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The Monk. Hmmmm.....a "Fighter" but low HP and no armor, and the first couple levels he's basically fighting with a dagger. (d4 damage)
Powers are out of whack. Speak with Plants?! A Druid doesnt even get that innate ability.
Why would a Monk pick locks??
At 5th level a Magic-user can cast mighty 3rd level spells. A Monk can "play dead" (good doggy!) Feign Death......

I ahve several versions of the Monk- Castles & Crusades, AEC, AD&D, even Brave Halfling's - Delving Deeper. Even THe Best Of Dragon magazine #3 suggests amny changes to the Monk.

Im working on revamped version of the Monk- but I want your input.

I don't even know what "Castles & Crusades" is? Is there an online resource where I can read up on it?

Feign Death should be much earlier, maybe even level one. Having control over your body (if you're thinking an "eastern monk") is what a monk is all about. Something like FD they would learn before they became 'a monk.'

When I've played a monk (only a few times), I didn't even bother with the hand attacks for the 'd4' reason - I always used a pole arm to try and maximize the damage - until later in levels.

One thing I've always disliked about the D&D system is the penalty for not wearing armor, which the monk suffers greatly in early levels. If you're wearing full blown plate mail, your dexterity sucks - period. You're easier to hit, but better protected. If you're not wearing any armor, you're much more agile and -thus- harder to hit, but when you DO get hit... OUCH!!

Monk's picking locks... ya, doesn't make much sense.

I should dig out my AD&D books and look up some of the psionic abilities - because I remember a few of them being pretty "monk/shaolin" like.

So, I've studied Kung Fu and martial arts most of my life - either in practice or academically, and my major in college was Chinese (Mandarin) - naturally when I think of a monk - this is it. In the 80's I never bothered buying the AD&D Oriental Adventures book - it appeared to be all Japanese to me (though now I know that isn't entirely true), and I just wasn't interested in it - didn't seem like medieval/fantasy to me.

I suppose the "western monk" is like Friar Tuck?

Yeah, Armor Class in D&D is a combo of dexterity and actual armor. Just like Hit Points are toughness/luck/experience. No human can survive 5 direct sword thrusts through the chest.

Blood axe wrote:Im working on revamped version of the Monk- but I want your input.

My only advice is to avoid the Best of Dragon version. Way too good compared to the AD&D1e baseline... well, compared to the pre-Unearthed Arcana baseline at least.

Im just looking at various versions for ideas. But I dont think d4 HP cuts it, even with 2HD at level 1.

The monk must trust in his kata and not his dexterity to dodge thus the no bonus from high dex.

Once he masters the form he masters himself.

Eldrad wrote:The monk must trust in his kata and not his dexterity to dodge thus the no bonus from high dex.

Once he masters the form he masters himself.

I get the 'forms' example, but to remove the Dex bonus is sort of silly. I've studied a lot of different martial arts over the last couple decades and you can tell when someone is better at it than someone else... dexterity.

Even pitting one master against another (two individuals who seem to have mastered themselves) would still illustrate some differences in ability, dexterity, memory, balance, etc.

Of course, if the Monk class sets its own AC, then the dex bonus becomes problematic in later levels, which is why I would remove it as the character leveled - despite my example.

Looking at this thread with a lot of interest; I had a player in my group look into the Monk and promptly turn it down due to it's lame-icity! Though I must say, even in later editions, the Monk never loses its monochrome-ness in terms of its versatility (or lack thereof). It is, essentially, a very boring class.

Blood Axe, were you thinking of making it more Shaolin-like? I studied a southern Shaolin style for some years and have always wanted to add specific kung-fu elements to the monk, but never did.

Blood axe wrote:The Monk. Hmmmm.....a "Fighter" but low HP and no armor, and the first couple levels he's basically fighting with a dagger. (d4 damage)

All warrior classes should have the same HD, no doubt about it, and his fists should DEFINITELY be upped to a d6.

Denim N Leather wrote:Looking at this thread with a lot of interest; I had a player in my group look into the Monk and promptly turn it down due to it's lame-icity! Though I must say, even in later editions, the Monk never loses its monochrome-ness in terms of its versatility (or lack thereof). It is, essentially, a very boring class.

Blood Axe, were you thinking of making it more Shaolin-like? I studied a southern Shaolin style for some years and have always wanted to add specific kung-fu elements to the monk, but never did.

I couldn't agree more. I think taking some psionic elements from the 1e and making those the "abilities" would be much better, and would add some needed flavor to the class.

Another thing I did was told the player, "There is no quivering palm - no hand death strikes unless you're fighting a human." So I removed the chance to 'randomly' kill a player (if you're a master in your art the kill wouldn't be random like die rolls - you would call it, and then roll to see if you were successful), and I added weapon proficiencies. Monks are just as good with weapons as they are the hand - they shouldn't be penalized for using weapons.