I hate monks.
Now, don't get me wrong: there are ways where "hitting shit with your fists" works. Exalted has the whole Greek Myth-meets-anime thing going on, and the martial arts make sense because they bend reality to make it work as well as swords and crossbows and shit. And since the setting is so Asian, and the only important martial artists story-wise are Immaculates and Sidereals, it ends up more-or-less working.
But games like D&D? Absolutely not. Putting aside that they clash thematically with the obvious Tolkien/Western-inspired design of every class (before you say "psionics," know that I think they clash as well, though for being too sci-fi rather than too Asian), there's the fact that there's a reason why pre-gunpowder armies used spears and swords and shit and NOT fists: they have inferior range, they have no leverage to increase power, and they aren't sharp. This applies to far more than D&D, by the way.
Monks shouldn't be a viable class to anything that makes even the pretense of realism. "Oh, anon, but it's fantasy! Dragons and shit!" No. Willing suspension of disbelief allows you to stretch what's allowed by reality, but not throw the rules of reality out the window. It doesn't give you a free pass. There's a distinction between "vampires" and "sentient colors that sail between dimensions singing to the fabric of the ether in order to keep it vibrating at the right frequency and prevent the metaphysical anthropomorphic manifestation of Pop-Tarts from stealing Nikola Tesla from his crib while still an infant."
That is what I consider monks to be in any setting with even a pretense of realism.
>>46267224
First of all...
>games like D&D
>pretense of realism
And second of all, you provided your own solution in first part of your post.
>and the martial arts make sense because they bend reality to make it work as well as swords and crossbows and shit
>>46267224
Next time you play a Monk, make it a Western-styled monk who worships a god and gains power from his faith. Like an ascetic hybrid of Cleric/Paladin but instead of using magic, they channel their faith and discipline inwards.
And instead of having your Monk-stuff called "Flying Crane Kick" or whatever, have them be called "Shepherd breaks the asshole's jaw" or something.
>>46267224
Fuck your bait Post Monks
I guess we're just supposed to forget about the hundreds of irl martial arts styles developed extensively for hand to hand to weapon combat that are tried and tested true to actually work?
>>46267411
I thought that the whole point of them was "Jesus, you don't have a gun? Well, fuck. This will help you get one."
As in, ANYTHING is better than your bare hands.
>>46267319
Are you saying that he kicks ass for the Lord?
>>46267575
Something like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfkHkdu5IEI
>>46267224
>There's a distinction between "vampires" and "sentient colors that sail between dimensions singing to the fabric of the ether in order to keep it vibrating at the right frequency and prevent the metaphysical anthropomorphic manifestation of Pop-Tarts from stealing Nikola Tesla from his crib while still an infant."
There absolutely is, while you're just being theatrical (and also a faggot) I'm surprised you chose to use such a ludicrous example to illustrate why you don't like characters that punch hard using soft-magic on themselves. Monk is a perfectly fine concept.
>>46267224
> Exalted has the whole Greek Myth-meets-anime
You mean "dumb shit that is like an awful parody of eastern culture written by the whitest folk imaginable, that stupidly tries to take itself seriously."
Nothing works or makes sense in Exalted.
>Falling for this pasta
Stale pasta is disgusting/
>>46267411
>1896+150-30
>Still replying to pasta
I hate OP.
Now, don't get me wrong: there are ways where "being a copypasta-posting faggot" works. RPG.net has the whole whiny-jackass hugbox thing going on, and the biased shitposting make sense because they bend reality to make it work as well as actual discussion and shit. And since the setting is so stuffed up its own ass, and the only important posters game-wise are out-of-touch developers and buttravaged mods, it ends up more-or-less working.
But places like /tg/? Absolutely not. Putting aside that they clash thematically with the obvious East-meets-West design of every board (before you say "/v/," know that I think they clash as well, though for being too retard rather than too SJW), there's the fact that there's a reason why good forums used diacussion and debat and shit and NOT faggot shitposting: they have inferior application, they have no leverage to increase understanding, and they aren't smart. This applies to far more than D&D, by the way.
OP shouldn't be a viable poster to anything that makes even the pretense of fun. "Oh, anon, but it's just a meme buzzword!" No. Willing suspension of disbelief allows you to stretch what's allowed by reality, AND throw the rules of reality out the window. Imagination is the ULTIMATE free pass. There's no distinction between "vampires" and "sentient colors that sail between dimensions singing to the fabric of the ether in order to keep it vibrating at the right frequency and prevent the metaphysical anthropomorphic manifestation of Pop-Tarts from stealing Nikola Tesla from his crib while still an infant." If it works for your group and everyone is having fun, that's all that matters.
