[RedSlayer]

Out of curiosity, what do ya'll think about relative power of all the classes?
Core, or otherwise?

For most powerful, I'd have to go
Druid
Cleric
Wizard
Archivist
Artificer
(Of course, with errat'd wildshape, I might go cleric first...)

For weakest, I'd say
Monk
Warlock
Warmage (cept maybe from 6th to 10th level)
Hexblade
Fighter

[Dthclaw]

And I would severely have to disagree with Monk being placed on the Weak list. For the first few levels, maybe, MAYBE the monk is behind. But once they start hitting around level 6 or 7, they just start completely taking off compared to other classes. A character building a Monk will easily be able to outdo other characters in combat, mobility, AC, etc.

A 20th level Monk has no reason not to Flurry of Blows every round. Because they take virtually no penalty on it. And they get more atacks per round than *any* class when fighting unarmed (breaking the normal max of 4 attacks and dealing more damage than most weapons per hit, to boot).

Our group's Monk, at 20th level, had an AC almost a full 15 points higher than *anyone* else. And he wasn't even Dex whoring - he was pumping his Wisdom. Combine that with the ability to wear things like bracers of armor, rings of protection, etc. with things like amulets of fists or whatever the hell they're called, and there is not a snowball's chance in hell of the Monk being "weak" in any measure.

[RedSlayer]

Monks look good on paper, but in practice, they are fairly weak, a la Warlock.

If you really believe that a "properly built monk" can easily out do other classes in combat, you've never seen the other classes properly built.

I'll grant you that a monk's defensive abilities are very nice. in very high stat games, they have decent AC. They have great saves, evasion, still mind, and eventually poison immunity and SR.

So let's give the monks more credit than thier worth and assume for the moment that monks *cannot be killed*.

They're still not overpowered. So they can't be killed. So what? Why would anyone ever want to kill one?

2d10 at level 20 is LESS than the base damage of a +5 greatsword. (Not even gonna mention +2 flaming, shocking, keen, etc) Monks also have literally the worst attack bonuses of any character class in the player's handbook. With 3/4 BAB, MAD, no magic weapons, and no buffs, a Monk is adding NOTHING to his 3/4 BAB. Rogue's have high dex, weapon finesse, and magic swords. Bards have buffs and music. Clerics have buffs and domains. Monks have nothing. So they miss, a lot.
A monk typically does less damage per hit on an attack than a character of equivalent level, as well as hitting less. Also, an Amulet of Mighty Fists would eat up tons of money, and take up the traditional item slot for a Periapt of Wisdom.

Tripping and Grappling are reasonable tactics, except that since fighters have higher strength and BAB, you can't reliably trip or grappl enemy fighters. Dwarves have stability, giants have size bonuses, and many creatures can't be tripped (snake sand whatnot) or shouldn't be grappled (remorhaz). Stunning fist, with it's fort save, is also useless against melee monsters.

So lets look at a common high-level monster, the dragon. Dragons make monks cry, eveyr time. Monks are immune to breath weapons, yes. However, the dragon can't be tripped, can't be grappled, can even be attacked because none fo the monk's mobility features allow him to attack flyers, and can't be stunned either. The monk is reducing to shooting a crossbow. Even if the dragon allows him to melee it, he'll do a fraction of the damage a fighter does and watch helplessly while the dragon eats the entire rest of his group.

And to quote the sig:
Oh, and yes, Monk's make great mage-slayers, as long as the mage isn't flying, invisible, good in melee, high AC, undead, or incorporeal.
(as monks are effectively useless against... all of these- and if your wizard isnt at least doing two of these things, then he's a pretty dumb wizard)

Vow of Poverty monks are even worse. Well, maybe not worse, but certainly not any better.

And do you mind if I see your player's character sheet

EDIT: Hell Dthclaw, I'll even run a test combat with you. I'll let you build a monk of any level, and I'll build a barbarian or fighter of equivilent level and we'll have at it. (perferably 8 or above, cause thats when you say monks take off in power). If the monk is overpower'd, he'll win more than 50% of the time. We can take turns on initiative, different starting distances, etc. I am pretty sure your monk isnt comin out on top.

[Dthclaw]

Don't have the time and don't particularly care. It was my two cp, take it for whatever its worth.

[super sorcerer]

Myself I agree with RedSlayer that a monk is a little underpowered on 3.5 , but monks have other unique strategies that are usefull becouse of thier high speed. An epic level monk can make interesting uses of spring attacks against slow foes, but for that you must be on a very high level and even then you would barely hit.
In a world with no magic where nobody get a +5 weapon ever a monk is a little more ballanced becouse nobody have armor +5 a ring of protection +5 and cloack of resistance +5 he can acualy hit opponents and his stunning fist might sometimes acualy stun his opponent (and not only on critical faliure).

I disagree with that the fighter is weak. A fighter with combat expertise and later even improved combat expertise can defeat every barbarian becouse as long as the barbarian is raging he will barely hit. If the fighter have feats like "mage slayer" from the complete arcana he is fair against wizards (even though he will probably fail most will saves) and with a mighty composite longbow a fighter could take out most flying wizard and clerics. I still agree that a wizard or druid or cleric or sorcerer are more powerfull than a fighter but I don't think that I will put him on the weak group (for example I think he is a little bitbetter than a ranger).

