Monks

[Xenogears]

Well I was on another thread and whenever I mentioned the word Monk everyone acted like it was the biggest joke ever to use a monk. I asked someone to explain why monks were so bad and he said to either make a thread or search. First I searched and found that half the people out there say that the Monk is a broken incredibly powerful class and that the other half seem to think that no one should ever play a monk for any reason. And neither side feels the need to explain why they think the way they do. So now not only do I not know WHY a monk apparently sucks I no longer even know if that is a general consensus. So the point of this thread is for all of you to tell me wether or not a monk sucks and for gods sake give reasons.

[Kaihaku]

I think it depends completely on HOW you play the Monk. I've never seen a Monk who could match a well-made armed fighter-type in a slugfest, not that its impossible though, but there's no class (well, if we don't include psionics) that can match a Monk's mobility. So, for hit and run, snatch the artifact, dash in and grapple the caster...Monks are great. For stand on the front lines and hit those enemies...I've never been impressed.

That's my take on it.

[Grynning]

Have we not had a monk thread this week yet?

Ok, I'll try and run through all the reasons monks are considered a bad joke as a class as fast as I can:

1) MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency, in case ya don't know. Monks have to have 3 to 4 stats be really high (Str, Dex, Con, Wis) to be any good. That's tough to do.

2) Flurry of Blows vs. all the other monk stuff - Monks have a bunch of mobility oriented powers and available bonus feats. The problem is that FoB requires a full attack action to use, so you can't use it in any round that you move.

3) Frontline melee with 3/4 BAB, low to decent AC, and low damage. Nuff said.

4) Useless abilities like tongue of the sun and moon, Quivering Palm (once a WEEK? Really?), etc.

5) Anything that makes a monk useful at high levels also makes a commoner useful.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot the main problem:

6) Monks have no real party role. They can do a few things, but everyone else can do them better. Rogues stealth and steal better, Rangers, Fighters, Barbarians, buffed Clerics etc. hit stuff harder, casters are, well, casters and do whatever the hell they want. Monks really can't do anything to help out the party, they're just sort of along for the ride.

[Kyeudo]

It's basicly that the Monk gets a bunch of class abilities that don't work together, has all sorts of item slot conflicts between items he wants to use, and is MAD across the board.

Monk can be a useful class, but only in conjunction with another class, particularly the psionic classes. A monk dip can be incredibly useful for a psion or psychic warrior with access to Secrets of Sarlonna.

[Xenogears]

1) MAD - Multiple Attribute Dependency, in case ya don't know. Monks have to have 3 to 4 stats be really high (Str, Dex, Con, Wis) to be any good. That's tough to do.
2) Flurry of Blows vs. all the other monk stuff - Monks have a bunch of mobility oriented powers and available bonus feats. The problem is that FoB requires a full attack action to use, so you can't use it in any round that you move.
3) Frontline melee without 3/4 BAB, low to decent AC, and low, low damage. Nuff said.
4) Useless abilities like tongue of the sun and moon, Quivering Palm (once a WEEK? Really?), etc.
5) Anything that makes a monk useful at high levels also makes a commoner useful.

Okay I get the first two. The third one. Well I never thought they did low damage. By the end of it they are doing 1d20 without any alterations. Most melee weapons don't do half that. My monks usually have a fairly high AC actually... Better than any other class I've done unless I went full out on Full Plate and even then sometimes.
The fourth. Okay quivering palm is bad. Tongue of the sun and moons can help for more roleplaying scenarios. Of course a wizard can just cast tongues.
The fifth. Well. It's so vague that it is meaningless.

[Kyeudo]

Okay I get the first two. The third one. Well I never thought they did low damage. By the end of it they are doing 1d20 without any alterations. Most melee weapons don't do half that. My monks usually have a fairly high AC actually... Better than any other class I've done unless I went full out on Full Plate and even then sometimes.
The fourth. Okay quivering palm is bad. Tongue of the sun and moons can help for more roleplaying scenarios. Of course a wizard can just cast tongues.
The fifth. Well. It's so vague that it is meaningless.

Most damage doesn't come from your weapon. It comes from your strength bonus, enhancement bonus, weapon enhancements, and feats like power attack. Guess what monks don't use much? All of the above.

