Without the monk committee!

I don't really know what this post addresses. Overpowered skills can be tweaked by the envoy system (which is what you're complaining about), but it's the design and mechanics behind monks that are (at least, I'm trying to prove to you) unbalanceable.

To reiterate my earlier statement, Monks need their stacks to change to different balances. When deepwounds, damage, and ruptures are all stacking onto the balance of health potions, it's unbalanceable.

And, as I think I've made my point of the problem, an idea for the solution is about due.... If, for example, monks scaling damage was removed, and ruptures were moved to a salve cure, then balanced from there, it would be possible for monks to be balanced.

I'm a fan of arnica myself.

Should probably have ruptures cured by PHLEGMATIC. Since its related to the blood flow issues.

You need monks to do more damage as they connect more, or at least do more something. There is a basic kata style to the combat, where the more they land attacks, the more damage they do. However, I think there needs to be something which disrupts their kata. I'm thinking doing something like sipping health or mana, or some other defensive action could stop the kata. Many of their attacks and afflictions then, would be based on trying to stop you from being able to hit them in the first place.

Just an idea.

Another option is that you just take the warrior concept, and as they do more deep wounds to you, they can do stronger afflictions.

The problem with this is that if you start taking that route, you are basically turning monks into warriors with robes.

Taking deepwounds out of the equation entirely might keep them unique. Where a monk is more focused on rupture patterns. Kind of like a nerve center basis. Combinations of ruptures on certain body parts will result in different afflictions and/or damage bursts. Moving from the simple to the more complicated. Rather than brute force a more delicate and precise effort. Dunno if that would be easier to balance really.

That means you wouldn't be able to choose which rupture to cure.

Elixirs would be bad - too easy to cure with, not enough things on that balance.

I think we're missing the most important flaw in monks. The scaling damage. This definitely needs to change before you can start having a semblance of balance.

Yes, the scaling damage needs to go.

Plenty of games of have scaling damage over time. Why is this such an issue?

The problem of everything being balanced over the health potion I understand. I don't understand why scaling damage is in of itself a problem.




don't those two things balance each other out?


edit: removing deep wounds from monks and just giving them ruptures sounds like a good idea actually. Give ruptures a non health cure, and allow damage to scale based on number of ruptures.

He explained the problem in the first post. That with scaling damage based on scaling wounds which are both cured on the same balance, you get a situation that cannot be balanced. It is either too much or too little. Damage could scale based on something other than deep wounds. Something that was not cured on same balance I suppose but then you're getting into a too little situation.

Damage scaling based on something on a seperate balance? Like bards in a way?

heh, read my edit.

gotcha. I thought you were talking about the basic concept of scaling damage being something which isn't balanceable.

I think scaling damage is important to the monks. Especially if the scaling is connected to a kata.

Perhaps that would be the best way. Each form in a kata does more and more damage.

If 6 forms are max, then the first form does 600 then, 700,900,1100,1300, 1800.

Could have each rupture per limb hit add another 150 damage.

I don't think any attrition combat style can be properly balanced against any affliction/lock combat style, but that's just me.

I think we'd be a lot better off if damage, wounds, ruptures, and afflictions were all moved to mods. You'd still have special attacks with higher ka costs with special effects, but the bulk of monk combat should be less spammable than what we have now. Basic punches, kicks, and weapon strikes should do negligible damage and wounds. Throw on a damage mod, get better damage that scales with wounding. Throw on a wounding mod, get warrior-esque wounding. Throw on a rupture mod, get a high (50-66%) chance to give a rupture if you can get it through parry and dodge. Throw on an affliction mod, get afflictions based on ruptures or wounding. At least make the monks decide what they're doing, instead of PPK and ninshi nonsense.

That's one way to look at it. I used to say attrition combat in general wasn't balanceable, but I've moved away from that.

I agree though, if you couldn't do ruptures, deepwounds, AND damage in every attack, instead only one of the 3, that would move away from the fundamental problem that I see. Then they could be re-balanced from that point on.

With this last Envoy change set, does the punch/kick (affectionately known as PPK) combo become less effective and/or the weapons combo become more effective? In my opinion, part of the problem was that punching and kicking got around that aura of rebounding and were far more effective for building up wounds and even giving certain afflictions.

I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned yet that stances and parrying (and, yes, even the aura or shield) can be used to protect yourself and allow you to catch up in your health/deepwounds curing. I still agree that having more and more things pushed onto the healing balance can be detrimental to the balance of the game (not to mention a real pain when writing a system), but there are so many factors involved in the overall combat experience that it's important to take them into account when discussing these issues.

I don't think anyone is going to use ppk anymore, so yes, stance and parry AND rebounding are all very effective against non-ninjakari monks, and they will very likely be becoming effective against ninjakari monks soon.

Why not?
When it comes to gettings modifiers to kick in and help you, unarmed head has the most, and you can still use several together, though less then before.
What's the alternative?
Shofangi has very few modifiers, and each only targets one body part, which makes unarmed head attacks even better when you use bullrage.

'cause punches are about half as effective as shofa now. And the mods are hardly that effective anyway, especially if they eventually fix breaknose so it doesn't stun (which it shouldn't be doing anymore anyway...)

Assuming we're aiming for more wounds at the begining, since more wounds means more damage later, isn't ppk+soft better then shofa, and you can throw in more mods like stun, break or concussion to slow them down as you build wounds?
Adding occasional Boganj so stance head isn't effective and you've got good chances to actually hit them.

No, shofa + soft is better. I'm pretty sure soft and hard work on shofa attacks too. Even if they don't, shofa is actually better than punch + hard now, heh. Stun and break require them to be wounded to begin with, and do very little. Concussion does do stuff, but again, it requires them to be wounded to begin with. Plus the ka costs are through the roof now. Shofa is just better.

Btw, you have to double boganj unless you're giving other affs that require salve balance. Your balance will always be longer than the time it takes them to cure the kneecap otherwise.