I'd rather have an easier time building Obi Wan Kenobi or Groot with the base Monk than McGregor or Mayweather.
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The martial artist is a popular character archetype that is not necessarily covered by the fighter. Weapons associated with martial arts like the Nunchuck and Bo Staff are as much a part of that character archetype as is the asumption of superior unarmed combat prowess and so I am somewhat bothered by the exclusion of the monastic weapons as part of the baseline monk. On the other hand the mystical part of the Monk like Ki belongs to a subcategory of the Martial Artist archetype and so I'm glad that it is not part of the baseline monk.
I'm wondering what precisely separates a Bo wielding Monk from a Bo wielding fighter, in terms of "hitting people with sticks until they stop fighting."
I guess we have to read all the class feats first.
I'm wondering what precisely separates a Bo wielding Monk from a Bo wielding fighter, in terms of "hitting people with sticks until they stop fighting."
I guess we have to read all the class feats first.
Honestly, I expect very little in that specific regards. An optimized fighter will probably do a bit more damage.
The monk will be differentiated by his mobility and lack of armor. That can lead some significant differences in how they play, though, especially in the new action economy. I can attest to how differently the monk fights compared to the fighter in the Unchained action economy, for example.
I just get reminded of him biting a piece of a guys ear off.He sort of redeemed himself in The Hangover.
He was also convicted of rape and was given 6 years for it... not a tyson fan.
You're right, and I should probably back off on using him as an example. The point I've been trying to make isn't specific to him at all.
The main issue I want to push is that western and eastern martial arts aren't inherently different and so monks should be able to represent any culture not just the shaolin mystic.
I really like the idea of the monk being the mystic warrior class, but it should represent the superstitions and stories from every martial art, because they all have them, even boxing. This is a good time to use the new edition to move away from the long running exoticism of east Asian cultures.
People keep bringing up mobility as an issue, but I've also heard Ip Man described as a monk, and he did wing chun, which is an extremely stationary style (seriously fighting those guys is like fighting a turret.)
People like describing Jackie Chan as a monk, who while an amazing martial artist he definitely has a negative wisdom modifier (and a great charisma).
I just want them to really open up options for the monk and not limit them to very specific flavor options.
So in terms of IRL fighters who may or may not qualify as monks, Royce Gracie is absolutely in the monk club, right?
Tiny guy who could take on far larger opponents. Expert grappler. Created his own fighting style by mixing a traditional Japanese style with a modern street fighting art. Kept fighting competitively well past the age where he should have stopped against much younger opponents. Founded one of the biggest martial arts competitions ever to exist. Sounds like a bunch of different monk archetypes stacked together which has always been my favorite type of monk.
But he can't run up walls or speak to trees so he must not be a monk...
I'm all for non-magical classes (hello ranger. Looking at you big guy with your nature themed skill feats that have nothing to do with magic. Do not disappoint). I'm just surprised to see them take the monk in that direction.Fair! But surely I'm not alone in wanting to play a non-magical parkour expert with a boosted action-economy.
If the ranger has a non-magic option, and I hope it does, we'll have five classes that have the option to be non-magical and at least ten that have the option to use some form of magic without multi-classing or archetypes. That seems like a reasonable balance to me.
So we both got what we want. Although I'm shocked to see 0 magic options for the ranger.
If the Ki stuff is considered so optional, make the base class the Brawler.
Can't do that. Has to have the same core classes and races as the PF1e CRB. It's why we have the name monk being put on an awfully brawler-esque class. If they felt comfortable doing that we'd probably lose the Paladin as a base class and instead get something called a Templar or Knight as a the base class and have a LG version be a subclass or archetype or whatever they will call such things in the new edition.
Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.
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Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.
What does it take for people to stop being willfully wrong?
UnMonk has ridiculous Will saves. You are acting like 1E Wizards have little skills to use because of their low skill ranks (when they actually have a ton due to INT focus) or Rogues having high damage due to high sneak attack (when they are actually crippled by lack of venues to increase attack rating).
A class isn't their chassis only.
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Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.What does it take for people to stop being willfully wrong?
UnMonk has ridiculous Will saves. You are acting like 1E Wizards have little skills to use because of their low skill ranks (when they actually have a ton due to INT focus) or Rogues having high damage due to high sneak attack (when they are actually crippled by lack of venues to increase attack rating).
A class isn't their chassis only.
I think that this was in reference entirely to the chassis of the class.
Also - an UnMonk has only his Wisdom to bolster his poor base save, and no UnMonk without Guided will be raising their Wisdom stat as a primary.
What do you define as a ridiculous Will save?
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Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.What does it take for people to stop being willfully wrong?
UnMonk has ridiculous Will saves. You are acting like 1E Wizards have little skills to use because of their low skill ranks (when they actually have a ton due to INT focus) or Rogues having high damage due to high sneak attack (when they are actually crippled by lack of venues to increase attack rating).
A class isn't their chassis only.
