Adjusted Monk

[LordOfCain]

1. d10 BAB
2. 3/4 BAB
3. -4 Additional penalty for weapons they are not proficient for.
4. Adjusted Speed goes up to +70 at level 19 and +80 at level 20
5. Improved Evasion at Lv. 14
6. Unarmed Strikes can be enchanted via gloves.
7. Crippling Strike (Ex.) for unarmed strike at Lv. 10
8. Defensive Roll (Ex.) at Lv. 15
[EDIT] 9. Spring Attack as a bonus feat at Lv. 1
10. Full BAB with unarmed strikes [EDIT]

What do you think?

[ZamielVanWeber]

They really need full BAB. A class that is designed to get up close and personal without magic really needs full BAB. Considering that some of the classes that use magic to help them get up close and personal have full BAB really makes the difference more stark.

Edit: Massive speed does nothing when it cannot combine with flurry of blows. Consider letting them flurry at the end of a movement as long as it does not go above half their movement speed?

[illyahr]

Come on people, it's a monk. Let them flurry as a standard action, but they can't use manufactured weapons for the extra hits. And, yes, full BAB. Also, monk AC increases +1/2 levels, not +1/5 levels. That's just silly. Give them SR at a lower level, and make it Lvl + 15. And finally, they can disrupt the magic of their opponents. Opponent needs to make a caster level check for each buff they have active or lose the buff when a monk hits them.

A monk wears no extra stuff. Make them even the playing field by bypassing the stuff other people have.

[ZamielVanWeber]

A monk wears no extra stuff. Make them even the playing field by bypassing the stuff other people have.

:smallconfused: Monks can wear magic items same as anyone else and their unarmed strike isn't half bad and only gets better with a few options to improve it (such as by magic items).

[Grod_The_Giant]

1. d10 BAB
2. 3/4 BAB
Why? Why do they get beefier, but not more skillful? That's, like, the polar opposite of monk fluff.


3. -4 Additional penalty for weapons they are not proficient for.
Why? What's the purpose? Why are monks uniquely incompetent? (Don't hide behind martial arts, either; lots of martial arts use weapons, even the ones that are primarily concerned with unarmed combat).


4. Adjusted Speed goes up to +70 at level 19 and +80 at level 20
5. Improved Evasion at Lv. 14
6. Unarmed Strikes can be enchanted via gloves.
7. Crippling Strike (Ex.) for unarmed strike at Lv. 10
8. Defensive Roll (Ex.) at Lv. 15
[EDIT] 9. Spring Attack as a bonus feat at Lv. 1
All fine, I suppose, but... they're not really addressing the Monk's core issues: They're massively MAD, mobility and Flurry are incompatible, and an attack roll penalty for your main offensive technique is painful on a medium-BAB chassis.

If you want to go the Spring Attack route, that's fine. It's not a bad option. Grant the follow-up feats (Bounding Attack and Rapid Blitz) for free as well, at the first level you get the extra attack (6th and 11th for full BAB, 8th and 15th for medium)-- but let Flurry apply to your Spring Attacks, or else the two class features are working against each other.

MAD can be addressed with more bonus feats (Weapon Finesse and Gloom Razor?), or better yet with a class feature-- Weapon Finesse or Intuitive Attack at 1st, and... let's say Wis in place of Strength for melee damage, Strength checks and skill checks at 3rd.

Going farther, you might also upgrade their class features to work Wis/day (thus eliminating the "pretty but not useable often enough to be fun" issue), grant Mettle and improve the SR (thus improving the "anti-caster"-ness of the class), grant enhancement bonuses to their unarmed strikes, improve the AC bonus, grant more skill points, come up with more wire-fu type badassery... there's a long list, but the two options I discussed above should go a long way towards fixing things.

[illyahr]

:smallconfused: Monks can wear magic items same as anyone else and their unarmed strike isn't half bad and only gets better with a few options to improve it (such as by magic items).

The problem is this: why is the monk, who is iconically without weapons or armor, the most magic item dependant class in the game?

The monk's AC is terrible and can't be enhanced without magic items. Unless you are using really good rolls, a monk's base AC is going to top out about 22. A fighter can pick this up, again without magic, by level 6 or 7. Not to mention that the monk doesn't gain any DR unless they load themselves down with magic items.

The monk's unarmed damage is pretty good, but can't be enhanced at all without magical help. Their unarmed strikes are eventually treated as magic and adamantine, but anything with DR/adamantine is going to have too much HP to make much of a dent in and hit a lot harder than the monk will.

The monk's special abilities are useless or only usable in very limited ways. Slow fall requires a solid surface to "slide" down. A ring of feather fall is affordable by level 3. Fast movement has no benefit whatsoever in combat. At best, you will be moving 10-20 feet at a time and doing so makes sure you can't use flurry of blows. With 3/4 BAB, the penalty at lower levels from flurry of blows makes it very difficult to hit. Tongue of Sun and Moon doesn't let you speak to anything, but it doesn't let you understand what they say back. Abundant Step would be good if it was useable more often, but a 1/day tag makes it a niche ability at best. Quivering Palm can't be used on most creatures you are fighting when you get it and all the rest are strong enough to make the save. Timeless Body will never come into play unless you make your monk old to start with. Wholeness of Body doesn't do enough to be useful.

By the time you are done shoring up the monk's shortcomings, you have used up almost every magic item slot it has. At that point, you have a decent character. Not good, decent.

[Curmudgeon]

The biggest problem in the Monk class is the lack of synergy of class features. The Monk is very fast — but its main attack form requires standing still. Most other abilities have nothing in common with anything else. How often does Slow Fall get used? :smallconfused:

The Monk is (or can be, with simple magical boosts) good at hitting things. That's not something seriously in need of fixing.

[Psyren]

Just go Unchained Monk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchained-classes/monk-unchained) - d10 and full BAB, plus penalty-less flurry. Then pick your favorite method of pounce: Flying Kick, Pummeling Charge, Ki Hurricane, Dimensional Dervish...

[Hal0Badger]

Just go Unchained Monk (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchained-classes/monk-unchained) - d10 and full BAB, plus penalty-less flurry. Then pick your favorite method of pounce: Flying Kick, Pummeling Charge, Ki Hurricane, Dimensional Dervish...
+1 to that. Unchained monk literally "fixes" monk. Easy to adapt in 3.5 as well.

[Cwymbran-San]

Which book is Unchained Monk from?

[Vhaidara]

Pathfinder Unchained. Basically, Paizo went "oh, right, we said we were fixing things, but forgot Monk and Rogue. Also, you guys are abusing the nice things we gave Barbarian, so we're fixing that. But you won't die when you get KOed while raging. Oh, and we did a thing to Summoner and called it balancing."