This is a statement I keep hearing over and over that monk is just too weak and has limited options and such.
Without breaking the class's idea, what would you suggest to make the monk viable on par with the other classes? What abilities would you buff? What abilities with you nerf?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Core Rulebook Monk is not underpowered. And if it was, everything in the APG and Ultimate Combat take it well well past the point of balance.
They beat things up, some things better than others, be where they are needed, and at the end of the battle (or the surprise round), they are usually the ones who will be standing.
People should actually build and play monks before saying they're underpowered. Monks are only as underpowered as the number of source books your GM allows you to use. If you have access to the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat, you can make a very strong monk. Compared to other classes (notably the bard), the monk is among the most customizable classes in the game with the proper material at your disposal.
Believe me, I thought monks were underpowered too. Then I build a Drunken Qinggong Weapon Master. One of the most fun characters I've ever played, and that group had a few players who were on board with the, "Monks Suck" schtick. Boy, they were surprised with the insane amounts of damage that I regularly dished out whenever I spent my resources! (Power Attack + Ki Strike for an Extra Attack + Flurry of Blows + Drunken Strength; that's a nice chunk of damage there,)
But anyway, the moral of the story is that monks are a potent class if you have a strong sense of system mastery. They're not as easy to make powerful characters with as, say, the wizard or even the barbarian.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
If you wanna make them not suck by internet forum standards, make it possible to full attack more often.
It's the game, not the class.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
People should actually build and play monks before saying they're underpowered. Monks are only as underpowered as the number of source books your GM allows you to use. If you have access to the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat, you can make a very strong monk. Compared to other classes (notably the bard), the monk is among the most customizable classes in the game with the proper material at your disposal.
Believe me, I thought monks were underpowered too. Then I build a Drunken Qinggong Weapon Master. One of the most fun characters I've ever played, and that group had a few players who were on board with the, "Monks Suck" schtick. Boy, they were surprised with the insane amounts of damage that I regularly dished out whenever I spent my resources! (Power Attack + Ki Strike for an Extra Attack + Flurry of Blows + Drunken Strength; that's a nice chunk of damage there,)
But anyway, the moral of the story is that monks are a potent class if you have a strong sense of system mastery. They're not as easy to make powerful characters with as, say, the wizard or even the barbarian.
People have played them. It is not theorycrafting. With that aside a decent monk can be made with enough splat books, BUT the builder needs very good system mastery or a nice GM.
It is a lot more difficult than it should be, and it should not require splat books. Certain archetypes are good, but as a whole the class needs help.
As for the OP you should let someone play one in your games and adjust for your groups. What works in one group might not work in another.
One thought I've had that I haven't read before would be to have a target's DR only apply to the first successful hit in a monk's flurry of blows. Maybe require spending a ki point to do so.
DR penalizes anyone who relies of multiple attacks to do damage. A barbarian type can rely on fewer attacks dealing more damage each due to Power Attack, two-handed weapons, and raged stats. A monk doesn't get any of that. They rely on a whole bunch of low-damage strikes.
Beyond that I think the monk's reasonable.
Cold anyone, please, tell me how monks are underpowered? Or is that sarcasm?
Monks are machines of death in PF... any time I see a monk, he kills half of the encounter before the fighter kills his first opponent.
Personally, as I stated during the Pathfinder RPG Alpha playtest, I feel monks should be a 6 + Int mod skill rank class (to capture more of the feel/role from 1st Ed AD&D). As far as combat-effectiveness, even a Core Rulebook monk can be very effective at certain things (i.e., grappling to nullify casters), even if their DPR lags a bit behind the Core raging barbarian, etc.
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
@-@
|
Like everything you can make decent monks but like most people said, it requires some system mastery or you just end up sucking. There isn't really much to fix on the monk, if I get a choice of classes in a party monk are a very low priority.
They are faster, nobody in the party is fast as the monk so this doesn't change anything during travel time. To be fair this make monk very mobile on the battlefield, able to help the front and the back easily.
