Also, it's far more annoying for a DM to try and soften encounters to keep deliberately gimped characters from dieing all the time.
This is especially a problem in 3rd edition; with the right combination of min/maxing, feats, etc it was possible to create a character that was untouchable at the correct challenge rating for his level, while it was also possible to create a horribly weak character that struggled with challenge ratings below his level. I've been on NWN2 servers where I tried to create a believable ranger build, only to have him struggle in encounters that lower level powerbuilds can steamroll over with virtually no effort. When a rogue/sorcerer is outperforming a ranger in melee combat, there's something wrong.
You are aware that it was not only possible to bludgeon through that padding, it was downright likely as a way to die if you were wearing decent armour?
Of course...with a pollaxe, or a heavy mace, or something with an equally hard head. But with fists? I find that hard to believe. There are many reasons why there wasn't generally a contingent of specialist unarmed fighters on the battlefield. The only time I've ever seen unarmed being preferable to having a weapon is in Hollywood, and tv shows like Buffy, Xena, and that Mortal Kombat one.
Unarmed combat was something people learn for self defence if, for some reason, they end up being forced to fight without a weapon, not as a primary form of attack.
@Squire The Ranger in NwN2 starts shining when he gets HiPS and even more with Bane of Enemies. Before that, it's a pain to level them up.
When he gets HiPS, he has already won against the Rogue/Sorcerer or whatever because they can hide while runnning, all the time and do crazy amounts of damage with Bane of Enemies and Perfect Two Weapon Fighting.
He also gets spells to aid him in either scouting or stealth.
Classes like Rogue or Ranger or other light-armored stealth builds suck until they get HiPS. Then they just cheat through any challenge. They just become undetectable and fight on their terms.
A Ranger with a magic longbow and HiPS, is the most annoying thing ever. He hides, runs, shoots, hides, runs, shoot etc until you're dead. And you're not going to spot him.
Well, many dip into Shadowdancer at about level 5 or so and get HiPS early, just so they can HiPS anywhere instead of just natural areas like the Ranger.
Monks can use wisdom to attack with either of two feats, Zen Archery for any ranged attack, and there is a feat in Exalted Deeds for Good Only that lets you use your wisdom for unarmed and simple weapons, meaning a monk can get by pumping wisdom like crazy. Strength still adds damage, and dex still adds defense, but even with the standard array, you get a few good stats, even if nothing is 'exceptional' (IE 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. Not hard to roll better I'd say, but you can dump stat charisma, and still have no penalty to one other low stat).
Very few rangers I've seen start with 14 wisdom, as they need Dexterity or Strength to be high, and have more need of a high Constitution than other warriors, due to a smaller HD remember, and light armour restriction. If your ranger is to be a skill user, he probably can't dumpstat int either, and we're talking skill based characters for this.
Tracking still has little to nothing to do with being a scout, IE walking in the front of the party and reconnoitering. That's what a scout is, not a tracker. A Monk CAN also track, and having half ranks isn't exactly a big deal. It's not exactly the end of the world to develop a cross class skill, and as we all know, methods exist to make a non-class skill a class skill. Usually with a feat. Not ideal likely, but monks don't rely on feats as much as most warriors do. You're overstating the effects of half-ranks IMHO, and also sidetracking a bit.
Owl's Wisdom can be cast ON you by someone else, and quite frankly, if you're a monk, you likely WILL have someone cast it on you if you don't already have a higher Enhancement bonus to Wisdom, as Wisdom is their key stat, or secondary at least. Ranger spellcasting is VERY limited in scope, and a ranger is 100% viable if they lack sufficient wisdom to cast any spells, same as a Paladin. Both can benefit from them I agree, but in a party, they aren't very important.
Favoured Enemy should never be brought up in a balance discussion, it's a purely situational ability that can either be awesome or completely useless. The bonus is small unless you keep dumping picks into the same Enemy, which then greatly limits the scope. If you could take Humanoids as a Favoured Enemy, that would be strong, but you have to pick a tiny sub-group, which makes the ability crappy.
