MONKS

Wigmonster

What do people think of Monks.

Any Opinions or suggestions?

Thank You

Wigmonster

CaptRory

Monks are VERY squishy in the first game. They need to be held back and given a sling or some other ranged weapon. And you'll need to give them some kind of magic weapon as their fists don't become really good until higher levels. The two kits offer more early level functionality.

Monks can sneak and move very quickly meaning they make great scouts after they level a bit. Don't even bother putting points into Find Traps. And a normal Monk can use stunning fist right out of stealth for a slightly better chance at hitting (I'm pretty sure they get the bonus for striking from invisibility).

Gave

Up to BG2 CH3-ish. They are +inventory slot and hp pool to scout with or living trapshield . After that they get better...they still need a lot of attention.

You can use some cleric scrolls and wands which really helps tho.

KidCarnival

I dislike monks (and the kensai kit, contrary to the usual popularity) because they simply don't fit in the fantasy setting. To me, both monk and kensai seem out of place on the Sword Coast. It's like Bruce Lee randomly appearing in Lord of the Rings. I have never played either because I can't see such a character growing up in Candlekeep.

Southpaw

@Wigmonster ...all these people around are wussies.
There's nothing better than to run up to an enemy and pummel his face, kick his butt, stomp on his corpse and then chew his ashes. Monks are harder to play on lower levels (till around lvl 5), but they start to become a monster afterwards.
And wait, once you hit BG2EE.


P.S. : Sun Soul monk kit looks good, Dark Moon kit looks weak. I played with the standard Monk, despite being Lawful Evil. If you don't mind going Lawful Good, give the Sun Soul monk a try. Else - vanilla monk.
P.P.S : there has been a lot of complaining about monks in BGEE. I plan to write a strategy post about it - how to groom your monk to be a force to reckon.

RagingOrc

'Very' weak to begin with. It's pretty much like playing as a peasant with no fighting knowledge during your lower levels. They kind of remind me of the mage or sorc growth curve though as you'll become an absolute BEAST in BG2EE

I think their fists become 1D20 + bonuses at later stages and become a +5? It's been a while though

They are interesting to try but you need patience

RedGuard

KidCarnival said:

It's like Bruce Lee randomly appearing in Lord of the Rings.

Best. Casting. Ever. :P

Lord_Tansheron

I don't find Monks particularly useful. Their special abilities are easily saved/immuned against, and their scaling is fairly slow. The best part about them is their eventual magic resistance, but as it comes at the cost of damage limitations (most endgame weapons are much better than fists) they are simply not as useful as many of the alternatives. They also bring practically no group utility.

Gallowglass

In BG1/BGee, Monk is the weakest class of all. They start to become useful at level 9 (i.e. beginning of BG2), and by level 15 (mid-BG2:SoA) they're quite impressive.

If your BG2 party has no Ranger and no stealthy Thief, then you can use a Monk as your scout instead, but that's their only contribution to group utility.

mjs

Monk's are awesome. I solo'd through BGee with a sun soul monk (lots of reloading though) & took him through bg2 (in a party). stunning blow and quivering palm are great after you've lowered your enemies saving throws and the MR is ridiculous. plus once they get that sweet 1d20 fist damage you're looking at one of the best damage dealers in the game

Lord_Tansheron

mjs said:

once they get that sweet 1d20 fist damage you're looking at one of the best damage dealers in the game

Please don't say things like that unless you can back them up. 1d20 is not a lot of damage. It's an average damage of 10.5, which is nothing compared to the higher level weapons which go up to almost *double* that, not to mention having THAC0 bonuses (which fists lack completely), possible elemental damage (goes through Stoneskin/damage resistances), and other useful effects (like stat bonuses).

mjs

@lord_tansheron what weapon does even up to 20 damage, let alone average damage?

the gauntlets of crushing solve the thac0 "problem" and add a further +4 damage. so you're actually looking at 4-24 damage per hit. Monks are major damage dealers, only behind kensais, grandmaster fighters and swashes i'd say

the genius with monks is that their only drawback (a lack of APR when using weapons) is completely negated by WW/GWW

Southpaw

Lord_Tansheron said:

I don't find Monks particularly useful. Their special abilities are easily saved/immuned against, and their scaling is fairly slow. The best part about them is their eventual magic resistance, but as it comes at the cost of damage limitations (most endgame weapons are much better than fists) they are simply not as useful as many of the alternatives. They also bring practically no group utility.

