Monks

[questionmark693]

This is a serious question*. I've been playing D&D 3.5 for a few years now, and on this site, I hear a lot of bad mouthing to monks. I've enjoyed playing them, decent flavor and not completely horrible mechanics....yet everybody seems to disagree with me. Why is that? What about them makes them so horrible? They're suboptimal to be fair, but by no means do they deserve the horrible reputation they've engendered among the playgrounders. Also...tier 5? Really? 4 skill point isn't that bad, and while their abilities can be situational, they aren't as bad as the PHB fighter is. So what gives?

*Meaning if you give me not thought out responses like "they just suck" I'll probably report your post.

[The Boz]

Class features don't mesh with each other at all, is quite MAD, his role is very niche and other classes easily outdo him at it.

[Karnith]

From the "Why Each Class Is In Its Tier" thread:

They aren't exceptional tanks due to lowish HD, medium BAB, multi-attribute dependency (and thus comparably lower combat stats than melee monsters; this also hurts their supposed strengths in Grapple, Tripping & other combat maneuvers, along with Stunning Fist; all of those heavily reward straightforward dedication to a single stat over all else, and a Monk really can't pull that off), the fact that you can't combine their movement speed with Flurry (Flurry requires full attack, movement allows only one) and lack of weapon proficiencies (unarmed strikes getting decent dice later on, but lacking in special abilities and enhancing them costs a ****ton; oh, and no reach, no AoO-builds). Flurry is needed for them to do decent damage forcing them to ignore their speed boost in combat.

They aren't exceptional scouts due to lacking Trapfinding and having relatively low skill points and being unable to afford decent Int thanks to multi-attribute dependency (Hide/Move Silently/Tumble is all good, but if you don't have Trapfinding, scouting ahead in a hostile environment is like to get you killed).

They aren't exceptional mage killers (*chuckle*) because they really have nothing to especially threaten mages with. Just like every other warrior type, their movement is inferior to teleportation (once-per-day Dimension Door doesn't cut it), they have few if any ways to locate the mage and penetrate magical defenses (Mirror Image + Displacement + Blink: good luck hitting... Or Wall of Force) and they can't even reasonably use bows so their ability to act at range is infinitely diminished. Oh, and if they somehow manage to plop an Anti-Magic Field around themselves? They just gave up like 70% of their class features. Thanks to Greater Spell Penetration (in Core)/Assay Resistance (out of Core), their multi-attribute dependency, spells that ignore saves (even just good ol' Rays like Enervation/Scorching Ray/whatever, or Forcecages or something dumb), spells that trivialize touch AC (hello, True Strike!) and so on, all their magical defenses really add up to jack ****.

They aren't exceptional skirmishers due to not being able to Flurry with standard action and their speed bonus being enhancement thus, while probably being able to somewhat remain out of the harm's way with Spring Attack, not reducing the damage their allies take one bit and dealing negligible damage themselves. Indeed, this is the worst thing a Monk can do since it means the people who do the fighting are now taking all the beatdown while the Monk isn't contributing to the team's damage in any meaningful way either. In other words, the Monk isn't taking any hits and he isn't dealing any damage this way; thus he's as good as an empty slot in the party.


And overall, their class features kinda suck. Mostly, you can look at 'em like this:
-Flurry? That's nice! Now if only I were able to focus on one stat and have full BAB, I'd be doing a lot with my extra attacks on highest bonus!
-Improved Grapple/Trip/Stunning Fist/whatever? Nice! Now, if I only were able to focus on one stat and have full BAB, I could be landing these and winning the opposed checks!
-Speed boost? That's nice! Now, if I only could move and attack with my Flurry (which "almost" makes me equal to full BAB types), I could be doing something! Oh, and if this only stacked with magical speed boosts I'd actually be faster than the other classes.
-Unarmed Strikes? That's nice! Now, if I only got size increases or something so the damage dice would actually add up to something, and got 2x Power Attack returns and full BAB, this could add up to something!
-Ki Strikes? Nice, my unarmed strikes pretend to be weapons and get some minor abilities that almost replicate what my 1000gp weapon does! If only my WPL wasn't 100000...
-Slow Fall? So I get to replicate a 1st level spell by level 20? No? It only works next to walls? Well, almost replicate a 1st level spell!
-All this nice stuff, Abundant Step, Quivering Palm, Empty Body, I can replicate many kinds of spells poorly...once per DAY! Oh, make it Once per WEEK for that scary scary, broken Finger of Death With Save DC Derived Off Secondary Stat That Requires An Attack To Hit To Be Used.
-Oh, there's more? I get to replicate few more random low level spells? Cool. Oh, and Evasion? Yeah, nice, my Reflex-saves actually matter something! That's like...25k saved on the Ring.
-I get Spell Resistance? Just to ensure my team can't waste a Heal on me when I'm about to die? Cool!


Lack of synergy and multi-attribute dependency pretty much screw Monks up. Oh, and the good class features being limited to Very Few Uses Per Day. Seriously, if Monks had the ability to use Flurry whenever making an attack, if they got like Wis x uses of their now-daily abilities and the ability to use Dex for combat maneuvers, and Wis/Dex for damage, they'd be just fine. Grab Weapon Finesse/Intuitive Attack and they'd be able to go to town. As all those things are ****ed up though, they don't. As I mentioned above, those multiclass builds easily sidestep these issues. Mono-classed Monks don't though. -Eldariel
If that's too long, the basic reasons are that they are MAD (multiple ability dependent; they require most of their ability scores to be high to function), their class features don't work well together (e.g. flurry of blows can't be used with fast movement), their class features are mainly minor bonuses that are only situationally useful and often come well after they are relevant (e.g. Slow Fall, Wholeness of Body, Tongue of the Sun and Moon), and the numbers just aren't there when it comes to actually getting things done (d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, no armor, and no good source of bonus damage on a melee combatant? 4 + Int bonus skills per level for skillmonkeying in a class with no use for Int?).

[Gnaeus]

4 skill point isn't that bad, and while their abilities can be situational, they aren't as bad as the PHB fighter is. So what gives?
.

Actually, they are worse. I can build an unarmed fighter for grappling, tripping and unarmed combat who is better at all those things than the monk (full BAB, you know?), and does better average unarmed damage with better AC because the fighter gets to wear armor. That would be a terrible fighter build, but still a better monk than a monk. I wouldn't necessarily even want to dip monk, because that would make it hard to dip Barbarian (which can also be a better unarmed fighter than monk).

[questionmark693]

Actually, they are worse
Guess I should actually look at the math before I speak then :)

Could you possibly link to that thread for me? Thanks guys, I guess that makes sense...I still don't feel like they deserve quite the bad rap they get...I dunno, maybe I'm just biased or inexperienced or something :smalltongue:

[Namfuak]

questionmark693, you are a day too late. Come back next Monkday to make this thread, so you are in compliance with the rules.

[Karnith]

Could you possibly link to that thread for me?
If you're talking about the "Why Each Class Is In Its Tier" thread, it's here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269440) or here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5070.0), depending on your message board preference (it's also linked in my signature). You could also search around for "Monkday" threads, in which the monk's usefulness/strengths are debated, though be warned that they have a tendency to get pretty heated and/or silly.

It's also important to note that while Monk 20 isn't so hot, two levels of monk is pretty good for a lot of builds.

[Shining Wrath]

If you want to play a monk, don't play a Monk. Play an unarmed Swordsage.

[Waker]

Karnith covered all the relevant points. At low levels, the monk isn't that terrible compared to the others, but it quickly get outpaced by just about everyone else.
It wouldn't be as bad if it were less MAD (Wis to hit/damage?), made Flurry a standard action, gave him full BAB, apply the unarmed damage progression to weapon or at least allowing his unarmed strike to have weapon enhancements put onto it without costing quite so much.

So aside from all that, the monk isn't really that bad.

[Phelix-Mu]

The fun thing about monk, though, is that it is a nice way for a DM to dip their toes in the homebrew/house rule pool. There are literally a million ways to make monk better, and only a few ways it could be worse. So join the legions of people to propound their monk fixes! We need YOU!

(This post is actually not in jest. As a DM, I advise any player who wants to play monk to talk to their DM about accepting one of the nigh infinite monk fixes out there. I'm sure you can find some good advice about reputable homebrew on this.)

[eggynack]

Monks get the anger they get for reasons beyond their mechanics. If it were just a matter of mechanics, then you'd see a lot more people raging against the CW samurai or the soulknife. The reason people, myself included, hate monks is because they have so much promise. There's all this cool monk flavor, and they have new abilities every level, and they look within themselves to find the power that others need magic items to do. There's an implicit promise there that if you build a monk, then you're getting a character that's good at unarmed fighting, and at first glance it looks like it fulfills that promise.

It doesn't though. You punch your enemies a ton of times, but you never hit. You attempt to run up at full speed to hit your enemy with a quick flurry, and realize that you need a full attack to use your main class feature. You fall off of a building, slow falling along the edge, but next to you is a first level wizard doing it better. You see the ability to add wis to your AC, and think that it makes you a more defensive character, but it just leaves you with less AC than a fighter, but with a requirement for wisdom in addition to dexterity. Monks are more than bad. They're a source of sadness. They look great, and then they're not, and in the distance between those two points there is anger and frustration. They're a bad melee class in a game where melee classes get the short end of the stick to start with.

[DeltaEmil]

*Meaning if you give me not thought out responses like "they just suck" I'll probably report your post.Monks suck in the eyes of the playgrounders because its advertised schtick of being an awesome kung-fu guy/girl who beats up bad guys, dragons, squid monsters and evil magicians doesn't work that well at all. They're supposed to be mobile wuxia-flying-badasses who make spinning jump kicks, but then can't use their many attacks. They make supermany attacks like that Kenshiro-dude who makes people explode in a gory shower of blood, and they don't know that they're already dead yet, but in truth, but can't hit for fecal matter with their bad to hit chances against enemies that are worthwhile to be fought against, and they can't use their superawesome wuxia-flying-badass mobility at the same time when they want to be all Kenshiro upon the enemy's butt.
As a front line-warrior, the monk lacks endurance or enough offensive capabilities. As an arrogant kung-fu guy/girl who knows many skills, the monk suffers from MAD (Multiple Ability Deficiency), where they need good Con to survive, good Dex to hit and not be hit themselves, good Str to deal noticeable damage in the first place or to use stuff like trip and grapple, good Wis to further buff up their defenses, and then have to consider where to put their dump stats Int and Cha. Their class features like not growing an old fu-manchu beard, the ability to jump from clouds and being able to talk to critters can be gained with cheap magic items far earlier.

The swordsage from Tome of Battle does all the stuff that the monk promised to do, and actually is capable of delivering it. You have "Insert-Name-Of-Technique"-shouting special attacks where you flip out and punch a tree so hard, it explodes and kills enemies, you can totally ninja-teleport around, you can still do superawesome wuxia-flying-badassery moves and punch an enemy as effective (or even far more so) as a monk who had to stand still to do its many attacks, and you have 2 skill points more than the monk.

[Immabozo]

Guess I should actually look at the math before I speak then :)

Could you possibly link to that thread for me? Thanks guys, I guess that makes sense...I still don't feel like they deserve quite the bad rap they get...I dunno, maybe I'm just biased or inexperienced or something :smalltongue:

well, take into account value outside of crunching numbers. If you like the flavor, it's just something you like, go for it! For YOU it is better. For the number's mean everything, or most of everything crowd (i.e. most of the players of D&D) then the reasons above. But what if you are in the campaign I am in now where combat is more an aside to storyline, which is everything, then the self sacrificing lawful whatever monk who is a devout wo/man and goes out of his way to make sure others are taken care of, well then roleplay value is better than the fighter, or at least different, perhaps not better. Unless, again, its the one YOU want to roleplay!

And in this campaign, our rewards are stupid amazing. So with the stupid amazing rewards, your monk can certainly start to shine!

[Karnith]

If you like the flavor, it's just something you like, go for it! For YOU it is better.
Well, another problem with the monk is that, even pretending that fluff isn't mutable, there are a number of ways to make a character with extremely similar (if not identical) flavor/fluff who is also mechanically stronger, like a Tashalatora Monk/Psychic Warrior, an Unarmed Swordsage, or a Punch-barian.

EDIT: This (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/13/optimizing-a-dd-3-5-monk/18970#18970) is about the most comprehensive analysis of the problems with the monk class that I could find, and I think it merits looking at.

[questionmark693]

Ok. Thanks guys for the responses, I genuinely appreciate them all :) I don't really have any counters though....what you're saying makes sense to me, and as I think about it, I find myself agreeing with it. Specifically at Immabozo, I definitely see what you're saying, where sometimes the role-playing is more important than the roll-playing. In which case, yeah, a VoP Monk isn't as bad a thing :smallwink:

EDIT: And at Karnith....unfortunately, I have yet to play in a game that hasn't banned ToB, regardless of my support for it, save the ones I've DM'ed.

[Snowbluff]

The monk is the only other core class, aside from the barbarian, that has no dead levels. Players always have something to look forward to with the monk, which boasts the most colorful and unique special abilities of all the character classes. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a)

[eggynack]

well, take into account value outside of crunching numbers. If you like the flavor, it's just something you like, go for it! For YOU it is better. For the number's mean everything, or most of everything crowd (i.e. most of the players of D&D) then the reasons above. But what if you are in the campaign I am in now where combat is more an aside to storyline, which is everything, then the self sacrificing lawful whatever monk who is a devout wo/man and goes out of his way to make sure others are taken care of, well then roleplay value is better than the fighter, or at least different, perhaps not better. Unless, again, its the one YOU want to roleplay!

And in this campaign, our rewards are stupid amazing. So with the stupid amazing rewards, your monk can certainly start to shine!
Monk flavor doesn't really work though. According to monk flavor, you're good at punching things. In actual fact though, you're at best middling at punching things. The fluff doesn't describe actual fact in any meaningful way. Fluff only has any real meaning if it's reflected in the crunch. Otherwise, I can just take the whole monk fluff and apply it to a bard or something. If a class says, "You are good at fighting" and the crunch of it means that you are terrible at fighting, then what's the point of having the fluff at all?

[Waker]

Ok. Thanks guys for the responses, I genuinely appreciate them all :) I don't really have any counters though....what you're saying makes sense to me, and as I think about it, I find myself agreeing with it. Specifically at Immabozo, I definitely see what you're saying, where sometimes the role-playing is more important than the roll-playing. In which case, yeah, a VoP Monk isn't as bad a thing :smallwink:

Roleplaying is somewhat important in a roleplaying game. It is somewhat disheartening when your character can't live up to the cool image that you have in your head though. Fortunately there are many ways to make a "monk" that doesn't specifically require you to play a monk.

[ArcturusV]

I suppose adding on, Monks also tend to have a lot of "Trap" options out there which are written up in books as GOOD things for a monk to have and use. But actually leave you crippled for life if you try to go for it. Vow of Poverty comes to mind as a chief one. It's written for Monks, it's supposed to be good for Monks. But you trade the sheer, high power of Moneymancy, for fixed, lesser bonuses that prevent you from ever having Moneymancy.

And a lot of Monk stuff is kinda written like that. The class is riddled with Traps out there. Even some of the Monk PrCs are kinda trappish. Like the Tattooed Monk has enough dead levels, and most of the tattoos are low power enough that you really only want to take level 1 in Tattooed Monk. Some are strictly better options like Shintao Monk and Henshin Mystic. But even they as the primer example of "What a good Monk PrC looks like" tends to lag behind what a Good PrC does for a class. Most f the ones I do see suggested for Monks aren't really Monk PrCs like Fist of Raziel (Despite the "Fist", it's not really monk based).

And I always felt like that was another of their many weaknesses. The sheer amount of Trap Options out there in the system for Monks. I mean, yeah... every class has it's "Trap" options. Wizard PrCs that don't advance Spellcasting, obviously Paladin focused PrCs that prevent you from ever gaining Paladin levels again, etc. But... they don't seem to approach the minefield that Monk Options are.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

Basically, as a dip class (as others have said) combined with other unarmed classes, monks rock. Evasion, 3 free feats, good saves, and a (kinda-useless unless you forgo speed for damage [flavor for power]) extra attack makes for some seriously awesome abilites; combining this with a good prestige class (shadow sun ninja, fist of the forest), some cleric or wizard levels (enlightened fist, divine fist) for size buffing, or unarmed swordsage makes for some super amounts of damage. And of course, the physic warrior feat, which makes being unarmed fun.

[Snowbluff]

And of course, the physic warrior feat, which makes being unarmed fun.

You don't need monk for that.

[Gnaeus]

Guess I should actually look at the math before I speak then :)

Could you possibly link to that thread for me? Thanks guys, I guess that makes sense...I still don't feel like they deserve quite the bad rap they get...I dunno, maybe I'm just biased or inexperienced or something :smalltongue:

I don't see a thread, but here is a brief rundown:

Fighter 8 25 PB
Str 18 (10 pts + 2 level bumps)
Dex 14 (6 pts)
Con 12 (4 pts)
Int 13 (5 pts)
Wis 8
Cha 8
HP 53
BAB +8 Attacks +12/+7: Damage per hit 1d8+4
Average Damage per turn punching monk about 13
AC 20 (Full plate +1)
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (F1), Improved Grapple (F2), Combat Expertise (F4), Improved Trip (F6) Superior Unarmed Strike (F8)
Touch attack +12, Trip Check +8, Grapple Check +16
Skill points/level 3


Monk 8 25 PB
Str 16 (6 pts + 2 level bumps)
Dex 14 (6 Pts)
Con 14 (6 pts)
Int 9 (1 Pt)
Wis 14 (6 Pts)
Cha 8
HP 52
Attacks +8/+8/+3: Damage Per hit 1d10+3
Average damage per turn punching fighter, about 10
AC 16 (Bracers of Armor +2)
Feats: Imp unarmed Strike (B), Improved Grapple (B), Improved Trip (B) Deflect Arrows (B)
Touch attack +9 , Trip mod +7, Grapple Mod +13
Skill points/level 3


Now, this is only using about 4k gold each (for armor), and only uses their bonus feats (each one gets 3 extra feats from basic class progression)

But the fighter outgrapples the monk. Outtrips the monk. Beats the monk in an unarmed fistfight. And the fighter can do much, much better if he decides to use a greatsword, or even a shield.

[Mato]

@Gnaeus PvP does mean anything. Who taught you what Point Buy was? Your Fighter is PB31 and your Monk is is PB29 (http://emrilgame.netau.net/Dmstuff/pointbuy.html). Superior Unarmed Strike is not a Fighter Bonus Feat. You also apparently have no clue what levels Monk gets what Feats (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm) or how much Full-Plate Costs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/armor.htm) (fighter spent 1,650 for armor +4,000 for enhancements, not 4k).

Optimize by Numbers (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869122/Optimization_By_The_Numbers) pegs CR 8s to have 20 AC.

Ability Scores
Since the Fighter must have 13+ Int for Combat Expertise and desires an 18 in Str he has consumed 21 of his 25 points and cannot afford a 14 in Con and Dex. Obviously. He takes 12 in Con. Monk's Bonus Feats ignore prerequisites so he dumps Int and takes a 16 in Str. His odd point is tossed into Dex because why not.
Fighter: Str 18+2, Dex 8, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 8.
Monk: Str 16+2, Dex 11, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 8.

Feats
Grapple is terrible, I can't believe I'm even listing something that uses it.
Fighter: Improved Unarmed Strike (1st), Weapon Focus(f1), Combat Expertise(f2), Improved Trip(3rd), Weapon Specialization(f4), Superior Unarmed Strike (6th), Improved Grapple(f8).
Monk: Weapon Focus (1st), Improved Grapple (m1), Combat Reflexes (m2), Any (3rd), Superior Unarmed Strike (6th), Improved Trip (m6).

Equipment & AC
The Fighter is shooting to be Monk like. Heavy Armor (with a base land speed of 30) makes him 30ft slower than the Monk. Instead, he uses a Mithral Breastplate which sets him back 4,150gp. The Monk buys Bracers of Armor +2 for 4,000gp and maintains a +20ft Land Speed over the "monkish fighter"
Fighter: AC 14 (-1 dex, +5 armor)
Monk: AC 15 (+0 dex, +2 armor, +2 wis, +1 monk)

Saves & HP
There is a tremendous difference between the two.
Fighter: HP 8d10+8 (56), Fort +7, Relf +1, Will +1.
Monk: HP 8d8+16 (55), Fort +8, Relf +6 (evasion), Will +8.

Attack Information
Fighter (+8 BAB, +5 Str, +1 Focus)
+14/+9 melee (1d8+7).
vs AC 20, 70%/45%. 115% scale damage: 13.225
Grapple: +17
Trip: +9

Monk (+6 BAB, +4 Str, +1 Focus)
+11/+6 melee (2d6+4) or +9/+9/+4 melee (2d6+4).
vs AC 20, 55%/30%. 85% scale damage: 9.35
vs AC 20, 45%/45%/20%. 110% scale damage: 12.1
Grapple: +10
Trip: +8

Summery
Offensively the Monk is a hair behind the Fighter, but he still has an Open Feat slot for something like Battle Jump (double damage on a charge), Knock-Down (free trip on hit), or even Hold the Line (aoos for stepping into threatened area). Really, pick your poison.

We also see the Fighter Class in it's 100% entirety. The Fighter has nothing outside of those numbers. As noted, the Monk has +20ft Land Speed over the Fighter, better Saves (with evasion) but also unmentioned, partially because they are not much, +2 vs Enchantments & Immunity to Disease. I could play dirty and point out that with the gear handicap, the Fighter cannot bypass DR/Magic too.

Monks may not be what you'd hoped for. But they are still better at pretending to be a Monk then the rest of the crappy mundanes. Play a Swordsage.

[eggynack]

The measurement isn't how monk-like the fighters can be, it's how good they are at unarmed damage. A fighter would use the best armor they can access, with or without speed. Arena combat is actually useless for tier measurements. As a quick summary, the way you do it is you test them against various encounters. For the point buy, you seem to have neglected the points from level ups. It wasn't 18+2, it was 18, as 16+2. I dunno why a fighter would take weapon focus. It's just kinda mediocre. I can probably come up with more notes later. The feat lists could probably all be better, especially if we can use stuff from books as far ranging as ToB.

[Theprettiestorc]

I will say Monk has improved a bit in Pathfinder. At least, I think so. But as it is, my heavily PrC'd Monk(Drunken Master, Monk of the Four Winds, and Monk of the Sacred Mountain), at level 6, has 24 AC. 26, if she begins and ends in the same square. This is without any Armor Class enhancing items.

She gets plenty of flavored stuff(I'm pretty much limited only that in I can take one swift action per round), and at the moment, is completely outclassing an Inquisitor. Hell, she'd probably outclass the Swordsage in terms of pure damage, even. In her current encounter, she's taking on two bearded devils, and is only down 1/3rd of her HP, while one is nearly down, the other is pretty injured, and a third's already been wiped out.

Monks can be good if you treat them well - and work with the DM, to allow you to kick some of the kinks out. The party already knows not to mess with the crazed Drunken Thunder Monk, as is becoming her nickname, and we've barely even started. =P

[Gavinfoxx]

If you want to see the problems with the Monk, examine this monk fix:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150122

next to the actual Monk class, level by level, and examine the changed feats next to their original versions.

[Eldariel]

Karnith covered all the relevant points. At low levels, the monk isn't that terrible compared to the others, but it quickly get outpaced by just about everyone else.
It wouldn't be as bad if it were less MAD (Wis to hit/damage?), made Flurry a standard action, gave him full BAB, apply the unarmed damage progression to weapon or at least allowing his unarmed strike to have weapon enhancements put onto it without costing quite so much.

So aside from all that, the monk isn't really that bad.

Low levels are actually the worst for Monks, compared to their warrior peers. Weapon Proficencies are superimportant on level 1 and Monk sucks in those so they're warriors with 1d6-1d8 weapons (vs. 2d6 or 2d4+reach from real warriors).

This combined with lack of any decent armor means their AC on level 1 can easily be 14 (14 Dex, 14 Wis) without exceptional rolls and their weapon proficiencies fundamentally limit them to close combat to actually do damage (1d2 shurikens yay!).

They do get an extra attack but even with maxed out Strength, it's barely worth it since they only have Medium BAB and thus start at +0. And if they do pick Stunning Fist, it's once per day with the proviso that the attack you're using hits (generally at best 50% odds). Improved Grapple is slightly better early on but it's extremely limited since using it when facing multiple adversaries is a death wish especially with Monk's already low AC.


Indeed, their only advantage is relatively high saves but they're still not high enough to make saves consistently (level 1 Color Spray from a Gray Elf Wizard commands a save DC of 16 or 17 with Spell Focus; Monk is generally looking at 14-16 Wis so +5 = 50% chance of success at best - and yes, this is mostly a factor of high casting stat save-or-Xs being ridiculously strong early on).

Monks get better around level 6-11. Level 6 Monk gets Improved Trip which improves their combat ability tremendously and level 11 gives them Greater Flurry which, with sufficient To Hit buffing, can make them comparable to PHB-level Fighters of the equivalent level (but their proficiencies still bite them in the ass and Flurry only works with Monk weapons none of which offer Reach, something Trip really wants). Unarmed Dice also keep growing making that weapon almost worth using and they begin to get wealth which enables them to slowly reach reasonable AC (lategame Monk AC is actually fairly good, it just sucks for the first 10 levels).

Of course, the problem is that this is the point where Fighters and Barbarians too begin to fall hopelessly behind spellcasters who can Teleport, Scry, Polymorph, etc. Monks are no exception; they merely do some catching up to the warrior-types (they probably can never match 'em martially but they're significantly less far behind than ever before; they even have enough Stunning Fist uses to spam them and hope whatever you're fighting isn't immune and rolls low).


One important thing to note is that as party scouts, they're no Rogues. Without Trapfinding, well, it's kinda dangerous to scout ahead in dungeons if you might at best raise the Alarm and at worst Gate in Hecatoncheires (Gate Traps are CR 10 or something stupid).

They also have no easy access to Hide in Plain Sight which vastly limits the utility of their Hide-skill (Core Rogues generally pick up Shadowdancer and outside Core, Wilderness Rogue makes it available in the core chassis too).

Indeed, they're mostly just frontliners with some skills, making Barbarian the closest comparison and Barbarians generally take their shtick and smash it over their knee. Combat maneuvers? Thanks to Rage, Barbarians are the best even at Tripping let alone at anything requiring BAB. Damage? Two-handed Power Attack outpaces Flurry all game, even assuming equal Strength (though it tends to favor the Barbarian as they have less demanding stat array thanks to Medium Armor Proficiency for low levels, so they can afford higher Strength in Point Buy). Durability, mobility & al.? Barbarians are quite comparable to Monks in all that.

Slightly different skill list, same amount of points. Rogue tends to be the superior pick for a skirmisher (better damage thanks to Sneak Attack, better scouting and such, excellent skill list, etc.) and overall, whatever kind of Monk you'd make it tends to be possible to make a better representative of a mundane class (we're not getting into casters who do it all here).

[Pickford]

This is a serious question*. I've been playing D&D 3.5 for a few years now, and on this site, I hear a lot of bad mouthing to monks. I've enjoyed playing them, decent flavor and not completely horrible mechanics....yet everybody seems to disagree with me. Why is that? What about them makes them so horrible? They're suboptimal to be fair, but by no means do they deserve the horrible reputation they've engendered among the playgrounders. Also...tier 5? Really? 4 skill point isn't that bad, and while their abilities can be situational, they aren't as bad as the PHB fighter is. So what gives?

*Meaning if you give me not thought out responses like "they just suck" I'll probably report your post.

Well, for one thing, Dex is always in these monk builds, and it's not a monk primary stat. I know, I'm a heretic. But bear with me for a moment:

every 2 points of a primary stat of a Monk provides:
Dex provides 3 benefits:
+1 AC, +1 Reflex save, +1 to 5 skill checks
Str provides 3 benefits:
+1 Attack, +1 Damage, +1 to 2 skill checks
Int provides 2 benefits:
+1 skill point, +1 to 3 skill checks
Con provides 3 benefits:
+1 HP per level, +1 Fort save, +1 to 1 skill check
Cha provides 1 benefit:
+1 to 2 skill checks
Wis provides 5 benefits:
+1 to AC, +1 Will save, +1 DC on Stunning Fist, +1 DC on Quivering Palm, +1 on 4 skill checks

Suffice to say, Dex is ok whenever you get around to it, but it's not worth losing points in Str/Wis.

Edit: Eldariel the focus works both ways:

Wis 18, Ability Focus Stunning Fist DC is 16.

edit2:

Gnaeus, Mato, Don't know why you guys are using 25 point

But don't throw away points into Dex.

Monk 8 25 PB
Str 16 (8 pts + 1 level bump)
Dex 10 (2 Pts)
Con 10 (2 pts)
Int 8
Wis 18 (13 Pts + 1 level bump)
Cha 8

After gear:
Str 18 (+4)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 10 (+0)
Int 8 (-1)
Wis 20 (+5)
Cha 8 (-1)

HP: 8d8 (32 ave)
BAB +6/+1
Full Attack: +6/+1 (+11/+6) (+4 str, +1 mighty fists: +5 total unarmed)
Flurry: +10/+10/+5: Damage Per hit 1d10+5 (same as above) +1d6 for fiery fist

AC 20 (10 + 5 wis + 1 Dex + 1 Natural armor (Amulet of Natural Armor +1) + 1 Deflection (Ring of Protection +1) + 1 Amor (Bracers of Armor +1) + 1 insight (ioun stone))
AC when Fighting Defensively: 23 (tumble synergy); if hit with fiery ki defense up, deals 1d6 to opponent.

As an alternate selection, pick up ki blast instead of fiery ki defense to make a ranged touch attack, in this case: 3d6 + 5 force damage (8-23), which could potentially kill the fighter in 2 rounds.

Skills: (4x4 = 16 1st level, +4 per level as human with -1 int mod, 28 more)
Max ranks: 8 + 3 = 11
Tumble: 11 ranks, +1 dex mod = 12
Balance: 5 ranks, +1 dex mod = 6
Jump: 6 ranks, +4 str mod = 10
Sense Motive: 5 ranks, +5 wis mod = 10
Spot: 5 ranks +5 wis mod = 10
Listen: 5 ranks + 5 wis mod = 10
Knowledge (religion): 2 ranks - 1 int mod = 1
Knowledge (arcana): 2 ranks - 1 int mod = 1
Escape Artist: 2 ranks + 1 dex mod = 3
Climb: 1 rank + 4 str mod = 5

Feats: Imp unarmed Strike (B), Stunning Fist (M1), Improved Grapple (1st), Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) (H), Fiery Fist (M2), Pain Touch (3rd), Fiery Ki Defense (M6), Weakening Touch (6th)

Stunning Fist DC: 21 (10 + 5 (Wis) + 4 (lvl/2) + 2 ability focus)
By my count, with a +6 fort save at lvl 8 and +1 from his Con, the Fighter will fail his save on anything less than a 14.

