Better Monk gear?
Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 3:25 pm
I usually don't play a monk, but I was kinda thinking about going out into the world with an unarmed monk, mostly for fun and coolness. But, thinking about it, I realized there are some very strong reasons not to play unarmed monks.
1. As an unarmed monk, you're going to lose one (actually two, since you lose one and not gain one shield/offhand) sources of enchantments/enhancements. Since you don't use a weapon, but instead use the gloves as your weapon, you will lose the glove slot, most often meaning that you can't have the classic Gloves of Combat. Now, this isn't compensated through the monk's classic DR, since it's useless as long as every monster has better than +1 weaponry (which almost everyone does).
2. You can forge much better weapons than you can forge gloves. For example, any weapon can get +2d12 +3d6 +keen +2d12 mass crit, which a lot more than the gloves can get at +2d10 +3d6. (I know you can add OnHit, but the DC is so low it will not kick in.) Yes, the fist is d20 as opposed to most weapons are around d10, but there's still a lot of difference.
3. You will have better AC than most full-plated warriors, yes, but so will any other dex-based fighter, maybe not the same as a monk, but AC doesn't matter much anyway when most high-end monsters are around 80-100 AB.
So, where am I going with this? My humble suggestion is to add some very rare uber-monk-gear, that will compensate for unarmed monks not being able to Forge as good weaponry, losing one (actually two) gear slot and not being able to take advantage of the good AC.
An easy solution: If you add some nice gloves, that would prevent monks from benefitting both from Forged Kamas and this new uber-glove. You can also add some nice robes (with some relevant DR that actually work against the +20 weaponry of bosses). That will probably not upset any other balance, but would make the unarmed monk viable again.
(I know every class can't be equal, but monk is usually to be more or less equal to a fighter, but since we have much better Forging for fighters, that balance is gone.)
1. As an unarmed monk, you're going to lose one (actually two, since you lose one and not gain one shield/offhand) sources of enchantments/enhancements. Since you don't use a weapon, but instead use the gloves as your weapon, you will lose the glove slot, most often meaning that you can't have the classic Gloves of Combat. Now, this isn't compensated through the monk's classic DR, since it's useless as long as every monster has better than +1 weaponry (which almost everyone does).
2. You can forge much better weapons than you can forge gloves. For example, any weapon can get +2d12 +3d6 +keen +2d12 mass crit, which a lot more than the gloves can get at +2d10 +3d6. (I know you can add OnHit, but the DC is so low it will not kick in.) Yes, the fist is d20 as opposed to most weapons are around d10, but there's still a lot of difference.
3. You will have better AC than most full-plated warriors, yes, but so will any other dex-based fighter, maybe not the same as a monk, but AC doesn't matter much anyway when most high-end monsters are around 80-100 AB.
So, where am I going with this? My humble suggestion is to add some very rare uber-monk-gear, that will compensate for unarmed monks not being able to Forge as good weaponry, losing one (actually two) gear slot and not being able to take advantage of the good AC.
An easy solution: If you add some nice gloves, that would prevent monks from benefitting both from Forged Kamas and this new uber-glove. You can also add some nice robes (with some relevant DR that actually work against the +20 weaponry of bosses). That will probably not upset any other balance, but would make the unarmed monk viable again.
(I know every class can't be equal, but monk is usually to be more or less equal to a fighter, but since we have much better Forging for fighters, that balance is gone.)