Why do you keep bringing up Shuriken? I've clearly stated that the prefered monk throwing weapon in 3.5 is the sai. This isn't very complicated. Regarding poisoning, there are ways around this, and since most poisons don't kill you, AND monks from get go have great saves, AND eventually have immunity, why WOULDN'T a monk use poison? Sure, it can be expensive, but you don't use them vs lvl 1 orcs, just powerful opponents. Shuriken were amazing in 3.0 for poisoning, but have very little value in 3.5 beyond providing niche DR penetrating ability for cheap, as they are considered ammo. Regarding bow damage, both are going to be getting their strength bonus to damage, and enchantment bonus', and thats probably about it. At high levels though, a ranged exclusive monk can use Returning Sais, which can have other nasty abilities. A bowmen will be using expensive ammo to damage opponents most of the time, as arrows are terrible to get past DR... You'd need a correct alignment bow AND Silver or Cold Iron arrows vs Devils and Demons, for example, or magic arrows vs tons of enemies, etc. The monk can toss on Sure Striking and Metaline to make his sais penetrate any DR short of epic, and these are expensive, but we're talking a monk designed around ranged combat here, so he relies heavily on this gear.
Regarding Druids... I'm just stating facts actually, animal forms are pretty badly outclassed by a monk. You're ignoring many obvious problems that animal forms bring, IE the powerful ones are large or even huge, they aren't available until VERY late, and a monk gets just how fast for movement speed again? Cheetah sprint is faster, but has very limited scope.
Monks are very capable grapplers usually, seeing as they can fight unarmed at full potential, including stunning, and Monks have access to Improved Grapple (+4 generic bonus), and there are magic items that give a BIG boost to grappling that a druid can't use shapeshifted. Also, monks at high level have crazy high unarmed damage, and get 2 bonus attacks at full BAB at NO PENALTY. A Druid trying to grapple a monk is going to be a dead Druid very quickly with their crummy AC and the sheer volume of APR. You grapple the monk successfully, he 1 inch punches you ~5 times per round for average 18 damage per punch at high levels quite easily (base average 10, plus strength, plus enchantment stuff for fists IE Amulet of Natural Weaponry), and can stun you potentially, which can become 'stun lock', meaning you're dead.
For Armour Class, monks get their wisdom (likely to be well over 20 by high levels), dexterity (also likely to be well over 20), their class bonus, Bracers of Armour +8 (which can have other armour abilities added on top by the rules, some of which are worth having, IE Silent, Shadow, Glamoured, etc are the cheapies, but even fun stuff like Fortification is an option for Crit Proofing), Ring of Deflection +5 and Amulet of Natural Armour +5 really make a monk extremely hard to land a hit on. Thats ~45 AC at all times btw. A level 20 Barbarian isn't going to be using PA vs that I'd wager. If you want, you can always use the odd spell to buff it further, IE Displacement or Blink. Druids in Animal Form are sitting ducks vs hard hitting enemies. Animal Forms are akin to giants throwing rocks... It seems scary until you realize they have crappy odds to actually hit you. Druids are good as casters, and their Shapeshifting ability exists to offset the huge disadvantage they have vs Clerics in combat, as Clerics have so many great buffs. Druids aren't bad, they just aren't anything to write home about, even in 3.5. They get outshone pretty badly in actual combat if they aren't able to take tons of Wild feats.
Monks sucked in 3.0 compared to 3.5, even then though they had nasty tricks like charges that deal double damage with no drawback, and the plethora of insane unarmed combat feats in Oriental Adventures. They even had a feat with a pile of pre-reqs that lets you disarm an enemy to negate his attack. That single feat, if you could get it, was the best melee feat in 3.0 I'd say. Grappling Block I think? Damn ugly feat, that. There was another feat that gives you a free attack with the weapon you just took btw, AKA insult, meet injury.
Druids aren't bad, they just aren't anything to write home about, even in 3.5.
I actually dare you to debate this in any DnD optimization forum. Any. I'm serious. Go to Giant in the Playground forum and post this, it's the most popular one. Debate how the Monk is that much better than the Druid. Then post the thread here after a few responses. Or you can do some searches and find out on your own.
Wizards, Clerics and Druids are considered the best classes in Core. And Monks one of the worst.
If a Monk gets all that high level gear and from other sourcebooks, then you have Wildling Clasps which you attach to any sort of gear and it functions in animal forms. Plus spells that give you even more armor. Or just fly and stay away from anything the Monk can do. While throwing more stuff at him. Also for Displacement, you have stuff like Faerie Fire or Glitterdust.
