# Why not combine the Fighter and Monk Classes?



## TrippyHippy (Aug 6, 2012)

The Fighter seems to get some criticism over the years for being a bit boring. The Monk takes some criticism for being a bit thematically (Oriental style) themed in contrast to the other Classes. 

How about addressing both these concerns by adapting some of the aspects of the Monk Class with those of the Fighter. After all, the Monk is basically just a pure, trained Fighter, with mystical abilities. 

I'm saying, remove some of the mystical baggage of the Monk (along with the major restrictions) but open up the manner in which they have combat styles and abilities (as special effects) to be integrated into the broader, more generic Fighter Class. With customisation (and Themes) you could even designate your Fighter as being a monastic, unarmed specialist.....which would make the Monk Class redundant if done well.


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## Tovec (Aug 6, 2012)

*Why not combine the Rogue and Wizard Classes?*

The Rogue seems to get some criticism over the years for being a bit weak when compared to the traditional blasting capacity of wizards. The Wizard takes some criticism for being a bit mechanically weak when it comes to skills and specialization themed in contrast to the other Classes.

How about addressing both these concerns by adapting some of the aspects  of the Wizard Class with those of the Rogue. After all, the Wizard is  basically just a pure supernatural and skillful class with magical abilities.

I'm saying, remove some of the magical baggage of the Wizard (along with  the major restrictions) but open up the manner in which they have combat  styles and abilities (as special effects) to be integrated into the  broader, more generic Rogue Class. With customization (and Themes) you  could even designate your Rogue as being a arcanist or summoning specialist.....which would make the Wizard Class redundant if done well.


That is why. Put another way, the mechanics should be dissimilar enough between classes as to require a new class. The flavour should be similarly dissimilar enough to WARRENT the distinction. You should WANT different classes instead of just new themes for an existing class. A monk is not solely defined by its abilities, anymore than a rogue is solely defined by its skills.


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## JamesonCourage (Aug 6, 2012)

The Monk, to me, if far more than just "hits with his fists", even if that's important to the class. All those "worthless" abilities it has (slow fall, talking to any living creature, etc.) are important to the class, in my opinion. I'd be pretty sorely disappointed if it was basically defined by punchy-kicky, instead.

But, I'll also be disappointed if the Paladin is not restricted to only Lawful Good, and is a follower of a god rather than a devoted follower of Good. So I might be in the minority. As always, play what you like


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## amerigoV (Aug 6, 2012)

We can rename the class to "Fonk"


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## Minigiant (Aug 6, 2012)

But if you combine the Fighter and the Monk but remove the mysticism and special abilities, then you have not combined the classes at all.

You just made a fighter with increase unarmed damage.

*EDIT:*Yes, the Monk and the Fighter are similar. They both are trained warriors who are most likely formally trained. This different from the Barbarian who is a raw warrior reliant of pure physical ability, mental chaos, and emotion. 

The main difference is what they train to be.

The fighter trains to be a master of martial combat.
The monk trains to be a master of his or her body, mind and soul.
Although they both training in combat and self, they diverge quickly. The monk *is* those mystical class features, if you remove the then yes there is no point for a monk class.


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 6, 2012)

Tovec said:


> That is why. Put another way, the mechanics should be dissimilar enough between classes as to require a new class. The flavour should be similarly dissimilar enough to WARRENT the distinction. You should WANT different classes instead of just new themes for an existing class. A monk is not solely defined by its abilities, anymore than a rogue is solely defined by its skills.



It's a bad analogy, largely because the Rogue and Wizard archetypes are so distinct, and also because there hasn't ever been this type of criticism laid at them. The Monk is a 'fighting man' in the purest sense, while the notion of combat styles and 'martial arts' is the raisin d'être of a Fighter Class. The two classes are fundamentally comparable, and I'd argue comparable as one Class.


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## JamesonCourage (Aug 6, 2012)

I very, very disagree. So very. Much. And stuff.

But that's outlined above, and Minigiant touched on it, too. The Monk isn't a "fighting man" to me. He's just not. I get that you don't agree, but what about people like us, who see the Monk as defined by his mystical abilities, too?


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## Dice4Hire (Aug 6, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> The Fighter seems to get some criticism over the years for being a bit boring. The Monk takes some criticism for being a bit thematically (Oriental style) themed in contrast to the other Classes.
> 
> How about addressing both these concerns by adapting some of the aspects of the Monk Class with those of the Fighter. After all, the Monk is basically just a pure, trained Fighter, with mystical abilities.
> 
> I'm saying, remove some of the mystical baggage of the Monk (along with the major restrictions) but open up the manner in which they have combat styles and abilities (as special effects) to be integrated into the broader, more generic Fighter Class. With customisation (and Themes) you could even designate your Fighter as being a monastic, unarmed specialist.....which would make the Monk Class redundant if done well.




Yes, this is a good idea. The monk and Fighter should be similar thematically, just one uses weapons and one does not. I fail to see why there has always been such a huge divide between the two.

Oh, and I set fire to Tovec's strawman.


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## Dice4Hire (Aug 6, 2012)

JamesonCourage said:


> I very, very disagree. So very. Much. And stuff.
> 
> But that's outlined above, and Minigiant touched on it, too. The Monk isn't a "fighting man" to me. He's just not. I get that you don't agree, but what about people like us, who see the Monk as defined by his mystical abilities, too?




Well, in every version of D&D thus far, EVERY class has been a fighting man, to use the phrase above.


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## Mattachine (Aug 6, 2012)

I love the "mystical baggage" of the monk. 

I could see trying to rework the monk so it could have a wider range of archetypes: wuxia, shamanistic, religious fighting order, etc.


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## Remathilis (Aug 6, 2012)

I should just keep this saved in a file and copypasta it whenever these threads appear. 

At the end of the day, D&D only has two classes: Combatant and Spellcaster. All other classes are variants of one, the other, or some combo of both. Any application of reductionist logic (X and Y are similar, therefore X = Y with a bit of  work) eventually ends up with these two classes unless some arbitrary limit is applied. Following the logic to its conclusion, D&D needs no classes but Combatant and Spellcaster and a wide enough selection of talents, skills, and feats to mimic every class that has come before it. Is that the D&D we want?

I'm of the opinion that diversity is good. More unique classes the better. There are dozens of classless or near-classless systems, D&D is best known for the strength of his archetypes codified in the class system. Make classes like Fighter and Cleric generic enough to be customized, but let monk, ranger, or barbarian represent specific archetypes with unique mechanics.


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## Tovec (Aug 6, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> It's a bad analogy, largely because the Rogue and Wizard archetypes are so distinct, and also because there hasn't ever been this type of criticism laid at them. The Monk is a 'fighting man' in the purest sense, while the notion of combat styles and 'martial arts' is the raisin d'être of a Fighter Class. The two classes are fundamentally comparable, and I'd argue comparable as one Class.






Dice4Hire said:


> Yes, this is a good idea. The monk and Fighter should be similar thematically, just one uses weapons and one does not. I fail to see why there has always been such a huge divide between the two.
> 
> Oh, and I set fire to Tovec's strawman.




I hate to repeat my self but ALL OF THIS can be said of TrippyHippy's first post as well, replace rogue and wizard for fighter and monk where appropriate.

I get that you don't think they are distinct enough to warrant being different classes. That is a problem, as they should be different enough. They are different.

Just as there are differences between cleric and wizard or even cleric and druid. A monk is not just an unarmed fighting man. He is the mystic who trains their whole life to attain something more. A lot of the abilities they get reflect this (at least they did in 3e) but the problem is a lot of these abilities don't work or are klunky.

This type of conversation comes up any time the monk is mentioned but monks aren't fighters. They aren't supposed to fill the fighter's role. They are supposed to be rogue-ish. They are supposed to have special tricks and tactics to defeat their opponent. Whereas a fighter may stand up to the enemy and wail on it round after round (with any weapon he so chooses) the monk will find a better option. They aren't mechanically the same and shouldn't be. That is the second part of my post that both of you seemed to ignore.

The only way my post is a strawman is because I almost directly said what TrippyHippy said word for word. You can clearly see I just update the text to reflect the new classes but any two classes put in that argument would be the same.
Allow me to demonstrate. You can't call me a strawman without acknowledging the same with TrippyHippy here.


The Barbarian seems to get some criticism over the years for being a bit  boring. The Paladin takes some criticism for being a bit thematically  (Holiness style) themed in contrast to the other Classes.

How about addressing both these concerns by adapting some of the aspects  of the Paladin Class with those of the Barbarian. After all, the Paladin is  basically just a pure, trained Barbarian[actually 'fighter' as a word works better but the term doesn't], with mystical abilities.

I'm saying, remove some of the mystical baggage of the Paladin (along with  the major restrictions) but open up the manner in which they have combat  styles and abilities (as special effects) to be integrated into the  broader, more generic Barbarian Class. With customization (and Themes) you  could even designate your Barbarian as being a devoted, horse-trained, smiting specialist.....which would make the Paladin Class redundant if done well.


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2012)

Personally, I'm always surprised by how people can be so adamantly against combining "dude who fights with weapons", "dude who fights with fists", and "dude who fights angry," while simultaneously having no problem combining "dude who brings the dead back as zombies", "dude who throws balls of exploding flame", and "dude who reads people's minds".

I mean, seriously.  Dude.


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## Animal (Aug 6, 2012)

A fine idea actually.
I think this could be done via backgrounds&themes. Like you can build a monk from a fighter with an oriental background and martial artist theme. More variants: oriental background and noble warrior theme could make a samurai, while slums-dweller background and martial artist theme could make a tavern brawler, etc.
This way with just a handful of core classes you could have a nigh endless number of concepts based on what backgrounds&themes DM approves or creates.


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## mlund (Aug 6, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> Personally, I'm always surprised by how people can be so adamantly against combining "dude who fights with weapons", "dude who fights with fists", and "dude who fights angry," while simultaneously having no problem combining "dude who brings the dead back as zombies", "dude who throws balls of exploding flame", and "dude who reads people's minds".
> 
> I mean, seriously.  Dude.




Duuuuuuuude. Total mind-frag.

The core of the monk is "martial artist." The Eastern mythos of the monk needs to be optional - like a theme. Someone who has nigh-inhuman speed, agility, and specialty movement and unarmed combat options has the core power-train of the monk. They call these "martial arts." Slap on options and accessories to flavor as you like - the pit-fighter, the street-brawler, the wrestler, the eastern-mystic, whatever you like.

I never really liked overly restricting the Monk's weapons too. It was way to Japan-centric, where the monks there had to use weapons from farming implements due to caste restrictions. It doesn't model the larger body of fighting monks and martial-artists on the mainland who often used swords, bows, and military pole-arms.

Moving the ki/focus/attunement-based stuff into one or more background and themes opens up more possibilities too - easier structures to add in Sohei, Ninja, or Contemplative Swordsman rather than forcing a slew of stand-alone classes or dysfunctional multi-classing.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 6, 2012)

L







TwoSix said:


> Personally, I'm always surprised by how people can be so adamantly against combining "dude who fights with weapons", "dude who fights with fists", and "dude who fights angry," while simultaneously having no problem combining "dude who brings the dead back as zombies", "dude who throws balls of exploding flame", and "dude who reads people's minds".
> 
> I mean, seriously.  Dude.




I am all for splitting up wizards and their spells. I don't see that flying too well with a lot of fans. I think nothing but the "psion route" would work if it is ever tried.

Back on topic.
A monk theme would probably be broken. Look after the dipping of monk 1-2 in 3.5E. Slayer and Reaper or Flurry of Blows, Increased unarmed damage, Safe fall, And Wis to AC?

Seriously, dude?


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## TwinBahamut (Aug 6, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> Personally, I'm always surprised by how people can be so adamantly against combining "dude who fights with weapons", "dude who fights with fists", and "dude who fights angry," while simultaneously having no problem combining "dude who brings the dead back as zombies", "dude who throws balls of exploding flame", and "dude who reads people's minds".
> 
> I mean, seriously.  Dude.



Actually, I'd love it if those last three were also separate classes. We don't need a Wizard. We need a Necromancer, an Elemental Mage, and a Psion. That would seriously make the game better.

There really isn't any point in trying to combine classes. A class-based game thrives on having more classes. We should be trying to break down the Fighter and turn it into a dozen different classes, not trying to fold different class ideas into the Fighter. The same goes for the Wizard and Cleric.

4E made some nice improvements to the game when it broke the Druid up into several different classes. The Druid focused on the wildshape and controller abilities, while the Shaman took most of the animal companion and healing abilities. This turned one confused class into two distinct and much-better focused classes. This is what needs to be done for more classes.

Who needs a Fighter when we can instead have a Knight and a Slayer?

That said, if for some reason you don't want a pure Monk class in the game, I wouldn't mind a revival of the Tome of Battle's Swordsage class. I always considered that to be the improved Monk, just like the Warblade was the improved Fighter. I don't see what is wrong with Monks in D&D, though. D&D doesn't need to be slavishly eurocentric. It's a fantasy game, not a depcition of some place in Earth's history. Maybe we can add some Ninjas to the core rules to give the Monks some company.


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> L
> 
> I am all for splitting up wizards and their spells. I don't see that flying too well with a lot of fans. I think nothing but the "psion route" would work if it is ever tried.



A sphere system like for 2e priests would be interesting, I think.  Every wizard gets major access to 2 or 3 spheres (out of 16 or so), and minor access to 4-6 more.

Plus, it's retro!  Win win!  Dude!


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Actually, I'd love it if those last three were also separate classes. We don't need a Wizard. We need a Necromancer, an Elemental Mage, and a Psion. That would seriously make the game better.
> 
> There really isn't any point in trying to combine classes. A class-based game thrives on having more classes. We should be trying to break down the Fighter and turn it into a dozen different classes, not trying to fold different class ideas into the Fighter. The same goes for the Wizard and Cleric.
> 
> 4E made some nice improvements to the game when it broke the Druid up into several different classes. The Druid focused on the wildshape and controller abilities, while the Shaman took most of the animal companion and healing abilities. This turned one confused class into two distinct and much-better focused classes. This is what needs to be done for more classes.



Agreed 100%.  Maybe not everyone likes this fact, but D&D thrives on crunch.  Classes are some of the tastiest crunch around.

Remember that thread a few months back about the 100 classes?  I don't think it's really too far off the mark.

Ideally, I'd like to see 3e multiclassing embraced, mixed with a combination of no 20 level classes at all.  There are some generic 10 level classes like Fighter, Mage etc.  But most of the powerful abilities are sequestered into progression of PrC like 5 to 10 level classes.  After all, classes changing into other classes is a time-honored tradition, dating back to Final Fantasy I and the Rat Tail.


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## Remathilis (Aug 6, 2012)

I wouldn't mind if we're using the spell lists of yore that wizards lose some of those fancy illusions and stuff and keep it for a real illusionist class. I still want wizards to have some divinations, illusions, and enchantments but they don't need access to all the tools from every arcane caster.

If we can limit clerics, we can limit mages.


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## Animal (Aug 6, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Who needs a Fighter when we can instead have a Knight and a Slayer?



Those are just names. Who cares about names?
Players want to play characters, concepts. And be viable.
Your DM wants to keep it simple? No backgrounds/themes? You roll a core fighter. And you can call him a knight if you want.
Want more mechanical variety? You roll a fighter with Rashemi background and berserker theme. Call him rashemi fighter or barbarian or wolf lodge berserker, whatever. As long as his charlist reflects what you want him to be, everyone's happy.


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2012)

Animal said:


> Those are just names. Who cares about names?
> Players want to play characters, concepts. And be viable.




You'd be surprised how many people get attached to class names.  Go tell people you want to rename the "fighter" to "warrior" and see how well that goes over.


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## erleni (Aug 6, 2012)

I think that the issue is deeper. The fighter is not really a class. It's more an equivalent of the term martial in 4e. To me the fighter class should disappear and be replicad by more focused classes. Same for the wizard. Cleric could stay as long as spells follow deities and most other classes are narrow enough to work.
You can see that even WotC is unable to point out what the schtick of the fighter is. They started with improvisation, now they pulled out combat superiority but at the end the problem is that the concept is too broad.


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## TwinBahamut (Aug 6, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> Agreed 100%.  Maybe not everyone likes this fact, but D&D thrives on crunch.  Classes are some of the tastiest crunch around.



Indeed. 



> Remember that thread a few months back about the 100 classes?  I don't think it's really too far off the mark.



I miss that thread. It was really sad to watch a thread with a goal I so strongly agreed with suffocate under a mass of arguments and get locked. A real shame...



> Ideally, I'd like to see 3e multiclassing embraced, mixed with a combination of no 20 level classes at all.  There are some generic 10 level classes like Fighter, Mage etc.  But most of the powerful abilities are sequestered into progression of PrC like 5 to 10 level classes.  After all, classes changing into other classes is a time-honored tradition, dating back to Final Fantasy I and the Rat Tail.



I certainly would support Final Fantasy 1 or Fire Emblem style class advancement, but I'm not sure if reviving d20 Modern's class system is the best way to do it. Unlimited multiclassing tends to break the game more than it helps. The Paragon Path system seems like it would work better, though they'd need to find a _much_ better implementation than what was shown in 4E. Something totally new is needed, I think.


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## mlund (Aug 6, 2012)

It all depends on the definition of "class." Originally Class was a straight-jacked, level 1 on, telling you everything you could ever have for gaining experience points. If you were one of the privileged classes that used the Spell Lists that ate up 40% of the PHB page-count you could actually enjoy flexibility and customization. If you weren't, well at least you could choose weapons, right?

As the game evolved and improved it added in more chances for customization outside of class and spell selection - sub-classes, non-weapon proficiency, multiclassing, then kits, feats, skills, and prestige classes. Finally we even started to see things like backgrounds, themes, and honest-to-goodness build options.

D&D has evolved to a point where the crunch can support archetypes without having to simply add another half-dozen straight-jackets to the rack with each splat-book. Having core Super-Classes with variant sub-classes / builds and combining them with Backgrounds and Themes allows players to build things that they used to have to wait for splat-books for (swashbucklers, knights, marshals, etc.) or perhaps never even get.

Old-school games can still be master archetype + improvisation.
Games using Build Options, Backgrounds, and Themes should allow us to create variants off of the Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, and Magic-User without having to have "new" classes spoon-fed to us with all the accompanying dysfunction of trying to carve a whole stand-alone class niche mechanically when we're really just looking for a few points of mechanic variation.

I want a D&DNext where my "Monk" is not a straight-jacket. I want to take a Fighter, have a "martial-artist" build that trades down armor for movement and enhanced unarmed attacks. Then I'm going to slap on whatever background I want, take a complementary theme (perhaps representing a martial-arts discipline), and beat people into submission with Combat Superiority mechanics for trips, throws, grapples and all the other martial-arts mayhem I like to associate with the monk.

I don't want a Monk were I have to use a list of Japanese peasant weapons, evolve immunity to disease, and automatically be a slave to "flurry of blows" mechanics because my attack-bonuses are lame otherwise.

Give me the ability to build a Fighter into a Monk like that 1E or 3E monks *if I so choose*, but don't give me a straight-jacket labeled "monk" and tell me to love it or leave it like AD&D -> 4E have done to varying extents.

- Marty Lund


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## TwinBahamut (Aug 6, 2012)

erleni said:


> I think that the issue is deeper. The fighter is not really a class. It's more an equivalent of the term martial in 4e. To me the fighter class should disappear and be replicad by more focused classes. Same for the wizard. Cleric could stay as long as spells follow deities and most other classes are narrow enough to work.
> You can see that even WotC is unable to point out what the schtick of the fighter is. They started with improvisation, now they pulled out combat superiority but at the end the problem is that the concept is too broad.



I think this is the right direction to approach things from.

Look at what was done with the Essentials classes I referenced earlier. In Essentials, "Fighter" isn't a class; it's a category of related classes. The two types of Fighter, the Knight and the Slayer, are really two entirely separate classes with almost no direct overlap. This isn't a bad approach at all. The broad categories like Fighter or Wizard point people in the right direction and preserve classic names and ideas, but the actual classes are free to be diverse and unique within that umbrella.


