Monks and AC

[doosler]

There are a few things that are apples to oranges. The effectiveness of special tactics like Trip, Grapple, or Stun are not easily guestimated. Fighters often have Cleave, so their real damage can be boosted way up with mooks around. Also a Dex Monk that is only gets a standard attack is going to be hopeless when compared with a Fighter's standard attack.

1. Well, if Trip, Grapple, and Stun are not easily guestimated, then the best way to judge their effectiveness is to see them in action, right?

2. If Cleave wouldn't be effective against a single monk, then I suppose whomever is playing the fighter character would be best advised not to choose that particular feat for this particular fighter, right?

3. Judging by your last sentence, you seem to have written the monk off before the contest has even begun. The monk will almost certainly be faster than the fighter. Perhaps his strategy wouldn't be to launch himself immediately upon the fighter, but rather to dance around him and attack whenever the safest opportunity presents itself.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In no particular order:

1) Ranged combat. Damaging, immobilizing, or otherwise inconveniencing the enemy before they close to melee (even taking reach into account) is a significant advantage, and the Dex monk will get a significant bonus there. If he's an elf, he'll have access to the Longbow- not too shabby.

2) Initiative. Getting to strike earlier in the round at some point means that your opponent never gets to strike back.

3) AoOs in general. Yes, concentration of fire is an effective tactic- but AoOs don't detract from that. If you're facing multiple opponents, you still have to do all that damage. If your monk is doing 6.5 pts of damage/rd to one opponent, that's nice- but if the Dex Monk is doing 4.5 pts of damage to 2 or more opponents in a single round, the party is experiencing a net benefit in the attrition of his foe's mass of HPs. Heck, depending upon the course of events, your main target may get hit twice by the monk in the same round if he triggers an AoO.

4) Reach + AoOs. Unless you're running the Monk in a solo adventure or he's the last one standing, he has allies. With proper positioning, he'll get to use the majority of his AoOs, and even if its only "plinking," it will put a lot of opponents that much closer being waxed by the front-line fighters with Great Cleave.

Overall, the Dex monk is a better battlefield controller than the Str Monk, but is worse in single combat.

Were you to actually do a single combat of Dex Monk vs Ftr or even a Str Monk, I'd expect the Dex Monk to lose both fights (and I bet the Str Monk would lose to the Ftr unless he actually gets a Stunning attack in or 2).

OTOH, in a standard D&D combat with multiple opponents vs a typical party including a Monk, the Dex Monk's advantages in initiative, ranged combat, and getting the most out of his AoOs would result in his party getting an edge over the Str Monk's party given the same set of opponents.

 

[Zelc]

1) Ranged combat. Damaging, immobilizing, or otherwise inconveniencing the enemy before they close to melee (even taking reach into account) is a significant advantage, and the Dex monk will get a significant bonus there. If he's an elf, he'll have access to the Longbow- not too shabby.

I disagree. Going longbow means you give up most of the advantages of being a monk (flurry, stunning fist, other bonus feats) while eating all the penalties (medium BAB, MAD so low str composite bows). Not to mention being an elf melee character already suffering from MAD and a low hit dice could well be a great way to die frequently. A dex monk has more options with regards to melee vs. ranged combat, but I don't think they make up for the str monk's sheer effectiveness.

2) Initiative. Getting to strike earlier in the round at some point means that your opponent never gets to strike back.

Well, the str monk can replace Weapon Finesse with Improved Initiative and come out ahead on initiative (probably). More importantly, remember that going first isn't much of a benefit if you can't do anything important.

3) AoOs in general. Yes, concentration of fire is an effective tactic- but AoOs don't detract from that. If you're facing multiple opponents, you still have to do all that damage. If your monk is doing 6.5 pts of damage/rd to one opponent, that's nice- but if the Dex Monk is doing 4.5 pts of damage to 2 or more opponents in a single round, the party is experiencing a net benefit in the attrition of his foe's mass of HPs. Heck, depending upon the course of events, your main target may get hit twice by the monk in the same round if he triggers an AoO.

The problem here is twofold. First, the dex monk has to take at least two AoOs in one round in order to come out ahead, since everyone gets the one default AoO. That means jumping into the center of the enemies. While you'll have some pretty good AC, it's really tough to expect much more than a 50% avoidance rate versus equal-CR bruiser monsters. At that point, you'll really regret your d8 hit dice and middling Con.

Second, that 6.5 damage against two opponents may be more valuable than that 4.5 damage against three. Yes, you'll end up doing a bit more damage, but you'll also be taking more damage. In D&D, monsters can fight equally well at full HP and at 1 HP. That extra 2 damage per hit could mean the difference between the monster dying and getting another round to try to take someone with it. At low levels, the monster has another chance to land a crit and outright kill someone. At high levels, that's another chance for the monster to cast Wail of the Banshee (of course, at high levels it'd probably be more than a difference of just 2 damage per hit).

4) Reach + AoOs. Unless you're running the Monk in a solo adventure or he's the last one standing, he has allies. With proper positioning, he'll get to use the majority of his AoOs, and even if its only "plinking," it will put a lot of opponents that much closer being waxed by the front-line fighters with Great Cleave.

