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The next round, the monk combined 2 ki powers to leap 75 feet straight up, landing on a wvyern and flurrying the rider. Another rider flew over to try nd help fight this crazy monk.Was this via Wind Jump? Or some crazy combination of feats and items that increased your Athletics that high?
It was a Class feat lvl 10 of the Monk that let you get fly speed equal to your movement speed, Monks Incredible Movement class feature gives a lot of movement speed.
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That aside, I know people want Ki-less Monks for..., flavor or mechanics reasons but what do you DO as a monk if you don't have your Not magic but totally magic powers?
For me is mostly about flavor. I personally like mystical monks as much as I like mortal/brawler monks. I just don't like the idea of not being able to choose the latter.
As for what you do without mystic powers? ...Well, I would hope you do what comes natural and punch bears in their stupid faces. From what I hear they are still very viable as combatants.
And yet at least from what I saw of the playtest, Monk is still very much a trained, drilled, and schooled Unarmed combatant. Put a different way, I can't flavorly make the Brawler I have now(Washed up, half drunk former tavern bouncer who fights well due to his job and the fact he's seen like 50 adventuring parties throw down in a pub and recalls their tricks) with PF2 Monk. If anything, he'd probably be closer to Fighter and even then that's still not close enough.
Monk to me always says "Path of Dedication, Training, and Self Betterment through Practice/Martial Arts". Removing Ki doesn't change that, especially when the other choices seem to be "Pick your School Stance". Monk doesn't seem to a good pick if you want a more Travern Brawler, Street Fighter, or Boxing Master.
Monks without Ki sounds like Sorcerers without Bloodlines. Or Alchemist without Bombs. Or Rogue without Sneak Attack. And everyone complains about Casters doing too much but no one wants Monk to do magic stuff with Ki.
Sure you're still viable but you're going to need some extra help to get over hurdles and from what I understand, Magic isn't as helpful as it was last edition. Well not as helpful to other people, it seems more damage focus/selfish this go around. Why buff you when Spell X can do your damage better?
I'm just confused by PF2 monk and the community.
I'm confused by you being confused. Monks are the unarmed martial class. They're martial artists. Would you feel better if they were called such? What exactly stops you from making your tavern brawler? They apparently have full support for non-ki monks, meaning they don't need powers to keep up.
What exactly do you mean by needing "extra help to get over hurdles"? And then I can't figure out whether or not you like monks not requiring ki or not. Please explain your position, it's actually driving me crazy lol.
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Wait, min-maxing isn’t considered fun? O.O
In my experience, min-max PCs are only fun for the table as a whole if the WHOLE table is participating in it, and to a certain degree, it also depends on how effective each PC end up being in relation to one another.
I've never in my entire life seen a table benefit substantially from some characters just being objectively worse at completing encounters over others.
So... unless you've got a whole table that is interested in it and wants to chase the dragon, then in my opinion and experience... no, it's not fun for anyone but the person doing the min-max.
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It was a Class feat lvl 10 of the Monk that let you get fly speed equal to your movement speed, Monks Incredible Movement class feature gives a lot of movement speed.The next round, the monk combined 2 ki powers to leap 75 feet straight up, landing on a wvyern and flurrying the rider. Another rider flew over to try nd help fight this crazy monk.Was this via Wind Jump? Or some crazy combination of feats and items that increased your Athletics that high?
Indeed. This combined with a ki rush let him close the distance extremely fast.
(We might have miscalculated distances, or he must have had Wind Jump already active for him to Ki rush fly >> fly >> flurry all in one turn, now that I think about it. But that feels like quibbling and doesn't detract from the broader scenario.)
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Wait, min-maxing isn’t considered fun? O.OIn my experience, min-max PCs are only fun for the table as a whole if the WHOLE table is participating in it, and to a certain degree, it also depends on how effective each PC end up being in relation to one another.
I've never in my entire life seen a table benefit substantially from some characters just being objectively worse at completing encounters over others.
So... unless you've got a whole table that is interested in it and wants to chase the dragon, then in my opinion and experience... no, it's not fun for anyone but the person doing the min-max.
My view (informed somewhat from other asymmetrically balanced games like fighting games) is that the goal of the system should be to narrow the range of viable choices so that the top-tier options are not overwhelmingly better than the bottom-tier options.
When that happens, min-maxers can optimize to their heart's contents, and bad choices won't break the game. There will be a power difference, but it essentially is a reward for system mastery.
