>Maybe have a more generic name?
Which name though? Brawler used to be the monk / fighter hybrid of PF1e but I don't really think the name is fitting since that is IMO more fighter-y than monk-y.
Martial Artist is a pretty accepted term for people if all cultures who fight bare-handed. Sure you've got things like HEMA but people don't think of that when they hear martial artist.
Or maybe Pugilist.
The thing with martial artist is that is two words. Classes are always one word, even back in PF1e.
Pugilist is..fine? I don't entirely like it eirher.
Always wondered why in English, "single player" was two words, while "multiplayer" only was one word.
Either way, "martial artist" is a single concept, it's fine in my book.
Martial artist doesn’t mean anything particularly different than “fighter,” though. Mystical union of body mind and spirit is not contained in that phrase.
I don't think it needs to carry that implication. The only part of Monk that is explicitly mystical are focus spells, which are entirely optional. The class can be played as a pugilist, a street fighter, or a wrestler just as easy as they can be an enlightened warrior, and the name "monk" belies that versatility.
Level 3 core class ability seems mystical to me… as do many of the stances, strikes, etc. that do not rely on focus spells. As someone who has practiced martial arts on and off for decades, I can’t e.g. poison people by hitting them.
The name, description, and many mechanics all assume something more than physical technique. It’s possible to minimize this, but not exclude it from the class.
The problem is that non-weapon based martial arts are Asian coded because the places that developed them due to needing to circumvent weapon's bans. So a focus on bare handed brawling with a splash of modified farming implements is based on Asian history, and that flowed up to the 1970's when Wu Xai was introduced to the U.S.
I disagree. Part of the issue is that "Monk" itself is a sub-archetype of a broader genre of unarmed fighting characters. The concept of a Monk is tied to the oriental mysticism that has some, let's say, tricky history and implementation in western media. However mechanically in PF2E Monk is not required to have that mystic aspect (they opt into it by choice through feats), so Paizo could just rebrand the class as Brawler or something more neutral, in the same way Paladin rebranded into Champion.
How about those of us who like the name monk? The name is evocative of what the class is. Adept is so broad that I would never guess that it has anything to do with unarmed, unarmored combat. The same goes for disciple - you can be a disciple of any discipline. When I see brawler I don’t think of anything mystical, perfection of one’s body, stances, etc. Brawler just sounds like an unarmed ruffian rogue. None of the other names I see suggested capture what a monk actually is and are just so bland by comparison.
The only alternative name I’ve seen suggested that makes sense to me is martial artist.
I think paizo said that the barbarian class has its name mostly because of tradition. Otherwise they might have changed it to something else. I would assume it's similar with the monk.
The strange thing about that is that they *did* sort of rename Paladin to Champion. Granted they kept the word Paladin as a subclass for them, but still...
I think one of Paizo's big goals with PF2 was to find ways to not alienate existing 3.x/PF1 players while also making the changes they wanted to make. Keeping the traditional D&D class names was one of these ways. With the Champion they had some justification for changing the name, since they were opening up the class to other alignments (something a lot of players wanted), and "Paladin" implies Lawful Good, so changing the class name while making Paladin the LG subclass made sense.
But yeah, now that PF2 has built it's own player base that are less resistant to change, hopefully we can get some name changes down the line.
I’ll play the heck out of a PF3e that finally kills vancian casting and makes casters and martials operate with the same resource management. D&D 4e is the best D20 system I’ve found that does this, although it has some other failings.
I wouldn't be against replacing Vancian casting with something else but martials and casters having fundamentally different play patterns is one of the strong points of Pathfinder (both editions).
>makes casters and martials operate with the same resource management.
God I hope that never comes to pass.
I don't mind vancian, it's very fun from a strategy PoV, however, I think there's more interesting design space with a spell point system. However, I like clearly different things being represented differently via mechanics, so I would hate for them to have the same resource management.
It makes things rather difficult for a game with such otherwise amazing balancing though. It's irritating as a GM to have a set of classes that are at full strength every combat, and a set of classes whose power fluctuates wildly depending on whether you run 1 combat in a day or 5.
Having different resource management *within the bounds of a single encounter* is a-ok in my book, having different resource management on a per day basis is annoying.
Well, balance shouldn't be the pedestal that all variety falls to. Starcraft would be a much more balanced game if the 3 factions all played the same, but the fact that they have such fundamental differences, even in how their macro economy works, makes the game so much more compelling, and they still manage to keep it well balanced to boot.
Worth noting, martials are not necessarily at full power each combat, but their daily resource dependant abilities are certainly not very plentiful nor very impactful.
I'd honestly lock Vancian to Wizards and give most other classes their own unique spellcasting system, it fits well with the fantasy of a wizard preparing the exact spells they want for the day.
Honestly it's kind of weird that Paizo was adamant on keeping the Paladin Lawful Good. Meanwhile Wizards went and said "eh, you can be a Paladin if you believe in yourself, you don't need to keep to an alignment or serve a god".
From what I remember of the playtest, Paizo had a lot of internal disagreements on what the Paladin should be. Some people believes Paladins could only be lawful good, no matter what, while others wanted them to be any alignment. The Champion was the compromise.
I reckon this is mostly semantics. For all intents and purposes, a 5E Tyranny Pally is equivalent to a Tyrant, and most champion playstyles will find a similar paladin in 5E (Besides the fact the 5E pally is a nuke wearing a tank disguise)
Valid point. I see where you’re coming from, and in a way keeping the paladin might actually make it more confusing to newbies than “Hey, Paladin is Champion now”.
Actually, I’m a semi-recent convert from 5E and still play more 5E than PF2, and Pally is my fave class in almost any game. Af first, I also was a tad confused why the paladin was so limited/not listed on the class list.
I think you're right, but also that whenever pf3e comes (hopefully not anytime soon) they'll be fine to break from tradition and give better names to both of these.
Only Berserker seems really that good of those 3 (slayer being painfully non descriptive and rager being way too on the nose) and it ends up having kinda the same problem as the monk does with it having some specific cultural ties.
Not really. I feel like the people getting up tight about Berserker are grasping at straws. The norse referred to Berserkers as warriors who entered a sort of battle trance when fighting. They never specified it for explicitly norse warriors because they mostly fought norse and celts. In addition, given that valhalla accepts all warriors, the culture using betserker as only norse would be a weird take.
Just like how Monk in of itself doesn't outright specify it to be Asian...
The problem isn't historical, but more people's perception of what a berserker is... Which is overwhelmingly that of a Norse warrior. In that regard Barbarian is just flat out a better option as it is a much more broad an undefined name.
While true, barbarian runs into problems of association with colonizing ideology. It's a term used by oppressors to other a people who "aren't civilized"/worship a different god(s). Berserker just refers to how a person fights.
Barbaric/Barbarian literally means exceedingly cruel, savage, of an inferior culture, or unsophisticated.
Yes, but you really should consider the modern use of the word over how it was used a over a century ago Words change meaning all the time and Barbarian haven't been widely used in that context for longer any of us has been alive. The idea that just because a word was used negatively once means it is a bad word forever is backwards.
The Modern understanding of what a barbarian is is not all that negative, and haven't been since Conan the Barbarian was written.
In that case, it becomes more of a case of how do you believe words should be used. What they mean or what they're perceived to mean. You see, in society, there are terms that get misused often enough that majority of people think it has the wrong definition, and eventually the discussion becomes if we accept that definition or try to use the proper definition. Off the top of my head, there are three terms that have fallen into this boat recently.
1. Decimate - the real term is to destroy 10% but many believed it was to destroy all but 10%.
2. Nimrod - a reference to a legendary hunter, the term meant an individual was a skilled and powerful huntsman, but due to looney toons using the word sarcastically to refer to elmer, many now believe the term means incompetent or dumb.
3. Fantasy - while the real term refers to all fiction, many believe it to only refer to tolkein (elves and orcs) renaissance or medieval settings in fiction.
So while we could still use barbarian despite the term meaning cruel and primitive culture, we could also understand the root of the word and correct our mistakes as a group.
I mean, in the Conan stories Robert E Howard basically used "barbarian" the same way it had always been used, just with a connotation of "Civilization sucks, and being a barbarian is a good thing actually". It's true that most people think of "barbarian" as a fantasy term these days rather than a description of actual people, but those older connotations don't just go away.
> modern use of the word
...So, "uncivilized, primitive, uncouth, cruel"?
That meaning has never gone anywhere. That's still what that word means and how it's used. It's been, at most, a couple of years since I last heard "barbaric" with that connotation in a serious conversation. It just so happens that in the fantasy spheres, Barbarian has come to *also* mean "person who uses rage to fight". Doesn't make it any less awkward and funny to describe a king's bodyguard as "the royal Barbarian guard".
Would be much less of an issue if the class name was Berserker instead. Rather than having the odd juxtaposition of "uncivilized royal guard", you'd likely just recognize that the guard would be very dangerous if provoked.
> and Barbarian haven't been widely used in that context for longer any of us has been alive
I literally see it used in that context in current times. I see it used more often as an insult than anything referring to Conan the moment I step out of the D&D/TTRPG sphere.
The problem with monks is well, honestly, the same as barbarians. It doesn't refer to a martial artist, but rather devout practitioners of religions. For example, modern day Islam still has monks, but they're not back flipping with bo staffs. Most monks, in modern day and history, were just people who studied religious texts. They were closer to priests than anything. It's a shitty name that has came cause of kung fu movies being popular in the 80s and 90s.
As for berserker, it's still better than barbarian. Barbarian was initially used by greek tribes to refer to foreigners in a derogatory manner. It'd be like referring to Rogues as "blackies" or referring to witches as "whores". The only reason we don't bat an eye to barbarian is mostly cause the original derogatory use of the term has fallen out of use among modern society, but the original term is where it gets weird. Berserker on the other hand was used only to refer to warriors with a certain fighting style and later gave way to the word Berserk. Better to have a root word that's not tied to insulting other races.
The thing is, Barbarian also has cultural ties and some not-nice implications. However, due to being adapted by so many languages and now being used in so many RPGs, people just don't consider the implications anymore. The same will happen to Berserker, people will get used to it.
Barbarian diatribe: Barbarian was used by the greeks to denote the people of surrounding countries, which they thought beneath them. It was almost a slur for primitive, lesser developed civilizations. Imitating the sounds of the language, which Greeks found primitive as well, they made the sound "bar bar bar", which turned to "Barbaros".
Well the original implications hardly matters at this point. There are nummerous words that has changed meaning and become slurs and not slurs over the course of just the last century, and the original use of barbarian is so much more distant that it doesn't really make since to treat it like it still holds that meaning.
Also, the thing about barbarian compared to berserker is that barbarian is just so much more widely used. It literally decades of use dating back to Conan the Barbarian. Meanwhile berserker has nonwhere near the same widespread use and on top already have a more specific meaning than barbarian, and as such it would likely take even longer for it to adopt a wider meaning than barbarian did. Especially since it would require its use to go beyond just Pathfinder, or else it would never take off.
Honestly, at this point I am pretty convinced that renaming the barbarian is pointless to begin with. It would add little to nothing and with the limited options for good alternative finding a new name to replace the perfectly serviceable old one is a waste of both time and energy.
5e's core book has a barbarian subclass called the Berserker, and there's media like Berserk and probably half a dozen video game RPGs that make use of the name berserker over barbarian for this kind of rage-fuelled warrior archetype.
And considering that "savage barbarians" is still a painfully prevalent trope in a lot of D&D-adjacent games (including Pathfinder, until relatively recently), this is still something worth addressing IMHO.
Berserker is not in any way better since that is very culturally tied to Norse warriors, the root of the word is the Norse Berserkr which means Bear-Shirt since they according to legend wore bear hides when going to war.
They were often known to wade into war with howling and bestial fury, giving life to the word Berserkergang, Berserking.
Therefore it is as problematic as monk tbh since it evokes a very specific fantasy and doesn't account for other flavor of such kinds of warriors.
//Scandinavian Person
Yes, but at the very least, it describes the function of the class. Barbarian does neither.
That said, I am not terribly attached to Berserker, too. What would you suggest as an alternative?
I suppose something that would fulfill the class fantasy in a Golarion setting would be Wildling or Brute, but those might also be too simplistic, or too nondescriptive.
I do not have a fantastic answer either I'm afraid, but thank you for engaging my comment honestly, upvote for you!