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## mlund (Aug 6, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Look at what was done with the Essentials classes I referenced earlier. In Essentials, "Fighter" isn't a class; it's a category of related classes. The two types of Fighter, the Knight and the Slayer, are really two entirely separate classes with almost no direct overlap.




The broad category concept is good. I think you underestimate the overlap, though. The Fighter was a large chunk of core fundamentals and the Knight and Slayer were basically differentiated by what the added on level by level. They both had a core of high HP and healing surge values, weapon and armor proficiency, martial-power sources, power-strike, and stances. Some of the stances even overlapped.

Then the slayer had extra damage mechanics thrown on and the knight had Defender Aura and Platemail Proficiency.

That's getting two classes off the same good core super-class instead of running off to make two "real classes" and doing a ton reinventing the wheel - and often times trying to make square wheel just so people don't claim that your "new class" is just a retread.

I, for one, welcome our recycled super-class overlords.

- Marty Lund


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## TwoSix (Aug 6, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Indeed.
> 
> I miss that thread. It was really sad to watch a thread with a goal I so strongly agreed with suffocate under a mass of arguments and get locked. A real shame...
> 
> I certainly would support Final Fantasy 1 or Fire Emblem style class advancement, but I'm not sure if reviving d20 Modern's class system is the best way to do it. Unlimited multiclassing tends to break the game more than it helps. The Paragon Path system seems like it would work better, though they'd need to find a _much_ better implementation than what was shown in 4E. Something totally new is needed, I think.



Actually, if there was any video game class system I'd like to model (cue the "5th edition is a video game WAAAmbulance"), it would be Final Fantasy Tactics.   With Fighter, Cleric, Mage, and Rogue filling in for Squire and Chemist.

Although ideally, high level classes wouldn't require Fighter 3, Mage 4, Abjurer 5, Necromancer 3, unlike say a Calculator.


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## Umbran (Aug 6, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> It's a bad analogy, largely because the Rogue and Wizard archetypes are so distinct




Yes, but the Fighter and Monk archetypes are also pretty clearly distinct.  One is a pseudo-European dude with weapons and armor, the other a pseudo-Asian master of mostly unarmed and unarmored combat and mysticism. 



> The Monk is a 'fighting man' in the purest sense, while the notion of combat styles and 'martial arts' is the raisin d'être of a Fighter Class.




"Fighitng Man" is not just "a man who fights".  Go back and look at your Early D&D rule sets, where the "Fighting Man" comes from - what you see there doesn't look much like a Monk.


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## Stormonu (Aug 6, 2012)

Funny, I've always seen the monk as a fusion of cleric and rogue, not fighter.  Back in 2E, they even shuffled the monk into the complete Priest's handbook (though bereft of his signature abilities).

A fighter-monk to me would be more of a general martial artist, like from a jackie chan or bruce lee movie, and less of Cain, the shoulin monk of Kung Fu.  A quicker temper, less mystical abilities, but a meaner punch.

<EDIT>  I'd much rather be for monk having its own class, but if it can be done with a theme and you can get at least one iteration that looks like a 1E/3E monk, I can live with that.  I'd also enjoy seeing "Wizard Generalist go the way of the dodo in favor of school specialists, but I don't think full-on classes for each spell school is the way to go.


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## Ratskinner (Aug 6, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> Funny, I've always seen the monk as a fusion of cleric and rogue, not fighter.  Back in 2E, they even shuffled the monk into the complete Priest's handbook (though bereft of his signature abilities).




Didn't "monk" show up in two or three of those books? 



Stormonu said:


> A fighter-monk to me would be more of a general martial artist, like from a jackie chan or bruce lee movie, and less of Cain, the shoulin monk of Kung Fu.  A quicker temper, less mystical abilities, but a meaner punch.




I think that's part of the desire to de-classify monk.


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## Tovec (Aug 7, 2012)

TwinBahamut said:


> Look at what was done with the Essentials classes I referenced earlier. In Essentials, "Fighter" isn't a class; it's a category of related classes. The two types of Fighter, the Knight and the Slayer, are really two entirely separate classes with almost no direct overlap. This isn't a bad approach at all. The broad categories like Fighter or Wizard point people in the right direction and preserve classic names and ideas, but the actual classes are free to be diverse and unique within that umbrella.




Ideally there would be as many different variations or choices of monks as there are for the current fighter.

A fighter can be a knight or a slayer, or many other types; but a monk could be a elemental first, or martial artist or spiritual devotee, and more.

If it were a matter of using all the classes as a start here and select from the following packages, that is fine. But what would I have to sacrifice in order to make a fighter-monk which I could otherwise use to specialize if it were a monk-monk?


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## Remathilis (Aug 7, 2012)

Ratskinner said:


> Didn't "monk" show up in two or three of those books?




Three times to my knowledge.

1.) A feeble kit in the Complete Priest's Handbook. 

2.) A Priest class in Faiths & Avatars (and Spells & Magic) which gave them priest spells (with access to weird spheres), unarmored AC bonus, specialization in unarmed combat (with support for Combat & Tactics and PHB/Complete Fighters martial arts) and a few odd powers (free action and mind blank iirc). A fun class which played a bit like a priest-bard than a chopy-socky warrior. 

3.) A proper looks-like-the-1e-class monk with unarmed combat, mystical abilities, and such in the Greyhawk book Scarlet Brotherhood (Assassin-as-a-class is there too). He was pretty much the prototype of the 3e monk, and he was a member of...the Priest group despite not being able to cast any spells. (He use their HD, saves, Thac0 and XP table).

So in 2e, every major monk iteration was a Priest, barring some obscure kit somewhere I'm not familiar with.


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## TwinBahamut (Aug 7, 2012)

Tovec said:


> Ideally there would be as many different variations or choices of monks as there are for the current fighter.



Absolutely, though I'm not entirely sure if Monk is more equivalent to the Fighter or the Slayer... If Monk is the category, then what do you call the class? If Monk is the class, then what category does it belong to? Either way, what goes along with it? It would be interesting either way, I suppose.



> A fighter can be a knight or a slayer, or many other types; but a monk could be a elemental first, or martial artist or spiritual devotee, and more.



I'd be a fan of making Swordsage-esque weapon-masters who use similar concepts to the classic-style barehanded monk. Maybe variants with different levels of ability to perform Hadoken-like energy blasts or ranged energy slashes and the like.

If I get thinking about this too much I'll remind myself why the decision to omit the Ki Power Source from 4E hurt me as much as it did... I should stop. 



> If it were a matter of using all the classes as a start here and select from the following packages, that is fine. But what would I have to sacrifice in order to make a fighter-monk which I could otherwise use to specialize if it were a monk-monk?



I hope we never have to learn the answer to that last question.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 7, 2012)

You really don't have to remove much of the 'mystical' baggage.  Most of it's more exotic than mystic, anyway, and very little is beyond what legendary heroes might be reputed to do in other cultures, it just has an exotic, philosophical bent to it.  That can be handled with fluff.


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 8, 2012)

To reiterate a bit, there are two issues here: 

 - that Fighters are a bit dull when they simply develop with no bells and whistles beyond accumulating HP and bonuses to hit. 

 - that Monks remains distinct to the other Classes, insofar that it's a cultural (oriental) archetype rather than a generic 'Class'.  

The latter issue is a matter for debate and personal inclination, but to me Classes like: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, etc are pretty universal (applying to any culture), in ways that the Monk is not. Monks seem to be out of place in many fantasy settings, and draw attention to a western bias in the other classes by virtue of being so distinct. 

The first issue is simply 'how to make the Fighter more interesting?'. I'm saying, look at the model used by Monks (with combat styles and special maneuvres learned at escalating levels), and apply that model to the Fighter. I'm saying, rebuild the Fighter Class from the ground up to be a 'Martial Artist' in the sense that they can all master their own combat styles. That is, a 'Fighting Man' literally becomes that archetype. 

If you accept the solution to the first issue as being workable, and then accept that the background 'fluff' can, indeed, be handled by Background and Theme, then surely Monks can simply be an application of a type of Fighter?


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## Remathilis (Aug 8, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> The latter issue is a matter for debate and personal inclination, but to me Classes like: Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Cleric, etc are pretty universal (applying to any culture), in ways that the Monk is not. Monks seem to be out of place in many fantasy settings, and draw attention to a western bias in the other classes by virtue of being so distinct.




The problem with that is the same problem re-applies to Druids, Bards, Paladins, and Barbarians; each implies a certain cultural element prevalent in only one type of culture (Celtic Europe some of in these cases) and not found in others (Bard, for example, not only is a Celtic name but the archetype of the wandering storyteller or singer isn't found in many cultures outside Europe; storyteller and lorekeeper is usually part of the shaman/priest role.


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## SageMinerve (Aug 8, 2012)

About the "What class does the Monk most resemble?" debate...

If you forget about D&D for 1 second, what's... (definitions drawn from Wikipedia):

1) A fighter? It's a person that's skilled in combat, whether through professional training (like a soldier) or not. That's it.

2) A cleric? It's a person that is a member of a religion clergy, whether a priest, pastor, etc.

3) A monk? It's a person who practices religious asceticism (a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures and/or pursuit of spiritual goals).

I don't know about you, but such a definition for the monk sounds a little more like a Cleric than either a fighter or a rogue/thief... Personally, when I read that Monk definition, the class that I think about most is... the PALADIN! Especially when you apply a little Shaolin sauce to the monk concept; and since it's by far the most popular interpretation of the class...

Really, IMHO, if I were trying to group the monk with one of the 4 base classes (and I'm not saying that I would), I'd group it with the Paladin. In my mind, they are the two (western and eastern) sides of the same coin.


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## Tovec (Aug 8, 2012)

SageMinerve said:


> About the "What class does the Monk most resemble?" debate...
> 
> If you forget about D&D for 1 second, what's... (definitions drawn from Wikipedia):
> 
> ...




You do have a point here, but to me it seems more like paladins and monks are each perhaps one part priest and one part something else. The paladin is one part priest and one part warrior and the monk is one part priest and one part rogue - at least so far as to the tricks or general battle technique.

I said earlier up thread that I see monks NOT standing on the front line wailing on the enemy but instead using tactics, maneuvers or general luck, skill and talent to defeat enemies. One strikes me as very fighter/paladin/knight/slayer/barbarian and the other a very rogue/assassin/ninja/scout maybe even ranger in a lot of ways.

Monks can/are/do martial arts but they aren't defined solely by martial arts.
Fighters could perhaps also learn martial arts and be very proficient at it but they aren't monks either. Even a paladin who eschews weapons to fight with his fists isn't a monk though he is certainly closer than the average fighter by virtue of being partially religious and ascetic.

But all that said, I would have much less problems aligning monk with paladin even though that is still an improper fit IMO. Monks for me have always a nice niche and role, I only encounter problems when they are treated as fighters instead of relying on their other traits. If they do go the monk is a paladin (holy warrior/ascetic combination) then that is fine but I would expect to see kits expressly meant to further define this. I don't want to _feel _like a paladin who eschews weapons, even if that is ostensibly what I am, I want to feel like a man who eschews physical world possessions and hones their body to overcoming that limitation.


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## Li Shenron (Aug 8, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> After all, the Monk is basically just a pure, trained Fighter, with mystical abilities.




If this is true, then it is really sad, and a lot limiting. But personally I think this is untrue.

I am not a fan of the Monk at all in a traditionally western-medieval D&D setting, thus I always say I would prefer the Monk to belong to an Oriental Adventure sourcebook rather than the PHB.

But if the Monk was reduced to a "specialist unarmed fighter" I would not feel this would make it much better for such traditional setting either.

So I prefer to keep the Monk concept wide and use a separate class.


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## Minigiant (Aug 8, 2012)

Part of the reason why I see Monks as more than just unarmed fighters is from the belief that their martial arts training issue secondary. A means to an end.

Most pro athletes lift weights and run a lot. Now a foot ball or baseball player isn't a weightlifter or track star but they are better than normal folk at it.

Monks learn unarmed combat for athletic and discipline reasons as well. Some are primarily learning it to kick butt. Other might be for the added bonus.


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## variant (Aug 8, 2012)

Li Shenron said:


> If this is true, then it is really sad, and a lot limiting. But personally I think this is untrue.
> 
> I am not a fan of the Monk at all in a traditionally western-medieval D&D setting, thus I always say I would prefer the Monk to belong to an Oriental Adventure sourcebook rather than the PHB.
> 
> ...




I don't mind monks in a western fantasy setting, as long as they are the kind that don't do martial arts.


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## mlund (Aug 8, 2012)

People conflate fighting style and lifestyle too much when addressing the Monk as a class rather than a character build. This is part of why having Backgrounds and Themes are so important - well-designed classes do not put your character background into a straight-jacket. 

"Monk" is not a class - it is a background. Living and working on a daily basis inside or under the authority of a monastery as a religious. It doesn't constitute any special powers in any culture. In Japan monks were often just retired samurai. A Chinese monastery could have a bunch of pole-arm fighters, kung-fu grapplers, swordsmen, or archers in it - but it could also be populated entirely by non-violent pacifists or mostly by disabled people cast off by a less-compassionate society.

All the combat stuff associated with the "Monk" is martial-arts, disciplines and skills that don't require a monastic life-style though they were historically (real world) developed in those contexts. A character could have learned them in a monastery, a dojo, or a military training camp.

The extra mystical powers of the monk (centered mind, harmonious body, immunity to disease, mentally blocking pain, etc.) are a narrow enough band of effects that come on over the course of levels that they'd fit into a theme. Even Oriental Adventurers back in the day showed us that these concepts were easily applied to classes that did something other than fight bare-handed or with peasant weapons. Creating a theme allows one to approximate things like the Sohei, Shugenja, or Wu-Jen easily.

When you really get down to it, the AD&D Monk class in modern terms is a unique *build* - a combination of Class, Background, and Theme.

*Monk Build*
Class: Fighter (Martial Artist)
Background: Monk
Theme: Mystic Contemplative

This leaves the door open for other combinations like these:

*Sohei Build*
Class: Fighter (Guardian)
Background: Monk
Theme: Mystic Contemplative

*Burly Grappler Build*
Class: Fighter (Martial Artist)
Background: Thug
Theme: Reaver

*Western Monk Build*
Class: Cleric (Priest)
Background: Monk
Theme: Healer (maybe Artisan?)

Etc.

- Marty Lund


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 8, 2012)

I think a cleaned up 1st Monk is in order, no Ki baggage.

I have already dropped it in the 5th Ed play-test with ease (obviously a few tweaks).


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## Salamandyr (Aug 8, 2012)

I don't particularly care for the monk class because of what it says about it the world and the other characters in it.  After all, if it's possible with enough training, to slay dragons with your bare hands, what does that imply about the poor loser who needs a longsword and plate mail to do it?  Likewise, in order to carve out a niche for monks as preeminent unarmed combatants, in most versions, designers have made all the other martial classes incompetent when you take their toys away from them.

As such, I would definitely prefer the monk to go away, and unarmed combat to be something that the fighter class (as well as the inevitable barbarian, ranger and other combatant classes) are proficient in by design.  

As for the mystical parts (including being able to match an equally skilled armed opponent while weaponless) I'd prefer that be held part of a "wuxia" module that modifies all classes.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 8, 2012)

I'm not completely sure what people are envisioning when they talk about divorcing the monk class from its Eastern trappings - wouldn't that just be a pugilist, or brawler, or something?

In any case, if what you're looking for is a Bruce Lee-style martial artist without the wuxia mystic powers, my hope is that multiclassing will be a viable answer in 5e.

If you think about it, the 3e monk didn't start getting all wuxia until higher levels. My guess/hope is that the 5e monk will be similar: Bruce Lee with a little parkour built in up to about level 10, and then a gentle phasing in of the more mystical elements of the class until we have a preternatural badass at high levels.

So if you start out with a few levels of monk, then add levels of fighter through the "3e-style multiclassing" we've been promised (and I still don't understand how they'll avoid the gimped multiclass casters and overpowered single-level dipping of 3e, but we'll see), and carefully select your combat superiority powers for the fighter, you SHOULD be able to get a dude who has the unarmed/unarmored benefits of the monk along with the martial prowess and flexibility of the fighter (although obviously without the full, specialized benefits of either).

To me, this seems an obvious better choice than just eliminating the monk class. D&D monks aren't just fighters with different weapons and armor; they fulfill a very different combat role, play differently, and are effective in very different ways. Given that Mearls has said the monk class was the easiest to design (suggesting they've already done most of the work), why toss that away?



> I don't particularly care for the monk class because of what it says about it the world and the other characters in it. After all, if it's possible with enough training, to slay dragons with your bare hands, what does that imply about the poor loser who needs a longsword and plate mail to do it?




For the same reason you'd use a longsword and plate mail instead of becoming a wizard and zapping the dragon with lightning bolts: because being a monk or wizard requires years or decades of disciplined training and sacrifice, not to mention different ability scores (Wis for the monk, Int for the wizard). You can flip the question around rather easily too: why spend years or decades training martial arts to become a level 1 monk when you can spend a few weeks in basic training, strap on a suit of armor and grab a sword, and be just as effective as a fighter?


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## Remathilis (Aug 8, 2012)

mlund said:


> People conflate fighting style and lifestyle too much when addressing the Monk as a class rather than a character build. This is part of why having Backgrounds and Themes are so important - well-designed classes do not put your character background into a straight-jacket.
> 
> "Monk" is not a class - it is a background. Living and working on a daily basis inside or under the authority of a monastery as a religious. It doesn't constitute any special powers in any culture. In Japan monks were often just retired samurai. A Chinese monastery could have a bunch of pole-arm fighters, kung-fu grapplers, swordsmen, or archers in it - but it could also be populated entirely by non-violent pacifists or mostly by disabled people cast off by a less-compassionate society.
> 
> ...




Which goes back to my earlier post: at some point EVERY class is an artificial construction of background, skill and theme. Even fighter and wizard (which we can argue are the backbone of classes; one's good at combat, the other casts spells) in the end are nothing more than a background (I studies books/swords) and talents (I cast spells/I swing swords) and theme (I learn spells from a book/I use heavy weapons and armor). 

Which is why reductionism is a slippery slope. If a monk (with its oddball mechanics) don't qualify for a class, what does? Does an Assassin or a Barbarian? Does a Druid or a Ranger? Does a Paladin or a Bard? Does a Rogue or a Cleric? Does a Fighter even? At what point do we decide X is a class and Y is a theme/background? 

I'm horribly leery about making any former class a theme now, since the standard for doing so is the arbitrary "I don't think it deserves to be". I might be able to argue it for One-Edition-Wonders, but Classes that have been around for 20+ years have earned the right to stay classes, no matter how niche they might seem.


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 8, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> I'm not completely sure what people are envisioning when they talk about divorcing the monk class from its Eastern trappings - wouldn't that just be a pugilist, or brawler, or something?





No, something like Bannor, the Bloodguard, or The Yellow Rose Monastery in The Realms.

I have never tied the Monk to Asia/the Orient.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 8, 2012)

Steely_Dan said:


> No, something like Bannor, the Bloodguard, or The Yellow Rose Monastery in The Realms.
> 
> I have never tied the Monk to Asia/the Orient.




My only recollection of a monk in FR was Cadderly's girlfriend Danica in RA Salvatore's Cleric Quintet, and from what I recall, she was pretty clearly a kung fu-inspired monk. So even if the geopolitics of the campaign setting doesn't place these characters in the Mysterious Orient, the character design is pretty clearly based on focusing your ki energy and all that other pop-Zen jazz (just like the rapier duelists in those stories don't have to speak Italian to get the archetype across).



> I'm horribly leery about making any former class a theme now, since the standard for doing so is the arbitrary "I don't think it deserves to be". I might be able to argue it for One-Edition-Wonders, but Classes that have been around for 20+ years have earned the right to stay classes, no matter how niche they might seem.




I 100% agree. Not just because of sacred cows, but also because the whole appeal of a class-based system is that each class should have its own mechanical gimmicks and feel. Just look at the way people are already salivating about what you could do with the combat superiority mechanic they outlined for fighters - now let's imagine each class has equally unique and compelling mechanics, and designing a character, especially a multiclass character, means finding the optimal ways to synergize those abilities. 