Since that's very difficult to achieve, and certainly the collected decade of PF1 material did not, it is absolutely important to make sure min-maxers don't outshine everyone else at the table. Still, please don't define "fun" and "making mechanically optimal choices" as mutually exclusive.
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Wait, min-maxing isn’t considered fun? O.OIn my experience, min-max PCs are only fun for the table as a whole if the WHOLE table is participating in it, and to a certain degree, it also depends on how effective each PC end up being in relation to one another.
I've never in my entire life seen a table benefit substantially from some characters just being objectively worse at completing encounters over others.
So... unless you've got a whole table that is interested in it and wants to chase the dragon, then in my opinion and experience... no, it's not fun for anyone but the person doing the min-max.
It was a little tongue-in-cheek of me to put it that way admittedly. I understand and agree with the resentment towards Min-Maxing Alpha Gaming, or essentially the munchkin that tries to outshine others. Personally i consider Min-Maxing simply a tool that can be used for constructive or destructive purposes. I like to use it to figure out certain limitations in the rules or possible concepts that could be fun. I also know that some simple concepts end up more fiddly with the rules than the average player or DM would like and require a bit of a ‘min-max’ mentality to pull it off.
I just don’t find the act of ‘min-maxing’ anti-fun all in all. :p
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I think the disconnect probably stems from different perspectives on what min-maxing is at its core really then.
From my perspective, that sounds like rote optimization to simply make an effective PC versus min-maxing being what DPR crunchers and RAW loophole exploiters do so they can challenge CR+5-10 encounters realistically on their own.
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In my experience, min-max PCs are only fun for the table as a whole if the WHOLE table is participating in it, and to a certain degree, it also depends on how effective each PC end up being in relation to one another.
So it's not that min-maxing is bad but everyone needs to be on the same page: I agree with that. But that also means that it's just as bad to be the non-optimizer in a group that otherwise enjoyed doing that.
It's why I never understand complaints about min-maxing in a vacuum. It not an issue, lack of communication and the inability to follow expectations is.
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In my experience, min-max PCs are only fun for the table as a whole if the WHOLE table is participating in it, and to a certain degree, it also depends on how effective each PC end up being in relation to one another.
I've never in my entire life seen a table benefit substantially from some characters just being objectively worse at completing encounters over others.
So... unless you've got a whole table that is interested in it and wants to chase the dragon, then in my opinion and experience... no, it's not fun for anyone but the person doing the min-max.
It's a difficult subject because min-max is one of those terms like "power-gamer" that doesn't actually mean anything out of context. PF1 has a hilariously broad power curve; so broad, in fact, that oftentimes someone playing at one end of the curve might be playing what is, for all intents and purposes, a completely different game from someone playing at the other end of the curve. None of the various playstyles is "right" or "wrong", but the vast majority of arguments related to things like balance, power-gaming, or min-maxing are almost always related to a group (or discussion thread) having at least two people who play at very different points on the curve, and thus the things that each person perceives to be "true" end up being very different and each assumes the other is "doing it wrong" in some way, shape, or fashion. (Shrinking this curve is one of the things PF2 does that I'm actually really excited about.)
To try and steer this back towards the topic at hand, I think the monk benefits from both the reduction of the span of this curve, and the fact that the modular feat structure makes it a lot easier to create a character that does the things you want to do well, rather than trying to do a bunch of things in a kind of mediocre and haphazard fashion. To an extent it's like creating your own archetype for the monk every time you make a new character; I have a goblin monk for PF2 all prepped that quite literally bounces around the battlefield like Speedball and can make flaming snot-rocket unarmed strikes as his ranged option (you may have to wait until September to see exactly how.) I also have a half-orc assassin monk who fights like a sumo wrestler and can craft and chug elixirs and mutagens to enhance his abilities. What's cool, is that as weird as both of those characters are, balance-wise they click right in with our group's Valeros-clone fighter and by-the-numbers bard, and I didn't need to take any monk feats or abilities outside of those in the new CRB ( the half-orc is actually 100% CRB.)
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DPR crunchers and RAW loophole exploiters do so they can challenge CR+5-10 encounters realistically on their own.
Often these are one trick ponies that are often far, far below others outside of their niche. For instance the charge-lance-pounce pc is only rolling over targets in an open field: something as simple as no charge lanes or some rough terrain shuts them down and since everything is focused on charging, they are less effective then a 'normal' character.
