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View Full Version : I Have a Mind to Fix the Monk - So What Needs Doing?



Cogidubnus
2011-02-11, 03:44 PM
The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

Kurald Galain
2011-02-11, 03:45 PM
Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

Psyren
2011-02-11, 03:47 PM
Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

One word: Psionics

Cogidubnus
2011-02-11, 03:47 PM
Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

I don't like this idea, I want to build the actual class.

Ed: Please, I know my way around the classes. I don't want alternatives, just tell me what needs fixing.

MeeposFire
2011-02-11, 03:47 PM
Actually outside of combat monks do OK. They have a decent (though not great) number of skill points and a good list.

Biggest thing make flurry work with all attacks similar to snap kick helps them synergize their class features. They would then be mobile and dangerous.

Telonius
2011-02-11, 03:53 PM
The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

Quite a long time ago, there was a thread about what would actually be necessary for melee character to stand any sort of a shot against a Wizard. The list of things was pretty long. You need a way to neutralize contingent spells, a way to win initiative, a way to deprive tactical mobility, a way to prevent planar travel/teleport, a way to foil divinations that would let the Wizard know you're coming after him (i.e. deny him preparation), a way to overcome no-save "I win" buttons like Forcecage & company, a way to negate miss chance (since the Wizard will have lots of miss chance spells up), and a way to do about ten others that I've forgotten by now. If you are really serious about point 4, you will need to deal with all of that.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-11, 03:56 PM
Quite a long time ago, there was a thread about what would actually be necessary for melee character to stand any sort of a shot against a Wizard. The list of things was pretty long. You need a way to neutralize contingent spells, a way to win initiative, a way to deprive tactical mobility, a way to prevent planar travel/teleport, a way to foil divinations that would let the Wizard know you're coming after him (i.e. deny him preparation), a way to overcome no-save "I win" buttons like Forcecage & company, a way to negate miss chance (since the Wizard will have lots of miss chance spells up), and a way to do about ten others that I've forgotten by now. If you are really serious about point 4, you will need to deal with all of that.

He's never going to beat a wizard from these boards, let's be frank. But you have given me a great idea. Some per day etherealness. That seems suitably cool to me. Get you out of forcecage too.

Tvtyrant
2011-02-11, 03:59 PM
My fix for the monk I made for a friend was the Friar; it treated all spells as being partially real (as if the were shadow spells) so it reduced their damage by a percentile. Later it made them even less real and got the ability to create an anti-magic zone around themselves and got a number of class abilities named things like "Flying Double Spinning Backkick" which acted like a moving Whirlwind attack; low damage but it could hit a lot of enemies and had a stun chance on enemies that got higher the more times it hit. Roundhouse kick was like a normal whirlwind attack+Great Cleave where it allowed you to hit each enemy in a circle around you once, and if one got dropped you did it again.

Basic premise was that the Friar used its Faith to reinforce the normality of the universe, causing spells to fall apart. Worked on Divine and Arcane spells, but you couldn't use Ki attacks while creating and anti-magic zone.

dsmiles
2011-02-11, 04:25 PM
You need to reduce the number of ability scores that they rely on.

Draculmaulkee
2011-02-11, 04:27 PM
Frank and K made a pretty good monk fix at http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547.
You might get some good ideas from their take on the monk.
Note: you'll have to scroll down to the third post to find their monk class.

The Cat Goddess
2011-02-11, 04:36 PM
You need to reduce the number of ability scores that they rely on.

This, by alot. And the "Flurry of Blows works on Standard Attacks" fix.

Also:
Offer them a choice of Zen Archery (Wis for Ranged Attacks, only make it stack with Dex), the equivalent of Shadow Blade (Dex to damage in Melee) or the Snapkick Feat. Offer it around level 4-5.
Give them Mettle around level 7-8? It's an appropriately Monk-ish ability.
I forget when Monks get the Abundant Step ability... but everyone forgets that you can go up with it (and falling isn't a big deal for a Monk). Make sure it's only a Move action, doesn't disorient and is available Level/x (x=2 or 3) per day. Maybe even increase the range?
Give them "Improved Mettle" (works like Improved Evasion) around level 14.