(Hey, imagine taking that Defender-cleric from the palytest and giving him a few levels of fighter with the "defend self" and "defend ally" superiority powers, so now he has his cleric healing PLUS the ability to prevent himself and his allies from even taking damage! Now imagine taking a 5e monk and adding bonus damage and counterattacks from different fighter powers! If WOTC gets this right, it sounds to me like a blast to design these advanced character concepts.)


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 8, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> My only recollection of a monk in FR was Cadderly's girlfriend Danica in RA Salvatore's Cleric Quintet, and from what I recall, she was pretty clearly a kung fu-inspired monk. So even if the geopolitics of the campaign setting doesn't place these characters in the Mysterious Orient, the character design is pretty clearly based on focusing your ki energy and all that other pop-Zen jazz




Ah, the Scarlet Brotherhood, there's another one.


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## mlund (Aug 8, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> Which goes back to my earlier post: at some point EVERY class is an artificial construction of background, skill and theme. Even fighter and wizard (which we can argue are the backbone of classes; one's good at combat, the other casts spells) in the end are nothing more than a background (I studies books/swords) and talents (I cast spells/I swing swords) and theme (I learn spells from a book/I use heavy weapons and armor).




To a matter of degree? Sure. To the same degree that the current 5E models Class-Background-Theme? Certainly not.



> Which is why reductionism is a slippery slope. If a monk (with its oddball mechanics) don't qualify for a class, what does?




So, because you choose to engage in a textbook *Slippery Slope Fallacy* taking any sort of reduction or compartmentalization approach to handling traditional classes as builds is BadWrong?

I respectfully disagree.



> Does an Assassin or a Barbarian?




That entirely depends on what your definition of "Class" is. If Class is a large tent of options around some core backbone of distinct rolls (using Fighter, Rogue, Magic-User, and Cleric as cardinal points) without mandatory associations to Background or Theme slots then no, they certainly don't fit that criteria. If Class is a fully-supported combination of level-based abilities from a Super-Type (like the cardinal point Super Classes) plus a particular Background and Theme then yes, certainly.

That's probably the biggest impediment to the discussion and the design going on at the moment - confusing "class" with "build," just because that's what 1st Edition did with some things. It isn't like Barbarian, Paladin, Druids, or Ranger were classes either - they were *sub-classes*. In 2nd Ed you had "kits." 3rd Edition lost that in favor of patchwork multiclassing and Prestige Classes.



> Does a Druid or a Ranger? Does a Paladin or a Bard? Does a Rogue or a Cleric? Does a Fighter even? At what point do we decide X is a class and Y is a theme/background?




When it has a distinct niche (for example: Warrior, Holy-Man, Magician, Rogue) that doesn't so severely constrict your Background and Theme.



> I'm horribly leery about making any former class a theme now, since the standard for doing so is the arbitrary "I don't think it deserves to be".




The standard, while nebulous, should not be "because I'm not a fan of that class." It should be "I can cleanly construct it out of balanced modular components (that have multiple applications) without a ton of hassle."

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 8, 2012)

The problem with the "make it into a background and theme" line of thought is that currently

A background is:
3-4 Skill bonuses
1 interaction or exploration trait

And a theme is:
3 combat feats.

If you can't make a the same concept by taking an existing class and adding 3-4 skills, 1 trait, and 3 feats, then you can't even attempt to devolve the class into a BY/Theme combo.

And even if you can, you have drained all the character's customization options.


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## mlund (Aug 8, 2012)

Are all monks mystical martial-arts badasses? Are all martial-artists mystics? Are all martial-artists monks? No, no, and no. That's a great indication that these components don't have to be chained together into an exclusive package deal like AD&D gave us.

Likewise, are all Barbarians rage-fueled melee combatants? Do rage-filled characters only fight in melee? Are all illiterate, uncivilized people raging killers? No, no, and no. That's a solid sign that these aren't an exclusive package deal either.

Are all Fighters high HP warriors who hit things with a high degree of accuracy for good (or better) damage? Are all the best specialists in a particular fighting style Fighters? Are characters that use Combat Superiority Fighters? Yes, yes, and yes. That's a pretty good indication that you have a core package qualified to be a class (probably a Super Class) on your hands in the Fighter.

The Monk's core class features when compared to other classes are martial-arts stunts and attacks. It's a combat style that benefits greatly from the same kinds of tricks that fall under the Fighter's Combat Superiority Shtick. Additionally, if the best combat specialist in a particular weapon in the realm is supposed to be a fighter then it stands to reason that the guy with the best Kung Fu in all the land is, *gasp*, a Fighter.

Meanwhile the mystical harmony and monastic enlightenment shticks can clearly be used by characters that are not unarmed combat badasses - pretty much definitive examples of what Backgrounds and Themes are for. Silo'ing them into a Monk class locked away from any other play-style is just wasteful. Also, the hyper-narrow Okinawan AD&D -> 3E Monk is a mess of over-restrictions, cutting down the Chinese-style sword-wielding and polearm-fighting martial artists. I don't want to have to wait until "Oriental Adventurers 5E" to build a Sohei, Shugenja, or Wu Jen when the components to build them can easily be included in the Core game.

I want to see a lot of build options under the Fighter's tent with some familiar default options. I want a Slayer coming with the Barbarian background and the Reaver Theme standard. I want a Martial-Artist sporting the Monk background and Mystic Harmony theme. I want a Marshall rocking the Officer background and the Leadership Theme out of the gate. If I want to only take 1 or 2 of these things and try a new combination I'm not married to playing a Barbarian, Monk, or Warlord.

The sad part is we probably won't see them. Instead we'll get to wait around with various mechanics unnecessarily married to criminally narrow "classes" just so people can use the word "class" to describe a particular build without some sort of stigma. Wizards of the Coast will be happy to sell us splat-books full of new overly-narrow "classes" that are nothing but overly-specific, poorly-balanced nonsense and recycled concepts we could've used with a better Core implementation.

Hooray for another edition of super-random junk like 3E Hexblades, Swashbucklers, and Knights that should've been playable variants of the Cardinal Classes out of the gate but instead had to wait for a crap-shoot-o-quality-control in splat-books years and years after the PHB released. 

- Marty Lund


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 8, 2012)

Looks like the Monk is in, jury's still out on the Barbarian.


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## Minigiant (Aug 8, 2012)

mlund said:


> Meanwhile the mystical harmony and monastic enlightenment shticks can clearly be used by characters that are not unarmed combat badasses - pretty much definitive examples of what Backgrounds and Themes are for. Silo'ing them into a Monk class locked away from any other play-style is just wasteful. Also, the hyper-narrow Okinawan AD&D -> 3E Monk is a mess of over-restrictions, cutting down the Chinese-style sword-wielding and polearm-fighting martial artists. I don't want to have to wait until "Oriental Adventurers 5E" to build a Sohei, Shugenja, or Wu Jen when the components to build them can easily be included in the Core game.




This rigt here is the problem.

As Backgrounds and Themes are defined as at the moment, the Monk's mystical parts cannot be defined as a background and theme. Well not it the way they were defined before.

A background is 3-4 skills and a trait. A theme is a collection of combat feats. 

Is Slow fall a skill, a trait, or a combat feat. If it is a skill then anyone can do it. Or is the +3 to the skill going to make that big of a difference. It is not combat so it cannot be in a theme. Maybe as a trait. But you get only one.

Then there is monk bonus speed. That isn't a skill nor a feat. So it has to be a trait. But you only get 1 so no slow fall. Unless you combine it with slow fall. Then there are all those other pieces noncombat monk baggage.

Is Increased unarmed damage a combat feat or part of the fighter's Combat Superiority? What about additional unarmed attacks? Stunning fist?  Immunities and resistances. Self healing.
Is Wis to AC a combat feat? You could maybe get away with it. Evasion? That's way over the 3 combat feats.

It's easy to say make it a background/theme. It is harder to do it.

It might be easier to make the class.


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## mlund (Aug 9, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> A background is 3-4 skills and a trait. A theme is a collection of combat feats.




You are factually incorrect and what you assert about Backgrounds and Themes.

If you'd take the time to look at the play-test materials you'll clearly see that the Cleric of Pelor has the "Healer" theme. At first level it gives him the Herbalism feat, which is not a combat feat. At level 3 he gains the Healer's Touch feat from the theme. The Arcane Dabbler feat gives you extra cantrips, some of which have no combat applications and at level 3 you get a familiar.

I'm just going to skip over the parts based on your false assertion that Themes have to give you nothing but combat feats as it's counter-factual.

Backgrounds come with a skill set and a "Feature" that's pretty much open-ended design space. The most typical we've seen are social interaction and research-related bonuses.



> Then there is monk bonus speed. That isn't a skill nor a feat.




It also doesn't exist in 4th Edition, though the Monk does. The Barbarian in 3E got the speed bonus too, so it isn't even a unique class feature.



> What about additional unarmed attacks?




Fighters are the class that get additional attacks. Fits perfectly whether you are a Okinawan Fist-monk or a Chinese sword-monk.



> Stunning fist?




Definitely Combat Superiority territory.



> Immunities and resistances. Self healing.




Sounds like a solid Theme to me.



> Is Wis to AC a combat feat?




Fighter build option for the Martial Artist specializing: unarmored AC bonuses from other stats.



> Evasion?




Existed only in 3E and was not unique to the class. The play-test rogue doesn't have Uncanny Dodge or Evasion. The sky didn't fall.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 9, 2012)

mlund said:


> You are factually incorrect and what you assert about Backgrounds and Themes.
> 
> If you'd take the time to look at the play-test materials you'll clearly see that the Cleric of Pelor has the "Healer" theme. At first level it gives him the Herbalism feat, which is not a combat feat. At level 3 he gains the Healer's Touch feat from the theme. The Arcane Dabbler feat gives you extra cantrips, some of which have no combat applications and at level 3 you get a familiar.
> 
> I'm just going to skip over the parts based on your false assertion that Themes have to give you nothing but combat feats as it's counter-factual.



Herbalism is a combat feat. An indirect combat feat with applications in oter pillars.

I lets you make potion and kits that heal HP and remove poison. That are mostly combat applications. Sure it could be useful in exploration with traps, but primarily it is a combat defense.



> Backgrounds come with a skill set and a "Feature" that's pretty much open-ended design space. The most typical we've seen are social interaction and research-related bonuses.




This is true. Currently these traits are exploration and interaction features.



> It also doesn't exist in 4th Edition, though the Monk does. The Barbarian in 3E got the speed bonus too, so it isn't even a unique class feature.
> 
> 
> Fighters are the class that get additional attacks. Fits perfectly whether you are a Okinawan Fist-monk or a Chinese sword-monk.
> ...




True. You can move a lot of monk martial arts into Combat Superiority (and this complicates it). But then you'd still have jam whatever is not in the fighter into 3 combat feats.  It they can pinpoint the aspects most fans want and can condense them into 3 feats, fine.

But I won't want that job. And it it were me, I'd save myself from the stress and just make the class.


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## Remathilis (Aug 9, 2012)

mlund said:


> To a matter of degree? Sure. To the same degree that the current 5E models Class-Background-Theme? Certainly not.
> 
> So, because you choose to engage in a textbook *Slippery Slope Fallacy* taking any sort of reduction or compartmentalization approach to handling traditional classes as builds is BadWrong?
> 
> I respectfully disagree.




There is a nasty habit among reductionists to gut anything flavorful out of a class and reduce it nothing more than a means of delivering X ability. 

Lets take two examples. A 3e wizard and a sorcerer are very different mechanically but have overlapping fluff. (Assuming book learning vs. blood/innate not being terribly different, at least as the mechanics define it.) A Paladin and a Fighter have similar mechanical elements (being melee combatants, one focused on feats the other on special powers) but are day-and-night different in fluff and story. (A trained warrior vs. a living embodiment of Justice and Righteousness.) 

By reductionist logic: a wizard and a sorcerer are two separate classes as they do two different mechanical things, but the paladin and fighter should be condensed into a theme/background combo, despite the fact that "fighter" and "paladin" are not overly similar concepts while "sorcerer" and "wizard" are practically synonymous. 



mlund said:


> That entirely depends on what your definition of "Class" is. If Class is a large tent of options around some core backbone of distinct rolls (using Fighter, Rogue, Magic-User, and Cleric as cardinal points) without mandatory associations to Background or Theme slots then no, they certainly don't fit that criteria. If Class is a fully-supported combination of level-based abilities from a Super-Type (like the cardinal point Super Classes) plus a particular Background and Theme then yes, certainly.
> 
> That's probably the biggest impediment to the discussion and the design going on at the moment - confusing "class" with "build," just because that's what 1st Edition did with some things. It isn't like Barbarian, Paladin, Druids, or Ranger were classes either - they were *sub-classes*. In 2nd Ed you had "kits." 3rd Edition lost that in favor of patchwork multiclassing and Prestige Classes.




This is just 4e all over again. "Replace "class" with "role" (Defender, Leader, Striker, Controller), and "theme" with "build". 

If you are fine with this, that's great. I'm not. I HATED that Bards, Clerics, Warlords, and other Leaders all felt similar (a minor action 2/encounter heal, powers that granted minor bonuses to hit/damage, etc). Ditto with all Defenders having a "mark" mechanic. I want a paladin to play differently than a fighter, and I don't just mean "radiant damage" and "different mark effect". 



mlund said:


> When it has a distinct niche (for example: Warrior, Holy-Man, Magician, Rogue) that doesn't so severely constrict your Background and Theme.




Again, why stop there. Why can't a magician be a Holy-man? Why can't a Warrior be a Rogue? Why not just make Rogue a theme so I can have sneaky Fighters or Mages? Why not give Magician's healing and make Cleric a Theme (or a series of themes, based on each god?) 



mlund said:


> The standard, while nebulous, should not be "because I'm not a fan of that class." It should be "I can cleanly construct it out of balanced modular components (that have multiple applications) without a ton of hassle."




The standard should be "Is this a viable fantasy archetype that can be customized via OPTIONAL rules like Theme and Background?" 

Your standard really is best served with a point-buy or classless system. Honestly, 4e came as close to a classless system as D&D ever was. It needed one step further: it already had everyone using the same power advancement, the same +1/2 level bonus, access to all skills, etc. All a class did was assign you HP, a bonus skill, proficiencies, and a few starter powers. Throw off those shackles and open all powers up and you have the perfect classless system. I could literally build any class out of those powers. We wouldn't need a single class, since I could replicate a fighter, wizard, ranger, assassin, or whatever just by picking the right powers.


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## Mishihari Lord (Aug 9, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> The Fighter seems to get some criticism over the years for being a bit boring. The Monk takes some criticism for being a bit thematically (Oriental style) themed in contrast to the other Classes.
> 
> How about addressing both these concerns by adapting some of the aspects of the Monk Class with those of the Fighter. After all, the Monk is basically just a pure, trained Fighter, with mystical abilities.
> 
> I'm saying, remove some of the mystical baggage of the Monk (along with the major restrictions) but open up the manner in which they have combat styles and abilities (as special effects) to be integrated into the broader, more generic Fighter Class. With customisation (and Themes) you could even designate your Fighter as being a monastic, unarmed specialist.....which would make the Monk Class redundant if done well.




"Gotta spread XP"  

Anyway, this is an intriguing idea.  While I like the Asian-culture monk, I'm interested in seeing what would come out of pursuing this.


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## Stormonu (Aug 9, 2012)

If Ki/Chi, Arcane Spells, Divine Spells, Martial Stunts and Rogue Talents were made into power sources you could attach to a character, making a monk would be a lot easier.  It'd also make it a lot more like 4E, though.

Stepping back, I wouldn't mind seeing characters selecting Race, Class, Power Source, Theme and Background.  Unlike 4E, power sources wouldn't have to work the same.  Martial Stunts might use dice (Combat Superiority).  Rogue Talents might expend skills ("burn" a skill to make it unusable for a short time to do something special).  Arcane spells would be memorize and forget.  Divine spells would be pray and expend.

Other power sources could added to the list, each having their own peculiar but simple system.  One such source might be Pacts to make Warlocks, and so on.  Rage could be a power source for berserker/barbarians.  Calling might be the power source for a paladin's abilities, etc.

The basic idea would be you get one power source - possibly restricted by class, and that probably would have an influence on your available themes.  It would be the power source, instead of the class, that determines what special stunts you can pull off.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 9, 2012)

Take the 4e monk and tell me what it has in common with the 4e fighter.
Role? Nope. Power source? Nope. Weapons and armor? Nope. HP? Nope. Powers? Nope.

Take the 3e monk and tell me what it has in common with the 3e fighter.
BAB? Nope. Saves? Nope. Special abilities? Nope. Alignment? Nope. Speed? Nope. Skills? Nope. HD? Nope.

Both can be described as "classes that hit things in melee until they fall down?" Bingo!

In other words, the two classes have always been just about as far apart mechanically as two melee classes can be. That doesn't exactly scream to be combined IMHO.


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## variant (Aug 9, 2012)

I would be more accepting of the monk if they would remove the orient flavor and replaced it with a more fantasy western flavor.


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## mlund (Aug 9, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> There is a nasty habit among reductionists to gut anything flavorful out of a class and reduce it nothing more than a means of delivering X ability.




Actually, I think there is a nasty habit of class-centric thinking to unnecessarily marry anything flavorful to a class, creating unnecessary constraints on what abilities can be mixed so that one style (the Okinawan Peasant-Monk) gets supported but boggart's design space so another style can't exist (the Chinese weapon-monk).



> By reductionist logic: a wizard and a sorcerer are two separate classes as they do two different mechanical things, but the paladin and fighter should be condensed into a theme/background combo, despite the fact that "fighter" and "paladin" are not overly similar concepts while "sorcerer" and "wizard" are practically synonymous.




Actually, the Wizard and the Sorcerer have the same power source and the same ability niche (Arcane Magic). The Paladin, however, is a hybrid of both the Fighter and the Cleric's niche's (martial prowess, divine power). Essentially the Wizard and Sorcerer are just Magic-User sub-systems, while the Paladin actually pitches his admittedly small tent in the territory between two Cardinal Classes.



> This is just 4e all over again. "Replace "class" with "role" (Defender, Leader, Striker, Controller), and "theme" with "build".




Nope. Between Vancian Spell lists and Themes it seems pretty clear that you can explore "roles" with themes like "Defender" or spell selections.

It would be closer to the mark to replace "class" with "power source, combat aptitudes, and hit dice" and "sub-class" would relate to specializations - like a combat style for a martial character (great weapons, bows, martial-arts, rages), or a spell allocation system for a caster (Vancian, Book of 9 Swords, Power Points, Prepared vs. Spontaneous, etc.).

"Build" would be a more rounded character archetype involving theme and background - the monastic mystical martial artist; the barbaric raging reaver; the harrowed magician who steals power from devils; the privileged, high-born knight, etc.

The point isn't the eliminate what made up the Monk class, but to liberate it.



> Again, why stop there. Why can't a magician be a Holy-man?




Arbitrary distinction between Divine and Arcane magic.



> Why can't a Warrior be a Rogue?




Arbitrary distinction between Finesse and Force attacks.

They could be eliminated, but those tropes are considered Core to the brand identity.



ZombieRoboNinja said:


> Take the 4e monk and tell me what it has in common with the 4e fighter.
> Role? Nope. Power source? Nope. Weapons and armor? Nope. HP? Nope. Powers? Nope.




Role? Striker. The Essentials Fighter is the Slayer - a striker just like the Monk.

Power Source? The 4E Monk was a psionic. Psionics weren't even Core from OD&D to 3.5E. That's completely alien to every previous incarnation of the monk, and 5E so far doesn't have anything Psionic in its Core. 



> Take the 3e monk and tell me what it has in common with the 3e fighter.
> BAB? Nope. Saves? Nope. Special abilities? Nope. Alignment? Nope. Speed? Nope. Skills? Nope. HD? Nope.




Let's not romanticize things, though. The 3E Monk was a train-wreck of a class with tons of design flaws at its core.

BAB? Both the Fighter and Monk needed optimal BAB. Only the Fighter got it. The Monk flailed around with Flurry as a poor substitute. 

