Monk secret

[Yrini]

A long time ago, I complained about the IoF not effecting ranged weapons, though the description of it, claimed it did. At the time Funky promised the description would be changed. It still hasn’t, but ok, I know this now.
Now I just found IoF is not working on monk gloves either. We could discuss the “instruments” of an unarmed Monk, of course. GMW is working on them, though. So I wondered why IoF is not. Probable impossible, too. No idea.
Maybe it’s an idea to make as a monk secret an item to change the AB of the unarmed monk to +16, just like the IoF does on "all" other weapons? (Except, well, you know)

[chainlink]

If there was a secret that made all monk gloves have +16 that would relegate Wisdom to just increasing the AC of a fist monk (which is pretty good in itself), currently if you can get your final Wis to 42 (with gear, buffs etc.) you'll automatically get +16 on your gloves. With decent races, gear, paragon levels and demi iterations 20 Wisdom will get you there. Whilst you may say that's a lot of points to burn on a non-primary stat you don't get many free lunches

[Yrini]

Maybe just add +16 Enhancement then, and leave the AB out of it? When theres less need to boost your WIS, it might open new ways for monkbuilds.

[Yrini]

Noone else? I'd say, gloves+16 are in the game anyways. Hell and Abyss gloves are +16. The unarmed monk would no longer benefit from his secret when he can use those, but he can till there. And when he has those +16 gloves, he has no longer use of his high wisdom but for AC as well.

Also the free lunch is not per definition the same as the +16 reached by the wisdom +42. With the high wisdom (or the hell/abyss gloves) the unarmed monk will Always have the +16. With the secret he would only have it with the limitations we build in it. This can be anything like: 35+ monk lvls, works for monk lvl/2 rounds, or works for 5 min, but can be upgraded at POM and whatever we can come up with.

So I still think it's a nice idea for a monksecret.

[chirality]

i think the wisdom:glove bonus ratio is something that ppl were never really super happy with. kind of like (loose comparison, mind you since, monk gets lot more stat points and lot more OP w/ PLs and DD and BK basically "needs" SP while monk has multiple build options, fist being only 1) BK str:SP ratio--the calculation is just a little unforgiving and restrictive.

i think the subject was talked about a decent bit. i don't see it changing. fist monk is just not a hot topic, imo partially due to the wisdom scaling, very slightly due to gloves being a wasted slot in NWN, partially due to 2h%. wisdom is tied to SF so i think fist monks were always in a kind of weird zone of "go all out SF, or try hit +16 and not care about SF DC, or just go BBoD tank". not to marginalize the OP desire, but if something should be fixed on monks it's obviously the broken qstaff issue, as that's the #1 thing that makes players displeased.

IoF should just effect gloves, not sure if after gmw change that was just an oversight or feature (does seem kinda weird honestly). i think this was discussed once or more in the past too, don't recall or care to search what (if any) the word from the boss was on that.

derail sidenote but @ "just +enh and leave AB out of it" : +enh is +AB and +dmg, while +attack is just +AB, so that suggestion doesn't really make sense.

[Yrini]

No idea why I confused about enhanced and AB. I meant to say if enhancement is too much, maybe just +16 AB will do.
Anyways, I started this thread because I noticed IoF isnt working on unarmed monks. Imo IoF should do his job, namely put the +16 on unarmed monks as well. If not, there would be a nice secret for monks. But I can see its not exactly a hot topic

[chirality]

it'd be cool if ki strike/improved ki strike could be edited (dunno if would require a hack, prolly tho) to provide improved bonus past +5. monks could get the vanilla epic improved ki strike feats for free (tbh give +5 by ~L15, +3 by L20 is hilariously bad even in some low-magic game), and then scaling customized HG class feature "feats" up to +16 by L60. PL feat options for +18 and +20 could be unlocked. maybe just 1 for straight +16-> +20, i can't see even fist monk wasting 2 PL feats for that. the ki strike mechanic is of great academic interest in that it doesn't provide +AB just DR penetration, ofc it sux because it's ridiculously low for even low-magic PnP, let alone HG. but if it could somehow be buffed and given to fist monks as a little extra that'd be cool. they would still need to rely on the wis scaling and/or gmw for +AB and +dmg, but at least fist monks would penetrate soak inherently. i think that'd be a cool theme. obviously pie in the sky theorizing but that'd be nice.