So as long as the DM doesn't go out of the way to allow them to charge over everything at will, it balances out: the DM has some encounters that that character can blast through and other were the party is carrying them because they can't do their one trick.
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It was a Class feat lvl 10 of the Monk that let you get fly speed equal to your movement speed, Monks Incredible Movement class feature gives a lot of movement speed.The next round, the monk combined 2 ki powers to leap 75 feet straight up, landing on a wvyern and flurrying the rider. Another rider flew over to try nd help fight this crazy monk.Was this via Wind Jump? Or some crazy combination of feats and items that increased your Athletics that high?Indeed. This combined with a ki rush let him close the distance extremely fast.
(We might have miscalculated distances, or he must have had Wind Jump already active for him to Ki rush fly >> fly >> flurry all in one turn, now that I think about it. But that feels like quibbling and doesn't detract from the broader scenario.)
Looks good by my calc. Wind Jump 1 action, Ki Rush to move up to 90 ft (25 human speed + 20 monk bonus)*2 1 action, FoB 1 action.
Nicely done for that monk.
I was curious because of the "straight up" part since flying up counts as difficult terrain making it half speed. It is sort of quibbly, and I don't mean to pull away from the broader scenario. It's still possible with Haste or using wall run / wall jump. I was just seeing if I missed a way to jump crazy high that I could use for the dragoon I'm building for pfs.
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I didn’t mean to detract with a wisecrack remark, so i’ll end my point on this; Michael sums up my feelings on the matter best. I do not consider the two mutually exclusive or back and white; and is one reason i’ve Been so optimistic with the PT and the updates. There are so many rabbit holes to jump into i’m Almost constantly giddy thinking about it. The ‘best’ paths are also not nearly as clear cut as 1e which means someone building optimally could easily be outshined by someone building ‘silly’ or ‘for fun’. That said i do understand the stigma and don’t wish to belittle it.
The stories about Monk so far have me feeling better and better. Originally i was worried how the Monk would feel with the 3 action economy and FoB being shrunk down to two attacks. I still can’t wait for better Quigong support to play a Monk Gish.
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I'm confused by you being confusedAs far as I can tell, it's about really hung up on the default monk flavor and thinks that makes it impossible to build a "tavern brawler"-esque monk because of that default flavor.
Making Ki optional is a bad thing because it dilutes the monk's flavor and power without actually fixing that first problem of the core assumptions of the monk.
Those appear ot be MerlinCross's issues.
I have to say I don't agree with any of that. Looking at PF1 archetypes, monk already covers a lot of ground and already covers the ki-less monk, the drunk monk, bow monks, energy throwing monks... I'm not seeing any 'default' flavor hurt by something the lore already allowed in PF: a ki-less monk.
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I was curious because of the "straight up" part since flying up counts as difficult terrain making it half speed. It is sort of quibbly, and I don't mean to pull away from the broader scenario. It's still possible with Haste or using wall run / wall jump. I was just seeing if I missed a way to jump crazy high that I could use for the dragoon I'm building for pfs.It was a Class feat lvl 10 of the Monk that let you get fly speed equal to your movement speed, Monks Incredible Movement class feature gives a lot of movement speed.The next round, the monk combined 2 ki powers to leap 75 feet straight up, landing on a wvyern and flurrying the rider. Another rider flew over to try nd help fight this crazy monk.Was this via Wind Jump? Or some crazy combination of feats and items that increased your Athletics that high?Indeed. This combined with a ki rush let him close the distance extremely fast.
(We might have miscalculated distances, or he must have had Wind Jump already active for him to Ki rush fly >> fly >> flurry all in one turn, now that I think about it. But that feels like quibbling and doesn't detract from the broader scenario.)
Looks good by my calc. Wind Jump 1 action, Ki Rush to move up to 90 ft (25 human speed + 20 monk bonus)*2 1 action, FoB 1 action.
Nicely done for that monk.
Yeah the difficult terrain bit means with the monk's 50 foot speed it should take 3 strides to reach that height, and ki dash only allows 2. I know we discussed the difficult terrain thing at the time, so I'm not sure what I got wrong there. It wouldn't have changed much.
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To an extent it's like creating your own archetype for the monk every time you make a new character; I have a goblin monk for PF2 all prepped that quite literally bounces around the battlefield like Speedball and can make flaming snot-rocket unarmed strikes as his ranged option (you may have to wait until September to see exactly how.)