Special Abilities? Both shared an overlap of Bonus Feats, only the Fighter got everything the Monk got and more. Other special abilities the Monk had overlapped with the Barbarian, Rogue, and Ranger.

Alignment? The Fighter definitely benefited by not be type-cast into an alignment restriction.

Weapons? The Fighter could use the Monk's weapons, and weapons that the Monk was prohibited from using due to being Japan-centric instead of more broadly inclusive to Chinese-inspired Monks.

Between alignment restriction, bad BAB, M.A.D., and straight-jacketed "special ability" progression that Monk was a terrible multi-class candidate in an edition that measured optimization by multi-classing or caster levels. To cap it off, one of the few good multi-classing options for the Monk was a 2-level dip into Fighter for the HD, BAB, and Bonus Feats he should've already had because pretty much all the depth in martial-arts style fighting was found in Fighter Bonus Feats. The only thing keeping the Fighter from obsoleting the Monk entirely as a Martial-Artist was the expanding Unarmed Damage Die mechanic and the pile of suck you got if you tried to Power Attack with fist instead of a great sword.



> Both can be described as "classes that hit things in melee until they fall down?" Bingo!




Actually, they can both be described as "classes that fight in melee with options for a bunch of special maneuvers via Feats that now fall under 5E's 'Combat Superiority' mechanics."

The big problem with being hyper-classist like AD&D and 3E were with their Monks is that you basically roll up a bunch of thematic material that could be more broadly applied and marry it to a combat style, then basically feel compelled to keep them away from other applications to keep up the idea it's a unique and precious snow-flake of a class. Then other builds get eliminated because they overlap too much with the Okinawa Monk without fitting his mold (like the Chinese fighting monk, the Zen-archer, the non-combatant monk, and the non-monastic martial-artist). 

- Marty Lund


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 9, 2012)

I'm all for other classes being good at unarmed combat, like a full on Wuxia Campaign, where all characters are flying around kicking ass, as well as spell-casting or what-have-you, but that is not the point of the Monk (and it should not be tied to unarmed combat, you should be able to play a staff or sword wielding or whatever weapon tickles your fancy Monk).

To me, the Bard and Monk are the original 5th dude classes.

The 1st Ed Monk even gets a bit druidical (talking to animals and plants); the 1st Ed Monk has a lot of potential, just went a bit awry, but easily fixed in 1 minute.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 9, 2012)

mlund said:


> The big problem with being hyper-classist like AD&D and 3E were with their Monks is that you basically roll up a bunch of thematic material that could be more broadly applied and marry it to a combat style, then basically feel compelled to keep them away from other applications to keep up the idea it's a unique and precious snow-flake of a class. Then other builds get eliminated because they overlap too much with the Okinawa Monk without fitting his mold (like the Chinese fighting monk, the Zen-archer, the non-combatant monk, and the non-monastic martial-artist).




First off, just because previous editions jealously guarded the monk's turf doesn't mean 5e has to do the same. Stick in a "Zen Warrior" theme so fighters can use a good Wisdom score, or a "Pugilist" theme so they can punch hard.

I also don't think the 5e monk should be dead-set against multiclassing like the 3e version. Let me drop a few levels of rogue into my monk to make him more ninja-tastic, or a few levels of fighter to make him more skilled at on-the-fly tactical adjustments in melee with a couple combat superiority dice.

But my point is that there's enough to the monk class to be worth working into its own design, with its own unique combat mechanics. He's not just "a fighter, but ASIAN," he's unique in his mobility, resistance to spells, and later on, in his mystical attributes. 

Don't like the Okinawan karate vibe? Well, the default paladin is an idealized Knight Templar and the default bard is a god-knows-what. But we all seem fine agreeing that those classes can/should be flexible enough to fit other related themes. And here's another chance for 5e to differentiate: make a couple backgrounds like Acolyte and Apprentice for those who want "traditional" monk backstories, and you've opened things up for other kinds of martial artists. 



> The point isn't the eliminate what made up the Monk class, but to liberate it.




You seem fond of saying that monk abilities would make a good theme. (And in your defense, they've made it pretty clear that there will be "advanced" themes going from level 6-10, so we're talking 6 feats, not 3.) But here's the thing: there are a lot of different kinds of unarmed enlightened warriors I might want to play. If I have to use up my first theme just to make sure he can walk around bare-fisted with no armor and not get eaten by the first bugbear he encounters, that's not a lot of room for flexibility. Even if I get a little flexibility in choosing fighter powers, there are only going to be so many that are appropriate (or even possible) for an unarmed fighter. Every monk ends up looking almost exactly the same.

Compare that to a monk class that offers its own unique combat mechanics, and still has the flexibility offered by choice of theme and background, along with whatever internal flexibility the class has. (And I expect the class will have "styles" to choose from, so you can play a soft-style Tai Chi guy or a hard-style karate guy or even a ninja or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon swordsman or whatever.) PLUS, we're supposedly going to have some kind of 3e-style multiclassing, adding even MORE flexibility. To me, that sounds a lot more "liberating" than breaking up the class into its component parts.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> Take the 3e monk and tell me what it has in common with the 3e fighter.



Stunning Blow:  it's a monk ability and a fighter bonus feat.

The monk is just a (mostly) unarmed fighter with a lot of second-hand cultural baggage.  Thanks to a skewed perception of the exotic, the off-the-wall feats attributed to shao-lin and wu zia, are credited or perceived as mystical or supernatural (just fine for a fantasy RPG), while the comparable feats of western warriors in myth and tall tales are simply viewed as 'unrealistic.'  Get over that little prejudice, and there's really no differences among the fighter, knight, monk, samurai, etc - beyond choice of gear and fluff.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 9, 2012)

Tony Vargas said:


> Stunning Blow:  it's a monk ability and a fighter bonus feat.
> 
> The monk is just a (mostly) unarmed fighter with a lot of second-hand cultural baggage.  Thanks to a skewed perception of the exotic, the off-the-wall feats attributed to shao-lin and wu zia, are credited or perceived as mystical or supernatural (just fine for a fantasy RPG), while the comparable feats of western warriors in myth and tall tales are simply viewed as 'unrealistic.'  Get over that little prejudice, and there's really no differences among the fighter, knight, monk, samurai, etc - beyond choice of gear and fluff.




Fully agreed. For some reason a European-style swashbuckler who knows a lot of medieval pseudoscience about how and where to strike his enemies is using his Int score, while a Chinese-style fencer who knows a lot of Confucian pseudoscience about how and where to strike is using Wisdom. Very silly.

But that being said, while many other Eastern archetypes could easily fit into the standard D&D classes with some cosmetic changes, I personally can't think of a European trope of an unarmed, unarmored fighter who prefers to go toe to toe against armed opponents, using his honed agility and preternatural instincts to win out over brute strength. Yes, it's a trope not at all based in reality (the Japanese samurai eventually beat the Okinawan monks, remember?) but it's a very cool one. If you want that in the game (and I do), it probably needs its own class as a starting point.

Also: Even when you allow a Western fighter to get all "mystical," it tends to be very different from a Kung Fu movie fighter who does the same. Much more cutting dudes in half and getting hunks "the size of a baby's head" carved out of them without flinching (my favorite line from the Tain Bo Cuailnge), much less dancing across lakes and floating on wires through the air. So it's not like the various archetypes would coalesce without our cultural bias.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> But that being said, while many other Eastern archetypes could easily fit into the standard D&D classes with some cosmetic changes, I personally can't think of a European trope of an unarmed, unarmored fighter who prefers to go toe to toe against armed opponents, using his honed agility and preternatural instincts to win out over brute strength.



The western unarmed/unarmored analogue would more likely be using skill /and/ brute strength rather than preternatural instincts, but unarmed martial styles did exist in various forms in the west.  IRL, from the ancient Pankration to boxing & wrestling to the more modern Savate.  Even more modern, of course, are outright superheroes.  



> Yes, it's a trope not at all based in reality (the Japanese samurai eventually beat the Okinawan monks, remember?) but it's a very cool one. If you want that in the game (and I do), it probably needs its own class as a starting point.



I don't see why.  Ultimately, it's a fighting style, the master of fighting styles is the fighter.  You just remove what vestigial dependence the class has on specific weapons and heavy armor, and you're most of the way there.


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## Remathilis (Aug 9, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> The basic idea would be you get one power source - possibly restricted by class, and that probably would have an influence on your available themes.  It would be the power source, instead of the class, that determines what special stunts you can pull off.




I want a Martial Wizard.


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## Remathilis (Aug 9, 2012)

variant said:


> I would be more accepting of the monk if they would remove the orient flavor and replaced it with a more fantasy western flavor.




Ah, the exciting life of a Western Monk...









Tony Vargas said:


> Stunning Blow:  it's a monk ability and a fighter bonus feat.
> 
> The monk is just a (mostly) unarmed fighter with a lot of second-hand cultural baggage.  Thanks to a skewed perception of the exotic, the off-the-wall feats attributed to shao-lin and wu zia, are credited or perceived as mystical or supernatural (just fine for a fantasy RPG), while the comparable feats of western warriors in myth and tall tales are simply viewed as 'unrealistic.'  Get over that little prejudice, and there's really no differences among the fighter, knight, monk, samurai, etc - beyond choice of gear and fluff.




So we can can roll the Barbarian, Monk, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue, Assassin, Warlord and Fighter into one class then?

Can we do it to Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Warlock while we're at it?

Two classes.


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## TwoSix (Aug 9, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> So we can can roll the Barbarian, Monk, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue, Assassin, Warlord and Fighter into one class then?
> 
> Can we do it to Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Warlock while we're at it?
> 
> Two classes.



I would say three.

Warrior = Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, Warlord.
Rogue = Ranger, Rogue, Assassin, Bard
Mage = Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Warlock


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## mlund (Aug 9, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> But my point is that there's enough to the monk class to be worth working into its own design, with its own unique combat mechanics. He's not just "a fighter, but ASIAN," he's unique in his mobility, resistance to spells, and later on, in his mystical attributes.




I agree he's a unique build. The problem is, historically, we wind up with a super-narrow class that basically has to boggart everything about Martial-Arts to itself and bind them forever in the theme and background of Eastern Mysticism and Monasticism - which doesn't even support all the Eastern Cultural archetypes that are martial artists, let alone fantasy archetypes.



> You seem fond of saying that monk abilities would make a good theme. (And in your defense, they've made it pretty clear that there will be "advanced" themes going from level 6-10, so we're talking 6 feats, not 3.) But here's the thing: there are a lot of different kinds of unarmed enlightened warriors I might want to play. If I have to use up my first theme just to make sure he can walk around bare-fisted with no armor and not get eaten by the first bugbear he encounters, that's not a lot of room for flexibility.




No. You shouldn't be using a theme for that. That should come with the package of being a Fighter (Martial Artist). If your fighting style is "beat the snot out of people with Ku-Fung" you get Fighter Hit Dice, to-hit bonuses, bonus attacks, weapon proficiency, Combat Superiority and you trade out your Armor Proficiency for Unarmored Fighting. 

Spend your background on Monastic Life (or not, maybe your tough-luck street-fighter always looking for a stronger opponent or a prestigious royal guard rocking out of those braids that runs down to your knee)

Spend your theme on whatever complements your Martial-Arts style - maybe something violent and extroverted or something passive and introverted. Yin vs. Yang has a pretty awesome vibe. 



> Even if I get a little flexibility in choosing fighter powers, there are only going to be so many that are appropriate (or even possible) for an unarmed fighter. Every monk ends up looking almost exactly the same.




What powers? Extra damage dice when you hit? Two extra attacks per day? Trading out damage dice to push, knock down, disarm, or stun enemies? With most of what the fighter does being agnostic as to what exactly you want to hit them with it seems like a clean fit.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 9, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> I would say three.
> 
> Warrior = Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, Warlord.
> Rogue = Ranger, Rogue, Assassin, Bard
> Mage = Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Warlock




Why not 5?

Warrior
Mage
Explorer
Diplomat
Rogue


Okay. Seriously. 
If they can make a Monk into a half decent Background and Theme combo that fulfills the image of one in the minds of many D&D fans, then they should do it. 

They just should not hand over a watered down acrobat background and boxer theme in order to fit it in the them and BG templates.


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## Sammael (Aug 9, 2012)

Wizards and Sorcerers should be two kits of the same class (replace "kit" with whatever term you wish to use, I call them Traditions of Magic in Fatebinder). 

Fighters and Monks are very, very similar - they both rely on martial training and maneuvers (3.x bonus feats), only the monk receives some rogue-ish skills and a few mystical abilities that are thematically inappropriate for many traditional fantasy campaigns.

IMO, the Monk can (and should be) a Fighter kit that replaces armor reliance with Wisdom-based AC bonuses, is more resilient against mental attacks, and gains some resistances or immunities due to the control he can exert over his own body. Everything else can be gained through background/theme or some light multiclassing (as appropriate for each campaign).


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## Dausuul (Aug 9, 2012)

A D&D class is more than just a set of mechanics.  It's a concept, an archetype. And the "fighter" archetype and the "monk"  archetype are very different beasts. Quasi-mystical abilities are part of what defines the monk. As for the Asian flavor... shrug. If you don't want it in your setting, unleash the banhammer. That's what it's for.

The real challenge with monks is figuring out what exactly they're supposed to _do_ as adventurers. My inclination would be to make them specialists at a) disabling and debuffing enemies, b) scouting and exploring, and c) overcoming magical threats.


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## Piratecat (Aug 9, 2012)

I'd totally play a moghter-fink.


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## Sammael (Aug 9, 2012)

Why with the hyperbole?

The ONLY thing that defines the wizard are his spells. Remove the spells and you have no wizard left. 

The MAIN things that define the monk are his rigorous monastic martial training that fuels his ability to effectively fight unarmed and unarmored, and his maneuvers that are aimed at crippling or disabling foes. I am pretty positive that slow fall, minor self-healing, and the ability to dimension door once per day are *not* the defining features of this class. For those who want them, as I said, they should be easily attainable via feats, multiclassing, or some other means (with a suggested progression listed in the monk kit description).


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## Minigiant (Aug 9, 2012)

Sammael said:


> Why with the hyperbole?
> 
> The ONLY thing that defines the wizard are his spells. Remove the spells and you have no wizard left.
> 
> The MAIN things that define the monk are his rigorous monastic martial training that fuels his ability to effectively fight unarmed and unarmored, and his maneuvers that are aimed at crippling or disabling foes. I am pretty positive that slow fall, minor self-healing, and the ability to dimension door once per day are *not* the defining features of this class. For those who want them, as I said, they should be easily attainable via feats, multiclassing, or some other means (with a suggested progression listed in the monk kit description).





You got it backwards
The main things that define a monk is slow fall, jumping, running fast, wearing no armor, no being mind controlled, and doing crazy stuff after  meditation or some spiritual line. 

Kicking butt with fists, feet, and farmer's weapons is a bonus.


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## Tony Vargas (Aug 9, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> So we can can roll the Barbarian, Monk, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue, Assassin, Warlord and Fighter into one class then?



Except for the Paladin, they'd all fit pretty neatly into the Martial Source.  Though, Assassin is more a profession and Barbarian more a cultural origin - Background in 5e parlance.  And, in 5e, the martial source looks likely to be thinned out to the Fighter & Thief, so, yeah, darn close.



> Can we do it to Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Warlock while we're at it?
> 
> Two classes.



Don't laugh, /no classes/ is an option that's worked very well for a lot of games.


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## Someone (Aug 9, 2012)

I don't believe a monk is incompatible with a strong unarmed or unarmored option for the fighter, and in fact I think it'd be a good asset provided neither option is grossly superior to the other. Those who want to customize his fighter choosing the right options should be able to do so, those who want an easy, preplanned unarmed combatant that doesn't require special system knowledge to pull off or want the supernatural baggage should have a monk class. 

The same thing applies to rangers, paladins and other narrow niches; I'd prefer if there's an easy option for the lightly armored two weapon fighter and also a good two weapon fighting path for the fighter for those who don't neccesarily like the nature theme.


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## Tovec (Aug 9, 2012)

Sammael said:


> IMO, the Monk can (and should be) a Fighter kit that replaces armor reliance with Wisdom-based AC bonuses, is more resilient against mental attacks, and gains some resistances or immunities due to the control he can exert over his own body. Everything else can be gained through background/theme or some light multiclassing (as appropriate for each campaign).



IMO, the Monk isn't (and shouldn't be) a Fighter kit. It isn't and shouldn't just replace armor with wisdom to AC. Let me lay out a reason why I am so opposed.
I see three options that happens with monks being fighters. First, we could get a monk that is almost identical to a fighter, same BAB (or w/e BAB will end up in 5e) and basic combat abilities. They'll both be able to disable opponents via trip and disarm and they'll both have about comparable AC. They'll have all these things because you can't have one fighter be that much different from another fighter if they are going to be even a little bit balanced with one another.
Second could be that the fighter keeps armor and weapons and becomes a vastly superior combatant with the monk being inferior for only using his fists whereas the fighter can use any weapon he wants, all with more damage and freely available upgrades. I'm going to call this the 3e combat disparity. This gap may be smaller in 5e depending on how upgrades and flatter math works but it seems that if the monk has to spend his time specializing he'll end up weaker than the guy who just took a single discipline.
Third is that the monk is vastly superior to the fighter, with better AC due to wis and dex to AC and no penalties from armor. They'll also get other special tricks like the ones that come from the 3e levels to make them cool or interesting. But of course there is a base fighter so they'll be equally competent in attacking too, and put all together they'll end up better than the stock-fighter.

None of these are very attractive. They ALL have the problem of making the monk too similar to the fighter or lacking the distinction of what the monk is from the fighter.
As I said earlier up-thread, tell me what I'd have to lose while I'm spending time becoming a monk. I don't want to have to be a fighter who builds towards a monk. I don't want to have to be a monk who builds towards a fighter either. They are separate and unique and should remain that way.



Dausuul said:


> A D&D class is more than just a set of mechanics.  It's a concept, an archetype. And the "fighter" archetype and the "monk"  archetype are very different beasts. Quasi-mystical abilities are part of what defines the monk. As for the Asian flavor... shrug. If you don't want it in your setting, unleash the banhammer. That's what it's for.



I'm not usually for having extras like this but I wholeheartedly agreed. We're not talking about a school of spells that you would have to ban, we are talking about one class that you feel doesn't fit with your interpretation of fantasy europe. That is a simple fix.



> The real challenge with monks is figuring out what exactly they're supposed to _do_ as adventurers. My inclination would be to make them specialists at a) disabling and debuffing enemies, b) scouting and exploring, and c) overcoming magical threats.



I wholeheartedly agree. On top of not wanting to lose my monk I want to see them get extra abilities that define them. They are poorly defined if going by a purely combat related aspect as it is. I do want to see something like debuffing, scouting and so on. These are all things that monks can and should be able to do that would be poorly represented with a monk as fighter model.



Sammael said:


> The MAIN things that define the monk are his rigorous monastic martial training that fuels his ability to effectively fight unarmed and unarmored, and his maneuvers that are aimed at crippling or disabling foes. I am pretty positive that slow fall, minor self-healing, and the ability to dimension door once per day are *not* the defining features of this class. For those who want them, as I said, they should be easily attainable via feats, multiclassing, or some other means (with a suggested progression listed in the monk kit description).



Monks are not defined by their combat prowess in the same way that rogues aren't fighters. Yes they both can and do fight in melee but that isn't their only thing. Fighters excel when they are able to hone and perfect their skills (combat feats/training) to becoming a better fighter. Monks on the other hand lie closer to rogues in that they get special skills through training themselves at different tasks. The REASON I chose to play a monk all those years ago and why it has become my favourite class is in no small part due to the self-healing, DD, immunities, resistances and what not. Also I enjoyed the high skill ranks. None of these aspects are well suited when you play a straight fighter.