Druids fly, while casting spells and summons. Size and insane STR + buffs are far better for Grappling than any bonuses like Improved Grapple Monks get.
Well, many dip into Shadowdancer at about level 5 or so and get HiPS early, just so they can HiPS anywhere instead of just natural areas like the Ranger.
Level 8 at least. They have 10 hide as a prerequisite.
I used to be really into optimization, until I realized +95% of the builds were INCREDIBLY unstable, or had use-ability issues. Sure, charging builds can do crazy damage on charges, but a DM can easily make it hard or impossible to use charge. Any build utilizing Large or larger size is garbage in 3.5, as they take up too much space, and any DM can counter that without even trying. Grappling builds fall apart in 3.5, because of the moron that decided to make Freedom of Movement do some really stupid ****. Anything involving Undead is royally boned by a Priest with a couple turning feats (Well, Death Knights are immune, but even Liches are pretty easy to turn if you prepare). Things like Pun-Pun, Artificer builds (well, many of the crazier ones involving wand abuse) and Cancer Mage Strength/Natural Armour builds rely on loose rule interpretation, or complete lack of oversight on the part of the developer, IE the stupid damage you can deal with a hulking hurler (assuming you ever hit anything ofc). I won't use anything psionic, as those books just take a giant dump on balance, despite having a great many very interesting ideas. Psionics IMHO are fine if you play in a campaign where everything uses Psionics, but even then, you'll have to outlaw tons of stuff to keep the game worth playing.
For the record, monks are usually considered the worst only if you have very limited stat options, as they are the most stat dependent class in core. If you want a good martial artist type monk, you even will want Combat Expertise, meaning you can only dump Charisma... unless you need it for Ki abilities, which some feats require, though most monks won't bother with Ki Shouting silliness when they can already stun by punching. There are monk builds that can't have ANY bad stats except Constitution, which is more or less required to be decent for survival.
Probably the strongest and still versatile(ish) builds I ever made were Blackguard or Paladin of Tyranny Gish... Vastly better AC than the above monk, and able to do both inane weapon damage (due to adding Charisma) and spellcasting up to either 7th or 8th level spells as a Sorcerer. With a substantial reduction in melee abilities, you can get to caster level 18, but I usually like the versatile 7th level ones. A Dragon Helm is all you need to fill out your spell selection, getting 4 extra known spells of whatever level you need is a big boost, and you can tailor those spells, giving you some of the versatility of a wizard, but with melee damage a Frenzied Berserker would be interested in, on top of saves so good they'll fail only 5% of the time AND you'll never be getting hit. Good examples of this build can solo pretty much anything without risking injury, and it's not that easy to counter. Best bet is anti-magic, at which point he can still use some abilities and is a decent warrior with still very good AC. My next best, even arguably better, was the Fiend of Possession. So much crazy crap you could do with that PrC, also great for a cohort. If your DM will let you! You could actually take levels without having a big LA too, if you use the alignment ritual from Savage Species, even a Lawful Good can actually qualify, you only need the evil sub-type, not alignment.
However, the most versatile non-caster builds usually have lots of monk in them, as monks can more or less do anything effectively. Tattooed Monk gives you more options than anything but Wizard or Master of Masks (which is a weird caster anyways), Tattooed monks just bring so many bizarre abilities to the table, even if none are strictly amazing.
Almost none of that gear I mentioned for monks is non-core actually. As for Wilding Clasps, for some gear they really stretch suspension of disbelief, AKA are asking for a DM veto, "...how on earth is a clasp attatched to that!?" which is very much the bane of optimization.
***Anyways, I think we can both agree that we're off topic here, so I'll concede that Druids are a good class (did I say they sucked ever? Meh), but I won't concede that Monks suck. They are hard to use, and most people suck at using them, but even in core, if used well, they can be very competitive.
Comments
Unarmed combat was something people learn for self defence if, for some reason, they end up being forced to fight without a weapon, not as a primary form of attack.
Before that, it's a pain to level them up.
When he gets HiPS, he has already won against the Rogue/Sorcerer or whatever because they can hide while runnning, all the time and do crazy amounts of damage with Bane of Enemies and Perfect Two Weapon Fighting.
He also gets spells to aid him in either scouting or stealth.
Classes like Rogue or Ranger or other light-armored stealth builds suck until they get HiPS.
Then they just cheat through any challenge. They just become undetectable and fight on their terms.
