does this fix monks at all?

[Ettina]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm

This lists several variants on monks, with different fighting styles. From skimming it, each seems to be a straight-up buff with no abilities taken away (unlike the variants on other classes in the same section).

I've heard monks are underpowered, but I don't fully understand why. Are these variants less underpowered than a standard monk? Granted, they'll still be weak compared to a wizard or cleric, but how would they balance versus a barbarian, or the variant barbarians on that page? (I'm asking specifically about barbarians because of a setting idea I had while reading that page.)

[Blackhawk748]

Those variants are odd as far as normal variants go. You are correct in that you just get stuff and dont lose anything, but you need to meet those prereqs at the end to gain that 6th level bonus ability. Does this make the monk better? Ya some of those are ok, not amazing, but decent.

As to why the monk is bad, their two big abilities (punching a lot and going real fast) dont mesh well, because if you move a lot you cant full attack. Thats only two of their several issues.

[Eldan]

The monk has two main problems: abilities that aren't very strong and abilities that don't mix.

For the first: consider this. A monk with wisdom to armor and better unarmed fighting is still worse at fighting than a fighter who buys medium armor and a big sword.
They won't hit as well, either, since their to-hit attributes will likely be lower (they need good attributes everywhere, opposed to a barbarian, who only really needs con and str) and their BAB is only 3/4.
Their damage will be low, too: they dont' get magical enhancements to their fists, they can't add double their strength like a two-handed weapon, they are more likely to be dexterity focused and they can't power-attack, which is the best source of damage.
Many of their other abilities, like healing, feather falling or teleporting are basically spells that other classes had many, many levels earlier, more often per day and with fewer limitations.

The other is that their abilities don't even work together. Consider flurry of blows, their signature ability. Using it, they hit even worse, getting a -2 on top of their bad base attack. THen, on top of that, it's only on a full attack. However, every other ability the monk has (ow damage and especially high speed) seem more focused on hit-and-run style attacks. So you can only ever use half your abilities.

THe combat styles aren't bad, as such. They are just bonuses, and not bad ones. But they aren't exactly strong, either, and they don't help with any of those problems.

[NevinPL]

I've heard monks are underpowered, but I don't fully understand why.
From the same reason Fighter are - DnD isn't really a (straight\pure) melee game. That's why mentioned Barbarian works better, than the "iconic" DnD melee class - Fighter.
And what Eldan wrote - good concept, poor execution.

[Telonius]

For a certain value of "fix," yeah. If you're just interested in a Monk dip to qualify for some prestige class or feat, or are looking at a particular build, the variants can make it slightly easier to get what you want. For example, Monk1 or Monk2/Swordsage. Taking Sleeping Tiger will let you take Weapon Finesse at first level. Ordinarily, you wouldn't be able to do that, since Weapon Finesse requires a +1 base attack bonus, which Monk doesn't get until 2nd level. Taking it can help make you a bit less "MAD" (or multiple attribute dependent) by fixing your attack bonus based on Dexterity. If you multiclass to Swordsage and get some Shadow Hand maneuvers, you can then take the Shadow Blade feat at 3rd to get Dex to damage.

[Red Fel]

I've heard monks are underpowered, but I don't fully understand why. Are these variants less underpowered than a standard monk? Granted, they'll still be weak compared to a wizard or cleric, but how would they balance versus a barbarian, or the variant barbarians on that page? (I'm asking specifically about barbarians because of a setting idea I had while reading that page.)