Gear: 26k (Body-slot affinities ftw)
Bracers of Armor +1 (1k)
Periapt of Wisdom +2 and Natural Armor +1 (6k)
Ring of Protection +1 (2k)
Gloves of Dexterity +2 (4k)
Belt of Mighty Fists +1, Strength +2 (8k)
Dusty Rose Prism (+1 insight to AC) (5k)

1k for some masterwork weaponry.

Edit: First hit drop the Fighter's str by 6 points for 1 minute with weakening touch, then grapple

[WhatBigTeeth]

Monk 8 25 PB
Str 16 (8 pts + 1 level bump)
Dex 10 (2 Pts)
Con 10 (2 pts)
Int 8
Wis 18 (13 Pts + 1 level bump)
Cha 8

As a heads-up for anyone seriously considering this advice, without an extremely pampered game, an unarmored 10 Dex/10 Con melee build will be dead long before hitting the first of those level bumps.

[Theprettiestorc]

I do have a suggestion.

If you take Weapon Finesse, since unarmed is a light weapon, then you can ask your DM for something like this.

http://dndtools.eu/feats/tome-of-battle-the-book-of-nine-swords--88/shadow-blade--2556/
Or, alternatively, http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/agile

Both require some conversion. The latter is a +1 quality that you should be able to apply to an Amulet of Mighty Fists, in Pathfinder - but seeing as in 3.5, you can't put weapon special abilities on an amulet...well. You could ask.

Either of these, properly converted, would ensure, though, that you're getting your Dex. to damage rolls, as well. Once you do this, there's no need for any Str. as a Monk, since you now have five key points just from Dexterity. It grants AC, gives you both damage and attack rolls, and plus the skills and reflex saves.

Even so, you could take a bit of lacking on damage rolls in favor of Dex with Weapon Finesse. It's an option. Plus, you just have your three core stats to invest in, now - Dex., Wis., and Con(and Str., if you can't get the Damage conversions).

[Eldariel]

Both require some conversion. The latter is a +1 quality that you should be able to apply to an Amulet of Mighty Fists, in Pathfinder - but seeing as in 3.5, you can't put weapon special abilities on an amulet...well. You could ask.

Necklace of Natural Attacks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fc/20060707a) for 1 weapon is much more economic and can hold abilities. Indeed, it's only the price of a single weapon. Unfortunately it's not Core.

For some reason, the item named "Necklace of Natural Attacks" is better on Unarmed Strikes and the item named "Amulet of Mighty Fists" is better on Natural Attacks (since it affects any number for the same price while Necklace costs the more the more weapons you want it to affect).

But yeah, in full 3.X (it's from Savage Species so not 3.5 but usable as-is and I daresay, necessary for Unarmed warriors to be even remotely competitive) Necklace solves the "Unarmed Strikes are impossible to enchant efficiently" problem (though it still doesn't solve the massive Damage Reduction problems unarmeds suffer; some abilities do help with that tho).


Either of these, properly converted, would ensure, though, that you're getting your Dex. to damage rolls, as well. Once you do this, there's no need for any Str. as a Monk, since you now have five key points just from Dexterity. It grants AC, gives you both damage and attack rolls, and plus the skills and reflex saves.

The principal issue with this is that without Strength, you can't use Combat Maneuvers efficiently. Given pretty much the only redeeming factor of the Monk-class is free Improved Trip, that's kind of a big downer.

It's better but it makes you even more of a strictly worse Fighter. If there was an easy way to get Wis to damage, that would solve it (I know there's a PF weapon property but ideally this wouldn't rely on something that can be disabled with a simple Dispel Magic for a whole encounter). Swordsage or Shiba Protector or some such works here but Monks are out of luck (again).

Stunning Fist is cute and all but it doesn't vindicate a whole character by itself; between stun-immune enemies, enemies with ridiculous fort-saves, miss chances and high AC, hordes of weak enemies and so on, you need damage too. And of course, Stunning Fist runs out fairly quickly so building a whole character around it is hardly worth it. Overall, Stunning Fist is one of the worst special attacks in the game:
- You have to hit AC (not Touch AC, AC)
- You have to predict which attack hits
- Your target has to fail a Fort-save (on average the best save on monsters, and indeed a good save for most classes)
- Your target has to not be Stun-immune (stun immunity is quite easy to come by with magic, and natural to a great number of types; Undead, Elemental, Plant, Ooze, Construct off the top of my head)

Compared to spells, for example, it's generally only Spell Resistance -> Save and you get to engineer a spell so that the target is not immune, and Spell Resistance can mostly be negated on most enemies with swift action spells and/or just caster level bumping+Spell Penetration (in Core).

[Krazzman]

Ok to dash in to gnaeus and matos "argument"...

Mato you are wrong.

A +1 Fullplate costs 2650 GP. Not 1650 + 4000 GP...

Anyway this isn't something about who of you is right.

To share the glory of why I personally hate the monk class I can tell the following story.
I had fun with a monk on exactly 2 occasions.
The first was playing a 1st level monk that reached level 2 with less wealth than before. And it was still a blast mainly because of the story and being new and being able to attack twice in a round without TWFing.
THe other was an ALL-MONK group. That was fun since everyone was similarly shafted, we had a Monk/Rogue, a Monk/Drunken Master who later came with a Monk/Sorcerer and a totally pissed of Monk that might've gotten a Rage when the campaign had gone on for longer.
This was a blast, 3 loonies playing monkage power and smashing skulls in.

After that every time I tried to think of a monk or similar... I asked myself why not just go with a Barbarian with Spiked Gauntlets? (the idea stemmed from that last ALL-MONK-Campaign) and jeah after that the monk isn't fun anymore. I rather play a Rogue 2/Barbarian x/something than a monk. Except in a Pathfinder Campaign... there the monk has some really interesting things you can do to him thanks to archetypes.

That fact and the reasonings of my old group that monks are awesome and I don't care what tier the wizard is in a monk can still kill them etc... sucked the fun out of the class. In the recent campaign my best man said he wanted to try out the monk because he found the fluff interesting. I nudged him towards Unarmed Swordsage (mainly because I hate the Monk but also so he learns some subsystems, as he is rather new to dnd/roleplaying).

[Vaz]

If you're talking about the "Why Each Class Is In Its Tier" thread, it's here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269440) or here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5070.0), depending on your message board preference (it's also linked in my signature). You could also search around for "Monkday" threads, in which the monk's usefulness/strengths are debated, though be warned that they have a tendency to get pretty heated and/or silly.

It's also important to note that while Monk 20 isn't so hot, two levels of monk is pretty good for a lot of builds.

UA variants Monk 2 is "pretty good" for a lot of builds in the sense that they need the Bonus Feats without the need to meet Prerequisites, Cobra Strike and Passive Way in particular, or when going a Tash Psywar build.

[Gnaeus]

@Gnaeus PvP does mean anything. Who taught you what Point Buy was?

Actually, my point buy was correct, yours is wrong, The fighter started with 16 (for 10 pts) and added 2 with level bumps. The monk started with 14 (for 6) and reached 16 with level bumps. If my formatting confused you, the bonuses should have clarified. And as Krazzman pointed out, the fighter was actually spending less on armor than the monk. If you wish to be rude, make darn sure you are right!!!

You are right. Superior unarmed strike is not a fighter bonus feat. He would have to take it with a regular feat. My bad. However, since both builds have 3 unchosen feats, it wouldn't really change anything.

I didn't say that the fighter needed to be as fast as the monk. +1 full plate is much better for a character who will be hitting things in melee than +20 move speed. So his AC is 20. If he wants to be slightly less martial artish, he picks up a large shield and goes to 22.

So the fighter is actually going to be better at punching people or grappling or tripping than the monk. Of course, I would never actually play fighter 8 to be better at martial arts than the monk. Leaving out all the better "monk" builds outside core, the core build would have at least 2 levels of barbarian, thereby cranking up the fighter's numbers far higher by virtue of rage. And again, this is about the crummiest thing you could choose to do with a fighter. Just picking up a martial weapon is less feat intensive and does more damage.

Pickford's monk will never live to level 8 with his 13 AC 10 Con melee build as was already pointed out.

[Vaz]

The Fighter does better by going second, anyway. He can full attack and AoO (provided the monk doesn't tumble), while the monk can merely either charge +attack, or, if it's got some use of Pounce then it can Full Attack. It cannot Flurry, and the only other method it can get is to Decisive Strike (which is a Full Attack, not Full Round Action like Flurry), 2Handing a Quarterstaff, possibly power attacking with it. But if he's going for a PAing 2Handing build, he'll get more from being a Fighter or Barbarian, or Psywar, or indeed ANY build that has no more levels of monk than 2, or 6 at most.

[Mato]

Gnaeus, Mato, Don't know why you guys are using 25 pointIt's what he said he used. Through on skim I miss read the level bump and instead seen, 8+10=18, 8+6=14, 8+4=12, 8+5=13, which is point for point.


The measurement isn't how monk-like the fighters can be, it's how good they are at unarmed damage.Then by that measurement the Monk takes 1st anyway.

Superior Unarmed Strike caps at 2d6 vs the Monk's 2d10. It's a none stacking value as well, attempting to add it to Monk Progression changes it to a single advancement (+4 lvls). You need six of those advancements (+20 lvls) and obtaining those takes considerable cost. Cost the Monk spends else where. And while a 7 vs 11 average doesn't sound a lot, when you get into Size increases the difference grows exponentially. By Colossal, or a single charge off a Wand, it's 8d6 (28) vs 12d8 (54).

Secondly, Unarmed Strike is treated as both a Manufactured and Natural Weapon for effects that would Enhance it is a Monk Ability (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm) and not actual part of Unarmed Strike (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#unarmedStrike). Just because you have Improved Unarmed Strike doesn't mean the Druid's Spells will work with it. Similarly, without Monk you take the 1/2 Str penalty for offhand Attacks when TWFing.

Thirdly, Furry of Blows is a Monk unique trait. In later levels it's not hard to hit creatures so while the Monk loses one attack from BAB (but could try to use divine power to make up for it), he gains two attacks the fighter cannot replicate. FoB can only be picked up by a Monk or by using a Serpent's Tooth, and the tooth deals 1d4 on hit.

The Monk simply has a higher and more easily obtained upper range on Unarmed Damage. If you're not an Unarmed Swordsage (which obtains the monk's unarmed strike), you'll fail before you can try.


Thanks to Rage, Barbarians are the best even at Tripping let alone at anything requiring BAB.Rage's once a day limitation at low levels quarters when crunched into daily averages becomes ignorable. IE +4 Str one out of four encounters becomes +0.5. This paltry figure contributes little to nothing until additional Rages are obtained. At least a Wizard can cast Grease more than once before nap time.

Also Passive Way Monk obtains a unique +4 bonus to Trip, Factotums get their Intelligence to Trip all day long and Marshals get their Charisma as well. Plus anyone can obtain the Barbarian's 11th level Greater Rage for 12k.


A +1 Fullplate costs 2650 GP. Not 1650 + 4000 GP...*headdesk* Ooops.

Two other things to remember. We haven't even started on ACFs, and these boards have a Multi-quote option. I should have probably used that.

[Juntao112]

Well, for one thing, Dex is always in these monk builds, and it's not a monk primary stat. I know, I'm a heretic. But bear with me for a moment:

every 2 points of a primary stat of a Monk provides:
Dex provides 3 benefits:
+1 AC, +1 Reflex save, +1 to 5 skill checks
Str provides 3 benefits:
+1 Attack, +1 Damage, +1 to 2 skill checks
Int provides 2 benefits:
+1 skill point, +1 to 3 skill checks
Con provides 3 benefits:
+1 HP per level, +1 Fort save, +1 to 1 skill check
Cha provides 1 benefit:
+1 to 2 skill checks
Wis provides 5 benefits:
+1 to AC, +1 Will save, +1 DC on Stunning Fist, +1 DC on Quivering Palm, +1 on 4 skill checks

Suffice to say, Dex is ok whenever you get around to it, but it's not worth losing points in Str/Wis.

Edit: Eldariel the focus works both ways:

Wis 18, Ability Focus Stunning Fist DC is 16.

edit2:

Gnaeus, Mato, Don't know why you guys are using 25 point

But don't throw away points into Dex.

Monk 8 25 PB
Str 16 (8 pts + 1 level bump)
Dex 10 (2 Pts)
Con 10 (2 pts)
Int 8
Wis 18 (13 Pts + 1 level bump)
Cha 8

After gear:
Str 18 (+4)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 10 (+0)
Int 8 (-1)
Wis 20 (+5)
Cha 8 (-1)

HP: 8d8 (32 ave)
BAB +6/+1
Full Attack: +6/+1 (+11/+6) (+4 str, +1 mighty fists: +5 total unarmed)
Flurry: +10/+10/+5: Damage Per hit 1d10+5 (same as above) +1d6 for fiery fist

AC 20 (10 + 5 wis + 1 Dex + 1 Natural armor (Amulet of Natural Armor +1) + 1 Deflection (Ring of Protection +1) + 1 Amor (Bracers of Armor +1) + 1 insight (ioun stone))
AC when Fighting Defensively: 23 (tumble synergy); if hit with fiery ki defense up, deals 1d6 to opponent.

As an alternate selection, pick up ki blast instead of fiery ki defense to make a ranged touch attack, in this case: 3d6 + 5 force damage (8-23), which could potentially kill the fighter in 2 rounds.

Skills: (4x4 = 16 1st level, +4 per level as human with -1 int mod, 28 more)
Max ranks: 8 + 3 = 11
Tumble: 11 ranks, +1 dex mod = 12
Balance: 5 ranks, +1 dex mod = 6
Jump: 6 ranks, +4 str mod = 10
Sense Motive: 5 ranks, +5 wis mod = 10
Spot: 5 ranks +5 wis mod = 10
Listen: 5 ranks + 5 wis mod = 10
Knowledge (religion): 2 ranks - 1 int mod = 1
Knowledge (arcana): 2 ranks - 1 int mod = 1
Escape Artist: 2 ranks + 1 dex mod = 3
Climb: 1 rank + 4 str mod = 5

Feats: Imp unarmed Strike (B), Stunning Fist (M1), Improved Grapple (1st), Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) (H), Fiery Fist (M2), Pain Touch (3rd), Fiery Ki Defense (M6), Weakening Touch (6th)

Stunning Fist DC: 21 (10 + 5 (Wis) + 4 (lvl/2) + 2 ability focus)
By my count, with a +6 fort save at lvl 8 and +1 from his Con, the Fighter will fail his save on anything less than a 14.

Gear: 26k (Body-slot affinities ftw)
Bracers of Armor +1 (1k)
Periapt of Wisdom +2 and Natural Armor +1 (6k)
Ring of Protection +1 (2k)
Gloves of Dexterity +2 (4k)
Belt of Mighty Fists +1, Strength +2 (8k)
Dusty Rose Prism (+1 insight to AC) (5k)

1k for some masterwork weaponry.

Edit: First hit drop the Fighter's str by 6 points for 1 minute with weakening touch, then grapple

Nine-Headed Hydra
Size/Type: Huge Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 9d10+48 (97 hp)
Initiative: +1
Speed: 20 ft. (4 squares), swim 20 ft.
Armor Class: 19 (–2 size, +1 Dex, +10 natural),, touch 9, flat-footed 18
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+22
Attack: 9 bites +13 melee (1d10+5)
Full Attack: 9 bites +13 melee (1d10+5)
Space/Reach: 15 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 19, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +5
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 10, Cha 9
Skills: Listen +8, Spot +8, Swim +13
Feats: Blind Fight, Combat ReflexesB, Iron Will, Toughness, Weapon Focus (bite)
Environment: Temperate marshes
(Pyro: Warm marshes)
(Cryo: Cold marshes)
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 8 (normal);
10 (pyro- or cryo-)
Treasure: 1/10 coins; 50% goods; 50% items
Alignment: Usually neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —

[Pickford]

As a heads-up for anyone seriously considering this advice, without an extremely pampered game, an unarmored 10 Dex/10 Con melee build will be dead long before hitting the first of those level bumps.

Starting AC would be 13, 15 in a defensive fighting. That's not unreasonable.

And 8 hp is fine, it's middle of the road.

[eggynack]

Starting AC would be 13, 15 in a defensive fighting. That's not unreasonable.

And 8 hp is fine, it's middle of the road.
I just did a quick search and picked a monster effectively at random. Frigging camels are going to beat you in a fight. You have the same AC, less than half as much hp, and die in two hits. It doesn't even really look close. I dunno if that's indicative, but it's something you should be expected to be capable of fighting. I'll just leave it at that for now, and do some more monster searching later.

edit: I've been looking through monsters some more, and have failed to find much of anything that the monk can beat with any consistency. Most CR1 monsters have better stats than that, and it's not like the monk has many ingrained advantages past their combat. It's just not a good game for them. These are monsters that the monk is expected to beat in combat about 50% of the time, and they don't at all.

double edit: I also looked at that monk's first level offensive stats. It's not like this monk is doing particularly well in terms of damage or attack bonus at that level either. They're attacking at a +3, with +1/+1 on a flurry, and they're doing like 1d8+3 damage. It's just not good enough to compensate against monster defense levels, especially compared to a fighter.

[Eldariel]

Starting AC would be 13, 15 in a defensive fighting. That's not unreasonable.

You never hit anything with defensive fighting. Your attack bonus is negative. You're literally worse than useless on level 1 and a drag on the party.

A level 1 Fighter with 10 Dex and Scalemail has 14, 16 while wielding a Heavy Wooden Shield. Defensive Fighting? Would be 18 but he knows he doesn't accomplish anything that way so he won't. 12 Dex is already 15 AC and Chainmail or Splint Mail would make it 17.


And 8 hp is fine, it's middle of the road.

It's not fine on melee. If you were an archer or a caster, sure, but melee needs to be able to take hits and 8 HP is awful. Fighters easily have 12-13, Barbarians even more than that. 8 hp is one hit away from unconsciousness with even slightly above average damage rolls while Fighter or Barb is guaranteed to be able to take a hit from anything smaller than an Orc's Greataxe with no risk of unconsciousness. They have decent odds of even surviving crits (not conscious but not dead) while said Monk is almost guaranteed to explode.


Like, have you actually played your ideas in practice? I've played a game from level 1 with a party of Monk, Paladin and Rogue (I was the Paladin) and the Monk was worse than useless; no damage, no AC, didn't help me take hits or even provide permanent flank or anything.

Literally just occasionally hit'n'running and missing that one hit 'cause Goblins' AC 15 at +2 attacks (without flurry) is kinda hard to hit. No, the campaign didn't continue much longer since we never reached level 2 and lacked the means to heal, and the Monk felt as useless as I felt he was. And I was a sword & board Paladin.

[Morty]

I think the important thing about the tier ratings that gets forgotten... pretty much all the time, really, is that playing a low-tier class does not mean that you will be ineffective and certainly not that you won't enjoy it. It describes potential, and there's a very long way between potential and practice.

[ericgrau]

The anti-monk hate on these boards is particularly strong. There is some truth in terms of optimization limits (though some optimization is possible). But for casual play I don't ever see a problem with people I know who play monks. I do hear horror stories from others about new players playing monks, but it's because they don't understand most of the class features and their mechanics so they play like low strength unequipped fighters.

[Pickford]

Ok to dash in to gnaeus and matos "argument"...

Mato you are wrong.

A +1 Fullplate costs 2650 GP. Not 1650 + 4000 GP...

Anyway this isn't something about who of you is right.

To share the glory of why I personally hate the monk class I can tell the following story.
I had fun with a monk on exactly 2 occasions.
The first was playing a 1st level monk that reached level 2 with less wealth than before. And it was still a blast mainly because of the story and being new and being able to attack twice in a round without TWFing.
THe other was an ALL-MONK group. That was fun since everyone was similarly shafted, we had a Monk/Rogue, a Monk/Drunken Master who later came with a Monk/Sorcerer and a totally pissed of Monk that might've gotten a Rage when the campaign had gone on for longer.
This was a blast, 3 loonies playing monkage power and smashing skulls in.

After that every time I tried to think of a monk or similar... I asked myself why not just go with a Barbarian with Spiked Gauntlets? (the idea stemmed from that last ALL-MONK-Campaign) and jeah after that the monk isn't fun anymore. I rather play a Rogue 2/Barbarian x/something than a monk. Except in a Pathfinder Campaign... there the monk has some really interesting things you can do to him thanks to archetypes.

That fact and the reasonings of my old group that monks are awesome and I don't care what tier the wizard is in a monk can still kill them etc... sucked the fun out of the class. In the recent campaign my best man said he wanted to try out the monk because he found the fluff interesting. I nudged him towards Unarmed Swordsage (mainly because I hate the Monk but also so he learns some subsystems, as he is rather new to dnd/roleplaying).

Well, for one thing you can't sunder the monk's fists, you can sunder the spikes and the gauntlets (which is 'really' easy).

For another, the Monk's AC and unarmed damage is always going to be higher than the Barbarians. Barbarians don't get tumble as a class skill, so they can't avoid AoO, they don't get bonus feats appropriate to unarmed combat.

To get on the same field as the Monk the Barbarian has to burn two feats, one on Improved Unarmed Strike and the other on Superior Unarmed Strike. And even doing that, they're still behind the curve, of course if they go with the weapon spikes they're emulating the same thing, but as I mentioned above, those can be destroyed/removed.

AC: Monk starting AC is generally higher than Barbarian before the rage, but with that taken into account it's going to be about a 2-4 point difference. While raging Barbarians can't tumble either, widening the gap.

Gnaeus: 8 HP is average. It's shared by Druids, Rangers, Clerics, etc... If you're that skittish, you could pick up Toughness and swap it for Improved Toughness after 3rd level.

edit: A camel is CR 1, that's appropriate for '4' 1st level characters to fight. A camel could easily kill any 1st level character solo.

Try a kobold, they're CR appropriate for a solo fight. (4 hp, 1d6)

edit2: Eldariel: Monks can use crossbows, so there's no reason for them to get into melee without having shot at least once, or if closer range, used Shuriken (one of which would kill a kobold since they apply full str mod for monks)

edit3: And of course Fighters should be able to take a hit better, they're designed to be front-line characters. The Monk shouldn't be the first one in, same as a rogue in that respect. They're more durable, but they definitely shouldn't be the party "tank".

edit:

Like, have you actually played your ideas in practice? I've played a game from level 1 with a party of Monk, Paladin and Rogue (I was the Paladin) and the Monk was worse than useless; no damage, no AC, didn't help me take hits or even provide permanent flank or anything.

Literally just occasionally hit'n'running and missing that one hit 'cause Goblins' AC 15 at +2 attacks (without flurry) is kinda hard to hit. No, the campaign didn't continue much longer since we never reached level 2 and lacked the means to heal, and the Monk felt as useless as I felt he was. And I was a sword & board Paladin.

Not everyone can play a character effectively. The Monk was pretty clearly not playing to their strengths. (Also, why only +2 to hit? Did they only have a 14 str?; blech) and did not plan for being able to fight someone with any AC at all.

Then again, that's what grapple is for. Touch attack to initiate, then superior unarmed capability wins the day. If your friend's monk had improved grapple they avoid the attack of opportunity, and their +4 +strmod should easily overcome the -3 grapple of the goblin. Unarmed damage is dealt, goblin dies in one round edit4?: grapple released when the goblin dies as a free action.

edit5: Actually, if you wanted, you could just grapple (for the melee touch attack) deal the unarmed damage, then release (free action). Since stunning fist works off grapple, it's EASY to land. (Touch AC of goblin is only 12)

[WhatBigTeeth]

A camel could easily kill any 1st level character solo.
If this is your frame of reference for optimization, your previous post makes much more sense.

But to maybe shine some light on why this is incorrect and your Monk suggestion is misguided:

Level 1 Fighter (or Paladin, or Barbarian...) with 16 Str, 12 Dex, 14 Con, Scale Mail and a Greatsword: +4 attack, 2d6+4 damage, 15 AC, 12 HP
Expected # rounds to kill a camel: 19/(.6*11)=3
Expected # rounds for a camel to kill the fighter: 12/(.3*4.5)=9

Level 1 Monk with 15 Str, 10 Dex, 10 Con, 17 Wis: +2 attack (+0/+0 Flurry), 1d6+2 damage, 13 AC, 8 HO
Expected # rounds to kill a camel (flurrying): 19/(.4*5.5*2)=5
Expected # rounds to kill a camel (std action attacking): 19/(.5*5.5)=7
Expected # rounds for camel to kill the monk: 8/(.4*4.5)=5

So the Fighter (or other beatstick) has an easy time killing this pushover animal, even without picking feats, factoring crit range or winning initiative, while your monk has to pray for a good initiative roll where the numbers are stacked against him.

[eggynack]

Gnaeus: 8 HP is average. It's shared by Druids, Rangers, Clerics, etc... If you're that skittish, you could pick up Toughness and swap it for Improved Toughness after 3rd level.

edit: A camel is CR 1, that's appropriate for '4' 1st level characters to fight. A camel could easily kill any 1st level character solo.


I'm just going to evaluate these two statements for now. First of all, druids do not share your monk's 8 hp, and neither do your other examples. These classes raise their constitution, which is what we're saying yours should do. Druids, for example, can put an 18 in wis, a 14 in con and a 10 in dex. You can finagle it a bit, towards maybe one more dex and one less con, or with 16 wis, but either way they're doing better than your monk.

Second, 4 1st level characters are expected to beat a camel just about all the time by expending like one quarter of their resources. A single first level character should be able to beat a cr1 enemy about half the time, which I don't think your monk can do. Also, druids can totally do this because their riding dog animal companion is actually at cr1, and thus should beat a cr1 enemy on its own about half the time. If you can't beat a cr1 enemy half the time, then you're worse than the druid's riding dog acting alone. This is a sad thing.

edit: Actually, to make this simpler from a direct class to class comparison, your monk is now fighting a riding dog. The riding dog is at +3 attack, which is equal to your monk, and deals 1d6+3 damage on a hit, which is also equal to your monk. However, the riding dog has 5 more hp, and 3 more ac than the monk. The monk has flurrying, but I don't even know if that's better given that you're sacrificing 2 attack bonus for it. The dog also has free trip which is actually probably better than the flurrying. It's a sidenote, but the dog is slightly more likely to win initiative. I'm pretty sure that, given all of that information, the dog is likely to beat your monk over half the time.

Double edit: Wait a sec, one of that strength is from leveling up. The monk only has a +2 attack bonus. The monk is worse than I thought.

[Axinian]

edit3: And of course Fighters should be able to take a hit better, they're designed to be front-line characters. The Monk shouldn't be the first one in, same as a rogue in that respect. They're more durable, but they definitely shouldn't be the party "tank".


Regardless of being the first one in or not, monks need to be able to take a hit, since they need to get right up in people's faces to flurry or even attack. And yes, the monk will have a low to-hit, because they need to spend points boosting Dex and Wis to have decent AC. But if they focus on boosting Str and Con, their AC will go down the toilet, and they'll just die to basically anything. It's not like they can wear armor, so, due to MADness, you essentially have to choose between hitting things and not getting hit. Say what you will about the Fighter, he doesn't really have to make that choice. Yes, you can take weapon finesse to make you more likely to hit, but then you won't be doing jack damage.

This is the problem with monks, they're not supposed to be front-line characters, but they can't do anything but be a front-line character in combat because the vast majority of their abilities are useless. And even then, they have trouble filling the role of front-line damage dealer because they are spread so thin.

[Pickford]

If this is your frame of reference for optimization, your previous post makes much more sense.

But to maybe shine some light on why this is incorrect and your Monk suggestion is misguided:

Level 1 Fighter (or Paladin, or Barbarian...) with 16 Str, 12 Dex, 14 Con, Scale Mail and a Greatsword: +4 attack, 2d6+4 damage, 15 AC, 12 HP
Expected # rounds to kill a camel: 19/(.6*11)=3
Expected # rounds for a camel to kill the fighter: 12/(.3*4.5)=9

Level 1 Monk with 15 Str, 10 Dex, 10 Con, 17 Wis: +2 attack (+0/+0 Flurry), 1d6+2 damage, 13 AC, 8 HO
Expected # rounds to kill a camel (flurrying): 19/(.4*5.5*2)=5
Expected # rounds to kill a camel (std action attacking): 19/(.5*5.5)=7
Expected # rounds for camel to kill the monk: 8/(.4*4.5)=5

So the Fighter (or other beatstick) has an easy time killing this pushover animal, even without picking feats, factoring crit range or winning initiative, while your monk has to pray for a good initiative roll where the numbers are stacked against him.

Unless, of course, the Camel grapples the Fighter. Camel grapple bonus is +10; Fighter in this example is +3. So the camel probably wins the opposed grapple check, deals unarmed damage to the fighter, and now the fighter has to use their attack to get free, otherwise they can't use that nice 2h.

The Monk on the other hand (hah...hand) can make attack rolls in a grapple with no problem as their fists act as light weapons.

Eggy: Flurry is always statistically better than non-flurry, even at the -2 to hit starting with 1st level. (i.e. you're more likely to hit at all)

[Eldariel]

Monks can use crossbows, so there's no reason for them to get into melee without having shot at least once, or if closer range, used Shuriken (one of which would kill a kobold since they apply full str mod for monks)

Your ranged attack is +0 when not flurrying. Good luck with that.


And of course Fighters should be able to take a hit better, they're designed to be front-line characters. The Monk shouldn't be the first one in, same as a rogue in that respect. They're more durable, but they definitely shouldn't be the party "tank".

Rogue has damage to offer that Monk doesn't. Rogue also has auxillary utility that Monk doesn't; they can be a skillmonkey/trapfinder/etc. whereas Monks are squarely limited to being frontliners with Hide.


Not everyone can play a character effectively. The Monk was pretty clearly not playing to their strengths. (Also, why only +2 to hit? Did they only have a 14 str?; blech) and did not plan for being able to fight someone with any AC at all.

Rolled stats. He had 15 Strength since that was his highest roll.


Then again, that's what grapple is for. Touch attack to initiate, then superior unarmed capability wins the day. If your friend's monk had improved grapple they avoid the attack of opportunity, and their +4 +strmod should easily overcome the -3 grapple of the goblin. Unarmed damage is dealt, goblin dies in one round edit4?: grapple released when the goblin dies as a free action.

He would've died if he tried. The encounter with the Goblins, for example, had 4 of them. Grapple a goblin -> others kill you. You can only grapple the last one.

Also, +2 to hit you only hit the touch attack to grapple 55% of the time. His Grapple advantage would be sufficient to win it ~70% of the time but the chance of succeeding both is under 50% so every round he tries to Improved Grapple has over 50% chances of doing nothing (much the same as his normal attacks, in fact).



