I Have a Mind to Fix the Monk - So What Needs Doing?

[Cogidubnus]

The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

[Kurald Galain]

Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

[Psyren]

Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

One word: Psionics

[Cogidubnus]

Two words: Unarmed Swordsage.

I don't like this idea, I want to build the actual class.

Ed: Please, I know my way around the classes. I don't want alternatives, just tell me what needs fixing.

[MeeposFire]

Actually outside of combat monks do OK. They have a decent (though not great) number of skill points and a good list.

Biggest thing make flurry work with all attacks similar to snap kick helps them synergize their class features. They would then be mobile and dangerous.

[Telonius]

The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

Quite a long time ago, there was a thread about what would actually be necessary for melee character to stand any sort of a shot against a Wizard. The list of things was pretty long. You need a way to neutralize contingent spells, a way to win initiative, a way to deprive tactical mobility, a way to prevent planar travel/teleport, a way to foil divinations that would let the Wizard know you're coming after him (i.e. deny him preparation), a way to overcome no-save "I win" buttons like Forcecage & company, a way to negate miss chance (since the Wizard will have lots of miss chance spells up), and a way to do about ten others that I've forgotten by now. If you are really serious about point 4, you will need to deal with all of that.

[Cogidubnus]

Quite a long time ago, there was a thread about what would actually be necessary for melee character to stand any sort of a shot against a Wizard. The list of things was pretty long. You need a way to neutralize contingent spells, a way to win initiative, a way to deprive tactical mobility, a way to prevent planar travel/teleport, a way to foil divinations that would let the Wizard know you're coming after him (i.e. deny him preparation), a way to overcome no-save "I win" buttons like Forcecage & company, a way to negate miss chance (since the Wizard will have lots of miss chance spells up), and a way to do about ten others that I've forgotten by now. If you are really serious about point 4, you will need to deal with all of that.

He's never going to beat a wizard from these boards, let's be frank. But you have given me a great idea. Some per day etherealness. That seems suitably cool to me. Get you out of forcecage too.

[Tvtyrant]

My fix for the monk I made for a friend was the Friar; it treated all spells as being partially real (as if the were shadow spells) so it reduced their damage by a percentile. Later it made them even less real and got the ability to create an anti-magic zone around themselves and got a number of class abilities named things like "Flying Double Spinning Backkick" which acted like a moving Whirlwind attack; low damage but it could hit a lot of enemies and had a stun chance on enemies that got higher the more times it hit. Roundhouse kick was like a normal whirlwind attack+Great Cleave where it allowed you to hit each enemy in a circle around you once, and if one got dropped you did it again.

Basic premise was that the Friar used its Faith to reinforce the normality of the universe, causing spells to fall apart. Worked on Divine and Arcane spells, but you couldn't use Ki attacks while creating and anti-magic zone.

[dsmiles]

You need to reduce the number of ability scores that they rely on.

[Draculmaulkee]

Frank and K made a pretty good monk fix at http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=28547.
You might get some good ideas from their take on the monk.
Note: you'll have to scroll down to the third post to find their monk class.

[The Cat Goddess]

You need to reduce the number of ability scores that they rely on.

This, by alot. And the "Flurry of Blows works on Standard Attacks" fix.

Also:
Offer them a choice of Zen Archery (Wis for Ranged Attacks, only make it stack with Dex), the equivalent of Shadow Blade (Dex to damage in Melee) or the Snapkick Feat. Offer it around level 4-5.
Give them Mettle around level 7-8? It's an appropriately Monk-ish ability.
I forget when Monks get the Abundant Step ability... but everyone forgets that you can go up with it (and falling isn't a big deal for a Monk). Make sure it's only a Move action, doesn't disorient and is available Level/x (x=2 or 3) per day. Maybe even increase the range?
Give them "Improved Mettle" (works like Improved Evasion) around level 14.

[Hyfigh]

1) I've personally always fancied monks as the quick hitters in the game. Regular Fighter-types depend on single (well, fewer), heavy hits. Rogue-types depend on being able to flank and get in a more hits while they are flanking. Monk-types, in my opinion, should be able to just keep hitting. I like the mechanics of the Blood-in-the-water/Lightning Macers that can come of ToB. Having a function that lets a monk crit more things (more creature types), and crit more often could allow for a function similar to the Lightning macer. This is, of course, if the ability is triggered on crits - other mechanics could have better/worse results. Obvisouly, it should be capped for a number of additional attacks, but I see no reason to make that number high. Multiple, lower damage attacks should ultimately function the same as a small number of heavy damage hits.

