Monk was played by a veteran player, he'd been playing DnD for about 15 years, but even the newb, who played the 1-23 Monk, was still one of the best played/most powerful characters in the party.

Da'Shain
2010-03-01, 05:23 PM
Ogre Mages are a famously weak monster though, for their CR. They're also ECL 12. I suspect these guys were massively lowering their ECL somehow, which would help a lot.Not as far as I know. I'm playing a Rakshasa myself with the full LA and everything; on everything else my DM's been the soul of fairness, so I doubt he would have let the other guy play without the full LA.

Basically, he flies something ridiculous like 150 ft per move action and usually either trips or grapples things into submission. The few things he hasn't been able to trip or grapple, he's at least kept tied up until the rest of us could get to it.

Granted, he is definitely the weakest in the party; he's just not useless by any stretch.

DragoonWraith
2010-03-01, 05:29 PM
We didn't have any houserules and everyone was contributing. Why is it so hard to believe that a straight Monk can be a powerful character? The best Monk was played by a veteran player, he'd been playing DnD for about 15 years, but even the newb, who played the 1-23 Monk, was still one of the best played/most powerful characters in the party.
Because it's mathematically impossible. The numbers just don't add up.

sonofzeal
2010-03-01, 05:37 PM
We didn't have any houserules and everyone was contributing. Why is it so hard to believe that a straight Monk can be a powerful character? The best Monk was played by a veteran player, he'd been playing DnD for about 15 years, but even the newb, who played the 1-23 Monk, was still one of the best played/most powerful characters in the party.
I'm trying to reconcile it with my own experience, that's all.

I'm willing to believe they could get a decent amount of damage out. Monk's Belt, plus Improved Natural Attack, plus Enlarge Person, on a lot of attacks, can be a good combination. The problem is actually delivering it, since attack bonus is mediocre and defence is too low to let you stand face-to-face with most things, and you need to or you don't get all those attacks. A source of Pounce could do it, but that's not available in Core.

A good buffer could give him the AC to duke it out, though, and the attack bonus to deal with higher AC enemies. That'd help it make sense to me. It would also help if he were a grapple specialist, and if you fought a lot of humanoid enemies and very few things with high Grapple mod or DR or Reach, as all of those tend to mess up the Monk badly. The other option is that the people building the character (the pro, and possibly the pro helping the newb) were considerably more skilled at character creation than anyone else in the group.

Any of those sound like they apply?

JonestheSpy
2010-03-01, 05:39 PM
Slightly different take on the usual monk discussion. The failings of the monk class as written have been hashed over plenty of times, and plenty of fixes suggested, from complicated total overhauls to simple changes like full BAB.

So for all you DM's out there - anyone NOT have monk houserules? If not, does anyone ever play monks in your campaigns, and how does it work out? If you do tinker with monks, how do you?

Myself, I make just a few small changes, because my campaigns tend to be low-magic so the monks abilities are not so easily duplicated. Wisdom bonus to damage instead of strength, full BAB, AC bonus every 3 levels, and flurrying ability as a standard action, and a couple of other minor things.

sofawall
2010-03-01, 05:41 PM
The most common houserule is probably making them proficient with unarmed strikes.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-03-01, 05:43 PM
We didn't have any houserules and everyone was contributing. Why is it so hard to believe that a straight Monk can be a powerful character? The best Monk was played by a veteran player, he'd been playing DnD for about 15 years, but even the newb, who played the 1-23 Monk, was still one of the best played/most powerful characters in the party.

You haven't answered the question. How did the Monks contribute effectively in a way which is at least hard if not impossible for other classes to replicate. Grappling? Fighters, Barbarians and Evard's Black Tentacles. Stunning Fist spamming? A Cleric can do that, and probably better. Hit and run Spring Attack antics? Readied actions, trippers with reach and just using very small terrain advantages trump it.

How did the Ogre Mage get a higher fly speed anyway? I'm fairly sure the bonus is to base land speed, which an Ogre Mage's flight speed is not based on. A rediculous flight speed isn't particularly useful anyway, by the time you can get it you'll normally have a teleportation effect of some sort.

Andras
2010-03-01, 05:44 PM
I've seen it happen. It wasn't a problem because most of my group doesn't care enough to optimize, especially the casters, and we were playing at low level.


The most common houserule is probably making them proficient with unarmed strikes.

Haha, yeah, I suppose that is a tacit houserule.

Starbuck_II
2010-03-01, 05:45 PM
How did the Ogre Mage get a higher fly speed anyway? I'm fairly sure the bonus is to base land speed, which an Ogre Mage's flight speed is not based on. A rediculous flight speed isn't particularly useful anyway, by the time you can get it you'll normally have a teleportation effect of some sort.

Actually Monks increase any speed.
At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to her speed, as shown on Table: The Monk.

Any speed.

Saph
2010-03-01, 05:46 PM
Yup, me. I don't modify monks, or any of the other classes. The way I see it, it's a lot easier to let players do the work of picking classes than it is to try and modify every class you don't like.

We've currently got a Pathfinder monk in our Wednesday game. He's actually surprisingly effective - very fast and does respectable damage.

Kobold-Bard
2010-03-01, 05:47 PM
I have seen an unmodified Monk. It was in a group of newbies, so unoptimized all round. I genuinely saw an opportunity to use Slow Fall. At the time I wasn't impressed, but looking back it's a fond D&D memory.

Kurald Galain
2010-03-01, 05:47 PM
Hm, practically every 3E campaign I've been in has either:
(1) the DM bans monks because the oriental fluff doesn't fit the setting, or
(2) none of the players even considers playing monks because they don't like them, or
(3) the campaign is mostly about roleplaying and unlikely to advance beyond level 3, so classes don't really matter

So to my knowledge, (a) nobody I know IRL uses unmodified monks, and interestingly (b) the monk's power level was never a factor in this decision.

Godskook
2010-03-01, 05:48 PM
We've currently got a Pathfinder monk in our Wednesday game. He's actually surprisingly effective - very fast and does respectable damage.

In the spirit of the thread, I think he's referring to the 3.5 monk, not the PF monk.

Kurald Galain
2010-03-01, 05:49 PM
I have to imagine favourable houserules, or something else really weird going on.
Well, to be fair player skill makes a lot of difference in character effectivity.

Kobold-Bard
2010-03-01, 05:49 PM
In the spirit of the thread, I think he's referring to the 3.5 monk, not the PF monk.

Is there that much difference (genuinely wondering not trying to be a smartass).

ScionoftheVoid
2010-03-01, 05:50 PM
Actually Monks increase any speed.
At 3rd level, a monk gains an enhancement bonus to her speed, as shown on Table: The Monk.

Any speed.

Huh, I learn something new on most days (doesn't really have a ring to it, but it's accurate). The speed boosts take a while to get up to speed, pun unintended, though so the rest of that still applies. Sure they can flee marginally more effectively, but that was known to be a Monk skill, they will survive. They won't do anything but they'll survive (maybe, if they abandon the non-item reliant fluff and pour their WBL into duplicating caster defences).

raitalin
2010-03-01, 05:51 PM
Now that I think about it, even in the days of 3.0 when I started playing D&D again I homebrewed monk. For my second character I made a Monk/Fighter Int based Martial Artist class mostly because I wasn't interested in the monk's flavor as much as the ability to kick ass bare handed.