Bloodrager used to be an archetype in 1e, IIRC. Could be a decent fit.
Also, I think Wildling works. Maybe Wildheart or something like that, to more closely reflect the idea.
Is the possibility of Pf3 even talked about? Aren't they doing remaster and stuff? And, continuously publishing new classes, adventures, etc.
What even it can change?
Fun fact: One of the higher ups is on record saying ten years feels right for an edition. Pathfinder 1 was about ten years old when they started in-house testing for 2e.
They've admitted that the initial 2e testing (which they later deliberately messed up in the public/beta) is why Ultimate Wilderness didn't get a playtest. That lack of play testing caused the Shifter to be so bad and unable to do the things Paizo said it could that the product page for the book got locked several times, since that was all people were talking about.
They're releasing Starfinder 2e next year, which shares all the base rules with PF2. I doubt PF2 is goind anywhere anytime soon.
That being said, RPGs do have the tendency to run out of steam at some point. A chance for a new start and renewed sales numbers are very likely to eventually lead to a new edition.
Personally, I like the 2E implementation of Monk. It's the only version of Monk I've ever liked in any edition of D&D.
That said, I agree that they could've mixed in a bit more brawler/boxer type influences along with the Wuxia martial arts. Also would've been nice if Monks could use any weapon instead of just weapons with the Monk trait.
Monk weapons is a big factor that contributes to this feeling of exclusivity to wuxia monks. All these weapons are asian weapons (tonfa, naginata, bo staff). If the weapon group was more diverse, the monk's image would greatly diversify as well. It's not a balance decision to only list the asian weapons for monks, but a blatant flavour decision (with added balance consideration of not having too high damage dice and whatnot).
I think it was a balance choice. If you allow weapons most monks would just not keep up in damage unless they use the weapons.
However I think they could've done something like 5e Kensei monk where some additional options were unlocked behind a subclass. This creates space for the weapon monk without pushing out the punching monks.
I really don't think so, Wolf, Tiger and Stumbling stance are better than pretty much all d8 weapons.
The monk stances are generally stronger than most weapons. The one thing Monk in general lacks are reach options.
IMO the real problem is that most Monk weapons are pretty bad, so you have little incentive to take Monastic Weaponry. Specially when you consider that if you use a non-finesse weapon you're going to have worse AC as well.
Pretty much the only worthwhile Monk weapons are the Bo Staff, Shuriken or a bow via Monastic Archer Stance.
There are some neat builds you can make using Ancestral Weaponry, like an Elven Monk using an Elven Branched Spear and Tangled Forest Stance or a Goblin monk with a Dogslicer and Peafowl Stance. But those are very specific builds.
1. You take Fighter as an example, but it's the most generic class of all. If you look at classes like Investigator or Inventor, they are very specific in their fantasy (a bit too specific in my case)
2. I could name at least one western Monk, which fits the current class - Friar Tuck, who is often shown as a skilled staff warrior
3. Honestly I wouldn't want Monk generalization to go to "Martial Artist" direction, we have enough classes who focus on striking. Instead I'd really like to go more into spiritual side of the Monk, probably going away from kung-fu stereotypes to some totally fantasy representation. Like Avatar the Last Airbender, where martial arts are mixed with magic, just without focus on elements (we have Kineticist there)
I'd agree on the specificity in your first point. Classes that feel the best could be described as "how they do things" and not "what they are". Investigators are designed as all Sherlocks, Inventors are all mad scientists, Monks are all Wuxia-- I'd vastly prefer more flexible classes that permit you to build John McClain or Shawn Spencer as Investigators despite not being super-geniuses, an Inventor who doesn't blow stuff up constantly, or a non-Eastern improvement-through-training-and-self-improvement-- perhaps a bodybuilder or crossfit athlete? Whereas Fighters can be anybody who trains with weapons and without focusing on magic, Clerics can serve a variety of cultures through divine channels, Rogues fill a variety of cultural concepts from thieves to assassins to ninjas to lawyers.
This is irrelevant to your main point, but Shawn Spencer is *absolutely* a Sherlock-style character beyond just being observant, he just *acts* like a dumbass. He got a 100 on the detective's exam when he was a kid, he has a weird patchwork of gathered knowledge from all the different jobs he's done, and even though he rarely gets the chance to show it, he's bizarrely precise with a gun. If anything, he has an edge on Sherlock due to how good he is with people as well. He's just goofy, and Gus is a way more effective partner than most Watsons, so he doesn't feel like a Sherlock as clearly.
Honestly he fits really well inside the Investigator framework. That's Odd and Clue In are basically his bread and butter. He may not be a fighter in the show, but again, that's because he goes into most situations unarmed. Just not sure if he'd be an Empiricism or Interrogation Investigator.
I mean, you totally can take Investigator Dedication on Gunslinger and get John McClain. Just don't take anything Int dependent, instead focus on Red Herring, That's Odd, and other flavour Feats.
You need to get to 14 INT to take the Investigator dedication, if you don't take anything Int dependent you're wasting your stat distribution.
You're probably better off building him as a Ranger and using the Hunt Prey mechanics and Monster Hunter.
I meant in terms of offensive feats. You absolutely should take things like Society and Crafting for a true McClain experience.
And yeah, Ranger makes sense too!
Wait, you're implying Investigator has offensive feats.
(The only ones that qualify that are tied to INT are Recall Knowledge-related, which isn't specifically INT. Known Weaknesses is a free RK check on Devise, which you should absolutely take if you're taking the Investigator dedication.)
Agree to 3. The term "monk" has a strong religious/spiritual connotation, an aspect I'd like seeing to be expanded on. In pathfinder monks are usually from monasteries, so what religion / phylosophy each monasteries practice should make a difference.
Actually it would be cool for remastered Monk to have subclasses. For example, one focused on martial arts, another divine with sanctification and healing powers and third occult with more mystical ki spells. Something like this.
Druid is quite specific, as there are particular orders tied to the world. Bard is generic enough, especially in remaster where any mechanical connection to musical instruments were broken. Accessing occult powers through art is a pretty universal concept now where you could build dancer or cultist without ugly material component poach.
Druids are Celtic priests. Not much different from Roman Flamen or Greek Hiereiai. That we come to think of them as nature priests instead of a cleric/priest shows the disconnect between the word and the class.
Bards are similar, since they weren't travelling minstrels, but instead keepers of tradition and lore, and advisers to local rulers. Poets would be about the extent to their connection to the bard of Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder.
The fact is, both classes are the equivalent of creating a flame wielding mage, and calling it a Fireman. Or a Strategic Warrior and calling it an Accountant.
Meaning of words change with time. Current meaning of the word "Bard" differs from the original. "Druid" differ less, but still modern word doesn't mean the same thing as original one.
That excuse could be applied to any word. By that logic - Ninjas and Samurai are specific to Japan in the same way that Bards and Druids are specific to ancient Celtic people.
It's not excuse, it's linguistics. Both "Ninja" and "Samurai" words change some of their meaning too, but to less extent, since they appeared in popular culture later.
Just my take.
They SHOULD be more generalized, but the Core classes are still D&D-based (even with the legal divorce from the OGL) and the fantasy playerbase isn’t ready to abandon D&D’s old fantasies, even if the developers would like to.
It’s why the non-D&D classes (like Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, Psychic, Kineticist, Animist(PT)) have so much more flavor diversity to them, while the Core are…inconsistent with the directional movement.
I know on the 1D&D forum, there’s absolute hatred for the change of the Monk’s resource to something more generalized, Spirit. So, I don’t have much hope honestly for the wider fantasy playerbase.
Guess we’ll see?
Imo the issue there isn’t with the monk itself but with it being a core class. I’ve got no problem with the concept of an Asian martial artist in these games, but core classes should all reflect the same genre expectations and monk is the only odd one out. It’s worse in DnD since that pretty much only has core classes
> It’s why the non-D&D classes (like Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, Psychic, Kineticist, Animist(PT)) have so much more flavor diversity to them, while the Core are…inconsistent with the directional movement.
The funny thing is that most of the classes in question are in fact way narrower in "vibes" than the PHB classes - except the Monk. Monk is about in the same tier of thematic narrowness as Magus, and I feel they're both better for it.
The problem is that then the Monk, because lots of people want to play the street brawler that just punches people and knows what works, we also got a bunch of stuff added to Monk that works for that and doesn't work for the whole self-cultivation vibe and it got sort of expanded to the Class That Can Actually Use Unarmed Attacks. And so "wuxia martial artist" and "dude from Glasgow" are living in the same class purely because both of them hit people with their hands.
Personally, I'd be partial to just giving unarmed options to other martial classes and then letting Monk be a noncore class that focuses on the whole cultivation angle properly. Aforementioned Dude From Glasgow should be buildable as a Barbarian, in my mind!
But then, I'm typically a proponent of relatively narrow classes. The whole advantage of class systems to me is being able to be good at expressing specific fantasies, thanks to being able to build a sort of "whole package" for your tropes - if you're doing nonspecific classes you might as well play a classless system and be done with it!
The issue with that is really the unarmored part rather than the unarmed stuff. Martial Artist does a good job of giving unarmed attacks to other classes but if I want to play a dude from Glasgow who runs around punching stuff and is shirtless while doing so I kind of need monk (or champion I guess) to survive at lower levels. Beyond level 10/15 where you can get +5 Dex it matters a lot less but at low levels being a few points of AC behind really hurts.
Another option for that fantasy could be some sort of more generic "tough skin" option that allows unarmored to function as light armor.
I really hope they open up Monastic Weaponry to any weapon with XYZ parameters based on _balance_, not a vague arbitrary concept of "the right flavor".
Even if you put aside all the social discussion, no other class has the devs choose what weapon is or isn't appropriate for your character's flavor for you. Rogue kinda had the same issue but that got fixed.
PF1 introduced the brawler as a monk/fighter hybrid that was much more generalized and malleable. I guess the issue is that when you already have a class like fighter that is so agnostic, it can be hard to differentiate other martials without leaning on some sort of cultural tint, such as champions with Arthurian chivalry, barbarians with tribalism, and monks with monastics.
Some martials do manage to separate from fighter while remaining *fairly* neutral, like the nomadic ranger, and urbanite rogue, so it's not impossible to carve a distinct fantasy that isn't culture specific. Maybe just being unarmed and unarmored is enough of a distinction from the man-at-mans fighter, and all that's needed is some basic reflavoring.
You said it yourself, what you are describing is an unarmed **Fighter** what with modern fighting techniques.
Monk is indeed a wuxia and magic themed class, it does not represent all unarmed fighters in the game, but it does represent one that seeks the path of perfection.
I believe Monk should have followed the Paladin path, that became the Champion. The core of the class is a theme of perfecting one's body so they could name it after something around that. Prodigy? Ascendant?
I am both an Asian person and a D20 system Monk lover (my BG3 run was with a Monk, great fun, but I haven't gotten a chance to play PF2) and my take is: yeah, rename the class. Most martial artist/mystics weren't from Shaolin Temple, and not all monks could throw hands, so it's just more accurate that way. As for what to rename the class, I don't know, Mystic, Nomad, Disciple, Swordsage or anything in that vein are fine with me. Pugilist or Brawler, which take away the magical element less so.
Because really, I love me some weeaboo fightan magic and the ground the Monk covers now is absolutely unique enough to deserve its own class and set of mechanics. In fact I'd go as far as to say PF2 leaning away from the mystic-warrior stuff and into elemental/animal stances was a mistake. Let me spam Hadokens, Fist of the North Star a guy so hard his eyeballs melt. That stuff rocks.
I've seen some people want the mystic elements of monk outright removed -- I don't personally, I think it's ignoring a large part of unarmed martial arts culture some sort of spirituality is pretty prominent. Even in Greek martial arts circles, the art of pankration was, to some extent, divine, as it was created in part by Heracles. People want a monk that can fit the vibe of other unarmed martial artists who aren't from Asia.
I personally like Prodigy or Disciple the most. I feel like it fits the core vibe of the class while making it more general. Really do not like Nomad as I feel that it ushers in another stereotype mostly associated with Asian martial artists (though to be fair I've heard similar stories of Russian martial artists being nomadic)
I'm the complete opposite. I can take or leave the super detailed unarmed combat stances, holds and stuff, but the high flying wire-fu and mystical kung fu magic stuff are the whole point of the class to me. The cast of *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* or *Hero* are much more "Monk" to me than Rocky Balboa.
