Monks - Fix Them!

[Drakos]

Please re-read all my previous posts on the subject, that has already been covered and I refuse to continue discussing the subject, the horse is dead. I have PROVEN myself correct on this matter, choosing to ignore that proof is your choice, I however am done with this.

And I suggest you read the faq for the D&D 3.5 which clearly goes into two weapon fighting and flury of blows working together. Meaning that the Monk get 5 flurry of blows attack and 3 off hand attacks with the two weapon fighting feet. When quoting the rules it is best to know them in full before doing so.

Can a monk fight with two weapons? Can she combine a two-weapon attack with a flurry of blows? What are her penalties on attack rolls?

A monk can fight with two weapons just like any other character, but she must accept the normal penalties on her attack rolls to do so. She can use an unarmed strike as an offhand weapon. She can even combine two-weapon fighting with a flurry of blows to gain an extra attack with her off hand (but remember that she can use only unarmed strikes or special monk weapons as part of the flurry). The penalties for twoweapon fighting stack with the penalties for flurry of blows.

For example, at 6th level, the monk Ember can normally make one attack per round at a +4 bonus. When using flurry of blows, she can make two attacks (using unarmed strikes or any special monk weapons she holds), each at a +3 bonus. If she wants to make an extra attack with her off hand, she has to accept a –4 penalty on her primary hand attacks and a –8 penalty on her off-hand attacks (assuming she wields a light weapon in her off hand).

If Ember has Two-Weapon Fighting, she has to accept only a –2 penalty on all attacks to make an extra attack with her off hand. Thus, when wielding a light weapon in her off hand during a flurry of blows, she can make a total of three attacks, each at a total bonus of +1. At least one of these attacks has to be with her off-hand weapon.

A 20th-level monk with Greater Two-Weapon Fighting can make eight attacks per round during a flurry of blows. Assuming she wields a light weapon in her off hand, her three off-hand weapon attacks are at +13/+8/+3, and she has five attacks (at +13/+13/+13/+8/+3) with unarmed strikes or any weapons she carries in her primary hand. If the same monk also has Rapid Shot and throws at least one shuriken as part of her flurry of blows (since Rapid Shot can be used only with ranged attacks), she can throw one additional shuriken with her primary hand, but all of her attacks (even melee attacks) suffer a –2 penalty. Thus, her full attack array looks like this: +11/+11/+11/+11/+6/+1 primary hand (two must be with shuriken) and +11/+6/+1 off hand.

[Drakos]

It should be abundantly clear to the Turbine staff by now that monks have been poorly implemented into the game, be it by a poor design choice or by necessity due to a poorly implemented weapons system. Either way monks needs an overhual or you will continue to run into bugs and issues with them over and over again, as has been demonstrated repeatedly.

It seems to me, rather then do what NEEDS to be done you have continued to use patchwork fixes, which ultimately interfere with other patchwork fixes, and/or make the class generally harder to work with, both for the players and the coders. What I am suggesting is a complete rebuild of monks from the ground up, ditching almost everything as it is now.

Handwraps and Unarmed Combat

It also seems to me that the primary cause for most these problems is "Handwraps" and "Unarmed Combat". Without getting into DDO game balance issues too deeply, monks need some kind of unarmed combat augment to bring them in line with the power level of DDO combat and other classes, so for that handwraps were created. But the decision on how they were implemented seems to have been a poor one.

Make Handwraps actual "weapons" as far as game scripting goes, just like every other weapon in the game. Give monks a free feat (Handwrap Use) and then at each level thier unarmed combat damage die should increase, give them an additional level of (Handwrap Use). The "Handwrap" weapon would then check how many levels of Handwrap Use you have and its base damage dice would be determined as such.

Each "Handwrap" should count as a ONE HANDED weapon so monks can get the same benefits of every other dual wielder in the game, and now that they are actual weapons for the purposes of weapon scripting monks can finally make "Greensteel" Handwraps. Monk "TOD" rings should then be removed from the game and players who have them compensated in some way.

The Handwrap weapons should "require" the feat (Handwrap Use) and the only way to get said feat would be monk levels AND the monk past life feat, which would grant you (Handwrap Use).