I beg to differ.
a) Special abilities are saved against/immuned - perhaps, in BG2ToB. In early BG2 and especially BG1(EE), they are really powerful. Extremely useful for stunning mages from stealth before they cast their protections. Remember Tarnesh? The first guy most lvl1 chars can have problems with? I SMASHED HIS FACE WHILE HE WAS STUNNED.

b) Most endgame weapons are better than fists - fists get to +4 THAC0 bonus in ToB endgame. Best weapons are around +4/+5. Not much difference. The 1d20 base damage offsets this.

c) no group utility - let's see...disablers (stun), scouts (with stealth), silent mage killers (stealth + attack them with stunning fist or Dagger of Venom (myyyy...precioussss)), good for killing archers due to their innate -AC against arrows and default fast running pace. Also - tanks. Yes, you heard me. My buffed Monk had around -9 AC, while buffed Dorn (with Gauntlets of Dexterity) had around the same. Minsc, full plate and packing steel was even worse (around -6AC) And that in 5th Chapter of BGEE. AND I TANKED AEC'LETEC.

Lateralus

KidCarnival said:

I dislike monks (and the kensai kit, contrary to the usual popularity) because they simply don't fit in the fantasy setting. To me, both monk and kensai seem out of place on the Sword Coast. It's like Bruce Lee randomly appearing in Lord of the Rings. I have never played either because I can't see such a character growing up in Candlekeep.

I agree here, it's an interesting NPC option but not a PC option. Rassads quest line is well done,

ZanathKariashi

FoA+5 (17 minimum damage (23 max), Staff of the Ram+6, 14 or so minimum (22 max). Before any other modifiers.

There's a list somewhere on the forums comparing all the 10+ average damage weapons.

Also who is to say that there'll even be gauntlets of crushing in BG2? Those exist only in black-pits currently.

Kamigoroshi

While a bit on the weak side the Dark Moon Monk kit is flavour wise still my favourite monk kit in BG:EE. But it really needs to be fleshed out a little with additional advantages for the 12th level and above.

On a side note I still hold hope that Overhaul introduces us with an Lawful Neutral Monk kit of sort. After all, there are still so many interesting LN monk orders in D&D to find.

To name but a few:
- Brothers and Sisters of the Pure Flame, who worship both the purifying aspect and the destructive aspect of Kossuth.
- The Old Order. They don't worship deities directly. Instead, they devote themselves to the philosophy espoused by a deity.
- Monastic Servants of Auppenser, devoted worshipers of the god of psionics. They unify disciplined monk training with potent psionic talents to reach an unmatched inner balance of a sound mind and body. You simply gotta love these fellows.

mjs

ZanathKariashi said:

FoA+5 (17 minimum damage (23 max), Staff of the Ram+6, 14 or so minimum (22 max). Before any other modifiers.

There's a list somewhere on the forums comparing all the 10+ average damage weapons.

Also who is to say that there'll even be gauntlets of crushing in BG2? Those exist only in black-pits currently.

you get the gauntlets of crushing from the sahuagin king in the underwater city

Lord_Tansheron

mjs said:

@lord_tansheron what weapon does even up to 20 damage, let alone average damage?

the gauntlets of crushing solve the thac0 "problem" and add a further +4 damage. so you're actually looking at 4-24 damage per hit. Monks are major damage dealers, only behind kensais, grandmaster fighters and swashes i'd say

the genius with monks is that their only drawback (a lack of APR when using weapons) is completely negated by WW/GWW

Maximum damage doesn't matter, really. For every 20 you roll, you roll a 1 at some point, too. Average is what counts. As for which weapons do more... Flail of Ages+3, for example (i.e. the first one you get directly in the Keep) has an average damage of 11, i.e. already higher than the maximum level monk fists. Foebane+5 has 14, Angurvadal+5 has 16. The fully upgraded Flail of Ages has a whopping 19.5, almost double of what the monk fists do, and Crom Faeyr sits at 20 (with 19 base STR, more with less, less with more). There's many other weapons in between, all higher than monk fists.

You are right, of course, monks are "only" behind every fighter, paladin, and swashbucklers. They are about on-par with rangers and non-Swashbuckler thieves, though again with far less utility. Keep in mind that monks past level 5 *cannot* be hasted, meaning they rely entirely on GWW for their APR.

So, in essence, monks are in the lower part of the melee power rankings, all the while having very little utility, and no ability to dual/multi class. The *only* thing they have going for them is magic resistance. Their random other resistances are almost irrelevant (charm is okay), as are most of their special strikes since they allow saves and are entirely unreliable.

