Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin

[Shiki]

^Arguably you can go Carmendine Monk/Kung Fu Genius to switch Wis for Int, which will result in more skill points, but there goes one feat from your already limited pool of feats. Sooo, yeah.


Tashalatora makes up for good monks, but those are not monks anymore, eh. /swt

[SorO_Lost]

Why would he lose initiative in the 60 ft. apart example?

He might not, but what is he going to do?  Charge?  An expert can take 1d6+2.  Seriously, Monks do shit for damage.

The words "Charge" and negative expressed "damage" NEVER go together. In fact, a Monk is a better uber charger than anyone else.

@Summerstorm and you highlight why the Expert thread is pure fail. It's pretending Expert vs Monk, but all it really is about Iaiajitsu, UMD, and PSD is more effective than the Monk's single X trait. Personally, if I could lose one skill point per level in exchange for +6 to Fort/Relf, I'd do it with every single character I've ever made and you haven't even started talking about class features or how many skill points I can trade in. If you asked me if Iaijitsu Strike was better than Unarmed Damage, I'd ask if you were high. When told "throwing gold at a challenge means you win", the only thing the Adapt is capable of, then by default anything with a level is made of win and their argument collapses into it's self. Take for instance the monk's 3 feats. Trolls say the list sucks and blammo supposedly they have no value. But having a whole 10 points in UMD by level 20 over the Monk when DCs cap at 30 is massively relevant, it's so relevant that you need to take Handle Animal and train a pet for it to win your fights for you.

[Nachofan99]

@ SorO+Summer:  Pretty much the same way I feel.  Only a terrible DM would allow such shenanigans to pass off in their game, and in that case, no PC of ANY class is going to have a problem doing anything because it seems like everything is tailor made for them to succeed.  Sounds like a boring campaign to me.

[Sobolev]

@ SorO+Summer:  Pretty much the same way I feel.  Only a terrible DM would allow such shenanigans to pass off in their game, and in that case, no PC of ANY class is going to have a problem doing anything because it seems like everything is tailor made for them to succeed.  Sounds like a boring campaign to me.

*sigh*

[ninjarabbit]

In all fairness, it's not just the Monk who gets outshone by the Adept. 

JaronK

Truth but some people need to be educated.....but then again there are some people who will completely ignore facts and logical reasoning.

[Mixster]

And much, much more. And seriously... i see the monk win in MOST, but of course not all challenges. Anything outside their classes is pretty much limited free for all anyway, so we can and should only rate in-class abilities. Expert DOES have obscure skills - and more skillpoints, (but seriously... wrestling a monk in his dreams? That is insanely circumstancial) and the Adepts has a few low-level spells. NO way that catapults him on the scale ahead, and if the monks abilities are weakish. (Yeah the freefall ability should provide movements in higher levels - spiderclimb, gliding - and yeah his self-healing should be a tick better... and yeah Abundent Step and Quivering hands should be usable more often, and he should have a DR/Chaotic growing through the levels... but STILL: Evasion, broad saves, immunities, ground mobility, combat feats... it is not THAT bad)

Yeah, in a straight on one on one fight with little to no preparation the monk has a decent chance. But if you start thinking about doing something that contributes to the party. Monk doesn't do much. Adept and expert does.

And it's not to say that the monk can't have a niche, Wild Monk gets a niche as a decent damage dealer and a party scout. But the core monks niche extremely narrow, since all he does really well is survive, and due to his low HD he isn't actually too good at that. Yeah sure, he's probably better than the expert and the adept at surviving, but his other talents are just not that good.
An Adept and an expert can function as low tier casters and scouts. But the monk just doesn't function that well.

Therefore in a Tier 4 & 5 Party, adepts and expert contribute, while experts are probably just worse than the rogue at what they do. They can still add something to a Tier 5 party. The monk, while more powerful all-round, is not adding anything to the party.

If we are accepting the wild monk/martial monk, I totally agree that he can probably outshine the adept & totally outshine the expert. If not, all his got are better defense and perhaps a slightly better damage output. Still nothing compared to the versatility of the expert and the spells of the adept.

