Yet ANOTHER attempt at making Monks better >_______>

[Sims]

I thought that giving him Weapon Focus and weapon Specialization for free would help. It actually made things worse, as our groups Monk became more "sure of himself" and rushed into battle, being the second killed. (After Tim, the groups Rogue)

So heres what I've gathered from this forum:

Full BAB
Abundant Step 1/per encounter instead of 1/per day
and I think someone brought up Giving them Cleric spells. My problem with that is, how much is too much? In an epic level, non-gestalt campaign, the Monk is a goner.

How about hieghtened SR? Or perhaps DR like the Barbarian has? Why isn't there a "Divine Fist" class? Or "Arcane Fist" class? I've seen a Psionic Fist once.

[Greenish]

Full BAB
Abundant Step 1/per encounter instead of 1/per day
and I think someone brought up Giving them Cleric spells. My problem with that is, how much is too much? In an epic level, non-gestalt campaign, the Monk is a goner.Eh, cleric spells aren't probably the best fit for all monks. Why don't you search the forums for "monk fix", there's a bunch floating around.


How about hieghtened SR? Or perhaps DR like the Barbarian has?SR also prevents buffs, and can be pierced. Barbarian's DR is very minor. Neither fixes monk's real problems.

Why isn't there a "Divine Fist" class? Or "Arcane Fist" class?What sort of question is that? Both of those exist. :smallamused:

[Edit]: Sacred Fist and Enlightened Fist are pretty much in the first places you'd look for them, in Complete Divine and Complete Arcane respectively.

[Lateral]

Monks have three easy ways to make them better in official D&D; be a cleric who goes into Sacred Fist (Complete Divine) and has very few to no Monk levels, be a Monk 2/ Psychic Warrior or Ardent X with the Tashalatora feat (it's online somewhere, and in some book somewhere), or play an Unarmed Swordsage (Tome of Battle).

If you want more authentic monk flavor, there are plenty of good fixes. I like jiriku's monk.

[Greenish]

be a Monk 2/ Psychic Warrior or Ardent X with the Tashalatora featIt's from Secrets of Sarlona, and doesn't actually require monk levels (though I like taking one for feats).

[Lateral]

True, but Monk 2 is nice for the bonus feats and the AC boosts and stuff.

[Greenish]

True, but Monk 2 is nice for the bonus feats and the AC boosts and stuff.Monks get the AC bonus at level 1. Monk 2 gives a feat and Evasion, but I'd rather be getting my psionics online unless you're starting at higher levels.

[Eldariel]

Fluff-wise, Tashalatora [Secrets of Sarlona] Ardent or Psy War is 100% more appropriate than the default Monk-class. If you wanna use the Monk-class itself tho, you should do some rather extensive reworks. I did the following:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85892

You could probably also use a Ki-system for the spell-like stuff; Etherealness, Abundant Step, some manner of flight and haste (perfectly logical) and all that. Would allow extra uses of each and some resource allocation. Best is, of course, power points hence why I mentioned how Tashalatoran Ardent or Psy War is really the true Monk (or Unarmed Swordsage for a more martial approach).


But yeah:
Unarmed Swordsage
Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 18
Monk 2/Ardent 18
Monk 2/Cleric 4/Sacred Fist 10 (Monk 1/Cleric 5 works better with fractional BAB; doesn't work without tho)
Monk 1/Wizard 5/Enlightened Fist 10 (really needs Fractional BAB to avoid getting wrecked BAB-wise; Enlightened Fist design unfortunately makes any natural entry impossible - the sample Enlightened Fist is illegal suggesting prerequisite increase late in printing process ._.)

[Jude_H]

I think someone brought up Giving them Cleric spells. My problem with that is, how much is too much? In an epic level, non-gestalt campaign, the Monk is a goner.
Bard advancement is my usual rule of thumb for putting pseudo-magical classes into the same game as the Psychic Warrior or Warblade. The Cleric spell list is kind of sketchy for this, though. A lot of the more explicitly magical options could probably be replaced by Spell Compendium's Ranger buffs, to make them more appropriate to the archetype.

