Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Monk, an upcoming ability/class ?

Hello everyone,

First of all I'd like to congratulate Larian Studios for all the great work they've done so far on D:OS 2. I've been a big fan of D:OSEE and frankly, I am in love with D:OS 2, everything is smoother and better already ; loving it to a point that I have already more than 50 hours on it, which is a lot to me for an early access game.

Now, there's billions of things I would like to discuss regarding bugs, balance of classes and so on, but from what I've seen, many people already mentioned them and I am pretty sure the devs are aware of those, but I won't ; no what I would like to discuss here is the potential of a new class, revolving around the Monk style that many old and less old RPGs have had.

So I noticed that before a recent patch, Silent Monks were fighting bare handed, giving them the ability to attack by streaks of 3 hits. I also noticed that the Meat Golems from Niles the Knife fight behaved the same as the Silent Monks : unarmed and yet it seemed deadly. Not to forget the ability that you unlock by holding only one 1 Handed weapon, Sucker Punch.

Here is what I am wondering, is this some kind of hint of abilities to come or some sort of place holder for future animations ? (nb : the silent monks now wear spears). No matter what it is right now, I figured it would be an amazing addition to the classes of D:OS 2.

Why ? Well simply because there is two basic melee classes in D:OS 2, Scoundrel and Warfare, which are so good that you can't go around it to perform a nice melee character build. What Monk could bring that those two cannot is : 1. Versatility in the overall game ; 2. A melee class that better fits hybrid caster builds ; 3. Statisfy the RPGs standards and all the unarmed fighters fans. Because let's face it, no Warfare oriented build benefits from using magic schools, many take 1 Hydrosophist for the Magic Armor and 1 Geomancer for the Fortity and the oil debuffs, but that's about it. Polymorph is a nice attempt at giving casters more grounds, utility and sustain into the battle, I really like it, but it gives no melee damage abilities but Tentacle Lash, which requires Strength.

So here is the idea, wether it's been already imagined by the Larian Team or not, to add the Monk class, a support melee dps, that could almost challenge Scoundrel and Warfare dps wise (almost), that would benefit hybrid builds more. I can't help but to imagine an Hydrosophist Monk, wise and calm as water, protecting his team with buffs and age-old rituals before unleashing a hail of kicks or palm hits to his foes.

Thanks for reading and do not forget to tell me what you guys think about it all !

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there was a vote on new ability trees, which included unarmed, but it lost. There's always been the basic unarmed triple-attack, but I doubt they have any plans to add any monkish, unarmed skills now. At best you can hope for some kind of polymorph skill that unequips your weapon and turns your fists into stones or something (though that's not really that monkish). Maybe a couple warfare skills for one-handed attacks with no off-hand (like sucker punch), like a grapple ability or counterattack stance or something, though that's more duelist than monk.

If there was a way for skills to have a requirement that you have no weapon, then you could potentially mod unarmed skills in. You currently can make staff-specific melee skills, which is sort of monkish, especially if you made a physical-damage staff with a bo-staff like model. But I don't know if we'll be able to make brand new ability trees.

Don't be sorry to enlight me friend, thanks to you !

So I did some research about those skill tree votes and I have to admit that everything they proposed looked promising. From what I've read, there isn't going to be a third vote so we can conclude that we have already all final classes ?

Would be a bit dissapointing, diversity is always good in such games, specially in one where almost everyone runs Adrenaline, Enrage, Haste and Peace of Mind. Do you guys think we can hope for something more, something new again ?

Whats sure is that a load of new abilities will be released in order for classes to progress through the whole story. Let's hope there will be some way to diversify, to make more complex and deep customization.

I like your ideas of unarmed skills, being a matter of taste, spread accross different classes, which reunited could achiev to make a "Monk" the way we've seen it in previous fantasy games, I like it a lot !

Yeah, very doubtful they'd have a third vote, and very unlikely unarmed would even win. In fact I think it was one of the least voted for trees. Perhaps some maddening bard songs would get snuck in by vengeful Nord :P.

I think monk/unarmed wasn't too popular because there's not a clear sense of what sort of unique gameplay monk/unarmed offers like a summoning tree, nor is there inherently a huge amount of instant flavor like with polymorph (which doesn't necesarilly point to a clear gameplay niche either). Monk classes take a lot of work and imagination to really flesh out and be unique, which rarely happens though is quite satisfying when it does. Monk works better in a tabletop setting where spirituality usually associated with monks can be expanded on and roleplayed by the players.

There's going to be tons of new skills, including lots of new mechanics, so sit tight, even if I can't guarantee many of them will be very monk or unarmed themed.

Thanks again for your answers,

From a little research I've done in the comments of the two votes, I can tell that a lot of people were surprised unarmed and bard didn't win any of those votes. Some even said that they intended to vote for either unarmed or bard but because they were so sure of those two victory, they decided to vote for something a little more excentric. I don't know if the Larian team is aware of such a thing.

I really hope you're right about those new skills and mechanics offering new ways to customize your build. It would be awesome if, like you mentioned it, they could sneak in a last class in the final release, which would be bard I guess.

No matter what, I am not losing hope for an unarmed build to arise from a mix of several already existing class. That would be the best actually !

I also saw this big thread about talents, maybe one or two talents could allow unarmed fighting ? I think that would be a smart middle ground.