Monk why does this suck?

[Half-orc Bard]

Everyone says that monks suck. I don't see why. With the Fist of the forest PrC In complete champion you can add you con to your AC. If you get an okay str. good wis good dex and great Con you can get an amazing ac. True they don't deal the damage of wizard or the have skillmonkeyness of a rouge, but it can t get hit. I made a lvl 10 Monk with 35 ac. Why do people not love this class?

[true_shinken]

35 AC by level 10 is not that awesome. At that level, a gish can get higher AC and he would still be useful.

Also, this week's monk thread is late.

[LordShotGun]

"Sigh" yet another thread like this. Is it that time of the month already? No offense but there has been thread upon thread discussing this topic...

To refute the AC point, AC becomes much less valuable later on as monsters get SLAs and casting levels which can seriously fork over your monk as most spells are wont to do too meleers.

[Tengu_temp]

1. 35 AC on level 10 is not that impressive for an AC-focused build.
2. This character's bad at everything but AC. AC matters less and less the higher you go in levels. Furthermore, you just encourage enemies to completely ignore you and go for the squishier party members instead.
3. You need four high stats and a very strong prestige class to turn the monk into something barely decent. With the same statblock you could turn any other class into a paragon of whatever it's supposed to do.

[WarKitty]

Didn't we have one last sunday or something? I vote that this thread is early, not late.

[Private-Prinny]

Is it that time of the week again? I may as well scratch the tip of the iceberg.

• Most class features replicate things that other classes have been doing since lower levels.
• Flurry of Blows can't be used in the same round as their impressive speed, making two of their signature abilities mutually exclusive.
• Needs good scores in pretty much everything to survive.
• Finally, I remember seeing a quote somewhere on this board: "Monks are a defensive class in a game dominated by powerful offensive options. You still need a rocket to win at rocket tag, even if you're better at dodging rockets than most."

[DragonOfUndeath]

"Sigh" yet another thread like this. Is it that time of the month already? No offense but there has been thread upon thread discussing this topic...

i though we had another day before monkday

Monks suck cause their damage isn't as good as a fighter and their class abilities cancel each other out. oh and the fact that a wizard can do the same things with spells levels earlier

EDIT: ninja'ed so hard my head spun

[Flickerdart]

Monk is a fantastic two-level class. Fist of the Forest is a fantastic 1-level PrC. I don't know what anyone has against either one.

[Rixx]

Monks are fun.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Monk is a fantastic two-level class. Fist of the Forest is a fantastic 1-level PrC. I don't know what anyone has against either one.

its not a class its a dip. Monks suck as a straight class and most of the things a Monk does can and will be replicated with minimal effort by most/all other classes

[Ranielle]

It's always good to see some people deriving satisfaction from one aspect of their otherwise pitiful lives.

[AslanCross]

Sigh, I wish we'd have a stickied Monk thread.

If you get an okay str. good wis good dex and great Con you can get an amazing ac.

This is precisely why. You need lots of good stats to be any good.

Also, they have a whole bunch of abilities that don't synergize. Flurry of Blows needs a full attack. If you full attack, you can't really use your speed. Also, you'll probably miss a lot.

Finally, all of their "martial arts" talents (which consist entirely of hitting lots of times, pressure points [Stunning Fist, if you take it] and the really lame Quivering Palm) are more effectively performed by the Swordsage, which has the same flavor but far more versatility, as it can do Judo throws, rock-breaking punches, jumping attacks, pressure point strikes, and even kill things with fire.

Monk is great 2-level dip, since it grants bonus feats while skipping the prerequisites. Monk/Swordsage is great if you want to build a Setting Sun Unarmed Swordsage.

[Smiling Knight]

Just to save time:

Giacomo: Monks are as strong as wizards with UMD and partially charged wands.

[Respected forum members]: No they are not.

Giacomo: Yes they are. You all just abuse the rules.

[Rfm]: No u

G: No u

Repeat until someone challenges G to duel, which then never happens.

[Half-orc Bard]

okay I'm wondering if there are hand wrappings in other games making it able to put magic weapon enchantments on your unarmed strike. That might of tiped the scale a little bit.

[rokar4life]

ahem. swordsage aaaannndddd.... out


EDIT: I thought it needed and ahem

[Flickerdart]

its not a class its a dip. Monks suck as a straight class and most of the things a Monk does can and will be replicated with minimal effort by most/all other classes

That was the joke, yes.

[Murdim]

okay I'm wondering if there are hand wrappings in other games making it able to put magic weapon enchantments on your unarmed strike. That might of tiped the scale a little bit.

Necklace of Natural Weapons is your best bet.

[AslanCross]

okay I'm wondering if there are hand wrappings in other games making it able to put magic weapon enchantments on your unarmed strike. That might of tiped the scale a little bit.

The Ki Straps from Magic Item Compendium make your Stunning Fist stronger.
The Amulet of Mighty Fists grants an enhancement bonus.

