Yet Another Monk Thread (House Fermenting Advice)

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I've been putting my Craft (Alchemy) skill to the test for... a while now and I'm starting to run low on self generated steam for brewing at home a better monk (thus you can stop reading right now if your only suggestion is the Swordsage variant). What I need is simple:

Q1: What do you feel is bad about the class?

Q2: What do you want to see in the class?

Q3: What other questions should be asked about the class?

A1: I gather that the inability to exploit the increased speed in conjunction with Flurry/Decisive Blow (or whatever it's called) is the big fault. Lesser ability in regards to special attacks such as disarming, tripping, and grappling come to mind. MAD like... well mad. A lack of a defined party role, or rather suffering from the standard weakness of the Jack of all Trades in that you can do a lot of different things, just not well. Not to mention the contention of intention in regards to the rentention of inverted slow ascension and one way door of dimension. Then there's the issue with a monk's inability to properly utilize their unarmed strike with weapons made with DR bypassing materials and enchantments.

A2: I personally like a suggestion I read a few months back that monks should be the save or ____ of master melee classes. I'd like to roll with that and add natural born caster killer and obsessive user of special attacks (trips, grapples, disarms, etc.) to the mix and see what comes out. If any of you feel otherwise (or agree), please say so.

Skjald:
-Change Skills to 6+int
-Make flurry a standard action. You only gain your flurry attacks this way, not your regular iteratives.
-Give the monk an intuitive attack ability at 2nd or 3rd level that applies only to special monk weapons.
-Give the monk a chi pool similar to the ninja class, from which abundant step, quivering palm, and wholeness of body function (each uses 1).
-Add an Airwalk ability, which works like the travel domain power, except with the airwalk spell instead of the freedom of movement spell.
-Allow 'magic cloth wraps' or similar for monks to use as magic weapons.

Mostly:
full base attack, use wis to hit and damage, give the untyped bonus to ac from first and every three levels not five, stunning fist per encounter. finally i'd institue the mind over matter, i feel no pain as just as powerful as the barb, ie d12 hit dice.Oh, and erase the Lawful requirement. hardass kickboxer is the image for low levels and at higher ones the wise (not nesseserally predictable or sane) master sage.

Ne0:
- Allow monks to use non-magical, light armor without losing their bonuses.
- I like to think about the monk as some battle strategy expert, i.e, very good at grapples, trips, and disarms. If you drop strength for other stats, however, it becomes hard to grapple, and with unarmed strikes or the specialised monk weapons - that are usually one-handed -, you always have a disarming penalty. That's why I'd suggest a skill that allows you to add your wisdom bonus to disarm attempts, and replace your strength bonus/penalty with it. It'd make the Improved trip/grapple/disarm skills more used by monks.

Deadmeat.GW:
I would add Wis as a standard bonus to BAB (up to their normal BAB), keep secundary BAB, built a series of feat trees in the style of the ranger but spread out over the whole of the career with a feat or ability every 3 levels to represent different types of martial artists.

Keep movement, special abilities and saves as is, get 6 instead of 4 skill points and scale unarmed damage to a different system. Edit: And keep hp as is, the feat trees will account for the more beefy monk types.

lvl 1 to 5 1d6 19/20 x2
lvl 6 to 10 2d6 19/20 x2 Count as magical attacks
lvl 11 to 15 2d6 19/20 x3 Count as magical and bypasses other damage reduction on successfull will save of DC 35
lvl 16 to 20 3d6 19/20 x3 As above but can bypass intangibility on a successfull will save of DC 40

Any other increase to damage would depend on the feat tree the player selected when he leveled.

Specific monk weapons would be able to use the count as part but not the damage, monk weapons would be put in a list and specific builds would gain access to other weapons which for them would count as monk weapons due to their training.
Gauntlets would not be monk weapons automatically, some types of monks sure but not for others, and for those that do you would add the damage of the gauntlet to their normal unarmed damage listing.

As an example, with +3 mod from wis a lvl1 monk would have an attack bonus with str 12/dex 12 of +3, at lvl2 that would be +5, lvl3 +7 and lvl4 +8 if nothing changes stat wise. Making a monk more likely to hit then a fighter in some cases but less damaging overall by a small margin.

