Hey folks,
I know the Unchained Monk officially does not mesh with Archetypes, but would taking the Master of Many Styles Archetype still work with the Unchained Monk? It seems to replace as many bonuses (the bonus feats) as it would with the normal monk, and therefore not give an unfair advantage.
My GM and I have adequate (but certainly not good) system mastery, but we are still a bit wary of giving my Monk some unintended bonus or otherwise breaking some important aspect of the class/progression if we give it Master of Many Styles.
Any advice would be much appreciated!
It is absolutely unbalanced for an unchained monk to take master of many styles. MoMS trades flurry, which for a core monk means trading full BaB. In exchange, they get up to a +5 to hit from being in styles. Since an unchained monk has full bab natively and flurry works differently, they are giving up less than the core monk to have up to a +5 to hit over full bab.
I good idea is to take 2 levels of Monk with the master of many styles and weapon adept archetypes and then progress in Unchained Monk.
That will allow 2 style chains going with Flurry of blows and you trade out the redundant stunning strike and evasion from original monk for perfect strike and weapon focus.
Thanks for the advice! I don't really feel like multi classing (I just think it's a bit of a hassle), but thanks for the tip!
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You can't multclass core monk and unchained monk. It's like multiclassing rogue and ninja; they count as the same class.
Imbicatus wrote: It is absolutely unbalanced for an unchained monk to take master of many styles. MoMS trades flurry, which for a core monk means trading full BaB. In exchange, they get up to a +5 to hit from being in styles. Since an unchained monk has full bab natively and flurry works differently, they are giving up less than the core monk to have up to a +5 to hit over full bab. So what. You still give up your flurry of blows so your full round attacks are still weaker. On top of that you would be giving up the style strike class feature from the unchained monk since it only works during a flurry of blows which the archetype already removes.
The flesh may still be on the bones with only 17 months separating this thread from true life, but Imbicatus won't be answering you Bronson-fu. He stopped posting here in October last year.
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avr wrote: The flesh may still be on the bones with only 17 months separating this thread from true life, but Imbicatus won't be answering you Bronson-fu. He stopped posting here in October last year. Doesn't change the fact that he is right, Master of many styles like all other monk archetypes SHOULD be available for both unchained and chained monks to use it won't break the game in the slightest and may make monks a bit more competitive with the other classes.
avr wrote: The flesh may still be on the bones with only 17 months separating this thread from true life, but Imbicatus won't be answering you Bronson-fu. He stopped posting here in October last year. Fair enough, I didn't realize Imbicatus was an inactive user. Even so, my point/concern still stands. Its rule questions like this that make me start believing all the posts on the paizo forums about monks being a bad/weak class as true.
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doomman47 wrote: Master of many styles like all other monk archetypes SHOULD be available for both unchained and chained monks to use it won't break the game in the slightest and may make monks a bit more competitive with the other classes. UnMonk doesn't need any of the old archetypes to be a "more competitive with the other classes" - is can totally compete with other tier 4 classes, which is as good as a martial can get. *
I do agree that many cMonk archetypes should be aviable to unMonk, but not all of them (at least not without heavy changes).
unMoMS would certainly be ok, even though the 1/8/15 progression is a bit disconnected (as it's based on cFlurry). The bonus on attack rolls at 8th level should probably be ditched, though.
*) This is under the presumption that the class and complementary options are used following the actual written rules - for some reason, adding unwritten limitations seem to be a fad these days. Examples include that Ascetic Style does indeed allow the Monk to use the increased unarmed strike damage instead of the weapon damage (discussion 1 2 3 4 5 6). Or that some style feats like Jabbing Style or Pummeling Style (but not their followup feats) can be used in combination with another style chain (discussion 1 2 3). Or that one can select Empty Body at 4th level (discussions in this thread, which includes an often quoted supposed post by Mark Seifter that I can't find).
Derklord wrote: doomman47 wrote: Master of many styles like all other monk archetypes SHOULD be available for both unchained and chained monks to use it won't break the game in the slightest and may make monks a bit more competitive with the other classes. UnMonk doesn't need any of the old archetypes to be a "more competitive with the other classes" - is can totally compete with other tier 4 classes, which is as good as a martial can get. *
I do agree that many cMonk archetypes should be aviable to unMonk, but not all of them (at least not without heavy changes).
unMoMS would certainly be ok, even though the 1/8/15 progression is a bit disconnected (as it's based on cFlurry). The bonus on attack rolls at 8th level should probably be ditched, though.