That is what I consider OP to be in any thread with even a pretense of realism.
>>46267943
I apologize for the typos, BTW.
>>46267976
>apologizing on 4chan
>>46268062
There we go.
>>46267689
This is why I treats as Fantasy dragon ball z with swords
>>46267224
>not throw the rules of reality out the window
So you don't allow spellcasters in your games either?
It's been a while OP
I was starting to get worried
>>46267224
Psychic powers were a thing before insecure scifi writers used it as an excuse to have magic in their setting without calling it magic. Their logic being mind = brain = organ = science!
Other than that carry on.
>>46267224
Oh, it's this pasta again.
>>46267224
D&D isn't a game about western fantasy, it's a game about 70s/80s scifi/fantasy/new age concepts in a medieval European world.
That's why you have astral projection but not getting murdered by fairies.
The time period it came from included a lot of oriental fetishism and badly imported eastern mysticism, so it's entirely natural for there to be eastern monk stereotypes in the mix.
>>46272671
I don't know whether to be grateful or worried you have been building a dossier on this guy for nearly three years now.
I always laugh whenever anyone calls psionics "sci-fi." It's just as fantastic as magic.
>>46268062
>He doesn't remember "I apologized on 4chan."
>>46267224
>sentient colors that sail between dimensions singing to the fabric of the ether in order to keep it vibrating at the right frequency
This is literally a thing in one of Lovecraft's works.
>>46267624
>>There's a distinction between "vampires" and "sentient colors that sail between dimensions singing to the fabric of the ether in order to keep it vibrating at the right frequency and prevent the metaphysical anthropomorphic manifestation of Pop-Tarts from stealing Nikola Tesla from his crib while still an infant."
I would totally play that.
>>46273903
Psionics is an alternate aesthetic for magic that we traditionally use for space fantasy. But plenty of people don't know the difference between space fantasy and science fiction, so it's not that surprising that people get it wrong.
>>46273861
>I don't know whether to be grateful or worried you have been building a dossier on this guy for nearly three years now.
I just searched for a phrase that OP always uses on the archive, and then screencapped the result.
You'd have to be awfully pathetic to go through the trouble of saving and reposting the same thing over and over.
>Monks shouldn't be a viable class to anything that makes even the pretense of realism.
All fine and dandy in DnD then.
>>46267411
Except those don't work in war. Fists are great for bar fights or some punk running at you with a knife, but they'll do jack shit against multiple fully armored enemies. Martial Arts relying on your body alone are for when everything goes FUBAR and maybe, possibly, you might come out alive. But it's highly unlikely.
It's the same case for weapons like the rapier. Great for fighting one other guy. Utter shit on the battlefield and never used.
>>46267575
>I thought that the whole point of them was "Jesus, you don't have a gun? Well, fuck. This will help you get one."
I don't even know where to begin with this.
>mfw
>>46274139
>It's the same case for weapons like the rapier. Great for fighting one other guy. Utter shit on the battlefield and never used.
These toys are fit for children, not for men, for straggling boys of the camp, to murder poultry, not for men of honor to try the battle with their foes.
>>46274139
>It's the same case for weapons like the rapier. Great for fighting one other guy. Utter shit on the battlefield and never used.
Except we see them in old paintings of battles.
We see them carried in old illustrations of common soldiers.
We see them in portraits of people who really wanted to be seen as warriors, so they had themselves painted wearing full armour, and with a rapier at their hip.
They show up in museum displays of soldier's gear, or otherwise attributed to soldiers by such institutions.
And if we take Gustaf II Adolf as one example, he could certainly get whatever kind of sword he wanted. And he probably didn't think the sword he carried to battle was just for show even though he was the king. He did end up fighting on occasion, he was wounded multiple times, and was finally killed as he took direct command of the cavalry during the battle of Lützen after basically all the lower ranking officers there had become casualties.
Of the three swords of his on display at the Royal Armoury in Stockholm, all three are rapiers. One was his favourite for daily carry, one is the one he carried at Lützen, and one has a that has suffered significant damage to the guard after he got personally involved with things outside of Dirschau in 1627.
And amongst the papists there's Pappenheim, who ended up with his name given to a rapier hilt type.
On the other hand we have, well, I guess we have George Silver writing about how useless the rapier was. A man who had a fencing school, where he didn't teach rapier, writing a text telling everyone how awful this fashionable new weapon taught by a number of his competitors was.
I guess it's much the same as with the weight of the rapier. A lot of people know that the rapier is an extremely light, quick, and accordingly flimsy weapon. Plenty of rapiers didn't get the memo though, pic shows the weight of those the Wallace collection had published on their homepage when I made it (each dot is one rapier).
