Monk Feedback

[AstralUniverse]

Alright. I'm writing this calm. But by no means I am happy.

I dont understand what am I supposed to do with a -rebuild when my starting stats were like... 18 wisdom and 16 dex. There's NOTHING this -rebuild gives me. My character basically just lost 6 ac. That's all.

Sugestions? Ideas on what am I supposed to do?

(Edit:)

This update seems on point. I really have nothing against the changes. I just try to figure out how to NOT roll my monk after an update ///AGAIN///

[Tarkus the dog]

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. Take ki strike +4 and +5 and epic dodge is the only suggestion I can give.

[Void]

Well... I just made a fresh monk alt character, and was looking forward to that ac bonus which is badly needed on a class that isn't supposed to use armor or shields.

As far as I can tell, there isn't anything to do short of scrapping the idea completely. There's nothing to compensate for AC loss with. There's epic dodge, but it won't really help much.

[AstralUniverse]

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. Take ki strike +4 and +5 and epic dodge is the only suggestion I can give.

I cannot get epic dodge with starting dex of 16.

[Tarkus the dog]

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. Take ki strike +4 and +5 and epic dodge is the only suggestion I can give.

I cannot get epic dodge with starting dex of 16.

Oh, you're right. That sucks. -relevel can't fix that.

EDIT: I think there's an incentive to go pure. + 5 from lvl 28 and +2 from Ki levels should give you roughly 49-50 AB which is pretty good, but at the cost of losing 6 AC. Epic dodge fixes that, but, well, not if you started low dex.

[Void]

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. Take ki strike +4 and +5 and epic dodge is the only suggestion I can give.

I cannot get epic dodge with starting dex of 16.

You should be able to. There are 7 stat increases, if you invest into dex, that gives you dex of 23. You can also pick great dexterity twice. So you should be able to qualify for epic dodge at level 30, where you gain final feat.

[Algol]

Assuming they are going pure monk , means they'll have 6 epic feats

2x Great Dex

1x Epic Dodge

1x Epic Weapon Focus: Unarmed

2x Improved KI strike

This leaves armor skin and ESF:discipline as most glaring missing feats, and having an odd score

[chris a gogo]

Not wanting to be negative but if I was you astraluniverse id roll it ...I did with mine.

Nothing is really going to fix the character mechanics wise.

Not that I dislike the changes but in some cases it' now the best option.

[Itikar]

Well, glad I waited to start on the surface with a monk concept. I guess I will wait even longer at this point. It does not seem a bad update at all, even if the loss of 5/6 ac *really* hurts. Additionally it makes it pointless to make a shadowdancer dip on monk now to get to epic dodge.

The positives however are pretty good, you do not need that shadowdancer dip anymore, hence 2 extra feats for you, and no delay in achieving abilities. And lowering ki strike 4 and 5 requirements is truly awesome.

[preggy]

Welp. New updates say dms will help reallocate stats, so hopefully that helps!

[garrbear758]

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. Take ki strike +4 and +5 and epic dodge is the only suggestion I can give.

I cannot get epic dodge with starting dex of 16.

The DMs have very kindly volunteered to do some limited ability score changes with your relevel as long as your character was previously above level 16. The details are being worked out still but it will not be a full stat / character rebuild.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

The only reason i took more monk lvl than 3 when not doing pure/majority was for ac lol


This makes no bloody sense at all.

Swashbuckler gets full bab epic dodge and scaling ac? Monk isnt even a monk anymore between speed and ac nerf with crappy ab.

[Void]

The reason for taking monk was ac bonus, speed and fighting things unarmed.
Now AC is gone, and speed has been reduced some time ago.

I sorta struggle to imagine what monk is supposed to be now. A shuriken thrower?

It will work as AC dip for healers, of course, but it feels like the class is supposed to be more than just that.

[Xerah]

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity. It also still gets WIS to its AC

Monk is a melee based class that punches things and has good defensive options against other melee, spells, and speed.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity. It also still gets WIS to its AC

Monk is a melee based class that punches things and has good defensive options against other melee, spells, and speed.