Worked out well at the time, though things got ugly when I really started using the grappling rules.

So no, I don't think I've known anyone to use normal monk except for when they were starting epic and had 3.0 vorpal strike.

Saph
2010-03-01, 05:52 PM
In the spirit of the thread, I think he's referring to the 3.5 monk, not the PF monk.

True, and the PF one is noticeably stronger.

Okay, well, one of our players did play a multiclass monk in our 3.5 RHoD game - I think it was something like monk 2 / fighter 4, using the monk levels to pick up bonus feats, better saves, and Evasion. Reasonably effective.

ScionoftheVoid
2010-03-01, 05:54 PM
Is there that much difference (genuinely wondering not trying to be a smartass).

From what I've heard the Pathfinder Monk is marginally more effective than the 3.5 Monk. That it wasn't improved much was a source of a fair bit of hate for Paizo. IIRC of course.

Sir Giacomo
2010-03-01, 05:54 PM
Well...

...probably my views on monks are well-known...:smallwink:

Just a very short roundup (core rulesset perspective):

- monks get most attacks at highest BAB (even at medium BAB progression that's good)
- monks get unarmed damage progression which can be boosted in core to 6d8 per hit by level 15. Depending on your interpretation to 100s dice8s in non-core environment. Definitely a match for sneak or power attack damage boosts.
- they are less MAD than other melee classes. This is because they get key bonus feats for melee combat without needing the prereqs. (e.g. A barbarian cannot start 1st level with improved grapple unless the race is human (since it takes 2 feats). A monk can be an orc or half-orc or wood elf for the racial STR bonus. Plus, the enlarge buff lowers DEX which is no problem for a monk, but for all other classes needing to boost both STR AND DEX since improved grapple feat needs a minimum DEX of 13).
- their defensive qualities are very good (SR, touch AC, immunities, all-high saves).
- there are very mobile in combat, from low levels onwards
- contrary to popular belief, they do get a bunch of useful abilities that complement each other (higher speed gets you closer to enemy faster to land more attacks, stunning fist gets you full round attack opportunities, etheralness adds to stealth skills, tongues ability with diplomacy class skill and so on)

To make up for these goodies, monks get some drawbacks vs other melee classes (although there are methods to - partially - overcome them)
- medium BAB (but BAB is not that necessary for grappling and, above all trip - plus it can be temporarily boosted with divine power spells)
- medium hp (but their stealth skills and self-healing can make up for that)
- lowish AC in low levels (but mage armour buff and tumble with fighting defensively can help a lot here, as can methods to get total concealment and stealth)
etc.

Using Jacob Orlove's example challenges for CR 5 and CR 10 from the posts above, let us take the following example core monk build:

Level 5 wood elf monk, 28 pt buy

STR 22 (15 start, 1 stat gain, +2 racial, +2 enlarge, +2 gauntlets), DEX 12, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 14, CHR 8
FEATS: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (Monk bonus feats), Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes (Monk bonus feat), Blind-Fight.
SPECIAL: Evasion, Slow Fall 20ft, Ki-Magic, Purity of Body (immune to Disease)
SKILLS: Move Silently +9 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item), Hide +5 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item, size), Spot +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Listen +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Tumble +10 (DEX, 5 ranks, MW item), Jump +19 (STR, 5 ranks, speed, synergy, MW item)
ITEMS (9000): Masterwork tools for all above skills (250 gp), Composite Longbow, Masterwork, STR 20 (900), Permanencie’d enlarged at level 16 (3,460)/or get 68 enlarge potions over the course of the levels, Gauntlets of STR +2 (4,000)
INITIATIVE: +5 (DEX, feat)
MOVE: 40ft
AC 13 (WIS, DEX, monk, size), 16 fighting defensively
HITS 31 (max d8 at first level, CON)
SAVES: Fort +5, Refl +5, Will +6 (+10 vs enchantment)
GRAPPLE: +17 (+16/+16)
UNARMED ATTACK: +8 (+7/+7); Damage 2d6+6
BOW ATTACK: +4, damage 2d6+5


The way to overcome the following challenges would be:
A huge Animated iron statue.
Outmaneuver with higher speed and shoot down from afar (or simply ignore)
A Basilisk.
Grapple to death (use blind-fight if necessary to land the touch with flurry)
A Large Fire Elemental.
Grapple/pin to death.
A Manticore on the wing.
Grapple/pin to death
A Mummy.
Grapple/pin to death
A Phase Spider.
This is a tough one. A phase spider will take out almost any character at that level (attack in surprise round, win initiative, attack again, vanish - that is two DC 17 poison saves in a row. Repeat...). The one problem for the phase spider could be to locate a hiding monk, fairly mobile monk - since sight on the etheral plane to the material plane is only 60ft.
A Troll.
Grapple/pin to death (or outrun).
A chasm.
Jump over it or drop into it with tumble up to 30ft and climb out on the other side.
A moat filled with acid.
Jump over it.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
As for chasms, then destroy door.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
Chances are this monk out-stealths them, shoots one first, then grapples to death the other one.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
Truly bad (but bad for almost all characters at that level). The monk with quite a good save vs the howling could possibly pin/grapple to death the howler before succumbing to the allip.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
Jump/climb out of the pit. Avoid AoO on way out with tumble (though not while climbing...). Trip quite a few scorpions with reach, AoO and combat reflexes.
A Grimlock assault team.
Luckily, this monk build also has blind-fight. Also, the Grimlocks do not have move silently so the monk might avoid them...
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)
Grapple to death cleric, outmanouvre/AoO zombies. Highly situational...


Level 10 wood elf monk, 28 pt buy

STR 25 (15 start, 2 stat gains, +2 racial, +2 enlarge, +4 belt), DEX 12, CON 14 (+2 amulet), INT 10, WIS 14, CHR 8
FEATS: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (Monk bonus feats), Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes (Monk bonus feat), Blind-Fight, Improved Trip (monk bonus feat), improved natural attack, weapon focus-unarmed strike.
SPECIAL: Improved Evasion, Slow Fall 50ft, Ki-Magic/Lawful, Purity of Body (immune to Disease), Wholeness of body (20 hits/day)
SKILLS: Move Silently +13 (DEX, 10 ranks, MW item), Hide +9 (DEX, 10 ranks, MW item, size), Spot +11 (WIS, 9 ranks, MW item, racial), Listen +12 (WIS, 9 ranks, MW item, racial), Tumble +14 (DEX, 9 ranks, MW item, synergy), Jump +28 (STR, 5 ranks, speed, synergy, MW item),
ITEMS (49,000): Masterwork tools for all above skills (300 gp), Composite Longbow+1, STR 22 (3,000), Permanencie’d enlarge, level 16 (3,460), Belt of STR +4 (16,000), Boots of Speed (12,000), Ring of Deflection +1 (2,000), Eversmoking Bottle (5,400), Amulet of Health CON+2 (4,000), cloak of resistance +1 (1,000), Bracers of AC +1 (1,000)
INITIATIVE: +5 (DEX, feat)
MOVE: 60ft
AC 16 (WIS, DEX, monk, size, armour), 19 fighting defensively
HITS 64 (max d8 at first level, CON)
SAVES: Fort +10, Refl +9, Will +10 (+14 vs enchantment)
GRAPPLE: +22 (+21/+21/+16)
TRIP: +15
UNARMED ATTACK: +14 (+13/+13/+8); Damage 3d8+7
BOW ATTACK: +8/+3, damage 2d6+7


