Why not monks?

[EUBanana]

Actually the whip isn't that good. I see it'd have to be a kusarigama instead... But that's no great loss, it has the advantage of being a monk weapon.

 

[EUBanana]

Okay, I made a proper sheet for a level 11 monk as we're almost level 11, and grovelled permission from my DM to try him out for one adventure instead of my usual char as a test run on how crap monks are. We shall see.

 

[Mad Hamish]

It's not an unusual campaign. Lots of published adventures. We did Castle Ravenloft as the last big plot arc, Count Strahd et al, doesn't get much more boilerplate D&D than that. He'd have been fine in Castle Ravenloft, I have no doubt. Almost everything in it is humanoid, most of the humanoids fight with a weapon, and almost everything would be eminently trippable.

If you rarely fight non-humanoid monsters I'd say it's somewhat uncommon.

I say humanoids purely because Crane Wing only works against weapon attacks, that doesn't mean he's an arena fighter, it means his feats work best against weapon attacks, which are pretty damn common it seems to me. If something has a weapon he's in the game. If something is trippable he's in the game. If something doesn't have a weapon and isn't trippable (bebilith) then he isn't. Nobody is god except maybe the wizard.

I'm not sure how well trip really scales with level. A typical CR 10 monster seems to have CMD 30 or so.

I hardly think the humanoid thing is a big deal. A cavalier of the standard 'charge on horseback for 70-100 damage' sort is ended completely simply by difficult terrain, which is everywhere. Or even a ladder for that matter, horses simply can't go some places.

The Cavalier isn't ended completely, he's certainly a lot less effective. He can also use Horseshoes of Speed, Horseshoes of a Zephyr to get around some problems with it and a small Cavalier has more chances to get his mount places.

A ranger is ruined by fighting things he's not specialised in, which are fairly tightly defined in some cases.

A Ranger isn't ruined by fighting non-prefered enemies.
He's certainly down in effectiveness but he's not negated by it.

A paladin becomes a crap, albeit tough, fighter against things that aren't evil. I think the monk working best against things with 2 legs and some steel in their hand is pretty minor really.

Change a monk to your suggested builds please.

The 10th level paladin I've been playing for a year has got

+4 headband of charisma
+2 full plate
+2 small shield
+2 longsword
+1 holy mace
+2 amulet of natural armor
+2 ring of protection
A couple of pearls of power

So I picked, broadly speaking, similar stuff for the monk.

nothing but weapons, AC bonuses and a stat boosting item apart from the pearls of power.

nothing for mobility, nothing for saves, nothing ideosyncratic

Bonuses to attributes are not defensive, they are all around good. A headband of wisdom +4 is an excellent pick for a martial artist monk, both offensively and defensively. It makes his stunning fist DCs higher, it makes his AC higher, it makes exploit weakness more likely to work, it improves willpower saves, it ups perception. It's a lot of bang for the buck, in all manner of things. It is emphatically not a purely defensive item.

And a belt of physical perfection is, of course, generalist, thats the whole point of it.

This sort of thing is good for monks because they have so many attributes that turn into bonuses. MAD is not a flaw if you up the abilities.

you did notice I wrote
"which gives you +12 to AC, a bonus to monk abilities and stat bonuses"

To me generalist magic item suggests
movement options, some stuff not related to combat, some quirky stuff

stat bonuses don't qualify as generalist magic items IMO (effective yes, another criticism of standard D20 is the virtual requirement for stat boosters, cloak of resistance, etc)

Because I was standing in the way? The only way they were headed for squishies was through me.

So you had a perfect choke point and couldn't be bullrushed or bypassed?
Makes it practical but not IMO good encounter design.

It doesn't matter if I'm doing less damage if someone else is doing more damage. A paladin and an archer, working together, is essentially a gestalt entity which has AC 34 and does heinous damage with ranged attacks, and self heals itself with not much loss of damage output - you don't even need a cleric wasting actions to cast heals when a paladin is taking the hits.

if matters if you're talking 1 on 1 and being isolated to take an enemy out - which you were.
Now tying up the opposition big hitter still could be worth it but I don't think you're presenting enough of a threat to keep him close. Admittedly he could end up extremely pissed off at trip attacks but whips can be sundered...

So long as they are armed and trippable, thats the main thing for that specific build.

But you don't have to be a trip monkey with a whip in one hand, that coulda been weapon focus and weapon spec instead.

If you're presenting a particular build as kicking some arse then what other builds can do isn't particularly relevant.

+18 by my reckoning - level 10 monk, +6 strength, +2 trip feat. He does, however, have a whip, which is a trip weapon.

Which means he trips the fighter on a 16 or better and drops the whip on a 6 or less. Which leaves him not overly likely to be effective.

