Other than because the book says so, why should monks have to be lawful. I am just looking for some opinions here. I am about to remove the restriction, but I want the opinions of people here, since sometimes you see things that I don't.
3.5 said :
A monk’s training requires strict discipline. Only
those who are lawful at heart are capable of undertaking it.
Short, but clear enough.
Other than because the book says so, why should monks have to be lawful. I am just looking for some opinions here. I am about to remove the restriction, but I want the opinions of people here, since sometimes you see things that I don't.
Monk/Barbarian.
This is the reason :)
And what Krimson said.
Because being a Monk is more than wearing silk pyjamas and hanging out at the McDojo :p
Other than because the book says so, why should monks have to be lawful. I am just looking for some opinions here. I am about to remove the restriction, but I want the opinions of people here, since sometimes you see things that I don't.Monk/Barbarian.
This is the reason :)
And what Krimson said.
This...no matter how much I want to have Flurry and Rage...they will never allow it.
There is nothing stopping you from being a Monk Barbarian. You just get you Monk to the level you want then go non lawful for alignment. You can't gain Monk levels anymore but you don't lose you powers. Then you take Barbarian the rest of the way. Then you have rage and flurry. They even have this concept published in the CoT AP.
Just keep in mind that while raging you can't use anything that takes patience or concentration. Flurry of blows doesn't so good to go there. There are only a couple high level power that require concentration and you will never get the so good to go.
What you can do is level up evenly as Monk or Barbarian.
You could do the either Barbarian first then Monk or the Opposite.
|
In the Realms, monks are able to punch through solid stone, defy aging and gravity, and other superhuman feats not through just physical conditioning (which would be impossible), but because their abilities tap into a form of psionics. Control of psionics requires intense discipline and is restricted to those select minds that adhere to a Lawful code as it is most akin to the order necessary to cabinet the mind, to push it to an absolute strictness that brings it in harmony with the intense rigor of mental manipulation that will affect the body as well.
Anything less and you're just a martial artist with no special powers.
Read Salvatore's Cleric Quintet (if you haven't already) for a good look at a main character monk.
In the Realms, monks are able to punch through solid stone, defy aging and gravity, and other superhuman feats not through just physical conditioning (which would be impossible), but because their abilities tap into a form of psionics. Control of psionics requires intense discipline and is restricted to those select minds that adhere to a Lawful code as it is most akin to the order necessary to cabinet the mind, to push it to an absolute strictness that brings it in harmony with the intense rigor of mental manipulation that will affect the body as well.
Anything less and you're just a martial artist with no special powers.
Read Salvatore's Cleric Quintet (if you haven't already) for a good look at a main character monk.
And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape. The powers from monks should not be forced to be lawful.
I have never seen any reason for a monk to be forced to be lawful. Like others have said, the inspiration for the class supports non-lawful monks. I have seen this argued many times, and no one has ever convinced me otherwise.
And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape. The powers from monks should not be forced to be lawful.I have never seen any reason for a monk to be forced to be lawful. Like others have said, the inspiration for the class supports non-lawful monks. I have seen this argued many times, and no one has ever convinced me otherwise.
The whole reason these monks can do this is because of what a powerful lawful force they are. They test themselves and their lawfulness by surviving with it in the most hostile environment possible for them and it.
And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?
... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
They are not he's simply leaving all the important parts out.
... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
Yes, they are considered chaotic, because they don't force it into the shape, they guide it and let it flow naturally into the shape they want.
They are not he's simply leaving all the important parts out.... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
Which society is this. I am not to familiar with planescape other the Sigil, and its ruler.
Which society is this. I am not to familiar with planescape other the Sigil, and its ruler.They are not he's simply leaving all the important parts out.... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
The Githzerai.
... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
Chaos is ordered actually. There is always a pattern in everything. So what is viewed at one level looks chaotic but when the big pictures is view it's a very orderly machine. Basically think of chaos and Order as a circle. The more chaotic you get the more patterns appear and the more orderly it gets. The reverse is true as the rules make for orderly society the more order you apply via rules turns chaotic in mess of rules leading to a Chaotic society. Over time though the pattern appear certain laws are accepted others rejected and order begins to appear again.