How is no one talking about this? Flaming snot-rocket unarmed strikes confirmed! That's possibly the best spoiler I've seen all week.
So...kind of dumb, but I think it'd be cool to build a Ryu (Street Fighter) monk, rolling out with abilities reflavored to fireballs, hurricane kicks (flurry?) and dragon punches. Since you've previously mentioned a playtest monk built like E. Honda, we obviously can't rest until we've got the whole original 8 world warriors (well, 7 + Ken's a freebie if you get Ryu).
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Flaming snot-rocket unarmed strikes confirmed!
Sounds like a feat like Elemental Fist + Wild Winds Stance's Wind Crash.
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To an extent it's like creating your own archetype for the monk every time you make a new character; I have a goblin monk for PF2 all prepped that quite literally bounces around the battlefield like Speedball and can make flaming snot-rocket unarmed strikes as his ranged option (you may have to wait until September to see exactly how.)
You have to show us this when the rules are released. This is the Monk i’ve always envisioned when i thought of playing Monk; admittedly less snot, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll just have to remember to wash afterwords.
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Since you've previously mentioned a playtest monk built like E. Honda, we obviously can't rest until we've got the whole original 8 world warriors (well, 7 + Ken's a freebie if you get Ryu).
This shall be our quest!
You have to show us this when the rules are released. This is the Monk i’ve always envisioned when i thought of playing Monk; admittedly less snot, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’ll just have to remember to wash afterwords.
I'm reasonably sure you can make something similar but notably less gross. I embraced the gobliny squick in a way that is definitely not mandatory. I will see about posting up my character builds once I am able to do so!
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I think the disconnect probably stems from different perspectives on what min-maxing is at its core really then.
From my perspective, that sounds like rote optimization to simply make an effective PC versus min-maxing being what DPR crunchers and RAW loophole exploiters do so they can challenge CR+5-10 encounters realistically on their own.
One of the really good things about PF2 is that it makes the difference between baseline 'I'll put an 18 in my main stat' optimization and 'meticulously made the best character possible' optimization vastly narrower. There's still a difference, but it's much easier for the two to participate in the same game without issue.
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I just hope that the monk in 2e will allow for me to feel like a mystic warrior rather than just a martial artist or a martial artist who can do a magic thing once or twice a session. The playtest worried me in it's implementation of ki powers but I am hopeful it will be abit better in the final version.
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I just hope that the monk in 2e will allow for me to feel like a mystic warrior rather than just a martial artist or a martial artist who can do a magic thing once or twice a session. The playtest worried me in it's implementation of ki powers but I am hopeful it will be abit better in the final version.
Well if nothing else Refocus means you should be able to spam the powers at least once per fight. It looks like the focus spells, focus points, and feats are all going to be on a one to one basis, so you certainly won't be using a spell every round of combat at low levels.
But I reckon with how flexible the multiclass system is you can definitely make something that qualifies as a mystic warrior.
Well if nothing else Refocus means you should be able to spam the powers at least once per fight. It looks like the focus spells, focus points, and feats are all going to be on a one to one basis, so you certainly won't be using a spell every round of combat at low levels.
Dang. Better than nothing I guess.
But I reckon with how flexible the multiclass system is you can definitely make something that qualifies as a mystic warrior.
Except cleric god-restrictions and druid spell list probably don't fit most Monk flavour and they're the only ones with wisdom options (if I wanted to play a monk of a god I'd just play a cleric who lived in a monastery).
I'm reaching here, but I recall there being a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity. I could be wrong.
Letting clerics follow an ideal or philosophy was a nod to PF1 being a "setting neutral" ruleset. PF2 assumes you're playing on Golarion, where such a thing was never possible. On Golarion "religious spellcasters of non-deific religions" are Oracles or Shamans (or Druids, I guess.)
I'm reaching here, but I recall there being a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity. I could be wrong.
You are not wrong; 1st ed had that, though I haven't heard of it being used much. But it went away in the playtest and I'd be shocked to see it reappear in 2nd ed.
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I'm reaching here, but I recall there being a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity. I could be wrong.You are not wrong; 1st ed had that, though I haven't heard of it being used much. But it went away in the playtest and I'd be shocked to see it reappear in 2nd ed.
They'll have to fundamentally change how Green Faith works then. It "is a naturalistic philosophy based on the belief that natural forces are worthy of attention and respect" and not a deity, druids can worship it and it's Golarion specific.