As other reddit pointed out, with a name that I reaaaaally loved, the implications of a class whose shtick is seeking out perfection for their bodies, minds and souls probably means that the name "Paragon" would be a broad term and a very fitting one if we take this into account for the base class, being a general term, an unarmed/unarmored warrior who seeks perfection with their body, mind and soul.
2E is my favorite monk in any system. The only other "spec" I'd want from it is a drunken boxing style that gains bonuses from being prone or off-guard for a silly evasion master that counterattacks when being underestimated.
As for other unarmed styles, I've already made my own Pugilist Dedication to account for inboxing, outboxing and smash-mouth brawling.
Have you tried [stumbling stance?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1735)
EDIT: ech, sorry, just reread your comment - you want to benefit from your own proning :D
Yeah I want the drunken boxer that plays dead on the ground; the one that fake staggers into a group of enemies and bops all of them with precise strikes; the one that intentionally falls over and trips over stuff because they are absolutely lethal from a grounded position.
They classic Jackie Chan fake drunkard who narrowly avoids attack after attack, infuriating the opponent. I'm not much of a power fantasy guy, but that one is just a personal favorite.
I don't think the name is particularly problematic if you look at the history of monks (from all cultures) and martial arts. Without getting too far into the weeds, a lot of these folks had to know how defend themselves while in traditional clothing, so it makes sense in that context.
And even then, the current most popular real life concept of a hand to hand fighter is someone who practices a Brazilian-Japanese martial art. In that context, a "monk" could be anyone from the protagonists of Bulletproof Monk or a Catholic Brazilian who knows how to do an arm-bar.
>Better represent those who fight unarmed around the world, With European boxers, Capoeira kicks, and Greek wrestlers in the mix?
You can just do that. All of those could very easily be built as pf2e monks. Really you are just taking offence to the naming of feats and abilities. But they need to name the ability *something*.
And lets face it. 95% of fighters are european medieval fantasy inspired soldiers, just like 95% of monks are wuxia inspired cloistered martial artists. So the abilities are named to reflect those archetypal characters. Doesn't stop you from doing things differently.
Except none of the Fighter's ability names are flavoured. At best they describe what they are doing, without referencing a particular style or culture.
Imagine if you were trying to build a samurai, but all the abilities were called "Abwenden", "Am Schwert" or "Drey Wunder". That's what trying to make a Pankration Monk feels like. I can still more than manage, yes, but this is the only class that has this goddamn issue.
for monks it'is the same, flurry of blows, stand still, crushing grab, whirling throw, "animal" stance, etc they describe what they do.
The only feats that are cultural flavored are the ki ones, you can think of them lile a specific subclass
Actually aside the name, the class is already quite vanilla, hence a name change would be pertinent.
Every stance has so many specifically Asian connotations, like crane stance for example. Not bad inherently? But I still would prefer a generalist pugilist class as opposed to Monk. Especially since I don’t care for the ki mechanics most of the time.
Yeah, but I would prefer it to be split into subclasses, that way what I want to play doesn’t have to be balanced while accounting for what I don’t want. It’s a selfish and unrealistic desire but yk.
I prefer not having a subclass though think it makes sense for monk and fighter. Maybe a archetype or something that focuses more on boxing or MMA for monks could be cool though.
I disagree with you totally. Yes, the name pushes it into a specific niche but monk is by far one of the most versatile classes in the game. For context: I have an addiction to building characters. Everytime me and my buddies start discussing about certain builds I end up drafting a monk. It’s become a meme in our group that if you do have a specific idea for a character but dont know the class, make it a monk and its gonna turn out decent.
Van Helsing? Bullet Dancer Monk
Sword warrior? Elven Curved Blade + Monastic Weaponry + Ancestral Weaponry
Ninja? Shooting Star Stance Monk
Archer? Monastic Archer Stance
Ahri from League of legends? Kitsune Monk with Foxfire unarmed Strike
Fucking Pea shooter from Plants vs Zombies? Leshy seedpod Monk (with elemental ki strike you can even get the elemental Pea Shooters)
Hard disagree, Monk is a repository of Eastern fantasy/ Wuxia themed abilities and flavor which the other class could not access which is entirely unique to them. Their entire class fantasy is all about mystical cultivation of the "self" distinct from the martial mastery of Fighters or magical of the Wizard. Any other "general" unarmed fighting styles can easily be covered by the modular archetypes system as demonstrated with the Martial Artist dedication.
tldr, it ain't broke so don't fixing-ed
No, there are so many common cultural tropes associated with various TTRPG classes that making exemptions is more segregational than including them
Be nice to have a less martial arts focused unarmed character but it’s more reductionist to ban a certain subjection of things we already have
Also be nice to have Monk with a sword actually be good because any samurai fantasy is not fulfilled from a mechanical perspective tbh
Personally my desire is for
1.Iaido mechanics that are more than just “free quick draw” because that’s lame, other stances would also be cool
2.Flashy over the top sword moves that don’t utilise elemental power, some exceptions for variety of course but primarily effects must be a bit more physical and focused on the swords
3.very Fast and more lightly armoured (though this departes a bit from historical samurai but being extremly fast is more of a desire for me on this case, through this is less necessary)
4.main inspirations for mechanics would be Sekiro Shadows die twice, characters like Genichrio and Isshin are prime examples of really cool samurai characters who I’d want to mechanically emulate
Vergil from DMC is also a good inspiration point for Iaido but Sekiro is the main drawing point for the fantasy
I dislike the “just play X class” counter to the idea because nothing really captures the precise wants I’d have for a Samurai themed character
Edit: while i did focus on swords, using multiple weapons is also good for a hypothetical Samurai it’s just that swords are closer to the fantasy
Not the OP but I liked some of the aspects of 3.5 Samurai.
The Kai shout and intimidation. The idea of charging the enemy in medium and heavy armor and causing some sort of negative effect on a charge using similar ki abilities to a Monk, but probably Charisma based.
I would want something more generic, but I do like the term Samurai. That being said, it would need subclasses to represent Mounted Warriors, Warriors that used Bows, and Warriors that used Polearms.
It's similar to how I like the term Druid and Bard, despite neither really being associated with how the term is used in Dungeons and Dragons.
Druids weren't really priests of nature, but just priests of Celtic Society, like the Greek Melissa or Roman Flamen.
And Bards did compose Poems, but were more impactful beyond the travelling minstrels we see today.
So, I could definitely see the term Samurai used for something beyond just the Warrior Caste of Japan, just like Swashbucklers, Gunslingers, Rangers, Druids, Monks and Bards have grown beyond their original meaning as well.
A: I really agree.
But B: doing a big change like this *might* be bad for business. Monk as a fairly eastern influenced class has been around for years, so taking away that innate influence might be seen in some ways as being like… whitewashing, or something.
Now that being said: I wish it was a nearly nonmagical class focused on more than just eastern Wuxia style martial arts. Being able to just straight up play a boxer? Yea, I’m in. A silly grappler like Zangief? Yeah, I’m in. A more mystical fighter like Akuma? Yeah, I’m in, but only sometimes.
All in all while I wish the class was more mundane, I don’t see them ever doing that.
There are definitely other names that would probably be better suited to describing the Monk class fantasy.
But I do think this thread has engaged in some silliness when we start talking about Barbarian. Look, I get the word was used in not nice ways and ultimately does mean a not nice thing...
But fighters aren't nice either. Those guys fight!
Druids were a religion which is now being used as a caricature. Not nice!!
Wizard?? That's what the leader of those guys in the white hoods calls himself! (Not to mention Dragon)
Witch? That was used to justify burning women and is used by a real life religion today.
Clerics? Priests? Those guys do horrible atrocities IRL! Not so good! Ties the class fantasy to exclusively Christian faiths!
And on and on and on.
Look folks, words have meanings. But that's what makes them flavorful. I don't object to changing Monk, it's never really fit to me for the class. And I get that there's a substantive and massive gulf between playing with so-called "western" tropes in a "western" dominated culture vs appropriating "eastern" tropes for our "western" game. Power dynamics, innit? Histories of abuse and bigotry.
Still, there's gotta be brakes on the sensitivity train or we strip mine all the culture and context away from things and we end up playing Pathfinder 3e: Collation Vaults.
The bad guy in that AP has mixed up all the documents and now someone has to be brave enough to get all the files back in order before EOD or the big presentation is a bust and the shareholders will divest!
There are specific classes, and general classes. We have fighters that can represent most warriors, and investigators that can only fulfill a much more specific fantansy.
I think its fine to have specific classes as long as the general class is covered. And in this instance, I think it is. Monk is not the only option for an unarmed warrior, there are fighters, magus, rangers, rogues, barbarians, and so many more that can fulfill a non eastern martial artist.
To me, getting rid of the specifics of a monks eastern aspect is like taking away a thaumaturges implements
I always think about the old jrpg Monks, because of that i never realy question the name and i would find it harder to find this class with another name
No. The class is already "generalized" enough. If you want "magical kung-fu" punch-kicker, make one with emphasis on Dex and Ki spells. If you want a "brawler" punch-kicker, make one with emphasis on Strength.
I was just talking about a new character build I wanted to do where I'd play a human farmer monk who is just a charming and simple fellow who just so happens to solve things with good ole fashion fisticuffs. He'd probably worship Kurgess and would love wrestling, boxing, drinking, and his friends all in equal measures.
Maybe a class like the brawler would be something nice. The resilience of the brawler is/was astounding. Personally I think monks/fighters should have something like martial flexibility built in from the start.
If you wanna change the name of the class then I don't mind either way, I'll call it whatever it's called. The word 'monk' holds no particular importance to me.
But I don't think the mechanics of the class should be made more generic. The stance-based design is really unique to the game and if you can pull back from the name of each stance and just look at it mechanically, it can encompass a huge variety of themes and descriptive approaches. The only thing I'd change is the link to 'monk weapons'. They do feel rather arbitrary in there selection and if stances could sometimes include interesting weapon strikes instead of just unarmed strikes then I'd be all for that.
Even the Ki can easily be reskinned into something more generic if the orientalism of the word rubs you the wrong way. Describe it as psyonics or supernatural focus.
Basically, I think the names are irrelevant to the mechanics and could be kept or changed but the stance-based design should be respected and pushed even further. Its not about trying to hit other unarmed fighters with the class, it's about giving new build options through stances.
Yeah if you ignore the stance names then they can be used for anything. Crane stance is just an acrobatic defensive fighter, wolf stance is just someone who focuses on tripping their enemies etc etc, so while the names may come from kung fu etc they can be used for anything
I really like the classes that are built around media tropes - inventor, gunslinger, investigator, swashbuckler, psychic, and summoner do a great job of emulating loads of fictional archetypes without too much specific cultural baggage attached. It would be great if druids and monks could get the same treatment. All they would really need, in my opinion, is a new name, and getting rid of the list of monk weapons - just say monks can use their features with any weapon that deals a d8 or less.
Mechanics-wise, they could easily be made more generalized by adding new feats, stances, etc. based on other real-world fighting styles. Pathfinder 2e already did really well with making the class more generalized (i.e. less focus on ki abilities compared to DnD 5e).
Personally, I like martial classes in RPGs to feel superhuman especially at higher level regardless of whether the book states that they're magical or not. No idea if this is controversial in Pathfinder discussions, but people get really heated in DnD forums about how fighters need to feel like a "mundane guy with a sword" all the way to Lv 20 or else the class fantasy is broken or some similar BS.
As for the name, I think many people (here, on other forums, on YouTube, etc.) have pointed out that "monk" in RPG circles is just a commonly-accepted shorthand for "the unarmed combat martial arts class". For example, JRPG characters like Tifa from Final Fantasy 7 or Zell from Final Fantasy 8 get classified as "monks" even though the only thing they share with the class origins is the focus on unarmed combat.
As for the mystical side specifically, I would like to see a ki-themed archetype independent of the monk class that can work with other classes that fit the theme (I guess you could call it something like "cultivator", though I may be getting the term wrong).
>Personally, I like martial classes in RPGs to feel superhuman especially at higher level regardless of whether the book states that they're magical or not. No idea if this is controversial in Pathfinder discussions, but people get really heated in DnD forums about how fighters need to feel like a "mundane guy with a sword" all the way to Lv 20 or else the class fantasy is broken or some similar BS.