A monk optimized for AC can have retardedly high AC, but then he can't hit anything. The opposite is true as well. Attack optimized monks have crap AC.

His 5th point is that UMD cheese and most other worthwhile skill checks can all be performed by a commoner.

[Grynning]

On number 5, it's an example of what I said in my clarifying edit/#6.

[Kaihaku]

1d20 base damage was a lot before additional sourcebooks started coming out. Now there's a ton of material, a lot of it spells, that can boost a weapon's damage into the stratosphere and not nearly as much for unarmed attacks.

[BobVosh]

What does a monk do that isn't done better by another core class? Now what PrCs are really good...and are for monks?

[Talic]

Monk is a class created by choosing a couple esoteric spells here and there

(poison immunity, increased movement, tongues, armor spell) and turning them into a class.

The down side, the only spell you'd really want to use all the time is a 1/week spell.

Most of the monk's key abilities can be given to anyone with a few spells.

[ZekeArgo]

My monks usually have a fairly high AC actually... Better than any other class I've done unless I went full out on Full Plate and even then sometimes.

Heh, a rogue with an animated shield with +1 defending shield spikes and +1 defending armor spikes, hit with a split greater enchant weapon and magic vestment will easily surpass anyone's AC, and will have killer touch AC to boot. For even more power *and* defenses, make it a small-size swordsage .

[Grynning]

1d20 base damage was a lot before additional sourcebooks started coming out. Now there's a ton of material, a lot of it spells, that can boost a weapon's damage into the stratosphere and not nearly as much for unarmed attacks.

We're still just talking about Core, mi amigo.

Let's look at a high level monk, with say, an 18 strength (generous, since a monk usually won't be able to get it that high, but whatever).

He punches with all his might. He does 1d20+9 damage (assuming Greater Magic Weapon/Fang for a +5 enhancement bonus). Average damage is 20 or so.

Full BAB character with the same strength, and say, a Greataxe. Does 1D12+6 damage, average damage 13. Monk looks pretty good, until you remember that the full BAB character is doing this amount of damage at LEVEL ONE without power attack or any enhancements.

[Xenogears]

Okay well I can see that monks aren't great but by the reactions of other people I was expecting something worse than "they can do a bunch of things but not as good as the experts." Plus if everyone gets locked in an AMF Jail they are going to be happy for the monk then. I always figured that monks were the best class against casters actually. They have all good saves (and as was stated as a detriment they need to get most of their stats atleast marginally good) so they are likely to make almost all their saves and (although it does make them less likely to hit) they can have insane AC. So that means no ray spells either. And no I am not even going to try restarting the melee vs caster debate. Just saying that monks resist spells a lot better than rogues or fighters.

Also although they have lower BAB and STR if they do enter a grapple they will really wail on you. Especially if you use a permenant enlarge person (although it lowers your AC and DEX it offsets the low BAB when it comes to a grapple) and Empty Hand Mastery. Then you can do 3d8 damage plus Str per attack. So atleast they can Wrestle.

[Grynning]

Also although they have lower BAB and STR if they do enter a grapple they will really wail on you. Especially if you use a permenant enlarge person (although it lowers your AC and DEX it offsets the low BAB when it comes to a grapple) and Empty Hand Mastery. Then you can do 3d8 damage plus Str per attack. So atleast they can Wrestle.

Enlarge Person makes ANYONE good at grappling - and a full BAB character with the feat will still be better (Druid beats them all with wildshape). This is why people hate monk threads: those who like playing them try to find ways to make them good, and then those who know that they're terrible just start shooting them down. It kinda makes me feel like a bully

If you enjoy playing your monk, that's great. Have fun, that's the point of the game after all. Just understand that on boards where people are trying to make optimized builds, monk will rarely show up, because it is probably the least powerful class in the PhB.

[BobVosh]

If you enjoy playing your monk, that's great. Have fun, that's the point of the game after all. Just understand that on boards where people are trying to make optimized builds, monk will rarely show up, because it is probably the least powerful class in the PhB.

Unless they are trying for silly ac builds. But then they take one level of monk, and are done with it.

[Kaihaku]

All that said, I've seen some effective monks in the past, not in an arena-style fight but as part of a large party.

