Creating a monk with damage.

[Theone0581]

Alright so what I have going on is a Svirfneblin Monk, as I though it would be a perfect selection get my AC high. Right now were at level 8, but with the ECL of a 3 for my race, I am level 5. I got my AC to 35, which I am very happy with, but now I cant do crap for damage, since I am a small creature and get a -2 to strength. I am literally doing 2 damage at times. Is there anything I can do to help my character do more damage?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Redo your character. Sorry, LA is generaly seldom worth it especially more than +1. And the main benefits of Svirfneblin are defensive. Anything you could do to boost your damage would work equally well (and often better) on a build that doesn't start off with such anemic offense.

Barring that, multiclass sorcerer and get the Aestheic (spelling?) Mage feat (C.Adventurer) and pump your charisma instead of wisdom, as it now determines your spellcasting AND monk abilities thanks to the feat. Or multiclass wizard and get the Kung Fu Genius (Dragon magazine) or Carmendine Monk feat (basically identical) and pump your intelligence instead of wisdom, as it now determines your spellcasting AND monk abilities thanks to the feat. In either case, work towards the Enlightened Fist prestige class (forgot the book, probably C.Arcane) and possibly Abjurant Champion (C.Mage) to boost both your fighting and casting abilities together. Your damage now comes from chaining damage spells to your fists and attacking with them. This way, it doesn't matter as much that you're small with godawful strength. Not when you're delivering a 10d8 fire damage Combust spell with that fist.

EDIT: Alternatively, redo your character as an Unarmed Swordsage (variant of the regular class, basically get monk unarmed strike and lose weapon and armor proficiencies) from Tome of Battle and rely on your strike maneuvers' bonus damage to hurt things. With 5 levels in the class, you can get Soaring Raptor Strike. It's a standard action, you make a jump check* with a DC equal to the opponent's AC. If you succeed, you can make a melee attack with a +4 bonus to hit that deals +6d6 damage. It only works on foes larger than you, which for a gnome should be almost everything. That will at least give you one powerful attack to fall back on, and lots of other maneuvers are nice, too.

*Magic Item Compendium has 600 gp Boots of Agile Leaping (or as I often do, 900 gp to tack it onto other magic boots) to help if your low str makes jump hard. You can use Dex instead of Str on jump checks. Further, if you have 5 ranks in Balance, you can stand from prone as a swift action w/o provoking an attack of opportunity, which is just generally really useful. Love that item!

 

[HoboGod]

Yeah, what stream said, you're pretty much forced to rely on sources of bonus damage to be an effective size small beatstick. Halfling rogues are 20x more common than halfling fighters.

 

[Starbuck_II]

Alright so what I have going on is a Svirfneblin Monk, as I though it would be a perfect selection get my AC high. Right now were at level 8, but with the ECL of a 3 for my race, I am level 5. I got my AC to 35, which I am very happy with, but now I cant do crap for damage, since I am a small creature and get a -2 to strength. I am literally doing 2 damage at times. Is there anything I can do to help my character do more damage?

Did you dump Str: why dump Str if you care about damage?

If you dump Str, you need a way to deal damage that isn't dependent on Str (Sneak attack for example).

Give us your Str so we know how bad you have (posting full stats helps).

So for AC: we have 4 Dodge, Wis bonus +1 (level 5), small size 1, and Dex.

S. Gnomes get -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -4 Charisma. So your Str could be high (up to 18-2 at level 1 class).

I perfer Nereids (ECL 6 but pretty good). Permanent Displacement is almost as good as high AC.

 

[Dandu]

Dip Swordsage, take the Shadow Hand feat.

 

[Deset Gled]

Get a two kama with the Wounding enhancement. Each hit will do one point of Con damage. It's not much, but it's better than you have now.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What books do you have access to?

You might want to boost your damage by changing your weapon- like making a polearm into your main damage source. Coupled with Monkey's Grip to offset your size- a feat which has no Str prereq- you'll get a nice boost to your damage.

Ascetic Mage- which lets you freely multiclass with Sorcerer- would get you access to all kinds of spells (like Enlarge Person), touch combat spells. And with Arcane Strike or Draconic Breath or Infernal Sorcerer Shout or Celestial Sorcerer Lance, your PC could load up on utility spells while still being able to pump spell-energy into combat.

 

[Quartz]

A quick fix would be to take the Power Attack feat, plus later Weapon Focus and the Weapon Specialisation tree. You could also take a level of Sorceror to get True Strike 3/day and the Ascetic Mage feat.

The other way to look at is to concentrate on hitting and deliver some extra effect when you do hit, as StreamoftheSky describes.

A third option is to realise that yes, you don't do much damage, so take feats like Sunder, Improved Trip, and so on so you concentrate on setting up your targets for the other members of the party.

 

[HoboGod]

Ewwww, Improved Trip on a size small creature? What is he, tripping leprechauns and brownies? And I can't imagine sundering being any different. It'd be neigh impossible to wield a large-sized two-handed weapon like a medium sized combatant with monkey grip or strong arm bracers could do.

 

[Magesmiley]

Another thought might be specializing in grappling. Improved Grapple, and I seem to recall a feat that helps small creatures when grapplign bigger ones. There's a limit to how big of a creature this is effective against, but grappling a creature can often be more effective than dealing damage to it.