The title says it-- do you think the Monk is too narrow of a concept to deserve its own class?
We take a look at most of the classes and we can generally see how they might fit across certain settings. Okay, sure. The Cleric's medium armor might be an issue in worlds where Clerics don't really wear armor.
And as specific as the Paladin might see, it isn't difficult to move away from the Knight Templar image so that the Paladin can represent various sorts of fearless, devoted warriors who will strike down their enemies with the swift strike of divine wrath. Let it be an Persian Immortal or a particularly noteworthy Japanese Samurai or a warrior of right and justice in China's Warring States. The idea of a holy, unyielding warrior works.
Ranger? Well, any world that has wilderness we can imagine a hunter class. The class can take steps away from the very specific fluff and we can imagine a Ranger of just about any culture. Every culture probably has need of scouts and hunters, trackers and snipers. You could well fit this class into a game based on Native American culture or African culture. Maybe change the name a bit, but it works.
Druid? Well, one could well rename the Druid "Witch" or "Shaman" without really changing any of the abilities and the concept still works out pretty well. The idea of being able to commune with nature, understand animals to the point that one can transform into them, using odd plants and animal extracts to create mystical effects. Yes, detached from the "Druid" religion, I could well see this concept fitting into a game set in the Americas or Africa or Asia or Australia pre-Colonialism.
The difference between Wizard, Sorcerer and Warlock is a bit on the mechanical end. A little bit about how they get their powers. Are these ideas pretty culturally universal? Well.. I don't know about that. Warlock might be the most culturally universal one. The idea of concerting with dark spirits in order to gain immense power probably fits more ideas and settings than having the blood of a magical creature and thus being able to cast magic or even being able to learn magic through reading.
Okay, but Monk. Monk.
Let's face it. The concept is pretty damn limiting and only applies to one very specific culture. Oh, they try to shoe-horn Japanese in there, but if we are going to be honest-- no. It is Chinese. That is the only culture in w hich this idea is valid. And within fantasy worlds?
The class seems to INSIST that in order to qualify for this class that one be part of a Buddhist religion, regardless of what deities or pantheons exist in this world. No, not just a member of that religion, but a member of monastery. Yes, for this class to exist within worlds the world needs to incorporate Buddhist monsteries. And if that doesn't make sense within the region, then all members of this class MUST be foreigners.
"Monk Weapons" are just.. well... whatever random Asian weapons the designers seem to have come up with. And specifically Asian weapons. Nothing European works or counts. No, it is a Monk Weapon ONLY if it is Asian with an Asian name and while the stats might be the same as something with a European name, they MUST be named Asian things to work.
Many of the abilities seem to have faux Angelicized Chinese names
All members of this class are expected to have Chinese skintone and Chinese names. In fact, about the only time you will encounter an Asian name in D&D at all is if you are interacting with a member of this specific class. The entire culture has been boiled down to supporting this one particular class does does not seem to have a place in any other time, place or culture.
If one is talking about a European martial artist, a boxer, a wrestler... well then one is expected to take the Fighter class and a feat that will do a pathetic job of supporting this class. They either become Fighters and have a super high Dexterity or become Barbarians because they do not qualify as Monks for distinct lack of Chinese-ness.
If you have a character whose fighting style involves keeping mobile on his heels, bouncing around with the grace of a ballerina before moving in and delivering devastating punch after punch after punch, hitting with the power of a truck right over and over again, many times a second wherever the enemy neglects to guard, right or left and maybe finishing them off with an uppercut. In addition the person has trained to take blows like no one's business, able to stay conscious and alert through taking and blocking blows that would drop any lesser man-- and those are just the few he can't dodge.
Does such a character simply not count as a monk because he is not a Buddhist, has never been anywhere near a monastery and doesn't spend most of his life in meditation?
And non-humans? Well, unless they are going to be using Chinese names and Chinese weapons, seems like they forbidden from using the abilities of that class.
A Dwarven school of fighters who train their bodies to be as hard as stone, to forth to the enemy without fear and any reliance on any tools beyond their own natural bodies and yet become immortal juggernauts that can push the enemy back and crush them below their heel. Not a monk?
