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Just going to get the ball rolling.
Monk abilities that scale off stats should either:
A) Not work when polymorphed
B) Have some cap based on tier or monk level.
Example, T'ai Ji Stance has some very large biteback returns when combined with Plant/Elemental shape.
Gutting Wisdom to AC is a bit painful but at the same time, honestly long overdue. The low saves also guts certain measures of build diversity, yet the changes open up to others??
However, the half CL to Arcane levels is really cool and opens up new things. Since cantrips are HOT GARBAGE AND ANYONE WHO RECCOMENDS THEM FOR PVE IS DEAD WRONG BECAUSE THE TICKLISH DAMAGE IS NEARLY REDUNDANT, the Mental Overload is actually quite cool and you can do like 60 average damage since you can qualify for practitioner very easily as a wizard, for example.
Want to take a look at the sword one when I can.
Is the change to Wisdom AC intentional? I'm not seeing it in any of the notes, but it is present on the PGCC.
Be cool if the different Martial Discipline Styles were each given a capstone ability like the 18 palm dragon one.
Be a way to give the less powerful ones a niche like Begger Staff giving you a size bonus for KD. Incentivizing a sweep and hit type style since it uses staves and clubs
Hello Sandman
Uncanny dodge does not seem to belong to any discipline even though monks can take it. Dodge, Epic Dodge, Evasion, and Improved Evasion each belong to the body discipline so I guess it would belong there but maybe it's a special case.
My guess is that the new rules are a rewrite. If you don't see a mention of WIS to AC in the new rules, it's probably gone.
IMHO this is long overdue, as WIS + DEX to AC on a class with epic dodge access and three good saves was a totally absurd premise.
Ki Barrier is not working with light armor for my build with 22 shaman levels, even though it should. Is that a bug or an intentional change?
Coolguy McMagic wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 9:17 amKi Barrier is not working with light armor for my build with 22 shaman levels, even though it should. Is that a bug or an intentional change?
It's a bug. Fix is in pipeline.
Hello.
I have been playing a Human unarmed 20 Monk / 6 Fighter / 4 Loremaster for quite a while and have enjoyed my time on the character. I will be using this to compare to the new changes as they are currently presented in the PGCC.
The most ideal replication of this same deep-monk build would be Human 17 Monk / 8 Fighter / 5 Loremaster.
Alternatively, I could be scrapping loremaster and move it into 16 monk and move it into 14 fighter, as I do not see what is actually gained from taking more than 16 monk levels when the fighter levels themselves offer both a greater BAB and Saving Throws progression, whilst getting a similar bonus feat progression for investment in the monk disciplines.
Regardless, sticking true to the build with Loremaster earns my character a total of 24 Feats to play around with between Fighter and Monk, and 30 levels in general.
However. To simply get back what 20 Levels of Monk currently gets, already requires aproximately 20 of those feats.
Another 12 feats would be required to regain the general feats I had selected.
And if you would want to reclaim Cleave and Whirlwind attack (not yet put in the calculus) that would be an additional 6 Feats (or does the monk choose feats without pre-reqs? well, it probably didn't need these feats anyways)
Beyond that, the character loses another 4 feats entirely in the process (3 of its immunity feat, and slowfall)
This is all a pretty steep fall. However the monk DID sport a number of superfluous abilities I would never consider picking as a feat should that be prompted, so I suppose the loss isn't as large as it seems in raw numbers. A loss in flavor and identity, however, is appearant. I think we will be seeing a list of unselected feats in the newly presented model. (Empty Body for instance was already being nominally replaced by sources of Displacement or Improved Invisiblity.)
Moving on, the following abillities require a deep investment in different feat lists:
What is currently Combat Mastery now requires 12 Feats in the 'Martial Discipline' list to reach the same effect it has now
(and is also required to reach what Ki-Strike +5 currently has) OR is this all additional to Combat Mastery? It's hard to tell at the moment.
What is currently Diamond Soul now requires 9 Feats in the 'Spiritual Discipline' list to regain what it had for this build. Which seems predominantly focused on Charisma-Based classes or Divine Casters. The later of which typically already have a spell to cover this feat's function. The build is no longer eligible to really make use of this.
