Monks are boring. What's more, they are pretty thematically one-dimensional for a class that purports to have such a rich, detailed, and varied background.
Let's fix that.
**My idea in a nutshell (screw you, tl;dr at the end, I do what I want!): **
Give monks not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 6 paths, with varying strategies, strengths, and styles of play that all feel similar to the current design, but different enough from each other to make the paths unique and the choices feel important.
The problem, in my mind, with current monk is in fact its flexibility. "WHAT WHAT WHAT?!" Yeah, I read your mind. Deal with it. See, the issue with their flavor of flexibility is that there's really only a few stances that see routine use. Fallbacks. The rest are pretty niche, and while its nice to have that niche, it kinda relegates those stances to just being poor options. Lame. Yawn.
Solution? F&@# up everything!
So you get to level 30. Big deal. Still have 20 more levels to go, newb, get to grinding. BUT WAIT! What's this? You have a selection to make. WHOA BOY, calm your nerd brain for a moment. How do you choose between friggin' six different playstyles at level 30 when you're still derping around killing centaurs or some poor dudes who thought a hedge maze looked fun, but then they got lost and just gave up trying to leave like "This is my life now" until some jackass with a sword comes in and murders them for funsies? By reading what they do, of course. What are you, derpy?
HERE IS WHAT THEY DO. God. Get off my back about it already. If you respond with a Mulan joke, I swear to GOD I will forum ban you forever. Not really, don't tell the boss I said that. But seriously, don't. It's played out. Unoriginal. You can do better, I believe in you.
Flowing River: Stances are fun, but also not. It's like... you choose one, but then you're like "well I don't actually want to do this stuff". BAM. You change your mind. Done. You can change to any other stance of the same type. Offensive to offensive, defensive to defensive. If you ask about going from offensive to defensive or vice-versa, I am going to assume you eat glue.
Hollow Palm: Like punching people? Also like magic? I got you covered. Your martial arts a/b are magic damage ALL THE TIME. No more annoying chii management, or deciding between magic attacks or nifty bolts. Just straight up hybrid damage. And more of that damage than other monks. But you kinda skip leg day, so those do not get the extra damage or the magicness. Sucks to suck I guess.
Raging Fire: Blocking is for scrubs, amirite? No, I am not. But if you still wanna play like that, how's about a path that takes away your defenses to give you extra fire damage attacks that cannot be blocked, and scale with your missing health percentage? Go ahead, play that glass cannon monk build you've been having wet dreams about. Ain't nobody stopping you now.
Inner Spirit: Chii is great, right? But then you have to store it. Boooooo. Lame. Well, now you don't. Thank you, stored chii AC. Oh, that's all? NO IT'S NOT, YOU IMPATIENT MOTHA--- ahem. Your chii? Way friggin better, Like. 3 times better. And it lasts a LOT longer. And it even focuses your mind. Screw you, dispel, you ain't even a threat.
Iron Body: Ever want to be that anime guy that gets hit but doesn't seem to notice? Of course you do, you filthy weaboo. Well now you can. You're friggin' welcome. With Iron Body, as long as you are in a defensive stance, you get flat damage reduction %. But uh... no offensive stances for you. Come on now, you can't do EVERYTHING.
Cobra's Reach: Demons, walking corpses, basically-angels-but-also-not-really, walking armories and puny little elf jerks throwing meteors and calling blizzards... all of these things exist and you expect to just punch them into submission? WOW, get some brain cells the next time you go shopping. These monks are smarter than you. They got REALLY good at a few very strange weapons. So good that they can just use them as an extension of their bodies.
Nunchuks: Chance for your attacks to land as a rapid assault of low damage mini-attacks. These attacks then have an additional chance to daze your opponent.
Fist Blades: Your genius finally realized you can tape some knives to your hands and be friggin' Wolverine. Knives are really good at puncturing things, like organs. Those tend to be important. When you do puncture them, you can have some nifty debilitating effects on your opponent, like making them bleed (duh), weakening them (kinda hard to engage those arm muscles with gaping stab wounds in them), enfeebling them (arms? I meant legs), or wounding them (because gut punches suck more when there's a 4-inch blade attached to that fist).
So, you got your paths. Is that it? Seems kinda bas--SHUT IT NERD. No, I'm not done yet. You think I'm done yet? I outta slap you with my meaty monk jun--- erm. Yeah. pg 13 lloth, pg13
Your big boy energy go you to level 30. Now you can murderhobo for real, instead of just uprooting entire ecosystems, political structures, and civilizations not for the widespread and enduring effects they'd surely have... but just because you want to be the very best, like no one ever was (except lots of other people who smell your newbie blood in the water like some kind of disgusting land shark). Makes sense to maybe get even better at your chosen style. You know... before you're pithumped for malform kills.
Flowing River: You can now change those stances freely in combat, and have no lag when changing stances.
Hollow Palm: You land chakeras more frequently. How much more frequently? Don't be such a numbers nerd. More. Frequently.
Raging Fire: You saw how devastation zerkers kinda get off on being punched and seem to ignore the damage sometimes, and you thought that was neat, so you joined your local masochist dungeon group. Meetings are on Tuesdays. Bringing snacks is optional, but if you don't then people will silently judge you.
Inner Spirit: Releasing your chii now brings back your stored chii to one level lower than it was. So if you bolt at level 3, you now have level 2. Bolt again? Level 1. Bolt again? Why aren't they dead yet you scrub? But yeah, you're out of chii at that point. Learn to flee and return, ffs.
Iron Body: Once per 24 hours, while meditating in a defensive stance, you can regenerate hp in a series of cure light wounds.
Cobra's Reach: You get 2 more options.
Handwraps: I know I already said it, but I really want to drill in the point that you monk players are all weaboos. And what weaboo wouldn't pretend that the bandages on their anime character's hands aren't also a weapon? And of course your protagonist can unwrap them instantly. And they are definitely durable enough to hold their enemy in place and prevent things like, oh I don't know, fleeing.
Chains: Ever see one of those terrible kung fu movies where the bad guys just swing their swords around blindly, and then the good guy gets a chain, and the bad guys are all "LETS HIT THE CHAIN WITH OUR SWORDS! THAT WILL WORK!" and then proceed to be casually disarmed like a bunch of untrained bonobos daydreaming about kiwi and vending machine drinks? It's like that, but even more over-the-top fantasy, because this is a wish-fulfillment fantasy game. Hold the applause.
Don't like this idea? That's ok. Everyone can be wrong sometimes. I won't think less of you.