They can slow fall, great I guess...doesn't mean every members of the party are going to jump down there. It actually killed one of my players who jumped to the boss room and everybody had to run to him while fighting other monsters.
Flurry of blow, it's nice full attack...yeah but frankly intelligent opponents are not just going to stand there and let all your melee people land full round action. Mostly why Pounce is so popular on melee characters build. Flurry of blows on Kobolds and various fodders is frankly not that impressive.
@-@
its coming...
|
The monk was hampered in 3.0 because of things I will not go into here. One of the main reasons for the 3.5 reset was to "fix" the discrepancies between the classes, with changes to the Monk, Bard, Ranger and Druid I believe.
They also made it so that there were no skills that could not be taken by any class. (A change that made the Rogue class less viable)
The Monk still lacked mechanical finesse. The changes PF did was mostly in keeping with the balance with the rest, but it didn't "fix" the overall mechanical misgivings.
I don't think anything in this current iteration will be enough to get the basic Monk inline with the rest of the classes. Archtypes will, however, make for a good alternative, as some of the static "features" are replaced with actual useful ones.
the dreaded PF ver 2 will have to address this issue as well as standardizing the magic casting mechanic to change up/get rid of Vancian casting.
Dead horse indeed. It was dead even before PF was released.
Check out Dabblers fix, it's pretty good. However, I don't know how to link it.
In the groups we had the only problem monk had - bad roleplay. Like a paladin, but for slightly different reasons, monks are a bit hard to play, roleplaying wise. If you don't abstract from the "kung-fu master" and "wise old/young man" tropes, there is little to no place for him in a party, as a role.
If nothing else, it would be nice if the Monk were a full-BAB class with 6+Int skill points, akin to a Ranger. It would really simplify the whole flurry thing.
-Matt
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Cold anyone, please, tell me how monks are underpowered? Or is that sarcasm?
Monks are machines of death in PF... any time I see a monk, he kills half of the encounter before the fighter kills his first opponent.
Look it up on the forums. There are tons and tons of threads about this. To sum the general consensus up, to fill their role and look like monks, they must optimize a lot and have at least 20PB or lucky rolls and 3 or 4 archetypes on him [and often use a Temple Sword], meanwhile a ranger/fighter/brawler can do the same thing with core-only material and very low optimization.
Keep in mind that many people [me included], disagree with the general consensus and/or say monks are their favorite class, and that this is the internet.
Cold anyone, please, tell me how monks are underpowered? Or is that sarcasm?
Monks are machines of death in PF... any time I see a monk, he kills half of the encounter before the fighter kills his first opponent.
Look it up on the forums. There are tons and tons of threads about this. To sum the general consensus up, to fill their role and look like monks, they must optimize a lot and have at least 20PB or lucky rolls and 3 or 4 archetypes on him [and often use a Temple Sword], meanwhile a ranger/fighter/brawler can do the same thing with core-only material and very low optimization.
Keep in mind that many people [me included], disagree with the general consensus and/or say monks are their favorite class, and that this is the internet.
I too disagree, all the monks we so far had put fighter to shame. But we do not min-max all that much, and roll for attributes.
I too disagree, all the monks we so far had put fighter to shame. But we do not min-max all that much, and roll for attributes.
There's the problem (well, not really a problem but I couldn't think of a better word).
Rolled stats are a godsend for a Monk if the player rolls well. The MAD issue becomes a non-issue.
Combined with an optimized Monk vs an unoptimized party, you have a bit of a skewed viewpoint.
Monks can be made good, but it requires more effort for them to achieve that level, which is an issue.
If a Fighter takes X effort to achieve Y result, a Monk taking X+1 effort to achieve Y result (on a good day) is a balance problem.
Especially when Fighters aren't exactly the best class in the game either.
My only issue with the core monk is that it has an unclear focus. It is described essentially as an ascetic warrior with fists of adamantine, and people get distracted by the unarmed strike dice and flurry and go "ooh, martial artist." Then you look at all the other abilities and realize the class is otherwise, more of a defense-based, mobile support character who can handle melee just well enough to contribute to combat.