Monk Combat Stances and Strikes

From what I recall and if I'm understanding the intent monk stances and strikes were initially designed to BE the way monk DPS was brought in line with the DDO power curve. However it is clearly not functioning in that way which is why handwraps were needed and this whole mess got started in the first place. Under my current suggestion of the changes to handwraps, the monk strikes would no longer be needed and I would suggest removing them from the game. Yes, that would make quite a few monks unhappy who have grown attached to spamming these strikes, but I think the changes to handwraps would more then make up for the loss of these minor effects.

So what to do with these to bring the flavor back? How do you keep the feel of the current presitge enhancements? First I would leave the stances unchanged, they add a great deal of flavor to the game and would allow for the tie in of "Ki Strike" finishers; however the individuals strikes (Fire/Air/Water/Earth/Light/Dark) would be removed from the game.

Since you have removed the "Strikes" from the game, the "Finishing Moves" would no longer need to be key sequenced, and would simply reside on your hotbar as "Ki Strikes/abilities" for when you build up enough "Ki". The available "Ki Strikes" would be based on your Current path (Light/Dark) and your current stance (Sun/Wind/Ocean/Mountain). Therefore a Light monk in the Wind stance would only be able to use the (current) wind wind wind, wind light wind, and light light light finishers. Changing stances would enable the different strikes and abilities for that stance of course. (the Ki cost of these would need to be adjusted to reflect the fact that you no longer need to "Key" up the strikes). Other specialized strikes and abilites bought through enhancement points would more or less remain unchanged.

Monk Attack Speed

Currently monks maintain one of the fastest attack speeds in DDO; I believe this was done to compensate for the general lack of DPS capabilites in thier "weapon". However with the changes to how handwraps are handled and the strikes, there is no longer a need for the increased attack speed. As such monk attack speed should be brought in line with the equivalent number of strikes they "should" have. This would place a level 20 monk as getting 5 attacks in a sequence while "unarmed" or using monk weapons, TWF and ITWF would NOT increase these attacks and would only affect attacks make with NON monk weapons. However GTWF(Greater) would net you ONE additional attack if you selected unarmed.

Yes, that means monks would actually attack LESS often then an ITWF Fighter. However once again if you look the the changes to Handwraps and the Stances, this reduced attack speed would bring monks back in line with the amount of DPS they should be doing and not make them overly powerfull.

The Complete Package

All of these changes would need to be done at the same time, as changing just the handwraps would make Monks overpowered, and changing the other two would make monks underpowered. So its an all or nothing suggestion.

Yes, it would probably upset a great number of players and the forums would boil with nerd rage for a few weeks; however I think the benefits far outwiegh that negative. Once handwraps are implemented in the same way other weapons in the game are, it would make working with them for both the developers and players a LOT easier in the future, hopefully eliminating a lot of the bugs and issues with the current implementation.

/not signed

As many have stated I am in favor of fixing whatever the problem with Handwraps, including making them a type of weapon (although I don't agree that they should allow two different handwraps equiped at the same time).

Keep their Stances, Strikes, etc... as is. In general there is no problem with the Monk as is, just need to resolve the issue they keep running into with handwraps.

I am familiar with both the DDO Monk implementation (from the beginning) and with P&P Monks. Although, the Stances and Strikes mechanics and the Ki generation/usage are not P&P, I really like their addition in DDO they add alot of flavor to the class that is somewhat lacking in the P&P version.

[Xionanx]

And I suggest you read the faq for the D&D 3.5 which clearly goes into two weapon fighting and flury of blows working together. Meaning that the Monk get 5 flurry of blows attack and 3 off hand attacks with the two weapon fighting feet. When quoting the rules it is best to know them in full before doing so.

I call questionable interepretation of the rules in the "Official FAQ" then, as those are clearly contradictory to statements in the Players handbook, and even in the Official FAQ itself.

But this is why 3.0/3.5 were such rules lawyering nightmares I guess. If you sat at my table, "Flurry of Blows" is a special full round combat sequence where a monk uses all available body parts and/or equiped weapons at attack; Adding "additional" off hand attacks IMO breaks the intention of what "Flurry of Blows" is.

But whatever, I guess I'll have to concede this particular point since its in the "official" FAQ, even if I do find it ******** and absurd.