|
I need help with a MONK, please.
On these messageboards, ProfessorCirno said, "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."
Would a Monk need to be lawful? Would a monk (described above) be lawful? How would you create a character concept of a MONK that isn't eastern, but rather western.. but one who has discovered the principles of Buddhism, or even quantum mechanics for that matter?? Buddhism doesn't seem like a lawful practice; doesn't it sound more neutral? In other words, just as many westerners in the real world are now practicing New Age thinking today, or following developments in quantum thinking... how would you select the alignment and character class features for a MONK of this kind?
My goal is to create a character concept and (since I'll be playing this for 6-9 months), I want it to be a great one.
I imagine a modern Reiki teacher, perhaps one who understands that the universe is made primarily of nothing, one who understands the flow of energy in people, and seeks to ascend to higher levels of resonance, even toward a Christ-consciousness. However this character is a monastic type as well, into books and learning, and wears simple gowns. I'm confused about alignment choice as character motivation for how I will play him, and I'm confused in general about whether I should pick MONK or if something else is more Buddhist/TheSpiritScience with a western twist? So, how do I turn this into an awesome character class?
You are thinking way too hard about the backstory. If you want a non-lawful monk, you can just take the Martial Artist monk Archetype.
There, now you can be any alignment, you get abilities that seem new age-ish (knowledge of pressure points) but lose the ability to y'know fly or teleport (which I don't see many reiki teachers doing these days anyway).
prototype00
Does a member of a Catholic-style monastic order need to be lawful?
I suppose not, but non-lawful characters would spend an awful lot of time pretending to be lawful if they wanted to avoid being harshly disciplined.
I mean, the word order defines the organization. They live by the "rule" of a founding figure.
A monastery is essentially a place you go to have your sense of self completely broken as you must obey a very strict schedule and maintain constant discipline as your every action is determined by the brotherhood...
I mean, in fantasy you might have a hippy-dippy commune type monastic order. But if it is anything resembling historical orders (from any continent), they should be lawful. They will accept the chaotic into the fold, but only to break them and remake them in the image of law.
That is the basic function of the institution.
EDIT: Eastern style monasteries serve the same purpose — the elimination of the self and selfish desires through unerring adherence to collective routine. Still lawful.
Tropes abound of non-lawful martial artist monk types, and I would always allow one in my game. Just because the organization is so lawful it hurts doesn't mean that everyone trained by said organization comes out the same.
Buddhism is not a "lawful" practice, but buddhist monasteries certainly are.
I suppose western monks are quite lawful, since living in those monasteries came with an ocean of rules. The questionable stuff is covered with being evil.
Wear a cowl or frock and have a quarterstaff. Weapon Master Monk would fit that. Or the one that get´s improvised weapons, then use a censer as weapon.
Historical western (i.e. European and Near East Christian) monks were either aristocrats (wealthy background, joined orders that weren't expected to work because they owned the lands and wealth granted by the constituent members) or experts, with a sprinkling of commoners.
A monastery is essentially a place you go to have your sense of self completely broken as you must obey a very strict schedule and maintain constant discipline as your every action is determined by the brotherhood...
This is typical of some and not all monasteries. Many were just places where rich could live to the end of their lives after severing from the everyday lives in varying degree of luxury and asceticism and pray/contemplate/meditate (not delving into corruption susceptibility of such institutions).
I think cloistered cleric is a monk.
The alignment restriction on monks (and most everything else) is bunk. Ask your DM to waive it.
|
If you want a monastery-monk who also happens to be a monk-martial artist, who *isn't* wrapped up in eastern themes, you could have the character be a student of nature for whatever order he serves, cataloguing different beasts and their natures, and attempting to prove that 'man is the highest animal' by incorporating elements of their fighting styles into his own, proving his position on the 'great chain of being' by fighting and besting wolves, and lions, and bears, in hand to hand combat, with no weapons and no armor. He learns to run as fast as a horse, to wrestle a crocodile, to punch an oxen unconscious, etc. He cannot produce venom like the viper, but he can learn techniques to strike a foe just so, leaving them stunned, for a moment.
