"Fixing" the Monk

[madtinker]

I've heard/read lots that the Monk is underpowered. Based on my meager experience in brazilian ju-jitsu, I have an idea to fix it, but no stats.

In real martial arts, there are lots of ways to do massive damage very quickly. Give monk-only massive damage grapple feats, along with a variety of specialized strikes, and I think it wold be viable again. Comments?

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Right on schedule.

[Xenogears]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98238

This is fairly similiar to what you describe and sounds awesome.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Obligatory Unarmed Swordsage reference.

[olentu]

You know this really does sound like the unarmed swordsage what with the specialized strikes and grapple damage options being similar to maneuvers and that one stance that gives constrict.

[madtinker]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98238

This is fairly similiar to what you describe and sounds awesome.

Yeah, about like that. Thanks for the link.

[infinitypanda]

Right on schedule.

Oh, it's Sunday night already? So it is.

[madtinker]

Oh, it's Sunday night already? So it is.

Am I missing something?

[streakster]

Hey, Frank and K's Monk remake reference! Question as to the time necessary for the appearance of Giacomo.

Humorous jest at the frequency of monk discussion threads.


What you're missing: Yeah, we have "Monk Threads a lot here. They generally devolve into huge arguments over minutiuea minutea minituea unimportant details fairly quickly. Don't take what's about to happen personally.

[UglyPanda]

We should start a giantitp bingo game

Possible spaces:
Monk thread
ToB thread
Pathfinder thread
Giacomo posts something about monks
Tippy posts something about wizards
"Is (melee option here) broken?" thread

[Mongoose87]

Obligatory Unarmed Swordsage reference.

Complaint that ToB is too Anime-like.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

Complaint that ToB is too Anime-like.

Points out the existence of feats that allow you to run up walls, skill tricks that allow people to do the same, the monk class, and Evan's Black Tentacles.

[Xaklin_Magewrit]

Points out the existence of feats that allow you to run up walls, skill tricks that allow people to do the same, the monk class, and Evan's Black Tentacles.

I laughed at the tentacles

[madtinker]

How about PbP that disappear a few rounds after beginning/never get off the ground? I've never gotten past the first combat scene...

[UglyPanda]

Those might as well be a free space. Those and happy birthday threads show up often enough that they'd be no fun as a normal space.

[elliott20]

Points out the existence of feats that allow you to run up walls, skill tricks that allow people to do the same, the monk class, and Evan's Black Tentacles.

comment to the effect of how Martial Initiates are all basically "mages with weaker spells".

another day, another monk fix.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Okay folks, please drag it back on topic.

[elliott20]

sorry about that, just couldn't resist. Ok, back on topic in 3... 2...

Monk fixes offered out there

- play a swordsage from ToB
- Frank and K's monk
- Fax's monk

actually, you know what, we really should just have a thread that compiles all of the monk homebrew's and fixes in one place. that way when one of these pop up, we can just drop the link in.

[Random NPC]

Monk 2/Psychic Warrior X with the Talashatora Feat

A monk more monk than a monk

[UglyPanda]

Right, on topic...

Monks aren't as good as Wizards, they aren't even as good as Barbarians, grappling sucks, melee combat is overrated, use unarmed Swordsage instead, yadda yadda yadda, nerf magic, The Aristocrats!

Wait, wrong punchline.

Anyway, fixing the Monk requires a massive overhaul.

Grappling is a bad idea since most powerful enemies either fly or are too damn big to grapple, also bears. That was not a non sequitur, a Druid with a bear companion outclasses everything at grappling.

Being able to do massive damage doesn't really help because massive singular sources of damage gives diminishing returns. It doesn't matter if you deal 500 damage to one source every turn if everything you fight has less than fifty hp and you fight twenty of the little blighters every battle. And there are already methods of dealing massive amounts of damage in melee, so you're only really competing with something similar to itself.

[jiriku]

We should totally sticky all the monk fixes in a single thread, it's such a common topic.

Commentary: I'm currently DM'ing a player with a monk 2/unarmed swordsage 4, with a trial variant that grants skirmish with monk weapons instead of an unarmed strike progression, and focuses on throws. The player is very pleased with his character, and has so far found something interesting and effective to do in most fights. Gaining Dex + Wis*2 to AC makes him pretty durable too. It's still in the trial stages, but the early results are promising.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

I think the main issue people have with the monk is that it's MAD and the class features it gets do not seem very coherent.

If you made the class features more like that of the wuxia monk, allowed more uses/day of abilities, and focused more off of Wisdom such as attack bonus and damage, people would complain less about it.

[Tavar]

Just to give some link's,
Fax's How it Should be Monk. Note that this version uses some d20r material, but it's easy enough to use it in a normal game; simply give it 6x skills per level from the monk list, and remove prowess.

Lord Iames Osari's Monk.

Lord Iames Osari's Monk Psionic Monk

Pramxnim's Tattooed Monk The PrC turned into a base class.

Pax_Chi's Monk of the Sublime Way. A monk rebuild that uses ToB. No, it's not a unarmed swordsage, it can actually do new things.

PairO'Dice Lost's Incarnum Monk Variant
There are some others on the board as well. I know PairO'Dice Lost made an Incarnum focused one, and Sinfire Titan is working on one as well.


Edit: Added PairO'Dice Lost

[Doc Roc]

This is the Monk fix that we use for the test of spite. Testing has shown that it's almost enough, but could use some fine-tuning and some more long-term support.

Consider the amount changed against your proposed changes, and I suspect you can deduce my opinion.

[elliott20]

I'm going to save Tavar's post for all future references.

[PhoenixRivers]

One major problem. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is great IRL.

IRL doesn't have a single ability that instantly says "no" to anyone that tries to grab you.

Freedom of Movement relegates this fix to the power tier of the Enchantment school.

[Fax Celestis]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98238

This is fairly similiar to what you describe and sounds awesome.

Hey, thanks.

[elliott20]

One major problem. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is great IRL.

IRL doesn't have a single ability that instantly says "no" to anyone that tries to grab you.

Freedom of Movement relegates this fix to the power tier of the Enchantment school.

IRL people also don't try to wrestle bears and other ridiculously large creatures like an elephant.

[Doc Roc]

IRL people also don't try to wrestle bears and other ridiculously large creatures like an elephant.

In short, grapple is terrible. Like, really godawful. You'd need to rewrite it, or lay out some sophisticated abilities. Having tried both, and done the latter, I recommend merely avoiding it.

[Fax Celestis]

In short, grapple is terrible. Like, really godawful. You'd need to rewrite it, or lay out some sophisticated abilities. Having tried both, and done the latter, I recommend merely avoiding it.

Gotcha covered.