Judgment Call on Kung Fu

[gabrion]

A player planning to play a monk in my upcoming campaign wants to use a feat from a dragon magazine called Kung Fu Genius. The feat allows the monk to use INT instead of WIS for all class related abilities. I was just wondering if anyone has experience with the feat and whether or not you think it's fine to allow.

As it stand I will probably allow the feat because Monks need a lot of high stats as it is, and this character will also need a relatively high INT (he is heading toward Enlightened Fist), so I don't think replacing a high WIS with a high INT would be all that bad. Please opine.

 

[Thanee]

Don't see a problem there.

Bye
Thanee

 

[apesamongus]

The only problem I see is that it's a really big pay-off for a wizard to take one level of monk plus this feat. Wis casters normally have to give up armor to get AC bonus from monk, so it's not as good a deal. But a wizard gets free AC that stacks with everything along with all of the other benefits of a level of monk.

Although, for the character you're taking about (multiple monk levels) it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Seeten]

If your wizard blows a feat and a caster level to get +x to ac, I say let them. They'll be behind in caster level, and their feats are precious, and they have to use a character feat, they cant use a wizard feat.

 

[Caeleddin]

Seeten - Actually, I would see him taking 2 levels in it for Evasion instead of 1 IF he wishes to powergame like that. I play spellcaster stats different from most people. The highest stat ALWAYS go into Dex. This helps in a LOT of spellcaster related stuff: initiative, AC, ranged touch attack, Tumble (I take this skill for ALL classes, regardless), and, initially, the ability to actually HIT something with a bow/crossbow. The second highest stat would be Int/Cha/Wis. In fact, all my characters have as high a Dex as possible. Most of them have Sleight of Hand or Perform as well to amuse the children (they all seem to like children, for some strange reason.... ).

With this in mind, Evasion and the increased saves across the board would be invaluable to a mage-type character that don't wear armour anyways. Again, assuming that he wishes to powergame. Personally, if I was to powergame that way, I'd take a couple of levels in Paladin instead of Monk and take Sorceror instead of Wizard.

I actually allow Paladin/Sorceror multis without drawbacks (other than the lost caster levels) in most of my campaigns IF they are a Paladin of the Goddess of Magic. They will have to be about equal levels (like multiclassing without a favoured class in either class) though.

 

[DarkJester]

I don't think Kung Fu Genius will cause any problems.

As to a wizard taking levels of monk...eww.
Anything that slows down your caster level progression is very very bad.

 

[Ferret]

Looks fair, even with the wizarding hijinks.

 

[Bront]

The only problem I see is that it's a really big pay-off for a wizard to take one level of monk plus this feat. Wis casters normally have to give up armor to get AC bonus from monk, so it's not as good a deal. But a wizard gets free AC that stacks with everything along with all of the other benefits of a level of monk.

Although, for the character you're taking about (multiple monk levels) it shouldn't be a problem.

Mechanicaly, yes. RP wise, I would hope that most GMs would question a player doing this simply for the mechanical benifit.

You do lose 2 caster levels to, which can hurt, so there still is a tradeoff.

Given it's a feat, I don't see it as too bad, especialy since it looks like he's got a character concept that goes with it.

 

[gabrion]

Thanks for the iput all. I think the feat will be allowed.

As for all the grumblings about wizard taking a level of monk, the character will be a melee combatant anyway, so it isn't too big of a deal to lose a caster level.