*) This is under the presumption that the class and complementary options are used following the actual written rules - for some reason, adding unwritten limitations seem to be a fad these days. Examples include that Ascetic Style does indeed allow the Monk to use the increased unarmed strike damage instead of the weapon damage (discussion 1 2 3 4 5 6). Or that some style feats like Jabbing Style or Pummeling Style (but not their followup feats) can be used in combination with another style chain (discussion 1 2 3). Or that one can select Empty Body at 4th level (discussions... Neat, I had no idea certain styles worked like that (Jabbing Style/Pummeling Style). Seems odd that they wouldn't just state that fact in the feat itself or have it properly defined in the rules about entering a style's stance (it's almost like paizo wrote it that way to start arguments on the forums! Though more likely an innocent oversight). Also interesting to see people arguing about Ascetic Style.
Thanks for the post. Once again, I've learned some new things from the forums!
PFSRD wrote: At 8th level, the master of many styles can fuse three styles at once. He can have the stances of three style feats active at the same time. He gains a bonus on attack rolls equal to the number of styles whose stances he currently has active. Furthermore, he can enter up to three stances as a swift action. Wait, was this always a feature for the master of many styles? I honestly don't remember this part of the class. I can understand why it would need to be removed if the archetype was used for the unchained monk.
Also what about this:
PFSRD wrote: At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not need to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Starting at 6th level, a master of many styles can choose to instead gain a wildcard style slot. Whenever he enters one or more styles, he can spend his wildcard style slots to gain feats in those styles’ feat paths (such as Earth Child Topple) as long as he meets the prerequisites. Each time he changes styles, he can also change these wildcard style slots. I swear I've never seen this before. When did these rules change?
Bronsonfu wrote: PFSRD wrote: At 8th level, the master of many styles can fuse three styles at once. He can have the stances of three style feats active at the same time. He gains a bonus on attack rolls equal to the number of styles whose stances he currently has active. Furthermore, he can enter up to three stances as a swift action. Wait, was this always a feature for the master of many styles? I honestly don't remember this part of the class. I can understand why it would need to be removed if the archetype was used for the unchained monk.
Also what about this:
PFSRD wrote: At 1st level, 2nd level, and every four levels thereafter, a master of many styles may select a bonus style feat or the Elemental Fist feat. He does not need to meet the prerequisites of that feat, except the Elemental Fist feat. Starting at 6th level, a master of many styles can choose to instead gain a wildcard style slot. Whenever he enters one or more styles, he can spend his wildcard style slots to gain feats in those styles’ feat paths (such as Earth Child Topple) as long as he meets the prerequisites. Each time he changes styles, he can also change these wildcard style slots. I swear I've never seen this before. When did these rules change? Not really, just like how unchained monks had 1 attack from their flurry removed for much greater accuracy when flurrying I see no reason why they can't trade out more flurry attacks for a bit more accuracy.
doomman47 said wrote: Not really, just like how unchained monks had 1 attack from their flurry removed for much greater accuracy when flurrying I see no reason why they can't trade out more flurry attacks for a bit more accuracy. I don't know about that though since the whole point of gaining that accuracy back was because you could never choose to be more accurate in the first place as flurry of blows was the gateway to full bab for core monks and that was the feature you were trading in. Though maybe I'm being too harsh about this but its hard to say.
I guess we could compare it to something else like the fighter class who would eventually get +4 to attack (and damage for that matter) with his weapon training class feature so maybe letting the monk keep his accuracy from the class feature wouldn't actually be unreasonable. In my own case I would just talk with my players and ask what they think bringing up comparisons to what already exists in pathfinder and then come to a resolution where we all (or at least mostly) agree.
Bronsonfu wrote: Neat, I had no idea certain styles worked like that (Jabbing Style/Pummeling Style). Seems odd that they wouldn't just state that fact in the feat itself or have it properly defined in the rules about entering a style's stance (it's almost like paizo wrote it that way to start arguments on the forums! Though more likely an innocent oversight). Most style feats do indeed state that - sometimes (like Snake Style), after the first sentence, which only makes sense when there is no general rule. I don't know if they forgot to make a general rule (the rule text only says "feat that has a style feat as a prerequisite", which, obviously, doesn't include the initial feat) but the authors of feats like Snake Style or Crane Style clearly presumed there was none.
Bronsonfu wrote: Also interesting to see people arguing about Ascetic Style. Much of that stems from the fact that the feat's author lamented his choice of words, and posted mutliple (error-filled and contradictory) alternate versions on how he intended the feat to work. For some reason, people think that what the original author intended is more relevant than the rules. Well, at least in this case - Sohei flurrying in armor, ragecycling Barbarian, and even stuff like the Stargazer prestige class having medium BAB are somehow OK despite being against author intend. I never got an answer when I asked whether we should search the internet for every new option to see if there might be some aberrant author intend.