Well, first, let's go through the Monk, to see what it has and what it does.
Proficiencies: The Monk is not proficient with unarmed strikes. This is a stupid bit of RAW dysfunction, so let's set it aside. The Monk is proficient with a narrow list of weapons, and no armor and shields. Not only does the Monk lack proficiency with armor or shields, if it uses any armor with which it lacks proficiency, it takes the additional penalty of losing many of its class features. For a front-line melee combatant, this is a bad starting point.
BAB: The Monk has 3/4 BAB. That's a bit stupid, because again, front-line melee combatant. In theory, Flurry of Blows is meant to mitigate this by giving you bonus attacks, but those come too little, too late, to provide any real advantage.
Wisdom focus: You gain your Wis to AC, and can add it to your Stunning Fist (if you take that feat). Since this is your primary source of AC, with only a handful of exceptions, it's basically a mandatory stat allocation.
Strength focus: Your unarmed strikes deal damage based on your Str. Since they are your only source of damage, it's basically a mandatory stat allocation.
Dexterity focus: Your Dex is added to your AC and touch AC. Since you can't wear armor, you need all the help you can get there, so it's basically a mandatory stat allocation.
Unarmed strike: At level 20, you do a whopping 2d10 per hit. Barring the use of an Amulet of Mighty Fists or Necklace of Natural Attacks, these strikes have no abilities beyond being treated as magic, Lawful, adamantine weapons. No +X, no Flaming, no nothing. Contrast that with the Fighter using a Flaming Burst Greatsword.
Passive abilities: You get a lot. They do not amaze.
Perfect Self: At capstone, you become an Outsider. One of the best buffs a melee can use is Enlarge Person. You are no longer a person, and can no longer benefit from this. You also gain DR 10/magic. At level 20, your enemies are using spells, which bypass DR, and magical weapons, which bypass DR/magic. This is completely useless.
Next, let's look at what the variant Monks offer.
Cobra Strike: You can designate a single enemy and get an AC bonus against them. You can move a lot and attack only once, voiding your Flurry of Blows.
Denying Stance: You can make more AoOs, which is nice except for your unfortunately short reach, and are better at Grappling and Disarming, both of which are wastes of your time.
Hand and Foot: You're better at defending against Bull Rush and Trip attempts, which never happen.
Invisible Eye: When being useless by taking the total defense action, you're slightly better at it.
Overwhelming Attack: How would you like to add Charisma to the list of abilities you can't afford to dump?
Passive Way: If you waste your time with setup, you are slightly better at Tripping.
Sleeping Tiger: Get a fake Sneak Attack.
Undying Way: Toughness, Endurance, and Diehard - three feats everybody needs the most. Oh, and when you make yourself completely useless by defending, you can gain a completely useless DR 2/--.
Now, before you go suggesting that I'm too harsh on these variants, here are some things you may actually need:
Flight
Mind blank
Stun and daze negation
Fear immunity
True seeing
Miss chance
Freedom of movement
Death effect immunity
To name a few. You get... None of them. Now, many of these can be gotten on magic items. For example, you can get immunity to death effects with Soulfire armor... Which you can't use. Or flight with Owlfeather armor... Which you can't use. Miss chance with Blurring armor... You get the idea.

Contrast all of this with a Fighter, who has a higher BAB. Give him IUS and SUS, and he can now perform unarmed attacks while still enjoying the full array of armor and weapons, and more comprehensive bonus feats. Or the Barbarian. Give him Whirling Frenzy and Snap Kick. He can now perform a Flurry much like a Monk, but with any weapon he likes, with a punch at the end. When the Monk can be out-Monk'd by pretty much any other class, it's not good at its job.

Do the variants fix that? No. They don't change the Monk's Multiple-Ability Dependency (MAD), they don't give the Monk new abilities that dramatically change it, and they don't remove the Monk's crippling limitations. They're different, not better.

[Grod_The_Giant]

[URL="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm"]This lists several variants on monks, with different fighting styles. From skimming it, each seems to be a straight-up buff with no abilities taken away (unlike the variants on other classes in the same section).
Not really. It changes what bonus feats you get from the Monk class (ie, replacing things like Stunning Fist) and adds about half a feat's worth of skill bonus and a generally crappy ability at 6th level.

[John Longarrow]

Between their class skills, their ability to function without gear, and their enhanced movement, Monks should not be adventurers. They should be prison guards. What other class is able to react to prisoners misbehaving as quickly and without resorting to lethal damage? And do it for the low wages prison guards get?

If you have Tome of Battle you can easily build a better unarmed combatant. You can also get far better 'at will' abilities using an initiator over what a Monk gets. You won't get exactly the same set of abilities as most ToB features and maneuvers are designed to be useful.

[Ruethgar]

The variants you linked give up monk bonus feat versatility for a small skill bonus and special ability(if you qualify). There is one of the fighting style variants that was poorly written and, while obviously intended to be a replacement as the others, simply adds more onto the monk as long as you have another fighting style.

Though only doable by technicality, I would allow it because the monk needs all the help it can get. As others have stated, the monk class features don't synergize well and most can have their effects replicated(and targeting other people)by 3rd level or lower spells.