Only through magic items and odd attribute choices. The monk could have higher, its just a case of what priorities you choose to have. A fighter with +7 to will saves strikes me as rather unusual. The monk only has +4, and still has a slightly higher will save. The bottom line is, monk saves are considerably better than a fighters either way you cut it, how you choose to gear up or not is up to you.

The fighter has taken a Trait for +1 on Will saves, has Iron Will, 14 Wisdom and a cloak of protection because being dominated isn't fun for the party.

as far as odd attribute choices go
dex & con are priorities for a fighter and wisdom is handy because of will saves.

Well, the monk in our game would always be hasted without fail and would always have bless without fail if you want to bring up likely buffs from teammates. And probably prayer and maybe even enlarge as well. This is a line of reasoning that cuts both ways.

Interesting that he always has them if he's commonly functioning as a scout or attacking isolated opponents.

However let's clarify between the 1 vs 1 compared to fighting as part of a group.
1 on 1 the fighter would get Haste from boots of speed.

As part of a group there are buffs thrown around and Enlarge Person, Haste, Inspire Courage, Heroism, Good Hope are pretty common.

Also note that the movement bonus from Haste doesn't stack for a Monk which means that almost any other character will have the same speed as the Monk in combat in your group and a Barbarian is faster

So yeah, pretty much in the same league as the class with the highest AC in the entire game. Seems pretty good to me.

Depending on exactly how you build things Paladins, Rangers, Inquisators for a start can get up around there.

You can change c) yourself if you want a more offensive monk. The whip is to limit double teaming - I think it'd be pretty effective at that when combined with combat reflexes, and trip is good as it means a lot of bad guys might essentially be losing their action for a round. However, it wouldn't need to be a whip, there's a lot of awesome monk weapons in UC, like kusarigamas.

although most of them are exotic so require a feat
Of course non-monks get Nodachi which would be an upgrade for pretty much any two handed weapon user and is only a martial weapon.

And I think four, maybe six, maybe even ten (or 11, with haste) attacks with natural strength 20 and fighter with two weapons BAB is pretty good, whether they are trips, punches or whatever.

It's the sort of thing which is really going to make the lower AC targets explode into gibs. And given even something like clay golem or a bebilith or a huge earth elemental only has AC < 25... I think this is more likely than you seem to think.

as you've built it the damage isn't huge on you've got around a 50% chance of hitting vs AC 25.

His attack bonus IMO is perfectly adequate for what is essentially a 2W fighter. It's fighter BAB +3, assuming he fights defensively. Almost no magic items involved. Thats going to be 50/50 with his main attacks against most foes, before any tripping goes on.

In 4th ed 50/50 is pretty good. Not so much in d20.
Compare it to an aggessive sword and board fighter or a two weapon fighter.

AoOs, he's gonna get at least some except in unusual circumstances. He's got a 15' reach weapon, so bad guys attempting to close will almost certainly get 1, probably 2 on the way in.

I'm assuming you mean you'll probably trip them and get another the next round or when they stand up. Because moving through multiple squares doesn't provoke multiple AoOs.

It also requires the opposition to be spread out initially

Vicious stomp means you may as well spam trips when they are right next to you as then you get an AoO when you succeed.

I'm not sure that CMB really goes up fast enough to make it a worthwhile tradeoff

Being hit with a weapon will cause an AoO as well. People getting up will be provoking as well, which will probably cause either punches to the face (if in base to base) or disarms (if not). If he chooses to trip with an AoO it'll be at full fighter BAB, so thats hardly a poor attack, it's an excellent attack.

I'm not sure that the combat options stay as effective as you level.

This took feats, if he didn't have those feats he'd have other stuff though, like weapon specialisation maybe if you want more damage. Penetrating strike when he's a bit higher level. Whatever you want.

When putting forwards a build as kicking arse it's not a particularly strong argument to say "or you can do it differently"

I'm trying to go RAW which means no brass knuckles +3 or some such, and he uses a whip. And he needs the other hand free to use crane wing. This means no magic weapon. If you wanted a more offensive monk you could lose the whip and get something else, like magic tonfa or something (another +1 AC when fighting defensively and you can rock the magic tonfa), but I'd prefer the whip personally. If you allow magic clothes and magic brass knucks then things would change but this is not RAW.

Amulet of mighty fists strikes me as a ripoff and unnecessary for a martial artist who can situationally ignore DR anyway. If he wasn't a martial artist I might rejig things a bit, but I do like that archetype, and I think that char has been designed to play to the archetypes strengths, ie 1 v 1.

A bonus to hit is pretty important and the monk weapons tend not to be overly damaging so it's an expensive and annoying but useful option.