I honestly don't know why, but for some reason, people seem to go out of their way to prevent Monk from being good. maybe they come from a D&D background and think a good Monk hurts their nostalgia?
Yeah, unMonk has more moving parts than cMonk, and is thus harder to optimize. You need Ascetic Form to use style strikes and the bonus ki attack with weapons, but when you do, armed unMonk is way stronger than armed cMonk. You need to need to select the original Diamond Body class feature via Qinggon Power instead of selecting the revised Ki Power when you want permanent poison immunity, but then you can walk around in CLoudkills and still make flurries that aren't all misses. Pummeling Style is no longer the one and only viable style chain for unarmed, so you need to actually think about what to take, but then you can actually do that without hamstringing the character.
I don't know if you're familiar with the tier list, but in my opinion, tier 5 classes should be ablo to profit from " good bugs". Yes, some of the options I mentioned are a bit cheesy. So is Fighters selecting the Training enchantment with their Warrior Spirit AWT to gain any combat feat, and later even Item Mastery feats (that's flight in-class!); or Rogues having the Offensive Defense (cRogue only) and Emboldening Strike stack with themself. But I'd rather have that, than characters being constantly vastly overshadowed because the player wanted to play a fun looking martial class.
Bronsonfu wrote: Wait, was this always a feature for the master of many styles? I honestly don't remember this part of the class. The entire bonus feat ability was reworked in the Ultimate Combat errata. Mostly in order to stop the archetype from being used for dipping, but they also added that attack roll bonus to compensate for the lack of pseudo-full BAB.
doomman47 wrote: Not really, just like how unchained monks had 1 attack from their flurry removed for much greater accuracy when flurrying I see no reason why they can't trade out more flurry attacks for a bit more accuracy. It would not be overpowered to simply keep the 8th level attack roll bonus - I don't think unMoMS as-is would be too strong. It's just that its raison d'être got removed. Maybe it should be moved to 11th level, to properly replace Flurry's 2nd bonus attack with something?
Although to be honest, a proper unMoMS should replace style strikes somehow.
Derklord wrote: Bronsonfu wrote: Wait, was this always a feature for the master of many styles? I honestly don't remember this part of the class. The entire bonus feat ability was reworked in the Ultimate Combat errata. Mostly in order to stop the archetype from being used for dipping, but they also added that attack roll bonus to compensate for the lack of pseudo-full BAB.
doomman47 wrote: Not really, just like how unchained monks had 1 attack from their flurry removed for much greater accuracy when flurrying I see no reason why they can't trade out more flurry attacks for a bit more accuracy. It would not be overpowered to simply keep the 8th level attack roll bonus - I don't think unMoMS as-is would be too strong. It's just that its raison d'être got removed. Maybe it should be moved to 11th level, to properly replace Flurry's 2nd bonus attack with something?
Although to be honest, a proper unMoMS should replace style strikes somehow. Wouldn't style strikes be auto removed because they only work with a flurry which MoMs loses?
doomman47 wrote: Derklord wrote: Bronsonfu wrote: Wait, was this always a feature for the master of many styles? I honestly don't remember this part of the class. The entire bonus feat ability was reworked in the Ultimate Combat errata. Mostly in order to stop the archetype from being used for dipping, but they also added that attack roll bonus to compensate for the lack of pseudo-full BAB.
doomman47 wrote: Not really, just like how unchained monks had 1 attack from their flurry removed for much greater accuracy when flurrying I see no reason why they can't trade out more flurry attacks for a bit more accuracy. It would not be overpowered to simply keep the 8th level attack roll bonus - I don't think unMoMS as-is would be too strong. It's just that its raison d'être got removed. Maybe it should be moved to 11th level, to properly replace Flurry's 2nd bonus attack with something?
Although to be honest, a proper unMoMS should replace style strikes somehow. Wouldn't style strikes be auto removed because they only work with a flurry which MoMs loses? That is exactly what I was thinking as well.
doomman47 wrote: Wouldn't style strikes be auto removed because they only work with a flurry which MoMs loses? Practically yes, technically no: They would still be there, just unusuable. Regular MoMS has the same problem with the bonus ki attack - it's still there, but MoMS can't use it without multiclassing.
Having a big class feature that you can't ever use is super frustrating, which is why it should be changed.
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