Ok, I'm trying to set up a game, and I want to make a sheet with every little houserules I want to implement before then.

Now, after visiting some forums and other chatrooms, I heard that monk, in 3rd edition, were kinda frail. This is mostly because they had to invest in several more attributes than most other classes. What I want to do here is to give them something extra that would give them an edge, and more worthwhile to play.

My intend is this: instead of having 3/4 attack bonus like a cleric, I would give them full attack bonus like a fighter.
This would give them more attacks (up to 6 attacks, at level 20) and it would make them more reliable in general.

I want opinions on this.

3.0 or 3.5?

3.5

Well, I feel like the real reason Monks have trouble isn't MAD, it's magic-item limitations. A stupidly-broken monk build can get many sick unarmed attacks, for example. They're really meant to be a sort of anti-caster/field-control midliner, not a DPS/tank frontliner.

However, if your goal is to toughen them up so your players have more fun, I don't think increasing their *offense* is the best tack. You could look at increasing their defense: something as simple as a d8 HD, perhaps, or a couple extra free feats for defense (things like Dodge, etc.) might help. You could give them the Skirmish class feature (from Scout), or trade it for a 'weak' CF from Monk.

If your player wants to simply re-focus the Monk entirely, try these: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/...tFightingStyles

Many people also enjoy replacing Monk entirely with the unarmed version of the Swordsage from Tome of Battle.

I don't really believe that they lack defense, really. They already have the d8 HD. They have extra AC as well as the option to wear bracer of armor. And they can heal themselves a little.
One thing I might say is that in my game i want to host, I will use the build point system as suggested in the Dungeon master manual. With 25 points. I don't expect them to try wierd builds because they won't have much "ressources" to start with.
It's just that a level 10 monk with 18 str would have to expect a BAB of +10/+5, while any "real" fighting class at this point could easily reach +20/+15.
And it's not just that, lots of monsters have purposely high armor class at this point. Sending lower armor class monsters would just make the job extremely easy for fighter, while monks will feel like they are just softening stuff.
I see the monk class as a "fighting" class. And since they aren't that good at hitting, they don't really feel useful.

Also, note that I don't want to reedit the whole class. I just want to see if giving them a higher BAB would be a good idea. That way, they would feel like maybe using combat expertise and similar abilities more often, thus compensating for whatever weakness they have.

Um, you are taking into account Flurry of Blows, aren't you? Monks can unleash multiple attacks like no one's business and do silly damage, making them quite deadly. They don't have the warrior attack bonus, but like Yer said they're not front-line combatants and so don't need it. Though you may see them as a fighting class, WotC didn't see them that way. They have access to a wide range of powers which makes up for. If you give them [attack bonus = level], you risk making monks too powerful. That said, if you feel they need the extra attack bonus then give it to them.

The monk is my favorite class in 3E (and in 4E), and I've never considered them weaker than they should be. In fact, I've had misgivings about playing them because they maybe seem a bit too powerful, going so far as to recommend nerfing my characters to the DM before playing them.

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.

Heh, you're right, I meant d10. But your problem is definitely that you're comparing monk to fighter. They're not a fighting class, they're a rogue class.

However, your game is your game. In that situation, sure, give the full BAB a try. There have been many pages written about 'fixing' monk, so a little googling can get you more ideas if that doesn't work.

Mmmyeh... maybe they are a rogue class. It's just that if I to play a rogue class, I'd play a rogue myself.
That said, I won't play a rogue cuz I'm the GM.

Totally. Or something with Trapfinding, like Scout, Factotum… Hehe. Anyway, I hope it works. Check Giant in the Playground, Brilliant Gameologists, or the Wizards forums for more advanced ideas, although they get pretty crazy.

Also, maybe I was tainted by Baldur's gate 2, where monks have the same THAC0 than fighters.

Edit:
Look, I'll try it. Maybe none of my players with roll a monk anyway.

Edit two:
Also, as for the comment about monks being a rogue-like. For comparison, I consider the ranger to be more useful as a rogue-like, and I'm pretty certain that he's also more useful everywhere else. Seeing the ranger with the full BAB, I don't feel like it would be a bad idea to give the monk full BAB too.

