Alrighty, so Serenwilde is being over-run by masses of everyone's alt and their mother, mostly on male kephera. It got me thinking and I went through the races to see what I thought might be good monk races.

Placement. Race (reason)

1.Faeling (lvl 3 balance, 18 dex)
2.Aslaran (lvl 2 balance, 16 dex)
3.Male Kephra (16 dex, resists)
4.Furrikin (lvl 1 balance, 17 dex)
5. loboshigaru (15 dex, 16 con, regens)
6.Illithoid (15dex, 15 con)

Kephra and Illithoid might be bumped up when they specialize as well, (some of them are very close to each other as well, like aslaran/faeling, aslaran have a lot more con)

I've also got a theory that psychic resistance might be wanted for Monks(which I also factored into those rankings for kep/illithoid) if they take that other secondary skillset. (and if others don't come up with something I've got an awesome idea that would make psychic resistance for monk-characters worthwhile )

Anywho, what are everyone’s thoughts on this? I generally ranked them as I did because I believe balance will help them deal all of their attacks quicker (which they have many of with long combos) and dex... well just theorizing, but that dex for monks will be like str for warriors, but monks will specialize in accurate strikes, sort of like hitting nerve clusters (vulcan nerve pinch!) and what not.

Do you agree with me mostly, think I'm totally backward, or what. Comment, speculate, and rave away!

QFT

Faeling have ridiculously low STR, so even with the high DEX, you're going to just end up with maybe fast attacks doing little bitty chunks of damage at time. Especially if you pit a faeling against, say, a Kephera (good con and blunt/cutting resist) or a Tae'dae (insane con, same blunt/cutting as kephera). So possibly knock faelings down a few slots.

I'm rather hoping it's not a 50:50 weight between dex and str, but rather that dex is pretty much all you need, and str plays a minor role. I'd really like Dex to matter more. Look at the rest of the stats:
Cha=influence god
Int=mage damage god
str=warrior damage god
con=tanky god
size= well not godly, but it has it's importance for stun/writh time.

And… a 9 dex Tae'dae monk? I'd hope that would as undoable as an orclach Mage with 8 int, trying to staff-cast people.

I meant, a Faeling monk HITTING a Tae'dae. Doesn't matter what class the Tae'dae is. Secondly, you can DO an Orclach mage, just he/she will be just absolutely crappy. That doesn't change the fact that it's mechanically do-able.

And when you're ticking off stats, are you just listing what each stat does or are you actually referring to a race?

EDIT: And STR should play a role, though not in a primary manner. After all, you're going to attacking unarmed/using weapons. How do you expect to do decent damage if you're a twiggy little winged creature with no strength to back up your speed? In terms of raw power, faelings are going to fail. However, if DEX influences accuracy and bleeding, then it should balance out since you're hitting more and causing more bleeding compared to lower DEX monks who will be hitting harder but with less frequency.

EDIT 2: Not counting Ashteru, because he is Titan with all the 1337 skills and items. Tae'dae and Igasho (and Loboshigaru, to an extent) are going to be difficult to damage kill if Strength:Dexterity aren't balanced right. Especially with lower STR races like Faeling and Furrikin.

EDIT 3: Though I feel that this raises the question, "What will Human monk stats look like?" How will humans progress in that archetype? That's usually a good idea of what attributes you want for that archetype and I think it should reflect the STR/DEX balance best (once they finish it).

Not too much to worry about there, I am the only Tae'dae.
(Okay, maybe not the only, but damn close. )

You forgot Krokani. 16 strength, 15 dexterity, 16 constitution. High Dexterity, high Constitution, penalties are easily circumvented: Level 1 cutting and level 1 magic weaknesses are taken care of by a good set of robes or armor with a proofed cloak.

If Strength means little, you're still tanky and have decent Dexterity.

If Strength plays a portion, you become an absolute beast.

All other races mentioned in this little tier ranking have zilch for Strength, and if Strength affects damage on top of the deepwound damage, hitting faster won't mean much of anything.

What's the point of making this topic when we don't even know how stats will affect the monks?

Because they're all still a-flutter over the announcement of the topic.

According to what Shiribot's written so far, dex will mainly influence wounding for the Monk. Wounds themselves will increase damage done (I hope to a greater extent than it does for the warriors!) and a chance to afflict with poisons (monks with poisoned daggers? hmm...).

