| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
1. They really like shields. I'm not totally against that, but it seems that it's too widely applicable, with Monks having no in-built defensive Reaction. The few exceptions being Crane Style users (circumstance bonus overlap) and Bo Staff users. Even Grapplers, Tiger Style and Ironblood Style users can easily accommodate them – Grapplers and Tiger Stylers use bucklers, Ironblood users can just skip Ironblood Surge.
2. Stances are a bit off a mess. So Crane Style has a great exploration bonus, except you can't use it during exploration. Mountain Stance users are very vulnerable before they get to activate their stance, and have the dubious "touching the ground" requirement – does that mean they are unable to use this Style while on a boat? Not to mention both of these stances work really bad with Fuse Stance, which is supposed to be a great feat.
3. Way too many Class Feats... are basically Skill Feats that don't work well with actual Skill Feats. Dancing Leaf, Flying Kick, Water Step and Wall Run are basically Skill Feats – except that they don't play along that well with Quick Jump, Cat Fall, Wall Jump, Steady Balance and Cloud Jump. Even Winding Flow is a bit lackluster, considering Step Up is a thing.
4. Monastic Weaponry is terrible. The only exception is the Bo Staff for its reach. Otherwise, Monastic Weaponry doesn't even allow a ranged build. Having access to weapons in general doesn't do much, particularly considering that monk weapons are so rare that you won't even find unique Monk weapons to make the feat worth it. The feat needed extra power built into it, like special actions such as Quick Draw.
5. Until more Ancestry Feats are released, Monks have a dearth of options. All the weapon feats are extremely incompatible with the Monk's unarmed focus, so that means a good deal of the feats available are literally unusable for Monks. This is mostly a "feel bad" type of thing that surely more content will solve.
6. You kinda have to game Backgrounds. The attribute game got much better than other editions, don't get me wrong. But it still feels pretty bad to be forced to game your background to be allowed to make a build. The fact that Monks need specifically high DEX and good STR, or otherwise high STR and good DEX except for a single build makes it so that Background selection is not a purely roleplaying element. This could be solved with a Class Feat that allows AC to be based off of mental stats instead of DEX, which should be pretty fun to recreate the old-school Monk feel without the troublesome Mountain Stance.
My issue is I can't figure out which direction I want to take them.
| 8 people marked this as a favorite. |
1) Everyone really likes shields. +2 AC for one action is pretty good. Why shouldn't monks be able to do that too? If you don't like the flavor of it, pick something else for your character. Why tell me that I can't play a dual shield wielding monk? You even pointed out the other options that monks have for increasing their defensive options.
2) I don't see why you couldn't explore in mountain stance. Similar to exploring with your shield raised. And if there are any terrain that is difficult enough to traverse that the movement abilities of crane stance would be useful, it should probably be being run as a non-combat encounter rather than an explore. So this is more of a GM/player problem than a rules problem.
3) Too many class feats ... is a problem?
4) Using weapons with a monk character is usually done for flavor or specific niche builds. So you are mostly correct, but that still isn't really a problem.
5) Monks don't have enough options? In addition to having too many class feats?
6) You don't have to game backgrounds. No one is forcing you to. 16 max in an attribute is fine. Perfectly viable.
|
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
I disagree with your premise, here.
1. I guess. I think that, usually, given your absurd movement, using that movement to move away is a better defensive measure than a shield.
2. The rest of the Stances are great even if you dislike those. And as for Crane Stance...it's entirely kosher to switch to Encounter mode for the length of one jump. Only an a*&+!!& GM will generally not allow this, as the restriction is to keep people from wandering around in a Stance at all times, not to keep them from using it for a moment to jump farther. And Mountain Stance isn't magic, all you need is a stable surface. They don't work great with Fuse Stance, but they're very good on their own.