I think a lot of your response was focused on too many magic items, so I have reworked that, and I've even made him rather more offensive though personally I'd not spend quite so much money on offensive stuff.

amulet of wisdom +4 16,000
amulet of physical might +2, dex/str = 10000
bracers of armour +3 = 9000
ring of protection +2 = 8000
wand of barkskin, CL 6 = 4500
wand of greater magic fang, CL 12 = 13500

10 less hit points, same AC after being wanded by a buddy, +3 fists for a working day after being wanded by a buddy.

I know some people don't like wands, but 50 charges a pop, assuming one use of each in every session you play, and assuming you D&D once a week, thats a 1 year campaigns worth of wandings, a pretty negligible cost really.

It depends a lot on how your campaign goes and how much game time a typical session goes through.
The wand of Barkskin only lasts an hour, the wand of greater magic fang lasts 12 hours per charge.

Depending on the session they may be long enough for a charge to last for the session or may not.

Of course you might not need either wand, it depends on who is in the party, but aside from someone to zap you with it thats pretty self contained.

I am slightly puzzled though by what you want out of a monk. If it's simply to be able to stand next to the fighter and be essentially equivalent to him, then I do wonder why you would have a monk class at all, because at that point the monk would be a fighter to all intents and purposes. The classes need to have some sort of different role after all. A cavalier wouldn't be very good at simply being a fighter either, at least, it certainly isn't playing to his strengths. You have to play to the strengths. Really fast, really mobile, more than competent in 1v1s... The maneuverability and the 1v1s thing obviously synergies really well.

The problem is that when using the mobility is that it means you're down to 1 attack and you need to be flurrying to put out any damage.

I don't think there's a role that the Monk is clearly better than other options
as a mobile combatent a Barbarian is up there and will put out more damage
as a stand and fight option a fighter takes some beating.
a cavalier can rove around the field and hit isolated foes hard.
and many classes can cause people huge amounts of damage in many areas of the battle with archery

Which isn't to say that a Monk is unplayable but I don't know that your suggested kick arse monk builds really stand out compared to other options.

A lot of the base monk's abilities at higher levels aren't that impressive for the level you get them at (admittedly I haven't looked closely at the archetypes, other classes have been more what I wanted to play when I've made characters)

You can play a monk in one of several roles but I don't think there's anything that makes it compelling on a mechanical level compared to other options.

Now some of the style feats & other new feats and archetypes do provide options that are tough to get in other ways but I'm not sure how they compare to other options that are available for the roles they help the monk fill.

 

[EUBanana]

I'm not sure how well trip really scales with level. A typical CR 10 monster seems to have CMD 30 or so.

Well, I remade the guy as a level 11 monk, and lost the whip due to me being in error. He took fury's fall instead of exotic weapon proficiency whip, and perfect strike at level 11, and uses a +3 kama.

His CMB with a trip is going to be
11 (level 11 monk)
6 (strength)
3 (dex)
2 (improved trip)
3 (+3 kama)

= +25

-1 for fighting defensively
-2 at minimum if done as part of a flurry

= +22, as part of the typical full attack

Possibly +2 on that if you use exploit weakness offensively.

I envisage in general when moving and attacking and therefore unable to flurry, it would be a trip at +24, as you may as well, you get the AoO if you hit so you can chip a bit at the same time.

Which seems adequate to me. The issue I envisage is not to do with CMD, but not being able to trip things at all potentially. He could only trip things of size large or smaller, and things that don't have lots of legs, like bebiliths. The size thing could be mitigated with Enlarge though, which the party has access to.

Perfect strike is good for attacks you really desperately want to hit as well, and a trip is probably a good candidate.

I'll copy him out when I get home if you like.

The Cavalier isn't ended completely, he's certainly a lot less effective.

He'll be in the same boat as the monk though - a guy with a lot of class abilities and probably feats that are unusable. So being distinctly sub par.

Change a monk to your suggested builds please.

nothing but weapons, AC bonuses and a stat boosting item apart from the pearls of power.

nothing for mobility, nothing for saves, nothing ideosyncratic

If you're talking about the paladin, well...

I got an immovable rod, a bag of holding, a +1 light crossbow and some flaming crossbow bolts as well but thats not really germane to the conversation. I've fired six shots with the crossbow since I got given it as nobody else wanted it, that was about 8 levels ago now. Trinkets picked up along the way.

My paladin saves are +15/+11/+12 anyway without any items specifically to enhance it. And thats with wisdom 7. Though the headband of charisma is effectively a cloak of resistance +2 among other things - I think you discount how raising attributes is really good for some classes, extra charisma does all sorts for a paladin. More spells, more accurate smites, more AC when smiting, more saving throws, its an excellent item to have. Monks are similar. Like that belt of physical perfection does all sorts, saving throws, AC, attack bonuses, more attack bonuses thanks to feats, skills... Things like belts of physical perfection just make you man plus, better across the board.