A Ranger with a magic longbow and HiPS, is the most annoying thing ever. He hides, runs, shoots, hides, runs, shoot etc until you're dead. And you're not going to spot him.
Very few rangers I've seen start with 14 wisdom, as they need Dexterity or Strength to be high, and have more need of a high Constitution than other warriors, due to a smaller HD remember, and light armour restriction. If your ranger is to be a skill user, he probably can't dumpstat int either, and we're talking skill based characters for this.
Tracking still has little to nothing to do with being a scout, IE walking in the front of the party and reconnoitering. That's what a scout is, not a tracker. A Monk CAN also track, and having half ranks isn't exactly a big deal. It's not exactly the end of the world to develop a cross class skill, and as we all know, methods exist to make a non-class skill a class skill. Usually with a feat. Not ideal likely, but monks don't rely on feats as much as most warriors do. You're overstating the effects of half-ranks IMHO, and also sidetracking a bit.
Owl's Wisdom can be cast ON you by someone else, and quite frankly, if you're a monk, you likely WILL have someone cast it on you if you don't already have a higher Enhancement bonus to Wisdom, as Wisdom is their key stat, or secondary at least. Ranger spellcasting is VERY limited in scope, and a ranger is 100% viable if they lack sufficient wisdom to cast any spells, same as a Paladin. Both can benefit from them I agree, but in a party, they aren't very important.
Favoured Enemy should never be brought up in a balance discussion, it's a purely situational ability that can either be awesome or completely useless. The bonus is small unless you keep dumping picks into the same Enemy, which then greatly limits the scope. If you could take Humanoids as a Favoured Enemy, that would be strong, but you have to pick a tiny sub-group, which makes the ability crappy.
Why do you keep bringing up Shuriken? I've clearly stated that the prefered monk throwing weapon in 3.5 is the sai. This isn't very complicated. Regarding poisoning, there are ways around this, and since most poisons don't kill you, AND monks from get go have great saves, AND eventually have immunity, why WOULDN'T a monk use poison? Sure, it can be expensive, but you don't use them vs lvl 1 orcs, just powerful opponents. Shuriken were amazing in 3.0 for poisoning, but have very little value in 3.5 beyond providing niche DR penetrating ability for cheap, as they are considered ammo. Regarding bow damage, both are going to be getting their strength bonus to damage, and enchantment bonus', and thats probably about it. At high levels though, a ranged exclusive monk can use Returning Sais, which can have other nasty abilities. A bowmen will be using expensive ammo to damage opponents most of the time, as arrows are terrible to get past DR... You'd need a correct alignment bow AND Silver or Cold Iron arrows vs Devils and Demons, for example, or magic arrows vs tons of enemies, etc. The monk can toss on Sure Striking and Metaline to make his sais penetrate any DR short of epic, and these are expensive, but we're talking a monk designed around ranged combat here, so he relies heavily on this gear.
Regarding Druids... I'm just stating facts actually, animal forms are pretty badly outclassed by a monk. You're ignoring many obvious problems that animal forms bring, IE the powerful ones are large or even huge, they aren't available until VERY late, and a monk gets just how fast for movement speed again? Cheetah sprint is faster, but has very limited scope.
Monks are very capable grapplers usually, seeing as they can fight unarmed at full potential, including stunning, and Monks have access to Improved Grapple (+4 generic bonus), and there are magic items that give a BIG boost to grappling that a druid can't use shapeshifted. Also, monks at high level have crazy high unarmed damage, and get 2 bonus attacks at full BAB at NO PENALTY. A Druid trying to grapple a monk is going to be a dead Druid very quickly with their crummy AC and the sheer volume of APR. You grapple the monk successfully, he 1 inch punches you ~5 times per round for average 18 damage per punch at high levels quite easily (base average 10, plus strength, plus enchantment stuff for fists IE Amulet of Natural Weaponry), and can stun you potentially, which can become 'stun lock', meaning you're dead.
