You might want to check the context of what I was saying before you blow a gasket, chb. I said what I did in response to someone saying that the Monk shouldn't be able to Fly because it was too anime.
I wasn't exactly being serious when I said the Monk is "the anime class", but it's supernatural tendencies certainly cater to that niche.
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Honestly, the Monk CAN'T do a Kamehameha. They can't spend 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "KA!" at the top of their lungs before getting to 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "ME!". This would of course be followed by 75 hours (25 each) spread over the course of weeks yelling "HA!", "ME!", and "HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!". All whilst in the midst of combat.
Aside from the fact that the combat would be long over by then, if the enemies and allies actually stood around waiting, they would all fall asleep before the big fireworks launched!
Seriously, this exaggeration needs to stop. There has never been a point in time when one character took an entire episode of him just screaming out loud to power up. There are some instances in the show where there extended power up scenes, but this gross exaggeration of those scenes has become too rampant when people talk about DBZ anymore that it's gotten, to be frank, ridiculous.
You might want to check the context of what I was saying before you blow a gasket, chb. I said what I did in response to someone saying that the Monk shouldn't be able to Fly because it was too anime.
I wasn't exactly being serious when I said the Monk is "the anime class", but it's supernatural tendencies certainly cater to that niche.
And, again, it's really, really, REALLY NOT.
I'm willing to bet almost no-one hear has actually ever READ Journey to the West, or the Investiture of the Gods/Fengshen Yanyi.
So, guess what - the whole "flies with Qi" thing kinda predates Japanese animation by, oh, only about 3-4 Centuries or so.
Qi being the basis of toaist magic and crazy things like flying, jump extreme distances, out-of-body stuff... ALL of that existed well before anime was even a thought.
It doesn't "cater to that niche" by design - it's an old, OLD aspect of the Class from before shows like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or Fist of the North Star were first printed.
I think it's a safe bet that most of the modern designers of the 3rd Edition Monk had never even HEARD the phrase "You're Already Dead" until well after the class was printed.
If people who like FOTNS, Dragonball, or JJBA take the class because of Quivering Palm and Flurry, then cool - but Quivering Palm does not exist because of Japanese animation, and never had anything to do with it, nor does it attempt to "cater" to anime fans in the slightest; instead, what it DOES "cater" to is Wuxia & straight Martial Arts films et all. like Crouching Tiger and Enter the Dragon.
The ability to speak with animals as druids do which begins at
3rd level of experience.The ability to mask the mind so that ESP has only a 30% chance
of success. This power begins at 4th level, ond with each level
of experience which the monk gains thereafter, the chance for
success of ESPing the monk's thoughts drops by 2%, i.e. 28%
chance of success on a 5th level monk, 26% on a 6th level, etc.At 5th experience level a monk is not subject to diseases of
any sort, nor is he ever affected by haste or slow spells.
The ability to use self-induced catalepsy to appear deod. This
can be done perfectly, as the 6th (or higher) level monk is
oble to lower his or her body temperature and heart rate. The
monk is able to maintain this state for twice the number of
turns (10 minute periods) which equal his level, i.e. 12 turns at
6th level, 14 at 7th, etc.At 7th level the monk gains the ability to heal damage on his
or her body. The amount of damage which can be healed is 2-
5 hit points (d4 + l), and this amount increases by 1 hit point
with each experience level gained thereafter, i.e. 3-6 HP at 8th
level, 4-7 at 9th, etc. This may be done once per day.The ability to speak with plants as druids do. This power is
attained at 8th level.Beguiling, charms, hypnosis, and suggestion spells have only
a 50% chance of affecting a monk of the 9th level of
experience. That is, the monk is 50% resistant to such magic.