What is currently the Monk's Wisdom to AC requires investment into the 'Body Disicpline' list, at varied degrees.
The Saving Throws of the class have no way to actually catch back up to what the class currently has. 16 Levels of Monk get +10 to all saves currently. It would be +5 in the update, and can get +4 through investing 12 feats in one of its discipline catagories. Which it wouldn't be able to do for all of them.
So. . .Let's tally it up.
The immunities are gone. The Monk's less useful feats are now competing with general feats. And the Monk's truly strong points have been pulled apart over what are nearly mutually exclusive feat tracts that other classes are better at filling up than the Monk itself. And while you could cleverly pick your feats to still get a semblance of the old class back- It does not look like you get enough of them to pull that off? I could be wrong.
Next we are presented with a slew of new feats to pick from, but these are also competing with the the rest of the feats already. And much of it does indeed seem to benefit multiclasses over deep monks.
I understand monk was in a comfortable place before that might've warranted scrapping a number of its features. But the revision gives me the impression of the class being reduced padding for other classes. The 4 Discipline Trees are certainly a unique spin on character progression. But under this direction the Monk is simply not a class anymore. Rather a modular prestige class that you slap onto Fighters, Casters or Charisma Classes to get more bang out of their feats.
I would suggest introducing some manner of synergy between the 4 disciplines, for characters that invest deeper into the Monk class. Or a lowering of the requirements in the Discipline List to attain mastery, the further you progress into the class itself. That'd make the most sense to me if we're to go forward with this model.
Another suggestion I would make is to evaluate weapon-based buffs for Gauntlets. Because now that the field is opening up for Charisma-Based Monks and we are putting 2 to 3 feats into just being able to fight unarmed properly. It'd be great if Bless or Corrupt weapon would work on our gauntlets.
Will there be any sort of special shaman synergy? Like X amount of shaman levels count as Y amount of Monk levels for the discipline tiers?
Huelander wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 10:57 amI would suggest introducing some manner of synergy between the 4 disciplines, for characters that invest deeper into the Monk class. Or a lowering of the requirements in the Discipline List to attain mastery, the further you progress into the class itself. That'd make the most sense to me if we're to go forward with this model.
Perhaps an effective +1 to all disciplines' feat counts for every 10 monk levels, or something along those lines?
Is Monk being split from being able to take Druid finally since they are basically opposed classes?
Okay, i'm still gathering some info for slightly bigger feedback, but FIRST, a question
Is monk supposed to get some random almost UBAB apr bonus when holding monk weapons?
Specifically, on a 26 wiz 4 monk
I had
2 attacks with a staff, but 4 attacks with a katana. This led to me, ultimately, with all buffs, having
7
attacks in a round. Which is quite frankly, interesting.
The attacks were in the primary BAB lane, and followed the 0/-5/-10/-15 BAB progression, but still.
If that's intended, then a monk with 2wf and flurry of blows could achieve 10 attacks in a round. Which is quite impressive.
Sorry, this is way off topic, but i couldn't let this slide...
Using cantrips in PVE does two things-
1) it makes PVE more interesting for a wizard. The thrill of the threat is what makes PVE fun after all, when it's too easy (like hiding behind your summons for hours on end) it becomes a chore.
2) This one is actually valuable beyond just having fun. Learning how to micromanage your wizard when under duress during PVE will greatly help you in PVP, when the players are going to try and get around your summons and come after you.
So, while I have never actually recommended using cantrips, I do think that using them will make you a better player overall in the long run.
And since I feel obligated to say something about the new monks-
It all looks neat, but I haven't gotten too deep into it yet. One thing that stands out to me is potentially problematic however is the boosted god saves one of the paths gets. Perhaps I am overstating it, I do hate -pray in general after all, but I actually think that has the potential to be more powerful than monks of yesteryear ever were.
Babylon System is the Vampire wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 4:29 pmSorry, this is way off topic, but i couldn't let this slide...
Both points are valid - while cantrips are amazing at low lvls, all they do past certain point is needlessly drawing aggro in PvE.
Anyway, this is a monk feedback thread.