The Wood Elf Falcon Fighting Style which teaches its warrior to leap between the trees and come down upon their opponents putting their full body weight behind devastating kicks before leaping back into the trees. Perhaps they utilize some sort of throwing daggers as well to keep the enemy offguard and create the openings for them to swoop down from above and shatter the enemies spines by stomping on their heads. Not a monk?
The Goblin Fight Art Style of the Throat-Biters. Go unarmed at the opponents and use sweeping, flying and rolling attacks to knock opponents off their feet to get them down to their own side before going for their throats and strangling them or slashing them with their teeth and claws. And, as the name suggests, they happily use their teeth as weapons. Not a monk?
Orcish wrestlers who specialize at mobility, dodging around enemies and grabbing ahold of them to supplex them, put them into submission holds or simply snap their necks. The only weapon they use is a chain in order to help their holds truely be inescapable until they have choked the light out of their enemies. Not a monk?
The Hobgoblin school of the iron claw. Fight in normal garments, their only weapons being gloves with sharp cold iron-tipped fingers. Focusing on moving across the ground with the stealth of a wolf, leap at their enemies and dig into them like the pounce of a tiger and deliver devastating blows to them modeled after the great carnivorous gorillas. Not a monk?
None of these ideas involve monasteries, meditation, using Asian weapons, having Asian names, involve refering to anything as "Ki". So by the description of the class in the book, none of these things can count as "Monk" even though they are all sorts of Brawlers that would be best represented by being given the same sorts of abilities.
But instead of an open, welcoming, versatile class, we are left with a set of abilities that are made exclusive property to characters with Chinese (or Korean or Japanese, since gamers don't know to think there is any difference anyway) names using Chinese weapons who are of Chinese skintone belonging to Chinese religions and come from Chinese style monasteries where they use a Japanese name to explain the concept of momentum, energy and spirit being channeled through their attacks and use Chinese (and some Japanese) weapons.
Yes, it does indeed seem to be the Monk is far too narrowly defined to at all deserve to be a class.
Monk isn't any more narrow then fighter.
Short answer: No.
Where do you get "must be a buddhist"? A D&D Monk is many things, from Shao lin warrior to Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan to the Native American (played by the half Japanese guy who hosts Iron Chef America) in Brotherhood of the Wolf. True, it's a class mostly inspired by Kung Fu movies and commonly held stereotypes about 'Asian' martial artists...But it only has to stay there if your imagination is limited (and racist, lol). For example, you could be a Brazilian Capoeira master, or an ancient Greek wrestler/boxer, or a MMA/video game style street fighter.
I do think Monks deserve 1/4th of a page of special monk weapons, not just the simple weapons everyone gets to use in the PHB. Also, the Monk should, IMO, stay psionic like how 4e set them. They are psionic in 5e, pretty much anyway...Just label them as such, already...
Monks also deserve meneuvers/expertise dice (Knock prone, push, pull, add a die to hit or to damage, AoE and 'flying' kicks, etc.) like the battlemaster gets. Plus, Monks also need improv weapon techniques, like Jackie Chan with a horseshoe tied to a 15' lengh of rope. Yeah, there's a lot of room for more Monk subclasses. I hope there will be a PHB 2, or at least class soft cover books like 2e did.
(edit) PS: a Monk is very different than a fighter, IMO. Fighters rely on technology (weapons, armor, steel...) Monks use their body and mind/spirit. A fighter is nothing without his gear. A Monk doesn't need gear. The only thing they have in common is being mostly melee-centric.
I think you're holding some early versions of the Monk against 5e, here. Yes, the first incarnations of the D&D monk in the 1e AD&D PH and before, seem like they're plucked striaght from the 70s TV series 'Kung Fu' and clearly were inspired by the inroads martial arts were making into the American mainstream back then - with all the stilted culture-centric 'orientalism' and whatnot you're complaining about.
2e soft-peddled the Monk, it was like a Kit. 3e, FWIW, had an iconic Monk character who was not asian. 4e punted Monks into the 'Psionics' power source, but they still used 'Ki foci' and had powers with flowery names (OK, not that most classes didn't have some), but it at least linked the to something /else/ - even if it was the odd take on psionics linked to the Far Realm.
