Making Monk Suck Less

[Voice of Kerensky]

Generally, Monk is recognized as one of the weaker 3e base classes. It's also pretty unspectacular in NWN, outside of a couple level dips for various gimmicks. Pure monk is generally avoided for good reason.

Pros:

High saves for every category.

Some unique and useful feats later on in levels, such as improved evasion, mind spell immunity and innate SR.

Lots of attacks with fists/kamas.

Two stats that boost AC.

Pretty solid base melee damage if pure classing, if patient.

Dem wheels.

Cons:

MASSIVE stat spread. Want more melee damage? Need str. Want more melee accuracy? Need str or dex. Want more AC? Need dex or wis. Want your abilities to be potentially useful? Need wis. Want hp since you're generally frontline? Need con. Want more skills? Need int. Typically speaking, monk has to make too many choices on ability scores, particularly since on a medium magic server like CD you can only reliably and significantly boost one or two of your scores any significant amount via gear.

Quivering palm is a single use ability that can typically be easily saved by an equal level opponent once it is gained, unless the monk significantly pumps wisdom, which is generally a subpar stat as it does not boost the monk's striking abilities (save for zen archery).

Wholeness of body scales insanely poorly.

Stunning fist can be very useful if you pump wisdom, but typically speaking enemies worth using such an ability on tend to be either highly resistant or outright immune to the ability. This once again makes a wisdom pump build rather dubious.

Medium BAB. This makes any sort of ranged or alternate monk weapon type build rather sub optimal, and also makes hitting things in general harder for monks than other "front line" type melee classes.

Ki Strike does not appropriately keep up with the enhancement scaling on the majority of servers.

Empty body does not appropriately scale with typical access to displacement on the majority of servers.

Questionably slow melee damage progression that leaves the monk rather weak at low to mid levels.


Proposed solutions!

BAB: Boost to full. Yea, they pick up an extra attack/round out of this as well, but many monk builds tend to integrate a full BAB class for this anyhow. Considering monk restrictions on multiclassing, I don't really see 3/4 BAB as necessary to impose upon them.

Empty Body: Boost duration to turn/level. 50% conceal at turn/class level 2x day not accessible until level 18 is well in line with server accessibiliyy to concealment. For that matter, I wouldn't mind making this ability turn up a bit earlier than level 18, even with that buff. Maybe 1x/day at level 11 or 12 and 2x/day at level 16 or 17.

Quivering Palm: Would suggest boosting to perhaps 3x/day usage (or 1x usage per day every 5 levels after 15; e.g. 15 = 1, 20 = 2, 25 = 3, 30 = 4).

Wholeness of Body: Simply needs either a massive boost in healing done or a massive boost in daily uses, as at 2x class level a healing kit or a potion is typically a better use of time, and it's only one use a day at that. If possible, I'd change the value to something like 10x class level (this would range from 70 hp healed on acquisition at level 7 to 200 hp healed at level 20 -- generally speaking, this is close to a full heal at most class levels if the monk pure classes, which is acceptable for a 1 shot).

Ki Strike: As GMW and enhancements are typically readily available, I would suggest boosting this to the following scale (that is roughly in line with what can be easily acquired at the given levels):

Level 20: Ki Strike +5
Level 16: Ki Strike +4
Level 12: Ki Strike +3
Level 8: Ki Strike +2
Level 4: Ki strike +1

While the AB on gloves provides the same effect, this at least gives monks a little more flexibility on glove choice if they're pure classing.

I would likewise scale the damage to the following.:

            Medium    Small

Level 01    1d8        1d6
Level 06    1d10      1d8
Level 11    1d12      1d10
Level 16    1d20      2d8

Admittedly, I do not recall how viable or hard-coded this is, unfortunately. One can always compensate with stats on gloves if necessary. This also notably de-shafts halfling/gnome monks a little compared to the base values.


The monk will still suffer from possibly greater stat spread issues than any other class, but the above changes will at least give them a bit more innate prowess (if pure classing) and much better ability scaling.

[The Red Mage]

The reason monks suck here is its much more beneficial in almost every way to go invisible blade, duelist, or blade singer. These classes stack int for ac similarly to the way a monk stacks wis. Except they are all full bab and generally more useful.

I'm against giving them full bab solely for the half dragon monks running around. Their ab isn't a problem as its high enough to hit trash and mid tier mage bosses, and end game bosses typically need a 20 roll of which monks are the best at gambling at.

Boosting their class abilities though is a good idea.

Monks suffer the most from stat spreads but also benefit the most from stacking buffs such as regular animals and mass.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 11:22:04 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

The reason monks suck here is its much more beneficial in almost every way to go invisible blade, duelist, or blade singer. These classes stack int for ac similarly to the way a monk stacks wis. Except they are all full bab and generally more useful.

I'm against giving them full bab solely for the half dragon monks running around. Their ab isn't a problem as its high enough to hit trash and mid tier mage bosses, and end game bosses typically need a 20 roll of which monks are the best at gambling at.

Boosting their class abilities though is a good idea.

I'm personally not that fond of basing decisions like BAB on things like "solely for the half dragon monks running around." -- that's honestly it's own problem. I tend to look more at what the average is capable of doing, and the average (human, halfling, etc) monks tend to suffer from AB problems at various levels. Nerf or control the special cases specially.

[The Red Mage]

Those nerfs will never happen though, and half dragon monks are probably a majority of monks running around.

