How come monks are trash while barbarians are generally pretty good?

Monks are also way shitty in 5e.
Monks need to be rebuilt from the ground up, focusing firstly on an actual role in combat as opposed to "here are a bunch of martial artist tropes! This is our class!" I mean, slow fall immunity to diseases and missile deflection are cool, but they are far too situational to make up for how gimped they are in all other aspects of combat.

>Monks are also way shitty in 5e.
Not really. Open Hand Monks, at least, are flexible and strong and at 17th level they gain the only save-or-die available to the players in the game.
They're worse than fighters in direct combat at most levels, to be fair, but they have less reliance on gear and more options with ki. But we're not comparing them to fighters, we're comparing them to barbarians. Barbarians are worse than fighters too, and about as good as a monk until late levels where a half-orc barbarian wielding a greataxe finally gets such ridiculous crit spikes that they get pushed over. This is 17th level as well so it's the same time the monk gets their omae wa mou shindeiru.

You see, it's a STR vs. DEX argument.

Monks can: run across water/up walls, sprint 50 feet and punch a dude four times, each as strong as a sword, and deflect a cannonball with his bare hands, throwing it back at the cannon that shot it. He can disable an entire room in seconds.

The barbarian doesn't need any of that fancy shit. He can climb that, jump that, run that, he can run just as far and smack someone with his axe, he doesn't need to deflect cannonballs, they'll just bounce off his skin. He doesn't need to stun shit, it'll be dead soon.

Nah, they're pretty decent in 5e. They're just not masters of raw damage.

To be fair, my only real experience with them is trying to make a sun soul for the sweet hadoukens, and at 4th level it had zilch as a character except for an 18 unarmored defense.

High test

>Like, aren't monks all about mastery over their own body?
Yeah, but they do not follow the idea of physical perfection.

Monks rock in gurps.

Arm Lock and flying Kick for days

Sun Soul starts to hit it around level 5-6, where they can throw four sunbolts at once, close to melee to stun, or throw area attacks to clear crowds.

Mostly the stunning, though. That shit's great.

In terms of 3.PF? Getting a grab bag of miscellaneous talents as class features that are all worse than what spells or magic items can do isn't comparable to raw combat performance, news at 11

Gurps just rocks for most things, and martial arts is one of them

You can take out swordsguys with arm lock and flying kick people off horses.

A sharpened metal rod with which to draw blood.

Open Hand Monk is fun. I think it would be better if they could do grapples and shoves with their flurry of blows and other techniques as well.

Speaking of Monks and barbarians, how would you make a Kenshiro in PF?
I want to go full weeb but the good way

In 5e monks are still MAD and even though they aren't pure garbage they're behind every other martial in damage

My """"""""""""""""""monk"""""""""""""""" in PF is doing great

Sohe1/Enlightened Paladin8, everything great comes from Paladin, but due devs fucking it up they forgot to give him flurry yet they gave it features that only work on flurry, so I had to multiclass to actually use my paladin features,
weird, right? anyway, it's fucking awesome,
survivability through the roof and pretty good damage and thanks to cornugo smash I can even debuff

Before level 17 with the way of the Open Hand, as said, at least.
Quivering Palm, even when they make their save, is a fantastic damage spike. And when they don't make their saves, the monk is the only guy to instagib.

You know that the average game, polls done by D&D every year for more than a decade, doesn't go beyond 11th level, right? 17th level is something 99% of the players are never going to see, might as well say 20th level

Just make a high level campaign. My table does it from time to time.

Never been able to play one in D&D, and I tried, meanwhile I played lots of Anima games in where martial artists and monks are pretty awesome

basically a class that isn't good before 10th level isn't good.

At least it cuts out STR entirely, and stunning blow is actually good.

Barbarians have sweet, sweet beards.

Monks can have sweet beards.

