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1) Monks are really amazingly vulnerable.
I find that almost all of Viconia's healing is concentrated on me, even when I'm only being attacked by one opponent. At the current level, my character has AC4 (+4 from 19 Dex, +1 from Cloak of Protection, +1 from Claw of Kazgaroth), whereas Shar-Teel has -4, and even Edwin has 5 (or even less when using the level one spell Shield) with only the Robe of the Evil Archmagi. My monk also has 60 hit points even with 19 Con, as the cap is at +2 per level as monks aren't warriors. Contrast this with D&D 3.5E, where monks gain wisdom bonuses to AC, my character would likely have up to 4 better AC, and would also gain full hit point bonuses. Also comparing this to a Kensai, who gains a higher hit die and full Con bonus, as well as -2 from their base AC, the monk really does get quite screwed in this respect.
Also, while I am fairly efficient at dealing out damage, I still have 5 higher Thac0 and 1 less attack per round than Shar-Teel. I have the same Thac0 and 1 1/2 fewer attacks less than Kagain, who has 16 Str compared to my 18/97. If I use Flurry of Blows, I still have 1/2 fewer attacks, but also have 3 worse Thac0. I am not overly concerned with the number of attacks as it will balance out later, plus I have Stunning Fist, but as this doesn't lead to certain stunning, combined with the poor AC my combat capabilities are really limited.
I'm not sure how possible it is alter the HP adjustment to have a different cap (even capping it at +3 rather than +2 might help things in the long run), although I believe that having an open-ended cap might be possible given that it's a Fighter Kit. Also, giving a base -2 to AC would bring it more in line with both the Kensai and with D&D 3.5E, as it simulates the monk basically having 14 Wisdom (although personally, I normally start any monks with 16 Wisdom, and thus would have -3).
2) Clerical Scrolls
Why can a monk use Clerical scrolls? The monk has nothing to do with the Western monks basically being cloistered priests, and a monk makes no use of Divine magic.
3) Flurry of Blows
When I use the Flurry of Blows ability, I gain NMMONK04.SPL, which has no icon and no name (which makes it default to the icon of an empty quickslot, and is called "Quick Weapon"). Using it gives a target creature SR 23. I'm guessing that it's supposed to give NMMONK03.SPL (Flurry of Blows) again. If this is a bug caused by my install, I'd be happy to post my WeiDU.log file.
4) Shou Disciple
Building on what SixOfSpades said about giving monk extra abilities via scripting and joining a monastery, a possible option I'd like to see would be the ability to gain Shou Disciple-esque abilities. If you're unfamiliar with it, the Shou Disciple is a 5 level Prestige Class in the Forgotten Realms splatbook Unapproachable East that basically gives more fighter like abilities (eg. higher BAB, unarmed damage, martial weapon flurry) at the expense of monk abilities (eg. abilities like no disease/poison immunity, no speed increase) for those 5 levels.
A way I can envisage this happening would be to remove/slow down the rate of gaining a few movement rate increases, and poison/disease/charm immunity, but gain increased attack bonus increase, and either increased unarmed damage or grant proficiency points in some weapons (eg. Katana) and duel wielding.
While at first this may sound quite overpowered, if you remember that protection from effects like charm in BG mainly seem to come from helmets, the monk can be quite vulnerable to such spells if you slow down/remove gaining such bonuses.
5) HLAs
I actually strongly recommend the Refinements HLA table instead of the Oversight ones, as in my opinion they are more useful and less cheesy than the Balthazar ones.
If you ever intend to make HLAs of your own, I would quite like to see a permanent Vorpal Strike ability (based on the Epic Feat of the same name).
Edited by Despair, 03 December 2006 - 07:09 AM.