3. Flying Kick is an attack, and a really good one in some cases, not a Skill Feat (and, contrary to your point, synchronizes brilliantly with Cloud Jump). There are no Skill Feats that do anything like what it does. Water Step and Wall Run are available at much lower levels than any remotely equivalent Skill Feats. Dancing Leaf is a bit too Skill Feat-like for my taste as well...but there are other options to take. Not liking a particular Feat (or Feats) that a Class grants is hardly a condemnation of the Class as a whole.
4. Monastic Weaponry isn't great, but with shuriken it absolutely does provide a ranged option, and potentially a good one. It will also get better the more weapons are published.
5. Each Ancestry has at least 5 Feats. For most Ancestries only one is weapon based. I'm not sure how that results in a 'dearth of Feats'. I think, in my playtest game (which had less Ancestry Feats if anything), all of one PC had a Weapon based ancestry Feat...and that's over twenty characters or so. They did not feel like they were suffering from a lack of options.
6. Mountain Stance isn't all that troublesome and allows exactly this. Also, more than half the Backgrounds allow for getting bonuses to both Str and Dex. Finally, Str 18, Dex 14 (or vice versa) is a perfectly valid starting stat-line for Monk. It's not quite perfectly optimal, but it's quite good.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I found it pretty easy to build a very good monk that has few glaring weaknesses. Much easier than for any other class. It is harder to build a really good str focused monk than a Dex focused monk, but not by very much and only because a good Dex focused monk is really really easy. Even with only a 14 Dex and an 18 STR your defense is good enough if you stay mobile and attack once with a dragon tail flurry.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
While they're near the top of the list of classes that care, #6 isn't really a Monk-specific issue. A number of classes or builds would optimally like to start with an 18 in one stat and 16 in another and would thus prefer a background that has one of those two stats as something in can boost, with the Free boost going to the other one. Even among classes that are a little more flexible in what stats they'd like to start with, backgrounds where the only options are unimportant stats are less appealing.
The skill feats are also not irrelevant; while characters get enough skill feats to generally get most things they want eventually, but it's still a lot better to start with a highly-coveted skill feat that you would definitely like to take early like Battle Medicine than a very poor skill feat that may have no mechanical impact at all, like Courtly Graces.
While the degree of severity varies from character to character, Background isn't really a pure roleplaying choice for anybody. (Unless you value all skill feats equally and plan to really spread out your starting stats.)
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
I personally feel like class feats that are about things that have nothing to do with combat (like "you can run on walls" or "you have darkvision") should have been skill or general feats with class tags.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
On Backgrounds:
I don't think people being encouraged to take Backgrounds that actually give them stats and other stuff they want is a bad thing. I mean, I'd expect more people with the Warrior Background to be martial Classes than Wizards, and expect the Wizards who had that Background might be the high Str ones who get up in your face and hit you. Ditto (in other contexts) for basically all other Backgrounds.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Pg 157 under Stance “you can only be in a stance in encounter mode”. They end at the end of encounter mode. It definitely hurts Mountains Stance’s utility.
It really doesn't hurt it that much. It leaves you with bad AC for less than one round and you've got the stat points to grab Wisdom and increases initiative to minimize the issue (something to reinforce the Dwarven ancestry of the style).
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
1: Shield is no built-in defensive reaction either, and Shield Block comes from a more restricted pool of feats. Otherwise, 1 action for +1 or 2 AC is nice. So is 1 action to move away from the enemy and force them to follow. And the latter takes 0 investment in feats and works with your incredible speed.
2: Mountain Stance only has the trigger "touching the ground" rather than requirement. Which makes it a bit more palatable, though if "ground" isn't "any stable platform beneath your feet" it is still a pain.
3: Flying Kick works great with Cloud Jump and basically requires Cat Fall to be reliable.
4: Agreed. Though I think it might legitimately be an error that Shuriken don't benefit from monk feats, so maybe that will get patched.
5: This is also true of several other classes.
