Monks: some comments
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
I started a new game run, and decided to try something other than a warrior kit. So I rolled up a sun soul monk. I'd be a bit redundant during Rasaad's quest, but what the heck. Being LG alignment would presumably lock me out of the evil character's quests, but maybe I could find an RP work-around, since monks can't fall from grace. Maybe I want to know the enemy better, so I decide to infiltrate their ranks to see how they think? (Yeah, that's blatant rationalization, but hey, misguided thinking occurs, right?) Hmm, hang on, didn't Rasaad also use similar logic? If it worked for him, it can work for me. Sold!
Unfortunately, part way through Ch 2 I came to the realization that monks are basically just another warrior kit; heck, they even get the D'Arnise keep as their stronghold, just like a warrior.
Let's see; monks get the ability to lay on hands to heal themselves. Whee. Why bother? Healing potions are a dime a dozen. The Sun Soul guys get a few fire based tricks, (with pretty limited number of uses, btw) and later on they get significant magic resistance, but in return for this they sacrifice HP. An interesting trade off, but not really worth it IMO. You can get MR through items as well. By the end of ToB, my berserker had partial or full immunity to just about everything, AND had 220 HP. Now let's look at monk HLAs. Basically they get the same ones that warriors do. Hardiness, critical strike, whirlwind will be their mainstays; this confirms my concept of monks as a warrior subclass.
Some monk abilities are puzzling. I gleefully stuck a bunch of points into find traps, up to 100 ability, then realized that even if I found a trap, I couldn't disarm it! What were the devs thinking here? I still need a thief type to disarm the damned things. Monks get the ability to hide in shadows and move silently, but again, why? They can't backstab, although they do get +4 on THACO if attacking from hiding. Yes, you can argue that they can be used as scouts if they train these skills, but we have already demonstrated that we need a thief kit for other things, so why not use your thief type as a scout if you need one? They can do the same thing AND backstab also.
Monk gets some thief abilities, which abruptly dead end for no good reason. If they really wanted monks to be a warrior/thief hybrid, they should have allowed them to train in other thief type skills, with perhaps a sacrifice of some physical combat ability. That would allow for some diverse training paths.
Why can they only achieve 1 pip in weapons expertise; to make them even more thief-like? Ever watched Bruce Lee use nun-chuks or a pair of jo-sticks? Looks pretty adept to me. And why the limitations on weapon types that can be used? Monks are designed to use their fists as weapons, but they only rise to the equivalent of +4 weapons, and even that's not till level 25; if you want better, you need to grab a weapon. Why are two-handers not allowed? Plenty of Kung-fu movies show warrior monks using spears, naginatas, bo-sticks and what have you. Naginatas are sort of the Oriental equivalent of halberds, and ... I WANT MY MONK TO BE ABLE TO USE RAVAGER +6! Grrr!
Thinking of trying a cleric or sorcerer instead. Or maybe a blade.
Unfortunately, part way through Ch 2 I came to the realization that monks are basically just another warrior kit; heck, they even get the D'Arnise keep as their stronghold, just like a warrior.
Let's see; monks get the ability to lay on hands to heal themselves. Whee. Why bother? Healing potions are a dime a dozen. The Sun Soul guys get a few fire based tricks, (with pretty limited number of uses, btw) and later on they get significant magic resistance, but in return for this they sacrifice HP. An interesting trade off, but not really worth it IMO. You can get MR through items as well. By the end of ToB, my berserker had partial or full immunity to just about everything, AND had 220 HP. Now let's look at monk HLAs. Basically they get the same ones that warriors do. Hardiness, critical strike, whirlwind will be their mainstays; this confirms my concept of monks as a warrior subclass.
Some monk abilities are puzzling. I gleefully stuck a bunch of points into find traps, up to 100 ability, then realized that even if I found a trap, I couldn't disarm it! What were the devs thinking here? I still need a thief type to disarm the damned things. Monks get the ability to hide in shadows and move silently, but again, why? They can't backstab, although they do get +4 on THACO if attacking from hiding. Yes, you can argue that they can be used as scouts if they train these skills, but we have already demonstrated that we need a thief kit for other things, so why not use your thief type as a scout if you need one? They can do the same thing AND backstab also.
