Redwidow,
I may have come off overly flippant in my post. I appreciate that there are game elements that some people don't like. My girlfriend will not sit at a table where we casually discuss or employ any demons or devils, and choosing to do so will keep her away for a long time.
I do find the medieval and Europe thing off-putting, earlier someone mentioned Hispanics not belonging either. Despite Hispanics being of Spanish descent. It's too often that medieval and Europe are used as a form of prejudice that consciously or unconsciously hide some very racist undertones.
Rascist undertones are not new in RPGs and I've actively campaigned against them since a black kid named Desmond pointed out to me that after 4 modules in Greyhawk there hadn't been a single dark skinned dude, then we went to the jungle, where even the natives were redheaded white people. That was 1983.
I actually enjoy games that aim at a specific period of real world history, in my experience managing these games is hard to do considering the disparate elements that d20 actually embraces. If you can achieve an actual Dark Age France feeling to a game without it being wildly anachronistic and drawing on elements that are inappropriate to the history and mythology I applaud you.
I've found it hard to pull off however, without very agreeable players.
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White eurocentric racism upsets me much more than the inclusion of monks or asiatic flavored material.
(Sure, this might get censored, but you know thats all the original post is. Frankly, censoring the replies to the OP without censoring the OP is a little frustrating too.)
Monk weapons are a disaster and have been for a long time. But that's a different topic from their inclusion in the game.
I started a new thread about what a Western Monk should be, I'm interested in what the people who dislike the name and prescence more than the class want in a Western Style Monk.
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I've always loved the monk since 1e. The ridiculous, 1d4 hp/lvl monk. At sixth level when a wizard is learning to cast fireball a second time per day, the monk is learning to... play dead.
They've always been ridiculous. They've always been impractical. (Relatively speaking, of course. I played them all the time, and only a few of them died horrible, gruesome deaths that I had no way to avoid owing to the fact that their AC and hit points sucked. It is much easier to produce an effective monk in Pathfinder, IMO.) And I've always loved them, because of and in spite of their flaws.
I grew up reading fantasy novels at the same time I was watching Shaw Brothers movies on Sundays on USA network. I was a wimp who was bullied on the schoolyard on a daily basis, and I loved stories about heroes who could take on a roomful of villains and triumph. The more unrealistic the abilities of the protagonists in those stories, the more I loved them.
I also liked monks because they were so different from every other class.
Not that there has to be any reason to like a class, or dislike a class. More power to everyone who hates monks. That just means there's a better chance that I'll run into a DM who's never encountered one before... and then promptly bans them once I've played one.
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For those people who may be disheartened by certain posts in this thread:
Take heart. There are far more people out there that don't run the game as Medieval Europe Only/Certain Culture and Ethnicities Not Allowed than it may seem sometimes.
Pathfinder supports far more than that, as does the fantasy genre as a whole, no matter what some "purists" with an overly narrow view of both may say. Hell, considering that the game has been taking creatures from other cultures' legends and religions over the decades, it's rather odd to bar representation for those cultures themselves.
Personally, I'll be taking my PF with knights, barbarians, martial artists, khopeshes, cannon golems, pirates, people of every color under the sun whether human or from some wildly fantastic race, and robot goddesses.
And the idea of the monk is awesome.
An ascetic warrior using the Enlightening Fist Of The Heavens to knock a devil flat on his ass? Yes please.
I dont like the alignment limit, or stunning fist. Sometimes the class is too mystical for me, and often I find flurry of blows confusing or tedious.
I really want to like the monk, but these make it tough.
I dont like the alignment limit, or stunning fist. Sometimes the class is too mystical for me, and often I find flurry of blows confusing or tedious.
I really want to like the monk, but these make it tough.
Alignment limits and the explanation fluff (ie mysticism) can easily be changed or modified to something you consider more fitting, but what's wrong with stunning fist and flurry of blows? Flurry is essentially you getting the two weapon fighting tree for free as you level, except that you get to have the benefits of a full bab when you do it. Stunning Fist is also a nice ability, but also easy to drop for something else as pretty much every archetype changes it.
My only beef with Monk is that it violates the concept of Monk that I've had for years...
Which basically just boils down to the Final Fantasy Job Class definition of Monk, which thankfully gets covered with the Martial Artist archetype.
Which I really need to use more often...
