In episode 20 we talk about the Monk Playtest and the recent announcement about DDI subscription changes. All in all we like the new Monk as a Psionic character. At the end of the episode we talk about Star Trek and what we thought about it, so if you haven’t seen it you can stop there. But if you haven’t seen it, what’s wrong with you? Get out and see it.
This episode runs about 67 minutes. Send any questions, suggestions, or feedback to podcast@runningdtw.com
Those of us with DDI subscriptions got another playtest article the other day, the Monk. The Monk will be released as part of the Player’s Handbook 3, and in a surprising change (at least for me), will not be part of the Ki power referenced in the first Player’s Handbook.
Instead, the Monk has become a Psionic character, a striker no less. My first thoughts were something along the lines of “Really?”, but once I thought about it more it started making sense. To me the Monk was always about obtaining perfection in mind, body, and soul, which seems like a perfect fit for the Psionic power source.
Then I went through and read the Design and Development article about the creation of the Monk. It talked about how they thought the Ki power source seemed to be getting thin. They didn’t want to just dump all of the Asian themed classes into it, just to fill it out. As Jason put it, “We don’t need the Asian power source.”
We will talk more about some of the mechanics and powers of the Monk in our next episode of the podcast.
If you have a DDI subscription and haven’t looked at the Monk playtest yet, I would definitely check it out.
-Matt
