Author Topic: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]  (Read 250297 times)

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Bier

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #40 on: September 12, 2008, 02:23:21 PM »
The standard modern martial artist, if confronted with an actual weapon, is generally inclined to withdraw.  the whole slew of disarm moves generally only work if the weapon wielder is much less skilled then  you.

I.e. Sword beats fist, pretty much a universal rule.  That's why we use weapons, after all.
-------

Variable xp tables have their uses from a power standpoint, and in the end might very well be simpler to do then trying to balance all the crazy spellcasters against non-spellcasters.  In 1E, an 18th level wizard was comparing himself to a f/23, for example.  With significant wealth/level advantages, those who level quicker clearly can bring more balancing forces into play to offset spells.  In other words, let the wealth system balance things out, instead of trying to do it with class features that are hard to equate to one another...people can instinctively equate gp to power better then power to power, in many cases...

Which does not bring me into the camp of allowing the cleric to level as fast as he did in 1E....

====

I've never been a fan of multi-classing by level...I rather like the old 1E version best, but just adapted it to 3E with zero levels, allowing people to add up to half their level in 'off classes' to round out their primary paths of study, but without all the real and substantial benefits of 'levelling up'.  Thus, you could level sideways, or level up, diversity vs. power.  If you institute training reqs for power, this actually becomes pretty simple to handle...PC's can only level up with access to higher level NPC's and/or significant downtime and access to resources, but if you want to pick up some basic skills from other party members on the go, that's quick and easy.

But, to each their own.  It added a little complication to the flexibility, in return for some versatility.  The only main thing I'd do for multiclassing is drop the +2 save bonuses at the start of the classes...never saw why those were deserved.

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Orion

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #41 on: September 12, 2008, 02:42:05 PM »
The standard modern martial artist, if confronted with an actual weapon, is generally inclined to withdraw.  the whole slew of disarm moves generally only work if the weapon wielder is much less skilled then  you.
But in the standard martial artist movie (RPGs are based on fiction and cinema after all), a weaponless martial artist is often portrayed as the equal to someone with weapons and armour. Now, to get that effect in D&D, you need to basically ban martial artists from using weapons most of the time, somehow, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense on any level.

Personally, I just don't think monks belong in a Western-themed game, and not because they didn't exist in Europe (although they really, really didn't!), but because they just don't fit the genre of D&D, which is very much based on fantasy novels of the early/mid-20th century. My vote is to just ditch the monk entirely. It fits in an Asian-themed RPG, like Five Rings or Oriental Adventures, but not standard, de-facto European D&D worlds.

RobbyPants

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #42 on: September 12, 2008, 02:55:47 PM »
Personally, I just don't think monks belong in a Western-themed game, and not because they didn't exist in Europe (although they really, really didn't!), but because they just don't fit the genre of D&D, which is very much based on fantasy novels of the early/mid-20th century. My vote is to just ditch the monk entirely. It fits in an Asian-themed RPG, like Five Rings or Oriental Adventures, but not standard, de-facto European D&D worlds.
Well, you don't have to include them in your own game.  Still, I think they should be available in case someone's running a different campaign setting.
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Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #43 on: September 12, 2008, 03:01:28 PM »
The problem with that, Robby, is that they don't balance very well with the alternatives.

In Monks Are Badass movies, monks do pwn the armed and armored. But that would require a game where its all about monks (to the point where it would be good to have half a dozen classes, or at least detailed variants, for it)

I don't want to drop the monk, but I'd like to avoid that mess.
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Orion

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #44 on: September 12, 2008, 07:25:05 PM »
I agree on both counts. I don't want to take the option away for others, but in my own games, I'm perfectly happy to "solve" the monk's balance issues by dumping the class. Doesn't help any one who wants to actually play one, mind you.

