Easiest monk fix evar!

[Darth Stabber]

So I had a flash of simple brilliance a few days ago. How to make monk significantly better, without ruining the flavor, or changing much of anything about the class.

Add Pounce at LVL3.

the Monk's primary offensive class feature requires them to make a full attack, which means standing still. The Monk's other abilities are about them moving around the battle field. As you can see these are at odds, hence the weakness of the class, it lives at cross purposes. The answer to fixing monk is to combine the disparate abilities into a more harmonious whole. @3rd lvl monk gains one crappy class feature (still mind), just replace, or add, Pounce. There now your monk can utilize speed and flurry. To further flesh this out, maybe add some class features or bonus feats for charging around corners and more attack of opportunity avoidance, but on the whole the class gets better. The only major problem is that the class gets to be an unnaturally attractive dip, but I think that we can all live with that, the monk deserves it after all this time of being awful.

[DragoonWraith]

So Monk becomes a 3 level class instead of a 2 level class. And Monk 2/Barbarian 1 is still considerably better. Sorry, it's not nearly enough. It's a good addition, but not enough.

The easiest Monk fix ever is to use a Swordsage.

[The Rose Dragon]

It still doesn't fix the other issues of the monk, however. Like the confused class features that lack a theme, the reliance on magic items to be useful despite being unable to utilize the two most common magic item classes (weapons and armor), the lack of a clear party role (is he a sneaky assassin, a front-line combatant, a party face, etc.) and so on.

[Doc Roc]

Easiest monk fix ever:
Use someone else's carefully tested and thoroughly designed fix. There are only eleven hundred of them.

[Tinydwarfman]

Easiest monk fix ever:
Use someone else's carefully tested and thoroughly designed fix. There are only eleven hundred of them.

Speaking of, I think your monk is awesome, except for Ten Mirrored Steps. I'd really like to see an ACF for that ability, just like you did with Run on Air. And what is up with dance of the sun and moon progressing to 12th, when the class is only 10 levels?

[Doc Roc]

Speaking of, I think your monk is awesome, except for Ten Mirrored Steps. I'd really like to see an ACF for that ability, just like you did with Run on Air. And what is up with dance of the sun and moon progressing to 12th, when the class is only 10 levels?

Eventually, there will be a 20 level version, but as it sits, you can progress DoM&S with a number of PrCs, and the listed feats. As for the Ten Mirrored Steps ACF, I think Chris wrote one at some point, but the issue is that it was really nice to be able to count on it as a constant class feature, because then other ACFs could augment or modify it. I definitely am less enamored of that part of the class now than I was, so I'll be thinking about it a good bit.

[Zeta Kai]

Easiest monk fix ever:
UNARMED THWORDTHAGE!!!

Fixed it for you. :smallbiggrin:

[Doc Roc]

Fixed it for you. :smallbiggrin:

I am of the opinion that it is way too easy to screw up while building an USS, and so I normally experience some trepidation when recommending it to monk-favoring individuals. I mean, you figure they have a track record, neh? It's not profiling, it's profiling!

[DragoonWraith]

Heh, I very much do like that fix, Doc Roc - I didn't realize that was yours. It's excellent. Did you see I'd made a PrC based on it? Tis the one in my sig. Not particularly well balanced at the moment, but I'm working on it.

[Doc Roc]

No... I uh.... didn't realize that someone had made a PrC, much less you. That's hilarious. Let me look.