Or he could be a student of something like phlogiston or luminiferous ether or the four bodily humors, and think of himself as a natural philosopher or something of an anatomist, using Science! to inure himself to hardship, or move faster than the uneducated man's eye can see, or strike someone at a point where their humors are concentrated and they are more susceptible to harm. If he thinks of 'ki points' as concentrations of some fifth element within himself, or rarified humors that he has learned to concentrate into something more potent than the simple biles and fluids that so inefficiently move and gather at random in the bodies of the less educated, he can totally skip much of the eastern flavor, and still justify the various monk class abilities.
Psychic 'mind over body' techniques also work well here. He doesn't high jump or slow fall by manipulating his humors to make himself momentarily lighter, or emulating the ability that allows birds to fly, or altering his internal alchemy to allow him to float upon the invisible phlogiston that permeates everything, but through telekinetic power.
'Cause he's a Jedi.
Any of these variations could be lawful, or even be justified as having to be lawful, or not, depending on whether your GM is copacetic with the idea of non-Lawful monks.
Quick aside: several knightly orders were technically monks. A lot of the bunk written about the Templar knights makes for a great "mystical yet Western monk", without having to shun combat.
I think cloistered cleric is a monk.
Indeed. Cloistered cleric is the closest thing to a European monk.
If my character believed like a Buddhist believes... would he still be a viable PC?
Or is that kind of mindset going to kill an adventure path?
May I recommend reading the story of Robber Zhi? Okay, it's Zhuangzi, who's really a Taoist, but it underlines the kind of logic that can lead a monk to be... very un-monk-like. (I still say the orders themselves are lawful, though).
Buddhism has many sects, and the precepts of buddhism allow for a wide range of characters with their own believes to be at odds with each other.
You can be a zen buddhist and be downright evil by western narrative standards, even though the fundamentals of buddhism are about the alleviation of suffering. Especially zen buddhism, because once you arrive there you can justify seemingly any behavior as long as you grasp the nature of things.
Quick aside: several knightly orders were technically monks. A lot of the bunk written about the Templar knights makes for a great "mystical yet Western monk", without having to shun combat.
I think this illustrates the difference between titles and actual lifestyles. If you're using the "bunk written about the Templars," the one thing that absolutely gets lost is the asceticism that is basically the defining cross-cultural feature of "monks." And the whole point of the mysticism is that it derived from secret Oriental techniques, which makes them only loosely western.
I agree that a Western monk is basically a cloistered cleric.
Quick aside: several knightly orders were technically monks. A lot of the bunk written about the Templar knights makes for a great "mystical yet Western monk", without having to shun combat.I think this illustrates the difference between titles and actual lifestyles. If you're using the "bunk written about the Templars," the one thing that absolutely gets lost is the asceticism that is basically the defining cross-cultural feature of "monks." And the whole point of the mysticism is that it derived from secret Oriental techniques, which makes them only loosely western.
Well, to be fair, much of that asceticism was shed in favor of excess over the course of several hundred years. There's not much you can say about the Templars of the second crusade that applies to the organization 200 years later.
However, those early Templars are an excellent model for "western martial artist holy men". They even embraced impoverishment for a time.
The trouble is, the warfare of the day necessitated a fighting style that looks a lot more like a paladin or a cavalier than a monk.
If my character believed like a Buddhist believes... would he still be a viable PC?
Or is that kind of mindset going to kill an adventure path?
Given that the D&D monk is basically based on the Buddhist Shao Lin priests who first developed kung fu, I see no reason why not. Go watch the "Kung Fu" Tv series, it'll get your head into the frame of mind of a LG monk.
Quick aside: several knightly orders were technically monks. A lot of the bunk written about the Templar knights makes for a great "mystical yet Western monk", without having to shun combat.
Paladins or Hellknights, basically.
However, I think the thrust of this thread is about culture and theme for a monk.