I think the route that the designers took was to limit the monk's ability to use weapons/armour, so that they're basically funnelled into using unarmed strikes, hence the flurry, the AC bonus, and the unarmed damage dice (and I vaguely recall that they had "good" BAB with unarmed strikes but not weapons in 3.0? maybe?). I think the problem is that it's hard to make the monk combat effective when we still don't have a basic "melee fighter" class that's combat effective in comparison to the wizard/cleric/druid. Once someone hammers out a good fighter, you can base a monk off of it, I'd think.

Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #45 on: September 12, 2008, 08:09:18 PM »
In 3e, they got an unarmed attack rate like this "+10/+7/+4/+1" instead of "+10/+5"

One thing I do not want to have done under any circumstances to make monks as good at dealing damage, taking damage, avoiding being hit, and hitting people as regular armed and armored fighters.

That makes weapons and armor useless...worse than useless. This is BAD except for games where unarmed is supposed to make armed kind of pointless.

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Kuroimaken

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #46 on: September 12, 2008, 08:38:31 PM »
Okay, much as I'm trying to, I find myself... REALLY compelled to disagree on a lot of levels except for mechanical ones, here.

1) Unarmed people do not beat armed people.

This is a fucking myth. I've been training Kenjutsu for a good 4-5 years now. You know that move where you catch the blade with your palms? That's a myth. There ARE, however, any number of maneuvers that can be used on an armed opponent when you're disarmed that do not necessarily imply greater skill. Heck, we're trained in Kenjutsu to prefer dodging to parrying. And if anything, fighting someone with a katana at fisticuff range is a recipe for disaster - for the swordsman, due to something called 'Maai', or range. To simplify: having a greater range when you've got someone closer than your actual range means being at a disadvantage. Surprisingly, D&D exemplifies this nicely with a swordsman v. spearsman scenario, except in a real-life scenario, the swordsman wouldn't just let the spearsman retreat.

And this is still real life I'm talking about here. In fantasy, the scale gets changed way higher.

2) Monks do not belong in western fantasy.

Okay. Argument A: Conan is a staple of western fantasy, and it DOES have monks. Argument B: there's no such thing as pre-stablished western fantasy. There's also sure as hell no pre-stablished D&D setting, either. We're trying to make the monk work mechanically, not trying to make him "believable" or some fluffy shit like that.

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Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #47 on: September 12, 2008, 08:51:12 PM »
1) Can an unarmed person beat someone with a weapon? Yes. Is it more difficult, assuming equal strength and skill (experience+training+talent)? YES. Much more so, or no one would have bothered making artificial weapons. Human fists and feet are not useless by any means, but we didn't forge swords as some phallic symbol thing, we did it because swords>fists.

In order to make "guy with a sword" at a disadvantage, you have to close to fisticuff range without being mauled in the process. Easier said than done. If we can assume that unarmed fighters are fast enough to close in, we can assume that armed fighters are fast enough to stay out of fisticuff range and hurt people with sharp objects who try and rush in.

I'm not a student of combat, but as a student of history, I know that weapons were used for a reason, and that reason is that we don't do as well without them, unlike tigers and bears.

2) Not commonly, as I understand. I haven't read Conan, though I have something better than the average nonreader's familarity. I don't recall any monks in D&D's sense in what I've read...though I wouldn't be surprised if there's something like that. Probably more "mystics" and "martial artists" rather than "mystic martial artists", however.

As to not worried about believable: I'm (NOT) sorry, but if I want to play something that makes no fucking sense in any respect that my character might possibly understand, I'll get someone to fuck with my brain so I have multiple personalities, convince one of them that its just a playing piece in a game, and get stoned. Really, really, really, really stoned.

That'd be about as much fun as playing where things make no sense whatsoever and its excused by "It's just a game!!!!!!!" and "It's fantasy!!!!!!!" dominate. More expensive, but on the bright side, I wouldn't be able to recognize it was stupid and unnecessarily so.