I disagree. You'd have to make at least 2 AoOs to even take advantage of the combat reflexes feat. How many combats involve just a single monster? How many involve one bruiser and one caster, where distance means you can't possibly AoO both at once?

OTOH, in a standard D&D combat with multiple opponents vs a typical party including a Monk, the Dex Monk's advantages in initiative, ranged combat, and getting the most out of his AoOs would result in his party getting an edge over the Str Monk's party given the same set of opponents.

I strongly disagree. In a combat with multiple opponents, you need to cull their numbers ASAP so the sheer multiplicity of attacks doesn't overwhelm your party. That's where the str monk shines.

 

[eamon]

Duels are extremely fiddly - it depends a lot on the sources and the exact nature of the two NPC's - i.e. if one of them has an especially good tactic the other hasn't prepared against, it's a done deal. For example, the aforementioned warforged juggernaught is immune to stunning, has damage reduction (and a natural weapon to use in grapple), and is coincidentally unrealistically well optimized for killing a monk. More useful are playtests vs. monsters - an even there, you'll need variety, and you'll need to consider what-if's concerning crucial die rolls such as initiative checks and saves vs. stunning fists and/or damage that is just barely lethal or just barely not.

Then there's the fact that it's not clear what a one-on-one fight shows - many people suggest that the monk shines particularly in team play; well, so what if it loses in one-on-one. On the other hand, were the monk to win, you still haven't shown that in team-play it could have saved its allies: team play may be a monks strength, but also weakness; since normally an opponent isn't forced to attack the monk (unlike in a one-on-one), it might be to the opponents detriment if he is forced to attack.

A real test is thus very hard, so playtesting a "typical" battle becomes the next best thing. And, in a typical battle, for a monk and a fighter damage is all-important. Sure, flanking and stunning are important too, but less so (and it succeeds less frequently). AoO's are only a damage measure - and it's obvious that an AoO which deals less than 10 damage (being very optimistic for the monk here), is going to need to hit extremely often to compensate for an AoO that deals 26 - even in the best of circumstances, that'll be hard to beat. And if your weapon deals less than 10 damage on average (say, 4.5 of a longspear without strength bonus, or even 6.5 of one with +2 strength bonus), it's almost certainly hopeless. Even if you get 4 opportunities, you'll hit less frequently because of your poor attack bonus.

 

[Kat']

Well, if Trip, Grapple, and Stun are not easily guestimated, then the best way to judge their effectiveness is to see them in action, right?

Not if we're talking Dex-Monk compared to Str-Monk or Damage-man. These options are theoretically available to everyone, right? So now, compare how they work (excluding Improved xxx feats, or at least considering everyone has them)
- Stun is Wis-based and is maybe the only viable option for a Dex-Monk
- Grapple is STR-based. Worse, it's BAB-based. (This is why monks are not that good at grappling, BTW)
- Trip is STR-based
- Disarm requires an attack roll
- Overrun is STR-based

Meaning that, Stunning excepted, a STR Monk (and a Fighter or Barbarian with high BAB even more so) is definitely better at those options than a Dex Monk. At best, a Dex monk is well (though not better) suited to resist Trip, but that's pretty much everything.

 

[eamon]

- Disarm requires an attack roll

And you're not getting the +4 bonus for having a two handed weapon, but instead getting the -4 penalty for having a light weapon (unarmed strike). You could use a quarterstaff, but then weapon finesse won't apply. A sai is poor compensation, since it's still a light weapon, and since it means you need to share your magic item budget and feat budget between the unarmed strike and the sai.

I keep on ripping on the monk, and that's not really my intent - I think it's a fun class, I just think it's underpowered and needs good optimization to compete with the other classes.

So, to end on a positive note:

I think a dex-based monk is best off maximizing the damage dice using a monk's belt, superior unarmed strike, improved natural attack, and weapon focus, and concentrating on stunning fist (to make the DC's high such as via the PHB2 alternate feature, and perhaps even ability focus). You could consider 4 levels of fighter, which costs you some monk abilities but nets a +3 attack bonus because of the higher bab, and the availability of melee weapon mastery, but it's probably not a good idea (you hardly gain damage since you lose unarmed strike progression, it costs almost 1 AC, and it costs 2DC on your stunning fist).

Of course, you can consider a variety of PrC's, and it's very useful to tweak your design depending on the rest of the party, since any long-term buffs like mage armor (and it's greater variant), stat buffs, greater magic fang, etc etc. are all extremely useful to you, and vice-versa your mobility can be useful to others.

 

[Sitara]

Umm, why not just take weapon finesse unarmed strikes? Sure your low str may hurt damage, but not that much. Also you can take flame fist feat from phb2 to boost damage.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As it turns out, my initial post about Monks using spears was erroneous, and derived from campaign specific rules- I've corrected it in my initial post.

