So, I was thinking about monks and I feel like they never had a very defined role in a group. They had a lot of cool abilities and perks, with the whole scaling without armor. They could cast resists and stuff but couldn’t really heal and they more or less needed a stun device to offtank, and monks were very effective tanks for things around their level but struggled at lower levels to tank things above their level because they had to wait for their passive armor to scale.
I was thinking mainly they need some kind of taunt, so I was thinking something like Dragonkick would be in the flavor of that martial arts vein. It could work a few different ways, but what I think would be cool if its possible was that it had a minor stun component but also knocked humanoid or smaller mobs back several tiles. So your in the middle of the room persay and your cleric just turned a Vampire and took aggro, it steps in next to him, you dragonkick it and flies to the back of the room is stunned momentarily and you take aggro back. It wouldnt work on larger mobs as we dont want Gokus running around Nexus, but it might make for an interesting mechanic that gave monks something unique to bring to the party.
Or if thats not possible to code just make it like charge and they could Lui Kang across the room.
Also, in helping to define a role, and since we wont be using thac0, may want to add a dodge chance for monks to assist in their tanking abilities.
Monks for me - both in Nexus and other RPGs - were always considered a mele dps or off tank but regardless of play they were martial art specialists. In the second best mud I played after Nexus monks had sligthly different mechanics.
They had a number of special attacks aside from the normal attack command (I don’t recall the exact hits names, but i’m sure we can comeup with some fancy names if needed):
special hit 1, special hit 2, special hit 3, special hit 4 ect.
Each of those have minor difference in overall damage output or different effect. But the fun part came when you start combing them in sequence. Monk could execute 1, 2, 2 ,1 = result in Dragontail strike (much like fighter whirlwind) - hitting all mobs in the sqare where the monk currently is for some damage - either the full amount of % of the Monk’s Damage.
Another specual could be mini stun, or push mob 1 square away, or shatter enemy armor/magic resistance as it breaks through their magic barrier/life energy aura ect. It creates room for ALOT of oportunities an fund.
The recepies for each special combination are unknown, and though to monks through trainers, study, research, scrolls or given by the Gods ect.
Additional thought: Monk stances - battle stance - increase X% damage, or lowering time between attacks.
defene stance - increase X% defence/armor or dodge change (or all of those depending what defensive mechanics they have) but increase the overall damage output and/or time between attacks.
Monk weapons: in the light of martial arts allow monks to use fist weapons and staffs - Some special combinations hits could be for Staff users, other for fist weapon users, third for pureley unarmed combat.
ps: names clearly can be polished a bit like “Windwalker Stance” for haste, “White Dragon stance” for damage, “Wind Dancer Stance” for tanking or something in those lines.
Yea I had been thinking that if the Two-handed weapon/dual wield idea goes in, Monks would kinda get the shaft since they don’t use weapons. That could easily be countered by making some monk only weapons, some staves for monk could be Pole weapons and you could two hand them.
Or just make them be able to punch with both hands to essentially dual wield.
For flavor, instead of having them hit with the mainhand first, they could hit with the offhand first and you could make it like:
You jab for 25 damage!
You punch (right hook, uppercut) for 100 damage!
and it could maybe randomly cycle some different punches. Perhaps you get the extra punch at 10 or 15.
Theres definately a lot of cool things you can do with Monk, like palm strikes, maybe extra damage from chi, the kind of combo system you were outlining. Maybe an E. Honda hundred hand slap.
But they for sure need to have touch of death and meditate to keep with the nexus train, and also they should stain their chi from killing nonhostiles, that was nice flavor for monks. Like I said I think Monks really need to be better tanks though, and it might be cool since fighters are a Con based tanking class, to have Monks be a dexterity based tanking class.
Maybe have dodge be based on a combination of level and dexterity, so you get a certain % of dodge every level but then also get bonus % from dex bonuses. Monks got their magic resistance at 15 before I believe, but it might be cool to have them actually be able to dodge spells as well, or if dodging a spell sounds corny, have a chance to just fully resist a spell, making them kind of the premiere tank for caster mobs.
Hello, as I recall from all dangerous combats, the monks could take a lot of stress out of the combat from the main tanks. With the incredible dodge rate at high levels we could stay in combat a lot of time by dodging melee and ranged and resisting well magica damage. When we were badly or very badly hit meditate was there to assure we could outlast a bit more until another tank would relieve us or keep the combat going depending on the challenge. Monks were one of the best rounded classes for soloing in the game. Touch of death, meditate, we did have hide and sneak too, utilitary/support spells. It was fine. The setting was very clear on no weapons for monks and I totally agree with that. They scaled without the need for weapons. Of course my peers as Berserkers and Fighters usually would outdps me but I had way more sustain overall. Also remember that monks had vital strikes which was similar to the zerkers thunk or thump dont remember now. Fighters had the chance to lethal damage, insane with the multihit system.