What's the counter play a vancian caster has against a monk with 3 uses of pray and 2 PvP deathsaves?
Okay, so i did some testing.
Disclaimer: My feedback, on THAT bit, is 100% through prism of playing a wizard. And checking a few options there.
It seems like it's mostly just, 3 dip options:
27/3 classic "i wanna have as many familiar levels as possible"
26/4 if you wanna juggle lvl 20 bonus feat into epics
or 24/6 if you want to have one more bonus monk cookie to play with, and tier 2 mental discipline.
I was trying to screw around a bit with transmutation specialist wizard, and also did a short test with enchantment specialist.
In general, it seems like, for old purposes of the dip (wisdom to AC) on a wizard, you spend your 2 bonus feats in:
Incandescence (half your monk levels, rounded down, added to CL on arcane spells, which brings your CL to 28 on 27/3 and 26/4, which imo is HUGE and i love it. AD:abj and you're sitting at 30. this is great. And 24/6 is brought to cl 27/29 vs dispels, which is same as before). It also, just... Doesn't scale with your discipline levels in any way, shape, or form. Just your monk levels.
And ki barrier, to have that wisdom to AC people generally so crave. Although, bear in mind:
To reach tier 2 ki barrier, you need tier 2 BODY discipline. Which you DO NOT reach as a wizard normally. the only feats you take from body discipline, at BEST, are toughness, ki barrier (duh) and armor skin. And maybe evasion (a funny good option for 6 monk levels actually!). You need 6 feats to get to tier 2 body disc. so that ain't happening, i think.
TL;DR: you're not getting full soft wisdom modifier to AC.
Now, if you decide to go for 6 monk levels, for a caster i've noticed that there's a few options.
If you're a masochist who desperately tries to make trans spec tenserwiz work, you may consider a weapon stance.
(disclaimer: unarmed feat tax got increased rather severely, to the point where i think punch wizard is actually -WORSE- than it was before.)
It's more ab and damage after all. Except it's 1 ab, and like 2 damage. In my opinion, not really worth it. I personally ended up skipping it.
There's also option of evasion, no matter what type of a wiz/monk you're going for. I think that this is actually a very strong option. You still get discipline, still get 27/29 CL, and can grab evasion to not be bothered by them reflex saves. A strong pick to consider there. Maybe even worth taking instead of ki barrier if you don't grab any wisdom and don't give a damn about AC (why)
Then there's mental overload and mental turmoil. Or how i call them, psionic blasts. With 24/6, you do reach tier 2 mental discipline. Which means you get the slightly powerful versions! How do they perform?
Overload: with 14 int mod, deals around 57 psychic damage per cast, on short range. This is -MORE- than daze (9d4, empowered if ench spec), although on significantly shorter range. And no crowd control attached to that yet. A nice option, to be honest. 57 is a fairly decent number.
Turmoil: 12 psychic damage per round, for 10 rounds, and a DC 31 (with ESF ench) will save vs -1 ab/ac. Short range too.
This, is more a passive pressure tool to use against targets who are for some reason not immune to mind affecting.
Keep in mind, however: This is psychic damage. Mind affecting immunity should negate this entirely.
And overall, while these options were -NICE-...
None of them seemed really... outstanding? Outside of evasion that is, they just provided
minor improvements over what i already had, or a sidegrade (more damage but much less range so i have to be dangerously close), which wasn't really enough for me to justify going 24/6 over 26/4, really.
Especially since you don't really get tier 2 body discipline at all, and you don't get any benefits from tier 2 mental discipline unless you take one of the psionic blast monk feats (aside from a minor save bump).
Now, granted. It's only a 6 level dip. I'm fine with the benefits not being great, it's merely a dip after all.
I know i phrased it as some sorta damn guide on what to take and not take on a wizard combining monk levels into their build, but i hope it ultimately does help in maybe pinpointing what could be adjusted.
I don't really understand why you're gutting Diamond Soul so hard with this replacement. Sure, blowing several epic feats on Improved Spell Resist is an utter meme, but it's both fun and genuinely lifesaving against epic-level caster enemies.
