VoP/Monk build for review

Here is another take on this, leaving out the Nonviolence and Peace vows.


STR: 8 (-1)
DEX 21 (+5)
CON 16 (+3)
INT 10 (+0)
WIS 24 (+7)
CHA 16 (+3)

FORT +19
REF +19
WILL +21

AC 46, Touch 30, Flat-footed 41

HP: 136

Skills with Ranks:

Balance +14 (9 ranks)
Climb +20 (21 ranks)
Jump +46 (21 ranks)
Listen +10 (3 ranks)
Move Silently +26 (21 ranks)
Spot: +10 (3 ranks)
Timble +28 (21 ranks)

Attacks (Flurry) +24/+24++24/+19/+14

Stunning Fist DC 30
DR 5/magic and evil
SR 28, 32 vs. evil
Quivering Palm DC 27

Special:
True Seeing
Immune to Poison
Immune to Normal Disease
Immune to Detect Thoughts, Discern Lies, Any Attemt to Discern Alignment
Immune to Aging Penalties
Slow Fall 90' (+10 for tumble, +10 for jump)
Improved Evasion
Dimension Door 1/day up to 760 feet
Speak w/any living creature
Heal 18 pts/hour; 18 ability pts/5 minutes
Heal Self 36 pts/day

Feats

Lvl: Feat(s)
1: Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty, Touch of Golden Ice, Stunning Fist
2: Intuitive Attack, Deflect Arrows
3: Dodge
4: Vow of Abstinence
5:
6: Mobility, Nimbus of Light (5' light at will, 10' shadowy light), Improved Disarm
7:
8: Sanctify Ki Strike (+1vs. Evil, +1d4 vs evil outsiders and undead), Spring Attack
9: Spring Attack
10: Holy Ki Strike (+2d6 vs. evil)
11:
12: Great Fortitude, Fist of the Heavens (+2 Stunning DC + 1 extra round stunned)
13:
14: Exalted Spell Resistance (+4 vs. Evil)
15:
16: Improved Initiative
17:
18: Ability Focus(Stunning Attack DC +2)

Plus. in the future

19: Vow of Chastity
20:

Well, I can say that Vow of Poverty monks are a blast to play. My current character is a level 12 (13 when I get back) VoP Monk, and I can't wait to get back to playing him.

I think that your wisdom needs to be as high as possible. I think that you should be able to get it to 26 (+2 levels, +6 enhancement). That would be the best thing to do. It adds to your attack bonus, AC, Will save, and Stun DC. By comparison, Dex adds to your AC, Reflex Save, and initiative.

You have terrible ability score generation for a vow of poverty monk. Since you need high Cha for Holy Ki Strike, your only dump stat is Int. Having a 10 (or an 8) in any score other than Int really harms your character. Doing 0 damage per attack is not a good answer, but even if you put an 8 in Int, there is nothing good to put the 10 in. Since the first couple points of Con bonus are the most valuable, that is out. Wisdom and Dex are out.

You should absolutely take Weapon Focus: Unarmed Strike unless feat chains take all of your feats. Your attack bonus is relatively low, since you have low BaB and only Wisdom bonuses to add to this.

Spring Attack is terrible. Like DM_Matt said, it lets everyone ignore you while killing your friends. Improved Disarm is also terrible. When I got to make my character, I looked at the rules for Disarm and Trip. There's a world of difference. If you want to disarm someone, hit them with a stunning fist and they drop everything. Deflect Arrows isn't bad. If you really do want to keep Deflect Arrows and Improve Disarm, try to see if your DM will let you take Grappling Block (from 3.0 Oriental Adventures).

Defensive Throw is ridiculously good and is the main reason to take the Improved Trip/Combat Reflexes chain. Grappling Block isn't nearly as good (can only be used once a round) but gives you a chance to grab a weapon away instead of having it hit you. I didn't have enough feats to take it for my monk, but it seems like great flavor.

Hope this helps.

You got me thinking, Elric.

Tough choices. Spring Attack can really help - zip in, stun the magic user, and zip out, not staying to get smashed.

On the other hand, in it's place I could take Snatch Arrows (just for the coolness factor), Weapon Focus (Unarmed) (to offset the strength penalty) and Blind-Fight (good benefits to that one).

For a low-strength monk, disarming is great. His attack bonus is pretty good, and it's an opposed attack roll, no strength involved. Trip (and Grapple, for that matter) use strength, and so are poor choices tactically.

What the heck, I'll stay with Spring Attack.

Artoomis said:

... and it's an opposed attack roll, no strength involved.

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Umm... you make opposed melee attack rolls with your weapons. Everything adds in :BAB, Str, Wpn Foc, Wpn Enhancement bonuses, also there is a bonus/penalty for weilding a 2Hwpn, or a light wpn, and also for size catagory

Seems like he should be on the back lines, sniping opponents while running at his insane monk speed, as his Str is rather weak. I wouldn't take feats to boost stunning unless you want that to be your schtick, as it's rather weak against the typical baddies you may face. Think about your stun DC and the normal modifier for the critters you run into. Sure some will be easier than others, but to what avail? The baddie is stunned. That's it.

