I think he was making the point your using mods for the fighter while only using monks base.
Yep.
These guys aren't doing apples v apples.
Let it go, they never do, nor do games ever play out like they do in DPR land...love to see how they get a d8 to roll 4.5 though, thats a neat trick :)
Nope, thats not rolling. And if ya did that ya would round down or up as ya can't do .5 damage.
yep that I know, but why do you have a tail? You've been drinking random potions again haven't ya.
Ya recall the old school wand of wonder chart from tome of magic? Never dual with wands of wonder. Fun as hell, but gods the chaos.
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Ya recall the old school wand of wonder chart from tome of magic? Never dual with wands of wonder. Fun as hell, but gods the chaos.
A wild mage could use his Wand of Wonder to cast spells, or discharge spells to activate the Wand without using a charge, or some such nonsense. All I remember is that a wild mage in the group did such a thng, and then rolled a Wild Surge, while using the Wand.
The DM rolled three times, and hilarity ensued.
I played a wild mage in ravenloft and had the same thing happen...people are not as forgiving in ravenloft, not as forgiving at all.
yeah it's cool man your just not understanding what I am saying or maybe I am saying it poorly{more likely}
My point was pumping things up caters to the optimizer groups and not to people who do not super optimize. Simplest way I can put it.
Well, I'm looking at this from a rules perspective and "rules as written" it looks like that feat fits the monk perfectly.
If Paizo says no "because we said so" then that's the official answer, but have you actually ever given that reason to anyone and they didn't argue it?
I also don't see it breaking the bank mathwise (it's no worse than a fighter using a feat to upgrade to a Bastard Sword from a Long Sword). At higher levels the fighter is also going to have more badass magical swords to help increase his damage, what can the monk hope for? An Amulet of Mighty Fists? The average damage increase really isn't that scary, but it is worth spending a feat on.
Yeah I think am not getting whatever you are trying to say unless you are telling me my playstyle is non valid which does not really make sense given the discussion was about a measuring stick for comparative balance within a system and I have never said what my playstyle is in the discussion.WWWW
Well if your playstsyle is dependent on optimization all classes are not gonna meet your expectations and no ruleset is gonna work for you out of the box. I my not be explaining it well so i'll leave it at that.
I'm pretty sure we're doing the opposite.
When a class is mechanically terrible, it's a non-choice. Ideally, classes should be roughly near each other in power so that you CAN choose based entirely on fluff or fun reasons.
The problem with the monk is that it's just not that good of a class. I'd love to play an eastern style wushia character, but I can't do that with the monk.
When a class is bad, it saps away the fluff reasons for playing it. That's why we'd like this feat to be available - it doesn't take anything away, but it makes the monk a stronger class. Literally, it makes the monk a BETTER choice from both a mechanical and a fluff perspective. We're on your side, man :p.
As for the "you can't roll a 4.5!" nonsense, no, but you can apply basic math.
The 4.5 was a joke. I do not agree the monk is a bad class however as seeing it in play many times does not back that up, but eh to each his own.
The 4.5 was a joke. I do not agree the monk is a bad class however as seeing it in play many times does not back that up, but eh to each his own.
Same.
It doesn't read badly, and it doesn't play badly either.
Mileage varies I guess.
I think my biggest complaint is the hoops they jumped through to give it the benefits of Full BAB without giving it Full BAB. Just reads and plays bloated to me.
+1... split BAB is simply bad in my opinion and causes all sorts of confusion.
The 4.5 was a joke. I do not agree the monk is a bad class however as seeing it in play many times does not back that up, but eh to each his own.Same.
It doesn't read badly, and it doesn't play badly either.
Mileage varies I guess.
*Why should anyone take a monk? It's not a tank. It can't detect traps. It can't cast spells. It's not a skills monkey. My problem with the monk is that every time I get a detailed description of something cool that happened it is because the DM was being nice, sometimes subconsciously. I know the class can get a really high AC, and it has good saves, but that helps the monk survive not the party. I would just ignore the monk until I killed the party, assuming my NPC's were intelligent and I wamted to play with 100% lethality.
*The "why" is asking about mechanical reasons, not fluff ones.
Vital Strike and Improved Natural Attack may look like a nasty combination, but compared to what other characters can churn out regularly, it's not that awesome.
Monks and Power Attack don't go so well. Remember power attack is based on BAB, and the monk is sub-par for this. At 20th level they are getting only -4 to hit for +8 damage. Nasty ... but also consider than chances of hitting: A fighter or other combat character at this level has a +5 weapon, and a full BAB for +25 to hit before strength. Removing -6 for Power attack gives +19, against the monk's +11. If the fighter has a 95% chance of hitting, the monk has a 60% chance of hitting. Factoring this into the average damage brings it down a lot. As the AC of the target increases, the Power Attack becomes less and less useful to employ for the monk.
