Perfect Self: Advantage, or Disadvantage?

[Woot Spitum]

At first glance, Perfect Self seems like a great thing. Having your type change to outsider means that Charm Person and Dominate Person don't affect you, forcing enemies to rely on the higher level Charm Monster and Dominate Monster. On the other hand, the higher level "monster" versions of these spells are harder to save against, and by the time you earn the Perfect Self ability, these spells are readily available. Worse yet, you can no longer benefit from spells like Enlarge Person and Reduce Person. So do the advantages of Perfect Self really outweigh the disadvantages?

(Of course if your character wasn't humanoid to begin with (say, a half-giant) you are shafted either way; I guess that's the price you pay for being big)

[Indon]

Anyone who can use Dominate Monster on you, would use Dominate Monster on you if you were a humanoid anyway.

And anyone who could use Enlarge Person on you at level 20 could use Polymorph on you instead. And Polymorph is even cheesier when you use it because you can turn into any Outsider in addition to all the types listed by the spell (Balors, for instance :P).

[Chronos]

Immunity to a few low-level spells is made further irrelevant by the fact that, between your saves and your spell resistance, you were already nearly immune to them, anyway. And being an outsider also has its disadvantages, including increased vulnerability to certain spells.

It was even worse in 3.0, though, when a simple Protection from Law would stop you from making any bodily contact with the warded creature. Not exactly a good thing, for a class built around making bodily contact.

[Nebo_]

Let's not forget that you now have the most useless type of DR in the game. The entire class feature is pretty much obsolete by the time you get it. Hell, DR/magic is useless by about level 8 or so.

[Voyager_I]

Allow me to answer your question with a question: Why are you playing a Monk?

[Khanderas]

Allow me to answer your question with a question: Why are you playing a Monk?
Yeah ! Bring him to the whipping-pole !
Suffer not a monk to live !

<mob>Yeahh!!!
</mob>

Perhaps he likes to play Monks ?
Seriously tired of people letting us know Monks suck. We all know (except SG, who wages a constant war against the notion that Monks suck, credit to him for keeping the fire lit). The question he asked was weather that Monk ability was a bonus or a penalty. Not an opportunity to have to explain himself.

Playing non-optional characters should not be something to be ashamed of, especially in a game system where you can with the "right" DM find a candle, and then rule the world a day later (or 10 minutes game-time). Quite paradoxy (made a new word) that cheese is ALSO frowned upon. Cheezus.

[Talic]

Question, if you have racial hit dice, and thus, racial BAB, wouldn't that confer a higher BAB to the now Outsider monk? Good for a level 20 ogre monk, for instance... I know, it's a limited use bonus, but it's something.

That said, I think outsider isn't really better or worse, but different. Level 20 games should be able to allow most characters to protect themselves from many things, including domination, death effects, and the like (long-term protection spells, death wards, and the like... The outsider feature of monks is only really applicable unless you're in a level 20 game, and thus, it's hard to divorce the level from the ability.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Question, if you have racial hit dice, and thus, racial BAB, wouldn't that confer a higher BAB to the now Outsider monk? Good for a level 20 ogre monk, for instance... I know, it's a limited use bonus, but it's something.

BAB, HP and saves do not change. The only change is for the purpose of magical effects.


She is forevermore treated as an outsider ... for the purpose of spells and magical effects.

[The Glyphstone]

^Hmm...possibly a step towards making the monk better, if its "capstone" was a full-on transformation into the Outsider type.

[Starsinger]

^Hmm...possibly a step towards making the monk better, if its "capstone" was a full-on transformation into the Outsider type.

Or free acquisition of a template, like Dragon Disciples. Afterall, by monk 20 you've suffered enough to earn some sort of template.

[Talic]

Or free acquisition of a template, like Dragon Disciples. Afterall, by monk 20 you've suffered enough to earn some sort of template.

Half celestial? Half devil? Half golem?

