Monk AC not exceeding Monk level

[Phantom Lamb]

I suggest to bring the Monk AC feat in line with the Invisible Blade / Duelist feat, so that your AC gained can not exceed the levels you have in that class.

There's some cheesy stuff out there with 1 monk / x druid for example. Much like what was done with Shadow Dancer, I think it's best if we migrate away from dabbling only one level into a class to gain a large bonus. Reworking the AC bonus this way would still keep it powerful for those who are truly monks.

Yes, this could open the door for moving Cleric domains out past level 1 too, and other "Level 1 dabbling" approaches. But I think the Monk one sticks out the most for WIS-based characters.

[ManUtd4Ever]

Cool... I hope those of us that play pure monks will not suffer from any changes.

Cheers!

[Raksha]

Conflict of interest alert, as this would gut the combat capability of my main, buuut...

What's the harm?

Monk / druid is the biggest example because of Owl's Insight. It's often specifically banned from servers for this reason. But for monk / something else, let's see what sort of AC you get.

0 -- from armor
about 7 -- from dex, if you're going a dex-based character with Cat's Grace.
about 6-7 -- from wisdom, if you've got a +4 wisdom boost from somewhere.
--
about 14

Compare to:
8 -- from mithral full plate, which just about anyone can buy the proficiency to use
3 -- from dex
2 -- from a heavy shield
--
about 13

So you're getting a net of about +1 AC from this. But wait, there's more. By using a no-armor no-shield ability, you also lose out on an additional +3 to +4 from shield enhancement bonus. The only way to possibly make that up is with the Shield spell (which can't be cast by anything that has wisdom, except maybe a mystic theurge) or a Brooch of Shielding, which takes up your neck slot and is only available from certain factions.

I'm really not seeing what's too broken about allowing characters with light or no armor to perform in a similar AC class to characters that wear plate. Isn't that the exact point of these abilities?

[Lugwy]

Cool... I hope those of us that play pure monks will not suffer from any changes.

Cheers!

I suggest to bring the Monk AC feat in line with the Invisible Blade / Duelist feat, so that your AC gained can not exceed the levels you have in that class.

I'm down with this change. No difference for the pure, but splashes would have to dip deeper.

[Jai_V]

If that had been in effect while I was playing Amon, I would have never played him. It gimps a lot of Sacred Fist builds. I'm all for balance, but Raksha's right; it's not like the AC bonus is that ridiculous in comparison to what can be achieved by other spell-casters or folks with money to burn.

[Lotus]

Not doing this. It would make low-level monks needlessly hard to play, and we already seek-and-destroy the monk/druid cheese builds. If anything, we'll explicitly ban select combos in the rules.

[Tamha]

As far as I know most of the monk/druids have already been nuked or permed or retired, so all this really does is ruin SF builds. Seeing that my secondary character is an SF, I am obviously biased against this. In her mithril breastplate buffed to +4 with MV and with Owl's Wisdom, she still only has the same ac as her paladin husband in top tier Triadic gear. Taking away that +7 from her wisdom would make her ac so low that she couldn't reasonably be in any melee ever, which would be bad for a character that gets -8 ab if she puts on any weapons (and therefore can't used ranged attacks). I don't even use her bp most of the time, going for her faction chain shirt, because level 20 acceptable areas usually have a lot of dispellers.

[GodBeastX]

I don't know why everyone wants to nerf things. I'd rather buff everything else than nerf something.

[Jhickey]

Please excuse my ignorance, but why is the Monk/druid build so good? Maybe I just don't see it, or even understand the combination.

[Doubtful]

They're a wis based caster class so they gain great amounts of ac, particularly in wildshape mode where armour benefit doesn't carry over (plus they can't wear metal armours)

Plus they get flurry of blows which works in wildshape and can give them a real boost.

I'm on the fence about it really, yes its a cheesy ass build, but polymorph/wildshape is so fugging broken and shitty that I find it hard to begrudge them a bit of Bree scented rectification.

[Jhickey]

I guess that makes sense. Other than the flurry of blows in wildshape, I really don't see the issue. but then again I didn't know what was so good about it to begin with.

[Phantom Lamb]

Monks receive two bang-up feats at level 1 - flurry and the Ac bonus, so you will see a lot of builds that only take one rank of monk. You'd see the same thing with Shadow Dancers - and you DO see it on other servers.

Sundren specifically moved that HIPS ability so people wouldn't just take one level of that class. Given that, I'm surprised the idea isn't better received by staff. You're right that it isn't a big deal, and it certainly is no skin off my back if this doesn't change.

[GodBeastX]

I feel like, why not just let druids take these feats or something, like "EMPOWER WILDSHAPE - You can fight better as a badger" for a feat.

[Lotus]

They're a wis based caster class so they gain great amounts of ac

It's the Owl's Insight spell. The build is 1 Monk / 19 Druid. The Druid doesn't lose anything important for taking the one monk level and casts Owl's Insight for +10 Wisdom. That's +5 AC.

So then you turn into a Treant, which gives you

STR 29
DEX 8
CON 21
2-12 base damage
22 Armor Class
Immunity to disease, critical hits, mind effects, paralysis, poison, fear.
50% vulnerability to Fire.
Animal affecting spells such as Magic Fang can be used

So you cast Greater Magic Fang, all your buffs, get all the Treant stuff rolling, cast Energy Immunity: Fire to shore up that one weakness, and turn into super wtf tank.

As to why I'm opposed to limiting the Monk's AC bonus from Wisdom, Monk is a base class that you cannot slot into just any build to make it more effective, but Shadowdancer is a prestige class that you could. I'm not going to deny low-level monks and Sacred Fists their Wisdom bonuses to AC to mechanically disable the 1 Monk / 19 Druid build when I can just say, "Don't play that build." Compare that to Shadowdancers gaining HiPS at level 1, and just about every single build could make room for that class to cheaply gain that powerful ability. It's a huge difference that explains why something like Shadowdancer would have its payoff moved to Level 4 and why something like Monk wouldn't.

[Phantom Lamb]

Understandable!