6: Eh, not sure I agree. First, your stance is not your entire build. You can have several mountain stance monks with otherwise different abilities that play differently. Second, monks are better with low-AC than most other classes in the game. Move, flurry, move tactics work pretty well for a low-AC monk and you get a better speed than most anyone else.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4. Monastic Weaponry isn't great, but with shuriken it absolutely does provide a ranged option, and potentially a good one.
It's not usable with unarmed abilities/feats from the monk: as such, it competes with simple ranged weapons for usability. An elf that takes the feat for elf weapons is FAR, FAR better using a bow than a monk taking monastic weapons for a ranged option.
4. Monastic Weaponry isn't great, but with shuriken it absolutely does provide a ranged option, and potentially a good one.It's not usable with unarmed abilities/feats from the monk: as such, it competes with simple ranged weapons for usability. An elf that takes the feat for elf weapons is FAR, FAR better using a bow than a monk taking monastic weapons for a ranged option.
Yea Shuriken's aren't that great, you can get the crit effect for them from Brawling focus but that's it really. Monks don't even need to take a feat to use a bow anyway.
you can get the crit effect for them from Brawling focus but that's it really.
Sure, for 2 feats.
Monks don't even need to take a feat to use a bow anyway.
Well sure, ANYONE can use a weapon untrained but why would they? Or are you talking about a crossbow? I was talking about bows [long and short].
|
|
It's not usable with unarmed abilities/feats from the monk: as such, it competes with simple ranged weapons for usability. An elf that takes the feat for elf weapons is FAR, FAR better using a bow than a monk taking monastic weapons for a ranged option.
Ah, you're right. Misread that. The Bo Staff remains good and it will continue to get better as more weapons are published, but that does make it even less ideal, yes.
4. Monastic Weaponry is terrible. The only exception is the Bo Staff for its reach. Otherwise, Monastic Weaponry doesn't even allow a ranged build. Having access to weapons in general doesn't do much, particularly considering that monk weapons are so rare that you won't even find unique Monk weapons to make the feat worth it. The feat needed extra power built into it, like special actions such as Quick Draw.
This one hurts the worst for me. If you could just remove the word melee from this feat, it would unlock a ninja build instantly and make shrunken so interesting.
This seemed like right place to post this,
For stances that restrict your attacks like Crane, does the restriction on "Strikes" not prevent "maneuver" attacks whether with default UAS or manufactured weapons? I believe that is the case, but just wanted to check opinion there.
Shuriken don't need Quick Draw though. They have Reload 0, which means they require no actions to draw.
Cool? so 2 attacks to do 2d4 within 20' or 1 attack and 1 reload with a crossbow to do 1d8 within 120'. Sorry is I'm not too excited with that use of a feat.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
This seemed like right place to post this,
For stances that restrict your attacks like Crane, does the restriction on "Strikes" not prevent "maneuver" attacks whether with default UAS or manufactured weapons? I believe that is the case, but just wanted to check opinion there.
No. Absolutely not. Strike is a term with a specific mechanical meaning and maneuvers do not qualify.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Shuriken don't need Quick Draw though. They have Reload 0, which means they require no actions to draw.Cool? so 2 attacks to do 2d4 within 20' or 1 attack and 1 reload with a crossbow to do 1d8 within 120'. Sorry is I'm not too excited with that use of a feat.
Shuriken are Thrown. Which allows you to add your full Str Mod. 2d4+4 or +8 is a lot better than 1d8.
I'm still not overly pleased with the Feat, but the damage is better than it looks if you ignore Str Mod.
OK, "maneuvers" do not qualify (for the "Strike" restriction), meaning they are allowed in the restrive stances...
But yeah, STR to dmg is not only mistake there, 2 more which also are not new to 2E or particlar obscure are
the distinction of range INCREMENT from range limit, and ignoring drawing/wielding of crossbow itself.
Honestly I don't want shuriken to trivially be used with melee monk effects, it beggars belief,
and their schtick has never been "power", more like a great weapon to use dipped in poision etc.