You can still get around 40-41 ab as a human monk at level 20, and that's enough to hit anything minus some dragons.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 11:31:28 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

Those nerfs will never happen though, and half dragon monks are probably a majority of monks running around.

You can still get around 40-41 ab as a human monk at level 20, and that's enough to hit anything minus some dragons.

The problem is more along the lines of AB problems at various stages in leveling, if you're not carrying an OP template, and the fact that you can be stuck in the mid ranges on CD for quite some time. Quite frankly, half-dragons tend to crank up the power curve for most high AB classes. The monks wouldn't be doing anything particularly notable beyond any other half-dragon fueled melee power build.

[Deleted]

We don't balance classes based on racial templates.

[Edge]

What Bella said.

[The Red Mage]

I'm fully aware of that. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered with hypothetical class changes. Especially since the majority of ecl applications are build boons.

I've played maybe three to four monks to mid range and they perform "well enough" martially and they scale really well. The class lacks dynamics and draw in my opinion, and giving it full bab won't fix that or make it more attractive to other full bab counterparts.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 12:55:20 GMT -5  @belladonna said:

We don't balance classes based on racial templates.

That's the point I was (hopefully clearly) trying to make. If you were to balance BAB based around what a particularly melee strong template can do, you might as well nerf fighter down to 3/4 BAB, too. In my opinion, your average, typical character is going to struggle with monk's 3/4 BAB in a number of situations--clearly a very high stat template would be an exception to such, as it would with most other classes.

[Edge]

Dec 27, 2014 13:01:26 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

I'm fully aware of that. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be considered with hypothetical class changes.

Actually that's exactly what I'm saying.

If we are going to take the time and effort to (have Vincent) script and code a revamp for a class, it will be done to balance the class with other classes at ECL 0 par, regardless of the boons or banes it would have for more advanced race concepts.

If we feel that a class is mechanically deficient to the point of needing adjustment, whether or not that adjustment makes an already-good build with that class even better will not factor into whether or not changes are made.

The fact that you continue to argue that classes SHOULD be balanced with ECL templates in mind, immediately after we explicitly stated we don't do so, suggests you don't grasp what we mean when we say We Don't Do That.

[The Red Mage]

That's extremely poor balancing and going against current efforts to make challenging content and the most minor of points I've made.

And you're being a tad hostile considering how poorly I've tried "arguing" this point in this thread.

If I wanted to argue, I could point out a template that wants +18 to stats at start, which is more than a human can get at level thirty taking nothing but epic stat feats. That's an argument. Suggesting an alternative or highlighting a more interesting balancing path is a poor argument if you're looking for one prior.

[Deleted]

Argue templates in another thread please.  Leave this to the merits/discussion of Monk changes based upon core races without templates, since that's how they are designed/created.

[Edge]

You haven't ever seen me hostile, RM. =) When I get hostile, you will know.

Anyway. You are allowed to have your opinion. This doesn't change the fact that we've never done so in the past and that is extremely unlikely to change.

Frankly, the fact is that we never have balanced classes AT ALL period. We merely updated the classes that we could, given the limitations of NWN, to 3.5's expanded array of class abilities. If we could add in Pathfinder's additions as well, I have no doubt FW would push for it; however most of those newer abilities are either not feasible in NWN or would require a great deal of painful coding to implement.

And to expand on that, it's actually rather impossible to balance classes without a major base game mechanics rewrite, which is impossible in NWN and in D&D/PF in general. It is a simple fact that at lower levels full-BAB classes (Fighter, Paladin, Barbarian) win the game and at higher levels full casters do so. This is the nature of the game and nothing we can do about it, save playing another game, or doing what we can - and to some extent have - done to force the server to encourage playing in balanced/semi-balanced party groups and dissuade soloing.

We are not an MMO, individual class balance is not something we strive to do. In many cases, thanks to the NWN Blackboxing, we CAN'T do so. I'm sure Vincent will be able to chime in with more detailed reasoning and explanations if he chooses to do so, but I believe many of these changes - such as changing Monk's BAB - are blackboxed and unchangeable.

[The Red Mage]

You're just simply wrong. Classes have been balanced a lot. Spells get changed. Durations get buffed, feats get changed. These are class and build fixes.

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.

[Voice of Kerensky]

Dec 27, 2014 13:16:05 GMT -5 Edge said:

We are not an MMO, individual class balance is not something we strive to do. In many cases, thanks to the NWN Blackboxing, we CAN'T do so. I'm sure Vincent will be able to chime in with more detailed reasoning and explanations if he chooses to do so, but I believe many of these changes - such as changing Monk's BAB - are blackboxed and unchangeable.

In regards to the technical concerns, changing the BAB of a class is an easier thing to do, if that is something you would want to do.

And yes, 3/3.5e and by extension NWN are horribly balanced (or rather, balance wasn't really a priority in the design. Clearly.) What I personally tend to aim for when working on a class is "Does this class have a role or theme that they fill?" and "Can they do so reasonably well and do they scale well?" -- Monk very much has a theme (armorless and often weaponless melee fighter), to a lesser extent has a role (caster killer), but it only fills the theme and role marginally well, and scales very poorly--by and large, the scaling is the biggest problem. Even in pen and paper, the monk is getting a wholly unspectacular +3 to enhancement when casters are starting to throw around wishes and miracles.