Mobility, well, most of the party is groundbound, I don't feel hugely limited by not being able to fly. We tend to be hasted, I've not known mobility be a huge issue really even in heavy armour. Occasionally it is but only occasionally. Even unhasted I can lumber 60' in a round though if I do nothing else, 60' is a pretty long way if you're in a dungeon or something - certainly bigger than most rooms which is the main thing - and generally all I want to do is stick to the ranged guys like glue anyway as they volley arrows and spells, and let the bad guys come to us. We do fight indoors about 3/4 of the time I'd guess. We're going into a sewer in our next session, I seriously doubt mobility will be much of an issue in there.

If you mean the monk, well, saving throw wise he's solid ish as it stands with his attribute boosts and decent base saves, and improved evasion. Mobility wise he has excellent ground speed, reasonable acrobatics, and the ability to potentially ignore AoOs or boost AC dramatically against individual targets, so I'm pretty sure he can run around the battlefield very well without any magic items.

I guess you could argue about fly and the like, but the only guys in our party who can fly are the wizard and the sorcerer with boots of levitation, being ground bound isn't going to be unique to me.

To me generalist magic item suggests
movement options, some stuff not related to combat, some quirky stuff

If you got a MAD class where attributes feed into a lot of different things, the utility of stat boosts becomes far greater. The only stat boosts a fighter is really likely to benefit from is strength, really, and dex and con up to a point - but that point can be achieved in chargen more or less. A charisma headband on a paladin though affects such a vast range of things. I was making this point ages ago, MAD is not necessarily a flaw, you can leverage it as an advantage. Bonuses to dexterity and wisdom for a monk are awesome, they do loads of different things - skill rolls, stunning fist DCs, saving throws, armour class, ki pool or equivalent, all sorts. It's about as generalist as it gets.

The only movement option this guy could really make use of is winged boots or something I guess. Yeah, maybe it'd be ok, but can't see how it'd help much in a sewer, or Castle Ravenloft, or the Tomb of Horrors if we live that long. Seems quite specific to me.

So you had a perfect choke point and couldn't be bullrushed or bypassed?
Makes it practical but not IMO good encounter design.

Good encounter design? A town is a town, a castle is a castle, a forest is a forest, a sewer is a sewer, a tomb is a tomb. Chokepoints are pretty normal. In half of the above chokepoints are the pretty much the inescapable norm in fact.

It's not like we run into the nearest open field and try and fight the baddies in the worst possible way imaginable. I guess the DM could deliberately try screwing us over by suddenly having us fight in an arena, or be ambushed in the middle of a barren plain, or something like that, but it would seem pretty contrived to me.

Now tying up the opposition big hitter still could be worth it but I don't think you're presenting enough of a threat to keep him close. Admittedly he could end up extremely pissed off at trip attacks but whips can be sundered...

I think we're getting mixed up between the char I actually do play and the monk I would play.

If you're presenting a particular build as kicking some arse then what other builds can do isn't particularly relevant.

Which means he trips the fighter on a 16 or better and drops the whip on a 6 or less. Which leaves him not overly likely to be effective.

Perfect strike if he was level 11 - like the fighter - would change the odds there pretty dramatically.

The fighter has taken a Trait for +1 on Will saves, has Iron Will, 14 Wisdom and a cloak of protection because being dominated isn't fun for the party.

OK... so you have a go at me for all the AC boosting stuff when you did this???

On the very narrow field of willpower saves, you've spent a feat, a trait, a magic item slot, and 5 attribute points, all for just this one 1 thing. So happens its your classes achilles heel, so fair enough, but you sure threw the kitchen sink at that achilles heel.

Seems to me that a relatively poor AC is the monks achilles heel, so I acted accordingly. however, a lot of the stuff the monk uses to cover that heel has a lot more function than something like iron will or a trait, stuff like wisdom and dex boosts do all sorts of things, not just AC.

Interesting that he always has them if he's commonly functioning as a scout or attacking isolated opponents.

If he's attacking isolated targets they wouldn't be buffed either so the point is moot - buffs are not a factor in this discussion, they depend on circumstances.

Also note that the movement bonus from Haste doesn't stack for a Monk which means that almost any other character will have the same speed as the Monk in combat in your group and a Barbarian is faster

Ah I didn't know that.

But 60'... you need more???

I'm assuming you mean you'll probably trip them and get another the next round or when they stand up. Because moving through multiple squares doesn't provoke multiple AoOs.

If you trip them it provokes. If they then get up it provokes. If they don't, fine, you win as its a huge debuff. The first person to attack you with a weapon provokes (which you use to trip them, and ... provokes )

It also requires the opposition to be spread out initially

I dunno, if you do end up in the deep trouble of being surrounded, a flurry full of trips would possibly cause a hell of a lot of provoking as people go down and get up. Of course it would spread the damage out which is bad, but the total damage done would be as high as ever and you'd effectively be putting a big debuff on everybody as well.