[Sian]

Monks look impressive, but for practically all purposes they're less useful than a NPC classed Warrior

[AvatarVecna]

The main problem monks face is that the system was built by people biased against them and other non-casters...not to say that all these decisions were intentional, but rather that the basic assumptions made during system design were unintentionally biased in favor of casters, partially because of some more complex version of the "Guy at the Gym" fallacy, and partially because of holdovers from previous editions and, getting to the root of the problem, Lord of the Rings.

One way to see the obvious problems is to imagine what you would think of a level 20 character being represented by, and seeing if you an actually accomplish something that ridiculously awesome using that class. When you think of a Wizard 20, there's a lot of examples you could pull out as potential Wizard 20s. One example that comes to mind is Merlin as depicted in the Disney movie "The Sword in the Stone"; in that movie, Merlin (who is by many standards the OG Archmage) travels through time in both directions and engages in a contest of transformations. Both of these feats are possible in D&D (the former via Teleport Through Time, the latter via Shapechange), and it shows why Merlin is so awesome: he uses Shapechange cleverly at at least two different points I can recall off the top of my head (once turning into a mouse to scare an elephant, and once turning into a germ to render a dragon helpless). A 20th lvl Wizard in D&D can kill with a word, create a hole between dimensions, stop Time itself, and grant more wishes than a genie. This is some seriously powerful ****, and it earns them their place as one of the most powerful classes in the game, as is fitting for the masters of magic.

Now let's look at the Monk. Now, maybe you have a different idea of what a Monk 20 should be, but when I think Monk 20, I picture Goku and friends: their mastery of their inner energies lets them defy gravity, fire beams of plasma, lift monumental weight without breaking a sweat, move at speeds that rival the Flash...but maybe you picture something different, like some of the more powerful characters in Naruto, or something similar. But Goku is what I picture when I think of a monk that can fight on the level of that Wizard; Goku is what I think of when I picture a Monk who is at least a step short of earning the title of "epic". And what do we get by RAW? Even if you ignore some of the more nonsensical RAW issues (like non-proficiency with unarmed strikes), it's just a souped-up version of the more famous real-world martial artists. No disrespect to any of those real-world martial artists, because they've accomplished a lot more than I ever have or ever will, but they are not 20th level monks. At all. A Monk 20 with max ranks in Jump and Tumble, with no other Jump boosters (including an average Str 10) can jump up 12 ft like it's nothing, and while that's incredibly impressive for someone IRL (where the world-wide all-time record for a high jump is ~8 ft), that's not that impressive in a world with real magic. Off the top of my head, a mage can achieve similar results by casting the Jump spell or the Spider Climb spell, or at higher levels the Fly spell, and that's crap. A 20th lvl monk should be able to jump much higher and much farther than some schmuck casting a level 1 spell to build springs into their feet.

Here's what I would do to make the monk more of a T3 class; not even necessarily T1, let's aim for T3. That requires giving them enough variety to let them specialize, while also giving enough options for them to be a master of none if they choose. Needless to say, it also requires making them competent.
Full BAB
6+Int skill points/lvl
Dex to attack/damage for monk weapons
proficiency in unarmed strikes
more frequent bonus feats (with a more versatile list to choose from), which still ignore pre-reqs
flurry can apply to a standard action, while applying better to full attacks
limited ToB style maneuvers
better at specializing in special combat maneuvers (Bull Rush, Trip, Disarm, etc)
limited Ki-based spellcasting

Maybe limited maneuvers and spells is a bit much, but the rest is pretty solid.

Regardless, at least part of the problem is that Wizards and the like are operating on a completely different power level than most other classes, just because they were built with different expactations in mind. Wizard 20 is designed as Gandalf, Monk 20 is designed as Bruce Lee...and no matter how awesome Bruce Lee is, he's not "stopping Time and granting your own wishes" awesome.

[illyahr]

As stated upthread, the 3.5 monk is terrible. You would be better off going Unarmed Sword Sage with the Setting Sun discipline (xiaolin monk style maneuvers). Barring that, use the Unchained Monk from the Pathfinder Unchained book. Fixes a lot of the bad synergy and gives them access to special abilities that are useful.

[John Longarrow]

AMAvatarVecna

Just as an observation, but your fix for the monk is pretty close to taking a Ranger and giving them Improved Unarmed Strike / Superior Unarmed Strike while they take the TWF tree at 2nd.