A hallway filled with magical runes.
Too vague. But improved evasion and good saves will help a lot.
A Fire Giant.
Trip and full attack. With higher stealth and initiative, a surprise round plus a first round of attack could mean up to 15d8+35 damage. After that, the fire giant has to get up and do one attack. Another full attack ensues, killing the fire giant. It is not a safe win, but a likely one.
A Young Blue Dragon.
Grapple/pin to death
A Bebilith.
Tough one, for all melee classes. The monk build likely loses here. (could outmaneuver/evade the bebilith, though)
A Vrock.
Grapple/pin to death (Vrock can escape with teleport, though). But that likely loses - a better chance would be tripping and full attacks.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Put up full concealment and let the tripping fun begin.:smallwink:
An Evil Necromancer.
Grapple/pin to death with stealth and surprise on your side (catching not-yet-contingency-necromancer flat-footed/off guard).
6 Trolls.
Put up full concealment and sneak away. Or evade them altogether.
A horde of Shadows.
Put some distance between shadows and yourself and start shooting them with the bow.

Hopefully that provided some answers for the OP and others (no need to go into CR 15, the monk like other classes is getting ever-more powerful in those levels).
In almost all of the above encounters, a fairly simple melee combat-oriented monk can overcome same CR challenges.

- Giacomo

holywhippet
2010-03-01, 05:54 PM
The main reason monks seem bad is because you have to use them completely differently than the other fighting classes. Unfortunately you often can't use them in this manner.

As some people have suggested, a good tactic for a monk is to tumble past the enemy meat shields and use stunning blow on the spellcaster(s) in the back. That only works if they make their tumble roll though - and after they roll past the enemy fighters they are effectively on their own behind enemy lines. At that point the monk's critical weakness comes into play - low AC. Most of the combat in D&D comes down to attack roll + bonuses vs. AC. The monk is crippled by not being able to wear armour. As they get access to more funds/items they can boost their AC a bit. But they aren't going to match a class that can use both platemail and a tower shield. So once they are behind enemy lines they will be cut to ribbons.

The main flaws of the monk can be seen when you compare them to a cleric. They have the same BAB and same HD. But the cleric will have a higher AC due to being able to wear armour. The monk gets full progression in all three saving throws - but clerics still get full progression in two of them. The monk gets immunity to disease at the same level that a cleric can cast a spell to remove it - and that spell removes magical diseases which the monk is not immune to. The monk gets immunity to poision long after the cleric can cast a spell to remove it. The monk gets ki strike at level 4 letting them use their natural attacks as though they have a +1 weapon. A cleric gets access to the magic weapon spell at level 1 and greater magic weapon at level 7 - both of which provide actual attack bonuses (doesn't handle the material requirements admittedly).

Face it, many of the benefits of the monk can be emulated by spells or items that the cleric can get - that's assuming they ever come into play. Your DM might never ask you to make a save against poison/disease and never try to drop you from a tall height.

Kobold-Bard
2010-03-01, 05:55 PM
True, and the PF one is noticeably stronger.

Okay, well, one of our players did play a multiclass monk in our 3.5 RHoD game - I think it was something like monk 2 / fighter 4, using the monk levels to pick up bonus feats, better saves, and Evasion. Reasonably effective.

Well Monk dips are great. Get to level 5 though and no one ever plays them as is (except mr Slow Fall as previously mentioned).

ScionoftheVoid
2010-03-01, 06:01 PM
The main flaws of the monk can be seen when you compare them to a cleric. They have the same BAB and same HD. But the cleric will have a higher AC due to being able to wear armour. The monk gets full progression in all three saving throws - but clerics still get full progression in two of them. The monk gets immunity to disease at the same level that a cleric can cast a spell to remove it - and that spell removes magical diseases which the monk is not immune to. The monk gets immunity to poision long after the cleric can cast a spell to remove it. The monk gets ki strike at level 4 letting them use their natural attacks as though they have a +1 weapon. A cleric gets access to the magic weapon spell at level 1 and greater magic weapon at level 7 - both of which provide actual attack bonuses (doesn't handle the material requirements admittedly).

Face it, many of the benefits of the monk can be emulated by spells or items that the cleric can get - that's assuming they ever come into play. Your DM might never ask you to make a save against poison/disease and never try to drop you from a tall height when next to a surface.

I completely agree that Clerics out-monk the Monk class, choose appropriate Domains for your Cleric have them fight unarmed and unarmoured and have done, I say. I am prone to reflavouring if it suits me however, though I always take all th mechanics, advantageous or disadvantageous.

The bolded part is a correction.

Giacomo some numbers on the grapple/pin to death entries would be nice. Further explanation for the other creatures would also be pleasantly surprising. I won't be back 'til tommorow so take your time.

Optimystik
2010-03-01, 06:01 PM
The Pathfinder Monk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/basic-classes/monk)

I like the ki pool bit, don't know enough about Combat Maneuvers to know if they are very beneficial.

And I play unmodified monks, but tend to just dip them or PrC out. Tattooed Monk, Sacred Fist or Tashalatora are my weapons of choice.

Kylarra
2010-03-01, 06:07 PM
To be fair, clerics outfight most melee classes. That's part of why they're tier 1.

lsfreak
2010-03-01, 06:08 PM
Because it's mathematically impossible. The numbers just don't add up.

My assumption would be that the group is low on the optimization scale. No power attack boosting, getting full-attack sneak attacks would be rare, casters spend most of their times tossing fireballs, druid plays as more of a healer or blaster than rawrimeatingyourfaceoff, and so on. In such a situation, I could see monks appearing to be very good, because no one is pushing their character to their full, optimized potential. Not saying that's a bad thing, but saying that in those specific circumstances with that particular group, the monk might pull ahead.

Sir Giacomo
2010-03-01, 06:09 PM
I
Giacomo some numbers on the grapple/pin to death entries would be nice. Further explanation for the other creatures would also be pleasantly surprising. I won't be back 'til tommorow so take your time.

The creatures are all from the SRD and everywhere where grappling/pinning is given as a strategy the monk clearly has both more grapple attempts and a better grapple modifier than the creatures.

