Monks

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Monks have always bugged me in RPGs. The rolemodel for the D&D monk are the asian monks who honed their unarmed combat skills to be able to resist local warlords and the like. The thing is, for a person to be able to fight an armed man unarmed that person needs to be much more skilled and trained than the armed foe. If real life people had levels you would need to be atleast a level five monk to take on 1st level warrior with a sword, probably higher. Sure monks are not as good at fighting as a fighter but a person needs to be extremely skilled to take on a person armed and proficient.

To end my rant I would just like to say that monks are an extremely unnescessary class, if someone want a kung-fu master just create a fighter and let him fight unarmed and unarmoured. Could be pretty cool if not very powerful.

 

I'd say that Monks are pretty nifty anti wizard classes.

 

I've been thinking about that too. I was rather thinking of a Prestige Class called Monk. You'd need some skills and feats etc before you could gain the profits the monk has, to 'compensate' the difficulty of fighting unarmed and unarmored.

 

First of all, one of the great sins of D&D is that political correctness always wins with reason and populism follows closely. Game balance comes third.

Therefore, there simply had to be monks who with bare hands and legs are able to take iron-clad folks.

Bull****. There's no way a first level fireballfodder hits a mass of metal with enough strength to cause damage without crippling himself.

A sword can be dodged. Armour is a totally different story. I've attacked people with staves or even metal pipes bare-handed and won, but there's no way one could do that against a guy in metal armour. One would need at least boxing gloves.

Plus, monk is a misnomer here. It's associated with Benedictines or Franciscans sooner than Shaolin by most people in the group where potential D&D players belong.

 

Yeah, but guys, D&D is not the real world.

D&D monks gain some sort of mystical powers from their mysterious studies that allow them to do more than you could unarmed. It's no different to how a wizard can attack an armoured foe by waving his hands and making a magic missile come out.

Plus, 1st level monks ARE pretty lame anyway.

And - it's not hard to visualise an unarmed monk defeating an armoured fighter. The fighter lunges, the monk sidesteps and pushes the fighter over. The fighter lands on his face, the monk pins him down, stands on his hand to dislodge the sword, maybe breaks his arm, the fighter can't get up then the monk breaks the fighter's neck from behind. Sure, it would take some luck to pull off but then again a 1st level monk usually needs a few lucky rolls anyway.

The main issue with this is that a monk's 'to hit' roll should be based on dexterity not strength.

[ July 19, 2004, 06:14: Message edited by: Harbourboy ]

 

I don't see what's wrong with monks, I actually like them, but that might also be influenced by my interest in martial arts.

If a fighter strikes, and the monk dodges, it doesn't seem that hard to put your feet on the fighter, even for somebody untrained in martial arts or something like that. The monk has a bit more training and does a bit more damage in that case.

As for armors; the idea has always been that you find vulnerabilities in the armor. I don’t see how a scimitar or a rapier could go through a fully metallic armor, but it does in D&D.

True, but this already kinda in game, isn’t it? A Full Plate Mail gives an AC bonus of +8. The Base Attack Bonus of a monk is +0 at first level. Let's just assume that both have no other bonuses, which means that the monk has an attack bonus of +0 and the opponent an AC of 18. If the monk rolls for example 15, you can assume the target was hit, but it did not penetrate its armor. If the monk rolls 19 or 20, he is lucky and found a weak spot in the armor. Also, it is often underestimated that it isn't easy to swing a sword successfully. If somebody who is semi-trained with a sword (a level 1 fighter for example), tries to strike at someone with a Full Plate and rolls the same 15 for his attack roll, with a +1 bonus, he still didn’t hit successfully. Why? He probably managed to hit him, but his blow missed the strength and accuracy to damage the opponent. In the long run, it's probably easier the hit an armored opponent successfully with a sword, than with your fists; that is also why the monk has a lower base attack bonus.

This is something I don’t believe. Monks gain their powers by constant training and channelling their Ki or Chi. There is nothing mystical about this power itself, however, the writers went to extremes with it and gave the monk a few mystical and unrealistic abilities, which they say are also linked to this Ki.

Also, like Harbourboy said, level 1 monks are weak, they really don’t compare to a level 1 fighter. In fact, you really can't compare them to fighters at all, when it comes to pure fighting. The monks AC often isn't higher, and their base attack bonus isn't spectacular, something which comes in handy when fighting on higher levels. The only combat benefits that a monk has, is its amazing speed (which is useless in hand-to-hand or close quarters combat), and the number of attacks a monk can make (of which on higher levels, when the monk finally gets a lot of attacks, only the first two or three attacks are useful).

Besides that, I wouldn’t like to see the monk as a prestige class of the fighter. If the monk is a prestige class of the fighter, shouldn’t a barbarian, paladin and ranger also be prestige classes?

Like Harbourboy also said: it's a game. Who really cares about realism or the exact rules, as long as you have fun while playing.

 

My problem with monks isnt really about realism as you say there are wizards and dragons and stuff in the game. It is just that fighting unarmed and unarmoured is so much less effective than fighting armed and armoured that you need to be very skilled to be able to take on someone *proficient* with a weapon. In general the "western" worlds fascination with eastern martial arts just bugs the crap out of me. There is nothing special about it. It is an obsolete way of fighting Europe relinquished with the advent of gunpowder and which only remains in the highly ritualized forms of wrestling and boxing.

 

It is indeed less effective, but I think that is why it is called martial *arts*. It isn't completely about the fighting, it is also about the way of life and the style, technique and tradition that comes with it. Things like traditional kung-fu can be improved to be more effective, but they don't, for they prefer technique above power. It is of course easier to point a gun and shoot, but do you get strength, control and agility when you go to the shooting range?

