"Masters of hand-to-hand combat who intuitively counterattack."
—Description
The Monk is a job in Final Fantasy V obtained after the Wind Crystal shatters. It is the strongest of the Clothes-wearing jobs, possessing the highest Stamina modifier, and are tied with multiple classes for highest Strength, making mastery of Monk important for utilization of Freelancer and Mime.
In addition, Monks are amongst the cheapest jobs to buy for, as they do not have a need to equip weapons or many armors. The downside to the Monk is that they are lacking in Defense, but make up for this with high HP.
The monk job class gives all the characters more unique clothes than other jobs and they all have a Far Eastern flair. Bartz wears a headband, a green vest and pink trousers. Lenna wears a red dress similar to a Chinese Qipao, and even wears her hair in the odango fashion, similar to Ursula's in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years. Faris just wears a white Gi, while Galuf goes shirtless while wearing a red belt and black trousers. Krile wears a red dress similar to Lenna's, but also with white pants and a bow in her hair.
The monk's job command launches a flying kick at all enemies, for some minor damage. Strangely enough, this is the only job command in the game that can't be learned by leveling up the job, and thus can only be used whilst a monk, or as a Mimemimicking it. If the monk is attacked physically, Counter will cause the monk to attack the attacking enemy back. Barehanded is, of course, the monk's trademark ability, allowing a unit to have high attack power while not having anything equipped.
Of note, Focus will remove any random spellcasting and special abilities of weapons. Any weapons that deal damage based on Magic, such as Rods and the Blood Sword, do not get any damage boosts from using Focus. Spellblade effects as well as critical hits (this also includes MP-based criticals) still work as normal. Barehanded gives the character that equips it base Freelancer Strength + 26. Chakra has a base spell power of 30. Counter has a 50% chance of activating, and will never activate special commands such as the abilities of the Thief Knife or Chicken Knife, and the Twin Lance will only hit once and not twice.
The stat modifiers of Monks are:
Strength: +26
Agility: +1
Stamina: +26
Magic: -23
Upon mastering the job, the Freelancer will gain a bonus to Strength, Agility, and Vitality, as well as having innate Counter without having to equip it.
Focus energies for a hit with twice the attack power.
Information
For its first turn, the monk will stand there, gathering power. When it has gathered enough, it will attack the enemy, with twice more power than usual.
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