>At least it cuts out STR entirely,
Sure, then you realize you can't do what martial arts do, grapples and throws because those depend on Athletics which depends on Str. Good job wotc, good fucking job.

what irks me the most about 5e monks is that after the playtest and just after they released the alpha they said that they were, and rightfully after the playtest, going to rise Monk's HD to d10, their damage (they started from d6 not d4 which means they were going to make them d8) because their damage was laughable and in the end not only they didn't change the shit they were going to do, they actually reduced their damage even more. Fuck, they had a 11th level feature that spending 1 ki point they added 1d8 radiant damage to all their attacks for 1 minute, where's that? why did they removed it? paladins and clerics get that for free, not even spending resource involved. Fuck wotc and their dishonesty.

>Just make a high level campaign.
I would if the game's balance didn't shit itself past level 10.

The balance instantly comes back once you add divine ranks and epic levels.

In 5e?

Also, that's not balance, that's just throwing half the rules out the window and seeing how far you can go before the game collapses under its own weight.

Well not in 5e

Comes back in 3.X however especially if you use the immortals handbook.

Besides, you could do what I did and replace every class with a tier 1 homebrewed variant.

The ability to use weapons and AC, it's almost like a martial class without those two things sucks, or something

I repeat, that's not balance, that's just throwing out half the rules and seeing how far you can go before the game collapses under its own weight.

>wizard can cast a spell to transform into a dragon
>barbarian can use a salient divine ability to transform into a dragon
>not balanced
U wot m8

The Wizard can only transform into a dragon a handful of times per day and only if he prepared that particular Spell beforehand.

How many times can the Barbarian turn into a Dragon and what do they spend in order to do so?

>2d10+Str you say

No I don't. Because who the fuck builds STR on a monk?
And did you forget the third and possible fourth attacks?

Why do you talk about classes you haven't even read? Go open the fucking PHB

Theoretically infinite standard action, however if the wizard is supposed to be balanced he likely has other divine abilities that make him better at casting spells.

I had like a 300+ page pdf of this stuff on my old computer, I’ll have to do some digging and find it.

>Theoretically infinite standard action, however if the wizard is supposed to be balanced he likely has other divine abilities that make him better at casting spells.
Almost like they decided to throw out half the rules to see how far things go before collapsing under its own weight? You don't say.

At that point, why even bother playing anymore? Anything that could challenge the party would have to be so powerful that the entire game just devolves into freeform shortly afterwards until people get bored of winning all the time.

>why even bother playing anymore?
I don’t, I play gurps now.

It’s balanced so that I don’t need to have 300+ page PDFs to play it nicely.

>barbarian
Full BAB
Only needs STR and CON
Class features that complement each other
Class features that MAKE FUCKING SENSE

>monk
melee noncaster with 3/4 BAB, d8 HD, and no armor
Needs WIS, CON, DEX, and STR
random mishmash of nonsensical abilities that do not synergize with each other at all
lack of any sort of clear role (SORT OF a rogue and SORT of a frontliner and SORT OF an anti-caster but sucks at all of them)

Remember when 4e refluffed Monks so that they were psionic and Monks were actually fun to play?

Yeah, me neither.

>4e
I'd rather get raped to death by AIDS-riddled niggers

It's literally the best edition of D&D though?

>It’s the best version of d&d
What is risus?
What is gurps: dungeon fantasy?

The monk in 5ed is fantastic and has a completely different role from the barb

Name one thing either of those do better than 4e.

Tactical combat.

Ease of access

Being free

Epic casting completely fucking destroys the game if used.

>Tactical combat.
Next
>Ease of access
4e is pretty simple to understand once you understand how the powers work. At-Wills are powers that you can use all the time, encounter are powers you can use once an encounter, Dailies are powers you can generally use once a day, but are pretty powerful to compensate.

Since every power includes a description of what they do and every class operates off the same resource, it's pretty easy to get into.
>Being free
Every game in existence is technically free if you know where to find the pdfs.

>Tactical Combat
Gurps actually has some of the most interesting and fluid tactical combat on the market, it beats out 4e in my opinion and at least matches it to others.

Risus can even be used as an wargame engine.

>easy of access
Risus can be over in 5 seconds, and you never need to add more than 1’s if you use the evens up variant.

>free
I mean, if you don’t like owning paper copies of books.

>grappling and throwing

what the fuck is wrong with you

Yes. but the class design fails to due anything well. this is old news

Not that guy but gurps is a fucking terrible system

Neither of those are versions of D&D.

