Will monks ever be a viable class?

Will monks ever be a viable class?

I've always thought monks could make a perfectly viable "melee crowd control" class:

>Lower base damage
>Higher number of attacks per round
>Can split up movement between each attack at will
>Can replace any number of attacks with trip, disarm, or crippling affects

>Bounce around a room, tripping up a half-dozen mooks in one round for the barbarian to Greater Cleave with ease

Isn't that how they work in 5e?

I have to say, this cover offends me.

I forget, which editions were the ones where monks were broken and which were the editions where monks were useless?

Stat him

Why exactly are monks considered weak?

new to TTG, please don't judge

They are only unviable in 3.5 and core 3.PF. All other editions they are at least viable, if redundant.

they aren't, at least not in 5e

Just what is it about Islam that everyone wants to suck its dick so hard these days?

Would a barbarian/monk multiclass work well?

Seriously? That's hilarious. How much more proof do you need about Muslims being terrible when not even Buddhist monks will put up with their shit?

SJWs and their whole "muh oppressed minorities" mindset, plus the fact that no-one can argue against them without being shouted down because "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS REEEEEEE"

Not to mention the last time someone made fun of Islam publicly, he got blown up.

Islam is a minority religion in most of the West practiced predominantly by Brown People. Even without global Jihad as an issue, Muslim communities would likely experience many forms of prejudice in the West.
Unfortunately, a lot of people make the foolish assumption that *because* Islam is a minority religion and frequent subject of prejudice and fear, it should not be criticized *AT ALL*.
It's obviously entirely possible to be deeply critical of Islam without descending into /pol/ tier genocide advocacy, but unfortunately we live in an era where you either think all Muslims everywhere are fluffy bunnies who love women and gay people, or they're all savage, moon-worshiping rapists.

Theravada's always been like that, bud.

Monks are viable, they're just not as powerful as some of the other classes, and some of their class abilities are granted way too late, and offer way too little.

>Alright, level 17! What do I get?
>"You can now speak with any creature"
>....T...That's it?
>"That's it."

The natural spell-resistance at level 13 helps though.

Is this a variation of the slave squat?
His feet look perfectly planted

In 3.0/3.5 they're an unfocused mess. Combat abilities that only work when standing still, combined with a bunch of abilities that focus on mobility, requires more good stats than any other class, relies very heavily on magic items despite functionally having less magic item slots, and has terrible BAB.

In Pathfinder it started out similarly (only slightly less awful), but supplements made the Monk roughly on par with Ranger, which is decent. (Though if you choose the shitty options in Pathfinder you can still be terrible).

The issue is the vast majority of muslims aren't an issue. That said the current political climate, especially in the middle east, promotes radicalism

Monks are perfectly viable in 4e and somewhat less viable in 5e, it's only in 3/3.5e and thus derived products (like Pathfinder) they are completely fucked.

That's how they play in 5e, and in 4e they can also stack a billion attacks onto one target to do decent dmg to control high risk enemies.

bump

The idea of Buddhists being a collective of pacifist hippies is largely the invention of white people in the last century.
In reality they aren't any more or less peaceful than any other religious group which is followed by hundreds of millions of people in incredibly diverse forms.

The vast majority of believers aren't true believers, no matter what religion you take. Most (if not all) religions promote radical mindset - yes, even Buddhist. Some, like Christianity have well organized framework that take some effort to adapt to a modern humanist society (well, unless you look at eastern Orthodox, who don't), yet if you dig deep enough to it's core it's still a religion of hate and division where killing non-believers and heretics is a good deed. Islam on the other hand don't have something like the institute of church, so each mulla can interpret it as he wants, and people in the Middle East are generally more religious and thus more vulnerable to those interpreting Curan as a book of aggressive conquest (which let's face it it was designed as) as opposed to "the book of obedience" as more liberal modern muslim want to portray it

Did you forget the 17th feature of the subclasses? But yeah, that is rather limited at such a late level, with or without the subclass feature. "Things that would be minor features in other point buy games of a similar power level being locked behind far away goalposts" are one of many aspects I honestly hate about DnD.

this, it's not just against Muslims either
Sri Lankan civil war was buddhists vs hindus, although really the war was more drawn along Sinhalese and Tamil lines.