So, in my opinion, unless the damage bonus from wounding will be vast as compared to normal Monk damage, DEX will matter only SLIGHTLY more than STR. Which is a good thing - it's still a very important stat, but makes DEX-high EVERYTHINGELSE-low races more balanced.

Adding up to the fact that (according to Shiri) Monks will have a possibility to speed up their attacks in katas, as one of possible bonuses, I see that balance recovery won't play as big a role as I was afraid it would be.

My verdict is as follows: the best monk race HAS to be Krokani, unless the basic ideas about the class change, or my perceiving of them is completely wrong.

Faelings, Aslarans and Kephera would still make extremely good choices though. Same for Loboshigaru. I'm not so sure about Human - but at sufficiently high levels, they're good at everything.

EDIT: Illithoids are rather on par with Loboshigaru. Here's my list so far:

1. Krokani (huge STR, great DEX and CON)
2. Kephera, Illithoid, Loboshigaru (tough guys, very good CON)
3. Aslarans and Faelings (huge DEX, very fast albeit low CON and STR)
4. Furrikin (basically, Aslarans Light)
?? Hunam (not a typo - refer to Star Control II)

All positions are really close to each other - I think they will all work fine.

Aslaran all the way, baby.

One thought, if monks are going to have acrobatics and if dex determines dodging ability as well as their primary attacks str seems like a less necessary stat. Yes it will help them do slightly more damage but the high dex races would probably have the advantage of being able to dodge quite a few attacks while dealing more accurate strikes. images of a faeling running up, side stepping the strikes of a warrior then stabbing their blade deep in to an open wound are racing through my mind.

Don't know why, but while the stats for the krokani might seem good for some reason the actual idea doesn't seem right. Though the psychometabolism skill would probably mean int comes into it, while not required we also don't know what the other guild skill will be

Psychometabalism is a Psionics specialization, which means it's probably based on charisma. Or at least ego (for the Illithoids).

Thinking about that with the level 3 eq and balance penalties, I would assume most monks wouldn't try for Tae'dae simply because it is slowing both their kata and their telepathic attacks. I could be wrong though.


Also if the whole undervault quest can be done to raise Illithoid stats too (which I am not sure of, some people say it isn't working properly) are they permanent? Or will it be making Undervault a huge prime conflict area where people aren't always going to be too willing to go. Finally resulting in people giving up and letting one race or the other have a stat increase?

I'm sure it's basically as long as the Queen of Queens is alive, and similar to the Illithoids.

The stuff isn't admirable, either. I'm only noticing one dex, one int as a female.

So then, psycho faeling monks might turn out fairly cool depending on how it works.

In the same vein as I don't think (hope, maybe) that a krokani monk will be a complete physical juggernaut, I don't think that they'll let faelings become incredibly powerful due to amazing charisma and balance bonuses.

It should come out with the difference between warrior races: no race is completely overpowered, but some races are definitely better choices than others.

The third skill will make the difference I guess, if it has an intelligence component then the krokani are going to be behind in it where some of the other options we have have the balance.

so...
faelings
Str 7 Dex 18 Con 9 Int 15 Charisma 16

Fall behind in str, but the dex is really high so we'd have to see how the skills worked to make a judgement. Cha is high so the psychos potentially have a benefit to that, where high dex comes into acrobatics I think. Int is high so if the third skill has a base on that they have that as an advantage. low Con is an ever present problem though, but with their speed they may be able to kill someone fast enough to ignore it.

Aslaran
Str 12 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 14 Cha 13
Higher str and slightly lower dex. Charisma is lower for the psychos. Int is close. Con is "normal" with balance recovery

Illithoid
Str 11 Dex 15 Con 15 Int 13 Cha 7
Str and dex close to Aslaran, shockingly low cha though the psycos may compensate with ego base. Int that step lower but con is higher.


Charisma mightn't necessarily mean much unless you want the psychometabolism skill, maybe a balance between the stats is some focus? Admittedly faelings don't really fit, however their high speed may compensate for that. At any rate, what looks good now might not be when we learn more.

double-post of dooom

This whole adding a dex archetype makes me very glad that Dracnari have fairly low dex...otherwise I might be tempted to switch guilds...

Herb + Sip penalty = Aslaran fail..


100% personal opinion.. But Aslaran is about as bad as dwarves if you ask me.