This also has the benefit of sticking to an in-kind fluff to flurry of blows.

2) Class feature replacement will be tough. The monk shouldn't be too overpowered, but shouldn't be underpowered. Intermingle some of the VoP benefits from the feat itself - obviously removing the "you can't have those items" stipulation. That helps, but doesn't make it. You still have quite a bit to over-come a Batman. I'd say that for these items the monk should have mostly defensive mechanisms. Monks should have high saves, moderate to good AC without armor, and a high SR. I think of them as a kind of anti-caster. Providing the AC bonus to saves should eliminate the issue with their saves being a little low, in the end. Alternatively (or together with this), you could make a function similar to Paladins, wherein Wisdom keys a bonus to all three saves. Their AC seems to be OK, for the most part, especially with the VoP boost while still being able to use items. Their SR should probably end up around 1.5 x their level (30 at level 20). This way it actually poses some form of a challange. They will need ways to overcome stuff like Forcecage, but a teleport, or, as mentioned, etherealness would work here.

3) Monks have in-combat flexability, they just don't get much out of what they offer - see stunning fist. Improving class features will fix this. As mentioned, they have a reasonable skill list and point pool. Providing some class features that aren't strictly combat oriented really could help with their out-of-combat usefulness.

4) Dealing with Batman is a specialized ordeal. I don't think Monks should outright be able to stomp a Batman, but with enough changes they won't end up as such push-overs.

[Cogidubnus]

If anyone's interested, here's what I've built so far. PEACH?

[Doc Roc]

Actually, the PD monk routinely killed careless wizards in the test of spite.

[Doug Lampert]

The title says it all. Obviously, some things go as standard:

1) Full BAB to avoid the Flurry of Misses

2) Meaningful class features every level

3) In and out of combat flexibility (though how best to achieve this is worth dicussing)

4) And of course, melee gets nice things to help deal with Batman.

I realise this is an ambitious project, and it's one I've considered before, but it's something I'd at least like to work on slowly. So, Playgrounders, hit me. And then we'll see if the new monk can hit back.

Monk fix takes second place to the melee fix if you need one. (Not everyone needs a melee fix, because some casters are like pre-darth V and just blast.)

But if you need a caster/melee fix, then that takes precedence and the easiest one is to play a different system (fourth ed will do, but so will lots of others). 3.x is simply broken with optimized casters, too many options, too many of which are individually broken. You can't squash them all, especially not in a game that's not core only (core is the most broken part of the system, but it's LIMITED, splats multiply).

Given a general melee fix and full BAB the biggest remaining thing for combat is that flurry of blows is usable as a standard action or as the first part of a full attack. (And you need to get rid of the disadvantages of the "capstone" abilities, spell resistance and outsider type both have real problems as well as real benefits.)

Word of warning: You need to watch out for synergy on a fixed monk. Upgrade it too much and everyone will take 2 monk levels. Which is silly if you're not playing wuxia.

DougL

[jiriku]

Try the revised monk in my sig. It's very close to the "look and feel" of the original monk, but balanced to contribute much more effectively. At higher levels it even has several solid anti-caster defenses. You can lift the whole thing for your campaign, or just steal whatever looks nice for your own monk homebrew.

[navar100]

Pathfinder treats Flurry of Blows as two-weapon fighting. For flurry purposes the monk's BAB is level - 2, equivalent to the attack bonus of a fighter using two-weapons, before strength, feats, magic weapon, etc.

[Cogidubnus]

Pathfinder treats Flurry of Blows as two-weapon fighting. For flurry purposes the monk's BAB is level - 2, equivalent to the attack bonus of a fighter using two-weapons, before strength, feats, magic weapon, etc.

What I found with Pathfinder's monk was the ONLY thing they really fixed was Flurry. MAD? Still got that. Super-situational abilities? Still got them. Compensation for this? Not that I saw.

[MeeposFire]

What I found with Pathfinder's monk was the ONLY thing they really fixed was Flurry. MAD? Still got that. Super-situational abilities? Still got them. Compensation for this? Not that I saw.