Unless, of course, the Camel grapples the Fighter. Camel grapple bonus is +10; Fighter in this example is +3. So the camel probably wins the opposed grapple check, deals unarmed damage to the fighter, and now the fighter has to use their attack to get free, otherwise they can't use that nice 2h.

Camel doesn't have Improved Grapple; Fighter's AoO would put a stop to that.

[eggynack]

Eggy: Flurry is always statistically better than non-flurry, even at the -2 to hit starting with 1st level. (i.e. you're more likely to hit at all)
Fair enough. I'll run assessments with that in mind. Your monk is attacking at +0/+0 against the riding dog's 16 ac. That means that you're only hitting one fourth of the time. You therefore deal an average of ((1d6+2)*.25) 1.375 damage per hit, or 2.75 a turn. The riding dog is hitting at +3, against an ac of 13. That gives him a 55% chance of hitting, for an average damage per turn of ((1d6+3)*.55) 3.75 damage a turn. This is at the optimal state, in which the monk is able to full attack every turn. The riding dog is dealing a damage more than the monk every turn, and that's against more hp than the monk has. The riding dog really looks like he's winning this one by a good margin.

[Pickford]

Your ranged attack is +0 when not flurrying. Good luck with that.

Rogue has damage to offer that Monk doesn't. Rogue also has auxillary utility that Monk doesn't; they can be a skillmonkey/trapfinder/etc. whereas Monks are squarely limited to being frontliners with Hide.

Rolled stats. He had 15 Strength since that was his highest roll.

He would've died if he tried. The encounter with the Goblins, for example, had 4 of them. Grapple a goblin -> others kill you. You can only grapple the last one.

Also, +2 to hit you only hit the touch attack to grapple 55% of the time. His Grapple advantage would be sufficient to win it ~70% of the time but the chance of succeeding both is under 50% so every round he tries to Improved Grapple has over 50% chances of doing nothing (much the same as his normal attacks, in fact).

Camel doesn't have Improved Grapple; Fighter's AoO would put a stop to that.

Eldariel: Ranged attack that can be done out to 120' with no penalty, there's no real downside unless you're fighting an archer, and then you charge and/or find cover to move up.

Grappling only provides an AoO (assuming you don't have improved grapple, and looking at this again, there's no reason not to pick it up at 1st level as your human or 1st level bonus feat and take stunning fist as the monk 1st level feat) from the person you make the grapple attack against.

If you succeed (and with a decent str (+2 is fine) and the +4 from improved grapple, for +6 vs -3 (!) from the goblin there's no reason to think you won't) you will deal unarmed damage off a melee touch attack. This will kill a goblin 50% of the time with a +2 str bonus, leaving the monk un-grappled. Now, if they were able to max their str (not if you roll, but if you point buy) and get a +4 str bonus, you'd kill the goblin automatically (even rolling a 1 on 1d6).

In which case it doesn't make any sense 'not' to grapple.

If the Fighter hits, only a 55% chance of happening, same as you were saying for the Monk. And seriously, a camel? Way to pick something that a PC is never going to fight.

edit: Eggy what happens if the Monk goes grapple on the dog? Assuming the +7 grapple mod on the Monk v the +3 grapple mod of the dog, and the 12 touch AC (say...done off a charge) making it having to roll over a 7 (+2 charge, +3 str bonus on melee touch attack).

edit2: (I'm bringing up grapple because it seems obvious the advantage tilts in favor of the monk)

[WhatBigTeeth]

If the Fighter hits, only a 55% chance of happening, same as you were saying for the Monk. And seriously, a camel? Way to pick something that a PC is never going to fight.
After considering the .45 chance of the camel's touch attack hitting, the .45 chance of the fighter missing the AoO and the .7375 chance of winning the grapple, you're looking at a camel successfully grappling the fighter about 1/7 of the time. Those odds aren't exactly making your case.

[Eldariel]

Grappling only provides an AoO (assuming you don't have improved grapple, and looking at this again, there's no reason not to pick it up at 1st level as your human or 1st level bonus feat and take stunning fist as the monk 1st level feat) from the person you make the grapple attack against.

If you succeed (and with a decent str (+2 is fine) and the +4 from improved grapple, for +6 vs -3 (!) from the goblin there's no reason to think you won't) you will deal unarmed damage off a melee touch attack. This will kill a goblin 50% of the time with a +2 str bonus, leaving the monk un-grappled. Now, if they were able to max their str (not if you roll, but if you point buy) and get a +4 str bonus, you'd kill the goblin automatically (even rolling a 1 on 1d6).

Yeah, if you have 18 Strength. He didn't.

Also, your chances of hitting an attack at +2 are 40%. Your chances of hitting touch attack at 55% and the chances of winning a Grapple-check at +9 advantage (effectively +10) to 86.25% chance of winning the Grapple-check; chances of winning both are 47.4% so yeah, your chances are better but still over 50% chance of doing nothing.

For the record, the chances of hitting one of the two attacks at +0 is (1-.7*.7) = .51; so on a full attack, he's basically 50/50 for doing nothing vs. hitting.


In which case it doesn't make any sense 'not' to grapple.

If the Fighter hits, only a 55% chance of happening, same as you were saying for the Monk. And seriously, a camel? Way to pick something that a PC is never going to fight.

I don't care about that, it's not my example. I was just pointing out that the Camel can't grapple the Fighter as you suggested 'cause of lacking Improved Grapple (probably lacks the natural instincts and intelligence to do it too but again, I don't really care).

[Pickford]

Yeah, if you have 18 Strength. He didn't.

Also, your chances of hitting an attack at +2 are 40%. Your chances of hitting touch attack at 55% and the chances of winning a Grapple-check at +9 advantage (effectively +10) to 86.25% chance of winning the Grapple-check; chances of winning both are 47.4% so yeah, your chances are better but still over 50% chance of doing nothing.

For the record, the chances of hitting one of the two attacks at +0 is (1-.7*.7) = .51; so on a full attack, he's basically 50/50 for doing nothing vs. hitting.

I don't care about that, it's not my example. I was just pointing out that the Camel can't grapple the Fighter as you suggested 'cause of lacking Improved Grapple (probably lacks the natural instincts and intelligence to do it too but again, I don't really care).

Monsters don't need Improved Grab or Improved Grapple to grapple. The first just lets them grapple off an attack, no touch attack required, and the latter prevents AoO, also not a deal breaker. Plus the potential benefits, depriving a 2h weapon user of their ability to fight, far outweigh the risks. (edit: And the camel has +10 grapple check)

[Eldariel]

Monsters don't need Improved Grab or Improved Grapple to grapple. The first just lets them grapple off an attack, no touch attack required, and the latter prevents AoO, also not a deal breaker. Plus the potential benefits, depriving a 2h weapon user of their ability to fight, far outweigh the risks. (edit: And the camel has +10 grapple check)

No, but the AoO means it's probably not a good idea vs. Fighter. You missed it in your assessment. Camel's AC is 13 so Fighter's chance of hitting the AoO and interrupting the Grapple are over 50% from that alone. Combined with the Touch Attack and Grapple-check, the Fighter's chances of avoiding grapple are fairly good.

And, again, you're suggesting that a Camel would use grapple in combat, something I'm fairly certain is against their nature in quite a few ways. That's overplaying their intelligence quite a bit for the sake of an argument.

[Mato]

Level one is the most dangerous level in the game. You're betting on random odds more than anything else. Even Mundanes can pretend to be Casters with various tools and Alchemical items since at this level barring high levels of optimization Save-or-Suck/Dies are most potent at well.

[eggynack]

In order to complete the evaluation of your monk versus a riding dog, it's additionally necessary to analyze their other combat abilities. Let's start with the monk. Once per day, the monk is able to launch a stunning fist, and they have improved grapple. Stunning fist hits very rarely against the riding dog, so the once per day restriction is quite problematic for them. As I noted earlier, the base hit chance is 25%, and the save is set at 13 which has a 35% chance of working (they make it on an 8). Putting that together with fancy math powers, the monk has an 8.75% chance of stunning the riding dog a single time during combat. This seems somewhere near negligible.

Therefore, the real competition here is between the monk's grapple powers and the dog's tripping powers. Starting with the touch attack, you make a melee touch attack at +2, giving you a decent 50% chance of initiating the grapple at all. Then, we compare grapple mods. The monk has a mod of +6, while the dog has a mod of +3. The dog has to roll an average of 4 higher on his die to win, giving the monk a 70% chance to win that (I think those are the stats, but correct me if I'm wrong). That means that if the monk initiates a grapple, he has a 65% chance of doing nothing. Therefore, I don't believe it is in the monk's best interests to grapple the riding dog, though if you want to run the numbers of that combat, be my guest.

The trip, by contrast, is a complete positive. Every time he makes a hit, he gets a 50% chance to trip the opponent, no matter what. The monk, therefore, being knocked over by the dog on 25 % of his attacks. Being prone puts the monk at a serious and obvious disadvantage, given how devastating free attacks or large melee penalties are to a monk.

I conclude, therefore, that the riding dog is superior to your monk in just about every way there is. I don't really see much way around it. Also, the reason camels aren't often fought by adventurers is because they're pretty lousy at combat. Their only attack is treated as secondary, which is pretty crazy.

Edit: I only see a +6 grapple mod on the monk. 0 BaB+ 2 strength+4 improved grapple. I think it's a negligible ability, because it's more than likely to fail, and if it does the monk has wasted his action. You're still open to run the numbers, calculating the power of being grappled against the probability of it actually happening. Also, with a charge you're still running at 42%, which makes it a low effectiveness tactic as far as I'm concerned.

[Man on Fire]

This is a serious question*. I've been playing D&D 3.5 for a few years now, and on this site, I hear a lot of bad mouthing to monks. I've enjoyed playing them, decent flavor and not completely horrible mechanics....yet everybody seems to disagree with me. Why is that? What about them makes them so horrible? They're suboptimal to be fair, but by no means do they deserve the horrible reputation they've engendered among the playgrounders. Also...tier 5? Really? 4 skill point isn't that bad, and while their abilities can be situational, they aren't as bad as the PHB fighter is. So what gives?

*Meaning if you give me not thought out responses like "they just suck" I'll probably report your post.

Somebody o nthese forums had once said that people are complaining about monk, because they just aren't as badass as the impression you get after reading their class features for the first time.
Also, and I'm sorry if that oudns rude, Gitp has strange approach to their apaprently favorite game, where, unless you play it like a paranoid, power-hungry maniac, you don't play it right*. When people here say Monks suck, they don't mean "monks always sucks", but "they suck in games as we like to play them".
I actually like Monk. He needs some optimization to keep up with other classes in games here, but that's the fun about it, I'm sort of fan of the udnerdog.

*- I'm still mad that I almost TPKed party of tier 1s with equal level ranger, just because you guys told me at 6th level meele cannot pose a challenge to them. And I'm still mad you people aid it's my player's fault for nto picking up Web as a spell.

[Gavinfoxx]

What if the Riding Dog has leather barding?

Gasp!!

And... can you link to the thread where we said that? That doesn't sound like something we would actually say; we know that optimization level and player competence are a bigger deal, yaknow? And we know that players can suck as druids/wizards/etc....

[Karnith]

Yeah, usually when people (or, at least, I) say "monk sucks," they mean that "the monk class is mechanically not very effective at what it's supposed to do compared to other classes," not "all monk characters will suck."

[Mato]

Which tends to be why I find examples entertaining to pick at.

If you stand back and go with generic thoughts you can see the real tier system, and not the trollfood you all link to.

[Man on Fire]

And... can you link to the thread where we said that? That doesn't sound like something we would actually say; we know that optimization level and player competence are a bigger deal, yaknow? And we know that players can suck as druids/wizards/etc....

It was in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272409&page=5). Sorry, but my players got offended at the idea that if they don't use some optimization guide and don't have "right" spells, they're playing the game wrong.

[eggynack]

What if the Riding Dog has leather barding?

Yeah, that kinda pushes the battle from somewhat favorable to the riding dog, to very favorable to the riding dog. Monks are a sad sad variety of creature, especially this one. I mean, you can easily build a monk to be better than that one at level one, but if we're proving that that monk sucks at level one, then it's no competition.

[Eldariel]

Which tends to be why I find examples entertaining to pick at.

If you stand back and go with generic thoughts you can see the real tier system, and not the trollfood you all link to.

Which is...spellcasters are top tier, limited casters, versatile skillmonkeys with UMD and efficient mundane bruisers are mid tier and the gimped core classes are bottom tier? Isn't that obvious?

[Squark]

It was in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272409&page=5). Sorry, but my players got offended at the idea that if they don't use some optimization guide and don't have "right" spells, they're playing the game wrong.

The situation seems to be more of one that involved freak die rolls than anything else.

[Shining Wrath]

I think the important thing about the tier ratings that gets forgotten... pretty much all the time, really, is that playing a low-tier class does not mean that you will be ineffective and certainly not that you won't enjoy it. It describes potential, and there's a very long way between potential and practice.

And thanks for posting this. You CAN enjoy playing a Monk if you role-play it and don't mind not being the guy who wins the fight.

[Squark]

And thanks for posting this. You CAN enjoy playing a Monk if you role-play it and don't mind not being the guy who wins the fight.

True. But it's best to be aware of that before hand, and that there are options available that can let you have your cake and eat it too.

[Gavinfoxx]

It was in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272409&page=5). Sorry, but my players got offended at the idea that if they don't use some optimization guide and don't have "right" spells, they're playing the game wrong.

Uh can you actually link to where the advice was given I mean??

[Eldariel]

It was in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=272409&page=5). Sorry, but my players got offended at the idea that if they don't use some optimization guide and don't have "right" spells, they're playing the game wrong.

I have no idea how 5 Wizards manage to not prepare a single will save-or-sucks that would seriously inconvenience him long enough for them to kill him (Warrior Will-saves aren't all that). It's like, there's multiples of them over 4 schools (Color Spray, Glitterdust, Pyrotechnics, Hideous Laughter just off the top of my head within Core) and you have 5 Wizards; how is it even possible that they have none of that or don't think to use it?

If you were playing AD&D, they would've died a TPK on level 1, not 'cause they're playing the game wrong but simply 'cause they're not up to the challenges playing a Mage party creates, and the world will mercilessly slaughter them.

Let them believe what they want; if their Wizards truly go out of their way to die, that's their decision. Like, if they specifically want to play gimped Wizards they need to inform the DM (had the information been passed on in the thread, I'm sure the advice would've been different).


If they can't beat a level 5 Ranger, they won't probably be able to deal with any CR 5 challenges you throw at them even though those should be easy for a party of their size and level. Either they were extraordinarily unlucky or so underpowered that you'd need to throw CR-under-party-level monsters at them.

[Gnaeus]

Gnaeus: 8 HP is average. It's shared by Druids, Rangers, Clerics, etc..

Cleric and druid are wisdom based SAD. Both have no reason NOT to make Con their 2nd highest stat. They will not have 8 hp.

Druid 1 has a companion to tank for him. If his AC is 13, he will be a ranged combatant hiding behind his pet. If his AC is 13, it is because he tanked dex and str in anticipation of wildshape, so he is essentially a healbot with a riding dog (and the riding dog fights better than the monk) he has an awesome Con and good Int, so is better in combat and out of combat than monk.

Cleric is a heavy armor class. His AC should be at least 17 if he plans to melee.

Ranger 1 is the only one that is CLOSE to the monk in fragility. We will assume he is a melee ranger, since if he is ranged, why are we comparing him to a monk? Figure same 25 PB, Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Wis 12. That means with studded leather he has AC 15 (3 better than monk) Attack +4 doing 2d6+4 (way better than monk). OR AC 17 Attack +4 doing 1d8+3 (also better than monk). He also has more skill points than monk, and better class features than monk.

[eggynack]

Actually, come to think of it, how would you non-Pickford folks build a monk to be better than a riding dog. Every time it comes up, he constructs an absurdly specific situation, and builds a character to beat that situation, usually by maxing out ac for some reason. I figure that we can probably do better than that. The riding dog's high hp and free trips make them pretty tough to beat at that level, but it must be possible to construct a monk that can outdo them generally.

[Juntao112]

Fistbeard Beardfist? (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8034.0)

[ArcturusV]

At first level, against a Riding Dog? Hmm... Not sure. Maybe a Power Attack Charger type? So human monk, Human feat Power Attack, level 1 feat Flying Kick. Gives me double damage on a charge with an unarmed strike.

And thus like Commoner vs Housecat it'd be up to whoever tags who first. I'd have the damage on a charge to be able to put down the Dog, but if I miss it can put me down with a good hit. But I figure that way at least the odds of winning are close to 50/50. And it's not using any insane tricks, and a standard build that you, as a monk, might actually want for general use rather than being specifically geared for this Epic Duel.

[Snowbluff]

Fistbeard Beardfist? (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8034.0)

... Juntao... my main brony... this only has 2 monk levels. XD

[eggynack]

I think the ideal here is that we run it based on standard definitions of tier, rather than through one on one combat. With two super meleeish characters, those two things might be the same thing though. I don't even know what power attack does for a monk at first level, or secondarily at any level, due to their low BaB. At level two, the monk likely surpasses the dog due to catching up on HD, at level three the dog zooms back ahead, and then at level 4 the riding dog spontaneously transforms into a fleshraker dinosaur and is thus lost to the monk forever. For these purposes, I was thinking level one, so as to either prove or disprove the claim that the monk is worse than the druid's animal companion at first level. The dog is presumably wearing barding, but I don't know if there's anything else that helps him.

[ArcturusV]

In my suggestion? All Power Attack does is grant the monk specific feats that require power attack, like Flying Kick (Requires Improved Unarmed Strike, Power Attack and 4 ranks of Jump) which doubles unarmed strike damage on a charge. So not the GREATEST feat choice ever. But it obviously has a purpose.

But yeah, Power Attack for monks I've seen and used was pretty much always just a Prerequisite tax. Then again what feat based characters DON'T have stupid feat taxes?

[Juntao112]

... Juntao... my main brony... this only has 2 monk levels. XD

... Wojab Who Crushes (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?334598-Wojab-Who-Crushes)?

[Squark]

Let's go with 28 point buy... I'm no monk expert, so I'm sticking to core at the moment.

EDIT: Ninja'd by those wiser than me

Human Monk 1

Str 16
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 14
Cha 8

Feats; Improved Grapple (Bonus feat, since it's better than stunning fist for the foreseeable time), Improved Innitiative (Human Bonus Feat), 1st level feat is open since I see no relevant core feats here (Power Attack is too risky with this BaB)
Skills; Balance +6, Tumble +6, Jump +7, Listen +6 (Yeah, this last one I didn't have any ideas for. If someone else can spot one I've missed, feel free).

Basic Stats;
Standard Attack +3, deals 1d6+3 damage.
Full Attack +1/+1, deals 1d6+3 damage.
AC 14
Hp 10
Initiative +6
Grapple +7
Saving throws: +4/+4/+4

Does this guy have any hope against the druid's 1st level class feature?

Compare to;

First level Dwarven Fighter

Str 18
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 8
Cha 6

Feats: Power Attack, Improved Initiative
Skills... I have no idea, here

Basic Stats;
Basic Attack: Greatsword +5 (2d6+6)
Becomes +4 (2d6+8) If he wants
AC 16 (+4 Armor, +2 dex)
Innitiative +6
Saving Throws +4/+2/-1
Hp: 12
Stability happens to give a bonus against being tripped, but honestly, I made this guy a dwarf because I had no idea what to do with a third feat at this point or with extra skill points, but +2 Con let me get 14 Con and still get 18 STR

And, since it came up earlier in a similar thread to this...

1st level Human Paladin
Str 16
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 12
Cha 14

(Same build as Dwarf, otherwise)

He won't outfight the dwarf, but he's still got +4 to hit with that greatsword.


But level 1 is mostly rocket tag anyway. How about level 6, guys?

[Vaz]

At first level, against a Riding Dog? Hmm... Not sure. Maybe a Power Attack Charger type? So human monk, Human feat Power Attack, level 1 feat Flying Kick. Gives me double damage on a charge with an unarmed strike.
Take Decisive Strike for double damage with a 2 Handed Polearm.

I see no reason to taking Flurry, ever, due to it's requisite for a Full Round action.

[ArcturusV]

Wasn't aware of it.

Though Monks don't have two handed pole arms on their list. Unless you count Quarterstaves? But yeah. I never flurry with monks either. If I'm stuck using no armor, dammit, I'mma be mobile at least.

[eggynack]

That doesn't seem like it'd be able to beat captain doggington. The two characters are running at the same attack bonus and damage, except the dog with leather barding has four more ac and 3 more hp. I still don't see grappling as being particularly useful. If it works then the monk has a good chance at winning, but it works pretty rarely. That's not taking into account the flurry damage, though it probably isn't higher than the dog's when accounting for ac. The monk needs to roll a 17 to hit the dog on a flurry, while the dog only needs to roll an 11 to hit the monk. This means that the dog is 30% more likely to hit, though I think that leaves the monk with a slight damage advantage. I'ma run it for reals. The dog has 50% to hit, which means he's dealing 3.25 damage a turn on average. The monk is only hitting 20% of the time, but is hitting twice as often. That gives him an average of 1.3 damage per hit, for 2.6 per turn. This is without tripping, which pushes it more in captain doggington's favor.

If I'm wrong on grappling, and it's actually a statistically viable option, one of you guys is gonna have to run the numbers. However, these combats show a serious problem with the monk. They're not really good at anything. I really don't know what a regular monk does in terms of feats and combat styles, though it doesn't seem to be anything good for the most part. ACF's are probably going to be the thing that make's the difference, but I don't know if a regular monk just using feats can manage it.

edit: This is about Squark's build btw. I dunno how the other stuff affects this yet.

[Squark]

Take Decisive Strike for double damage with a 2 Handed Polearm.

Or just do double damage (comparatively) by using a greatsword.

For a 6th level challenge, let's say fighting a Megaraptor. Also, how does this fight change if the Megaraptor swapped run for Improved Innitiative?

[eggynack]

So, it's possible that the monk is able to beat the riding dog but only if he forgoes all of his class features and becomes a worse warrior. I'm seriously considering starting that "Monks aren't tier 5 (because they're tier 6)" thread. Warriors get all martial weapons and armor, and have full BaB compared to the monk. This might be the saddest I've ever felt for monks.

[ArcturusV]

Heh. Well Squick, my idea was that if I'm going to do something "as a monk" I was actually going to be a monk and not go, "Oh, look at my powerful Monk with 2 levels of Monk, 8 of Swordsage, and 10 of Swordsage based PrC!"

Which does make it more challenging.

At level 6? Hmm. Well, Monk 5/Shintao Monk 1, would help at least balance some stuff out. I'll be kicking up one of my stats by 2-5 for free. Always helps. The problem is, at that point most monk builds I'd throw out are based against fighting humanoids, more or less. Definitely a weakness of monks, that they are less capable against random critters and kinda need humanoid opponents.

I don't recall the Megaraptor stats off to top of my head. So I can't say. Probably going to lose horribly. Only good thing about the monk is, at that point I could be attacking at 2d8, 3d8 on a charge. But extra dice won't be making a decisive difference at that level.

Edit: That's actually 2d10. I was misremembering. Empty Hand would get me "As if 1 size category larger" so from 1d8 to 1d10. And Flying Kick is double damage on a charge, so 2d10 + 2x Str Mod (Which with Touch of the Void Dragon could realistically be about 22 Str for a +12).

[Vaz]

Or just do double damage (comparatively) by using a greatsword.
Meant to type Q'Staff.

[Squark]

The Megaraptor, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#megaraptor) for your viewing pleasure.


Meant to type Q'Staff.

So... for the charge attack only, you've turned managed to make the quarterstaff do as much damage as the greatsword does normally.

[eggynack]

Without seeing the build, I wouldn't be able to check the numbers. However, the megaraptor is core, and hence here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#megaraptor). It appears to be somewhat powerful, and is particularly good at high damage dealing on a charge. The megaraptor is technically an even fight for the monk, although I had thought we were doing monk vs. animal companion, in which case the megaraptor is too high in level. At that level, it's far more likely that the druid would have a fleshraker, which gets one advancement for fanciness points. It's a tough fight, given that the fleshraker can do just about anything and everything melee style.

[Squark]

Without seeing the build, I wouldn't be able to check the numbers. However, the megaraptor is core, and hence here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/dinosaur.htm#megaraptor). It appears to be somewhat powerful, and is particularly good at high damage dealing on a charge. The megaraptor is technically an even fight for the monk, although I had thought we were doing monk vs. animal companion, in which case the megaraptor is too high in level. At that level, it's far more likely that the druid would have a fleshraker, which gets one advancement for fanciness points. It's a tough fight, given that the fleshraker can do just about anything and everything melee style.

My goal with the Megaraptor was to see how the Monk would stack up against a CR 6 monster (on the theory currently espoused that a PC should be able to, ideally, handle a monster of their CR 50% of the time solo, as espoused early in the thread), and the good ole Megaraptor was the only monster that stood out to me in Cr 6. If you prefer, a 5-headed Pyrohydra or 7-headed normal hydra is the same CR. EDIT: Babaus and Chain Devils are also CR 6, if you'd prefer one of those.

EDIT: Here's a list of the Cr 6 monsters in the SRD (http://monsterfinder.dndrunde.de/results.php?id=906461469&skip=0) For those curious, CR 6 was chosen because 6th level is generally the final breaking off point for most martial classes, the time all primary casters have 3rd level spells, and fighters just got their 2nd iterative attack.

[ArcturusV]

I don't have a build on me. Though I'm figuring the monk is gonna be hosed on this one. Just realistically there's no way he's going to avoid getting hit in any dependable way. And he's not going to be able to "Race" that enemy to zero HP effectively with the natural attack advantage.

I'm sure Pickford would just say "Well, it has a low will save, so just Stun Fist Stunlock!". Though in order to do that you'd have to Win Initiative (Doubtful but possible), hit with it (Possible), make them fail the save (Possible but not definite). And end up using all your Stunning Fist uses just to keep it stunlocked BARELY enough to be able to outrace it, possibly?

*shrug* I wasn't talking about a Monk built for the duel but just a general adventurer one I might see around the tabletop. So it's going to fare poorly here. It's advantage is that unlike the usual Pickford Build, it's generally baseline useful/useless instead of being high specialized...

[Squark]

It occurs to me the solo challenge might not be the fairest, here. So, here's an alternate challenge.

The archetypical party consists of a Fighter, a Wizard, a Cleric, and a Rogue. Create a 6th level Monk that can safely replace the Fighter or Rogue (That is, the main combat expert, or the skill monkey).

Monk doing any better here? What about as a fifth member? How would a monk help pull his own weight compared to a bard or a ranger in the 5th slot?

[Eldariel]

I'm sure Pickford would just say "Well, it has a low will save, so just Stun Fist Stunlock!". Though in order to do that you'd have to Win Initiative (Doubtful but possible), hit with it (Possible), make them fail the save (Possible but not definite). And end up using all your Stunning Fist uses just to keep it stunlocked BARELY enough to be able to outrace it, possibly?

Stunning Fist is a Fort-save; it's not that easy. You get Ability Focus for it Core 'cause of lack of alternatives, but it's not very useful here.

[Squark]

I'd say a +9 bonus to fortitude save seems (roughly) average for a 9th level bruiser monster after some quick searching. So, to concievably stand a good chance of stunning the monster, we want ~DC 23 to compensate for needing to hit.

[ArcturusV]

My bad. Not with my books at the moment so I was just spitballing it out. What is Will? Quivering Palm? Pain Touch? Sure it was something. But yeah, Fort Save means you don't even get a shot at it.

And probably not Squark. The Monk might be, I stress might, be an acceptable "Scout/Sentry". So his primary role would be just keeping watch at night while the real workhorses are resting? Though the Ranger would do it better. I'm not going to argue that. Heck, just having an animal companion like an Owl or Wolf would make them a lot better than a monk at that.

Mainline Combat? I don't think it could keep up with the Fighter. I don't think it will fall behind entirely at this point. But I rather have a Fighter. The Fighter can be a lot more useful with Combat Maneuvers. Even if I went for some Chargelot build with both of them they'd be... roughly equal? The fighter might come out ahead on that with the ability to punt people around. The monk would keep up on sheer damage but not on added effects.

[Eldariel]

I'd say a +9 bonus to fortitude save seems (roughly) average for a 9th level bruiser monster after some quick searching. So, to concievably stand a good chance of stunning the monster, we want ~DC 23 to compensate for needing to hit.

Not happening; even with level 8 Monk at 18 starting Wisdom and +2 item and Ability Focus, you have 10+4+5+2 = DC 21. And 18 Wisdom is extremely suspect if we're talking about a Monk with physical capabilities to not be entirely useless (that is, 18 Strength and all level-ups in Strength). Level 6 Monk can't probably even afford the Wisdom necklace.

[Squark]

Not happening; even with level 8 Monk at 18 starting Wisdom and +2 item and Ability Focus, you have 10+4+5+2 = DC 21. And 18 Wisdom is extremely suspect if we're talking about a Monk with physical capabilities to not be entirely useless (that is, 18 Strength and all level-ups in Strength). Level 6 Monk can't probably even afford the Wisdom necklace.

So... Conclusion is Stunning Fist is not going to work on the bruisers, then. If you got next to the caster you've either already won or you've just fallen into his trap. In short I think most of us will agree (not that it was ever in serious doubt by many) that Stunning Fist is not worth bothering with.

[ArcturusV]

Well, Pickford would disagree, as his usual arguments on Monkday do focus heavily on it. But yeah. It's not going to work against anyone with decent Saves. Anyone with d4 HD that you're in melee with shouldn't need it... so it's good for taking on Bards/Rogue types only?

[Eldariel]

So... Conclusion is Stunning Fist is not going to work on the bruisers, then. If you got next to the caster you've either already won or you've just fallen into his trap. In short I think most of us will agree (not that it was ever in serious doubt by many) that Stunning Fist is not worth bothering with.

It's not worth focusing on but it's useful so I'd pick it up as a bonus feat. In Core environment, I'd gladly Ability Focus it (you don't have better feats available anyways) since it's still a chance and most things don't quite succeed on 2.

It's not always useful (immune enemies, enemies too far away, etc.) nor likely to work but it's still there and sometimes it'll do its job. But no, it can't be your solution to "this is how I beat X". In general, Monk as a whole is weak to bruisers; they have bad AC and low HP, all their normal attack patterns attacks target AC+HP, Fort or Strength/BAB (all typically high on bruisers) and their damage is middling at best. They also lack strong ranged options. Overall, bruisers and things that can command/summon bruisers (that would be almost everything in the game) tend to be very well positioned vs. Monks.

