Liam ap Thalwig's page

Yet a kama does 1d6/20/x2. Wouldn't 1d4/20/x4 be more interesting? And give you a reason to use one?

Why should this be more interesting?? Let's look at the average damage (ignoring that threats have to be confirmed, which would lower the average damage of the suggested kama stats even further):

Factoring in damage bonuses, say +b, results in:
Kama as written: (3.5+b)x21/20
Kama as suggested: (2.5+b)x23/20

Calculating the break even point for b:
(3.5+b)x21 = (2.5+b)x23
=> 2 x b = 3.5 x 21 - 2.5 x 23 = 16
=> b = 8

So, for a damage bonus (from strength or enchantments) of +8 or more the suggested kama is as good or better than the kama as written (again, not taking into account that threats have to be confirmed, raising the break even point for b even higher, depending on AC).

Critical hits might become relevant for weapons with wide threat ranges when doubling them, for anything else, they are just irrelevant.

So I'll gladly stick with the kama as written.

IMHO the monk has an excellent skill selection fitting my view of a monk very well.

Mantis Style (+2 DC) and Mantis Wisdom (+2 to hit) to improve your chances of succeeding with a Stunning fist attempt.

Throw shuriken when you drop your last foe but still have attacks left in your flurry but no foe is reachable by a 5 ft step (or if you already used your 5 ft step).

Throw shuriken at the spellcaster whose bodyguards are keeping you from getting up to him.
Hitting a spellcaster with a shuriken while he is busy casting a 1 round spell like Summon Monster would give a nice penalty on his concentration roll even with the low damage of shuriken.

Note that while shuriken might not have a large damage die, they are thrown weapons which means strength adds to damage and you might even take Point-Blank Shot for +1/+1 (which will almost always apply to your typical shuriken range) or even Deadly Aim (although the latter would be only useful against low AC enemies).

Jodokai wrote:

Gignere wrote:

So I don't see where it takes 2 or 3 classes to replace the monk, a ranger can do everything a monk can and brings a literal pony.

So being psychic enough to have exactly the right spell at the time you need it once a day is equal to being able to do it 12 times per day...

And a Ranger's mobility isn't even on the same planet as the monk's.

Being able to pull out a wand for the situation you need is always nice...longstrider has a long duration so it isn't unreasonable to cast it on yourself preemptively. Same as a wizard that casts Mage Armor.

But where do all these wands come from? Not everyone plays in a world with magic shops.

Longstrider is a nice spell but even for a ranger of level 9 it only lasts 5 hours. And let's not forget that a ranger wearing medium armor has a movement of 20.

Don't get me wrong: I think the ranger is a great class and has some great spells. I just don't like it when the monk is made worse than he is (and I do agree that he needs a little love, but I think that a little love at the right spots would be fine).

Just chucking it out there. I think you should have to pay some kind of penalty for moving more than 5' in a full attack, but the monk is meant to be mobile, so...

Pay 1 ki point per 5-ft step? Or per round using that feature?

I'd like to gather the ideas tossed around in several threads about expanding the monks 's pool in a separate thread (this one).

Let me start by tossing around the following suggestions:

Expanding the ki pool:
- ki pool is monk level + Wis modifier
- Scaling feats and vows: Extra ki gives +4 ki points; favored class bonus gives 1/2 ki per level; vows give double the ki

More options to spend 1 ki point as a swift action (might be gained at higher levels only):
- insight bonus to attack for one round (+2)
- insight bonus to damage for one round (+2)
- bonus of +4 to the monk's DR for one round
- bonus of +4 to the monk's Will saves for one round
- (level 13+) SR+4 for one round
- (level 8) make an additional 5 foot step this round
- (level 12) make two additional 5 foot steps this round for 2 points of ki (not stackable with the power gained at level 8, of course, as both are alternative swift actions)

More options to spend more ki per round:
- wholeness of body: heal more hp by spending more ki; heal as a swift action by spending one additional ki point
- abundant step: increase range by spending additional ki; take someone with you by spending more ki (this might not be fitting for an inward directed power like ki, though); either make it a real move action (not ending your turn) or allow spending 1 extra ki for that

Other options to spend ki:
- at the beginning of combat spend 1 ki for +4 on initiative
- spend 1 ki on a successful stunning fist attack to increase the DC by +2; same for punishing kick
- protect against scrying for 1 day (or whatever) for 4 ki points

Liam ap Thalwig wrote:

Whipping out the bow = move action, so a standard action remains for firing one or two arrows, maybe three (Rapid Fire, Manyshot).