The 5e Monk seems to have been expanded. Yes, one sub-class is still little more unarmed/unarmored fighter, and, were the implementation of the fighter not so mechanically limiting, might even have been better under that class. But, the Way of the Four Elements adds unique supernatural powers with their 'ki,' so that adds some breadth to the class concept, as does the Way of Shadow, IIRC, ninja-like though it may be. And, like most 5e classes, it has it's own unique mechanic (ki points) to help differentiate it.
Tony_Vargas wrote:
I actually think that developing the monk styles of the other races would be a great idea, possibly with the "variant" format. For instance a monk style that it is later introduced called something like "way of the dragon's tooth" is a sword based monk build and to the side it has "variant" High Elf dancing leaf swordsman ship. Describes the High Elves sword fighting style, and the schools of swordmasters that grow up around arcane academies who try to eschew magic in case enemies ambush the school with powerful magic draining devices. Then explain that non-elves can still take the build, but that it is very rare to teach non-elves this style of fighting, and it should be an important part of the character's story how the elves taught them this path. It might say DM's may allow players who plan on taking this path at level 1 to replace religion in the PHB with Arcana.
Whenever i sit down and try to make my own systems, i can never find a good reason to make the "fighter" type class and the "monk" type class separate entities. Even in 5e, we have a mystic martial arts monk with special fighting powers and the fighter with potential mystic powers and special fighting powers. The level of armor you wear is the only real conceptual variable.
First question....
What's the difference between a Monk and...
A Fighter that relies on Dex, uses light or no armor, and has access to some weapons improvised from farm implements.
A Cleric that is similar to the Fighter described above... a Cleric of a religion that discourages the use of armor and weapons.
A Rogue that - of course - uses Dex, has some acrobatic skills, uses no - or improvised - weapons?
I'm not a huge fan of the Monk as a class either, to tell the truth. Just never saw how a Monk is different from a type of fighter or fighting cleric....
While we shouldn't be bound by our culture's steriotypes of the Monk... it's hard to separate our own experience from the concept of the Monk.
When I think of the Monk, I think of Chinese Buddhism... Monk is not a martial artist... it's more than that...
So when you mention things like Phillipeno, Brazilian or American forms of unarmed combat... then you're mixing two very different things...
A wrestler or boxer is not a Monk. The concept of Monk has religious overtones - at the very least... if not a religious (or at least philosophical) basis.
I think this is more a failure of one's imagination.
First, few campaigns are set in realistic Europe. Most fantasy settings (FR, Greyhawk, Oberon, Arcanis, etc.) have psuedo historical cultures which specifically include Asian inspired feels to them. Khitani or Yhing Hir of Arcanis, the Baklundish of Greyhawk, etc. have Asian influences.
Second, I fail to see why monks can't represent any variety of western influenced concepts. A pit fighter, psuedo-religions folks without spellcasting, a Greece/Roman wrestler, or someone who came from a weapon oppressing society -- a rebel peasant. You can also ignore the fists and it covers a quarterstaff expert, stick fighter, street thug, etc. Many western inspirted folks do seek spiritual or physical enlightenment.
Third, the class is robust in skills and abilities to represent a lot of character concepts -- an acrobat, a nomad, hermit, scholar, sailor, thuggish rogue, an athlete, an assassin like character, etc., etc. Simply select the correct skills and background and the class works well as a base for many concepts.
Forth, nothing says Buddhist other than Holywood movies. I think you really have to expand your experiences by reading some more differs fantasy literature. Ignoring that many settings have monk-specific gods, the character could easily fly with an athletic god, contenplative god, a thuggish god, etc.
Fifth, I don't see why non-humans wouldn't also develop monk-like concepts. I don't see why you can't have an elven wrestler, a halfling hermit seeking self-enlightenment, a half-orc debt collector, or a gnome sailor who is used for fighting on ships with clubs, staves, and fists.
We didn't get the monk we wanted, we got the monk we deserved.
Monks should have been prevented from picking up armor to keep them distinct from every other melee. Unarmed combat needed to be made to work like something other than just another weapon so they wouldn't play like every other melee. The monk should have gotten Battle Master as that feels like something that could work as an extension to martial arts and ki magic rather than what the monk got which was 3 subclasses that boil down to adding on gimpy spell casting to the class. Likewise the monk could have gotten the barbarian's Totem Warrior as it again better suits the animal inspiration for kung fu and doesn't really suit barbarians to begin with.