This resistance increases 5% pe? level thereafter, so that at
10th level such spells have but a 45% chance of affecting the
monk, 40% at 11th level, and so on. Saving throws apply if
resistance fails.Telepathic and mind blast attacks (see ADVANCED DUNGEONS
& DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL, Mind Flayer)
upon a monk of 10th or higher level are made as if the
character had an 18 intelligence, due to the monk's mental
discipline.At 11th and higher levels of experience monks are not
affected by poison of any type.
Geas and quest spells have no effect upon monks of 12th or
higher level.
The last ability gained, and perhaps the most terrible power, is
that fabled attack which enables the monk to set up vibrations
in the body of the victim, and the monk can then control such
vibrations so as to cause death to occur when the monk stops
them. Known as the "quivering palm", the monk merely
touches his victim to set up the deadly vibrations. The victim
can be virtually any creature. This power is limited as follows:1. It can be attempted but once per week, and the monk
must touch the intended victim within 3 melee rounds
or the power is drained for one week.It has no affect on the undead or creatures which can
be hit only by magical weaponry.The victim cannot have more hit dice than the monk
using the power, and in any event, the total hit points of
the victim cannot exceed those of the monk by more
than 200%, or the power has no effect.The command to die (the control of the vibrations) must
be given by the monk within a set time limit, or else the
vibrations simply cease of their own accord and do no
damage whatsoever. The time limit of death command
is one day per level of experience the monk has gained
at the time the power is used.
Not shown, but is there: Bonuses to AC based on Level, increased Unarmed Damage based on level, increased speed based on level. LOTS of extra attacks based on level...
Looks like the modern Monk to me pretty much to the letter.
The only thing it's really missing is a Ki Pool, which, again, has more to do with modern-day Wuxia films than anime.
Even Abundant Step, which seems like the primest example of "based on anime" given things like the super-fast movements of characters in DBZ, the "Flash Step" technique of Bleach, etc., is actually a centuries-old trope attributed to Xian (Immortals), like the Eight Immortals or most of the warriors fighting in the Fengshen Yanyi.
So, again, Older Than Dirt, and definitely older than anime.
People using a class to make an anime-inspired character does not mean the class itself was inspired by anime.
Every single ability attached to the Monk has either been a part of the Monk since long before the Anime crazes of the late 1980s and 2000s, and/or are centuries-old tropes attributed to mystic martial artists.
Two things being influenced by the same sources does not mean they influenced each other... actually, in anime's case, there are a LOT of anime based on D&D to a degree, due to the heritage of things like Record of Lodoss War (directly based on D&D), Slayers, and Bastard!!, but D&D is not influenced anime in really any real degree.
Ki Blast in 3.5 and Blood Crow Strike are probably the first actual "based on anime" things I can find in regards to the Monk; other than that, everything else looks like stuff that you can find either Sun Wukong & Zhu Bajie or Li Nezha & Erlang Shen pulling in 16th-century novels.
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Also, as an aside, I REALLY don't expect or blame people for not having read either the Journey to the West or the Fengshen Yanyi - those books are DOORSTOPPERS in their original language, and it's very hard to find a complete English version of Journey; the most you can easily expect to find is "Monkey" a 1940s, heavily-abridged version, which is just 25 chapters of the 100-chapter epic.
It's nigh-impossible to find ANY translation, abridged or otherwise, of the Fengshen Yanyi/Fengshen Bang/Investiture of the Gods/Creation of the Gods.
I had to search HARD to find an official, unabridged translation of the epic (I did buy it, because it's an amazingly excellent translation with few grammatical errors, and it's a 2-volume hardcover set that went for a very good price for an out-of-print book only available from Hong Kong) and the only place even CLOSE to me that has a copy other than the one I bought is a copy in the Princeton University Library that isn't eligible for checkout.
To say that THAT thing is rare in English is a bit of an understatement.
The mods already said drop it. I'll just reiterate what I said: Inspiration is impossible to truly determine. Whether it was inspired by Journey to the West or inspired by something inspired by something that was inspired by Journey to the West in its modern incarnation is something only the guy who made it knows.