Hyfigh
2011-02-11, 04:41 PM
1) I've personally always fancied monks as the quick hitters in the game. Regular Fighter-types depend on single (well, fewer), heavy hits. Rogue-types depend on being able to flank and get in a more hits while they are flanking. Monk-types, in my opinion, should be able to just keep hitting. I like the mechanics of the Blood-in-the-water/Lightning Macers that can come of ToB. Having a function that lets a monk crit more things (more creature types), and crit more often could allow for a function similar to the Lightning macer. This is, of course, if the ability is triggered on crits - other mechanics could have better/worse results. Obvisouly, it should be capped for a number of additional attacks, but I see no reason to make that number high. Multiple, lower damage attacks should ultimately function the same as a small number of heavy damage hits.

This also has the benefit of sticking to an in-kind fluff to flurry of blows.

2) Class feature replacement will be tough. The monk shouldn't be too overpowered, but shouldn't be underpowered. Intermingle some of the VoP benefits from the feat itself - obviously removing the "you can't have those items" stipulation. That helps, but doesn't make it. You still have quite a bit to over-come a Batman. I'd say that for these items the monk should have mostly defensive mechanisms. Monks should have high saves, moderate to good AC without armor, and a high SR. I think of them as a kind of anti-caster. Providing the AC bonus to saves should eliminate the issue with their saves being a little low, in the end. Alternatively (or together with this), you could make a function similar to Paladins, wherein Wisdom keys a bonus to all three saves. Their AC seems to be OK, for the most part, especially with the VoP boost while still being able to use items. Their SR should probably end up around 1.5 x their level (30 at level 20). This way it actually poses some form of a challange. They will need ways to overcome stuff like Forcecage, but a teleport, or, as mentioned, etherealness would work here.

3) Monks have in-combat flexability, they just don't get much out of what they offer - see stunning fist. Improving class features will fix this. As mentioned, they have a reasonable skill list and point pool. Providing some class features that aren't strictly combat oriented really could help with their out-of-combat usefulness.

4) Dealing with Batman is a specialized ordeal. I don't think Monks should outright be able to stomp a Batman, but with enough changes they won't end up as such push-overs.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-14, 12:04 PM
If anyone's interested, here's what I've built so far (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10373166#post10373166). PEACH?

Doc Roc
2011-02-14, 12:07 PM
Actually, the PD monk routinely killed careless wizards in the test of spite.

Doug Lampert
2011-02-14, 12:42 PM
The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

Monk fix takes second place to the melee fix if you need one. (Not everyone needs a melee fix, because some casters are like pre-darth V and just blast.)

But if you need a caster/melee fix, then that takes precedence and the easiest one is to play a different system (fourth ed will do, but so will lots of others). 3.x is simply broken with optimized casters, too many options, too many of which are individually broken. You can't squash them all, especially not in a game that's not core only (core is the most broken part of the system, but it's LIMITED, splats multiply).

Given a general melee fix and full BAB the biggest remaining thing for combat is that flurry of blows is usable as a standard action or as the first part of a full attack. (And you need to get rid of the disadvantages of the "capstone" abilities, spell resistance and outsider type both have real problems as well as real benefits.)

Word of warning: You need to watch out for synergy on a fixed monk. Upgrade it too much and everyone will take 2 monk levels. Which is silly if you're not playing wuxia.

DougL

jiriku
2011-02-14, 01:02 PM
Try the revised monk in my sig. It's very close to the "look and feel" of the original monk, but balanced to contribute much more effectively. At higher levels it even has several solid anti-caster defenses. You can lift the whole thing for your campaign, or just steal whatever looks nice for your own monk homebrew.

navar100
2011-02-15, 02:36 PM
Pathfinder treats Flurry of Blows as two-weapon fighting. For flurry purposes the monk's BAB is level - 2, equivalent to the attack bonus of a fighter using two-weapons, before strength, feats, magic weapon, etc.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 02:38 PM
Pathfinder treats Flurry of Blows as two-weapon fighting. For flurry purposes the monk's BAB is level - 2, equivalent to the attack bonus of a fighter using two-weapons, before strength, feats, magic weapon, etc.

