Monk or Thief?

[The Genius]

Hi all,

I've just come back to this game after a few years. The last time I played, I used Knight, Cleric, Sorcerer and Monk. Played through both Light and Dark and enjoyed it thoroughly.

This time around, I'm undecided on whether to use the Monk or replace him with a Thief. I've heard great things about GM dagger and I did use my Monk for mainly Thief related things on my first playthrough.

Which is best? I like being able to disarm at a better rate but I like the melee and evasion skills the Monk has.

Opinions? Reasons?

[Hannibal Barca]

Best seems to be a matter of opinion.

At advanced levels I found the GM of Daggers with a pair a good blades could really dish out the damage.

Monks are fun. They tend to die a great deal in the beginner but they turn into killing machines at advanced levels as well. There were times the monk was carrying out the dead members of my team(well I should say running away with them. ).

Which do I prefer? Hard to say. I like them equally.....

[Tress]

As much as i like idea of taking team alternative of default it in most cases make things more or less harder.
Thief with M armastaer and GM dagger dish out damage easily comparable to warrior. Also Thief has GM disarm which is most valuable skill in game imo while monk receives DT on reasonable level only in dark side. Which imo is quite bad from game design point since for light team it makes thief even more necessary.

[bungleau]

I'm just fond of the monk... GM dodging, unarmed, and staff, along with master leather, make for a quite powerful and protected offensive unit. I don't think I've ever compared it to a thief directly, though... may have to do that

[UndeadHalfOrc]

I actually always preferred Knight to either of those

[HodgePodge]

Went with the Thief. That high-level Disarm Trap is just too necessary in MM7.

[Edwardas 3]

I'll second HodgePodge
I like Monk too but he's like only killing, he ain't even repairing like
knight,also,unfortunately, his armsmaster combo unarmed+staff is bugged.
Otherwise he'd be a termination unleashed.
What to say-you run through game a score times you learn to appreciate
all of them.

[The Genius]

I actually always preferred Knight to either of those

I already have a knight in my party and I seem to stay true to the 'classical' party form of Tank, Healer, Wizard and in this case gap filler.

I did enjoy the Monk playthrough and if the GM staff wasn't bugged I would probably go that again. It's a shame this was never corrected.

[CoffeeGnome]

It seems to me whenever I play a thief I find a whole bunch of really nice items of "the fist" and "of dodging" in the stores, that would have added some very nice bonuses to the unarmed and dodging scores if I had been chosen the monk. However, when I am a monk I never seem to be quite this fortunate.
Still in general I prefer the monk because of his ability to attain grandmaster in learning. In fact I usually rank this score up first for the monk even before their unarmed and dodging skills because you can get items to help you with those two skills, but only people you hire can help you with your learning ranks. No items othen than that one artifact (Scholar's Cap) seem to be able to help with learning ranks.

[darknessfood]

To mo, the thief. Reaons, i like thiefs, they can handle the chests easaly, they can steal expansive stuff and they can pack quite a punch...

[Phobos]

I like Monks a bit more than Thieves. As Ninjas they learn Master Disarm Trap, which is more than enough, considering that it isn't hard to find an item boosting the skill so that it safely opens most chests. Monks do amazingly well in combat with their crazy Unarmed fighting, and they reach an impressive number of HP with GM Bodybuilding. GM Learning is also quite nice.

[Secret_Holder]

I'd go for the Monks as they way more powerful than the Thieves. If I'm not mistaken they're the second-most powerful class in the game after the Knight

[Ravenheart87]

Monks. I don't know why, I never found Disarm Traps too necessary, so although I like thieves by default (too many cool thief characters in fantasy literature), I used the monk. If you really can't decide, then try this:

Monk, Thief, Cleric, Sorceror

A bit hard at the beginning, but on higher levels my Monk was MUCH stronger with staff and leather armor, than my knight with spear+sword and plate armor. And because of the Thieves skills, you can spend your Monk's hardly earned skil points to maximize his combat output.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

, but on higher levels my Monk was MUCH stronger with staff and leather armor, than my knight with spear+sword and plate armor.

Eh, you probably use Mok's patch? That introduced a bug negating the advantage of the spear + sword combo.

Trust me, at the end of all my games my Knights could do 150 damage on average while monks could onyl do about 120 (with +17 Unarmed rings on!)

[Ravenheart87]

Nope, I didn't patch my game. The big difference was because the larga mount of skil points, which my monk could put on Unarmed/Staff/Dodge/Leather. Some points went on Disarm and Learning too, and I found a LOT of items that enhance his unarmed and dodge skills. Magic skills? It's not the monk's job, for me, especially because he isn't a strong spellcaster.

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Nope, I didn't patch my game. The big difference was because the larga mount of skil points, which my monk could put on Unarmed/Staff/Dodge/Leather. Some points went on Disarm and Learning too, and I found a LOT of items that enhance his unarmed and dodge skills. Magic skills? It's not the monk's job, for me, especially because he isn't a strong spellcaster.

The Knight benefits as much from + Armsmaster items than the Monk benefits from +Unarmed. Both add + 2 to damage per point. And at high enough levels the Knight can actually attack faster than the monk because he reached the maximum attack speed.

Secondary skills, I don't talk much about them in my comparisons, I focus mostly on raw melee damage output.

As long as you have someone able to cast GM Enchant Item in your party, I have managed to get +17 enchantments for both. (Monk's items are easier to come by though I agree, because they can show up on rings, +Armsmaster items never show up on rings, only on armor, shields, headgear, footgear and gauntlets (gauntlets are the best to use GM enchant item on)

Monks receive bonus damage from Armsmaster skill only when they use an actual weapon, this is why I believe the thief is just as good as the monk (GM dual dagger + Master Armsmaster, boosted with items = excellent damage)

[Ravenheart87]

True. In my opinion the Monk can become stronger for less money, than the Knight. You only use some leather, and a staff, and still, you can easily reach as high attack, damage and AC, as a Knight... Or sometimes even higher, like me.

[Avonu]

, but on higher levels my Monk was MUCH stronger with staff and leather armor, than my knight with spear+sword and plate armor.

Eh, you probably use Mok's patch? That introduced a bug negating the advantage of the spear + sword combo.

EKHM:

However after some more tests I have found that not only is this bug present in MM8, it's also present in the 1.0 version of MM7 ! I did a fresh install, loaded up a game and same problem. So the bug might not come from MOK, it might be because the files I used were patched from the old MM7 v 1.0

[Ravenheart87]

Checked my version number, it is 1.1. My M&M7 installs this version by default.

[The Genius]

6 votes apiece. I've started a new game with a monk in the filler role. I might change up the party if I download that new mod everyone's been talking about.