A template that provides +5 BAB, +20 HP, and 5 free feats? Or would that make it too close to fighter?

[Duke of URL]

Or free acquisition of a template, like Dragon Disciples. Afterall, by monk 20 you've suffered enough to earn some sort of template.

Why not? Dread Necromancer gives the Lich template for free at level 20, so there's a precedent.

[KoDT69]

Allow me to answer your question with a question: Why are you playing a Monk?

That seems to be the real disadvantage, taking a monk to level 20! I used to try everything to make the monk class work but it needs a complete rewrite. I'm on my 4th try but yet to playtest. It barely resembles the original class. A RAW monk is horrible.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Why not? Dread Necromancer gives the Lich template for free at level 20, so there's a precedent.

Due to the fact that Monks are Monks, unless they are Swordsages, of course, I fully support this idea.

More on topic, Perfect Self is useless, pretty much. Besides that, I hate it when Wizards slaps on a transformation in an Outsider as a capstone and calls it a day.

[Miles Invictus]

Yeah ! Bring him to the whipping-pole !
Suffer not a monk to live !

<mob>Yeahh!!!
</mob>

Perhaps he likes to play Monks ?
Seriously tired of people letting us know Monks suck. We all know (except SG, who wages a constant war against the notion that Monks suck, credit to him for keeping the fire lit). The question he asked was weather that Monk ability was a bonus or a penalty. Not an opportunity to have to explain himself.


If the original poster had asked for help building a Monk, or had some question about the flavor of the class, I'd agree with you. However, the poster was specifically asking about mechanics. In this case, it's perfectly valid to comment on the Monk's weakness.



Playing non-optional characters should not be something to be ashamed of, especially in a game system where you can with the "right" DM find a candle, and then rule the world a day later (or 10 minutes game-time). Quite paradoxy (made a new word) that cheese is ALSO frowned upon. Cheezus.

There's a subtle difference between telling someone a class is suboptimal and trying to ruin a game.

Back to the topic at hand...Perfect Self isn't that impressive of an ability. I like the idea other posters have put forth -- granting a custom template, rather than outsider type.

[Starsinger]

Why not? Dread Necromancer gives the Lich template for free at level 20, so there's a precedent.

For a moment, I thought you were advocating monks gaining the Lich template. And the first thing I did was laugh because Lich is a caster template.. but then I looked at some of the synergy Lich has with monk, and it's not bad..

+5 natural armor adding to the monk's naked armor class, the ability to boost a natural attack by 1d8+5 every round with the added benefit of paralysis, damage reduction bludgeoning and magic and the (redundant for a monk) ability to bypass bludgeoning and magic damage reductions with its natural attacks, immunity to two energy types, +2 to all mental scores, +8 on a few skills many (if not all) of which are monk skills, all piled ontop of yummy undead benefits like immunity to mind affecting effects.

The only two problems I see with this are being undead and having complete MAD (as Charisma is modifies the DC of lich abilities). The way around this is of course, the Ascetic Mage feat. So yeah, Lich would be pretty cool for a monk I think.

[Crimson Avenger]

For a moment, I thought you were advocating monks gaining the Lich template. And the first thing I did was laugh because Lich is a caster template.. but then I looked at some of the synergy Lich has with monk, and it's not bad..

+5 natural armor adding to the monk's naked armor class, the ability to boost a natural attack by 1d8+5 every round with the added benefit of paralysis, damage reduction bludgeoning and magic and the (redundant for a monk) ability to bypass bludgeoning and magic damage reductions with its natural attacks, immunity to two energy types, +2 to all mental scores, +8 on a few skills many (if not all) of which are monk skills, all piled ontop of yummy undead benefits like immunity to mind affecting effects.

The only two problems I see with this are being undead and having complete MAD (as Charisma is modifies the DC of lich abilities). The way around this is of course, the Ascetic Mage feat. So yeah, Lich would be pretty cool for a monk I think.

