Seriously I see no reason why they kept some things from 3.5 that everybody knew were the reasons monks sucked. Just giving proficience in light armor and flurrying with 2h monk weapons wouldn't be so hard with 10 years of 3rd edition retrospect. I mean, come on, the class barely changed when PF released, whats up with that.
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Technically, ki strike got worse in the transition to Pathfinder! (You need 1 ki to do a ki strike, as opposed to "I can do this starting at fourth level" in 3.5e.)
Personally, I'd be fine if you as a monk could run up straight vertical surfaces (or water, or both) using ki, or if you could fire energy blasts like out of Dragon Ball Z using ki, or if Wholeness of Body was altered to act like the paladin's Lay on Hands does.
Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level, along with "You can move and at least make a non-flurry full attack."
I think what you're looking for is the Unchained Monk. I don't like it much, but you might.
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Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level,...
Why (except RP) would anyone ever choose Str in that case? With Dex supplying so many more abilities to the character and how badly monks suffer from M.A.D. everyone would choose dex.
Just to elaborate my point further, think about the other martial classes that use mental stats, the paladin and ranger. Look at how versatile they are, even with archetypes that replace spellcasting, just because their features are more well designed and sinergyse better with their expected attributes and roles, while the monk abilities don't sinergyse(flurry + bonus movement) and only make him MAD. Would giving the monk light armor really ruin the flavor?
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Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level,...Why (except RP) would anyone ever choose Str in that case? With Dex supplying so many more abilities to the character and how badly monks suffer from M.A.D. everyone would choose dex.Dragon Style.
I got nothing beyond that. D:
Yeah, neither do I. The benefits of posting when you've been up for fourteen hours!
Dragon style. Power attack pre req. If it was like unchained, two handed 1.5 str flurrry is an ENORMOUS boost to damage. I would see it as a choice of A) defense and skills, or B) Stupid amounts of damage. Though for it to be even, you need dragon style and the 1.5 mod to exist. The bonus to dragon style/ferocity was erratta'd to help power attack, right? If (With this theoretical part unchained, sacred cow-less monk) all these were accounted for, with something like flying kick existing (Though less restrictive) a weapon-wielding, striker monk would always take strength.
I would make it wis to hit, 1/2 level for damage. Or 1 level per for both. Also add a scaling to-hit bonus so we can actually hit stuff. That way even with a dip, cleric still lose a caster level for slightly more SAD (It can get with 2 feats in my latter suggestion).
I personally think that the monk needs a bonus to attack rolls using unarmed attacks and d10 HD. It also could benefit from full BAB. I mean the point of the class is making your body the best it can possibly be for crying out loud!
Personally, while I like the Unchained Monk's full BAB, I feel they could have stayed at a d8 and all Good saves. Let them dish out damage, but need to be wary of getting hit - so mobility and agility and reflexes, the ability to throw off effects (good saves); better DC on Stunning Fist; etc.
The ki powers - meh - some I like, some I don't. Some things should have stayed in class (automatic) abilities while others, sure, you need to spend a point or two on to activate. (The situationally useful ki powers.)
Eh, it makes more sense than the other two. The paragon of physique and martial arts should have good Fort and Reflex. Will also, but its the lesser of the three. (of course then there's the question if they really needed to drop the saves anyway >.> If the class is underpowered, why not just pump it up?
Heck with flying kick, you will be flurrying most if not all the time anyway, so you probably wont even notice the BAB increase much. Unless you don't take flying kick, but who can pass up a pounce like ability every flurry?
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I will say that if you're already giving them full BAB, the difference between a d8 hit die and a d10 hit die is not worth a third good save.
You'd need to go down to D6 before it was even arguable as an even trade.
They already got full BAB on full attacks/flurries. Upgrading to full attacks all the time is extremely minor, yet proper in context. It just means that they can now hit on a standard action, or when they DON'T want to TWF/Flurry.
So yeah, keeping d8 and full BAB probably would have been proper. IT would have set the tone for their defenses. After all, the Barb gets a d12 and BETTER then all good saves just by taking Superstitious, and ditto the Paladin at level 2.
