Pathfinder Monk vs 3.5 Monk

[Rasman]

I was just curious, what are the real differences between the Pathfinder Monk and the straight up 3.5 Monk in terms of ability, usefulness and survivability? I keep hearing conflicting statements about how the Monk is either REALLY BAD or JUST AS GOOD compared to other classes, but a lot of the opinion comes from a 3.5 mindset, but Pathfinder supposedly improved the monk to become more playable. So I really just want to know, what's so different/better about the Pathfinder version.

[infinitypanda]

Hold up, our next monk thread isn't due until this Sunday...

I think the biggest changes are full BAB when using flurry of blows, and a few improvements to stunning fist and other thingies like that.

So in short, bigger numbers, but it doesn't really fix the core problems of the monk class, which are MAD and conflicting abilities.

[Dienekes]

3.5 monk here
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm

Pathfinder monk here
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/c...monk.html#monk

As far as I can tell, Pathfinder Monk has better attack bonus when furrying, +1 armor bonus at higher levels and some bonus abilities that's usefulness is up for discussion. Including the ki pool which I personally think is decently good.

However, Pathfinder rules also has CMB which is a whole other argument on what it's supposed to do.

Edit: ninja'd and what the ninja says bares repeating. The monk wasn't really fixed. It can do more, but it's arguable if it can help more. Personally I think it went from untouchable to sucky.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

However, Pathfinder rules also has CMB which is a whole other argument on what it's supposed to do.

Prevent melee characters from having nice things?

[XBobbis]

There are also a lot of monk specific feats.

Scorpion Style

Gorgon's Fist

Medusa's Wrath

Together make a pretty nice combo. Slow them down with one standard action. Bring them to staggered with the next. They can either move or be hit. Hard.

It's not something that makes them as strong as casters or anything, but it's nice.

[imperialspectre]

Well, since Jason arbitrarily decided that monks can't have Improved Natural Attack, and many of the 3.5 methods for increasing unarmed damage aren't present in Pathfinder, Pathfinder monks are quite a bit behind in terms of their ability to do damage.

The fact that combat maneuvers are slightly behind where they were in 3.5 is also rough, and monks' improved flurry AB doesn't help them when it comes to combat maneuvers, so they're a little worse off in that department.

On the other hand, the ki pool mechanic gives them a few things that they hadn't had before, and they gained more (and even slightly better) bonus feats.

As is common for non-casters in Pathfinder, the monk's class features are somewhat better, but external options (particularly feats) are generally weaker. The fact that Pathfinder is at present a very small system, while 3.5 is a very big system, means that Pathfinder monks are decidedly weaker than 3.5 monks if you allow all 3.5 books, but a little bit stronger than their (very gimpy) core-only 3.5 counterparts.

Edited to add: I probably should be a little kinder when it comes to the monk bonus feats. Some of them are actually legitimately good options that the monk always should have had. They should probably be class features, but since the monk gets bonus feats Pathfinder at least deserves credit for giving monks an ability that helps them be useful and not actually taxing them "real" feats for the ability.

[Mongoose87]

If you were to allow a Pathfinder Monk to take feats from 3.5 supplements, he'd easily be better than a 3.5 Monk built similarly. However, they're still excessively MAD.

One of my friends insists that they made Pathfinder Monks masters of Combat Maneuvers. I don't see anything about this - they get their Monk level in place of BaB for Combat Maneuvers, but this doesn't make them particularly good, just on-par with full BaB classes, the only people who should really be using Combat Maneuvers much, anyways.

[averagejoe]

There are also a lot of monk specific feats.

My main problem with these is that they all target fort saves, limiting their relative utility rather badly. I'm not sure why I'd want to stagger or slow someone if I could stun them at the same save.

[imperialspectre]

Oh, one other thing. If you ported the ToB classes into Pathfinder, as many people seem to do, an unaltered Swordsage would probably pwn the Pathfinder Monk in the face more than the 3.5 Monk, because the Swordsage would get Pathfinder "monk-exclusive" feats with no problem at all.

[infinitypanda]

Prevent melee characters from having nice things?

CMB: Crap, Melee's Buggered.

[sonofzeal]

CMB: Crap, Melee's Buggered.

Last I heard (and I don't actually play PF), they fixed this somewhat. The only major change is unifying the mechanics, and the lack of advantage to size... which, really, helps things overall, because now medium-sized humans can still pull off Trip/Grapple without polymorph and whatnot.

[bosssmiley]

"Cripple fight!" </Cartman>

Sorry, but I'm completely Buhlman (obtuse, ignorant and easily distracted by shiny things) when it comes to this question.

[Starbuck_II]

Last I heard (and I don't actually play PF), they fixed this somewhat. The only major change is unifying the mechanics, and the lack of advantage to size... which, really, helps things overall, because now medium-sized humans can still pull off Trip/Grapple without polymorph and whatnot.

Yes, but Improved Trip losts it free attack. The Greater Trip feat doesn't add this back it: it lets allies attack the foe (assuming they are within reach).

Yes, Greater is better gang bang action, but I don't think the monster will be flanked and then tripped all the time.

[Akal Saris]

You will also get the AOO from improved trip as well, you know. So if you have Combat Reflexes (and it's a decent monk feat anyhow - most monks will have the Dex to power it), you get the same attacks for your buck, only now your allies all get it too.

Likewise, Greater Disarm and Greater Overrun are both different from their 3.5 versions, with G. Disarm moving the weapon 15 ft away, and G. Overrun giving allies free AOO's on opponents knocked prone by your overrun.

Honestly, from what I've seen in play, the monk is better off than he was in 3.5 - the monk in my party has spent all of his feats on tripping, grappling, and overrun, and he certainly seems more competent at it than a 3.5 monk, since his BAB = his monk level when using them, size modifiers no longer screw him over completely, and buffs to attacks also aid CMB, so the bonuses from flanking/Bless/Bard song all add up to very good attacks pretty soon. Given that the player isn't very good at min/maxing, there's room for hope.

That said, the class still isn't particularly good, it's just not overwhelmingly bad. It fills the role of tank moderately well, damage moderately poorly, battlefield control moderately well, and scout/social/mobility skills alright. There isn't really a role that the monk plays better than any other class, in my opinion. In 3.5, of course, there isn't any role except scout where the monk is even close to equal with any other class.

CMB vs. the old 3.5 system is also a bit moot when the monk sucked even worse under the older system unless you started as a large race or immediately multi-classed into a better class, like psychic warrior.

[Person_Man]

Compare the Pathfinder Monk to the Pathfinder Summoner.

The Monk has good Skills and mobility, Stunning Fist, and a few other tricks. But it suffers from MAD, a jumble of different abilities, and nerfed Special Attack (Trip, Grapple) and Unarmed Damage rules.

The Summoner is a 3/4 caster with a souped up arcane Animal Companion (called an Eidolon) which it gets 24 hours a day. The Eidolon by itself is better then the Monk. When you throw in the the Summoner's spells, Share Spells, and various team up abilities, it rocks. Not as great as CoDzilla or Batman, but still a very potent class.

I find it odd that they would do such a lousy job on a class that everyone was screaming to make stronger.

[Saph]

CMB: Crap, Melee's Buggered.

This really isn't true, although that doesn't seem to stop people repeating it. We have a combat-maneuver-focused fighter in our party in our Pathfinder game. He has the highest damage output in the party and has so far managed to trip, cripple, or otherwise inconvenience pretty much every opponent we've run into.

The party monk's performance has been more mixed. He's tried grapple attacks quite a lot, which have been sometimes successful and sometimes not.

Pathfinder monks are definitely stronger than 3.5 core monks . . . but that's not saying much. While they have a lot of fun bonus abilities, the core problems of MAD and contradictory class features haven't changed.

[Nero24200]

I'll just echo what others have said mostly. The PF is definately stronger than the 3.5 monk, but alot of fundamental problems that make the monk weak remain the same. Such as..

M.A.D: Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers etc can all get by with only a handful of decent ability scores. The Monk requires strength, dexterity and constitution (being a character expected to hop into the front lines alot), but also intellegence for skill points and wisdom for alot of class features. Some classes (like the paladin) also have this problem, but it's not as bad for them. Allowing the monk to say...add wisdom to attack/damage rolls at some point would alleviate this, since he would no longer require strength anywhere near as much.

Unsyncing abilities: Even classes considered less powerful (such as fighters, hexblades etc) have abilities that work together. Monks on the other gain flurry as a primary class feature and a few mobility based benifits (such as a boost to speed if you spend a ki point, a static bonus to speed, bonues to jump checks etc). The problem is, their main class feature requires them to stand still. An easy way to fix this would be to make the monk able to flurry as a standard action (though this would complicate things in PF, since a monk's BAB increases when he flurry's. He'd pretty much have no incentive to not spam the ability constantly).

Lack of BAB: Alot of people see the monk as a combat class. Given that 3/4's of his class features revolve around boosting AC, bestowing negative effects (like stunning) on foes, getting greatly combat mobility and getting extra attacks, it's not hard to see why. However, jumping in the thick of combat and having a high damage output does little if you cannot hit foes. PF alleviated this one somewhat by increasing the monk's BAB when he flurrys. However, the monk still struggles with standard attacks and this "fix" doesn't address the previous point.

As for CMB well...in my opinion, theres nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't fix problems. It makes for less rolling, but there wasn't that much before (compare disarming a foe in 3.5 to disarming in PF. One was an opposed roll, the other is a roll against a flat DC). The main confusion with "Combat Maneuvers" before was grapple, which is still has a degree of complexity in PF. One thing to note though is that the Monk's AC bonus add's to his CMD, which makes the monk harder to trip/disarm etc.

Also, CMD has some problems with regards to size changes. Tripping a smaller creature should be easy if you are able to land the blow right, and this was represented by a higher touch AC and then a penalty to the check. However, in PF, sizes are just a flat +/- to the CMD. Since smaller creatures get a flat penalty, it means that it's easy for the collosal dragon to "sunder" a pixies dagger. Granted though, it's not much of a problem unless you build it up to the scale of the example I just gave.

[Saph]

As for CMB well...in my opinion, theres nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't fix problems. It makes for less rolling, but there wasn't that much before.

Actually, it speeds up things like Trip a hell of a lot.

In 3.5, tripping requires you to:

1. Roll an attack against opponent's touch AC.
2. Roll a Strength check against opponent, adding size bonuses.
3. Opponent rolls a Strength or Dex check against you (whichever's better), adding size bonuses and possible bonus for stability. If you win, he's tripped. If you lose, he's not tripped, and go on to step 4.
4. Opponent rolls a Strength check against you, adding size bonuses.
5. You roll a Strength or Dex check against opponent (whichever's better), adding size bonuses and possible bonus for stability. If you win, nothing happens. If he wins, you're tripped or drop your weapon, depending on what you were using to do the trip.

That's anywhere from 3 to 5 rolls, which is an awful lot of rolling for just one part of one combat maneuver. In Pathfinder, tripping requires you to:

1. Roll a CMB check against your opponent's CMD, adding possible bonus for stability. If you win, he's tripped. If you fail, nothing happens. If you fail by 10 or more, you're tripped.

It's obvious which is faster, and having played both, it makes a BIG difference. It's one thing I think they did very well.

[Duke of URL]

Actually, it speeds up things like Trip a hell of a lot.

In 3.5, tripping requires you to:

1. Roll an attack against opponent's touch AC.
2. Roll a Strength check against opponent, adding size bonuses.
3. Opponent rolls a Strength or Dex check against you (whichever's better), adding size bonuses and possible bonus for stability. If you win, he's tripped. If you lose, he's not tripped, and go on to step 4.
4. Opponent rolls a Strength check against you, adding size bonuses.
5. You roll a Strength or Dex check against opponent (whichever's better), adding size bonuses and possible bonus for stability. If you win, nothing happens. If he wins, you're tripped or drop your weapon, depending on what you were using to do the trip.

That's anywhere from 3 to 5 rolls, which is an awful lot of rolling for just one part of one combat maneuver. In Pathfinder, tripping requires you to:

1. Roll a CMB check against your opponent's CMD, adding possible bonus for stability. If you win, he's tripped. If you fail, nothing happens. If you fail by 10 or more, you're tripped.

It's obvious which is faster, and having played both, it makes a BIG difference. It's one thing I think they did very well.

Yeah, but you could combine them a little and get:

1. Roll an attack against opponent's touch AC.
2. Roll a Strength check against opponent, adding size bonuses.
3. Opponent rolls a Strength or Dex check against you (whichever's better), adding size bonuses and possible bonus for stability. If you win, he's tripped. If you lose, he's not tripped. If you lose by more than 10, you're tripped.

Granted, it's still 3 rolls (only 1 if the touch attack fails), but it's also straightforward.

[MunchkinJr]

I've always been a huge fan of monk builds, and I find the Pathfinder upgrades quite good. It always bothered me that a primary striking class had a 3/4 BAB, but the full BAB for Flurry and CMB helps a lot. I built a 20th level Vow of Poverty monk to face of against my roomates 20th level antipalidan (with the standard amount of gold for 20th level to counter my Vow of Poverty) and even though I was LG (and therefore smitable, plus his weapons were holy, chaotic, etc) I beat him in 3 rounds, mostly because of sunder. It can be used in place of any melee attack (of which I had 7 of per round when using flurries), plus I could bypass most damage reduction due to ki strike. The Monk of the Empty Hand archetype from Advanced Player Guide let me spend ki points for weapon enhancments, so I could easily bypass damage reductions he had, plus I could change the enhancments every round, so I could sunder my first round (in which I destroyed his weapon, his shield and a few magic items) and then just layed into him the next with axoimatic holy improvised weapons. Add plenty of immunites, built in spell resistance, and some fairly usefull ki abilities and it seems like a pretty viable option to me. Plus the image of a man in plain clothes beating the hell out of a fully armed, armored and mounted Antipalidan with a flute makes me happy. My one complaint is that there are no options for psionic monks in pathfinder so far, though I hope that option will come soon.

[Gnaeus]

Unsyncing abilities: Even classes considered less powerful (such as fighters, hexblades etc) have abilities that work together.

Nitpick: While fighters are less powerful than most things, they are NOT less powerful than monks. In 3.5, it was entirely possible to build a fighter that is better than the monk at most of a monks areas of "specialization". The PF fighter is even better in terms of numbers (although in little else). The primary reason that this isn't done regularly is that the monk was/is so underpowered that the fighter has more useful things to do than "outmonking a monk".

[Ravens_cry]

CMB: Crap, Melee's Buggered.

I play with a dwarf monk who keelhauled a wyvren at level 5 by tying it up and lashing it under the ship. The checks are hardly impossible.

[Snake-Aes]

There are also a lot of monk specific feats.

Scorpion Style

Gorgon's Fist

Medusa's Wrath

Together make a pretty nice combo. Slow them down with one standard action. Bring them to staggered with the next. They can either move or be hit. Hard.

It's not something that makes them as strong as casters or anything, but it's nice.

The first two are wasteful. Burn a stunning fist then Medusa all the way.


TL;DR: PF Monk has bigger numbers and more attacks more easily. Some of the abilities make more sense, but the problems are exactly the same.

[Greenish]

The fact that combat maneuvers are slightly behind where they were in 3.5 is also rough, and monks' improved flurry AB doesn't help them when it comes to combat maneuvers, so they're a little worse off in that department.

PF monks have abilities that raise their CMB and CMD to that of full BAB classes (which raises the question on why they have medium BAB to begin with ).

[Gnaeus]

PF monks have abilities that raise their CMB and CMD to that of full BAB classes (which raises the question on why they have medium BAB to begin with ).

Although they are still worse off in the sense that monks need to put more points in Wisdom and probably Dex and Con than a fighter, and the fighter will therefore likely have a higher strength.

[Greenish]

Although they are still worse off in the sense that monks need to put more points in Wisdom and probably Dex and Con than a fighter, and the fighter will therefore likely have a higher strength.

What has fighter anything to do with it?

[kestrel404]

With their extra feats and the new PF feats based of Scorpion style, they can do a half-decent job as a debuffer - assuming you don't have a spellcaster in the party showing them up.

What they REALLY need is the following as a bonus feat options:

Intuitive strike: When making an attack with a light weapon or unarmed strike, you may use your wisdom in place of strength for bonus to hit AND DAMAGE.

Also, power attack and cleave (so the Monk need not meet the pre-reqs for those feats to take them), with the note that when you power attack and flurry, none of your attacks is considered an 'off-hand' attack while you flurry - so you get the +2 bonus to damage on all flurry attacks.

This removes pretty much all dependence the monk has on strength and makes a monk's primary stats Wis and Dex, in that order. Add some way for a Monk to get pounce, and THAT would be a serious improvement.

[Gnaeus]

What has fighter anything to do with it?

Well, if you are comparing monk to a full BAB class that is likely to be using CMBs, aren't you talking about fighter? Barbarian is similarly better. Paladin is better against evil foes (smite adds its bonus to attack rolls, therefore to CMB). I guess monk is a little bit ahead of a ranger, but why build a maneuver based ranger? So of full-BAB for maneuver PF classes, Monk looks like 4th out of 5, hardly impressive.

[Greenish]

Well, if you are comparing monk to a full BAB class that is likely to be using CMBs, aren't you talking about fighter?

I'm not comparing monk to anything, and I'm not sure why'd you think I was, perhaps you confused me with someone else.

I'm just complaining how silly it is that they essentially gave monks full BAB for every other purpose than standard action attacks. Would it have been so hard to just simply make them full BAB instead of jumping through those hoops?

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even threads may die. Unless they're necro'ed.