[Vaz]

So... for the charge attack only, you've turned managed to make the quarterstaff do as much damage as the greatsword does normally.

Hey, I never said Monk was good aside from a Feat dip. You could take a feat like Whirling Steel Strike and an Aptitude (and Skillful?) Greatsword, though.

[Lans]

Not happening; even with level 8 Monk at 18 starting Wisdom and +2 item and Ability Focus, you have 10+4+5+2 = DC 21. And 18 Wisdom is extremely suspect if we're talking about a Monk with physical capabilities to not be entirely useless (that is, 18 Strength and all level-ups in Strength). Level 6 Monk can't probably even afford the Wisdom necklace.

Outside of core theres decisive strike to up it by two, and to go with a counter attack build

[Mato]

But Optimization by Numbers says the average fort save is 9.12 for CR 8 (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869122/Optimization_By_The_Numbers).
Base DC is 10 + 1/2 level + WisMod.
Ability focus (feat) gives +2.
Ki Straps (5,000gp gloves) up your stunning fist DC by +5.
@8th level & 14 wisdom on average a creature saves 30% of the time.
@8th level & 18 wisdom it is a 90% chance of success.
A Shiba Protector build (+wis to att/dmg) would maximize his wisdom even higher.

While I think at higher levels only a wisdom based build could keep the DCs relevant. The Save DC game is fundamentally more powerful the lower the level of play. Initial magic item surge only extends the low level benefits for a bit.

[Lans]

We were comparing the monk vs bruisers so the average is different

Ki straps only add +2 as of MiC

The only way the monk class is going to not be tier 5 is if you throw multiple ACFs at it or the wild shape one

[Squark]

But Optimization by Numbers says the average fort save is 9.12 for CR 8 (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869122/Optimization_By_The_Numbers).
Base DC is 10 + 1/2 level + WisMod.
Ability focus (feat) gives +2.
Ki Straps (5,000gp gloves) up your stunning fist DC by +5.
@8th level & 14 wisdom on average a creature saves 30% of the time.
@8th level & 18 wisdom it is a 90% chance of success.
A Shiba Protector build (+wis to att/dmg) would maximize his wisdom even higher.

While I think at higher levels only a wisdom based build could keep the DCs relevant. The Save DC game is fundamentally more powerful the lower the level of play. Initial magic item surge only extends the low level benefits for a bit.


Couple of issues; We're specifically evaluating "bruiser" type monsters, on the grounds that you don't need a stunning fist attack against squishier types* (Because if you've managed to get in close, you've already won, or fallen into a trap). So, a quick SRD search bumps that up to an average of +13 (EDIT: vs. an adjusted DC of 20), giving the beasty a 65% chance of making the save against the Wis 14 monk, or a 50% chance against a Wis 20 monk. Given you have to hit first, and stunning fist is only useful against certain enemies anyway...

Also, and don't take this the wrong way (I'm not intending this as a criticism, I genuinely haven't come across either of those things), where are Ki straps and Shiba Protector from?

EDIT: Googled them. Sword and Fist and Oriental Adventures. Not sure if Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) is viable in a Shiba Protector, given the feats you already had to waste to get in. Also, while this certainly doesn't preclude taking them, did Ki straps get updated to 3.5? EDIT 2: Oh hey, ninja'd pre-edit. That's embaressing. So, yeah. Math is being adjusted.

*Also, if the monk isn't supposed to be a frontline fighter... What the hell is it supposed to be? It's not a skill monkey, it doesn't cast spells, and it doesn't have precision damage. That kind of forces it to compete against the fighter and the Paladin.

[eggynack]

I think that last issue is the one that really needs to be resolved. What is a monk supposed to do? And possibly more importantly, how can we make them do that? I don't know if this is a question with an answer. Looking at the class now, it almost seems like it was trying to be some kind of jack of all trades, master of none type. It has melee capabilities, but they're possibly not on par with the npc warrior class. They have 4+int skill points, so it almost seems like they're supposed to use them somehow, but with their MAD it's not nearly enough to get a skill monkey of any kind.

I think the best possibility is that they're supposed to be a tank. They have fantastic saves, a boost to AC, a couple of mediocre debuff abilities (stunning fist, improved trip and improved grapple, I guess) and the core apparent goal of the class is punching stuff a lot. The problem with this is that they're really really phenomenally horrendous at it. MAD + no armor + mediocre HD + average BAB makes for a class that is terrible at surviving anything, without sacrificing their ability to effect combat in any way. They can't be a front line combatant, because they'll die, and they can't do any strike damage, because they don't have a single ability anywhere in the class that incentivizes that.

I feel like a lot of this has been said before, but what needs to be asked is what it means. It's possible that the monk is just not good at anything, short of making save DC's. Moreover, a straight level 20 monk probably won't have great saves anyway. In the first level of saves, you get +6, in the second you get +3, but then at levels three and four combined you get +3 total. You'd get the same total save bonus if you took two levels in fighter, in other words. Incentives for saves, like the incentives for melee in general, lies in a series of short dips, given how front loaded good saves are. But I digress. The monk might not be good at anything, or if they are good at something, we don't know what it is. Ultimately, if we can't come up with anything particularly fruitful, then the monk belongs more in tier 6 with the warrior.

In conclusion, monks are lame.

[Waker]

Well eggynack, my take on it is that monks are supposed to be skirmishing warrior type rather than tanks like paladins or fighters are meant to be. The speed boost, skill array, slow fall and so on would benefit a hit and run combatant, if they had the other powers to make it worthwhile.
Mixing some of the scout abilities in with the monk would help, since skirmish would add to damage and ac. Making stunning fist, trip and some other movement impairing attacks more effective would allow the monk to take advantage of his superior movement.

[eggynack]

Well eggynack, my take on it is that monks are supposed to be skirmishing warrior type rather than tanks like paladins or fighters are meant to be. The speed boost, skill array, slow fall and so on would benefit a hit and run combatant, if they had the other powers to make it worthwhile.
Mixing some of the scout abilities in with the monk would help, since skirmish would add to damage and ac. Making stunning fist, trip and some other movement impairing attacks more effective would allow the monk to take advantage of his superior movement.
I can see this, and I think I mentioned it somewhere in there, but for obvious reasons they're probably even worse at being a skirmishing warrior type than they are at being a tank. If they just got flurrying as a standard action, or some kind of precision damage, or really just anything, anything at all to make them good at running around at top speed doling out hits, then they might be able to do it. As it stands, the only things they have that give any support to this style, are fast movement and stunning fist. It's just so far from enough. If they could flurry as a standard action, then your plan of pushing precision damage on their fists would make sense. They can't though, so you're equally well off just stabbing the enemy in the face. Your progression isn't even really faster than two weapon fighting, so even with the standard flurry you're only gaining parity with that fighting method. You indicated knowing this stuff in your post, but it's nice getting all of the things that monks can't do in terms of hit and run down in one place.

[Gazzien]

I... um... isn't the definition of CR "equal to be beaten by the character with 50% odds, if the character is alone"? So for the Megaraptor, you only have to bring it up to a 50% chance to win, not 100% or even 75%...

Just chiming in, I don't do enough actual CO/TO/PO to be able to contribute to the whole monk discussion.

[eggynack]

I... um... isn't the definition of CR "equal to be beaten by the character with 50% odds, if the character is alone"? So for the Megaraptor, you only have to bring it up to a 50% chance to win, not 100% or even 75%...

Just chiming in, I don't do enough actual CO/TO/PO to be able to contribute to the whole monk discussion.
Yes, and I think that's what we've been measuring. Or, at least that was what I was measuring when I was doing the riding dog thing. What you're stating is actually the easiest type of analysis to do. If you can prove, or at least offer proof, that a given equal cr creature is statistically better than the monk, then that creature is likely to beat the monk more than 50 % of the time. For example, that monk I was analyzing actually has some chance of beating the riding dog. However, because the monk has lower average damage per round, lower hp, and worse combat tricks, the monk will lose over 50 % of the time. When it comes down to it, what you're trying to figure out in a check between two melee creatures is which has the better ratio of average damage per round to total health. It's usually not that simple, because you have stuff like the dog attempting a trip on every hit, and the monk maybe gaining a statistical benefit from grappling at certain ranges of grapple mod, but if you can take those things into account then it'll be pretty accurate.

As a note on grappling, I'm pretty sure it gets worse rather than better at higher levels. High cr melee monsters are more likely to be large or greater, and even if the monk finds a way to grow, the average monster probably scales up faster. As a top end example, at cr 4, the giant crocodile is packing a grapple mod of 21, along with improved grab. there's no way a monk can compete with that, unless there's some crazy grapple cheese I don't know about.

[Man on Fire]

About my players - they play the characters, and they pick up spells they think their character would pick up.

As for Monk buils, there is always Kung Fu Bear in variosu forms, and Monkladin, both seems to be pretty fine, at least in theory.

[eggynack]

How does a monk/paladin work anyway? To get any benefit off the monk, you're going to need to get rid of the heavy armor and weapons of the paladin, and it makes you MAD along just about every spectrum. I just don't see the paladin getting much benefit at all from dipping monk, nor vice versa, although the high BAB is nice to get no matter where you get it from.

[Man on Fire]

How does a monk/paladin work anyway? To get any benefit off the monk, you're going to need to get rid of the heavy armor and weapons of the paladin, and it makes you MAD along just about every spectrum. I just don't see the paladin getting much benefit at all from dipping monk, nor vice versa, although the high BAB is nice to get no matter where you get it from.

There is a feat in Dragon magazine, Serenity - it ties Paladin's Charisma-based abilities to Wisdom. You either take it with Ascetic Knight (freely multiclass between paladin and Monk, their levels stack for unarmed damage and smite evil) or go with Monastic Training into Argent Fist.

[Waker]

I can see this, and I think I mentioned it somewhere in there, but for obvious reasons they're probably even worse at being a skirmishing warrior type than they are at being a tank. If they just got flurrying as a standard action, or some kind of precision damage, or really just anything, anything at all to make them good at running around at top speed doling out hits, then they might be able to do it. As it stands, the only things they have that give any support to this style, are fast movement and stunning fist. It's just so far from enough. If they could flurry as a standard action, then your plan of pushing precision damage on their fists would make sense. They can't though, so you're equally well off just stabbing the enemy in the face. Your progression isn't even really faster than two weapon fighting, so even with the standard flurry you're only gaining parity with that fighting method. You indicated knowing this stuff in your post, but it's nice getting all of the things that monks can't do in terms of hit and run down in one place.

Oh I am well aware that they don't make the skirmishing a viable approach. I just meant that the class features made it feel like that was the intent. They would need quite a few changes to work properly, but that explains why a new monk fix get proposed in the homebrew several times a week.

[Pickford]

No, but the AoO means it's probably not a good idea vs. Fighter. You missed it in your assessment. Camel's AC is 13 so Fighter's chance of hitting the AoO and interrupting the Grapple are over 50% from that alone. Combined with the Touch Attack and Grapple-check, the Fighter's chances of avoiding grapple are fairly good.

And, again, you're suggesting that a Camel would use grapple in combat, something I'm fairly certain is against their nature in quite a few ways. That's overplaying their intelligence quite a bit for the sake of an argument.

It remains the most lopsided result in favor of the Camel. Just fisticuffs and there's a higher chance the camel loses, therefore the grapple, which tilts the balance in favor of the camel, drastically, is the best option.

And grapple can mean many things the same way unarmed strike doesn't only mean punches.

Unintelligent creatures wouldn't know to disarm unless the thing in your hand is obviously pointy ouch. Really there's almost no limits on intelligence, Tigers have an Int 2 but in reality they regularly stalk people, remember who they are and use traps in very clever ways. Given that reality, there's no logical reason obstructing an animal from the clever use of any maneuver it can carry out. The only limit from intelligence is the ability to speak and cast spells.

Eggynack: That's why the obvious tactic is to grapple, touch AC is only 12 which means off a charge it hits 60% of the time instead of 40%. The grapple is only +3 so the monk will win this 65% of the time. Why is this better than just flailing away with an attack? Because it drastically reduces the ability of the dog to fight back. While in a grapple the dog takes a -4 penalty to it's to hit, the unarmed strike damage on the monk easily wins this fight at that point even ignoring the ability to pin the dog and render then completely ineffectual. Oh and since the grapple attack is a touch attack you can use stunning fist on it once you've dealt damage. (making subsequent grapples a fait accompli)

Gavinfoxx:

What if the Riding Dog has leather barding?

Several things, but the most obvious one is that the CR of the fight goes higher and renders this an invalid example.

Which skips over the problem with this example which is CR 1 indicates '4' 1st level characters would fight it, not 1.

Eggy2: No, that just makes grapple better than melee attacks. If anything it makes it worse for the Fighter.

Gnaeus:

Cleric and druid are wisdom based SAD. Both have no reason NOT to make Con their 2nd highest stat. They will not have 8 hp.

Except they both want str and dex too, and int for skills. A cleric without str is not going to kill anything. And clerics average 125gp at 1st level, that's not enough to buy any heavy armor, and if a cleric purchases scale mail they need at least a +3 to dex to hit 17 AC.

You got the numbers wrong on the Ranger too (2d6+3 with a greatsword and +3 str mod), and according to my count on the ACs Monk would only be behind by 1, which is fitting considering the Ranger is a 'warrior' class. Of course, the monk would ruin them in a grapple, but that's beside the point right?

Squark: There is no BAB on a 1st level monk. Power Attack is useless at 1st.

Eggynack: The reason grapple is better is because it flips all the modifiers in favor of the monk, damage, to hit, everything.

ArcturusV: It depends on what route you want to focus on. If you're going to make a Stunning Fist flavored Monk you do it right or don't do it at all. The argument you and Squark are making is akin to saying a Wizard who goes Illusionist and then only memorizes Divination spells isn't strong.

Here are two monks to kill the Megaraptor solo:
32 point buys

Stunning Alice:

Initial stats: Str 15 (+2), Dex 10 (+0), Con 14 (+2), Int 8 (-1), Wis 18 (+4), Cha 8 (-1)
Ability Point: 4th (+1 Str)

After items:
Str 16 (+3), Dex 10 (+0), Con 14 (+2), Int 8 (-1), Wis 18 (+4), Cha 8 (-1)

AC: 18 (10 + 4 (WisMod) + 1 Deflection (Ring) + 1 Armor (Bracers) + 1 Natural (Amulet) + 1 AC Bonus)
Touch AC 17
Flatfooted AC 17

BAB +4, Flurry BAB +3/+3
Unarmed Attack: +7, Flurry: +6/+6. Damage: 1d8+3
Shuriken Attack: +10, Flurry: +9/+9. Damage: 1d2 + 4
Ki Blast: +9 (ranged touch attack). Force Damage 3d6 + 5
Fiery Fist +1d6 fire damage to unarmed strikes.

Feats: Stunning Fist (M1), Fiery Fist (M2), Ki Blast (M6), Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) (H), Point Blank Shot (1st), Zen Archery (3rd), Weakening Touch (6th)

Stunning Fist uses: 8/day, DC 19 (10 + 3 (Monk/2) + 4 (Wis mod) + 2 (AF))

Items: 5.3k
50 Masterwork Shuriken (301gp)
Bracers of Armor +1 (1k)
Amulet of Natural Armor +1 (2k)
Ring of Protection +1 (2k)


Bruising Bob:

Changes in stats: Str 18, Dex 14, Con 10, Wis 16.
AC: 19

Feats: Earth's Embrace (H), Dodge (1st), Improved Grapple (M1), Combat Reflexes (M2), Improved Trip (M6), Weapon Focus (Grapple) (3rd), Defensive Throw (6th)


How they handle the Dinosaur:

Alice if at range > 10': Ki blast, 90% chance of hitting, average damage: 13 (max damage 46 on a crit)
If Within 10' but more than 5': Flurry Shuriken: 60% chance to hit per attack, average damage: 5.5 (max damage, 24) On average, it seems using the ki blast is the way to go.

Once in melee range: Flurry: Weakening Touch: Chance to hit: 45%, then stunning fist in rounds after that.

Bob: Charge touch attack grapple (Touch AC 11, +10 (+4 BAB, +4 Str mod, +2 charge) Grapple = auto initiated off a charge.
Opposed Grapple Check:
Bob's modifier: +4 str, +4 imp grapple + 4 BAB, +1 grapple focus; +13 vs. +15; 40% chance of success. Once the grapple is initiated, the raptor's attacks take a -4, or it can deal unarmed (and thus, nonlethal) damage, 1d4 by forgoing it's attacks.

Once Bob has the dinosaur pinned he deals 1d8 +4, + 1d12 damage, killing the dinosaur within ~5 rounds

If dinosaur attacks and misses (80% chance with AC 26, courtesy of dodge + total defense action + tumble) Bob gets a free trip attack.

Edit: I think this is at least a 50% chance of the monk winning, so it's right on par for the CR.

[ArcturusV]

Actually I thought that they expected the Monk to be a Mageslayer. High movement rate to close the distance rather than get Fireballed without reply 5 turns in a row. Tumble to get past any chump blocker lockdown. Slowfall for dynamic roof entries, great saves and eventual SR to try and tell casters "nope", and with the idea that Flurry/Stunlock/Five Fingers of Death meant that you could just say "DIE" to a caster.

This is what I THINK their logic was with the class. I stress that, but it make sense. The armor boost wasn't so much to help them trade shots with fighters and such, but rather to make sure they have a chance to evade some partial readied action to interrupt them and make it a bit harder to lock them down.

Of course, it all fails for various reasons. Mostly because Magic. And the infinite support for magic. And the fact that none of the monk abilities can really be used with any other monk ability. But it looks like that was the thing to me. WotC thought:

Wizard>Fighter>Monk>Wizard

EDIT: I think the problem with grappling the Dinosaur? You're giving up at least two actions (Get it in a Grapple, and Pin it) to start doing damage.

And the Dinosaur is using all Natural Weapons, and Natural Weapons can be used freely in a grapple. So it's still hitting you with everything it has. You haven't "neutralized" the dinosaur at all. All you did was guarantee it'll have a damned easy time hitting you and most likely doing a lot more damage than you.

[eggynack]

Oh I am well aware that they don't make the skirmishing a viable approach. I just meant that the class features made it feel like that was the intent. They would need quite a few changes to work properly, but that explains why a new monk fix get proposed in the homebrew several times a week.
Indeed so, and that's why I think the question isn't what the class was originally intended to do. If you want to know what they were supposed to do, you just need to ask the majority of new players looking at the monk for the first time. They're supposed to punch an enemy to death, before zipping over faster than anyone, and punch another enemy to death. They're supposed to be highly survivable, for all the reasons I've listed.

I think what we need to ask ourselves isn't what they were originally intended to do, but rather what they're intended to do now. That answer, if there is an answer, should inform all of our build decisions, and give us some structure and goals to build towards when we send the monk to fight a monster. If there isn't an answer, and the monk is truly not able to be optimized for anything, then I'll have no choice but to mentally consider them a member of tier 6 from now on. Look at some of the monks we've generated, and some of the fights they've had, and tell me that they aren't "Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise." Tell me that they don't need to fight enemies of lower than normal CR, just to stand a chance. Tell me that the class isn't completely asynergistic. Tell me that they can out-fight a warrior of equal optimization level. I heard earlier on this board that monks were tier 6, and I didn't believe it. I thought that they had enough redeeming characteristics to put them in tier 5. If someone can't tell me some of these things, and prove it to a reasonable degree, then I think I might have been wrong about the monk's power level.

[Pickford]

Actually I thought that they expected the Monk to be a Mageslayer. High movement rate to close the distance rather than get Fireballed without reply 5 turns in a row. Tumble to get past any chump blocker lockdown. Slowfall for dynamic roof entries, great saves and eventual SR to try and tell casters "nope", and with the idea that Flurry/Stunlock/Five Fingers of Death meant that you could just say "DIE" to a caster.

This is what I THINK their logic was with the class. I stress that, but it make sense. The armor boost wasn't so much to help them trade shots with fighters and such, but rather to make sure they have a chance to evade some partial readied action to interrupt them and make it a bit harder to lock them down.

Of course, it all fails for various reasons. Mostly because Magic. And the infinite support for magic. And the fact that none of the monk abilities can really be used with any other monk ability. But it looks like that was the thing to me. WotC thought:

Wizard>Fighter>Monk>Wizard

EDIT: I think the problem with grappling the Dinosaur? You're giving up at least two actions (Get it in a Grapple, and Pin it) to start doing damage.

And the Dinosaur is using all Natural Weapons, and Natural Weapons can be used freely in a grapple. So it's still hitting you with everything it has. You haven't "neutralized" the dinosaur at all. All you did was guarantee it'll have a damned easy time hitting you and most likely doing a lot more damage than you.

Not freely, they take a -4 penalty on attack rolls and your AC doesn't change. That means the Dinosaur has an effective AB of +6 vs an AC of 20+. That's much better than letting it wander freely.

[georgie_leech]

Gavinfoxx:


Several things, but the most obvious one is that the CR of the fight goes higher and renders this an invalid example.

Hang on, since when does armor increase the CR? By that logic, your monk examples are no longer ECL 8 since they allocated resources to improve AC.

Incidentally, a Druid spending a measily 20 gp to help ensure the survival of his boon companion is hardly out of line.


Which skips over the problem with this example which is CR 1 indicates '4' 1st level characters would fight it, not 1

The logic here is that if it takes 4 PC's using 25% of their resources to win, 1 character should be able to use 100% of their resources to win. If the Monk was really an equal combatant his 100% should match 4 other classes 25%'s.

Look at it this way. If the Monk was fighting another Monk that was an exact copy, with an identical build, items, etc., there would be a 50% chance of it winning. If the Riding Dog has a better than 50% chance at winning (and its greater average damage and hp more than suggest this), the Monk as a PC is weaker than a Druid's out-of-the-box class feature.

[ArcturusV]

How are you getting that +20? I can't even see how you got the 19 listed.

I mean, 2 for Dex, 3 for Wis, 1 for being a Level 5+ Monk. That's only AC 16. Course, you also have the Dodge feat, so potentially +1 there. Except while grappling you are considered Flat-Footed so you wouldn't have a Dodge bonus.

So with a +6 versus AC 16, it's gonna hit you half the time.

Of course it IS better than not, for your survivability. Except you're giving up at least 2 attacks to do it. Potentially more as it does have a +11 Grapple Check, and you would have a +9. So it's not really guaranteed to work. And your damage routine is all based on succeeding with the grapple check (so 40% hit chance) to deal damage.

I don't see it being a clear lock for a win. It's not horrible. You have a chance at least. But it has the slightly better chance (More HP, 50% hit rate at worst versus your 40% hit rate), and your damage with that plan is a bit too swingy, all depending on how the D12 loves ya, as it's the lion's share of your damage.

Which seems to add up to a low probability scenario.

[eggynack]

I'm just going to put this here, without quotes, as a response to Pickford on the topic of grappling. I really don't think that grappling is a viable method of beating sir Doggington. If the monk succeeds at the grapple, then yes, the odds do shift a bit towards them. I'll analyze exactly how much in a bit, but the reason I don't think it's viable doesn't depend that much on that. In order to enter a grapple with sir Doggington, you need to succeed on a touch attack, and then succeed on a grapple check. With your monk, the first has about a 50% chance of succeeding, with 60% on a charge. The second is +6 vs. +3. This gives him a 70% chance of beating that check. Combined, this gives him lower than 50% odds of grappling, and thus higher than 50% odds of completely wasting an action. The charging also only works if the monk is able to reach the monk first, which is slightly unlikely due to the dog's 5% greater initiative. Either way, usually you're not going to be charging, so I'm not going to evaluate with that in mind. When I ran the grapple numbers before, it came out to 65% odds of doing nothing without a charge, and 58% odds of doing nothing with a charge. Without a charge, you're doing absolutely nothing with your turn about 2/3's of the time. Additionally, even after the dog is grappled, he can leave by making an opposed grapple check. The monk has a 70% chance of succeeding on these, which is only 5% less than the monk had of grappling in the first place. Basically, if you alternate between failing and succeeding according to the odds, it'd look approximately like this if the dog just keeps biting.
Monk fails to grapple, dog fails to hit.
monk fails to grapple, dog hits, dealing 6.5 damage. The monk is now one hit from death.
Monk succeeds at grappling. dog is reduced to -1 to attack, and thus succeeds on a 14, and succeeds about 30% of the time. He fails.
Monk now has a chance of hitting equal to his grapple mod. He misses, though he'll succeed the next two times. Dog misses.
Monk hits, dealing 5.5 damage. Dog hits, statistically killing the monk.

These numbers aren't perfect by any means. They are, however, relatively reasonable. I've averaged a bit, and it only runs based on the assumption that misses come before hit, but it seems like it works out alright. The dog is still two hits from death, with the monk in the negatives. If you want to run the numbers, taking into account the chance of grapple failure, then go right ahead. It's perfectly within your power to refute these numbers with data, as I asked you to do. If you don't have numbers to back up your claims, please stop making claims. Making claims about the power of grappling, without taking into account the ability's high chance at failure, is ridiculous. I don't think grappling is worthwhile. If you do, then prove it math style, and I'll criticize that, cause I'm getting tired of running numbers, hence the slipshod work near the end.

Edit: I forgot something. These numbers are being run assuming that the dog lacks armor. If the test is animal companion versus monk, the dog should probably have armor. Just insert the phrase, "The monk is totally screwed" somewhere in the text to compensate. That should fix things. If the test is vs. CR1, then I still think the monk loses, but he doesn't get insulted while it's happening.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I think Monks are supposed to be something close to a status effect-based fighter, like a martial controller, leaving enemies stunned, disarmed, prone or otherwise disabled for the rest of the party to clean up (leaving aside the crappiness of the core monk w/r/t those abilities). But that's also a direction where the monk is really bad at what it does (I mean, there are some obscure Dragon Magazine entries that really help it, like Sacred Strike, Anchoring Blow and Pressure Point Attack, but those aren't often brought up as standard monk components).

On making a Monk that works, the class does have the capabilities to do some things well - size-based damage increases like Greater Mighty Wallop, for instance, work even better on the Monk than other setups (and there are ways to access the magic to use those advantages even without friendly casters, such as using Ancestral Relic to exploit custom item creation rules), and the monk has a ton of ACFs with improved abilities and situational upgrades like invisible fist, wild monk, dark moon disciple, sacred strike, raging monk and that variable skill mastery thing.

And regarding its low levels builds, some setups like Lion Tribe Warrior with Flying Kick can get plausible damage out at low levels, and with retraining, Flying Kick's feat slot doesn't have to drag on that sort of build later on. Plus there are setups like Decisive Strike+Karmic Strike+Elusive Target that can get respectable damage out (typically requires yet another build component to entice enemies to engage).

But for any of them, it's a whole lot of work to join the game that the Warblade is playing out of the can.

[Waker]

Tell me that they don't need to fight enemies of lower than normal CR, just to stand a chance. Tell me that the class isn't completely asynergistic. Tell me that they can out-fight a warrior of equal optimization level. I heard earlier on this board that monks were tier 6, and I didn't believe it. I thought that they had enough redeeming characteristics to put them in tier 5. If someone can't tell me some of these things, and prove it to a reasonable degree, then I think I might have been wrong about the monk's power level.
Sadly, I can't counter any of those points. The monk as a concept is fine, but mechanically I've only seen them be effective when they were built with a greater degree of competence than the rest of their party or were in some fashion being given favorable encounters. I would still put them in Tier 5, but lower or middle Tier.

Not freely, they take a -4 penalty on attack rolls and your AC doesn't change. That means the Dinosaur has an effective AB of +6 vs an AC of 20+. That's much better than letting it wander freely.
So in order to contribute, the monk has to effectively become a SoS? This tactic also becomes far less viable as levels increase, since monsters will get even bigger (holding via grapples auto-fails when a target is two categories bigger) and far stronger, not to mention larger BAB with monstrous HD.

[Eldariel]

It remains the most lopsided result in favor of the Camel. Just fisticuffs and there's a higher chance the camel loses, therefore the grapple, which tilts the balance in favor of the camel, drastically, is the best option.

And grapple can mean many things the same way unarmed strike doesn't only mean punches.

Unintelligent creatures wouldn't know to disarm unless the thing in your hand is obviously pointy ouch. Really there's almost no limits on intelligence, Tigers have an Int 2 but in reality they regularly stalk people, remember who they are and use traps in very clever ways. Given that reality, there's no logical reason obstructing an animal from the clever use of any maneuver it can carry out. The only limit from intelligence is the ability to speak and cast spells.

Camel doesn't use grapple tactics on combat. They aren't really even combatants. They only try to bite and push ("bullrush") you around if annoyed with you. Mostly they just spit. This is well-documented since, y'know, those things actually exist.

Creatures use their natural combat style pretty much always. Bear will always try to bruise and grab, wolf will always try to trip and so on; creatures that fight on instinct don't learn to alter their style and their physiology doesn't tend to be favorable for it.


But it doesn't matter; Camel still loses most of the time to a Fighter no matter how much it tries to Grapple.

[Gnaeus]

Except they both want str and dex too, and int for skills.A cleric without str is not going to kill anything.

Actually, druid doesn't need those. He can easily stand behind his pocket tank for 4 levels while casting spells, and if he does get hit his good con carries him through (and with armor/shield his AC is still as good as a monk). After level 6 his Str/dex are replaced by those of his form.

Cleric, if he plans to be a DMM Persist melee warrior, probably wants a decent strength, but not nearly as high as the muggles, since his str will be buffed by Righteous Might. And of course his base weapon damage is likely to be much higher than the monk, especially if he plans to be a melee cleric. And unlike the monk he has spells that help him hit and damage the enemy.


And clerics average 125gp at 1st level, that's not enough to buy any heavy armor, and if a cleric purchases scale mail they need at least a +3 to dex to hit 17 AC.

Well, you see, there is this thing called a shield. You may have heard of it. Its actually core. Cleric can actually do much better if he wants. That melee cleric can dump a domain for Law devotion, giving him +3 AC or +3 to hit for a couple of fights per day. Add a Shield of Faith or Protection from X and his ac can become really impressive.

And we are talking about, not only level 1, but the entire level range before your monk can contribute. By level 2 the cleric will have his heavy armor, and the monk will still be AC 13.


You got the numbers wrong on the Ranger too (2d6+3 with a greatsword and +3 str mod),

What is it with this thread? 2 handed weapons give str bonus x 1.5. I'm wrong often, and I don't mind people pointing it out, but if you are disputing with someone, check what they wrote!


and according to my count on the ACs Monk would only be behind by 1, which is fitting considering the Ranger is a 'warrior' class.