Appologies for any insult given, but the idea that "It's a game" and "it's fantasy" mean that it being believable is irrelevant is something that belongs in this about as much as a calculation of how many milimeters of armor it takes to stop a crossbow bolt from causing injury on a windy day.
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Shadowhowler

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #48 on: September 12, 2008, 09:06:15 PM »
I've been training Kenjutsu for a good 4-5 years now. You know that move where you catch the blade with your palms? That's a myth. There ARE, however, any number of maneuvers that can be used on an armed opponent when you're disarmed that do not necessarily imply greater skill. Heck, we're trained in Kenjutsu to prefer dodging to parrying.

 
 
There is a very simple reason for that. Katana are not well suited to parrying, dispite what the movies have made people think. Traditional Katana are differantaly hardened, meaning the edge of the blade is harder then the spine or back of the blade. The allows the blade to keep a SUPER sharp edge... the whole basis for a katana's ledgendary cutting power... but since blade has two differant levels of hadness, a katana can take a set very easily. (A set is a bend in the blade.) Used skillfully, a katana can cut threw soft and medium dense targets REALLY well. Cut wrong, and you bend the blade. A parry can also bend the blade.
 
Movies like Highlander which show people bashing katana into each other... that is NOT the way you use those swords. A monosteel sword... such as the europian longswords and their ilk... those can bash into each other and sustain only moderate knicks and dings, assuming they are well tempered. A katana stands a HUGE chance of taking a set if used to parry.
 
 
Now that I've babbled on...
 
 
I agree with what others have said here. Unarmed combat should not be the equal of armed combat. If it was, man would have had little need to develop weapons. That said... the fact that fiction depicts amazing feats of unarmed vs armed combat does not mean that unarmed was BETTER then armed... the characters in question could have simply been much higher level then their armed opponents.
 
Basicly... all things being equal... level, race, stats... armed combat should be better then unarmed combat.

Mister_Sinister

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #49 on: September 12, 2008, 09:10:58 PM »
Something everyone seems to be forgetting: monks can, and DO, use weapons. Their unarmed strike is only something they use because, in general, monk weapons blow,as they get neither the feats nor the BAB to take advantage of them properly.

To be honest, you can solve many of the monk's problems by making it less MAD, giving it abilities which are more than just flavour text and random crap, and giving it full BAB. It really is that simple.

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Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #50 on: September 12, 2008, 09:16:49 PM »
And making monk unarmed damage at a tolerably reasonable level (I'd cap it at 1d10 or 2d6 for Medium sized monks, at the absolute most), so that it doesn't look sexier than it really is.

Similiary, quarterstaffs (and bo staffs) are surprisingly good weapons.

Their stats should reflect that. Including the fact that Western staffplay involves a fair amount of "use as a THF style"

This is meant as a statement on both reality and legend (Robin Hood, to be precise).

Monks with full BAB need to be kept from being full out toe-to-toe combatants...that's not their approach. But that's not a problem, is it? If we can make Dedes work, we can definately make monks work.

Speaking of. Monks should be able to wear armor. Monks didn't wear armor, and  not for combat reasons. Being armored is a noisy statement that you're a warrior. Not something many monks in the historical sense wanted to make, except for the warrior-monk groups which were...well, nuts and known to be nuts.

Of course, armor hinders (though not as much as D&D would have you think) acrobatics, but tradeoffs are tradeoffs.
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Kuroimaken

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #51 on: September 12, 2008, 09:18:09 PM »
1) You're thinking in terms of D&D math, not real world math. There is no such thing as an absolute quantification of speed/strength/skill in the real world. Two swordsmen of equal "grade" can have entirely too different approaches to defense and strategy, including but not limited to parrying and dodging, when to advance and when to attack, and so on and forth. However, unarmed martial arts more often than not have techniques that deal with weapons specifically because they perceive a disadvantage.

