Making Monk Suck Less

[Edge]

Yeah, Monks are pretty wretchedly designed in PnP, and all derivatives thereof.

I was under the impression BAB and other core factors of base classes were blackboxed, and that complex NWNX scripting and/or other lag-inducing workarounds that the admins have said on multiple occasions said they were not interested in exploring due to the combination of the problems they've caused on other servers (lag being the least of such) and lacking someone who was experienced in working with that particular field of code. Vincent of course can chime in if I'm incorrect, though; I'll admit my memory's far from the best.

[Edge]

Dec 27, 2014 13:31:03 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

And I'm not the one who derailed the thread. I'll wait until either of you have something on topic and constructive to say regarding actual balancing and not defending yourselves whenever ecls get brought up. We already know each others opinions.

I hate to do this on my first day back as an Admin, but I'm cutting this off and backing up Bella here. Take the ECL discussion to another thread if you must discuss it. This is not the thread for your hateon. Further posts on the subject will be deleted.

[The Red Mage]

Naturally.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Hopefully getting things back onto a more productive line for the moment -- One thing I would suggest is that if Monk is boosted up to Full BAB progression, that Flurry be totally and utterly removed. The funny part is that the Monk's unarmed attack progression in NWN already follows the PnP monk with greater flurry active (which is where the 2 extra attacks come from), but whoever was in charge of implementing the mechanics somehow didn't see that and added in regular Flurry on top of the "already built in" greater flurry.

I think getting rid of Flurry (since again, Greater Flurry is already built into the monk's unarmed attack progression) would make upgrading it to Full BAB all right--it's only getting 1 extra attack, and only when either unarmed or using a kama. It's also one less dumb thing you need to toggle.

Regarding the technical feasibility, it may be that I'm so used to working with various NWN hackjobs that I'm forgetting something regarding the base classes and BAB. Certain aspects of the base classes are indeed very, very hardcoded and a pain to work with. For some reason I was thinking BAB may be a 2da change, but that could be incorrect.

As another possibility (particularly if there is a technical limitation), if we were to implement the new "Ki Strike Progression" that I proposed in the original post, we could also throw in a +1 attack bonus per level of Ki Strike (for +5 in total at level 20). This would have the monk gain attack bonus for unarmed strikes ONLY at the same rate at which they would gain AB from full BAB (coincidentally a decent counterbalance to potential dual kama cheese). This also prevents them from picking up a 6th attack per round they shouldn't technically have (because I'm pretty sure UBAB is hardcoded as hell), so that's a consideration to take in mind there. I would still remove flurry if we're generally improving the monk class, because the inclusion of flurry as a toggle feat when it was already hardcoded included into the UBAB was stupid.

With that proposal, monk AB would look something like this:

Unarmed:

20/20/20/15/10

Dual Kama:

15/15/15/15/10/10/5 (not including the -2 primary/offhand malus)

Other:

15/10/5

That lets the dual kama setup still keep up roughly the same role as "Master Shredder", while giving unarmed a very distinct advantage over it.

[Deleted]

But Flurry of Blows is one of THE core monk abilities.  If you're taking that away, giving full BAB... You've just got a trumped up fighter without the fighter feats.

Personally, monks should stay at their current BAB.

[The Red Mage]

Getting rid of flurry for higher ab when a character largely doesn't require it will hurt in boss fights where rolling 20s to pressure damage is important.

They already get three apr on par with full bab, so that isn't relevant for mid tier. Their weakest attack per round is already in scale with full bab since it goes in threes instead of fives.

I like all of your other ideas, though. I just think full bab is the least effective and appealing bandaid for the class. If anything, give them something similar to invisible blade's feint ability but have it scale on another skill like sense motive or something, and have it gain insight into an enemy's weaknesses to give a small ab boon temporarily. That's somewhat dynamic and appealing in comparison even if it's unimaginative.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 14:04:06 GMT -5  @belladonna said:

But Flurry of Blows is one of THE core monk abilities.  If you're taking that away, giving full BAB... You've just got a trumped up fighter without the fighter feats.

