I'm running Age of Worms and I have a player who is playing a straight Monk and is complaining that he constantly feels ineffective. I'm currently upto Gathering of Winds and they've just fought the dragon. Has anyone else had the same problems?
He feels that in single encounters with a high CR creature he either can't hit it or does pitiful damage. Any suggestions?
Monks are a fun class, but if he's playing him as a straight-up fighter, your player is going to be disappointed. Raw damage output isn't a monk's forte (though its better 12+), its the rest of the stuff they can do. A monks' BAB is only as good as a cleric, and w/o the built in magical buffs to stomp that up. If he wants raw damage output, someone needs to Enlarge him.
Another weakness (in AoW specifically) would be the Stunning Attack, as its useless against undead. Best find some feats that trade that in for a different effect, or just go the Improved Grapple route. Get someone to give your monk some natural armor (+5) and he can hold those pesky Spawn and crush them (Grapple's really effective on Medium creatures). Improved Tripping undead forces them to stand (allowing you to AoO them, and usually trip them again), and thrown worms are missile weapons (and thus deflectable).
Monks can be quite versatile, but they favor a certain play style. Of course, it also depends on the other players. If the other players never buff the monk in favor of shining in their own limelight, well, that's a social contract issue.
I'll reiterate what Stonegod has said. A monk can be a great character, but not in the way most people expect. A monk needs to play for tactical advantage, not raw damage output. It's a little unfortunate, because the class seems to attract players who have a difficult time understanding how to create tactical advantages. Especially with relatively new players, they want to create a Bruce Lee bad ass who can kick the crap out of anything, but the monk just isn't built for that.
Between stunning attacks, tripping, great mobility, deflect arrows, and great saves, monks are superb for moving around the battlefield and picking off weak links in the opposition. But encounters with a single high CR foe are precisely where monks have the most difficult time. In these cases, it will sometimes be better to forego your own offense and work to help out the heavy hitters, by setting up flanking attacks, using things like tanglefoot bags, or using the "Aid Another" action.
Another point is that an interesting battlefield, with things like balconies, columns, giant chandeliers to drop on foes, chasms to jump over, etc., give the monk more opportunity to shine. If every battle is in a 20'x20' bare room, the monk will begin to feel left out.
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Good advice all round. Monks are not kings of the ring, but are still excellent combatants. Some feats to help make the monk more versatile and harder hitting are versatile unarmed strike (you can do slashing, piercing and bludgeoning damage) to overcome those pesky damage type DR's, and improved natural attack to increase the unarmed damage dice by one size category. Complete warrior has a few more feat choices that might be fun to play with, but I know monks have precious few feats to allocate.
I have a battle dancer (from the Dragon Compendium) in my group. Thematically similar to the monk, but still different. I have had to alter a few encounters to play to her style.
One thing you can do is alter a few encounters to enable a monk to use their mobility. Between their speed and a good tumble skill, a monk can go straight for a leader/spellcaster.
A couple of feats can also up their damage output. Versatile Unarmed strike (change unarmed damage type from bludgeoning to slashing or piercing) or Fiery Fist (which adds fire damage to unarmed strikes) might be good options for the character. There are also a few feats that give alternate use for Stunning Fist.
I have in the past allowed monks to get "brass knuckles" (essentially guantlets) that can be enhanced as weapons to augment their unarmed damage. I have only allowed this in games where the party makeup has forced the monk to be the primary tank. So consider carefully before doing so.
You could also add a magical "monk weapon" to give them some additional options in combat.
I play a straight monk in our AoW campaign. Our party is presently delving in the Spire of Long Shadows. Lina is, so far, the only original member of our group who has not perished through the entire course of the campaign.
A monk can easily be played to good effect in the AoW. As a few others have said, the monk is a very tactical creature, and there are ways to make her more effective. Definitely take advantage of party magic users or clerics ability to buff the monk!
We also have been able to include Weapons of Legacy in our campaign, and my monk has been "crafting" her very own WoL that provides her with abilities to help make up for deficencies. I'm also saving my gold pieces in order to have a vrey high level "greater magic fang" with "permanency" cast on her open hand ... she will smack hard for sure then ... almost as well as our main fighter!
I would say that one feat that has helped my monk out has been "spring attack". With the monkish ability of enhanced natural movement, you can move in and out of close combat and slowly whittle the bad guys down, and they cannot touch you! It doesn't always have to be a "stand your ground slug-fest"! I have also invested in a "ring of freedom of movement" ... this allows my monk to move around completely unhindered.
My monk also focused on "hide in shadows" and "move silent" ... she is even more sneaky than our groups' rogue! A most perfect scout. Lina doesn't deal phenomenal damage during combat (yet), but she can sure help the party from being ambushed! She also has "improved disarm" ... coupled with "spring attack", she can move in, take a handheld weapon away (which many of the "intelligent" undead use), and move away without being attacked.
Let's see, what else ... oh yeah ... another person made mention that at levels 12+ the monk gets much better ... believe it! At level 13, and wearing no armor (except a pair of +2 bracers and a cloak +2) my monk actually has the best AC of our group (28), especially flatfooted (24), and touch (25), and practically the best saves. I've concentrated on increasing her wisdom as she goes up in levels. Pump up the wisdom!!
Another thing that has helped my monk is that she is Lawful Evil. I'm not advocating being "evil", but the "law" portion has made her eligible for using specific items laying around through the campaign that the neutral, and especially chaotic, characters cannot take full advantage of! And actually, the "evil" portion has helped get her through some aspects of the undead encounters that are just pummeling the "good" portion of the party. However, it is very difficult to play an "evil" character.