Opinions.

It works and feels alright to me. No big issues with math, and all the systems work out great.

>Gurps actually has some of the most interesting and fluid tactical combat on the market, it beats out 4e in my opinion and at least matches it to others.
The issue with GURPS is that while it's a great game that can satisfy the tactical wargamer itch, a lot of its rules will scare off your average gamer who isn't used to rules that are more complicated to understand than D&D.

Risus is meh because I've never played it and the only thing I know about it is that it's only one page long.
>Risus can be over in 5 seconds
As someone who knows nothing about Risus, how is this possible.
>I mean, if you don’t like owning paper copies of books.
I want to read the books, whether or not it's physical doesn't matter in the slightest. Besides, if they're a pdf, you can store them on your phone and carry them around with you wherever you go.

How would you guys build Bane (any edition, prefer 5e)? Is there a class or sub-class of Monk that's particularly good at grappling and smashing enemies?

In 5e monks need 2 ability scores and con. That's the same as basically every class aside from fighters and rogues which depending on their subclass only need 1 and con. Monks are not MAD, though they probably wont have great AC at low levels

MADness versus SADness combined with Barbs having effectively twice (or more) the HP pool with Rage halving damage and a d12 hit die versus d8.

A Barb only "needs" STR and CON to function, while a Monk absolutely needs DEX, WIS, AND CON to be effective on a class that's already kinda ASI starved. Want to make a STR monk? Well too fuckin' bad.

If you roll for stats or can get your hands on stat increasing items like a Belt of Giant Strength Monk can become an incredibly effective character due to the sheer mobility combined with silly abilities that a +20 STR can let you accomplish, like jumping 30 feet straight up and kicking a catapult rock out of the way into an enemy, but the fact being able to do so at all is 100% dependant on getting a DM nice enough to give you potentially game breaking items (and you getting them over, say, the Fighter) makes it a dumb point.

>how is this possible
what I meant to say was “risus rolls can be over in 5 seconds” it’s literally roll one side count evens, roll the other side count evens, compare the two even totals.

>goliath (big guy)
>brawny feat (big guy×2)
>Bear Barbarian (big guy ×3)
>Tavern Brawler feat (proficiency in using enemies as melee weapons)
>Ask your DM very nicely for an Insignia of Claws

Monk, not really. But if you can accept playing non-optimally, a Tavern Brawler Barbarian (Totem of the Bear) can work, fluffing Rage as being in a euphoric battle trance rather than screaming incoherently. (Grappling counts as making a melee attack so it continues Rage)

In that case, people don't have an issue with D&D combat taking a long ass time based on the die rolls, people have an issue with D&D because in most cases, the martials are just full attacking each round and/or taking damage with the only marginal difference being that some HP values went down since last turn.

4e at least fixed by making most powers do something even on a failed roll, so it's not as if you just wasted your turn by not rolling high enough. Not to mention the powers that affected your position in combat, like how the Monk could shift in and out of combat while FoB'ing like a madman.

Well, risus wizards and fights can get up to the same crap.

Fighters can be Hercules

Wizards can be Solomon/Merlin

>Well, risus wizards and fights can get up to the same crap.
That's cool then. Do you have a .pdf of Risus on hand?

Dude my monk fucked and married a amazon princess, and thru adoption became the leader of a guild of what amounts to Scottish warriors.
And he is a Kitsune.

To be fair we never played with alignment restrictions on classes.

I use the evens up variant
risusiverse.com/home/optional-rules/evens-up

Thank you

My monk did all that but with blackjack and hookers

Yeah it sounds silly and crazy, but my first real group we just said to each other 'I want to do this cool thing." and we did it and we had a blast.
When your first attempt to DM has you trying to run thru the story of Final Fantay 9, but the half orc barbarian decides to put a shock arrow in-between the eyes of the big fat blue queen. Thus the story goes to fuck.

Was he also a fancy man of Cornwood?

3.5:
Goliath Barb/fighter/Reaping Mauler, use fighter levels to pick up Improved and Superior Unarmed Strike, get Improved Natural Attack, and... Someone help me out here, is there any special requirement to do unarmed strike damage during a grapple, is it just an every round sorta thing?

