Monk\fighter

[Venport]

I'm going to be playing a Return to the temple of elemental evil campain soon. It's a gustal game. I though that a fighter Monk would work really well with the right feats. I have my own ideas on what freats to take but i thought i could get some fresh ideas from you guys on the boards

I will be starting at 4th level but i thought that i could get some help all the way threw the campain.

 

[Spatula]

A gustal game? What's that?

I've been inspired down similar paths after watching too many hong kong martial arts movies, but there are a couple of hurdles to overcome.

1st is the multiclass restriction on the monk class. If your DM is willing to throw that out, great. There's also a feat in the Eberron campaign book that allows monks to multiclass with another specific class, and I think I've seen similar feats elsewhere. Of course, you could always just take your first level in fighter and advance exclusively in monk afterwards.

2nd is that the monk's unarmed damage is tied to class level, and so if you plan on multiclassing you're going to be taking away from your damage potential if you fight unarmed. You're also hurting your to hit penalties when using flurry of blows.

On the plus side, you can use almost all weapons, which for the most part are superior to fighting unarmed. And you'll have more feats. If you're taking more than one level of fighter you may want to specialize in a weapon that you can flurry with (and if you're using Eberron, there are feats to make longswords and spears flurry weapons). Or you may want to concentrate on reach weapons, using your unarmed attacks to remove the adjacent 'blind spots' that you get when fighting with most reach weapons.

 

[glass]

A gustal game? What's that?

I assume the OP means 'gestalt'.


glass.

 

[EricNoah]

I always thought monk/rogue would be a nifty combo...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Monk combos best with a class that allows it to boost its damage-per-hit. Fighter is decent for that, but rogue is better.

Fortunately, thanks to the miracle of gestalt rules, you can have your fighter cake and eat it roguishly!

Normally, Return to the Elementally Oversized Ancronyms is something of a meatgrinder, but with gestalt characters, it could either be much easier (if your DM uses the adventure as-is) or just plain brutal (if he ups the baddies in accordance with UA's gestalt guidelines). In any case, I don't feel the slightest compunction against providing you with a cheesy trick to improve your chances.

Monk 1/Fighter 1
Monk 2/Rogue 1
Monk 3/Rogue 2
Monk 4/Rogue 3

See the trick? By staggering your monk and rogue levels, you get +1 BAB per level all the way to 20th, but you still get full sneak attack and flurry of blows progression. To the best of my knowledge, gestalting is the only way to get 1:1 BAB and Greater Flurry pre-Epic in 3.5.

The Eberron feat that lets you use swords (meh) or spears (woo!) in a Flurry of Blows is a nice pickup here. It's sooo easy to flank with that lovely longspear, and if they get too close - smack 'em unarmed!

 

[domino]

Are you sure that it would work that way? I'm a little confused on how that BAB would work out.

 

[wingsandsword]

I always thought monk/rogue would be a nifty combo...

Monk/Psychic Warrior, and get your Jedi going.

As for Monk/Fighter, interesting idea as an uber-melee character, and figuring out which attack sequence to use (Monk Unarmed or Fighter) at each level would be interesting.

 

[Voadam]

I'm going to be playing a Return to the temple of elemental evil campain soon. It's a gustal game. I though that a fighter Monk would work really well with the right feats. I have my own ideas on what freats to take but i thought i could get some fresh ideas from you guys on the boards

I will be starting at 4th level but i thought that i could get some help all the way threw the campain.

How good is your wisdom going to be? A lot of good wisdom based monk feats from Beyond Monks, OA, CW, and probably rokugan. What sources are open to you to choose from?

Fighter feats that come to mind, weapon focus, weapon specialization, improved crit, dodge, mobility, spring attack (there is a good tactical one in CW that is based off of mobility), improved init. You would have enough BAB to make the power attack and cleave options worthwile, so long as your DM allows you to power attack with the light weaopn of an unarmed strike (check with DM before choosing). The throwback missiles one is nicer as a fighter gestalt with the high BAB.

You could also use your fighter feats for all ranged combat and rely on base monk for unarmed melee at fighter BAB.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Are you sure that it would work that way? I'm a little confused on how that BAB would work out.

Yep, although some DMs will houserule it.

While gestalting, you get the best class ability (BAB, saves, hit die, skill points) from each class. So, rogue 1 doesn't get a point of BAB - but monk 2 does. Monk 5 doesn't - but rogue 4 does. And so on.

It's cheesy, as I said, but it is technically accurate by the RAW.

 

[domino]

I don't buy it as available by RAW. But I can't see why not.