Southpaw

Kamigoroshi said:

To name but a few:
- Brothers and Sisters of the Pure Flame, who worship both the purifying aspect and the destructive aspect of Kossuth.
- The Old Order. They don't worship deities directly. Instead, they devote themselves to the philosophy espoused by a deity.
- Monastic Servants of Auppenser, devoted worshipers of the god of psionics. They unify disciplined monk training with potent psionic talents to reach an unmatched inner balance of a sound mind and body. You simply gotta love these fellows.

I think there were 3 monk classes in IWD2. One was able to take levels in Cleric, one in Sorceror and one in Thief classes without losing monk bonuses. I think the "Old Order" was the one mixed with Thief.

...it'd be quite interesting to have a Monk/Thief kit. (Even though, the regular monk is already sort-of a Fighter/Thief mix)

Gave

1d20 is really not much as Lord_Tansheron has pointed out. A fresh lvl1 Barbarian with a 2 handed sword and 18 Strength does better while enraged.

By the time monks get 1d20 fists, it is already overshadowed by the powerful gear your warriors can equip. Not to mention they probably land more hits/crits and benefit from a lot of other situational perks.

ZanathKariashi

Belkar Bitterleaf summed up Monks pretty well in the Order of the Stick prequel comic. (Go buy it to see what I mean. It's both hilarious and depressingly true all at once).


As mentioned several times, I wouldn't mind seeing the monk converted from a suedo-3rd monk into a OA monk. Their overall abilities would be slightly lower then current, but they'd get their bonuses faster, and bring full thief utility to the party, albeit with a crippling 15 skill point penalty. The added utility giving them a nice leg up from their otherwise lack-luster melee showing, compared to the real melee combatants.

Lord_Tansheron

Southpaw said:

I beg to differ.
a) Special abilities are saved against/immuned - perhaps, in BG2ToB. In early BG2 and especially BG1(EE), they are really powerful.

Things that work well at early levels are fine, but those levels don't last long; in fact, they make up the minority of the game (excluding BG1, which has an entirely different set of variables). Also, you should measure abilities by how useful they are against relevant enemies.

Southpaw said:

b) Most endgame weapons are better than fists - fists get to +4 THAC0 bonus in ToB endgame. Best weapons are around +4/+5. Not much difference. The 1d20 base damage offsets this.

I was always under the impression that fists only "count as" +X enchanted weapons, i.e. they can hit enemies that can only be hit by weapons+X or higher. THAC0 bonuses should be an entirely separate thing, and I have never seen any mention of fists gaining such a bonus. Granted, the gauntlets do offset this for the most part, and it is a fairly minor point anyway.

Southpaw said:

c) no group utility - let's see...disablers (stun), scouts (with stealth), silent mage killers (stealth + attack them with stunning fist or Dagger of Venom (myyyy...precioussss)), good for killing archers due to their innate -AC against arrows and default fast running pace. Also - tanks. Yes, you heard me. My buffed Monk had around -9 AC, while buffed Dorn (with Gauntlets of Dexterity) had around the same. Minsc, full plate and packing steel was even worse (around -6AC) And that in 5th Chapter of BGEE. AND I TANKED AEC'LETEC.

As I said earlier, BG1 works very differently, especially in terms of scaling. Most of the things you mentioned can be done by many classes, and even those that can't (like stealth) are not terribly useful. The special abilities are unreliable, as mentioned earlier. In essence, you reduce Monks to being able to stealth, and sometimes stun; that isn't much. Their movement speed is okay, but far less relevant in BG2 than in BG1 (not to mention annoying in a party...).

Corvino

Monks definitely get tough in the mid-teens, and are solid BG2 midgame and endgame tanks with their AC bonuses and crazy MR. Vanilla monks do get a bit boring to play as though, as they have fairly few useful activated abilities and get OP though passives.

Like vanilla Fighters, they get great AC & THAC0 and good attacks and damage, but don't require a lot of player input to succeed. Once you get over the shock of your squishy monk punching out dragons at about level 12-15 you get bored.

mjs

Gave said:

1d20 is really not much as Lord_Tansheron has pointed out. A fresh lvl1 Barbarian with a 2 handed sword and 18 Strength does better while enraged.

i don't think that's right

By the time monks get 1d20 fists, it is already overshadowed by the powerful gear your warriors can equip. Not to mention they probably land more hits/crits and benefit from a lot of other situational perks.

Monks get 1d20 at level 15, which in my playthroughs happen around the underwater city/underdark. at which point you've only got FoA +3, which gives 10.5 damage and carsomyr @lord_tansheron in regards to Crom F, that's including the 25 str bonus, which can be replicated (until losing your soul) with DuHM (though i think you mean Carsomyr?)

i appreciate that the assembled epic ToB items are better but that's with about 3 major battles left. level 15 for those 1d20 beauties.