I love the idea of a monk class, I hate the way they wrote it. It doesn't fit at all in my oldschool, vaguely Tolkien inspired medieval fantasy world. I'd have to rename most abilities. A monastery in my world would be a place where fat monks make wine or beer. 
Just GTFO with your "Ki" out of my medieval fantasy. 
CCS wrote:
GhostStepper wrote:
I've never found it easy to fit the monk class into any campaign setting I've devised. I tend towards variations on the "basic" D&D setting, heavily influenced by Lieber, Howard, and Moorcock, and end up leaning more towards swords and sorcery than high fantasy. As a point of reference, I find Forgotten Realms to be cluttered to the point of incoherency, trying to cram in every last thing in all of D&D so that it's all "there" somewhere. The monk class has always felt tacked on to me, and the pseudo-asian overtones are more limiting than liberating.
I think if the class was presented more like the physical adept from Shadowrun, or as a purely psionic class, rather than a mystic kung-fu guy, it would be more interesting to me. As it is, I usually just exclude the class from my games and settings, because I have enough work to do building a world and a campaign already without having to completely re-fluff and re-name a class, or figure out where the "asian" area is that all these monks (and no one else) comes from.
I heartily agree that monks should have gotten some sort of "menu" option like warlock invocations or battle master maneuvers.
Zardnaar wrote:
Timborama wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
5e monks are possibly the weakest class at low levels. They are just to squishy to be in melee.
(of course, 5e is still more balanced then previous monks).
Once you get 20 Dex, and a enough ki points to last a battle, they do much better.
Lotta hate here for my favorite class. You can make pretty much every class in the book and have a way to make it fit your idea. Monks get some esoteric abilities as they level, but it's all up to you how to roleplay it. I'm playing a dock thug brought up in the school of hard knocks by using the monk class right now, and it's working like gangbusters. I plan on having him start to open up to the "greater truths" as he adventures and starts to learn more about reality in general. I have a friend who plays a split class monk/bard as an irish pub fighter. It's all in how you want to play it.
I hear all this complaining about a class that "dosen't fit" and yet little talk about the three classes that are almost mechanically identical - Mages, Sorcerors and Warlocks. How can you complain that Monks don't deserve a spot in the game and insist that Warlocks fill some sort of unmet niche.
Lawolf wrote:
austinmonster wrote:
mellored wrote:
A non-rolled Monk can start with AC 16 at best. That's not quite sufficient for safely staying melee without control effects used imo. Rolling for stats or after a bump or two and you can be fine.
Bloodscythe wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Rastapopoulos wrote:
I agree with other posters - there are plenty of viable monk archetypes that will fit into various settings. There are three Monks in my group (using a modifier Nentir Vale setting):
Ashryn is a half-elf who ran away from home after she discovered she had the unique ability to control water around her. She spent the last ten years meditating (and even communing with natural spirits!), mastering her body's unique powers. She's on our current quest because of visions she recieved from the World Serpent. (The player in question was inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender)
Merla "The Decanter" Trill is an old Halfling who spent her life as a drug dealer. Things turned around for her when an alchemical accident sent her into the Shadowfell, and she had a run-in with the Raven Queen - now she's joined the group in an effort for redemption. Her unarmed abilities are simply from years of dirty fighting (she's clawed out a crocodile's mouth before), while her Shadow abilities are from her brush with an extraplanar entity.
The third monk, Atka, is a recruited Level 1 NPC (the PCs are level 5). She's a tiefling who studies the Way of the Living Flame with her brother (a fire-themed sorceror) - it's a clan of tieflings who harness their infernal connection to fire.
1eejit wrote:
1eejit wrote:
mellored wrote:
abs1nth wrote:
Pangur wrote:
I disagree, although I actually feel very much in sentiment, the Monk is probably the class I least care to play (I can't remember ever playing one) and the hardest to squeeze into my homebrew worlds.
However Cheesy Kung Fu is now an iconic part of our mythic narrative. It got stuck there in the 70's and hasn't left.