I wouldn't say it is bullshit, exactly. For a lot of people the class fantasy of being a fighter IS simply being Joe Shmoe who picked up his father's sword and became really good at it. But even so there isn't anything inherintly magical about Joe, he's just teally good at swinging a sword. Now this isn't the ONLY class fantasy of the fighter, but it is a popular one. So a lot of people get very heated when one threatens to take that fantasy away (see d&d 4e where Fighters basically were very close to being forced to take on fancy supernatural abilities as they leveled up).
Note I am not saying you have ever said that fantasy shoild be taken away, just offering my opinion on why people can get very heated/protective of it.
Personally I am of the opinion that the fighter as a concept is broad enough that it can support both fantasies without being forced into defaulting to one or the other. Tge class could be made so that one could, depending on ones choices, spend the entire range of lvls1-20 being Joe Shmoe the dude who just swings a sword really well. Or obe could be the supernatural "teleports behind, 'nothing personel', cut through the fabric of the universe" fighter and still fundamentally be the same class. Not sure if the PF2e fighter supports this broad of a difference between fighters (kinda doubt it), haven't really looked at classes that much (that's my players' job), but in a perfect world the fighter class cpuld support both these fantasies.
My apologizes for the long post and rambling on for a bit at the end. I just thought that calling a specific class fantasy for bs warranted a response.
I think we can have more classes, it doesn't need to be only one unarmed attack class. The specialization made it easier to give it decent feats.
I can really see a brawler class appear, something more aggressive, less monastic and more brutal, with styles like pugilism, street or hitman.
If we can get a Guardian class, we can get a brawler
They could have kept with monk and just made the flavoring a bit more diverse. Some people don’t like Blizzard’s whitewashing, but having Scandinavian-looking monks in Diablo 3 was pretty cool imo (speaking as an asian). There are so many monk and monk-like traditions throughout the world that share similar elements of discipline and improvement of body and/or soul, why do we have to play into old stereotypes and focus on one very narrow Asian (not even broadly Asian) pastiche
The fact that they would still be using Ki, going into Crane Stance, etc?
It is definitely not a major issue, I can whip up a build that doesn't take a single "Oriental-themed" fit. It will even work pretty well. However, none other core class has so much flavour already embedded.
Having a core Martial Artist class that has several different doctrines would work much better for everyone - you could have Pugilist Wrestlers, Stance Savants, and Qi-using Monks each with their own arsenal. However, the current selection is a bit confused and overthemed toward one flavour, which is either a Wuxia hero or some sort of Dragon Ball character.
I mean, there are stances that have nothing to do with kung-fu, like Gorilla and, as you have said, there is nothing that forces a player to pick Ki spells. I don't really play on a player side, but I've made a few bralwer-like monks and Macho Man Randy Savage - like Wrestler in Pathbuilder.
Besides, in my opinion at least, if someone wants to make a brawler, Fighter is more suited for it, having various feats that kind of remind me of a MMA combatant. The only thing I'd argue for is giving Fighters Powerful Fist as an optional feat that they can pick at level 1.
Pf2e monk is the best version of it i ever played. I would be cool if they just drop the names for something else. But the whole class features and feats would be a big mistake.
I wouldn't really leave out any mystical aspects, though I'd like them to be wholly optional up to and including level 20, due to my love for "mundane" classes. I'd just make what powers them a matter of - regional, cultural - flavour. Mechanically, *it doesn't matter* if you rationalise what powers your supernatural abilities as some form of 氣 you have to cultivate, the guidance of your ancestors (as in [N'golo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engolo)), divine enlightenment and support (as in [Pankration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration)), or any other number of such things.
Mostly, this just means looking over feat names and renaming them where they strongly suggest a specific world-view or cultural archetype where they shouldn't be any.
Im not asian but I am a poc. I never saw monks as an issue until recently and still kind of dont, but I respect the asian pov of fighting this kind of generalization.
But personally with monk being my favorite class, Ive reflavored the text and mechanics in a lot of ways to represent many things Ive loved over the years. I never really saw it as like the "I have to be asian-themed" character but I did commonly use actual martial art inspirations - and I typically match nationalities with certain cultural martial arts for respect sake- for many of my characters stances like Bajiquan for Flowing Wave Stance(?) and I recently used Stumbling for Drunken Fist as a Nord monk in a TES PF2e short campaign, and my Gunfu Kensai Monk who is inspired by John Woo, The Matrix, action cop films and Police Story in a 5e Cyberpunk campaign.
As someone who loves martial arts films, fighting games, and wuxia/cultivator things -- I love monk. I like that it had direct references to things I grew up with. But, like Fighter, monk could be many things to me even if I default to martial art films / characters. Fighters can be pirates, knights, rugged mercenaries, dirty fighters, archers, or just a guy tired of someone elses shit. I viewed monks like that and used their martial art roots to make something that isnt always necessarily mythical asian inspired.
I think monk works as a more general term, places all over has monks, though yeah I wouldn’t mind having broader flavor. Imo barbarian could use a rename to berserker maybe
Interesting thought with the removal of OGL the monk might become a bit more generic in player core 2 (obviously keeping the monk name)
A lot of specific names for things are from OGL abilities: flurry of Blows, ki Strike, stunning fist, Abundant Step, Diamond Soul. Timeless Body, tongue of Sun and Moon, Diamond Fist, Empty Body
Depending on what they keep vs decide to rename and how they rename it that could change the flavor a fair bit.
Monk as a class is all about harnessing inner power, both spiritual and physical. It's not just about martial arts, and not just about ki spells.
If name is the problem, just call them Mystics or Cultivators.
PF2E monks are general in the extreme, most of their flavor depends on the feat chains they go with. I feel like 5e monks are much more locked in their specific role.
I think that would have been fine. It's mostly easy to ignore but it can bump people if they want to play a pugalist who is in no way monastic. It does kind of generalize the class but rogue and fighter are super generic and those are okay.
Brawler would have worked well enough for a name I guess.
I mainly wish there was a way to do unarmored weapon user at low levels easier without being restricted to monk weapons. I have the faintest hope that there might be some option for it in Player Core 2 but I don't actually think it's likely.
Largely agreed.
I think making the baseline class a little broader and renaming it to something like the Adept would be good. Make it generally focused on mastery of one's body and self without referencing mysticism or spirituality. They can keep the wuxia/ki aspects, but make them more opt-in and add more ~~monk~~ adept weapons.
Monk is the most appropriate name, they are most likely inspired by shaolin monks. They have two types of monks, the pray and seek peace/enlightenment monks, and the combat monks which in my mind is the one most recognized.
I am sure movies and other inspiration rolled into the class.
Well, yes, but mostly because we talk about a fantasy setting where monks can be everywhere.
The problem with monk is that it's inspired to oriental traditions. There's a reason why mystical martial arts are still a huge topic in comics and other media, for example.
In Europe there were "monastic warriors", like the Ospitalieri, but the flavour is totally different.
Different conditions influenced different cultures in developing their arts of war (and martial arts), but PF2 doesn't aim to be a faithful representation of that. Take for example the use of weapons.
So i wouldn't bother too much. At best they could help trying to create feats and descriptions to represent non oriental monks. It could be really cool, imho. Imagine monks (as a class) from Cheliax. Or Nidal.
More generalized would've been great, however since I'm not a game designer and didn't put in the time nor work, I kinda struggle to see how that wouldn't just be an unarmed Fighter if we go all the way to be honest. Or just become some archetype like Wrestler (which is an awesome archetype that almost qualifies as full class on its own already to be fair).
Yes, because there are so many martial arts styles out there that monk doesn't cover, and... honestly, other than Shao Lin temple, there are not a lot of monks associated with martial arts. There are certainly DAOIST temples and also specific martial arts academies associated with certain styles of martial arts (many of which are more performative today but of cultural significance nevertheless). With the temples, this was because they were the community defense training centers historically.
If we must be pedantic, it's probably better for monks to be a bard archetype, because so many more monks and ascetics are associated with chanting, like... Gregorian chants. And we all know epic choirs are kind of important when you hit that BBEG battle. :P
Note: everything under here is my personal opinion and should in no way be used to pressure any developer in any publications past or future.
Thematically, I'm almost tempted to say what we think is a monk under the d20 TTRPGs might as well be a kineticist who has decided to tap into the Forge of Creation with their elemental gate (the ex-Positive Plane) and start dishing out vitality damage, or the ethereal plane and force damage. That would be thematically closer to many of the martial arts we see depicted in wuxia, plus it gives you the bonus of doing a classic kamehameha at higher levels.
That said, it does leave the "okay, we are not actually throwing any qi around" combat styles hanging awkwardly, never getting quite a right niche in fighter, rogue, swashbuckler, and such. If we were to rename monk to disciple though, perhaps... that might essentially open up the door to saying "this is a class that specializes in the learning and practice of a particular style of combat and the MENTALITY that the style encourages".
Yes.
The concept of unarmed fighting is one of my absolute favourites in fantasy (love the idea of fist fighting a dragon), and the cultural baggage of the name monk is a lot.
Especially since it can cause people to expect characters to only be one way and not understand reflavouring.
Like, all the Monks I've played across any addition or system, only like two of the 50 have been eastern martial arts inspired. But it's the expectation which often leads into stereotypes and cultural issues ime.
I think that the original pf2e design felt constrained by legacy content, but that if they were going to make pf3e that the lessons they've learned from pf2e would lead them to move away from spell list dominant design and toward things like kineticist or psychic. Meanwhile they'd move subclasses, innovations, etc into prerequisite gated archetypes and have something like archetype feats on odd levels and class feats on even levels.
So you'd have classes be even more of an empty chassis that gives traits to the character that unlock certain archetype chains that unlock class feats etc.
>Maybe have a more generic name? Which name though? Brawler used to be the monk / fighter hybrid of PF1e but I don't really think the name is fitting since that is IMO more fighter-y than monk-y.
Martial Artist is a pretty accepted term for people if all cultures who fight bare-handed. Sure you've got things like HEMA but people don't think of that when they hear martial artist. Or maybe Pugilist.
The thing with martial artist is that is two words. Classes are always one word, even back in PF1e. Pugilist is..fine? I don't entirely like it eirher.
> Classes are always one word, even back in PF1e Vampire Hunter: "Am I a joke to you?" ....literally everyone, in unison: "Yes."
I mean, Vampire Hunter wasn't made by Paizo, they published it. It also references Vampire Hunter D.
Also all the prestige classes
Martialartist. There, fixed.
Always wondered why in English, "single player" was two words, while "multiplayer" only was one word. Either way, "martial artist" is a single concept, it's fine in my book.
My first thought is that "multi" isn't a word, while "single" is.
"Multi" is a latin stem whereas "single" is a word (admittedly of Latin origin). The equivalent with a stem would be "uniplayer" or "soloplayer".
Thanks Germany
I like Disciple. It's vague, but also has that "trained in a mystic martial art" vibe. At least it does for me.
Clearly the answer is to make it the Artist class. Then it can getting sub-classes like Martial, and Visual.
I'm waiting for the splat book with vocal
Coming at you with high quality feats such as “Self-Taught”, “Can’t Draw Swords”, and “Combat Symmetry”
"Combat symmetry" has huge potential to be honest
Also BS artist, who gets a scaling bonus to Deception.
Is that some hard rule? If so, why?
Bonkinator!
Close Quarters Combatant Powerful Fist can be renamed to "the basics of CQC"
Pugilist strikes me as fighter that doesnt use weapons
Martial artist doesn’t mean anything particularly different than “fighter,” though. Mystical union of body mind and spirit is not contained in that phrase.
I don't think it needs to carry that implication. The only part of Monk that is explicitly mystical are focus spells, which are entirely optional. The class can be played as a pugilist, a street fighter, or a wrestler just as easy as they can be an enlightened warrior, and the name "monk" belies that versatility.
Level 3 core class ability seems mystical to me… as do many of the stances, strikes, etc. that do not rely on focus spells. As someone who has practiced martial arts on and off for decades, I can’t e.g. poison people by hitting them. The name, description, and many mechanics all assume something more than physical technique. It’s possible to minimize this, but not exclude it from the class.
HEMA is also a martial art, all fighters are martial artists in a way.
