Quote from: Omega;843309Uh. No?

If the game presents a hard science fiction setting with tower ships and no anti-gravity or psi powers. And the player wants Star Wars. That is not the designs error. It is the player wanting something from a game that was not intended for that. Why not play the setting as is?

Same with the monk. It is more patterend on standard martial-arts movies instead of wuxia and mystic ones. If the player was expecting for some god unknown reason to be playing Avatar instead of Bruce Lee. Then that is their problem and they can either walk or, I dont know, maybe try playing the class as is?

What a strange comment. If anything, the monk is (and always has been) more Wuxia than not - thus the list of relatively strange powers that every version of the monk has had. If anything, they're complaining that it's not ENOUGH Bruce Lee - the monk is not a particularly strong fighter. I suspect many of us would trade the weird power list for better combat ability...

Yeah what nharwell said. Not enough Bruce Lee is the perception.

A Fighter could work but by that logic you could have the Fighter step into the Barbarian's domain too. The class of Fighter limits the Fighter only to characters who specifically don't fight unarmored.

See, I don't get this.  5Th gives us the classic punch monk, elemental benders straight out of Avatar and goddam ninja.

All they all work pretty damn good.

I'm failing to see the issue.

Quote from: Batman;840821Your kidding right? The 4e Bard is awesome and a lot of fun to play

I played a 4e bard, core only.  I stand by my statement - they sucked.  They can't cast spells as well as a sorcerer. They can't buff as well as a cleric/druid. They can't deal raw damage as well as a fighter/barbarian. They can't deal extra (ie. sneak attack) damage like a rogue.  They don't do anything as well as someone else already does it, other than doing a bit of everything to a mediocre degree.

Quote from: Mistwell;843403I played a 4e bard, core only.  I stand by my statement - they sucked.  They can't cast spells as well as a sorcerer. They can't buff as well as a cleric/druid. They can't deal raw damage as well as a fighter/barbarian. They can't deal extra (ie. sneak attack) damage like a rogue.  They don't do anything as well as someone else already does it, other than doing a bit of everything to a mediocre degree.

Congratulations on figuring out that a Bard was never a master of all trades!  I know it sucks it was never like the Everquest MMO version, but hey, it lived up to it's Jack of All Trades moniker, didn't it?  Too bad it wasn't the powerhouse you expected or wanted!

And the Bard in general is another class that's badly designed, as the fluff and expectation never actually match up.

In fact, the Bard is NOT supposed to be the 'Jack of All Trades', it is in fact the Party Face, the one who talks to the locals, who announces them at the noble banquets, who negotiates for them.  The Bard is the talker of the party.  All the abilities, outside of the stuff it outright steals from other classes and manages them badly, are all Charisma based and often deal with dealing with people.

But like the Monk, people see one thing and latch onto and then complain when it doesn't actually match up.

The Bard DOES have the advantage of actually being useful, if you focus it the right way, like outside of Combat.  The Monk is more or less outclassed by every other Melee class due to it's lack of versatility.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;843339Yeah what nharwell said. Not enough Bruce Lee is the perception.

A Fighter could work but by that logic you could have the Fighter step into the Barbarian's domain too. The class of Fighter limits the Fighter only to characters who specifically don't fight unarmored.

Which falls back to the old problem that the barbarian and more or less the monk classes are classes for classes sake. Or pandering to players who just can not accept that the fighter class can be Conan AND Lancelot.

The barbarian and the monk could have and should have been folded into the figher class as paths like the Champion, Eldritch Knight, etc. It would not take that much effort to make a monk path for the fighter based off the Open Palm path.

But they didnt. So here we are. You can just drop classes and be perfectly fine.

Quote from: Omega;843531Which falls back to the old problem that the barbarian and more or less the monk classes are classes for classes sake. Or pandering to players who just can not accept that the fighter class can be Conan AND Lancelot.

The barbarian and the monk could have and should have been folded into the figher class as paths like the Champion, Eldritch Knight, etc. It would not take that much effort to make a monk path for the fighter based off the Open Palm path.

But they didnt. So here we are. You can just drop classes and be perfectly fine.

The problem with both the Monk and the Barbarian is how focused the class is, Barbarians are a little broader in concept, but they still suffer from being a narrow focus:  The Tribal Warrior with Anger Management Issues.  Meanwhile the Fighter has the advantage of being able to be a Tribal Warrior, a hulking Knight, a lithe Archer (without having to do the woodsman stuff), a Professional Soldier or a Combat Savant, among any other weapon wielding badass that you can think of.