I would gear up a monk at your level to be more gimmicky, where tripping, grappling, etc. become his thing, as at higher levels it seems to matter more to be able to hold up the BBEG while the rest of the party sweeps out the rest of the peons. With your current build you may survive, but you are doing little to actually assist the party except drawing fire to your high AC and hope not to get tagged too often. While that's useful, it's also good to be able to dish out the damage or otherwise hinder your opponents (trip, disarm, etc.) in case your opponents are ignoring you, and they will sometime in the future.

Otherwise it's a very creative build, and would be fun to role-play the weak monk who shows up with his arms folded and all who try to lay a hand on him fail.

heliopolix said:

Umm... you make opposed melee attack rolls with your weapons. Everything adds in :BAB, Str, Wpn Foc, Wpn Enhancement bonuses, also there is a bonus/penalty for weilding a 2Hwpn, or a light wpn, and also for size catagory

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Correct. Improved Disarm takes care of the light weapon penalty for doing this unarmed. A human is medium, so he starts out even for a medium, one-handed weapon opponent. Not only is he even-up to start, but, if he wins, he has the weapon in his hand, and, with Spring Attack, can be out of reach. Very useful for snatching items out of a wizard's hands - like the wand he's using to ruin your day! The wizard may have a sky-high armor class from "buff" spells, but it won't help him with the opposed attack roll.

With a +24 attack bonus, he has a fair chance of success against anyone but fighter and barbarians, where his chance of success drops a bit unless someone in the party buffs him up (allowable under VoP rules).

Correct.

Compare to Grapple, Trip and Sunder.

Grapple: Requires touch attack (no too hard) and opposed grapple check - which is STR and Size based. Little chance of success due to low STR.

Trip: Make a touch attack (not too hard). Then an opposed STR check - opposed by STR or DEX, whichever is higher. Not bloody likely - even with a +4 from Improved Trip. Chance of success for a low STR character = very low.

Sunder: Opposed attack roll. With Improved Sunder, a reasonable chance of success. Must overcome hardness. Reasonable chance of success - the damage is not high, though , especially in light of the Sage's clarification on weapon hardness and hit points. Better weapons will not even be damaged.

I'll stick with Improved Disarm. For flavor, if nothing else.

Sundering would be fun, too, but he just can't do enough damage with a single blow.

MarauderX said:

...Otherwise it's a very creative build, and would be fun to role-play the weak monk who shows up with his arms folded and all who try to lay a hand on him fail.

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That's kind of what I had in mind. He's the guy who looks for interesting things to do - like pierce the enemy's lines right through to the big wizard and grab his wand, or even his component pouch!! The wizard's attack bonus is likely to be low.

I'd really like the to have the Vow of Peace, but I'm afraid it would crimp the styles of the other players too much with the constant Calm Emotions going. I think it would be a great challenge to play a character like that.

Good point about Disarm not using strength. I completely forgot about that. IIRC, though, a large weapon wielded in two hands gives +8 against your disarm attempt. I also realized that grappling block will never work for this character. It has the same problem for this character that it did for my VoP monk- you have to beat an opponent's attack roll to take his weapon, but you only hit yourself on a 20, so any attack that hits you will beat your attack roll.

I think you should really try to make the character more offensive. After all, you have 46 AC, SR 28, and +20 on saves. And 3 attacks at +24 for around 20 damage a hit. I mean, think about how long it would take you to kill your evil twin!

Artoomis said:

Sundering would be fun, too, but he just can't do enough damage with a single blow.

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I may be wrong, but I thought that by this time the monk's ki-strike: adamantine would ignore all but the highest weapon hardnesses, making the sunder route potential useful. With the CW eagle claw attack (add wisdom bonus to sunder damage), your monk could shatter many weapons with a full attack.

As for the Vow of Peace build, my own such monk deals with the aura by using his speed. He stays 20+' back normally, then zips forward to engage if his aid is required. It is sometimes a pain, but the amusement of making the BBEG scratch its head in confusion is worth it to me.

Elric said:

...you have to beat an opponent's attack roll to take his weapon, but you only hit yourself on a 20, so any attack that hits you will beat your attack roll...

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I didn't follow this. For the opposed roll, it's only who gets the higher attack roill that counts. So if I roll higher, I get his weapon. Period. I don't even have to beat his AC, just get a higher attack roll.

That should be great for taking wands and compenent pouches away from wizards, but not so good for two-handed weapons form giants.

I think I will swap out Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) with Improved Natural Attack to change damage from 2d8 to 3d8. That should help out when he cannot avoid direct combat, which, let's face it, will be often.