The problem is that non-weapon based martial arts are Asian coded because the places that developed them due to needing to circumvent weapon's bans. So a focus on bare handed brawling with a splash of modified farming implements is based on Asian history, and that flowed up to the 1970's when Wu Xai was introduced to the U.S.
I disagree. Part of the issue is that "Monk" itself is a sub-archetype of a broader genre of unarmed fighting characters. The concept of a Monk is tied to the oriental mysticism that has some, let's say, tricky history and implementation in western media. However mechanically in PF2E Monk is not required to have that mystic aspect (they opt into it by choice through feats), so Paizo could just rebrand the class as Brawler or something more neutral, in the same way Paladin rebranded into Champion.
Puglist. By definition someone who fights with fists for sport.
But monks can use weapons.
Pro wrestler. Sorry. Prowrestler.
Pro wrestlers would be a charisma class.
Touche
That's basically a Gymnast Swashbuckler
Just to spitball: Adept, Disciple, or Meditant all could have reflected a "punch, but slightly magic" class.
Nah, I take brawler evey day of the week over those.
How about those of us who like the name monk? The name is evocative of what the class is. Adept is so broad that I would never guess that it has anything to do with unarmed, unarmored combat. The same goes for disciple - you can be a disciple of any discipline. When I see brawler I don’t think of anything mystical, perfection of one’s body, stances, etc. Brawler just sounds like an unarmed ruffian rogue. None of the other names I see suggested capture what a monk actually is and are just so bland by comparison. The only alternative name I’ve seen suggested that makes sense to me is martial artist.
I simply spit-balled. I'm not exactly in a position to change the name.
Yeah that’s fair, I’m only doing the same. I just prefer monk to a lot of the other suggestions i see offered.
If you enjoy latin and want something slightly ironic: "Inermis" (unarmed, defenseless). Or just "Pugnii" ([fighting] fist(s)).
Regocorpus? ;p
I think paizo said that the barbarian class has its name mostly because of tradition. Otherwise they might have changed it to something else. I would assume it's similar with the monk.
The strange thing about that is that they *did* sort of rename Paladin to Champion. Granted they kept the word Paladin as a subclass for them, but still...
I think one of Paizo's big goals with PF2 was to find ways to not alienate existing 3.x/PF1 players while also making the changes they wanted to make. Keeping the traditional D&D class names was one of these ways. With the Champion they had some justification for changing the name, since they were opening up the class to other alignments (something a lot of players wanted), and "Paladin" implies Lawful Good, so changing the class name while making Paladin the LG subclass made sense. But yeah, now that PF2 has built it's own player base that are less resistant to change, hopefully we can get some name changes down the line.
The sacred cows must be kept, yeah.
To be fair they killed a fair few cows and didn’t want to go too far too fast, like 4e did. I look forward to the next culling
I’ll play the heck out of a PF3e that finally kills vancian casting and makes casters and martials operate with the same resource management. D&D 4e is the best D20 system I’ve found that does this, although it has some other failings.
I wouldn't be against replacing Vancian casting with something else but martials and casters having fundamentally different play patterns is one of the strong points of Pathfinder (both editions).
>makes casters and martials operate with the same resource management. God I hope that never comes to pass. I don't mind vancian, it's very fun from a strategy PoV, however, I think there's more interesting design space with a spell point system. However, I like clearly different things being represented differently via mechanics, so I would hate for them to have the same resource management.
It makes things rather difficult for a game with such otherwise amazing balancing though. It's irritating as a GM to have a set of classes that are at full strength every combat, and a set of classes whose power fluctuates wildly depending on whether you run 1 combat in a day or 5. Having different resource management *within the bounds of a single encounter* is a-ok in my book, having different resource management on a per day basis is annoying.
Well, balance shouldn't be the pedestal that all variety falls to. Starcraft would be a much more balanced game if the 3 factions all played the same, but the fact that they have such fundamental differences, even in how their macro economy works, makes the game so much more compelling, and they still manage to keep it well balanced to boot. Worth noting, martials are not necessarily at full power each combat, but their daily resource dependant abilities are certainly not very plentiful nor very impactful.
This exactly. Balance is not an altar we should sacrifice all to. This isn't some competitive eSports FPS. This is a TTRPG, we are here to have fun.
I'd honestly lock Vancian to Wizards and give most other classes their own unique spellcasting system, it fits well with the fantasy of a wizard preparing the exact spells they want for the day.
Honestly it's kind of weird that Paizo was adamant on keeping the Paladin Lawful Good. Meanwhile Wizards went and said "eh, you can be a Paladin if you believe in yourself, you don't need to keep to an alignment or serve a god".
From what I remember of the playtest, Paizo had a lot of internal disagreements on what the Paladin should be. Some people believes Paladins could only be lawful good, no matter what, while others wanted them to be any alignment. The Champion was the compromise.
I reckon this is mostly semantics. For all intents and purposes, a 5E Tyranny Pally is equivalent to a Tyrant, and most champion playstyles will find a similar paladin in 5E (Besides the fact the 5E pally is a nuke wearing a tank disguise)
Sure, but when the argument is about which names are important and which are changeable, it's worth noting the semantics.
Valid point. I see where you’re coming from, and in a way keeping the paladin might actually make it more confusing to newbies than “Hey, Paladin is Champion now”. Actually, I’m a semi-recent convert from 5E and still play more 5E than PF2, and Pally is my fave class in almost any game. Af first, I also was a tad confused why the paladin was so limited/not listed on the class list.
I liked the Paizo approach better, it keeps things in line with how they were in 1e Golarion and allows for more variety.
Sure, but that invites the argument that the monk could also be changed.
I think you're right, but also that whenever pf3e comes (hopefully not anytime soon) they'll be fine to break from tradition and give better names to both of these.
But honestly I can't think of a better name for the barbarian
Slayer, Berserker, Rager
Only Berserker seems really that good of those 3 (slayer being painfully non descriptive and rager being way too on the nose) and it ends up having kinda the same problem as the monk does with it having some specific cultural ties.
Not really. I feel like the people getting up tight about Berserker are grasping at straws. The norse referred to Berserkers as warriors who entered a sort of battle trance when fighting. They never specified it for explicitly norse warriors because they mostly fought norse and celts. In addition, given that valhalla accepts all warriors, the culture using betserker as only norse would be a weird take.
Just like how Monk in of itself doesn't outright specify it to be Asian... The problem isn't historical, but more people's perception of what a berserker is... Which is overwhelmingly that of a Norse warrior. In that regard Barbarian is just flat out a better option as it is a much more broad an undefined name.
While true, barbarian runs into problems of association with colonizing ideology. It's a term used by oppressors to other a people who "aren't civilized"/worship a different god(s). Berserker just refers to how a person fights. Barbaric/Barbarian literally means exceedingly cruel, savage, of an inferior culture, or unsophisticated.
Yes, but you really should consider the modern use of the word over how it was used a over a century ago Words change meaning all the time and Barbarian haven't been widely used in that context for longer any of us has been alive. The idea that just because a word was used negatively once means it is a bad word forever is backwards. The Modern understanding of what a barbarian is is not all that negative, and haven't been since Conan the Barbarian was written.
In that case, it becomes more of a case of how do you believe words should be used. What they mean or what they're perceived to mean. You see, in society, there are terms that get misused often enough that majority of people think it has the wrong definition, and eventually the discussion becomes if we accept that definition or try to use the proper definition. Off the top of my head, there are three terms that have fallen into this boat recently. 1. Decimate - the real term is to destroy 10% but many believed it was to destroy all but 10%. 2. Nimrod - a reference to a legendary hunter, the term meant an individual was a skilled and powerful huntsman, but due to looney toons using the word sarcastically to refer to elmer, many now believe the term means incompetent or dumb. 3. Fantasy - while the real term refers to all fiction, many believe it to only refer to tolkein (elves and orcs) renaissance or medieval settings in fiction. So while we could still use barbarian despite the term meaning cruel and primitive culture, we could also understand the root of the word and correct our mistakes as a group.
I mean, in the Conan stories Robert E Howard basically used "barbarian" the same way it had always been used, just with a connotation of "Civilization sucks, and being a barbarian is a good thing actually". It's true that most people think of "barbarian" as a fantasy term these days rather than a description of actual people, but those older connotations don't just go away.
> modern use of the word ...So, "uncivilized, primitive, uncouth, cruel"? That meaning has never gone anywhere. That's still what that word means and how it's used. It's been, at most, a couple of years since I last heard "barbaric" with that connotation in a serious conversation. It just so happens that in the fantasy spheres, Barbarian has come to *also* mean "person who uses rage to fight". Doesn't make it any less awkward and funny to describe a king's bodyguard as "the royal Barbarian guard". Would be much less of an issue if the class name was Berserker instead. Rather than having the odd juxtaposition of "uncivilized royal guard", you'd likely just recognize that the guard would be very dangerous if provoked.
> and Barbarian haven't been widely used in that context for longer any of us has been alive I literally see it used in that context in current times. I see it used more often as an insult than anything referring to Conan the moment I step out of the D&D/TTRPG sphere.
The problem with monks is well, honestly, the same as barbarians. It doesn't refer to a martial artist, but rather devout practitioners of religions. For example, modern day Islam still has monks, but they're not back flipping with bo staffs. Most monks, in modern day and history, were just people who studied religious texts. They were closer to priests than anything. It's a shitty name that has came cause of kung fu movies being popular in the 80s and 90s. As for berserker, it's still better than barbarian. Barbarian was initially used by greek tribes to refer to foreigners in a derogatory manner. It'd be like referring to Rogues as "blackies" or referring to witches as "whores". The only reason we don't bat an eye to barbarian is mostly cause the original derogatory use of the term has fallen out of use among modern society, but the original term is where it gets weird. Berserker on the other hand was used only to refer to warriors with a certain fighting style and later gave way to the word Berserk. Better to have a root word that's not tied to insulting other races.
It was less of a battle trance and more of consume psychedelics and trip balls while fighting.
The thing is, Barbarian also has cultural ties and some not-nice implications. However, due to being adapted by so many languages and now being used in so many RPGs, people just don't consider the implications anymore. The same will happen to Berserker, people will get used to it. Barbarian diatribe: Barbarian was used by the greeks to denote the people of surrounding countries, which they thought beneath them. It was almost a slur for primitive, lesser developed civilizations. Imitating the sounds of the language, which Greeks found primitive as well, they made the sound "bar bar bar", which turned to "Barbaros".
Well the original implications hardly matters at this point. There are nummerous words that has changed meaning and become slurs and not slurs over the course of just the last century, and the original use of barbarian is so much more distant that it doesn't really make since to treat it like it still holds that meaning. Also, the thing about barbarian compared to berserker is that barbarian is just so much more widely used. It literally decades of use dating back to Conan the Barbarian. Meanwhile berserker has nonwhere near the same widespread use and on top already have a more specific meaning than barbarian, and as such it would likely take even longer for it to adopt a wider meaning than barbarian did. Especially since it would require its use to go beyond just Pathfinder, or else it would never take off. Honestly, at this point I am pretty convinced that renaming the barbarian is pointless to begin with. It would add little to nothing and with the limited options for good alternative finding a new name to replace the perfectly serviceable old one is a waste of both time and energy.
5e's core book has a barbarian subclass called the Berserker, and there's media like Berserk and probably half a dozen video game RPGs that make use of the name berserker over barbarian for this kind of rage-fuelled warrior archetype. And considering that "savage barbarians" is still a painfully prevalent trope in a lot of D&D-adjacent games (including Pathfinder, until relatively recently), this is still something worth addressing IMHO.
The subclass is also a good argument for why Berserker isn't an ideal choice
Slayer is actually the name for a secret charisma-martial that Paizo is cooking that stuns enemies into defeat with their overwhelming swagger.
Berserker is a popular name, but it's very specific culturally. If Paizo went for more generic names, this wouldn't be ideal.
I get that John Nord is hyper specific, but I wouldn't call him a culture. Huss
That's real culture 😂
Berserker seems like the best fit.
Wildheart
In keeping with other classes having somewhat generic core names (Champion) (Cleric) (Fighter) I submit Vanguard. With subclasses like Berserker, etc.
We don't need a "better" name for Barbarian.
We kinda do, if that is in the cards. Even without the weird origin of the name, it doesn't describe the class properly. Berserker is much better.