To me (or at least to one of my characters), Monk's whole gimmick is being a caster's nightmare between ridiculous saves, IKD, high AC/Epic Dodge for dipping around summons, a great spell resist score that lets them shrug off scrolls/the occasional spell, and freight train-tier movement.
It'd be nice to have an option to focus on that aspect of them with an additional path. With this change, pure monks that want to have SR/want to be anti-casters are shoehorned into being weird faux-clerics (even if you DO get extra deathsaves and miniprays, which are a whole other unbalanced-seeming can of worms), and I don't like that very much.
On the bright side, I'm loving seeing weapon monks getting a bit of love.
Just a request really but...
Can we PLEASE drop this whole "Monk Weapons" thing? Please?
Why are monks trained in Faerun, by Faerun based orders, dedicated to Faerun based deities ALL determined to only use weapons from cultures far to the east?
Even if the orders original styles came from there god knows how many centuries ago, anyone with even half a brain would train people to use the local weaponry.
The Mind Discipline overall doesn't fit.
Ignoring the crafting part here since that was already mentioned elsewhere, but the idea of mind shenanigans on a monk does not play into the class or the concept prefaced at the beginning of the rework document where it's mentioned these are taken from real world inspirations.
Firstly, psychic damage is not good for a class to rely on due to mind blank completely nullifying it. Second, this is just a tailored version of psionics. Psionics should be in its own section entirely, not with monk. I also don't believe that would ever get added to Arelith, thus a monk version doesn't fit in this setting.
Academic is mentioned after mind at the top of the rework document, yet there isn't a discipline for it. I think taking the mind concept out and putting a discipline in that's similar to how Cloistered Cleric is approached would fit what you are doing there.
I've tried new monk, I don't like it. Here's why:
Build-A-Monk is a novel idea and I don't dislike the concept entirely. The problem is that in an attempt to make a martial class cater to every other class type on server, but also try to limit the powercreep of having it be fit for purpose for everything, you have harmstrung the class.
What do I mean by this?
I mean the ammount of dead feats you're going to need to take to get the 12 feat count to achieve mastery in any of the disciplines. When I was theorycrafting a lot of this with friends I had to actively think not to sunk cost myself into making crippling decisions just to get to the 12 feat count on a discipline because my build was built around the 3 or 4 good monk options within it. In most cases I've noticed, its better to just aim for the 9 feats. Only spirit discipline can I think of makes you end up at like 10 with all of the options being feats you took because they were good, and not because you need to take more feats of the same type to make a feat you took 10 levels earlier pay off.
It also means that monk's capstone is level 16. There is no reason to keep going monk past level 16 unless you're using the monk abilities that rely on monk level for DCs. By then most build defining monk bonus feats will have been taken and you will want levels in the suplementary class that's going to be the actual star of the show, bar a couple of outliers.
I would have prefered it if monk had followed the class design philosophy that most of the classes on server seem to be following these days where most of the really good stuff requires high class level investment. Instead, any feat you take is incurring a future feat tax, which will lead people into sunken cost fallacy with feats, rather than encouraging monk mains to just take more monk levels.
That said, I for one welcome our new Div Monk and Psychic Damage Race EDR monk overlords. I never thought I'd see the day where wisdom became a monk dump stat.
Love this line, but I entirely agree with this point here. IMO after looking in-depth at this, it really feels like this is a change just because. I get the idea that someone probably had a ton of great ideas and it looks like this is to push people to go deep monk, but the cons outweigh this weird setup. Improving what we already have seems like a much better idea, there's no need to change something that is already working.
Agreed wholeheartedly with RedGiant's sentiment.
Also two cents of my own: I've recently been playing a pure monk. Monk is the class I've most played, either pure or as main class. Every time I revisit the server monk seems to be getting messed with soon after I start. The initial nerfs were completely understandable given how overpowered monks happened to be. But they are in a decent place power-wise now: you can make them strong but they aren't going to beat out the munchkin minmaxed powergame-to-30-to-roll builds de jour. They are in a decent place right now, not amazing but decent.
These changes look all up to be a mechanical nerf and as stated earlier in the thread, essentially make monk a 'dip' class with virtually no incentive to take pure class levels.