[AvatarVecna]

AMAvatarVecna

Just as an observation, but your fix for the monk is pretty close to taking a Ranger and giving them Improved Unarmed Strike / Superior Unarmed Strike while they take the TWF tree at 2nd.

Plus maneuvers, dex to damage, and proto-pounce, but yeah. In a lot of ways, it would sort-of be an alternate to tge paladin, in that it is to the cleric what ranger is to druid.

[John Longarrow]

Plus maneuvers, dex to damage, and proto-pounce, but yeah. In a lot of ways, it would sort-of be an alternate to tge paladin, in that it is to the cleric what ranger is to druid.

OK, Ranger 18, Sword Sage 2? That way you can grab Shadow Hand for dex to unarmed damage?
Nothing wrong with your suggestions, just noticing that using classes that already exist and a couple feats gives you a much better 'Monk' than the actual class. B-)

[AvatarVecna]

OK, Ranger 18, Sword Sage 2? That way you can grab Shadow Hand for dex to unarmed damage?
Nothing wrong with your suggestions, just noticing that using classes that already exist and a couple feats gives you a much better 'Monk' than the actual class. B-)

It's not quite the sam as that build, but I definitely agree that the best way to build a monk is to not take levels of monk. If I were building on the idea of a monk, I'd build an unarmed Swift Hunter build, possibly with a Swordsage dip. Incidentally, I built a Batman character awhile back for a gestalt game, and one side was just straight Ranger, because it's so perfect for Batman.

[John Longarrow]

hehehe... I had "Bat-Man" as an opponent in a game once. Part of 6 was one of four groups in an arena battle (24 1st level characters in all). They were all facing 'Bat-Man'. He had 10 rounds to drop everyone or he lost the fight.

'Bat-Man' was a 2nd level sword sage. A were-Dire bat sword sage...

:belkar:

[Willie the Duck]

There are multiple factors at play.
1) Monks are mundanes, and the game is highly balanced away from mundanes. AvatarVecna's summary is accurate. This is very much true, but a critique of the entire mundane/spellcaster divide, rather than specific to monk. So I'll move on.
2) Others can do what a monk is supposed to do better. Most notably ToB. Of course, that's pretty much the point of ToB (fixing paladins, monks, and fighters by replacing them with Crusaders, Swordsages, and Warblades). Some people like the the way it did it, others do not. It clearly does not however fix the actual monk class. This, too, is not specific to the monk, so I will move on.
3) The primary advantage of a monk isn't an advantage. The primary concept of a monk is that they can do amazing things without weapons, armor, spell books, or fancy magic items. This is false for a number of reasons A) What they do isn't that impressive, B) They are actually more dependent on magic items than anyone else, since they are very dependent on those stat boosting items and amulets of natural fists to bring them up to parity, and C) A DM is only going to throw a "you end up in a prison cell without any of your gear" adventure at a group maybe 1-2 times in a campaign, because it is so disruptive (much like the 'sorcerers don't have a spell book' advantage, it's mostly meaningless because you can only destroy your PC's spell books once, because if you do it twice they'll likely throw you in a snow bank).
3) Monk's abilities do not synergize. As has been said, a highly mobile, fragile melee combatant who makes a large number of (unlikely to hit) attacks only when they come up hang around, letting you strike back is not a concept that actually works within the rules of 3e D&D.
4) There is simply no specific role that Monks fill. Despite the imbalance between mundanes and spell casters (and arguments about replacing them with animal companions, summoned monsters, and CoDzillas), there is a place in the game for front line tanks and beatsticks, meaning that the fighter/paladin/barbarian role is still important (even if you have to jump through hoops to make a decent build). Despite the late level ubiquity of divination, there is still a place for someone with the trapfinding class ability and a high search role (that it is tied to the rather good backstab variation in this edition is just a perk), meaning that the thief/rogue role is still important. Likewise, a ranger or something like them's supremacy at tracking is hard enough for a caster to replace. The monk can... um... yeah. That's the problem.

[icefractal]

What I did for a quick fix one campaign was two things:
1) Full BAB.
2) Flurry was extra attacks per round that could be added to any attack - a full attack, a charge, even an AoO.

That's not nearly enough to bring them up to caster standards, but it was enough for them to be a competent combatant. Also, this was a high-wealth campaign, which helped - contrary to what's often said, I find that one of the Monk's biggest strengths is being able to utilize more items than most classes; low-magic is not where they shine.