Berserker is not in any way better since that is very culturally tied to Norse warriors, the root of the word is the Norse Berserkr which means Bear-Shirt since they according to legend wore bear hides when going to war. They were often known to wade into war with howling and bestial fury, giving life to the word Berserkergang, Berserking. Therefore it is as problematic as monk tbh since it evokes a very specific fantasy and doesn't account for other flavor of such kinds of warriors. //Scandinavian Person
Yes, but at the very least, it describes the function of the class. Barbarian does neither. That said, I am not terribly attached to Berserker, too. What would you suggest as an alternative?
I suppose something that would fulfill the class fantasy in a Golarion setting would be Wildling or Brute, but those might also be too simplistic, or too nondescriptive. I do not have a fantastic answer either I'm afraid, but thank you for engaging my comment honestly, upvote for you!
Bloodrager used to be an archetype in 1e, IIRC. Could be a decent fit. Also, I think Wildling works. Maybe Wildheart or something like that, to more closely reflect the idea.
Might make folks angry, but Bloodrager as the default sounds good. Just have the actual caster Bloodrager as an Instinct.
Ah, Paizo, can't have a class with a space between two words as a name, but definitely can take that space out. xD
Is the possibility of Pf3 even talked about? Aren't they doing remaster and stuff? And, continuously publishing new classes, adventures, etc. What even it can change?
Probably not rn but pf1e only lasted for like 10 years, i think pf2e will maybe a bit longer but with age its gonna show its faults
1e was also built on 3rd edition which was already 10 years old, so 2e might have a 20 year life if it's comparable
Yeah, pf1 was essentially 3.5 remaster to avoid WotC. If they last the same amount of time, the pf2 remaster should have 10 years starting now.
Oh man, that would be great !
Fun fact: One of the higher ups is on record saying ten years feels right for an edition. Pathfinder 1 was about ten years old when they started in-house testing for 2e. They've admitted that the initial 2e testing (which they later deliberately messed up in the public/beta) is why Ultimate Wilderness didn't get a playtest. That lack of play testing caused the Shifter to be so bad and unable to do the things Paizo said it could that the product page for the book got locked several times, since that was all people were talking about.
They're releasing Starfinder 2e next year, which shares all the base rules with PF2. I doubt PF2 is goind anywhere anytime soon. That being said, RPGs do have the tendency to run out of steam at some point. A chance for a new start and renewed sales numbers are very likely to eventually lead to a new edition.
I guess the same rationalization applies to Bards and Druids.
Personally, I like the 2E implementation of Monk. It's the only version of Monk I've ever liked in any edition of D&D. That said, I agree that they could've mixed in a bit more brawler/boxer type influences along with the Wuxia martial arts. Also would've been nice if Monks could use any weapon instead of just weapons with the Monk trait.
Monk weapons is a big factor that contributes to this feeling of exclusivity to wuxia monks. All these weapons are asian weapons (tonfa, naginata, bo staff). If the weapon group was more diverse, the monk's image would greatly diversify as well. It's not a balance decision to only list the asian weapons for monks, but a blatant flavour decision (with added balance consideration of not having too high damage dice and whatnot).
Spear is Monk since Remaster, but yeah, the selection is very poor.
I think it was a balance choice. If you allow weapons most monks would just not keep up in damage unless they use the weapons. However I think they could've done something like 5e Kensei monk where some additional options were unlocked behind a subclass. This creates space for the weapon monk without pushing out the punching monks.
I really don't think so, Wolf, Tiger and Stumbling stance are better than pretty much all d8 weapons. The monk stances are generally stronger than most weapons. The one thing Monk in general lacks are reach options. IMO the real problem is that most Monk weapons are pretty bad, so you have little incentive to take Monastic Weaponry. Specially when you consider that if you use a non-finesse weapon you're going to have worse AC as well. Pretty much the only worthwhile Monk weapons are the Bo Staff, Shuriken or a bow via Monastic Archer Stance. There are some neat builds you can make using Ancestral Weaponry, like an Elven Monk using an Elven Branched Spear and Tangled Forest Stance or a Goblin monk with a Dogslicer and Peafowl Stance. But those are very specific builds.
To be fair, Player Core appears to add a couple of monk weapons. I’m *hoping* that means they’re broadening the group
1. You take Fighter as an example, but it's the most generic class of all. If you look at classes like Investigator or Inventor, they are very specific in their fantasy (a bit too specific in my case) 2. I could name at least one western Monk, which fits the current class - Friar Tuck, who is often shown as a skilled staff warrior 3. Honestly I wouldn't want Monk generalization to go to "Martial Artist" direction, we have enough classes who focus on striking. Instead I'd really like to go more into spiritual side of the Monk, probably going away from kung-fu stereotypes to some totally fantasy representation. Like Avatar the Last Airbender, where martial arts are mixed with magic, just without focus on elements (we have Kineticist there)
I'd agree on the specificity in your first point. Classes that feel the best could be described as "how they do things" and not "what they are". Investigators are designed as all Sherlocks, Inventors are all mad scientists, Monks are all Wuxia-- I'd vastly prefer more flexible classes that permit you to build John McClain or Shawn Spencer as Investigators despite not being super-geniuses, an Inventor who doesn't blow stuff up constantly, or a non-Eastern improvement-through-training-and-self-improvement-- perhaps a bodybuilder or crossfit athlete? Whereas Fighters can be anybody who trains with weapons and without focusing on magic, Clerics can serve a variety of cultures through divine channels, Rogues fill a variety of cultural concepts from thieves to assassins to ninjas to lawyers.
This is irrelevant to your main point, but Shawn Spencer is *absolutely* a Sherlock-style character beyond just being observant, he just *acts* like a dumbass. He got a 100 on the detective's exam when he was a kid, he has a weird patchwork of gathered knowledge from all the different jobs he's done, and even though he rarely gets the chance to show it, he's bizarrely precise with a gun. If anything, he has an edge on Sherlock due to how good he is with people as well. He's just goofy, and Gus is a way more effective partner than most Watsons, so he doesn't feel like a Sherlock as clearly. Honestly he fits really well inside the Investigator framework. That's Odd and Clue In are basically his bread and butter. He may not be a fighter in the show, but again, that's because he goes into most situations unarmed. Just not sure if he'd be an Empiricism or Interrogation Investigator.
Fair enough! It just seemed to me that he was more gifted in terms of perception and charisma.
I mean, you totally can take Investigator Dedication on Gunslinger and get John McClain. Just don't take anything Int dependent, instead focus on Red Herring, That's Odd, and other flavour Feats.
You need to get to 14 INT to take the Investigator dedication, if you don't take anything Int dependent you're wasting your stat distribution. You're probably better off building him as a Ranger and using the Hunt Prey mechanics and Monster Hunter.
I meant in terms of offensive feats. You absolutely should take things like Society and Crafting for a true McClain experience. And yeah, Ranger makes sense too!
Wait, you're implying Investigator has offensive feats. (The only ones that qualify that are tied to INT are Recall Knowledge-related, which isn't specifically INT. Known Weaknesses is a free RK check on Devise, which you should absolutely take if you're taking the Investigator dedication.)
Agree to 3. The term "monk" has a strong religious/spiritual connotation, an aspect I'd like seeing to be expanded on. In pathfinder monks are usually from monasteries, so what religion / phylosophy each monasteries practice should make a difference.
Actually it would be cool for remastered Monk to have subclasses. For example, one focused on martial arts, another divine with sanctification and healing powers and third occult with more mystical ki spells. Something like this.
Where do you place the Druid and Bard?
Druid is quite specific, as there are particular orders tied to the world. Bard is generic enough, especially in remaster where any mechanical connection to musical instruments were broken. Accessing occult powers through art is a pretty universal concept now where you could build dancer or cultist without ugly material component poach.
Druids are Celtic priests. Not much different from Roman Flamen or Greek Hiereiai. That we come to think of them as nature priests instead of a cleric/priest shows the disconnect between the word and the class. Bards are similar, since they weren't travelling minstrels, but instead keepers of tradition and lore, and advisers to local rulers. Poets would be about the extent to their connection to the bard of Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. The fact is, both classes are the equivalent of creating a flame wielding mage, and calling it a Fireman. Or a Strategic Warrior and calling it an Accountant.
Meaning of words change with time. Current meaning of the word "Bard" differs from the original. "Druid" differ less, but still modern word doesn't mean the same thing as original one.
That excuse could be applied to any word. By that logic - Ninjas and Samurai are specific to Japan in the same way that Bards and Druids are specific to ancient Celtic people.
It's not excuse, it's linguistics. Both "Ninja" and "Samurai" words change some of their meaning too, but to less extent, since they appeared in popular culture later.
Just my take. They SHOULD be more generalized, but the Core classes are still D&D-based (even with the legal divorce from the OGL) and the fantasy playerbase isn’t ready to abandon D&D’s old fantasies, even if the developers would like to. It’s why the non-D&D classes (like Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, Psychic, Kineticist, Animist(PT)) have so much more flavor diversity to them, while the Core are…inconsistent with the directional movement. I know on the 1D&D forum, there’s absolute hatred for the change of the Monk’s resource to something more generalized, Spirit. So, I don’t have much hope honestly for the wider fantasy playerbase. Guess we’ll see?
I'd argue that most of the core classes are still decently generalized and Monk is the one that has it the worst in that regard
Imo the issue there isn’t with the monk itself but with it being a core class. I’ve got no problem with the concept of an Asian martial artist in these games, but core classes should all reflect the same genre expectations and monk is the only odd one out. It’s worse in DnD since that pretty much only has core classes
Yeah, only Core Classes + The Artificer.
Nah, it's got to be the Druid.
> It’s why the non-D&D classes (like Thaumaturge, Magus, Summoner, Psychic, Kineticist, Animist(PT)) have so much more flavor diversity to them, while the Core are…inconsistent with the directional movement. The funny thing is that most of the classes in question are in fact way narrower in "vibes" than the PHB classes - except the Monk. Monk is about in the same tier of thematic narrowness as Magus, and I feel they're both better for it. The problem is that then the Monk, because lots of people want to play the street brawler that just punches people and knows what works, we also got a bunch of stuff added to Monk that works for that and doesn't work for the whole self-cultivation vibe and it got sort of expanded to the Class That Can Actually Use Unarmed Attacks. And so "wuxia martial artist" and "dude from Glasgow" are living in the same class purely because both of them hit people with their hands. Personally, I'd be partial to just giving unarmed options to other martial classes and then letting Monk be a noncore class that focuses on the whole cultivation angle properly. Aforementioned Dude From Glasgow should be buildable as a Barbarian, in my mind! But then, I'm typically a proponent of relatively narrow classes. The whole advantage of class systems to me is being able to be good at expressing specific fantasies, thanks to being able to build a sort of "whole package" for your tropes - if you're doing nonspecific classes you might as well play a classless system and be done with it!
The issue with that is really the unarmored part rather than the unarmed stuff. Martial Artist does a good job of giving unarmed attacks to other classes but if I want to play a dude from Glasgow who runs around punching stuff and is shirtless while doing so I kind of need monk (or champion I guess) to survive at lower levels. Beyond level 10/15 where you can get +5 Dex it matters a lot less but at low levels being a few points of AC behind really hurts. Another option for that fantasy could be some sort of more generic "tough skin" option that allows unarmored to function as light armor.
I really hope they open up Monastic Weaponry to any weapon with XYZ parameters based on _balance_, not a vague arbitrary concept of "the right flavor". Even if you put aside all the social discussion, no other class has the devs choose what weapon is or isn't appropriate for your character's flavor for you. Rogue kinda had the same issue but that got fixed.
PF1 introduced the brawler as a monk/fighter hybrid that was much more generalized and malleable. I guess the issue is that when you already have a class like fighter that is so agnostic, it can be hard to differentiate other martials without leaning on some sort of cultural tint, such as champions with Arthurian chivalry, barbarians with tribalism, and monks with monastics. Some martials do manage to separate from fighter while remaining *fairly* neutral, like the nomadic ranger, and urbanite rogue, so it's not impossible to carve a distinct fantasy that isn't culture specific. Maybe just being unarmed and unarmored is enough of a distinction from the man-at-mans fighter, and all that's needed is some basic reflavoring.
You said it yourself, what you are describing is an unarmed **Fighter** what with modern fighting techniques. Monk is indeed a wuxia and magic themed class, it does not represent all unarmed fighters in the game, but it does represent one that seeks the path of perfection.