I've seen a dwarven monk wielding a magical quarter staff + Haste + Enlarge Person + Brambles + Great Magical Wallop + Lion's Charge + a good number of other buffs be insanely effective at killing things behind enemy lines. Earlier, it was said that any class could take on the role of a monk with the right spells and that's true enough to an extent but, in this case at least, those spells spent on mobility could be diverted to damage boosting spells. Of course, in the same campaign there was a half-elf monk who...well, was a good deal worse than anything described in this thread even when fully buffed.

It's like Grynning said, "If you enjoy playing your monk, that's great. Have fun, that's the point of the game after all." Monk is still a worthwhile class even if it's a difficult to pull off and doesn't optimize well.

[bosssmiley]

♪♫ Anything Monks can do Rogues can do better /
Rogues can do anything better than you ♫♪

What's the purpose of a D&D monk? All fluff aside he's a hit-and-run light skirmisher. The Rogue does that job better, with added trap-finding and 'public face of the party' goodness.

The monk is fun and flavourful; but even with fun prestige classes like Drunken Master, Tattooed Monk or Fist of Zuiken it's no power player's option.

[Kurald Galain]

Plus if everyone gets locked in an AMF Jail they are going to be happy for the monk then.

Which happens exactly never in most campaigns. And anyway, if you're stuck in AMF jail you're going to be happy with the rogue, because monks can't pick locks (and rogues deal more damage thanks to sneak attacks).

I always figured that monks were the best class against casters actually.

Yeah, that's what it looks like on paper. Turns out that in practice, they are completely ineffective against casters. Aside from the existence of no-save no-SR spells, note that being able to survive stuff isn't useful unless you can also do something against your enemy.

Also although they have lower BAB and STR if they do enter a grapple they will really wail on you.

The problem with grappling is that it's an ineffective tactic. The problem with grappling monks is that any full-BAB melee character makes a better grappler.

Especially if you use a permenant enlarge person

Permanent enlarge is (1) inconvenient in any town or city, (2) very inconvenient in any dungeon, and (3) taken down by a single Dispel Magic. That makes it a waste of money in actual play.

Overall, monks make for an excellent n00b filter: they have all sorts of things that look nice in the player's handbook, and are nigh useless in actual gameplay.

[Kurald Galain]

but there's no class (well, if we don't include psionics) that can match a Monk's mobility.

Sure there is. It's called Dimension Door.

So, for hit and run, snatch the artifact, dash in and grapple the caster...

You can't grapple a caster because of Freedom of Movement. Or Fly. Or Invisibility.

Well I never thought they did low damage. By the end of it they are doing 1d20 without any alterations. Most melee weapons don't do half that.

No, but most melee characters add a bunch to that because of power attack, higher strength, weapon enhancements that you can't put on your fists, favored enemies, sneak attack, and so forth. Plus they hit more often because they have better BAB.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Okay I get the first two. The third one. Well I never thought they did low damage. By the end of it they are doing 1d20 without any alterations. Most melee weapons don't do half that. My monks usually have a fairly high AC actually... Better than any other class I've done unless I went full out on Full Plate and even then sometimes.

1d20 + weak Str bonus VS 1d10 + 1.5 x huge Str bonus + massive PA. Then you factor in the fact that the monk's AB is at least 5 points lower by level 20 (more, with a lack of magic weapons and a worse Str), and the actual average damage per round is way lower.

The 1d20 is an illusion. It's never been good - not even with just the PHB. A Power Attacking Fighter with a two-handed weapon beats monk damage. (Just using the level-based difference in ABs for PA, he's dealing 1d10+10 against the Monk's 1d20, before any other bonuses. With modest Strengths of, say, 24 both, that's 1d10+20 vs. 1d20+7, or 25.5 vs. 17.5)


How high can a monk's AC get, anyway? You can easily make a WBL-legal Duelist with AC in the high 70s by level 20. I suppose a lot of the same tricks would work, admittedly (but the Swashbuckler/Fighter/Something/Duelist has the advantage of Int synergizing for damage and AC, and a bucketload of feats for stuff like Robilar's Gambit, and good magic weapons).


As for AMF... yeah, the last time I dropped my PCs in an AMF (epic-level druid and monk), against a bone ooze, the monk died first, the druid made it out alive. About half of the monk's abilities are (Su).