I suspect that further on in the campaign, Lina will mostly be played as a "support" character, but even the "little guys" can help swing the tide against ultimate "Chaos and Evil"! Our party fighter keep saying he can bash me down if I get out of line ... I just tell him to try and catch me ... Mwahahahaha!!
I'm going to break ranks here and say that while it's true you have to know what you're doing and think tactically when you're playing a monk, the Age of Worms is not a campaign I'd want to play a straight-classed monk in. YMMV.
Improved Tripping undead forces them to stand (allowing you to AoO them, and usually trip them again)...
Per the FAQ, you cannot use the AoO provoked by standing up to trip an opponent, because the AoO is resolved before the action of standing up is resolved (which means the provoker is already prone when the AoO is provoked).
The dwarven monk that was (schedule forced him to quit) in my AoW game was a damage machine.
He put a good chunk of his building points into getting an 18 Strength. Then the casters in the party would boost it and Enlarge him. Any single creature encounter was pretty much hosed by his Improved Grapple feat. Grappling also allowed him to not worry about his poor AC. He took the decisive strike class feature from PH2, which allowed him to combine a flurry into one attack for double damage. He also bought a magical quarterstaff which he used as a two-handed weapon for 1-1/2 Strength damage. And then Power Attack was doubled for the two-handed weapon.
All that had the monk doing 50+ points of damage per hit, which was only 50% of the time, but was often an encounter ender.
One of the players in my AoW campaign has been playing a straight-up Monk without problem since the beginning. Couple this with the fact that I've never DMed one and he's never played one before and we've still had no complaints. Sounds to me like the expectations of your monk's player are unrealistic. Without being condescending, try to encourage the player toward a different mindset. The advice offered here is excellent but even without overly-tweaking the monk class (we play strictly with core books), the monk can be a great, interesting, and useful member of the adventuring party. Our monk has had plenty of opportunities to shine in AoW (especially with the complex terrain where most BBEGs lurk) but his player recognizes that his character is not the tank of the group. A monk's mobility and guerrilla tactics are what makes him so effective. Tell your player to stop trying to be something the monk was never intended to be!
Lady Aurora speaks true ... monks are not tanks! Monks are more like tomahawk missiles. Think stealth, mobility, and guerrilla tactics! With monks it's all about finesse, not brute strength. Give me a wise and experienced monk over an intelligent wizard or muscle-bound fighter any day!
Let me add something of interest from the Rules of the Game page
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050301a
"If you win the opposed check, you deal unarmed strike damage to your foe (1d3 points of nonlethal damage for most Medium characters) and you have your foe in your grasp."
unless you are a monk...
"Once you establish a hold on a foe (by grabbing that foe and then winning the ensuing opposed grapple check) you can keep holding on by moving into the foe's space."
you CAN keep holding not must.
so with improved grab, that could turn all monk attacks into touch attacks plus a grapple check at +4.
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so you see how complicated a simple Monk can get with 1 rule.
I would only recomend a monk if you have 5 or more players. Monks are fun but they sadly do not fit the needed roles in a small party.
The Spawn of Kyuss really screw over a lot of classes!
The monk is the worst. He can't stun undead, as you mentioned, and any time he strikes a Spawn he has 1d4 worms latch onto him. Even if we're polite and assume they don't burrow until after the monk's next turn, this still punishes monks. A smart player would cover his arms and legs with special, silver-coated bindings; perhaps expensive cloth with silver embroidery.
Rogues can't sneak attack them. Wizards suffer the most from Intelligence loss. Clerics end up spending all their actions saving people from worms instead of fighting undead like they're meant to. Fighters and barbarians have a low enough Int without all these worms, and their massive hit points are no defence against Intelligence damage.
In other words, it's a fantastic opponent!
In other words, it's a fantastic opponent!
Hear, hear!
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Sorry Xuttah, since unarmed strikes aren't "natural attacks", the Improved Natural Attack feat from the Monster Manual won't help most monks.
Other than that, I see some great advice here.
Well, if you buy the D&D FAQ, it actually does help them. But I ignore that part of the FAQ in home games, along with some other silly rulings (like detect magic breaking invisibility).
One of my players played a single-class monk and was incredibly damaging by the end, not to mention ridiculously hard to hit. By 18+ level, he was out-damaging the barbarian.
Oh, I whole-heartedly agree with what Johnathan Drain says! Kyuss creatures are most formidable opponents!! All classes of characters need to play carefully. But that's what makes it all so much fun!
So far my monk has been the only one to be initially infected with a worm ... almost went the way of Kyuss. But our party cleric was able to dig the worm out with his dagger ... and I dare say he enjoyed it far too much!! Lina was pleased to watch him die a most horrible death in the Spire of Long Shadows ... he recieved his just desserts! But of course, we resurrected him, and he has been much more subdued since meeting his diety face to face! Mwahahahaha!
Sorry Xuttah, since unarmed strikes aren't "natural attacks", the Improved Natural Attack feat from the Monster Manual won't help most monks.
The 3.5 FAQ says:
Can a monk take Improved Natural Attack (Monster Manual, page 304) to improve his unarmed strike?
Yes. As stated on page 41 of the Player’s Handbook, a monk’s unarmed strike “is treated as both a manufactured weapon and a natural weapon for the purpose of spells and effects that enhance or improve either” which includes feats such as Improved Natural Attack.
On this adventure path, those worms actually make the Heal skill worth taking maximum ranks in. Until you have +19 or greater (say, level 12 cleric with with 18 Wis), you can still fumble a roll and waste a round trying to dig out a worm.
One of my players played a single-class monk and was incredibly damaging by the end, not to mention ridiculously hard to hit. By 18+ level, he was out-damaging the barbarian.
I find the class rather odd that way. It seems like a weaker class until around 12th+ level when it starts to become the most potent of martial classes. Its a rather unusual set up really and it blooms so late.