I’ve been trying out classes I haven’t played before and really enjoyed the feel of Monk, however I’m at a loss as to finding a solid concept. I want to avoid just being a kung fu guy with fortune cookie wisdom, but I’m not sure how to go about being more than that.
One consideration I had was making him more of a Spellsword type, similar to a Bladesinger of D&D. Sword in one hand, one hand for casting. Sings/hums to help maintain his focus on the flow of magic. Sword whistles as it moves through the air, has a flute/harmonica he carries with him to play.
Another idea was more of a friar monk, or the Diablo 3 monk. Something more Light oriented, pious. May not be fond of paladins because of their trappings, wearing steel plate and carrying weapons that cost more than a month’s wages of the people they’re helping. Something like a Zenith caste from Exalted.
I do want to embrace the ascetic aesthetic. Most of my other characters are heavily motivated by money, so I want to incorporate the idea of not really caring about profits. The spellsword would probably be more interested in knowledge, the friar perhaps encouraging a healthy tithe to the Church or donation to some charity. I’m leaning towards a humble attitude.
Beyond that, I have no idea. Even with those ideas I’m not sure. I can’t really decide on a personality and I’m having trouble finding traction in general.
The friar idea is especially interesting to me. Maybe an evolution of the Clerics of Northshire, not quite a priest and not quite a paladin, but somewhere in between, combined with that martial prowess. Meditation, dedication to craft and study, a medieval zen sort of character.
Maybe for a personality the monk could be flexible and adaptive, encouraging fluidity in ideas but sternness in philosophy. More of a traditional pandaren sort of monk, adapted to the light. Alternatively, you could have a more stern, regimented spiritual leader. The trope of a stern priest that shrugs off his robes to expose a really intimidating muscular figure. Very harsh, tense, and focused at all times. Not someone you’d necessarily like as a mentor, but someone that would make you better at whatever he’s teaching you out of sheer discipline.
I play my tauren monk as a rogue, since there’s no actual rogue class for them (yet). Monks are in a similar category as warriors, rogues, and hunters, in that they’re very versatile–there’s a plethora of custom classes you can build with them.
The friar option is also supported in lore, I believe, as evidenced by the monks in Scarlet Monastery. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine other organizations having similar roles in their ranks.
Additionally, you don’t have to utilize the entire class toolkit for the character either. It’s perfectly fine to leave some abilities as pure OOC, and many do. I’ve seena lot of RPers ignore the healing mist and brews and focus instead on playing as a brawler/boxer.
I would attribute to what you are looking for in the form of the monk fighting styles of the ones found in Scarlet Monestary with the mentality of the Argent Dawn/Crusade.
Argent dawn is an organization that resembles simlar to that of what he Silver hand does but does not use the light as a religion as heavily as they do. Everyone Willing to fight for the betterment of Azeroth to keep the undead/demons at bay are welcome.
I have found that the Scarlet tabard has enhanced my monk experience exponentially. Plus I think studying good old fashioned pugilism with kung fu as a side produces the kind of back story I like. And look up Brother Karloff, he gives a viable place to learn hand fighting outside of Pandaria.
One method I’ve used for characters in the past, mainly hero class characters but it technically works universally, is to consider the character as a person separate for the class I want them to be then factor that part in afterwards.
Construct a relatively generic character, perhaps of different class than the target one, then consider how and why they would become the target. Ultimately the goal is to build a catalogue of documented experiences to build the current character with.
One perhaps cliché example might be a warrior with a troubled past whose chance encounter with a monk led them to pursue the same path, changing them along the way.
Don’t let yourself get tied to a Shao’lin straitjacket.
Chem Stormstout (the Panda featured in the two on one cinematic) for instance is a very capable monk. He’s also dedicated to the art of making beer… something he persues with as much or even more passion.
Find something for your character to be passionate about, to be defined by that has nothing to do with his class.
This is a fairly prevalent issue I’ve encountered as my time as a monk as well as meeting monk Roleplayers. Of course my personal time working on a 'not very monkish mknk’will be different seeing as Undead have a whole unique angle to come at it what with Chi and being dead in theory being the main conflict this is what I’ve encountered in terms of tools to ‘depandaren’ your monk.
Short hand: since I’m lazy I’ll be using some abbreviations.
NPM - nonpadaren monk
MA - Martial Arts (in reference to unarmed combat)
Monk vs. Brawler class
The single most common thing I’ve seen used to add a unique flair to your profile is to simply change your class to something other than monk in your RP software. The single most common alternate class I see is of course Brawler to reference that they aren’t a practitioner of a MA but there are more options than that.