Personally, monks should stay at their current BAB.

I'm sorry if I didn't explain it more clearly, so I'm going to try to be less wordy (I am rather bad about that <.<).

Monk already has flurry of blows built into the class's special unarmed base attack bonus! Adding flurry of blows as a feat was a technical design mistake.

That's why monk in NWN has 5 base attacks when unarmed. In pen and paper, monk normally only has 3 attacks per round at level 20 even when unarmed. You activate flurry to add an extra attack at full attack bonus. At (I think) 11th level, you gain greater flurry, which adds the 2nd extra attack (the penalty to flurry of blows also disappears as monk levels... I believe it drops to -1 at level 5 and 0 penalty at level 9). NWN already has those 2 extra attacks from flurry of blows + greater flurry and the BAB progression hardcoded in without the flurry of blows feat!

[Edwardfalcona]

I've played alot of versions if monks, and I'll admit my guilty pleasure of loving the class. Stand alone its tough being a monk for some of those reasons mentioned, but monk,like a good gin, goes great with a lot of other mixers.

if you go 15 monk /5 fighter you'll find that you have 6 attacks a round before flurry, with haste and Kamas you can get 11 attacks a round.

want to spice it up more?  Go 8 monk 7 weapons master 5 fighter, and become the quisinart.

monk cleric is another deadly combo, the boosts off play monk weaknesses and cleric weaknesses rather well.

monk rogue shadow dancer is another silly combo making more use of stealth and scroll tricks to make a monk nasty.

of course I always go 20 monk cause I love glowy eyes

[Edge]

Dec 27, 2014 14:18:22 GMT -5 Edwardfalcona said:

want to spice it up more?  Go 8 monk 7 weapons master 5 fighter, and become the quisinart.

But does it make julienne fries?

[Voice of Kerensky]

Sorry, I made a slight mathematical mistake in my previous post edited.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 14:18:22 GMT -5 Edwardfalcona said:

I've played alot of versions if monks, and I'll admit my guilty pleasure of loving the class. Stand alone its tough being a monk for some of those reasons mentioned, but monk,like a good gin, goes great with a lot of other mixers.

if you go 15 monk /5 fighter you'll find that you have 6 attacks a round before flurry, with haste and Kamas you can get 11 attacks a round.

want to spice it up more?  Go 8 monk 7 weapons master 5 fighter, and become the quisinart.

monk cleric is another deadly combo, the boosts off play monk weaknesses and cleric weaknesses rather well.

monk rogue shadow dancer is another silly combo making more use of stealth and scroll tricks to make a monk nasty.

of course I always go 20 monk cause I love glowy eyes

The 2nd combination isn't possible with the current monk multiclass rules. Also, the best monk/cleric combo you can see under the current rules at level 20 is 10 monk, 10 cleric. Not exactly a powerhouse.

[Voice of Kerensky]

This is a PnP monk at level 20 with the Greater Flurry of Blows feat active, unarmed.

+15/+15/+15/+10/+5

This is an NWN monk at level 20 without the (redundant) Flurry of Blows feat active, unarmed.

+15/+12/+9/+6/+3

Notice something?

Sorry, wrong numbers! NWN is such a hack job at times.

[Deleted]

Does that progression you quote at level 20 NWN still hold true when using kamas?

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 14:30:01 GMT -5  @belladonna said:

Does that progression you quote at level 20 NWN still hold true when using kamas?

Sorry, bad copy paste on my job -- but yes, my corrected progression >.> is the same when using kamas.

[Edwardfalcona]

Dec 27, 2014 14:21:03 GMT -5 Edge said:

Dec 27, 2014 14:18:22 GMT -5 Edwardfalcona said:

want to spice it up more?  Go 8 monk 7 weapons master 5 fighter, and become the quisinart.

But does it make julienne fries?

if you take profession cook, as for the multi class ruling I had thought that monk bad to be the highest class in the mix . If so most of the builds are.still viable *nod nod*