People who feel the monk is underpowered evaluate it solely from its ability to dish out damage in combat. And the fact is, if you want to dish out damage in combat as your sole character focus, you probably shouldn't play a core monk.
Now that there will be the brawler, hopefully people who just want to play someone who punches things to death have a full BAB, very combat focused option and folks who want to play the more broadly built mystical d8 character will remain happy with the monk.
In the end, it is a viable class, as long as you play it according to its actual strengths rather than what you want its strengths to be.
Not to mention, the monk has some excellent archetypes, many of which "fix" the monk for those seeking out a certain build concept they could not manage with the core class.
The only thing unfixed, is that brass knuckles should do damage equal to the wielder's unarmed strike damage, so monks have a better option for bypassing DR and stacking damage bonuses, for those who really do want to focus on some decent melee skill at higher levels.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The problem here is that "defense based, mobile support" is not a niche the game really supports all that well.
Not being hit doesn't mean jack if you can't hit back, and mobility is actively discouraged by the game as a whole (and especially by the Monk's core feature, Flurry, which requires you to be stationary or sacrifice ALL pretense of being a real combatant).
Archetypes fix some of this (a Panther/Snake/Crane MoMS makes an EXCELLENT Mobile Support/Defense character), but that doesn't really help the base level class.
In my first Pathfinder campaign one of my friends was a Monk. We all rolled for stats and everyone was poorly optimized (one guy was even this weird 3.5 homebrew which was basically a fighter with extra AC but no other class features). Yet the Monk was by far the worst member of the party. He could run around pretty well but over the course of six sessions he probably did a grand total of 8 damage. His "flurry of misses" caused many laughs every session. This guy actually had the most experience of anyone there, and we rolled for stats.
I can't comment as to what should be done, or even if there is a problem at higher levels of optimization but I just wanted to refute the idea that the Monk is amazing at low levels of optimization.
We're play testing the following in our home campaigns:
Full BAB all the time, simplifying the flurry mechanic and penalizing less when the monk doesn't full attack.
Pick one save (F, R, or Will) at first level to follow POOR advancement.
It is helping, but the jury is still out.
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Cold anyone, please, tell me how monks are underpowered? Or is that sarcasm?
Monks are machines of death in PF... any time I see a monk, he kills half of the encounter before the fighter kills his first opponent.
...all the monks we so far had put fighter to shame. But we do not min-max all that much, and roll for attributes.
Rolled stats are good for a monk because it neutralises one of their biggest issues, MAD. And certainly, an optimised monk will play better than a non-optimised fighter, but that does not tell us much. What makes the mark is comparing an optimised monk to an optimised fighter. Also, the monk can perform reasonably well at low levels before the differences between monk and other classes grows. They can perform well against humanoid enemies too, but lets face it in this game you are more often up against monsters...
There are those that say the monk is weak because "you are playing the monk as a fighter, not as a monk" - but they then fail completely to define what playing "as a monk" actually entails, save to list some vague actions that another class could easily do better. The bottom line is that the monk is a combat class; he doesn't have the spells (not even the qingong monk) to be a caster, and he doesn't have sufficient skills to be anything more than a 3rd-rate scout. That leaves combat, like it or not.
There are those that say: "Well monks make great mage-bashers and can tie foes down" which is indeed a valid tactic...if you have a mage in the enemy, if you can reach them, and if you have the combat ability to tie an enemy down. It's not good enough to be able to beat up the people everyone can beat up, you have to be able to tussle with the big boys.
Then there are those that claim: "The monk is a jack-of-all trades, you cannot expect them to be the best at everything!" Which is a valid point save that (a) the game rewards specialisation, and (b) there are other jack-of-all-trades classes that whip the monk into a cocked hat being jacks-of-all-trades: the bard, the ranger, and the inquisitor are excellent JOATs, because they are 3/4 as good at the specialists at everything, rather than half as good.