He's referencing 3.5, where monks did suck. 3.5 (well PF too, but they're the same shit) is also the only edition they ever have sucked, but it doesn't stop people from saying it

If you ever want proof Buddhists can be assholes just look at Japan. That being said, modern Buddhists are fairly chill compared to the olden days with them having mostly bought into their own koolaid, but in a lot of East Asian countries like Thailand the clergy has become pretty corrupt

They venerate a savage moon-worshipping rapist though (also, they totally are that, I'm Swedish so I know).

Is this why recently someone called Dalai Lama an oppressor?

No, it's because he said Europe has taken in too many migrants

>le all religions are equally violent meme
Systematic violence associated with Buddhism arose last century, and is without exception linked with nationalism in every single case. Not to say older examples of violence didn't exist (warrior monk groups in Japan and China, Tibet, the battles depicted in royal chronicles of Sri Lanka to name a few examples), but you can't compare any of these to the violence waged by Christians and Muslims presenting religion as a fundamental factor for the use of that violence - today or in the past. You also can't conveniently disregard the fact that for example in Japan, Buddhism has always -from its very first inception- been involved in politics and tightly controlled by State powers.
You can look up historical justifications for "buddhist violence", they usually don't even try to come up with a doctrinal justification (because they can't) or it's some retarded circular logic like "the true nature of all things in emptiness, therefore if you kill people no one actually dies" which also ignores nearly every instance of mentions of violence to be found in sutras (a notable exception being the Mahayana Nirvana Sutra with its 'icchantikas', but even the NS itself realizes how retarded it is and starts having a schizophrenic discourse about them).

>ou also can't conveniently disregard the fact that for example in Japan, Buddhism has always -from its very first inception- been involved in politics and tightly controlled by State powers.

And you think Christianity/Islam wasn't?

>Even without global Jihad as an issue, Muslim communities would likely experience many forms of prejudice in the West.
stated user, a broad sweeping statement without a shred of evidence

>Christianity/Islam being controlled by State powers
You might be thinking of the other way around...

>dat pic name

Monks were a viable class back in 3.5 when I min-maxed and convinced my DM to let me use a bunch of random supplemental shit. Of course, I could have done the same thing with a different class and gotten a better result but I still had the best character in the party. Don't judge me too harshly, this was back in high school.

Islam was political from the very beginning since Muhammad was far from being a saintly figure living a life disconnected from worldly affairs. In other words it was a political force of its own, not seized by the grip of another state. Christianity was indeed taken up by state powers, but the Church went on to become extremely powerful and to have a say in governments (though not exclusively, of course). In Japan the opposite happened. While a number of monasteries were quite wealthy and had influence, their upper ranks were usually made up of ex-nobles who would enter the temple life for merely appearance's sake so that they could still have a "phantom" hand in politics. The government(s) would impose decisions on the clergy, not the other way around, and for them the main usefulness of Buddhism was that it could protect the state via magical means, not the benefits it can have for practitioners.

>True believes in religions are radicals
Believing there is an order to the universe or something above this world to strive for isn't the root of violence in any religion. Atheists, deists, and plenty of non-religious types can justify horrible atrocities and radicalize for their ideologies just the same. The fact is just that some ideologies are better suited towards it: Buddhism is harder to justify atrocities with than Islam because one of those religions was a doctrine of striving towards transcendence through discipline and introspection and the other was founded on conquest and submission justified by divine mandate. Even the guy in op is just one of a small number who consider their actions defensive because of the threat Muslims in their country seem to be: the minimum ideology you need to get action like that is the idea that people should be able to defend themselves and their people, which is hardly uniquely a religious idea.
Also
>Adapting religion to an ever changing society
It's long past time to stop. If reality fundamentally was different for each generation of people this would make sense. Perfection doesn't change it's mind just because this generation wants to be more cosmopolitan than the last. It'd be better that a religion shrink or shrivel with it's truth than that it destroy itself entirely by diluting it.

>Seriously? That's hilarious. How much more proof do you need about the religion of peace being victims of persecution and oppression when even Buddhist monks will give them shit?

FTFY

>t. liberal media

When are you Swedes going to rise up and overthrown your treasonous government?
If you started an uprising to remove traitors and kebab, I'd gladly join you, despite the fact that you Swedes oppressed my people for 600 years.
t. a Fin.

no, slav squat needs the knees to be more spred so you can easily rest your arms on them. This is sneaky breeki squat, he is gone shoot a bitch in a second or two but be very sneaky about it

while i know this is bait
>Atheists, deists, and plenty of non-religious types can justify horrible atrocities and radicalize for their ideologies just the same.
Yes but it's harder for some reason, doing it in the name of some antideluvian cosmic horror makes for some reson makes it even more all right to do stupid shit than for the grater good. I have no idea why this workes like this.

