Bit late to the party here, but I remember playing around with incarnum in some depth, maybe even actually playing a character or two, but never for a significant length of time. It always felt very neat but strangely tacked on, both rules- and flavor-wise, like it really wanted to be its own thing in a separate RPG and setting where it’s the main kind of magic. It gives me a very Brandon Sanderson vibe, I guess.

I never cared much for 4e (though I didn’t hate it with the burning passion of a thousand suns like some people did), but I ran across a fanmade set of rules for bender classes from the Avatar series which I thought were a brilliant idea. I’d even go so far as to say that there’s probably no media property that 4e is better suited for. The part I thought was particularly inspired was that it mapped the four types of benders to 4e’s roles: firebenders are strikers, airbenders are controllers, earthbenders are defenders and waterbenders are leaders.

As for the Power Source issue, my guess would be that the original imagining of the 4E Monk was to be the Ki Power source. But by the time they got to publishing it, the plan had changed and so it was shoehorned into Psionic. And honestly, of the 5.2 power sources, Psionic does fit the best (maybe Divine comes in close second).

And most classes had two secondary roles listed, depending upon how you built it. I liked this in concept, but it was confusing to new players who were still trying to get their head around the idea of a Power Source/Role combination (as opposed to the historical Class choice). But in my limited experience of having a Monk at my table, it seemed that having a “primary” Striker along with the Monk as a “secondary” Striker worked well. In fact, that group didn’t have a Controller until much later in the campaign when a 5th player joined up. It was an interesting and quite effective group (once the Leader stopped trying to be a “tertiary” Striker and started doing Leader stuff).

Oh, I meant in terms of classes I want to see in 5E, not in these history series.

Not surprisingly, I was going to suggest the 13th Age monk as well. I’m glad you’re planning to cover it!

Avengers got their article series already. Warlords (and Marshals before them) will get a short series, because it’s one of my favorite archetypes. I can fight AND play support? That’s totally my deal. Invokers… well, they’ll get their deep dive when I do 4e clerics. I have Opinions there.

Swarm druid never spoke to me as an archetype, but no hate if it’s your thing. =)

Oof, I am way out of the loop on Shadowrun. It’s one of those barely-excusable holes in my gaming experience. I’m not going to make any promises on that one.

I will tackle the Pugilist hack, though, and sure, we can do a tour of monk PrCs and paragon paths.

Every time there’s a Reddit discussion on “which class do you want to see”, I cannot help but think of those last three you mentioned. Sure, they maybe could work as archetypes, but 5E just doesn’t have as much fiddly combat meat, so there’s less room for those really flavorful mechanical expressions.

(also my kingdom for swarm druids but that’s a separate matter)

If you’re really gonna let us ask for non-D&D monk mentions, could you maybe possibly pretty please touch on the Shadowrun Adept, particularly 5th Edition? And maybe the martial arts as presented in its Run & Gun supplement? If you’re much familiar with that system, I mean. I’d also be keen on hearing your thoughts re: the D&D 5E Pugilist homebrew that everyone loves so much (personally, I find its flavor a bit on the nose, and it’s rather feature-dense, but it seems balanced and fun). Or, hell, touching on 3.5 monk prestige classes would be just dandy.

I found that the complexity of the monk actually made it simpler to play. I didn’t need to juggle a move, minor and action, my attack action was also my move or my minor. For example, there was a lower level daily monk power that let you shift up to your speed and make a melee attack against everyone you moved past. That was a very complex power that actually meant I didn’t have to worry about opportunity attacks or picking my targets.

Although, I played heroic and not for too long soooooo take my opinions with a grain of salt. Or 10,000.