But Magic Weapon properties? The only way I know to get those on a Monk's fists is the Kensai. The funny thing is that wow, the point of the class is that you can kill stuff with your fists---but you need magic items or a PrC's class features to catch up with the fighter with a flaming sword! In other words, the Monk doesn't really give what it says it gives.

[Lev]

I believe the argument, like most arguments that belittle a class, revolve around "there's more to do in a dungeon than hit things" whether it be with a sword, with a fist or with a horse.

[Starbuck_II]

I believe the argument, like most arguments that belittle a class, revolve around "there's more to do in a dungeon than hit things" whether it be with a sword, with a fist or with a horse.

Who hits things with horses?

[Eldariel]

Monk is a fantastic two-level class. Fist of the Forest is a fantastic 1-level PrC. I don't know what anyone has against either one.

FotF is fine for all 3 levels, actually. It's quite the good class overall. Monk on the other hand...


Ok, the fundamental issue with Monk is:
- He's supposed to hit things but he only has medium BAB.
- He needs a huge number of high stats to shine (Str, Dex, Wis, Con and to lesser extent, Int) but the game only has limited stat allotment.
- Even if he has all 18s, he can still only focus on pumping one of the key stats with level-ups and all.

As JaronK likes to say, it's a well-designed class...for its own power level. Design-wise, it has a constant stream of (more or less) flavorful abilities and no dead levels. The issue is that its power level is below that of even the other martial characters though, let alone casters. Note that these criticisms only apply to single-classed Monks; as stated, the first two levels are excellent and 6 levels have something going on for them.

The issue is all the other levels. The next ability that's actually worth taking class levels for comes on 11 and then you just get nothing (Spell Resistance is, unfortunately, both worse than what the spell by the same name gives you, and less impressive than what it sounds like). There are other problems but that's the crux of it.

[Ernir]

I believe the argument, like most arguments that belittle a class, revolve around "there's more to do in a dungeon than hit things" whether it be with a sword, with a fist or with a horse.

Man, I want to kill someone by hitting them with a horse.

[FMArthur]

Monks are bad because...

• They get a large pile of very situational abilities that don't have anything to do with one another and don't synergise in any notable way.
• They require decent stats in Str, Dex, Con and Wis while actually seeing weaker return on investing in them than more focused classes.
• Your fists are a merely *decent* weapon that are difficult to enhance, and with your BAB aren't as effective as they might be. The best you can hope for is to optimize like crazy to get damage merely on par with a totally unoptimized Barbarian using a two-handed greatsword and Power Attack. I can see Monk's unarmed progression, in some scenarios, being a fun and flavorful trade for weapon proficiencies. As your main class feature, it just plain sucks.
• Flurry of Misses. Medium BAB and an unexceptional Strength bonus hurts.
• Because you need so many different stats, your AC from Wisdom and Dex combined is rarely going to even compensate for simple armor. Yet another primary class feature that loses you something almost everyone gets and fails to even keep up with what you lost. You have all high saves and fast movement, though. Hopefully they make up for your difficult-to-improve AC and mediocre hit points.
• Being a survival-focused character might be nice individually, but when you are working with a group of people to win battles as a team, keeping yourself safe fails as a strategy. You can't even force people to target you instead of your allies and you don't rate high enough on the threat list for enemies to bother killing you when your allies seem capable of causing them far more harm.
• The final nail in the coffin is that a couple of other options steal all of a Monks (situationally) desirable abilities and give them to classes that can do things with them. Notably the Unarmed Swordsage is a truer-to-flavor Monk that has strong offensive and defensive options; comparing them is like comparing a Fighter to a Fighter variant that gets twice as many feats at no extra cost - one of them is simply and objectively superior. Tashalatora is a feat that adds what is equivalent to a Monk gestalt to any psionic class you want. That means, basically, that psychic spellcasters, who are already way better than Monks in every respect, get to take all of his stuff for almost nothing. The worst part about all of this is that these options aren't even used most of the time because their superiority to weapons and armor is highly suspect.

[AslanCross]

Who hits things with horses?

Hulking Hurlers.

Or trebuchets.

...make that dead, rotting horses and you've got a siege engine.

[Nohwl]

Who hits things with horses?

drunken masters?

[Keld Denar]

Ever hear the expression "beating a dead horse"? It's really a shortened version of "beating someone with a dead horse".

No horses were harmed in the typing of this post.

[DragonOfUndeath]

No horses were harmed in the typing of this post.

what about in the inspiration for this post?

[Eldariel]

Monks are bad because...

• Flurry of Misses. Medium BAB and an unexceptional Strength bonus hurts.

Don't forget that you need full attack to use Flurry...which means you can't use Monk's speed. That, and you can't use it first round of the combat. That alone makes Flurry just very meh. Not to mention the fact that since enhancing Monk's attacks is hard, that's further detrimental for the attack bonus.

[Shademan]

Real DM's makes monks work.


or you know... just DM for noobs and give monks full BaB.

[Flickerdart]

Real DM's makes monks work.


or you know... just DM for noobs and give monks full BaB.

That doesn't make Monk any good, though.