Part of the joy of restarting is building up your party and trying out new combinations. Each time I do this I realize there are two classes I never pick; monks and barbarians. Monks is a matter of feel; I always felt D&D felt like a western medieval setting, whilst the monk class feels oriental, and so I never felt it fit. I also found low lever monks particularly useless, but probably that was due to a lack of familiarity. Add to that the fact they can't seem to use half the items you find, and you also lose a piece of the discovery and reward. Maybe someone who likes monks could advise why! Barbarians is a little harder to work out why. Certainly I have played a few, and unlike monks these guys never seem to die, but whilst all the other classes feel like valid professions, this one strikes me more as a nation or racial class, and therefore also feels a bit weird. It might just be that it's because I grew up on 1st edition though, and these guys did not exist.
Indeed, why would one want to play a monk running around in rags and swinging bare fists, when one could play a paladin in shining armour?
Monks can actually get very powerful at medium levels provided they have a pet crafting druid and a pet crafting wizard who aren't concerned about not accumulating experience points - Meleny and Spugnoir for example.
But nothing is as stylish as a DnD armored knight. Well, except a DnD armored knight riding a dragon =/
I really like monks for search and destroy missions ... Aka, kill the enemy spell caster before they can get that fireball off. Not to mention, later in the game a monk does as much damage with his bare hands as a greatsword does. Monk speed .... There is nowhere to hide ... The most honorable chetason will find him.
Sergio I feel I ought to mention that your knight is unhorsed. Everybody loves the pnp halfling paladin mounted on a blink dog. I would have thought a monk with spring attack who continued to move past his/her target was as close to jousting as you were going to get in ToEE.
I've tried them all at least once but I tend to build a party based on the alignment I play, with rangers, bards and barbarians in chaotic parties, druids in neutral ones and monks in any lawful ones. Fighters, clerics and rogues of course go with any alignment...
Well, the historian in me has quite the surprise for you Granted, because of the "Flurry of blows" and the "Slow fall" ability (which does not get used in ToEE), one would indeed think about the monk to be a Jet Lee kind of Shaolin monk, but the weird thing is this: most Shaolin monastriesactually "outsourced" their protection, attracting Samurai & Ronin who just went around kicking ass ... with their armour underneath their monk tunics. Now, in the west & mid-east, a viscious rivalry saw the light between Islam & Christianism. Both sides had many devout fighters, resulting in the more famous Assasins & The Knight Templars. While the last entry sounds not very monk-like, the Knights templars did vow an oath of poverty, dedicated their life to piety & monastic duties, and gave their life protecting their fellow christians when the need arose. And while they didn't seem to use their fists a lot and chose swords & shields in place, they were known for their resilience. There were also other orders of fighting monks in Europe, but not as well known as the Knight Templars. Anyhow, the Monk is about as gimmicky a char build as the 1st ed. Acrobat.
European monks/ crusaders/ hospitalars/ K Templars are more your DnD Clerics/ Paladins tho' Re the OP: I've played them all. Monks took a bit of time to get- first time I took one it was as a 'utility' #6 in a party with 2 front liners plus a heavy cleric, an artilery mage and rogue archer, so the monk did very little other than kick Tolub in the nuts. Next time I took a monk I took 2 (1 pure, 1 with 3 levels of Rogue first) as my frontliners and flank buddies with a pure rogue (plus NPC Ronald, who I pushed down a monastic line too). Barbarian I find is a bit limiting conceptually- big strong berserker can only really be played one way, even if rage + charge is effective, especially early on. The two I play least are sorceror (limited compared to wiz, especially wrt scroll use, coupled to old school preference for 'spellcasters prepare spells') and ranger, which I really like as an idea but is just a bit feeble in 3.5. Spells come too late to be much use and even with favoured enemy, others do light fighter/ archer better (rogues effectively get favoured enemy: anyone susceptible to sneak attack). Paladins at least have some use as a frontline fighter and get enough feats to make this doable even if you have to miss out quick draw and archery feats- the circle of courage is useful against Balors and lay on hands plus a high Cha ( which also has use for being party face) retain some utility while animal companions and tracking are nerfed in ToEE.
@Nightcannon- sorcerers are limited? I hardly think that the ability to roll out 8 1st, 8 2nd and 8 3rd level spells during the mid to late levels of the game make them limited- and why scribe spells when you can buy them? I'd rather keep the XP's for my wizard or cleric so that she can craft the Cloak of Charisma +6 that enables the sorcerer to be the main heavy artillery for my parties. Focus on the spell school (Usually Evocation for me) + Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Penetration and maybe a metamagic feat (not to forget their high Charisma demands- makes them a good alternate for the face of your party) and I'd think you might warm up to using a sorcerer....
Hi Gehennis, It's the limited number of spells known that I was thinking of, plus the fact that spell levels 3 onwards are delayed by one level compared to wizards. Am I right in thinking that you can't learn new spells from scrolls with a Sorc? Might not be such a problem if you also run a wizard, though I've played a multi-arcanist party and found that it encouraged a limited (albeit highly effective) style of play. A large part is probably just that my PnP experience was all with 1st & 2nd Ed AD&D, so I have prejudices about how arcane magic 'should' work.
Duly noted sir. I just tend to think of sorcerers as highly specialized wizards 'born' with an innate ability to use magic- think of the elf king from the Lord of the Rings movies that said when describing elves "We ARE magic" (and no, I can't remember his name- revoke my nerd card!) And yes- sorcerers can't learn spells from scrolls but they can still cast spells from scrolls...
While sorc's can't learn new spells from scrolls, they can learn how to make known spells more efficient with a meta-magic feat. I can't stress that enough, as I find that a fair amount of people downplay the effect of meta-magic feats here on the forum. Between sorc's & mages, there is no "which one is better"... Both classes use one of the most potent abilities in the game, being arcane magic.
i recently learned this. monks are bale to use flurry of blows with quarter staff, so with craft rod, if you make rod of python which is a two handed quarterstaff and combine it with cleave and great cleave, my monk makes about 5 attacks per round and when you add in cleave he becomes like a fantastic fighter + able to reach spell casters before they cast spells. i was the same way before i learned this i felt that monks are a bit underpowered when you compare the to shalion monks who wield mystical powers, animal kung fu, elemental control (enbodied). i wish those features were implemented to monks of dnd
Speaking of monks, in my latest run through I had a lot of success using a monk with a greataxe. Weird, but hear me out. The monk's unarmed strike is fine as long as the opponent doesn't have significant damage reduction. Even an enlarged, high strength monk doesn't due much damage against say DR 15 on the higher level demons for example. Doesn't matter how many time you hit if you don't hurt the target. So I gave it Martial weapon Prof greataxe and crafted a +3 frost shock weapon from the holy greataxe in the fire node to use on demons and Iuz. I would have considered a staff of striking so I could use flurry with the it, but since I didn't have a cleric who could enchant holy items, I was limited in my options. Plus the monk was half-orc, so I felt a greataxe was kind of appropriate