OK, so here's the problems with monks:
1) MAD (Multi-Attribute Dependent): all combat classes (and like it or not the monk has to get into combat) require physical stats of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution. The monk also needs Wisdom for their special abilities and to compensate for their lack of armour. Every other class can get by with one good score, one decent score and a couple of moderate scores. The monk needs two good scores and a decent score, minimum. If you are using point buy that just isn't happening. At best you can moderate MAD slightly by dropping strength and taking Weapon Finesse and Agile Maneuvers, but it's not an ideal solution as you are burning two feats just to not totally suck.
2) Poor Attack Bonus: The monk usually struggles to get a decent attack bonus, and this is for three reasons...
2a) the monk is a 3/4 attack bonus class. All others, save the rogue, have the ability to self-buff in some way, while the rogue has a very clear non-combat role. The monk has neither. He does get a boost when flurrying, but this is completely at odds with his fast movement. He gets a similar boost doing maneuvers, but maneuvers aren't always applicable. Other combat classes (fighter, barbarian, ranger, paladin) all get some kind of enhancement to hit and damage, but the monk only gets rising dice on his unarmed strike. If they choose to TWF, they can choose not to in order get more accuracy, but if the monk doesn't flurry he usually gets less accurate. Generally this places the monk 2 to 5 points behind the other combat classes in BAB alone, 4-9 once you factor in the boosts other combat classes get.
2b) Then there is enhancement. The monk is oriented toward using an unarmed strike, and the only way to enhance this is with the amulet of mighty fists, which costs double a normal magic weapon and is capped at a total of +5 for enhancements and properties. If the monk uses properties (like agile in order to be less MAD) then they lose out on enhancement. This means the monk is pretty much always 1 point of attack bonus behind every other combat class on enhancement.
2c) MADness again, because the monk is struggling with their attributes, a "balanced" monk will always be a point or two down on their highest attribute, and that's likely the one they attack with. That points them an average point behind again.
So all told, your monk can easily be +6 to +11 to hit behind the other combat classes at 20th level, and proportionally behind at lower levels. This might not sound so bad, you can still hit a CR-equivelant enemy, right? Well if CR-equivelant enemies are all you fight, yes, but in a typical adventure, you will often square off against enemies of up to CR+4, and they sometimes buff up on top. That's OK, the fighter can still hit them...but the monk starts punching air.
3) Inability to get past DR: now this might sound silly, but the monk actually struggles to get past DR; Ki-strike looks good on paper, but that's the only place it looks good. Other combat classes are bypassing DR/magic around 3rd level, the monk has to wait until 4th, and does it without the +1 to hit and damage that the other combat classes get into the bargain from their magic weapons. He bypasses cold iron and silver at 7th, when spare weapons have done this for other classes since 2nd level. At 10th he bypasses DR/lawful...does anything actually HAVE DR/lawful? Not much. Hell, the new Brawler gets a choice to bypass evil or good, but not the monk; he's saddled with the single most useless DR-bypass I can think of. Then at 16th he can bypass DR/adamantine, long after A. N. Other combat-class has been bypassing it with their +4 weapon. They've been bypassing DR/cold iron or silver since they got a +3 weapon, and will bypass any DR/alignment with a +5 weapon. The monk can get enhancement on an amulet of mighty fists, but see above for the issues with that.
But the monk can get weapons? Well, the only decent weapon they get automatic proficiency with worth mentioning is the temple sword, and isn't it a little disingenuous that the archtypical UNARMED combat class has to use a weapon to function? Most people play monks to be kick-ass mystic martial artists, not second rate two-handed fighters. The problem with the unarmed strike is that other than it's rising dice it has no redeeming features: hard damage usually comes from accuracy (we have seen the monk lacks this), static bonus (the monk gets little in this department either), and threat range (unarmed strike is poor for this too). Not for no reason are some of the most effective monk archetypes in combat are those that eschew unarmed combat, the sohei and the zen archer. A few other archetypes can work OK, but a few working archetypes just really highlights now bad the core monk is. You can also make a monk work better by dipping other classes, but actually it becomes more worthwhile to follow the other class and dip the monk in most classes. It leads to the half-joke that the only way to be a decent monk is to not be a monk...