(with major action economy benefits compared to thrown melee weapons or bows which need already be wielded)
Since they essentially save a Move action allowing more attacks, lesser "power" is obvious trade-off,
they aren't meant to compete against melee options, they are convenient auxiliary to weave into melee build
Shuriken are also not sole value of Monastic Weapon Feat, to put in succinctly.
And regardless, I don't see any reason to believe Monastic Weapon's melee restriction for monk ability compatibility was a "mistake".
you can get the crit effect for them from Brawling focus but that's it really.Sure, for 2 feats.
Monks don't even need to take a feat to use a bow anyway.Well sure, ANYONE can use a weapon untrained but why would they? Or are you talking about a crossbow? I was talking about bows [long and short].
Yea my bad, crossbows, or throw a Javelin, or just use enhanced speed to run up and punch them. But you're right taking elf wep familiarty is better if you need/want a ranged option.
But I don't think most people would be taking Monastic weps only for Shuriken. Bo Staff is good, Temple Swords can be fun. It's not the most optimal dmg build of feats but it's perfectly fine to take them.
Monastic weps + Flury of Manuvers lets you flurry with a Temple Sword/Bow Staff and use it to trip.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I remade my 9th level maneuver master monk from PF1 to PF2. He is even more cinematic and fun now than he was before. I can't really get behind this OP at all.
Shuriken don't need Quick Draw though. They have Reload 0, which means they require no actions to draw.Cool? so 2 attacks to do 2d4 within 20' or 1 attack and 1 reload with a crossbow to do 1d8 within 120'. Sorry is I'm not too excited with that use of a feat.Shuriken are Thrown. Which allows you to add your full Str Mod. 2d4+4 or +8 is a lot better than 1d8.
I'm still not overly pleased with the Feat, but the damage is better than it looks if you ignore Str Mod.
Look like I forgot to add the str damage. I'm not sure how good an attack would be with an 18 str as monks tend to have a lower dex [mountain stance]: I was thinking of a more dex build with less str. But is you do have an impressive str, a javelin still has a greater range and adds str damage.
That and I personally favor the huge range difference: 20' range requires a LOT of maneuvering to prevent range penalties if the target is even fairly mobile and flying targets can easily be several range increments away with the Shuriken.
But I don't think most people would be taking Monastic weps only for Shuriken.
Oh I agree. I was just pointing out something that I found personally disappointing: that they went out of their way to make Shuriken the only weapon to not use the unarmed abilities/feats.
Oh I agree. I was just pointing out something that I found personally disappointing: that they went out of their way to make Shuriken the only weapon to not use the unarmed abilities/feats.
That's the real 'feels bad' moment here. There is no reason not to just let us have it and make our janky multiclass rogue ninjas.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4. Monastic Weaponry is terrible. The only exception is the Bo Staff for its reach. Otherwise, Monastic Weaponry doesn't even allow a ranged build. Having access to weapons in general doesn't do much, particularly considering that monk weapons are so rare that you won't even find unique Monk weapons to make the feat worth it. The feat needed extra power built into it, like special actions such as Quick Draw.This one hurts the worst for me. If you could just remove the word melee from this feat, it would unlock a ninja build instantly and make shrunken so interesting.
This edition has made throwing builds much more viable- returning is literally the cheapest property you can add.
Edit: I wouldn't even want it to get anything else other than flurry. Flurry is a nice ability, and it would be more than enough to distinguish a monk from any other class that uses simple ranged weapons. It wouldn't bring you to ranger range, of course... but would make a fantastic switch hit style for a class that doesn't need to draw another weapon.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Look like I forgot to add the str damage. I'm not sure how good an attack would be with an 18 str as monks tend to have a lower dex [mountain stance]: I was thinking of a more dex build with less str. But is you do have an impressive str, a javelin still has a greater range and adds str damage.