The Githzerai.Which society is this. I am not to familiar with planescape other the Sigil, and its ruler.They are not he's simply leaving all the important parts out.... shaping chaos into order? How is that not fundamentally lawful behavior? But the creatures that do this are considered chaotic in alignment?And yet in Planscape, you have a chaotic society that maintains control on limbo through the shear force of their minds. They understand chaos, and can therefore shape it to their will, bringing cities to the landscape.
More specifically, a planar Sect called the Anarchs
Flurry + rage is simply not as good as people make it out to be, mostly for this reason: "For the purpose of these attacks, the monk's base attack bonus is equal to his monk level."
It's not worth derailing this thread, but for anyone not aware, this statement is debatable at best. I think a majority believe the monk's flurry attack bonus still stacks, as normal, with other classes BAB. If you're interested, search for a thread on the debate (there are lots of them).
On topic, I like Monk's being lawful, it just suits them in my opinion. Unfortunately, it seems like chaotic players are drawn to them.
As for Barbarian/Monks - you can switch back and forth, but it requires multiple alignment changes, which gets very questionable. There are no penalties anymore for either class being "ex-", just an inability to level if you don't have the alignment.
Ah, I was unaware that was debated. It seems fairly clear to me. One thing is for certain the way I am reading it the barb monk combo is drastically less powerful. I don't see any balance issues under my interpretation with a monk/barb.Flurry + rage is simply not as good as people make it out to be, mostly for this reason: "For the purpose of these attacks, the monk's base attack bonus is equal to his monk level."It's not worth derailing this thread, but for anyone not aware, this statement is debatable at best. I think a majority believe the monk's flurry attack bonus still stacks, as normal, with other classes BAB. If you're interested, search for a thread on the debate (there are lots of them).
On topic, I like Monk's being lawful, it just suits them in my opinion. Unfortunately, it seems like chaotic players are drawn to them.
As for Barbarian/Monks - you can switch back and forth, but it requires multiple alignment changes, which gets very questionable. There are no penalties anymore for either class being "ex-", just an inability to level if you don't have the alignment.
I see far less problem with Barb/monk than Paladin/Monk, which though disgusting in some ways (like saves) is not really that broken.
Barb/monk really isn't all that powerful.
Monks have a lot of problems, and almost all of them - including the must be lawful clause - are due to heritage reasons. Early D&D monks were based on terrible cliches and stereotypes of even more terrible 70's kung fu movies. Yes, they were just pajama wearing offensively oriental stereotypes. Sadly, many of the problems those monks had remain.
I think non-lawful monks are perfectly resonable. Consider the wuxia hero. Born from personally tragedy and from the lower class, he trains his martial skill from potentially many different teachers, before leaving to travel the land alone, to find and bring about both mercy and justice to those deserving either. He has no lord, and in fact often ends up working against them in his travels. Conflicted by his twin ideals of Xia, which calls for justice and revenge, and his own Buddhist ideals, which seeks compassion, mercy, and cries out against killing, he must find a way to stop those who are evil and corrupt without betraying himself.
Sounds awesome as hell, right? Here's the problem. None of that reflects on the D&D monk. You could argue for any of the good alignments for the above character. Strong personal codes? Lawful good. Willingness if not eagerness to throw down the corrupt rulers of the land? Chaotic good. Wishing only to bring about good and peace, regardless of those that do and don't rule the countryside? Neutral good. But while the paladin has a code of conduct, the monk...doesn't. The paladin gives a reason for it's alignment. The monk doesn't have any use or mention of Xia codes or Bushido or Buddhist philosophy or any of that. The monk is just a really uptight dude who punches people while wearing pajamas.
It's a big loss of potential :(
For me this comes back to my general desire to have a more generic "martial artist" class. The idea that the only martial arts character can be the one who later gets mystical supernatural powers always rubbed me the wrong way.
Same for the lawful things, of course. Watching kung-fu movies, do you seriously think that all those character were lawful and trained in a cloister?