A cookie cutter rogue has got more options with either faster stealth speed constant blinding speed disjunction shards. This change realy pigeon holes the different acceptable ratios of monk dips and str dex style. This is a straight downgrade from vanilla nwn edodge rogue monk build which doesnt hold a candle to waht other stuff can do.

[Dr. B]

If I may offer a point-by-point response:

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity.

1. The idea of a supreme martial arts master who cannot be hit is a longstanding trope in the martial arts genre. See here and here. The defensive abilities you get from investing heavily into monk are largely what the class is about. That's also why they get high speed, which was also removed for some reason.

2. When the developer response to player feedback is (in not so many words) "It's the players who are wrong, not me!" you're probably doing something wrong. (Not that I think all of the developers have this sort of outlook on player feedback).

It also still gets WIS to its AC

Note that with lower AC, monks will now have to invest in either dex and con, instead of dex *and* wis, which in practice entails even less AC than the 6 it loses through this change.

Monk is a melee based class that punches things and has good defensive options against other melee, spells, and speed.

With every buff available, including uncommon shadow shield scrolls, and improved expertise, they get a max of 65 AC. In practice they're going to have maybe 52-3 AC or so when not sitting in improved expertise. Your typical melee-ers range from 46 to 55 AB. That's pretty meh.

If the developers are worried that Epic Dodge and high AC are too much, then at the very least they might consider slowing the AC progression instead of removing it entirely. If the point of this update is to incentivize pure monks over dips, it backfires spectacularly.

[AstralUniverse]

With the recent update in mind, and the fact my wisdom monk doesnt need to be delete_character x2, I can address this entire update from a far calmer and objective mindset.


Before this update a pure monk could reach past 70 ac with little effort. With things like shield potions/skleen, wakizashi, 34 dex/wis and other little ac boosts we're looking at... over 75 ac easily. Builds with monk dip only get past 65 if they try hard with divine dips and whatnot.

Now, in my experience, getting +10 damage from monk things and 45 ab with just 34 dex isnt so bad. I definitely feel the lack of epic dodge very hard, compared to my previous monk before that, but dealing 40~ damage is really fun on the current monk. I did not expect this update and thought monks are actually fine (except improved ww. I regret every time I press that button) because the absurd ac of 75+

I've said in threads before that I think monk should receive defensive roll (although, I thought, maybe just in epics) and I'm really glad to see it. I'm also very glad to throw away 6 ac from my monk in exchange for defensive roll getting improved ki feats at 16 wisdom. Its a buff 100%. Anyone not understanding why can send me a PM or even just take a look at 20 monk 10 fighter now.

The change to SR is nice. basically raises the value of improved sr feat and remove a restore potion from the action economy. Its a buff but it wont make a huge difference.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

If I may offer a point-by-point response:

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity.

1. The idea of a supreme martial arts master who cannot be hit is a longstanding trope in the martial arts genre. See here and here. The defensive abilities you get from investing heavily into monk are largely what the class is about. That's also why they get high speed, which was also removed for some reason.

2. When the developer response to player feedback is (in not so many words) "It's the players who are wrong, not me!" you're probably doing something wrong. (Not that I think all of the developers have this sort of outlook on player feedback).

It also still gets WIS to its AC

Note that with lower AC, monks will now have to invest in either dex and con, instead of dex *and* wis, which in practice entails even less AC than the 6 it loses through this change.

Monk is a melee based class that punches things and has good defensive options against other melee, spells, and speed.

With every buff available, including uncommon shadow shield scrolls, and improved expertise, they get a max of 65 AC. In practice they're going to have maybe 52-3 AC or so when not sitting in improved expertise. Your typical melee-ers range from 46 to 55 AB. That's pretty meh.

If the developers are worried that Epic Dodge and high AC are too much, then at the very least they might consider slowing the AC progression instead of removing it entirely. If the point of this update is to incentivize pure monks over dips, it backfires spectacularly.

And now we can dip mon and go heavy swashbuckler.