That and I personally favor the huge range difference: 20' range requires a LOT of maneuvering to prevent range penalties if the target is even fairly mobile and flying targets can easily be several range increments away with the Shuriken.
The Javelin is only a 30 foot range and lacks Agile, but more importantly it takes an action to draw a new one, which the shuriken does not, so we're talking 1d6+4 vs. 2d4+8 (or the equivalent at lower Str). I'd definitely go with shuriken if I had access to both.
I'd never invest a Feat just for shuriken, though.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This edition has made throwing builds much more viable- returning is literally the cheapest property you can add.
Returning is the one thing that makes the Shuriken less exciting: Keep a javelin in hand as "it flies back to your hand after the Strike is complete", no reload/draw needed and now the javelin is better 99.9% of the time.
Edit: I wouldn't even want it to get anything else other than flurry. Flurry is a nice ability, and it would be more than enough to distinguish a monk from any other class that uses simple ranged weapons. It wouldn't bring you to ranger range, of course... but would make a fantastic switch hit style for a class that doesn't need to draw another weapon.
Sadly, a ranger can 'flurry' with Shuriken and Hunted Shot but a monk can't use flurry cuz... :P A monk has to take ranger dedication and Hunted Shot before they can 'flurry' with the Shuriken
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Javelin is only a 30 foot range and lacks Agile, but more importantly it takes an action to draw a new one, which the shuriken does not, so we're talking 1d6+4 vs. 2d4+8 (or the equivalent at lower Str). I'd definitely go with shuriken if I had access to both.
If agile is important to you, there is almost no difference between a shuriken and a dart once you put returning on it...
1. Disagree.
2. Strongly Disagree.
3. Disagree.
4. Agree. They do suck.
5. Sorta agree, other classes have the same issue.
6. Sorta agree, kinda, I mean if you want to min max that is not a monk specific issue.
In the 2E group I GM, the monk does tons of damage and is having a blast. They seem to be a really solid and fun class to me.
|
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is anyone gonna actually address the OP's points, instead of just saying "I disagree"? The OP brings up rules flaws that make the monk's abilities not work the way you'd think they do, and people come in here to say "I disagree" without explanation of why the OP is incorrect. Are you trying to prove your points by how many times you like each other's posts, or are you just on a higher plane of existence from us mere mortals?
I responded to each individually with the reasons I disagreed. What more do you want, exactly? I'm happy to provide additional reasons Monks are quite good and consistent, but I'd need to know what category of reasons that's true you want to hear.
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is anyone gonna actually address the OP's points, instead of just saying "I disagree"? The OP brings up rules flaws that make the monk's abilities not work the way you'd think they do, and people come in here to say "I disagree" without explanation of why the OP is incorrect. Are you trying to prove your points by how many times you like each other's posts, or are you just on a higher plane of existence from us mere mortals?
Maybe they just felt that the third and fourth posts covered things adequately enough that showing where their opinions aligned was more efficient than repeating something someone else had already written.
Or they might have focused on the points they had original responses to.
Might help to take a deep breath and actually read the whole flow of the conversation rather than trying to characterize the entire thread based on 1.5 out of 33 posts.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The OP brings up rules flaws that make the monk's abilities not work the way you'd think they do
I'm not sure I really agree with that assessment. The only thing in there I'd call a rules issue is the way unarmed spectacularly fails to interact with so many mechanics because they aren't weapons. Even then it's... something the developers apparently want in their game, so it's less an rules flaw and more just a dumb choice by the developers.
Not wanting to use a shield, not liking certain feats or preferring specific backgrounds aren't rules flaws, they're just things the OP wants do or doesn't want to do, which is fine, but they don't really qualify as broken mechanics.
