Another example of replacing "Weapon and Armor Proficiency" bull... Its not 1 feature, its numerous different feats clumped together.I disagree. Weapon and Armor proficiency (for a monk at least) is more than just a bunch of feats clumped together.The bolded bit shows that it clearly is a class feature that limits your options as a monk. Now, in AC bonus and fast movement it states that you can't use the ability in armor, but in FoB, it doesn't, indicating that, at least for a monk, weapon and armor proficiency is more than feats clumped together.Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with the club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger, handaxe, javelin, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shortspear, short sword, shuriken, siangham, sling, and spear.
Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields.
When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses his AC bonus, as well as his fast movement and flurry of blows abilities.
You did not got what i ment. I was saying that it should read as "Monk get feats:
Simple Weapon Proficiency: ClubSimple Weapon Proficiency: Light Crossbow
...
Simple Weapon Proficiency: Spear
Monk ability restrictions."
So if archetype like Unbreakable says:
An unbreakable is not proficient with tower shields.
it does not mean that he loses light, medium, and heavy armor, all shields as well as simple and martial weapon proficiencies because it is "replaced" by non-proficiency in tower shields. If you treat it like bunch of feats then you can just remove relevant one and everything is fine.
Personally I feel they should be allowed to flurry in light armor.
I agree here, because now archetype is not coherent with itself.
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Without armor, a Monk needs Wis to stay even close to competitive in AC.
And that's exactly the trap most monks fall into. Focus should be Str>Wis>Con/Dex. As a monk you are going to get hit, your AC is going to be low. Just accept it. Instead focus on what you can do which is dish out decent damage. Let your opponent strike you with a charge or whatever, then get your flurry against him.
I've never thought the Sohei could flurry in armor, but I clicked the FAQ anyways. If they could, I bet you the supply of +1 Mithral Brawling Chain Shirts across Golarion would sell out overnight.
Except the Sohei has a weakened unarmed strike so this enchantment is pointless unless you're doing something goofy like wield a reach weapon and use unarmed to threaten within 5 ft.
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This is the problem with Paizo's election to write archetypes as if they were errata to the standard class.
Not the topic of these boards but I strongly disagree with this. Though some of the archetypes are vague it's due to vague write ups not the concept of archetypes as a whole. Re-writing entire sections of classes that function exactly like their counterparts would be pointless. Unless you propose they just release a huge array of splatbooks with new classes which would turn pathfinder into the terribly unbalanced 3.5.
Archetypes were a fantastic idea that for me is the biggest calling to pathfinder and why I'm disappointed into their upcoming splatbook with "hybrid" classes. I'm positive these, along with "prestige" classes can all be done as archetypes.
And that's exactly the trap most monks fall into. Focus should be Str>Wis>Con/Dex. As a monk you are going to get hit, your AC is going to be low. Just accept it. Instead focus on what you can do which is dish out decent damage. Let your opponent strike you with a charge or whatever, then get your flurry against him.
Problem being that you're a d8 HD class.
With such comparatively low HP, you need AC to make up for it. Otherwise you get mulched.
The things my Barbarian can walk into and get shredded by with his 27 AC (32 now, took a level of Fighter and found some +5 Full Plate on a dude, which is nice) he can take because he has tons of HP and DR to back it up.
The Monk doesn't have that.
On average, with Con as a tertiary stat (probably a 14, then), he'll have 6 HP per level. 7 with FCB.
By level 10 that's a whopping 73 HP at max.
Random monster pulled from the bestiary for CR 10: Fire Giant.
3 attacks starting at +20 at 3d6 +15 (average 25 a swing), and 142 HP. 10 ft. Reach, but we'll discount that for our purposes.
He has an average of 75 damage if he connects with all his hits, we'll make it an even 100 since you said he gets a Charge first.
You're dead. Even with Toughness boosting you to 83 you're dead.
Unless your Monk can whip out 142 damage that round (an iffy prospect, most likely, best I've been able to get is an ideal of 126), he's probably going to die unless his AC holds up vs the guy.