[ninjarabbit]

The issue with the wild monk is that it's a reflection of how good wildshape is, not how good the monk and its class features are. Wildshape pretty much bumps up any class up a tier, look at the wildshape ranger for example.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

But I probably wouldn't argue about it for pages on end

amen

Because if this is meant as a joke, it's not even that funny. And if not, I hate you all.

Huh?

[LordBlades]

@ SorO+Summer:  Pretty much the same way I feel.  Only a terrible DM would allow such shenanigans to pass off in their game, and in that case, no PC of ANY class is going to have a problem doing anything because it seems like everything is tailor made for them to succeed.  Sounds like a boring campaign to me.

Well, since the expert's only class feature is getting to pick class skills it's unsurprising that expert optimization will involve skill optimization. Expert is a skill monkey per definition, and it's pretty good at that.
Adept has polymorph, and that alone is worth more than the entire monk class, especially when coupled with familiar and share spells. Barring that, it's a decent support caster, has some battlefield control (about 1 good spell at every level), and can heal.
The monk however, is pretty terrible at everything the class tries to do(mobile melee combatant).

[SorO_Lost]

But I probably wouldn't argue about it for pages on end

amen

Oooh, this is like those naked women posters on 4chan where you comment on the background right?
Because if this is meant as a joke, it's not even that funny. And if not, I hate you all.

Huh?

Yeah idk if I meant it as a poor joke akin to this thread or if I really would hate you all. It does help to have that first line in there, other wise when I mentioned the dislike towards those posters-in-a-poster things that continue the terrabad joke you won't get it at all. Really though, as four years ago bitching about the Monk was old news, and as of yesterday I realized the Barbarian committed suicide prior to that.

[oslecamo]

The issue with the wild monk is that it's a reflection of how good wildshape is, not how good the monk and its class features are. Wildshape pretty much bumps up any class up a tier, look at the wildshape ranger for example.

All that the adept gets are spells. Spells  that other classes can get. So by your definition the adept suckorz because he's just a reflection of how good spellcasting is.

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

[Mixster]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

Mostly because I don't think anyone is arguing that the Wild Monks are worse than an expert, nor that he is worse than an adept.

[Sobolev]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

Mostly because I don't think anyone is arguing that the Wild Monks are worse than an expert, nor that he is worse than an adept.

This.  We all agree Wild Monks are substantially better, but they also aren't what most people mean when they say monk. 

[oslecamo]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

Mostly because I don't think anyone is arguing that the Wild Monks are worse than an expert, nor that he is worse than an adept.

This.  We all agree Wild Monks are substantially better, but they also aren't what most people mean when they say monk. 

It works both ways. So the adept is a magic user? Well what most people think when they say magic user is either nuking or healing.

So it's only fair that the adept only gets to use pure damage and pure healing spells.

[the_shadowmind]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

Mostly because I don't think anyone is arguing that the Wild Monks are worse than an expert, nor that he is worse than an adept.

This.  We all agree Wild Monks are substantially better, but they also aren't what most people mean when they say monk. 
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It works both ways. So the adept is a magic user? Well what most people think when they say magic user is either nuking or healing.

So it's only fair that the adept only gets to use pure damage and pure healing spells.

I think a better argument against the Wild monk is that it is a variant from Dragon Magazine.  If it was from one of the Complete Series it would be on of the first things listed when people ask for Monk help. If it was from a web article it would get linked often. But due to the obscure nature, traditionally poorly balanced, and more difficult to access nature of Dragon Magazine makes even the good material from it gets little use.

[Sinfire Titan]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it?

That isn't RAW, that's Paizo. As for the PsiWar getting Metamorphosis early, I have no idea how that works.

[veekie]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it? A lot of people here seem to be all cool with allowing homebrew for the psywarrior to get metamorphosis extra early, but the monk can't get the nice things the actual rules allow him why again?

Mostly because I don't think anyone is arguing that the Wild Monks are worse than an expert, nor that he is worse than an adept.

This.  We all agree Wild Monks are substantially better, but they also aren't what most people mean when they say monk.  