If you factor the monk's 3/4 BAB and general lack of magical enhancement to hit into the average damage of monk with Vital Strike and Improved Natural Attack, they start looking decidedly less impressive. For example, if you assume you are hitting a target that the fighter hit's at 95% of the time, the monk is only hitting 75% of the time or less. That 18d8 damage, 81 average, just dropped to around 60. Your greatsword-armed fighter is probably matching that easily.
In short, the monk's lower BAB always has to be factored into the equation, and this makes a considerable difference.
What he was saying is a monk @ lvl1 has a weapon that deals 1d6, this changes over time. the Fighter's weapon stays that same 2d4. They can both enhance this weapon more with other abilities. They can both boost str for better attack and damage. Monks' damage goes higher than any other weapon's for any size.
Now that that is settled, coming back to the original point. I loved the idea of INA, but was told it doesnt work like that. Accept it and move on. After thinking it over, the monk's natural attack is 1d3 (medium), his unarmed attack is 1d6 @ lvl1. So go ahead and take the feat. this will only boost that 1d3 to 1d4. This is still less than the 1d6 you get @ lvl1.
Look, the Pathfinder monk comes with the wrong flavor for some reason. Monks are priests. If you were supposed to compare their damage with that of fighters, paladins, rangers and barbarians, they would have had d10 hp and possibly full base attack normally.
Monks are supposed to be contemplative men or woman with great wisdom, who go around talking in riddles, and are sought out for advice. Go take a look at the description of the monk class in 3.5
That said, i love the new flurry :)
Im still not convinced that monks should have lost diplomacy as a class skill and gained intimidate. And i am very saddened looking back at all my 3.5 monks who were built like the current "standard" monk. Might be me being rebellious, but with monks the way they are now, im very tempted to make the quiet wise monks now.
Okay enough ranting
I appreciate what you are saying, Skull, but what role does such a monk fulfil in the adventuring party?
I have always seen the monk thematically as David Carradine's character in the old series Kung Fu: He's a very spiritual person, but has the ability to defend himself with nothing but his bare hands if need be. He relies on skill and training to achieve this, not strength or weapons.
In D&D the mechanical role the character fulfils is best summed up as 'mobile reserve' wherein he moves quickly to apply force where needed. He's defensively strong, so he can step into the the breach no matter what happens to the rest of the party.
To do this, he has to be able to actually damage any opposition. Said opposition may have at high level damage resistance, a high AC and a lot of hit points. Hence a monk cannot rely on bypassing the DR, taking any penalties to hit and inflicting less than the maximum damage they can.
Improved Natural Attack does not 'break' anything, it just keeps the monk up with the pack.
What he was saying is a monk @ lvl1 has a weapon that deals 1d6, this changes over time. the Fighter's weapon stays that same 2d4. They can both enhance this weapon more with other abilities. They can both boost str for better attack and damage. Monks' damage goes higher than any other weapon's for any size.
Base damage does not matter if the end result does give good enough results. All those extra dice are what I call blinders. They look pretty on paper, and distract you from the truth. When you get into the game, and the fighter with his 1d8 longsword is consistently out damaging you, you begin to wander what is really going on.
Base damage does not matter if the end result does give good enough results. All those extra dice are what I call blinders. They look pretty on paper, and distract you from the truth. When you get into the game, and the fighter with his 1d8 longsword is consistently out damaging you, you begin to wander what is really going on.What he was saying is a monk @ lvl1 has a weapon that deals 1d6, this changes over time. the Fighter's weapon stays that same 2d4. They can both enhance this weapon more with other abilities. They can both boost str for better attack and damage. Monks' damage goes higher than any other weapon's for any size.
Exactly. The higher BAB of the fighter allows them to rack up more damage through power attack (and other feats), and stack on damage from energy effects on their weapons, and effects like holy or bane, and from critical hits (remember the base crit of unarmed strike is 20/x2). The monk gets less benefit from power attack and it is much less beneficial for them to use it due to their BAB. With limited feats, most monks ignore it. They have very limited access to special effects on their unarmed strikes, if any. Hence the comparison of damage is fundamentally flawed if you only include the base dice.
It is true that the fighter gets less benefit out of Vital Strike than a high level monk, but then the monk is losing more attacks. In any event, all of this can be bypassed by one potion of one first-level spell: Enlarge Person. Do we rule this no longer applies to monks as well?