See this is less a mechanical argument then a fluffy one. Monks are intentionally "less tough" then say a paladin or a fighter because they're incredibly nimble and slippery targets. Only a dead monk or a REALLY min-maxed one can purposely 'tank.' Instead they usually function as an excellent flanker and mage-killer.

Dodge, Mobility and high ranks in Tumble mean attacks of opportunity will never hit, and such a monk will fly about the battlefield like Mr. "Woah I know Kung-fu," while delivering some extraordinary amounts of damage with the feats Improved Natural Attack (Unarmed Strike), and Superior Unarmed Attack--note that last one is from Tome of Battle page 30 and it DOES stack with Monk's Belt.

Further you can greatly tweak survivability of any monk by noting what level range your going to play at. Low level monks might focus on improved grapple and simply crush their enemies into submission without worrying about getting hit. Mid range might see spring attack builds etc.
For a simple example Whisper Gnome (Races of Stone) lvl 9 Monk with 14 Dex and 12 Wis, the feats: Dodge; Titan Fighting (RoS); and Mobility can declare a target for his Dodge and end up with an AC of at least 22. And that's without going completely off the wall--which isn't to say I can't.

Bottom line I'd say don't burden yourself with having to balence and write some house rules--such tends to lead to more bad DM Fiat situations and player indignation when "super monks" come and kick their asses.

I didnt felt like a +2 or +3 additional attack bonus was much of a threat to me. Again, it's just that I feel like being a monk limits what you can do, by alot.
Oh well, now I don't know what I want to do about them.

all 18 rolls should always go monk! You get the best of most roles with it as well as many other bonuses.

No, the ranger's a martial class (d10, full BAB, martial weapons, etc.). He certainly has some minor rogue crossover (skills), but he's really just a light-armored fighter.

Lol, wierd builds have almost nothing to do with stats compared to the player. Low stats will sometimes limit things, for example good luck getting expertise on an effective monk with only 25 points unless you take that feat that changes all thier ablities based on wisdom to int.

My point about the ranger was about them being better at stealth than rogues. But anyway, now I just don't know what to do with monks.

They are? Weird, I don't remember rangers getting any big MS or HiS bonuses. They might have gotten a couple of points to it in the forest, but that hardly makes them better than rogues.

You're martial classes are: Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin
You're magic classes are: Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid
You're specialty classes are: Monk, Rogue, Bard.

Quite simply put, a Monk isn't supposed to be as good of a fighter as a fighter because they aren't martial class. A monk is however going to be more versatile. They have the option of grabbing extra attacks or being more accurate thanks to flurry of blows, meaning they can switch between fighting one large enemy and several smaller ones easily. They don't rely on a weapon, meaning if the party is captured or something and left weaponless, the monk goes "And?" and the fighter cries like a baby. Also, you can't disarm a monk, or break their weapon, or have a rust monster eat their weapon or armor. Oh, don't forget the cool abilities provided by stuff like paralyzing strike, oh, and also remember that a monk eventually gets to roll a d20 for damage.

So sure, a monk doesn't have quite as good a BAB as a fighter, and isn't quite as well equipped to stand on the front line and get beat on, but they have tons of options which make them potentially alot more powerful if they are smart. If they're dumb and just act like a fighter that uses fists and no armor, then yeah, they'll be a disadvantage, but if they make use of all their abilities, they can really shine.

If you want, you could think about it as a strait line, with martial at one end, magic at the other, and specialty in the middle, and then it goes: Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Monk, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Wizard. More to the right is more magic/spells/special abilities, more to the left is more 'Hulk Smash' As you can see, monks are fairly far away from fighters, so it makes sense that they aren't directly equal with them in a 'all holds barred' match in which no one uses special abilities and it is all about BAB and AC.

