Building a Monk

[No Name]

I'd shy away from Flurry of Blows and take PHBII's Decisive Strike instead.

I'm curious why you'd choose Decisive Strike over Flurry. Didn't grandma ever tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket?

 

[Klaus]

I'm curious why you'd choose Decisive Strike over Flurry. Didn't grandma ever tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket?

It's all about the doubling of damage. Plus that seems to fit a Str-based monk better.

 

[2nd Ed Paladin]

I've found monks can very effective, even against full warrior classes, as grapplers. You do much more damage with the unarmed attacks than most opponents and your damage is lethal whhile theirs is normally nonlethal. Also your 3/4 isnt such a downer as their AC doesn't come into play. You need to keep your STR up though. Some good PrCs in complete warrior.

Not so good if you usually fight a lot of large monsters though. It really shines when you fight a lot of humanoids and you have rogues in the party as they get SA damage on anyone you have grappled.

 

[Diirk]

It's all about the doubling of damage. Plus that seems to fit a Str-based monk better.

Hmm, at first level flurry of blows and decisive strike work out about equal; however at 8th level when you start getting iterative attacks, flurry of blows is better. 11th level decisive strike gets another hit, but it can't be used on the same creature as the first one, so honestly flurry is probably still better at this point.

Doubling of damage is nice, but apart from DR, hitting twice is just as good. And when you add in things like haste, which won't work with decisive strike but will with flurry... well, I'm not sure why anyone would take decisive strike.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Personally, I've always felt with their high speed, the Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack tree is a must-have for monks.

Max out Tumble (at least until you can get a +15 to all Tumble checks) and you can move about the battlefield any which way you want, great to get into flanking position.

Personally, I'm not too big on dumping dex in favor of wis with a monk. They both net you AC (and at the same rate), but dex gives you other things: high initiative, high reflex (great with evasion!), the ability to make ranged attacks if necessary, and dex-based skills are more common than wis-based ones.

But, hey, I always take Deflect Arrows over Combat Reflexes, too, because I just love the flavor of it.

Might be interesting to spend a feat to gain proficiency with bolas. I've always liked bolas.

 

[Darklone]

Dumping Dex is not necessarily in favor for wis but for strength. And you don't need Weapon Finesse.

Wis is better for a monk since you'd rather lose your dex bonus to AC than the Wis bonus... and Stunning fist is IMHO better than most people seem to think.

DodgeMobSpree is the famous Wuss Attack Monk build.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Dumping Dex is not necessarily in favor for wis but for strength. And you don't need Weapon Finesse.

Wis is better for a monk since you'd rather lose your dex bonus to AC than the Wis bonus... and Stunning fist is IMHO better than most people seem to think.

DodgeMobSpree is the famous Wuss Attack Monk build.

I take Str first for my monks, Weapon Finesse is for sissies. An even though it's easier to lose your Dex bonus than your Wis bonus, I still prefer the other benefits gained by a high Dex. It just seemed like some of the other builds in here were really throwing Dex out the window, and I wanted to raise a different view on it.

And if you like Stunning Fist (which I don't... the DC is pathetic), Spring Attack is even more valuable - jump in, stun 'em, get out of the way.

If you don't go for Spring Attack, your massive speed is pretty much meaningless. Since you'll never be able to stand in for a slugfest anyway, you might as well float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

 

[Darklone]

And if you like Stunning Fist (which I don't... the DC is pathetic), Spring Attack is even more valuable - jump in, stun 'em, get out of the way.

Monk rogue with Ability Focus and Ascetic Rogue has a DC 10+ Wis mod + 4 + levels/2.

If that's pathetic, what do your wizards kill with Disintegrate ?

I do often hear complaints about Stunning Fist being too weak but IMHO it's just a matter of campaign style. If you don't meet any hostile NPCs (since a fighter of the same level as the monk will have a real hard time not to be stunned every 2nd round), then it's a problem with the DM and not with the ability. Or these PCs don't max WIS.

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

I do often hear complaints about Stunning Fist being too weak but IMHO it's just a matter of campaign style. If you don't meet any hostile NPCs (since a fighter of the same level as the monk will have a real hard time not to be stunned every 2nd round), then it's a problem with the DM and not with the ability. Or these PCs don't max WIS.

Conversely, a monk of the same level will have a real hard time landing their stunning fist attempt every time they try it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing monks and I try to use Stunning Fist, I just feel like I only land it once out of every ten tries (I'm sure I'm exaggerating and it's a little more frequent than that, but hey) and then I have to deal with their saving throw.

With 18 wis and ability focus, a level 10 monk has a DC of 23 and a level 10 fighter has a fort save of +10 (with 16 constitution). On a 13 of better (40% of the time), my stunning fist won't work. And that's still only if I land the attack.

 

[Ruslanchik]

A Half-giant has the unarmed strike damage of a Large monk, right? In that case, taking Improved Natural Attack would give you the damage of a Huge monk. That sounds nice.

That would leave open the psionic unarmed attack feats (anyone know about these? are they worth investing a feat?) and the Fist of Zuoken PrC.

Anyone have any experience with this type of monk? Is the +1 LA with it?