Is it that wrong to want a world with a diverse set of cultures? I don't hate islam, I just think it's a backwards religion that does not fit into western ideals. I want a diverse planet, no diverse countries.

Each culture is unique and special in its own ways. When I go to Germany, I want to experience german things, not african or pakistani. When I go to England, I want english things, not american or indian thing. When I go to Egypt, I want Egyptian things, not Greek or swedish things.

If every country turns into sandpeople shithole #4342, what's the fucking point?

Yes, in 5e at least.

I think we can safely that most of history's worst atrocities have been committed by atheist materialists. If you buy into an ideology strongly and want to impose it on others then you're capable of pretty much anything.

>Is it that wrong to want a world with a diverse set of cultures?
No.

>No.
Then why is it so taboo to voice this opinion nowadays? I don't want to destroy any culture, I think all cultures have something to them and should be preserved for knowledge and the betterment of humankind in some way.

But people acting like it's some sin to have a homogeneous culture. Do they think it promotes an "us vs them" mentality? Cause that's what rampant pushes for multiculturalism is doing, to the letter.

Can we? I mean we can talk about stalinist dictators (Stalin, Mao, pol pot, Che/castro), they were indeed atheist, but then you have the right wing totalitarians (so hitler, japan, franko etc.) plus all the shit done by the church, plus the shit done by other religions. I think we can safly say that religion most likley has outdone athiests

Mudslimes don't destroy cultures.

Not caring about your culture destroys cultures.

There are no mudslimes here, and yet, practices that were commonplace 20 years ago are basically entirely gone, as people just don't care about them anymore.

The internet, television and media in general is already killing tradition by creating a sort of uni-culture, without the help of immigrants.

If you want unique national bullshit to survive, you would not only have to cut off immigration, but also the media.

Or.. you could actually show people why they should care about and continue the tradition. Traditions that survive in todays world do so because people are dedicated to upholding them, not because they isolate themselves.

You say that but Hitler did everything he could to erode the Church in Germany and I it's impossible to tell what he actually believed in. Japan was 100% Nationalistic Imperialism.

You must also consider the vast and industrial scale of the modern atrocities carried out by the great Communist regimes of the 1900's.

>Mudslimes don't destroy cultures.

Well, except the ISIS fucks who literally destroy culture, but you get what I mean. Ahmed moving next door and selling kebabs won't threaten my wurst.

I suppose it depends if you go with atheist as in 'actively trying to push it on other people' or atheist as in 'Don't care about religion'. As the number of people who don't care about religion and have done horrible things is pretty good.

You know how you can't trust Muslims?

They don't like dogs.

What kind of subhuman doesn't like dogs? Dogs are literally man's best friend. What kind of shithead do you have to be to reject dogs?

Man, 2am Kebabs are basically an Australian tradition at this point.

Those good, oily kebabs you don't ask too much about what sort of meat it is beyond the fact you get enough of it to get yourself utterly stuffed.

Yes and no, they can't crowd control shit in 5e, or damage shit for that matter. They're great survivors...once you reach 14th level

>Atheists, deists, and plenty of non-religious types can justify horrible atrocities and radicalize for their ideologies just the same.
Nope. The difference is they CAN. But in case of religious nuts there is no uncertainty. They WOULD

Is this D&D monk power scale accurate?

3.5 monk with extreme unarmed damage size stacking > 4e Desert Wind (Blistering Flourish on flurry) monk > 4e Iron Soul monk > 4e Centered Breath and Desert Wind (no Blistering Flourish on flurry) monks > 4e Eternal Tide monk > 4e Stone Fist monk > 3.5 monk with moderate unarmed damage size stacking > Path of War monk of the Silver Fist > 13th Age monk > 5e monk > 5e Way of the Four Elements monk > Pathfinder monk unchained >>>>> regular Pathfinder monk > regular 3.5 monk

you got that too? Here in poland like 90% of the population is extreamly islamophobic, but everybody eats kebab

The strongest monk I ever played was a Decisive Strike Monk2/Psychic Warrior 13 with tashalatorra feat, double hit, karmic strike and lots of shit to increase my damage die.

80 damage on average per hit, and I could potentially hit 20 times per turn.