Quickdraw is a fighter bonus feat that any switch-hitter should take. Just saying.

Poor monk. Always compared to the damage optimized two-handed weapon fighter, the specialized unarmed fighter, the specialized maneuver fighter, the switch-hitter, the rogue (scouting/skills), casters and many more AT ONCE. Of course he can't beat all these specific builds. Funny that it takes so many different adversaries to take up the monk...

Don't misunderstand me: the monk should get some improvements, I agree on that. But don't make him worse than he is.

No, he can whip his bow out and fill the guys back with arrows exerting himself a lot less in the process.

Whipping out the bow = move action, so a standard action remains for firing one or two arrows, maybe three (Rapid Fire, Manyshot). This might be enough to stop the running guy if the fighter is an archer built but in general he won't be (and comparing the monk against specialized fighter builds depending on what aspect of the monk we are looking at is plain wrong). In rooms and corridors even this might not be sufficient as the running guy has already turned a corner.

...and as stated, the defences/immunities are not much use if they do not come up. On the flip side, having to hit your enemy always comes up.

For me the defenses, saving throws and immunities are important points for the monk. I don't mind a reduction in DPR for that. Otherwise I'd play a fighter, not a monk.

Instead of making the monk deal more damage (I think the monk's unarmed damage is quite sufficient; maybe with the option of using Wis for dmg bonuses) I'd support the idea of improving the monk's hitting chance and go the route of special things like Stunning Fist, Punishing Kick and combat maneuvers.

And emphasize the mobility (short flurry ideas and similar; Abundant Step as move action) and ki in general.

Although 3.0 was the first D&D to specifically assume this, the sad fact of the matter is that without a magic weapon by 4th-5th level, your fighter is having problems (DR/magic being so common). Without enhanced protection he soon starts getting stomped into the ground on a regular basis.

The casters don't suffer so directly, especially as they can have 'make your own' options to exploit. Of course you can replace the magic items with buffs, but the casters will run out of spells a lot faster than otherwise if they do this.

I don't see the need to have a specific weapon to overcome invulnerabilities as unbalancing.

Assuming enhanced protection for everybody (or not) again just changes the effective CR of the monsters. It does not unbalance the classes with respect to each other.

As CR are just some heuristic which might or might not fit your party and I generally prefer the characters to decide whether to take on some foes or whether to stick their noses into some part of the campaign world instead of the GM adapting the campaign world around the characters to fit their level (i.e. just have them encounters with "allowed" CRs).

Monks can make decent scouts, it is true. But like everything else they do they are easily surpassed by the rogue, and they struggle to be competent at it unless they nerf themselves elsewhere.

No need for nerfing: the monk just needs to put skill points into Stealth and maybe Climbing. It is a class skill, due to MAD he will probably have good Dex and he is wearing no armor which would give penalties.

True, the rogue is better and he can detect those pesky traps and open locks but the best solution is having the rogue and the monk go scouting together: this raises the rogues chance of survival considerably if he happens to get detected as the monk probably fights better than the rogue and will provide the rogue with flanking opportunities to get those sneak attacks in.

Or maybe some guards have to be dispatched silently. Too many for the rogue alone but the fighter won't be able to approach silently so he can't help. Enter the monk.

Currently there are several good threads around discussing the monks weaknesses and really nice monk redesigns. One often mentioned weakness is the monks disadvantage at hitting foes compared to the fighter. While I think that these arguments are valid, I'm wondering how the monk compares to the fighter when not concentrating on this aspect.

