Late for Monkday

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

Ok so I had a few ideas for a monk fix but I wanted to get input on them and of course I wanted a functional list of what is wrong and suggestions of how to fix them. For the purpose of this thread ToB is banned.

I have heard that one of the major problem is damage dealing at high levels and in general.
my suggested fixes are:
Have flurry of blows count as full BAB
have fob hit touch ac
Ki strike allows fob to be calculated as a single full attack before applying damage reduction. By this I mean that at level 1 you roll the two flurry of blow attacks, add together the damage before applying the DR 1 to it.

Ki strike acts as Lawful and any one of Good-Evil axis with a ki point spent, but cannot ever count as chaotic.

Add Wis to hit and damage.

At mid levels increase the amount of str damage that is applied by unarmed strike and monk weapons from Str to Str x1.5 and at higher levels to Str x2.

Myself I believe this would help with damage issues. But what other issues are there? And what are your suggestions on how to fix these problems.

[Iolaus]

I know some people have said that their abilities are ****, and they get them too late and have them too restricted in uses per day.

I would put Abundant Step at level 8 and maybe have it count as a swift action so you can full attack after using it.

[Phelix-Mu]

Alright, so I will address the common complaints:

1.) Poor synergy: Much of the monk imagery and fluff involves a speedy skirmisher racing toward key enemy units and taking them out of the fight quickly (namely archers and spellcasters...both of which the monk has specific defenses against, although Deflect Arrows is optional). The problem is that monk's main offensive ability, FoB, doesn't work in the same round as movement is taken, meaning that all that charging isn't good for much (since 3/4 BAB characters probably shouldn't be charging at low levels).

My Quick Fix: Each round, as a swift action, the monk may move up to 1/2 their movement speed. This allows a monk to move and FoB in the same round, as well as allowing the monk to fulfill more of a "skirmisher" type role (as befits its d8 HD).

2.) Situational or Very Limited-Use Abilities: Wholeness of Body is laughably inadequate to anything other than avoiding unconsciousness. Slow Fall is very sad, useful only in the narrowest of circumstances. Still Mind, bad. 1/day dimdoor is useful, but CL scaling is bad and it hits at a level where the caster has been able to dimdoor for like five levels already.

My Fix: Slow Fall is changed to Wall-walker ACF (Dungeonscape) or, for more ambitious tables, a straight up climb speed= 1/2(monk's base speed + Fast Movement). Still Mind is worthless, switch for Prayerful Meditation (Complete Champion). Wholeness of Body, more complicated, but I beef up the amount and combine it with being able to remove status effects as per Touch of Vitality dragon shaman class feature (PHB2).

3.) Not enough skill points (due to Int being a dump stat for most monks): Monks need good skills to be good at the kind of schtick that we imagine them being good at.

My Fix: Consider raising base skill points to 6+Int. Definitely grant Brains Over Brawn (Factotum, Dungeonscape) class feature, but based on Wisdom, which adds Wis mod to Str and Dex-based skill checks and checks (including combat maneuvers like grapple, disarm, and so forth).

There is more that can be fixed, such as the common complaint about fluff dissonance and lack of clearly defined combat role, but those fixes are way more complicated.

Your fixes sound good, but most just suggest straight up giving the class full BAB (if your job is to punch people, then you should be able to do it effectively, even when Power Attacking). However, if you are allowing the monk to add both Wisdom and Strength to attack and damage, then that probably offsets the lack of full BAB (although that scaling may become inadequate at higher levels).

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

Your suggestions are very good and give me some great intel so far.

Now in PF the monk gains a pseudo full bab when using Flurry so if that is stacked on top of Wis and Str additions maybe it will even out, allowing a more wide use of power attack during flurry.

Another idea I had was at specific levels increasing the amount of str added. Maybe at level 8 adding x2 Str to damage, at level 16 make it x3 Str due to the MAD aspect and trying to make it even out with higher end damage dealer classes.

I was curious if adding skirmisher attacks to this would help? Adding SA like dice on top of Flurry of blows seems redundant and overblown. Especially if Flurry of Blows hits touch ac.

