Comments on: The Monk Class, Part Seven

By: Sean Holland

Sean Holland — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 01:30:00 +0000

In reply to Charles Geringer. No worries. As we know, text does not convey tone very well.

By: Charles Geringer

Charles Geringer — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 20:38:00 +0000

In reply to Sean Holland.

Sorry I misundertood your “stolen” comment.

my bad

By: Cuix

Cuix — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 21:37:00 +0000

“it looks like the community consensus on the best monk options are to weld together a bunch of other classes and prestige classes to get a better outcome”

Yup, that’s about the long and short of it. You’re almost always better off using Tome of Battle options to get your monk to work. More powerful, more flavorful, more mechanically interesting. It’s such a shame. Hell, even trying to use skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel doesn’t work, because monks get shafted on skill points (they already need to be maxing Tumble in most cases).

By: Brandes Stoddard

Brandes Stoddard — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 03:36:00 +0000

In reply to Drow. Four prestige classes already made it a long article. Covering all of them in this level of detail was way out of reach in my available writing time. :)

By: Drow

Drow — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 00:41:00 +0000

I was surprised to see only four PrCs covered, but…yeah, this is a pretty nice cross section. Never occurred to me to think of Shadowdancers as a monk-possible PrC, but I can sympathize with the need to vent (why couldn’t their mechanics back up how cool their fluff was? Even Tome of Magic tried to play them up!). The only other ones I can think of are pretty much under the Sacred Fist’s thing of “Monk/(Other) features combined, with a new ability or two.” As I remember…

Enlightened Fist (Monk/Arcane Caster), from Complete Arcane
Zerth Cenobite (Monk/Psion), from…either EPH or Complete Psionic
Fist of the Forest (Monk/Barbarian), from Complete Champion
Disciple of the World (Monk/Truenamer, of all things), from Tome of Magic

May have been more, but I honestly can’t remember. There were also those feats in Complete Scoundrel combining Monks with other classes, in retrospect a preview of 4e’s multiclass feats.

By: Drow

Drow — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 00:33:00 +0000

In reply to Wyvern. Ghost-Faced Killer was later adapted into the Complete Adventurer book, as well.

By: Brandes Stoddard

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 16:25:00 +0000

In reply to Sporelord0179. I found the UA article on Rune Magic something of a mixed bag, but I'm primarily in agreement with you here. I think there might be some configuration of entry prereqs and features granted that could serve 5e's needs, but I'm not sure what those are at this point. Certainly the prestige classes in this article and their interaction with the monk class don't make any compelling argument for adding them.

By: Sporelord0179

Sporelord0179 — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 16:10:00 +0000

Things like this remind me why I’m so glad 5E has left prestige classes in the rear-view mirror.

By: Wyvern

Wyvern — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 06:20:00 +0000

There was also a Dragon magazine article with three monk-friendly prestige classes:
– the Poison Fist is exactly what it sounds like; it also comes with the ability to polymorph into either a snake, scorpion, or spider (chosen when you take the class).
– the Weightless Foot lets you play a character straight out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
– the Ghost-Faced Killer, apparently inspired by some kung-fu movie I know nothing about, is another flavor of assassin whose most unique feature is the ability to become incorporeal for limited periods.

If you’re interested in seeing them for yourself, I found a PDF that someone posted online which compiles a whole bunch of prestige classes from Dragon magazine. I won’t post a link, because the last couple of times I tried that here my post got eaten, but you can find it yourself by Googling “”prestige classes from dragon magazine”.

By: Brandes Stoddard

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 03:45:00 +0000

In reply to Mikey Kromhout. Right, that's exactly what I learned as I dug into the optimization, and frankly it matches my own very limited 3.x experience with monks (from behind the screen) quite well - they might be great and untouchable at high levels, but they're fragile and underwhelming at low levels. You know, the same problem monks had in every edition before 3.x as well. To that end - as you undoubtedly saw earlier in this series - I am not too shy about recommending that even groups that stick to 3.5 take a serious look at the PF Unchained Monk and file off just enough serial numbers to make it work within their rules. Late-stage development of every edition - as apparent in 2e, 3.5, and 4e - always gets real weird and hacky, as the designers have found the problems and want to provide fixes, but their fixes are still fundamentally constrained by the architecture. Which is how new editions are born. (This has been Game Design Sex Ed 101.)