Monk
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The Monk is the newest profession in GemStone IV. Monks are a square profession, with access to the Minor Mental and Minor Spiritual spell circles. Monks have access to Iron Skin (1202) which obviates the need for armor. Monk training point costs favor their use of the unarmed combat system.
Special Abilities
- Inherent knowledge of Unarmed Specialist.
- Inherent ability to MEDITATE to receive resistances. The amount of resistance is 10%, plus a 2% per bonus per a seed 1 summation of the monk's Mental Lore, Transformation skill. Thus, a monk with 28 ranks of ML, Transformation would have a 24% resistance ability, and a monk with 91 ranks would have a 36% resistance.
- The ability to apply mundane and enhancive mystic tattoos to other characters.
Combat Maneuvers List
Besides the inherent knowledge of Unarmed Specialist, Monks have the ability to train in the following:
Monk-only Maneuvers
- Burst of Swiftness (burst): Agility/Dexterity bonus (5 ranks)
- Internal Power (ipower): Health point recovery (5 ranks)
- Ki Focus (kifocus): UAC tier bonus (3 ranks)
- Mystic Strike (mysticstrike):
- Perfect Self (perfectself): Statistics enhancer (5 ranks)
Martial Stances
- Duck and Weave (duckandweave): Redirect your enemies' attacks to each other as you weave between them. (3 ranks)
- Flurry of Blows (flurry): Jab multiple targets in area (monk only) (3 ranks)
- Inner Harmony (iharmony): chance to shake off spell effects (monk only) (3 ranks)
- Rolling Krynch Stance (krynch): potentially raise attack tier against second foe (monk only) (3 ranks)
- Stance of the Mongoose (mongoose): auto retaliatory strike (3 ranks)
- Slippery Mind (slipperymind): chance to avoid certain warding spells (3 ranks)
Other Available Maneuvers
- Acrobat's Leap (leap)
- Bearhug (bearhug)
- Cheapshots (cheapshots)
- Combat Focus (focus)
- Combat Mastery (cmastery)
- Combat Mobility (mobility)
- Combat Movement (cmovement)
- Combat Toughness (toughness)
- Coup de Grace (coupdegrace)
- Crowd Press (cpress)
- Cunning Defense(cdefense)
- Dirtkick (dirtkick)
- Disarm Weapon (disarm)
- Dislodge (dislodge)
- Evade Mastery (emastery)
- Feint (feint)
- Garrote (garrote)
- Grapple Mastery (gmastery): Increase Grapple attack proficiency (3 rank)
- Headbutt (headbutt)
- Kick Mastery (kmastery): Increase Kick attack proficiency (3 ranks)
- Precision (precision)
- Punch Mastery (punchmastery): Increase Punch attack proficiency (3 ranks)
- Quickstrike (qstrike)
- Side by Side (sidebyside)
- Spell Cleaving (scleave)
- Spell Parry (sparry)
- Spin Attack (sattack)
- Stun Maneuvers (stunman)
- Subdual Strike (sstrike)
- Surge of Strength (surge)
- Sweep (sweep)
- Trip (trip)
- Truestrike (truestrike)
- Unarmed Specialist (unarmedspec) (see note)
Note: All monks are inherently unarmed specialists and are granted this ability at no cost.
Statistic Growth Rates
For more information see the article on statistic growth rates.
| Profession | STR | CON | DEX | AGI | DIS | AUR | LOG | INT | WIS | INF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monk | 25 | 25 | 20 | 30 | 25 | 15 | 20 | 20 | 15 | 10 |
Note: The table above is the baseline statistic growth rates. These values are actually modified for every race in GemStone IV, including humans.
Training Recommendations
- TWC. One rank or 0.5x for defensive boost. The per rank benefit is trivial but there are significant DS boosts at these training amounts. Start out at 0.5x and drop back to 1 rank at high level if short of training points.
- Armor Use. Physical armor can be useful at cap, but otherwise this should not be trained.
- Combat Maneuvers. 1-2x. Start at 2x. Slack off whenever there isn't a pressing need for CM points.
- Brawling. 2x
- Ambush. Sufficient for reliable aiming. Train 5 ranks when you want to start aiming around level 20, and add one each time you miss an opening on the sort of aimed attack you want to be reliable in. The actual number of ranks needed will vary a lot depending on hunting style and race height.
- MOC. 0.5x for Force on Force defense. 0.5x is what is required for FoF offset for the typical bandit ambush size. Mstrike UAC is only worth using if you have a lot of AGIDEX and higher training for more strikes at lower levels will be attractive if you do have a 4s reduction.
- PF. 2x for general robustness, Sunfisters may well want 3x. 1x probably works fine too, but its so cheap that there's little to be saved by it.
- Dodge. 3x. High DS is one of the monk's key attributes. You can get away with 2x a lot of the time, but it takes a lot of dodge to keep dodging while disabled as well as while status free, and 3x is how you get it.
- AS and MIU. Pick them up when you have spare points. Outside spells are critical for TD reasons and this is one way you access them. Get 25 in each as soon as you can, but you probably won't manage much before level 40.
- Harness Power. 0.5x Less if you train less spells, more if you train more, and more at high level if you are trying to use 1219.
- Mana Control. These are horribly expensive and even warriors train them more easily than monks. Don't train early. Maybe acquire enough to share effectively with a pure (10 ranks) at high level, and maybe a bit more to help manage mana fluctuations in the Rift if you hunt there. Stick to spirit unless you have a particular reason to choose a different one.
- Spells. 0.33-0.5x is the design range. You will want 1220 as soon as reasonably possible and it will pay to train spells more heavily when in range of it. You will want 120 at high level (its pretty suicidal going in the Rift without the TD from it). When in range of a desired spell, reckon on training every level, and at other times slack off, rather than sticking rigidly to once every two or three levels.
- Lores. These are not only horribly expensive but have fairly trivial boosts on spells. Modest training of transformation lore at low level may be worthwhile but the benefits degrade both with additional training and as you level. Unless there is some lore benefit you really have to have for RP reasons, 6 ranks transformation is about as far as its worth going. Plateskin (requires enhancives as well as 1x transformation lore) may appeal conceptually but the absence of any CvA and the ease of putting together a huge DS makes it fairly ineffectual mechanically.
Playing a monk as your first character is not recommended. It is assumed that you already have an idea of how much you like in the way of tertiary skills and the same considerations apply for a monk too. The only particularly noteworthy thing is that Climbing and Swimming are dirt cheap (for the same reasons that tertiary magical skills are horribly expensive, monks are squares with physical prime stats but their core training costs are slanted towards mental training points)
History
On July 8th 2012, the long awaited Monk profession was released in Platinum along with the revised Order of Voln, followed by the Prime release on July 15.
Resources
- Saved posts
- Unarmed combat system
- Monk and UCS release storyline
- Monk meditation (saved posts)
- Monks, on Play.net
- Nilandia's site on archive.org
Officials Folders
Guides
- A beginner's guide to playing a monk (work-in-progress)
- Comprehensive Monk Guide
- Flimbo's Monk Guide
- The Autumnwinds' Magical Monk Guide
| Monk Profession - edit |
|---|
| Spell Circles: Minor Spiritual Spells | Minor Mental Spells |
| Professional Highlights: Unarmed combat | Combat Maneuvers |
| Profession - edit |
|---|
| Squares: Rogue | Warrior | Monk |
| Semis: Bard | Paladin | Ranger |
| Pures: Cleric | Empath | Sorcerer | Wizard |