4) Weak and poorly thought out abilities: many of the monks abilities simply do not synergise with one another, or are even counter-productive. Diamond Soul is a real problem ability, as it can hamper you more than it helps you by resisting friendly buffs more effectively than it resists the BBEG's hostile spells. Even the monks keystone ability, ki, is weak. You get very little ki compared to barbarian rage or bardic performance; it's on the same scale as magus arcana, but magus arcana has many effects that last an entire combat, the monk has to burn ki round by round. The monk's high mobility is at odds with their flurry of blows, and basically means that they cannot move and fight.
There are those that argue the monk is a defensive fighter, but the problem with that is that defensive fighting basically doesn't work so well - you can make it work one-on-one, with a lot of effort, but when you are in a party they need more than just someone who isn't a liability, they need someone who can hurt the enemy. Otherwise, you may have the speed to rush over to help the wizard against his enemy, but that doesn't help if you cannot get that enemy's attention away from the wizard before the wizard is dead. The truth is that offence IS defence, because then you kill the enemy before they have many chances to do anything to you or the rest of the party.
This is a statement I keep hearing over and over that monk is just too weak and has limited options and such.
Without breaking the class's idea, what would you suggest to make the monk viable on par with the other classes? What abilities would you buff? What abilities with you nerf?
I have a thread with a lot of little tweaks to the monk that I am play-testing. By and large they are working out OK, here's the thread, as ArmouredMonk13 has mentioned up-thread.
I like the monk, thematically, but it really struggles to cut it. I have played them a lot in games, and it is always frustrating to find that you can't quite be the hero, but are often sidelined to be no more effective than the ranger or druid's animal companion. Time and again, I've found my "awesome" defences couldn't stop a hit from an enemy, and my attacks just punched air or hurt my knuckles as I failed to overcome DR. I love the class, but it's very frustratingly weak, and even the developers have agreed that the monk is a weak class that needs fixing. You can make a good monk, with a lot of system mastery, good choice of feats, and custom equipment...but at the end of all that effort, you are probably not able to contribute half as much to the party as another class with half the effort invested, and I see that as a problem.
/snip
My God O_O, talk about being detailled, awesome there dude ^_^
So... to sum it up:
1) Needs 4 scores to be decent
2) Awkward standard BAB
3) Difficult to enhance unarmed strikes
4) Late DR bypass, useless DR by pass (I was about to counter that Demons have their DR/lawful... but oddly enough, it's NOT the case)
5) Almost mandatory use of weapons... which the monk doesn't excel at using
6) Poor usage of abilties and poor abilities
7) No synergy between mobility and combat
I knew the monk had flaws, but wow, you just hit everything on the nail.
I may not be an expert, but here's my 2 cent on each problem.
1) This... can be offset by racial ability modifiers. While not fool-proof, it can still work.
2) A full BAB would work. The Brawler has both the full BAB and the flurry, so the Monk could certainly benefit. However, playtesting obliges.
3) "As long as the monk has at least 1 Ki point, he gains an enhancement bonus to his unarmed strikes equalt to +1 per 4 monk levels." That would help a bit.
4) I would add DR/evil or good as well. Where? can't say exactly, probably level 13th.
5) One thing: Ki weapon. You know the ability that both the Zen Archer and the Monk of the Empty Hand get, but NOT the Weapon Master? I would give that to the regular monk for every weapon he's proficent in at the cost of 1 Ki point per round... or 1 round per 2 monk levels.
6) I... honestly fail to see the point of using High Jump, Abundant Step and Empty Body. However, are you sure that Diamond Soul affect all spells, including friendly spells?