In various threads there have been made quite valid comparisons of the monk to the ranger and paladin, too, which I won't touch here, though.

For doing the comparison I'd like to try to match features of the fighter with features of the monk which are similar in purpose or power (up to level 20).

Ok, let's try:

HD: fighter has +1 hp per level which is approximately worth a feat (Toughness).
Skills: monk has +2 ranks per level, so he can select the hp as favored class bonus to cancel out the HD advantage and is still 1 rank per level ahead (assuming the character is not built to maximize hp).
=> monk +1 rank per level if not built to maximize hp

BAB: monk has full BAB for flurry and CMB but only 3/4 BAB for standard actions and CMD. Standard actions are not much of a problem in my eyes, because usually that's just one single attack (the first) when connecting with the foe and the monk can easily choose a maneuver for that, e.g. trip, disarm or grapple. Reduced BAB means that monk may qualify for some feats later or cannot use them as effectively
=> monk effectively behind on CMD and BAB based feat selection

Saves: monk has two more good saves

Attributes: monk has MAD but then every attribute counts for something, so he gets something back. Many moderate attributes even give a higher total of modifiers than one or two high attributes (when built with points). So the fighter can better concentrate on one thing (hitting and damage), but the monk will have much higher acrobatics, perception, sense motive and stealth values (skill ranks + more attribute bonuses).

Bonus feats: fighter gets 11 bonus feats, monk gets 6, so fighter is 5 feats ahead. Both are restricted in their choice, the monk even more, but there are enough nice feats to be chosen from, so that this should not be a problem.

Class features:
- bravery: fighter gets +5 on fear saves only. Monk has good will save, so will be +6 ahead on will saves in general and +1 on fear saves (not counting still mind which gives another +2).
- armor training: fighter can apply Dex bonuses to AC although wearing armor, monk will get Wis bonus to armor and +5 AC bonus. Fighter may wear armor and shield for up to +12 to AC (+ magical bonuses up to +10) whereas monk will get Wis bonus +5 (Wis enhancements apply). If monk wears bracers of armor he should have competitive AC while having vastly better touch AC.
- armor mastery: fighter gets DR 5/- if using armorer shield, whereas monk gets DR 10/chaotic which is even better (or do chaotic creatures count as chaotic aligned weapons at high enough HD?)
- weapon training: fighter gets +4/+4 on his favored weapon group and less on others. This I would rate to be equal to about 6 feats.

From bonus feats and (fighter) class features looked at the fighter has an advantage of about 11 feats. The rest was about comparable.

Let's see whether the monk's class features are worth 11 feats:
- flurry of blows: about 3 feats (the 3 TWF feats, although there are differences and the monk does not qualify to feats based on TWF feats, but then he didn't have to qualify for the TWF feats either)
- stunning fist, unarmed strike (2 feats)
- evasion, improved evasion (at least 1 feat, probably 2)
- diamond body, abundant step, empty body: very cool features (3 feats)
- ki swift actions (extra attack, +20 ft movement, +4 AC) (at least 1-2 feats)
- extra movement (at least 2 feats, heck there is a feat to get a paltry +5 move)
stopping here I already count at least 12-14 feats which is more than the 11 feats the fighter was ahead and the monk still has features left (High jump, Wholeness of body, Immunity to diseases, moderate spell resistance, quivering palm, slow fall and others)

Special fighter feats: only fighters have access to the weapon specialization feats giving large bonuses to hit and damage.

Summary: if you want to build a character maximizing combat damage then play a fighter (nothing new here) but if you are happy with moderate combat damage then you can play a monk and it is as powerful as the fighter (feat and feature wise). He might not be able to the BBEG but someone has to do something about his minions, too, right? And then there is not only fighting but scouting and social interaction (Cha might not be high, but Wis helps there, too).

Did I miss something stupid? Is the hitting weakness a crippling one which cannot be canceled by other features?
Comments welcome.