Design Principle of the Monk

[CaspianM]

I know this is an often discussed topic, but I was curious as to why the Monk was built the way it is? I guess it mimics the 1st ed design except without the murderous leveling up, but was there anything else? I guess it's kind of special effects, mobility and defense focused?

[LazarX]

Unfortunately most of the people you'd need to ask are dead.

[CaspianM]

LazarX wrote:

Unfortunately most of the people you'd need to ask are dead.

I suppose. Mostly I'm interested in what the designers for Pathfinder thought when modifying the class from 3.5 to Pathfinder with continuing with the 3/4ths BAB and multiple attribute dependancy.

[Evil Lincoln]

CaspianM wrote:

LazarX wrote:

Unfortunately most of the people you'd need to ask are dead.

I suppose. Mostly I'm interested in what the designers for Pathfinder thought when modifying the class from 3.5 to Pathfinder with continuing with the 3/4ths BAB and multiple attribute dependancy.

The monk suffered from the mandate of backwards compatibility. I think they would have liked to just bump it up to full BAB, but that has far-reaching consequences when you actually try to do it.

As such, even deeper re-writes like "Trailblazer" only give the monk a "fake" full BAB. In my campaign I have just house-ruled that the monk always makes attacks as though he has full BAB (although I keep the 3/4 BAB for feat requirements, etc)

I think the problem was understood, but having to throw out all the old monk statblocks would have lead to a different breed of complaint!