7) Agree, maybe an ability that give a dodge bonus equal to +1 for every 10 feet the monk has to his speed.
|
So I'm just going to go ahead and toss this out here despite knowing it will invite flaming upon me; monks are not underpowered. There are several monk builds that produce some of the most ridiculous outcomes most people could imagine. True, they are unlikely to possess the raw damage of a fighter and/or barbarian; this does not preclude them from inflicting massive amounts of damage in their own right. However, their strong point is providing a large amount of utility in addition to possessing very reasonable, normally impressive damage dealing capabilities. Some archetypes such as flowing monk, maneuver master or tetori open up whole new cans of worms that'll make your GM want to shoot you.
As for their armor class, monk AC is extremely easy to increase. It is easily possible to produce a monk whose AC tapdances around that of many fighters or paladins. More than that it's significantly less expensive to achieve this desired end result. All it takes is some wisely chosen (they're obvious choices to boot) magical items. Monks require no buffs. Heck, if you're playing a home game you don't even really need an amulet of mighty fists. Just pay to have greater magic fang + permanency done with "unarmed strike" as the target. You'll already be able to bypass most DR due to monks gaining these DR-breaking attributes as their levels progress. Do that and hey look, you've freed your neck slot for the significantly less expensive amulet of natural armor over the amulet of mighty fists. Conversely, you could use your amulet of mighty fists purely to place additional buffs on your unarmed strike; holy, for example, is a good choice. You could have the +5 enhancement form greater magic fang followed immediately by holy, shocking/flaming/freezing burst, axomatic or really whatever happened to tickle your fancy. GMs that will not permit access to permanency (few though they are) diffuse much of what I have said regarding the amulet of mighty fists, and you may indeed be forced to purchase it in order to maximize your potential. But otherwise? Hulk smash.
That's sadly how spell resistance works, even friendly spells. You actually have to take an ??? action(forgot which kind) to remove your spell resistance for 1 round. If you don't want your party buffer risking to fail on your spell resistance check.
Standard action is what you're looking for.
In the spirit of the thread topic (what could fix the monk), I've never noticed any weakness in the monk in my games, but I'm wondering if some of my house rules might have something to do with that.
The rolling for stats (I use a method that is designed to get high results) has been covered, but another rule I use is that full attacking is a standard action, thus allowing move and all attacks at the same time. Furthermore, I allow complete magic item slot choice, so a bracers, cloak, boots, headband, tunic, or whatever of mighty fists would be allowed at no extra cost, or a monk could choose to have enchanted tattoos that would bestow weapon effects at double the cost of a weapon (for being slotless). Last but not least, I allow Dex instead of Str to damage on finesse weapons with a single feat.
I think, in any non PFS game, that monk weakness or underpoweredness can vary greatly from table to table.
|
|
I think, in any non PFS game, that monk weakness or underpoweredness can vary greatly from table to table.
This pretty well sums things up quite eloquently. There are admittedly some archetypes/ability choices that could use a bit of work, but the monk really isn't bad overall. I believe part of the perception of them being underpowered is that they are, more often than not, compared to fighters or barbarians when it comes to damage dealing capacity. That is not even remotely fair of a comparison. Monks can do so much more than just hit things.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Monk class idea is already broken, in a way. They're supposed to be agile, mobile combatants but Flurry of Blows means they're stuck moving 5' a turn like the plate-wearers. You can use Abundant Step to deliver teleporting full attacks, but that takes three feats and as such won't come in until level seventeen.
The Magus only needed one feat to do the same thing — Use Spell Combat, and elect to cast Dimension Door before making the attacks. He could pick it up at level 11. The Wizard also needed just one feat to do his job while teleporting, and he got it as early as level 7. If he's a Conjuration Wizard he could (arguably) do it from level 1.