- Giacomo

Edit (just noticed):

I completely agree that Clerics out-monk the Monk class, choose appropriate Domains for your Cleric have them fight unarmed and unarmoured and have done, I say. I am prone to reflavouring if it suits me however, though I always take all th mechanics, advantageous or disadvantageous.


Could you show a build that does this, both in core and outside core?
I have the feeling that a cleric has a hard time to
- get the same kind of unarmed damage
- get the same number of stunning fist attempts/day
- get the same number of attacks
- get the same number of bonus feats necessary/helpful for unarmed combat

Starscream
2010-03-01, 06:10 PM
When I first started playing 3.5 I adored monks. I could tell they weren't powerhouses, but I figured that were at least middle-weight in terms of power. I soon learned I was wrong, but not before playing a couple.

I'll be honest, in a casual game where people aren't optimizing they aren't so bad. Not great by any means, but hard to kill and capable of dealing a moderate amount of damage if built right.

But these days I mostly only use monks in a Gestalt game. They synergize pretty well with almost any class. Three good saves, enhanced speed, extra attacks per round. Any class can benefit from that.

But combined with wisdom based casters they become really good. Not only will your Wis-AC become great, but becoming an outsider allows a lot of fun tricks with Alter Self.

Monk//Druid is truly awesome, because you keep all your monk tricks while Wild Shaped. Armor is useless, but you can still add your wisdom bonus to AC. Flurry of Blows is awesome with the massive strength bonus of bears and other big creatures, and you can use Unarmed Strikes if they are better than your natural attacks.

JaronK
2010-03-01, 06:24 PM
Other than the unarmed strike proficiency, I've absolutely played with unmodified monks. There's one in one of my groups right now... of course, it's a Monk 6/Shou Disciple 5/Unarmed Swordsage 1. With Power Attack and Shock Trooper.

JaronK

Malificus
2010-03-01, 06:25 PM
I've only played an unmodified monk. The campaign was absurdly conservative with items, and the only caster played as a support role, so it worked out.

Eclipse
2010-03-01, 06:33 PM
I DMed a campaign in which a player chose to play an unmodified monk. Became the party grappler (a job previously done by the fighter when necessary), and battles started going a lot more smoothly. No, the fighter was not optimized for grappling, and neither was the monk. This being the case, the monk did a better job grappling in our particular group during this campaign.

Also of note was the final battle, which the monk ended far faster than anyone else could have. It was against a ridiculously super-prepared Red Wizard of Thay. I threw down buffs against every contingency I could think of: death spells, ability drain/damage, improved saving throws, elemental resistances, etc. I played by the book though: I didn't fudge anything, so if I forgot it, I forgot it. I was basically playing the Red Wizard as a character in opposition to the PCs, and wasn't giving him any special advantages other than terrain and the magic items at his disposal as ruler of Thay.

Forgot something important: the monk's death attack. Now see, in general, it's an awful death attack. The problem is it's a supernatural ability, not a spell. And the protections I chose only worked against death spells. Even worse, most of the saving throw buffs I placed also only worked against spells. So my super-prepared villain forgot one thing and therefore had a wizard fortitude save vs. a monk death attack. With that, the battle was over. Luckily, our enterprising hero didn't try this at the beginning of the fight, or it would have been very anticlimactic. As it was, it felt more like a wild shot in the dark to take down a foe that was quite overpowering, and therefore felt good. And the monk had a very real chance to shine in the final battle, as opposed to being more of a support role.

Now, in a fully optimized game, I'm guessing the monk would have generally had a harder time through most of it. However, that wasn't how we were playing, and it worked out well for everyone, and the monk had plenty of time to do her thing and even be the star of the show at times.

This is not to say optimized games are bad. I love optimizing, it's just not how this particular campaign went down. And this is my most recent experience in D&D 3.5 with a Monk by RAW. (No, I don't go for that tidbit floating around about monks not being proficient with fists.) So, short answer, playing a monk by RAW worked out well in our group.

kladams707
2010-03-01, 06:34 PM
I know this was to DMs (not one), but the RL gaming group I hang out with has cycled through many monks w/o any external rules (the core only monk). However, it's not b/c they died in combat. If any of them died, it was out of stupidity (the fate of many D&D characters, not just monks). In our last game was transformed into a paladin (not by choice). First time we played 3.5, a friend played a monk, and it's been a favorite of his ever since.



"The most common houserule is probably making them proficient with unarmed strikes. "

Reading previous posts.... I forgot about that, so I guess we haven't been playing w/ unmodded monks.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 06:42 PM
I like the ki pool bit, don't know enough about Combat Maneuvers to know if they are very beneficial.Combat maneuvers in PF mean trip, disarm, grapple, bull rush and so forth. Monks get wis bonus for resisting them and use their level instead of their BAB to use them. (PF checks are d20+BAB+Str+size vs. 10+BAB+Str+Dex+size, instead of opposed strength checks.)
Flurry of Blows is awesome with the massive strength bonus of bears and other big creatures, and you can use Unarmed Strikes if they are better than your natural attacks.Kung Fu Panda!

Curmudgeon
2010-03-01, 06:44 PM
The most common houserule is probably making them proficient with unarmed strikes.
Absolutely. But beyond this, I have used a RAW Monk. It certainly takes some work to make the class playable. The three essentials, to my thinking, are:

Invisible Fist Alternative Class Feature (Exemplars of Evil, page 21): get full-round invisibility every 3 rounds
Sparring Dummy of the Master (Arms and Equipment Guide, page 137): train to make 10' adjustments as well as 5' steps
Necklace of Natural Attacks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a) (Savage Species): add magical enhancements to unarmed strikes

sofawall
2010-03-01, 06:44 PM
- get the same kind of unarmed damage
If you count unarmed damage as damage when unarmed, sure. If you count unarmed damage as the size of your damage dice, that's not very realistic.

- get the same number of stunning fist attempts/day
Which has nothing to do with fighting unarmed.

- get the same number of attacks
I think you mean same average damage against a range of AC values, because number of attacks is useless in a vacuum.

- get the same number of bonus feats necessary/helpful for unarmed combat
Bonus feats aren't needed when Domain abilities and Devotion feats do just as well.

tyckspoon
2010-03-01, 06:48 PM
But combined with wisdom based casters they become really good. Not only will your Wis-AC become great, but becoming an outsider allows a lot of fun tricks with Alter Self.


:smallconfused: You don't become an Outsider until level 20. You've had Shapechange for 3 levels and Polymorph for more than 10 if you put any effort in getting it. Alter Self Outsider + a low-level character is pretty awesome. Alter Self Outsider + a level 20 Druid..? I don't see the point.


Flurry of Blows is awesome with the massive strength bonus of bears and other big creatures, and you can use Unarmed Strikes if they are better than your natural attacks.

