Beginner's guide to playing a monk

This article is a work in progress!

Monks are a recently created profession. Monks can provide an enjoyable change of pace for established players and added complexity a new player. Monks are considered an advanced play class in some aspects because of the introduction of Unarmed Combat System that features a tiered combo approach.

If you are new to monks, but not Gemstone 4, playing a monk is the best way to experience the Unarmed Combat System. For effectiveness, particularly in multiplayer situations, UCS combined with stalking and hiding can be used from ambush with a high rate of success, but the flavor is only really experienced when used from the open as a monk. Using a weapon is possible, but comes with a handicap.

Unarmed combat works best for a solo player in an empty hunting ground. If you normally group hunt with other players or frequent the busier parts of the game you will need to change your habits to get the most out of playing a monk. Unarmed combat is slow, not because the individual actions in it are slow, but because more set up is required than any other style. There is plenty to engage you, provided you have the time to be engaged, which is why its best solo in an empty hunting ground.

Monks, like many professions, take a moderate amount of levelling to get decently skilled access to their core abilities. You'll need to get into the 20s to get the Cman points to make your key manoevers effective and the mana to make your key spells effective.

Statistic setting on a monk is different from other professions, in that there is little trade off between training points and growth. This is a consequence of a mismatch between physical prime stats and the main training point costs being mental. Setting a stat high because you want the direct benefits of that high stat at low level will cost both growth and training points in the long run. Other professions normally lose training points when doing a stat fix, but monks gain them. Stats that might be set high are STR (the usual encumberance reasons) AGI (if you can't get defense up from training fast enough to suit you) and LOG (both for the usual experience benefit and its the CS stat)

See Also

• Monk (main article)
• New Players' Guide (a comprehensive beginner's guide for new players of any profession)
• The Art of Roleplaying in GemStone IV (guide)
• Unarmed combat system
• Player Guide Contest

References

• Monk profession on Play.net
• GemStone IV New Player Guide on Play.net

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