I can get as close as agreeing that a COMBINED paladin/monk class could work. You aren't going to get me to agree to monks are fighters because both fight anymore than you are going to get me to agree rogues are fighters because both fight, or even that wizards are rogues because both stealth. They are worlds different. If you want the fighter to be able to specialize in fighting unarmed that is great I have no objection to that. I don't see why that means the monk is suddenly invalidated. That is saying that a druid is invalidated by a cleric taking nature domains. There is so much more and what we should do is figure out what else we can do to make this class unique and richer instead of figuring out what we can do to deprive this class from the game.


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## Sammael (Aug 9, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> You got it backwards
> The main things that define a monk is slow fall, jumping, running fast, wearing no armor, no being mind controlled, and doing crazy stuff after  meditation or some spiritual line.
> 
> Kicking butt with fists, feet, and farmer's weapons is a bonus.



The one problem with those abilities being "main" (from my perspective) is that they don't actually let the monk accomplish anything by themselves, they merely *aid him* in the use of what I see as his primary feature (combat) and his secondary feature (exploration, which is pretty much entirely skill-based and where he heavily encroaches on the Rogue's turf).

To me, the Monk is not a strong enough archetype to warrant a separate class. But I've reiterated many times before that I believe 8 strong archetypes (Bard, Champion, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Mage, Ranger, and Rogue) and a robust multiclassing system are sufficient to create the vast majority of (pre-4e) fantasy character archetypes. I am very much against prestige classes and class bloat in general. Less is more.


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## TwoSix (Aug 9, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Why not 5?
> 
> Warrior
> Mage
> ...



Rule of 3, of course.  Planescape is back!

Plus, 3 pillars, 3 overarching classes.  I like the symmetry.


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 9, 2012)

My way of thinking is slightly in line with the notion pushed with D20 Modern (remember that!?) of having broad classes (i.e. classifications of character types) associated with primary Ability scores. So, as a way of illustrating: 

Strength - Fighters (with a focus on martial prowess from any culture)
Dexterity - Rogues (Thieves, Assassins and Treasure seekers)
Constitution - Rangers (focused on the survivalist/traveller archetype)
Intelligence - Mages (customisable to a variety of schools, traditions and styles)
Wisdom - Clerics (a variety of pantheons and beliefs)
Charisma - Bards (inspirational communicators of all cultures)

Druids and Paladins could also be looked at as straight alternatives for Wisdom and Charisma respectively, as they are pretty iconic to D&D at least. There may be one or two other Classes that could be looked at, but I get bored of silly contrived 'Classes' that really aren't.   

Muchof the customisation could certainly be handled by Backgrounds and Themes - the Monk and Barbarian being primary examples.


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## Minigiant (Aug 9, 2012)

I think is is best to handle this trough the 3 pillars.

*Fighter*
*Combat:* The fighter is the master of weapons combat and trained to treat battle as a natural state. They are tough combatants no matter the weapon or armor. None can match the skill in combat as a fighter while following another path.
*Exploration:* Fighters have no inherent exploration abilities and must rely on their background to do so. But their focus on physical stats makes them naturally good at athletic endeavors like swimming, climbing, and jumping.
*Interaction*: Fighters have no inherent interaction abilities and must rely on their background to do so.  But their focus on physical stats makes them naturally good at intimidation and performance.

Monk
*Combat:* The monk practices asceticism and perfectness of body. Because of this focusing on using the body and physical abstinence, the monk is a dangerous warrior even when unarmored or unarmed.
*Exploration:* The focus on body and mind allows monks to perform acrobatic and athletic tasks easily. More noticeably is the monk's ability to mitigate unfortunate events instantly with pure discipline. They can predict, leap over or outrun danger, resist poisons and diseases, slow falls, and cure their own wounds. 
*Interaction*: Many monks are natural diplomats but their many interactive ability is awareness and insight. Monks are difficult to lie to, charm, and intimidate and teir unwavering spirit can be an asset to their allies.

So yeah... they are a little different.


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Ah, I see the issue now. The Monk trades being restricted to a narrow amount of weapons (including unarmed) to do the same and equal job as a Fighter in Melee Combat AND be head-and-shoulders better in the Interaction and Exploration fields.

Have Cake. Eat Cake. Still have Cake.

Sounds awesome.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> Ah, I see the issue now. The Monk trades being restricted to a narrow amount of weapons (including unarmed) to do the same and equal job as a Fighter in Melee Combat AND be head-and-shoulders better in the Interaction and Exploration fields.
> 
> Have Cake. Eat Cake. Still have Cake.
> 
> ...





The fighter is heads and shoulders over a monk in combat.

The monk is more of an exploration class that can fight and talk. Closer to a ranger.


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> The fighter is heads and shoulders over a monk in combat.




That's never going to work. That was the case in AD&D and 3E and the kvetching about how disabled the Monk happened to be went on forever. Frankly, they weren't unfounded complaints either. The Monk in both incarnations was an extreme gimpy class. New feats and substitutions were finally rolled out in Splat Books to try and make a viable Martial Arts Badass out of the Monk. It never really panned out.

The 5E Class functionality of the Monk will never be satisfactory if a generic Fighter can just pick up a bo-staff or go bare-handed and smack down a Bruce-Lee wannabe in one-on-one - complete with trips, flips, throws, etc. via Combat Superiority. Their interest in Martial Combat Styles overlaps too severely. 

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> That's never going to work. That was the case in AD&D and 3E and the kvetching about how disabled the Monk happened to be went on forever. Frankly, they weren't unfounded complaints either. The Monk in both incarnations was an extreme gimpy class. New feats and substitutions were finally rolled out in Splat Books to try and make a viable Martial Arts Badass out of the Monk. It never really panned out.
> 
> The 5E Class functionality of the Monk will never be satisfactory if a generic Fighter can just pick up a bo-staff or go bare-handed and smack down a Bruce-Lee wannabe in one-on-one - complete with trips, flips, throws, etc. via Combat Superiority.
> 
> - Marty Lund




The early monks were bad because they were made disorganized. Few of the abilities had synergies and stuff was all over the place. The 3E monk jumps in usefulness with full BAB and "pounce"/full attack while moving.


Sure a fighter could whoop a monk but a monk could hold is own against an untrained orc. A monk is more like a rogue that trade larceny and sneak attack for martial arts and supernatural mystic powers.


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## Tovec (Aug 10, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> The early monks were bad because they were made disorganized. Few of the abilities had synergies and stuff was all over the place. The 3E monk jumps in usefulness with full BAB and "pounce"/full attack while moving.
> 
> 
> Sure a fighter could whoop a monk but a monk could hold is own against an untrained orc. A monk is more like a rogue that trade larceny and sneak attack for martial arts and supernatural mystic powers.




Just right, the monk doesn't need to be be better or even as good as a fighter in combat. That isn't their job. What they are supposed to do, and do so successfully, is be a decent melee combatant AND have extra tricks. They do it well, but they could always do it better. It is the same problem as a cleric outshining the fighter in his own role. The solution isn't to roll clerics in with fighters and be done with it. The solution is to let each class have things they do well, and that are unique to them, and then let them fill whatever roll they can from there. The monk is a fighter+ just like the paladin, ranger and barbarian are all fighter+. Giving me a fighter with a monk package isn't going to cut it - for reasons I gave above.



Sammael said:


> To me, the Monk is not a strong enough archetype  to warrant a separate class. But I've reiterated many times before that I  believe 8 strong archetypes (Bard, Champion, Cleric, Druid, Fighter,  Mage, Ranger, and Rogue) and a robust multiclassing system are  sufficient to create the vast majority of (pre-4e) fantasy character  archetypes. I am very much against prestige classes and class bloat in  general. Less is more.



8 archetypes. Presumably that is the 4 "cardinal" classes and the 4 in between? That excludes a middle, half-half classes (which would make it 16 classes), and even classes that fill 3 different roles. Monks aren't as simple as fighters, I don't know what else matters.

I'm guessing, what you seem to want would be something like this..
Fighter - Paladin - Cleric - Ranger - Rogue - Bard - Wizard - Swordmage? - (back to)Fighter.
As in a circle, leading from one to the next?

But in reality we have a number of unrelated classes. Hell, even druid didn't make it in that version of an 8 point/subpoint system. That doesn't include any variation on wizard, druid, or barbarian. I would also debate that bard has less reason for being in your system too.

The 4e power sources made more sense to me.


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## Remathilis (Aug 10, 2012)

TwoSix said:


> I would say three.
> 
> Warrior = Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk, Warlord.
> Rogue = Ranger, Rogue, Assassin, Bard
> Mage = Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Druid, Warlock






Minigiant said:


> Why not 5?
> 
> Warrior
> Mage
> ...






Tony Vargas said:


> Don't laugh, /no classes/ is an option that's worked very well for a lot of games.




There are a lot of games that having 2, 3, 4 or no classes at all would make sense.

None of those games are D&D.

You can make all the well-balanced games in the world with 1d4 generic classes and a wealth of backgrounds, kits, themes, prestige classes, paragon paths, and whatever else you want to completely mimic any class of yore, and the FIRST THING people will do is want their Ranger, Bard, and Druid classes back. 

Since we're talking about monks, lets review what happened when TSR took them out of the game in 2nd edition. They told people to buy Oriental Adventures (a 1e product). They make a priest kit in 2e. (Perhaps more than one?) They brought it back as a weird spellcasting Priest-class in Faiths and Avatars. Finally, they reprinted it in Scarlet Brotherhood in its full glory after dozens of fan-made conversions and half-baked attempts for the better part of eight years. People wanted their monk. They didn't want lousy kits or Martial Arts proficiencies. Luckily WotC figured that out and put them in the PHB for 3e. 

I say get it out of the way. People will WANT Paladins, Rangers, Bards, Warlords, and Monks, and they should be allowed to have them. D&D is famous for them. Leave the generic classes for the Fantasy Heartbreakers and OGL spinoffs. If I'm playing D&D, I want Paladins, Monks and Rangers as full-bodied classes, not Generic Fighting Man (Flavor to Taste). 

You can't make a "Unity" edition by removing 9/10ths of the classes people expect to be there...


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> You can't make a "Unity" edition by removing 9/10ths of the classes people expect to be there...




Removing? No. Restructuring? Definitely! 

Will you have some senseless edition-warring by people who demand D&D conform to their semantic definition of class to mirror their AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3E, or 4E experience? Sure. You have -ahem- "Unique" people still stumping for returning to Elf and Dwarf as classes. You could still play Elves and Dwarves in AD&D - even ones that resemble OD&D race-classes versions.

So in OD&D Dwarf and Elf were classes - they got replaced in AD&D with Dwarf Fighters and Elf Fighter/Mages. In AD&D the Paladin and the Ranger weren't classes - they were *Fighter Sub-classes*. In 2nd Edition several classes became kits. In 3E everything became a class and got multi-classed and prestige-classed out the Yin-Yang.

This is starting to look like a "certain builds that were stand-alone classes in 3.X must be executed exactly as they were in 3E / Pathfinder or I'm taking my ball and going home," argument.

As long as key touch-stones are playable builds out of the Core (be they sub-classes of a Cardinal Class, hybrid spaces between two or more Cardinal classes) I'm going to feel like the "class" is still represented.

I mean, a signature class feature of the wizard (the familiar) got broken out into a theme in the playtest. I guess there's no longer a real Wizard class. There's just this freak class that killed the Wizard and took some of his stuff and now everybody and their grandmother can take a familiar so my precious snow-flake AD&D MU / 3E Wizard isn't a class in 5E. This isn't a unity edition - it's a travesty!

Or, maybe - just *maybe* - some of the more narrow archetypes that were called a "class" under one edition might just be sub-classes or combinations of class features/options, themes, and/or backgrounds in 5E without the sky falling down and killing us all.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 10, 2012)

How about:
A fighter class that can fight armed or unarmed
A monk class that can fight armed or unarmed
and
A theme that boosts unarmed damage and adds Wis to AC.


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## Dausuul (Aug 10, 2012)

Tovec said:


> Just right, the monk doesn't need to be be better or even as good as a fighter in combat. That isn't their job. What they are supposed to do, and do so successfully, is be a decent melee combatant AND have extra tricks. They do it well, but they could always do it better. It is the same problem as a cleric outshining the fighter in his own role. The solution isn't to roll clerics in with fighters and be done with it. The solution is to let each class have things they do well, and that are unique to them, and then let them fill whatever roll they can from there. The monk is a fighter+ just like the paladin, ranger and barbarian are all fighter+. Giving me a fighter with a monk package isn't going to cut it - for reasons I gave above.




Yeah, this. I will just add that the monk should be able to do _certain things_ in combat better than the fighter; for example, the monk could be better at evading barriers and bypassing defenses, and at temporarily disabling a single large foe. But the fighter still outperforms the monk at "take a sledgehammer to the face and keep on trucking" and "pound enemy into paste."


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## Remathilis (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> Removing? No. Restructuring? Definitely!




Right, because that sooooo worked out well for fourth edition. 

WotC is in a precarious spot. The whole Next edition is predicated on "that D&D feel you used to know." Vancian magic is a terrible magic system, but its Traditional D&D and thus it comes back. The Great Wheel is coming back. Monster descriptions are being cribbed from 2e. Even the revised surprise rules sound like old D&D. Do you REALLY think WotC is going to go to a generic 1d4 class system and a build-your-own model of subclasses? 

I'll be shocked, and saddened, if that is true.


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> The whole Next edition is predicated on "that D&D feel you used to know." Vancian magic is a terrible magic system, but its Traditional D&D and thus it comes back. The Great Wheel is coming back. Monster descriptions are being cribbed from 2e. Even the revised surprise rules sound like old D&D.




If you can build a character that feels like an old-school monk when you play it then you've lost nothing. People who pitch deal-breaker fits over every detail of the build not being included directly into a stand-alone class aren't going to be happy with anything you do in 5E so they aren't potential customers.



> Do you REALLY think WotC is going to go to a generic 1d4 class system and a build-your-own model of subclasses?




Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.



> Right, because that sooooo worked out well for fourth edition.




Contrast 4th Edition which claimed to put a strong emphasis on options but ultimately was so class-centric it had to roll out 5 PHBs plus splat-books over years and years to support play-styles that were demanded on day one. (Hint: If it takes until Heroes of the Fallen Kingdoms to get a damage-focused Greatweapon Fighter you're doing something wrong.) Complaints included "feat taxes," poor functionality in multi-classing, no viable skill development, and weak customization options in general. Basically if you wanted to do something you had to wait for them to bother to print a silo'd class that did it. The only saving grace was 4E wasn't as averse to overlap between classes as prior editions had been so you weren't quite as straight-jacketed to a theme in exchange for functionality.

- Marty Lund


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## Gryph (Aug 10, 2012)

Honestly if I have to build a character out of component parts to achieve what an earlier version of D&D did with classes then I don't want classes at all. If you don't have classes then I see no reason to buy or play D&D because I already have a couple of choices in games that do that.

Contrariwise, if Next is going to deliver a game that lets me emulate the feel of 1e AD&D then it will have to deliver a set of classes that can get the job done without using themes/backgrounds/feats/skills or any other decorator they may come up with for this edition.

I think @Remathilis was on the right track upthread. If a class has appeared as a full class through multiple editions it should stay as a full class in Next. I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.


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## Gryph (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.




I think you are being a little disingenuous here. Each of the "sub-classes" were presented with a full write up. Being a subclass did not mean the two classes shared even the most basic of class definers. Rangers had d8 hit dice for example and started with 2 of them. They most certainly didn't share the same xp progression. There were variances in armor and weapons availlable between main class and subclasses.

The only rules that specifically combined them mechanically were the to hit chart and the saving throw chart. Significant but not the heart of the class.

AD&D 1e had 10 classes plus the odd dual class driven Bard.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 10, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> How about:
> A fighter class that can fight armed or unarmed
> A monk class that can fight armed or unarmed
> and
> A theme that boosts unarmed damage and adds Wis to AC.




But... then how would we determine who won this thread?


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 10, 2012)

Gryph said:


> I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.




As an aside, I always felt the 3e sorcerer was an awesome and iconic concept with terrible execution. (I have the blood of dragons in my veins - behold! I can cast a spell named after a human wizard!)


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## Remathilis (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> If you can build a character that feels like an old-school monk when you play it then you've lost nothing. People who pitch deal-breaker fits over every detail of the build not being included directly into a stand-alone class aren't going to be happy with anything you do in 5E so they aren't potential customers.




Well, since you brought it up...

Lets say for sake of argument and "monk" as D&D has defined it for more editions than not has the following "essential" traits. 

Unarmed combat that delivers multiple attacks and damage comparable to a steel weapon. 
Armor Class bonus that grants a monk an unarmored AC equal to armor.
Speed, movement, or Agility/Acrobatic ability. 
Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.
Special Strikes using unarmed attacks that can debilitate, stun, or even kill.
Mystical abilities that grant the monk healing, supernatural senses, or even magical movement.

You can't do that with a THEME. You can't even get close. Why? Because each of those abilities would have to be a single feat, and there is no way you can balance "extra attacks at escalating dice" with something like Reaper or Herbalism. 

You can't recreate the feel of an "old school" monk in 6-10 feats, unless you redefine what a "Theme" and a "Feat" is. 



mlund said:


> Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.




As someone else put it; each "subclass" shared a few common traits, but were essentially new classes.

A Paladin had its own XP table, special abilities and restrictions. 
A Ranger used d8 HD (and had 2), a different XP table, different # of attacks/round, and different rules for followers along with its special abilities. 
Druids capped at 14th level, had special rules for advancment, used a unique XP table, weren't restricted to blunt weapons, couldn't turn undead, and had their own special abilities. Oh, and they're spell lists were nothing alike.
An Illusionist had more spells per level (but capped at 7th, not 9th like an M=u), a unique XP table, and a unique spell list.
An Assassin had better weapons, different XP, a finite level cap (even for humans), worse core thief skills, and unique special abilities than a Thief. 

And that doesn't EVEN begin to discuss Unearthed Arcana. I might've conceded the argument a bit more if you had chosen 2e as your example; they did a better job of combining base classes with sub-classes (such as combining the M-U and Illusionist spell lists for all wizards) but 1e subclasses are very unique. "Subclasses" just meant the classes could stand in for the base class. A ranger was equal to a fighter for purposes of combat. An illusionist resembled a magic-user in that they were squishy wizard-types. 

And as for "falling out of favor"? Need I remind you that 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition are ALL class-based games and 3e and 4e have more classes than 1e and 2e put together. 

Don't think your desire for 1d4 generic classes is a majority view of most D&D players, or we'd all be playing GURPS right now...


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Gryph said:


> I think you are being a little disingenuous here. Each of the "sub-classes" were presented with a full write up.




As have every sub-class of Fighter in 4th Edition - the Weaponmaster, the Knight, and the Slayer - go figure.



> Being a subclass did not mean the two classes shared even the most basic of class definers. Rangers had d8 hit dice for example and started with 2 of them.




The Ranger is the lone exception. Every other sub-class until Unearthed Arcana introduced the Barbarian had identical Hit Dice. The shared THAC0 and Saves and most weapon Proficiencies. That's the guts of the martial classes right there.

Furthermore the Illusionist used the Magic-User spell list and intelligence as the caster stat. The Druid used the Cleric spell list and Wisdom.



> They most certainly didn't share the same xp progression.




XP Progression was AD&D's balance mechanism. If you took a class or s sub-class with certain power variations you leveled faster or slower. The classes and sub-classes themselves did not have any real sense of parity level-to-level.



> There were variances in armor and weapons availlable between main class and subclasses.




For flavor some times, sure. The Druid and Cleric each had different hang-ups (one couldn't used edged weapons, one eschewed metals). The Paladin's code of conduct and alignment kept him out of the use of oil in personal combat and poison.

In 4E the Fighter (Slayer) and the Fighter (Knight) have different proficiency with armor too. In 2nd Edition kits slipped in to modify classes as well.

If you want class to mean the exact same thing in 5E as it meant in OD&D or class/sub-class meant in AD&D or class meant in 3.X/Pathfinder the Caves of Chaos play-test already shows you're going to be disappointed.

- Marty Lund


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## Gryph (Aug 10, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> As an aside, I always felt the 3e sorcerer was an awesome and iconic concept with terrible execution. (I have the blood of dragons in my veins - behold! I can cast a spell named after a human wizard!)





