Prosecuted would like to note that the prosecution has put out their closing statement 3 pages ago.
Prosecuted put out their closing statement long before but to sum it up:
Just waiting some time to see whether people disagreed with this as representative of the monk-prosecuting side.
Now, for the monk-defending side, allow me to retort
:
Expert has a small versatility through skills, and does thus belong in Tier 5, because it is more all round than a Tier 6 class. But can't do many things well enough to be Tier 4.
Nice idea to bring up the expert again. The expert is an npc class. That should tell everyone enough. In that expert vs monk thread the monk-doubting side have resorted to all kinds of double standards, including only showing expert builds with dominant super races or templates or cheap mounts and 3.0 material (all of which could also be taken by a monk player) to show how allegedly powerful the expert is.
In fact, it was illustrated there for all that the ONLY real big thing of the expert - to choose 10 class skills - can easily be emulated by everyone with all kinds of feats (skill prodigy, skill knowledge, apprentice, martial study etc). Moreover, classes like the monk that have bonus feats already covering most of their combat-related feats can actually afford taking those feats.
Which leaves a skill point advantage of 2/lvl to contend with what other classes have to offer. In the case of the monk this is (just because people keep ignoring/forgetting it): best melee base damage in the game, higher hp, all good saves, higher movement speed applied to all movement modes, spell resistance, etheralness, more stunning fist attempts, dimension door, poison immunity, a choice of evasion/greater invisbility/blink or all kinds of ACFs. Probably I forgot quite a few here. Ask your average player if he or she prefers 2 more skill pts/lvl or the complete array of monk class abilities (with whatever ACF is there).
(ah, and to add injury to insult, the monk even has MORE class skills to start with than the expert).
So, the clear conclusion here must be: if a tier system is used, the monk is higher than the expert. For sure. Whether it is one or more categories depends on the number of categories used.
Monk (that isn't a dark moon disciple, a martial monk or a wild monk) has a very slim versatility score, but it does scouting and sneaking rather well. It does however, not do everything as well as the expert, and is vastly outperformed in many areas by Tier 4 classes, which puts it in tier 5. There is a special case for the monk, in that due to Illegal procedure, and no legal level 12 builds being produced it cannot have its' tier changed on anything but a theoretical basis. Until such evidence is produced.
It is quite fascinating how it can be that a single ability/ACF would lift a class an entire tier. In particular if (as in the case of the dark moon disciple) the monk has even more ways to achieve a similar outcome than just with a particular ACF (like invisible fist, getting the effect before dark moon) or even core class ability (etheralness, getting it after). Probably that is because it was me who suggested some powerful ACFs that they did not qualify (or it would have meant people had to admit I was right at least in some cases)...hmm..
. But that just as an aside.
The monk prosecuting side has it all upside down in such a closing statement on the monk.
First of all, the "illegal" procedure referred to is entirely legal (= the use of the item familiar feat for a non-core monk build to illustrate - just ONE - of the many ways a non-casting class can use a class ability or feat to cheat wbl just the way many people do for casters with item creation feats).
Second, it does not even matter since there were 4 more monk builds provided from my side alone (and more from others), all of which appear to have been forgotten by the prosecuting side (even including a 12th level monk build version without item familiar use).
Most importantly, though, neutral observers possibly cannot help but smile at the way the monk class is rated - without any evidence or arguments. It is just "it does not do that as well as xy, so it is a lower tier". But the whole "why it doesn't do it as well" is missing.
In fact, throughout this thread my request has been continuously ignored: to show how the three tier measurement challenges (dragon fight, slave resistance leader contact and gain his trust, help city vs orc army for level 12) would be done exactly by a swordsage or adept build. Similarly, it is not exactly useful for the monk-doubting side to make absurd claims time and again, like JaronK maintaining that a 12th level monk has less of a chance to survive than a hydra zombie.
So, even at most benign interpretation, all the prosecuting side may have left us with from this thread are question marks as to how the monk really compares to the adept and swordsage performances. But maybe I can give some hints below.
Adept has been shown to have versatility through his spells, as well as his domain, adepts can often focus on one task and do it remarkably well. However, their build locks to doing one thing really well, and must handle the rest with just spells. Which it gets slow. Meaning it ends up in tier 4.
Well, just some highlights on adept vs monk:
1. A major thing going for the adept has been animate dead. I had said from the beginning in that separate monk vs adept thread that animate dead would be too expensive over time to make a consistent strategy. This was furiously denied.
In the end, even Jaronk (adding animate dead costs, carnexes cost, enveloping pit cost, size-reducing ring costs etc to avoid drawbacks for the group) had to admit that the costs to do this strategy went into the ten thousands gp. Also, in the few direct swordsage vs adept comparisons it came out that the ground-bound zombie (or skeleton) minions were not really THAAAT useful vs an iceclimbing, flying, swimming, burrowing dragon (meaning, in case such undead minions are not thaat useful in combat, that you need more gold to replace those destroyed). What does this leave us with? Yeah, in case the adept also uses dominate with cyst spells, he might also get human minions to avoid a suprise attack. But to have an army walking around you in general is a style of play not everyone in the group necessarily likes.
Most importantly, the monk could get feats or skill use and money to get minions, too. So, no particular adept advantage here.
2. Then, the finger dart spell was mentioned. In my view a can of worms, since the old 3.0 errata/BovD FAQ explicitly excludes game mechanisms to avoid the ability damage associated with it. It is too dodgy to rely a class performance on imo. And if it were accepted, everyone with that soulmeld trick could also UMD a wand of finger darts and do the same.