==Aelryinth
The Unchained Monk has a flying kick style strike they can get at, I think 5th level. There are other style strikes, but I have a feeling flying kick will be the go-to 1st style strike people pick.
I wasn't actually aware that there was an archetype that granted that :P
I can see leaving a d8 hit die and using full BAB, though Paizo has linked BAB with HD type, so that may have been why they changed both as the same time. Though they made an exception in the BARB, so maybe they could have made one with the monk
And while I agree that knocking one of the saves to Poor to compensate for the better HD and BAB is a good thing, somehow I don't think Will was the right decision there.
I'm working on Everyman Gaming's sequel product to Everyman Unchained: Monk Archetypes. For that product, I need to get a picture of another "unchained monk" commissioned, and as part of that I ended up doing a LOT of research on real-world Eastern Monk forms. especially the qing-on style, which is the real-world inspiration for the qinggong monk archetype. [url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qHL2PSpecI"]If you have the time, you should totally watch it.[/url
I found it very interesting because all of the stuff that we typically associate with Wisdom for monks, all of that inner focus and metal conditioning ... really isn't all that mental. Qing-on is more about drilling your body into spreading your inner energy (your ki) around your body with rigorous body-conditioning exercises, then using your mind to get your body to move that energy around as you need it in a fight.
In short, qing-on is more about using your Wisdom to direct energy in and around your physical body then being able to resist mental attacks (which, there are few of in our world). After doing an admittedly small amount of digging, I'd say that dropping the Will save in favor of the Fortitude and Reflex save was the right choice thematically. I mean, would YOU say that a guy who can suspend his body from a noose for hours at a time with no ill side effect has a low Fortitude? And where Reflexes are involved, there are dozens of absolutely crazy Shaolin Monk vs. Chinese Ti-Qwon-Do Master videos that are floating around Youtube that easily defend the Reflex save progression.
Half your points are gone with Unchained (they can flurry with 2h monk weapons as far as I know). I would hate seeing monks running around in leather or chain shirts, it would defeat the point of the class. It would be like giving every arcane casters armour. You seem to want a Brawler, not a monk.
Hell, it was solved long before that- sohei archetype monks have been around for ages, and they can use light armor (heck, mithral breast plate if you spend a trait and don't want brawling property armor) and even get full martial proficiency.
They even get the option to flurry with nodachis after level 6. While they only get x1 str in flurry, it has been long acknowledged that you still get x1.5 power attack- and since that is over every hit in a flurry, you can end up with a ton of extra damage along with the sohei's other damage boosters.
The whole 'sacred cow' thing has been toyed with for a long time before unchained came around.
Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level,...Why (except RP) would anyone ever choose Str in that case? With Dex supplying so many more abilities to the character and how badly monks suffer from M.A.D. everyone would choose dex.
Manoeuvres. Unless they want to pay the additional feat tax to use Dex for that.
If they plan to make use of the common ways to boost Strength (and reach), such as Enlarge.
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Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level,...Why (except RP) would anyone ever choose Str in that case? With Dex supplying so many more abilities to the character and how badly monks suffer from M.A.D. everyone would choose dex.Manoeuvres. Unless they want to pay the additional feat tax to use Dex for that.
If they plan to make use of the common ways to boost Strength (and reach), such as Enlarge.
You would be able to use Dex for most maneuvers in that case - just like with Weapon Finesse.
Really - I think they'd be better off allowing Wis to damage only from a balance perspective. (Not to hit.) This would allow monks to focus on Dex & Wis if they want to without needing Agile.
Strength builds would have the advantages of not burning a feat on Weapon Finesse, a focus on one stat for to-hit & damage, and getting 1.5x damage with a weapon. Far lower defenses - but that's true now. If monk wants good defenses (my preference - but it's not just a monk thing - I make sure all my characters have high defenses), they ignore Str & get an Agile AoMF ASAP and just accept having +1 less weapon than the Str monk equivalent.
Hell, I'd be fine with "Pick Strength or Dexterity, you can use that for unarmed attack and damage" at first level,...Why (except RP) would anyone ever choose Str in that case? With Dex supplying so many more abilities to the character and how badly monks suffer from M.A.D. everyone would choose dex.Manoeuvres. Unless they want to pay the additional feat tax to use Dex for that.