[Phelix-Mu]

So, personally, I favor non-Str based monks. So, while allowing adding multiples of Str mod to attacks seems great, it actually kind of narrows the types of monks that will be able to take full advantage of their class features. I'd be inclined to allow the increased multiple of either Str or Wis (or, in a more ambitious fix, I'd allow it for Str, Dex, or Wis, and there is a feat that allows it to work of Int, so I might toss that into the base class as well).

Flurry hitting touch AC may be overkill. Because WotC idiotically granted a similar ability to many spells, it might not be terrible at some tables, but unless a DM makes steps to avoid it, an effective wraithstrike on every attack roll (and, with enhanced movement, there is no reason to ever not FoB) will result in never missing (or at least something like a 90-95% success rate).

If the monk can move as a swift action, or if the monk has used sparring dummy of the master, then qualifying for the extra damage from Skirmish every round is fairly trivial. Skirmish on top of FoB may make up for, let's say, the lack of Pounce, but it is pretty powerful (although the Skirmish progression is a bit slow). I'd be more inclined to just increase the base damage of the unarmed strike by, let's say, one die size and let it roll.

Another thing I forgot is the difficulty of enhancing ones unarmed strikes with magic. There are magic items that make this possible (necklace of natural attacks from Savage Species), but it is a common complaint.

Finally, for ideas, I would refer you to two full monk rebuilds from the homebrew section of this site; that of T.G. Oskar, and that of Xaotiq1. If you google them, you should come up with the fixes. Both have unique takes on the process of fixing monk, and take their concepts in interesting and ambitious directions. Xaotiq1 even probably manages to boost monk to Tier 3 (or almost), even though some of the katas introduce some dysfunction and need additional adjudication to work smoothly in combat (without making the monk waaay too effective).

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

You do have a point, it would make more sense to allow the monk to select one of those 4 ability scores at level 1 and stick with it.

Touch AC might be a bit too easy I will agree but it was an idea, especially when people cite that monk's flurry of blows misses so often.

Increasing Dice size is nice, but dice have the problem with random damage dealing progression.

As for Enhancements, I never got that. As some of the text says the Unarmed Strike is treated as manufactured for the purposes of spells and effects, wouldn't enhancement be an effect? If not just add enhancement into that line of text and you have the problem solved.

Though if you did increase the dice size I would like to see all weapons of the monk be tied to this damage progression, similar to the ki focus enhancement. So say a Shuriken now deals 1d6 rather then its 1d4, makes shuriken a nice ranged option, especially at level 20 where the shuriken would be dealing 2d10 per shuriken.

I will give them a look tonight after work, thanks for the info there.

[Phelix-Mu]

A number of fixes do simply allow money to be spent on the monk's body to enhance it. This is actually very effective money-for-value for the monk, to the extent that fairness might be an issue (monk's weapon can't break, can't be stolen, can't be disarmed, it enchants the whole body, and other stuff like spellblade would be problematic, I think).

And likewise with allowing all monk weapons to deal the same damage as unarmed. This can be very nice--maybe too nice for some games--especially as a number of fixes expand the list of monk weapons in fun, and exploitable, ways. One of my favorite allowed this with sling, and allowed a kind of flurry with sling. Pure win. Another had bow on the list, suddenly turning monk into the best archer in the game (along with the other changes, like Wis to damage).

In terms of the dice size, you could always just put it on the next rung for the increasing weapon damage by size chart (or the Improved Natural Attack chart). Or grant Superior Unarmed Strike as a bonus feat at some level (Tome of Battle).

[Gorr_the_Gastly]

Very true but this fix or houseruling will not add any new weapons. Not to mention that the new rules coming out for Advanced Classes in PF are gonna make this a standard for the Warpriest.

I do like the ACFs of the monk, the Invisible Hand, Decisive Strike and so forth.

I was thinking of that, Decisive Strike but as a Full Attack, at every level that you gain a new attack like at 8th that allows Decisive Strike to add a second hit. So at 20th you are rolling a full attack same as a normal 3/4 bab martial except you are rolling double damage on all your rolls.

Adding a Brains over Brawn idea is not a bad idea at all.

Maybe the monk can choose to have his Wis modifier, Dex, or Str be the base for his to hit and damage based on which is higher.