Also: your knowledge of history is likely limited to western history. In China, martial arts are either as old as or older than the country itself, and even so many traditions of unarmed martial arts that were used by armies millenia before Christ are still trained today. Yet, Chinese armies used weapons because it's easier to kill someone by stabbing him or her in the gut than it is to train someone until they can do that with a single punch. It's about logistics, not inherent superiority. This is not the same as saying a good swordsman beats a sniper, mind you, but weapons are not inherently superior to the human body by virtue of being artificial (especially because they are wielded by humans in the first place).

2) As noted before, kicking a class off because it doesn't fit the fluff you're used to DOES NOT fix the class itself. In doing so, you're using the same strategy you claim to abhor, except you're changing what you do and the excuse used. I have no patience for that. We're trying to get the mechanics out of the way, not decide fluff.

EDIT: Shadowhowler, one thing you may not be aware of: parrying with a katana either involves you bending the blade sideways in such a way as to make the opponent weapon slide harmlessly off the body, or "slapping" the opponent's weapon sideways so it veers off course. Granted that parrying more often will require you to take better care of your weapon, but that's not the end-all-be-all reason we do it.
« Last Edit: September 12, 2008, 09:22:03 PM by Kuroimaken »
Gendou Ikari is basically Gregory House in Kaminashades. This is FACT.

For proof, look here:

http://www.layoutjelly.com/image_27/gendo_ikari/

[SPOILER]
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Katana of Enlightenment.
Get yours.[/SPOILER]

I HAVE BROKEN THE 69 INTERNETS BARRIER!


Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #52 on: September 12, 2008, 09:26:37 PM »
1) No, I'm pointing out that if you and I were about equal (both with ten years of experience and training and neither of us with faster reflexes than the other, say, and both equally well built)...etc. Sure, its easier to measure that exactly in game terms than RL, but there are fighters who are roughly "equal" to each other and fighters who are obviously on different levels. I wouldn't take an average Roman legionary against Jet Li without betting big money on Jet Li. (I mean Jet Li IRL, not his movie roles. That'd just be overkill.)

Weapons are superior because weapons do a much better job without extremely intensive training, which still is not equal to weapons against armored foes (steel is sturdier than flesh, very annoying of it).

I am more familiar with Western history than Eastern history, but the limits of the human body are the same whether you're born in Japan or Denmark. The advantages of a cutting edge on a weapon vs. a club are the same, too. Etc.

2) Fluff and mechanics need to be related to each other, not treated as utterly foreign. I'd be perfectly fine with a monk in a quasi-European setting if there was a way to fit them into the setting as well as balance the class. The two both need work.
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Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #53 on: September 12, 2008, 09:46:07 PM »
Speaaaaking of monks.

Part of this is Sinister's ideas.

Monks shouldn't be competing for "most damage". Monks should be doing all sorts of nasty tricks like grappling, tripping, disarming, throwing, and otherwise throughly frustrating opponents. And then there's the mystical stuff.

Borrowing from GURPS Martial Arts's "cinematic skills":

Blinding Touch.
Body Control (the user can controal and affect involuntary biological functions like heart rate, blood flow, and digestion)
Breaking Blow
Flying Leap
Hand of Death
Immovable Stance (You try to trip this monk)
Light Walk ("Experts were rumored to be able to walk over thin paper without breaking it)
Pressure Points (Acupuncture but to hurt)
Push (a very "gentle' push)

All sorts of chi powered things, basically. Chi is supposedly able to work miracles. In our world, that apperas to be about 70-85% legend. In a fantasy setting, that being true is quite believable and quite possible.

I'm not familiar enough with the legends to state all the things that could come of it, but the above list is a pretty good indication of how properly used chi and extraordinary training works not-so-minor miracles.