But all of this isn't my main concern, I'm actually sad from the perspective of accessibility. Monk is a base class, not a prestige class. Any of the base classes will be something new players pick when they join the server and, even if they have played through the single player campaign(s), they might still opt for a class that they're unfamiliar with. Presently Arelith is trending more and more towards making each class have some quite complicated, detailed minutia-filled feats and abilities that need some in-depth knowledge to exploit effectively.
New players have a hard enough time making a Fighter or Wizard work while learning the ins-and-outs of combat, skill use and magic, let alone a Monk (in my recent playing experience, a good proportion of the players I've engaged with have been completely new to the server). But at present for all three you can at least give some quick, easy guidance: For fighter, get strength, con, discipline and you'll pull your weight. For Wizard get int and con, and you'll pull your weight. For Monk, get wis and dex and you'll pull your weight. As they put levels into the class, they are automatically handed some nice stuff to make do with: wizards get spells, fighters get bonus AC and AB and a way to heal and cure themselves. Monks get unarmed strike feats for free, graduated unarmed strike damage and attack, uncanny dodge, empty body and a handful of passive immunities, most of which are merely nice to haves in PvE but still allow a newer player to manage the content without knowing all the ins and outs.
These new monk changes are like leveling a fighter, without any of the free stuff fighters get to make them robust enough to play through the server's content even if you botch their bonus feat selection. What do you tell a new player who chooses monk, seeing 'martial artist with interesting preternatural abilities' on the tin? Go for wisdom? Well, no, there's no AC bonus now unless you choose some very particular feats. Intelligence? Maybe if you're playing the mental path and get the psychic blast feats.
Another way to think of it is that making things more complex, detailed and specific is not the same thing as increasing depth and diversity mechanically speaking. What enables that are qualitatively interesting interaction between the mechanics presented. Which is the game with more complex rules and mechanics, Monopoly or Chess? And which of them has the greater depth of play? I think the answers are obvious, and they contradict how the proposed Monk rework has been laid out.
Also now that perfect self is going (again I don't know why - 20/+1 DR was so niche and was only fun fuel for role play really, and if it was only the mind spell immunity, why not just remove that?), will the monk no longer be getting the glowing eyes? I recall a poll being held a little while back where people wanted that to be a feature of higher level monks as a majority. I can't test this because the test server has been locked for the better part of the day. It may seem like a small thing, and it is, but that's part of what can make for some fun role play opportunities.
Part of the fun a full-level Monk is playing off the weird, uncanny, unusual abilities that they have and why they have them. Maybe the rework allows for this but it seems more that they're a 'fighter plus' in terms of stuff they can do, minus some very niche flavor. Another way to put it is "what can monk do that another class can't just as well?" and now I feel the answer is "nothing much". They don't even have the ability to fight unarmed without investing feats, which is an absolute staple of the class. The icon for the Monk is literally a balled fist.
In terms of particular feats, some seem intensely lopsided and I can't figure out why they were put together in the way that they have been. I'll give an example:
Beggar's Staff: "Gains bonus Magic damage vs Animal, Vermin, Beast, and Magical Beasts".
Eight Trigram Spear: Gains bonus Magic damage vs Fey, Aberration, Magical Beasts, Undead, Outsiders,
Nine Sword of the Recluse: Gains bonus Magic damage vs Human, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, Goblinoid, and Reptilian
Of these, why is the spear the one that's doing more damage to undead? Undead's most common resistances are to piercing and slashing. Bludgeoning is absolutely the ideal damage type against almost all types on undead, so why isn't this bonus on Beggar's Staff? The last weapon I'd think to use against undead would be a spear. Also the bonus against what is, essentially, 'player races' given by Nine Sword is by far the most useful option here. Why? Because despite its reduced damage bonus, the most dangerous things on the server by far are other players. Animals, vermins, beasts and magical beasts are rarely the most dire threats.
Another example is the basis in using 'prayer' the Spiritual Discipline emphasizes. That's well and good, but prayer mechanics have been left intentionally opaque as a design feature. This compounds the earlier problems I outlined related to detail and complexity in the class. Imagine a new player choosing this. How would they know how to use it? This isn't a prestige class with specific requirements, it's something you can go for right out of the gate.