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It seemed (and seems) to me that the 3.x monk is entirely recognisable from the 1e monk. It might not be obvious to everyone who started with 2e, because the monk was absent for most of 2e, but it seemed pretty clear to me, at least, that the 3e designers were trying to produce a 1e monk with the new design goals of 3e (the 2e monk which did eventually appear was very similar to the 1e monk).
The monk extensions from Paizo, particularly through archetypes, are a mix of things, probably including anime, but I'm not sure there's much which isn't entirely consistent with the original kung fu/martial arts live-action movies or the more modern ones (Crouching Tiger being probably the most mainstream example).
I do think there's plenty of anime influences around in Pathfinder in general (not a source of great joy to me, because I'd rather stare into space than watch anime, but it doesn't ruin my fun or anything like that) but, perhaps oddly, the 3e monk isn't really that different to the 1e monk (and although I never played OD&D--I started with Blue Box (Holmes) basic then straight onto 1e), although I think most people would agree that it was less powerful (although the 1e monk did start off pretty feeble, that variation in power curve was a feature of several classes in 1e).
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Honestly, the Monk CAN'T do a Kamehameha. They can't spend 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "KA!" at the top of their lungs before getting to 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "ME!". This would of course be followed by 75 hours (25 each) spread over the course of weeks yelling "HA!", "ME!", and "HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!". All whilst in the midst of combat.
Aside from the fact that the combat would be long over by then, if the enemies and allies actually stood around waiting, they would all fall asleep before the big fireworks launched!
I'll also reiterate this:
I hate when people disparage something when they QUITE clearly only have knowledge from a thirdhand source at best.
The show was NEVER like that. The worst it got was Goku's initial Super Saiyan transformation, which took a whole episode, and the big Spirit Bomb at the end of the series. The longest time taken to fire a Kamehameha, or any lesser attack really, was MAYBE 5 minutes of the episode, if it was one of the big finisher attacks that generally ended fights.
Enemies were even, on multiple occasions, surprised at exactly how fast he could whip out a Kamehameha to counter someone else' beam attack.
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The mods already said drop it. I'll just reiterate what I said: Inspiration is impossible to truly determine. Whether it was inspired by Journey to the West or inspired by something inspired by something that was inspired by Journey to the West in its modern incarnation is something only the guy who made it knows.
I saw Liz tell people to cool it and be nicer to each other, but not that we can't discuss it.
From purely academic interest, if I see Mike Mornard online I may ask him; he's one of relatively few people, still alive and into the gaming scene, who played in Arneson and Gygax's games back in the old days and he may remember more about the origin of the monk.
Oh I have no doubt the original 1E Monk wasn't anime inspired, considering anime was pretty well unknown in the US at the time.
I was just saying we have no way of knowing what (if anything besides previous editions) the designer of the 3.5 or Pathfinder Monk was inspired by, especially given archetypes.
Honestly, the Monk CAN'T do a Kamehameha. They can't spend 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "KA!" at the top of their lungs before getting to 25 Hours spread over the course of weeks yelling "ME!". This would of course be followed by 75 hours (25 each) spread over the course of weeks yelling "HA!", "ME!", and "HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!". All whilst in the midst of combat.
Aside from the fact that the combat would be long over by then, if the enemies and allies actually stood around waiting, they would all fall asleep before the big fireworks launched!
I'll also reiterate this:
I hate when people disparage something when they QUITE clearly only have knowledge from a thirdhand source at best.
The show was NEVER like that. The worst it got was Goku's initial Super Saiyan transformation, which took a whole episode, and the big Spirit Bomb at the end of the series. The longest time taken to fire a Kamehameha, or any lesser attack really, was MAYBE 5 minutes of the episode, if it was one of the big finisher attacks that generally ended fights.
Enemies were even, on multiple occasions, surprised at exactly how fast he could whip out a Kamehameha to counter someone else' beam attack.
