I think you underestimate Unarmed Strike and Ki Strike as abilities. They completely surpass the need for a Fighter's weapon (including magical bonuses because of the ridiculous increase in damage).
The AC bonuses replace the need for a Fighter's armor.
The Monk weapons grant the Martial Artist access to weapons even fighters don't normally get at the expense of normalcy.
I do not think this weakens the fighter, but if you really think so I'll edit it a bit to strengthen it.
- I don't think you understand how thoroughly monks, and everything about them, suck. Surgo 16:44, September 9, 2009 (UTC)
- A Monks gains abilities that match its flavor not its party role. We always say "Look, all these abilities have a equivalent in other martial classes, see?" But we never say, "Look, all these abilities help it a fulfill its role within the party." They suffer from a lack of versatility on-and-off the battlefield. Anything they can do, a wizard can do better. Ask any of the guys who run this site? They can take any monk ability and tell you about other classes that do it mo' better. --Jay Freedman 17:24, September 9, 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think you actually understand what the monk's abilities do, much less when compared to a standard fighter. So let's take a look.
- - Monk AC bonuses - Well, if the char has an 18 Wis to start, he's as good as a similar fighter in a Chain Shirt. His +1 every 5 levels fails to keep up with the fighter who is getting at least that from his armor enhancement, but at least it's free (which is good, because he needs to buy bracers and stat boosts to keep up). At level 20, and with bracers +8, you've got an ac that's slightly better than a fighter who doesn't have a shield, and significantly worse than one with. You can get an expensive amulet to boost that a bit, but since you have none of the other monk abilities that rely on wisdom that's about the only thing it does. You can get expensive gloves that boost it a bit more, but since you probably don't have ranged attacks because of your hobbled weapon proficiencies and reliance on , that's, again, about the only thing it does. But with your 3 items, you're about as good as a fighter with 2 items, and his are in slots that leave him free to get other things. You do have slightly better saves though. You also have to decide if you're going to put your leveling stat points into dex or wis to attempt to boost your ac further, splitting focus and getting a small return from it. - Decision: Fighter
- - Monk Unarmed Strike - I'm not sure if this includes the flurry ability or not, but it doesn't really matter. We'll just look at straight damage for now. You start doing less than a one-hand weapon fighter of the same size (and if you want to compare flurry, we'll just give him the two-weapon tree and a light weapon, he can afford it with the feats the other guy loses), and gain an average of 1 point of damage per 4 levels until 12, after which it's 2 points per 4 levels. A fighter with a +1 weapon per 4 levels who gets flaming or something along the way matches you. If they do something mean like get flaming and shocking, you're hosed. Per core, you pay out the nose to boost your fists to something resembling a fighter's magic weapon, but it's possible, and it does allow you to keep up (or exceed them if things like flaming are allowed on it). It just has to compete for your gp with those bracers, that amulet, and those gloves you need to keep your AC up to a fighter of the same level. Who will probably be boosting str, further enlarging the damage gap while you try to decide which of your 3 (str for hitting, dex or wis for ac and saves) stats you should be boosting. - Decision: Fighter
- - Ki Strike - Hooray, you can strike as a magic weapon at level 4, you'll need it. The fighter does this and gets attack and damage bonuses, but he could maybe somehow lose his weapon... yeah, that's unlikely. You get lawful at 10th, which might matter if more creatures were weak against it. Or if there weren't low level spells that did the same thing for long enough to deal with any non-planned threats. Or if a Fighter of this level couldn't just PA his way past their DR. Adamantine at 16 is handy, but since the fighter has been carrying around one of those for LEVELS now, it's not really a point for you. And while you could do the same thing, and will have to for every other material you need to hurt things, that's point against your argument for the unarmed strike progression meaning anything. - Decision: Fighter
- - Good Reflex saves and Evasion - These are actually points for you, because you can't replicate them with feats or items that are cheaper than what you have to get to make up for your own weird progression. And if you boosted dex instead of str or wis you might even be able to take advantage of it, at the cost of trying to keep up with the fighter's hit and damage output. Trade offs right? - Decision: Martial Artist, but only barely.