You can use them in addition to, in fact. Unarmed Strikes as your primary attack sequence, and then all of your natural attacks used as secondary. This gets a little silly when you turn into a Dire Tiger and.. beat somebody up with your tail or something when you Pounce them.

sofawall
2010-03-01, 06:56 PM
Level 5 wood elf monk, 28 pt buy

STR 22 (15 start, 1 stat gain, +2 racial, +2 enlarge, +2 gauntlets), DEX 12, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 14, CHR 8
FEATS: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (Monk bonus feats), Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes (Monk bonus feat), Blind-Fight.
SPECIAL: Evasion, Slow Fall 20ft, Ki-Magic, Purity of Body (immune to Disease)
SKILLS: Move Silently +9 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item), Hide +5 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item, size), Spot +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Listen +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Tumble +10 (DEX, 5 ranks, MW item), Jump +19 (STR, 5 ranks, speed, synergy, MW item)
ITEMS (9000): Masterwork tools for all above skills (250 gp), Composite Longbow, Masterwork, STR 20 (900), Permanencie’d enlarged at level 16 (3,460)/or get 68 enlarge potions over the course of the levels, Gauntlets of STR +2 (4,000)
INITIATIVE: +5 (DEX, feat)
MOVE: 40ft
AC 13 (WIS, DEX, monk, size), 16 fighting defensively
HITS 31 (max d8 at first level, CON)
SAVES: Fort +5, Refl +5, Will +6 (+10 vs enchantment)
GRAPPLE: +17 (+16/+16)
UNARMED ATTACK: +8 (+7/+7); Damage 2d6+6
BOW ATTACK: +4, damage 2d6+5


The way to overcome the following challenges would be:
A huge Animated iron statue.
Outmaneuver with higher speed and shoot down from afar (or simply ignore)
A Basilisk.
Grapple to death (use blind-fight if necessary to land the touch with flurry)
A Large Fire Elemental.
Grapple/pin to death.
A Manticore on the wing.
Grapple/pin to death
A Mummy.
Grapple/pin to death
A Phase Spider.
This is a tough one. A phase spider will take out almost any character at that level (attack in surprise round, win initiative, attack again, vanish - that is two DC 17 poison saves in a row. Repeat...). The one problem for the phase spider could be to locate a hiding monk, fairly mobile monk - since sight on the etheral plane to the material plane is only 60ft.
A Troll.
Grapple/pin to death (or outrun).
A chasm.
Jump over it or drop into it with tumble up to 30ft and climb out on the other side.
A moat filled with acid.
Jump over it.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
As for chasms, then destroy door.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
Chances are this monk out-stealths them, shoots one first, then grapples to death the other one.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
Truly bad (but bad for almost all characters at that level). The monk with quite a good save vs the howling could possibly pin/grapple to death the howler before succumbing to the allip.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
Jump/climb out of the pit. Avoid AoO on way out with tumble (though not while climbing...). Trip quite a few scorpions with reach, AoO and combat reflexes.
A Grimlock assault team.
Luckily, this monk build also has blind-fight. Also, the Grimlocks do not have move silently so the monk might avoid them...
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)
Grapple to death cleric, outmanouvre/AoO zombies. Highly situational...

-Iron has hardness 10. You are likely to run out or arrows before it runs out of HP.
-Basilisk is an easy fight for the monk. I will give you that.
-Fire elemental can be grappled, yes.
-Good luck grappling a flying Manticore. It is even said to be flying at the time of the encounter.
-You have a 50% chance of losing to the Mummy outright from the despair. not an easy victory by any means. One slam has a 55% chance of killing you as well with disease.
-Phase Spider is very tough, and like you said, the Monk is likely to lose.
-Troll cannot be killed by you, and it has Track, so it can follow you if you run. Besides, since when was running away considered bypassing an encounter?
-What if the chasm is 45 ft. across? What if it is a bottomless chasm, as seems appropriate in a fantasy game?
-Again, wide moat means pain for the monk.
-Pit traps are likely to be fallen into, as your reflex is not spectacular and your search is near-worthless. This is an encounter that will not be so much bypassed as survived. As for a wooden door, it might take a few turns to smash it, and (while unaccounted for in the Same Game Test) denizens behind the door may get curious/set up an ambush.
-Your one shot at 2d6+5 is going to take out 26 hp? Especially when you have a 50% chance to hit it in the first place? Also, they can take a page out of your book. Run and shoot, they're faster than you.
-You will die unless you pull off some miracle rolls. I'm sure we both agree.
-This one is going to come down to dice rolls, essentially. A high init roll from the scorpions means you are going to be hurting. Also, with a +10, it takes three opponents to put Tumbling at a 50% rate of success. Not good odds.
-They don't need to Move Silently if they aren't moving. This is going to be a brawl, and I put my money on the team with 4 guys.
-Depends on the cleric build, honestly. If the cleric is built for grappling, you might not have such an easy time, and the zombies will pound on you in the meantime. If the Cleric is an archer, the zombies might stay close to the cleric to provide a screen against just that tactic. I agree, too situational for proper analysis.

Xenogears
2010-03-01, 06:57 PM
You can use them in addition to, in fact. Unarmed Strikes as your primary attack sequence, and then all of your natural attacks used as secondary. This gets a little silly when you turn into a Dire Tiger and.. beat somebody up with your tail or something when you Pounce them.

Headbutts. Tiger Headbutts. Unarmed Strikes should always be headbutts.

Starscream
2010-03-01, 06:59 PM
:smallconfused: You don't become an Outsider until level 20. You've had Shapechange for 3 levels and Polymorph for more than 10 if you put any effort in getting it. Alter Self Outsider + a low-level character is pretty awesome. Alter Self Outsider + a level 20 Druid..? I don't see the point.

Don't see the point in getting almost the same benefit from a spell that's seven slots lower?

Optimystik
2010-03-01, 07:01 PM
Don't see the point in getting almost the same benefit from a spell that's seven slots lower?

How are you getting that spell if you have 20 levels of Monk?

Xenogears
2010-03-01, 07:03 PM
How are you getting that spell if you have 20 levels of Monk?

It was suggested for gestalt....

Curmudgeon
2010-03-01, 07:04 PM
Headbutts. Tiger Headbutts. Unarmed Strikes should always be headbutts.
Especially useful for tripping, those headbutts.

Starscream
2010-03-01, 07:05 PM
How are you getting that spell if you have 20 levels of Monk?

I'm talking about a gestalt build.

I'm not saying that monks are necessarily the best class to gestalt with, but they have enough cool abilities that almost anyone can benefit from them. Being a res-able outsider is almost useless to a monk by himself, but to a spellcaster it can be invaluable.

InaVegt
2010-03-01, 07:06 PM
Don't see the point in getting almost the same benefit from a spell that's seven slots lower?

Let me calculate something. To use your trick, I need to be epic levels. I need to have 20 levels of monk and 3 levels of wizard.

Not only do I get to cast polymorph more often as a 23rd level wizard than your trick gets to cast alter self, I also have the epic spellcasting as a 23rd level wizard, something your trick decidedly lacks. And that's ignoring the goodies in the upper non-epic spell levels your trick is missing out on.