I strongly disagree. In a combat with multiple opponents, you need to cull their numbers ASAP so the sheer multiplicity of attacks doesn't overwhelm your party. That's where the str monk shines.

I did a comparative analysis with a 2 Monks facing 4 opponents as a microcosm of a combat in which the party is operating in a "target rich environment."

Assumptions:

1) Each Monk 40hp, using a Greatspear (2d6 Reach- AFAIK, the highest damage reach weapon in WotC's publications), with +6/+1 attacks and a Crossbow for ranged combat (1d10); Str Monk has +4 to hit/damage in melee, no Dex bonus, Dex Monk has +4to AC & ranged combat, no Str bonus.

2) Opponents, each 30HP, using a longsword, no ranged weapon, 1 attack each, and no relevant bonuses.

3) Each blow is an average blow with no crits.

4) Str Monk loses initiative to opponents. Dex Monk has initiative over opponents. If a combatant is reduced to zero, it can only do its last bit of damage if it has the initiative advantage.

5) Each Monk did a ranged attack as the foes closed before switching to his spear, each used his maximum number of AoOs, and each concentrated their normal strikes on a single opponent until dropping it.

6) The foes concentrate their blows on each Monk until he is dropped. Any blows in excess of what is needed to kill a Monk go to the Monk's allies.

7) No allies interfere on either side.

8) No flurry was used, just basic attacks.

Results:

In each case, the Monks are overwhelmed by their opponents.

The Str Monk drops his first opponent after 1 ranged combat round and 2 melee rounds, and is dropped in melee round 4 without dropping any other foes (he got no dying blow since he lost initiative). The foes remaining had a total of 82.3HP left, and had 1 blow to allocate to the Monk's allies in round 4. They had all of their potential blows left for round 5.

The Dex Monk drops his first opponent after 1 ranged combat round and 5 melee rounds, and is dropped in melee round 5 without dropping any other foes (he beat his foes initiative, so got a strike in this round). The foes remaining had a total of 79.5HP left, and had 1 blow to allocate to the Monk's allies in round 5.

Analysis:

While the Str Monk drops his first foe much earlier than the Dex monk, his lower AC means he is overwhelmed by their numbers more quickly- in fact, before he can make a further significant impact. The foes he faced are freed 1 round earlier and with more HP than those faced by the Dex monk. The Dex Monk thus was the better ally to have here, since he 1) did more damage in the overall combat, and 2) occupied his foes for a longer period of time than his Str monk counterpart.

 

[Zelc]

Some problems:

Why did you use a Greatspear? Monks aren't even proficient in that, and the higher damage favors the Dex Monk. We can just say they use Unarmed Strikes or something Monks are normally proficient with (I don't think they're proficient with a reach weapon...). Also, note the Str Monk should be getting +4 attack/+8 damage since they're using a 2-handed weapon; I doubt this makes much of a difference though.

You forced the enemies to attack the Monk before they attacked the allies. In real gameplay, this rarely happens. Monks don't have the ability to "hold aggro" on the enemies; after one round of "this guy is too hard to hit but can't really hurt us", the mob will move to attack the squishy Wizard instead. Suddenly, the Dex Monk's inability to present a threat is a huge liability.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why did you use a Greatspear?

Because I've consistently insisted that using Reach weapons favors the Dex monk because of the increased likelyhood of AoOs, and the Greatspear is the best one available, and as I recently corrected myself, Monks have NO reach weapons in their repetoir. Just using WotC books, its the best weapon to boost their damage at reach.

Moving outside of WotC, specifically using DCv1, its even better, since the Monk could then use it to flurry.

Its also only a couple of points better than the Monk's own IUC at this point.

LIke I said, the Dex Monk is a battlefield control build.

the higher damage favors the Dex Monk

Yes it does, because it makes the Monk's Str bonus less and less important, as does any magic item, spell or effect that boosts Str.

In contrast, there are far fewer items spells or effects that boost Dex.

Also, note the Str Monk should be getting +4 attack/+8 damage since they're using a 2-handed weapon; I doubt this makes much of a difference though.

I wasn't listing their damage bonuses, just their BAB, but I was slightly off on the damage- thanks for the correction.

Recalculated, even though the bonus damage means he winds up doing 2.8 more total damage than the Dex Monk, The Str Monk still missed dropping a second opponent before being dropped himself. 3 of his opponents are still free to go chasing the Monks allies a whole round before the Dex Monk's.

You forced the enemies to attack the Monk before they attacked the allies. In real gameplay, this rarely happens.

The environment was "target rich," meaning everybody had someone to fight and nobody was available to help out either Monk by melee, ranged or spellcasting.

IME, not many foes get past the Monks to get to the squishies.

after one round of "this guy is too hard to hit but can't really hurt us", the mob will move to attack the squishy Wizard instead. Suddenly, the Dex Monk's inability to present a threat is a huge liability.

This is where you need to use your tactical skills. The Dex Monk with a Reach weapon will be positioned in such a way as to make getting to "Squishy the Arcanist" a painful exercise. The Str Monk will get 1 plink try as the foes go by, but the Dex monk will get 4 attempts.