Monk help

[brehobit]

Hi all,
I'm going to be running a 3.5 game for the first time and I have a fairly new player who is going to be running a monk. So I want to be really sure I have all the wacky rules down.

Issues/questions:
Shuriken:
These are just normal thrown weapons in 3.5 right? No "throw a group of 3 per attack" or anything like 3.0 right?
A monk can use shuriken as part of a flury, so if he has 3 flury attacks, he could use 2 unarmed attacks and one shuriken attack (though the shuriken throw might draw an AoO).
Can one draw more shuriken as a free action or something (without quickdraw?)

Trip:
Can a trip be an attack as part of a full attack? So trip, kick, kick would be okay? Or trip until you succeed and then kick (if you have any attacks left?)

Anything else I might get burned by? I've not seen a high-level monk in play before under 3.0 or 3.5 rules, so I'm a bit worried about getting it all right. And I don't want to spend time looking through books during the game if I can help it.

His monk is kind of interesting. 22 STR after magic items, but an AC of 17. The lower-level monks I've played had lots of D and little O. This one looks to be the other way around...

Mark

 

[Yig]

Shuriken: Yes on all counts. You can flurry (alla attacks) with shurikens.

Trip: Yes on all counts again. It get better with Imp Trip at level 6

The big problems with monks are: low BAB and to-hit, low AC and low HP.

I know, I played one on a few occasion and had a high level (17) monk cohort. But I ditched her because, quite frankly, she wasn't doing anything.

Replaced her with a bard and the party loves it

 

[Talic]

Since Yig did a good job in answering the rules specifics, I'll just add a few thoughts about what to expect. However, I will clarify shuriken by mentioning that they are considered ammunition for the purposes of drawing them so it is a free draw, and thus you can attack with as many of them as you have attacks without the need for the Quickdraw feat.

In general, a monk's best advantage is his mobility. A monk cannot be expected to go toe to toe with the average fighter type, lower BAB and lower HD make that a bad choice. Instead, his combat should be more opportunistic and movement based, similar to the rogue. Expect heavy use of the tumble skill, and the Spring Attack feat, as these allow a monk to strike and move so as not to endure a full attack from foes. Common tactics include taking advantage of flanking positions, darting in for a strike and widthdrawing with spring attack, and using his mobility to get past melee minions in order to harass a caster behind the lines.

Since flurry requires a full round action to execute(and thus leaves the monk open to a return full attack), it may only be used when an enemy is near dead in hopes of dropping it, or against foes that are a minimal melee threat. Also, because of the lesser BAB of the monk, and the penalty for flurrying at lower levels, it probably won't be used much against anything with above average AC untill the flurry can be done without penalty.

Because the particular monk in question has high strength and low AC, I wouldn't be surprised if the character may be considering the grapple mode of engaging in combat as well. There are lots of little details about actions and options while in a grapple, so you might want to read up on that.

 

[Yeoman]

All I can add is that with that strength, grappling is a very good tactic. Between improved grapple, and some of the martial arts feats from Oriental Adventures and Complete Warrior, a grappling focused monk should be very good at taking down lighter targets like spellcasters or rogues.