Adept vs monk: the final nail in the coffin

[Solo]

@LordBlades - interesting. Are there others with similar experiences? I remember from my experience that casters in the group with minions and summoned creatures took up significantly more time vis-a-vis casters and non-casters in the group acting just for themselves. And over time this creates in imbalance in attention time of the game that not all may like.

Rather like a monk demanding his party spend tons of buffs on him so he can perform adequately?

[Lycanthromancer]

@LordBlades - interesting. Are there others with similar experiences? I remember from my experience that casters in the group with minions and summoned creatures took up significantly more time vis-a-vis casters and non-casters in the group acting just for themselves. And over time this creates in imbalance in attention time of the game that not all may like.

Rather like a monk demanding his party spend tons of buffs on him so he can perform adequately?

Nah. That's totally different, for reasons that I'm sure Giacomo & Co will gleefully reveal.

Somehow.

[Kajhera]

I cackle gleefully when someone else plays a minion master, because - I like playing party buffer.

So much more fun to give a battalion +6 on attack and damage and 6d6 sonic damage on attacks, than just like two people in the party.  

(If your buffs aren't a radius or 'whoever can hear you', shoo and go play with the monk. I don't do things that way. Haste - every now and again is tolerable I guess.)

Actually playing the minion master on the other hand is not one of my strong suits as a player; I tried a summoning-focused druid but kinda got bored of having to control three things and have the stats for everything ready. I can barely keep track of my own inventory. Party didn't mind too much though.

[TenaciousJ]

@LordBlades - interesting. Are there others with similar experiences? I remember from my experience that casters in the group with minions and summoned creatures took up significantly more time vis-a-vis casters and non-casters in the group acting just for themselves. And over time this creates in imbalance in attention time of the game that not all may like.

- Giacomo

Don't confuse a player issue with a class issue.  I've played with a guy whose last 2 characters were a monk and a barbarian and his turns took forever because he couldn't decided between full attacks, trips, and grappling.  Everyone else was a caster (bard, cleric, and sorcerer) and took their turns quicker.  I think it's fair etiquette for a minion-controlling character to have stat-blocks and basic tactics worked out ahead of time and should be assumed since we're trying to compare classes and not players.

[Nachofan99]

I still think the dragon eats both dudes, easily, which kind of puts them into their tiers.  

Quick question, why is the dragon's Frightful Presence ability never mentioned?  

A bunch of "Weak" minions (low level NPCs/Commoners and even PCs) will fail their DC21 Will saves *often* (if the dragon has not boosted it) and even though the Adept has a very respectable +14 Will Save (Adept Failure only 30% of the time) the rest of his "entourage" does not fare so well. Imp Familiar with +7 Will, Failure 70% of the time + Assorted warbeasts - I imagine they have TERRIBLE Will saves? (Note if Adept is Flat-Footed none of his Save/Maneuver items can be used)  Undead zoo is obviously not affected which is a bonus for the Adept.  Maybe I missed some buffs or fear immunities or something; if so I appologize in advance.

The monk with +11 Will (Monk Failure 45% of the time - quite worse than the Adept) The monk definitely has it a lot harder here, and as I've said multiple times, both guys are probably going to lose anyways.

-2 To "everything" (Shaken) is a pretty good debuff for "free", and consider that it also gives -2 to Initiative (Dex checks).  If the minions happen to be particularly low level, then they are going to flat out Panic and flee.

The only things the monk has going for him is his slightly better stealth and that his initiative appears to be even (+9) with a Nerveskitter Dragon with Improved Initiative (also +9); if the Monk gets to roll initiative before failing his Will save at least his Initiative doesn't suffer, he also might get that one extra round of attacks in before the -2 kicks in.  The zombie/warbeast zoo can be heard far away and the Adept/Familiar/Zombies have initiative modifiers in the 2-3 range?  Sure the dragon has blindsense and the monk does not have darkstalker so at 60ft they roll initiative and see who goes first because the monk has a decent Spot; the Adept still looks like he is "automatically" getting Surprised, then Fear checks, then almost definitely losing initiative to a buffed, prepared dragon.

I also believe that the Monk has better flat-footed defenses than the Adept.

And for like the millionth time, I still think both guys are dragon chow with very little chance against a similarly optimized dragon.  Oh, I should have noted Giacomo's Monk and JaronK's Adept; I think the stealthy Adept with the fingerdarts is probably better overall.

[Bauglir]

@LordBlades - interesting. Are there others with similar experiences? I remember from my experience that casters in the group with minions and summoned creatures took up significantly more time vis-a-vis casters and non-casters in the group acting just for themselves. And over time this creates in imbalance in attention time of the game that not all may like.

Rather like a monk demanding his party spend tons of buffs on him so he can perform adequately?

Nah. That's totally different, for reasons that I'm sure Giacomo & Co will gleefully reveal.

Somehow.

I'm not even on Giacomo's side and I can explain why it's completely different. If you have one player with 20 turns, 19 of which are just "full-attack or charge as appropriate" and one of which is "be a motherfucking spellcaster", it's going to take longer just to run through all the die rolls and spell-related decision-making compared to the monk, who was prebuffed before battle (not taking any of the players' time) to some extent or another and still only has one turn of "full-attack or charge as appropriate". If the monk needs buffs in battle (probably does), that sucks because it IS probably a net disadvantage, but it still necessarily takes less time to run through "be a motherfucking spellcaster" to buff somebody than it does to run through "be a motherfucking spellcaster" to buff minions and also take your minions turns. The monk's player presumably has constant playtime spent, because it always has the same number of turns, so we can safely ignore that in the comparison.