Monk gets some thief abilities, which abruptly dead end for no good reason. If they really wanted monks to be a warrior/thief hybrid, they should have allowed them to train in other thief type skills, with perhaps a sacrifice of some physical combat ability. That would allow for some diverse training paths.
Why can they only achieve 1 pip in weapons expertise; to make them even more thief-like? Ever watched Bruce Lee use nun-chuks or a pair of jo-sticks? Looks pretty adept to me. And why the limitations on weapon types that can be used? Monks are designed to use their fists as weapons, but they only rise to the equivalent of +4 weapons, and even that's not till level 25; if you want better, you need to grab a weapon. Why are two-handers not allowed? Plenty of Kung-fu movies show warrior monks using spears, naginatas, bo-sticks and what have you. Naginatas are sort of the Oriental equivalent of halberds, and ... I WANT MY MONK TO BE ABLE TO USE RAVAGER +6! Grrr!
Thinking of trying a cleric or sorcerer instead. Or maybe a blade.
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Comments
At level 14 they have 42% Magic Resistance which is more than any other class, including the Wizard Slayer and Shapeshifter's Greater Werewolf. Monks can also use wands for some reason which can make some fights easy if you grab yourself a wand of cloudkill.
By level 15, which doesn't take long to hit because they level on the Cleric's progression table, their fists do 1d20 which is easily the most in the game, and they count as a +3 weapon which is enough to finish all of SoA. They also get 4 attacks per round by the end which equals any dual-wielder not using Belm/Kundane/Scarlet Ninja-to. Their damage can also be boosted by any strength enhancing belts or the amazing (for Monks) Gauntlets of Crushing.
His armor class will never be world breaking but it's much better than other unarmored or lightly armored classes due to its constant progression. He also gets innate resistance to missile weapons and a boost to his save vs. spells. He also becomes immune to magic weapons which means you can skip the path that rewards it in hell, and the immunity to poison and disease is nice to have.
Overall I'd say the Dark Moon Monk is the best choice out of the 3. Stunning Blow is fun early but later in the game enemies always make their saves, Lay on Hands is barely better than a potion, and the Sun Soul's abilities are not party-safe or effective against many of the tougher enemies in the game. Meanwhile the Dark Moon version gets Detect Illusions, which is like True Sight-lite, plus Blur and Mirror Image which make up for his unarmored AC especially early on. Frozen Fists is mediocre damage but can pierce through Stoneskin which can come in handy.
I have a hard time committing to monks because I love using the cool weapons in the game but there's no doubt that it's one of the best single classes in the game.
And again, they are pretty much just warrior types as far as their function in a party of adventurers. I wasn't denying the fact that they can be effective in combat, but rather that they work the same way as fighters. Run up to something, beat it over the head until dead. Been there, done that. Didn't realize until playing for a few hours that this was the case. That's why I am considering cleric, cleric/thief, or sorcerer as alternate possibilities. Something mechanically different.
I'll have to disagree on the AC point, a high level monk has a pretty great AC.
@FrdNwsm You're basically correct, a monk is just another warrior type. And even more straightforward than most others. You don't even need to play around with gear to go to town and kick some butt. That doesn't mean they aren't awesome.
If you want something different to your berserker run, I strongly suggest picking up a bard or a druid. The Avenger kit is the strongest of the pure druids, and really fun to play. A Blade is the perfect combination of songs and swords, on the other hand. Their strongholds are very good as well.
- Can only Find (but not remove) traps.
- Have a faster movement rate (which also improves with levels)
- Get thief points but can only put those thief points into Find Traps, Climb Walls, Hear Noise, Move Silently, and Hide in Shadows (two of which you can't get in the BG series).
- Can't cast spells.
- At 5th level they become immune to disease, slow and haste.
- At 7th level they gain the ability to heal 2 points of damage/level once per day
- At 9th level they become immune to charm.
- At level 11 they become immune to poison.