They would have been on the right track if they had started from that concept and developed a class that embodied it. Instead, they started from a desire for a spontaneous arcane caster and rationalised some fluff for it.

I might have really liked the class if had been designed from the fiction instead of the mechanic.


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## Gryph (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> As have every sub-class of Fighter in 4th Edition - the Weaponmaster, the Knight, and the Slayer - go figure.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




1e Clerics and Druids had a significant number of spells on their lists that were exclusive to each as did the Illusionist and Magic-User.

How 4e did subclassing is hardly pertinent to my post.

Whether I will be dissapointed in my hope of Next. Well, I suspect you may be right but nothing in the first playtest document precluded me from playing a class without theme or background and the classes by themselves delivered a fair approximation of 70's D&D classes. 

I'll just wait and see how (or if) the later playtests introduce the other classes before I make up my mind.


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> Unarmed combat that delivers multiple attacks and damage comparable to a steel weapon.




So, a Fighter with an improved Damage die for specializing in Unarmed Strike instead of Great Weapon, Bow, Sword + Board, etc.? 



> Armor Class bonus that grants a monk an unarmored AC equal to armor.




So, the ability to trade armor proficiency for unarmored bonus AC. Not exactly revolutionary. Fighter sub-classes / options have been trading shield use and heavy armor for extra damage and two-weapon fighting defense bonuses for many years in 4E now.



> Speed, movement, or Agility/Acrobatic ability.




Acrobatics have been rolled into Skills since 3E reintroduced the Monk after his 2nd Ed hiatus. Land-speed bonuses by class haven't been a thing since after the 3E PHB was released with the Barbarian and Monk (no new classes introduced with it, no 4E classes I know about do it). I'm not even sure the AD&D Monk had a land-speed bonus or if was the OA monk, and people don't even want to talk about the 2nd Edition Monk kits.



> Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.




Developer discussions have already put forward the idea that Fighters are supposed to be extremely resistant to a lot of this stuff. On top of that, monks weren't immune to disease, poison, psionics, etc. all within 5 levels either.



> Special Strikes using unarmed attacks that can debilitate, stun, or even kill.




Combat Superiority - built in feature.



> Mystical abilities that grant the monk healing, supernatural senses, or even magical movement.




Seems like a "Harmony of Mind and Body" Theme to me, probably with an advanced theme.

Frankly, if they aren't small enough advanced to fit into Themes and Advanced Themes it's probably a very good sign of trying to get the Monk into a position to have his cake and eat it too, or else make another AD&D/3E gimpy combat failure for everyone to gnash their teeth about again.

Class: Fighter (Martial Artist) - HP, AC, attacks, damage, resistance, combat superiority
Background: Akashic Monastic - Skills
Theme (1-5): Mystic Harmony - Self-healing, Improved senses, Special movement (some sort of jump / fall feature?)
Advanced Theme (6-10): Enlightened Warrior - Self-curing, Blindsense, Advanced Special movement feature

The really awesome part is you don't have to break rocks with your fists to be a Monk. You could go Zen Archery or even be an honest-to-goodness priest and still come from the eastern monastic tradition and benefit from walking the path of enlightenment.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 10, 2012)

To be the Fighter's Combat Superiority mechanic doesn't make sense on a monk. Because to me and many others, monks are not masters of unarmed combat, they are mystics whose mastery of mind and body can be translated into combat.

It is much like how a fighter can be the stereotypical heavy armored swordsman but the class also match the no armor swashbuckling duelist and the leather clad deadeyed archer.

The "monk" monk is supernatural and fits more that the 
unarmed robe guy.  A monk could be an archer miko who can shoot upside down after a backflip or swordsman who catches an arrow with his hand and an offensive lighting bolt with the other hand or an old dwarf who can chug his ale and breath fire through his pipe. Less weaponmaster more Jedi.

Personally I think 3E's Psionic focus mechanics works better for a monk. The monk enters a meditative state of discipline and gets a host of choosable abilities while in the trance. Flurry of blows, increased AC, soul weapons, increased spedd, 40' jumps, spider climb, stunning strikes, fire breath, what ever. Then the monk can expel their focus to quickly perform a special action.


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## Remathilis (Aug 10, 2012)

mlund said:


> Acrobatics have been rolled into Skills since 3E reintroduced the Monk after his 2nd Ed hiatus. Land-speed bonuses by class haven't been a thing since after the 3E PHB was released with the Barbarian and Monk (no new classes introduced with it, no 4E classes I know about do it). I'm not even sure the AD&D Monk had a land-speed bonus or if was the OA monk, and people don't even want to talk about the 2nd Edition Monk kits.




Scout (Complete Adventurer) granted bonuses to land movment as well. And Monks have had bonus to speed in the 1e PHB, OA, The Rules Cyclopedia (where the Basic Monk, called Mystic, lived) and the Scarlet Brotherhood monk. The only monks not to have it were 4e, the 2nd edition kit (which didn't give AC bonus to unarmored either) and the Faith & Avatar's Monk class.

More editions than not have granted a movement bump. 



mlund said:


> Frankly, if they aren't small enough advanced to fit into Themes and Advanced Themes it's probably a very good sign of trying to get the Monk into a position to have his cake and eat it too, or else make another AD&D/3E gimpy combat failure for everyone to gnash their teeth about again.




Monks rocked the house in 1e/2e. It wasn't until they were saddled with a Rogue's crappy BAB that they became miss-masters. 

We can keep this up and debate every little power and skill, but in the end it doesn't matter. One of us is going to end up right when we open the PHB and I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more than 4 classes and a bunch of watered down themes in it...


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## mlund (Aug 10, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> We can keep this up and debate every little power and skill, but in the end it doesn't matter. One of us is going to end up right when we open the PHB and I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more than 4 classes and a bunch of watered down themes in it...




Likewise I have a feeling we aren't going back to monolithic class designs constantly scrapping for mechanics and boxing one-another out because some people find the idea of sub-classes, build options, and modular design irreconcilable with The One True D&D.

- Marty Lund


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## Sammael (Aug 10, 2012)

8 classes, people, I keep telling you... and they aren't 4 true classes and 4 demi-classes. Traditional D&D has 8 main flavors - diplomatic jack-of-all-trades, divinely-inspired warrior, pious worker of miracles, shapeshifting elementalist, trained martial combat specialist, disciple of arcane arts, tough woodland guerrilla warrior, and stealthy skillmonkey. Every other flavor can be done with backgrounds, themes, feats, and multiclassing.


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 10, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> Right, because that sooooo worked out well for fourth edition.




Unforunately, this is true.

I still don't know why, but there are people out there who, when they wanted to make a character who was an archery specialist in 4E, and they were told that they should pick the Ranger class to do so, threw a fit and went home because they had to have "Fighter" on their character sheet (and, for some reason, couldn't write "Fighter" but use Ranger rules).

I've never understood it; I've got a group of stock characters that I've been playing in multiple rules systems (some not even TTRPGs) for years and years, and each time, I'm able to pick some mechanics that realize the character (Elf -> Elven F/MU -> Elven F/W/Prestige -> Shadowrun -> etc.).


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 10, 2012)

Sammael said:


> 8 classes, people, I keep telling you... and they aren't 4 true classes and 4 demi-classes. Traditional D&D has 8 main flavors - diplomatic jack-of-all-trades, divinely-inspired warrior, pious worker of miracles, shapeshifting elementalist, trained martial combat specialist, disciple of arcane arts, tough woodland guerrilla warrior, and stealthy skillmonkey. Every other flavor can be done with backgrounds, themes, feats, and multiclassing.




Fighter
Ranger
Cleric 
Druid
Mage 
Rogue
Paladin
Bard

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing.


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## Tovec (Aug 11, 2012)

This is going to be a little all over the place, hopefully the quoting works properly.




Remathilis said:


> I say get it out of the way. People will WANT *Paladins, Rangers, Bards,  Warlords, and Monks*, and they should be allowed to have them. D&D is  famous for them. Leave the generic classes for the Fantasy  Heartbreakers and OGL spinoffs. If I'm playing D&D, I want Paladins,  Monks and Rangers as full-bodied classes, not Generic Fighting Man  (Flavor to Taste).





mlund said:


> This is starting to look like a "certain builds that were stand-alone classes in 3.X must be executed exactly as they were in 3E / Pathfinder or I'm taking my ball and going home," argument.



I'm sorry, where exactly is the 3E/PF Warlord?
It seems more like a "if it shows up more than once it should be in the PHB" argument. Which is actually a far cry from WotC's own "if it has ever shown up in the PHB it'll be in Next" comments made months ago.



mlund said:


> Will you have some senseless edition-warring by  people who demand D&D conform to their semantic definition of class  to mirror their AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3E, or 4E experience? Sure. You have  -ahem- "Unique" people still stumping for returning to Elf and Dwarf as  classes. You could still play Elves and Dwarves in AD&D - even ones  that resemble OD&D race-classes versions.
> 
> So in OD&D Dwarf and Elf were classes - they got replaced in  AD&D with Dwarf Fighters and Elf Fighter/Mages. In AD&D the  Paladin and the Ranger weren't classes - they were *Fighter Sub-classes*.  In 2nd Edition several classes became kits. In 3E everything became a  class and got multi-classed and prestige-classed out the Yin-Yang.



Honestly, I've seen this argument before and I really don't care either way if elf and dwarf shows up as a CLASS in 5e. I care if they are balanaced against other classes but otherwise I wouldn't mind them being in the PHB. I DO mind when a class which has existed in a number of editions suddenly is _just a fighter_. Especially since... it isn't.



mlund said:


> If you can build a character that feels like an old-school monk when you play it then you've lost nothing. People who pitch deal-breaker fits over every detail of the build not being included directly into a stand-alone class aren't going to be happy with anything you do in 5E so they aren't potential customers.



Give me a quote of where we have said it is a dealbreaker, in those exact words. Otherwise that comment is just silly. We have legitimate concerns which you aren't even trying to discuss. You instead assure us that monks are just reflavoured fighters and tell us to move on.



mlund said:


> Let me introduce you to my friend Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. It has 5 classes - Fighter, Cleric, Magic-User, Thief, and Monk. Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Assassin, Illusionist, are all sub-classes. People played the daylights out of that game. It eventually fell out of favor with the majority of the customer base for other systems that allowed customization of some of the features that AD&D included as class or sub-class based or just generally hand-waived.



I'll have to fall back on the "if it shows up more than once" argument for how valid a class is. Honestly I would love if illusionists and thiefs (who aren't rogues) show back up too but I fear they would be too similar to the classes they got rolled into.



Gryph said:


> Honestly if I have to build a character out of component parts to achieve what an earlier version of D&D did with classes then I don't want classes at all. If you don't have classes then I see no reason to buy or play D&D because I already have a couple of choices in games that do that.
> 
> Contrariwise, if Next is going to deliver a game that lets me emulate  the feel of 1e AD&D then it will have to deliver a set of classes  that can get the job done without using themes/backgrounds/feats/skills  or any other decorator they may come up with for this edition.



It is funny how mlund's only solution is to use an OPTIONAL rule to get close to what we want. Instead of just allowing us what we want. And without the optional rule you can't get it at all his way. It is like "here add this cherry flavour to your yugurt, but you can't have actual cherries. All good?"



Gryph said:


> I think @Remathilis was on the right track upthread. If a class has appeared as a full class through multiple editions it should stay as a full class in Next. I despise the sorceror as a purely mechanical construct devoid of meaningful flavor to distinguish it from the wizard; but I fully expect them to include it in Next because a lot of the player base likes it.



I completely agree here. I don't think this idea was really clear earlier but I do agree.



Remathilis said:


> Unarmed combat that delivers multiple attacks and damage comparable to a steel weapon.
> Armor Class bonus that grants a monk an unarmored AC equal to armor.
> Speed, movement, or Agility/Acrobatic ability.
> Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.
> ...



Minor nitpicks.
In my edition it is BETTER than steel - adamantine, lawful and magic at reasonably low levels.
Which relates into my, "they shouldn't try to BE LIKE fighters, they should try and do it differently" comments earlier.
Flurry should be a real choice that is different from full attack with a longsword. It should have completely different damage and attack structure. You get pretty close if you ADD pounce or full BAB in 3e, but remove the chance to upgrade with 8 different methods.



Remathilis said:


> You can't do that with a THEME. You can't even get close. Why? Because each of those abilities would have to be a single feat, and there is no way you can balance "extra attacks at escalating dice" with something like Reaper or Herbalism.



Talking about themes for a second. WotC has talked about the kinds of things they want to do with themes, which seems to be allowing new tricks like TWF and what not. The themes have been more a new set of skills, but you always retain the core of the class. I agree that themes can't get you there because the only way to get there is to REPLACE not augment the fighter class. There is so little overlap in the classes that replacing aspects is the only way to get there. And so far at least nothing I've seen from 5e seems to do this. There doesn't appear to be any options to turn the fighter into a ranger or paladin, but there does seem to be themes that can give them a horse, or a pair of swords, or improved proficiency with a bow.

I love that themes can get you partially the way there but themes can't and shouldn't ever be able to replace an entire class or even emulate an entire class. That would be a poor idea all around.



mlund said:


> Acrobatics have been rolled into Skills since 3E reintroduced the Monk after his 2nd Ed hiatus. Land-speed bonuses by class haven't been a thing since after the 3E PHB was released with the Barbarian and Monk (no new classes introduced with it, no 4E classes I know about do it). I'm not even sure the AD&D Monk had a land-speed bonus or if was the OA monk, and people don't even want to talk about the 2nd Edition Monk kits.



I don't get this. 5e so far seems to be very rules light where skills go. And as previously brought up a +3 to Acrobatics won't exactly describe what monks are good at. You need something completely different here. Also, you keep making the point that monks and barbarians have quicker speed and that rogues have evasion - so what? Fighter's don't have those things. Even barbarians don't have evasion, nor rogues faster speed. That would seem to indicate pretty clearly that monk is unique as it brings a lot of different things under one roof.



mlund said:


> Developer discussions have already put forward the idea that Fighters are supposed to be extremely resistant to a lot of this stuff. On top of that, monks weren't immune to disease, poison, psionics, etc. all within 5 levels either.



First, they have only discussed fighters being resistant to things. And if I recall that was mostly magic. That they should have an ability yo shrug off DAMAGE and impairments so that wizards don't start to completely rule them again. That has nothing to do with how monks do it.
Second, he didn't say IMMUNE he said RESISTANT. See..


> Resistance to many different types of attacks: poison, mental attacks, disease, etc.



Third, monks should be able to avoid those attacks in the first place, not be able to shrug them off in the same way the fighter can.
Here let me give an example.
Monk may be immune  or gain advantage (or a +4 or something) to resisting mind controlling-effects. In this way they are more likely to NOT suffer any ill effects at all.
Fighters (assuming they can resistant in the first place) would get something along the lines of allowing them a saving throw after X number of rounds to throw off the effect. But getting nothing up front.



mlund said:


> Combat Superiority - built in feature.



I hope to god this is an optional rule. If it isn't I'm going to start having an asthma attack. I didn't like any of what I read in the combat superiority article and I felt kind of dirty after reading it. I felt worse when I read the thread around here discussing it and how it seemed to be a thinly veiled attempt to reintroduce 4e concepts.



mlund said:


> Seems like a "Harmony of Mind and Body" Theme to me, probably with an advanced theme.



Again, OPTIONAL rule.
Again, what do I have to GIVE UP to take this?



Minigiant said:


> The "monk" monk is supernatural and fits more that the
> unarmed robe guy.  A monk could be an archer miko who can shoot upside down after a backflip or swordsman who catches an arrow with his hand and an offensive lighting bolt with the other hand or an old dwarf who can chug his ale and breath fire through his pipe. Less weaponmaster more Jedi.



Except in 4e fighters are all jedi. But I agree with your points Minigiant. That's one of the reasons I started playing monks in the first place.



Minigiant said:


> Personally I think 3E's Psionic focus mechanics works better for a monk. The monk enters a meditative state of discipline and gets a host of choosable abilities while in the trance. Flurry of blows, increased AC, soul weapons, increased spedd, 40' jumps, spider climb, stunning strikes, fire breath, what ever. Then the monk can expel their focus to quickly perform a special action.



I could see this, makes a lot more sense. Also vaguely reminiscent of Tome of Battle. I'm not a fan of the book but they did have _some_ interesting ideas.



Patryn of Elvenshae said:


> I still don't know why, but there are people out there who, when they  wanted to make a character who was an archery specialist in 4E, and they  were told that they should pick the Ranger class to do so, threw a fit  and went home because they had to have "Fighter" on their character  sheet (and, for some reason, couldn't write "Fighter" but use Ranger  rules)..



The problem is that unless you reflavour things like this the character went from playing a fighter to playing a ranger. And taking along all the fluff that went with each.

The problem is the GAME suddenly telling them a fighter couldn't use a ranged weapon, and that the ranger had to use a bow.

I've said all this before, but its a "get to" vs. "had to" kind of mentality which the game didn't do well in advertising. To me, and mine, we saw every bit of reflavouring as "having to" change the game to fit our needs and didn't like "having to" redesign things (or being stuck with things) when the previous game could so easily let us play a fighter using a bow, instead of "having to" a ranger to use one.
I keep seeing replies from 4e people how this is a good thing because you "get to" change things to suit you. But I don't like having to "get to" so often with a game. I like things out of the box with as little change needed as possible.



TrippyHippy said:


> Fighter
> Ranger
> Cleric
> Druid
> ...



I'm glad you would be happy with those. I'm not you, sadly. I want other classes too.

How would you react if I said:

"Fighter
Ranger
Barbarian
Druid
Sorcerer
Warlord

Yep. That would suit me. I agree, everything else could be done with Backgrounds and Themes, Feats and Multiclassing." ?


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## Patryn of Elvenshae (Aug 11, 2012)

Tovec said:


> The problem is that unless you reflavour things like this the character went from playing a fighter to playing a ranger.




No, he didn't - that's my point!  The player went from playing a character who was an *archer* (who happened to be expressed as a Fighter) to playing an *archer* (who happened to be expressed as a Ranger).

The character is the same - the metagame mechanics changed, but the character did not!


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## mlund (Aug 11, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> Fighter
> Ranger
> Cleric
> Druid
> ...




I kept trying to think about it as a compass, but I think it actually makes a nice continuum if you trim it down to 7.

ARCANA -> FINESSE -> POWER -> DIVINITY

Magic-User -> Bard -> Rogue -> Ranger -> Fighter -> Paladin -> Priest

Evoker/Illusionist/Necromancer/Warlock get down into the weeds of the Magic-User. Invoker/Warpriest/Druid/Summoner get down into the weeds of the Priest/Priestess. There's plenty of room for Martial-Arts, Assassins, Weapon Specialists, Slayers, Knights, Pirates, Assassins, Avengers, Marshals, etc. under those general umbrellas as well as background and themes to combine with and multiclassing to make various Gishes and Theurgists and what-have-you.

- Marty Lund


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## Minigiant (Aug 11, 2012)

Tovec said:


> Except in 4e fighters are all jedi. But I agree with your points Minigiant. That's one of the reasons I started playing monks in the first place.
> 
> 
> I could see this, makes a lot more sense. Also vaguely reminiscent of Tome of Battle. I'm not a fan of the book but they did have _some_ interesting ideas.




One of my favorite villains as a DM was an evil monk with all Psionic feats in an low optimization 3.5 game. He'd psi-focus, run really fast, jump from somewhere high, flurry poisoned shuriken at them, then teleport away before they could kill him. He was weak but they both hated and loved him.



mlund said:


> I kept trying to think about it as a compass, but I think it actually makes a nice continuum if you trim it down to 7.
> 
> ARCANA -> FINESSE -> POWER -> DIVINITY
> 
> ...




Which one gets to sits under waterfalls because he cant catch a cold?


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## Remathilis (Aug 11, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> Fighter
> Ranger
> Cleric
> Druid
> ...




If Enworld would ever let me have more than one line of text again in my signature, it would read: 

"Assassin, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard". 

I might be persuaded to give up Assassin and Warlord to Themes if space was at a premium. 