If they plan to make use of the common ways to boost Strength (and reach), such as Enlarge.
You would be able to use Dex for most maneuvers in that case - just like with Weapon Finesse.
I feel like saying "Weapon Finesse applied to unarmed attacks means all maneuver checks made using your hands use Dex" is a bit of a reach.
Monk actually seems like one of the classes Paizo's been most willing to toy around with considering that when style feats came out in Ultimate Combat they benefited monks more than any other class and the introduction of ki powers in Ultimate Magic. Which personally makes the Unchained monk a bit of a let down to me because while it was a straight up power upgrade for monks by letting them two handed power attack with the same might and accuracy of any other full bab class it didn't do much of anything to make unarmed combat more attractive or ki powers a class feature worth building tactics around. I'm hoping this isn't indicative of Paizo's new direction for the class because to me the Unchained monk is about as unimaginative as possible.
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Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.
Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
2.) Wuxia Whaxever
No fist fighting at all, just monk weapons. Zen Archers and all go here.
3.) Avatar of Korra
Here goes all Ki stuff. Like, actual Ki stuff, not most of the super meh stuff currently printed. Let players actually go full super sayan at lvl 20 if they wish so.
Currently Monk reminds me of bad old days when people tried to make musketeers out of fighters and bounty hunters out of rogues. Swashbuckler and Slayer were a blessing to people who wanted to make certain character without jumping through a mountain of hoops.
Monk is currently a g!*$~%n Mount Everest of hoops and loops. What is the monk class but an awkward mash of different ideas that none really work together and leave a mediocre taste in your mouth?
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Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
Didn't they already do that one with the Brawler class?
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Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.
It has been since 3.X, anyway. The original monk from AD&D was very much what it wanted to be, and very good at it. The 3.X monk...wasn't. It was, in retrospect, designed to suck. WotC used the trading card concept of making some options deliberately worse or better than others, and the monk was designed to look good and be awful.
The Pathfinder monk was a slight improvement, but still sucked. There has been a chorus of "Fix the Monk!" from players ever since, with Paizo...not fixing the monk. Then they released Unchained...which certainly unchained the monk, but sadly from it's original concepts of a spiritual warrior (Why nerf the Will save? Why????) rather from the constraints of sucking. Yes, they made it more powerful in one respect, but less in another, and they made the ki-powers demand WAY too much ki from a class that didn't have enough to start with. In short, take something weak: make it stronger one way, make it weaker another, and what do you have? Something that still sucks, but in a different way.
I've tried working with the original monk, on the basis that if you use the Qingong archetype it's not too bad and is fixable, and my results and play-tests are here if anyone is interested. The salient points are:
Use Wisdom for attack rolls with monk weapons and unarmed strikes.
Ki-strike gives an actual enhancement bonus as a magic weapon (+1 at 4th level, increasing every three levels to +5 at 16th).
One ki-point can grant you an extra attack whenever you make an attack, not just when flurrying.
One ki-point can give you 20ft movement as a swift action rather than being extra movement.
Monks have proficiency with all monk weapons.
Unarmed strikes bypass 1 point of DR or Hardness per monk level, regardless of type.
I've tested up to 16th level in an ongoing game, and it works really well. Not too powerful, but just enough to make the monk effective, accurate, and give him a place in the party.
Didn't they already do that one with the Brawler class?Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
Depends what kind of martial artists you want.
Brawler is excellent for all around rumble tumbler. While Fighter still has more build flexibility, Brawler has the most martial on-demand flexibility out of any class. With or without weapons. Capable of using right combat manoeuvrer without too much trouble. Able to completely change to ranged combat mode if needed. Combat feats are your oyster.In all, you can flavor Brawler in just eastern martial arts, you can do that. But, if you wanted a very manouver based fighting style, Brawler is not really answer for that. Monk style tricks in the unchained are kinda for that, but not embellished enough. You could have a whole class of unarmed fighting dedicated to lot of style tricks.
Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
2.) Wuxia Whaxever
No fist fighting at all, just monk weapons. Zen Archers and all go here.