Fhaolan
2010-03-01, 07:07 PM
A few years ago I guest-DM'ed* at a game (3.0, core-only) where a Monk PC was dominating the game. It turns out it was because the regular DM had misinterpreted the rules fairly severely allowing the Monk to use the Combat Reflexes feat to add a number of attacks (at max BaB) equal to their dex bonus against every opponent in reach if the monk beat their initiative. I never did find out what combination of rule misinterpretations led to that.

So it's entirely possible to make monks overpowered. It's probably possible to make *any* class overpowered if you misunderstand the rules. Once the monk had been corrected in that game he was no longer as dominating, but there were follow-on issues with the trip-fighter that I wasn't clear on, and the strange case of a multi-classed Wizard/Druid with druid spellcasting that had somehow became divine spontaneous casting. It was a weird game, rules-wise.

* This is a weird concept, but I've been asked to do that on several occasions. I'd basically take over some NPC's roleplaying and assist the regular DM in a vastly more complex scenario than they would be willing to run on their own.

tyckspoon
2010-03-01, 07:09 PM
Don't see the point in getting almost the same benefit from a spell that's seven slots lower?

Not when Alter Self limits you to 5 HD forms and grants many, many fewer abilities, no. You can Shapechange into an angel. You can't get anywhere near that power from Alter Self. And if you really want to, you can easily build the Druid portion of your gestalt with the ability to straight up Wildshape into outsiders.

JonestheSpy
2010-03-01, 07:12 PM
The last campaign before my current one actually had a druid/monk - multiclass, not gestalt. I created a feat for such multiclassing that allowed some abilities to stack, like the monk/rogue, monk/paladin and such from the Complete Whichever book, as it fit into my campaign world quite well.

Don't know how I would've handled unarmed attacks and wildshape, as the campaign sadly didn't last long enough to reach that level. The character did have a neat trick of combining unarmed strikes with Produce Flame though.

The game I'm running now has a straight-up monk - it's set in modern times, though not really d20 Modern, so an unarmed, unarmored fighter has some obvious advantages. Can't say if the player would have decided on an unmodified monk or not, but the changes do seem to keep him pretty equal to the others.

Xenogears
2010-03-01, 07:12 PM
Especially useful for tripping, those headbutts.

I like the image of knocking someone to the ground with a headbutt...

My dream monk is a warforged that makes unarmed strikes at a distance and deals sonic damage. Magically empowered crotch thrusts...

holywhippet
2010-03-01, 07:20 PM
I played a 3.0 monk when I first took up regular D&D gaming. Just about every single fight he wound up with negative HP. During one raid on a goblin held tower he was madly using tumble because he kept running into more and more goblins which he didn't have the AC to handle. The dwarf fighter on the other hand was making mincemeat out of them.

kakiseirei
2010-03-01, 07:22 PM
My dream monk is a warforged that makes unarmed strikes at a distance and deals sonic damage. Magically empowered crotch thrusts...

I think I have found your monk... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3KKnTrOaN4)

Greenish
2010-03-01, 07:25 PM
-Iron has hardness 10. You are likely to run out or arrows before it runs out of HP.He won't run out of arrows. Because he had none to begin with.

-Your one shot at 2d6+5 is going to take out 26 hp? Especially when you have a 50% chance to hit it in the first place? Also, they can take a page out of your book. Run and shoot, they're faster than you.To be fair, most melee will have troubles with mounted archers, unless they have their own mounts.

Knaight
2010-03-01, 07:28 PM
I only play monks now, because if I play any other class I will accidentally dramatically outpower the rest of the D&D group I play in. But D&D isn't a game I play that often anyways, as I'm usually the GM and I GM Fudge.

El Dorado
2010-03-01, 07:29 PM
I played a level 10 human monk in a 3.0 Forgotten Realms campaign (3.5 was a few weeks from its debut). I knew nothing about optimizing. He was a 28 point buy (12 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 12 Int, 14 Wis prior to level adjustments). I remember that the majority of my item purchases were to shore up my AC (ring of protection, amulet of natural armor). I opted for spring attack and I think I had weapon finesse, blindfight and deflect arrows (no combat reflexes, improved trip or grapple, reach weapons, etc).

He held his own in fights against humanoid opponents (drow in particular). I remember being frustratingly ineffective in a fight against a large dragon (I could not hit it and I hated the idea of staying near it so our rogue could flank it.

The lessons I learned were 1) I didn't know the rules well enough to make best use of the monk's abilities and 2) while some of the abilities were neat (stunning fist, slow fall, deflect arrows), the monk (for me) wasn't really a class that worked well out of the box.

I think these days I would do a much better job even if I were limited to the PHB. I would be an interesting challenge.

Cisturn
2010-03-01, 07:30 PM
i dont understand why there are so many monk threads, i mean i get that they have camp value for being awesomely bad but yeesh, this is like the third this week. And yeah i know i'm a hypocrite for commenting and continuing it.

sofawall
2010-03-01, 07:35 PM
You missed the month of the monk. Every other day was another monk thread. Roland started just locking (most) Monk threads, it was getting so out of hand.

Ernir
2010-03-01, 07:36 PM
I have seen an unmodified Monk. It was in a group of newbies, so unoptimized all round. I genuinely saw an opportunity to use Slow Fall. At the time I wasn't impressed, but looking back it's a fond D&D memory.

I have seen it too. Relative newbies all around. They started at level 1, and were up to level 3 when the Monk's player joined. He was the most experienced of the bunch, having played a bunch of 3.0 some years ago.

Except...

The Monk died in the second combat, after, IIRC, dealing a total of 4 damage and never succeeding on an opposed check.
No one wanted him raised. Not even the player.

Tinydwarfman
2010-03-01, 07:42 PM
Well...

...probably my views on monks are well-known...:smallwink:

Just a very short roundup (core rulesset perspective):

- monks get most attacks at highest BAB (even at medium BAB progression that's good)
- monks get unarmed damage progression which can be boosted in core to 6d8 per hit by level 15. Depending on your interpretation to 100s dice8s in non-core environment. Definitely a match for sneak or power attack damage boosts.
- they are less MAD than other melee classes. This is because they get key bonus feats for melee combat without needing the prereqs. (e.g. A barbarian cannot start 1st level with improved grapple unless the race is human (since it takes 2 feats). A monk can be an orc or half-orc or wood elf for the racial STR bonus. Plus, the enlarge buff lowers DEX which is no problem for a monk, but for all other classes needing to boost both STR AND DEX since improved grapple feat needs a minimum DEX of 13).
- their defensive qualities are very good (SR, touch AC, immunities, all-high saves).
- there are very mobile in combat, from low levels onwards
- contrary to popular belief, they do get a bunch of useful abilities that complement each other (higher speed gets you closer to enemy faster to land more attacks, stunning fist gets you full round attack opportunities, etheralness adds to stealth skills, tongues ability with diplomacy class skill and so on)

To make up for these goodies, monks get some drawbacks vs other melee classes (although there are methods to - partially - overcome them)
- medium BAB (but BAB is not that necessary for grappling and, above all trip - plus it can be temporarily boosted with divine power spells)
- medium hp (but their stealth skills and self-healing can make up for that)
- lowish AC in low levels (but mage armour buff and tumble with fighting defensively can help a lot here, as can methods to get total concealment and stealth)
etc.