Here, for example, we are both wrong. You forgot that your monk only got to 18 wis by using a level up bump, and he has a 10 dex, so only 13 AC. I subtracted 13 from 15 and somehow got 3. So the ranger "only" has 2 more AC, 2 more hp, better damage and attack bonus. (and more utility, of course). And the monk is just as much a "warrior class" as the melee ranger. They are both lightly armored fighters depending on closing with the enemy to do damage. The ranger is just better at it, has more skill points, and can use wands or bows.

[Lans]

Cleric, if he plans to be a DMM Persist melee warrior, probably wants a decent strength, but not nearly as high as the muggles, since his str will be buffed by Righteous Might. And of course his base weapon damage is likely to be much higher than the monk, especially if he plans to be a melee cleric. And unlike the monk he has spells that help him hit and damage the enemy.
If he plans on being a melee cleric, he can afford to sac some of his wisdom for more strength and con. His spell casting is awesome enough that -2 to the DCs and not getting a bonus 5th or 6th level spells would be like a person being a great college football player instead of being a great NFL player



Of course, it all fails for various reasons. Mostly because Magic. And the infinite support for magic. And the fact that none of the monk abilities can really be used with any other monk ability. But it looks like that was the thing to me. WotC thought:

Wizard>Fighter>Monk>Wizard


It might be interesting to look at how it looks if you replace wizard with the weaker spell casters- Beguilar, Dread Necro, warmage, wu jen and shugenja, the fast move+ stun followed by flurry to the face is more likely to work against some of those, I think unoptimized wise they might be better than the Wizard though

Couple of issues; We're specifically evaluating "bruiser" type monsters, on the grounds that you don't need a stunning fist attack against squishier types* (Because if you've managed to get in close, you've already won, or fallen into a trap).
.

I would disagree, if you needed to move+hit then the squishy is going to get an action, and most people who get called squishy can really dish it out. The monks higher movement rate means he can do a move around the enemy meatshield and stun the opposing squishy... maybe.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Wu Jen would still overpower the monk, especially at higher levels. They do get a few crazy spells. Warmages would struggle, since many of their spells permit a reflex save and are defended against by energy resistance. Beguiler is made of Save or Suck spells, as is the Dread Necromancer (who throws in some save or die), so monk would have a much harder time.

[Oscredwin]

This is making me wonder about a monk fix where skirmishing actually worked. Something like spring attack, a lot more stunning with higher DCs and slightly longer duration, and more monk AC bonus (shift the entire table up +4).

Tactics for this hypothetical homebrew would be:

1) Spring attack with stunning fist, if stunned end adjacent or in flanking position, if not move away.

2) If the target wasn't stunned, repeat step 1.

3) If the target was stunned, full attack the stunned target with flurry.


Needed changes -
Give the monk spring attack (actually, give him the whole chain)
A lot more stunning fist attempts (2 X Level/ encounter? also more than one per round)
Wis to attack and damage with unarmed or monk weapons in addition to str(it needs to be the monk's unambiguous primary stat)
Stun needs to last till the end of the monk's next turn
Give them their speed bonuses a lot sooner
Give them Abrupt Jaunt (# of times off of wisdom)
Six skill points per level
+4 AC

Maybe some other things.

This would actually allow the monk's class features to work together. Flurry of misses can connect if everything is stunned. You use fast movement to set up the situation for flurry. It's not enough to get to tier 3, but it might be enough to get to tier 4 if you can get everything to play well together.

[Waker]

Needed changes -
Give the monk spring attack (actually, give him the whole chain)
A lot more stunning fist attempts (2 X Level/ encounter? also more than one per round)
Wis to attack and damage with unarmed or monk weapons in addition to str(it needs to be the monk's unambiguous primary stat)
Stun needs to last till the end of the monk's next turn
Give them their speed bonuses a lot sooner
Give them Abrupt Jaunt (# of times off of wisdom)
Six skill points per level
+4 AC
Welcome to the Homebrewers Association.
-Spring Attack makes sense for the monk, getting the whole chain as bonus feats is ok, or at least give them features that do the same thing.
-Stunning Fist is fine. Honestly I'd rather they have more options with it, in case they come across targets immune to stun. I am of course aware of the feats that modify it. Increasing the duration is ok.
-If AC/Hit/Damage were all based off of Wisdom, it would go a long way to making the monk less MAD. So angry and they don't even have Rage.
-I'd be less worried about the speed boosts and more about movement types and overcoming things like difficult terrain.
-Short range teleport or Freedom of Movement would just be the bee's knees.
-More skill points would be nice, though not strictly necessary.
-More AC would be a definite boon. You might also allow them to wear Light Armor.

In addition it would be nice if they had:
-A way to enhance their unarmed attacks with weapon enchantments. Having to wear a necklace to punch better is kinda sad for this supposed martial artist.
-Slightly more SR. 10+LVL means an equal level threat with no caster level boosts has a 50% chance to ignoring it. If the enemy is stronger or has access to any one of a hundred ways to boost caster level though, it gets ignored.
-A capstone that does something useful? Now you can't gain the benefits of stuff like Enlarge Person, huzzah!

[Pickford]

Hang on, since when does armor increase the CR? By that logic, your monk examples are no longer ECL 8 since they allocated resources to improve AC.

Incidentally, a Druid spending a measily 20 gp to help ensure the survival of his boon companion is hardly out of line.



The logic here is that if it takes 4 PC's using 25% of their resources to win, 1 character should be able to use 100% of their resources to win. If the Monk was really an equal combatant his 100% should match 4 other classes 25%'s.

Look at it this way. If the Monk was fighting another Monk that was an exact copy, with an identical build, items, etc., there would be a 50% chance of it winning. If the Riding Dog has a better than 50% chance at winning (and its greater average damage and hp more than suggest this), the Monk as a PC is weaker than a Druid's out-of-the-box class feature.

If you give a monster 'more' resources than the base provided in the MM, it's a higher CR. It doesn't matter what those extra resources are.

If we're talking about a 'Druid' fighting the Monk, then why not supply the Druid? Because a Monk would pretty much zero in on that and ignore the dog because the dog doesn't matter, once the druid dies, the dog goes away.


How are you getting that +20? I can't even see how you got the 19 listed.

I mean, 2 for Dex, 3 for Wis, 1 for being a Level 5+ Monk. That's only AC 16. Course, you also have the Dodge feat, so potentially +1 there. Except while grappling you are considered Flat-Footed so you wouldn't have a Dodge bonus.

So with a +6 versus AC 16, it's gonna hit you half the time.

Of course it IS better than not, for your survivability. Except you're giving up at least 2 attacks to do it. Potentially more as it does have a +11 Grapple Check, and you would have a +9. So it's not really guaranteed to work. And your damage routine is all based on succeeding with the grapple check (so 40% hit chance) to deal damage.

I don't see it being a clear lock for a win. It's not horrible. You have a chance at least. But it has the slightly better chance (More HP, 50% hit rate at worst versus your 40% hit rate), and your damage with that plan is a bit too swingy, all depending on how the D12 loves ya, as it's the lion's share of your damage.

Which seems to add up to a low probability scenario.

AC: 20 (10 + 3 (WisMod) + 2 (Dexmod) + 1 Deflection (Ring) + 1 Armor (Bracers) + 1 Natural (Amulet) + 1 AC Bonus + 1 Dodge bonus)

No, you retain your dex bonus against those you grapple. It's only not available against those you don't.


You lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if you have one) against opponents you aren't grappling. (You can still use it against opponents you are grappling.

So it's still AC 20, still only a (much better than the 50%) 30% chance of the dinoraptor hitting you.

Eggynack: So, how is the Monk's ability to grapple the dog (ranging between 50-70% chance of success) worse than a Wizard's chance of success at putting a Monk to sleep or stunning them with color spray at level 1? (~60% chance of success) Arguably sleep is even worse as it takes 1 round to cast, which means the Monk, on their turn, can close and interrupt it fairly easily. This seems very much like the same question.

Eldariel: The camel has a grapple score, the camel can grapple.

Gnaeus: No, the original guy's monk got there by a level bump, my point buy monk had 18 naturally.

Righteous might isn't a level 1 spell...Only if the Cleric has a 1d8+ weapon, otherwise no.

And only 6 of the gods have law domain, so if it's not the 'right' cleric it's outta luck.

Doh! You're right about the 1.5, I just forgot. :smallredface:

Zamiel: Name a 'crazy' spell at 1st level? From perusing the CA list, the damage on Iron scarf isn't above what any melee weapon can do at 1st level, and still requires an attack roll...

Oscredwin: You know what I dislike most about PHBII? That's where the 'Flurry of Misses' misconception comes from.

Statistically the value of flurry of blows is that you are more likely to hit 'at all' which is important when your class has 3/4 BAB instead of full BAB progression. A Monk is more likely to hit in melee than anything but a full BAB progression attacker when using flurry. And since the tiny attack penalty goes away at higher levels.

The most annoying thing is that flurry is exactly like having the twf feat and using a light weapon offhand. Better actually since the attack penalty goes away and it can be used in conjunction with twf.

[Squark]

If you give a monster 'more' resources than the base provided in the MM, it's a higher CR. It doesn't matter what those extra resources are.

If we're talking about a 'Druid' fighting the Monk, then why not supply the Druid? Because a Monk would pretty much zero in on that and ignore the dog because the dog doesn't matter, once the druid dies, the dog goes away.I don't believe it's ever actually stated what happens to the animal companion when the master dies. Depends on the personality of the dog, I guess. Some dogs will probably hound that monk (sorry about the pun) unto the end of the earth. Others will run away.

Also, giving a Riding dog leather barding doesn't raise it's CR. Does it make it slightly harder to fight? Yes. But so does fighting a group of goblins when some of their treasure went towards buying consumables. Their CR is still the same. For that matter, this might be a larger encounter, and part of the overall treasure was used to give the dog the leather barding.


Eldariel: The camel has a grapple score, the camel can grapple. Just because the camel can physically trample doesn't mean it will. I guess you might be able to get it to try to with a Handle Animal check, but on it's own, no. Real life animals in d&d should behave like their real life counterparts. Predators should go for the squishiest (or in their mind, the smallest and sickliest) of the group and take them down as quickly as possible if they're hunting, or Challenge the "dominant" member of the group if it's a territory thing. Herbivores will generally flee if damaged unless young are threatened or they feel the thing doing the damage is clearly inferior. Grappling is counter-intuitive to the camel's goals (Which is to, at most, teach this uppity human some respect, rapidly changing to fleeing when things go south).

Now, if we're dealing with some kind of war camel, that changes a bit, but it's still not going to grapple? Why? Because Camels don't do that. Their limbs don't work the right way, for starters. A War camel is going to bite and/or trample. And unless it's an escapee, it's probably better categorized as equipment for the rider.

[WhatBigTeeth]

Eldariel: The camel has a grapple score, the camel can grapple.
It can try, but as mentioned before, it has less than a 15% chance of succeeding on that goal and a 55% chance of getting whacked with a sword if it tries. It's a much less effective tactic than attacking normally.

[eggynack]

Eggynack: So, how is the Monk's ability to grapple the dog (ranging between 50-70% chance of success) worse than a Wizard's chance of success at putting a Monk to sleep or stunning them with color spray at level 1? (~60% chance of success) Arguably sleep is even worse as it takes 1 round to cast, which means the Monk, on their turn, can close and interrupt it fairly easily. This seems very much like the same question.


What are you even talking about right now? When I stated the monk's chance of starting a grapple, I put it at about 35%. Those odds, and the odds you've stated, are different odds. If he's running a full attack, which is actually kinda unlikely given that the dog loses very little by running backward after attacking, I think the odds increase a bit. Lesse. Attacking at -2 against a touch ac of 12, the monk hits on a 14, for 35% chance of initiating a grapple. Then he needs to make a grapple, which I put at 70% odds. That gives each individual grapple attempt a 24.5% chance at working, for a total round chance of 49%. That puts the top of the range at almost 50%, which is the floor of your range, so you're completely wrong on that one. On a charge, I put the odds at 42%, and on a normal attack, I put it at 35%. Where are you getting the numbers you're getting?

Also, if you want to have the weird monk v wizard argument, that's a different argument. Suffice to say, the monk's grapple is trading actions with a single opponent on a one to one basis. The wizard's sleep spell is trading one round for the actions of 4 hd of enemies for minutes per level. If you want to have that argument, for some inexplicable reason, then it can't take place in arena combat. The reason that works for riding dogs and monks is because their core specialties are both melee combat, and a fight against any given enemy who you're engaging in melee isn't going to be that different from another. Casting isn't specifically evaluated against monks, it's evaluated against anything the DM is doing.

Edit: The real problem with your analysis, I suspect, is that you're failing to take the touch attack into account. You have to make a touch attack to start grappling, and the dog has a touch ac of 12. It cuts all of the odds you think you have by roughly half (and non-roughly by the exact amounts I said). You keep making assessments based on made up numbers, and made up numbers don't really help with evaluation. Just because I say, "The commoner can deal the monk 100 damage a round on average on level one," doesn't make it true. You're going to need to show your work if you're going to use numbers that I'm pretty definite are inaccurate.

[Eldariel]

Eldariel: The camel has a grapple score, the camel can grapple.

Everything has a grapple-score, everything has a score for trip and so on; that doesn't mean everything uses those combat maneuvers. Generally animals only fight in their natural style instead of varying their combat style vs. their enemy. How many times have you seen a bear trip someone for example?

[georgie_leech]

If you give a monster 'more' resources than the base provided in the MM, it's a higher CR. It doesn't matter what those extra resources are.

If we're talking about a 'Druid' fighting the Monk, then why not supply the Druid? Because a Monk would pretty much zero in on that and ignore the dog because the dog doesn't matter, once the druid dies, the dog goes away.





Because at level 1, the Monk has no fast movement, while the Druid has Longstrider. The Monk can't actually catch the druid. The druid might also use Entangle to make the race even more lopsided. And even if you manage to corner him in an arbitrary dark alley or something, he can use SNA (which he can spontaneously cast, so doesn't even need memorised) if he didn't use either of the other spells to summon up another wolf, so you're now fighting two animals that attempt a trip every time they hit, on top of hitting more reliably. Including a Druid's Spell access in no way makes this fight easier for the monk.

[Lans]

At level 1 SNA lasts 1 round, so he gets ~3 rounds worth

[georgie_leech]

2 actually, assuming an 18 WIS and both slots burned on it. My point was that trying to fight the Druid instead of just the Riding Dog was even harder than the AC alone.

[Lans]

That should be obvious, I was just going with the druid having better use for his actions, like CLW, but SNA is an always there option.

Are we at the point of looking at why the monk is in tier 5 instead of 6?

[Oscredwin]

Welcome to the Homebrewers Association.



-Spring Attack makes sense for the monk, getting the whole chain as bonus feats is ok, or at least give them features that do the same thing.Thank you


-Stunning Fist is fine. Honestly I'd rather they have more options with it, in case they come across targets immune to stun. I am of course aware of the feats that modify it. Increasing the duration is ok.The monk doesn't get a benefit of her target being stunned unless full attacking. The whole point of my changes is to make a full attacking monk make more sense.


-If AC/Hit/Damage were all based off of Wisdom, it would go a long way to making the monk less MAD. So angry and they don't even have Rage.
-I'd be less worried about the speed boosts and more about movement types and overcoming things like difficult terrain.
If you're not charging, doesn't more movement speed help with difficult terrain?


-Short range teleport or Freedom of Movement would just be the bee's knees.
-More skill points would be nice, though not strictly necessary.
-More AC would be a definite boon. You might also allow them to wear Light Armor. I don't feel that waring armor fits monks very much. I would just be in favor of them being able to enchant their clothes with proporties like fortification.



In addition it would be nice if they had:
-A way to enhance their unarmed attacks with weapon enchantments. Having to wear a necklace to punch better is kinda sad for this supposed martial artist. Items of this sort (hand wraps or brass knuckles) seem really common everywhere but RAW 3.5 (video games, PF, homebrew, etc)


-Slightly more SR. 10+LVL means an equal level threat with no caster level boosts has a 50% chance to ignoring it. If the enemy is stronger or has access to any one of a hundred ways to boost caster level though, it gets ignored. I think I'm actually ok with weak SR, just because it only works 20% of the time against the BBEG, that's a miss chance that other characters don't have.


-A capstone that does something useful? Now you can't gain the benefits of stuff like Enlarge Person, huzzah!
This I can really get behind. Not sure what it should be though.



You know what I dislike most about PHBII? That's where the 'Flurry of Misses' misconception comes from. I'm not sure I understand this. I thought "flurry of misses" came from the effects of having medium BAB, MAD, and less +hit than other classes from magic weapons.

[Gwendol]

Everything has a grapple-score, everything has a score for trip and so on; that doesn't mean everything uses those combat maneuvers. Generally animals only fight in their natural style instead of varying their combat style vs. their enemy. How many times have you seen a bear trip someone for example?

That's not really true. Unless they have improved grab, the animal must have the natural means to grab hold of their opponent. A camel has no bite attack and their feet can't be used for grabbing, therefore they can't start a grapple. They have a grapple check, but that's for judging how hard it is to grapple them.

A snake, for example, can grab hold of an opponent with their bite, and then grapple by wrapping themself around their foe.

[Darius Kane]

I believe those are camels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdq7Q-lFMU) grappling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Gz2Ljdm0g).

BTW, since when do camels not have bite attack?

[Squark]

I believe those are camels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdq7Q-lFMU) grappling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Gz2Ljdm0g).

BTW, since when do camels not have bite attack?

Looks more like dominance fighting than an attempt to actually kill something, to me.

[Eldariel]

I believe those are camels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdq7Q-lFMU) grappling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Gz2Ljdm0g).

Lol, okay. Give the camel a slam attack, improved grab and call it a day.

[Gwendol]

Let's see:

Starting a Grapple
To start a grapple, you need to grab and hold your target. Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).

But you are right in that the camel does have a bite attack, so can in fact start a grapple. A horse, for example, can not.

[Squark]

Given that it seems to be a dominance thing most commonly done during mating season, I think the bigger question is; Why is the Camel trying to wrestle in a life and death situation?

[Talya]

So aside from all that, the monk isn't really that bad.

All right, all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order, what have the Romans done for us?

[Gnaeus]

Gnaeus: No, the original guy's monk got there by a level bump, my point buy monk had 18 naturally.

Page 1 says otherwise.



Gnaeus, Mato, Don't know why you guys are using 25 point

But don't throw away points into Dex.

Monk 8 25 PB
Str 16 (8 pts + 1 level bump)
Dex 10 (2 Pts)
Con 10 (2 pts)
Int 8
Wis 18 (13 Pts + 1 level bump)
Cha 8

After gear:
Str 18 (+4)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 10 (+0)
Int 8 (-1)
Wis 20 (+5)
Cha 8 (-1)


Righteous might isn't a level 1 spell

I didn't mean to suggest that it is. Only that the cleric doesn't need a high Str for his long term success. You see, the melee cleric doesn't need to outdamage the monk, since his AC and HP are both significantly higher, and he actually has utility out of combat as well. The fighter is never going to ask the level 1 cleric "WTF are you even here, dude?" even if all the cleric can do is stand in combat and be a flanking buddy (and the cleric can in fact do quite a bit more than that!). That is, on the other hand, a very valid question for the monk, who doesn't even have the defenses to stand in combat and flank.



And only 6 of the gods have law domain, so if it's not the 'right' cleric it's outta luck.

There are WAY more than 6 gods with law domain. Or he can worship a principle. Or he can take another of the excellent domains that also make him better in combat than monk. Chaos isn't as good as Law, but its better than anything Monk gets. And while Travel doesn't help much in melee at L1, it actually allows the Cleric to skirmish, something the monk is supposed to be good at but isn't.



The most annoying thing is that flurry is exactly like having the twf feat and using a light weapon offhand. Better actually since the attack penalty goes away and it can be used in conjunction with twf.

Not with your 10 dex it can't.

[Lans]

Not with your 10 dex it can't.
Ranger dip

[eggynack]

I'd just like to throw this out there on a lark, but are we sure that this monk can beat a druid? Like, a regular, no casting or animal companion druid? They have the same BAB, the same armor (If he's wearing leather, and has 10 dex, that adds up to 12, which is the same as the monk), and the same hit die. The monk is packing higher to hit, because he hasn't dumped strength, but the druid gets to use two handed weapons. The druid also has slightly higher hp than the monk, because they just about always boost con. With 18 wis, 14 con and 10 dex, that adds up about right. Actually I'll modify that a bit for fighting at first level. It's slightly suboptimal, but let's put it at 17 wis, 14 con, 12 strength and 10 dex.

As a combat pattern, the druid punches the monk and runs away, and then the monk runs up and punches him. He can't grapple, because there's a dog right there on his heels, and if they grapple he kills the monk far before the monk kills him. Let's run the statistics. The monk is hitting at a +2 from strength, and punches for 1d6+2. This is against the druid's 12 ac, so 55% odds. It all comes down to an average of 3.025 damage a turn. It takes him between 3 and 4 rounds to get through the druid's 10 hp. Probably 4. The druid's stats are really similar. He's using a spear instead of fists, so he's running at 1d8+1 damage, and +1 to hit. Against the 12 ac from the monk, he has exactly 50% odds to hit, so he deals an average of 2.75 damage a turn. He can blow through the monk's 8 hp in 3 rounds. Thus, under these conditions, the druid wins.

The only other condition under which they could fight without the dog eating the monk to death, is one in which the monk is charging every round. This causes the monk to gain +2 to attack, but lose 2 ac. The monk is now dealing an average of 3.575 damage a turn. This can kill the druid in 3 shots. The druid now has 60% odds to hit though, so he's dealing 3.3 damage a turn. This can kill the monk in three shots. Under these conditions, the monk and druid are equal.

The most important fact in this analysis is that the monk in three turns minimum. Without the dog, it comes down to initiative, but with the dog, the monk running past the dog and punching the druid in the face directly doesn't really work because the dog is standing behind the monk and flanking. The druid is surprisingly hardy, so the gordian knot cutting strategy doesn't seem to work. This is leaving aside the obvious fact that the dog is usually in front of the druid, and just charging up to him is not really going to work. I conclude that it's fair and equitable to give the dog armor.

If you want, I suppose we could change the CR1 fight so that the dog has a druid standing behind him, and the monk's doom would be inevitable. For now though, I think we're better off just comparing the combat capacity of the animal companion with the monk directly. It's not like the monk really beats the dog without armor, and with armor he loses a lot.

[Gazzien]

I'd just like to throw this out there on a lark, but are we sure that this monk can beat a druid? Like, a regular, no casting or animal companion druid? They have the same BAB, the same armor (If he's wearing leather, and has 10 dex, that adds up to 12, which is the same as the monk), and the same hit die. The monk is packing higher to hit, because he hasn't dumped strength, but the druid gets to use two handed weapons. The druid also has slightly higher hp than the monk, because they just about always boost con. With 18 wis, 14 con and 10 dex, that adds up about right. Actually I'll modify that a bit for fighting at first level. It's slightly suboptimal, but let's put it at 17 wis, 14 con, 12 strength and 10 dex.

As a combat pattern, the druid punches the monk and runs away, and then the monk runs up and punches him. He can't grapple, because there's a dog right there on his heels, and if they grapple he kills the monk far before the monk kills him. Let's run the statistics. The monk is hitting at a +2 from strength, and punches for 1d6+2. This is against the druid's 12 ac, so 55% odds. It all comes down to an average of 3.025 damage a turn. It takes him between 3 and 4 rounds to get through the druid's 10 hp. Probably 4. The druid's stats are really similar. He's using a spear instead of fists, so he's running at 1d8+1 damage, and +1 to hit. Against the 12 ac from the monk, he has exactly 50% odds to hit, so he deals an average of 2.75 damage a turn. He can blow through the monk's 8 hp in 3 rounds. Thus, under these conditions, the druid wins.

The only other condition under which they could fight without the dog eating the monk to death, is one in which the monk is charging every round. This causes the monk to gain +2 to attack, but lose 2 ac. The monk is now dealing an average of 3.575 damage a turn. This can kill the druid in 3 shots. The druid now has 60% odds to hit though, so he's dealing 3.3 damage a turn. This can kill the monk in three shots. Under these conditions, the monk and druid are equal.

The most important fact in this analysis is that the monk in three turns minimum. Without the dog, it comes down to initiative, but with the dog, the monk running past the dog and punching the druid in the face directly doesn't really work because the dog is standing behind the monk and flanking. The druid is surprisingly hardy, so the gordian knot cutting strategy doesn't seem to work. This is leaving aside the obvious fact that the dog is usually in front of the druid, and just charging up to him is not really going to work. I conclude that it's fair and equitable to give the dog armor.

If you want, I suppose we could change the CR1 fight so that the dog has a druid standing behind him, and the monk's doom would be inevitable. For now though, I think we're better off just comparing the combat capacity of the animal companion with the monk directly. It's not like the monk really beats the dog without armor, and with armor he loses a lot.

Doesn't the Druid in the first part of your example provoke an AoO when he "...and runs away"?
It's not like it really matters, but it theoretically could make the difference.

[eggynack]

Doesn't the Druid in the first part of your example provoke an AoO when he "...and runs away"?
It's not like it really matters, but it theoretically could make the difference.
Hmm. The monk doesn't have reach though, so couldn't the druid attack, take a 5 foot step back, and then run away without taking an aoo?

[The Boz]

Hmm. The monk doesn't have reach though, so couldn't the druid attack, take a 5 foot step back, and then run away without taking an aoo?

You can't make a 5ft step and move action in the same turn.

[Carth]

You can't make a 5ft step and move action in the same turn.

More accurately, you can't take a 5' step in the same round that you use another kind of movement. You could 5' step, draw a weapon, and drink a potion all in the same round, for instance.

[eggynack]

I suppose that aspect of it doesn't work then. I don't think the monk attacking the druid is viable in that circumstance anyway. Still, kinda sad. Basically, if the dog is anywhere nearby, then he can run up and attack. I think the druid is probably more survivable compared to the monk than the monk is compared to the dog. Especially if the dog is flanking the monk, which he can do if the monk is just standing there flurrying.

edit: Actually, come to think of it, if the druid is taking two attacks a turn then he's better off taking them at the -2 from flurrying rather than the +2 +0 from charge and AoO. Running the numbers, the monk is likely to deal 4.95 for a flurry, meaning three attacks to get through the druid's 10 hp. Further, this is only if the monk gets to full attack every round, which he certainly won't unless they start out 10 ft away from each other. Thus, the monk is dealing 3.575 damage turn one, and 4.95 each subsequent round. The druid is dealing 3.3 damage turn one, and 2.75 each subsequent round. The druid is still killing in three rounds. Therefore it once again comes down to initiative. I don't think the monk running right to the druid is effective in the least.

edit 2: The druid still gets the three turn kill if the monk doesn't charge round one.

[Icewraith]

A druid with a spear can also set it against a charge, dealing double damage as soon as the monk charges into melee right? I mean, instead of doing any of the other druid 1 things he could do with his standard action. They both have the same move speed at first level, so unless the encounter starts within the standard 30 ft move distance charging is the only way for the monk to move and attack the druid on round 1, assuming he can get line of effect around the riding dog.

[eggynack]

That could probably helps somewhat. I didn't include it because I've never really looked into the setting against a charge rules. I don't really know what the necessary circumstances for it are, or if it's an optimal course to take. You might be right that that gives the druid a crazy advantage if they start far enough apart. The druid runs 30 ft away and sets against a charge, and the monk either attacks into the spear, or just runs after the druid. If he just pursues, the riding dog actually has a higher speed at that level, so the monk is slightly screwed. I think that the fight between the druid and the monk, with the riding dog applying pressure, is either about even odds, or slightly favorable to the monk then. Also note that the entire purpose of this whole thing is to prove that the dog should get access to armor. Specifically, it must be proven that a monk versus a dog and a druid is worse for the monk than a monk versus the dog alone. It seems pretty self evident to me, and the fact that the druid is a weak point doesn't really compensate because he's not much of a weak point. The riding dog constantly applying pressure, making most standard monk tactics far less viable, is a big problem for the monk.

[Icewraith]

35 feet away. If he's 30 feet away the monk can reach him with a standard move and attack, negating the set against charge trigger by strict RAW AFAIK.

The real issue is that this forces the monk to deal with the dog. The dog's speed is higher than the monk, and if the dog gets within melee of the monk before the monk gets to the druid, the monk risks taking even more damage getting to the druid from the dog's AoO if he doesn't stop and try to melee the dog down.

Being at least 65 feet from the monk at the start of combat or 35 feet from the monk if he wins initiative means the druid can set his weapon against a charge and order his companion to attack. If it's the first round and he wins initiative and combat starts within 80 feet of the monk, the druid can just have his animal companion charge the flat footed monk and not worry about setting his weapon.

At more than 80 feet apart, the druid can start summoning nature's ally and order his dog to charge once the monk gets within range (or just wait to attack until the next round).

The monk has to sprint (full round IIRC) at x4 move to even get within melee range of the druid and can't attack (he should have enough move to avoid AoOs from the dog though). Immediately before the druid's turn his summoned nature's ally appears in position for the riding dog to flank the monk, at which point the druid can either 5' step in a direction that requires a move action and at least one aoo for the monk to get at him and do something druid-y or sit there and stab the monk.

If there's a tiny creature on the SNA 1 list (there might not be), it might even be possible for the druid to summon into the monk's square and then both he and the dog would be able to flank the monk at +2 to hit.

The monk is capable of one-shotting the druid only on a natural 20 confirmed crit and a reasonable damage roll (requires rolling a 6 on 2d6 with doubled str to drop a 12 con druid to -1), while a druid with 14 str (you won't see one in point buy but might with rolled stats) will take the monk to 0 hp with a non-crit 6 damage roll one-handing a 1d6 weapon like a scimitar (which has an 18-20 x2 crit IIRC) on a normal hit, 5-6 2-handing a shortspear or quarterstaff without critting. A 10 str druid will probably be going scimitar and shield, which still gives him better odds of critting in the first place and one-shotting the monk on 2d6+0 (must roll an eight or better on 2d6 to take the monk to 0hp, 9 to -1) and makes it harder for the monk to hit him in the first place.

Also, adding the druid into the equation just makes the Monk's problems worse, as he now has even more hp to try to burn through to win the encounter, and he's dealing with discrete HP pools. It's very easy for the monk to either deal not-quite enough damage to either the druid or the dog to drop them OR lose attacks by dropping the monk or the dog with his first hit in the flurry and the other one not being in range. Furthermore the druid can cure light wounds the riding dog or himself if he has the spell prepared.

The druid on his own, without the riding dog, and without casting spells, has more martial options against the monk than I was giving him credit for.

Edits: spelling, swapping monk/druid in a few places.

ALSO:
Isn't a 1st level druid with an animal companion and barding STILL technically a CR 1 encounter, since the animal companion is a druid class feature?