Whereas I might be willing to see Avenger, Spellthief, Scout, Warden, Runepriest, Swashbuckler/Duelist, Crusader, Swordsage, Invoker, Illusionist, Seeker, Necromancer, Knight, Eldrich Knight, Mystic Theurge, Dwarven Defender, Arcane Archer, Samurai, Ninja, Sohei, Thief-Acrobat and Cavalier come back as Themes. Most of them are one-edition wonders or very niche, and easily condensed into a single theme. However, the big guns mentioned above should be the opening volley in the PHB.

I wish WotC would go back to the "X Class in Focus" write ups. We got them for the core four and paladin & ranger. I'd love to see whats cooking for some of the other classes.


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## mlund (Aug 11, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Which one gets to sits under waterfalls because he cant catch a cold?




The Paladin, obviously. ;P

Seriously though, no monk sits under a waterfall "because he can't catch cold." Initiates learn to mediate under waterfalls as an exercise of mind over matter. They also don't have enough adventurer levels to be immune to diseases. Sitting under a waterfall just because you were immune to disease (a terrible class feature from a design perspective anyway), would be an exercise of vanity unbecoming a seeker of enlightenment.

As for who sits under a waterfall for a legitimate reason tied to his class  (super or sub)? Almost all of them if it fits a contemplative theme. The philosophical sword-master meditates to become one with his art and inure himself to pain. The pacted arcanist observes a taboo requiring him to endure such things to keep his connection to an Lord of the Elemental Plane of Water. The priest offers up suffering to appease his deity, or the shaman does it to achieve oneness with the land. The Paladin endures such as the price of purity or penance. The Ranger may just do it to wash away his sent, having long ago become accustomed to extreme conditions in nature. It seems pretty fitting if your rogue happensto wear a pair of black pajamas to work too.

Really, the only class niche on the list where it can't fit a particular character motif is probably that bard / beguiler niche. They just seem a little too urbane to do it, though a skald might do it on a dare or to otherwise impress an audience with how badass he is. 



Remathilis said:


> Whereas I might be willing to see Avenger, Spellthief, Scout, Warden, Runepriest, Swashbuckler/Duelist, Crusader, Swordsage, Invoker, Illusionist, Seeker, Necromancer, Knight, Eldrich Knight, Mystic Theurge, Dwarven Defender, Arcane Archer, Samurai, Ninja, Sohei, Thief-Acrobat and Cavalier come back as Themes.




Actually, I'm pretty sure a good chunk of those wouldn't transition cleanly to themes. The Theurge really needs Multi-classing. Many of the others, however, just need at least a couple of build options under a main class, specialization on the core weapons/armor/spells/attacks features that make up classes in contrast to backgrounds or themes.

The distinction is pretty clear in the 4E Fighter design. Class options gave you a Weaponmaster vs. a Slayer vs. a Knight - all Fighters.

I agree with the Warlord and Assassin features going into themes, though.

- Marty Lund


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## Valetudo (Aug 11, 2012)

All I have to say about this is Ive played alot of monks in different editions. The monk needs its own class.


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## Steely_Dan (Aug 11, 2012)

I can see the angle of making the Monk a Theme (a series of Feats), though personally (which means nothing), I want it to be a class; also, much of what a Monk is seems a bit of a stretch for some feats:

Dodging missile weapons (every time a successful one hits them that they are aware of)
Enhanced speed
Evading magical effects completely
Falling great distances unharmed
Resisting ESP/Mental strength
Talking to animals
Talking to plants

And so on, just check out your 1st/2nd/3rd Ed monk, though none of them were ever quite up to scratch, but that is easily fixed (especially now that the ancillary THACO, BAB, and 1/2 level garbage is gone).


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 12, 2012)

Tovec said:


> I'm glad you would be happy with those. I'm not you, sadly. I want other classes too.
> 
> How would you react if I said:
> 
> ...




I'd probably react by pointing out it's not really an argument you are presenting beyond just being faecetious. 

The thing is for me, at least, 99% of all 'Classes' are indeed just minor adjustments on the fundaments represented by Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Druids, Mages, Bards and Paladins. 

A Barbarian isn't really a 'Class' - it's a cultural background. The various abilities associated with the class are stereotyping. You could build a Fighter with the Background of 'Barbarian', the theme of 'Beserker' and have all the raging abilities bought as Feats, and all the survival abilities bought as skills. The same could be argued with a Warlord (simply a fighter that is built with a theme of Leadership and Inspiration, rather than a seperate Class). Assassins, likewise, are really just highly specialised Rogues, in effect. Sorcerers are just Mages with a more primal, spontaneous approach to magic. _All _of these concepts could, potentially, be built from the core eight classes with various Backgrounds and Themes. 

Same thing with Monk, to a degree, although the other major problem with Monks have always been a _lack_ of focus as to what the Class was really about. I'm saying that a Monk could be represented by a Fighter Class, with a Mystic Background and an Unarmed Combat Theme (say).  If the Class/Background/Theme system is built carefully enough, no character _concept_ ought to be left out. 

Indeed, if it is done well, there is no reason to suppose it can't _open up_ options rather than shut them down - imagine that afore-mentioned Barbarian Beserker? Imagine it being built on top of the Ranger Class instead of the Fighter as an option? Imagine a Barbarian Cleric? Imagine a Mage with a Background of Mystic and a Theme of Unarmed Combat? Etc


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## Tovec (Aug 12, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> I'd probably react by pointing out it's not really an argument you are presenting beyond just being faecetious.



It is the same argument with slightly different classes. My being facetious has almost nothing to do with the argument either way. The idea you present is that XYZ classes are all you need in order to play any class. It is reductionist and exclusionary as it cuts out a number of classes that have existed in a number of editions in favour of ones that YOU feel are close. Any classes could be put in that same lineup, or any line up could have those same classes plus or minus a few. Once again, all you do with that argument is present what YOU are happy with without giving ME any reason that I should be happy with it too.



> The thing is for me, at least, 99% of all 'Classes' are indeed just minor adjustments on the fundaments represented by Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Druids, Mages, Bards and Paladins.



Why Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Druids, Mages, Bards and Paladins? I'm also assuming by Mage you mean Wizard as Mage isn't a class. Again, why not add a few more in there. Why does Paladin make the cut but Monk doesn't? Why does Bard but not Sorcerer? Why Ranger but not Assassin? Why Druid but not Barbarian?



> *A Barbarian isn't really a 'Class'* - it's a cultural background. The various abilities associated with the class are stereotyping. You could build a Fighter with the Background of 'Barbarian', the theme of 'Beserker' and have all the raging abilities bought as Feats, and all the survival abilities bought as skills. The same could be argued with a Warlord (simply a fighter that is built with a theme of Leadership and Inspiration, rather than a seperate Class). Assassins, likewise, are really just highly specialised Rogues, in effect. Sorcerers are just Mages with a more primal, spontaneous approach to magic. _All _of these concepts could, potentially, be built from the core eight classes with various Backgrounds and Themes.



Barbarian really IS a 'Class' see: Barbarian :: d20srd.org
It's also in the 4e PHB2 page 48.
TO YOU it is also a cultural background. But even WotC has tried more than once to explain that Barbarian (the class) and "barbarian", as per the definition of the word, aren't really the same. I'm glad YOU feel confident that you could make a barbarian, warlord and assassin with other classes. I played 3.5 for a number of years and I'm sure I could build things CLOSE to those concepts. I don't feel that any fighter could replace the barbarian though. Nor am I confident that rogues make the best assassins.



> Same thing with Monk, to a degree, although the other major problem with Monks have always been a _lack_ of focus as to what the Class was really about. I'm saying that a Monk could be represented by a Fighter Class, with a Mystic Background and an Unarmed Combat Theme (say).  If the Class/Background/Theme system is built carefully enough, no character _concept_ ought to be left out.



First, they don't have a lack of focus, if anything it is too specialized. But I go over that more below (after the next quote).

And I keep asking, what would I no longer be able to do if I was a fighter-monk that I could have done if I was a monk with a different package. Themes and Backgrounds seem to be about making characters different from one another or about making them unique or special in some other way. If all monks have the same background and themes (in order to make them monks instead of fighters) in what ways will they be dissimilar from eachother? What vestiges of 'fighter' will still be included in the monk build? In what ways will the fighter with the monk themes and backgrounds be different from a fighter who happens to be an unarmed specialist?

This also assumes you do ALL the specialization of monk with a fighter base and THEMES AND BACKGROUNDS. The problem is Themes and Backgrounds are OPTIONAL. Optional. If I want to play a monk without themes and backgrounds I now can't because there is no longer a monk class. There have been 3-4 editions WITH the class but suddenly it is excluded it as a playable class because TrippyHippy thinks they aren't needed, because "they're basically fighters".



> Indeed, if it is done well, there is no reason to suppose it can't _open up_ options rather than shut them down - imagine that afore-mentioned Barbarian Beserker? Imagine it being built on top of the Ranger Class instead of the Fighter as an option? Imagine a Barbarian Cleric? Imagine a Mage with a Background of Mystic and a Theme of Unarmed Combat? Etc



This isn't the situation with monk though. Yes you could apply "unarmed and mystic" or w/e the themes and backgrounds are for this fighter-monk to other classes. You could. But monks AREN'T just the few things you seem to think belong in themes and backgrounds. This isn't just me saying it. I haven't personally made a list but others have - just read back. There is a laundry list of things that make monks unique from fighters or indeed other classes.

I did talk about the bonus speed and evasion qualities a couple posts back. You could get from barbarian or rogue to monk easier because they at least come with these two traits. Fighters don't. Fighters=/=Monks, just like Fighters=/=Rogues. They could do things similarly, high damage, high evasion, light/finessable weapons and stealth and stuff but that wouldn't mean fighters are suddenly rogues or that rogues are suddenly no longer a class.


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## TrippyHippy (Aug 12, 2012)

I think you've pretty much exhausted any chance of a reasonable debate with that last rant. I've no interest in getting into a personalized feud, and I'll just leave my comments for other people to respond to.


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## MoonSong (Aug 12, 2012)

I don't approve Tovec's getting personal, but I share the same concerns and desires. For many of us the ability to play a monk, paladin, ranger, bard, sorcerer, barbarian, assasin, warlord or druid out of the box as full classes on their own right is very important. Any other possibility is as good as not having them at all. 

If they are only "sub classes" of the other four, but still get a full write up, they become a needless restriction to multiclass, specially given that we are going to get the more open level-by-level kind rather than the hybrid one or the feat-by-feat one, since you cannot multiclass with your own class because that is just increasing the current one by one level.

If they aren't true subclasses but builds, any kind of customization becomes a painful fight against the system. If they also require an speciffic theme/background combination, then that's even worse, you just lost what was suppossed to make your character unique in order to be a stereotypical member of the class you desired to play in the first place. 

If we don't get them as classes, then my noble-defender-sorcerer, streetrat-double-wielder-sorcerer/Paladin, Lurker-Pyromaniac-sorcerer, mystic-berseker-sorcerer, hunter-archer-bard, bar-brawling-hostess-bard and phantom-thief-swashbukling-bard will be crying in a corner


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## Remathilis (Aug 12, 2012)

TrippyHippy said:


> The thing is for me, at least, 99% of all 'Classes' are indeed just minor adjustments on the fundaments represented by Fighters, Rogues, Rangers, Clerics, Druids, Mages, Bards and Paladins.




I'll start by saying "that's a good starting point." Those 8 classes are my bare-minimum acceptable standard for a new PHB. But I think 99% of all classes CANNOT be represented by them alone. Not as D&D has defined them. 

I am curious why you chose those eight. Specifically, why rangers (fighter with wilderness skills), paladin (fighter with clericy powers), bard (mage/thief with song powers), druids (cleric with nature domain) were acceptable as "standone" but not assassin (rogue with killing skills), barbarian (fighter with rage power), warlord (fighter with healy/buff), warlock (at-will mage), sorcerer (spontaneous mage), and monk (fighter/priest/rogue with unarmed combat) didn't? 

I'd see them all as classes myself...


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## Sammael (Aug 12, 2012)

I'll give you a reply as to why _I_ see those 4 classes as essential archetypes and why I chose them for my own revision of the system.

Rangers do not rely on formal martial training. Instead, they focus on speed, guerrilla tactics, and the use of the environment to their advantage. While a tactically-minded fighter will also make good use of the terrain to help him win a battle, he will _primarily_ win the battle because of his skill at arms. Not so with the ranger, who will make the terrain win the battle for him.

Champions (Paladins), likewise, do not gain their combat prowess as much as from training as they draw upon their belief and divine inspiration. A Champion manifests those beliefs through his aura (helping allies and/or hindering foes), uses them to boost his defenses and attacks, and, finally, can release all that concentrated power by smiting those who oppose his beliefs. 

Druids are not just nature priests. They act as nature's avatars, able to shift their own form to take on nature's various aspects, and harness the raw power of elements to produce magical effects that do not break the natural world but draw upon its most powerful phenomena (storms, earthquakes, quicksand, etc). Whereas clerics receive their power from prayers (classical Vancian casters), I think that druids represent their archetype much better by being spontaneous casters.

Finally, bards harness the power of words and sounds, both mundane and magical. They are unparalleled diplomats, negotiators, and liars, and the only class that can resolve almost any encounter non-violently through the power of their bardic songs. Their repertoire may be limited in scope, but I've taken a cue from 3.x warlocks and made the bardic songs a non-expendable resource. The bard can use his song as often as he desires, and the only limitation is that he cannot have multiple songs active at the same time. That's a very different type of magic than that practiced by mages.


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## Minigiant (Aug 12, 2012)

Well Lets do the D&D archetypes



Combat
Martial
Heavy Melee Warrior
Trained
Untrained

Light Melee Warrior
Finesse
Unarmed
Dirty

Archer Thrower
Tactical & Inspirational Combatant
Beast mastery

Divine
Divine Spellcaster
Domain & Divine Channeler
Blessed Warrior

Nature/Primal Divine
Primal Spellcaster
Nature Controller
Animal
Plant
Spirits

Wildshaper

Arcane
Proper Wizardry
Evocation
Illusion
Conjuration
...

Other Arcane
Bardic Magic
Sorcerous/Bloodline Magic
Warlock Magic



Exploration
Athlete
Climb
Jump
Swim
Carrying

Acrobat
Escape Bond
Balance
Tumble

Thief
Open Lock
Disable Traps
Pick Pocket

Naturalist
Tracking
Survival
Nature & Dungeon Knowledge

Scholar
Recall Lore
Magical
History
...


Mysticism
Slow Fall
Self healing
Immunities

Magic
Scrying
Travel spells
Skill copying spells


Interaction
Conversation
Diplomacy
Bluff
Intimidation
Insight

Languages
Gathering information
Magic
Skill copying spells
Magical information gathering



We're gonna need a lot of classes.


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## Remathilis (Aug 12, 2012)

Sammael said:


> I'll give you a reply as to why _I_ see those 4 classes as essential archetypes and why I chose them for my own revision of the system.




All of which are damn good reasons. I'll finish the list off.

A Barbarian isn't just a warrior from a foreign or primitive culture, but an avatar of primal spirits, savage and wild. Either knowingly or not, he taps into that primal fury, a song lost to those made soft by civilization, to become the Hunter, the Beast, the Fury of Nature. This fury gives him abilities beyond those of mortal men; strength, stamina, agility, and savage attacks no trained swordsman dare use. 

A Monk is his polar opposite; a mystic and aesthetic who has devoted himself to greater understanding of the harmony of mind and body. By harnessing the natural energy of life, they train in mysterious combat arts to make their fists like steel, the body like armor, faster, tougher, and capable of supernatural feats to rival any mage. To maintain this ability, he must focus on a life-long dedication to right thinking, right action, right training. 

A Sorcerer gains his power not through training or books, but through the raw magical power that flows though their bloodline. He may learn fewer spells than traditional wizardry, but his soul powers his magic; granting him access to magic on a near constant basis. He can use his magical bloodline for a variety of magical feats and to do things a wizard can only dream to.

A Warlock is a magician that has made a pact with a powerful force to gain magical ability, but at the cost of his soul. Fear and shunned, warlocks walk a lonely path. Their magic is fused to them; they need only ask their patron and more is given. However, such power takes a toll on them and even the strongest one is driven to do dark deeds to fuel his need for greater and greater power...

An Assassin is a rogue who has mastered the exquisite art of murder. More than a common thug or hired blade, he is a master of death in all forms; poison, weapons, traps, and even dark magic. His mastery of anatomy gives him an edge even the best warrior lacks, and his ruthlessness grants him the ability to get the job done whatever the cost. He is feared, reviled, and held in awe of his talents all at the same time.

A Warlord is a master of tactics. Unlike a fighter, who sees the battle from the perspective of a warrior, the warlord see's it in the form of a strategist. He knows how to organize people, coordinate attacks, rally his troops, and make a sacrifice to gain a strategic position. He can use his talents in the war room, or he can lead from the front, inspiring his troops to greater glory. He may not be the leader of a group, but all respect his keen intellect and improvisational skills.


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## Sammael (Aug 12, 2012)

Alright, you have somewhat convinced me to grudgingly accept the Barbarian and Monk as worthwhile archetypes that can stand on their own - but they need A LOT of mechanical work to make them distinguished enough.

The Sorcerer and Warlock, OTOH, are just mages who acquire their power in a slightly different way than the vanilla wizard. They may require slightly different mechanics for power acquisition and usage but, at the end of the day, they can work fine as kits/subclasses/themes/whatever.

And finally, Assassin and Warlord are not class-worthy archetypes. Anyone can be an assassin - a rogue, a fighter, a mage, even a cleric or druid; they just need to focus their abilities on killing people (for money, pleasure, king and country, etc). Likewise, anyone who is strategically inclined can fill the Warlord's role. Arguably, the champion/paladin is the most likely candidate, but the same can be said for like-minded bards, rangers, fighters, mages, clerics, and so on.


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## Minigiant (Aug 12, 2012)

Here is the thing.

There are no subclasses and kits in Next.
There are themes and backgrounds.
Themes are feats.
Backgrounds are skills and noncombat traits.

And not everything can or should be made into a feat, skill, or trait.


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## Sammael (Aug 12, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Here is the thing.
> 
> There are no subclasses and kits in Next.
> There are themes and backgrounds.
> ...



Next is far from finished. We have no idea as to what other mechanics they are currently developing. We just learned about Fighting Styles a week ago, and the Combat Superiority (a very novel mechanic) shortly before. In other words, there may be versions of Next rules currently being playtested internally that have kits, subclasses, prestige classes, themes that are not just feats, backgrounds that have a broader scope, and so on.

EDIT: just so that people understand where I'm coming from - I literally cannot stand class-based RPGs that have a glut of base classes. D&D 3.5 was getting problematic towards the end of its lifecycle. Pathfinder is getting there. 4E is _ridiculous_, it has a humongous list of base classes and every little mechanic they felt like testing got its own base class. If Next starts the same way, I am not even going to bother buying the core books.


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## Remathilis (Aug 12, 2012)

Sammael said:


> And finally, Assassin and Warlord are not class-worthy archetypes. Anyone can be an assassin - a rogue, a fighter, a mage, even a cleric or druid; they just need to focus their abilities on killing people (for money, pleasure, king and country, etc).




Really, they should bite the bullet and call the class "Ninja" because that's what it is. Death attacks, ninja magic, darts and poisons and garrotes, etc. However, that's a Catch 22 since then it gets tossed with monk into the "OMG Azn!" classes.

Ninja - Oriental = Assassin.


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## MoonSong (Aug 13, 2012)

Sammael said:


> The Sorcerer and Warlock, OTOH, are just mages who acquire their power in a slightly different way than the vanilla wizard. They may require slightly different mechanics for power acquisition and usage but, at the end of the day, they can work fine as kits/subclasses/themes/whatever.




I'm sorry but that is the same as saying Ranger and barbarian are just flavors of the generic fighter. "I sold my soul for power, as a result I can do amazing things without even having to make an effort, since my benefactor does all of the dirty work for me", "I spent my youth studying the laws of the universe for years and now I can bend them as a result since I know about the loopholes in them" and "I was born with this power, to me there is no difference between the magical and non-magical, because both are equally easy to me" are all very deep differences and go beyond flavor.