What I'm getting at here is that everybody needs effective magic. The Monk should have a lot more Ki powers that act like spells; Qinggong Monk was a good start but didn't go far enough. I hate to sound rude but if you want a mundane melee character, that concept belongs squarely to low fantasy and either low level play or a different game. There's a good argument to be made that Fighter type base classes should only go up to level 6, but that's a topic for its own thread.
The Monk could add 10x his level to attack and damage with every punch. The Fighter could auto-kill whatever he struck with his sword. He's still a guy whose only useful ability is walking up to things and hitting them to death. That is the problem, quite beyond comparing the Monk's combat math and WBL budgeting to other martial classes.
|
|
I don't know that I would call getting permanency any form of cheesing the system. It was intentionally made a lot easier to get cast in Pathfinder. Furthermore, you will find that the majority of GMs do not go out of their way to dispel magic you acquired via permanency. It's generally considered bad form, though I personally have no problems with that. Then again, my days as a GM prior to Pathfinder involved sundering the party's equipment -- not just their armor, but even things like belts and gauntlets. The players were perfectly fine with difficulty being turned up to 11, but that's another story in its entirety. My point is that monks are not gimped. It is fully possible to make your monk into a positively terrifying combatant; it is also quite easy.
Bit of an aside: Tetori is a lot harder to shut down than it might seem like. The only way you'll "really" shut it down is by intentionally (and disproportionately) buffing the CMDs of any and all creatures you throw at the party. Otherwise, they can even grapple with incorporeal after a certain point.
|
|
1. optimized player vs. unoptimized player. Odds are if you know a kick ass monk character ask that same person to make up another character with a different class and I'll guarantee that its close to twice as powerful.
I am actually using a monk in an AP (Carrion Crown) right now. Party is level 8. We are also optimized to the point that our GM is allowing us to fight creatures that are faaaarrr above our APL; the last enemy we fought was a level 15 swashbuckler modified by the GM to allow the class abilities to work on its natural weapons. Thing was nasty. The monk character has proven itself to be more than capable thus far. I'll also note that I have played monks into much higher levels in the past; I also have an exceptionally powerful fighter and barbarian, both optimized for damage. As of level 8 I gauge the monk to be roughly on par with the fighter, but the barbarian left them both in the dust from the very beginning. Note that all of these characters were built using 20 point buy; fighter has no low stat (I prestiged it into hell knight so I kept both int and CHA at appropriate levels); the barbarian has a 7 CHA but this has been compensated for already.
Now I'm the sort that plans their characters out from level 1 all the way up to whatever we've decided max level will be. Will the fighter ultimately out damage the monk? Oh yes it will, but not quite by as much as people might think. The two-handed fighter archetype is in use along with lots of optimization to take full advantage of all that it shall confer once I resume taking said fighter levels. The monk is not "underpowered." You just can't give it such absurdly over the top damage as two classes that were literally built to revolve around it, but you can come pretty effin' close if you play your cards right. My monk character will still be doing a lot more damage than the game as-made intends for enemies to be getting nailed by at whatever level it's at. I will, however, concede that they can come to rely more heavily on party buffs. Monks pretty much absolutely need a belt of physical perfection ASAP; a lot of their net wort will go into exactly that. An amulet of mighty fists (again barring the aforementioned greater magic fang) can wind up as a must have. Fortunately, the greater magic fang spell actually specifically notes "unarmed strike" as something to which it can be applied.
Keep in mind that you can actually do 1.5x damage on their flurry through the use of dragon ferocity. If you're running a striker, that's a must have. It really helps a lot.
Almost everything that is wrong with the monk can be traced back to having 3/4 BAB on a standard attack. Some monk archeypes fixing this by focusing on ranged attacks, maneuvers, or things that don't really on normal attack rolls (strangling hair! ki blasts!). If you look at third party products, The Talented Monk expands special BAB to your whole style, not just full attacks, while Monk Reborn rebuilds the class with full BAB.
Issues with hit points, hit points, and MAD can be mostly addressed with some basic system mastery. Dexterity is for specialized builds (mostly ranged attacks and some reaction builds); most Monks that actually punch things are going to focus on Strength or Wisdom.