...hey, that would explain how Jesus walked on water, too.
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Mister_Sinister

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #54 on: September 12, 2008, 10:33:15 PM »
Quote from: Elennsar
Blinding Touch.
Body Control (the user can controal and affect involuntary biological functions like heart rate, blood flow, and digestion)
Breaking Blow
Flying Leap
Hand of Death
Immovable Stance (You try to trip this monk)
Light Walk ("Experts were rumored to be able to walk over thin paper without breaking it)
Pressure Points (Acupuncture but to hurt)
Push (a very "gentle' push)

Some ways we can make this work in our pet game:

Blinding Touch: Touch attack which induces short-term blindness (1d4 rounds, or 1/4 character level rounds, or something), likely with a Will save to resist.
Body Control: My best suggestion is a chance to ignore certain conditions (poison, disease, some status effects, possibly stat damage) with a Concentration check, or just outright immunity in some cases.
Breaking Blow: Some mental stat to breaking stuff, on attack and damage rolls both, or some kind of AC depleter (perhaps reducing DR or AC, or both, by some mental stat bonus?)
Flying Leap: Something like the airstep sandals soulmeld.
Hand of Death: Quivering palm, with more uses and less suck. Convert it to Con damage!
Immovable Stance: Stance which gives some mental stat to resist combat manoeuvres.
Light Walk: Concentration ranks determine the effect - lowest allows you to walk on thin ice, higher ones give thin paper or water, and so on. I would suggest 'determinant thresholds' at 4, 8, 12 and 16 ranks.
Pressure Points: Some kind of pseudo-sneak based on the results of a Heal or Sense Motive check? Think something like Knowledge Devotion, except with dice instead of points.
Push: Ranged bull rush, off mental stat.

Just off the top.

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Orion

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #55 on: September 12, 2008, 10:37:15 PM »
I think Elennsar's on the right track: figure out what the monk is supposed to do, and then fashion a set of class features that allow the monk to do those things at a level that is approximately equal to the other classes.

I think monks should excel at unarmed combat. That's the thing that makes them special. If you want to play a martial artist who specialises in spears and swords, then play a fighter* and name him "Wong Chin-Bo." If you want a martial artist who's great with fists and blades, then play a fighter/monk and name him "Wong Chin-Bo."

*Assuming you've got a working version of the fighter, obviously.

Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #56 on: September 12, 2008, 10:40:13 PM »
The problem is that there's no real reason to tie "I can do mad crazy stuff with my fists" to monks.

Gladiators using Pancratium do the purely physical "I can kick your fucking ass" aspects of fighting unarmed verrrrry well. And they're definately not anything like monks.

If you want a martial artist (without the mystic stuff), we need to fix the fighter...whether you use fists, spears, swords etc is not relevant. If you -do- want the mystic stuff, you want the monk.
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Shadowhowler

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #57 on: September 12, 2008, 10:52:53 PM »
Something everyone seems to be forgetting: monks can, and DO, use weapons. Their unarmed strike is only something they use because, in general, monk weapons blow,as they get neither the feats nor the BAB to take advantage of them properly.

To be honest, you can solve many of the monk's problems by making it less MAD, giving it abilities which are more than just flavour text and random crap, and giving it full BAB. It really is that simple.

 
 
Agree 100%. One of the first house rules I used was to alter the Monk's weapon list... because they one they have no is stupid beyond belife. Every Monk, regardless of location, style or philosophy used a kama, a Sai, or a Signham? A friggin Siangham, an obscure almost unknown Malaysian weapon? Where are other Monk like weapons? I decided to allow Players to build a 'style' for their Monks, a make a list of weapons for that style.
 
Also, I agree with the above mentioned fixes for most of the Monk's epic lameness.

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #58 on: September 12, 2008, 11:18:49 PM »
I don't agree with the "Western fantasy" thing . . . You mean like Cane in kung fu?
The Knights Templar were comprised primarily of monks. ... by they way.

1. No. Fluff should not affect mechanics. That's why D&D is Fucked up and imbalanced now. Generations of people trying to make the system fit the fluff.
You know how I know thats bullshit, because fluff it ultimately mutable. Mechanics aren't, this is evidenced in the Table trumps text argument.
Also? An elf for every occasion. 3.5 has a fuckload of elves. Why? People like elves and want pretty and thin people to be "powerful" so ... basically because of people trying to fit the "fluff" (magic, mysterious...etc...)
to the crunch. In various circumstances Elves get all kinds of fucking prcs and dwarves/orcs/halflings get fucked comparatively.