- At level 13 they gain an ability called "Quivering Palm" (which may cause death)
As far as BG goes they are technically priests, but they share Thac0 progression and HLA's with warriors and get some thieving abilities (as well as thief weapon proficiencies) as well. Personally I think of them more as priests, especially given that the majority of the series you don't have HLA's, but I can see why people would view them as being a warrior.
"Hey Charlie, open that door for us will you, while we go hide around the corner? Nah, don't worry, it's perfectly safe."
As for moving silently and hiding, as I said that could be useful as a scouting maneuver. But a thief would be better for this, since they can take advantage of any backstab opportunities that occur. To take fuller advantage of these skills, there should be another monk kit, maybe call it the Ninja, who can do this and also have an assassination type skill like ... well, like the thief HLA, except that they could put points into it from the start instead of waiting 25+ levels and then getting it all at once.
Lastly, I would like to comment on what seems to me to be contradictory kit designs on Bioware's part. Monks and Kensai have a lot of similarities. Both are designed not to wear armor, concentrating on offence rather than defense. Both are supposedly wearing robes in order to give them more freedom of movement, and they compensate for lack of armor by getting increases in AC as they gain experience. But why are Kensai unable to wear bracers, while Monks can? I gave my guy the bracers of AC3 and his AC went up nicely. If bracers don't impede a monk's maneuverability in combat, a kensai should be able to use them as well.
They suck in the beginning, they are good mid-level and they are gods at high level.
Which means you have to babysit them a lot in the beginning but in the end, they destroy stuff.
You play Monks for the sheer satisfaction that you're destroying everything in the end with your fists.
@elminster
I'm pretty positive that the BG2 Monks were based on the 3E Monks. Just like Sorcerers etc.
Now, if the 3E Monks were based on the Greyhawk ones, that's another thing.
In practice the monk is basically a fighter with some tricks up his sleeves to make up for not using weapons. When you play a fighter class you're generally just setting them to stab things while you micromanage other characters, but the monk is a bit more interesting due to his innate abilities and immunities.
Both sides of this coin have their perks but you honestly haven't lived until you see a late game monk hitting for like 30 non-critical damage with every hit.
Honestly, if I had to fight with my bare hands against people with big pointy hurty things, I'd wear a suit of armor. I put more faith in solid steel than my own reflexes.
I've created a whole pack of characters; going to take them all up to chapter 3 and then decide which one deserves to go all the way to ToB. I had a human swashbuckler that I converted to a mage at level 11; then I realized I had basically created an Imoen clone with better thief skills. We already have Imoen and Nalia; does Faerun need yet another thief/mage? Probably not, so I went back to an earlier save and undid the changeover.
So far I have:
Human Swashbuckler
Human Blade
Half-orc Cleric of Lathander
Elf Archer
Human Sun Soul Monk
Wondering about a sorcerer. I like the idea of not having to worry about choosing spells ahead of time. Getting fewer spells per day seems a reasonable trade off in return for the flexibility. On the other hand, I'm not lacking for choices of mages of various types to recruit for the party. Might be a bit redundant.
In either case the monk really won't need it by around level 14. Once he gets that juicy MR the save bonus doesn't matter as much and his AC will eventually get so good that he doesn't need the plate. Ain't no monk got time for armor!
Or Greater Evasion.
1: Evil, lawful Evil bhalspawn are awesome and sometimes come with Duhm, horror and vampiric touch, etc
2. Mirror image is great, so you can free up 1 ring slot(mirror image ringx3 vagrant blades) and or 1 slot for that mirror image shortsword for something else. Blur is good as well.
3. They get quivering palm as well.
These guys get alot of good options,
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Normal monk, gets stunning blow.. That's it over the darkmoon.
Sunsoul is the weakest of the 3, does fire damage, great against undead... Excells in IWD, okay in bg2. No quivering palm.
Edit: Looks like I might be wrong since two True Neutral characters I just created had totally separate abilities. Is it always that way or does it have to do with aTweaks I wonder?
Neutral evil usually gets 2 vampire touches, 2 drains and 2 horrors.
I've made dozens upon dozens of characters..I usually only play Evil alignments... I'm a guru of evil alignments
I also noticed that pregenerated characters don't seem to get Bhaalspawn abilities at all for some reason.