As if Pathfinder didn't hate monks enough.

[Psychic Robot]

Paging through the Advanced Player's Guide. Most of it's crap, but some of it is usable. Then I got to this gem:

Perfect Strike (Combat)
When wielding a monk weapon, your attacks can be extremely precise.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +8.

Benefit: You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). You must use one of the following weapons to make the attack: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, and siangham. You can roll your attack roll twice and take the higher result. If one of these rolls is a critical threat, the other roll is used as your confirmation roll (your choice if they are both critical threats). You may attempt a perfect attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (but see Special), and no more than once per round.

Special: A weapon master monk or zen archer monk receives Perfect Strike as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A monk may attempt an perfect strike attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.

Emphasis mine, but that's just for humor. See, monks get this mediocre ability where they can roll twice for attacks. Just not for their unarmed strikes.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Of course, once a monk reaches level 12, there's no reason for them to be using unarmed strikes anyway since a weapon will just do straight-up more damage for the price needed to enchant them.

[TOZ]

They also have a DBZ option somewhere in there. But it requires a LG alignment.

[Lich-Loved]

They also have a DBZ option somewhere in there. But it requires a LG alignment.

Er, you get a monkey tail and and can go all apeshit or somethin'?

(e.g. Care to elaborate?)

[Prak]

yeah 3.x has that too. It's called "convince your dm that alignment restrictions on monk/barbarian are shit, and that an 'ascetic berserker' feat is fine."

[TOZ]

(e.g. Care to elaborate?)

Had to get home to my computer to copypasta it.

The monk’s skin takes on a golden
luminescence, and a silvery mane that cannot be bound
grows atop his head. He gains a fly speed equal to his
land speed, but he must end each turn on the ground.
If the monk does not land by the end of his turn, he
falls from whatever height he has attained. The ki-rin is
honorable, honest, and self-sacrificing—a monk must be
lawful good to take on the aspect of the ki-rin.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I think that they were actually going for that rather than lol DBZ. The name of the feat is a dead giveaway.

By the way, random rant against hack sourcebook writers. One thing I NEVER understood about the tail-end of 3.5E (saw it in Miniature's Handbook, PHBII, Complete Magus, Complete Champion, Races of the Wild, and Book of Nine Swords) was the insistence on granting 'flight, but for one round!' bullshit.

Unless you expect the PCs to regularly fight in Emerald Hill Zone or in the Mushroom Kingdom, do these game designers know how spectacularly useless one-round flight is? It's doubly useless for monks because those guys have frickin' tumble.

Ugh. Dumbasses.

[TOZ]

Yeah, but the regulars over at Paizo didn't know that.

[Username17]

Mostly, people just don't want to make jump checks.

-Username17

[Prak]

it's still, more or less, the DBZ option. Though I wonder what other aspects they have.

[Juton]

It's a back door way to give monks a little bit more accuracy. The real question is if you run the system (Pathfinder) and think Monks should be more accurate, why not just go through the front door and give them full BAB.

[TOZ]

Because full BAB/d10 and all good saves is broken! </Pathfailure>

[Juton]

Because full BAB/d10 and all good saves is broken! </Pathfailure>

To be fair a lot of people on the Pathfinder boards made this suggestion during their open playtest. It wasn't adopted because of 'backwards compatibility' even though classes like the Paladin got a huge buff.

[Crissa]

How is changing BAB change backwards compatibility?

-Crissa

[Psychic Robot]

It would bork some monk PrC requirements. Theoretically.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It would make every single monk PrC completely useless. Even the unerrata'd ones. Not that it's a big deal, because even the 'good' monk PrCs suck, but still.

[Danchild]

How is changing BAB change backwards compatibility?

-Crissa

I am not sure about this but...Monk PrC's would have to be upgraded to account for the new attack bonus. Also, a numder of feats have an attack bonus prerequisite instead of a level prerequisite. Some of those might need to be modified. It would require someone to sit down and think about the class for a couple of hours, then spend some time editing.

I don't have a problem with powering up the Monk. Those are just some of the excuses that I imagine the PF folk are using to avoid making any real changes. The question I have is why retain the Monk at all, if they are only going to make a few token alterations in order to sell their books? They could have saved a little space for the stuff they actually care about, like the new Paladin.

[Prak]

It would bork some monk PrC requirements. Theoretically.

like they didn't bork every prc's prerequisites with their skill system...

[Juton]

Buhlman explained his thinking in one of the threads. It was less concern about PCs having to be updated, it was more about obsoleting all the Monk stat blocks in all the adventure paths they had printed. The Paladin's smite for instance doesn't require any changes to the stat block, but the increase to their will save do. I can't find a common filament connecting the decisions to not fix a Monk's BAB and to increase the Paladin's will saves, I don't think there is one.

[TOZ]

And yet we can still use all the 3.5 modules with unchanged monster stat blocks. Supposedly.

Backwards compatibility is a bad joke in PF.

[krainboltgreene]

Backwards compatibility is always a bad joke, regardless of the field.

[TOZ]

Backwards compatibility is always a bad joke, regardless of the field.

My PS2 says fuck you.

[RobbyPants]

Backwards compatibility is always a bad joke, regardless of the field.

Not really. It can be quite a selling point if done well.

It's a joke in PF, because even if they did manage to perfectly balance core PF, it still falls completely apart as soon as the DM allows in any 3.x splat books. It fails right at its design premise.

[Roy]

Backwards compatibility is always a bad joke, regardless of the field.

Not really. It can be quite a selling point if done well.

It's a joke in PF, because even if they did manage to perfectly balance core PF, it still falls completely apart as soon as the DM allows in any 3.x splat books. It fails right at its design premise.

Yup. And at the caster/melee line. And quite a few other places.

But at this point, the Paizils are failing so badly I can't even insult them. Roll twice (and miss both times) for a weapon that you don't care about even if it does hit anyways means no matter what else they do, they're making it into a M(o/n)k.

Though I suppose they should get a medal for actually managing to make Monks worse. As twisted as it is, that IS an accomplishment and one they should get much renown for.

[Username17]

I don't understand why it was a pressing concern to make sure people never crited with kamas. That's really weird to me.

-Username17