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Certainly the Monk is out of place. You can tell they're out of place by the fact that they focus almost exclusively on exotic weapons that are not exotic purely for reasons of balance. If a guy who fights with bare hands, kamas, and sais were not out of place bare hands, kamas, and sais would not be exotic, and improved unarmed strike is pretty much a special exotic weapon proficiency. It's just listed in the feat chapter instead of the weapons chapter like the nonstandard proficiency rules for bastard sword and dwarven waraxe.
Hmm. No one in the history of Europe fought with their bare hands or farming implements? Interesting!
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i don't get why people see D&D or it's derivatives as medieval european.
you have medieval knights wearing rennaiscane era armor, wielding roman era falcatas, worshipping greek gods, traveling with native american shamans wearing the hides of saharan beasts, who transform into prehistoric dinosaurs who are accompanied by modern japanese schoolgirls wielding Tokugawa Era Daisho and Wearing black pajamas, and old men wearing robes and pointed hats who chant mathematical equations to control reality, on a journey to kill brain eating space aliens, giant sentient firebreathing spellcasting reptiles and sentient jello.
just had to post this again.
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Certainly the Monk is out of place. You can tell they're out of place by the fact that they focus almost exclusively on exotic weapons that are not exotic purely for reasons of balance. If a guy who fights with bare hands, kamas, and sais were not out of place bare hands, kamas, and sais would not be exotic, and improved unarmed strike is pretty much a special exotic weapon proficiency. It's just listed in the feat chapter instead of the weapons chapter like the nonstandard proficiency rules for bastard sword and dwarven waraxe.Hmm. No one in the history of Europe fought with their bare hands or farming implements? Interesting!
appearantly, every warrior in the history of europe wore full plate and wielded a curved blade of some kind as well.
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appearantly, every warrior in the history of europe wore full plate and wielded a curved blade of some kind as well.
... but what's wrong with stunning fist and flurry of blows? Flurry is essentially you getting the two weapon fighting tree for free as you level, except that you get to have the benefits of a full bab when you do it. Stunning Fist is also a nice ability, but also easy to drop for something else as pretty much every archetype changes it.
I just find the mechanics a bit tedious. Or something. Not 100% sure.
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I have to agree on hating the mystic flavor and alignment bits. Sometimes I just want to play a badass unarmed brawler, and I feel a d3 does not adequately represent that. I have no problem making adjustments for my players, but if you play with a purist GM, you're kind of screwed.
Hence what makes the Martial Artist archetype so cool.
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As a GM I hate monks. Nasty buggers running all over the map, latching onto my bad guys like lampreys before strangling them to death. Bonus points for the casters dropping resist fire on 'em, then rolling a flaming sphere onto the pair. Morale doesn't hold up well when the rest of the baddies are hearing/ watching/ smelling thier chum roasting alive while the lamprey merely chuckles. It's disheartenin' I tell yaz! ;)
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appearantly, every warrior in the history of europe wore full plate and wielded a curved blade of some kind as well.Hadn't they?
i was being snarky.
but really, Full plate was developed during the Renaiscance as a response to the advancement of firearms and crossbows. it was also extremely cost prohibitive. guns quickly outclassed it.
but i am sure, that just about everywhere, there were groups of peasant class individuals whom were restricted from using weapons, so they learned to use a combination of unarmed combat techniques and farm implements to bypass these restrictions.
and no, women did not historically run around in chainmail bikinis with a giant axe in each hand either.
Burden of proof is on you now. Prove it never happened. GO!
Flails are a b~*&# to use without hurting yourself. Most "chain" weapons are. They do provide one benefit that something like a sword does not, if you practice an improper technique, you'll know it immediately; amen you whack yourself in the shin or skull.
I think most of the player base will concede that the "monk" weapon designation is a disaster. The Kama/Sickle thing is only the most obvious. Daggers don't get it, despite being the ONE weapon that virtually every structured fighting form from every culture incorporates. Short Swords, the red headed stepchild of d20 blades doesn't get it either.
But then you get the Temple Sword, a weird, inverted Khopesh or something that every monk can use in a flurry, and it's not a light weapon.
Actual Asian monks like the Shaolin used long Spears and something like a Glaive-Guisarme for sequences that sure look like a flurry.
A funny thing about the Core monk weapons is that they come from Okinawain Karate, which has an entire martial form for fighting with an Oar. Not as an improvised weapon so much, they have specific styles of Oar for fighting. They also use giant turtle shells as shields combined with a Spear form. That got missed as well.
i was being snarky.appearantly, every warrior in the history of europe wore full plate and wielded a curved blade of some kind as well.Hadn't they?
Me too :)
I'm apt to reflavor things as I need them, so the monk "eastern flavor" doesn't bother me. What bothers me is giving monks an alignment restriction. Sure, the martial artist removes it at the expensive of doing supernatural tricks, but I find it hard to believe one must be lawful to figure that stuff out.
The effort to learn that mojo can't be that much harder than it is for Wizards to learn new spells, and they can be any alignment for that.
I just want to be unarmored, fast, and have a bag of supernatural tricks. I don't want to play every monk as being really into cosmic balance. Sometimes my "monk" is just a loveable(?) scoundrel that's just too slippery to catch.
The Atan from Edding's books were another martial artist that didn't seem to necessarily follow the Kung Fu theater style as well and interacted with armored knights and the like. If I recall correctly, one of them tossed around the knights and was openly critical of their styles, and as a race they were frightening. In fact, their King ran up and jumped off a cliff onto the head of a big demon/devil creature. They were fast, strong, could rip out your spine with their bare hands and didn't wear kung fu outfits.
Don't call them monks if the name bothers you, reskin the background or whatever to make them well trained fighters who learned blah blah blah to fight the horrors of the world. Learn to embrace them rather than hate!
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Being a martial artist and martial arts enthusiast myself, I dislike the idea of a "Monk" being generalised as a Lawful, chi-popping member of some oriental order. But I guess there isn't a simpler term for it and they really didn't look into it much when it first came out.
As for Monks not belonging in a setting like Golarion, has anyone told this guy that there's Mecha and Aliens in this realm? Break it to him slowly, he might not be able to take the shock.
I don't like monks.
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Selling their books!!
Bah!!
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my biggest qualm is that people still have this 3.5 bull s@+$ mentality that a monk is jacki chan or jet li. from the feat choices i see on the core monk it looks like a bar room brawler.
fo-man-choo was 3.5, pathfinder did away with that asian stereotype. you no longer have to role-play a fortune cookie, no raceism intended.
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my biggest qualm is that people still have this 3.5 bull s%#~ mentality that a monk is jacki chan or jet li. from the feat choices i see on the core monk it looks like a bar room brawler.
fo-man-choo was 3.5, pathfinder did away with that asian stereotype. you no longer have to role-play a fortune cookie, no raceism intended.
Pray tell, what exactly a change between 3.5 and Pathfinder Monk lead you to this conclusion?
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you mean besides the descriptor text for the class?
or the inclusion of feats like catch off guard and throw anything. which, imo, is exactly what a brawler would need to have.
just because a monk can use , real life, oriental weapons doesnt mean they are oriental in galoron.
in 3.5 they were written like a cliff note for some asian themed opra, pathfinder just makes them unarmed fighters as far as lore goes.
and lets not forget the martial artist archetype.
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Pathfinder class description is "cheap, Asian opera" too - Ancient Philosophies and Strict Martial Doctrines!
And this whole ki thing is totally not an Asian concept? Riiiight.
Immunity to Poison? Slow Fall? Tongue of Sun and Moon? Abundant Step? Becomes a Magical Creature? Everything screams Bar Room Brawler and not Fu Man Chu. Yeah.
All of the high level stuff is separate from the starter stuff. Monks switch around level 5 and then again at level 11.
At 1-5 he's a thug with dexterity.
At 5-10 he's a highly trained killer.
At 11-16 he's a mystic warrior.
At 17 and on the monk is a completely different being, a near demigod.
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ki asain yes, chinese/oriental? no
the concept of ki is from india. anyway im reading my 3.5 handbook and loling at the "monistaries" and "meditation", but its no where to be seen in pathfinder.
yes they have the same class features, only because they need to have compatability between the 2 games. but as we have seen with archetypes like "martial artist" it looks more and more like paizo is moving away from that.
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ki asain yes, chinese/oriental? no
the concept of ki is from india. anyway im reading my 3.5 handbook and loling at the "monistaries" and "meditation", but its no where to be seen in pathfinder.
yes they have the same class features, only because they need to have compatability between the 2 games. but as we have seen with archetypes like "martial artist" it looks more and more like paizo is moving away from that.
Or that they're supporting a wider range of monks.
The Asian flavors of monks are still very much supported by both the core monk and many of its various archetypes.
And well....Irori.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
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Being a martial artist and martial arts enthusiast myself, I dislike the idea of a "Monk" being generalised as a Lawful, chi-popping member of some oriental order. But I guess there isn't a simpler term for it and they really didn't look into it much when it first came out.
It comes from a false assumption that only Lawful person can show enough self-discipline for martial training (until introduction of Martial Artist archetype). Secondary problem is hardness of building non-Monk unarmed combatant.
or the inclusion of feats like catch off guard and throw anything. which, imo, is exactly what a brawler would need to have.
You probably never seen Jackie Chan movies from 90s then, those are some of his signature moves.
is jacki chan a buddhist monk? then i think you proved my point...
my biggest qualm is that people still have this 3.5 bull s~~@ mentality that a monk is jacki chan or jet li.
I do not refute your point that monk is a martial artist. I just point out that argument you used contradicts your previous claim that monk is no Jackie Chan.
if you think super cop or rumble in the bronx depict a ancient confusious monk, well you're silly.
When he played buddhist monks he used brooms, barrels and cups as well.
And for policeman-monk we have Sammo Hung as Sammo Law in Martial Law :)|
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yes i was being facetious when i said "jackie chan or jet li" i have nothing against them, it is just the first thing people usually have as a refrence to a monk in 3.5. im not talking about super cop im talking about drunken master and fearless.
when i think about a monk, i think about dolph lundgren, randy couture, shoot even lium neason. not to say jacki chan isnt awesome, but that if you only look at it as a 60's kung-fu movie character then you're missing the point that paizo made when changing the lore of the monk for pathfinder.
is jacki chan a buddhist monk? then i think you proved my point...
He practiced the art and philosophy of k'ung fu which was developed by Buddhist monks. That's close enough for me.
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I don't understand why it's so hard to understand how monks can fit into Pathfinder, especially in a setting with Sorcerers. Sorcerers do nothing whatsoever to earn their abilities, they just have them through the luck of genetics. With that in mind, is it so hard to accept that the discipline and focus that monks learn in their studies allows them to fight barehanded as well as others can with swords?
If you don't like the thematic aspects of it, dismiss them. Monks are not some kooky eastern mystics that gain special powers from discipline and inner focus, they are wizards of a different sort. If a magus can channel spells into his blade, then it's not too far a stretch to say that a monk could learn to channel magical energy into their body, which would easily explain the nifty powers that they have. That doesn't really allow for the barroom brawler that people have been talking about, though.
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Basically, everyone has said what I would here:
The theme (eastern, western, whatever) is up to the DM to establish, but the default is hardly solely euro-centric. While oriental has an added flavour, it's not separate from the standard setting, and cultures do bleed over into one another anyway (in fact monks are largely considered a factor of cultural bleed anyway, with many temples to Irori, a Vudran deity, staffed by monks).
The concept, that a mystic philosopher-warrior could do these amazing feats from discipline, self-perfection and martial skill, is likewise not against the metaphysics of the D&D system. Fighters are meant to have no mystic power, but a high-level fighter can survive a one-thousand foot face-plant onto solid rock and walk away with just bruises.
Monks have been around since AD&D 1e. They will always be around. Maybe the name could be better, but that can be re-skinned.
If you do not want them in your world, that's fine - but I think you game will be poorer for it.
I don't understand why it's so hard to understand how monks can fit into Pathfinder, especially in a setting with Sorcerers. Sorcerers do nothing whatsoever to earn their abilities, they just have them through the luck of genetics. With that in mind, is it so hard to accept that the discipline and focus that monks learn in their studies allows them to fight barehanded as well as others can with swords?
If you don't like the thematic aspects of it, dismiss them. Monks are not some kooky eastern mystics that gain special powers from discipline and inner focus, they are wizards of a different sort. If a magus can channel spells into his blade, then it's not too far a stretch to say that a monk could learn to channel magical energy into their body, which would easily explain the nifty powers that they have. That doesn't really allow for the barroom brawler that people have been talking about, though.
So what you are saying is... monks are fist wizards.
Yeah, I'm okay with that :)