All that said, Hardy's Bane also has charisma and wisdom pretty high, so o wouldn't rule out some monk levels and one of those Aescetic feats to give him stunning blows and furious fists out the ass. He's a bit like V in that respect, in that he's obviously an example of a sub par class selection (Bard in V's case) that's vastly improved by the fact his scores all started off at 18.

STEEL

>literally chad versus virgin
MFW

>4e is pretty simple to understand once you understand how the powers work.

No.

Listen, 4E is my favorite edition of D&D, as both player and DM, but it is by fuck not an easy-access game.

You clearly don't know anythign about Taoists or Shaolin monks.

Taoists wrote the first books on sexual practices and cultivating intimacy, while Shaolin monks could be some of the most fun drunkards you could ever share a bottle of wine with.

Depends on the system.

Unchained monks in PF are much better than Core monks in any system.
>2d10+str+5d6 elemental damage of one or another sort on 4 attacks at highest BAB+3 more iterative attacks
>The reason the main magic item you pay out the nose for on a monk costs so much is it's two magic items mashed into a single magic item - Greater Magic Fang+Greater Magic Weapon=Amulet of Mighty Fists. Build you own using one spell for a more standard magic weapon price.
>UC monk needs Strength and Wis, Dex and Con only as much as anyone else thanks to ki powers
>Full BAB and no penalty for flurry - instead flurry just gives you wextra attacks at full BAB now
>1d10 because full BAb now
>much more synergy and much more cost effective powers that can be turned into specific builds such as elemental attack monk, dimensional assault specialist, pounce and sunder style monk, etc etc.
>gains access to all the Qigong monk abilities as well as having a better selection of ki powers
>Style Strikes give access to pounce by 5th level, hardness ignorance, and extra 'stay here and let me kill you attacks' in addition to stunning fist

Unchained Monk with One Touch and Quivering Palm.

NOT CORE MONK.

>Because who the fuck builds STR on a monk?
People who aren't retarded build STR on a Monk because going straight Dex makes you hit like a wet noodle.

Have you tried not playing D&D? Or playing 4e, monks are baller in that edition.

Even CofD does monks better than most D&D editions. Seriously, drop five points into Martial Arts and your hands are suddenly dealing more lethal damage than a vampire's claws.

Because 5th edition is better than whatever shit you’re playing. In 5th barbarians are tough as hell but monks easily out-damage them.

...

Not even bait. You might not like it but this is the truth.

It's not nice to tell lies. It's ok to play D&D if you can't find people in your area that would play using another system, and there's nothing wrong with prefering it even when there's the option of playing something else, but it is absolutely not the best system to play. Only a grognard would claim otherwise.

>Putting words in mouth
>Being a disingenuous prick
I’m not arguing about D&D over other games you retard. I’m just saying if you’re going to play an edition of it play 5th because it is the best version. Besides D&D is great and you’re a faggot if you don’t enjoy it. It’s possible to enjoy D&D and other systems as well you know.

Also this is the fourth time I’ve seen this happen.

>OP says he has x problem in D&D
>x doesn’t apply to 5th edition
>Everyone starts arguing like ‘play 5th edition’ isn’t the answer

Are you all retarded or what?

>5e
>best edition
but that's wrong you fucking retard. 4e is best

My mistake. I didn't read read the OP properly. I legit thought you were advocating D&D 5e over everything else. And I do enjoy the occasional D&D. It's fun

5e doesn't have anything fun. It's the plain oatmeal of D&D editions.

4e. The worst edition. I’ve run 4e for children before. That’s the only situation I’d ever run it. Have though because I don’t care if you dislike what I like or whatever.

>Clearly hasn’t even played 5th edition. >Just likes to say things that aren’t true. I’ll keep your secret ;)

Also that’s not even relevant to what I was saying. 5th edition is an actually well structured and balanced version of D&D that is versatile to whatever type of fantasy game you want to play. Hence it doesn’t have the bullshit problems of other editions.

Page 78, very first paragraph under the dot in "Martial arts"
>BAB
oh nevermind have fun eating shit