But if your Wis is secondary (16? 18 with a headband?), you've probably only got about, let's see... 12 Dex, 18 Wis, +2 Monk Bonus, +3 Bracers of Armor...20 AC? We'll throw in Dodge from a Monk bonus Feat and a +1 Ring of Protection as well. 22 AC.
The Giant misses on a 1 with his first hit, needs a 7 on the second, and a 12 on the third. He's got a solid chance of hitting with all 3.
Glass cannons don't fare well against bruisers like that, at all.
He'd do a bit better against some other monsters, admittedly (like the Contract Devil) but still not too hot against others either, even from CR 8 or 9.
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Rynjin: Wealth by level lists a PC should have around 62,000 gp of gear at 10th level, which means he would have more gear, and as a result, a slightly higher AC.
For example:
+2 Weapon (8,300-ish gp)
Bracers of Armor +3 (9,000 gp)
Amulet of Natural Armor +2 (8,000 gp)
Ring of Protection +2 (8,000 gp)
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone (5,000 gp)
Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone (2,000 gp)
Wand of Shield (50 charges) (750 gp)
Belt of Giant Strength +2 (4,000 gp)
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 (4,000 gp)
Monk's Robes (13,500)
Total: 62,550 gp (so, a little over; let's assume that he has this gear; no more than half on any one item).
AC is still around 28-29 depending on race & stats (and if he gets a standard action to buff, an extra +4 Shield from the Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone). Perhaps still too low for a CR 10 Fire Giant, but better than 22 AC.
Just thought I'd throw that out there. Back to your regular scheduled discussion. :)
Rynjin: Wealth by level lists a PC should have around 62,000 gp of gear at 10th level, which means he would have more gear, and as a result, a slightly higher AC.
For example:
+2 Weapon (8,300-ish gp)
Bracers of Armor +3 (9,000 gp)
Amulet of Natural Armor +2 (8,000 gp)
Ring of Protection +2 (8,000 gp)
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone (5,000 gp)
Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone (2,000 gp)
Wand of Shield (50 charges) (750 gp)
Belt of Giant Strength +2 (4,000 gp)
Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 (4,000 gp)
Monk's Robes (13,500)Total: 62,550 gp (so, a little over; let's assume that he has this gear; no more than half on any one item).
AC is still around 28-29 depending on race & stats (and if he gets a standard action to buff, an extra +4 Shield from the Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone). Perhaps still too low for a CR 10 Fire Giant, but better than 22 AC.
Just thought I'd throw that out there. Back to your regular scheduled discussion. :)
I don't generally do Ioun Stones so I have little idea of what they do.
But I bolded one I purposefully left off, since it's DEFINITELY not one every Monk can use if they're supposed to be dealing damage instead of having AC.
Good point, overall, and given pre-buffing I could make that 26 (without the AoNA) much better (Trading High Jump for Barkskin with Qinggong is something every Monk should do, fo' sho.), but within his scenario (enemy charges at him) I figured it was simpler to leave pre-buffing out of the picture.
Given that the AoMF is a possibility I'd say drop the Ring of Protection +2, but personally I've never seen the use of a Monk's Robe so dropping that and upgrading one of your other AC boosting things would get you the same thing, so it's really just a matter of preference there.
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I don't generally do Ioun Stones so I have little idea of what they do.
But I bolded one I purposefully left off, since it's DEFINITELY not one every Monk can use if they're supposed to be dealing damage instead of having AC.
Good point, overall, and given pre-buffing I could make that 26 (without the AoNA) much better (Trading High Jump for Barkskin with Qinggong is something every Monk should do, fo' sho.), but within his scenario (enemy charges at him) I figured it was simpler to leave pre-buffing out of the picture.
Given that the AoMF is a possibility I'd say drop the Ring of Protection +2, but personally I've never seen the use of a Monk's Robe so dropping that and upgrading one of your other AC boosting things would get you the same thing, so it's really just a matter of preference there.
Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone: +1 Insight bonus to AC, slotless.
