Monk Build Help

[NRAO]

So I'm currently playing a monk 4th level, and I'm trying to customize him to fit a specific type of fighting, I'm thinking along the lines of quick attacks and jumping and the like (I think this'd fit with his character as he's a essentially a catfolk though we don't call it that, and the stats aren't exactly the same)
Our game is very homebrewed so pretty much anything could go from any book assuming my DM approves it.
also of note: We're probably only going to level 14 or 15 before the campaign ends.
To give some background on my character:

Monk 4
Str 13
Dex 19
Con 12
Int 8
Wis 20
Cha 11

Fort/Ref/Will: 5/8/9
Feats: Sacred Vow, Vow of Poverty, Intuitive Strike, Ability Focus: Stunning Fist, Pain Touch, and Throw Anything (I took 2 flaws, and my DM doesn't limit my exalted feats to just BoED)

Basically I'm wondering what feats I should take and or what classes/PrCs to maybe take. I don't want to go too far out of my character so no barbarian or druid or something even to splash 'cause that'd make no real sense and I can't use anything psionic.
I'd rather stick to more monk-ish classes and PrCs unless there's something else that would be a very good idea to take and I could fit into my character concept.

I was thinking about going for the spring attack feat tree but I'd rather not go through all those feats just for that one, unless it's really useful.
I also recently leveled up so I figured now would be a good time to decide where I want to go with him.

So to sum up, what are good suggestions for character builds, particularly to make my monk less suckish in battle (and give me an idea of what to take feat-wise 'cause I've no idea)
I'm thinking about trying to go for sacred fist since the magic would be nice particularly the buff spells, I'd go for Enlightened Fist but by the time I meet the reqs I think most of the campaign would be done, and besides magic is really weird in our game (i.e. our groups sorcerer is essentially a magic hulk whose magic mutates based on his usage... like I said heavily homebrewed) and I don't particularly want to mess with that unless it's a really good idea I go for it
So, if anyone could give me some advice, suggestions, etc I'd appreciate it. thanks.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Don’t do VoP, it’s a trap and a waste of 2 feats. You do not need VoP to take Intuitive Attack, you just need to be exalted (and good). If you insist on it, no exceptions: Nymph’s Kiss as your level 1 bonus exalted feat. Touch of Golden Ice is also amazing, take that early. if the DM allows made up exalted feats, my group made up one called Piety. Lets you use Wis instead of Cha to meet exalted feat pre-reqs, since many require high charisma, a worthless stat for you.

Why Throw Anything? It’s not good at all on its own (you can throw clubs proficiently already, and those can be sticks off the ground). Maybe it’s nice with Drunken Master or Bloodstorm Blade (latter gives it for free anyway).

Do you have access to Tome of Battle? A swordsage multiclass with the monk could be good, especially with Setting Sun discipline throws and counters for some of your maneuvers and the Setting Sun monk multiclass feat in that book. If your DM doesn’t allow you to re-enter monk after leaving, you could pick Illumian (Races of Destiny) as your race, they can freely multiclass monk and/or paladin with other classes and go back.

Spring Attack: Again, going into Swordsage a little helps tons. Then you can easily qualify for Desert Wind Dodge (ToB), which counts as Dodge for pre-reqs, but gives +1 AC against all enemies. You just need to move 10 or more ft on your turn to “activate” it. Also helpful is the Mobility enhancement from Magic Item Compendium, a +1 armor enhancement (can only be placed on light armor) that gives you the Mobility feat. …Did I mention yet that you should dump Vow of Poverty?  Now, WotC has said you can put armor properties on bracers of armor, so it’d be a DM call to let it count as “light armor” (seems reasonable). If the DM does not agree to that, Swordsage AGAIN to the rescue! At level 2, Swordsage gains Wis to AC, like a monk. It does not stack however, because you only gain it while wearing light armor. Not no armor, strictly light armor (also can’t use shields). So, if you needed to wear light armor to get Mobility, Swordsage at least has you covered still for wis to AC.

Swordsage also let you use a bunch of standard action strike maneuvers which makes the tradeoff of no flurry of blows less painful if you want to hit and run. Also, one of the first level maneuvers you can pick up, Sudden Leap, lets you jump as a swift action, potentially allowing you to close to the enemy and flurry of blows on him in the same turn.

Tome of Battle also has the Snap Kick feat, which I think is a great deal. For -2 on all attacks, you can get an additional unarmed attack at your highest BAB (the snap kick only gains half str bonus on damage, notably). This isn’t just useful for extra flurrying goodness. Snap Kick explicitly says you can attach it to ANY attack action. Use it after a charge. Use it on a readied attack. Use it with a strike maneuver. Use it on your attack during Spring Attack. It’s possibly the only ability in the game to always get an extra attack if you’re willing to eat the -2 penalty. Most others only work on a full attack.

