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Why 9+ Wisdom for a Monk?

Why is there a minimum statistic of 9 for a Monk character?

That would imply that Wisdom is an important skill for Monks, but the .pdf documentation says nothing about why this may be so.

What does Wisdom influence for a Monk, if they don't cast Priest spells?

Comments

  • reedmilfamreedmilfam Member Posts: 2,808
    Because of the wisdom and self-control inherent in succeeding in such things. In 3E, it adds to Monk AC bonus and helps monk abilities.
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    There's actually of a number cases where a class has a minimum requirement in a stat that isn't really useful for them in-game. Rangers and Paladins don't actually benefit from wisdom as far as I know, charisma isn't really any more important to a Paladin or Bard than it is for anyone else, etc.
  • ZanathKariashiZanathKariashi Member Posts: 2,869
    Even in 2nd edition monks are supposed to get a slight bonus to AC and saves, if their wisdom is so high, but it's not implemented in Baldur's gate.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    It's because the main stat for clerics is wisdom, and to get started on monks they literally copy/paste the code for clerics before tweaking it to make it it's own class.

    That's why monks can access divine spell scrolls.
  • tobajastobajas Member Posts: 77
    TJ_Hooker said:

    There's actually of a number cases where a class has a minimum requirement in a stat that isn't really useful for them in-game. Rangers and Paladins don't actually benefit from wisdom as far as I know, charisma isn't really any more important to a Paladin or Bard than it is for anyone else, etc.

    This is actually untrue on the part wisdom is not used by rangers or paladins at the 4th lvl they both get access to cleric/druid spells in some games these being some only usable by rangers/paladins/ and to access these you need atleast 11 wis but the highest lvl they can access is lvl 4 spells If im not wrong which means you never need more then 14 wis if you want all the spells.
  • ZanathKariashiZanathKariashi Member Posts: 2,869
    Rangers don't get spell casting till 8, and paladins till 9. Neither get bonus spells for high wisdom either. But, their minimum require wisdom is so high it doesn't really matter (13 for paladin, 14 for ranger..which is kind of backwards if you think about it cause rangers only get up to 3rd level while paladins get up to 4th)
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    tobajas said:

    TJ_Hooker said:

    There's actually of a number cases where a class has a minimum requirement in a stat that isn't really useful for them in-game. Rangers and Paladins don't actually benefit from wisdom as far as I know, charisma isn't really any more important to a Paladin or Bard than it is for anyone else, etc.

    This is actually untrue on the part wisdom is not used by rangers or paladins at the 4th lvl they both get access to cleric/druid spells in some games these being some only usable by rangers/paladins/ and to access these you need atleast 11 wis but the highest lvl they can access is lvl 4 spells If im not wrong which means you never need more then 14 wis if you want all the spells.
    I'm almost certain that they never implemented the feature of requiring 10+x in your casting attribute to cast spell level x. Same goes for the bonus to saves from high wisdom and the possibility to miscast if your wisdom is too low. And as mentioned by @ZanathKariashi, rangers and paladins don't gain bonus spells from high wisdom. So unfortunately the only bonus wisdom provides to rangers and paladins is a bonus to lore, which is totally useless because their lore goes up so little every level that you'll never be able to identify anything anyways.
  • TeflonTeflon Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 515
    Just curious...... In planescape : torment higher WIS means bonus EXP however in BG:EE that's not the case, right??
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438
    Teflon said:

    Just curious...... In planescape : torment higher WIS means bonus EXP however in BG:EE that's not the case, right??

    Correct. Yeah wisdom was hands down the best stat in Torment, in BG it's pretty much useless.
  • ZanathKariashiZanathKariashi Member Posts: 2,869
    edited December 2012
    Well...if a lot of the pnp stuff was added, having 16+ str/Wis/charisma for a paladin would give them 10% more xp, and rangers with 16+ str/con/wis as would as well.

    And the save bonuses would be nice..and having wisdom 20-ish or higher gives outright immunity to certain spells, and gets progressively better as it climbs...

    but again..doesn't happen in Baldur's Gate.

    Wisdom only gives druids and clerics extra spells per day, any character a minor lore bonus, or is used with intelligence to determine the success of limited wish and or wish options for Wish. It servers no other function.


    The xp bonus from wisdom in Torment was actually pretty small, BUT having high wisdom (and decently high int) opened up a TON of extra memory and reasoning opportunities which resulted in a ridiculous amount of xp a straight melee guy would never see. But then again....Torment was more of a dialog driven experience rather then hack and slash.

    Though I do hold out hope that one day we might get a game that can combine the best elements of all the infinity engine games into a single AWESOME game.
  • TJ_HookerTJ_Hooker Member Posts: 2,438

    The xp bonus from wisdom in Torment was actually pretty small, BUT having high wisdom (and decently high int) opened up a TON of extra memory and reasoning opportunities which resulted in a ridiculous amount of xp a straight melee guy would never see. But then again....Torment was more of a dialog driven experience rather then hack and slash.

    Actually the xp bonus was pretty substantial. You got an extra 2.5% xp for every point over 12 wisdom, so starting with 18 WIS gave you +15% xp, and by the time you get to 25 wisdom (not that hard with all the stat increases in the game) you got +35% xp.
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