It also occurred partially because of how anime is/was BADLY handled back then:
The Dragonball manga had entered the Z era, and the television network wanted to go ahead with continuing the Dragonball TV show as well - this led to small Filler arcs during the Saiyan Saga where there was breathing room right at the beginning (Gohan's training being more flushed out, Krillin & the others receiving training in the Room of Spirit & Time, Goku stuck in Hell, etc.) in order for the comic to build up a cache of chapters that could be animated later.
Because the comic came out once per week for around 45-50 weeks of the year, and is usually only 16-18 pages long (which translates to roughly 5-10 minutes of a TV show), while the TV show was 22 minutes and ran pretty much for 50 weeks of the year ITSELF, it didn't take too long for the Series to catch up the comic.
Usually, this was okay; as said, you usually had the advantage of being in a part of the story where Filler could be added so that the TV show could allow for two or three months's comics to be made before continuing on with the story.
That worked fine... riiiiiiight up until the Fight with Frieza.
Toriyama had (literally) been building Goku into his version of Superman (Toriyama is a HUGE Superman nerd), and the fight with Frieza was kind of the capstone fight of the whole series. The Frieza fight itself was very long, taking up TWO graphic novel's worth of time, but that's about it, and that was from the initial confrontation of Goku meeting Frieza to Goku defeating him.
When you have your main character and biggest villain ever in the middle of a death match on a TV show, however, you really CAN'T go into your standard Filler arcs much.
The unfortunate result was a fight that literally lasted almost a YEAR in broadcast time. If you're old enough to remember Dragonabll Z's original run on Toonami, where they played a new episode EVERY DAY, you remember just how painful it was to watch that fight go on for over a month... now imagine that as a Japanese kid watching it ONCE A WEEK.
There's a reason that Dragonball Kai is so much shorter than Dragonball Z - they were able to take out not just a couple episode of filler, but also TWENTY-SOME episodes of the Super Saiyan Goku vs Final Form Frieza fight.
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Oh I have no doubt the original 1E Monk wasn't anime inspired, considering anime was pretty well unknown in the US at the time.
I was just saying we have no way of knowing what (if anything besides previous editions) the designer of the 3.5 or Pathfinder Monk was inspired by, especially given archetypes.
Well, surely the biggest element by far was the 3e monk, whose biggest inspiration by far was the 1e monk? They're so similar, allowing for the transition in rules in-between.
I'm very surprised Mikaze isn't here to fanboy over all this.
I'm very surprised Mikaze isn't here to fanboy over all this.
"sigh" i miss mikaze, haven't seen him around lately.
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Yar. Kai watches SO much smoother than the original. It's like...100 episodes shorter, overall. I've been watching it recently, and just started the Cell arc.
There's still a bit of padding, but not nearly as bad as what was occasionally got up to in the original.
And if you have a really short attention span (or just like good comedy that still somehow manages to capture a lot of the drama of the show), you can now watch DBZ Abridged up to that point. =)
I'm a little disappointed at how late the style strikes come about in the class. You get to pick one, 5 levels in. Just one until level 9 and even then you cant use them together until level 15. Is the bonus speed enough to make flying kick worth it at level 5? From what I'm hearing its the coolest class feature but very limited.
The same kind of thing with the ki powers. Its nice to list all of these powers and strikes as things the monk can do but really they only get to pick a couple.
I know its just my personal experience but I've never played a character past level 9 and I've been playing a long time. PFS similarly doesnt go much higher. I don't have my book yet but how does the unchained monk look for those levels?
To be clear, I love monks, kung fu, grappling, and punching in general. I Was really looking forward to this book. Not trying to hate on anything.
Hm? You get quite a lot of Ki Powers though. 9 in total.
The mods already said drop it. I'll just reiterate what I said: Inspiration is impossible to truly determine. Whether it was inspired by Journey to the West or inspired by something inspired by something that was inspired by Journey to the West in its modern incarnation is something only the guy who made it knows.