European monks were effectively clerics; why exactly the monk class got called "monk" is a mystery only the shade of Gary Gygax can answer, but there it is.
As far as I understand it (and I am not an expert in history so correct me if I am wrong), the Buddhist monks started with a tradition of using physical exercise to enhance mental contemplation since the Buddha became enlightened while practising yoga. Later, in China, Buddhist monks needed a means to defend themselves from attack in their missionary work and from banditry in general. They adapted existing combat forms, discarding overtly martial weapons as counter-productive to their mission of peace, and instead used peasant implements (the sai was adapted from a picket, the kama from a sickle, etc.) or bare hands.
Other martial art traditions have different origins, but most revolve around being a small (threatened) philosophical or religious group, and not being able to use conventional weapons. Hence Western monks, being part of the ascendant culture, never needed such a tradition.
So all you need for a martial arts temple in Pathfinder is a religion, a threat, and a lack of weaponry. You do not need oriental trappings at all, in any way. Any neutral or lawful deity could have a sect that resorted to martial arts, it's just up to the player to fill in the details.
If my character believed like a Buddhist believes... would he still be a viable PC?
Or is that kind of mindset going to kill an adventure path?
Well, the various Buddhist monks have been a staple of adventure fiction. On the other hand, some characters will not fit into some adventure paths; I doubt a monk or a paladin will do well in Skull & Shackles.
As far as I understand it (and I am not an expert in history so correct me if I am wrong), the Buddhist monks started with a tradition of using physical exercise to enhance mental contemplation since the Buddha became enlightened while practising yoga. Later, in China, Buddhist monks needed a means to defend themselves from attack in their missionary work and from banditry in general. They adapted existing combat forms, discarding overtly martial weapons as counter-productive to their mission of peace, and instead used peasant implements (the sai was adapted from a picket, the kama from a sickle, etc.) or bare hands.Other martial art traditions have different origins, but most revolve around being a small (threatened) philosophical or religious group, and not being able to use conventional weapons. Hence Western monks, being part of the ascendant culture, never needed such a tradition.
So all you need for a martial arts temple in Pathfinder is a religion, a threat, and a lack of weaponry.
... and a lack of a tradition of martyrdom. Christianity has spent a fair amount of time being a small, threatened religious group, and the traditional response has been "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," and similar forms of passive nonviolent response.
IMO use a Sohei. He's a monk, but kind of a fighter, get's a horse, makes a perfect humble, but traveling monk, perhaps disenfranchised with his order, but still knowing no other way?
You could be rebellious and still be lawful.
Order and discipline is all you know, but the theory teachings and beliefs have become lost to you. In that way you aren't anything like your brothers in the monastery (and the difference in the character archetype shows it)
Sohei makes a perfect templarian-monk-knight.
I don't know if this is my personal opinion, but I believe it to be accurate.
Martial Arts are not entirely Eastern. I believe that fighting techniques such as boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, Savat, etc. are considered martial arts styles as well. Look at MMA for examples.
If this premise is true, you could make a martial artist archetype monk or a separate class with a lvl dip into this archetype and build him or her through skills/feats/roleplay flavor, to be exactly a Western style monk or formidable western unarmed combatant, without all the Kung-Fu, Fu-Manchu, Zen kind of flavors.
Just my 2 cp.
"... and a lack of a tradition of martyrdom. Christianity has spent a fair amount of time being a small, threatened religious group, and the traditional response has been "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," and similar forms of passive nonviolent response."
Not including the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch hunts, Manifest Destiny, Colonialism, etc =P
Of course, I agree with you though. Once Christianity became part of the ruling establishment, a lot of that turn the other cheek stuff went out the window.
if by "a fair amount of time being a small, threatened group" you mean it suffered under the Roman empire for 300 years until Constantine made it the official religion of rome, and then spent the next 1700 years as a dominant religious power.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Remember that class does not have to equal profession. I've played "clerics" who were not members of the clergy. I've seen "barbarians" who didn't run around in loincloths and wield clubs. I've seen "rogues" who were actually lawful detectives.
