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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 979639" data-attributes="member: 3146">From an ancient book of gaming wisdom:Now, that is probably a little bit overstated but not much. You'd have an easier time creating an effective halfling paladin than an effective halfling monk. As Monks, halflings have pretty much everything against them. One of a monk's great advantages is high movement. Halfling qualities nerf this advantage. One of the monk's main weaknesses is low base damage. Halflings' qualities exacerbate this disadvantage. Between their strength penalty and their size damage adjustment, halflings do an average of two points less damage per blow than a human monk with the same base stats. (And considering that monks tend to rely on multiple attacks to deal damage (flurry of blows, etc) and that they have relatively few non-stat/level ways of increasing damage, this is very significant).My experience with halfling monks in play confirms this suspicion (granted, it's quite limited--one was a necromancer/monk (3rd-5th level) and the other was a rogue/monk (14th level)). The necromancer/monk was pretty consistently weak and had trouble doing much of anything (although he could have avoided being hit if played competently--that is, he could have avoided being hit until he started running into CR 6-8 opponents and Mage Armor+Shield wasn't so impressive anymore). The Rogue/monk was more impressive (and he should be at 14th level) but was only able to do any damage in combat when he managed to get off a stunning blow and follow it up with a full flurry of sneak attacks. In all other situations, it was "So, the sorceror casts an empowered cone of cold for 70 points of damage and follows it up with chain lightning for 50 points of damage, the barbarian power attacks and hits for 60 points of damage, the cleric banishes the demons with holy word and the halfing deals 10 points of damage to the other foe. . . is he ready to be beat down today?"So, that said, what can you do to make the monk effective?For a start, don't pretend to be a human or half-orc monk. As a halfling monk, you'll need to take advantage of a lot of synergies to be viable. Multi-classing with rogue would be a good start (either one level or three). It's your favored class and would give you a bunch of skill points which you could use to max out your sneaking skills and learn how to find and disable traps. (You'd want to consider keeping your search and disable device scores up by spending monk skill points cross-class; it's not efficient but since you can't multiclass out of monk and go back to it, it's the only way to retain that ability--alternately, you could rely on potions of vision and taking 20 for searching (there's no way to get around the necessity for ranks in disable device if you want to be competent). A few ranks of Open Lock will be sufficient for most locks if you have time to take 20--and when you don't, you will usually be able to just have the barbarian bust the door down). The rogue levels would also give you sneak attack which would work well with both Stunning Blow, the monk's movement (it's easier to flank that way), and the monk's stealth skills.For stats, you might very well want to drop your dex to 17 and up your strength to 12. Since you're starting at 4th level, you can use the stat increase to pump your dex back to 18 and the extra point of damage will come in handy.For feats: With your dex, you'll definitely want Weapon Finesse: Unarmed. You should also consider starting on the dodge, mobility, spring attack line of feats--that would enable you to eventually take advantage of your monkish movement (by 9th level, it will still be decent, even for a halfling) and (possibly) sneak attacks. Alternately, you might do well to take feats like Blindfight, Combat Reflexes (not too useful in itself but good in combination), Hold the Line (get AoOs when charged), expert tactician (hit your foes again every time you stun them), Hamstring, etc.If you're using 3.5 monk rules, you will want Stunning Fist instead of Improved Grapple (halflings tend to lose grapples), and Combat Reflexes instead of Improved Trip (low strength halflings tend to lose trip rolls too).Weapons: Since 3.5 makes weapon finesse apply to all finessable weapons and your unarmed damage will be low anyway, you should consider at least starting out wielding halfling versions of monk weapons. (If your DM doesn't let you do stunning blows while wielding 2 monk weapons, just wield one). They'd deal the same damage as your unarmed strikes and you could get another +1 to hit from masterwork--and possibly even +1 damage as well if you bought a +1 weapon.So, my recommendation would be to start off as either:Rog 1/Mnk 3Str 12, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 8Blindfight  or Dodge and Weapon FinesseorRog 3/Monk 1Stats and feats as aboveor evenRog 4 (will advance in Monk from here on out)Stats and feats as above.</blockquote>

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