The Monk is even worse in that it's hyperfocused into a Martial Arts Fighter from a Pseudo-Asian background, simply because in the real world there were no well known orders of ascetics that beat people up with their bare hands.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;843544The problem with both the Monk and the Barbarian is how focused the class is, Barbarians are a little broader in concept, but they still suffer from being a narrow focus:  The Tribal Warrior with Anger Management Issues.  Meanwhile the Fighter has the advantage of being able to be a Tribal Warrior, a hulking Knight, a lithe Archer (without having to do the woodsman stuff), a Professional Soldier or a Combat Savant, among any other weapon wielding badass that you can think of.

The Monk is even worse in that it's hyperfocused into a Martial Arts Fighter from a Pseudo-Asian background, simply because in the real world there were no well known orders of ascetics that beat people up with their bare hands.

Again though this is something that goes back to the origins of the hobby.
Some dude wants to play Aragorn so rather than say okay you are a fighter but you have a Human subrace called Dunedain that gives you some extra abilities they create a ranger class. later because Drizzt is a Ranger they let ranger get Dual wield for free so you can play Aragorn or Drizzt.
It's crazy

We need separate classes for Conan (Barbarian), Cane (Monk),  Percival (Paladin)  ... makes you wonder why there isn't a Maiar class, a Forest outlaw that was once a knight class and a child prodigy that will one day be a great Wizard class.

Quote from: Omega;843309Same with the monk. It is more patterend on standard martial-arts movies instead of wuxia and mystic ones. If the player was expecting for some god unknown reason to be playing Avatar instead of Bruce Lee

The problem is the Monk fails utterly at being Bruce Lee, or even anywhere in the general neighbourhood of Bruce Lee.

Quote from: Omega;843309Same with the monk. It is more patterend on standard martial-arts movies instead of wuxia and mystic ones.

Here's the thing, though:  What Martial Arts Movies are you talking about, because of late, Wuxia and Mystic Kung-Fu IS the 'Standard' movie style.  And yes, the Monk fails at that.

Quote from: RPGPundit;843926The problem is the Monk fails utterly at being Bruce Lee, or even anywhere in the general neighbourhood of Bruce Lee.

The problem is that no one really knows what to do with the Monk so it has three builds that are wildly varied.

I think the biggest problem with the monk is that, because of how armor rules work in D&D, it tends to be to easy to take the monk down in melee.

Quote from: RPGPundit;844142I think the biggest problem with the monk is that, because of how armor rules work in D&D, it tends to be to easy to take the monk down in melee.

That's exactly what I've been saying.  The class, if you know how to play it, is pretty mobile, the problem is none of the other classes rely on that much motion in combat, most of them get punished for moving away, save for the Rogue, and it gets a Disengage (among other non-Attack abilities) as a Bonus Action.

And because JUST one class is mobile, and the rest static, most people just accept it as if it's not, and get mulched pretty quickly.

The class is weak simply because it's hyper-focused, badly explained and relies on something that no other class in the system -so far- needs to.

The monk needs to either have a much better armor class (without needing to wear armor) or it needs to have much better hit points.  The former would let you do Bruce Lee style Kung Fu better, the latter would let you do Jackie Chan style kung-fu better.

Quote from: RPGPundit;844629The monk needs to either have a much better armor class (without needing to wear armor) or it needs to have much better hit points.  The former would let you do Bruce Lee style Kung Fu better, the latter would let you do Jackie Chan style kung-fu better.

What number would make you happy for Monk Bruce Lee's AC, and at what level?

Quote from: RPGPundit;844629The monk needs to either have a much better armor class (without needing to wear armor) or it needs to have much better hit points.  The former would let you do Bruce Lee style Kung Fu better, the latter would let you do Jackie Chan style kung-fu better.

er? The 5e Monk can start off right out the gate with an AC upwards of 18 or even 19 with an elf or other DEX bonus race. That equals or outstrips everyone elses starting ACs except for the Fighter and Paladin (and I think a dwarven Cleric?) who can start off with an AC of 18 via chain mail + shield. Only the Barbarian can exceed that due to being able to use a shield and still gain the unarmoured AC.

And they use a d8 for HP?