I saw Liz tell people to cool it and be nicer to each other, but not that we can't discuss it.
From purely academic interest, if I see Mike Mornard online I may ask him; he's one of relatively few people, still alive and into the gaming scene, who played in Arneson and Gygax's games back in the old days and he may remember more about the origin of the monk.
The original monk character class was created by Brian Blume, inspired by the fictional martial arts of the Destroyer series of novels.[2] The monk was introduced in 1975's Blackmoor supplement.
Ah, right, I forgot that while Arnesson created Blackmoor, it was Blume who designed the Monk.
I guess the question then is, who was responsible for adding things like the Quivering Palm technique, the poison/mind-affecting immunities, etc. - was it Blume further fleshing out the class with references to Destroyer, or had someone familiar with martial arts films and/or ancient Chinese tales of Immortals and characters like Wukong gotten their hands on the class and turned it into a proto-Wuxia class?
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Yar. Kai watches SO much smoother than the original. It's like...100 episodes shorter, overall. I've been watching it recently, and just started the Cell arc.
There's still a bit of padding, but not nearly as bad as what was occasionally got up to in the original.
And if you have a really short attention span (or just like good comedy that still somehow manages to capture a lot of the drama of the show), you can now watch DBZ Abridged up to that point. =)
GURU: Everyone... I have a confession to make... do you remember when I told you that the White Namekians drank all the water?
NAMEKIANS: Y... yes! The culling was unfathomable! The land was stained with white Namekian blood for decades!
GURU: Well... I lied. IT WAS MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
You mean DBZ abridged is based off a show? I thought DBZ Abridged and Sailor Moon Abridged were just shows in their own right!
Seriously though I love both of those fan made parodies, Yu Yu Hakusho abridged had some good zingers in it too
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I am eternally sad that Lanipator has not made any more YYH Abridged episodes. That show was brilliant. In part because he was SPOT ON with Yusuke and Kuwabara's voices. Guy is a great voice mimic.
This is why I use Way of Ki from Legendary Games. Not only can you grunt to power up (and deal sonic damage to your surroundings by doing so) you can also shoot Hadokens. Oh and if you want some good feats for bonus feats. That.
I've not actually watched Kai. I've heard it's much closer to the Manga. Confirm/deny? Does Kai include the actual Dragonball portion, or just the Z portion? I've read the vast majority of the Dragonball portion. I've seen the vast majority of Dragonball and DBZ (I didn't see the entirety of the Buu Saga, need to go watch it at some point).
Style Strikes:
** spoiler omitted **On topic: The spoilered text here mentions "move fast movement bonus before attack" in reference to Flying Kick. Am I understanding this correctly in that it is saying you could only move 10Ft at 5th Level, as the Monk's Fast Movement speed only grants a 10 Ft. bonus at 5th?
Or is it referencing movement speed?
Fairly certain it's the fast movement speed. I don't have the book so I don't know for certain. Also, the Monk can spend 1 kit to increase his speed by 30 ft. for 1 minute, and I don't know if that can be added to his Flying Kick or not.
It sounds like you only move the monks bonus speed for the flying kick.
And 9 ki powers over 20 levels is one way to look at it. But having 1 when a barbarian has all kinds of rage rounds and one or two rage powers is another. Before your first style strike.
My point is only that it would have been nice to get them a little earlier on. Granted not early enough for dippers.
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Constantly.
Can an unchained monk with VMC cleric self qualify for crusaders flurry?
Just wondering.
Can an unchained monk with VMC cleric self qualify for crusaders flurry?
Just wondering.
sounds kosher to me - as long as you have Channel and Flurry, you're good to go.
Remember to choose a Deity with Katana as their Favored Weapon
The original monk character class was created by Brian Blume, inspired by the fictional martial arts of the Destroyer series of novels.[2] The monk was introduced in 1975's Blackmoor supplement.Ah, right, I forgot that while Arnesson created Blackmoor, it was Blume who designed the Monk.