Golarion has people who worship nature, their ancestors, a totemic protector spirit, the spirits in all things, etc. Some of these people even get spells out of it, but they are not Clerics- they are Druids, Oracles, and Shamans.
On Golarion Clerics are always one deity. For all the other devotional arrangements, you use a different class.
Well if nothing else Refocus means you should be able to spam the powers at least once per fight. It looks like the focus spells, focus points, and feats are all going to be on a one to one basis, so you certainly won't be using a spell every round of combat at low levels.Dang. Better than nothing I guess.
But I reckon with how flexible the multiclass system is you can definitely make something that qualifies as a mystic warrior.Except cleric god-restrictions and druid spell list probably don't fit most Monk flavour and they're the only ones with wisdom options (if I wanted to play a monk of a god I'd just play a cleric who lived in a monastery).
Don't you play in homebrew settings anyway? Why is the cleric/god restriction relevant to you in that case? Seems pretty easy to ignore with a little reflavoring or a bit of easy homebrew (domains, spells, weapon.)
Golarion has people who worship nature, their ancestors, a totemic protector spirit, the spirits in all things, etc. Some of these people even get spells out of it, but they are not Clerics- they are Druids, Oracles, and Shamans.
On Golarion Clerics are always one deity. For all the other devotional arrangements, you use a different class.
No one said cleric but you... "a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity", then "But it went away in the playtest and I'd be shocked to see it reappear in 2nd ed." I know I wasn't talking about clerics: druids are divine casters in Golarion that specifically worship a philosophy instead of a "specific entity" as the first poster asked about and they'd have to change something is that isn't so in PF2: it's why I posted, because it wasn't about clerics specifically.
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No one said cleric but you... "a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity", then "But it went away in the playtest and I'd be shocked to see it reappear in 2nd ed." I know I wasn't talking about clerics: druids are divine casters in Golarion that specifically worship a philosophy instead of a "specific entity" as the first poster asked about and they'd have to change something is that isn't so in PF2: it's why I posted, because it wasn't about clerics specifically.Golarion has people who worship nature, their ancestors, a totemic protector spirit, the spirits in all things, etc. Some of these people even get spells out of it, but they are not Clerics- they are Druids, Oracles, and Shamans.
On Golarion Clerics are always one deity. For all the other devotional arrangements, you use a different class.
The original comment was specifically about clerics and their relationships to gods.
cleric god-restrictions
Edit: not trying for a “gotcha”, but that was what Cabbage was talking about.
They'll have to fundamentally change how Green Faith works then. It "is a naturalistic philosophy based on the belief that natural forces are worthy of attention and respect" and not a deity, druids can worship it and it's Golarion specific.I'm reaching here, but I recall there being a thematic option in the core rules of first edition to have a divine caster worship an ideal (like balance or peace) rather than a specific entity. I could be wrong.You are not wrong; 1st ed had that, though I haven't heard of it being used much. But it went away in the playtest and I'd be shocked to see it reappear in 2nd ed.
Whoops! I should have specified "1st ed had that for clerics" since that's what went away in the playtest. My bad.
(The Green Faith doesn't have clerics, does it?)
Edit: not trying for a “gotcha”, but that was what Cabbage was talking about.
No worries, I wasn't trying to do so either. I just took Aiden2018's post as a diverging topic as he specifically changed the focus from cleric to divine caster: hence me going with that post as the original comment. Fuzzy-Wuzzy's post then specifically replied to the "divine caster" post and mine followed that. If the topic circled back to just clerics, I missed it.
Whoops! I should have specified "1st ed had that for clerics" since that's what went away in the playtest. My bad.
(The Green Faith doesn't have clerics, does it?)
LOL Again, no worries! It's clear we both got mixed up in cleric vs divine caster. ;)
Nope, they do not have clerics, just druids.
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Don't you play in homebrew settings anyway? Why is the cleric/god restriction relevant to you in that case? Seems pretty easy to ignore with a little reflavoring or a bit of easy homebrew (domains, spells, weapon.)
Yes and no. I run homebrew-setting campaigns, but one person in my group is interested in some parts of the golarion setting so my intended monk PC is most likely be used in a golaron campaign. I am abit annoyed that I'll have to go through the various spells to try and figureout what free spells to give every new god or religion added to a campaign, but that's a separate issue.
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druids are divine casters in Golarion that specifically worship a philosophy instead of a "specific entity" as the first poster asked about and they'd have to change something is that isn't so in PF2: it's why I posted, because it wasn't about clerics specifically.