I'd wish that we'd get a true Martial Artist base class, without the mystical stuff and lawful alignment restrictions in a later book. <sigh>
|
Just going back to my favorite reading material, The Tomes.
Again with the sighing. No one can explain why Monks are required to be Lawful, least of all the Player’s Handbook. Ember is Lawful because she “follows her discipline”, while Mialee is not Lawful because she is “devoted to her art”. FTW?! That’s the same thing, given sequentially as an example of being Lawful and not being Lawful. Monk’s training requires strict discipline, but that has nothing to do with Lawfulness no matter what setup for Law and Chaos you are using. If Lawfulness is about organization, you are perfectly capable of being a complete maverick who talks to no one and drifts from place to place training constantly like the main character in Kung Fu – total lack of organization, total “Chaotic” – total disciplined Monk. If Law is about Loyalty, you’re totally capable of being treacherous spies. In fact, that’s even an example in the PHB “Evil monks make ideal spies, infiltrators, and assassins.” And well, that sentence pretty much sinks any idea of monks having to follow the law of the land or keeping their own word, doesn’t it? The only way monk lawfulness would make any sense is if you were using “adherence to an arbitrary self” as the basis of Law, and we already know that can’t hold.
For those of you old enough to remember Hercules: the Legendary Journeys (and those of you who can find it on the web), I'd argue that Herc, Iolous, and (to a lesser extent) Xena are really more monkish than anything else (in the sense that their fighting styles incorporate a lot of acrobatics and bare handed attacks).
I'd like to think that a lot of normal combat could be that stylised - not a suit of full plate to be seen!
I'm kinda leaning towards the idea that the Barbarian is, in a sense, the chaotic version of the Monk. They are both fighter types with a lot of supernatural powers, fast movement, and light armor.
I agree.
All that being said, the Monk has never sat well for me as a class - being the only 'oriental' class in the game, and notably and distinctly outside the feel of the rest of the material.
we went halfway with the house-rule in our group. you still have to be lawful on paper, but that means you are following the laws of your order, not necessarily the laws of the land you are currently in. Thus you could choose the drunken-fist fighting style and be quite chaotic, but you are following your order.
For example, the Kung Fu TV series with david carradine whose character was very lawful/disciplined, but always seemed to end up on the wrong side of the old-west "law".
For example, the Kung Fu TV series with david carradine whose character was very lawful/disciplined, but always seemed to end up on the wrong side of the old-west "law".
Good example.
Kane always did the 'morally' correct and ordered thing.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
we went halfway with the house-rule in our group. you still have to be lawful on paper, but that means you are following the laws of your order, not necessarily the laws of the land you are currently in. Thus you could choose the drunken-fist fighting style and be quite chaotic, but you are following your order.
For example, the Kung Fu TV series with david carradine whose character was very lawful/disciplined, but always seemed to end up on the wrong side of the old-west "law".
No offense, but bleh. That's the worst image to use for monks.
As for my issues with monks...allow me to quote from elsewhere:
"This is an old complaint, which is appropriate since Monks, like Barbarians, have been hovering around the edges of core D&D rules since the very earliest editions. Monks 'don't fit' the traditional medieval-Europe fantasy mold; the class is a take on the kung-fu-fighting Shaolin monks seen in dozens of cheap martial-arts films.
It feels a bit forced, perhaps - that you've got all these knights and alchemists and pagans running around the streets and then, next door, there's all these kooky bald dudes from a whole other culture with 'kukris' and 'kamas' and this is apparently entirely normal somehow?
It's the worst kind of Orientalism, I think; hundreds of years of eastern religion and culture (one specific religion from one relatively small area of Asia, to be precise) condensed into a single class so that a handful of players can feel a bit 'exotic.'
Y'see, when you turn the Monks of Tyr into some kind of hybridised Euro/East-Asian martial-arts order, you immediately eliminate the concept of religious orders of scholars and ascetics who exist outside of traditional temporal/spiritual hierarchies. You no longer have any words to describe, say, the Order of Saint Benedict because "monk" has already been co-opted by the player class, with its fundamentally different fluff.