- So where does this leave us. You've dumped half of your feats from 6 on, right about the time when you could start building a decent, if one-trick, pony out of them in exchange for a bunch of abilities that require you to spend more gp keeping up and split your focus. Or, to put it another way, this variant has stripped the monk of his interesting abilities and allowed him to get a few bonus feats in their place, or stripped a fighter of its weapon and armor proficiencies and pulled feats from him when he needs them most. There's probably a way to reconcile the two if you wanted a class variant in the middle, but I don't think this is it. TarkisFlux 01:47, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- Hmmm, you make some good points. Thanks for pointing that out. I suppose something to make up for the fact that the character has to multitask their ability scores would be important. Perhaps adding the Monk skills and athletic abilities such as Slowfall and Speed increase would work? The character would still be somewhat martially inferior to a fighter (but only by a little) yet they would athletically superior (and thus would always have a better "run for the hills" option). Arkangelknight 15:19, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- Slow Fall is a flavor ability more than anything. The extra speed would be nice because its combat application, not because it would allow you to run away. That said, I don't really think that enhanced movement covers (in enough breadth) either the abilities to deal and avoid damage, which are still a (if the not the primary) concern(s). -- Jota 17:05, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- I think at that point you've basically given a monk some bonus feats in exchange for taking their high level weird stuff (because you can spend the low level ones on the same things a monk gets anyway), and I don't think that's a good trade off. I'd step back a bit instead, and focus on what you want the end result to be. I think balance wise you're not aiming to improve on the monk or fighter much, and that puts us into monk or fighter balance territory and saves us from making any sweeping adjustments. I think you want a guy who doesn't wear armor and can beat people up with his fists if he wants to, so let's focus on that (and if I'm wrong this won't be as helpful, but such is life). There really isn't a reason to pull all of the weapon proficiencies, because martial artists traditionally learn lots of weapons as well, and plenty of them aren't included in the monk list. So let them have all martial and monk weapons, it'll help differentiate them from monks. Let them have monk fisty progression, because it's important to the concept, and ki strikes and flurry as long as their off hand has a light weapon in it. Since you don't want them wearing armor, pull those and shields, but don't give them their wisdom bonus because it splits their focus up too much. Instead give them their Str bonus as a shield bonus to AC as long as their off hand is free, call it arm block or whatever, and give that the monk AC progression (or slightly better if you want it to keep up with regular enhancement gains). That gives you a class that fights with maybe a weapon in it's primary hand and uses it's free hand to defend itself and punch people in the face, or just punches people in the face at later levels. Because they can wield normal weapons, they're not a slave to their ki strikes, but they're certainly helpful. They can boost Str for AC and damage, or Dex if they want ranged and AC, and do one of those things well enough. I'd throw in good reflex saves too. In exchange for this, I'd pull their first 2 bonus feats, and leave the rest. These things will get them through the first few levels as well as any other fighter or monk, but they'll need their feats later on to carry them the rest of the way since they don't have any other special things going on. TarkisFlux 18:43, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- Uhm...yeah that's a brilliant idea I suppose. Using Strength as an AC buff would strike me as horribly overpowered but only if that person wore armor so allowing it to function only without armor is a pretty good idea. That would create a unique "parrying" ability that I can put in there. I like the suggestions, thank you! Please recheck the class and make another assessment. Arkangelknight 19:45, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- Deflect Arrows just let's you cancel one ranged attack against you per round; there is no AC or dice-rolling involved. Other than that it's better, but I'm not sure how well everything works out overall. It's a little hard to get the full picture with a bulleted list. -- Jota 20:07, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
(Reset Indentation)
Well, I'd probably just give them the Str to AC vs. all attacks for simplicity and to keep it slightly more worthwhile, but you can do the deflect arrows thing if you want. It makes it a substantially better feat choice than it normally would be, so you should expect people to take it more often than they otherwise might. Past that and we're into talking about what balance point you're shooting for, which I'm still not clear on. If you're aiming for monk balance level, it's ok. The lack of mid-high level feats or replacement special abilities means this class works best over levels 1-6, and starts falling behind after that because it lacks the tools to optimize itself sufficiently. You start losing bonus feats about the time you would qualify for decentish ones, so if you're aiming for fighter level of balance and relevance into the low teens you fall short. Evasion, speed bonuses, and slow fall simply do not make up for not getting shiney new abilities at mid levels, and they won't carry you to 20 by a long shot. I could see trading your first 1 or 2 fighter feats for punching and blocking and reflex saves, because you can work around these and they're generally only used for setup for good things later, but anything more than that hurts the class later on, and they just don't get enough to make up for it. Plus, this class is really really front loaded. I can spend 2 levels here and get a few special things and a couple of bonus feats, then skip out before I have to start paying for it. I'd rethink which abilities were important to the class, how people were expected to pay for them, and how that impacts their mid level game and the variant's role in multiclassing. TarkisFlux 20:33, September 10, 2009 (UTC)
- I actually agree about the "front loaded" part so I'll fix that. However, just about half the original classes have that same issue. I don't really criticize a class for having the same problems as a normal base class because well, that's just it matching the same game. To criticize that strikes me as a criticism of the game itself more than the particular homebrew material. Personally I think losing only 4 feats may not be ENOUGH. Afterall, they still can acquire the same paths that fighters do as most feat paths do not exceed 5-6 prerequisites to begin with. Its sort of how a paladin gets only half the spells a cleric does. This is actually an "overpowering" of the class because of its warrior benefits and other (su) and (sp) abilities, but because it causes them to need to split their focus amongst abilities it doesn't truly overpower them. The same with all these added benefits. I think the fact that this class has the same weapon options a fighter does plus an unarmed strike to boot actually makes them superior weapon specialists though at the sacrifice of some AC benefits. The loss of four feats puts them a bit behind on the timing of fighters, but not so far that the fact that they can easily outmaneuver any fighter in heavy armor (or without for that matter). I'm not saying your points don't fly, I just generally think this class has become slightly too powerful and thus fixing the front-loading part should pretty much balance the scale save for an inch or two off.