3.) Avatar of Korra
Here goes all Ki stuff. Like, actual Ki stuff, not most of the super meh stuff currently printed. Let players actually go full super sayan at lvl 20 if they wish so.Currently Monk reminds me of bad old days when people tried to make musketeers out of fighters and bounty hunters out of rogues. Swashbuckler and Slayer were a blessing to people who wanted to make certain character without jumping through a mountain of hoops.
Monk is currently a g&@@#%n Mount Everest of hoops and loops. What is the monk class but an awkward mash of different ideas that none really work together and leave a mediocre taste in your mouth?
You're forgetting Kung Fu Holy Man.
Monks of the far east were also often priests with holy powers. Shao Lin is a TEMPLE, not a fighting academy, and mysticism doesn't stop with chi.
==Aelryinth
You're forgetting Kung Fu Holy Man.
Monks of the far east were also often priests with holy powers. Shao Lin is a TEMPLE, not a fighting academy, and mysticism doesn't stop with chi.
==Aelryinth
You can always save some ideas for the inevitable archetypes.
Contributor
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You can always save some ideas for the inevitable archetypes.You're forgetting Kung Fu Holy Man.
Monks of the far east were also often priests with holy powers. Shao Lin is a TEMPLE, not a fighting academy, and mysticism doesn't stop with chi.
==Aelryinth
Robot monks!?
^_^
Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
2.) Wuxia Whaxever
No fist fighting at all, just monk weapons. Zen Archers and all go here.
3.) Avatar of Korra
Here goes all Ki stuff. Like, actual Ki stuff, not most of the super meh stuff currently printed. Let players actually go full super sayan at lvl 20 if they wish so.Currently Monk reminds me of bad old days when people tried to make musketeers out of fighters and bounty hunters out of rogues. Swashbuckler and Slayer were a blessing to people who wanted to make certain character without jumping through a mountain of hoops.
Monk is currently a g@$@@#n Mount Everest of hoops and loops. What is the monk class but an awkward mash of different ideas that none really work together and leave a mediocre taste in your mouth?
1) Brawler. Done and Done.
2) The Core Monk+Sohie archetype. boom
3) The Kineticist from Occult Adventures is going here.
DOne and Done.
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Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
2.) Wuxia Whaxever
No fist fighting at all, just monk weapons. Zen Archers and all go here.
3.) Avatar of Korra
Here goes all Ki stuff. Like, actual Ki stuff, not most of the super meh stuff currently printed. Let players actually go full super sayan at lvl 20 if they wish so.Currently Monk reminds me of bad old days when people tried to make musketeers out of fighters and bounty hunters out of rogues. Swashbuckler and Slayer were a blessing to people who wanted to make certain character without jumping through a mountain of hoops.
Monk is currently a g&@@#%n Mount Everest of hoops and loops. What is the monk class but an awkward mash of different ideas that none really work together and leave a mediocre taste in your mouth?
You're forgetting Kung Fu Holy Man.
Monks of the far east were also often priests with holy powers. Shao Lin is a TEMPLE, not a fighting academy, and mysticism doesn't stop with chi.
==Aelryinth
Isn't this just the Sacred Fist Warpriest?
No, they don't cast spells.
They meditate together. They do rituals. They chant sutras and sit there as emblems of holy power in saffron robes and prayer beads. And then they put it all aside and go kung fu on your arse.
Which isn't to say you couldn't reflavor things! I just have problems with 'Warpriest' and 'holy meditation and the power of mystic insight'. heh!
==Aelryinth
I dunno, I think if they were in a Pathfinder setting rather than real people (or in a fictional setting with wildly different rules) they would. Chanting a sutra while gripping your prayer beads sounds like a good opportunity to prepare spells.
There have been plenty of Buddhist warrior priests with rather warlike tendencies through history. :D
I like Envalls breakup, and agree that the Brawler can work, but a more kung-fu feeling pure hand to hand martial character would be cool.
Aelrynth: While I agree in general about your assessment of Shaolin monks, what you are describing there is category one of Envall's breakdown with mystical practices. Unless you are assigning efficacy to their meditations, in which case they sound like classification 3. Or type 1 with an archetype.
Personally, I'd love to see them dropped from Core. And aren't they a better fit for an Asian-inspired book anyway, putting them alongside ninja and samurai?
If it weren't for legacy reasons, we might have even seen this happen.