At lvl 5 this generic monk would have a to hit bonus of +9 at least, doing 1d6 +1 damage with a 19 to 20 crit range.

deadseashoals:
* Some way of ignoring damage reduction and hardness, maybe a Concentration check (think martial artists smashing cinder blocks with their bare hands)
* A limited true seeing, perhaps as a swift action a certain number of times per day
* Allow abundant step to be used as a swift action, give it more uses per day, and make it not based on dimension door (so you can act afterwards)
* Allow flurry to be used as a standard action
* Add more options for channeling Stunning Fist
* Give them some circumstantial ways to increase attack bonus (like +4 on flanking instead of +2, the Elocater's Opportunistic Strike ability, etc.) as opposed to something that's on all the time like full BAB
* "Striking gloves" for enhancement bonuses and weapon abilities on unarmed strikes
* Additional bonuses on the combat maneuvers they choose (Improved Trip, Improved Grapple, Improved Disarm) - without these, the Barbarian is still by far the superior option for these things
* Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge
* Mettle
* Faster scaling of the AC bonus
* 6 + Int skills per level


A3: Is a question to which I have no answer beyond the given.

[Skjaldbakka]

My fix for monks:

-Change Skills to 6+int
-Make flurry a standard action. You only gain your flurry attacks this way, not your regular iteratives.
-Give the monk an intuitive attack ability at 2nd or 3rd level that applies only to special monk weapons.
-Give the monk a chi pool similar to the ninja class, from which abundant step, quivering palm, and wholeness of body function (each uses 1).
-Add an Airwalk ability, which works like the travel domain power, except with the airwalk spell instead of the freedom of movement spell.
-Allow 'magic cloth wraps' or similar for monks to use as magic weapons.

If you also want monks to be good disarm/trip fighters, you can incorporate some things from the book of feats. I don't remember what the name of the feats are, but there is a feat that knocks an opponent prone if they fail a Fort save, and a feat that disarms an opponent if they fail a Reflex save. You can extrapolate from there, since you are talking about homebrewing anyway. I do remember on of the feats in the chain (the pinnacle) Mongoose Snaps the Cobra Strike- fort save or be KO's for 1d4+1 rnds. It had 4-5 feat prereqs, including the two above.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

An intuitive attack ability? Like Wis to atk and dmg? The rest I follow and can see virtue in, but I hope I'm not off in assuming I follow that one in particular.

[Skjaldbakka]

Intuitive Attack is a feat from BoED that gives wisdom to hint instead of strength fro simple weapons. I think monks should get that for special monk weapons.

[Reel On, Love]

Part of the issue is--what should monks *do*? Other than fight unarmed? It's relatively easy to come up with a "monk fix", but a stylish one that's juicy but makes sense...

[Hadrian_Emrys]

@Reel: That's part of the original question. Should a monk be a new spin on an established role, or fill a new role altogether?

@Skjald: I remember that feat now.

[mostlyharmful]

I think the answer to the monk fix is to focus on the "mind over matter" aspect of the monk. that and the "i am actually a combat specialist thank you" bit.

half the fast movement bonuses and lose falling thingy altogether,

full base attack, use wis to hit and damage, give the untyped bonus to ac from first and every three levels not five, stunning fist per encounter. finally i'd institue the mind over matter, i feel no pain as just as powerful as the barb, ie d12 hit dice.

This drastically cuts down MAD, with strengh nolonger an issue, dex and con not being quite so vital to staying on the frount lines

after that it's the high levels that give moks the gype and then its just like all the other combat PCs, that and the weird combo of the moks high level bits and bobs that have no internal consistancy.

Oh, and erase the Lawful requirement. hardass kickboxer is the image for low levels and at higher ones the wise (not nesseserally predictable or sane) master sage.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

I agree on the point that a monk should have full bab, but making strength totally unimportant seems so un-monk like what about wis to hp instead?.

[mostlyharmful]

I agree on the point that a monk should have full bab, but making strength totally unimportant seems so un-monk like what about wis to hp instead?.