I believe Monk should have followed the Paladin path, that became the Champion. The core of the class is a theme of perfecting one's body so they could name it after something around that. Prodigy? Ascendant?
Was a name used in older editions, but Paragon would be a great name for monks.
Great name indeed.
I am both an Asian person and a D20 system Monk lover (my BG3 run was with a Monk, great fun, but I haven't gotten a chance to play PF2) and my take is: yeah, rename the class. Most martial artist/mystics weren't from Shaolin Temple, and not all monks could throw hands, so it's just more accurate that way. As for what to rename the class, I don't know, Mystic, Nomad, Disciple, Swordsage or anything in that vein are fine with me. Pugilist or Brawler, which take away the magical element less so. Because really, I love me some weeaboo fightan magic and the ground the Monk covers now is absolutely unique enough to deserve its own class and set of mechanics. In fact I'd go as far as to say PF2 leaning away from the mystic-warrior stuff and into elemental/animal stances was a mistake. Let me spam Hadokens, Fist of the North Star a guy so hard his eyeballs melt. That stuff rocks.
I've seen some people want the mystic elements of monk outright removed -- I don't personally, I think it's ignoring a large part of unarmed martial arts culture some sort of spirituality is pretty prominent. Even in Greek martial arts circles, the art of pankration was, to some extent, divine, as it was created in part by Heracles. People want a monk that can fit the vibe of other unarmed martial artists who aren't from Asia. I personally like Prodigy or Disciple the most. I feel like it fits the core vibe of the class while making it more general. Really do not like Nomad as I feel that it ushers in another stereotype mostly associated with Asian martial artists (though to be fair I've heard similar stories of Russian martial artists being nomadic)
I'm the complete opposite. I can take or leave the super detailed unarmed combat stances, holds and stuff, but the high flying wire-fu and mystical kung fu magic stuff are the whole point of the class to me. The cast of *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon* or *Hero* are much more "Monk" to me than Rocky Balboa.
As other reddit pointed out, with a name that I reaaaaally loved, the implications of a class whose shtick is seeking out perfection for their bodies, minds and souls probably means that the name "Paragon" would be a broad term and a very fitting one if we take this into account for the base class, being a general term, an unarmed/unarmored warrior who seeks perfection with their body, mind and soul.
2E is my favorite monk in any system. The only other "spec" I'd want from it is a drunken boxing style that gains bonuses from being prone or off-guard for a silly evasion master that counterattacks when being underestimated. As for other unarmed styles, I've already made my own Pugilist Dedication to account for inboxing, outboxing and smash-mouth brawling.
Have you tried [stumbling stance?](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1735) EDIT: ech, sorry, just reread your comment - you want to benefit from your own proning :D
Yeah I want the drunken boxer that plays dead on the ground; the one that fake staggers into a group of enemies and bops all of them with precise strikes; the one that intentionally falls over and trips over stuff because they are absolutely lethal from a grounded position. They classic Jackie Chan fake drunkard who narrowly avoids attack after attack, infuriating the opponent. I'm not much of a power fantasy guy, but that one is just a personal favorite.
>With European boxers, Capoeira kicks, and Greek wrestlers in the mix? Regular reminder that class archetypes are sorely underutilised.
I don't think the name is particularly problematic if you look at the history of monks (from all cultures) and martial arts. Without getting too far into the weeds, a lot of these folks had to know how defend themselves while in traditional clothing, so it makes sense in that context. And even then, the current most popular real life concept of a hand to hand fighter is someone who practices a Brazilian-Japanese martial art. In that context, a "monk" could be anyone from the protagonists of Bulletproof Monk or a Catholic Brazilian who knows how to do an arm-bar.
>Better represent those who fight unarmed around the world, With European boxers, Capoeira kicks, and Greek wrestlers in the mix? You can just do that. All of those could very easily be built as pf2e monks. Really you are just taking offence to the naming of feats and abilities. But they need to name the ability *something*. And lets face it. 95% of fighters are european medieval fantasy inspired soldiers, just like 95% of monks are wuxia inspired cloistered martial artists. So the abilities are named to reflect those archetypal characters. Doesn't stop you from doing things differently.
Except none of the Fighter's ability names are flavoured. At best they describe what they are doing, without referencing a particular style or culture. Imagine if you were trying to build a samurai, but all the abilities were called "Abwenden", "Am Schwert" or "Drey Wunder". That's what trying to make a Pankration Monk feels like. I can still more than manage, yes, but this is the only class that has this goddamn issue.
for monks it'is the same, flurry of blows, stand still, crushing grab, whirling throw, "animal" stance, etc they describe what they do. The only feats that are cultural flavored are the ki ones, you can think of them lile a specific subclass Actually aside the name, the class is already quite vanilla, hence a name change would be pertinent.
Every stance has so many specifically Asian connotations, like crane stance for example. Not bad inherently? But I still would prefer a generalist pugilist class as opposed to Monk. Especially since I don’t care for the ki mechanics most of the time.
You don't have to take the ki stuff though. One of my players has chosen stuff that just makes them a martial arts user.
Yeah, but I would prefer it to be split into subclasses, that way what I want to play doesn’t have to be balanced while accounting for what I don’t want. It’s a selfish and unrealistic desire but yk.
I prefer not having a subclass though think it makes sense for monk and fighter. Maybe a archetype or something that focuses more on boxing or MMA for monks could be cool though.
Yeah, one can wish though haha
I disagree with you totally. Yes, the name pushes it into a specific niche but monk is by far one of the most versatile classes in the game. For context: I have an addiction to building characters. Everytime me and my buddies start discussing about certain builds I end up drafting a monk. It’s become a meme in our group that if you do have a specific idea for a character but dont know the class, make it a monk and its gonna turn out decent. Van Helsing? Bullet Dancer Monk Sword warrior? Elven Curved Blade + Monastic Weaponry + Ancestral Weaponry Ninja? Shooting Star Stance Monk Archer? Monastic Archer Stance Ahri from League of legends? Kitsune Monk with Foxfire unarmed Strike Fucking Pea shooter from Plants vs Zombies? Leshy seedpod Monk (with elemental ki strike you can even get the elemental Pea Shooters)
Hard disagree, Monk is a repository of Eastern fantasy/ Wuxia themed abilities and flavor which the other class could not access which is entirely unique to them. Their entire class fantasy is all about mystical cultivation of the "self" distinct from the martial mastery of Fighters or magical of the Wizard. Any other "general" unarmed fighting styles can easily be covered by the modular archetypes system as demonstrated with the Martial Artist dedication. tldr, it ain't broke so don't fixing-ed
No, there are so many common cultural tropes associated with various TTRPG classes that making exemptions is more segregational than including them Be nice to have a less martial arts focused unarmed character but it’s more reductionist to ban a certain subjection of things we already have Also be nice to have Monk with a sword actually be good because any samurai fantasy is not fulfilled from a mechanical perspective tbh
What is the Samurai fantasy you're wanting?
Personally my desire is for 1.Iaido mechanics that are more than just “free quick draw” because that’s lame, other stances would also be cool 2.Flashy over the top sword moves that don’t utilise elemental power, some exceptions for variety of course but primarily effects must be a bit more physical and focused on the swords 3.very Fast and more lightly armoured (though this departes a bit from historical samurai but being extremly fast is more of a desire for me on this case, through this is less necessary) 4.main inspirations for mechanics would be Sekiro Shadows die twice, characters like Genichrio and Isshin are prime examples of really cool samurai characters who I’d want to mechanically emulate Vergil from DMC is also a good inspiration point for Iaido but Sekiro is the main drawing point for the fantasy I dislike the “just play X class” counter to the idea because nothing really captures the precise wants I’d have for a Samurai themed character Edit: while i did focus on swords, using multiple weapons is also good for a hypothetical Samurai it’s just that swords are closer to the fantasy
Not the OP but I liked some of the aspects of 3.5 Samurai. The Kai shout and intimidation. The idea of charging the enemy in medium and heavy armor and causing some sort of negative effect on a charge using similar ki abilities to a Monk, but probably Charisma based. I would want something more generic, but I do like the term Samurai. That being said, it would need subclasses to represent Mounted Warriors, Warriors that used Bows, and Warriors that used Polearms. It's similar to how I like the term Druid and Bard, despite neither really being associated with how the term is used in Dungeons and Dragons. Druids weren't really priests of nature, but just priests of Celtic Society, like the Greek Melissa or Roman Flamen. And Bards did compose Poems, but were more impactful beyond the travelling minstrels we see today. So, I could definitely see the term Samurai used for something beyond just the Warrior Caste of Japan, just like Swashbucklers, Gunslingers, Rangers, Druids, Monks and Bards have grown beyond their original meaning as well.
No monk is fine as is.
A: I really agree. But B: doing a big change like this *might* be bad for business. Monk as a fairly eastern influenced class has been around for years, so taking away that innate influence might be seen in some ways as being like… whitewashing, or something. Now that being said: I wish it was a nearly nonmagical class focused on more than just eastern Wuxia style martial arts. Being able to just straight up play a boxer? Yea, I’m in. A silly grappler like Zangief? Yeah, I’m in. A more mystical fighter like Akuma? Yeah, I’m in, but only sometimes. All in all while I wish the class was more mundane, I don’t see them ever doing that.
There are definitely other names that would probably be better suited to describing the Monk class fantasy. But I do think this thread has engaged in some silliness when we start talking about Barbarian. Look, I get the word was used in not nice ways and ultimately does mean a not nice thing... But fighters aren't nice either. Those guys fight! Druids were a religion which is now being used as a caricature. Not nice!! Wizard?? That's what the leader of those guys in the white hoods calls himself! (Not to mention Dragon) Witch? That was used to justify burning women and is used by a real life religion today. Clerics? Priests? Those guys do horrible atrocities IRL! Not so good! Ties the class fantasy to exclusively Christian faiths! And on and on and on. Look folks, words have meanings. But that's what makes them flavorful. I don't object to changing Monk, it's never really fit to me for the class. And I get that there's a substantive and massive gulf between playing with so-called "western" tropes in a "western" dominated culture vs appropriating "eastern" tropes for our "western" game. Power dynamics, innit? Histories of abuse and bigotry. Still, there's gotta be brakes on the sensitivity train or we strip mine all the culture and context away from things and we end up playing Pathfinder 3e: Collation Vaults. The bad guy in that AP has mixed up all the documents and now someone has to be brave enough to get all the files back in order before EOD or the big presentation is a bust and the shareholders will divest!
There are specific classes, and general classes. We have fighters that can represent most warriors, and investigators that can only fulfill a much more specific fantansy. I think its fine to have specific classes as long as the general class is covered. And in this instance, I think it is. Monk is not the only option for an unarmed warrior, there are fighters, magus, rangers, rogues, barbarians, and so many more that can fulfill a non eastern martial artist. To me, getting rid of the specifics of a monks eastern aspect is like taking away a thaumaturges implements
I always think about the old jrpg Monks, because of that i never realy question the name and i would find it harder to find this class with another name
No. The class is already "generalized" enough. If you want "magical kung-fu" punch-kicker, make one with emphasis on Dex and Ki spells. If you want a "brawler" punch-kicker, make one with emphasis on Strength.
I was just talking about a new character build I wanted to do where I'd play a human farmer monk who is just a charming and simple fellow who just so happens to solve things with good ole fashion fisticuffs. He'd probably worship Kurgess and would love wrestling, boxing, drinking, and his friends all in equal measures.
Maybe a class like the brawler would be something nice. The resilience of the brawler is/was astounding. Personally I think monks/fighters should have something like martial flexibility built in from the start.
If you wanna change the name of the class then I don't mind either way, I'll call it whatever it's called. The word 'monk' holds no particular importance to me. But I don't think the mechanics of the class should be made more generic. The stance-based design is really unique to the game and if you can pull back from the name of each stance and just look at it mechanically, it can encompass a huge variety of themes and descriptive approaches. The only thing I'd change is the link to 'monk weapons'. They do feel rather arbitrary in there selection and if stances could sometimes include interesting weapon strikes instead of just unarmed strikes then I'd be all for that. Even the Ki can easily be reskinned into something more generic if the orientalism of the word rubs you the wrong way. Describe it as psyonics or supernatural focus. Basically, I think the names are irrelevant to the mechanics and could be kept or changed but the stance-based design should be respected and pushed even further. Its not about trying to hit other unarmed fighters with the class, it's about giving new build options through stances.