Eh. No need to be aggressive. It's easy to build a 'Thoughtless Brawler' type character concept using the Unchained Monk with poor Will Saves and have it be a perfectly effective front line melee character. Just focus on Str, Con, Dex and you're done. It's completely not the same thing as a low Int Wizard build.
Still Mind is nice but it's not much and Flawless Mind comes in at 19 and won't help much on a Brawly Unchained Monk.
It's not willfully wrong to say the Unchained Monk has far less of the 'mental perfection' and 'mysticism' of the Core Monk and replaced it with beefiness and a better ability to hit things.
The 2e playtest Monk is actually a completely different approach to both that I think I like on paper the best.
Honestly the Unchained Monk was pretty Brawler-esque too, with Full BAB, and Low Will Saves.What does it take for people to stop being willfully wrong?
UnMonk has ridiculous Will saves. You are acting like 1E Wizards have little skills to use because of their low skill ranks (when they actually have a ton due to INT focus) or Rogues having high damage due to high sneak attack (when they are actually crippled by lack of venues to increase attack rating).
A class isn't their chassis only.
I think that this was in reference entirely to the chassis of the class.
Also - an UnMonk has only his Wisdom to bolster his poor base save, and no UnMonk without Guided will be raising their Wisdom stat as a primary.
What do you define as a ridiculous Will save?
WIS focus, free feats to spend on Iron Will, no need to give away Still Mind to be a competent class, available traits to spend on +Will stuff, flexible WBL economy to keep up on resistances and enhancement.
If you turn to the CRB Monk, their Will saves were dismal because they needed a ton of CON to compensate for d8, usually went Sohei to be able to dump WIS while maintaining acceptable defences, went overboard on attack attributes to reliably hit, spent every single one of their feats to compensate for bad attack ratings and low mobility, had to game their economy to gain attack rating in any way shape or form it could be attained, so on and so forth.
In the end, an UnMonk, due to low opportunity cost, usually had well above average Will saves.
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SecretWizard your use of the word 'usually' is a bit odd. I don't think the Sohei was a popular archetype by any means and Core Monk incentivizes Wis as Wis to AC is the primary defensive class feature the class has. This is a tangent that I'm not going to engage in anymore though, maybe we can DM about it if you really want to instead.
In any case the basic point is that Paizo seems to have decided that the core function of the monk from Unchained on is to be a mobile martial kickpuncher with a well supported possibility of being very mystical while it goes about kickpunching.
And my point is that the CRB Monk is the same, except it's bad at hitting stuff.
UnMonk seems much less likely to neglect WIS than the core monk, given how quickly it can burn through ki points. That is one of the more substantial criticisms of the UnMonk. Too small a ki pool for all the things it had competing for it. If anything, I'd say UnMonks are more likely to dump DEX or CON.
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UnMonk seems much less likely to neglect WIS than the core monk, given how quickly it can burn through ki points. That is one of the more substantial criticisms of the UnMonk. Too small a ki pool for all the things it had competing for it. If anything, I'd say UnMonks are more likely to dump DEX or CON.
I remember pointing out when the UnMonk first appeared that you could build one that basically put no points anywhere but Str and Wis and keep up both good offense and good defense (20 pt buy dual talented human, beginning Str 18, Wis 18, Con 12, Dex 10, plus Dodge and Toughness).
This is, however, WAAAAAAY off-topic.
First thing I'll try to do when the book comes out is a high INT or CHA, STR-based Monk. If that can work, then I'll be more than satisfied.
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It's my understanding that the "exotic" designation in PF2 is exclusively a question of weapon power.
From the What's your Weapon? blog
In Pathfinder Second Edition, we have a different way of talking about whether a weapon is likely to be found in a particular region, and so a weapon's type instead describes a weapon's mix of power and flexibility. Simple weapons usually have a smaller damage die than similar martial weapons (d6 rather than d8, for instance), and exotic weapons usually use the same damage die as a martial weapon but include additional abilities that make the weapon more complex.
So I figure the "monastic weapons" are simply the sorts of weapons that one would learn to master in a monastery. Possibly because they are inexpensive to produce and maintain, that one can carry them without attracting attention or being threatening, or because their study is relevant to deeper truths, or something else.
I'm cool with the monk weapon trait, but I'm also cool with it applying to non-Eastern weapons. I think they are better off having the tag and just applying it to more things.
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Until the actual weapon rules are released, I'm not going to just assume that Paizo understands what the problem is and has fixed it.
If East Asian weapons are still "exotic", it is still Orientalism. Giving a kama, a weapon that is functionally identical to a sickle, special powers doesn't ameliorate anything. In fact it solidifies it.
Paizo has specifically said that geographic origin is no longer a consideration in whether a weapon is Exotic. The way they said it clearly indicates that they understand why this is a problem, and that there will now be martial and simple Asian weapons, for example. Since they clearly want people from those areas to not need to purchase Exotic Weapon Proficiency just to use culturally appropriate weapons.
Now, the Monk property is an entirely different matter, and easily could be restricted to 'Asian' weapons. Which would be kind of weird, I agree, and an issue we should be on the lookout for.