I always thought it made little sense to have the strengh beimportant for a monk, little wisened old grannies and grumpy stick thin old men are always the most kick ass in the movies, with angry rail thin bruce lee-types a close second, Not hulking six and a half foot mountains of muscle. From what little experiance i've had of martial arts this is true in real life as well, it's much more important where and how and how fast you hit than the size of your muscles.

[Ramza00]

Monk 1 or Monk 2/Rest Psychic Warrior with Monastic Training and Tashalatora. It is balanced, it is flavorful, and you can make any monk to fit your theme/fighting style.

Only way to improve this is to add some more feats/unique psychic powers. Add another feat to stack your psychic warrior levels with monk for stunning fist.

Also a unique power that gives a boost to your unarmed damage similar to claws of the beast.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I don't know about making monks as tanktastic as Barbs in regards to hp, the rest sounds good for the role of front liner though.

[mostlyharmful]

I don't know about making monks as tanktastic as Barbs in regards to hp, the rest sounds good for the role of front liner though.

they still wouldn't be, no damage reduction and no bonus to con since no rage and since the barb is focused on str then con likely theyed still have a larger con mod when all the scores are in since the monk will still want wis then dex then con

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I agree that a monk should only have to focus on Wis, Dex, and Con in whatever order. All boost saves which fits in with the caster killer concept. However, all good saves, possible full BAB AND d12 hit die? Scary. Personally I think that being highly mobile would make it more likely that the HD would drop to d6 or something.

[lord_khaine]

i disagree, being a monk is also about physical perfection, str is also a important stat.

really, if i should make a monk fix i would allow them to use light armor like a swordsage, and call it a day.

[mostlyharmful]

I agree that a monk should only have to focus on Wis, Dex, and Con in whatever order. All boost saves which fits in with the caster killer concept. However, all good saves, possible full BAB AND d12 hit die? Scary. Personally I think that being highly mobile would make it more likely that the HD would drop to d6 or something.

if we're looking at the monk as the "bouncing around the place at high speeds and occasionally hiding" model, then d6 or d8 seem fine but in that case we'd need to fundamentally rebuild the class, all it's feats, bonuses and class abilities since it can't do the job it seems to be built for ie combat. If on the other hand as i think the monk should go then we have the image of a frount line combatant which doesn't wear armour and uses only a quaterstaff or no weapon at all. In that case the d6 doesn't seem a good idea, if he's getting his teeth kicked in every day for twenty years as training and then goes out and slugs it out with minotaurs and ogres the d12 seems more reasonable.

[Fenix_of_Doom]

I always thought it made little sense to have the strengh beimportant for a monk, little wisened old grannies and grumpy stick thin old men are always the most kick ass in the movies, with angry rail thin bruce lee-types a close second, Not hulking six and a half foot mountains of muscle. From what little experiance i've had of martial arts this is true in real life as well, it's much more important where and how and how fast you hit than the size of your muscles.

There is still a difference in "dex and wis should be more important then strength" and "Strength is no longer needed" with wis to attack and hit you could play a monk with 3 strength.
And sure where and how you hit is important but muscle size and capacity are also important for any martial artist.

[Stam]

I think, realistically, there are far too many different monastic styles for them all to be crammed into one single class - even if you're going to give a dozen different alternate class features.

In order to do it properly, you'd have to do something along the idea of the variant monastic styles, but on a much more fundamental level.

Just by way of example...Tai Chi vs. some of the chinese techniques that can take blows from bats/bricks. Judo vs. Tai Kwon Do. Extremely different styles that can't all be emulated by any one class.

[mostlyharmful]

There is still a difference in "dex and wis should be more important then strength" and "Strength is no longer needed" with wis to attack and hit you could play a monk with 3 strength.
And sure where and how you hit is important but muscle size and capacity are also important for any martial artist.

Yeah, little old lady with a waling stick, that can shatter bones because she can channel her spiritual life force with perfect precision. Oh and a monk with strengh three wouldn't be able to walk around or carry their own cloathing as a light load so they would need at least some strengh, for jumping and swimming and carrying a pack if nothing else.