As for noncaster classes (inluding the noncasting versions of paladin and ranger that can be found in the complete warrior and assuming no magic or very very low magic):
Paladin-7
Ranger-3
Monk-1
Fighter-4
Barbarian-2
Samurai-6
Swashbuckler-8
Rogue-5
( I don't know scout and knight so I didn't rank them)

[Huerney]

To create a really powerful Monk, you work the brackets by increasing the effective size and level of that monk. (Yoda, notwithstanding, Small Monks suck!) Using the Monster feat Improved Natural Attack (if the DM is willing) and a wand of Enlarge, a medium sized monk moves up two damage brackets. S/he sacrifices some of the usually pretty high AC and to hit bonus with the enlarge, but the trade-off is worth it. Using a Monk's belt, s/he moves up 5 level brackets (making the monk 20th level effectively for damage). A 15th level monk gets 5 attacks doing 6 d-8 damage each (and you also get a Quivering Palm death attack)! Maximum damage of 240 HP/round, that's not too shabby for a 15th level character. DthClw is right, Monks are not weak as far as combat if properly constructed, and they have some useful stealth skills. Let's not forget that a monk can be dressed like the gardener and be at NO handcap when the battle starts (damage would be reduced to 4 d-8 without the enlarge, still not too shabby). S/he can also be hand shackled for that matter! Can't do that as a fighter quite so easily...
hh

[super sorcerer]

Quote

To create a really powerful Monk, you work the brackets by increasing the effective size and level of that monk. (Yoda, notwithstanding, Small Monks suck!) Using the Monster feat Improved Natural Attack (if the DM is willing) and a wand of Enlarge, a medium sized monk moves up two damage brackets. S/he sacrifices some of the usually pretty high AC and to hit bonus with the enlarge, but the trade-off is worth it. Using a Monk's belt, s/he moves up 5 level brackets (making the monk 20th level effectively for damage). A 15th level monk gets 5 attacks doing 6 d-8 damage each (and you also get a Quivering Palm death attack)! Maximum damage of 240 HP/round, that's not too shabby for a 15th level character. DthClw is right, Monks are not weak as far as combat if properly constructed, and they have some useful stealth skills. Let's not forget that a monk can be dressed like the gardener and be at NO handcap when the battle starts (damage would be reduced to 4 d-8 without the enlarge, still not too shabby). S/he can also be hand shackled for that matter! Can't do that as a fighter quite so easily...

For that I must reply that a cleric with high strenth score that cast divine favor and divine power can easily overpower anything (and if it he become wounded then he can always cure himself), especialy monks.
A flying invisible wizard/sorcerer/warlock is nearly invulnerable for a monk.
A druid that cast persistanst creeping cold (a spell from the complete divine) can kill everything that is not immune to cold, and a druid that cast extended extended miasma (another spell from the complete divine) can kill every breathing creature (such as monks).
A 16th level fighter with medium fortification full plate +5 and a wounding greatsword +5 and the standart feats of: improved critical (greatsword), weapon focus(greatsword), weapon speacialization(greatsword) have far higher attack bonus and damage than the 16th level monk so even though he have 1 less attack he can also overpower a 16th level very powerfull monk.

Against many opponents who have damage reduction that is ignored by cold iron, silver, good, evil, chaos a monk can never ignore the damage reduction with his unarmed strike.

Even though monks can be usefull on the rare ocasions when you have to fight without weapons and armor usualy you do fight with armor and weapon so this advantage is realy small.

So if you compare a realy powerfull monk with a realy powerfull other character the realy powerfull other character usualy wins.

[Axel]

You do realize that the exact same trick can be used by a fighter, right? That melee fighter can have someone enlarge him, since the spell affects his gear too we've just upped the size (and therefore damage) of his weapon. Assuming we're going for damage, we'll give him a greataxe. Now we have a large fighter weilding a huge weapon. Our melee fighter has probably maxed out his strength and con, so he can take that hit to AC and enjoys the sudden boost to his strength from his new size. And it's not like he was using his dex bonus to AC in that full plate anyway. His attack bonus shoots up and all he did was trade AC that he didn't need to worry about, given that he's already the party's meat shield.
And unlike monks, small fighters are usefull. Do the trick in reverse, shrink a ranged fighter. True he takes a hit to damage, but he can compensate for that by firing more arrows. He's alot harder to hit, and once again enjoys a boost to his attack bonus from the increased dex. And as a dex based fighter he doesn't have the heavy armor of his melee counterpart and can put to good use the bonus to AC both from size and from his higher dex.

[JosephBlackly]

An interesting argument all-round, but if no one else has noticed, it has devolved to "this twisted and broken core class can beat this other twisted and broken core class".

I've tried to compare classes before but did a poor job of it, so I can't really have an opinion on this beyond the base classes are as powerful as the campaign/DM allows. In a low- or no-magic campaign, that monk is going to kick the sorcerer's [CHAIR] because the sorcerer probably isn't there. In high-magic, the fighter that gets the Greatsword of Horrible Evilness +5 will most likely tear the monk to pieces... And the now-existant sorcerer will just Wail of the Banshee the fighter.

[Sitraahra]

I'll take the monk challange: AIM me at grimoirine or email me at sitraahra@hotmail.com to discuss conditions

[Greg Swifthands]

I'd have to look at my book again (for 3.5) but doesn't a Monk become an Outsider at 20th Level... and you'd have to add the Outsider Template to em... which would mean... they get even more immunities, and can break the stat maxes cause they're no longer base-race? which means they can use Monstrous Character Advancement, in place of standard? or am I breaking this down by to many technicalities?

Edit:
Nevermind, just read in the book, they're Outsiders only in terms of Spells and Magical Effects.