My suggestion would be to take the spirit of these ideas, which aren't necessarily bad, and apply them to the Monk class we have now in a way that adds depth without dramatically increasing the complexity of class that's already quite complex and weird for a new player to pick up, let alone a veteran of NWN.
This.
(May have more, actual feedback later, but still... This ^)
Svrtr wrote:I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too
I have mixed feelings about this update, which actually trend towards the positive. This looks like a very roleplay-driven rework aimed at equipping players with new and unique tools without pigeonholing them into a "pure class or pass" type structure. I find this approach both refreshing and highly appealing, especially considering it now makes possible many builds in which I felt monk was thematically, yet not mechanically, appropriate.
When you look at all the different monastic orders of Faerûn, a fair few of them describe a class spread that ranges from the ill-advised to the downright absurd. Not to be the resident Career Sharran, but take the Order of the Dark Moon as my favorite abomination: Monk + Shadow Weave Sorcerer. Obviously, being a monk, you would imagine such a build ought to lean a bit more than a three-level dip in that direction, but there's simply no option to build that in a way that doesn't suck the fun out of both classes. That is, until this update! The caster synergies that have been added to the class make it so much more attractive to build those kinds of weird nonsense monks of lore and legend.
That being said, there are plenty of areas in which it falls a bit flat. As an example, Scholar-monks have by-and-large been achieving their aesthetic by dipping into Loremaster. Now the new Monk 4.0 is offering its own "Mind Discipline" to give options to that style of roleplay - except, well, it kinda does something else entirely. The tools it gives to its own "scholarly" monks are INT-based psionic abilities, arcane CL, and crafting points - none of which is particularly good unless you invest 12 feats into its mastery, and very few of those feats are even possible to take for monks. In fact, a good portion of them belong to Loremaster, so the Mind Discipline doesn't even really seem like it's supposed to be a monk thing and already sort of expects you to take Loremaster levels to supplement this discipline that has little-to-no thematic or mechanical compatibility with the concept of a monk who studies practical theory, like internal alchemy or eastern medicinal practice or hermetic cosmology. The Mind Discipline isn't made for monks; it's made for Wizards.
Here's what I mean by that: Of the 39 feats on the Mind Discipline list, only 13 are available without multiclassing. And, uh, unless I'm wrong and also an idiot (strong possibility), I believe 3 of those 13 are only available at level 1. Which means it's literally impossible to master the Mind Discipline as a purely martial class spread. Furthermore, 14 of those 39 feats are only available to Loremasters. That seems kinda like a problem. Maybe it's a problem that can be remedied by deleting Loremaster and ceding its abilities to be absorbed into the Monk class to bolster the roleplay range of the Mind Discipline perhaps among others and oh my god nothing would make me happier than to see the evil wicked nasty Loremaster class finally defeated.
To speak further on the Mind Discipline, I actually agree with the designer that psionic abilities fit really well within the monk's conceptual space, but I feel like its implementation here is a serious case of wasted potential. I would LOVE to see these concepts explored more robustly in a Psion prestige class. As-is, its incorporation into base Monk feels like a poor fit compared to the rest of the class abilities. Psychic abilities seem like the sort of thing you ought to invest a lot of time and effort and energy to achieve, so the fact that you can just sorta take a psionic ability through a feat and then not invest at all into those abilities seems a bit strange to me. Moreover, since the Mind Discipline is the "arcanist multiclass" branch of the tree, it's worth pointing out that psionic abilities are very different from traditional arcane practice, so the fact that this class now appears to conflate these abilities doesn't feel like it's a good contribution to the server narrative.
In summary: Love the fact that the update opens up so much multiclassing potential, but I don't love the Mind Discipline pretty much top to bottom (CL aside), and I really think the list of compatible feats for the disciplines needs to be revisited (or maybe lower the number of feats required to achieve each tier).
EDIT to add: At the bare minimum, Skill Focus should be added to the compatible Mind Discipline feats, so at least the prerequisite feat you HAVE to take to get Loremaster still counts for mastery too.
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