The monk nicely contains alot of concepts for the more magical side of fantasy oriental martial arts.
And I rather like that they have out and out the Path of the Shadows with the "ninja".
- But also have the rogue class if you want to take a more "realistic" (a term I use very loosely) take on the concept.
But perhaps the iconic concept of the Shaolin Monk *is* as "valid" as the Knight divinely empowered to smite demons, devils and undead.
And I concur that it is a rather odd list of abilities... but I find the fact that Cleric and Wizard spellcasting is almost identical when they're to be far odder.
It's been that way since at least 1977 It's kinda a staple of D&D and if we reject it hard enough... then we go and play other RPGs instead.
I rather agree with this section at the start of the Tome of Battle 3.5E book.
BLENDING GENRES
Is Tome of Battle martial arts for the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Game? Is it good only for an Oriental Adventures-style game? Does it
challenge your conception of a Western European fantasy world? In short: Sort of, no, and we certainly hope so.
If you’ve ever played a ninja or samurai—or for that matter, a monk—amid a group of “standard” D&D heroes, then this book is for you. Thanks to the influence of Japanese anime, Hong Kong action movies, and popular video games, the notion of a fantasy setting has grown very broad in the last few years.
Fantasy gaming isn’t just about knights and castles and dragons anymore. Ninjas and samurai, ronin and shugenja, yakuza and monks—all these and more have gradually filtered into people’s expectations for a fantasy world. Games such as Final Fantasy and Soul Calibur, as well as movies such as Kill Bill and The Matrix, are excellent examples of how martial arts have become “Westernized” in film and electronic gaming—and how eagerly Western audiences have accepted martial arts idioms in their action stories and games.
Tome of Battle: Book of the Nine Swords deliberately blends the genres of Far East action games and the “typical” D&D game world. Portions of this material resemble a martial-arts supplement suitable for an Oriental Adventures game. Other parts, however, deliberately fantasticize and genericize martial arts idioms (such as fighting schools and special combat maneuvers) and import them into the default D&D campaign. More than any other, this book represents “culture-blind” D&D: fantasy gaming in a world where silent ninjas and wandering kung-fu masters live side by side with noble paladins and fearsome monsters. Tome of Battle isn’t your parents’ D&D—it’s bigger, bolder, and even more fantastic than ever before.
Pangur wrote:
mellored wrote:
abs1nth wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
mellored wrote:
mellored wrote:
Orzel wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
mellored wrote:
I think something like 'Ascetic' would be a more thoughtful class, and give ample opportunity to depict ascetics of various cultures/persuasions more openly. 'Scholar' might be a level 3 style variant, bringing to mind the likes of Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang, as the wizard class very poorly models these types of characters imo. Ascetic could then be more of a methodology of internal focus (and precursor to Psion, or perhaps Psion could even be one of the variants as well) and mechanics akin to the vein of the Pact Blade Warlock; the variance comes in the amount of magic baked into the class. From full-on martial artist reinforced with internal (read: psionic/ki) strength to the courtesan who can pen a letter so venomous and insulting that the man reading it will surely die or tear his own flesh in shame/sorrow/rage (a form of Save vs Death, successful resulting in x damage, for example, chosen as an ability similar to how invocations are chosen by locks).
I think this gives it more design space, a more fluid entry in the genre, and more directions to carry it. Of course, it wasn't around in 1978 so it might be a hard sell to all the "ALL MONKS ARE DAVID CARRADINE" types.
Lawolf wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
When I look at what I want the monk to do, it seems like the barbarian is the better choice, and when I look for things I would like a barbarian to do, half the time the monk fits the goal better. If it were me, I would have merged the unarmored fighters together. Both manage a quasi-mystical resource (rage and ki), are martial, and back in the day were good at sneaking up on people in the woods.
mellored wrote:
Where did the OP get the idea that monks have to use asian weapons, when in the PHB and Basic eastern weapons are specifically a variant and "monk weapons" are explicitly all simple weapons and shortswords?
Chiisai_Usagi wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
The truely cheesey movies were the ones from the 90's and early 2000's that parodied them and were intentionally pouring on the cheese.