I guess the question then is, who was responsible for adding things like the Quivering Palm technique, the poison/mind-affecting immunities, etc. - was it Blume further fleshing out the class with references to Destroyer, or had someone familiar with martial arts films and/or ancient Chinese tales of Immortals and characters like Wukong gotten their hands on the class and turned it into a proto-Wuxia class?
Quivering Palm is straight out of the Destroyer, IIRC. Poison resistance, too, I believe. But it's been a long time since I've read any of those books, and I only read a few.
I don't understand why it was important to nerf the will save? Thematically it makes zero sense. Unhappy about the unchained classes.
The Unchained Rogue is great.
The Unchaied Monk's Will save nerf irks me, but the rest is solid.
The Unchained Barbarian was, and continues to be, entirely unnecessary.
The Unchained Summoner is...eh. The new "archetypes" for Eidolons don't get anything that's interesting enough to justify the lack of flexibility. The fact that they can't even (on most types) choose the base form (biped, quadruped, serpentine) is annoying.
Style Strikes:
** spoiler omitted **
Ranking them in the order I might take them:
5th: Spin Kick
9th: Flying Kick (I'd wait until 9th to get that +30' of speed . . . besides, it about this level that other classes get pounce).
13th: Shattering Punch
17th: Hammerblow
Defensive Spin is nifty, but kinda meh.
Elbow Smash . . . if the second attack was lethal, then yeah. Nonlethal? No.
Foot Stomp . . . could be useful, but not my style. Heh.
Head-Butt. -8 for different creature type? Nope.
Knockback Kick is okay. Can be great in the right situation. Unfortunately, how often does it come up that you want to move your opponent OUT of your reach?
Leg Sweep is pretty good. I almost picked it, simply because I like doing damage and getting a free trip.
MA
Question, earlier I saw someone associate body parts with the style strikes, do you actually Have to use the limb associated?
Knockback Kick could be kinda cool. My first thought was to trip someone then hit them with knockback kick as my last attack. If you can swing Knockback kick with your last attack, or on a secondary opponent you can prevent them from full attacking. That can be cool
Question, earlier I saw someone associate body parts with the style strikes, do you actually Have to use the limb associated?
Actually, yes.
Quivering Palm is straight out of the Destroyer, IIRC. Poison resistance, too, I believe. But it's been a long time since I've read any of those books, and I only read a few.
The original monk character class was created by Brian Blume, inspired by the fictional martial arts of the Destroyer series of novels.[2] The monk was introduced in 1975's Blackmoor supplement.Ah, right, I forgot that while Arnesson created Blackmoor, it was Blume who designed the Monk.
I guess the question then is, who was responsible for adding things like the Quivering Palm technique, the poison/mind-affecting immunities, etc. - was it Blume further fleshing out the class with references to Destroyer, or had someone familiar with martial arts films and/or ancient Chinese tales of Immortals and characters like Wukong gotten their hands on the class and turned it into a proto-Wuxia class?
Ah.
See, Poison Resistance, Diamond Soul, etc., all have a thematic lineage going back to taoist characters in ancient chinese folklore.
"Vibrating Palm" is a supposed maneuver in Neijing martial arts, and is supposed to be a Qi-based attack. How much of this is "real" martial arts (not too many martial arts actually try to "weaponize" Qi to that degree), and how much is 1960s BS made to sell martial arts to the public, I'm not sure (probably 100% BS, but still - cool name).
But, considering how close the names are to one another, it's very possible that the Monk ability comes from the "real-life" technique; if it came from the Destroyer novels, I'd imagine the novels in turn borrowed the name from real-life.
Life imitates art . . . art imitates life.
Who knew?
MA
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I actually had a variant monk with wis to hit and to damage, but I never go to playtest it. Then I went for over a year with not enough people to game with so I forgot about it.I'll save further comment for later, but reading this thread... I'm no longer excited about the Unchained Monk. It seems like it lost almost as much as it gained. Why the hell did they nerf their Will saves and make FoB more restrictive? And I don't really think Wis to hit is all that good... Wis to damage would be better.