Other major feat suggestion I really must plug is Improved Natural Attack (unarmed strike). Monks (and only monks) explicitly get to count their unarmed strike as a natural weapon. As soon as you qualify, it’s probably the best feat you could possibly take.

[sblock]Unrelated question: Can you block IE or all browsers from treating "accidentally click onto page outside text box" + "hitting backspace" = "OMFG my post! You bastards!" Cause I totally lost like 10 minutes of typing due to that, and it really pissed me off. I hover over IE's backpage key and it says "Alt + Left." You'd think they could at least tell you that merely hitting backspace equals doom.[/sblock]

 

[NRAO]

Don’t do VoP, it’s a trap and a waste of 2 feats.

I get what you're saying and from what I've read it's does seem right, though (and I had forgotten to mention this in my first post), we're in a very low magic setting so it's probably pretty good in that respect, and at any rate I've already taken it (I'm currently lvl 4) so I can't really change that at this point, the feats I've listed are the ones I have already (I didn't have a whole lot of time til the start of the session so I picked the best ones I could qualify for that I found)
I just leveled up but I'm not really sure where I want to go with my character or how, so I figured I'd ask around since reading through all the different books is starting to get overwhelming.

Throw anything is more for flavour than anything, my DM basically said I could throw "anything" with it (like I said, the games very house-ruled) including allies (my thought process behind it was it would be fun to throw the team fighter literally into the fray)

I'm pretty sure I can access tome of battle, but I'd have to check with him to be sure, I've looked into the swordsage and I like the idea behind them, although again I can't use the light armour (and we'd be lucky if we run into good magic items at this point) since I'm already in VoP (despite mechanically helping it's nice RP-wise, and not having to deal with the idiots in my group when it comes to treasure +my DM is allowing me to take any feat not just exalted ones as bonus feats (yeah I know it's crazy but hey))

the more and more I hear about this swordsage the more I like them, the maneuvers particularly seem pretty nice.
I'm going to look into those other feats you mentioned and see if my DM would allow them (he might, but there's no guarentee, do you have any other suggestions besides, particularly for later levels as well?)

Also I've been looking into the Enlightened/Sacred Fist PrCs what do you think about them? I kinda like the idea of magic (though it's a toss up if my DM would allow me to take 'em unless I can come up with a pretty convincing RP thing, i.e. how I learned magic) I like the idea of the Divine Buff spells (particularly things like Divine Might) or something like Wraithstrike (again if my DM would allow it) which I'm sure would do wonders for my monk's combat capabilities (which are sorely lacking, especially compared to the fighters who are pretty monstrous (or hell even the rouge and his sneak attack))

any other suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated, also thanks.



[I don't know how to hide things in the spoiler tab, so I'll just put this here. I can't think of anything that would help that in IE besides the obvious copy your post every so often, if you use firefox though there's an extension that could help you: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6984 I haven't tried it yet myself, but from the description it seems like it should work, there are also greasemonkey scripts that would work (mostly, I've used it myself and it usually works but sometimes might not for one reason or another that I've never figured out) hope that helps at least a little bit]

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

"+my DM is allowing me to take any feat not just exalted ones as bonus feats (yeah I know it's crazy but hey)"

...Ignore everything I said about Vow of Poverty being bad. Aside from Nymph's Kiss, Touch of Golden Ice, and Intuitive Attack, though, do not bother taking actual exalted feats with your bonus slots, the rest generally suck (the one that makes your attacks good aligned is nice but is duplicated by Vow of Poverty at level 10 anyway). Use those bonus feat slots on everything else you want. Certainly makes Spring Attack less painful to qualify for! And yes, your DM's houserule is nuts, but hey...his game.

Feats...only other great choice (ie, no matter what you do it's probably useful) I can think of at the moment is Versatile Unarmed Strike (PH2), so you can do slashing or piercing damage if needed. Toothed Blow (Stormwrack) also allows for this, alternatively. Some other options:
Ring the Golden Bell (dragon mag #319): A few times/day (6 in your case right now), lets you deliver your unarmed strikes and stunning attack at a short range. Note any allied sorc, wiz, or cleric could just cast Blood Wind (Spell Compendium) on you for basically the same benefit. It's a level 1 spell and only a swift action to cast. If you wanted to multi with a caster, it'd be a good self-buff spell.
Pressure Point Strike (dragon mag #336): Gives a load of buff and debuff quasi-magical options to use with your Stunning Fist (instead of stunning). Not very powerful, more of a "fun" feat.
Offensive Metered Foot and/or Defensive Metered Foot (dragon mag #337): Works sort of like dodge in that you choose one opponent. With OMF, you get +1 attack bonus, up to +5, each time you hit the foe, until you miss or change targets, which resets it. With DMF, every time the opponent misses you, you get +1 AC, up to +5. Him hitting you or changing targets resets the bonus. They can make combat more interesting, if nothing else. (Pearl of Black Doubt stance, which you can get as a Swordsage, works similar to DMF, though +2 AC per miss, works against all opponents, and resets each round.)
Martial Throw (Mini Handbook): Once/round after hitting w/ unarmed strike, you can start a dex-based grapple (doesn't provoke AoO), with success causing you to switch positions with the foe. (The maneuver Clever Positioning, available via Swordsage, performs a near-duplicate function.)
Water Splitting Stone (PH2): Basically lets you ignore 4 points of damage reduction on every attack. So if a foe had DR 10 and you dealt 20 damage, you would end up dealing 14 damage. If he had DR 3 and you did 20 damage, the foe would take 20 damage (can't add to damage beyond what the DR was). Can take as monk bonus feat at level 6, otherwise has high pre-reqs to take as a general feat.