I'm not sure that CMB really goes up fast enough to make it a worthwhile tradeoff

CMD is strength, hit, dex and AC bonuses, essentially.

CMB is strength and hit - dex with a feat, and any other hit bonuses just the same as striking someone, and whatever maneuver feats you have. It's true a lot of critters have very high CMDs though. Kinda depends on what you fight.

I'm not sure that the combat options stay as effective as you level.

Depends on what you fight, theres certainly things you can't use maneuvers on.

But being good against weapon users is pretty much a constant use thing, even a balor uses a weapon after all. And most things are trippable.

A bonus to hit is pretty important and the monk weapons tend not to be overly damaging so it's an expensive and annoying but useful option.

You could try a permanency'd greater magic fang spell. I'm trying to decide if thats a cheap shot or not before I present the DM with that... its dispellable too but I've not been dispelled once as a paladin so I call shenanigans if the first thing people think of when a monk jumps out of the shadows is, dispel him, dispel him!

Depending on the session they may be long enough for a charge to last for the session or may not.

Perhaps not, but they'll certainly last through a lot of treasure hauls. 12 hours of monster bashing is a pretty long time. Depends on how many 15 minute workdays you have I guess. Either way, the cost is really quite negligible, even if you assume 1 charge from each per encounter its something like 10% of he value of the encounter.

The problem is that when using the mobility is that it means you're down to 1 attack and you need to be flurrying to put out any damage.

You don't have to necessarily run around every turn though. Ideally the fighters of the party are engaged as well by the time the monk strikes, so you have a bit of peace and quiet at the back. After the charge/trip/AoO/stunning fist, next round its the full on can of whup-ass.

I don't think there's a role that the Monk is clearly better than other options
as a mobile combatent a Barbarian is up there and will put out more damage
as a stand and fight option a fighter takes some beating.
a cavalier can rove around the field and hit isolated foes hard.
and many classes can cause people huge amounts of damage in many areas of the battle with archery

Barbarian defences suck though, especially if they are using a two handed sword, which they probably are. Extra hit points is the worst defence of all, especially if healing is assumed. Barbarian rage is a finite resource and one not very easily controlled given how it can fatigue you, the monks I've described are much more adaptable to changing circumstances and are generally more well balanced characters I would say - barbarians generally won't be packing adequate acrobatics and stealth for their skills to be useful, though I concede that it is possible for them to attempt to do so.

Cavaliers are almost entirely dependent for their toasty abilities on being on horseback and being able to charge, and those two things are often stopped almost as a given. It is true that we've had some freaky scenes (we teleported into someones bedroom once, horse and all, and the guy who was studying at his desk got a lance in the back ) involving horses in odd places, but a cavalier will be stuffed there as often as not in my experience, and lugging a horse around everywhere can be quite a burden. Charging can sometimes be a bit difficult to arrange tactically as well, a clear line with nothing at all blocking the way from the target you want to hit is often surprisingly hard to arrange in practice, especially when you've moved in nothing but straight lines since the opening round as you are charging every time. Plus to charge, you have to pull away, which means risking AoOs. Cavaliers are probably the most limited, narrow melee class of all IMO in terms of "doing their thing". They are OK when out of their comfort zone, it's true, but thats just as well because they'll be out of it quite a lot.

A lot of the base monk's abilities at higher levels aren't that impressive for the level you get them at (admittedly I haven't looked closely at the archetypes, other classes have been more what I wanted to play when I've made characters)

Kinda, but a lot of monk stuff tends to be level based, like how exploit weakness works, and at its simplest more BAB is pretty much the main thing of all high level melee classes.

They don't get broader really, but thats true of most melee classes except maybe paladins. Maybe. They get more of the same. Even more attacks, even more stunning fists, even more maneuver options, even more AC from exploit weakness, etc.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Well, I remade the guy as a level 11 monk, and lost the whip due to me being in error. He took fury's fall instead of exotic weapon proficiency whip, and perfect strike at level 11, and uses a +3 kama.

His CMB with a trip is going to be
11 (level 11 monk)
6 (strength)
3 (dex)
2 (improved trip)
3 (+3 kama)

= +25

-1 for fighting defensively
-2 at minimum if done as part of a flurry

= +22, as part of the typical full attack

Huh, I hadn't noticed Fury's Fall before which makes a bit of a difference. Of course you now don't have reach from the whip so that makes it easier for things to get to you but such is life. Although now that I check I see you don't actually threaten with the whip.

as I remember them that's a 50%+ chance to get the majority of CR10 creatures, probably a bit worse for some but reasonable odds against most of them. Of course when you trip you aren't doing damage but as you say elsewhere it's a useful debuff to apply.