Edit: The monk's best option to one-shot the druid may be to ignore his class features. A 14 str monk 2-handing a quarterstaff rolls damage for 1d6 +3 if he doens't flurry, potentially staggering a 12 con druid. His +2 for charging negates the druid's heavy wooden shield. However, unless the monk and druid start within 60 feet of each other and the monk wins initiative with his 0 dex mod and the druid's animal companion isn't in play or is on the wrong side of the druid to start, the druid can at the very least ready an action to attack when the monk is in range, which is different than setting a spear against a charge. This guarantees the druid does first damage and isn't flat-footed.

[eggynack]

Eh, at some point we're just killing a monk with a druid, and we know we can do that. I'm mostly interested in the whole dog vs. monk thing, because that's presumably a perfectly fine cr1 encounter. I just brought the druid into it at all, because the only reason the dog couldn't have armor is if his druid human companion was actually detrimental to his chances of success. If the druid were just a particularly fragile stick, then it's plausible that he could make the fight worse for the dog. The monk just runs up, punches him out, and the dog runs off unbounded by the druid. He'd actually probably run over to the monk and kill him, but whatever. In a PC vs. PC arena match, it's up in the air whether the dog could kill the monk for a tie or not, and I can move on and stop thinking about this.

However, the druid is not a stick. If the monk targets him, then the monk will probably die. Thus, the dog can run around in fancy leather barding, and the monk loses. Notably, while that victory was had against Pickford's crappy monk, I think that dog friend would beat a regular monk, especially if he has armor. Seriously though, that monk was dumb. Why would a monk have 10 con? That's crazy. However, even at 18 con, the monk still has less than the dog's 13 hp. The monk still needs 5 more points of AC to surpass the dog's. The monk has improved grapple, but the dog has free trip, and I'm pretty sure that trip is way better. Every time the monk misses a grapple, he's losing an opportunity to attack. Every time the dog gets a trip, the dog gets another opportunity to attack when the monk tries to get back up.

The druid's riding dog is better than the monk, primarily because monks are pretty universally terrible. I think that the reason the monk is tier 5 is because he has a higher optimization ceiling than other tier 6's. However, I think that the basic monk chassis with basic core material might run at tier 6. He's just not good at much of anything. The question we must ask is whether the cool monk abilities compensate for losing full BaB and martial weapons off of the warrior. I dunno.

[TuggyNE]

Note in passing that SNA I has monkey, which is Tiny. (So is owl, but that seems rather bizarre.) See what I did there?

[Icewraith]

Certainly not at first level. The warrior wears armor, can sword and board or 2 hand (and the warrior most certainly will have 12, if not 14 str depending on the array), and really only cares about str con and dex in about that order. The monk needs 18 con just to avoid dropping to -1 from a max damage greataxe or greatsword hit.

[WhatBigTeeth]

Level 1 isn't the most typical example of the monk's performance. Not to say the Monk's great or anything, but once you get to ECL 5 or 6, inexpensive mage armor effects, unarmed damage progression and flurry/decisive strike cost reductions at least paper over the biggest weaknesses of the class's numbers, and the monk starts getting class features and ACFs that do more than try to compensate for its weak fighting style.

You can get some nice level 6 combos like Invisible Fist+Jotunbrud or Powerful Build+Passive Way+Knockdown+Decisive Strike for huge trip modifiers and multiple attacks with multiplied damage, or simple Lion Tribe Warrior+Holy Strike+Flying Kick charging flurries, which do pretty reasonable damage while leaving most of the build free for combos.

So I'd agree that the level 1 showings here have been dreadful, but I think they overstate the monk's weaknesses.

[Lans]

I've been thinking about monk vs warrior, the warrior has better ranged, and should be better at charging damage. The monk should be able to get a weak secondary in control from his bonus feats for when terrain keeps them from being able to charge. Then has class features that make the monk more robust vs magic and special abilities.

I am assuming no ACFs for this, other wise the monk could use the overpowering variant and maybe make up on the charging with lion tribe and flying kick.

[eggynack]

Level 1 isn't the most typical example of the monk's performance. Not to say the Monk's great or anything, but once you get to ECL 5 or 6, inexpensive mage armor effects, unarmed damage progression and flurry/decisive strike cost reductions at least paper over the biggest weaknesses of the class's numbers, and the monk starts getting class features and ACFs that do more than try to compensate for its weak fighting style.

You can get some nice level 6 combos like Invisible Fist+Jotunbrud or Powerful Build+Passive Way+Knockdown+Decisive Strike for huge trip modifiers and multiple attacks with multiplied damage, or simple Lion Tribe Warrior+Holy Strike+Flying Kick charging flurries, which do pretty reasonable damage while leaving most of the build free for combos.

So I'd agree that the level 1 showings here have been dreadful, but I think they overstate the monk's weaknesses.
Huh. Really? I'd always thought that monks were at their best at levels one and two. That's part of the reason I was making evaluations on that basis. The weird thing I've noticed, as I've taken deeper looks at the tier system, and balance as a whole, is how odd the graphs of power levels are in relation to each other. Like, wizards and druids both proceed exponentially with regards to fighters, but in relation to each other they switch in power level. Thus, the power level of druids actually gets lower at higher levels if he's in competition with a wizard, despite the fact that their power gets so much better later. Maybe the same thing happens with low tier classes. I evaluate these low tier classes in terms of broad tier ramifications, but maybe it's best to look at them in relation to each other. It's just about what we've been doing, but it's an interesting thought. What do you guys think is the optimal level of a monk in relation to warriors and fighters and stuff? Does a monk only start outstripping warriors after the first few levels? It's interesting, I think.

[Squark]

Oh, the best time to dip out of monk is probably at 2nd level. But 6th level at least avoids the rocket tag element of level 1, and it's also generally the endpoint for most monk builds, who typically stick with PrCs the rest of the way, as I've been lead to understand.

Which is why I suggested throwing a Megaraptor, Chain Devil, Babau, or 7-headed hydra at a 6th level monk, as I recall.

Speaking of which, talk is cheap, frankly. Would anyone be interested in running through some scenarios to test how well the monk fairs against these beasties? If anyone thinks it's worth trying, I'll put up a thread in recruitment and we can see about organizing some tests.


Just so we have the beginnings of empirical data to bring up for the next Monkday, I mean (Also, I need to sharpen my tactical dming ability anyway, and a low hassle encounter like these would be a good way of doing that).

[eggynack]

Well, first we need a good 6th level build. We have some Pickford builds at that level, but I don't wanna use a Pickford build. As a subcategory, we need to establish the level of optimization we have access to, particularly with reference to extra books. Presumably, Mr. Monk would have some particular strategy for defeating the monster which wouldn't change constantly. Combat at that level is more complicated, so I don't necessarily know how to run the particulars of it. Like, that grappling mess back awhile ago threw me a bit. It'd probably be better if we used one of the more pure stabby enemy types, rather than one who has tons of combat tricks all the time. Presumably the build will be pure monk, though I don't know the extent to which ACF's are allowed. That's about all I've got for now parameter wise.

[Squark]

I'd say Full access to the Completes, SRD, and the non-dragon magazine Compendiums is Core, Mk. 2. EDIT: Forgot about PHB 2 and DMG 2. also, the extra monster manuals, although where those cut off is up for debate.

We could open the net a bit wider and throw in the Races of X books, Enviornment books (Cityscape, Dungeonscape, Frostburn, Stormwrack and Sandstorm), and Tome of Battle and Tome of Magic. Forgotten Realms and Ebberon content is also pretty widespread, but they're also significantly more likely to get hit with the banhammer on tables.

[Vinyl Scratch]

On the role of the monk:

IIRC someone a page or so ago purposed a test, to build a monk that could replace either a fighter or a rouge, or function as a fifth member of a classic cleric/fighter/wizard/rouge party. I went ahead a threw together a build for that. There were not any hard rules per say, but I adhered to several limits.

It is 12th level. I had multiclassed, but the bulk of the levels are Monk. I had used a 32 point buy and standard WBL. I generally consider myself mostly average in the field of character op.

Sources Used:
Core SRD
Complete Adventurer
Complete Scoundrel
Magic of Incarnum
Savage Species

LN Human Monk 8/ Ninja 4

Str: 10
Dex: 20
Con: 14
Int: 13
Wis: 14
Cha: 10
(Original array was 10 16 14 14 14 10)

HP: 68
AC: 22
Touch: 19
Flat Foot: 13

Fort: 9
Reflex: 14
Will: 9

Initiative: 9
Speed: 50ft

BAB: +9/+4
Grapple: +9

Unarmed Strike (+17/+12; Flurry +15/+15/+10) 2D6+3

Skills Ranks:
Balance 5
Climb 10
Disable Device 12
Escape Artist 15
Hide 15
Move Silently 15
Open Lock 12
Search 11
Spot 8
Swim 6
Tumble 10

Feats:
Human: Able Learner
1st: Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt)
Bonus: Stunning Fist
Bonus: Deflect Arrows
3rd: Weapon Finesse
6th: Ascetic Stalker
Bonus: Improved Trip
9th: Bonus Essentia
12th: Improved Init

Features:
Trapfinding
Sudden Strike 2d6
Ki Pool: 8
Ghost Step (Invisibility)
Poison Use
Flurry of Blows
Evasion
Still Mind
Ki Strike (Law, Magic)
Slow Fall 40ft
Purity of Body
Wholeness of Body

Equipment:
Handy Haversack
Bracers of armor +3
Vest of Escape
Winged Boots
Cloak of Displacement, Minor
Necklace of Natural Attacks +3
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone
Deep Red Ioun Stone

He is supposed to fill the role of fifth wheel as a scout, focusing on the monk's movement specialties. At this level, he can move at 50', Fly 60' 3/day, or dimension door 30' once per round. As a ninja, he gets some invisibility as well as some decent skills. His high Initiative and invisibility means sudden strike can activate more, but it can also be done by stunning fist and flurry of blows. simply flurry, stun on the first strike, sudden strike them while they are stunned, and maybe strike again.

His defense is okay. His AC is lacking, but he has a 20% miss chance by magic item. His movement abilities means he can at least engage most foes, and he needs not take the flanking place of the rouge to get precision damage. With his skills as well as mobility, he could probably get to most places.

In conclusion though, I find myself unimpressed. The character is only decent in his designated role and not useful outside of that. There is little reason to let him replace the rouge in the party, he has less skills, and does far less damage. It could also be debated that his major abilities stem more from items and feats then the monk chassis proper. And all characters have items and feats.

[eggynack]

The First list looks satisfactory. The second will obviously need to be analysed on a case by case basis. My first instinct towards ToB, for example, is that if you build a monk using it you're basically building a swordsage, and might as well use a swordsage. I mean, the book is right there, waving seductively in the breeze. It's possibly fine though. It's a pretty cool book. I actually don't know the extent to which the other books have an impact on the monk. We should probably pick a monster off that list at some point, though it probably doesn't make much difference if it's mostly punching the monk in the face. At some point, we might want to evaluate some not face-punching monsters, but that's a lot more complicated. I suppose that all there is to do is throw a build at the wall, and see how it does. It'd be nice to have a baseline cool monk, if only so that we can hurl him at monsters with statistics.

[Lans]

@eggnack&squark- What if we just limited it to 36 pb, 2 variants, all sources and collimate down the build from there?

In addition to 1 fight with an equal CR, we should have it do 4 encounters in a day with CR-2/3

[eggynack]

Sounds reasonable enough I suppose. As long as it's a fully monkish monk, that means it can't do lots of the monk things that folks do that aren't really monks, like swordsage and psywar. I don't really know monk build optimization, primarily because I dislike them so much, but just sending a monk of some kind at a monster of some kind is a good idea. The 4 encounter thing is interesting too, because the stuff you build towards to nova out is different than the stuff you build towards to last a day. That's crazy complicated to do though, so we should just take it one step at a time. Putting together a 6th level warrior baseline might be good too.

[Squark]

@eggnack&squark- What if we just limited it to 36 pb, 2 variants, all sources and collimate down the build from there?

In addition to 1 fight with an equal CR, we should have it do 4 encounters in a day with CR-2/3

36 point buy is a bit over the top. 32 is probably as high as we should go.

The reason limiting sources is probably a good idea is ideally we also want this to be something we can use to advise monk players in the future, and the obscurer books make that harder.

On the expansions I chose; Basically, I chose books that I guessed had a decent chance of showing up in someone's collection. Oriental Adventures, Ghostwalk, the old paperback proto-complete books, and the like are a lot harder to find. We could probably trim it back a bit, but I wasn't sure what to cut.

I was thinking I'd run 3-4 scenarios using a couple of different CR 6 encounters (Complete restore each fight, and where appropriate allow the player some foreknowledge so you can buy critical supplies).

[WhatBigTeeth]

Huh. Really? I'd always thought that monks were at their best at levels one and two. That's part of the reason I was making evaluations on that basis. The weird thing I've noticed, as I've taken deeper looks at the tier system, and balance as a whole, is how odd the graphs of power levels are in relation to each other. Like, wizards and druids both proceed exponentially with regards to fighters, but in relation to each other they switch in power level. Thus, the power level of druids actually gets lower at higher levels if he's in competition with a wizard, despite the fact that their power gets so much better later. Maybe the same thing happens with low tier classes. I evaluate these low tier classes in terms of broad tier ramifications, but maybe it's best to look at them in relation to each other. It's just about what we've been doing, but it's an interesting thought. What do you guys think is the optimal level of a monk in relation to warriors and fighters and stuff? Does a monk only start outstripping warriors after the first few levels? It's interesting, I think.
I have to agree with Eladriel's analysis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15105540&postcount=27) back on page 1, especially when we factor in some of the ACFs that the monk can take by the level 6-7 range for things like constant total concealment (Dark Moon Disciple), status effect riders () and feat combos that go together at that point.

If we're looking for a level 6 build, I'll try the one I was fiddling with earlier. Are we doing 25 PB?
Wild Human Passive Way Monk 6 with Str 19 (16 base, 2 enhance, 1 level) Dex 14 Con 14 Int 7 Wis 14 (level up) Cha 6. Feats: Jotunbrud, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Knockdown, Improved Feint, Improved Unarmed Strike; ACFs: Decisive Strike, Holy Monk, Invisible Fist. Gear: Gloves of Str +2 (4k), Pearl of power for caster buddy or wand for mage armor (1k), necklace of natural attacks +1 (1.5k), Handy Haversack (1.5k), Cloak of Resistance +1 (1k), Healing Belt (1k), Anklets of Translocation (1.5k), 10 x +1 Shuriken (.5k), Mwk Kama (.5k), Miscellaneous stuff (.5k + change)
HP: 42, AC: 19, Init +2, Fort +8, Ref +8, Will +8, Speed 45 ft

Std Action Attack: +9 melee 2d6+4(+1d6 v. Evil)+Trip if damage>10 (see below, including extra Std action attack)
Std Action Trip: +9 melee touch attack, trip if successful with +12 bonus (+16 if target denied dex to AC), if successful, follow up with Std action attack at +4.

Decisive Strike: +8 melee 4d6+8(+1d6 v. Evil)+Trip (see below, including extra Decisive Strike attack)
Decisive Strike Trip: +8 melee touch attack, trip if successful with +12 bonus (+16 if target denied dex to AC), if successful follow up with Decisive Strike attack at +4

Invisible Fist combines with the Passive Way capstone to facilitate extra-difficult trips as well as slightly better odds of hitting, is usable on defense for the 50% miss chance and has the expected utility functions of 6 seconds of invisibility.

EDIT
If we're fleshing out a source list/boosting PB, I can see a few things that wouldn't work here. Back to the drawing board.

[eggynack]

I'll have to look up most of that stuff to get a good idea of what the monk's doing, and the extent to which it should be allowed. However, I really think that the monk should be acting alone, so he shouldn't be buying items for other players to cast stuff on him. For one thing, I think it's outside the scope of what makes a monk, and second, we don't even know if a theoretical full party would have a caster in it. For all we know, it could be a 4 monk party, and is thus largely incapable of magic stuff.

[Squark]

Thread is up in recruitment (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15119711#post15119711)

So, basically, my idea (if I failed to get anything across) was to have multiple DMs each run a couple of 1-shot encounters/series of encounters for a different monk build (So player A runs 4 encounters with me and their monk build, Player B runs through 4 encounters with DM B and their monk build, and so on and so on). This seem like a reasonable system.


32 or 28 point buy is probably the way to go.

Also, if we end up enjoying this, we could also try higher and lower level versions of this test.

Oh, and we should probably make a baseline warrior or three for comparison.

[Gazzien]

Thread is up in recruitment (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15119711#post15119711)

So, basically, my idea (if I failed to get anything across) was to have multiple DMs each run a couple of 1-shot encounters/series of encounters for a different monk build (So player A runs 4 encounters with me and their monk build, Player B runs through 4 encounters with DM B and their monk build, and so on and so on). This seem like a reasonable system.


32 or 28 point buy is probably the way to go.

Also, if we end up enjoying this, we could also try higher and lower level versions of this test.

Oh, and we should probably make a baseline warrior or three for comparison.

I would have each monk go through each DM (with less battles per DM, of course, to make it just as quick), as to remove DM-bias (differing encounter strength within CR, tactics, etc).

[Squark]

So, 5-6 Monks each run 1-2 encounters with a couple DMs instead? Probably a good idea. Also, we could reuse encounters this way, lessening the prep time for the DMs.

[Gazzien]

So, 5-6 Monks each run 1-2 encounters with a couple DMs instead? Probably a good idea. Also, we could reuse encounters this way, lessening the prep time for the DMs.

That's what my train of thought was, yes.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I'll have to look up most of that stuff to get a good idea of what the monk's doing, and the extent to which it should be allowed. However, I really think that the monk should be acting alone, so he shouldn't be buying items for other players to cast stuff on him. For one thing, I think it's outside the scope of what makes a monk, and second, we don't even know if a theoretical full party would have a caster in it. For all we know, it could be a 4 monk party, and is thus largely incapable of magic stuff.
That's why the wand option is there. Wands on monks have a bad name, but a couple skill points and a bunch of failed rolls per casting are a practical way to access out-of-combat spell effects if a party doesn't facilitate magic tricks. Plus, even buying 4 wands of mage armor at a time to avoid getting stumped on a natural 1 is cheaper than buying bracers of natural armor 3.

[eggynack]

I suppose that's true enough. The monk might need to spend a bit more money on it, given that he's supposed to be a character that exists, and is thus burning through the charges on these wands every time he wants armor. Also, it's kinda falling into the, "This class is totally powerful. It can take cross class skills in umd!" problem. I suppose that if he's mostly just using them to augment his natural monkiness, then it won't be a problem though. I think that there must be some kind of invisible line in the sand somewhere though, like when the monk starts spending his actions in combat shooting the enemies with his many wands that he keeps stored in wand chambers on all of his equipment including his wands. Mage armor likely doesn't cross the recursive wand chamber line though.

[WhatBigTeeth]

That's fair, I agree that pointing at a of the piece of gear or effect and saying "the effect's good, therefore Monk's good" isn't reasonable, but on the other hand stripping commonly used or easily accessed effects is not really representative of how a class functions. The build above was not too different from something I'd bring to a game, so I didn't think much about it.

I suppose if that approach were outlawed to highlight self-sufficiency, I could drop Human, Jotunbrud, Necklace of Natural Attacks and Improved Natural Attack in exchange for Warforged and Superior Unarmed Strike, and rearrange wealth a bit/account for the rounding errors to keep comparable AC while also buying a battlefist and chronocharm of the horizon walker. The trip check would suffer, but damage would jump up.

[Gnaeus]

Level 1 isn't the most typical example of the monk's performance. Not to say the Monk's great or anything, but once you get to ECL 5 or 6, inexpensive mage armor effects, unarmed damage progression and flurry/decisive strike cost reductions at least paper over the biggest weaknesses of the class's numbers, and the monk starts getting class features and ACFs that do more than try to compensate for its weak fighting style.

So I'd agree that the level 1 showings here have been dreadful, but I think they overstate the monk's weaknesses.

By ECL 6 you can stop even pretending to compare Monk with any full caster. The Cleric has DMM Persist and the Druid is all-adventuring-day wildshaped into something good, and their spells are now far more impressive.

By ECL 6 the barbarian is charge pouncing with multiple attacks with a greatsword, making the monk's flurry look pitiful.

By ECL 6, the ranger has (at least) a pet, 2 attacks per round, and actual spells like Arrowmind. He may have entered MoMF and be abusing wildshape. Even the lowly paladin has now outstripped the monks usefulness with his spell list.

I don't think walking up the level tree is really going to help that much. There may be break points where he is arguably better than a fighter (his damage will never be better, but he does get all good saves and a handful of things that don't completely suck), but comparing him with T4+ all he will do is lose ground.

[CombatOwl]

This is a serious question*. I've been playing D&D 3.5 for a few years now, and on this site, I hear a lot of bad mouthing to monks. I've enjoyed playing them, decent flavor and not completely horrible mechanics....yet everybody seems to disagree with me. Why is that? What about them makes them so horrible? They're suboptimal to be fair, but by no means do they deserve the horrible reputation they've engendered among the playgrounders. Also...tier 5? Really? 4 skill point isn't that bad, and while their abilities can be situational, they aren't as bad as the PHB fighter is. So what gives?

*Meaning if you give me not thought out responses like "they just suck" I'll probably report your post.

It's really the MAD that plagues monks the most. If you roll stats, then monk generally works better.

[Eldariel]

It's really the MAD that plagues monks the most. If you roll stats, then monk generally works better.

...if you roll significantly above average, sure, but with average rolls Monk's worse off than with point buy (which is already bad for them).


By ECL 6 you can stop even pretending to compare Monk with any full caster. The Cleric has DMM Persist and the Druid is all-adventuring-day wildshaped into something good, and their spells are now far more impressive.

By ECL 6 the barbarian is charge pouncing with multiple attacks with a greatsword, making the monk's flurry look pitiful.

By ECL 6, the ranger has (at least) a pet, 2 attacks per round, and actual spells like Arrowmind. He may have entered MoMF and be abusing wildshape. Even the lowly paladin has now outstripped the monks usefulness with his spell list.

I don't think walking up the level tree is really going to help that much. There may be break points where he is arguably better than a fighter (his damage will never be better, but he does get all good saves and a handful of things that don't completely suck), but comparing him with T4+ all he will do is lose ground.

The stupid part about the Monk is that where normal martial classes are at their best compared to casters (levels 1-4 or so) is Monks' weakest levels in the class progression where they aren't even comparable to the normal martial classes.

When they slowly begin to catch up, the other martial classes grow more and more behind-the-curve compared to spellcasting and Monks still never really reach them. Well, aside from Wild Monk but that's so far from a Monk they're hardly comparable.

[Gnaeus]

And for that matter, considering how front loaded melee classes are, by ecl 6 the monk looks even worse standing beside a melee character who took 1 or 2 levels in monk, then dipped 2-3 other classes.

[Lans]

That's true for most martial classes though.

[Mato]

While you are all playing around with those Monk builds, I think I'd be cool if you did a special 7th level try that makes use of Dark Moon Disciple.

After all, Monk doesn't end 30% of the way into D&D...

[Icewraith]

We probably do need a straight core Monk and a straight core Warrior build for 6th level as baselines for this though.

[Pickford]

Because at level 1, the Monk has no fast movement, while the Druid has Longstrider. The Monk can't actually catch the druid. The druid might also use Entangle to make the race even more lopsided. And even if you manage to corner him in an arbitrary dark alley or something, he can use SNA (which he can spontaneously cast, so doesn't even need memorised) if he didn't use either of the other spells to summon up another wolf, so you're now fighting two animals that attempt a trip every time they hit, on top of hitting more reliably. Including a Druid's Spell access in no way makes this fight easier for the monk.

Druid has to 'cast' Longstrider first. That's no go at escaping the Monk. And charge will easily reach the Druid.

If you want to claim 120' out, Monk can crossbow the Druid for 1d10, potentially 1-shotting him.

At level 1 the wolf has 13 hp only, Monk could crossbow 'him' (ignoring the Druid who can do nothing with entangle and longstrider memorized, assuming the wisdom to get a bonus spell) and then, if the wolf tries to close instead of fleeing, kill it in round 2 with either another bolt or a flurry of shuriken. Of course, since the heavy crossbow has a range increment of 120' the Monk can easily pot-shot the Druid while chasing him and likely, eventually kill him.

Gnaeus: I was discussing TWF in general. The same way you were referring to Righteous might. Right?

And in core only 6 deities have law domain. I don't particularly care about homebrew or setting specific. Also, don't setting specific deities replace core deities when a setting is used?

Eggynack: Yes, a monk can 1 shot the druid with a heavy crossbow from 120'+.

The monk can get a kill any round. Actually Rapid Reload seems pretty good for the monk to use prior to any closing of distance. And the monk can tumble past the dog and go for the druid.


Icewraith:

A druid with a spear can also set it against a charge, dealing double damage as soon as the monk charges into melee right? I mean, instead of doing any of the other druid 1 things he could do with his standard action. They both have the same move speed at first level, so unless the encounter starts within the standard 30 ft move distance charging is the only way for the monk to move and attack the druid on round 1, assuming he can get line of effect around the riding dog.

Druid can't move or cast spells if they burn their action for ready on setting against a charge. In which case the Monk could easily pick them off with a crossbow. Why bother closing? If the druid has a spear they have no shield so their AC is going to be relatively easy to hit.

Also: Grapple = no greatsword.

Squark: I'm in if you're still offering.

[eggynack]

A druid can one shot a monk with a spear. That result is completely non-indicative. We're evaluating based on average statistics, not theoretical victory possibilities. The riding dog is also actually faster than the monk is at first level. I'm also not assuming that they're starting far apart. I'm actually assuming that they're close together. If they're about 80 ft. apart, the riding dog can charge the monk too, and then we're back at the monk vs. dog fight which the monk loses. So far, the only real advantage the monk has is that he can use a crossbow, and that only works at long range. You're actually pretty bad at using a crossbow too, because you've dumped dex. You're attacking once per round at a +0 mod against the druid's 12 ac, so you only hit 45 % of the time. You're actually dealing an average of 2.475 damage a turn, making the druid die in 4-5 hits. Additionally, the slow load on a heavy crossbow means that you're taking an average of 8-10 rounds to kill the druid. The dog takes far less time to kill you, even if it takes him a couple of turns to reach you. Therefore, that is a strategy with low viability.

edit: Taking out a crossbow in response to the setting of a charge also fails to the high pressure of a dog. Assuming that you don't already have the crossbow out, which a monk probably wouldn't, it takes you two turns just to get the crossbow out and ready to shoot. That's two rounds that the monk is just standing there, waiting for the dog to take a bite out of crime. If he does have the crossbow out constantly, then he takes a round to get ready, and we're back to the problem I listed above.

[Lans]

Monk can walk around carrying a crossbow and headbutt people

Can a 1st level monk afford a crossbow?

[eggynack]

Nice one. They can not, in fact, do so. Monks have the crazy low starting gold of 5d4 gp, in keeping with their ascetic roots. Thus, even with max rolls, they can't afford the 50 gp asking price on a heavy or light crossbow.

Edit: Conversely, my strategy is perfectly cost appropriate. Druids get an average starting gold of 50 gp, which is enough to buy leather armor (10 gp), leather barding (20 gp), and a spear (2 gp). He even has 18 gp left over at the end to throw a "Monks are lame! druids rule!" party.

[Lans]

I suppose the monk could try crafting one

[Snowbluff]

I suppose the monk could try crafting one

Sure, if you want to blow all but 2 gp on a single weapon. At 500 sp, you'll be working about 25 days on the thing trying to get it made. You can level 10 times in that time.

[eggynack]

Crafting the heavy crossbow is like 16.6... gp. I know I mentioned the maximum gold, but realistically, their gold is at the average of 12.5 like everything else. This is a combat we're running off of averages, because average chance of success is what we're measuring. Additionally, if the monk fails once then that's it for him. Assuming that he's sticking his very limited points into craft (weaponsmithing) he still needs an 11 on this roll to make the thing. He's running at 50 % odds of being left with nothing, after over 50 % odds of not being able to try in the first place. Specifically, on 5 rolls he has to roll at least 3 4's. It's just not going to work out for this intrepid monk buying a crossbow.

[Pickford]

Sure, if you want to blow all but 2 gp on a single weapon. At 500 sp, you'll be working about 25 days on the thing trying to get it made. You can level 10 times in that time.

A Wizard 'starts' adventuring 2d6 years older than a Monk. I think the Monk can spend a single month crafting a nice crossbow.

Edit: And a Monk starting with a rank in a profession can earn 1/2 their check every week. So the Monk would earn an average of the 50gp in 5 weeks of just working. Happy?

[Augmental]

A Wizard 'starts' adventuring 2d6 years older than a Monk. I think the Monk can spend a single month crafting a nice crossbow.

Clearly the monk should also be 5 levels higher than the wizard. :smallannoyed:

[Pickford]

Clearly the monk should also be 5 levels higher than the wizard. :smallannoyed:

I mean, if we're following equivalencies right? :smallwink:

[Flickerdart]

No, what actually happens is by the time the wizard starts adventuring, the monk is already dead because he thought that using a crossbow was a good idea.

[eggynack]

A Wizard 'starts' adventuring 2d6 years older than a Monk. I think the Monk can spend a single month crafting a nice crossbow.

Edit: And a Monk starting with a rank in a profession can earn 1/2 their check every week. So the Monk would earn an average of the 50gp in 5 weeks of just working. Happy?
Not in particular. We're running off of starting gold here, because it's the only statistic we have and the only thing that therefore really makes sense. He also has even odds of failing to craft that nice crossbow. He also has less skillpoints and starting gold than the druid, who also has a wisdom focus and profession and craft as class skills. We're at first level starting gold here, because it's the most logical place to start. If you really want to spend that time busking for cash, and making a crossbow with it, the druid can probably gain a whole bunch of levels in that time.

Also, as I've already noted, the druid has perfectly viable strategies against the ridiculous crossbow plan that you always seem to use. That technique just doesn't have a high enough average damage to overcome Sir Doggingsforth's natural ability to bite the monk to death in the time it takes him to kill the druid. Seriously, this is crazy buns. The monk fails in just about every conceivable way to beat the riding dog, to the point where it's just becoming sad.

[WhatBigTeeth]

We could pretend our intrepid monk has certain Hidden Talent or Shape Soulmeld feats, or act like the class's bonus feats give it added freedom to pick up Wild Cohort that the druid doesn't have, but I think it's been pretty well established that the class doesn't stand up to that challenge at that level without good luck or edge-case builds.