I personally refer to Vanleer as a Grappler due to him using more holds and throws than what is displayed in game. I’ve also seen the term Fist Fighter, Bone Breaker, and Ruffian in use. To summarize if you want it to be clear that you are not a standard game variety monk you can change you class to reflect it.
Chi or not
Another concept you may play around with is whether or not your character is capable o manipulating his own chi, or even if he is aware of Chi’s existence. I once had a monk who had no clue what Chi was but was quite capable of dishing out punishment relying on his pure strength alone.
Other Race’s Martial Arts
Now if you do choose to be a NPM who is more than one who fights using instinct but instead has trained to use their bare hands, rejoice since as of Legion we have at least two new cases of MA having been developed by NPM. First there is the more prevalent case of Jed’hin a fan created sport that was canonized, and then during the monk campaign you meet Aegira who says that her master taught her the fighting style of Ancient Vrykul Brewer Kings and Queens and then fired off some jade lightning. I know that in game logic isnt always to be taken as Lore but I take that to mean that NPM learned to manipulate Chi on their own as well.
What does that all mean? That means you can choose to use another MA if you please! Go ahead and introduce proper bareknuckle boxing, got a reason for Capoeira to exist, do you want him to take the destructive power of Muay Thai? There is enough history to state that there are more than the Pandaren martial arts in the world. So feel free to push the envelope.
Tl;dr
Don’t feel the need to represent what is displayed in game and instead apply your own tastes for unarmed/less armed combat to your character.
IE Vanleer: A Grappling based fighter who’s understanding of Chi is vastly different from Pandaren. He only recently discovered the uses of Chi and has been studying it with none of the philosophy.
Just caught this thread but I thought id throw out an idea that ive been wanting to do. If you want a more magical type of feel you should look into runemaster for your monk. When i get internet again I was gonna be trying out a wildhammer runemaster.
Alternative versions of ‘monk’ are perfectly fine for RP rather than strictly playing a Pandaria style monk.
But I don’t think you ‘have’ to do that to have a different personality. I could easily see a more aggressive monk, perhaps one that disagrees with the more zen elders etc. Expecially if you’re not pandaren. You can explore how and why they started training as a monk, and what character factors may have lead to disagreements, etc. I have a void elf alt who became a monk thinking pandaren meditation techniques would help to control the void whispers but her personality isn’t bound to ‘wise sage monk’ for it.
Even a Pandaren could perhaps be influenced by azeroth’s cultures after becoming a monki, especially now that they no longer have to worry about the Sha manifesting if they have strong emotions etc.
So even if you RP a pandaren style monk that really doesn’t have to shoehorn your character into a stereotype.
I think it might be important to pinpoint just WHEN your character became a monk, and especially what they might have done before then.
For instance, I made a Highmountain tauren that used to be a pathfinder atop the peaks of the titular Highmountain. Navigating through the freezing cold and daunting terrain toned his body to be highly resilient and deceptively agile, and he would mix special brews to warm and invigorate both himself and survivors trapped in the snow. When he was shown the path of the monk during the events of Legion, he took to their teachings rather naturally.
If you want a Light based monk, and an aescetic feel, might I suggest a cheerful wanderer archetype? Preaches the good word, may not have any outward ‘magicy magic’ ness, but uses traditional medicine, going from place to place to help folks - while also using succinct hand to hand combat to disarm folks as opposed to just killing them.
I suggest thinking about personality first, and just have something basic for a backstory, and worry about all the finer details later.
How cheerful is your monk? Is he humble and cheerful, or humble and cynical? How quick is he to fight when provoked? Does he go straight for a decisive blow, or prefers to joke around with word play to avoid confrontation? How hard does he party? Is he willing to make a fool of himself to make a punchline?
This monk is mostly a by the game pandaren monk, except that she’s a bit, uh, loopy…but she’s surprisingly wise and capable despite the appearance of being quite the opposite. She views her monk ways as mystical magic alongside traditional martial training and homebrew recipes.
I have another monk though, a night elf male, who struggled for years with fitting in somewhere. More of a renegade because of this, he was struck by the Pandaren teachers and after studying with them, developed his own style and continued on his path. He elven heritage is still with him, much preferring things like the outdoors, but definitely keeps a natural life, wandering from here to there with very little to carry.