Good Monk Builds

I'm thinking of playing a Monk Warforged in Eberron, but having never played a Monk in 3.x (it's one of the classes that almost no one has played, in fact) I need some advice. How do monks compare to Barbarians, Rangers, and Fighters in terms of damage output? If you played a Monk, did you enjoy it more or less than you would have as a "normal" melee class?

And lastly, are there any good Monk builds floating around? I don't want to suck. The DM will probably be allowing the variant fighting styles from UA, and maybe the ones from Oriental Adventures. Thanks.

See if he'll also allow you to Unarmed Flurry with the two-weapon fighting feat chain.


Mike

mikebr99 said:

See if he'll also allow you to Unarmed Flurry with the two-weapon fighting feat chain.


Mike

Click to expand...

Huh? Why? Did I miss something?

Anyway, I built a monk around certain gimmicks in OA, in particular Great Throw and Grappling Block. The associated feats, such as Combat Reflexes, Expertise, and Improved Trip & Disarm also help out later in the battles to boost AC when needed.

Depending on your point build, I went with the following for a 32 point buy:
STR 14
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 14
WIS 16
CHA 8

As I went I added ability points to Dex, but I wish I had gone Str instead to keep up with the Str of larger/stronger opponents.

1st level: Fighter, for the extra feat and hit points you will need later
2nd: Fighter again, same reasons
3rd: Wizard; only 1 level will give you enough to help yourself instead of relying on mage/cleric buffs - Enlarge & mage armor become your best spells.
4th and after: Monk.

At 6th level he had Great Throw and his speed was already faster than anyone else in the party. His saves are excellent, especially for Will (Wizard level) and Fort (2 levels of Fighter) on top of the monk's all-around good saves. AC ends up being 15 to start, but with mage armor its 19, and that's without any magic enhancement. Oh, and add a +1 for dodge too.

The gimmick he has is the Great Throw. He can take a full round action to flurry touch attacks and toss 2 opponents to the ground for the same damage he would do with an unarmed strike. With 3.5 he gets AoOs if they try to stand up while in his threatened area; with Combat Reflexes he gets to try to throw (again) more than one. Enlarged, his area of threatened space just got larger, his Str is better though his AC is reduced - not a problem if he already buffed using mage armor.

He has Tumble maxed out so that he can use his fast movement and tumble to get to the back lines before anyone else. If he does a double move he still gets AoOs on anyone casting. Should he get surrounded he can tumble out of danger rather easily once he reaches 6th level or so, and can toss people into any surrounding 5' square he wants - over railings, into pits, lava, another mook caster, wherever.

At 9th level he will get Grappling Block, another nice feat from OA which turns a potential hit into a disarm. Should he be surprised, this will work much better against foes that will tag him if he doesn't have a chance to get is mage armor up yet.

Whoops.

Holy post-mania.

Take a look at my 1st level Monk in the rogues gallery forum (and let me know what you think of him!).

The key element is something which would be available to a warforged monk. Use your 1st level feat to take martial weapon(glaive) and make Str the most important attribute.

Thus he has a reach attack which uses 1.5* str bonus (and if you get power attack you get benefits there too), and if anyone closes with you, you follow your AoO with the Glaive up by fighting using unarmed kick and headbutt attacks. You can even flurry with those while your hands are full with the glaive (and yet probably still have the glaive handy for taking AoO with a 10ft reach). At 2nd level you can get combat reflexes as a bonus feat to improve the effectiveness of your glaive.

Don't forget that you can flurry with shuriken and that they are drawn as ammunition (i.e. as a free action) so if someone disengages from you it might be possible to whack 'em with the glaive as they exit the 2nd square away from you and then launch a couple of shuriken at them.

Forgive me if I get carried away with some of the combinations there - I might be stretching the point a little But the core idea of spending a feat for a reach weapon which can be used in conjunction with the monks natural unarmed combat is, IMO a good one (and not necessarily an obvious tactic either... I've never seen anyone else talk about it before).