Oh yeah. Welcome to Australia. We'll say horrible things about muslims and a lot of asia and then go eat at one of our endless Kebab places/Chinese Restaurants/Sushi stores that we all love.

Screw any other comment about multiculturalism: The increased food options, now that's to love. I mean, yeah. Sometimes I want fish and chips or an irish pub lunch but other times I want to sit down with a bigass noodle soup bowl with fried chicken floating in it.

You can have the food without the immigrants, though.

Ya food options are great, and i just love the fact that from time to time, if you go late at night to grab a kebab you just might see a group of skinheads with "poland first" and "stom islamisation of europe" t-shirts, celtic cross tattos all standing in line to grab a kebab and the owners/cooks just giving them a "are you fucking kidding us?" look. I just hope mexiacn will start poping up, because mexican is so fucking good that i decided to call them honorary aryans just because how good their food is

You forgot the two 1e and however many 2e ones.

och fuck no mate, trust me on this, the food made by people who were raised eating siad food, and making it? It will be always better than someone who just "starts making it" at some point. I can bet you any money that even if i were to teach you how to cook polish cuisine, mine would be better and vice versa, not because im a better cook but because i know how it should tast and will be able to adjust it if something would be off.

Not even remotely.

Same shit here in Malta, lads.

I guess so, you're right. There's still the media actively pushing for this kind of mixing though. Ahmed selling kebabs won't threaten your wurst, but a million ahmeds will. This goes for any culture, if millions of americans selling burgers came to germany, that would also threaten your wurst.

But then I'm from a confusing position here. Malta is a result of multiculturalism across thousands of years. I literally would not have a language, cuisine or culture without it, but I still can't shake the fact that some of these cultures that have withstood the test of time should not be made to disappear on the ground of multiculturalism.

well, OP......

Aren't Mexicans aryans already? I mean they're spaniard descendants, and Hispanics are aryan

Not much Mexican here. But then, we live in Asia so we have this endless variety of food from about here.

It honestly weirded me out visiting a brit I know and hearing people just talk about an 'Asian' food restaurant. Australia you have Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and while they share some dishes they are often a very different dining experience from each other. That and you know, if you call a Japanese or Korean guy Chinese he might die from sheer rage.

If you ever want to sit there eating finger food and getting utterly wasted, Korean is great. They have a heap of great dishes that are good to buy a massive plate of for the table to share and some very alcoholic korean spirits. That was a fun experience.

Yeah, it's an odd one for Australia too. While we were colonised by the british we have a very sizable population that immigrated from dozens and dozens of countries and most of our favourite stuff is stuff we share we a heap of different cultures. Especially in the food department. There is very few australians who can't cook a couple of chinese dishes (If they can cook).

>Will monks ever be a viable class?

4E PHB2 called to inform you that monks are ~~magical~~

That said, actually, I think I have a solution. Multiculturalism isn't inherently bad. Afterall it has shaped the Americas in their entirety, my own country, Australia and many others.

But all of those took place across hundreds to thousands of years. Perhaps it's good if left to happen slowly and naturally, while violently pushing for it to happen in the span of a decade or two to be the wrong way. Giving rise to renewed nationalism, hate and violence for example.

Agreed. I love how food brings humans together, actually. There's few things better in my opinion than sitting down to a big fucking plate.

>That said, actually, I think I have a solution.
The Final Solution would suffice

>4E PHB2 called to inform you that monks are ~~magical~~

that was PHB3, and it was awesome, and Monks were awesome

yes, 4e Monks were fucking asskickers who could go Jackie Chan on whole hordes of mooks

How can someone not like doggos?

How would you rate them then?

But it's easier to just blame the weird brown people instead of taking responsibility for not giving a fuck about putting in the minimum effort to pass traditions on.

Yeah but that logic I could say Germans don't destroy culture besides the Nazis.
Humans in general can just be shit.

>that was PHB3

Dishonor on me, dishonor on my monastery.

>mexicans
>spaniard descendants
Mexicans are mostly of local blood with a little bit of hispanic, and im not shure if spanish people are aryans

in poland we call all of them chinease place but we know the diference between the most basic groups (viet, jap, china, and korean(

Muslims don't like dogs, I think it has something to do with their time conquering the Zoroastrians, who revered dogs as great friends of Humanity.

Aryans as in Indo-Europeans and associated or "modern" Aryans? The answer is an arguable yes for both.

