Monk (job)

Monk is a job class that appears in many of the Final Fantasy games. There are a few tell-tale signs of a monk. They are masters of the martial arts, probably principally Karate, fight with their bare hands or in some cases with weapons like knuckles. They wear little or no armor, depending on the incarnation, again. In early English localizations of the series, the Monk was known as the Black Belt. The Monk has appeared as a class in Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.

The characters Yang Fang Leiden of Final Fantasy IV, Sabin René Figaro of Final Fantasy VI, Tifa Lockhart of Final Fantasy VII and Zell Dincht of Final Fantasy VIII can be roughly categorized as Monk-type characters. Amarant Coral of Final Fantasy IX also incorporates a number of characteristics of both the Monk class and the Ninja character class.

While there are no set-in-stone requirements for monks, they tend to have some of the following abilities or characteristics;
 * Counter - The ability to immediately strike an opponent when hit. Sometimes this will negate the damage to the player, in some versions it will not.
 * Chakra - This ability allows a monk to restore a moderate amount of HP and MP. Sometimes this can also positively affect party members as well, probably included to represent the centered spirit emphasized of Buddhist philosophy.
 * High HP - Monk characters tend to have an above average quantity of HP, though they often get this at the expense of having a low defense value.