Cracked Vibrant Purple Prism Ioun Stone: Holds 1 level of spells, as a Ring of Spell Storing. (Idea being UMDing or having someone use your Wand of Shield into the Ioun Stone, so you can spend a standard action to cast the spell from it).Otherwise, you made some good points. Some Monks will fight with their unarmed strikes. Others will use weapons. Depends on the build, really.
(Perhaps I'm biased, 'cause my Barbarian/Monk in PFS uses a weapon, and I think is a pretty cool character).
But I'd assume that the AC will be roughly in the same ballpark, regardless.
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I agree that monks can become less MAD. But I always thought the non-MAD monk was the one with an agile AoMF since he can't get 1.5 Str without taking Dragon Style feats. Either way, pumping Wisdom is usually superior to Dexterity (though you want to pump both so you can do damage) because it buffs a bunch of class features.
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Otherwise, you made some good points. Some Monks will fight with their unarmed strikes. Others will use weapons. Depends on the build, really.
Yes, my monk build would two-hand a temple sword for optimized DPR over unarmed combat. As a monk, well really when building any character, a player should choose one think they want to excel at then optimize towards that goal. Odd as it may sound, unarmed damage is not way to go if you want to output high DPR as a monk. Plus as pointed out you can't get the extra AC boost from Natural Armor and the unarmed belt is too expensive even with the decrease in price.
The trap many monks fall into is they think they must do all sorts of monk like stuff and forget to focus. Yes, he will have d8 hit die. Yes, he will be outputting less DPR than say a barbarian or whatever other melee. But he's good at what he does and brings more to the table than just DPR. Unlike a monk who makes himself MAD and is subpar at everything.
Bump
Bumps don't help. The design team sees a list of posts that are FAQed, ordered by number of votes. How old the thread is is irrelevant.
BumpBumps don't help. The design team sees a list of posts that are FAQed, ordered by number of votes. How old the thread is is irrelevant.
Feedback from other forumites is still useful, though. Not to mention more folks might check out the threat and add their votes for FAQ-ing, like I just did.
Feedback from other forumites is still useful, though. Not to mention more folks might check out the threat and add their votes for FAQ-ing, like I just did.BumpBumps don't help. The design team sees a list of posts that are FAQed, ordered by number of votes. How old the thread is is irrelevant.
Valid point.
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Except the Sohei has a weakened unarmed strike so this enchantment is pointless unless you're doing something goofy like wield a reach weapon and use unarmed to threaten within 5 ft.
Doesn't the weapon damage die become irrelevent for primary DPS characters? I get that unarmed strikes, having the poor crit range, are typically inferior to weapon-flurry, but unarmed strikes have they're own benefits (stunning fist, medusa's wrath, etc). If nothing else, sohei will become a legitimate dip for brawler fighters for the extra attack in light, if they get armor flurry.
I would twice if i could.
Hasn't this already been addressed by a developer? I distinctly remember reading that the intent was that a sohei could not flurry in armor, though I'm too lazy to look up the thread where this was stated.
The author stated that was his intent, yes. Author statements of intent are not errata/FAQ.
The author stated that was his intent, yes. Author statements of intent are not errata/FAQ.
Especially if it is not a member of the in house Paizo team.
Contractors are contracted to write a specific archetype or spell or feat or what have you. Then it's turned in to Paizo, who makes changes, and decides the final version (at least one person has posted that an archetype didn't look anything like what they turned in).
The author stated that was his intent, yes. Author statements of intent are not errata/FAQ.Especially if it is not a member of the in house Paizo team.
Contractors are contracted to write a specific archetype or spell or feat or what have you. Then it's turned in to Paizo, who makes changes, and decides the final version (at least one person has posted that an archetype didn't look anything like what they turned in).
If you're referring to the Titan Mauler, I believe the devs thought the original ability was too powerful and so they changed it. Do you believe the devs would add in the ability to flurry while wearing armor to shore up the Sohei? It was my understanding it is already considered one of the most powerful monk archetypes (even without armored flurry).