In mid levels, the amulet of might fists issue drags monks down a little, but the problem mostly disappears at high levels when enhancement bonuses become some of the cheaper things you are buying.
On a related note... as far as I know, there are no official monk archetypes that may grant, maybe, a limited divine spell list... maybe there is a 3rd party or a home-brew one? Or may I take permission to cook one up?
On a related note... as far as I know, there are no official monk archetypes that may grant, maybe, a limited divine spell list... maybe there is a 3rd party or a home-brew one? Or may I take permission to cook one up?there was a prestige class in 3rd ed but that's the only one I am familiar with. A lot of the monk could be fixed by removing its standard and over all bad su abilities in favor of 6 level casting. I know ashiel did it with psionics and its supposed to work very well. With the Brawler on the horizon I hope the monk could get something like this. It wont but I wish
I'll cook something up for peer reviewment then...
IMHO a fist and staff brawler with a limited 6 levels of cleric spells and with almost no Su abilities of a monk makes has a better medieval feel to it, than the eastern stylized one.All I need is a fitting name...
|
|
SO what you're saying is that compared to a fighter that's keeping 5or 6 stats going your monk does comparable damage.
Ohhh don't get me wrong. I barely sacrificed any of that thing's damage to get it where it is now. That character of mine can literally walk up to bosses and erase them from existence. The monk character I'm running in that AP is likely to possess a comparable ability once it reaches the same level as the fighter/hellknight. I know full well that it will ultimately outpace a monk in terms of damage. By the by, fighter's only keeping two stats going. The INT didn't need to be raised higher than 12 due to being able to acquire headbands. I've essentially statted it out just as you would a paladin. But I digress.
Try not to compare a monk to a fighter or a barbarian for a moment. Look at them by themselves, as if they were their own thing. Take that monk, we'll say level 8, and compare it to an average creature of the appropriate CR. Figure up the amount of damage it can do, its AC and its chance to hit versus the same attributes of the enemy. Compare once prior to adding magic items. Follow this up by using appropriate WLB to acquire magic gear. I believe you may find that monks with dragon ferocity become quite frightening; hell, they can get pretty nasty even without it. I doubt I need to tell you the essential items.
@The Beard: Can this monk you speak of kill things in as few rounds as the other class's. Not doubting it could be possible. Its just that every round the monster sits there is a round it could hit you and your allies with an AOE or a delay before you can go help others with their problems...
@Keydan: I would also like to see a arcane version, maybe Sorcerer based with a spell list that mainly focus's on self buffs/spells that further turn their body’s into a weapon. The caster level could be the same as their base attack, representing a balance between the two with flurry showing their favour for melee.
|
|
@The Beard: Can this monk you speak of kill things in as few rounds as the other class's. Not doubting it could be possible. Its just that every round the monster sits there is a round it could hit you and your allies with an AOE or a delay before you can go help others with their problems...
Well, my own monk is consistently being pit against things significantly outside its normal CR (see the example above: A level 15 swashbuckler that he GM modified to be even MORE powerful by adding extra HP, allowing class abilities to work on natural weapons, etc). It wouldn't be able to fight things like alone for obvious reasons; I don't know of any level 8 short of a sorcerer or wizard that could smack around a level 15 swashbuckler by itself. Its current damage output is sufficient to keep up with our party's magus assuming it doesn't go crit bombing things every round.
To answer your question yes, I'd estimate that it is capable of taking down things more appropriate for its level in just a few round like the other martials. People just have to keep in mind that monks synergize well with something like a bard that helps amend flurry's slight BAB deficiency. Taking steps to correct this one issue will be a great boon to the class as a whole assuming you've built for flurrying, otherwise the benefit goes down a little. Our Carrion Crown is currently on hold due to the GM being pressed for time. What I will do is keep watch and inform this thread if and/or when the monk begins slipping behind. Personally, I don't think it will at all.
If you're having build problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but the Monk ain't one.