The monk is not too narrow for a class, if anything it's being stretched too far and thats why things like tounge of the sun and moon which are kind of random, silly, and out of the blue for most characters have infiltrated the class. It's trying to be a martial artist, an asian mythology based sage/hermit, and a meditant all at once (and have sub-classes in the 5e version). It's kind of like trying to be sir gawain, baba yaga, and cassandra all at once.
I would like a psionic Yogi subclass.
Brock_Landers wrote:
I guess if I had to cut a class then I would get rid of Rangers, Barbarians and Druids before I cut Monks.
FFSAA wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
I would be interested in seeing the "psionic" 4e monk in 5e. Rename the class Esper and have it take the 4e monk and the 3e soulknife's stuff.
Now that would be a unique and interesting class.
Lawolf wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
1eejit wrote:
1eejit wrote:
HOnestly soulknife probably needs to be either it's own class or a fighter sub-class.
Soulknife is a cringeworthy lightsaber-wannabe. Please no.
Orzel wrote:
How would the Gunslinger and the Summoner fit into all of this?
Orzel wrote:
Gunslinger should never have had to be it's own class, it was created because the fighter class, even with the pathfinder boosts, was too boring to represent the daring pistollero or deadly crackshots that the gun weapn type is most commonly associated with. In a just world it would function perfectly as a fighter sub-class.
Summoner is a bit harder to place, see the dnd wizard is too broad for one class, it's got access to spells based on dozens of mythologies and fantasy series some of which had conflicting ideas about what mages should and shouldn't do, and how they went about doing/not doing it. Frankly the various schools of magic would be more than adequate to be classes in and of themselves, with the summoner being the conjuration class, or you could turn around and do different classes based on the magical tradition you're basing it off of so for example the rune-based caster with words, glyphs, and symbols of power would be a separate class fromt he guy whose magic works by arcane formula stored in their head which is a different class from the guy who siphons off the life forces of himself and/or those around him to create magical effects.
Devs have stated they are working hard to balance summoning/conjuring.
That's why the options are VERY limited at the moment. A true summoner will be available, I'm sure. Most likely available as a subclass of each archetype: Wizard, Druid, Psion, and maybe Cleric. Personally I'd like a Sorcerous Summoner or a Warlock Binder, but that's just me...
Actually, it'd be super cool if in a future release they just had an "all about summoning" section and gave us all those options or subclasses! Including new monsters or familiars!
Timborama wrote:
It doesn't sound like the class is narow, OP, but rather that you are artifically narrowing it by your statements about what "is" or "isn't" suitablly 'monkish' enough for you. A lot of the terms, abilities and such harken back to the classic 'kung fu' kind of stuff, but those are just names. Strip those and replace them with other terms if you'd like and i find it to be a mechanically fine, viable and applicable class, regardless of the character concept or fantasy culture.
The Monk class is rich enough now without trying to artificially staple the Psionic class to it. That was such an aweful idea.
Hebitsuikaza wrote:
Someone should mention how there should be a Samurai class, with a breath weapon (ya know, the whole Kiai thing), and then the OPs head could explode.
Timborama wrote:
rampant wrote:
Personaly I always felt Ki and psionics are basicly the same thing.
To broaden the subclasses that you could create for the monk maybe they should turn the Ki points into psionic power points, and make a refrence that some forms of monks prefer to them as Ki
Do other people feal like I do that Ki = psionics ?
and if not what are the diferenced between ki and psionics.
Yes. I thought it was natural progression for the monk to be included as a psionic power source in 4E. But I am not a big advocate of mixing sub-systems like vancian and power point. I prefer they choose one or the other. Otherwise, you will find loopholes where one becomes more powerful than the other. The same can be stated for other sub-systems like short rest. You add too many and it is a crapshoot.
IMO:
Samaruai = Paladin, Oath of the Ancestors. You worship your anscestors, protecting their name and your house.
Psion = Closer to 4e psionics then other. Where you choose a power, then get points for augmentation.
Uchawi wrote:
Honestly I find the Monk to be much less narrow than the Paladin or the Ranger. The Paladin is nothing more than a romanticized knight (literally, its origins are in 12th Century re-imaginings of tales from 500 years before), and a Ranger is... well, Aragorn (now with 20% more Drizzt). They are niche concepts from decidedly Eurocentric archeypes.