Using Jacob Orlove's example challenges for CR 5 and CR 10 from the posts above, let us take the following example core monk build:

Level 5 wood elf monk, 28 pt buy

STR 22 (15 start, 1 stat gain, +2 racial, +2 enlarge, +2 gauntlets), DEX 12, CON 12, INT 10, WIS 14, CHR 8
FEATS: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (Monk bonus feats), Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes (Monk bonus feat), Blind-Fight.
SPECIAL: Evasion, Slow Fall 20ft, Ki-Magic, Purity of Body (immune to Disease)
SKILLS: Move Silently +9 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item), Hide +5 (DEX, 6 ranks, MW item, size), Spot +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Listen +11 (WIS, 5 ranks, MW item, racial), Tumble +10 (DEX, 5 ranks, MW item), Jump +19 (STR, 5 ranks, speed, synergy, MW item)
ITEMS (9000): Masterwork tools for all above skills (250 gp), Composite Longbow, Masterwork, STR 20 (900), Permanencie’d enlarged at level 16 (3,460)/or get 68 enlarge potions over the course of the levels, Gauntlets of STR +2 (4,000)
INITIATIVE: +5 (DEX, feat)
MOVE: 40ft
AC 13 (WIS, DEX, monk, size), 16 fighting defensively
HITS 31 (max d8 at first level, CON)
SAVES: Fort +5, Refl +5, Will +6 (+10 vs enchantment)
GRAPPLE: +17 (+16/+16)
UNARMED ATTACK: +8 (+7/+7); Damage 2d6+6
BOW ATTACK: +4, damage 2d6+5


The way to overcome the following challenges would be:
A huge Animated iron statue.
Outmaneuver with higher speed and shoot down from afar (or simply ignore)
A Basilisk.
Grapple to death (use blind-fight if necessary to land the touch with flurry)
A Large Fire Elemental.
Grapple/pin to death.
A Manticore on the wing.
Grapple/pin to death
A Mummy.
Grapple/pin to death
A Phase Spider.
This is a tough one. A phase spider will take out almost any character at that level (attack in surprise round, win initiative, attack again, vanish - that is two DC 17 poison saves in a row. Repeat...). The one problem for the phase spider could be to locate a hiding monk, fairly mobile monk - since sight on the etheral plane to the material plane is only 60ft.
A Troll.
Grapple/pin to death (or outrun).
A chasm.
Jump over it or drop into it with tumble up to 30ft and climb out on the other side.
A moat filled with acid.
Jump over it.
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
As for chasms, then destroy door.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
Chances are this monk out-stealths them, shoots one first, then grapples to death the other one.
A Howler/Allip tag team.
Truly bad (but bad for almost all characters at that level). The monk with quite a good save vs the howling could possibly pin/grapple to death the howler before succumbing to the allip.
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
Jump/climb out of the pit. Avoid AoO on way out with tumble (though not while climbing...). Trip quite a few scorpions with reach, AoO and combat reflexes.
A Grimlock assault team.
Luckily, this monk build also has blind-fight. Also, the Grimlocks do not have move silently so the monk might avoid them...
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)
Grapple to death cleric, outmanouvre/AoO zombies. Highly situational...


Level 10 wood elf monk, 28 pt buy

STR 25 (15 start, 2 stat gains, +2 racial, +2 enlarge, +4 belt), DEX 12, CON 14 (+2 amulet), INT 10, WIS 14, CHR 8
FEATS: Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple (Monk bonus feats), Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes (Monk bonus feat), Blind-Fight, Improved Trip (monk bonus feat), improved natural attack, weapon focus-unarmed strike.
SPECIAL: Improved Evasion, Slow Fall 50ft, Ki-Magic/Lawful, Purity of Body (immune to Disease), Wholeness of body (20 hits/day)
SKILLS: Move Silently +13 (DEX, 10 ranks, MW item), Hide +9 (DEX, 10 ranks, MW item, size), Spot +11 (WIS, 9 ranks, MW item, racial), Listen +12 (WIS, 9 ranks, MW item, racial), Tumble +14 (DEX, 9 ranks, MW item, synergy), Jump +28 (STR, 5 ranks, speed, synergy, MW item),
ITEMS (49,000): Masterwork tools for all above skills (300 gp), Composite Longbow+1, STR 22 (3,000), Permanencie’d enlarge, level 16 (3,460), Belt of STR +4 (16,000), Boots of Speed (12,000), Ring of Deflection +1 (2,000), Eversmoking Bottle (5,400), Amulet of Health CON+2 (4,000), cloak of resistance +1 (1,000), Bracers of AC +1 (1,000)
INITIATIVE: +5 (DEX, feat)
MOVE: 60ft
AC 16 (WIS, DEX, monk, size, armour), 19 fighting defensively
HITS 64 (max d8 at first level, CON)
SAVES: Fort +10, Refl +9, Will +10 (+14 vs enchantment)
GRAPPLE: +22 (+21/+21/+16)
TRIP: +15
UNARMED ATTACK: +14 (+13/+13/+8); Damage 3d8+7
BOW ATTACK: +8/+3, damage 2d6+7


A hallway filled with magical runes.
Too vague. But improved evasion and good saves will help a lot.
A Fire Giant.
I agree, but if the giant gets lucky he could off you with one attack (that pretty much auto hits)...
A Young Blue Dragon.
It can breath weapon you, has more hp, does more damage, can fly, has frightful presence AND has a higher grapple mod than you? ...that's not even counting 3rd level casting. I don't follow your logic. It is one CR higher though.
I could see you possibly wining against the CR 8 juvenile...
A Bebilith.
Also lose.
A Vrock.
I don't see you winning with it's SLAs.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Put up full concealment and let the tripping fun begin.:smallwink:
An Evil Necromancer.
Grapple/pin to death with stealth and surprise on your side (catching not-yet-contingency-necromancer flat-footed/off guard).
6 Trolls.
Put up full concealment and sneak away. Or evade them altogether.
A horde of Shadows.
Put some distance between shadows and yourself and start shooting them with the bow.

Hopefully that provided some answers for the OP and others (no need to go into CR 15, the monk like other classes is getting ever-more powerful in those levels).
In almost all of the above encounters, a fairly simple melee combat-oriented monk can overcome same CR challenges.