[illyahr]

What I did for a quick fix one campaign was two things:
1) Full BAB.
2) Flurry was extra attacks per round that could be added to any attack - a full attack, a charge, even an AoO.

That's not nearly enough to bring them up to caster standards, but it was enough for them to be a competent combatant. Also, this was a high-wealth campaign, which helped - contrary to what's often said, I find that one of the Monk's biggest strengths is being able to utilize more items than most classes; low-magic is not where they shine.

Unchained Monk does this. Full BAB, Flurry adds an extra attack to any attack action (as long as it's an unarmed strike). All of the monk's special abilities were revamped to utilize ki and can be used multiple times as long as you have the ki. Gets much better abilities, too, such as the ability to hover in midair wuxia-style. Diamond Mind got better and is an immediate action, usable with ki, Quivering Palm is attainable sooner and is spammable as long as you have the ki for it.

[Zaq]

I would argue that the Monk is so dysfunctional (even ignoring the nonproficiency crap) that there's no easy fix for it. Nothing you can write in a couple sentences (that isn't basically turning them into another class like Unarmed Swordsage or Tashalatora PsyWar) is going to do enough to actually put the Monk on par with T3 or T4 classes. I'm repeating what has been said before, but still:

-Flurry of Blows is incompatible with Fast Movement. Even ignoring Fast Movement, without any real way to attack something more than 5 ft away from them, it's really hard to use FoB.

-Their AC is garbage. They can't afford to have high enough DEX and WIS to be on par with regular armor-wearers (though, of course, they also can't afford not to). They don't get access to magic armor, denying them both the raw numbers they need and the shiny effects that come with them.

-Unarmed damage is crap. The die size increases don't even come close to making up for the fact that they can't get two-hand bonuses (1.5 times STR and double Power Attack) and the fact that they can't use magic weapons (so no numerical hit/damage bonuses and no shiny effects). If they choose to use manufactured weapons that still allow FoB, they've locked themselves into really, really inefficient weapons.

-No access to reach weapons or ranged weapons (no, shuriken don't count). This gives them a really bad disadvantage even compared to the Fighter, who isn't a paragon of efficiency themselves.

-As has been reiterated to death, they need way too many stats. STR to fuel damage and make up for reduced BAB. DEX for AC. WIS for AC and possibly class features. CON to protect their d8 HD in melee. They don't really have any ways around needing all of these stats; a Fighter who can't afford good DEX can just wear heavier armor, for example, but a Monk really can't.

-No worthwhile class features past the very lowest levels. Wholeness of Body is a joke. Diamond Soul is a double-edged sword (it makes you harder to buff—and in many games, unless your party casters are optimizing their CL, enemy casters will have higher CL than allied casters since they're usually "bosses," in which case Diamond Soul is actually worse than useless, since it's more likely to screw up your friends than your enemies). Abundant Step doesn't do nearly enough to be limited to once per day. Quivering Palm would be underwhelming at ECL 15 if it were once per day, but at once per week, it'll basically never matter. So even if you fix the Monk's numerical problems, there's still no compelling reason to take Monk levels past 6 or so (unless you're really in love with Stunning Fist or something), since they don't get any new toys that are level-appropriate once they run out of bonus feats.

-Many of their class features have totally unnecessary restrictions put on them (even above and beyond the "must be unarmored" restriction most of them have). Why do we have to announce Stunning Fist before we hit, possibly wasting its limited uses if (as is likely) we miss? Why is the Monk's Fast Movement an enhancement bonus (in contrast to the Barbarian, whose FM is untyped) and therefore incapable of stacking with magical speed boosts? Why does Slow Fall need a wall (instead of representing the Monk's inherent acrobatic ability to reduce falling damage)? Why doesn't Purity of Body protect against magical diseases the way the Paladin's Divine Health does (at a lower level, I might add)?

So yeah. There's just way too much wrong with the Monk to have any elegant fix that doesn't just turn them into an existing class (and/or use another class to better represent the Monk's archetype). You pretty much have to rebuild them from the ground up. You have to start by fixing the numerical issues (give them full BAB, find a way to make their AC not suck at anything lower than 54 point buy, let them enchant their fists or otherwise gain the other benefits that manufactured weapon users take for granted, and possibly just consolidate the stats they need). You have to address how hard it is to use FoB. You have to account for the fact that they can basically never hit anything more than 5 ft away from them (either give them reach increases and/or ranged attacks less pitiful than Ring the Golden Bell, or make their short-range attacks actually worth the reach limitation). And after all that is said and done, you have to give them class features that actually matter after ECL 6, since even with all the fixes I just described, there's still nothing that would convince me to keep taking Monk levels for very long. (The answer is not to just push the good stuff later, of course. Keep the good stuff at the beginning and then make more good stuff to put later on.)