All feats I mentioned are conveniently listed here, pages 39-41. Pages 79-81 have other monk-related feats, though nothing I found of much use for you.

Prestige classes: Yeah, you can do that if you want. Probably should abandon Swordsage other than a possible small dip (1-2 levels) if so. Sacred Fist is almost certainly a better choice than Enlightened. If you could re-do the character, you could make Int your high stt, take Kung Fu Genius feat (int instead of wis counts for monk class features), and make a good monk/wizard/Enlightened Fist. I suppose you could use the Sorcerer/Monk multiclass feat in C.adventurer as another route, though that only lets you use Cha for AC instead of Wis, not the rest. In any case, too late for that now! Do Cleric or Druid if you're going to multi with a caster.

Spoilers: Use the following code, without the quotation marks:
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[StreamOfTheSky]

Oh, and as soon as he comes across this thread, anticipate Dannyalcatraz to plug the 3.5 Monk database he has linked in his signature line.

(Beat you to it, Danny! )

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

*puff of smoke from bottle*

Who dares summon the spirit of the lamp?

Oh...yeah, check my sig!

What you get out of your monk will depend upon what sources you use.

With a Dex/Wis build, you can get a LOT of fun out of a Reach weapon build coupled with the Combat Reflexes feat tree, and softening up foes with things like javelins. The Quiver of Ehlonna is your friend.

For multiclassing monks, one of my favorite combos is to partner them with a straight up Sorcerer or Sorcerer variant, coupled with the Ascetic Mage feat. You'll be able to freely multiclass with Sorc- assuming you're not using a monk variant that has relaxed multiclassing rules- and you'll be able to memorize those buff spells yourself. In addition, you'd be able to use Feats like Arcane Strike to function like an Enlightened Fist...or take Sorcerous Heritage feats to channel spell energy in other ways- sonic or energy breath weapons, positive energy lances that only affect evil creatures, etc.

If you're more in the mood for the Sacred Fist type build, you might consider the 3.5 updated version of the Shaman from OA, located in Dragon #317 (updated by the guy who wrote OA, FWIW). You'd get unarmed strikes that scale with level plus full casting and some armor use...and NO multiclassing restrictions. That means you could even MC with the aforementioned sorcerer (or variants) and use Mystic Theurge to have a whole bunch of spells at your martially effective fists & feet.

 

[Dandu]

Danny, you do realize I was joking when I linked to Giacomo's guide? (Unless you are using it as an example of what not to do, in which case congratulations are in order.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nope- didn't realize that. I was relying on the kindness of strangers.

What about it makes it a bad source?

 

[Dandu]

Nope- didn't realize that. I was relying on the kindness of strangers.

My strange sense of humor aside, there is valuable information in the thread... just nothing from Giacomo.

Here's a decent monk guide.

What about it makes it a bad source?

Ok, I am going to put my personal dislike for the man aside and try to be as objective as possible.

1. His "monk guide" is entirely about a specific playstyle. It's not a guide for the class, it's entirely about a build. To call it a guide is a misnomer because guides generally try to cover as wide a playstyle as possible.

2. He does not venture beyond core, because core to him is "perfectly balanced" and all other expansion books are "made because WotC wants to sell more products". This makes the guide less useful for someone like the OP who has more than three books to use in his campaign.

3. He relies on UMD and the buying of partially charged wands to perform in combat. UMD not being a class skill for monks, and partially charged wands not being for sale outside of character creation present an immediate problem to his playstyle. Doubly so if you're in a low magic setting and can't reliably purchase wands, much less waltz into magic marts and buy partially charged wands of whatever spell you desire.

4. He uses wands to buff... and refuses to acknowledge the fact that one dispel magic will make him cry.

5. He believes that monks are not MAD. Yet... his example builds have low HP and AC, while damage is on par with other melee builds at best. (Falls behind charging builds though.)

6. Despite all of the above, he believes that his monk is a caster killer. Yet... he also admits that he never actually playtested his build, making it pure theory. Recently, he finally took up a challenge and ran his monk in a core-only dungeoncrawl through Ravenloft... and proceeded to suck. Not that he will admit it. Details at 11.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Then I'll add a link to that as well...