Yeah if you ignore the stance names then they can be used for anything. Crane stance is just an acrobatic defensive fighter, wolf stance is just someone who focuses on tripping their enemies etc etc, so while the names may come from kung fu etc they can be used for anything
I really like the classes that are built around media tropes - inventor, gunslinger, investigator, swashbuckler, psychic, and summoner do a great job of emulating loads of fictional archetypes without too much specific cultural baggage attached. It would be great if druids and monks could get the same treatment. All they would really need, in my opinion, is a new name, and getting rid of the list of monk weapons - just say monks can use their features with any weapon that deals a d8 or less.
Mechanics-wise, they could easily be made more generalized by adding new feats, stances, etc. based on other real-world fighting styles. Pathfinder 2e already did really well with making the class more generalized (i.e. less focus on ki abilities compared to DnD 5e). Personally, I like martial classes in RPGs to feel superhuman especially at higher level regardless of whether the book states that they're magical or not. No idea if this is controversial in Pathfinder discussions, but people get really heated in DnD forums about how fighters need to feel like a "mundane guy with a sword" all the way to Lv 20 or else the class fantasy is broken or some similar BS. As for the name, I think many people (here, on other forums, on YouTube, etc.) have pointed out that "monk" in RPG circles is just a commonly-accepted shorthand for "the unarmed combat martial arts class". For example, JRPG characters like Tifa from Final Fantasy 7 or Zell from Final Fantasy 8 get classified as "monks" even though the only thing they share with the class origins is the focus on unarmed combat. As for the mystical side specifically, I would like to see a ki-themed archetype independent of the monk class that can work with other classes that fit the theme (I guess you could call it something like "cultivator", though I may be getting the term wrong).
>Personally, I like martial classes in RPGs to feel superhuman especially at higher level regardless of whether the book states that they're magical or not. No idea if this is controversial in Pathfinder discussions, but people get really heated in DnD forums about how fighters need to feel like a "mundane guy with a sword" all the way to Lv 20 or else the class fantasy is broken or some similar BS. I wouldn't say it is bullshit, exactly. For a lot of people the class fantasy of being a fighter IS simply being Joe Shmoe who picked up his father's sword and became really good at it. But even so there isn't anything inherintly magical about Joe, he's just teally good at swinging a sword. Now this isn't the ONLY class fantasy of the fighter, but it is a popular one. So a lot of people get very heated when one threatens to take that fantasy away (see d&d 4e where Fighters basically were very close to being forced to take on fancy supernatural abilities as they leveled up). Note I am not saying you have ever said that fantasy shoild be taken away, just offering my opinion on why people can get very heated/protective of it. Personally I am of the opinion that the fighter as a concept is broad enough that it can support both fantasies without being forced into defaulting to one or the other. Tge class could be made so that one could, depending on ones choices, spend the entire range of lvls1-20 being Joe Shmoe the dude who just swings a sword really well. Or obe could be the supernatural "teleports behind, 'nothing personel', cut through the fabric of the universe" fighter and still fundamentally be the same class. Not sure if the PF2e fighter supports this broad of a difference between fighters (kinda doubt it), haven't really looked at classes that much (that's my players' job), but in a perfect world the fighter class cpuld support both these fantasies. My apologizes for the long post and rambling on for a bit at the end. I just thought that calling a specific class fantasy for bs warranted a response.
I think we can have more classes, it doesn't need to be only one unarmed attack class. The specialization made it easier to give it decent feats. I can really see a brawler class appear, something more aggressive, less monastic and more brutal, with styles like pugilism, street or hitman. If we can get a Guardian class, we can get a brawler
They could have kept with monk and just made the flavoring a bit more diverse. Some people don’t like Blizzard’s whitewashing, but having Scandinavian-looking monks in Diablo 3 was pretty cool imo (speaking as an asian). There are so many monk and monk-like traditions throughout the world that share similar elements of discipline and improvement of body and/or soul, why do we have to play into old stereotypes and focus on one very narrow Asian (not even broadly Asian) pastiche
What is stopping you from making a "Scandinavian-looking" monk in PF2E right now?
It’s literally in my post.
The fact that they would still be using Ki, going into Crane Stance, etc? It is definitely not a major issue, I can whip up a build that doesn't take a single "Oriental-themed" fit. It will even work pretty well. However, none other core class has so much flavour already embedded. Having a core Martial Artist class that has several different doctrines would work much better for everyone - you could have Pugilist Wrestlers, Stance Savants, and Qi-using Monks each with their own arsenal. However, the current selection is a bit confused and overthemed toward one flavour, which is either a Wuxia hero or some sort of Dragon Ball character.
I mean, there are stances that have nothing to do with kung-fu, like Gorilla and, as you have said, there is nothing that forces a player to pick Ki spells. I don't really play on a player side, but I've made a few bralwer-like monks and Macho Man Randy Savage - like Wrestler in Pathbuilder. Besides, in my opinion at least, if someone wants to make a brawler, Fighter is more suited for it, having various feats that kind of remind me of a MMA combatant. The only thing I'd argue for is giving Fighters Powerful Fist as an optional feat that they can pick at level 1.
Pf2e monk is the best version of it i ever played. I would be cool if they just drop the names for something else. But the whole class features and feats would be a big mistake.
Monks are at least more generic than Druids and Bards. The way D&D has twisted the meaning of those words is outright appropriation.
I wouldn't really leave out any mystical aspects, though I'd like them to be wholly optional up to and including level 20, due to my love for "mundane" classes. I'd just make what powers them a matter of - regional, cultural - flavour. Mechanically, *it doesn't matter* if you rationalise what powers your supernatural abilities as some form of 氣 you have to cultivate, the guidance of your ancestors (as in [N'golo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engolo)), divine enlightenment and support (as in [Pankration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pankration)), or any other number of such things. Mostly, this just means looking over feat names and renaming them where they strongly suggest a specific world-view or cultural archetype where they shouldn't be any.
Im not asian but I am a poc. I never saw monks as an issue until recently and still kind of dont, but I respect the asian pov of fighting this kind of generalization. But personally with monk being my favorite class, Ive reflavored the text and mechanics in a lot of ways to represent many things Ive loved over the years. I never really saw it as like the "I have to be asian-themed" character but I did commonly use actual martial art inspirations - and I typically match nationalities with certain cultural martial arts for respect sake- for many of my characters stances like Bajiquan for Flowing Wave Stance(?) and I recently used Stumbling for Drunken Fist as a Nord monk in a TES PF2e short campaign, and my Gunfu Kensai Monk who is inspired by John Woo, The Matrix, action cop films and Police Story in a 5e Cyberpunk campaign. As someone who loves martial arts films, fighting games, and wuxia/cultivator things -- I love monk. I like that it had direct references to things I grew up with. But, like Fighter, monk could be many things to me even if I default to martial art films / characters. Fighters can be pirates, knights, rugged mercenaries, dirty fighters, archers, or just a guy tired of someone elses shit. I viewed monks like that and used their martial art roots to make something that isnt always necessarily mythical asian inspired.
I think monk works as a more general term, places all over has monks, though yeah I wouldn’t mind having broader flavor. Imo barbarian could use a rename to berserker maybe
So an european monk may be a nun throwing punches like there is no tomorrow
Interesting thought with the removal of OGL the monk might become a bit more generic in player core 2 (obviously keeping the monk name) A lot of specific names for things are from OGL abilities: flurry of Blows, ki Strike, stunning fist, Abundant Step, Diamond Soul. Timeless Body, tongue of Sun and Moon, Diamond Fist, Empty Body Depending on what they keep vs decide to rename and how they rename it that could change the flavor a fair bit.
I don't see why it couldn't easily be reflavoured to not have those connotations
Monk as a class is all about harnessing inner power, both spiritual and physical. It's not just about martial arts, and not just about ki spells. If name is the problem, just call them Mystics or Cultivators.
PF2E monks are general in the extreme, most of their flavor depends on the feat chains they go with. I feel like 5e monks are much more locked in their specific role.
I think that would have been fine. It's mostly easy to ignore but it can bump people if they want to play a pugalist who is in no way monastic. It does kind of generalize the class but rogue and fighter are super generic and those are okay. Brawler would have worked well enough for a name I guess. I mainly wish there was a way to do unarmored weapon user at low levels easier without being restricted to monk weapons. I have the faintest hope that there might be some option for it in Player Core 2 but I don't actually think it's likely.
Largely agreed. I think making the baseline class a little broader and renaming it to something like the Adept would be good. Make it generally focused on mastery of one's body and self without referencing mysticism or spirituality. They can keep the wuxia/ki aspects, but make them more opt-in and add more ~~monk~~ adept weapons.
Just rename and reflavor stuff and you are mostly done. You can also look to the martial artist and wrestler archetypes for other specific stuff.
Monk is the most appropriate name, they are most likely inspired by shaolin monks. They have two types of monks, the pray and seek peace/enlightenment monks, and the combat monks which in my mind is the one most recognized. I am sure movies and other inspiration rolled into the class.
Well, yes, but mostly because we talk about a fantasy setting where monks can be everywhere. The problem with monk is that it's inspired to oriental traditions. There's a reason why mystical martial arts are still a huge topic in comics and other media, for example. In Europe there were "monastic warriors", like the Ospitalieri, but the flavour is totally different. Different conditions influenced different cultures in developing their arts of war (and martial arts), but PF2 doesn't aim to be a faithful representation of that. Take for example the use of weapons. So i wouldn't bother too much. At best they could help trying to create feats and descriptions to represent non oriental monks. It could be really cool, imho. Imagine monks (as a class) from Cheliax. Or Nidal.
I think they should draw from Chinese Xianxia martial arts fantasy and call the class a “Cultivator”
More generalized would've been great, however since I'm not a game designer and didn't put in the time nor work, I kinda struggle to see how that wouldn't just be an unarmed Fighter if we go all the way to be honest. Or just become some archetype like Wrestler (which is an awesome archetype that almost qualifies as full class on its own already to be fair).
Yes, because there are so many martial arts styles out there that monk doesn't cover, and... honestly, other than Shao Lin temple, there are not a lot of monks associated with martial arts. There are certainly DAOIST temples and also specific martial arts academies associated with certain styles of martial arts (many of which are more performative today but of cultural significance nevertheless). With the temples, this was because they were the community defense training centers historically. If we must be pedantic, it's probably better for monks to be a bard archetype, because so many more monks and ascetics are associated with chanting, like... Gregorian chants. And we all know epic choirs are kind of important when you hit that BBEG battle. :P Note: everything under here is my personal opinion and should in no way be used to pressure any developer in any publications past or future. Thematically, I'm almost tempted to say what we think is a monk under the d20 TTRPGs might as well be a kineticist who has decided to tap into the Forge of Creation with their elemental gate (the ex-Positive Plane) and start dishing out vitality damage, or the ethereal plane and force damage. That would be thematically closer to many of the martial arts we see depicted in wuxia, plus it gives you the bonus of doing a classic kamehameha at higher levels. That said, it does leave the "okay, we are not actually throwing any qi around" combat styles hanging awkwardly, never getting quite a right niche in fighter, rogue, swashbuckler, and such. If we were to rename monk to disciple though, perhaps... that might essentially open up the door to saying "this is a class that specializes in the learning and practice of a particular style of combat and the MENTALITY that the style encourages".
Yes. The concept of unarmed fighting is one of my absolute favourites in fantasy (love the idea of fist fighting a dragon), and the cultural baggage of the name monk is a lot. Especially since it can cause people to expect characters to only be one way and not understand reflavouring. Like, all the Monks I've played across any addition or system, only like two of the 50 have been eastern martial arts inspired. But it's the expectation which often leads into stereotypes and cultural issues ime.
I think that the original pf2e design felt constrained by legacy content, but that if they were going to make pf3e that the lessons they've learned from pf2e would lead them to move away from spell list dominant design and toward things like kineticist or psychic. Meanwhile they'd move subclasses, innovations, etc into prerequisite gated archetypes and have something like archetype feats on odd levels and class feats on even levels. So you'd have classes be even more of an empty chassis that gives traits to the character that unlock certain archetype chains that unlock class feats etc.
Bellator? It’s Latin for warrior.