Dev Diary #2: The Monk

Greetings heroes of the realm! We’ve got some news to share with you: we’re working hard on the next updates of Stolen Realm, which will be released as soon as next week, and we can now give you a sneak peek at one of the biggest new features that will be implemented soon. We’re very excited to announce that **Stolen Realm is getting a new character class: the Monk! **

If you play TTRPG games like Dungeons & Dragons you’ll be familiar with the archetype: a character class based on hand-to-hand combat and high mobility, usually very tough thanks to a lot of resistances. Our Monk draws from this inspiration, but as we always strive to do, we’ve given it our own twist to make it stand out from the crowd.

So, what are Monks about? To sum it up, they are powerful** martial artists with the ability to move enemies around, pulling them and knocking them back **with their special skills. The active Monk skills focus on taking control of the board, so to speak, dominating the battle positionally. Thanks to their high mobility, they can charge across the battlefield and dash between enemies to help their companions wherever they are, creating havoc around the whole map.

A Monk using an AoE attack against a group of enemies

Thanks to this, the Monk is meant to support other characters’ special powers, complementing them and creating awesome tactical synergies. For example,** your Monk could start a battle by kicking an enemy into a fire barrel **to use the explosion to thin down a crowd of enemies before they get to charge your team. Next turn the Monk would cooperate with the Warriors of the team, pulling the toughest enemies into their Slams to weaken them. Then in the heat of battle the party’s Healer gets pinned down by an enemy, just when some other hero is about to succumb to their injuries – but lo and behold, here comes the Monk, charging across the battlefield with a fearsome warcry, to kick the monster away so the Healer can run to aid the wounded without fear of opportunity attacks…

As you can see,** Monks synergizes very well with the rest of the team, creating an extra layer of tactical depth** thanks to their ability to support other characters and make their skills shine. Their movement skills, paired with passives that increase damage based on how much you have moved, can create some crazy damage combos; and the tricks you can pull off when cooperating with other players are just amazing. We can’t wait to see the tactical shenanigans you come up with when you get your hands on the Monk!

Mind you, just as it happens with all other character classes in the game, Monks are not meant to be a cookie-cutter character that forces you to comply with a strict build. You can go full Monk, of course – there is a lot of customization in the pure class. But you can also take skills from other skill trees, creating your own, completely unique build. Maybe your version of a Monk dips into the Fire tree or the Shadow tree to create something truly unique to your playstyle. And of course, perhaps all you really care about is punching your enemies to death with all new fist weapons – all options will be viable!

Charging an enemy across the battlefield

As it always happens when you’re designing new mechanics, some just don’t pass the cut and are left on the design table. For instance, at first we thought of a bunch of passive skills for the Monk, based on its fantasy archetype: passive bonuses that you unlock for renouncing the use of weapons and armor. The idea was for it to be modular – perhaps you renounce the use of weapons to get certain bonuses, but keep armor on for extra toughness. In the end we decided against it, because we wanted to keep all the builds equally flexible: if you have to renounce weapons and armor you can’t multiclass efficiently Monk and Warrior, for example; and thus, Monk would have been the only class that needs players to fully commit to it, upsetting the balance of the class system.

So, what do you think about the introduction of Monks in the game? What do you expect from them, tactically speaking? We’re still in the process of refining (and of course balancing) this new class, so your feedback is very welcome at this stage! You can leave us your comments here in the comments section of this forum, or join our Discord server where you can chat with other players of the game and reach out to the development team directly. This Saturday (May 28th), from 9:30 am to 10:30 am PST, we'll be streaming our game on steam. Afterward at 10:30 am we’ll be available for an informal Q&A about this new feature and the game as a whole – we’re looking forward to seeing you on Stolen Realm’s Discord server!

Have a nice week, and good luck on the battlefield, heroes!