[Eldariel]

What's this talk about 1d20? Level 20 Monk-damage in 3.5 is 2d10...

Anyways, as has already been said, a straight Monk sucks for the mentioned reasons. However, Monk does have one redeeming quality: It's an incredible two-level dip! You get high saves, decent HD, 3 feats, evasion increased unarmed damage, Flurry of Blows, Wis to AC, etc. all from one-two levels. So Monk is even better than Fighter as a dip class.

Outside that, Monk really needs Prestige Classes to work. Sacred Fist is a great class for example - Cleric casting - 3 suddenly means the Monk is a competent combatant and Tashalatora allows any Psionic class to "multiclass" in Monk. Also, Unarmed Swordsage/Shadow Sun Ninja both kick ass, as does Shou Disciple. So the Monk itself sucks, but it can often be worth it to dip the class, get Monkish abilities combined with casting/manifesting/martial maneuvers, or going for the level 20 Unarmed Damage (because of size increases - it's the largest core damage in the game, so if you have lots of size increases available, you want to apply them to it Fist of the Forests 3+Improved Natural Attack+Enlarge Person+Empty Hand Mastery = Colossal Damage Dice). So stuff around Monk doesn't suck, it's just the Monk-class. And even it has the redeeming feature of having great two first levels (it's the remaining 18 levels that's the problem).

[JellyPooga]

I'm True Neutral on the Monk debate...

True: Monks can't stand up to any other class for sheer power (Fighters fight better, Rogues stealth better, etc.)

True: Monks have a range of abilities; they can fight better than a (non-cheesed) Wizard, they can stealth better than a Fighter and they can do weird stuff better than a (non-UMD-cheesed) Rogue

Therefore, like the Bard, they fill no particular role, but can stand in if the specialist is not around...to the powergamer/optimiser this means that Monks aren't worth playing...to anyone else it just means that they're a generalist class rather than a specialist class. Sure D&D supposedly promotes the specialist (if you think of D&D as purely about the combat), but it does not make the generalist worthless by any means...that's my opinion anyway

[Kurald Galain]

Therefore, like the Bard, they fill no particular role, but can stand in if the specialist is not around...

The differences being that (1) the bard does have a particular role, i.e. party face; and (2) the bard is actually competent in standing in for other roles.

[Eldariel]

The primary issue with that is that really, what good are they?

What good is a frontliner who can't hit the opponents? Why would the opponents care? Int 10 opponents would just walk past him after they notice he poses no danger and finish him off later.

What good is a tank who can't take hits? He has a mediocre AC and quite low HP - he'd rather not be taking hits. And yet, if he wants to fulfill one of those secondary roles of his, that's where he needs to be. If he does manage to ramp up his AC to level comparable to other classes, the above problem is compounded even further - then he's even less likely to hit (due to spending his resources on AC) and thus even more likely to be ignored.

What good is a scout who can't find traps? All good to be scouting ahead, but since he just plain is completely unable to find traps (as in, without Trapfinding, no roll is going to allow him to find them), he really can't afford to do that since if there are traps around, he is going to trigger them (nice alarm, nice animated monster, nice crashing dungeon, etc.).


So the real problem is that he's so bad at all those things that he cannot really do any of them. Bard is the opposite - he's actually good at multiple things, not to even mention how he makes the whole party more efficient. Specialists are great at what they do, generalists are supposed to be good at multiple things, but Monk is bad at multiple things. That's the primary problem.

If they could do multiple things decently, nobody would complain. I mean, nobody's complaining about the Bard either (or the Factotum for that matter). As it stands though, the problem is that they can't really do anything decently.

[Tsotha-lanti]

What's this talk about 1d20? Level 20 Monk-damage in 3.5 is 2d10...

Well, it's a bit unreasonable to expect anyone to remember specifics of a class so rarely used...

[Kaihaku]

Sure there is. It's called Dimension Door.

A Monk has Dimension Door, abet limited. A Monk also has Tumble and the highest base move in the game. So, yes, the caster with dimension door (often me) is left using standard actions to get around while the Monk has unlimited mobility. I'm a big fan of Dimension Door and Teleport and, honestly, I've never played a Monk but I have been in enough campaigns with Monks to believe that they have the best base mobility of any core class (but not a nomad psion with Inconstant Location up ). Why is it such a sour point to say that Monks are good at something? As was pointed out, they aren't good at the things that would make their mobility more useful in a broader sense.