- Giacomo

Ok, I will verify some of these:

A huge Animated iron statue.
This helps your party how?
A Basilisk.
I can see this one, very solo-able
A Large Fire Elemental.
The fire elemental has DR 5 and will damage you 2d6 even if you grapple it... You'll win, but you'll definitely have taken a lot a damage, statistically it will also win initiative and spring attack you with higher speed... exactly what you recommend in some fights.
A Manticore on the wing.
The manticore will nail you with it's spikes and when you can close with it it only has a grapple mod 2 less than yours... could very possibly lose
A Mummy.
sure, but you are not immune to mummy rot. You still very probably win though
A Phase Spider.
Yay, lets hide until the scary spider goes away! You are right though, any melee would have trouble with this.
A Troll.
sure, I'll assume you have a way of permakilling it.
A chasm.
Depends on how large, but a monk does have a better chance than say, a barbarian, unless the barb put points in climb.
A moat filled with acid.
monks do get nice jump
A locked door behind a number of pit traps.
I do believe you have to find the traps? Monk also can't ignore hardness yet.
A couple of Centaur Archers in the woods.
So monk can stealth grapple, how does he deal w/ hit and run tactics?
A Howler/Allip tag team.
-
A pit filled with medium monstrous scorpions.
I do not believe your monk has imp. trip? Could possibly escape in his own though.
A Grimlock assault team.
With the monk's pitiful AC he would be quickly but down.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his zombies)
I agree, very hard to judge, but w/ a smart cleric he has no chance




A hallway filled with magical runes.
Too vague. But improved evasion and good saves will help a lot.
A Fire Giant.
Trip and full attack. With higher stealth and initiative, a surprise round plus a first round of attack could mean up to 15d8+35 damage. After that, the fire giant has to get up and do one attack. Another full attack ensues, killing the fire giant. It is not a safe win, but a likely one.
A Young Blue Dragon.
Grapple/pin to death
A Bebilith.
Tough one, for all melee classes. The monk build likely loses here. (could outmaneuver/evade the bebilith, though)
A Vrock.
Grapple/pin to death (Vrock can escape with teleport, though). But that likely loses - a better chance would be tripping and full attacks.
A tag team of Mind Flayers.
Very nice, I like your use of eversmoking bottle. Not exactly party-oriented though. (although I can't remember a mind-flayers abilities, so this might not work)
An Evil Necromancer.
I dunno, this one is too vague. if the necro has zombies, your dead. If he has non somatic spells (such as dimm door), also dead. Even assuming you get the drop.
6 Trolls.
Yay for more running away!
A horde of Shadows.
Nice, although this will take a loooooong time.




Also, you assume permanency'd enlarge when most people probably can get it. Without the size, you would be dead long before you reached level 10 without some serious help.

EDIT: dammit, half ninja'd!

Andras
2010-03-01, 07:45 PM
Headbutts. Tiger Headbutts.

Sagat is probably kicking himself now for not thinking of that one.

Xenogears
2010-03-01, 07:47 PM
Sagat is probably kicking himself now for not thinking of that one.

You have made me smile with your comment.

HunterOfJello
2010-03-01, 07:53 PM
A player who had a penchant for powergaming played an unmodified monk in my last campaign. I told him he should check out a ToB class, but he was convinced the unmodded monks were awesome.

He spent all his time frustrated at the game because he could never hit anything. Eventually, he got pissed off and the group fell apart.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 08:02 PM
My dream monk is a warforged that makes unarmed strikes at a distance and deals sonic damage.(Permamencied) Blood Wind with archmage's Mastery of Elements. Won't work by RAW (or RAI), but meh.

Mushroom Ninja
2010-03-01, 08:13 PM
A few things jump out at me initially:



A Large Fire Elemental.
Grapple/pin to death.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't it have a 85% chance of hitting you and deal 16 damage on on average hit (51.6% of your total HP)?



A Manticore on the wing.
Grapple/pin to death
You fly?

Note: I've probably been multi-ninja'd on these.

Jarrick
2010-03-01, 08:30 PM
Im not allowed to play monks after I took the vow of poverty, peace, and non-violence on my diplomancer character (As a noob, I didn't even know that diplomancing was optimizing at the time). I was hard to kill, but I was even harder to get into a fight with.

Other than that I've never had any problems playing a monk. I like their survivability. I'd rather live through the battle than do something flashy and cute only to find myself failing the save against the the beholder's finger of death ray.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 08:48 PM
Other than that I've never had any problems playing a monk. I like their survivability. I'd rather live through the battle than do something flashy and cute only to find myself failing the save against the the beholder's finger of death ray.Better idea: instead of fighting beholders, stay at home! Much better survivability than most adventurers can dream of, and no one will even expect you to contribute!

krossbow
2010-03-01, 08:50 PM
my group had an unmodded monk in our group once. we finally just started chucking him into the room first to draw fire as he was completely useless.

Jarrick
2010-03-01, 09:12 PM
Better idea: instead of fighting beholders, stay at home! Much better survivability than most adventurers can dream of, and no one will even expect you to contribute!

Dude, Harsh! :smallfrown:

It's not a competition. I have more fun when everyone isn't racing each other to kill the monsters first in the most spectacular ways conceivable. "It's a little thing I call roleplaying." :smallamused:

That isn't to say I'm against optimizing. I'll admit, I have had a fantastic time rendering my party useless by comparison in the past, but that just makes everyone want to switch chars so I've stopped doing it. I come up with characters first, then I come up with a stat block, not the other way around. That's not to say I don't still pick up some neat tricks here and there though. :smallbiggrin:

Eldariel
2010-03-01, 09:18 PM
Sagat is probably kicking himself now for not thinking of that one.

This is the best post of the day. Well played, sir.

Scorpions__
2010-03-01, 09:30 PM
In my current Level 1 - 30+ campaign, I have a player who has so far been a straight monk, with vow of poverty. The only house ruling I made was that he could multiclass back and forth as he pleased (unbalanced in any way?) because he wants to go into shadowdancer later on.

Throughout he's been having a great time with the character, he often uses stunning fist, at one point he stunned a troll that was spider climbing on the side of a bridge, that troll then fell to his doom on the spikes below. Regardless of optimization, he does quite well and contributes to the group respectably.

As it's been posted, an unmodified monk isn't bad at all if you don't have optimizers in the party.





DM[F]R

Greenish
2010-03-01, 09:31 PM
It's not a competition. I have more fun when everyone isn't racing each other to kill the monsters first in the most spectacular ways conceivable.I do feel you misrepresent my stance. I'm trying to say that in addition to being able to survive, you should also be able to contribute. That doesn't mean you'd need to race to kill stuff in "flashy" or "cute" ways.
"It's a little thing I call roleplaying." :smallamused:Nice condescension there.

Jarrick
2010-03-01, 09:59 PM
Nice condescension there.

It's also a :haley: quote. :smallwink:


I'm trying to say that in addition to being able to survive, you should also be able to contribute.

I'm inclined to agree with you. I just don't believe the monk is so bad that it can't contribute. Perhaps I overexaggerated, I apologize. I just don't see what all this nonsense about the monk being useless is about. I blame it more on the optimizers than the class itself. If everone is sub-optimal, then no one sucks. The DM just has to reduce the challenges accordingly, which makes DMs happy too because they can more easily challenge the players.

Greenish
2010-03-01, 10:11 PM
I blame it more on the optimizers than the class itself.Hmm, seeing that your definition of "optimizing" is "rendering my party useless by comparison", that almost makes sense.


If everone is sub-optimal, then no one sucks.http://www.codeodor.com/images/homer_doh.png

Jarrick
2010-03-01, 10:17 PM
I give up.