PATH OF THE WANDERING MONK discussion

[wallydubbs]

Thanks for answering Kurgan, but you said something I'm there I didn't quite understand:

Air Techniques: Eye of the Tornado or Soaring Dragon, so it's either get a free pit jump or an unarmed attack against all adjacent (including Diagonal) enemies.
So that's potentially attacking (with 1 attack dice) up to 8 enemies (though that's very unlikely) or you just get a successful pit jump?
I'll get to the questions later. But correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.

It's unarmed attack, so 2 combat dice. In practice, our Monk uses it even when he doesn't have to (only attacking one adjacent enemy) in order to use it up and move towards getting fire enabled. Yes, each of these abilities it's EITHER OR. Use one ability and it gets tilted to the side ("exhausted")..

You said "2 Combat Dice" for an unarmed attack?
The way I read "Eye of the Tornado" suggests multiple attacks against all adjacent enemies, it doesn't make note of adding extra combat dice.
However I can see attacking the 1 adjacent monster as crossing off this technique.

You said 1 technique per turn, I don't remember reading that but it's probably true and makes sense. Even Soaring Dragon, despite jumps not counting as an action, it's still a technique done on your turn. But what about Twist Torrent? This technique isn't performed on the Monk's turn, it's during an enemy's turn. Does it not count or do you just get a pass on your next turn?

I suppose you're right about the Fire Beam attack, it does specify enemies, unlike the Elf's Hypnotic Blaze, which says "all figures".

[wallydubbs]

I worry that all these new characters who have such limited equipment options are going to level up to their max too quickly.

He'll definitely max out quickly, but he has no restrictions on potions.

He only has 3 defense dice, which really isn't all that much. I find him to be a risky hero, much like the Rogue. 3 defense dice really isn't much in the grand scheme of things. His Twisting Torrent ability allows him to negate damage from an attack, but once it's exhausted he won't get to use it again for a few turns.

Two of his techniques are only useful if he/she is unarmed, and an aspiring player would try to push for the Fire Techniques, and being unarmed gives him a 50% chance to exhaust the Air and Earth techniques, and you're not always going to find a pit trap to Ricky Steamboat over, so odds are he's going in unarmed.
Eye of the Storm is huge for quests like Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord where you have a 50% chance at hitting each of your surrounding enemies, especially if they only have 1 BP each, so odds are he won't be taking out an Abomination or Mummy (unless he activates this technique while under Courage).

If you were to bring the Monk in to the perilous quest of Frozen Horror, odds are he can exhaust all his attack techniques (including fire) 4 or 5 times during a quest, but with monsters that rival him in Body Points those 3 defence dice aren't really going far. I find this hero to be of high risk/high reward.

[Kurgan]

Thanks for answering Kurgan, but you said something I'm there I didn't quite understand:

Air Techniques: Eye of the Tornado or Soaring Dragon, so it's either get a free pit jump or an unarmed attack against all adjacent (including Diagonal) enemies.
So that's potentially attacking (with 1 attack dice) up to 8 enemies (though that's very unlikely) or you just get a successful pit jump?
I'll get to the questions later. But correct me if I'm wrong on any of these.

It's unarmed attack, so 2 combat dice. In practice, our Monk uses it even when he doesn't have to (only attacking one adjacent enemy) in order to use it up and move towards getting fire enabled. Yes, each of these abilities it's EITHER OR. Use one ability and it gets tilted to the side ("exhausted")..

You said "2 Combat Dice" for an unarmed attack?
The way I read "Eye of the Tornado" suggests multiple attacks against all adjacent enemies, it doesn't make note of adding extra combat dice.
However I can see attacking the 1 adjacent monster as crossing off this technique.

You said 1 technique per turn, I don't remember reading that but it's probably true and makes sense. Even Soaring Dragon, despite jumps not counting as an action, it's still a technique done on your turn. But what about Twist Torrent? This technique isn't performed on the Monk's turn, it's during an enemy's turn. Does it not count or do you just get a pass on your next turn?

I suppose you're right about the Fire Beam attack, it does specify enemies, unlike the Elf's Hypnotic Blaze, which says "all figures".

Twisting Torrent negating damage is equivalent to magic spells that can be used off turn. So after using Twisting Torrent to negate an enemy attack... THEN on your turn you can use yet another technique, no problem.

Unarmed attacks (for the Monk) are always at base 2 dice (strength of the mountain adds 2, making it 4 total). When attacking with Eye of the Tornado, if you were surrounded by 8 monsters, then each of those monsters would get hit with 2 dice worth of attack on that turn (and each would defend normally). But if there was only one monster there and you used the technique, he would be hit with 2... the only benefit to doing this is to use up the technique to advance towards fire.

So yes, if fighting unarmed, there's little motivation for the Monk NOT to use his techniques on every turn (unless he's used them up or has a more powerful weapon to use).
Of course when I say "fighting unarmed" he can have a whole bunch of weapons in his inventory and still choose to strike "unarmed" for the 2 dice attack that works together with his techniques.

[wallydubbs]

Oh I see! I just saw a clearer picture, the * adds 1... They should've done the same for the Bard for his defense dice. I originally thought the * was because of Strength of a Mountain.

[Kurgan]

The Asterisk on the hero card says "When attacking unarmed, roll one Additional Combat die."

You can't use the attack techniques with weapons, so the unarmed bonus doesn't go away. Thus you're not hitting all eight monsters with 1 die, you're hitting them all with 2 dice.

Strength of the Mountain adds 2 to the unarmed attack. Since the unarmed attack already adds 1, that's a total of 3 added to the one, hence 4 dice.
1+1 = 2. 2+2 = 4.

You don't get to combine techniques in the same turn though, so you're going to max out that attack with 4 dice... until you start adding potions and spell buffs to it, of course.

A Monk under the effect of Courage who uses strength of the mountain will hit with 6 dice one time (and 4 after that if continuing to fight unarmed). Or he could hit the eight squares around him once with 4 dice each from the courage effect plus the air technique. A Potion of Strength would add 2 more dice to one of those attack.

You'll start getting into some crazy scenarios with the Alchemist deck too. But that's how it goes. But most of these are going to be one-off scenarios and if the heroes "played their cards right" why not?

I know, the "1 / 2 unarmed" thing gets confusing. They could have written it a different way.. showing a "2" with an asterisk saying that it goes down to 1 if he's using a staff or dagger (or resets to the default attack of whatever weapon he's holding). Ultimately it's the same though... for everyone else no weapon attacks are 1, but for the Monk it's always 2 (and techniques can buff that).

[JCool]

So, went shopping at my FLGS today for their 1-day a year sale and came across Path of the Wandering Monk on the shelves. Grabbed it, of course! I thought it wasn't supposed to be out until January though?

[LucaRocks]

So, went shopping at my FLGS today for their 1-day a year sale and came across Path of the Wandering Monk on the shelves. Grabbed it, of course! I thought it wasn't supposed to be out until January though?

Nice! I'm glad you found it! Please post up pics of you can of the stuff it comes with!

[The Admiral]

Put my pre-order in for this, along with AtOH, last week at the game shop near my brother's.

[wallydubbs]

Put my pre-order in for this, along with AtOH, last week at the game shop near my brother's.

Oh, are they preordering Against the Ogre Hoard? Last time I checked Hasbro Pulse it never came up... But that was almost a week ago. I guess I better get on that.

[LucaRocks]

BBTS has sent out emails stating that they will start shipping out the Monk soon. When they send these types of notices, it usually takes a week or so for the item to be sent out. Sometimes two weeks.