The Defender: Not Just a Midnight Monk
by Rob Vaughn

The Midnight 2nd Edition design process was a balancing act between improving or adapting the classes and rules to the world of Midnight vs. keeping things familiar enough for new players to readily grab onto it. The best example of that is the defender class. The defender obviously has many similarities to the 3.5 monk: he relies on his unarmed strikes rather than his weapons; he doesn’t wear armor; he tends to be mobile and self-reliant. Yet, there are distinct differences. As a low-magic setting, the defender couldn’t have all of the mystic supernatural abilities of monks. Likewise, the cultures of the setting are besieged, conquered, pseudo-European archetypes; the Sarcosans are the closest the setting comes to an eastern culture, and they’re distinctly more middle-eastern than asian. Hence, no monasteries with ascetic monks and kung-fu heroes. The more you look at the two classes and their origins, the more different they seem.
In this article, I’m going to go over the differences as I see them between defenders and monks, and hopefully provide a segue way to the next Secrets of Shadow: Redesigning the Defender.

The Defender’s Job
Monks exist in D&D not so much to fill a niche in the party as to allow players to take on an archetypal role from fiction and movies. The fighting classes take it to the chin on the front lines so the other classes don’t have to; the skill-based classes get the party past non-combat challenges like traps, NPC interaction, and those pesky Knowledge checks; and the arcane and divine casters obviously have their spells in all their diversity and power. So what is a monk’s job? He doesn’t really have one, except to fulfill the player’s need to play a wacky kung-fu fighter. Unlike the bard, he doesn’t have many powers that no other classes have . . . he’s mobile and lightly armored, but that’s not unique. He can jump pretty far and use dimension door once per day at higher levels, but so can any arcane caster with the right spells. He can hit things, sure . . . but why use your fists when an axe does the job even better? Why waste a valuable high ability score in Wisdom to pump up your AC when you can throw on a chain shirt or some plate mail?
In Midnight, the defender does have a job, and there are good reasons why he can manage what no one else in the party can. His job, to put it simply, is to be able to perform in any situation, without reliance on anyone or anything else.

Like the monk, the defender is mobile and lightly armored . . . but in a world where armor is illegal, gives you away when trying to sneak past orc patrols, and is hard to come by, the defender’s ability to attain a high AC without any armor at all makes fighters and barbarians envious. Like those warrior classes, the defender is expected to go toe-to-toe with the party’s enemies, but how often can a character in Midnight haul around a greatsword or a ranseur? At best, such weapons force the warrior character to hide out in the wilderness while the rest of the party heads into town. At worst, being seen with such weapons can get the whole party captured or killed. Even more important, magic items and weapons made of special materials are not only incredibly valuable in Midnight, they are often incredibly dangerous to possess. The defender’s ability to penetrate damage reduction of all sorts means that he’ll often be the only party member able to bypass a dangerous and powerful enemy’s damage reduction, and the fact that he does not rely on spells means that when the legates and their magic-sniffing astiraxes come around, no one will be pointing fingers at the defender and accusing him of drawing them to the party.

The Defender’s Place in the Setting
Even more important for die-hard Midnight players, though, is that the defender makes sense in the setting. As opposed to having to shoehorn in out-of-place exotic monasteries to create a source for his players’ monk characters, defenders are bred by the realities of the harsh world of Midnight. If you’re going to survive, you have to be able to do so with the tools you have at hand. If you’re going to be of any use to the resistance or your fellow rebels, you’re going to have to be able to get in and out of occupied areas without giving the whole group away.

The Defender’s Biggest Asset
Warriors can choose their weapons. Spellcasters can choose their spells. Even skill-based characters can choose on a regular basis what they focus on as they advance in level. The monk . . . well, the monk is defined by his ability scores and, every few levels, by his choice of a feat or bonus feat. The biggest asset the defender has, by contrast, is his flexibility. Like the wildlander, each defender is radically different from every other as determined by his choice of defender abilities. Some focus on defense, and become very good at not getting hurt or, if they do get tagged, managing to take the beating and keep going. Others are less focused on protecting themselves and, as per their name, more concerned with defending others. If the defender can take a hit for the dworg giantblooded barbarian, that means the barbarian can keep dishing out the pain to the bad guys. Finally, some defenders know how to hit really hard or really fast . . . they might not rack up the huge numbers of a two-handed power-attacking weapon-specializing fighter, but they can make foes reel with the force of their improved stuns or with the speed of their extra actions.
In D&D, the monk is the class that a player should feel free to take if all other roles in the party are filled . . . part scout, part fighter, part versatile problem-solver. In Midnight, the defender is a fighting class, no doubt about it, and is the most self-reliant, versatile, reliable warrior the party is likely to have. No matter how deep the party needs to travel into occupied territory, no matter what foe the party faces, and no matter how determined the magic-hunting legates are to track down the party, the defender provides maximum fighting power for minimum preparation and without endangering the party.