I consider this not a fix. Flurry's biggest problem was the fact it is a full attack action which does not help with the skirmisher style class features that monks have.

Further they only gave monks full BAB on a flurry (where they can actually use it to best effect) but not normally. That is just confusing and makes us have to keep track of two separate BAB progressions.

I hate the PF flurry. It masquerades as a fix but it really is not much better and is in fact worse in some ways.

[Cogidubnus]

I consider this not a fix. Flurry's biggest problem was the fact it is a full attack action which does not help with the skirmisher style class features that monks have.

Further they only gave monks full BAB on a flurry (where they can actually use it to best effect) but not normally. That is just confusing and makes us have to keep track of two separate BAB progressions.

I hate the PF flurry. It masquerades as a fix but it really is not much better and is in fact worse in some ways.

Mine's better

[MeeposFire]

Mine's better

Your fix is similar to mine with slightly different wording (something like "when you make an attack on your turn" sort of deal). I like to describe it as the snap kick fix.

[true_shinken]

You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

[MeeposFire]

You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

Yea and there seems to be one every week on this website since I started paying attention. People want a decent monk. It is unfortunate that 3.5 does not have one (using another class to mimic it aside) since the number of fixes show that it is quite popular.

[Cogidubnus]

You do know there are about a gazillion monk fixes out there already, right?

And mostly I only trust homebrew from these boards. Unfortunately, fix is too short a word to search here.

[RndmNumGen]

Yea and there seems to be one every week on this website since I started paying attention. People want a decent monk.

Not entirely correct. People want a official, decent monk. That's why Tashlatora and Swordsage crop up so often even though there are a ton of homebrew fixes.

[true_shinken]

Not entirely correct. People want a official, decent monk. That's why Tashlatora and Swordsage crop up so often even though there are a ton of homebrew fixes.

Exactly.
'fixes' seem really unnecessary, for me, at least. If you're in a high power environment, you could just use cheese to get more power. In you're in a low power environment, you don't need a fix because you're strong enough. It's not about filling an archetype or anything... people just seem to love writing 'monk fixes' for some reason.

[Cogidubnus]

Exactly.
'fixes' seem really unnecessary, for me, at least. If you're in a high power environment, you could just use cheese to get more power. In you're in a low power environment, you don't need a fix because you're strong enough. It's not about filling an archetype or anything... people just seem to love writing 'monk fixes' for some reason.

Because every week there's another "why is the Monk useless" thread. Also, some people don't like or can't use cheese to the necessary extent, or want to preserve the actual feel of the Monk, which is often ruined by plentiful multi-classing and cheese.

[randomhero00]

I'd say start with "pounce" at 6th level (don't want it earlier or people will just dip.)

Then give them some sort of fly ability, which can be tacked on to a current one, or made anew.

Give them abilities to choose from much like the rogues (esp from PF). Just get rid of all the dishonorable ones or ones that don't make sense (like bleed).

Up there SR by 5 or 10.

Give them a climb speed at some point pre level 10.

Allow them to use flurry as a standard action. Also allow them to use flurry with thrown weapons (like daggers).

edit and probably full bab but not sure. You'd have to test it out. Cause the thing is, if they get all the yummy stuff, AND full bab AND all good saves, why play other melee.

[true_shinken]

Because every week there's another "why is the Monk useless" thread. Also, some people don't like or can't use cheese to the necessary extent, or want to preserve the actual feel of the Monk, which is often ruined by plentiful multi-classing and cheese.

Those threads are just a cicle of repeating lies. The Monk is not useless. It's weak, sure. That's nowhere near useless. Every now and then you get a thead about something awesome a Monk did.
Power balance is nowhere near as important to the game as more recent players tend to think.

[Cogidubnus]

Those threads are just a cicle of repeating lies. The Monk is not useless. It's weak, sure. That's nowhere near useless. Every now and then you get a thead about something awesome a Monk did.
Power balance is nowhere near as important to the game as more recent players tend to think.

It depends on your game. If you're playing a high-level PbP on these boards, it might be hard to do anything in-game, or even just get past the selection process.

On the other hand, if I'm just DMing for my three mates, Monks are fine as they are. They play fighters, barbarians, paladins and rogues, and that's about it.