We have a new player and starting a different campaign and he currently doesn't enjoy his Paladin as even with the limited spells the Paladin is a bit too much for him to learn the system. Lay on hands/Channel/Spells/Smite Evil/Bonded Weapon is too much for him.
We semi-agreed on Fighter as it can grab all the basic feats, give like two combat options that aren't full attacks (Whirlwind and Spring Attack or something), and the rest can be dumped into skill ranks through advance armor training/generic bonuses like Weapon Focus/Specialization.
He has mentioned his idea of the character and he wants to focus on role play (skill points helping that) and basic combat. However, with the campaign actually starting in the next two weeks, he mentioned the idea of monk as I tried to ask for his character's fighting style. What is the best way to go about a monk without Ki Powers? Is a Fighter just with Wilding Strike (eventually 1d10 unarmed punches) and Dragon Style/Ferocity with TWF just the 'best' way to go unarmed with some good skill ranks?
There's paladins which trade out spells for feats (tempered champion or divine guardian), or a monk martial artist archetype which loses ki. But the fighter's probably the simplest with no moving parts to speak of.
The advanced weapon training optioms can apply to Unarmed Strike so Wildling isn't really needed.
Ah, the Warpriest damage thing. I forgot about.
Brawler is kind of the official “monk without ki” class.
And is about anything except simple.
He has mentioned his idea of the character and he wants to focus on role play (skill points helping that) and basic combat. However, with the campaign actually starting in the next two weeks, he mentioned the idea of monk as I tried to ask for his character's fighting style. What is the best way to go about a monk without Ki Powers?
Why are ki powers problematic? I would indeep pick unMonk, and let the player pick from a preselection of ki powers that aren't mainly to be used in combat. Barkskin should be activated before combat starts. Empty Body is amazing in handling a bunch of challenges. Feather Balance, Water Sprint, Gaseous Form, and Abundant Step are grat for getting into places. Burst of Adrenaline and Burst of Insight are made to help overcome skill chalenges. Object Reading can help a lot in intrigue/sleuth style games. Ki Metabolism is just a fun ability to have ("I only need to beeath twice per day!").
The bonus ki attack remains, but that is something that the player should be able to grasp, and resource management is an important thing to learn. Flying Kick, too, is something that I think is easy enough to understand. The Ki powers can help overcome challenges that aren't doable with skill ranks alone, which can prevent frustration as new players usually have to learn the hard way that skills can't solve every problem. Learning to handle selectable abilites (talents/powers) is also an important part of playing the game, and actually much easier than picking feats.
Is a Fighter just with Wilding Strike (eventually 1d10 unarmed punches) and Dragon Style/Ferocity with TWF just the 'best' way to go unarmed with some good skill ranks?
Wilding Strike is utterly horrible. +1 average damage per feat is a joke, especially for a Fighter. When the campaing reaches higher levels, Pummeling Style/Charge is vastly superior to Dragon Style.
I'm just trying to keep things as simple as possible as that is what the player has asked for. Unchained might not be a bad idea to grab what Ki Powers he needs. I'm also not looking for the most optimized build, but rolling dice is fun. Even if rolling 1d4 + 10 is better, it is more fun to roll 1d10 + 5.
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Well, different people consider different things simple or complicated, but based on personal experience, I would honestly recommend unMonk, definitely more than Fighter. Because while an unMonk can make a regular Flurry of Blows full attack most of the time (thanks to Flying Kick), a Fighter would often want to charge - a very common a source of confusion! How many attacks do I get on a charge? How can I move? What was the attack roll bonus? What about the AC penalty? Even somewhat experienced players often struggle with that, and it only gets worse when Haste gets involved.
I think it's important to allow some player agenda, both in building the character (so that they player sees it as their character), and in actual play. Both these things are way better when it comes to unMonk - the Monk bonus feats are a nice short list where the player can select from, and as I talked about in my last post it's easy to condense the ki powers list to something similar. Subpar choices are no big deal because neither are important to creating a proper character (always presuming Flying Kick as the first style strike). It looks different with a Fighter, because the only choice you make (well, until AWTs kick in at 9th level) are feats, and with around a thousand combat feats, even just making a pre-selection sound like a Herculean task.
unMonk also allows more player agenda for non-combat tasks, as the player might be able to chose between a ki power and a simple skill check. In my experience, players love using class features, and the Fighter has almost nothing that really fits that - they have feats, skills, and... that's basically it.
I'm always of a "the player should learn something" mind, and for that Fighter is a horrible class. It's very hard to build a well-rounded Fighter, meaning the player will not participate in parts of the game and thus not learn those parts, unless using advanced materials (like AWT). The sheer lack of interesting class features makes them miss out on even beginner stuff like daily recource management (like Ki Pool) or selectable class features (like Ki Powers). Hell, vanilla Fighter doesn't even have a single active class feature, it's a commoner with more feats and higher numbers!
"Not the most optimized build" is one thing, being clearly inferior is another, and it's something highly likely to make the player not want to play again. When all non-combat challenges are done by others because they have class feature or spells that go beyond maxed skill ranks, and in-combat the others kill three enemies in the time the Fighter kills one, the player will notice, and won't like it. Likewise, if all the other party members get cool new abilities on levelup, and the Fighter only gets feat #12 (which probably doesn't even do anything yet because it's just a prereq for something interesting later), I'd like to see the player who doesn't feel a bit left out!
rolling dice is fun. Even if rolling 1d4 + 10 is better, it is more fun to roll 1d10 + 5.
