D&D 3rd vs 5th

one for the oldies out there.

I've played & ran lots of 3rd and 5th edition. with regard to monk 3rd edition said:
punching = melee attack. so str to hit and str to damage.
take a feat to make it dex to hit and str to damage if you want.
much later on you can, possibly, take another feat o make it dex o hit and damage - maybe!
this all made sense o me.

5th edition is saying: here, have dex to hit and damage right from he get go. a monk needs str about as much as a sorcerer does.
I despise that.
Convince me I'm wrong.....

Convince you that you personally don't like one version over another? Sounds like folly. Just play it the way you like it, Morlaf, and find some folks who agree to play with.

I can't convince you that you're wrong to despise that. You can despise whatever you like.

I think that 5e is trying to emphasise that the monk is agile, quick and deft in their attacks. It's not about the momentum of their strikes, it's about them hitting the right place.

Having said that - I've seen people reskin monks as unarmed bar fighters, where str would make more sense. I believe there's a homebrew str based monk that's quite popular for those reskins. I'm not sure how they explain their tavern brawler having xi though.

But of all the mad rules in D&D, this wouldn't make my top five.

Monks in 3E were a major MADD (multiple attribute dependency disorder) class. Possibly the MADDest.

5E took that back a step. It's a good thing.

Agreed. While it doesn't make perfect real-life sense, it makes much better sense from a game design standpoint. In the end, we're playing a game that needs to be designed well to be fun and that's more important than real-world accuracy. Even with the improvements made to the class, they're certainly not over-powered, so it's not like it over-corrected.

This. A kick to the testicles would send anyone to the mat no matter if it was a man, woman, or child doing the kicking. Dex monks are hitting pressure points, weak spots, etc. so that the damage is coming from hitting those precise points rather than brute strength.

Mine either, but now let's talk about disposable familiars. I hate that familiars in 5e have become completely disposable. If yours is dissipated, you simply resummon it. I liked the old days, when familiars were prized and you protected them with your life (because it could mean your life if you didn't). Losing a familiar meant an immediate system shock roll or die, and even if you succeeded, you lost a point of Constitution permanently. You didn't change its form at a whim, you took what you got and were happy, or else you sent it away and waited a year to cast the spell again!

Yes, I am a grognard and... wha...? Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!

The only versions of Monk that I ever liked were 1e AD&D and Hackmaster. 3e Monk is average and playable, but it doesn't feel right. 5e I don't touch with a 10 foot pole, so I'm not sure on that version. However, the idea of Monk as a class in D&D is strange to me. Mostly because Monks in history were Religious folk who scribed texts all day and prayed. So in effect the Historical Monk is nowhere to be found in D&D, which bothers me.

Losing a point of Constitution seems really harsh, though I like the idea of finding a way to make losing certain things more costly. Though, then it wouldn't be 5e. Part of the reason 5e is so successful is that it's a theme park ride, pure joy/power without significant risk. You can certainly die, but it's not a risk every session, or even every other session. This isn't a good or bad thing, it's just the design.

I can see the attraction of making things more risky, more serious, more valuable, but that comes with other pros/cons.
I agree with this part. The idea of an eastern martial artist as its own class seems...distasteful for some reason. I feel like it could be a subclass and that would be fine.