Anyways, i started a new thread only because i wanted to discuss an alternative to ubab.

[Xerah]

If I may offer a point-by-point response:

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity.

1. The idea of a supreme martial arts master who cannot be hit is a longstanding trope in the martial arts genre. See here and here. The defensive abilities you get from investing heavily into monk are largely what the class is about. That's also why they get high speed, which was also removed for some reason.

2. When the developer response to player feedback is (in not so many words) "It's the players who are wrong, not me!" you're probably doing something wrong. (Not that I think all of the developers have this sort of outlook on player feedback).

It still gets a bonus to AC. Thinking that 1 AC per 5 levels is a class identity is just wrong on so many levels.

I also didn’t have anything to do with this update.

[Nitro]

Also, 65 AC with edodge is effectively 70 AC. There's no realm where current monks can be called "squishy", rather they've gone from godlike unkillable to hard to kill. (They even gained tankiness against spellcasters with buff to their SR)

Overall, I'd even call this update a buff to monks. Unarmed monks need less WIS to get their fisty feats, all monks have more multiclassing freedom thanks to getting edodge prereqs, all monks with at least 22 levels in monk enjoy 32 unbreachable SR and the big one: Monks can now run around with invis purge on themselves more or less 24/7, enjoying their own 50% concealment while stripping it from everyone else.

[Jack Oat]

Monk AC was nerfed from ridiculous levels back down to sane levels. They went from an easy 60 base AC (62 w/ Shield, 66 hasted, 76 in Imp Exp) to 54 (56, 60, 70 respectively) with Epic Dodge. They gained:
+Unbreachable SR again
+More easily accessible AB/damage/DR pen feat access
+The ability to get Epic Dodge without requiring a 5-10 level investment in another class
+Unpurgeable 50% Concealment


This was a nerf to the ridiculous levels of AC tankiness Monks had in favor of a more well-rounded class that's capable in a fight. Monks even have a relevel and several members of the team are investing time to make the transition painless for existing Monks so they can fit the new changes.

This was a buff.

[Void]

I can’t believe people would think AC bonus is part of class identity. It also still gets WIS to its AC

Monk is a melee based class that punches things and has good defensive options against other melee, spells, and speed.

Well, now they know that they do. It is part of the class identity since it is part of the whole "untouchable unarmed warrior" thing. Low wisdom monks are a thing as well.

Also, 65 AC with edodge is effectively 70 AC.

Epic dodge is not 70AC, because it triggers once per round. Additionally, there's life before you hit level 30 and hoard millions of gold, and 65 AC is in the realm many people won't reach. Those bonuses make a big difference early on.

The ability could be gated between class ratio (X monks levels), if it is concern, rather than removing it completely.

This was a buff.

I know that a monk character I make is unlikely to ever reach the epic levels, and AC bonus the class benefitted from before that point is gone. So I'm not seeing it as a buff, because Epic Dodge is a distant goal that might never be reached.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Monk AC was nerfed from ridiculous levels back down to sane levels. They went from an easy 60 base AC (62 w/ Shield, 66 hasted, 76 in Imp Exp) to 54 (56, 60, 70 respectively) with Epic Dodge. They gained:
+Unbreachable SR again
+More easily accessible AB/damage/DR pen feat access
+The ability to get Epic Dodge without requiring a 5-10 level investment in another class
+Unpurgeable 50% Concealment


This was a nerf to the ridiculous levels of AC tankiness Monks had in favor of a more well-rounded class that's capable in a fight. Monks even have a relevel and several members of the team are investing time to make the transition painless for existing Monks so they can fit the new changes.

This was a buff.

Cant a swashbuckelr monk dip achieve the same insane ac epic dodge AND higher ab? Best part is they dont have to gear optimize till their monk dip and can wear light armor till then.

[Ork]

I dig this. My only add would be considering adding +4 & +5 on the same progression they recieve for +1,2,3.

[Archnon]

Just wondering what stacks for Dr penetration on unarmed. Will a level 20 monk with ki strike 4 and 5 and +3 gloves hit +7 for Dr?