Not everyone cares more about the dice than the damage, but if the player does, that only tips the scales further in favor of unMonk. There's also Jabbing Style; the machanic should be easy enough to understand and remember.
Edit: Forgot to say that before, but you should definitely make a cheat sheet for the character - basically, a condensed character sheet with the uninteresting stuff omitted and all the important information readily aviable. Including different attack roll routines (e.g. when Hastened). See here for different ones I've made in the past, the third sheet especially is something that I would definitely recommend for a beginner player. All players should have such sheets as the first two, though, you wouldn't believe how much that speeds up gameplay!
I think the Martial Artist is your literal interpretation of the ask. Monk without ki powers. Wherever they'd get something supernatural, they just get tuffer
Why not ninja whit unarmed attack talent , you will get a semi monk whit sneak attack
Thank for all for the input. Building a character isn't a problem since the group can always help out. Brawler is out as the martial flexibility would just be completely lost for a newer player.
I'll talk to the player about Martial Artist or UnMonk. We were going to use AWT for the Fighter as that is how he would be getting more skill points later on.
I'd honestly suggest UnMonk over martial artist. core monk has a lot of things that kind of make it frustrating to play.
Tell him to stick with Paladin, IMHO. He'll never grow as a player if he artificially restricts himself to simple classes, and chances are he won't have a lot of fun, either.
If you mess up in building a pure martial character, you won't have a lot of recourse left to you when things get tough and enemies become less one-dimensional.
Also, there's the "Enlightened Paladin" archetype for a more monk-ish Paladin. Check it out if you aren't already.
Let him be a barbarian its the most basic and easy pc in all the game
He is playing a Paladin currently, campaign is about to be over, so the group is starting new characters. He has said he didn't like the Paladin (currently level 8). We all have to start somewhere, and the player has asked for a simple character.
With Martial artist removing all the Ki Powers, what is honestly left versus Unchained? BAB difference, Will save, and how flurry works? (TWF versus two free attacks like haste)
Tell him to stick with Paladin, IMHO. He'll never grow as a player if he artificially restricts himself to simple classes, and chances are he won't have a lot of fun, either.
If you mess up in building a pure martial character, you won't have a lot of recourse left to you when things get tough and enemies become less one-dimensional.
Also, there's the "Enlightened Paladin" archetype for a more monk-ish Paladin. Check it out if you aren't already.
I promise you moving from paladin to monk isn't making things simpler. Monk is way way way way harder to both keep alive and be effective than paladin is.
Will Save is important. Martial Artist is actually pretty good: they bypass DR and Hardness. They have some immunities.He is playing a Paladin currently, campaign is about to be over, so the group is starting new characters. He has said he didn't like the Paladin (currently level 8). We all have to start somewhere, and the player has asked for a simple character.
With Martial artist removing all the Ki Powers, what is honestly left versus Unchained? BAB difference, Will save, and how flurry works? (TWF versus two free attacks like haste)
Umonk can afford to up their wisdom quite a bit more than standard monk due to full BAB.
I think it's not the class but the rol part, he played a melee paladin, let him test a rogue, an Archer, a spellcaster maybe in this way he will get the fun that he is looking
Mi first time I play a rpg I was a cleric it was good then I pass to rogue and it's was boring, lately I pass to fighter, ranger, soulknife, and finally y reach to sorcerer I see sorcerer was that class for me until I play an arcanist
My point is let's change he's next concept of the game.
Honestly, he should just play a wizard.
Easiest class to build, since they just need to focus on one stat, and can change out any choices that may be less than ideal.
Sure, Wizards have spells, but that's almost ALL they have. Give him an Arcane Bond instead of a familiar and tell him to go to town.
It'll probably help if he thinks of the wizard as a card player. Your spellbook is a binder full of cards, but each day you create a deck with those spell cards. Once you play a spell card, it's gone until the next day, though you can put multiple copies in your deck if you so prefer.
Friends don't let friends play cMonks! At least not without the Sohei (with mount), Drunken Master+Sensei, Tetori, Far Strike, or Zen Archer (each + Qinggong) archetypes.
Martial Artist is way more complicated to play than unMonk, Brawler is way more complicated to play than unMonk, Ninja is way more complicated to play than unMonk. Wizard may be the "easiest class to build", but the player isn't struggling with the building process, but with actual play (mainly in combat, I presume).
He has said he didn't like the Paladin (currently level 8). We all have to start somewhere, and the player has asked for a simple character.
It would probably help to ask the player what exactly he didn't like with the Paladin. I kinda presumed that the player disliked having multiple possibilities competing for the same action (LoH and Smite Evil for swift, attacking, casting, and Channel for standard, full attacking and moving for move), which is why I proposed a Monk that can full attack as much as possible, and has only one swift action use. But there could be other issue that the player had with the character. Maybe he even liked the concept of spells but just hated having to chose between attacking and casting, in which case a Magus might be a good fit. Maybe the player hated having to anticipate what spells might be needed each morning. Maybe the player would have prefered a character that's more specialized on one specific combat style, rather than the Paladin having aspects of tank, healer, damage dealer, and caster (e.g. "I wanted to play a damage dealer but felt I had to heal/cure my party members all the time instead").