Katana's... the fluff/propagand is stupid. We have to make rational decisions. Fluff leads to irrational decisions.

2. I think we need to stop the Wuxia hate.
Its selfish, because you dont' like monks in your game for flavor reasons doesn't imply that we're not going to give an equal amount of time to it because MANY people LOVE monks as illustrated by the furious work of that guy on Gitp.

3. That being said. For people who don't like monks I suggest reflavoring. Which means many many things but please allow me to define/propose somethings?

Monk in D&D: Ultimately a monk is a person who internalizes the ambient magic of the D&D world turning themselves into a MDC being. . .
...Wait. I mean a minor supernatural creature. It doesn't have to have anything to do with asia, ancient schools or anything. Instead of casting magic, these dudes use techniques that allow them to become magical, which manifest in various ways. Ulitimately it gives them super powers.
Now. . .
I've lost my original post. but there are a few things that you can use to explain that instead of Martial arts esoterica.
a. "Bloodlines" : Long ago a kindgom ruled by immoral high mages wanted to have more powerful body guards, more perfect servants. Not willing to share the magic power they attained... they then proceeded to hevily experiment on portions of the populace, and it went well, they suceeded but the kingdom fell eventually ,and monks are people who descend from that. By focusing on themselves they transcend thier humanity tapping the fundemental laws of reality, to become something more(or less) than human.
b. Weapon X: that kingdom above? I lied, it's happening now. Monks are rare and only few of them exist but they are badass. The don't need swords or spells they just do all kinds of awesome shit and said shit is inherent. Because ... Mages did it to me.
c. Next stage in evolution. . . many humans are being born with the potential to be more than that. The cluster in schools to understand thier gifts, and protect a world that hates and fears them. Yeah, well can make monks "those gusy"
d. The Chosen ones: An ancient force, can be tapped, maybe a surviving titan, Prometeus type figure, loves humanity / or maybe some other hidden primal force... chooses certain people to bless with his gifts. He's not a god and he's imprisoned and this is the only way he can get out by diseminating his essence though mortals, kind of a back door out of the cage. Only people of high wisdom and disciplne will do. So while many of these people would have became clerics... instead they are chosen by this "Thing" and start do gain some of his semi divine/profane essence.
e. Great accident: I was just a normal servant untill... The comet struck the earth/ the magic plague stuck/ the gods came to earth. . . Now, I'm faster than anyone I know, blades barely hurt me, and magic washed off me like water. Where I go from here, anybodies guess.
 Something happened. Something BIG... the people who were touched by it were changed forever. WIth incredible potential to grow and transcend.

Now... all that being said.
I think we should out right replace the MONK CLASS, with Swordsage.
Because again the fluff of it, doesn't matter.
Warblade and fighter actually almost word for word have the same fluff...
Fluff shuold only be a gross generic Idea of what we want the mechanics to represent. They should not affect what we do with the mechanics in regards to balance. . .
\\\"Disentegrate.\\\" \\\"Gust of wind.\\\" \\\"Now Can we PLEASE resume saving the world?\\\"

Elennsar

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Re: D&D Core Classes [Rebalancing 3.5]
« Reply #59 on: September 12, 2008, 11:24:26 PM »
1) The Knights Templar, in D&D, were Fighters, maybe Paladins (if we assume magic is real and completely ignore the alignment). Nothing like monks in any sense rpgs have used the term, ever.

2) Your definition of fluff and what the rest of us are working from seem to vary.

3) Wuxia hate? Where?

4) Some promising ideas, maybe.

5) I'm really, really not sure what you're using to mean fluff (which is thusly irrelevant) here.
Faith can move mountains. It still can't deflect bullets.



"Communication with humans." is a cross-class skill for me. Please bear this in mind.