You have European Monks (like the 2E Monk, with divine spells and a decidedly more Friar Tuck angle). You have Chinese/Nepalese ascetics (most often thought of as Henshin Mystics), with a decidedly "Kung Fu" like "Shamballa Master" angle. You have purely martial Monks, a straight transfer of Bruce Lee onto paper. You have Airbender style elementalists. Ryu style chi throwers. The list goes on and on.
Paladins and Rangers are singular archetypes that were expanded upon until they were large enough to be classes. Monks in contrast are a huge set of multiple archetypes, all (relatively poorly IMO) boiled down into one collective class. The Monk isn't too narrow to deserve a class. The class system is too narrow to encompass the Monk.
Uchawi wrote:
I was joking about the Samurai deal, class my ass, Background, at best.
The problem lies in the disparity of Class Types;
You have the Warrior, Rogue and Mage which are all Broad Archetypes covering any conceivable character concept. Definition of the class is done by the Player, filling in what kind of Role his specific version of the overall Archetype fulfills. Ideally, the game system would provide a system capable of allowing the Customization that these broad classes require.
Then there are the more clearly defined Archetypes such as Ranger, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, Druid, Cleric, Monk, Bard, etc. Each of these are just derivatives of the broad Archetypes, whose defining characteristics have been filled in by someone elses idea of what those classes should be.
So yes, I believe the Monk is too narrow to deserve it's own class, as are the Ranger, Barbarian and others. I'm of the opinion that 5e would have been better served to create a system that allowed a Player to choose as their base either Warrior, Rogue or Mage and choose the traits necessary to build their own versiion of the Iconic Archetypes as their personal Character Concept called for.
FFSAA wrote:
abs1nth wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I'm conflicted with regard to the monk. I generally don't feel that the monk is too narrow, but I also don't think that martial arts prowess should be the sole purview of a single class. However, if martial arts prowess is available to other classes, then the monk does to seem to lose much of its schtick which can easily feel like the class is too narrow. It's a quandry.
MechaPilot wrote:
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Orzel wrote:
The execution of the current class is narrow. The concept is not. Something something sacred cows. The 4e monk, for all it's problems, did a solid job at making the monk feel like a great class.
Strill wrote:
Lawolf wrote:
Seraphex wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
The only thing I miss about the 4e monk vs. the 5e monk is those AEDU powers/maneuvers that included a special cool move action with a monk attack (total action, or split into one or the other as the PC saw fit). That one thing made the 4e monk feel and play very uniquely compared to every other predominently melee class.
That'd be a cool thing to add into 5e's monk, even if it's just another sub-class that comes along in a splatbook.
I do like the power point/ki point thing though...4e left that out. 
seti wrote:
For my 5e character, I wanted (1) a melee class with (2) multiple attack rolls per turn. Because I usually play ranged attackers with One Big Bang per turn; when you miss, you are useless for the round.
A "monk" is a melee guy who hits you with two medium-sized zaps per turn; 50% less chance to be useless !
And on another thought, I have had to create character concepts that canot carry around the best and latest in weapon technology, due to a "gun control law" that was part of the campaign background. (One was in a Testament game set during the Book of Judges era.) The Classic Monk class was a natural place to find relief and be able to contribute to a fight (Rangers and Barbarians, re-fluffed, work too).
Here's a subclass that is currently missing from the "too narrow" monk.
Any number of names could work, from Improvisor to Weapon Master.
Can use nearly any object as a weapon with proficiency. It doesn't have to be similar to something that is already a weapon.
Improved disarm, requiring only a successful attack, can use a weapon to disarm a target. Can use any weapon taken from an enemy as if proficient with it.
Blah blah blah Jackie Chan
here's another:
Spirit Warrior
Choose an animal spirit. That spirit kicks it with you, counting as a familiar. Give a few choices with sensory/other utility benefits.
Also give abilities related to taking on animal traits temporarily, and some druid spells that feel right for a spirit shaman type.
about as Chinese as a tomahawk.
I have my own game to build, so I'm not going to develope actual subclasses here, but the point is clear. The Monk is narrow in your own mind, but not elsewhere.