What I found with Pathfinder's monk was the ONLY thing they really fixed was Flurry. MAD? Still got that. Super-situational abilities? Still got them. Compensation for this? Not that I saw.

MeeposFire
2011-02-15, 02:42 PM
What I found with Pathfinder's monk was the ONLY thing they really fixed was Flurry. MAD? Still got that. Super-situational abilities? Still got them. Compensation for this? Not that I saw.

I consider this not a fix. Flurry's biggest problem was the fact it is a full attack action which does not help with the skirmisher style class features that monks have.

Further they only gave monks full BAB on a flurry (where they can actually use it to best effect) but not normally. That is just confusing and makes us have to keep track of two separate BAB progressions.

I hate the PF flurry. It masquerades as a fix but it really is not much better and is in fact worse in some ways.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 02:44 PM
I consider this not a fix. Flurry's biggest problem was the fact it is a full attack action which does not help with the skirmisher style class features that monks have.

Further they only gave monks full BAB on a flurry (where they can actually use it to best effect) but not normally. That is just confusing and makes us have to keep track of two separate BAB progressions.

I hate the PF flurry. It masquerades as a fix but it really is not much better and is in fact worse in some ways.

Mine's better :smallbiggrin:

MeeposFire
2011-02-15, 02:48 PM
Mine's better :smallbiggrin:

Your fix is similar to mine with slightly different wording (something like "when you make an attack on your turn" sort of deal). I like to describe it as the snap kick fix.

true_shinken
2011-02-15, 02:49 PM
You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

MeeposFire
2011-02-15, 02:52 PM
You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

Yea and there seems to be one every week on this website since I started paying attention. People want a decent monk. It is unfortunate that 3.5 does not have one (using another class to mimic it aside) since the number of fixes show that it is quite popular.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 02:56 PM
You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

And mostly I only trust homebrew from these boards. Unfortunately, fix is too short a word to search here.

RndmNumGen
2011-02-15, 03:01 PM
Yea and there seems to be one every week on this website since I started paying attention. People want a decent monk.

Not entirely correct. People want a official, decent monk. That's why Tashlatora and Swordsage crop up so often even though there are a ton of homebrew fixes.

true_shinken
2011-02-15, 03:06 PM
Not entirely correct. People want a official, decent monk. That's why Tashlatora and Swordsage crop up so often even though there are a ton of homebrew fixes.
Exactly.
'fixes' seem really unnecessary, for me, at least. If you're in a high power environment, you could just use cheese to get more power. In you're in a low power environment, you don't need a fix because you're strong enough. It's not about filling an archetype or anything... people just seem to love writing 'monk fixes' for some reason.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 03:13 PM
Exactly.
'fixes' seem really unnecessary, for me, at least. If you're in a high power environment, you could just use cheese to get more power. In you're in a low power environment, you don't need a fix because you're strong enough. It's not about filling an archetype or anything... people just seem to love writing 'monk fixes' for some reason.

Because every week there's another "why is the Monk useless" thread. Also, some people don't like or can't use cheese to the necessary extent, or want to preserve the actual feel of the Monk, which is often ruined by plentiful multi-classing and cheese.

randomhero00
2011-02-15, 03:26 PM
I'd say start with "pounce" at 6th level (don't want it earlier or people will just dip.)

Then give them some sort of fly ability, which can be tacked on to a current one, or made anew.

Give them abilities to choose from much like the rogues (esp from PF). Just get rid of all the dishonorable ones or ones that don't make sense (like bleed).

Up there SR by 5 or 10.

Give them a climb speed at some point pre level 10.

Allow them to use flurry as a standard action. Also allow them to use flurry with thrown weapons (like daggers).

edit and probably full bab but not sure. You'd have to test it out. Cause the thing is, if they get all the yummy stuff, AND full bab AND all good saves, why play other melee.

true_shinken
2011-02-15, 03:39 PM
Because every week there's another "why is the Monk useless" thread. Also, some people don't like or can't use cheese to the necessary extent, or want to preserve the actual feel of the Monk, which is often ruined by plentiful multi-classing and cheese.

