DnD 3e monks, im trying to see what to do with them Options

[Karoline]

Flame on!!!

Regardless of how people decide to classify the different classes, I think more or less everyone is in agreement that monks don't need extra attack progression or anything in order to be effective.

[Yerameyahu]

There's always been a distinction between casters, warriors, and support. Rogue and monk are both support. A monk or rogue doesn't fill the 'warrior' slot in a classic party. You're right that a Ranger barely can, but I usually see them in the warrior bucket.

I didn't say 'combat-oriented'. Everything in D&D is combat oriented. Some '# of combat abilities' index is not relevant.

We're not talking about 4e, but Monk has long been connected to Psionics.

[Belvidere]

I do realise that they have more than fighting abilities. But this is dungeons and dragons. A humble fighter can totally out damage a monk in a battle, even with flurry of blow.
Also, remember. They will use the point buy system with 25 points.

Noooo waaay! You tell that to the monk who treats his fists as large weapon and has the feat from tome of battle that increases his monk level by 4 for the purposes of unarmed damage along with a Monk's Belt. And that fighter swinging a +2 Flaming Burst Greatsword 2/turn on a full attack will be stomped in by the 50 ft per round moving, 4d8 fist 4/round. And then if you go ahead and toss in Vow of Poverty.. things are just gross.

Monks imho are the MOST powerful 3.5 D&D class. Save maybe the swordsage

[Yerameyahu]

You really can do some silly breaking of the Monk unarmed damage with certain things. However, a charop Monk would be compared to a charop Spirited Charger or Shocktrooper, which is a far cry from that fighter. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

You really want to annoy and frustrate a DM?

Make a trip/disarm/grapple specialist.

Monks can 'debuff' opponents like nobody's business, completely lock down some opponents and reduce the fighting ability of others.

A monk with that feat that lets him treat a non-monk weapon as a monk weapon, with a spiked chain, can make opponents cry.


-karma

[Yerameyahu]

Hehe, yes, but then it's so ungodly cheesy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Hell, any character using the spiked chain at all is unacceptably cheesy.

[Drace]

Just adding in here as a former Monk addict in 3rd and 3.5, one way to make them strong to the point of near ridicouslness is simple for them to take the vow of poverty. May seem weak at first, but it a monk with VoP seriously adds up for the character over time, to the point where they can kick the most tooled out fighter with magic weapons ass in the same party in most cases.

Also, if you want to add salt to the wound, let them be a Githzerai. The stat and other bonuses make up for the level displacement.

[Evilness45]

What if they are not allowed to take vow of poverty or to be a githzerai?

[I Hate All Life]

What if they are not allowed to take vow of poverty or to be a githzerai?

Then somebody doesn't get to powergame. So sad. But monks are still overwhelmingly powerful if played correctly.

What the heck do you want here, Evil? Do you want monks to utterly dominate the game? People are citing very good examples of just how powerful the class is if played correctly. The idea that something must have BAB = level to be a worthwhile combatant is fallacious, especially since you're basing this idea on a video game using 2nd Edition AD&D rules. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif) Monks are plenty powerful. And this is coming from someone that loves monks and played them extensively in 3E.

I once had a DM that didn't like monks because he considered them too powerful. I talked him into letting me play one by voluntarily toning down the monk's powers, including reducing their unarmed damage, and dropping Diamond Soul (magic resistance) and Abundant Step (dimension door) in favor of more "mundane" abilities (feats). My human monk still rocked. He hopped merrily around the battlefield, targeting casters and disrupting spells, helping the rogue flank, ambushing from stealth, using an obscene movement rate to be wherever the hell he wanted to be while tumbling through and around attacks of opportunity, stunning fools and putting them on their asses via trip attacks. My saves and AC were silly, and I often ran toward those casting fireballs and such spells because my Evasion allowed me to outright ignore spells that allowed Reflex saves and spellcasting was pretty much not an option when I was up in their faces. I could even heal myself, reducing my reliance on the cleric and thus letting her heal more people. There were times I had to choose between accuracy and getting lots of attacks when facing opponents with obscenely high ACs, but this is called tactics; my monk rarely missed his foes, despite his attack bonus not being equal to that of a fighter. And I didn't play my monk with my brain turned off -- i.e., I didn't just put him in front of an enemy and tank him like a paladin. They weren't designed for that.

If you want to give monks even more power, and ignore a lot of the advice we're giving you, fine. You do that. You seem to be so invested in the idea that nothing we say here is convincing you otherwise. Your change might work well for your game. From a pure powergaming angle I personally would love to play a monk in your game if you're running around Salt Lake City, Utah; I appreciate your making such a weak and pathetic class more attractive to people like me. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Evilness45]

I'm sensing a bit of sarcasms here.
Anyway, I think I mentionned that I didn't know what to do anymore.

[I Hate All Life]

I'm sensing a bit of sarcasms here.
Anyway, I think I mentionned that I didn't know what to do anymore.

Well, when in doubt it's better to leave thing as they are, yeah? Maybe see how monks as written function in play before deciding they're weak or whatever? It's always a good thing to be sure about what you're doing before you start mucking with the rules of a game. And it's a lot easier to give a weak characters a boost later in the game (through magic items or home-brewed feats) than to scale back a character you've decided is too powerful.

[Yerameyahu]

Oof, hostility. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) In fairness, Vow of Poverty is always ridiculous, and LA-races are always either broken or worthless. More or less. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Evilness45]

I saw them in action. I see their stats. I'm thinking the numbers.

To me, a monk can't do anything right beside hitting unprotected mages. That is, unless you start using noncore material I never heard of.

[I Hate All Life]

I saw them in action.

In a PC game that uses edition rules (AD&D2) that don't apply to the game in question (3E). Correct?