I think there is something special about martial arts. A lot of people probably are drawn to it, because it kicks ass, but there really is much more to it. Some people might be drawn to things like swords or katana's, but the same beauty is present when controlling a stick. Meditation, concentration and discipline play a large role in martial arts, which allows them to push themselves to the limit of the human body. It does not only make you stronger physically, it also makes you stronger mentally.

Something less effective isn't in my opinion useless. Why would anyone walk if they can use a bicycle? If you want to move from one point to the other, a bicycle would certainly be faster, but there are still people who would walk, simply because they prefer walking. An unarmed monk is probably less powerful than somebody who wields a sword, but some people just prefer playing a monk. A monk is in my opinion not a kick-in-the-door fighter and should not try to be. He can participate on the front line, but with a more tactical strategy. The monk has his own specialties, just like a bard or a wizard.

While typing this little rant, I realized that if you look at the classes and how the eleven classes are divided over the 'typical' adventurers, the number of monks should be significantly lower in most worlds and there should not be the same amount of monks, as there are for example fighters. That is probably the reason why some might want to see it as a prestige class, instead of a regular class.
I can also see why you think monks wouldn’t fit in D&D worlds, because they are mostly based on European history. They might not fit in like the other classes, but it is still a world of fairytales and myths.

Please, don't think that I'm desperately trying to convince anyone about my opinion of martial arts and monks. If you don’t like them, that’s fine by me. I’m just trying to explain why I find them fascinating.

 

Wow, Mesmero, you said just about everything that's on my mind!
Especialy the part about not kicking ass, but rather devoting to yourself, exploring the limits of your body and mind. Cause if it were about the most effective way of killing others, than it would be much easier to grab a weapon, why trouble yourself with the unarmed combat then. More a way of living than a profession.

Making them a prestige class. It does make sense from the "difficulty" area of fighting unarmed. It doesnt make sense from the training a monk receives. Years of training in unarmed combat before you even try to fight an armed guy. It's all about training for monks. You cant simply get a better sword to get better. You need to practise all that more to get better. There isnt a core class that would be suitable for monk prestige class according to their training to even be considered a monk. None of the core classes has what it takes to become one.
IMO monk is a more special class, even more restricted character-wise. Fighters for instance share nothing else than skill in arms. Wizards share skill in wizardy, rogues stealth and so on and on. Monks on the other hand share much more between themselves. The unique process of becoming one, simply cannot be much different from one another so this is one. Then there's the philosophy. Sure some are "good" others "evil" so they differ in this, but deeper than that they arent as different as fighters for instance. The lawful alignment says something on its own as well.

I hope i'm making some sense here, i dont have a clear idea in my head either, but i'm quite sure i'm right.

 

I also have problems with the monk class. I mean, there are/were western martial arts as well as eastern. In fact, I have a Taiwanese friend who studies renaissance-era fencing styles (I think including rapier, shortsword, and rapier and dagger). These martial arts, I'm told, were just as culturally important to their time and place as were the eastern martial arts, and their practitioners still make use of the various treatises written by renaissance-era masters. And certainly discipline and focus played just as great of a part in western as in eastern martial arts. The focus on unarmed combat or on the use of inexpensive common weapons in the eastern arts had more to do with the prohibative cost of owning a sword as a peasant; however, you can be sure that any of these peasants running into battle would have traded their staff for a sword in a second. In fact, I think it was a common tactic to send the farm-implement wielding peasants into battle first in order to dull the swords of the other side! As always, it sucked to be a peasant...

And in any case, to return to the subject of unarmed combat, if I had to bet on the outcome of a fight between a wrestler and a karate master, all things (size, skill level) being equal, I would probably bet on the wrestler...

 

This is getting a bit off-topic but: what sort of wrestler? A pro-wrestler (he'd get wasted) or an Olympic wrestler (actually I'd still back the karate master, having sparred with many lower level black belts in my time, some of them are awesome. Also most karate masters will have trained in multiple disciplines including wrestling anyway). Depends on who they are really.

Sorry, back on topic: Monks are cool.

 

off-topic continued...

An actual wrestler (collegiate, greco-roman, turkish, etc). Pro-wrestlers are meatballs and don't deserve further comment.

Why wrestling and not (most) martial arts? 1) Because grappling is *the* skill for unarmed fighting; and 2) Because wrestlers probably undergo the most intense conditioning. If you've seen any of those stupid "ultimate fighting" videos, the grapplers are always at an advantage; they might take a few shots in the beginning, but as soon as they get hold of their opponent the fight is over.

Of course, a combination of skills is probably best, and the wrestler should have a sense of the things they could do that would be illegal in a match. Any martial art has artificial limits that hold for training and competition, but wouldn't in a straigtforward fight. Many effective and dangerous moves or holds are illegal in wrestling, judo, aikido, etc. I've heard (but haven't tried) that Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do (sp?) is very effective in borrowing from alot of different forms. Knowing a bit about fighting dirty (headbutts, elbows, etc.) could also be very useful.

...end off topic...

In any case, it seems to me that eastern martial arts aren't so very different from western ones as to warrant their completely different treatment in D&D rules. I could easily imagine a campaign world where monks were only a certain build of fighter or rogue, while still maintaining their effectiveness as characters. While one could justify the monk character as somehow drawing energy from a world animated by arcane and divine magics, it just seems to me like the monk is the least justifiable and believable of the D&D classes, at least relative to most fantasy settings...

Much of this follows D&D rules for weapon damage and armor, which requires a certain amount of role-playing to make seem realistic. Just part of the fun of the game...