I guess I'll just use the new spell list for Summoners and maybe the Unchained Rogue (I don't know much about it yet, but it can't be worse than the base class).
I think Wis to both would be too much. Wis to damage would be cool though - it'd work well in combo with Weapon Finesse - making the Agile AoMF not required. Though that doesn't really bother me as my monks use their amulet just for weapon abilities anyway.
One note people aren't mentioning about the advantage of having 2 stats to AC - since one is mental their item boosts are for different slots. It basically gives monks another slot for an AC item. (not to mention potential Efreeti tricks to boost both)
Curious - does no one else here wield an allied weapon for pure enhancement on their unarmed monks? Past the first couple points, their enhancement ends up being cheaper than a single weapon.
most martials = +10 weapon for 200,000gp
unarmed monk = +5 AoMF (abilities only) for 100,000gp & +5 allied weapon (+6 weapon total) for 72,000gp [aim the enhancement at your fist as a free action]
At max the monk actually saves 28,000gp, though the first few points will be more expensive for them.
Realistically speaking, if I were to create a class and all of it's abilities were inspired purely by what I've seen in Anime (considering I've never read any of the ancient Asian mythology or stories), one could sit here and claim any and all of it is based off Daoism/Taoism/Buddhism/Jounrey to the West etc.
Because Anime also draws from the same inspiration.
You can't ever know for certain what the Monk draws on for inspiration with talking directly to the writers and that's if they even have a specific inspiration for each aspect.
Sure, the current Monk's base class may be inspired by the 1E Monk which is inspired by Bruce Lee or the show Kung Fu, but there is more to the Monk then just that, with different archetypes, feats and ki powers made available.
Fact of the matter is, in most anime with martial arts, the characters are able to attack with brilliant and blinding speed, have strange, mystical powers drawn from their spirit/life force, and are capable of seemingly superhuman feats accomplished by the intense training of their bodies.
So yes, if one wanted to play an anime inspired character, then the Monk is going to be the first place people start. In that regard, the Monk is the 'anime' class, but at the same time, it's also not. It depends heavily on the type of anime people are watching.
Nobody uses that because it's not rules legal. You are only considered wielding a weapon if you're actively using it as far as magic item abilities go.
Nobody uses that because it's not rules legal. You are only considered wielding a weapon if you're actively using it as far as magic item abilities go.
"Wielding" as a term is super-tangled, but I agree on allying that you'd need to actually be attacking with it. That said, Unchained flurry probably has your back there as long as you make at least one attack with the allying weapon in the flurry. But hey, I like a good reason to mix up the unarmed strikes and weapon attacks anyway without it being really bad; it reminds me more of martial artist and monk characters I see fighting in other media.
Nobody uses that because it's not rules legal. You are only considered wielding a weapon if you're actively using it as far as magic item abilities go."Wielding" as a term is super-tangled, but I agree on allying that you'd need to actually be attacking with it. That said, Unchained flurry probably has your back there as long as you make at least one attack with the allying weapon in the flurry. But hey, I like a good reason to mix up the unarmed strikes and weapon attacks anyway without it being really bad; it reminds me more of martial artist and monk characters I see fighting in other media.
Wielding is super unclear across the board (still waiting on the potential blog post on that =)), but I think this FAQ makes the intent pretty clear RE: "Stat Sticks".
What are efreeti tricks?
One note people aren't mentioning about the advantage of having 2 stats to AC - since one is mental their item boosts are for different slots. It basically gives monks another slot for an AC item. (not to mention potential Efreeti tricks to boost both)
Planar Bind an Efreeti and use it to grant up to +3 to your ability scores. Or bind two Efreeti and get +5 to your ability score.
Or the classic "Simulacrum of Efreet for free wishes" etc.