Wizards’ Monk Playtest

Although I’m not a D&D Insider subscriber, I got a look at the playtest version of the 4e monk — a class that is dear to my heart.  I’d speculated previously that the PHB3 classes would be more complex than their earlier counterparts, and the playtest document seems to confirm that, to an extent.  At least, this particular class seems fairly complex.

What I didn’t expect:  The monk is a Psionic striker.  Evidently the designers felt that the Ki power source was too limited, and have more or less stricken it from development.  Psionics, as a power source arising from inside, was the next-best fit.  Although it caught me off guard, it makes sense — although I’m sure the “use the Force” jokes at the table will proliferate.  But I can live with that.

Monks get their own new keyword, too:  Full Discipline.  Every power with this keyword contains multiple possible actions — for instance, it could feature an attack technique as a standard action, and a movement technique as a move action.  If it’s an at-will power, you can use both techniques as long as you have the appropriate actions.  If it’s an encounter power, you can only use each one once.  I’m not so sure of this decision — need to see how it plays out — but I do like the idea of modeling a fighting style.  The powers could prove pretty versatile.

My own take on the monk (which I suppose I should get around to renaming now) is a more straightforward one, but there are a number of things I “predicted” correctly:

Not a monk weapon, according to Wizards. Boo.

* The focus of the monk is on mobility, utility, and control effects, mostly from melee range.  They’ll do less damage than the other melee strikers (I suspect) but offer more control.

* They do spread damage around pretty well, though.  The new Flurry of Blows is a free action that triggers after the monk lands a hit, and inflicts damage equal to his Wisdom modifier to one or more adjacent enemies.  The monk also gets to slide them a square.

* Their key abilities are Dexterity, Wisdom, and Strength.  (Ok, I predicted Constitution instead of Strength… two out of three ain’t bad, even if Wisdom was pretty much a gimme.)

* Their unarmed strike is +3, 1d8, unarmed group, offhand.  It can be enchanted as if it were a weapon (which I used the Meditative Focus workaround to accomplish).  Monk weapons include unarmed attacks, clubs, daggers, quarterstaffs, and spears; some powers are only usable with monk weapons.

* Their class feature is Monastic Tradition, which is pretty similar to my Martial Style.  (Of course, it’s kind of a catch-all:  a class feature plus a minor benefit.)  Theirs is a little more specific type of training, as opposed to my general fighting style, but I like it.  Should make it easy to expand the monk’s options, too.

This also means that one of the power sources featured in the PHB3 will be Psionic.  I’m guessing Elemental might be another (shugenja and wu jen, both mentioned in the monk playtest, could both fit that power source).  As for the third… I could see “mystic”-style ninja as Shadow, along with a dedicated illusionist or enchanter class such as the Beguiler.  So, four Psionic, two Elemental, two Shadow?  Seems like a possibility to me…

I’m looking forward to seeing the book, at any rate.

I still intend to release the final version of my own monk class, ideally in PDF form.  I’m hoping to use the 4e Power Toolkit once it’s updated.  That could be a while, but since it’s a busy time of year for me, too, the wait suits me — I don’t have the time to dedicate to formatting all of the powers and so forth myself, anyway, and won’t for a few weeks at least.  I’m thinking maybe it’d make a nice “blog anniversary” post.

Related posts:

1. 4e Monk project update
2. 4e Mystic project
3. 4e Monk project update
4. Monk-y Business
5. Barbarians at the Gates