For Armour Class, monks get their wisdom (likely to be well over 20 by high levels), dexterity (also likely to be well over 20), their class bonus, Bracers of Armour +8 (which can have other armour abilities added on top by the rules, some of which are worth having, IE Silent, Shadow, Glamoured, etc are the cheapies, but even fun stuff like Fortification is an option for Crit Proofing), Ring of Deflection +5 and Amulet of Natural Armour +5 really make a monk extremely hard to land a hit on. Thats ~45 AC at all times btw. A level 20 Barbarian isn't going to be using PA vs that I'd wager. If you want, you can always use the odd spell to buff it further, IE Displacement or Blink. Druids in Animal Form are sitting ducks vs hard hitting enemies. Animal Forms are akin to giants throwing rocks... It seems scary until you realize they have crappy odds to actually hit you. Druids are good as casters, and their Shapeshifting ability exists to offset the huge disadvantage they have vs Clerics in combat, as Clerics have so many great buffs. Druids aren't bad, they just aren't anything to write home about, even in 3.5. They get outshone pretty badly in actual combat if they aren't able to take tons of Wild feats.
Monks sucked in 3.0 compared to 3.5, even then though they had nasty tricks like charges that deal double damage with no drawback, and the plethora of insane unarmed combat feats in Oriental Adventures. They even had a feat with a pile of pre-reqs that lets you disarm an enemy to negate his attack. That single feat, if you could get it, was the best melee feat in 3.0 I'd say. Grappling Block I think? Damn ugly feat, that. There was another feat that gives you a free attack with the weapon you just took btw, AKA insult, meet injury.
Go to Giant in the Playground forum and post this, it's the most popular one.
Debate how the Monk is that much better than the Druid. Then post the thread here after a few responses.
Or you can do some searches and find out on your own.
Wizards, Clerics and Druids are considered the best classes in Core.
And Monks one of the worst.
If a Monk gets all that high level gear and from other sourcebooks, then you have Wildling Clasps which you attach to any sort of gear and it functions in animal forms.
Plus spells that give you even more armor. Or just fly and stay away from anything the Monk can do. While throwing more stuff at him.
Also for Displacement, you have stuff like Faerie Fire or Glitterdust.
Druids fly, while casting spells and summons. Size and insane STR + buffs are far better for Grappling than any bonuses like Improved Grapple Monks get.
For the record, monks are usually considered the worst only if you have very limited stat options, as they are the most stat dependent class in core. If you want a good martial artist type monk, you even will want Combat Expertise, meaning you can only dump Charisma... unless you need it for Ki abilities, which some feats require, though most monks won't bother with Ki Shouting silliness when they can already stun by punching. There are monk builds that can't have ANY bad stats except Constitution, which is more or less required to be decent for survival.
Probably the strongest and still versatile(ish) builds I ever made were Blackguard or Paladin of Tyranny Gish... Vastly better AC than the above monk, and able to do both inane weapon damage (due to adding Charisma) and spellcasting up to either 7th or 8th level spells as a Sorcerer. With a substantial reduction in melee abilities, you can get to caster level 18, but I usually like the versatile 7th level ones. A Dragon Helm is all you need to fill out your spell selection, getting 4 extra known spells of whatever level you need is a big boost, and you can tailor those spells, giving you some of the versatility of a wizard, but with melee damage a Frenzied Berserker would be interested in, on top of saves so good they'll fail only 5% of the time AND you'll never be getting hit. Good examples of this build can solo pretty much anything without risking injury, and it's not that easy to counter. Best bet is anti-magic, at which point he can still use some abilities and is a decent warrior with still very good AC. My next best, even arguably better, was the Fiend of Possession. So much crazy crap you could do with that PrC, also great for a cohort. If your DM will let you! You could actually take levels without having a big LA too, if you use the alignment ritual from Savage Species, even a Lawful Good can actually qualify, you only need the evil sub-type, not alignment.
However, the most versatile non-caster builds usually have lots of monk in them, as monks can more or less do anything effectively. Tattooed Monk gives you more options than anything but Wizard or Master of Masks (which is a weird caster anyways), Tattooed monks just bring so many bizarre abilities to the table, even if none are strictly amazing.
Almost none of that gear I mentioned for monks is non-core actually. As for Wilding Clasps, for some gear they really stretch suspension of disbelief, AKA are asking for a DM veto, "...how on earth is a clasp attatched to that!?" which is very much the bane of optimization.
***Anyways, I think we can both agree that we're off topic here, so I'll concede that Druids are a good class (did I say they sucked ever? Meh), but I won't concede that Monks suck. They are hard to use, and most people suck at using them, but even in core, if used well, they can be very competitive.