>america
>australia
>hundreds to thaousands of years
>both continents had almost no time where there was a domination of white people, and almost always were multicultural

Och, btw. most european countries were for the longest time multicultural. The east has been mainly purged by the nazis and commies, but for most east european countries the natural state was multiculturalism

>but I still can't shake the fact that some of these cultures that have withstood the test of time should not be made to disappear on the ground of multiculturalism.

>withstood the test of time

Cultures come and go, mate. All that are left are the monuments and the small cultural quirks like the cuisine or the funny dances they leave with us. And those survive as long as a single person carrying them on survive. If a million Ahmeds are eating kebab next to me, I can still have wurst; the numbers don't matter. As long as I care the, the tradition survives.

Only when they want to remove tradition by force is when you should answer with force.

Of course, it'd be a lie to say that shit didn't speed up massively thanks to globalization, It also gives rise to new cultures (this time not bound by geographical location and parentage, but by common ideals shared by the participants), we just have this weird fixation with older = better for some reason... not that the current ongoing cultural clash is anything to be proud about.

That's actually called "the village squat" or "tribal squat". It's a posture used by a lot of cultures who generally don't use chairs. It's just supppsed to be comfortable and easy to maintain for long periods of time.

It's not comfortable unless you're used to it - trust me, I've been trying.

niether, "aryans" as in the people natsocs actually liked and did not want to kill off at one point or other

Multiculturalism between different European ethnic group does not count. There is no difference between a German and an Austrian. There is no difference between a Frenchman and a Dutchman. They are all basically the same.

Yeah food's nice and all but if it comes with pakistani rape gangs I'd rather just eat at italian/french restaurants or just cook my own food.

I do think that multiple cultures can live in the same area, but sometimes they might be "subordinated" to one dominant (native) culture. Everybody should be fine with that. Today some extremely vocal people are unable to make the difference between having, say, 5 different juices and having one mixture of those 5 juices, which indeed goes on to promote an us vs them mentality as you said.

>But it's easier to just blame the weird brown people instead of taking responsibility for not giving a fuck about putting in the minimum effort to pass traditions on.

It's something that actually kinda irks me in Aus.

The Eureka Stockade was a major historical event that dramatically shook up Australia's politics and concept of democracy and it has an amazing flag (If we ever scrap our current one, I'd love to see us use it) but you end up with this unfortunate situation of:

>Racists use historical flag while being racists against brown people (Which is kinda funny as the Eureka Stockade was 100% ok with brown people. Chinese not so much)
>People get a bit uncomfortable about using said flag due to recent connotations with racist group.
>Other racist groups use it because it's now more generally seen as a flag for what they want.

So you end up with this unfortunate drag of things that are nationally tied being dragged out of general use by racists. I am seriously annoyed about those fuckers ruining a great flag.

I'm not sure I want to use the word 'Reclaim' but there should be more efforts to show some historical and cultural stuff outside of the racist context it's been dragged into.

I think if you said that to a Brit and a Frenchman they might try to murder you. After they finished murdering each other.

What a coincidence, I am just watching a fascist Australia lets play.

Almost anyone could be an Aryan according to them, so I'd say yes.

...Hitler was friends with Franco, by your definition Spaniards are Aryans then. By both definitions they're mostly Aryans (South of Spain though).

>Multiculturalism between different Asian ethnic group does not count. There is no difference between a Japanese and an Korean. There is no difference between a Chinese and a Mongolian. They are all basically the same.

"Yes" to that too

Add to that jews, slavs, probobly a bit of turks and, depending on the time, a lot of arabs and you have the national makeup of a typical european country. Plus, the idea of a "european culture" is a myth that was created in the XX century. I'v been living in a lot of wierd places, and let me tell you that british coulture might have more similaritys with mudshits culture than slav culture and vice versam europe is in itself very diferenet

Not all multiculturalism is equal. Just because a diverse array of europeans can get along doesn't mean that it works for more incongruous diversity.

Yeah, no.

The point I'm trying to make is that the people who believe that Europe is just a mass of slightly different white people who need to be injected with "fresh" culture are often American, or bought deeply into the American view on culture.

That's how Americans see it, you know.

To the American, the world is divided into basic ethnic groups: White people, blacks, Asians, Middle Easterners, Indians, Mexicans, and Russian. A Frenchman and a Brit are both white, therefore they're indistinguishable.

Hitler was freinds with mousollini but considered italians infirior