You can't grapple a caster because of Freedom of Movement. Or Fly. Or Invisibility.

Yes and every single caster in every single campaign will always have one of those three spells up, or any number of other spells, which completely negates the possibly of a Monk EVER grappling a caster. Come on, yes, it can be countered but so can a fighter smacking something with a sword.

I don't think that Monks are the best class and I think I'm being convinced that they are the weakest base class but they are not an utterly worthless character choice.

[BobVosh]

Yes and every single caster in every single campaign will always have one of those three spells up, or any number of other spells, which completely negates the possibly of a Monk EVER grappling a caster. Come on, yes, it can be countered but so can a fighter smacking something with a sword.

I don't think that Monks are the best class and I think I'm being convinced that they are the weakest base class but they are not an utterly worthless character choice.

Dimm door can be used in a grapple. Then they cast swift fly. Or still spell and whatever they want to get away. Or abrupt jaunt (or whatever that conjuration specialist ability from PHB2 is.)

[Tsotha-lanti]

Dimm door can be used in a grapple. Then they cast swift fly. Or still spell and whatever they want to get away. Or abrupt jaunt (or whatever that conjuration specialist ability from PHB2 is.)

All essential "mobility" spells (teleport, dimension door) can be cast while grappling (with a DC 20 Concentration check), since they've got no somatic component. So can a few "win" spells, like Otto's irresistible dance and wail of the banshee.

The whole "run around and grapple the caster" idea is a bit silly, though, since the reason you have to run around is because the caster, being smart, is protected by something big and tough... that is almost certainly close enough to the caster to come over and step on you when you grapple the caster.

And wizards and other casters do a much, much better job at shutting down casters anyway. Feeblemind, any save-or-die or save-or-lose...

[Kaihaku]

Yes, we get the point that casters are awesome. I think most people who have played the game beyond level 1 know that. I also think most people have killed casters in a campaign. I know I have. I'm not arguing that casters aren't awesome because I think that casters are awesome too. I enjoy playing casters and I think that they are swell. I don't think that the fact that they are swell means that the other classes are worthless. If it did, we'd be seeing a lot more all caster parties.

Yes, Wizards can do everyone else's job better than them. See the "Why does everyone think spellcasters destroy martial classes?" for a nauseating amount of evidence to this fact. But casters have a limited amount of spells a day and a wise caster won't do things themselves that someone else in the party can do for them...often better and more efficiently with just a few buff spells. A Rogue buffed up with stealth spells is better at sneaking than a Wizard buffed up with the same stealth spells. A Monk buffed up with mobility boosting spells will be faster than a Wizard buffed up with mobility boosting spells.

It's silly to grapple a caster? It could be argued then that it's silly to grapple anyone who might have a boot of teleportation or any semi-useful magical item on them...which is practically everyone. There are counters to practically everything in this game, does that mean that a barbarian should never try to hit a monster with its axe because it might have some buff up that negates physical damage? The fact that something can possibly be countered doesn't make that action worthless or beyond consideration. Sneak Attack isn't trash because it can be negated. You don't need to point out all the spells that would allow a caster to pwn a Monk, there are a lot and it would take you a long time to list them all; just prove to me that a Monk is an utterly worthless character class that can never be useful on the basis of its class abilities.

I don't think you can because can because I've been in campaigns where Monks were useful. They may be the weakest core class but they are not worthless. I don't understand why this 'amazing caster pwns the monk in every situation ever' discussion is migrating here. Yes, a caster can counter everything a monk or any other non-caster class might do if that was their aim when they were preparing for that battle. The versatility and power of the caster classes doesn't make the Monk class worthless.

[Kurald Galain]

It's silly to grapple a caster? It could be argued then that it's silly to grapple anyone who might have a boot of teleportation or any semi-useful magical item on them...which is practically everyone. There are counters to practically everything in this game, does that mean that a barbarian should never try to hit a monster with its axe because it might have some buff up that negates physical damage?

You're missing the point, which is that "hitting things with an axe" is an effective strategy (as is "sneak attacking"), whereas "grappling things" is not. The point isn't that both can be negated - everything can be negated. The point is that one is much, much more useful in practice than the other.