>>46270710
This. Why the hell are people perfectly okay with old guys in bathrobes that bend reality over their knees on a regular basis but can't stomach the guy who would rather just punch stuff with his fists? Seems to me that it would take more of badass hero to save the world with just his fists than hauling half an armory around. I thought the whole point of these games is that we get to play heroic badasses if we wanted to? Also, aren't monks in most settings sort of quasi-magical? I'd figure that would be enough justification for people who are already fine with magic.
I love monks as long as they are implemented well.
They should be focused more on disabling enemies, nonethethal takedowns and crazy athleticism over pure damage and defense. I like that role more for traditional warriors.
>>46274719
Art means nothing, and appearing on the remains of soldiers only matters if it can be proven they were actually used in combat. Not the flashy useless weapons of officers rarely drawn, and not dress weapons either.
>>46275703
The other funny thing is that a lot of heroes from myth fucking killing monsters with their bare hands and had super strength powers but now that's "weeaboo"
>>46277986
It's like these motherfuckers have never read Beowulf, where weapons are by and large useless for killing monsters.
>>46267224
You're a faggot.
>Monks shouldn't be a viable class to anything that makes even the pretense of realism.
You're a stupid faggot.
>>46267224
You do know that monks are just a "magic fightan man" class like spell swords but with limited magic features.
Read the fucking lore a bit.
And what's so wierd about enhancing your own body with magic in settings that have magic?
>>46267224
3.5 monks literally punch magic. There's your justification. There's your viability. There's the reason monks are an adventurer class.
>>46276589
>Art means nothing
granted it's not always 100% accurate, but art is pretty fucking important when viewing history
>>46267224
>Pretense of realism
>D&D
It's unfun shitlords like you who made sure that fighters can only hit things a bit harder for 'muh realizum' while wizards banish armies to other dimensions.
>>46283288
If we're talking about 3.5 they were kind of trying they just had bad game design by making Fighters feat focused whilst having every useful feat require a prereq which meant half of their feats were suboptimal filler that they had to take.
>>46283233
Only for things like depiction of uniforms, and even that can be unreliable as shit.
>>46274139
Way to drink the kool-aid on rapiers. Athough I'm assuming this is bait and am voluntarily biting just because I've seen too many people who actually believe this.
>>46283471
Not that poster but you're retarded if you don't understand the other points of looking at historical art besides using it as proxy for photographs.
>>46267224
>there's the fact that there's a reason why pre-gunpowder armies used spears and swords and shit and NOT fists:
>armies
>Adventurers
>armies
They're as much armies as a SWAT team is part of the Navy.
>>46272671
hory shiet
>>46267411
That's not dodging the bait, anon. That's falling for it, hook, line, and sinker.
>>46267224
>posting in a bait thread
The thing about monks is that they are written to a different fantasy than the fighter or barbarian. People who play monks want to pretend they are playing Jackie "Never Unarmed" Chan or Chuck "One Punch" Norris. They aren't looking for the thrill of being the guy with the biggest muscles who swings the heaviest/sharpest club. They want to be the guy that wins through skill and magical focus.
>>46274044
>Psionics is an alternate aesthetic for magic that we traditionally use for space fantasy. But plenty of people don't know the difference between space fantasy and science fiction, so it's not that surprising that people get it wrong.
Yet it originally comes from a ton of different mystic and theological traditions.
Jesus never prepared Meld into Stone, but he DID at several points use Telepathy as a spell-like ability. By the same token Merlin's powers were never as overt as spamming Dimension Door or anything of the sort.
Vancian casting was always a science fiction model, and is oftentimes compared to programming for a reason.
If anything, it's Arcana Casting that doesn't belong.
>>46267224
Just stop.
I hate monks because they're a shitty grab-bag class that doesn't fulfil any useful niche.
They punch shit in melee and get extra attacks, but they get crappy bab.
They get a whole slew of random powers none of which are any better than 'okay' and none of which build off each other into a cohesive theme.
About all you can say for them is that they have good defences? But that's fucking worthless when they can't threaten shit so enemies will just ignore the dude uselessly flailing away with his crappy fist attacks so they can go kill the fighter or wizard that's actually doing damage.
>>46276589
While art shouldn't just be uncritically accepted as hard truth, it is generally seen as a very important piece of the puzzle.
As for the weapons of officers, those tended to have higher casualty rates than the troopers in battle, so if anyone got to use his weapon... And I've already presented an example here, Gustav II Adolf, who must have known that his sidearm could be the difference between life and death for him, because it had been, and still stuck with rapier.
The most telling of all however is that nothing is presented that's actually in support of your own idea.
>>46285869
Don't play a shitty system