FWIW I agree with the OP that weapons wielding monks need more support, but again that's less of a rules flaw and more... hopefully some better feats come out soon.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
More on point 3:
Winding Flow may have some conflict with kip up, but step+stride for 1 action is pretty great for hit-and-run builds if you fight enemies with AoO. Dancing Leaf is a bit too close to being a skill feat, but it works well with other skill feats around jumping. It has antisynergy with Cat's Fall, but is still nice if you are taking athletics to legendary for jumping but not acrobatics. Wall Run and Water Step are both better than analogous skill feat options as Deadmanwalking pointed out, but another benefit is they require no skill training at all. So if you are going for other skills, like medicine and nature and occultism for a mystical wisdom type monk you still get some incredible feats of agility to pull off.
|
|
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
1. They really like shields. I'm not totally against that, but it seems that it's too widely applicable, with Monks having no in-built defensive Reaction. The few exceptions being Crane Style users (circumstance bonus overlap) and Bo Staff users. Even Grapplers, Tiger Style and Ironblood Style users can easily accommodate them – Grapplers and Tiger Stylers use bucklers, Ironblood users can just skip Ironblood Surge.
Shields are nice if you don't have anything better to do. Honestly, given how mobile monks are, I don't know that I'd ever pick up a shield unless it was tied to my character story. Moving is almost always a better use of the third action IMO, and I'd rather spend my general feat on Fleet or Toughness. Stand Still and Deflect Arrow are both much more interesting as possible uses of a reaction, IMO; Deflect Arrow gives you a significantly better bonus against ranged attacks, Stand Still is good for tanky monks. There's also reactions from other sources you might want to keep your reaction available for; if you've befriended a pegasus mount you might want to be able to take advantage of its assisted mount ability, if you're a goblin you might prefer Goblin Scuttle,if you're a multiclass caster you might want Recognize Spell,half-orcs might want Orc Ferocity or Orc Superstition, or if you spend a lot of time jumping or flying about you might want to make sure you can Grab an Edge (I actually used this a lot with Rapid Mantel on my monk who liked to make good use of his 3D mobility.)
2. Stances are a bit off a mess. So Crane Style has a great exploration bonus, except you can't use it during exploration. Mountain Stance users are very vulnerable before they get to activate their stance, and have the dubious "touching the ground" requirement – does that mean they are unable to use this Style while on a boat? Not to mention both of these stances work really bad with Fuse Stance, which is supposed to be a great feat.
As DMW mentioned, there's no reason you can't drop into encounter mode when it's appropriate to do so. Similarly, Mountain Stance's requirement to be unarmored and touching the ground is a trigger and not a requirement, so you don't have to stay touching the ground, you just have to start there.
3. Way too many Class Feats... are basically Skill Feats that don't work well with actual Skill Feats. Dancing Leaf, Flying Kick, Water Step and Wall Run are basically Skill Feats – except that they don't play along that well with Quick Jump, Cat Fall, Wall Jump, Steady Balance and Cloud Jump. Even Winding Flow is a bit lackluster, considering Step Up is a thing.
As others have mentioned, this assessment doesn't make a ton of sense. Flying Kick is spectacular and there's no skill feat that does that, plus it meshes insanely well with Cloud Jump. Being able to boost the height you jump with Dancing Leaf is really useful as well; there's a finite number of abilities that increase your height jumped, and monks' extreme speed allows them to leverage vertical terrain in a way other classes can't, especially when they're boosting both their vertical and horizontal movement distances. A monk's ability to just not be where an enemy can easily target them is really not to be underestimated.
4. Monastic Weaponry is terrible. The only exception is the Bo Staff for its reach. Otherwise, Monastic Weaponry doesn't even allow a ranged build. Having access to weapons in general doesn't do much, particularly considering that monk weapons are so rare that you won't even find unique Monk weapons to make the feat worth it. The feat needed extra power built into it, like special actions such as Quick Draw.
Bo staff is solid, and being able to grab some weapons that are loaded with traits, like nunchaku or sai, opens up possibilities in your combat routine and attack combinations to capitalize on the circumstances you find yourself in. With the value of +1 to hit increased in this edition and weaknesses being something that can be really key to take advantage of, being able to quickly swap between a variety of weapons with different damage types and traits is nothing to scoff at.