Since we were discussing an extremely limited-source monk at higher point buy and I've got some time, how about:

LG Human Passive Way Monk 20 with both Complete Champion ACFs
Starting attributes (32 PB): Str 16 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 8
Attribute increases: Level 4 bonus goes to Dex; all others to Strength.
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw, Improved Feint, Improved Natural Attack, Weapon Focus (Kama), Two-Weapon Fighting, Deft Opportunist, Robilar's Gambit

Level 1:
Gear: Kama, Siangham, 10 Shurikens and noncombat gear
HP 10 AC 14 Fort +4 Ref +4 Will +4
Std Action Attack: +3 melee unarmed strike 1d6+3
Full Round Attack: +1/+1 melee unarmed strike 1d6+3
Ranged Attack: +0/+0 ranged shuriken 1d2+3

Level 6:
Gear (13k): Belt of Str +2 (4k), Gauntlets of the Talon (4k), Anklets of Translocation (1.5k), Wyrmfang Amulet (1.5k), Mwk Siangham (.5k), 10 x +1 Shuriken (.5k), 1k for Mage Armor one way or another
HP 43 AC 21 Fort +7 Ref +8 Will +7 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +8 melee 2d6+4+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +7/+7 melee unarmed strike 2d6+4+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +8 (+12 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +6/+6 ranged shuriken 1d2+5+1d6 v. Evil

Level 10:
Gear (49k): Amulet of Con +2/Wis +2 (8k), Anklets of Translocation and Dex +2 (5.5k), Monk's Belt of Str +2 (17k), +1 Scorpion Kama (6.5k), Winged Vest (12k), 10 x +1 Shuriken (.5k), 1k for mage armor one way or another
HP 78 AC 23 Fort +10 Ref +11 Will +10 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +13 melee 3d6+5+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +13/+13/+8 melee kama 3d6+5+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +8 (+12 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +11/+11/+6 ranged shuriken 1d2+5+1d6 v. Evil

Level 15:
Gear (200k): Monk's Belt of Str +6 (49k), Amulet of Con/Wis +4 (32k), Anklets of Translocation and Dex +4 (17.5k), Gloves of the Balanced Hand (8k), Permanencied Enlarge Person (3k), 2x +3 Scorpion Kama (45k), Corsair's Eyepatch (3k), 2x Lesser Weapon Crystals of Acid Assault (6k), Cloak of Resistance +2 (4k), Winged Vest (12k), Cloak of Resistance +3 (9k), Ring of Natural Armor +2 (8k), Ring of Deflection +2 (8k), 1k for Mage Armor one way or another
HP 131 AC 28 Fort +16 Ref +17 Will +16 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +22 melee 4d8+12+1d6 Acid+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+10 melee 4d8+11+1d6 Acid+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +16 (+20 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +15/+15/+15/+10/+5 ranged shuriken 1d2+6+1d6 v. Evil

I'm not going to have time for level 20, but the big changes would be an inherent Str boost of +4, maxing out various enhancement and resistance bonuses, and probably adding collision to the kamas.

[Pickford]

What are gauntlets of the talon? Also, a monk can't flurry with gauntlets as they aren't a special monk weapon (so I'm guessing they're just buff items rather than weapons)

edit: Also some gear gets swapped around between 6th and 10th...but items sell for half and so...wouldn't it be better to build naturally off the lower levels of items?

[WhatBigTeeth]

What are gauntlets of the talon? Also, a monk can't flurry with gauntlets as they aren't a special monk weapon (so I'm guessing they're just buff items rather than weapons)
It's an item whose relic power adds to a monk's level for most abilities like a Monk's belt. But now that I mention it, I realize monks' belts are core, which makes the gauntlets and their associated feat silly investments for this example.

I suppose I could go over the gear list in a couple days when I have the free time, but I am not under the impression WBL cares how you get there.

EDIT: The gear list is just improved/added stuff from ECL 6 to ECL 10. The only difference is that the Wyrmfang Amulet (which makes natural weapons overcome DR/Magic) is replaced by a weapon that does the same thing without a slot, while accepting weapon enhancements. I rejiggered feats and item slots acknowledging that the Monk's belt is available.

[eggynack]

So, now what we'd need to do is pick an enemy, and see how he fares. What's the monk's attack pattern against a 7 headed hydra? You could suggest a different monster, if you like.

[Pickford]

It's an item whose relic power adds to a monk's level for most abilities like a Monk's belt. But now that I mention it, I realize monks' belts are core, which makes the gauntlets and their associated feat silly investments for this example.

I suppose I could go over the gear list in a couple days when I have the free time, but I am not under the impression WBL cares how you get there.

EDIT: The gear list is just improved/added stuff from ECL 6 to ECL 10. The only difference is that the Wyrmfang Amulet (which makes natural weapons overcome DR/Magic) is replaced by a weapon that does the same thing without a slot, while accepting weapon enhancements. I rejiggered feats and item slots acknowledging that the Monk's belt is available.

Eh, I'm ok with fast an loose on WBL (considering there are in-game means to acquire money without gaining XP, so WBL is easily wrong)

edit: Eggy, how about 5 fights at each appropriate CR, so we'll see how the Monk fairs, on average, against potential creatures? Rather than picking any particular creature.

[eggynack]

Sounds fair enough. We still need a good starting monster and the tactics that'd be used to fight against it. Otherwise I'd just be calculating average normal damage again, and that might not reflect exactly what happens. Hydra seems like a halfway reasonable starting point. It's not like I can have a monk fight "potential creatures" that aren't just regular monsters. It's possible to do an average probability of success calculation against a few monsters, instead of just one. I'm still not sure exactly how to run combat maneuvers into the equation though. It's like every single one creates a new branching path. Tripping is likely easier, because I think success just creates an extra attack at a static amount of damage, but I didn't know how to run grappling then, and I still don't know now. Passive way obviates that problem a bit, so that's neat.

Also, I think that you'd need quite a bit more than +19 grapple to have any degree of success with that against a hydra. Specifically, in order to find out if the grapple hits, you need to roll against touch ac (which I think he'd practically always hit at that level), and then make the first grapple roll to start grappling, and a second grapple roll to not have the grapple broken. If each only has a 50% chance of success, then successful initial grapples have a 50% chance of setting it back to square one, and a failed initial grapple gives the monk bonus actions. It doesn't seem to matter here though, so I'm just going to keep thinking about grapple math in my head, and move on here when a combat plan is constructed.

[Pickford]

flipping through the back of the MM CR appropriate I see:

Will-o-wisp
Xorn, average
Shambling Mound
Ettin
Half black dragon, 4th-level human fighter.

I mean, it's entirely possible to just match the monk up against 6th level fighters/warriors or something as those would, by far, be the most common potential enemy. *shrug*

Does hydra not seem unusually dangerous? I mean, fast healing 15 for the 5-headed version and the ability to deal 5 1d10+3 attacks? So...potentially 20-65 damage non crit, up to 130 crit? That...that seems like a lot. No?

Compare this to the Shambling Mound, which has '2' slam attacks for 2d6+5 (14-34/28-68 full crit)

[eggynack]

I'm actually not sure if it's over cr'd or not. Granted, the hydra is pretty high power when it comes to punching stuff out, but the will o' wisp you cited is something that I don't think the monk could deal with, for example. It has 29 ac, which is more than the monk can feasibly hit, and it has a +16 touch attack, which is something that it's not going to miss often.

I'd rather not run shambling mound, because at least for now grappling hurts my head. However, I think the shambling mound seems to have some advantages over the monk. It's hitting a little over half the time, and I think it has a better than even chance of grappling the monk each time it does. Unlike the monk before, doing so doesn't cost an action. However, like the monk before, grappling turns the combat pretty well in the mound's favor due to the constrict ability. Still, I'd have to take a better look at that monk's grapple score, as well as the strategy he intends to use with those items, to be sure.

The ettin does seem a bit weaker, but I don't know for sure yet. It's hitting for +12/+7 for 2d6+6, while the monk is hitting +7/+7 for 3d6+4. The monk has 3 more ac though, so the ettin's attack bonus looks a bit more like +9/+4 relatively speaking. I dunno if the actual numbers bear that out, but it's close enough, and slides pretty smoothly around the monk's scores, with a slight advantage for the monk. The monk also hits for 1.5 more damage on average, so that's a thing. However, looking at it again it seems like that +12/+7 is per mace, so the ettin is dealing significantly more damage on a full attack, and still a bit more on a regular attack. Finally, the monk has the tripping advantage, however he has to get about 2 more on his roll than the ettin, so he's slightly unlikely to succeed. The ettin also has 22 more hp than the monk, so that seems important. I'm putting it at a toss up for now, pending better understanding of what exactly the monk can do to gain an advantage in this fight.

For the monk/fighter thing, I'd rather we not have to construct new viable builds continuously. For one thing, I'm pretty sure that if a fighter fights a monk of equal optimization, the fighter will win. It's not something that's that important to test, cause that's more of a standard arena style thing, and we're working with two major variables rather than one.

Finally, here's math on the hydra's average damage against that monk. He hits on an 11, so that part's a clean 50%. The average damage is 9.5, so that's 4.75 damage per bite. At 7 bites a round, the monk is getting hit for 33.25 damage per round, which puts him pretty solidly dead come round 2. This is especially true because the hydra's doing that on a standard. Running things the other way, the monk hits on a 10, giving 55% hit rate. He's going at 11 damage per hit, so that's 6.05 damage per hit, with 12.1 damage on a full attack. Unfortunately for the monk, that's not enough to overcome the hydra's fast healing, so the hydra becomes solidly dead on round infinity. It may be an aberrant case, but I'm pretty sure the monk loses that one all the time. For bonus sadness points, the monk is incapable of tripping the hydra because of the hydra's intrinsic hugeness. The other ones are a bit more up in the air, pending combat strategy.

Edit: Whoops. Forgot xorns. I'll run it in a bit.

Double edit: And the time for quick xorn assessment is now. I don't really know how this one plays out, because I don't know how the fight even works. The xorn just kinda burrows underground, and the fight ends, and everyone is unsatisfied. Just eyeballing it though, the xorn seems to have higher damage, higher to hit, higher ac, and more health, than the monk. The claws do less damage individually, but on a full attack it looks like they turn the damage potential to the xorn, especially given that he's still hitting more. Tripping helps the monk out quite a bit, because the xorn has low touch ac, and a low strength mod. The monk still needs pretty good rolls to actually hit the prone xorn though, and I don't know how earth glide effects that. Can he just sink into the earth instead of getting up, and provoking an AoO? This one's tricky.

Edit of moreness: Just wanted to add a note that I haven't been accounting for criticals. There's decent reason for this in most cases, I think. As long as the amount of damage per hit is pretty similar between the two characters, and the number of hits is also similar, the effect of critical hits ranges from non-existent to negligible. It just doesn't happen much, and it's happening on both sides. There's two examples so far where this is untrue. The first is the will o' wisp. In that case, the will o' wisp's ac is so high that the monk can only hit on a natural 20. The chances of double damage are negligible again, but he's still got a 5% chance of hitting. The second is the hydra. He's hitting nearly twice as much as the monk, so he should be critting about twice as much too. I dunno how important these things are, but they're worth considering. Basically, any time that the amount of attacks is substantially greater on one end, I think that crits should be considered. It doesn't really add merit to flurry over decisive strike, but I feel it's worth thinking about a little bit. As an example, the damage from crits on a hydra is (.05*.5*9.5)*7 over the course of a round. I think that the big guy is getting a whole 1.6625 damage a round out of the deal, if I haven't done my math wrong. It seems about right, I think.

[Gnaeus]

Gnaeus: I was discussing TWF in general. The same way you were referring to Righteous might. Right?

Wrong. My point was that a cleric (or druid) can have a lower strength, even if they plan to melee, because they WILL get Righteous might (or wildshape). At mid level, they will have it, assuming the cleric has enough wisdom (which my sample clerics did, and which any reasonably built cleric will).

That is totally different from arguing that dex is not important for monks (which you did) proposing a starting monk with 10 dex (which you did) and then extolling the virtues of TWF & unarmed strike. If TWF is anywhere on the table at any point in the level progression, you are going to need good dex.


And in core only 6 deities have law domain. I don't particularly care about homebrew or setting specific. Also, don't setting specific deities replace core deities when a setting is used?

In core, there are no devotions, because Complete Champion is not core. Outside core, but without homebrew or setting specific, there are dozens more gods that are available, in the races books, complete divine, and in the terrain books. There are plenty of gods that offer Law. It isn't rare or anything.

And in core, you can worship a principle.

And if, for some reason, you can't get law, chaos devotion with its random buffs to AC/to hit is still plenty to give a cleric a sizable edge over monk in combat.

[shaikujin]

We could pretend our intrepid monk has certain Hidden Talent or Shape Soulmeld feats, or act like the class's bonus feats give it added freedom to pick up Wild Cohort that the druid doesn't have, but I think it's been pretty well established that the class doesn't stand up to that challenge at that level without good luck or edge-case builds.

Since we were discussing an extremely limited-source monk at higher point buy and I've got some time, how about:

LG Human Passive Way Monk 20 with both Complete Champion ACFs
Starting attributes (32 PB): Str 16 Dex 15 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 8
Attribute increases: Level 4 bonus goes to Dex; all others to Strength.
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, Defensive Throw, Improved Feint, Improved Natural Attack, Weapon Focus (Kama), Two-Weapon Fighting, Deft Opportunist, Robilar's Gambit

Level 1:
Gear: Kama, Siangham, 10 Shurikens and noncombat gear
HP 10 AC 14 Fort +4 Ref +4 Will +4
Std Action Attack: +3 melee unarmed strike 1d6+3
Full Round Attack: +1/+1 melee unarmed strike 1d6+3
Ranged Attack: +0/+0 ranged shuriken 1d2+3

Level 6:
Gear (13k): Belt of Str +2 (4k), Gauntlets of the Talon (4k), Anklets of Translocation (1.5k), Wyrmfang Amulet (1.5k), Mwk Siangham (.5k), 10 x +1 Shuriken (.5k), 1k for Mage Armor one way or another
HP 43 AC 21 Fort +7 Ref +8 Will +7 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +8 melee 2d6+4+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +7/+7 melee unarmed strike 2d6+4+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +8 (+12 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +6/+6 ranged shuriken 1d2+5+1d6 v. Evil

Level 10:
Gear (49k): Amulet of Con +2/Wis +2 (8k), Anklets of Translocation and Dex +2 (5.5k), Monk's Belt of Str +2 (17k), +1 Scorpion Kama (6.5k), Winged Vest (12k), 10 x +1 Shuriken (.5k), 1k for mage armor one way or another
HP 78 AC 23 Fort +10 Ref +11 Will +10 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +13 melee 3d6+5+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +13/+13/+8 melee kama 3d6+5+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +8 (+12 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +11/+11/+6 ranged shuriken 1d2+5+1d6 v. Evil

Level 15:
Gear (200k): Monk's Belt of Str +6 (49k), Amulet of Con/Wis +4 (32k), Anklets of Translocation and Dex +4 (17.5k), Gloves of the Balanced Hand (8k), Permanencied Enlarge Person (3k), 2x +3 Scorpion Kama (45k), Corsair's Eyepatch (3k), 2x Lesser Weapon Crystals of Acid Assault (6k), Cloak of Resistance +2 (4k), Winged Vest (12k), Cloak of Resistance +3 (9k), Ring of Natural Armor +2 (8k), Ring of Deflection +2 (8k), 1k for Mage Armor one way or another
HP 131 AC 28 Fort +16 Ref +17 Will +16 (all saves +2 v. effects from chaotic or evil creatures)
Std Action Attack: +22 melee 4d8+12+1d6 Acid+1d6 v. Evil
Full Round Attack: +20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+20/+10 melee 4d8+11+1d6 Acid+1d6 v. Evil
Trip: +16 (+20 if target denied Dex to AC)
Ranged Attack: +15/+15/+15/+10/+5 ranged shuriken 1d2+6+1d6 v. Evil

I'm not going to have time for level 20, but the big changes would be an inherent Str boost of +4, maxing out various enhancement and resistance bonuses, and probably adding collision to the kamas.

I have the same view as you in that the monk's unarmed damage progression can be optimized/abused.

For Gauntlet of the Talon, there are 2 versions. The Complete Divine one specifically allows the bonus to stack with Monk's Belt. The MIC doesn't.

Effective damage progression:
+5 from Monk's Belt
+5 from Gauntlets of the Talon
+2 from Carmandine Monk feat
+4 from Superior Unarmed Strike feat (bonus from feats should always stack http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040210a)

That's +16 effective monk levels. So just 4 more levels of monk to hit level 20 damage progression. (Monk's Tattoo gives +4, but since it's considered a magic item, it probably won't stack with the belt and gauntlet).

That'll give a base damage of 2d10.



Then we stack size increase:
Start off with a large race (or add half-minotoar / half ogre template) = Physically Large (4d8 damage)

Battlefist adds 1 effective size increase if you are a monk (also needs to be a warforged, or have warforged arms grafted, yay cyberams in DnD!) = Effectively Huge (6d8 damage)

Improved Natural Attack feat (Fanged ring grants this) = Effectively Gargantuan (8d8 damage)

Wand/Ring/Friendly caster of Mighty Wallop = Effectively Colossal (12d8 damage)

Or use a Greater Mighty Wallop if bonus from Battlefist does not stack with spells.



Next, instead of using unarmed attacks, use a Scorpion Kama from MIC. The base damage of a Scorpion Kama is equal to the unarmed damage a monk can deal. Which is now 12d8.

Comparatively, a Colossal Greatsword does only 8d6 damage, and can't really be carried around easily.



On top of that, add the morphing/sizing properties to the Scorpion Karma (can be make out of Kaorti Resin). Any weapon it changes into does 12d8 damage as well. Even a dagger.

Favorite weapon - make it into a Rope Dart (Dragon #319). 1d4 base damage, that has a reach of 15 feet. Unlike whips, it actually threatens that 15 feet. But instead of the weak 1d4 damage, it's doing 12d8 damage instead.

It requires EWP, but allow monks to flurry with it. And can be used to trip.



The thing is of course, while some of the damage and size increase works only for monks, you don't really 4 levels of monk. 1 level is sufficient. Use other monk PRCs or Tashalatora to fill in the rest.

[Gnaeus]

Then we stack size increase:
Start off with a large race (or add half-minotoar / half ogre template) = Physically Large (4d8 damage)

Battlefist adds 1 effective size increase if you are a monk (also needs to be a warforged, or have warforged arms grafted, yay cyberams in DnD!) = Effectively Huge (6d8 damage)

Wand/Ring/Friendly caster of Mighty Wallop = Effectively Colossal (12d8 damage)

Or use a Greater Mighty Wallop if bonus from Battlefist does not stack with spells.

Problem 1. I don't think you can add those templates to warforged.
Problem 2. A monk without LA is pretty fragile. Add some LA and you are a glass cannon without enough hit points to survive long. Compare with (for example) a barbarian, who can also do absurd damage, but can also take hits pretty well.
Problem 3. Unless you are wandering down the UMD/Partially charged wands route, you are no longer talking about monk. You are now talking about the power of a tier 1 caster. I mean heck, with a spell one level higher, you can polymorph the monk into a huge creature with a ginormous strength bonus, and that works fine.

Compare this with something like King of Smack, which walks down this same road, but provides the buffs himself, and also is likely to have more non-combat utility than monk.

[Talya]

Pickford is doing the same thing with his monk build that wizard fanboys do with their daily spell list*. He's assuming he's optimally set up for every situation, taking each one in a vacuum. He's always gone down whatever theoretical build is needed for any situation, even if they're mutually exlusive to other build ideas he's previously stated. (I.E. Two Weapon Fighting and low dexterity.) Whereas the druid has a single build and sticks with it, he's inventing an entirely new monk every time the druid foils him, then pretending his monk is holding his own.



* - I'm not debating that the wizard spell list can be gamebreaking. It's just not nearly as bad in practice as message-board optimizers claim, since nobody really has that level of ability to predict what they will face and how combat will play out (even with divinations.) You may have Batman's utility belt, but none of us have Batman's brain. Regardless, when a wizard optimizer does this, it's not nearly as egregious, because a wizard can swap his spell list out every day, whereas a monk is stuck in his build choice forever.

[shaikujin]

Problem 1. I don't think you can add those templates to warforged.
Problem 2. A monk without LA is pretty fragile. Add some LA and you are a glass cannon without enough hit points to survive long. Compare with (for example) a barbarian, who can also do absurd damage, but can also take hits pretty well.
Problem 3. Unless you are wandering down the UMD/Partially charged wands route, you are no longer talking about monk. You are now talking about the power of a tier 1 caster. I mean heck, with a spell one level higher, you can polymorph the monk into a huge creature with a ginormous strength bonus, and that works fine.

Compare this with something like King of Smack, which walks down this same road, but provides the buffs himself, and also is likely to have more non-combat utility than monk.

Problem 1. Warforged grafts actually allows warforged components to be added, hence the "cyberarms" comment ^_^. Dragonborn warforged might also allow the templates to be added? But there's still an issue whether Battlefists stacks with Mighty Wallop though.



Problem 2. It's only LA 1, so hopefully wouldn't hurt too bad. Being large is very advantageous to a melee class, enough to warrant a +1 LA imho. I can't find any large size races without at least 1 LA/RHD, but if there's one, it'll be even better.
Yes, the barbarian's 1d12 HP is very hard to beat.
Tactic-wise, the glass cannon above is more suited to trip/lockdown/outright kill opponents 15 feet away before they get close.
Hopefully, getting the Sparring Dummy of the Master to increase 5 ft step to a 10 ft step.



Problem 3. Yes, if there's no friendly caster to rely on, then magic rings or wands are required. Preferably rings, because wands requires UMD, which is a cross class skill for monks.


Also iteratives at level 20:
Monk 20 flurry = +15/+15/+15/+10/+5
Barbarian 20 = +20/+15/+10/+5


Last 3 attacks are at +15/+10/+5 for both, so even footing there. That leaves

Monk = +15/+15
Barbarian = +20

With enough bonus to attacks from magic items, I would prefer +15/+15 than a single +20. Especially if the damage from that attack is 12d8.

Btw, the Rope Dart is 2 handed, so can be used to power attack as well.



My view is that while classes like Barbarian works as advertised out of the core, Monks definitely require more understanding that its' jack of all trades abilities don't work. It's best to concentrate on 1 aspect and just be good at that. But it really isn't as bad as what a lot of people have been told. There are some gems out there made for monks.

Also, melee classes need splat support more than casters. Restricted to core-only, melee classes are all so underpowered compared to the full casters.

[Talya]

Also, melee classes need splat support more than casters. Restricted to core-only, melee classes are all so underpowered compared to the full casters.



Yeah. While nobody would deny spellcasters got more powerful with splatbooks, all the most broken stuff is already in core. Splatbooks just provided a few more options. Melees actually improve far more with splatbooks than spellcasters.

[Gnaeus]

Problem 2. It's only LA 1, so hopefully wouldn't hurt too bad. Being large is very advantageous to a melee class, enough to warrant a +1 LA imho. I can't find any large size races without at least 1 LA/RHD, but if there's one, it'll be even better.
Yes, the barbarian's 1d12 HP is very hard to beat.
Tactic-wise, the glass cannon above is more suited to trip/lockdown/outright kill opponents 15 feet away before they get close.
Hopefully, getting the Sparring Dummy of the Master to increase 5 ft step to a 10 ft step.

Indeed. But monk is not only a melee class. It is a melee class with weak AC, bad hp and MAD problems making a high con difficult. A large monk with a 15 AC and 16 HP at 3rd level is likely to just be killed by an ogre or something before it ever becomes viable. A fighter or barbarian with LA have a much better chance to live up until LA buyoff.




Problem 3. Yes, if there's no friendly caster to rely on, then magic rings or wands are required. Preferably rings, because wands requires UMD, which is a cross class skill for monks.

Also iteratives at level 20:
Monk 20 flurry = +15/+15/+15/+10/+5
Barbarian 20 = +20/+15/+10/+5


Last 3 attacks are at +15/+10/+5 for both, so even footing there. That leaves

Monk = +15/+15
Barbarian = +20

Also, melee classes need splat support more than casters. Restricted to core-only, melee classes are all so underpowered compared to the full casters.

Ring of mighty wallop is not merely non-core. It is homebrew. A non-standard item that many DMs who follow RAW will not allow, and which couldn't be crafted by your party casters until high level anyway. And the wand, as you mention, has its own problems.

I do not regard it as a strength of the monk class that it can function with half a dozen specific items. I regard it as a weakness of the monk class that it cannot function without half a dozen specific items. Yes, all melee share this to some extent (a flight item, etc). The barbarian or fighter (again, leaving aside the specific issues like flight items which you ALSO need) can do OK with any appropriate armor and any appropriately powerful 2h weapon. Your monk listed 6 very specific non-core items. One of which is non-standard. Several of which can't be crafted until high level. This, to me, highlights the weakness, not the strength of the class.



Also iteratives at level 20:
Monk 20 flurry = +15/+15/+15/+10/+5
Barbarian 20 = +20/+15/+10/+5


Last 3 attacks are at +15/+10/+5 for both, so even footing there. That leaves

Monk = +15/+15
Barbarian = +20

With enough bonus to attacks from magic items, I would prefer +15/+15 than a single +20. Especially if the damage from that attack is 12d8.


Well, the barbarian still outdamages you by quite a bit, because 12d8 is 54 damage/hit, but the barbarian is racking up huge damage per hit with combos like 2 handed weapon charging with shock trooper.

But that isn't really the point. Any competent Melee build should be able to kill any target it can full attack. Now, the charge barb is ALSO way more likely to be able to full attack, but that isn't the point either. My point was that either of you can probably kill your target, but the barbarian has the HP to take a hit as well, and a monk with LA does not.

[Pickford]

Pickford is doing the same thing with his monk build that wizard fanboys do with their daily spell list*. He's assuming he's optimally set up for every situation, taking each one in a vacuum. He's always gone down whatever theoretical build is needed for any situation, even if they're mutually exlusive to other build ideas he's previously stated. (I.E. Two Weapon Fighting and low dexterity.) Whereas the druid has a single build and sticks with it, he's inventing an entirely new monk every time the druid foils him, then pretending his monk is holding his own.



* - I'm not debating that the wizard spell list can be gamebreaking. It's just not nearly as bad in practice as message-board optimizers claim, since nobody really has that level of ability to predict what they will face and how combat will play out (even with divinations.) You may have Batman's utility belt, but none of us have Batman's brain. Regardless, when a wizard optimizer does this, it's not nearly as egregious, because a wizard can swap his spell list out every day, whereas a monk is stuck in his build choice forever.

I was actually making a 'comparison' between TWF and Flurry and saying that Flurry is like TWF, except better.

And in regards to the feat choice: retraining is a thing.

eggy, I didn't even bother looking up the monsters until now...will o the wisp seems problematic for basically every class unless they know ahead of time what they'll be fighting. (i.e. a Wizard who runs into one seems likely to die unless they just happen to have picked up at least 5 castings of magic missile that day...)

Of course, that's assuming a one on one encounter, but still the immunity to most magic and the extremely high touch/regular AC don't look easy for anyone to overcome.

Edit: I guess it requires the use of feint. Amazing, the one scenario where improved feint actually has utility.

[shaikujin]

Indeed. But monk is not only a melee class. It is a melee class with weak AC, bad hp and MAD problems making a high con difficult. A large monk with a 15 AC and 16 HP at 3rd level is likely to just be killed by an ogre or something before it ever becomes viable. A fighter or barbarian with LA have a much better chance to live up until LA buyoff.


The monk is considered MAD due to the bonus that Wis gives. Otherwise, it requires the same 3 stats that all melee characters need - Str, Dex, Con.

If we consider the bonus from Wis as merely a bonus, would the monk not be able to concentrate on the 3 physical stats like any melee characters Str>Dex>Con? And put only as much points into Wis until a monk can afford to boost it via magic items.

Say 32 point buy - Str 16 Dex 16 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 14 Cha 8
Large size gives Str 24 con Dex 14 Con 18. Mental stats unchanged.
AC is -1, but I think the size increase grants +2 natural armor. Also gains 5 foot reach and +10 movement speed.

Unarmored AC with Wis = 15.
If armor is worn, lose the +2 from Wis, but retain the 2 from dex (depending on armor), add +2 natural armor, and of course there's still the -1 penalty to AC. Effectively, plus 3 to AC of whatever armor is being worn. Monks do not have armor proficiency though, so will require masterwork and perhaps special materials to reduce ACP. Add dastana and chahar-aina if allowed.

Like any melee character.

Since flurry penalties still suck at low levels, forgo the Wis bonus to AC and wear armor like everyone. Fast movement don't come in play until level 3, so there's nothing else to lose.
At level 3, average HP is 37.

HP is definitely worse than what a better chasis can have, but hopefully still allow survival until LA buyoff.





Ring of mighty wallop is not merely non-core. It is homebrew. A non-standard item that many DMs who follow RAW will not allow, and which couldn't be crafted by your party casters until high level anyway. And the wand, as you mention, has its own problems.


It's definitely a custom item as there's no such item in print, but I wouldn't say homebrew. Rules are in the DMG and MIC to create items that grants effects of a spell.

It's no less RAW than having custom weapons like +1 greatsword with say the valorous and eager properties because there's no such item printed.

Non-core, yes. I admit that melee characters really gets shafted if limited to core.





Well, the barbarian still outdamages you by quite a bit, because 12d8 is 54 damage/hit, but the barbarian is racking up huge damage per hit with combos like 2 handed weapon charging with shock trooper.


Which in your view, the monk cannot do because monks cannot charge with a 2 handed weapon with shock trooper? Why so? Is it because of a barbarian's 20 BAB against a monk's 15 BAB?

How much average damage would such a barbarian do? And which parts cannot be replicated by the monk?

Btw, the 12d8 that the monk's weapon is doing, it's the base weapon damage.





My point was that either of you can probably kill your target, but the barbarian has the HP to take a hit as well, and a monk with LA does not.


Up to LA buyoff, yes, it's a lot more fragile. However, it's about 37 HP, and not as bad as 16 HP. It's still more fragile than a barbarian even after that, 1d12 is hard to beat. But hopefully, once trip/lockdown comes online, the monk won't get hit as much.

[eggynack]

It's also not taking into account several of the major aspects of the barbarian's raw power. First off, they can rage, and in this case I'd prefer to use whirling frenzy. He can rage 6 times a day, which should get him the ability to rage every encounter. With base whirling frenzy, at first level, you're effectively hitting at +1/+1 plus your high strength bonus, and taking into account both the bonus strength from whirling frenzy, and the negative to hit of whirling frenzy. At 20th level, he gets an extra +3 mod on strength from rage, so he's really pulling something like +23/+23/+18/+13/+8. This is way better than the monk's iterative, and I believe he does more per hit as well, particularly taking rage into account.

The second major aspect of barbarian power is pounce. It gives unmatched combat mobility, and is something the monk doesn't get at all. It means that if the barbarian goes first, his target is usually dead, and if the monk goes first, he only gets one attack to kill the opponent to the barbarian's 5.