There have been plenty of Buddhist warrior priests with rather warlike tendencies through history. :D
I like Envalls breakup, and agree that the Brawler can work, but a more kung-fu feeling pure hand to hand martial character would be cool.
Aelrynth: While I agree in general about your assessment of Shaolin monks, what you are describing there is category one of Envall's breakdown with mystical practices. Unless you are assigning efficacy to their meditations, in which case they sound like classification 3. Or type 1 with an archetype.
Meh. Nothing 'holy' about his classifications.
Holy power stemming from Buddha is basically the trope standard for Asian 'fighting monks', they are extremely spiritual. Everyone else is basically just a devoted martial artist.
==Aelryinth
Ok, so you are talking about a monk with holy powers. Which isn't taht different from a ki-monk. Though I suppose if you would rather it be its own class then that is that. I think it would be easily archetyped onto a Ki-monk
One more thing: Holy power from Buddha is hardly the norm for Asian fighting monks. In general, nothing would stem from the Buddha in any case. Buddha represents the greatest harmony with the universe, but the Monk would be drawing power by drawing close to the metaphysical principles of the universe itself.
But in any case, I think we can agree that having monk broken up would allow a more coherent design, and allow each classic martial arts fantasy archetype to shine :D
Absolutely nobody can agree on what on earth do they want monk to be.
The core concept of monk is such a mess because since the beginning, Monk has been the attempt of someone trying to take EVERYTHING about eastern mysticism and martials arts and stuff them into a single class.Monk needs to be shattered into multiple classes:
1.) Bruce lee aka Martial Artist
Concentrate all of the fist combat into this. Make this class into the class player picks if he wants to go full The One on people.
2.) Wuxia Whaxever
No fist fighting at all, just monk weapons. Zen Archers and all go here.
3.) Avatar of Korra
Here goes all Ki stuff. Like, actual Ki stuff, not most of the super meh stuff currently printed. Let players actually go full super sayan at lvl 20 if they wish so.Currently Monk reminds me of bad old days when people tried to make musketeers out of fighters and bounty hunters out of rogues. Swashbuckler and Slayer were a blessing to people who wanted to make certain character without jumping through a mountain of hoops.
Monk is currently a g%*+*~n Mount Everest of hoops and loops. What is the monk class but an awkward mash of different ideas that none really work together and leave a mediocre taste in your mouth?
1 has been done. The brawler and unchained monk are sitting here.
2 should not rule out unarmed combat. There are unarmed concepts that sit at this position along the martial-caster spectrum. Apart from not supporting unarmed monks the sohei archetype handles this almost perfectly.
3 is the big missing class we'll never see because Paizo hates spell points and ki on the scale required to be a peer to cleric casting would essentially be spell points.
The kineticist from the upcoming Occult Adventures book... your welcome...
We know there's going to be a kineticist/monk hybrid archetype in Occult Adventures. Whether it's going to be a kineticist archetype with monk abilities or a monk archetype with kineticist abilities remains to be seen.
I say again, Brawler is not the solution the same way Unarmed Fighter is not what I mean with Martial Artist.
Re-flavoring is a funny thing because it is the most popular non-solution if we talk about systems. If you wanted to build a Samurai for example, why would you had ever needed that class from UC to begin with? Most classes that can get some armor, lawful alignment and swords can be reflavored into Samurai. Apply same procedure for Ninjas. Or Shamans. Or anything.
But flavor is useless without the rules. Brawler has zero rules that imply the kind of moves you would expect if you think about a crazy Jet Li fighting scene. Punch is a punch, but that is such lame reductionism.
Think of Street Fighter. Generally, all characters punch and kick, yet each and every one of the characters have their unique moves. Brawler is more Cody, Balrog, Zangief while Martial artist would be more Fei Long and Gen. Unchained Monk has the right idea with Style strikes, but like I said, is a mish-mash that tries to be too many ideas at the same time, failing to be satisfying.
Because Hunter is not something more than just Ranger with a pet and Slayer is more than just a combat-build rogue.
At least there is hope with the unchained monk. Since new style strikes and ki powers can be made in future books so that you can focus on one thing better, rather than having a grab-bag of abilities.