[Mojo_Rat]

The problem with some of the suggestions being made is that you run into the issue of the class suddenly not functioning by all the same mechanics as other characters.

this is how it was in1st edition. you didnt get any benefit from strength or dexterity. But you got the inflated unarmed weapon damage assuming you made it past the early levels Etc.

Also while I see the Idea Benefit of making monks be able to do the 'flurry' as a standard action You run into a problem again in that your shifting away from the asic mechanics of the game. You then End up with ....

1) every barbarian choosing the pounce option. 2) monks havng this 'flurry as a standard ability' option and 3) fighters still charging in and hitting once.

It seems to me you might as well just make a house rule saying everyone can use all their iterative attacks s a standard action. I don't know making such a fundimental change is good though.

However the 'full attack as a standard actionw hen flurrying' option isnt that bad an Idea i just wanted to try and put it in perspective with the main game mechanics

lastly ive never actually seen anyone use that barbarian option in my Rl game but that seemed to be the trend everone is trying to go for when this stuff is discussed on here or the wizards forums.

[Ne0]

I think Skjaldbakka's solutions are the best so far.
Some other suggestions:
- Allow monks to use non-magical, light armor without losing their bonuses.
- I like to think about the monk as some battle strategy expert, i.e, very good at grapples, trips, and disarms. If you drop strength for other stats, however, it becomes hard to grapple, and with unarmed strikes or the specialised monk weapons - that are usually one-handed -, you always have a disarming penalty. That's why I'd suggest a skill that allows you to add your wisdom bonus to disarm attempts, and replace your strength bonus/penalty with it. It'd make the Improved trip/grapple/disarm skills more used by monks.

[shadowdemon_lord]

6 skill points, d12 HD, full saves, dosen't have to be lawful, full BAB, dosen't need to spend cash on weapons or armor. You've made a melee god, that's also a skill monkey. Oh, and no ones said you don't gain strength to damage and to hit, so your modifiers in that area should be higher then anything any other class could hope to ever achieve, your HP's will match the unraging barbarian, your saves will out strip everyone but a very well built paladin, and you've got equivalent skills of a ranger or bard. The only thing your missing far as I can tell is UMD to really be the ultimate over powered jack of all trades (which can probably be picked up on your class list with a feat depending on which books your using). While your armor class wouldn't be that super, you'd hardly need it with a D12 HD. Also, if you invest sufficiently in protective items (amulets of natural armor, ring's of protection, bracers of armor) your AC will not suck.

[mostlyharmful]

6 skill points, d12 HD, full saves, dosen't have to be lawful, full BAB, dosen't need to spend cash on weapons or armor. You've made a melee god, that's also a skill monkey. Oh, and no ones said you don't gain strength to damage and to hit, so your modifiers in that area should be higher then anything any other class could hope to ever achieve, your HP's will match the unraging barbarian, your saves will out strip everyone but a very well built paladin, and you've got equivalent skills of a ranger or bard. The only thing your missing far as I can tell is UMD to really be the ultimate over powered jack of all trades (which can probably be picked up on your class list with a feat depending on which books your using). While your armor class wouldn't be that super, you'd hardly need it with a D12 HD. Also, if you invest sufficiently in protective items (amulets of natural armor, ring's of protection, bracers of armor) your AC will not suck.

I was envisaging a choice of wis or str in combat and this sort of build would be combat focused so it would stay at 4+int, and even after that I'd still not have the damage output of a barb (or a barbs damage soaking) or the ac of a fighter or the sneakiness of a rouge or ranger. plus if you don't use a weapon or armour your damage output is less (light weapon with no +x), you can't get around most DR, you don't get any of the funky weapon or armour bonus abilities and your AC bonus from wis+dex still probably isn't up to a full plate set, certainly not a full plate set+ heavy shield. After that if you invest in protective items you're paying more per ac boost than conventional armour + anyone else can have conventional armour and AC boosters, you're using up body slots and not investing in attribute bonusses.

[triforcel]

Whether or not you think the monk needs improving it up to you, but some of these suggestions seem a bit out of hand.

