This character class has been culled from a back issue of Dragon(tm) Magazine and details a character classes for use in a 1st Edition AD&D game.

New Monks

Of all the character classes in the AD&D game, the class of monks is the most difficult to qualify for. A monk must have exceptional strength, wisdom, and dexterity, and - if he or she wishes to survive for very long - constitution. The odds of rolling up such a character, even using the various cheating methods listed in the Dungeon Masters Guide, are not favorable. Given this, one would expect a monk to be a powerful character indeed. At first glance this would appear to be true. The Grand Master of Flowers can reasonably claim to be the most powerful fighter around, able to inflict 128 points of damage in a single round. This superiority, however, is more theoretical than real. In actual practice, the monk is the weakest of the character classes, not the strongest.

The sources of a monk's weakness are many. First, monks are severely handicapped in armor class. The Novice starts at AC 10, is denied the use of any armor, and receives no armor class adjustment for dexterity. This situation fails to improve for a long time - at 5th level the hapless monk is a mighty AC 7. As for hit points, the average 1st-level monk with a 16 constitution has 9 hit points. The extra hit die at 1st level is not enough to allow the monk to keep up with clerics, fighters, or even thieves, for very long. At 5th level the monk with a 16 constitution has an average 25 hit points, where the cleric has 32 1/2, the fighter 37 1/2, and the thief 27½. (No one should play a monk with a constitution of less than 16; the figures will humiliate the monk.)

The multiple attacks with open hands that are supposed to be the monk's forte are still negligible at 5th level, becoming appreciable only at 6th level, where the monk receives 3 attacks every 2 rounds. Fighters are, however, quick to catch up; at 7th level they also acquire this ability.

The spell-like powers of monks are laughable when compared to the spell abilities of clerics or magic-users. Just as the 6th-level magic-user is acquiring a second Fireball with which to destroy the enemy, the 6th-level monk is learning to feign death. The ability to stun or kill an opponent is next to worthless at low and middle levels because the monk's chance of doing it is so small, and because the monk's awful armor class and hit points prevent the character from spending too much time in melee. Also, monks advance more slowly in level than any other character class at middle and upper levels. Practical experience with monk characters reinforces the conclusion. In this author's experience, there seem to be two ways for a monk character to survive to reach upper levels. The first is for the monk to acquire a powerful magic item that offsets one or more of the monk's weaknesses, like a Ring of Regeneration, Bracers of Defense AC 2, or a Cloak of Displacement. The other way is for the monk to cower at the back of the party, avoiding combat wherever possible. This means the monk is generally useless and, aside from opening a few locked doors now and then, does nothing besides siphon off experience points from more deserving characters. Neither of these situations is wholly satisfactory.

Of course, one can always argue that, once the monk finally does make it to the upper levels, the long wait was worth it. An 8th-level monk is just about competitive with 8th-level characters in the other classes, and is clearly superior to an 8th-level thief, or even a 9th-level thief.

However, it is by no means certain that the monk character will ever get to 8th level, even should he or she honestly earn the 200,001 experience points required. This is due to the requirement that a monk of this level or higher must fight and defeat the present title holder in order to advance in level. Thus, every time the player-character monk attempts to advance in level beyond the 7th, the character must ran a basic 50% chance of losing and failing to achieve the level. Worse still, the price of defeat is a full level's worth of experience points, just as if the monk had been energy-drained. A wealthy fighter who has been struck by a wight can pay a large sum for a Restoration spell. The defeated monk has no such option. In effect, this limits the monk to 7th level, or at best means that the monk will ultimately need 2 or 3 times as many experience points as listed, since the luck of the die will invariably cause the monk to be defeated a number of times. Worst of all, the monk may have to stand off challenges by NPC monks, and who can say how many Superior Masters will be out looking for the character who finally makes it to Master of Dragons?

In essence, then, the monk is a useless character at lower and middle levels, and is extremely difficult to maintain at upper levels. The player with visions of Bruce Lee or David Carradine dancing in his or her head is in for a big letdown when such a player tries to run a monk character. The idea of a character class of martial artists is undeniably a good one, and monks deserve a place in the AD&D system. But how, then, can monks be made competitive and (if possible) more interesting? It is possible to cure the defects in the present system without changing the nature of monks at all, as the following suggested system demonstrates.

First, in place of Tables l and lI on page 31 of the Players Handbook, use the revised tables given herein.

Note on quasi-psionic monk abilities

The powers in the above list that refer to the psionics section of the Players Handbook should be played as though the monk were psionic with regard to computing level of mastery, range, etc. Instead of expending psionic strength points to use the abilities, the monk simply abides by the use restrictions given above. If the monk character is actually psionic, attack/defense totals and modes may be used normally, but the psionic monk never receives disciplines other than those inherent in the class's special abilities.