[AvatarVecna]

Profiencies: You get the worst ranged weapon ever (shuriken) and you're not even proficient with unarmed strikes.
AC Bonus: only scales appropriately to equal-level armor if you've basically dumped everything into Dex and AC, which you can't afford to do without ungodly rolls/point-buy.
Flurry of Blows: stacks a penalty onto your Medium BAB, making you suck at the thing you claim to be good at. Of course, that only comes up when you don't move much, but it's not like Monks are supposed to be particularly mobile.
Unarmed Strike: The increased base damage is only useful in that it saves you a few steps in stacking effective weapon sizes, but even then it's only decent damage at best.
Bonus Feats: Your list is filled with a series of generally terrible options, with a few that flirt with decency.
Evasion: nice, but it contributes to the front-loaded nature of the Monk class that relegates them to "a nice dip".
Fast Movement: doesn't work with Flurry of Blows, it's a small enough speed boost that equal-level spells are usually better, and they don't even stack with most other speed boosters.
Still Mind: You get a piddly bonus on saves against a particular school of magic to make up for the fact that you can't invest in your Wisdom enough to get a really good Will save.
Ki Strike: this tries to trick you into thinking you don't need magic weapons, which you still totally need. Boo!
Slow Fall: At 20th level, this still only works if you're next to a wall, but at least it's any distance. Before 20th level, this is an inferior version of the Feather Fall spell.
Purity of Body: Paladins get something better, and they get it sooner.
Wholeness of Body: I don't know what I hate about this more, the fact that it's such a piddly amount of healing (2 points per monk level is about half your HP if you have Con 10), or that you can't even use it to heal other people Mr Miyagi style.
Improved Evasion: Another step towards a true anti-mage build. Only 1000000 more steps to go...
Diamond Body: you already had a good Fort save, as well as reason to have a decent Con and a save-boosting item. How does this help you ignore more poisons? Were you just facing tons and tons of DC "You Fail" poisons?
Abundant Step: I don't understand why this is here. The rest of the monk indicates that monks are supposed to be realistic, or at least vaguely based on real-ish monk stuff, and yet there's an ability to let you teleport 600 ft stuck in the middle of the class? Urgh...
Quivering Palm: It uses up Stunning Fist attempts, you have to declare you're using it before seeing if you hit, it targets the save most monsters have very high, it's a crap save DC, lots of creatures are straight up immune to it, and it comes online at a level where you're never going to get to hit anybody in melee anyway.
Timeless Body: WELL THANK THE NINE, YOU STOP AGING. Hope it was worth it, waiting 17 levels for that.
Tongue of the Sun and Moon: You know what, ceasing to age normally isn't enough. How about we also give you a continuous effect similar to a 1st lvl spell?
Empty Body: You can now sort-of turn yourself into a spirit-ghost. This is not a combat buff as much as a plea to others to assist you in attempting suicide, because you finally realized you took 19 levels of Monk.
Perfect Self: This is it, your captstone. What does it do for you? Ultimately, it gives you the worst kind of DR, immunity to sleeping/eating, and (my favorite part) it finally gives you proficiency with unarmed strikes! Isn't that awesome?

[John Longarrow]

But you STILL make a good mall cop! LOL

[illyahr]

Hey AvatarVecna: Tongue of Sun and Moon only lets you speak to any creature. Nowhere does it say you understand what they say back. It is actually worse than a 1st-level spell.

[AvatarVecna]

Hey AvatarVecna: Tongue of Sun and Moon only lets you speak to any creature. Nowhere does it say you understand what they say back. It is actually worse than a 1st-level spell.

Counterpoint: it says speak with, which could be interpreted as understanding them as well. Of course, it also says "living", which means that liches aren't viable conversationalists for the high-level monk.

[illyahr]

Counterpoint: it says speak with, which could be interpreted as understanding them as well. Of course, it also says "living", which means that liches aren't viable conversationalists for the high-level monk.

Or intelligent constructs, for that matter.

Either way, its just silly. :smallbiggrin: