everything ive seen monk people seem to agree monk is in a bit of a weird spot. from being MAD as hell and outside of some creative uses having trouble vs DR (mainly as unarmed).
however i love the monk, and id like to post some ideas and see what people think. these ideas may be unbalanced, and they are not really meant to be ALL applied to te monk at once. but ideas nonetheless.
Full BAB class-monks are not rogues or casters, and while they may not be super beefy because of there 8 point hit dice, they are meant to be in the thick of things, moving in and out and around combat.
Flurry of Blows taking a standard action as opposed to full round action, standard attack useable as swift action, once used as such you cannot take another standard/swift action that round, cannot use flurry of blows and standard attack in same round-monks are about movement, acrobatic, fast attacks, etc....flurry of blows may roll a lot of dice but its by no means "fast" in fact it does the opposite to monks! This change imo could really unlock the monk for being a mobile fast attacking fighter.
Wisdom replaces strength for monks in combat-damage, to hit, etc wisdom replaces strength, but for things like carrying capacity, it doesnt. This makes monks less MAD and makes wisdom easily one of there best stats. repeat with me, MAD is BAD.
redesign monks Ki Strike effect so he scales relatively to the oter classes-monks get things like unarmed strikes being treated as magic, cold, silver, etc for overcoming DR...however, he gets the stupidly late compared to everyon eelse. a simply redsign in levels you aquire this would be fine.
wholeness of body-weak for 7th level, maybe only take 1 ki
pretty much my ideas, feel free to agree, disagree, critique, etc
Are you sure you want to make d8 with Full BAB? Pathfinder's kind of got this BAB/Hit Dice relationship going on, and an average of 1 hit point per level (2 at level 1) isn't going to change things all that much.
I honestly wasnt sure about suggesting monks as a d10, but imo a class who thematically put so much time and skill into knowing how to fight shouldnt be a 3/4 bab class. at the same time monks thematically are not very big physically so a d8 still made sense to me there too.
it would also help for feat pre-requisites.
You and I are on agreement here. I prefer Monk as a Full BAB class, whatever that means (if it means d10 so be it.) What makes me mad is this 'kind of sort of full BAB but not really' crap the Monk got saddled with, when they should either be Real Full BAB or a real 3/4ths BAB class with some kind of self-buff mojo.
ya, this isnt a rogue (best example of 3/4 bab to my mind) who thematically might be unused to face to face full on combat, or at least not as skilled. a monk specialized in body and mind, face to face combat.
The barbarian has 1/1 BAB and a d12 hit die versus the d10 the other classes have, so the argument that BAB must always increase/decrease with hit die doesnt hold water in RAW, not that such an argument would ever sway me.
Of all the changes I've read on these forums, increasing the BAB of monks seems to be the best option. They're only as dependant on full-attack as other martials, not more.
ya barbarian is a good point.
mmm im agree with the whole plot to make a change to the monk...
But full Bab?
i prefeer [for flavorful mehcanics] the monk do some of his attacks as a touch attack [stunning attack, extra attack with the ki pool cost] not just go and gave him a full bab, thats sounds like obvious... "just give him more hd and bab" Wooaaoo ¬¬
oh and maybe more options for stunnin attack (i dont know, maybe a combo system if i take that combo instead my vanilla stunning attack)
I think the idea is to mostly K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid), adding a bunch of new mechanics just for monk is a bit much and a lot to ask for. much more reasonable to make changes within the rules of the gameworld instead of adding new rules.
and sorry but i entirely agree with full BAB, they are martial masters, martial is combat.
however full BAB doesnt mean it has to be 10 hit die either, it can be kept at 8. afterall many monks practiced things like fasting, eating small amounts, training a hard lean body instead of a wall of muscles.
thats not to say that some flavorful touch attacks wouldnt be cool, but i see that as fun additions, not exactly seeing it as fixing issues with the class.
Maybe just extend the full BAB equivalence to unarmed strike and monk weapons?
@Dabbler
That's an awesome simple solution, I'm GMing at 6:30 tonight and I think I'll run that change, in addition to a few others. Full BAB while striking unarmed and with monk weapons, I don't think that will break anything. Good call, Dabbler.
Real full BAB would really help. Monks have prerequisite issues, particularly with the greater maneuver feats. Going to real full BAB would fix them.
They do, but if you go to far you end up with a fighter, only with unarmed damage and better skills. Keep the monk at 3/4 BAB, but with unique attributes of their own (something they frankly lack ATM).
I like the idea of Flurry of Blows working as a Standard action rather than a Full-round action, but I'm concerned about action conservation. Allowing one class to perform a full-round attack action as a standard may break the game in unforeseen ways. I only bring this up because I was lectured on action conservation myself not to long ago.
Perhaps allowing it at a cost of 2 ki points?
So which good save are you willing to give up for the full BAB, Fort, Will, or Reflex?
I'm not, nor do I suspect he is. Monk already HAS full BAB, it's just this weird semi full BAB that's a pain in the ass to deal with as a GM and as a player.
What about returning to 3.5 flurry and allowing that as a standard action? (And going to full BAB. They really need to be able to hit the greater maneuver prerequisites on the same schedule as a fighter.)
I actually used that as a house-rule during 3.5 Atarlost, and it worked pretty well. With that houserule in play I was the only DM I knew with players who actually took Monk all the way to level 11 (though a few did occasionally step out early anyway.)
Full BAB while unarmed didn't break the game tonight, our monks staff was sundered and he actually finished off the Orc Chieftain BBEG with a full BAB flurry of knees. It was a very cinematic battle. I'm keeping full BAB while unarmed and with monk weapons.
Thurin wrote: So which good save are you willing to give up for the full BAB, Fort, Will, or Reflex?
paladin says hi
w01fe01 wrote: Thurin wrote: So which good save are you willing to give up for the full BAB, Fort, Will, or Reflex?
paladin says hi Seconded, the paladin has better saves, better immunities, better powers, equal AC, and better attacks. The monk has a few more skill ranks, though. Didn't think skills were worth that much myself...
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