Cheers

I've seen several effective monks in Living Greyhawk.

One half-orc:
(ex) Bbn 1/Monk all the rest of the way
(28 point buy something like: Str 17, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 9, Wis 14, Cha 6 Increases go to wisdom and strength)
Stunning Fist (b), Combat Reflexes, Expert Tactician, Power Attack, and a few other feats (I'm not sure which).

The player built up a lot of armor class at high levels through boots of speed, monk's belt, ioun stones, gloves of dexterity, etc. His tactics tend toward flurrying (fighting defensively if he doesn't need all of his monstrous attack bonus (I'm not sure how he got a good attack bonus but a lot of it has to do with strength and some bracers that give his attacks an enhancement bonus).

Another half-orc straight up monk
28 points: Str 18, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 6 (increases go to strength)
Improved Grapple (b), Combat Reflexes, Deflect Arrows (b), Hold the Line, Improved Trip (b) and I haven't seen him in action since he hit sixth level so I don't know what his next feat is.
Typically, he finds the toughest foe and grapples them, taking them out of combat. He often, however, carries a spiked chain to gain AoOs (which he then uses to trip his foes). He's not proficient in the chain but, for what he does, he doesn't need proficiency. He tends to take a lot of damage and functions best when there's a cleric around to heal him as he bleeds. However, he's quite capable of contributing in parties two to four levels higher than he is.

A human monk--all monk all the way:
Starting stats: something like: str 14, dex 14, con 14, int 8, wis 16, cha 8 increases go to wisdom
Feats: Stunning Fist (b), Dodge, Deflect Arrows (b), Mobility, Improved Trip (b), Spring Attack, Combat Reflexes, Expert Tactician, Blindfight
His tactics tend towards dancing through his opponents (possibly carrying darkness, silence, or both) to get to the vulnerable spellcasters, hitting them with a stunning fist, moving back if they make the save, or hanging out and hitting them again with expert tactician (and Imp Trip) if they fail the save.

If you feel up to a role-playing challenge, ask your DM if you can play an ascetic monk from the Book of Exalted Deeds. The template applied to your character as a result of the Vow of Poverty feat results in an astounding ramp-up in power for a monk willing to forego gear. With this feat, you don't need gear anyway.

I got lucky and rolled really well on 3d6 (straight down!) My ascetic monk's stats are

14 Str
14 Dex
16 Con
14 Int
16 Wis
15 Cha

For feats, I took

(Human feat) Sacred Vow
(1st-level feat) Vow of Poverty
(Monk bonus feat) Stunning Fist
(2nd-level exalted feat) Touch of Golden Ice
(2nd-level Monk feat) Deflect Arrows
(3rd-level feat) Weapon Focus (unarmed strike)
(4th-level exalted feat) Nimbus of Light

I later plan to take

Holy Radiance (exalted bonus)
Improved Disarm (monk bonus - great with a quarterstaff)
Blind-Fight (6th-level feat)
Vow of Purity (exalted bonus)
Sun School (9th-level, tactical feat)
Sacred Ki Strike (exalted bonus)
Holy Ki Strike (12th-level feat)
Fist of the Heavens (exalted bonus)
Exalted Spell Resistance (exalted bonus)
Freezing the Lifeblood (15th-level feat)

I'm going straight monk. In addition to getting a cool monk ability every level, I get bonuses every level from Voluntary Poverty. Plus a bonus exalted feat every other level. Just for fun I figured it out: at 20th, the character will have around +30/+30/+30/+25/+20 on attacks and around a 43 AC. His unarmed strikes will deal +2d6 holy damage. His touch will ravage evil with Dexterity loss.

My DM won't make it easy to stay on the straight & narrow exalted path. But I've got a pretty kick-butt monk. I highly recommend taking a Vow of Poverty.

Plane Sailing - why didn't you take the Spiked Chain instead of the Glaive? Too cheesy?

Bye
Thanee

I guess PS goes for more damage and nearly same effectivity. Every guy who closes asks for unarmed attacks, so you don't need the chain.