Lord_Tansheron said:

You are right, of course, monks are "only" behind every fighter, paladin, and swashbucklers. They are about on-par with rangers and non-Swashbuckler thieves, though again with far less utility. Keep in mind that monks past level 5 *cannot* be hasted, meaning they rely entirely on GWW for their APR.

i don't think that negates from the fact that they're one of the best DDs in the game as there's only 1 NPC paladin; and 1 NPC fighter who can achieve GM and TWFS until ToB.

Southpaw

I love the fact, that any talk about classes on this forum (or any other gaming forums) suddenly, but inevitably ends with a heated discussion about min-maxed power-gaming builds and whose damage is better by 2.37%. First it starts with generalized experience, then comes the math and when people pull up their excel spreadsheets, it's time to abandon the discussion because it's no longer about gaming, but "Serious Business".


Relax.


@Wigmonster - The monk is not as tough and powerful as a min-maxed leveled single-class fighter. He will never be able to sneak as well as Thieves do and wield the Carsomyr.
But despite having the flaw of not being the toughest, biggest bad**** on the world, it IS an interesting and eventually powerful class to play. Requires more grooming on lower levels, but it will pay back once the bonuses add up and he gets magic resistance.
And then he will kill a Dragon with one punch.

Lord_Tansheron

mjs said:

Monks get 1d20 at level 15, which in my playthroughs happen around the underwater city/underdark. at which point you've only got FoA +3, which gives 10.5 damage and carsomyr @lord_tansheron in regards to Crom F, that's including the 25 str bonus, which can be replicated (until losing your soul) with DuHM (though i think you mean Carsomyr?)

i appreciate that the assembled epic ToB items are better but that's with about 3 major battles left. level 15 for those 1d20 beauties.

"Until losing your soul" being the operative word here. I did mean Crom Faeyr and not Carsomyr. Also, keep in mind that the innate DuHM is only available to good-aligned CHARNAMEs and takes a truly epic time to cast, making it practically useless mid-combat.

The weapons I listed were just examples (i.e. the most prominent ones). There are plenty of weapons around with more than 10.5 average damage. Also, while you are right that you can get monk fists to their highest level quite early, you can't simply ignore the fact that this is as high as they are going to get. Peaking early doesn't make the peak any better, especially when the difference is so low. You are right that the end of ToB isn't the whole game - but neither is the middle of SoA (where monks are arguably strongest).

mjs said:

i don't think that negates from the fact that they're one of the best DDs in the game as there's only 1 NPC paladin; and 1 NPC fighter who can achieve GM and TWFS until ToB.

How is that relevant when deciding what character to make? Choosing monk because there are few other, higher DDs available as NPCs? Isn't that an argument *against* choosing monk?

Gave

mjs said:

Gave said:

1d20 is really not much as Lord_Tansheron has pointed out. A fresh lvl1 Barbarian with a 2 handed sword and 18 Strength does better while enraged.

i don't think that's right
--------------------------------------


Of course it wasnt a fair comparison on my part, just wanted to point out that 1d20 alone is not overly impressive damage.

But lets see without powerful gear just plain:

Monk LVL15 _ 18 STR 1d20 fists is approx as much as ( actually less)
Barbarian LVL1 _ enraged 22STR + THF(**) THS(**) + 1d10 from the plain 80gp worth Two Handed Sword.

It is not fair at all, we have to calculate in the content, buffs, gear, whatnot. I consider the Gauntlets of Crushing very "late game" acquisition, I spend quite a bit of time in CH2-CH3 usually.

I still would like to see monks getting slightly less indestructible at high levels, and much more useful early on.

mjs

because not only can they mix it up with the big hitters, they also get super AC, stunning blow and quivering palm (both of which work well for me, especially stunning blow, which you get so many of it doesn't matter if one doesn't land), almost total MR, lay on hands.

but yes you are right, in terms of average DD, the monk isn't ahead of other options to pick in character creation, but if you create a monk, in the average NPC party, the monk will have the most kills and deal the most damage across the game.

Lord_Tansheron

mjs said:

if you create a monk, in the average NPC party, the monk will have the most kills and deal the most damage across the game.

What do you mean by "average" party? Any party that chooses a monk instead of the above-mentioned characters, all of which deal more damage? Or how does that work?

Luigirules

THEY ARE OKAY I GUESS

Awong124

I'm not too interested in how good they are. I just don't find them all that interesting to play. I think it's more fun to be able to play around with and manage the character's equipment, and Monks don't really get to use a lot of equipment. Same deal with Kensai.