Those threads are just a cicle of repeating lies. The Monk is not useless. It's weak, sure. That's nowhere near useless. Every now and then you get a thead about something awesome a Monk did.
Power balance is nowhere near as important to the game as more recent players tend to think.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 03:54 PM
Those threads are just a cicle of repeating lies. The Monk is not useless. It's weak, sure. That's nowhere near useless. Every now and then you get a thead about something awesome a Monk did.
Power balance is nowhere near as important to the game as more recent players tend to think.

It depends on your game. If you're playing a high-level PbP on these boards, it might be hard to do anything in-game, or even just get past the selection process.

On the other hand, if I'm just DMing for my three mates, Monks are fine as they are. They play fighters, barbarians, paladins and rogues, and that's about it.

MeeposFire
2011-02-15, 04:12 PM
Not entirely correct. People want a official, decent monk. That's why Tashlatora and Swordsage crop up so often even though there are a ton of homebrew fixes.

Which is why I wrote that outside of using other classes to mimic being a monk people want a decent single classmonk. I like swordsage for my purpose but for some they want the name monk on their character sheet and it is unfortunate that the base monk class is so terribly designed.

true_shinken
2011-02-15, 04:15 PM
It depends on your game. If you're playing a high-level PbP on these boards, it might be hard to do anything in-game, or even just get past the selection process.
That is a "problem" about non-casters. Not a problem about Monk.
I say "problem" because any reasonable GM can make adventures so high level casters need high level non-casters as well.


On the other hand, if I'm just DMing for my three mates, Monks are fine as they are. They play fighters, barbarians, paladins and rogues, and that's about it.
The problem is not what people play. Wizards have always been better than Fighters in D&D. You just get the 'fighters suck' thing now because somehow people began thinking swinging a blade really hard should be as powerful as bending reality itself.

Just see how many published Monk 'fixes' there are. Trailblazer has one, Pathfinder has one, Iron Heroes has one. Arcana Evolved probably has one as well. Do you really want to spend your time and effort on something that has already been done time and time again? If yes, why? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.

MeeposFire
2011-02-15, 04:38 PM
Yea and how many of those monk fixes are actually good. For instance the PF monk is not that good. It likes to think it is good but really they did not fix the number one issue of flurry (full attack action on a character that wants to move around and be a skirmisher).

Cogidubnus
2011-02-15, 04:41 PM
That is a "problem" about non-casters. Not a problem about Monk.
I say "problem" because any reasonable GM can make adventures so high level casters need high level non-casters as well.


The problem is not what people play. Wizards have always been better than Fighters in D&D. You just get the 'fighters suck' thing now because somehow people began thinking swinging a blade really hard should be as powerful as bending reality itself.

Just see how many published Monk 'fixes' there are. Trailblazer has one, Pathfinder has one, Iron Heroes has one. Arcana Evolved probably has one as well. Do you really want to spend your time and effort on something that has already been done time and time again? If yes, why? I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.

Well, there are several reasons. The first is that because people so often go on about it, and there's no commonly-touted fix for the Monk, so I felt it might be a challenge, which I'd enjoy.
The second is that I enjoy homebrewing anyway.
The third is that I wanted a Monk I felt was more powerful without changing its flavour, and no one's offered me a satisfactory one when I've asked in the past.

As for power, well, I don't expect a fighter to be able to alter the fabric of reality. But with ToB or some other sourcebooks you can make meleers very good at combat, at least, whereas a straight fighter or monk is unlikely to match their power and flexibility, except through shock trooper shenanigans.

But that's off topic.

T.G. Oskar
2011-02-15, 05:56 PM
The problem is not what people play. Wizards have always been better than Fighters in D&D. You just get the 'fighters suck' thing now because somehow people began thinking swinging a blade really hard should be as powerful as bending reality itself.

Erm...minor nitpick, but the reason is because these same people look in a mechanical sense. Plus most of the restrictions that Wizards had were eliminated, while those from Fighters didn't translate well.

Example: casting a spell defensively. That didn't exist on the original, and it was meant so that Wizards didn't have to worry about losing their spells. Unfortunately, what was meant to be a decent challenge got ridiculously easy when people started to tweak with it.