Possibly +2 on that if you use exploit weakness offensively.

I envisage in general when moving and attacking and therefore unable to flurry, it would be a trip at +24, as you may as well, you get the AoO if you hit so you can chip a bit at the same time.

Which seems adequate to me. The issue I envisage is not to do with CMD, but not being able to trip things at all potentially. He could only trip things of size large or smaller, and things that don't have lots of legs, like bebiliths. The size thing could be mitigated with Enlarge though, which the party has access to.

Perfect strike is good for attacks you really desperately want to hit as well, and a trip is probably a good candidate.

I'll copy him out when I get home if you like.

If you're willing I'd be interested in seeing it.

If you're talking about the paladin, well...

I got an immovable rod, a bag of holding, a +1 light crossbow and some flaming crossbow bolts as well but thats not really germane to the conversation. I've fired six shots with the crossbow since I got given it as nobody else wanted it, that was about 8 levels ago now. Trinkets picked up along the way.

Sorry, I should have guessed that you were just listing the items that were relevant to the discussion. I've got a bad habit of being a bit over-literal at times.

My paladin saves are +15/+11/+12 anyway without any items specifically to enhance it. And thats with wisdom 7. Though the headband of charisma is effectively a cloak of resistance +2 among other things - I think you discount how raising attributes is really good for some classes, extra charisma does all sorts for a paladin. More spells, more accurate smites, more AC when smiting, more saving throws, its an excellent item to have. Monks are similar. Like that belt of physical perfection does all sorts, saving throws, AC, attack bonuses, more attack bonuses thanks to feats, skills... Things like belts of physical perfection just make you man plus, better across the board.

Yeah, they're effective but bland. My fighter has a belt of physical perfection, my wizard has a headband of intellect and a belt that boosts dex and con. As you say characters get more or less out of them based on how many abilities they have based on the stat they boost.

In some ways I miss the 1st & 2nd ed magic items which were commonly ludicrous but did have more in the way of character as I recall them (of course if I look through the books I'll probably find that 90% of them were bland as well but I remember the 10%).

Mobility, well, most of the party is groundbound, I don't feel hugely limited by not being able to fly. We tend to be hasted, I've not known mobility be a huge issue really even in heavy armour. Occasionally it is but only occasionally. Even unhasted I can lumber 60' in a round though if I do nothing else, 60' is a pretty long way if you're in a dungeon or something - certainly bigger than most rooms which is the main thing - and generally all I want to do is stick to the ranged guys like glue anyway as they volley arrows and spells, and let the bad guys come to us. We do fight indoors about 3/4 of the time I'd guess. We're going into a sewer in our next session, I seriously doubt mobility will be much of an issue in there.

depends a lot on the environment and opposition you're up against and also your team composition.
If the opposition is ranged focused you want to get up in their faces quickly. It's good to be able to move quickly to help your wizard when something dimension doors in beside him or something or to stop summoned monsters getting to rip him apart.

If you mean the monk, well, saving throw wise he's solid ish as it stands with his attribute boosts and decent base saves, and improved evasion. Mobility wise he has excellent ground speed, reasonable acrobatics, and the ability to potentially ignore AoOs or boost AC dramatically against individual targets, so I'm pretty sure he can run around the battlefield very well without any magic items.

I guess you could argue about fly and the like, but the only guys in our party who can fly are the wizard and the sorcerer with boots of levitation, being ground bound isn't going to be unique to me.

It won't be unique to you and it's also expensive to provide at lowish levels (I'll probably be picking up a pair of wings of flying for my fighter in the next level or so but currently he's got nothing)

Saying that a monk is generally pretty bad at ranged combat (especially if outside of shuriken range) while many of the other classes are still pretty reasonable.

If you got a MAD class where attributes feed into a lot of different things, the utility of stat boosts becomes far greater. The only stat boosts a fighter is really likely to benefit from is strength, really, and dex and con up to a point - but that point can be achieved in chargen more or less. A charisma headband on a paladin though affects such a vast range of things. I was making this point ages ago, MAD is not necessarily a flaw, you can leverage it as an advantage. Bonuses to dexterity and wisdom for a monk are awesome, they do loads of different things - skill rolls, stunning fist DCs, saving throws, armour class, ki pool or equivalent, all sorts. It's about as generalist as it gets.

I can see where you're coming from with that but I think they're mostly giving additional uses of abilities the character already has (additional ki pool uses, additional rounds or rage etc)

or applying a slight modifier to an existing ability.
Effective yes, and with the amount of things a monk has that wisdom can influence for the monk maybe hugely effective but still not providing much flavor.