Full BAB- If you go this route you need to change how flurry of blows works because the monk will end up with six attacks a round, three of which will be at 20+ to hit.

d12 HD- This is too much. If you really need more hit points for the monk then increase it to a d10 and no higher. The focus of a monk's defensive capabilities should always be to not be hit at all rather than be able to take more hits.

Allowing Light Armor- I don't really see the need for it, any light armor you can take can be easily simulated with the monk's wisdom bonus and eventual AC bonus.

Ki Pool- While an interesting idea, I don't like using it for quivering palm since everyone will forgo the abundant step and wholeness of body actions just to have more death attacks.

More skill points- Honestly, I can't see the need for it. Four to six points per level should be plenty for the monk to buy the skills he needs.

Removing alignment restrictions- This is just ridiculous. If you really want to make a chaotic monk that badly, I remember seeing a prestige class somewhere that was called Monk of the Crooked Path, or something to that effect.

Finally, I honestly don't feel the monk need all of this to be a good class. If you want to be better in certain areas, take a look at the Oriental Adventures and Sword and Fist books, they're 3.0 but they have some good and interesting options for monks that I haven't seen translated into 3.5.

On a slightly off topic note.

I always thought it made little sense to have the strengh beimportant for a monk, little wisened old grannies and grumpy stick thin old men are always the most kick ass in the movies, with angry rail thin bruce lee-types a close second

Bruce Lee may not have been the largest man in the world, but he could hardly be described as "rail thin". The man trained his body non-stop and was as muscular and defined as you could get without using steroids.

[Deadmeat.GW]

I would add Wis as a standard bonus to BAB (up to their normal BAB), keep secundary BAB, built a series of feat trees in the style of the ranger but spread out over the whole of the career with a feat or ability every 3 levels to represent different types of martial artists.

Keep movement, special abilities and saves as is, get 6 instead of 4 skill points and scale unarmed damage to a different system. Edit: And keep hp as is, the feat trees will account for the more beefy monk types.

lvl 1 to 5 1d6 19/20 x2
lvl 6 to 10 2d6 19/20 x2 Count as magical attacks
lvl 11 to 15 2d6 19/20 x3 Count as magical and bypasses other damage reduction on successfull will save of DC 35
lvl 16 to 20 3d6 19/20 x3 As above but can bypass intangibility on a successfull will save of DC 40

Any other increase to damage would depend on the feat tree the player selected when he leveled.

Specific monk weapons would be able to use the count as part but not the damage, monk weapons would be put in a list and specific builds would gain access to other weapons which for them would count as monk weapons due to their training.
Gauntlets would not be monk weapons automatically, some types of monks sure but not for others, and for those that do you would add the damage of the gauntlet to their normal unarmed damage listing.

Edit: As an example, with +3 mod from wis a lvl1 monk would have an attack bonus with str 12/dex 12 of +3, at lvl2 that would be +5, lvl3 +7 and lvl4 +8 if nothing changes stat wise. Making a monk more likely to hit then a fighter in some cases but less damaging overall by a small margin.

At lvl 5 this generic monk would have a to hit bonus of +9 at least, doing 1d6 +1 damage with a 19 to 20 crit range.

[deadseashoals]

I think, realistically, there are far too many different monastic styles for them all to be crammed into one single class - even if you're going to give a dozen different alternate class features.

In order to do it properly, you'd have to do something along the idea of the variant monastic styles, but on a much more fundamental level.

Just by way of example...Tai Chi vs. some of the chinese techniques that can take blows from bats/bricks. Judo vs. Tai Kwon Do. Extremely different styles that can't all be emulated by any one class.

I second this - it would also solve the problem of every monk being more or less the same at any given level.