Base damage does not matter if the end result does give good enough results. All those extra dice are what I call blinders. They look pretty on paper, and distract you from the truth. When you get into the game, and the fighter with his 1d8 longsword is consistently out damaging you, you begin to wander what is really going on.What he was saying is a monk @ lvl1 has a weapon that deals 1d6, this changes over time. the Fighter's weapon stays that same 2d4. They can both enhance this weapon more with other abilities. They can both boost str for better attack and damage. Monks' damage goes higher than any other weapon's for any size.
Exactly. The higher BAB of the fighter allows them to rack up more damage through power attack (and other feats), and stack on damage from energy effects on their weapons, and effects like holy or bane, and from critical hits (remember the base crit of unarmed strike is 20/x2). The monk gets less benefit from power attack and it is much less beneficial for them to use it due to their BAB. With limited feats, most monks ignore it. They have very limited access to special effects on their unarmed strikes, if any. Hence the comparison of damage is fundamentally flawed if you only include the base dice.
It is true that the fighter gets less benefit out of Vital Strike than a high level monk, but then the monk is losing more attacks. In any event, all of this can be bypassed by one potion of one first-level spell: Enlarge Person. Do we rule this no longer applies to monks as well?
What is bypassed? I am sure an enlarged fighter still outdamages a large monk.
An enlarged monk should damage as well as one with Improved Natural Attack, is what I refer to. If it makes sense to deny them the one, then it makes sense to deny them the other (not that I think it does make sense, but then that's my point).
Yes, I agree the fighter should out-damage the monk regardless. Again, this is the point.
why would enlarge person not count? INA does not work as a fist, knee, headbutt, no matter how skilled is not a natural weapon. So why would enlarge have to do with anything, unless our talking about a non-humanoid monk then yes enlarge person would not work?
why would enlarge person not count? INA does not work as a fist, knee, headbutt, no matter how skilled is not a natural weapon. So why would enlarge have to do with anything, unless our talking about a non-humanoid monk then yes enlarge person would not work?
Mechanically it makes the argument of monks being unbalanced with Improved Natural Attack kind of academic, because you can achieve the same unbalanced effect with a sackful of potions of enlarge person. In terms of other ways monks can improve their damage, well there are not many, really. Power Attack does not benefit them as much and hurts them more, they can't easily enchant for extra damage, INA is about all there is.
Thematically, why are fists, knees, elbows etc. NOT natural weapons? You could rule they are or not, with probably more arguments to say they are than not, as you please.
An enlarged monk should damage as well as one with Improved Natural Attack, is what I refer to. If it makes sense to deny them the one, then it makes sense to deny them the other (not that I think it does make sense, but then that's my point).
Yes, I agree the fighter should out-damage the monk regardless. Again, this is the point.
I see what you were saying now. I agree. If the numbers, which still show the monk in a losing position, are the reason why then any way to achieve those numbers should be denied, whether its through a feat or a potion. If the feat was really that good I am sure a caster would not mind taking brew potion to make sure the "feat" was always available.
No it is not. Treated as a natural weapon and is a natural weapon are not the same thing.My point is there is a difference between a monks unarmed strike and a fighter's unarmed strike even if he buys Improved unarmed strike.
For example the spell "Magic Weapon" or "Magic Fang" will work on a monk where for a fighter only "Magic Fang" would work.
Now Improved natural attack is an effect (A permanent effect caused by a feat but still an effect) and the monks unarmed strikes are counted as natural weapons for effects that increase them.
However James has alread offically stated that in this case it will not work.
RAW: Monks unarmed attacks are not natural attacks, eventhough they might be treated as such in specific cases.
INA has the requirement of one or more natural attacks. Monky-man don't have 'em, so he doesn't get it.If the main argument is that the monk is subpar to the fighter, it makes no sense IMO to try to fix it by allowing a Improved Natural Attack. If you allow it, every monk will take it, so it is surely overpowered compared to other feat choices.
But the monk is underpowered, you say? Then raise the damage of his unarmed attacks. If you start house-ruling (and I don't mind) then there is no reason to take a feat away from them.
Thematically, why are fists, knees, elbows etc. NOT natural weapons? You could rule they are or not, with probably more arguments to say they are than not, as you please.
Well the distinction between natural attacks and unarmed attacks exists for a reason in the rules. You could ignore them, but that wouldn't really be in the monks interest, as he'd lose his advantage of counting as being armed.
Also I'd like to know how many natural attacks a humanoid is supposed to have? 2 hands, 2 kicks and 1 head butt?
Also I'd like to know how many natural attacks a humanoid is supposed to have? 2 hands, 2 kicks and 1 head butt?
...and a BODY SLAM!
Or not.