monky business

[ZFR]

Im currently finishing the game in normal mode (just reached final battle)... one of my guys is a monk... i never tried a monk in BG2 so i thought I'll try one now...

i must say I'm a little disappointed... the monk can only act as a tank.. and as a tank he's not the best one.. he cant wear armor or use weapons, and even though he gets AC bonus from wisdom, his AC can never reach as high as a normal tank with good armor (without spending points on wisdom).. well, he has many HP but with low AC he simply dies too fast... even his BAB is never as high as that of a warrior (even though he does get an extra attack per round), and then there is his multiclassing problem... even after chosing the right order the problem still remains that only monk levels are counted in unarmed BAB... also his speed is actually morer of a problem as it makes him always reach enemies first and be the one they concentrate their attacks upon (side notice, IMO the higher speed for barbarians and monks shouldvebeen a special ability that can be turned on or off, after all a person can walk slowlier if he choses to)

I'm not saying he's totally useless... in fact he's helped me in many situations (the 8 chambers being best example)... hie special abilities are good... especially the stunning attack since you get so many per day, better than quivering hand, since a stunned creature is a dead creature anyway, and quivering hand is only once per day... his speed, evasion and magic resistance make him an excellent decoy for dropping a fireball or flamestrike after having enemies swarm on him... however i still think that some warrior/rogue combination couldve worked better...

so what do you think, maybe there is a better way of using the monk than an unarmored unarmed tank... like having him wear armor?

[Magness]

Up front, I must declare that I've never played a monk.

However, I think that the way that you increase AC for a monk is thru various rings, bracers, cloaks, belts, etc. I'm not sure about robes. I think that robes may be seen by the game as "armor", which would be unfortunate.

I'm not fond of DnD monks. I don't like the design at all. IWD2 monks seem more like well trained boxers, than "kung fu" fighters.

IMHO, monks should be very much DEX and/or WIS based characters. Monks should be able to use their DEX or WIS as an add to both their attack bonus and damage bonus. STR should not be an issue, except as a measure of how much they can carry.

Axe as a monk weapon feat at creation is silly to me. Monks should be able to use a small set of weapons in as skillful a manner as their fists( ie.e. use the monk unarmed attack table). Like quarterstaff, for example. And perhaps small blades and darts as well.

[Rokenn]

If you pump up their hide and move silent skills they make excellant fast scouts to see whats ahead.

My only real beef with how they are implemented is their ki strike ability, which allows them to hit magic weapon only creatures, scales too slowly. Requiring them to resort to weapons too often in the mid to late game.

Some things that would help would be allowing Weapon Finesse to apply to hth combat (like in NWN) or just have it an automatic feat for them, and a rescaling of the ki strike ability so that it is rarely necessary to use weapons,

[ZFR]

Exactly, that ki strike was a problem... while monks were useful against hordes of weak and normal creatures they are useless against stronger ones that require +n weapons to hit...

Magness, the rings and so on can increase his AC but it will never be as high as that of a warrior with armor (who btw can wear those rings too)

And yes, monks are good scouts seeing how they dont have to spend skill points on anything else.... i used him foir this many times... nut i just think that a fighter/rogue could be just as good as well