The only movement option this guy could really make use of is winged boots or something I guess. Yeah, maybe it'd be ok, but can't see how it'd help much in a sewer, or Castle Ravenloft, or the Tomb of Horrors if we live that long. Seems quite specific to me.

Yeah, because you never have to travel, track down things in the wilderness, be in large natural caverns or face things sticking on a roof etc...

Good encounter design? A town is a town, a castle is a castle, a forest is a forest, a sewer is a sewer, a tomb is a tomb. Chokepoints are pretty normal. In half of the above chokepoints are the pretty much the inescapable norm in fact.

depends on the scale of the area.
A town needs spaces for wagons to pass each other, a tomb could be virtually any size and you normally aren't adventuring in a commoner's mass burial area. What type of forest? You've rarely got unbroken walls of trees.
Now a castle should have some chokepoints because it is designed for defence.

But the problem is that if you let a side have huge positional advantages it makes for a dull encounter.
fighter, paladin etc
"We stand there on the defensive and let them swing at us"

ranged combatants
"we shoot at them from perfect safety"

summoner
"now they're got a dire tiger attacking them from behind"

as a very occasional thing it's o.k. because it lets the players get to crush the opposition easily or have to really stretch to get around the advantages the opposition has but as a common component of encounters it discourages a lot of the more interesting options and makes it a slugfest with the advantages.

Now you can make chokepoints (walls of force, black tentacles etc) and it's perfectly reasonable to have channels where movement will provoke an AoO but not being able to get past at all as a common situation is a way of making combats more similar and less exciting.

It's not like we run into the nearest open field and try and fight the baddies in the worst possible way imaginable. I guess the DM could deliberately try screwing us over by suddenly having us fight in an arena, or be ambushed in the middle of a barren plain, or something like that, but it would seem pretty contrived to me.

So you never have to travel, you're never in a situation where you have to chase the opposition who've stolen something or kidnapped somebody?

Perfect strike if he was level 11 - like the fighter - would change the odds there pretty dramatically.

all of the stats I've used for the fighter in previous posts have been scaled down to level 10 for direct comparison.

OK... so you have a go at me for all the AC boosting stuff when you did this???

On the very narrow field of willpower saves, you've spent a feat, a trait, a magic item slot, and 5 attribute points, all for just this one 1 thing.

Um no. I've spend a feat and a trait just on the will save (well the trait is also a bonus on all saves from evil outsiders),
As a human fighter 1 feat isn't that big a deal
The magic item slot boosts all saves and is one of the most commonly picked up magic items in the game.
The attributes boost perception as well, fits the character concept and I considered picking up some levels of inquisator & still might at some stage
and the trait is granted by Iomedrae who the character worships (and as the campaign goes up the odds of facing evil outsiders approaches certainty)

So happens its your classes achilles heel, so fair enough, but you sure threw the kitchen sink at that achilles heel.

At 11th level the fighter has 13 feats
Bleeding Critical
Cleave
Combat Reflexes
Critical Focus
Dodge
Iron Will
Power Attack
Mobility
Weapon Focus (Falchion)
Weapon Specialisation (Falchion)
Intimidating Prowess
Improved Critical (Falchion)
Greater Weapon Focus (Falchion)

so I've spent 1 out of 13 feats on the will save
1 on an interaction booster
2 on AC modifiers
and a lot on offence

(at 10th level remove bleeding critical)
The two traits I picked up were +1 to will saves and +1 to AC in medium or heavy armour

Seems to me that a relatively poor AC is the monks achilles heel, so I acted accordingly. however, a lot of the stuff the monk uses to cover that heel has a lot more function than something like iron will or a trait, stuff like wisdom and dex boosts do all sorts of things, not just AC.

The biggest problem I see for monks is that to do any real damage they need to be flurrying, which they can't do if they're using their mobility.

On the initial build you spent around 80000gp on items
26000 on a best of physical perfection and a headband of wisdom
13000 on the Monks Robes
and 42000 on straight AC boosters

to some degree you're getting the boosters to boost AC as well, if we assign 1/3 of their cost to AC then we're looking at 50000 out of 80000gp on AC

Now my fighter has spent 1 out of 2 traits on the will save having already chosen a combat feat for AC, 1 of 13 feats on the will save

If he's attacking isolated targets they wouldn't be buffed either so the point is moot - buffs are not a factor in this discussion, they depend on circumstances.

It's quite relevant in terms of how effective the character is.
If you're commonly out isolated from the rest of the group when the encounter starts then you don't get haste because you're out of the range of it (it's a close range spell and no 2 targets can be more than 30' apart when it's cast)

If you're enlarged when you're scouting then you're at -4 on stealth

and it's not necessarily true that the opposition won't be buffed. If they're the ones chosing where the encounter is they'll be buffed, if they were together when the encounter started and they buffed before separating they could be buffed.