I also don't think giving d12 HD and full BAB is the answer. It would power up the monk, but it would do so in a way that would cause the monk to lose flavor. IMO, the monk isn't supposed to be a "stand there and smash face" beater, it's supposed to be a skirmisher and a caster killer. Without adding in a dozen different styles, here's some of the things I might give the monk:

* Some way of ignoring damage reduction and hardness, maybe a Concentration check (think martial artists smashing cinder blocks with their bare hands)
* A limited true seeing, perhaps as a swift action a certain number of times per day
* Allow abundant step to be used as a swift action, give it more uses per day, and make it not based on dimension door (so you can act afterwards)
* Allow flurry to be used as a standard action
* Add more options for channeling Stunning Fist
* Give them some circumstantial ways to increase attack bonus (like +4 on flanking instead of +2, the Elocater's Opportunistic Strike ability, etc.) as opposed to something that's on all the time like full BAB
* "Striking gloves" for enhancement bonuses and weapon abilities on unarmed strikes
* Additional bonuses on the combat maneuvers they choose (Improved Trip, Improved Grapple, Improved Disarm) - without these, the Barbarian is still by far the superior option for these things
* Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge
* Mettle
* Faster scaling of the AC bonus
* 6 + Int skills per level

[Hadrian_Emrys]

@Stam: Ah, but that's the beauty of it. If the monk is redone in such a way as to be the avatar of generic martial arts concepts as well as filling in the roles wanted from the class... PrCs can be made that specialize one way or another to resemble certain fighting styles. After all, a new class needs new PrCs right?

[CthulhuM]

Someone in the homebrew forum made a monk fix which I'm rather fond of, and which seems to do most of the things you 're looking to accomplish.

Basically, they took all of the monk's incredibly random abilities, plus a number of their own creation, and made them selectable as techniques (gained every other level), which are mostly activated using a ninja-esque ki pool. These techniques scale up in power as the monk gains levels, and by level 10 are quite strong (save or lose effects, etc.).

The balance to all this is that the monk can usually only use one of these abilities in a given turn, and it remains a relatively weak straight melee class. All together, it makes the monk into a versatile toolbox character, and actually an useful member of the party, without stepping on the fighter or barbarian's toes.

[Khanderas]

Yeah, little old lady with a waling stick, that can shatter bones because she can channel her spiritual life force with perfect precision. Oh and a monk with strengh three wouldn't be able to walk around or carry their own cloathing as a light load so they would need at least some strengh, for jumping and swimming and carrying a pack if nothing else.

Use the positive WIS modifier for to-hit and damage, ignore STR unless it has a negative modifier ? Just thinking out loud. That way a player is encouraged to keep atleast a 10 STR.
Wording being something like "A monk may apply his WIS bonus to attacks and damage instead of STR bonus (a STR penalty cannot be ignored however)."

[mostlyharmful]

Use the positive WIS modifier for to-hit and damage, ignore STR unless it has a negative modifier ? Just thinking out loud. That way a player is encouraged to keep atleast a 10 STR.
Wording being something like "A monk may apply his WIS bonus to attacks and damage instead of STR bonus (a STR penalty cannot be ignored however)."

perfect, thanks I'll add that to my homebrew if you don't mind.

[Telonius]

1. What's bad about the class? MAD, no combat niche, not functioning as advertised in combat (i.e. battlefield controller/caster killer), too expensive.

2. What do I want to see in it? A combat niche, less MAD. The fluff is fine as is.

As to how I'd achieve that...
- Enchantable fists. I don't care how you do it - magic wraps, brass knuckles, ki-focusing ceremony, gauntlet proficiency, whatever. It needs to happen.
- Less of a reliance on WIS. Get rid of the WIS-to-AC bonus, and amp up the standard Monk AC bonus to 1/3 level. (Note that this may require the Monk's Belt to be re-worked, or at least re-priced). Keep the Wis-to-Stunning Fist; it'll be similar to Charisma for Clerics: nice to have for some special abilities, but not character-breaking if you don't have it.
- Monks, and Monks only, ought to be able to treat their unarmed strikes as a two-handed weapon for purposes of Power Attack, Trip, and Disarm attempts. This ought to be around 5th or thereabouts, to prevent dipping for it.
- As far as caster-killer goes ... well, at least that one isn't the Monk's fault. Tone down casters, but that's a topic for another thread.

3. What other questions should be asked about the class?
- Would it make more sense for the iconic "monk abilities" to be condensed and repackaged into a PrC for Fighter?