It works both ways. So the adept is a magic user? Well what most people think when they say magic user is either nuking or healing.

So it's only fair that the adept only gets to use pure damage and pure healing spells.

Not exactly, but the argument is mainly that a straight adept beats a straight monk in terms of usability.
The adept's spell list is not expanded significantly by supplement sources, he needs nothing but core...except core is all he needs, and core is usually approved.
The expert truly needs only UMD and scrolls to be combat effective. To be generally effective he just needs to be himself.
The monk's usability hinges on either a monk variant from an obscure source(which may or may not violate the monk's image), or else feats from multiple campaign/obscure sources(Truth be told I hadn't even heard of half the things used to give the monk a fighting chance until the Expert vs Monk thread). Most of these methods gain no advantage from being a monk. You could do the same thing with a spell-less wizard for the most part.

[SorO_Lost]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it?

That isn't RAW, that's Paizo. As for the PsiWar getting Metamorphosis early, I have no idea how that works.

Oh I know!
UPD.

...Ok not really.

The expert truly needs only UMD and scrolls to be combat effective. To be generally effective he just needs to be himself.
The monk's usability hinges on either a monk variant from an obscure source(which may or may not violate the monk's image), or else feats from multiple campaign/obscure sources(Truth be told I hadn't even heard of half the things used to give the monk a fighting chance until the Expert vs Monk thread). Most of these methods gain no advantage from being a monk. You could do the same thing with a spell-less wizard for the most part.

I wasn't aware Races of Destiny(Able Learner) was either a campaign or obscure source. Srsly that's all you got? A Monk using UMD doesn't fit my image of the Monk, so I must be right. Great job convincing me so far. 

[Sobolev]

If the monk can get wildshape by RAW, why not the hell allow him to get it?

That isn't RAW, that's Paizo. As for the PsiWar getting Metamorphosis early, I have no idea how that works.

Oh I know!
UPD.

...Ok not really.

The expert truly needs only UMD and scrolls to be combat effective. To be generally effective he just needs to be himself.
The monk's usability hinges on either a monk variant from an obscure source(which may or may not violate the monk's image), or else feats from multiple campaign/obscure sources(Truth be told I hadn't even heard of half the things used to give the monk a fighting chance until the Expert vs Monk thread). Most of these methods gain no advantage from being a monk. You could do the same thing with a spell-less wizard for the most part.

I wasn't aware Races of Destiny(Able Learner) was either a campaign or obscure source. Srsly that's all you got? A Monk using UMD doesn't fit my image of the Monk, so I must be right. Great job convincing me so far. 

He was talking about the one from KoK Skill Prodigy, which is both obscure and a campaign setting, since that's what was used in the other thread.  Able Learner seems mostly irrelevant in this conversation?

[oslecamo]

Not exactly, but the argument is mainly that a straight adept beats a straight monk in terms of usability.
The adept's spell list is not expanded significantly by supplement sources, he needs nothing but core...except core is all he needs, and core is usually approved.

If we're gonna put arbitary limitations then I choose to remove the spell section of Core. Adept and Monk fight head on whitout magic trickeries! It's only fair because basic combat rules are all he needs in this case, and basic combat rules are usually approved (at least more aproved than certain spells).

The expert truly needs only UMD and scrolls to be combat effective. To be generally effective he just needs to be himself.

1-The expert on that thread was picking Iajutsu Focus, an obscure feat to get trapfinding and several other noncore tricks as key parts of its build.
2-It has been stablished several times that UMD with magic items alone isn't a valid tactic, even for rogues that get it as a class skill. Why does the expert gets a free pass again?

The monk's usability hinges on either a monk variant from an obscure source(which may or may not violate the monk's image), or else feats from multiple campaign/obscure sources(Truth be told I hadn't even heard of half the things used to give the monk a fighting chance until the Expert vs Monk thread). Most of these methods gain no advantage from being a monk. You could do the same thing with a spell-less wizard for the most part.

I could make an UMD user with pretty damn anything. Again, why does the expert gets a free pass at it?