5. Until more Ancestry Feats are released, Monks have a dearth of options. All the weapon feats are extremely incompatible with the Monk's unarmed focus, so that means a good deal of the feats available are literally unusable for Monks. This is mostly a "feel bad" type of thing that surely more content will solve.
This is no more true for monks than any other class, and arguably less so. Goblins are probably the worst offender since their only 5th level ancestry feat is weapon focused, but they also have multiple solid 1st level options. Elemental Fist goblin monks are probably going to get some mileage out of both Burn It! and Goblin Scuttle, for example, and won't really need Burn It! until after they have Elemental Fist, so it's a solid pick-up with that 5th level ancestry feat (and will get even better as the new Lost Omens books are released).
6. You kinda have to game Backgrounds. The attribute game got much better than other editions, don't get me wrong. But it still feels pretty bad to be forced to game your background to be allowed to make a build. The fact that Monks need specifically high DEX and good STR, or otherwise high STR and good DEX except for a single build makes it so that Background selection is not a purely roleplaying element. This could be solved with a Class Feat that allows AC to be based off of mental stats instead of DEX, which should be pretty fun to recreate the old-school Monk feel without the troublesome Mountain Stance.
Again, not really any more true for monks than any other class, and arguably less so. I played a 12 Dex monk from 1st up into 12th level and literally never added to Dex after first (and this was when the math was tilted more painfully against PCs and options like Mountain Stance didn't exist.) It was difficult and required a lot of tactical thinking, but monks don't have to have high STR and DEX; Mountain Stance monks kind of actively don't need DEX and for many other builds an 18/14 (or even 16/14) split with either STR or DEX as primary is quite doable. In fact, a lot of the feats mentioned in point 3 are even better on low DEX monks since they don't require you to have invested in Acrobatics and can give you some nice mobility options that aren't entirely reliant on a non-primary-stat skill.
Hopefully no one adds a class feat to key AC off a mental stat; it would make Monk dips virtually mandatory for casters after 5th level and introduce a lot of the PF1 math bloat and potential for abuse that PF2 removed.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As DMW mentioned, there's no reason you can't drop into encounter mode when it's appropriate to do so.
I'd really like to see more information from Paizo though on how they intend Encounter and Exploration mode to interact. There are a lot of abilities or features that only really have rules for encounter mode described.
Dropping in and out at will makes sense for a lot of them, but I'm not sure if that's how the developers intend the game to be played. There are also other things that don't really work with that paradigm and I'm not sure if the rules just aren't explicit or if they aren't intended to interact with exploration mode at all or what.
Is the wind stance not viable for ranged combat compared to the shurikens? Was considering a human monk who could start with tiger and wind stance at level one. Or maybe rogue then dip into monk for wind stance for fancy ranged attacks? Since wind strikes are finesse, a thief rogue would apply dex to hit and to damage?
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just a few thoughts from someone whose first PF2e PC is a monk. I deliberately made a monk as I've never played a PF1e monk, and I didn't want to be continually comparing the PF1e and PF2e versions of my character or its class.
1) Even if it's theoretically suboptimal, I won't ever be using a shield with a monk doing unarmed attacks. I don't have any interest in pretending to be Capt America, and overall I just think it would like silly (obviously a purely subjective aesthetic judgement).
2) I would really, really like an official statement on what "ground" means for going in to mountain stance. "Ground" to me does not mean deck of a ship or second floor of a wooden building. Now the intent may very well be "any solid surface." If that's the case, I'd appreciate hearing from the design team.
3) Similarly, an official statement of "dropping into encounter mode" in order to crane style's jump ability's would be nice.
