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Most of the people in our group feel that the monk is terribly underpowered. To help compensate for this the group has taken a few measures: Monks can use the Improved Natural Attack feat, the Amulet of Mighty Fists has the same cost as enchanting a magical weapon, and monks can select what attacks they use in a flurry rather than having to spread them up as per a two-weapon fighter.
Anyway, we've had a few monks in our game and they were not too powerful even using these options. However, a newer member of the group is insisting that these options would make the monk overpowered. I would like to get some second (and more) opinions. Sound off below.
Thanks in advance!
Here are some of my monk fixes:
An Old School Monk with Wealth Limits
and last but not least, an archetype for Inquisitor that turns that divine troubleshooter into a monk! It's the Inquisition
Master Arminas
The problem of course, is that Monk has incredible situational powers. High saves, eventual poison immunity, disease immunity, eventual spell resistance...against the right enemies (rogues and wizards) they're devastating.
Sadly, those are the only opponents they're really fantastic against outside of some very specific builds. (See also: The Grapple Monk. The problem with Grapple Monk of course, being their severe weakness against anything that isn't humanoid, and is bigger than them.)
The new member of your group is wrong.
Exceptions to the above: Qingong Monk with Vows. Then again, Qinggong Monk with Vows fixes a LOT of problems.
I think your best bet atm is to try this. It changes nothing about the monk, it just adds psionic powers in line with what the class is supposed to be. For PF monk you can replace ki powers with the progression.
Amulet of Mighty Fists: I'd instead make another magic item like bandages. They can be enchanted like (bashing) weapons and have to be wrapped around one body part to turn attacks with that body part into a magic weapon with the enhancement bonus of the bandages.
This makes them not only identical to magic weapons in price but also in power.
If you take an amulett that turns every unarmed strike into a magic weapon that's much stronger than a single weapon.
Improved Natural Attack: make the feat that lets the monk use natural attacks with his monk abilities a prereq. and it is fine in my book.
The reasoning would be that you have to define the monks hand (or what eer) as natural attacks for the improved natural attack feat and thus could not flurry with it any more.
In addition I would give the monk the option to use either strength or willpower for melee and thrown damage and either strenght or dex for melle attacks. If the monk chooses one of those he can't use power attack but can still use piranha strikes.
Most of the people in our group feel that the monk is terribly underpowered. To help compensate for this the group has taken a few measures: Monks can use the Improved Natural Attack feat, the Amulet of Mighty Fists has the same cost as enchanting a magical weapon, and monks can select what attacks they use in a flurry rather than having to spread them up as per a two-weapon fighter.
Anyway, we've had a few monks in our game and they were not too powerful even using these options. However, a newer member of the group is insisting that these options would make the monk overpowered. I would like to get some second (and more) opinions. Sound off below.
OK, here's the thing about the monk:
Offensively, the monk is underpowered. Unarmed strike can deliver more damage dice than weapons at high level, but has few static bonuses and is hard to enchant for. Flurry of blows gives them a lot of attacks, but stacks poorly with their fast movement. The only thing they are unquestionably good at are maneuvers (and even then you can beat them at it with a custom-built fighter).
Defensively the monk is very good in many ways. They have excellent AC, excellent saves, good defensive abilities. Only hit points are going to be mediocre.
The way monks seem to play out is as follows:
Low level: nothing wrong here, AC is not fantastic but attacks are as good as anyone else's if not better.
Mid level: AC is getting better, saves and powers are cool, attacks and damage are starting to flag behind.
High level: AC is brilliant, saves are aweseome, shame you can't hit anything.
The major change I would make would be to take the existing ki strike feature and change it for a +1 enhancement bonus to hit with their unarmed strike for every four levels the monk has. This bypasses DR the way a weapon enhancement does, but doesn't add to damage. You can then use the existing Amulet of Might Fists for weapon properties that will help bypass DR.
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Thanks all for the info here. It seems that you agree the monk needs some help, and I like some of the suggestions you made as well. The DM in this game is hesitant to implement any major class changes to the monk, so we're left falling back on items, feats, etc. I'll show him some of the ideas from this thread and see what he says.
Also I was wanting to see if our new guy was the only sane man in a group that was allowing monks to be crazy overpowered...glad to see that is not the case. Cheers!