Edit: if you're referring to something else, then just ignore me!
My point was that original intent by contractors is just information, but it's not binding. Only things from Paizo official are really binding*.
*At least, it's the only thing that's official RAI. It's still only as binding as you and your gaming group allow it to be.
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Hasn't this already been addressed by a developer? I distinctly remember reading that the intent was that a sohei could not flurry in armor, though I'm too lazy to look up the thread where this was stated.Yeah, in fact, someone else has already brought that up, so don't bother looking for it.
The author has already stated his intention, although, that carries no weight in PFS.
Still doesn't fix the fact that there are several threads asking the question.
A few months ago, Sean mentioned that a post with ~30 some FAQ clicks was near the very top of the list.
You're well past that. There's really no need to bump it so many times.
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Ironically, that post bumped the thread.
Here's hoping this one is answered. With 65 (!!!) FAQs, it seems to be FAQtastic to the max.
Yes, I know. But something has to be said.
Official Rules Response
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FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1g1#v5748eaic9rag
Monk, Sohei: Can a sohei use flurry of blows while wearing light armor?
Yes (but not medium or heavy armor). However, a sohei does not gain his monk AC bonus class feature when wearing armor.
The next printing of Ultimate Combat will be changed to reflect this ruling.
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Huh.
I thought it was pretty clever that Mr. Nelson intended it to be either better at offense (not wearing armor) or defense (wearing armor), but that works too. Thanks!
Huh.
I thought it was pretty clever that Mr. Nelson intended it to be either better at offense (not wearing armor) or defense (wearing armor), but that works too. Thanks!
I'm also surprised at this decision.Not complaining, just surprised.
Sohei officially best Monk archetype.
Who gives a s~+@ about lesser unarmed strike dice, we finally have a Monk that can USE BRAWLING ARMOR.
*looks at his unarmored Str Wis Sohei in PFS*
Well damn.
Eh, I'll take the better dice over +2/+2, thanks.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Eh, I'll take the better dice over +2/+2, thanks.
Kinda depends on the level you'll end your career. At 8th, the average damage from increase die size is +2 (d10 vs d6), but you still don't have the +2 to hit.
It's not until 12th that the damage dice increase enough (2d6, which is +3.5 damage over 1d6, or +1.5 damage over 1d6+2) to actually be more damage per hit than the bonus from brawling armor. (Even then, you have to weigh +1.5 damage versus +2 to hit.) So if your campaign finishes before you get to actually play at 12th (*coughPFScough*), then brawling is stronger.
Since you lose increase unarmed damage, wouldn't that damage be 1d3?
Eh, I'll take the better dice over +2/+2, thanks.
1d8 is ~4 average damage. d10 is around 5, 2d6 is around 7.
Brawling raises the average damage effectively up to ~6, so on damage it's better up to level 12. And the +2 to-hit blows it out of the water regardless. That's 4000 gold for what is effectively a +2 Amulet of Mighty Fists (16k gp) and stacks with it.
The Brawling enchantment is, hands down, superior to the increased damage dice. And this is a GREAT thing.
And combined with Weapon Training...this puts you up to pretty much Full BaB comparable to-hit with your Unarmed strikes, though Brawler still has the edge of being full BaB ON TOP of those benefits.
The downside is Sohei replaces many of the things that makes the Monk, well, a Monk, but it's an unarmed option that at the very least isn't utterly destroyed by non-Monk classes at being an unarmed fighter. The better saves alone make it worth taking a look at now IMO.
Since you lose increase unarmed damage, wouldn't that damage be 1d3?
You don't lose it entirely, it just stops progressing after 4th.
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FAQ: http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1g1#v5748eaic9rag
Monk, Sohei: Can a sohei use flurry of blows while wearing light armor?
Yes (but not medium or heavy armor). However, a sohei does not gain his monk AC bonus class feature when wearing armor.
The next printing of Ultimate Combat will be changed to reflect this ruling.
Thank you Pathfinder Design Team!