But at the point you're tacking spells onto the Monk, it's the spells that are going to be placing it in the game, not the Monk itself. A Monk with full Cleric Casting (but no domains or turning) would probably fit in alongside a Wizard and Druid. A monk with full Cleric Casting and the Spontaneous Cleric variant (again w/o Cleric class features) probably wouldn't be out of place alongside a Sorcerer.

About half of the solutions you've proposed involve adding numbers to the Monk. That's not really a problem. A savvy player can boost numbers, one way or another. The problem is explicit options for actions. Tacking on spells, soulmelds, psionics, maneuvers, infusions, invocations, anything is going to be more useful than boosting SR or bumping the attack bonus.

[LOTRfan]

This isn't really a monk "fix," but I've houseruled in my game that when a monk is wielding a special monk weapon, the weapon deals damage equal to the amount mentioned in the player's handbook or the Monk's unarmed damage, whichever is higher. A 20th level Monk is a little more dangerous when he/she's throwing five shurikens (each doing 2d10 damage) per round, eh? :smallwink:

[gallagher]

This isn't really a monk "fix," but I've houseruled in my game that when a monk is wielding a special monk weapon, the weapon deals damage equal to the amount mentioned in the player's handbook or the Monk's unarmed damage, whichever is higher. A 20th level Monk is a little more dangerous when he/she's throwing five shurikens (each doing 2d10 damage) per round, eh? :smallwink:

you mean 5 spell storing shuriken

[Tvtyrant]

Or just give it full BaB and the blink dogs abilties so it can full attack every round and "dodge" fifty percent of all attacks.

[gallagher]

what would be interesting is if you made a monk like an interesting tie between a rogue and a barbarian.

replace the barbarian rage with a monk "focus", where he gets bonus wisdom and dexterity instead of strength and con, lasts a number of rounds equal to your new wisdom modifier.

at later levels, make his focus give him other benefits in addition to his wis/dex bonus, like at lvl 5 he gets water walk, 10 he gets true seeing, 15 he gets antimagic field, and at 20 his fists are able to channel an energy drain once per use of focus.

[Quietus]

The biggest issues with the Monk are generally a lack of his abilities combining nicely with each other, and his MAD reducing his ability to contribute. Giving them the ability to flurry on any attack (standard, charge, maybe even AoO?) and granting wis to attack/damage will go a long way to making them useful, and would encourage the "Old man sage" archetype they seemed to be aiming for, somewhat.

[Lateral]

You'll also need to rework all of his high-level abilities so that they don't suck the way they do. Make Dim. Door earlier level and more often, make the SR lowerable as a free action, et cetera.

[gallagher]

The biggest issues with the Monk are generally a lack of his abilities combining nicely with each other, and his MAD reducing his ability to contribute. Giving them the ability to flurry on any attack (standard, charge, maybe even AoO?) and granting wis to attack/damage will go a long way to making them useful, and would encourage the "Old man sage" archetype they seemed to be aiming for, somewhat.

i feel like the key to keeping this class's unique character is not making the FoB and FM work together, but giving the player different options to do things with both of these. here is what i have literally just come up with in my head in terms of the focus i proposed earlier with this idea in mind.

While Focused: the PCs wisdom and dex go up at the same rate as a barbarians rage, lasts Wis rounds.

for the FoB: while focused, one adds their wisdom bonus to their to-hit in addition to their strength or dex (whichever they would normally use). this comes in at level like 5.
at level 10, whenever the character hits with an unarmed strike, the monk can make a free bullrush attempt to push the character back, with the DC equal to the amount of damage done. the monk is able to move forward one 5 foot square and continue his full attack, but in turn must sacrifice his AoO for the round. a monk with combat reflexes can do this as many times as he has available AoOs.
at level 15 a focused monk can increase in size, as the spell Righteous Might. this lasts only as long as he is focused.
at level 20 a monk can channel an energy drain through one of his unarmed strikes. he can only do this once per focus.

for movement and non-FoB abilities: at level 3, a focused monk can use lesser restoration, targeting himself, once per focus.
at level 8, a focused monk can be under the effect of water walk, which improves to wind walk at 13, and ethereal jaunt at 18. a level 13 monk can choose when each of the effects is activated, can switch the effects at the beginning of his turn, but can only have one activated at a time.

i kind of want to play this character now