The third aspect of barbarian power, though perhaps not quite as powerful, is tripping. You get to trade a bunch of pretty mediocre defensive abilities for one of the more powerful combat maneuvers in the game. Now, take note that none of this stuff costs any feats at all. He just does this stuff, itemless featless, and with a very low cost in terms of class features. You can spend all of his items and feats doing whatever you want, ranging from increasing the power of the things I've listed to doing something else. You can add a really solid intimidation build onto that character, or you can up their damage, or you can put knock down, combat reflexes and spiked chain proficiency for a highly competent tripping build. Moreover, the only items you really need are a good weapon and good armor, along with whatever stat boosting items you want. Strictly speaking, you can go at it with mundane stuff and still be better than the monk, but this stuff helps. You have tons of space in terms of both money and slots to crush the monk into a fine paste.

In other words, the barbarian is way better in every way that counts. The only non-core things are intimidation and pounce, and the rest is more than enough to outdo the monk. He's also much less MAD, due to not needing wisdom or charisma. CHA helps with intimidation builds, but it's not really a necessary aspect of the character.

Edit: Just for clarification on non-core intimidation stuff, the standard barbarian intimidation load out goes intimidating rage, never outnumbered, instantaneous rage and imperious command. That's the list as per the "Why Each Class is in its Tier" thread, anyways. It's a neat build.

[Augmental]

The monk is considered MAD due to the bonus that Wis gives. Otherwise, it requires the same 3 stats that all melee characters need - Str, Dex, Con.

The monk can't wear armor; he needs to have high Wisdom to have an AC comparable to a fighter.

[Emmerask]

It's also not taking into account several of the major aspects of the barbarian's raw power. First off, they can rage, and in this case I'd prefer to use whirling frenzy. He can rage 6 times a day, which should get him the ability to rage every encounter. With base whirling frenzy, at first level, you're effectively hitting at +1/+1 plus your high strength bonus, and taking into account both the bonus strength from whirling frenzy, and the negative to hit of whirling frenzy. At 20th level, he gets an extra +3 mod on strength from rage, so he's really pulling something like +23/+23/+18/+13/+8. This is way better than the monk's iterative, and I believe he does more per hit as well, particularly taking rage into account.

The second major aspect of barbarian power is pounce. It gives unmatched combat mobility, and is something the monk doesn't get at all. It means that if the barbarian goes first, his target is usually dead, and if the monk goes first, he only gets one attack to kill the opponent to the barbarian's 5.

The third aspect of barbarian power, though perhaps not quite as powerful, is tripping. You get to trade a bunch of pretty mediocre defensive abilities for one of the more powerful combat maneuvers in the game. Now, take note that none of this stuff costs any feats at all. He just does this stuff, itemless featless, and with a very low cost in terms of class features. You can spend all of his items and feats doing whatever you want, ranging from increasing the power of the things I've listed to doing something else. You can add a really solid intimidation build onto that character, or you can up their damage, or you can put knock down, combat reflexes and spiked chain proficiency for a highly competent tripping build. Moreover, the only items you really need are a good weapon and good armor, along with whatever stat boosting items you want. Strictly speaking, you can go at it with mundane stuff and still be better than the monk, but this stuff helps. You have tons of space in terms of both money and slots to crush the monk into a fine paste.

In other words, the barbarian is way better in every way that counts. The only non-core things are intimidation and pounce, and the rest is more than enough to outdo the monk. He's also much less MAD, due to not needing wisdom or charisma. CHA helps with intimidation builds, but it's not really a necessary aspect of the character.

I agree though there is one very nice item which gives the monk 10 feet shift instead of 5 which is a very nice trick to have, training dummy (or puppet) of the master I think its called, its really good.

But yeah overall monk is pretty good for a 1 or 2 level dip after that its garbage.

[eggynack]

I agree though there is one very nice item which gives the monk 10 feet shift instead of 5 which is a very nice trick to have, training dummy (or puppet) of the master I think its called, its really good.

But yeah overall monk is pretty good for a 1 or 2 level dip after that its garbage.
It's the sparring dummy of the master, and is on page 137 of the Arms and Equipment Guide for reference. It's a pretty sweet item I admit, but 30,000 gp is a high price to pay on a class as item dependent as the monk. I'm not saying that they shouldn't take it, just that it's pretty far from free.

[Lans]

The monk can't wear armor; he needs to have high Wisdom to have an AC comparable to a fighter.
This is false, otherwise 3ish of his abilities wouldn't have text indicating what happens when he does wear armor.




The only non-core things are intimidation and pounce, and the rest is more than enough to outdo the monk.

And the Whirling frenzy.

Luckily for the monk, until the whriling frenzy pouncebarian gets put on a seperate tier, he only has to contend with the stock barbarian from the players handbook to see if he with and/or with out ACFs deserves to be tier 4

[Gnaeus]

Stuff

1. You cant just use the large size monster advancement for a PC (it does not have a LA adjustment, only a CR adjustment). The half Minotaur template is worse than you list and still widely considered OP (and its dragon content) The Half Ogre is +2 LA and still not as good as what you listed. Find an actual template to be legal.

2. 25 PB is standard. Yes, you can attempt to hide the suck with 32 PB, but I will not accept it or debate it.

3. A level 3 monk does not have 37 hp average. At base d8+4 for an 18 con, a level 3 monk does not have 37 HP MAXIMUM. But your monk has LA. Assuming 16 con because your point buy is wrong, an ECL 3 monk with has 11 (at level 1) +7.5 (at level 2) =18.5. But again, your size advance is improperly done and your PB is wrong.

I am not limiting anything to core. I am saying you can't assume your pick of non-standard items. And if you require a ton of specific items to make your character work, you are just saying Monk is not viable without cherrypicked custom loot. Thats the tier 5 stamp of approval.



And the Whirling frenzy.

Luckily for the monk, until the whriling frenzy pouncebarian gets put on a seperate tier, he only has to contend with the stock barbarian from the players handbook to see if he with and/or with out ACFs deserves to be tier 4

Negative. He has to contend with a Barbarian at same optimization level. Since his monk is non-core, he is compared with a barbarian which is non-core (and even that does not assume cherry picked custom items). The Core monk gets compared with the Core barbarian.

[eggynack]

Luckily for the monk, until the whriling frenzy pouncebarian gets put on a seperate tier, he only has to contend with the stock barbarian from the players handbook to see if he with and/or with out ACFs deserves to be tier 4

It really depends on your definition of "core". In this case, I was using core to mean anything in the SRD, particularly because it's what any game would have ready access to. There are other definitions out there, but I believe that the SRD definition is the most reasonable one. Moreover, in the absence of whirling frenzy, the barbarian can still use rage. This means that his iterative attacks look less like +20/+15/+10/+5 as was claimed, and more like +24/+19/+14/+9, which is significantly better. Moreover, these attacks deal more damage due to the 1.5*strength bonus, reduced MAD, weapon enhancements, power attack, the fact that a spiked chain gets an AoO on approach, the bonuses of strength to damage, and the fact that they can do it more times due to higher AC and hp. They're a lot better than monks, is what I'm saying.

[Flickerdart]

Don't forget that a barbarian can just buy a speed weapon for that extra attack, while the monk can't put enchantments on his fists in core.

[eggynack]

That does seem pretty great. I don't know how it compares to the other possible enchantments, but with the barbarian's high damage per hit, probably pretty well. I basically class it along with all enchantments ever in the pro-barbarian column. I don't even know why this argument is happening, when barbarians are clearly superior to monks in core, and are possibly even more superior out of core. I believe that the monk is forced to use the amulet of mighty fists, which is more expensive, and uses what is possibly the worst bonus (simple +1 attack and damage bonuses). Monks seem quite expertly screwed on all counts all the time. I don't even know if that completely inaccurate +20/+15/+10/+5 is necessarily worse than the monk's iterative. +15/+15 is dealing at least 25% less damage per attack than its +20 cousin, and possibly more considering the barbarian's higher strength (because barbarians are much less MAD) and the advantages in damage of two handed weapons. It's irrelevant though, because once again that iterative is totally inaccurate in every way that actually matters.

[olentu]

It really depends on your definition of "core". In this case, I was using core to mean anything in the SRD, particularly because it's what any game would have ready access to. There are other definitions out there, but I believe that the SRD definition is the most reasonable one. Moreover, in the absence of whirling frenzy, the barbarian can still use rage. This means that his iterative attacks look less like +20/+15/+10/+5 as was claimed, and more like +24/+19/+14/+9, which is significantly better. Moreover, these attacks deal more damage due to the 1.5*strength bonus, reduced MAD, weapon enhancements, power attack, the fact that a spiked chain gets an AoO on approach, the bonuses of strength to damage, and the fact that they can do it more times due to higher AC and hp. They're a lot better than monks, is what I'm saying.

Huh, leaving aside the question of what is "core", when did WotC update the SRD to include unearthed arcana.

[eggynack]

I don't think I've ever seen the SRD without UA. The stuff is listed under variant rules. Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#rageVariantWhirlingFrenzy ) is a link to the very much online whirling frenzy ACF for your general edification.

[Talya]

UA has always been SRD.

[olentu]

I don't think I've ever seen the SRD without UA. The stuff is listed under variant rules. Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/classFeatureVariants.htm#rageVariantWhirlingFrenzy ) is a link to the very much online whirling frenzy ACF for your general edification.

https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35

This does not seem to have it, but perhaps I am missing something.

[eggynack]

I dunno what that version of the SRD has or doesn't have. I've always used this thing (http://www.d20srd.org/). If the two are different somehow, then that might be the problem, but I'm pretty sure that the link I just posted is what people are talking about when they talk about the SRD. The UA stuff is listed under classes in the header of variant rules, or you could just click the link I posted in the last message for the specific mention of whirling frenzy.

[WhatBigTeeth]

d20srd.org is the SRD (the specific materials available on the site olentu linked) with a bunch of miscellaneous OGC materials mixed in, which is why the UA/D&D/ELH/EPH materials and the handful of weird monster entries like scorpionfolk and razor boars are there.

But since we aren't publishing d20 materials here or talking about publishing d20 materials, the distinction doesn't matter in the slightest.

[olentu]

I dunno what that version of the SRD has or doesn't have. I've always used this thing (http://www.d20srd.org/). If the two are different somehow, then that might be the problem, but I'm pretty sure that the link I just posted is what people are talking about when they talk about the SRD. The UA stuff is listed under classes in the header of variant rules, or you could just click the link I posted in the last message for the specific mention of whirling frenzy.

Ah so when you say "SRD" you don't mean the actual SRD. Well that clears things up, thanks for the explanation. Personally I would not call a third party website "core" since I would need to check every word every time to insure perfect reproduction and at that point why not use the book I am checking against instead. Then again I would not call the actual SRD "core" since it is not quite the same as the three core rulebooks, so whatever floats your boat.

[eggynack]

It seems like a perfectly viable resource to me, and to most people in fact. The thing that makes it "Core" is its accessibility, which I believe to be the least arbitrary guideline to base a game on. Core, which is in its narrowest form the PHB, the DMG and the MMI, is a collection of books defined as core because they're the minimal quantity of books that any given play group can be expected to have access to. With the SRD, that list is broadened to include stuff like UA, XPH, and the other stuff on the page. The SRD is just that, which is a document used to serve as a reference for the system as a whole, and as far as I know is completely accurate in every way. There are a few omissions from the actual books, but no changes that I'm aware of.

[Lans]

It really depends on your definition of "core". In this case, I was using core to mean anything in the SRD, particularly because it's what any game would have ready access to. There are other definitions out there, but I believe that the SRD definition is the most reasonable one. Moreover, in the absence of whirling frenzy, the barbarian can still use rage. This means that his iterative attacks look less like +20/+15/+10/+5 as was claimed, and more like +24/+19/+14/+9, which is significantly better. Moreover, these attacks deal more damage due to the 1.5*strength bonus, reduced MAD, weapon enhancements, power attack, the fact that a spiked chain gets an AoO on approach, the bonuses of strength to damage, and the fact that they can do it more times due to higher AC and hp. They're a lot better than monks, is what I'm saying.

Fair enough, monks might be able to get power attack through using a staff, I think theres a feat that lets monk use unarmed strike at 1.5 damage. Not saying its equal, just that the monk has options to try and shore up some of the difference


Negative. He has to contend with a Barbarian at same optimization level. Since his monk is non-core, he is compared with a barbarian which is non-core (and even that does not assume cherry picked custom items). The Core monk gets compared with the Core barbarian.

I never said otherwise, I only spoke against ACFs as the classes are considered to be in the said tiers with out any ACFs. Which means the monk or ACF monk, might be in tier 4 with the barbarian, but be lower on the scale than the whirly pouncer. Like Spirit shaman vs druid or wu jen vs wizard- the later is clearly much superior, but the former tend to still be considered tier 1.

[WhatBigTeeth]

It seems like a perfectly viable resource to me, and to most people in fact. The thing that makes it "Core" is its accessibility, which I believe to be the least arbitrary guideline to base a game on. Core, which is in its narrowest form the PHB, the DMG and the MMI, is a collection of books defined as core because they're the minimal quantity of books that any given play group can be expected to have access to. With the SRD, that list is broadened to include stuff like UA, XPH, and the other stuff on the page. The SRD is just that, which is a document used to serve as a reference for the system as a whole, and as far as I know is completely accurate in every way. There are a few omissions from the actual books, but no changes that I'm aware of.
Saying "the SRD" is confusing, since olentu uses the term to refer to the SRD, but you use it to refer to d20srd.org.

Olentu is right that d20srd.org does diverge from the SRD's content, but it's almost always due to the inclusion of errata and other WotC-originating clarifications and rules modifications (including the addition of some pretty major rules like swift actions).

[eggynack]

Fair enough, monks might be able to get power attack through using a staff, I think theres a feat that lets monk use unarmed strike at 1.5 damage. Not saying its equal, just that the monk has options to try and shore up some of the difference

I never said otherwise, I only spoke against ACFs as the classes are considered to be in the said tiers with out any ACFs. Which means the monk or ACF monk, might be in tier 4 with the barbarian, but be lower on the scale than the whirly pouncer. Like Spirit shaman vs druid or wu jen vs wizard- the later is clearly much superior, but the former tend to still be considered tier 1.
Even if the monk is able to power attack, it probably shouldn't. They have pretty low attack bonuses, and are losing a decent amount of their viability by losing access to their bonus unarmed strike damage. They're barely ever hitting anyway, and power attack just makes them hit less.

On ACF's, I dunno the extent to which they should enter the conversation. Probably some, because the barbarian has better ACF's than the monk in my opinion, so the marginal utility of optimization is higher for the barbarian. Separately, I've reached the odd point in my life where, in my mind, "Barbarian" is just shorthand for "Whirling frenzy spirit lion totem wolf totem barbarian". Outside of tier placement decisions, I don't see why a barbarian wouldn't take those ACF's. There's a chance that I'd skip wolf totem to take trap killer, because that thing is sweet, but tripping is full of awesomeness.

[Story]

It's definitely a custom item as there's no such item in print, but I wouldn't say homebrew. Rules are in the DMG and MIC to create items that grants effects of a spell.

It's no less RAW than having custom weapons like +1 greatsword with say the valorous and eager properties because there's no such item printed.


While this may technically be true, there's a lot more subjectivity built into the rules about creating magic items with custom effects. Adding enchantments to a weapon follows a well defined formula. Creating a ring with a continuous spell effect requires a discussion with the DM, as well as looking through the books for similar items to guide pricing decisions. And don't even mention True Strike.

[olentu]

It seems like a perfectly viable resource to me, and to most people in fact. The thing that makes it "Core" is its accessibility, which I believe to be the least arbitrary guideline to base a game on. Core, which is in its narrowest form the PHB, the DMG and the MMI, is a collection of books defined as core because they're the minimal quantity of books that any given play group can be expected to have access to. With the SRD, that list is broadened to include stuff like UA, XPH, and the other stuff on the page. The SRD is just that, which is a document used to serve as a reference for the system as a whole, and as far as I know is completely accurate in every way. There are a few omissions from the actual books, but no changes that I'm aware of.

Eh, I would actually find accessibility to be an exceedingly arbitrary way of making such a designation due to the fact that one must arbitrarily choose a level of accessibility upon which to cut things off. Say the unofficial website goes down at some time in the future, perhaps WotC decides to release all or part of a rule book for free, maybe said rules eventually make their way to the public domain, etc. Actually, now that I think about it, WotC has released usable material on their website. Would that information likewise be "core" to you.

As to inaccuracy, it really doesn't matter to me whether the website is or is not accurate at the current moment, more so that I have no way of knowing whether that status has changed since the last time I have checked (beyond comparison with the official document, of course, but like I said that makes the website rather unnecessary).

[eggynack]

Why would accessibility be an arbitrary dividing line for core? The site is basically just everything that WotC has declared legally available to all. That is what allows the site to exist, and is thus based directly upon what wizards is willing to make accessible. To your second point, I'm pretty sure that that website has remained reliably unchanged since pretty much forever. The site specifically says that it hasn't changed any rule mechanics from the books it takes its information from, and I've never noticed any major differences minus anything that the SRD lacks from the rule books it takes from. Accessibility is basically the only logical dividing line for core that there is. I stated in my post that this dividing line has different definitions for different games, however I think that the SRD is the most reasonable one because it reflects the capabilities of any given game better than any other metric. Any other method seems somewhat arbitrary to me for that reason.

[Talya]

Any other method seems somewhat arbitrary to me for that reason.

Yeah. I've always taken 3.5 core to mean, "The set of published 3.5 material that every group is going to have at their game table, because it's OGL and they didn't have to buy it."

[eggynack]

As an opposite-of-side note, are hydras inordinately powerful for their CR? Monks just seem flat out incapable of beating them for the most part, unlike other monsters for whom the monk always has something resembling a possibility. Is this a thing that should be classed as an aberration, and should be moved on from, or are other melee classes perfectly capable of dealing with the hydra, and it is the monk that is an aberration? I'm thinking of tossing a reasonable brain fighter at the hydra at some point, presumably with a flaming sword given how common that weapon is. I'd think it was a bit on the unfair side, but it actually seems pretty logical for a fighter to have one.

[Talya]

As an opposite-of-side note, are hydras inordinately powerful for their CR? Monks just seem flat out incapable of beating them for the most part, unlike other monsters for whom the monk always has something resembling a possibility. Is this a thing that should be classed as an aberration, and should be moved on from, or are other melee classes perfectly capable of dealing with the hydra, and it is the monk that is an aberration? I'm thinking of tossing a reasonable brain fighter at the hydra at some point, presumably with a flaming sword given how common that weapon is. I'd think it was a bit on the unfair side, but it actually seems pretty logical for a fighter to have one.

Barbarians and fighters, if built right, will take a hydra down on their first turn.

[Eldariel]

As an opposite-of-side note, are hydras inordinately powerful for their CR? Monks just seem flat out incapable of beating them for the most part, unlike other monsters for whom the monk always has something resembling a possibility. Is this a thing that should be classed as an aberration, and should be moved on from, or are other melee classes perfectly capable of dealing with the hydra, and it is the monk that is an aberration? I'm thinking of tossing a reasonable brain fighter at the hydra at some point, presumably with a flaming sword given how common that weapon is. I'd think it was a bit on the unfair side, but it actually seems pretty logical for a fighter to have one.

Hydras are kind of Closet Trolls. That is, if they get the jump on you they can do ugly stuff (Cryo- and Pyrohydras doubly so) but they're quite weak; their HP total is fairly low (while Fast Healing does hurt), their saves are nothing to write home about and all that.

Mostly, they're the bane of melees (without Improved Sunder). However, a charger can take one down before it gets a chance to truly wreck face. This does not, however, go well in a Monk chassis due to lacking feats, appropriate proficiencies and full BAB. So yeah, in that sense Monk is an aberration 'cause it's the worst melee class in the game (and melee classes are the worst class type in the game); anything that's a problem for melee is more so for a Monk than any other melee.

[eggynack]

Barbarians and fighters, if built right, will take a hydra down on their first turn.
You say that, and it sounds approximately true. It's probably accurate in the broad sense at least. I'm pretty sure that a barbarian can basically always one-shot a 7-headed hydra at sixth level, given that they're out-of-the-box optimized for damage. There's still two questions where the fighter is concerned though. What percentage of the time can we expect the fighter to be built right to one-shot a hydra, and how often will a hydra one-shot a fighter? I'm actually not sure yet, though based on the numbers from the monk, I'd say it's pretty unlikely for the hydra to be able to do it. Fighters are more survivable in just about every way, and hit more often. It seems probable that the fighter's natural ability to overcome the hydra's defenses give the fighter a good shot at beating the hydra over half the time, though I'd need to run it to know for certain. Either way, the fighter has a crazy edge over the monk to the extent that I doubt that the hydra is way over CR'd as was claimed.

edit: Missed the next post. Yeah, monks are a really depressing class in general. The more I look at them, the more I think that they belong at either low tier 5, or even tier 6.

[Deadline]

And in regards to the feat choice: retraining is a thing.

This doesn't hold water in regards to the schrodinger's comment, unless you truly didn't know that wizards can memorize different spells each day.

[Talya]

a barbarian can basically always one-shot a 7-headed hydra at first level

:smalleek:

That's a CR6 mob. Charging takes a few levels to really come online...


This doesn't hold water in regards to the schrodinger's comment, unless you truly didn't know that wizards can memorize different spells each day.

Nor is retraining designed to redo your character to face a specific encounter every day. It's designed to allow you to permanently redo build choices you didn't like.

Hell, even for that purpose, retraining is an alternate, optional rule.

[eggynack]

Yeah, that was just dumb. I mean, there's probably some way to do it out there, but I think it was just a typo of some kind. I'm gonna just go back and change that now.

[DeltaEmil]

One way to officially retrain some of your stuff without the retraining rules is the chaos shuffle trick and the psychic reformation power. But relying on this every day will really start to become very cost-intensive, unless some other minmaxer finds a way to cast those spells or manifest that power as spell-like/psi-like abilities.

[Gnaeus]

edit: Missed the next post. Yeah, monks are a really depressing class in general. The more I look at them, the more I think that they belong at either low tier 5, or even tier 6.


From JaronK's Tier System For Classes guide, the widely accepted Char Op base power description thread:

Tier 6: Not even capable of shining in their own area of expertise. DMs will need to work hard to make encounters that this sort of character can contribute in with their mechanical abilities. Will often feel worthless unless the character is seriously powergamed beyond belief, and even then won't be terribly impressive. Needs to fight enemies of lower than normal CR. Class is often completely unsynergized or with almost no abilities of merit. Avoid allowing PCs to play these characters.

Tier 5: Capable of doing only one thing, and not necessarily all that well, or so unfocused that they have trouble mastering anything, and in many types of encounters the character cannot contribute. In some cases, can do one thing very well, but that one thing is very often not needed. Has trouble shining in any encounter unless the rest of the party is weak in that situation and the encounter matches their strengths. DMs may have to work to avoid the player feeling that their character is worthless unless the entire party is Tier 4 and below. Characters in this tier will often feel like one trick ponies if they do well, or just feel like they have no tricks at all if they build the class poorly.

Lets not get carried away. I wouldn't say monks have no abilities of merit. They get a good defensive base (all good saves, evasion, good running away speed). They have abilities that contribute to many equal CR'ed encounters (even if they arent likely to be as good at soloing them as a fighter.) They are actually very reasonable for dipping in a number of contexts. T5 sounds about right.

[Vaz]

Monks can do one thing really well; and that is running away? That's like saying that the one thing monks do really well is staying at home so they don't even need to risk going up against a faster foe.

Anything that involves surviving by not contributing in any meaningful fashion might as well just not be present.

An Unarmed Swordsage can use this with the Fire-Ring Maneuvre to do DoT, but a normal Monk cannot do so without it being a 1/encounter thing and only as a feat.

[eggynack]

Perhaps, but they actually fill a number of qualities of a tier 6 character. They're not capable of shining in their own area of expertise, because they're just about the worst melee class in the game. They can't even punch particularly well, and that's what they do. They feel pretty worthless unless power-gamed, because they can barely hit with their attacks in general. The class is completely asynergytic in just about every way. Finally, I'm trying to argue that they don't match up against even-CR'd opponents. They're pretty ok to dip, but as a class we're taking to 20, it's possible that a warrior is either their equal or their better. I'm not certain that they're tier 6, but there's definitely an argument that they are.

As a final note, I'm pretty sure that they're actually pretty mediocre defensively. They get less AC and less HP than most melee classes, and those seem to be the major determinants of melee defense. They can run away, but that's hardly an argument for their adequacy, considering that it doesn't really help the team much. If anything, they seem worse in a party context than in a solo context. If the monk is soloing, then he can run around and save against spells and kill enemies a little at a time. In a party, that's a sure way to effectively be a blank slot in the party.

Edit: I just wanted to toss a quick thing up here. For some reason, I neglected to note that whirling frenzy's attack penalty only applies for one round. I usually remember that, but I didn't notice it this time. Therefore, at maximum ACF level, the barbarian rages and charges in on the first round. He loses 2 attack bonus to rage, but he gets it back through charging. On the second round, he loses the charge bonus, but if the enemy is still alive then he's still hitting at +2 due to the strength bonus. He also loses 2 AC to charging, but he gets it back through rage, and recovers that AC on the next round if it's relevant. Therefore, the barbarian is pretty consistently hitting at a +2 attack bonus compared to the base. His level 6 attack bonus is therefore +8/+8/+3 all the time, which is obviously quite good. It also looks like the barbarian can attack twice in a standard action with frenzy, so that gets bonus craziness points. Finally, he's at least as good as the monk at tripping with ACF's, due to wolf totem. I dunno how relevant it is, but it certainly changes the numbers I use when evaluating ACF's, if that's a thing we're doing.

[olentu]

Why would accessibility be an arbitrary dividing line for core? The site is basically just everything that WotC has declared legally available to all. That is what allows the site to exist, and is thus based directly upon what wizards is willing to make accessible. To your second point, I'm pretty sure that that website has remained reliably unchanged since pretty much forever. The site specifically says that it hasn't changed any rule mechanics from the books it takes its information from, and I've never noticed any major differences minus anything that the SRD lacks from the rule books it takes from. Accessibility is basically the only logical dividing line for core that there is. I stated in my post that this dividing line has different definitions for different games, however I think that the SRD is the most reasonable one because it reflects the capabilities of any given game better than any other metric. Any other method seems somewhat arbitrary to me for that reason.

Oh so when you said availability you did not mean availability (since free material on the WotC website is available to all with internet connections, including some material that is in the core rulebooks and on the WotC website but not in the SRD) but rather first party material covered under the open gaming license (open game license, or whatever it is). That is certainly a much more concrete distinction but why say "core", which could be taken to mean the core rulebooks, or "SRD", which could be taken to mean the real actual SRD, when you apparently mean first party open game content. It would both clearly state what you are including and what you are excluding (for example a "core", as you use it, character would never have to fight a beholder).


As to the second point, sure you are pretty sure, but pretty sure is not completely sure and that uncertainty is a problem for me. Perhaps I am not a trusting person but I do not trust people about claims like that. It is not necessarily that I think there is anything malicious going on, but rather that humans are human and can inadvertently cause inaccuracies.

[eggynack]

This all seems somewhere near irrelevant. When people say "core" they often mean the SRD that I've linked, and they often mean just the PHB, DMG and MMI. I tend towards the former definition, because it more precisely fits the information I have access to, along with the information most people have. The thing I refer to as the SRD is the SRD. If there's another SRD, then that is also an SRD, but it's not like SRD is some kind of magical term that only Wizards has access to. To the issue of why material on the Wizards website isn't considered core, I'm not sure. I figure that it has something to do with the OGL, but there ya go.

On the topic of changes to the site, when I say "pretty sure" I mean just about definite. I've never seen the website change once in all of the time I've been there. There's no change log on the site. They have no incentive to change the site, because the information is completely and perfectly static. If they changed the site at some point in the past, then I'm not aware of it. If it happened, it was likely only to more accurately list the things in the actual book. That possibility is purely speculative though. If you go on the site today, and then go on the site a year from now, the website is probably going to be identical in both cases. I don't know why it wouldn't be.

Whether you trust or don't trust the website is not really that relevant. It's a site that's accepted as RAW to the extent that when someone refers to core, there's a really good chance that they're referring to that document. Moreover, the site is far easier to navigate than that collection of individual files you posted, and might even be easier to navigate than a collection of books sitting right in front of me. I don't think I've ever seen anyone refer to core as the SRD you linked, particularly because I've actually never seen that site before. When you type in SRD, the thing I posted is the second link down under the PFSRD, whereas the one you linked is six down. It's not necessarily indicative of how official the site is, but it's evidence that when someone says SRD, they're probably talking about what I'm talking about.

[olentu]

This all seems somewhere near irrelevant. When people say "core" they often mean the SRD that I've linked, and they often mean just the PHB, DMG and MMI. I tend towards the former definition, because it more precisely fits the information I have access to, along with the information most people have. The thing I refer to as the SRD is the SRD. If there's another SRD, then that is also an SRD, but it's not like SRD is some kind of magical term that only Wizards has access to. To the issue of why material on the Wizards website isn't considered core, I'm not sure. I figure that it has something to do with the OGL, but there ya go.

On the topic of changes to the site, when I say "pretty sure" I mean just about definite. I've never seen the website change once in all of the time I've been there. There's no change log on the site. They have no incentive to change the site, because the information is completely and perfectly static. If they changed the site at some point in the past, then I'm not aware of it. If it happened, it was likely only to more accurately list the things in the actual book. That possibility is purely speculative though. If you go on the site today, and then go on the site a year from now, the website is probably going to be identical in both cases. I don't know why it wouldn't be.

Whether you trust or don't trust the website is not really that relevant. It's a site that's accepted as RAW to the extent that when someone refers to core, there's a really good chance that they're referring to that document. Moreover, the site is far easier to navigate than that collection of individual files you posted, and might even be easier to navigate than a collection of books sitting right in front of me. I don't think I've ever seen anyone refer to core as the SRD you linked, particularly because I've actually never seen that site before. When you type in SRD, the thing I posted is the second link down under the PFSRD, whereas the one you linked is six down. It's not necessarily indicative of how official the site is, but it's evidence that when someone says SRD, they're probably talking about what I'm talking about.

Well you are the one making up a definition of "core" based on availability so if anyone should know why the available information is not core it would be you.

And like I said pretty sure is not completely sure. Likewise just about definite is not definite. it may have changed, it may not have changed, but to satisfy myself I would have to check each and every time. Look I can understand that for the purpose of gaining a measure convenience you may be willing to accept a level of uncertainty, is it so hard to understand that I value certainty over that same measure of convenience.

So is this the old popular opinion argument or did you have some other reason for bringing it up.