Aren't druids Primal casters now, not Divine?
Aren't druids Primal casters now, not Divine?
They are primal casters, yes.
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druids are divine casters in Golarion that specifically worship a philosophy instead of a "specific entity" as the first poster asked about and they'd have to change something is that isn't so in PF2: it's why I posted, because it wasn't about clerics specifically.Aren't druids Primal casters now, not Divine?
LOL Yeah, it's going to take a while I think before I get used to that.
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For me, Druids never felt like divine casters to begin with, so the switch to primal is mostly just admitting the reality which has always been there.
For me, Druids never felt like divine casters to begin with, so the switch to primal is mostly just admitting the reality which has always been there.
They do for me, most likely because we have [or had] druids that worship actual gods for their abilities like Erastil, Gozreh, and the Eldest. Now we'll have divine mage NOT mean magic given to worshipers of a god [or philosophy, ideal, etc like nature]. It makes one wonder if you can worship gods and cast occult and arcane too.
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For me, Druids never felt like divine casters to begin with, so the switch to primal is mostly just admitting the reality which has always been there.They do for me, most likely because we have [or had] druids that worship actual gods for their abilities like Erastil, Gozreh, and the Eldest. Now we'll have divine mage NOT mean magic given to worshipers of a god [or philosophy, ideal, etc like nature]. It makes one wonder if you can worship gods and cast occult and arcane too.
You can, however the gods you worship aren't the source of your arcane/occult/primal magic like they would be for a cleric's divine magic
Druids as servants of gods just never felt like druids to me. Sure, you can respect Erastil or whoever, but at some point you're going to find "nature" and "what your god wants" in conflict and a druid should pick the first one every time.
Like Nidalese druids are going to have a relationship with Zon-Kuthon, but it shouldn't be a fundamentally different relationship with ZK than Nidalese wizards, rogues, fighters, monks, etc. have.
You can, however the gods you worship aren't the source of your arcane/occult/primal magic like they would be for a cleric's divine magicFor me, Druids never felt like divine casters to begin with, so the switch to primal is mostly just admitting the reality which has always been there.They do for me, most likely because we have [or had] druids that worship actual gods for their abilities like Erastil, Gozreh, and the Eldest. Now we'll have divine mage NOT mean magic given to worshipers of a god [or philosophy, ideal, etc like nature]. It makes one wonder if you can worship gods and cast occult and arcane too.
Straight from PF1 druid: "Druids worship personifications of elemental forces, natural powers, or nature itself. Typically this means devotion to a nature deity, though druids are just as likely to revere vague spirits, animalistic demigods, or even specific awe-inspiring natural wonders."
"Rewarded for their devotion with incredible powers, druids gain unparalleled shape-shifting abilities, the companionship of mighty beasts, and the power to call upon nature's wrath. The mightiest temper powers akin to storms, earthquakes, and volcanoes with primeval wisdom long abandoned and forgotten by civilization."
In PF1, it's clear it's worship that grants them their abilities and those, in PF1 were divine. PF2 playtest is much lighter in descriptive but I'd be surprised if they can no longer worship nature gods already baked into the system or that worship provides them with their abilities.
Druids as servants of gods just never felt like druids to me.
*shrug* I always thought of the non specific god worshiping druids as generic nature priests with the ones that followed them as more specific varieties.
Secondly, "nature" is too broad an idea to have a single monolithic way to follow it. God's are a fine way to narrow the focus by following an aspect of it like that of a gods: Erastil is more 'home and hearth' and nature in harmony with people, Gozreh is more natures wrath and fury, and the Eldest is more natures uncaring side. As far as picking between the two, I see little chance of that: nature gods pretty much go hand and hand with 'nature' or nature wouldn't be in their portfolio would it? Myself, I think any conflict between what nature wants and a nature god wants are going to be slim to none.
But one of the things I recalled from first edition (and I could be remembering wrong) is that I didn't much enjoy the way monks worked in first edition. I think my problem with them was that the only viable way to play them was to put an obscene amount of points into their Dex and Wis stats.
As I recall, in Core PF1 (back when there were no Dex to Damage abilities), a Dex/Wis-based Monk was something of a trap. You really needed to be big muscular Monk in order to be effective in combat. It was all too easy for a new player to try to make a thematic graceful Monk and end up being barely able to hurt enemies.