Again no adept advantage here.
3. Also, polymorph was mentioned. Problem: the moment you play with polymorph, the monk can also use it, say buy it (PaO anyone?).
Again, no adept advantage.
4. Then, some people mentioned the adept ability to create magic items. Quite useful, but not able to exceed wbl - or if it would, the monk could also do it.
Clearly, an adept advantage, but hardly a big one.
5. For a while, I thought one good thing for the adept would be to get an imp via improved familiar and then having access to commune and thus good divination/intelligence power. However, in the DMG where the improved familiar feat gets the adept an imp there is also described a way to get an imp as special cohort via leadership for all characters. Probably no DM I know of would allow the use of one DMG feat to provide an imp to one player but deny the use of another DMG feat to another player.
So, again, no adept advantage.
Which sort of makes one wonder: what does the 12th level adept offer, after all? Well, about a dozen spell effects per day, whose power level the monk also has (he can do greater invisibility already at level 2; can do blink at level 9; dimension door at level 12; a cure moderate wounds effect on himself at level 7; appears permanently hasted etc). Problem for the adept: the monk has better saves, AC, skills, hp - the whole base class chassis - that is vastly superior. It will even get worse for the adept at higher levels - as some have pointed out in the adept/swordsage comparison -, when the adept at most gets 5th level spells, while the monk gets things like spell resistance and etheralness.
Clear advantage monk. Small surprise here - since the adept is... an npc class!
So, by now we have established that both expert and adept must be a tier lower at least than the monk. Now, the swordsage.
Swordsage Has been shown to do multiple things well, and the builds are easily interchangeable. Through maneuvres, their mobility is much better than their monk. And their damage can be quite impressive through both charging and maneuvres. All in all the versatility of being sneaky and having manoeuvres puts the swordsage in tier 3. There has been some discussion as to where in Tier 3, but Prosecuted think that is to game dependant to reach a verdict on.
Here I must say I was overall fairly disappointed by the swordsage builds posted here (I think SorO_Lost had a good concept for a debuffing swordsage, but that used mostly non-swordsage material to do the trick and also, the build mechanics did not work the way SorO_Lost intended iirc).
Even so, I guess the swordsage PROBABLY is a higher tier than the monk, simply due to the many combo potentials out of the dozens of maneuvers available. But two tiers? Well, that pushes it too far.
Some thoughts as to why I think so:
1. The mobility. For instance, the ability to - once per encounter - teleport with line of sight and effect 50ft as a move (or even standard) action appears cool. But is it really better than the 50ft move the monk can do per move action (or more)? The moment the monk gets a flying item (and 12th level suggests this is quite often the case), he has at 12th level a flying speed of 100ft. This is double that in a move action than what the swordsage gets with his high-level maneuver. Ah, and add to this the monk abilities of blink and dimension door. No, the swordsage is definitely not more mobile than the monk.
2. The damage of the swordsage considered as quite impressive. Well... that of the UNARMED swordsage definitely is (it tells you something that the swordsage gets boosted so much by getting a powerful MONK ability for free).
But even so... The builds shown did NOT do more damage than my example 12th level monk builds. In fact, they did less (I remember vaguely that my monk did 150 damage per round with his double damage snap kick, plus his double stuns on top for which the swordsage builds here had shown no equivalent effects). What happened is that JaronK with his charger idea (I do not call it a build since he did not provide any) got the multipliers wrong. Also, charging depends on line of sight - something which a dragon with hide as class ability is not always going to offer. And also, as I have shown at that point in the thread above, a monk can also use the exact same charger build tricks.
3. Sneakyness. Well - also, when faced with the evidence provided here - I may ask: where is the big swordsage advantage in stealth here? You do not even need the dark moon disciple ACF: The invisible fist monk can turn invisible as an immediate action for a round (possibly using that as a way to find hiding, blinking behind a wall for instance). What does provide an advantage for the swordsage is the higher number of skill points to put into stealth-relevant skills. But here, also, the lack of spot as a class skill hurts. Darkstalker feat can be taken by both swordsage and monk, as could other stealth improving elements of the game. Swordsage can get hearing the air, but (apart from the fact that you can get blindsight in other ways in the game, and with more range), the monk due to spot as a class skill can get the skill trick to see invisible.
So, overall, monk and swordsage are quite similar in their powers and role in the group, and probably - in my eyes - would perform similarly well when faced with the three tier challenges (monk even having the advantage of diplomacy as a class skill for that social interaction):
1. My monk builds have shown that the monk can have a good chance at level 12 vs an adult white dragon (as a swordsage likely could when properly built);
2. Like the swordsage, the monk can use his stealth skills/abilities, plus sense motive and diplomacy/knowledge local (swordsage gets diplomacy via white raven martial study feat, monk knowledge local via knowledge devotion) to have a chance to find and gain the trust of a slave resistance leader.
3. Like the swordsage, the monk can use his stealth skills/abilities and high damage/round (and stuns besides) to knock out orc army officers to help the city vs their army's attack.
In total, though, the higher skill points, and the unarmed damage for the unarmed swordsage, plus the maneuver versatility likely leaves the swordsage in a higher tier than the monk.
That's it pretty much. Prosecuted would like to note that it has already provided the closing statement multiple times, and thus this serves merely as a reminder to the members of the jury.
My results in the following tier comparison: Swordsage, then monk, then npc classes like expert and adept.
That's about it.
- Giacomo