This absolutely nothing to do with optimization, nor does it have to do with how many turns each creature in the game gets to take. It has only to do with how much time each player has to spend to run all of the turns that creatures that player controls have gotten.

Well, unless your DM runs your summons for you, but that just seems silly.

[Solo]

So Black Tentacles would also be a non-fun spell to cast, I assume.

[Solo]

Tangent: Was it Giacomo of GitP who suggested that the Monk was not dependent on other party members for his buffs because the Monk could take Leadership and get minions?

[Tshern]

Tangent: Was it Giacomo of GitP who suggested that the Monk was not dependent on other party members for his buffs because the Monk could take Leadership and get minions?

Quite possibly, although similar or even identical arguments are not unheard of.

[Infected]

Tangent: Was it Giacomo of GitP who suggested that the Monk was not dependent on other party members for his buffs because the Monk could take Leadership and get minions?

Yes, more or less.

"This basically gets you everything you need. For the higher spell levels, either get
- other casters casting (via npc spellcasters, cohort spellcasters or team member spellcasters)." - Giacomo ver. GitP

[Solo]

Well, this certainly is an interesting turn of events.

Infected, I find you way of denoting the real Giacomo quite amusing. I assume you noticed the difference in posting style, such as "Giacomo" being very rude and offensive?

Then again, we have a much less stringent code of conduct here, so it's possible that Roland St. Jude was the only think keeping Giacomo ver. GitP polite, and that he was always a raging douche-fag at heart.

[Sir Giacomo]

"This basically gets you everything you need. For the higher spell levels, either get
- other casters casting (via npc spellcasters, cohort spellcasters or team member spellcasters)." - Giacomo ver. GitP

It's really funny when people quote out of context and do not even notice how easy it is to detect said quoting out of context. The word "either" in that quote appears to suggest that maybe the quote was not provided in full.

Here is the quote from that core monk guide of mine on what to do for UMDing spells above 4th level in case they are needed for non-spellcasters in core:


 

- Giacomo

[Tshern]

Infected, I find you way of denoting the real Giacomo quite amusing. I assume you noticed the difference in posting style, such as "Giacomo" being very rude and offensive?

As I've said before, I find this quite unnecessary. Far as I know, we all operate under a nom de plume and quite a few of us have one that is used by someone else too. Whether or not the Sir Giacomo we have here is the one, who used to write to GitP forums is irrelevant.

Edit: A brief addition: I do not care or take opinions about who the Sir Giacomo posting here is. I simply do not give a fuck if someone goes to absurd lengths to mimic someone else. This is not me suggesting we have an impostor around.

[Solo]

So is a Monk having minions acceptable or not, "Giacomo"?

As I've said before, I find this quite unnecessary. Far as I know, we all operate under a nom de plume and quite a few of us have one that is used by someone else too. Whether or not the Sir Giacomo we have here is the one, who used to write to GitP forums is irrelevant.

Simo Hayha says that there is no kill like overkill.

[Lycanthromancer]

Well, this certainly is an interesting turn of events.

Infected, I find you way of denoting the real Giacomo quite amusing. I assume you noticed the difference in posting style, such as "Giacomo" being very rude and offensive?

Then again, we have a much less stringent code of conduct here, so it's possible that Roland St. Jude was the only think keeping Giacomo ver. GitP polite, and that he was always a raging douche-fag at heart.

I could remind you to watch the F-word around here.

Y'know, if I actually cared.

Others might, however.

[weenog]

So is a Monk having minions acceptable or not, "Giacomo"?

catsminions that are both there and not there until you collapse the wave function by deciding which is more convenient for the argument you want to make at the time.

[Tshern]

So is a Monk having minions acceptable or not, "Giacomo"?

As I've said before, I find this quite unnecessary. Far as I know, we all operate under a nom de plume and quite a few of us have one that is used by someone else too. Whether or not the Sir Giacomo we have here is the one, who used to write to GitP forums is irrelevant.

Simo Hayha says that there is no kill like overkill.

[Solo]

I can't make my browser put in umlauts.

[weenog]

I can't either, not directly anyway.  I copy+paste existing umlauts from other pages or my IRC client.

[Halinn]

Also, regarding any minion availability beyond the animated dead and the familiar: see also the monk's diplomacy skill.

Maybe it's just me, but I find diplomacy abuse quite a lot different from using a spell as it was intended. As an aside to that, how high is your monk's diplomacy score, since you keep saying that you can get minions that might as well have been dominated. Fanatic would be the aim here, for them to follow you about as well as a dominated creature, which puts at diplomacy DC at 50, if they were already helpful. You might get away with a reliable 30 (indifferent to helpful), if you just want them to go into the dragon cave with you, but then they definitely won't be as controllable as dominated minions.

Edit: and I checked, this amazing diplomancer monk has a diplomacy score of: +16, including a masterwork item of diplomacy. That is a fairly good chance of convincing someone who was already friendly to take a couple of risks in aiding you, or get someone who doesn't care either way to offer you limited help or give you advice. Nowhere near getting minions with it, though.