Well, you say that monks are a "specialty" class, and not a fighter class. But then you keep talking about what fighting abilities they have, which, to be honest, aren't impressive. Sure the monk deal 2d10 at some point, but that's rather moot since the monk will have trouble hitting high AC baddies. And against low AC baddies, anything goes great, especially real fighter classes (power attack).
To me, honestly, I look at the monk, and the only thing I see in then is the ability to fight spellcasters. This is not fun knowing that your character is overshadowed by everyone except when fighting a spellcaster maybe.

Anyway, the point is that not all D&D is killing. Monks can sneak, sprint, scout, and stun. If I were making any changes, I'd focus on their specialist side. 2 extra skill points per level, maybe, or extra bonus feat choices in the Evasion/Dodge/movement/etc. themes.

A multiclassed monk is deadly in so many ways. Though takign the right class/feats to let you carry on lvlign monk is a problem.

Yeah, exactly, and? I can talk about what magic a bard can cast, but that doesn't make them a caster class. I can talk about the combat abilities of a rogue like their huge sneak attack damage, but that doesn't make them a fighter class.

What I'm saying is that they are situationaly more useful than a fighter, in other words, they are a specialty class.

But, as always, you can do what you want in your game. I just think that if you have a player that knows what they're doing, they could really easily outshine the fighter in their own realm if you boost them.

Oh, and we never even go into grappling

To say that Monks and especially Rogues aren't 'martial' classes is absurd. Doubly so if you're not classifying Rangers in the same boat as them. They get more combat-oriented abilities per level than most other classes, for crying out loud.

Despite that, their attack bonus is fine as is. Just like the Rogue's is. What they lack in accuracy, they make up for in raw power. Rogues gain a ton of bonus damage and actively seek out additional bonuses from flanking, much like Monks. Their mobility, accessibility to Tumbling, and other secondary abilities all make up for the small amount of attack bonus they lose. And, franky, you really don't even miss it until you get to the much higher levels anyway.

There's also quite a few prestige classes that can help focus these classes, giving them the same attack bonus progression as Fighters. And unless you're trying to cheese the system by taking every prestige or base class under the sun, you're not going to be all that crippled. Especially with Flurry of Blows; those extra attacks make up for the higher chance of missing.

So yes, they're very much a martial class (hello: ever hear the term "martial artist?"). But no, they don't need a 1:1 attack progression. They're one of the few classes that are fine as is. The only thing that sucks is all the things you lose by multiclassing; but that's a fault of any class that grants new abilities every level.

No, rogues aren't a martial class, either. Yes, they can participate in combat. Every class has combat abilities, it's D&D.

Feel free to explain why a Ranger is, but a Rogue isn't. The only other major difference between those two classes is the Ranger has fewer combat abilities, while the Rogue has a whole two extra skill points per level.

Do Rogues sit around in twiddling their fingers, chant arcane words, or otherwise frolic about while everyone else fights? No. Do they sit on their asses during a fight? No. They get right up into their enemies faces (or more correctly, behind their faces) and slice and dice away. Much like Monks. Out of combat, Rangers have just as much versatility as they do, just with a wilderness bent instead of an urban one.

And of course there's the minor fact that even in 4E, where they actually define classes by their style, a Rogue is very much a Martial class. The only reason a Monk isn't one is because they wanted to create a Psionic category of classes and felt a Monk was somehow psionic.

The whole idea of "specialty classes" is silly, especially since the list earlier in the thread is 100% arbitrary just to prove some wholly erroneous point. The only one that comes close is the Bard, and they're better described as a hybrid class (that should have been a prestige class, anyway).

You don't need a 1:1 attack progression to be a combat-oriented class.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Hehe, yes, but then it's so ungodly cheesy. Hell, any character using the spiked chain at all is unacceptably cheesy.

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.

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. 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.

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.

Oof, hostility. In fairness, Vow of Poverty is always ridiculous, and LA-races are always either broken or worthless. More or less.

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.

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.


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.

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...

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

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

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).

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.

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

That, and there *are* any number of weapons a monk could use. It's not mandatory to abuse the weird unarmed progression.

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

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.

Well, it's a weapon that can't be dropped, sundered, disarmed, or stolen. You could house-rule the price, though.

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.

Um. You're the GM. 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.