Aesetic mage is a great combo if you don't mind the two less caster levels so you can get evasion, but almost HAS to be taken with Force of Personality so you can get triple duty out of your high Charisma score (AC, DC's, Lich abilities).

Add a Monk's belt so a 20th level you can get the +6 unnamed bonus to AC, Bracers of Armor +8, as big a DEX and CHA boosting item (say +5/ +9 respectively), and the +5 to Nt Ar, for an unarmored AC of 43 before casting a single spell. That's more than respectable.

[Starsinger]

Aesetic mage is a great combo if you don't mind the two less caster levels so you can get evasion, but almost HAS to be taken with Force of Personality so you can get triple duty out of your high Charisma score (AC, DC's, Lich abilities).

Add a Monk's belt so a 20th level you can get the +6 unnamed bonus to AC, Bracers of Armor +8, as big a DEX and CHA boosting item (say +5/ +9 respectively), and the +5 to Nt Ar, for an unarmored AC of 43 before casting a single spell. That's more than respectable.

Oh.. forgot that ascetic mage actually requires caster levels... oops. Which ruins it for lich being the new perfect self.. other than that.. it was a good idea.

[Talya]

Half celestial?


A truly "free" acquisition of the half celestial template (meaning, no level adjustment) would almost balance the monk at 20, actually.

Almost.

[Starsinger]

A truly "free" acquisition of the half celestial template (meaning, no level adjustment) would almost balance the monk at 20, actually.

Almost.

Yeah.. monks even gain a few similar abilities while leveling similar to Dread Necromancers and liches.

[Tokiko Mima]

The Monk capstone should be a transformation to 20 levels of a better class. :smalltongue:

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The Monk capstone should be a transformation to 20 levels of a better class. :smalltongue:25. You stuck with it for 20 levels, you deserve something. :smalltongue:

[Worira]

Hmm... the lack of enlarge person kind of sucks.

[Indon]

If the original poster had asked for help building a Monk, or had some question about the flavor of the class, I'd agree with you. However, the poster was specifically asking about mechanics. In this case, it's perfectly valid to comment on the Monk's weakness.

Question: "Hey, it seems that Perfect Self has some downsides. What's up with that?"
Response: "LOL You play a monk they suck so bad!"

Yeah, that's valid.


Back to the topic at hand...Perfect Self isn't that impressive of an ability. I like the idea other posters have put forth -- granting a custom template, rather than outsider type.

I think it's a pretty fair capstone, though maybe the DR should be changed to 5 resistance to all energy and 2/- DR (being what adamantine grants, that seems flavorfully appropriate) or somesuch. Capstones shouldn't generally be too awesome, but instead nifty little bonuses above and beyond the class' normal progression.

[Craig1f]

If I were to change the capstone, I would do the following things:

-Change DR/Magic to DR/-
DR/Magic is worthless past level 6. Anything that isn't using a magic weapon probably is not very dangerous to you.

-Allow the player to be "treated as an Outsider only when it is advantageous to the player."
So, you get hit with charm person? Boom, I'm an outsider! Immune! Oh, you want to use enlarge person on me? That's awesome, because it's not like I'm an outsider or anything!

-BaB is instantly converted to full BaB for all monk levels.
Although, ideally, I would just make the monk get full BaB to begin with.

[Person_Man]

If a player in one of my campaigns makes it from Monk 1 to Monk 20 somehow, they're free to trade Perfect Self for the type or reasonable template of their choice (undead, plant, construct, celestial, whatever). I can't imagine them surviving in an Epic level game without something meaningful to help them.

[Draz74]

I used to try everything to make the monk class work but it needs a complete rewrite. I'm on my 4th try but yet to playtest. It barely resembles the original class.

I've written a version that's not really too far from the original, but which I think ends up being about as powerful as a Rogue (extreme UMD cheese aside). You can read it here. (http://3eupgrade.akashicrecord.org/Monk_rebuild)