One of my frustrations with PF1e is that often such requests for clarification or FAQs were never responded to. I hope this situation does not occur with PF2e.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Is the wind stance not viable for ranged combat compared to the shurikens? Was considering a human monk who could start with tiger and wind stance at level one. Or maybe rogue then dip into monk for wind stance for fancy ranged attacks? Since wind strikes are finesse, a thief rogue would apply dex to hit and to damage?
Wild Winds Stance is a level 8 feat, not level 1.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Is the wind stance not viable for ranged combat compared to the shurikens? Was considering a human monk who could start with tiger and wind stance at level one. Or maybe rogue then dip into monk for wind stance for fancy ranged attacks? Since wind strikes are finesse, a thief rogue would apply dex to hit and to damage?Wild Winds Stance is a level 8 feat, not level 1.
Way to crush my hopes and dreams >:(
One of my frustrations with PF1e is that often such requests for clarification or FAQs were never responded to. I hope this situation does not occur with PF2e.
There's a lot of posts on this forum for Paizo to have to wade through. AFAIK there isn't any way of highlighting posts like this to try to get their attention. So as great as it would be for them to respond to stuff like this, it's looking for a needle in a haystack.
They are more visible on social media/streaming platforms then they once might have been. You could try pinging them via that (I don't engage in social media or streaming platforms so I don't know how responsive they are).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
One of my frustrations with PF1e is that often such requests for clarification or FAQs were never responded to. I hope this situation does not occur with PF2e.There's a lot of posts on this forum for Paizo to have to wade through. AFAIK there isn't any way of highlighting posts like this to try to get their attention. So as great as it would be for them to respond to stuff like this, it's looking for a needle in a haystack.
They are more visible on social media/streaming platforms then they once might have been. You could try pinging them via that (I don't engage in social media or streaming platforms so I don't know how responsive they are).
I know the mountain stance question was raised in this thread asking for rules questions. It's not clear to me if it was ever answered, or if it was, where that answer is recorded.
Didn't there used to be a "request FAQ" button or something along those lines for posts? If so, it appears that it's no longer there.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What I would love, and might houserule, is a 4th level or so Monk feat that allows you to treat monk weapons as a shield (requiring you to have taken Monastic Weaponry).
I think something like that would both make Monastic Weaponry a more worthwhile path and also solve the "vulnerable until stance" issue, since you can choose an exploration tactic to have your "shield" raised.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I know the mountain stance question was raised in this thread asking for rules questions. It's not clear to me if it was ever answered, or if it was, where that answer is recorded.
To my understanding no questions in that thread have been answered yet (from what people have posted I believe they were answering questions that were asked in real time).
Out of interest are you a GM? If your a player then any answer Paizo provides is ultimately meaningless. It's your GM that decides. (If you play PFS you would probably have better luck asking through a PFS channel).
If your a GM looking for guidance as to what assumptions were taken when the mechanic was balanced then I can certainly understand looking for guidance from the devs. Ultimately though, how often do situations where it will be an issue come up? I personally don't run a lot of adventures on a boat. If your trying to rule against it working on the second floor of a building then (to me) that seems like a bit of a screw job and I certainly wouldn't make a ruling that way.
Ultimately dev advice is nice. But they're not the ones running the game. The only decision that ultimately matters is the one that is made by the DM at the table and even they should decide for themselves what is the most fun rather than blindly follow what Paizo (or the rules) say.
As DMW mentioned, there's no reason you can't drop into encounter mode when it's appropriate to do so.I'd really like to see more information from Paizo though on how they intend Encounter and Exploration mode to interact. There are a lot of abilities or features that only really have rules for encounter mode described.
Dropping in and out at will makes sense for a lot of them, but I'm not sure if that's how the developers intend the game to be played. There are also other things that don't really work with that paradigm and I'm not sure if the rules just aren't explicit or if they aren't intended to interact with exploration mode at all or what.
Worth Noting: If you are going to question how the devs intend things to be played, be aware of who you are responding to. Ssalarn IS a dev. Organized play, perhaps, but they all work alongside one another and a new edition is pretty all-hands.