Another: spell preparation time. Before, it took days to prepare your spells; now, it takes about 15 minutes, plus rest (but everyone wants to rest, no?).

Then, you have dissonant fluff: look at any Hollywood movie. It's not what happened in real life, but people wanna be that. They wanna be the Gilgamesh, the Achilles, the Heracles, the Arthur. They wanna be the Robin Hoods, they wanna be the Merlins. While there's quite a bit of realism in physical combat, the gloves are off in terms of magic; otherwise, you'd have people who'd be using Alchemy instead of Magic, and using Alchemy is awesome but not as powerful as literally rewriting reality. Unfortunately, when you have the side of spellcasters breaking all possible rules while the non-spellcaster side still has to struggle with them, and you expect that to be "normal", some people will cry foul. And that's natural; you expected to be epic, you end up a rank-and-file soldier. Even though, in realistic terms (if such a world is valid), a 6th level Fighter is better than your average real-life knight. It's just that your average 1st level Wizard is better than Ibn Senna and Theophrastus Bombastus van Hohenheim and Robert Bacon and Antoine Lavoisier, period.

So, if you want a more "credible" experience, you need to bend the notions a bit. Thus, you need non-spellcasters to keep in-line with spellcasters, and the best way is to grant ways to have non-spellcasters at least keep up. In that case, ToB and skill tricks were good steps, but not enough steps. But that's part of the later philosophy of 3.5, that which culminated in the "gone too far with balance" philosophy of 4E(ssentials)/4CCG. The monk belongs to the opposite position, that which had a much lower point.

...So yeah, it ended up a rant instead of a nitpick, but the reason why there's so much dissonance with the Monk has been explained already, and people just love to deal with it. I mean, even I have done a Monk rewrite, and it's just one more fix on the block instead of the trailblazer. I did it going against what's recommended (if you look at the DMG and the DMG 2, the process suggests doing PrCs and classes thinking of your campaign, not to publish to others), but I'm fine with that. That doesn't mean people will agree with me, and that's why you see so many Monk fixes; those are wildly different visions of a Monk, some going with the conservative goal of making it Tier 3, others going pretty far as to rewrite the very notion of a Monk, and some taking the easy way and just turning the Unarmed Swordsage or the Psionic Fist/of Zuoken into a full-fledged class. And they will keep coming, because people love the Woobies, period, and the Monk is the class of the Woobies.

Gosh, I remember when the Sorcerer was the red-headed stepchild, until the Tier system came and showed it was really the Monk because of just how many people think about it.

Also: long time no see Doc Roc. I thought you had disappeared from existence...

Doc Roc
2011-02-15, 07:39 PM
Well, there are several reasons. The first is that because people so often go on about it, and there's no commonly-touted fix for the Monk, so I felt it might be a challenge, which I'd enjoy.
The second is that I enjoy homebrewing anyway.
The third is that I wanted a Monk I felt was more powerful without changing its flavour, and no one's offered me a satisfactory one when I've asked in the past.


Two nits here:
I don't think our monk changes the flavor that much, and there are a couple commonly touted fixes, they just don't seem to be to your fancy.

Here's one version of our fix (https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYdLcxsM7Nx0ZGc2NzhibjNfMjc4ZGMzYzlqZ20&hl=en&authkey=CLGemYEO). A 20 level version can be found in our alpha, in my sig.



Also: long time no see Doc Roc. I thought you had disappeared from existence...

I had. The stars are right once more.

Cogidubnus
2011-02-16, 02:19 AM
Two nits here:
I don't think our monk changes the flavor that much, and there are a couple commonly touted fixes, they just don't seem to be to your fancy.

Here's one version of our fix (https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYdLcxsM7Nx0ZGc2NzhibjNfMjc4ZGMzYzlqZ20&hl=en&authkey=CLGemYEO). A 20 level version can be found in our alpha, in my sig.



I had. The stars are right once more.

I said in the past because since I posted that I'd got something on the site in this thread, several better options have been found. Previously, all I've got is Unarmed Swordsage, Pathfinder and Psychic Warrior.