So don't confuse necessarily "monk" for "the monk class."
Now, you can certainly create a monk who has the monk class. That's kind of obvious. But you could also create a, say, friar, who was a fighter, or a cleric, or a bard, or whatever.
You also don't have to assume any member of the monk class has to be Buddhist or a practitioner of another Eastern religion or philosophy. If you want it to be, great, but you don't have to strain to mix, say, Buddhism and Christianity together just to have a monk that looks like a Western friar. You can if you want to, but you don't have to. The term "Ki" may come from Eastern traditions, but as a mechanical class ability, it could represent any number of things, such as faith, or mana, or whatever--any personal spiritual wellspring will do.
I could create an oldskool Franciscan friar, who travels and tends to the sick and needy, and while he is capable of defending himself because of the dangers of the roads, he wishes, like St. Francis, to be a living "instrument of peace," and thus has focused his faith so strongly so that his mere touch can calm the most violent of persons. Mechanically, he would be a Monk of the Lotus, even though words like "ki" and "lotus" mean nothing to him--the mechanics work for the concept and that's all that's important. I'd throw in Vows of Celibacy, Peace, and Poverty because they'd be narratively appropriate. As he is very pious and very dedicated to his various vows of obedience and chastity and poverty and so on, and truly wishes to serve the needs of others before his own, I would make him Lawful Good.
For your combination Buddhist-Christian reiki specialist, I honestly think you could design the background however you like. Simply because you mention reiki, mechanically I might go for a monk of the healing hand... Everything else is pretty much as you like -- if you're picking the monk class where you absolutely must be Lawful, then you have to be Lawful, but that suits the ascetic lifestyle most monks have, regardless of their personal faith tradition. Anything else is up to you. Buddhists and Christians both can otherwise be lawful, neutral, chaotic, good, neutral, evil, it just depends on what you decide your character's personal philosophy is. I've met a reiki specialist influenced by both Buddhist and Christian teachings before (and the official faith tradition she belonged to was a Liberal/Hicksite Quaker). She personally I'd say was neutral good, but that's because she was a genuinely kind person who wasn't too rigidly bound to tradition, but neither too individualism-over-all sort of person. But then I'd also not actually give a fictional version of her the monk class (probably more likely oracle), so there we are.
TL;DR -- play whatever you want as long as it makes sense to you.
Has anyone mentioned Friar Tuck yet?
I don't know if this is my personal opinion, but I believe it to be accurate.
Martial Arts are not entirely Eastern. I believe that fighting techniques such as boxing, Greco-Roman wrestling, Savat, etc. are considered martial arts styles as well. Look at MMA for examples.
If this premise is true, you could make a martial artist archetype monk or a separate class with a lvl dip into this archetype and build him or her through skills/feats/roleplay flavor, to be exactly a Western style monk or formidable western unarmed combatant, without all the Kung-Fu, Fu-Manchu, Zen kind of flavors.
Just my 2 cp.
Just google medieval martial arts (MMA though not to be confused with mixed martial arts) or renaissance martial arts or historical european martial arts (HEMA).
The medieval western martial arts incorporated unarmed styles too. The difference between western and eastern monasteries would IMHO be weapons used ( monk class has exotic eastern weapons, while western martial artists often used swords. OTOH there's lots of interesting stick fighting schools in western culture just google shillelaghs) and the emphasis on martial training in some eastern monasteries, while western martial arts were not especially practiced/tought in western monasteries but elsewhere.
if by "a fair amount of time being a small, threatened group" you mean it suffered under the Roman empire for 300 years until Constantine made it the official religion of rome, and then spent the next 1700 years as a dominant religious power.
Half right. Look at either the experiences of the missionaries, or the experiences of Christian splinter groups such as the Anabaptists during those 1700 years.
Christians in power can definitely be dicks, yes. No question about that. But Christians out of power tend to be very much into not having their monks kicking ass and taking names. That role was reserved to the secular arm.