I've played lot's of sorcerers and no two of them have ever been the same, they can be bent in many, many ways, there is no such a thing as a "generic sorcerer" at most the default flavor is "draconic bloodline sorcerer", if you are not convinced just check how many bloodlines Pathfinder has made for sorcerers and how many bloodline groups existed by the time complete mage was published, 4e is the blandest in this regard as it only had five or eight flavors of sorcerer (depending on wether you count elementalists as a single flavor or actually four different flavors).

And a sorcerer's bloodline is only a small facet of the sorcerer, because a sorcerer can come from any place in the world, unlike the wizards -because their background necesarily implies they spent a lot of time studying to get their magic, was it by a mentor, finding an ancient tome or the (in)famous wizard school-. Also while a wizard's magic is their work or a tool for their job, a sorcerer's magic is an extension of themselves, as a result a sorcerer can dedicate to anything he or she desires, not only to a reduced career path. (So forcing all sorcerer's to have an specific background and theme is a big no, it wouldn't just do any justice to them)

This difference is key, deprive a wizard of his magics and he becomes nearly useless and extemely vulnerable, but that is hardly a temporal inconvenience, deprive a sorcerer of his and he still has plenty of resources to fight back, but the experience is extremely traumatic for them, because for a wizard a spell is like a hammer or a screwdriver, while for a sorcerer is like his arm or his hand. 

Warlocks are similar, they can come from any place on the world and have any possible ocupation, the only thing they have in common is they -or someone in their name- made a pact with an unknown entity, and that's it. Beyond that warlock's are as diverse as their patrons and even more, as potentially anyone can make such pacts. Also warlocks aren't true spellcasters, forcing them to be derived from a true spellcasting class is clunky design.

Also Sorcerer's are the simplest arcane casters, if any class should (and none of them should) be implemented as a speciffic build of another class, is the wizard inside the sorcerer and not the other way around.


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## Stormonu (Aug 13, 2012)

Sammael said:


> EDIT: just so that people understand where I'm coming from - I literally cannot stand class-based RPGs that have a glut of base classes. D&D 3.5 was getting problematic towards the end of its lifecycle. Pathfinder is getting there. 4E is _ridiculous_, it has a humongous list of base classes and every little mechanic they felt like testing got its own base class. If Next starts the same way, I am not even going to bother buying the core books.




Sadly, that's one of the downfalls of a _class_-based system.  If classes could be treated as pregen packages of abilities, we'd have a lot less of these arguments and folks could just pick the cluster of abilities that fit their concept.  But without the stratified classes and their fixed abilities, it wouldn't be D&D.

<EDIT>  In the end, I think the designers are going to have to pick between two evils:  Make a few base classes and tons of options to customize the classes, or tons of classes for every occasion but less open to customization.  Both will be headaches to character design, but at different points in the decision-making process.  Personally, I think I'd prefer the former instead of the latter.


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## Remathilis (Aug 13, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> Sadly, that's one of the downfalls of a _class_-based system.  If classes could be treated as pregen packages of abilities, we'd have a lot less of these arguments and folks could just pick the cluster of abilities that fit their concept.  But without the stratified classes and their fixed abilities, it wouldn't be D&D.
> 
> <EDIT>  In the end, I think the designers are going to have to pick between two evils:  Make a few base classes and tons of options to customize the classes, or tons of classes for every occasion but less open to customization.  Both will be headaches to character design, but at different points in the decision-making process.  Personally, I think I'd prefer the former instead of the latter.




The problem is the definition of "few" and "ton". Is "few" 4? 8? 12? 2? Likewise what is the limit? 14? 20? 32? 101? 

Likewise, how much customization do we want before it isn't even "class" anymore? We could go like Skills & Powers and each class grants a variety of abilities bought against a pool of points. We could make them like the generic classes of Unearthed Arcana and make everything a feat. Likewise, unless a "build/subclass/fnarg" mostly consisting of re-arranging the deckchairs (the difference between 4e's greatsword/sword & board fighters vs. slayer and knight in Essentials) then its pointless; a paladin "build" and a paladin "class" eats up the same amount of space in the book and in the latter case, you can at least give your paladin a theme to make it unique (rather than it BE the theme to make your fighter unique). 

There are a LOT of one-note classes in D&D (Cavaliers, Spellthieves, Runepriests) that make good themes or whatnot, but I really think reducing the classes to 1d4 plus a bunch of themes/builds fixes little and weakens the game.


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## mlund (Aug 13, 2012)

Minigiant said:


> Here is the thing.
> 
> There are no subclasses and kits in Next.




Correction: There are no sub-classes, kits, or class options in the Caves of Chaos Play-test. There aren't any Rangers or Paladins either. Looking at the wider content of design blogs and interviews they are clearly implementing both those classes/builds. They are also clearly implementing build options / specializations for various classes - highlighted explicitly in addressing fighting / weapon styles for the Fighter class, and in the new podcast by identifying the Cleric Domains as shaping your Build - e.x. weapon and armor proficiency as well as some spell powers all come from domains - so a Nature Domain cleric is a vast difference from a War Domain cleric vs. Sun Domain Cleric, to the point where the only thing AD&D, 3E, or Pathfinder could offer you is a separate class.

That Cleric Domain model is excellent. Combat Styles should do likewise for the Fighter, including Unarmed, Bow, Great Weapon, Shielded, etc.

- Marty Lund


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## MoonSong (Aug 13, 2012)

Remathilis said:


> Likewise, how much customization do we want before it isn't even "class" anymore? We could go like Skills & Powers and each class grants a variety of abilities bought against a pool of points. We could make them like the generic classes of Unearthed Arcana and make everything a feat. Likewise, unless a "build/subclass/fnarg" mostly consisting of re-arranging the deckchairs (the difference between 4e's greatsword/sword & board fighters vs. slayer and knight in Essentials) then its pointless;* a paladin "build" and a paladin "class" eats up the same amount of space in the book and in the latter case, you can at least give your paladin a theme to make it unique (rather than it BE the theme to make your fighter unique).*




Emphasis mine, not only that, but it opens up more possibilities for multiclassing. If sorcerer is just a wizard subclass, then there is no room for wizards/sorcerers, you cannot multiclass with another subclasss of your own class and if you do, there is no point on having subclasses at all beyond appeasing some close-minded people at the expense of bringing needless complexity to the rest.


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## Minigiant (Aug 13, 2012)

mlund said:


> Correction: There are no sub-classes, kits, or class options in the Caves of Chaos Play-test. There aren't any Rangers or Paladins either. Looking at the wider content of design blogs and interviews they are clearly implementing both those classes/builds. They are also clearly implementing build options / specializations for various classes - highlighted explicitly in addressing fighting / weapon styles for the Fighter class, and in the new podcast by identifying the Cleric Domains as shaping your Build - e.x. weapon and armor proficiency as well as some spell powers all come from domains - so a Nature Domain cleric is a vast difference from a War Domain cleric vs. Sun Domain Cleric, to the point where the only thing AD&D, 3E, or Pathfinder could offer you is a separate class.
> 
> That Cleric Domain model is excellent. Combat Styles should do likewise for the Fighter, including Unarmed, Bow, Great Weapon, Shielded, etc.
> 
> - Marty Lund




It really depends on how far they are willing to go with class builds, themes, .and backgrounds. Replicating many of the legacy or iconic classes will take more that a few short sentences. If they follow anything close to the playtest then their isn't enough resources. Replacing those classes with existing classes will be complicated, unbalancing, and/complex. 

It is not impossible to make a monk with the classic 4 classes, a few themes and backgrounds. It more about having the end result worth the trouble while keeping the monk fans happy.


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## Stormonu (Aug 13, 2012)

KaiiLurker said:


> Emphasis mine, not only that, but it opens up more possibilities for multiclassing. If sorcerer is just a wizard subclass, then there is no room for wizards/sorcerers, you cannot multiclass with another subclasss of your own class and if you do, there is no point on having subclasses at all beyond appeasing some close-minded people at the expense of bringing needless complexity to the rest.




Wizard/Sorcerer, Fighter/Ranger, Thief/Bard and such really mostly redundant to me.  They seem like they are combos that are 80-90% the same mechanically.  If anything, I'd like to see a Class, Theme, Kit, Background scheme rather than a proliferation of mostly redundant classes.

Thus, you could have a Fighter [Class] (Paladin) [Kit/Sublass] Slayer [Theme] Soldier [Background].  And a Fighter (Knight) Cavalier Noble.  Or perhaps a Rogue (Bard) Blade Performer.  Maybe a Rogue (Thief) Trapspringer Urchin.  Or a Mage (Invoker) Bookbound Academic. Possibly a Mage (Warlock) StarPact Thrall.  Or a Priest (War) Crusader Wanderer, whose much like a paladin.  Or a more classic Priest (Good) Cleric Templeborn.



<EDIT> You could also get campaign specific priests like Priest (Helmite) Champion Mercenary. Or Priest (Druid) AnimalWhisperer Hermit.

Likewise, it might also solve the CS conundrum for the ranger, paladin, barbarian and other "fighter types" - they could explicitely be given CS dice but their kit could express how its used - favored enemy fo rangers, smite for paladins, rage for barbarians, panache for swashbucklers, showmanship for gladiators, ki for samuria, etc.

Likewise for mages, kit could define how you use your magic -Vancian for wizards, pacts for Warlocks, arcane blood for sorcerers, truename, shadow magic, wild magic, whatever system you want to attach to the kit/subclass portion.  Same for spheres/gods/spirits/nature or whatnot for priests. Again, you could then attach various subsystems to rogues to have special abilities to make the likes of bards, assassins, charlatans, beguilers, etc.


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## Tovec (Aug 13, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> Wizard/Sorcerer, Fighter/Ranger, Thief/Bard and such really mostly redundant to me.  They seem like they are combos that are 80-90% the same mechanically.  *If anything, I'd like to see a Class, Theme, Kit, Background scheme rather than a proliferation of mostly redundant classes.*



I wouldn't. I don't want to have to pick out a dozen little details to make one simple character. A fighter is a fighter, a paladin a paladin. I do not need different themes and backgrounds to define one as the other.



> Thus, you could have a Fighter [Class] (Paladin) [Kit/Sublass] Slayer [Theme] Soldier [Background].  And a Fighter (Knight) Cavalier Noble.  Or perhaps a Rogue (Bard) Blade Performer.  Maybe a Rogue (Thief) Trapspringer Urchin.  Or a Mage (Invoker) Bookbound Academic. Possibly a Mage (Warlock) StarPact Thrall.  Or a Priest (War) Crusader Wanderer, whose much like a paladin.  Or a more classic Priest (Good) Cleric Templeborn.



We already know Themes and Backgrounds are optional. If I want to play a character of nearly any class and not have to use an optional system I am completely out of luck. Not to mention wanting to play a simple Fighter. Not a Fighter (Templar) [slayer] {crusader} or whatever YOU think a fighter is to be a fighter. That is just with a simple class; not including the arguably more complex one of MONK which is what this thread is about.

I would be wholly surprised if the WotC design team produces a product with just 4 classes. I would be stunned and amazed. If I had any money I'd be willing to put it down to say that it wasn't going to happen.

Can we all agree that WotC IS NOT going to abandon all classes except the core four and move on?



> <EDIT> You could also get campaign specific priests like Priest (Helmite) Champion Mercenary. Or Priest (Druid) AnimalWhisperer Hermit.



Well they aren't going to replace druid with a cleric. They might make a nature-y cleric but they won't replace the druid class with a subclass of cleric. I say this not because I don't think they are close (I don't but that isn't why I'm saying it), I am saying it because WHICH druid do they choose to be a cleric? I do agree with the rest of the campaign specific clerics stuff, they have said that much.



> Likewise, it might also solve the CS conundrum for the ranger, paladin, barbarian and other "fighter types" - they could explicitely be given CS dice but their kit could express how its used - favored enemy fo rangers, smite for paladins, rage for barbarians, panache for swashbucklers, showmanship for gladiators, ki for samuria, etc.



Here is something else I hope that is optional, but hasn't been said to be optional so far. However, if I understand what CS looks like right now, isn't it more of a system meant to give fighters more options relating to combat maneuvers? I mean it is supposed to be able to protect them if they stand in a doorway and get wailed on but it doesn't seem to cover them using sword and board vs. greatsword vs. 2 daggers vs. charging on a horse. I may have missed something if it does. CS seemed to be more of a combat system to give them options as opposed to defining how they fight in the first place. For example, CS wouldn't define the armor they are wearing or their proficiencies, but it would be similar to being how well (or effectively) they do a trip attempt.



> Likewise for mages, kit could define how you use your magic -Vancian for wizards, pacts for Warlocks, arcane blood for sorcerers, truename, shadow magic, wild magic, whatever system you want to attach to the kit/subclass portion.  Same for spheres/gods/spirits/nature or whatnot for priests. Again, you could then attach various subsystems to rogues to have special abilities to make the likes of bards, assassins, charlatans, beguilers, etc.



It entirely depends on how they do "kits" but so far themes and backgrounds are capable and designed to give you minor changes between others of the same class. They AREN'T meant to replace an entire class. If you listed to the PA podcast #2  you hear mearls talking about a cleric of shadow being able to sneak like a rogue, but he never says that a cleric of shadows IS a rogue. Nor is he saying a rogue is only limited to sneaking. That is what is at stake here. When you start defining a class as only one or two sets of things and say that another class can cover that so it is okay to remove that class then it is a slippery slope. At what point _do you _decide a rogue is a wizard because wizards can sneak better and have open/close or knock? At what point do you decide the fighter is a cleric because both stand on the front lines and get hit? (A point I believe I made back on page 1.)


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## MoonSong (Aug 13, 2012)

Stormonu said:


> Wizard/Sorcerer, Fighter/Ranger, Thief/Bard and such really mostly redundant to me.  They seem like they are combos that are 80-90% the same mechanically.  If anything, I'd like to see a Class, Theme, Kit, Background scheme rather than a proliferation of mostly redundant classes.
> 
> Thus, you could have a Fighter [Class] (Paladin) [Kit/Sublass] Slayer [Theme] Soldier [Background].  And a Fighter (Knight) Cavalier Noble.  Or perhaps a Rogue (Bard) Blade Performer.  Maybe a Rogue (Thief) Trapspringer Urchin.  Or a Mage (Invoker) Bookbound Academic. Possibly a Mage (Warlock) StarPact Thrall.  Or a Priest (War) Crusader Wanderer, whose much like a paladin.  Or a more classic Priest (Good) Cleric Templeborn.
> 
> ...



You said it: MOSTLY REDUNDANT instead of FULLY REDUNDANT, the other 10-20% that doesn't overlap (and I think that the non-overlapping parts are at least a 30% or more) is what makes multiclassing worth -from a mechanical point of view, because there are more reasons to multiclass than simple optimmization/munchkinism- and what actually makes the classes unique. Rogue-bard is one of my favorite MC combos (along with fighter-bard) and I can tell you they really doesn't share as much as you'd think

What bard and a rogue have in common in 3.x and 4e:
 - More trained skills/skill points than average, some overlap in class skills
 - Medium BAB (3.x) 
 - Good Reflex save/defense 
 - Some weapon proficiencies 
 - Light armor proficiency /cloth and leather proficiency
And that is pretty much it.

What the bard has that the rogue lacks:
 - Access to knowledge skills as class skills. (automatic arcana trainning on 4e)
 - Good Will save/defense
 - Proficiency with shields
 - Better weapon proficiencies
 - Better armor proficiencies (4e)
 - Bardic music (3.x)
 - Party support abilities (4e)
 - Spellcasting (3.x) / Arcane powers (4e)
 - Overall versatility (4e)

What the rogue has that the bard lacks 
 - All thieving skills as class skills/thievery as class skill
 - More skill points/ more trained skills
 - Hand crossbow proficiency (3.x)
 - Single target damage potential (sneak attack)
 - Trapfinding/trapsense (3.x)
 - Battlefield Mobility abilities  

I don't think those differences can be contained inside the rogue's scheme as we know it, as it only contains skills and a trait, and I cannot think of a way to make them fit into a 3-4 feat package and even there it isn't satisfactory, since you don't get full bardness until you reach a high enough level and you ares consuming an important customization resource  to get a stereotipical run-of-the-mill bard.

And if you think Ranger/Fighter doesn't make any sense, I have a one word answer to it: Drizzit.


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## Stormonu (Aug 13, 2012)

KaiiLurker said:


> And if you think Ranger/Fighter doesn't make any sense, I have a one word answer to it: Drizzit.




Huhn, I'd always thought they had statted Dritz as 100% ranger, but I'd only ever casually glanced at his stats.


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## Sammael (Aug 13, 2012)

Drizzt was triple-classed the last time I looked at his stats - a Fighter (to reflect his drow noble training) / Barbarian (to reflect the years he spent wandering the Underdark by himself, half-mad) / Ranger (when he became Montolio's disciple).

Likewise, Elminster is a Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard.

That's why multiclassing is important, it shows _character growth and development_.


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## ZombieRoboNinja (Aug 13, 2012)

Just to echo what some others here are saying - any debate here about only having 4 or fewer "base" classes is completely academic at this point, because that's not going to happen in Next. The original plan was to start with every class that has ever been a D&D base class, and carve it down from there where necessary.

Fighters may or may not have built-in "styles" that subdivide the class (like wizard traditions, rogue schemes, and cleric domains do to varying degrees).

Monks have already been written up as a 5e class, and Mearls said they were the "easiest" class to design. That was a few weeks ago in that big Redditt thread, but it seems unlikely they'd toss it out completely without a darn good reason.

Warlocks have also been written up as a class, with unique spellcasting mechanics (something do do with at-will powers that can be powered up into encounter powers). Warlords, however, are still in flux, but seem to have been carved up into one or more themes. (These were mentioned in the latest PA podcast.) 

Additionally, 3e-style multiclassing will be possible, and I can't imagine they'd let it be as finicky and broken as it was in 3e. (In other words, a fighter/monk SHOULD be a viable character build.)

Personally, I fully expect bards, barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins all to be separate classes, and that none of them will use the fighter's unique CS mechanic. I also fully expect that barbarians and monks will have unique mechanics. Rangers, paladins, and bards may or may not be 3e-style demi-spellcasters, but I for one hope at least rangers and paladins do not have Vancian spells.

I also really hope that the monk class has built-in styles so that I could play a "mystic swordsman" with the class.


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## drothgery (Aug 13, 2012)

ZombieRoboNinja said:


> Just to echo what some others here are saying - any debate here about only having 4 or fewer "base" classes is completely academic at this point, because that's not going to happen in Next. The original plan was to start with every class that has ever been a D&D base class, and carve it down from there where necessary.



It was to start with every class that has ever been a base class in the first player's book of any edition of D&D, not every base class, period (which would have included dozens of classes from 3.5 and 4e). Which was unfortunate in my book, because the swordmage / duskblade / arcane warrior type deserves a core rules base class at least as much as the paladin / divine warrior type and never has gotten one (and is harder to do recreate with multiclassing than the divine warrior type).


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## Meadyaon (Aug 15, 2012)

SageMinerve said:


> About the "What class does the Monk most resemble?" debate...
> 
> If you forget about D&D for 1 second, what's... (definitions drawn from Wikipedia):
> 
> ...



Webster's New World College Dictionary defines a monk as a member of male religious order living in monastery  or hermitage observing a common rule under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  IMHO that definition say that a monk would be cloistered cleric from Unearthed Arcana (3.5 IIRC)  which is that i think when I think of the Eurocentric view of a monk.  I think of the Monk class as being a martial artist with mystic abilities.  Some of the Monk abilities would harnessed thruough use of Chi (basically a person's life energy).

The term "martial arts" may be defined as the art  of combat that combines systems of codified practices and traditions of  training for combat utilizing various fighting techniques.  These arts  may be offensive for combat or defensive for self-defense.  They may  further be practices for personal, spiritual, health, sport, or other  reasons.  Many martial arts are linked to beliefs such as Hinduism,  Buddhism, Confucianism, etc.  While others adhere to a strict way of  honor.


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