Seeing something function in a video game is very different from seeing it in tabletop. Especially when the rules between editions aren't that similar.

I see their stats. I'm thinking the numbers.

To me, a monk can't do anything right beside hitting unprotected mages. That is, unless you start using noncore material I never heard of.

Then you don't understand the game well enough to run it, much less make reasonable modifications to it. An attack bonus equal to 75% of level doesn't mean "doesn't hit." Trust me, monks have no problems hitting things. With all the monks I've played in 3E/3.5 (five in all IIRC) I was mixing it up with opponents with high ACs wearing heavy armor and hitting plenty, even when using Flurry of Blows. This is especially true at higher levels; the way D&D3 works is attack bonuses outstrip AC very quickly; at high level, it's not a question of what you hit, but how much damage you do or what effect it has. Admittedly, this reduces the value of a monk's unarmored AC at higher levels. But that's irrelevant to your complaint about monks not being able to hit, which verifiably doesn't match up with actual gameplay.

By your own admission, you don't know what you're doing. Well, we do. Unless you playing your little video game somehow makes you more of an expert on the matter than those of us that have been playing monks in the 3E systems for more than a decade now.

[Evilness45]

I know that monks can hit stuff, usually. My problem here is that fighter type characters have a tendency to reach far higher attack bonus. When those start using power attack on badguys, the monk's damage suddenly looks weak.
And thank you for pointing the obvious, Sherlock. If I ask for input here is it because I don't know what to do indeed. I said that like three time.
And damnit, would you stop mentioning that video game thing. I said that I was maybe BIASED from it.
Dang...

[Dumori]

The only think I monk needs in my eyes is to mulitclass just enought so they get 5 attacks by lvl 20 swashbulker dose that mightly well even more so if your playing an int base monk (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[KarmaInferno]

That high AC power attacking fighter is suddenly a lot less threatening tripped, flat on his back, stunned, and possibly pinned in place.

I have literally had a monk character walk into an arena situation, and walk out, leaving all the other heavily armed and armored opponents hog-tied, immobile and quite embarrassed.

There's two main builds for hand to hand fighters. Either the 'technical' style I mentioned here, or the pure damage dealer.

Each build focuses on different things. For the Tech monk, those grapple and trip checks are all important. For a damage monk, you primarily focus on massive strength and number of attacks - I've seen ones with like 5-7 attacks a round doing 40-60 damage per hit. And hitting most of the time cos they've debuffed their opponents with stuns and trips and the like.

The most optimized monks, though, will multi-class and prestige class heavily. One valid complaint about the class is that a lot of the upper level single class monk abilities are a bit lackluster in combat.

It is true that few classes will be able to match the classic berserker with two handed weapon. But that's not because the other classes are 'bad', it's that the damage stacking for two-handers is just broken.

Over in the Arcanis campaign, I've played both a 2-handed berserker and a hand-to-hand warrior to high levels. The berserker definitely has a greater damage potential, but damn can she get boring to play sometimes, because she does the same thing over and over round after round. The hand-to-hand guy is a LOT more fun, because he has such flexibility in options on what I want him to do from round to round. (and even out of combat he's fun, because he's a sumo wrestler).

Played a cleric/monk back in 3.0 - oh my god he was a damage monster. Worse than any fighter. But that was partly due to clerics in 3.0 being kinda overpowered in the self-buffing spells department.



-karma

[Karoline]

Since one of the main cruxes of Evil's argument is that monks can't hit anything, I should likely point out that at 20th level, a pure monk will only have 5 less attack, which corresponds to 25% less accuracy. Now, take into account that monks can do alot of their cool stuff against an opponents touch AC which is rarely above about 15, and I think you can see that monks shouldn't have problems hitting stuff. Also, due to their high mobility, they'll have little trouble claiming the +2 flanking bonus, so they tend to actually only be 15% less accurate. We'll not even get into the fact that they can sneak (faster than the fighter can run) and thus claim flat footed AC and a +4 bonus to attack.

So, without too much effort they can drop the opponents AC to 10 and get a +6 to attack. Honestly, if the monk can't hit stuff at that point, he needs to be throwing himself off the top of the monastery tower (not that it'd do much thanks to slowfall).

[Evilness45]

Which cool stuff can they do that only requires a touch?
Also, I'd like to remind you guys that it's not really the base attack bonus that is the problem here. It's that they usually don't use a weapon (so no enhancement bonus), and since they need much stats, they have a tendency to have lower ability scores.
I mean, yes, you can have all that with money, but it's not like my player's are likely to have millions.
Bah... complicated stuff.

[Dumori]

All it takes is one house rule and enchanted weapon rings/gloves also rings of force are awesoem on monks 1d4 force damage and +4 ac its a low lvl item

[Yerameyahu]

That, and there *are* any number of weapons a monk could use. It's not mandatory to abuse the weird unarmed progression. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

As for enhancement, Amulet of Mighty Fists literally does the same thing.

[Evilness45]

Yea, but isnt it like 3 time as expensive? You would expect it to be oh a lower enhancement bonus than a regular weapon.
Oh hell, i'll leave the monk as they are.

One thing for sure, I'll remove the multiclass restriction. That thing looks like a fun killer.

[Yerameyahu]

Well, it's a weapon that can't be dropped, sundered, disarmed, or stolen. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You could house-rule the price, though.

[Evilness45]

Beside, that can't work either. I won't have my player simply enter a shop and buy whatever they want on the excuse that they have the gold for it. The shop wont necessarily have the items they want.
Still, I've decided to leave it like that and see if it goes wrong. After all, maybe no one will play a monk anyway.

[Yerameyahu]

Um. You're the GM. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) You decide if the store has something. If the fighter needs a certain magic greatsword and it's 'sold out', he's just as screwed as the monk who can't buy this simple amulet. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)