Other suggested changes

1. Open hand damage done is halved, rounding up, when the monk is attacking a creature 10 feet or more in height, or otherwise very large, and against creatures with a natural armor class of 0 or better.
2. A monk's thieving abilities are limited to Moving Silently, Finding (but not removing) Traps, Hiding in Shadows, Hearing Noises, and Climbing Walls.
3. Single combat as a means of advancement is not required until the monk reaches 12th level, and then only if the title is occupied (see below). A monk who loses a challenge loses 100,000 experience points and cannot challenge again for 1 year.
4. At 10th level a monk's hands and feet become the equivalent of +1 weapons for purposes of determining what creatures they can do damage to. At 18th level they become the equivalent of +2 weapons. (Moral: You can't karate-chop an iron golem.)

Monks can be either lawful good, lawful neutral, or lawful evil. The Players Handbook makes no mention of separate monastic orders for these alignment types; it follows that all monks are part of one big brotherhood, whether they be good or evil. In many respects, this does not make a great deal of sense. For instance (and this is a relatively minor point), the title names for monks sound like they were designed for lawful good, or lawful neutral, monks only. An evil Grand Master of Flowers? Hmmmm.

Either we must do away with evil monks, which would be a loss, or the system can be altered to more appropriately account for them. One solution to this problem is to allow the existence of separate, parallel monastic orders, at least three of them and perhaps more. There could then be more than one of each of the upper-level monks, but only one per title per order. Each order would then decide how to solve the advancement problem. Lawful neutral orders might opt for the present system, as modified by “3” above.

Lawful evil orders might insist that combat be to the death, thus solving the problem of rematches constantly plaguing upper-level figures. Lawful good orders might forbid advancement by combat, requiring candidates to wait until vacancies occur. When, for instance, the reigning Master of Winter dies, all lower masters could advance upon obtaining sufficient experience points. A panel of masters would decide whom to promote from among the three Masters of Dragons and the current Superior Masters.

Advancement by default should indeed occur on a fairly regular basis in any sort of monastic order, if only because the reigning Grand Master of Flowers is probably close to death (being old), divine ascension (being powerful), or both. These odds aresuggested forsuch events:

In a lawful good order not advocating advancement by combat, a DM might contrive to say the Grand Master of Flowers always rules for 1 year only, and at the end of that time becomes a divine being on one of the outer planes - insuring a steady stream of vacancies.

A lawful good monk would never lose experience points under this system. Such a monk would either have his or her total “frozen” at some point (say, 1 point short of the level occupied by another), orthe DM could allow the monk's total to continue to increase but deny the monk the actual attainment of the new level until a vacancy occurred. The monk could then save up experience in advance, but would be limited in this endeavor to a total 1 point short of two levels beyond the monk's current level.

No matter how it is managed, there must be some form of restriction on monk advancement beyond the 11th level. Unrestricted advancement in a campaign where experience points are easy to come by would mean the monk character would become extremely powerful too quickly and too easily. Also, monkish combat has become a traditional many players may be loath to give up.

Rationale for rule changes

Certain salient points of this alternative system need more explanation. It is suggested that monks receive six-sided dice for their hit dice instead of four-sided dice. This is to cure the monk's hit-point disadvantage. Armor class, attacks per round, and damage per attack have been for low and middle-level monks. The new intermediate experience levels allow the monk to rise as high as 11th level before advancement by combat becomes necessary. This is an important change, for it allows the monk who has been unsuccessful in challenging his or her superiors to go on an upper-level adventure. Also, it makes the rank of Master a good deal more formidable, and puts it on a par with the name ranks of other classes, such as Master Thief, Lord, or Wizard.

The new special abilities and powers presume that the inner strength of monks flows from the mind - that it is a sort of psionic power. After all, no degree of skill or knowledge will let a human being fall an unlimited distance when within 8' of a wall and take no damage when hitting bottom at terminal velocity.

Also, damage from open hand attacks of upper-level monks is hard to explain on the basis of physical skill alone. Can you imagine Bruce Lee killing a purple worm in 1 melee round with four mighty karate chops? Present rules let high-level masters do just that. The half-damage rule proposed above is designed to partially cure this situation; even so, some form of magical mind-power is the only way to account for the things monks can do. Moreover, the present monk powers closely resemble the related psionic disciplines. The new powers given above simply extend this principle, and are designed to make the monk a reasonably powerful and versatile character even at low and middle levels.

The thieving abilities of Removing Traps and Opening Locks were deleted because it is not clear how or why monks should have such abilities. For what purpose does a monastic aesthetic learn to pick locks? Surely not all monks are adventurers; why then do these monks learn skills usable nowhere else but on an adventure? In game terms, it is no longer necessary to make the monk act as a second-rate thief so that the monk will have something to do on an adventure. The monk as redefined in this article is a firstrate warrior and scout (if an lnfravision spell is used), and no longer needs such additional abilities.

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