Ah I didn't know that.

But 60'... you need more???

a) it depends what you're up against and what the environment's like
b) in a party with a haste happy wizard it means that a monk has commonly got no advantage in movement speed over a lot of characters and only 10' advantage over a lot of other classes (and slower than a hasted barbarian in light armour -> such as a mithril breastplate which is very common)
Which means that the advantage of mobility for the monk isn't that much

You could try a permanency'd greater magic fang spell. I'm trying to decide if thats a cheap shot or not before I present the DM with that... its dispellable too but I've not been dispelled once as a paladin so I call shenanigans if the first thing people think of when a monk jumps out of the shadows is, dispel him, dispel him!

If the party is commonly hasted in combat then I see dispelling them as being very justifiable, it negates a huge buff.

Of course there are a lot of opponents which can't dispel

Perhaps not, but they'll certainly last through a lot of treasure hauls. 12 hours of monster bashing is a pretty long time. Depends on how many 15 minute workdays you have I guess. Either way, the cost is really quite negligible, even if you assume 1 charge from each per encounter its something like 10% of he value of the encounter.

Note that based on the standard magic item costs the wand of barkskin is actually 9000gp and gives +3 to natural armour

and the wand of greater magic fang is 27000gp

for 18000gp you can get an amulet of natural armour +3

You don't have to necessarily run around every turn though. Ideally the fighters of the party are engaged as well by the time the monk strikes, so you have a bit of peace and quiet at the back. After the charge/trip/AoO/stunning fist, next round its the full on can of whup-ass.

Depends a lot on what you're fighting and what it has as options.
If you're against a Teleporting focused conjuror at 8th level or above it can make it so you have to move every round it isn't stunned.
Dimension Door is also an option, if the stun or trip attempt fails taking a withdraw action lets the opposition move to somewhere he finds favourable (say near a friend of his) and limits you to a single attack next round.

Barbarian defences suck though, especially if they are using a two handed sword, which they probably are. Extra hit points is the worst defence of all, especially if healing is assumed.

Well they do have damage reduction and there are rage powers that can boost defences of various types.

Barbarian rage is a finite resource and one not very easily controlled given how it can fatigue you, the monks I've described are much more adaptable to changing circumstances and are generally more well balanced characters I would say - barbarians generally won't be packing adequate acrobatics and stealth for their skills to be useful, though I concede that it is possible for them to attempt to do so.

I'm not sure that Rage is much more finite that a lot of the Monk options.

Acrobatics is a class skill for the barbarian, there are a lot of options for Rage Powers so you can focus them on offence, defence, maneuvability or a mixture of them

For emergencies potions of Invigorate set you back 50gp each...

Cavaliers are almost entirely dependent for their toasty abilities on being on horseback and being able to charge, and those two things are often stopped almost as a given.

as I've mentioned a couple of times, a small cavalier on a dog is much harder to make ineffective.
There are disadvantages to being small but it's still playable.

(and Samurai is another option which trades off a bit less on the mount with more ability off of it)

Kinda, but a lot of monk stuff tends to be level based, like how exploit weakness works, and at its simplest more BAB is pretty much the main thing of all high level melee classes.

They don't get broader really, but thats true of most melee classes except maybe paladins. Maybe. They get more of the same. Even more attacks, even more stunning fists, even more maneuver options, even more AC from exploit weakness, etc.

the exploit weakness defensive option scales with level.
The standard monk gets
11 Immunity to Poison (useful but if really wanted there's an Ioun stone that does it for anyone)
12 Dimension Door
13 Spell Resistance
15 Quivering Palm (not a huge fan of Save or Die and the party casters will have better ones available if they're wanted)
17 Timeless Body
Tongue of the Moon
19 Etherealness
20 DR 10/Chaotic

I don't think anything after Quivering Palm is that good.

Martial Artist gives more immunity to fatigue, stunning, immunity to death effects and energy drain (between levels 5-20)
physical resistance is a big thing


By comparison a fighter gets
weapon training, armour training, bonus feats (and there are some huge ones available) and finally DR 5/- when wearing armour and automatic crit confirmation and +1 to multiplier.
So a fighter can be critting on 25% of his attacks (Falchion or other 18-20 with imroved crit)

The Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger get improvements to what they can already do but I think they are mostly more useful than what the Monk gets at high levels (except for the Paladin 20 ability which is a damned debuff IMO Yes, I hit the Demon and if I get past spell resistance and it fails a save it disappears, of course if it makes the save or I don't beat spell resistance my Smite Evil is lost...if it was optional I'd be fine with it)

Ranger and Inquisator get save or die attacks, Alchemists get Grand Mutagen, Cavaliers get Supreme Charge, granting addtional teamwork feats etc.