The traditional European monastery is a terrific dramatic crucible. A small, rich, tightly-knit group of highly-strung men in dresses who spend all their time reading books and thinking about God and not nearly enough time getting laid? Narrative goldmine! So many rich themes available: knowledge and learning, purity and corruption, spirituality, masculinity and homosexuality, secrets, the forbidden and the mandatory, exclusion and inclusion... you ever read The Name of the Rose? It's just like that.
But we can never have that, because in D&D Monks are these weird Stance-of-the-Tiger types that owe more to films from the 1970s than they do actual Buddhist tradition. It'd be like writing a wonderful campaign setting based on feudal Japan but replacing all the samurai with generic 'knights'. You know, like... dudes in armour who fight each other for their king or something, I dunno, I just thought it'd be nice to have some English dudes in there or whatever!
These monks: have you developed any insight into the traditions of Buddhist asceticism looking at them? Or are we still running on empty?"
Thanks Prof. Cirno!
I agree with everything you just said :p
The first rule of Monk Club: Do not talk about the Alignment of Monk Club.
hehe
I think he would have been making a good point, except DnD isn't based on European history/mytholgy. Clerics, Druids, Barbarians, Bards, Rangers, none of these, as written up in the game, have any European feel to them. Illithids, displacer beasts, beholders, rakshasha, black puddings, etc. don't have any references to medieval Europe. Dwarves, halflings, half-orcs are all unlike anything from European myth. So, to single out monks is a bit inconsistent. There are a lot of problems with this class, let's focus on the ones that make sense.Thanks Prof. Cirno!
I agree with everything you just said :p
All those classes except really druids and maybe rangers DO fit in, though. And druids are another issue entirely, connected to Tolkien and post-war feelings throughout Europe. Heck, bards are supposed to be the ur-adventurers - a class who can do a little thievery, a little spellcasting, and a little fighting. Most adventurers, realistically speaking, wouldn't be as hyper-specialized as they are in D&D. They'd be generalists. Like the bard.
D&D has always been vaguely Medieval-Modern European in feel. The problem with monk isn't just that it replaces what could be a very dramatic class or style of character, it's that it replaces it with nothing. D&D monk doesn't bring anything to the table. It's a pajama wearing bad 70's kung-fu movie washout, not an actual look at anything that involves Buddhist asceticism or philosophy. The paladin has a code of conduct that ties it to the ideals of a lawful good crusader. The monk? The monk just gets terrible MAD issues.
Okay in the history of the game Monks have always been lawfully aligned (and personally I think there is a difference between being lawfully aligned and Lawful, but perhaps thats another story). I personally have know idea why Gygax and Co. decided that but I guess that all the purity of mind/body fluff has a lot to do with it. Why flaming oil was a no-no in the old 1ed...
My games have never been about Good v Evil but Law v Chaos. The Monk class (in my game anyway) have been the paragons of Law fighting the influence of Chaos and Entropy which invade the game world and threaten to upset the Order of Society.
Anyway thats my take on it and it works for me and my players. A Monk/Barbarian would be a no-go because barbarians live outside the (Monk's view) acceptable norm for an organised, structured society.
Of course this is my view and how I have interpreted the rules. It works for me but might not for anyone else.
|
|
I lessen the importance of alignment by treating all humanoids as Neutral in regards to mechanical interactions. The only exception being classes that have an Aura of X are treated as that alignment. So Clerics, Paladins, and Blackguards register on the alignment meter, but no one else does. Only outsiders and other creatures that are embodiments of alignments have non-Neutral alignment. I figure you can espouse a belief, but that is not strong enough to make you register as that alignment.
Just advance in Monk as far as you want, they role play a radical alignment change and go Barb. Monks keep all their abilities.
I actually liked the 70's PJ wearing martial artist monks. I never missed an episode of Kung Fu.. Heck, the monk in my RotRL campaign has made a thematic intro using the music from the newer Kung Fu: the Legend Continues series.
As for the Lawful... I use the rule..but if I had problems with it.. I would just change it in my campaigns.
greg