I'm playing a small, sort of strength based character in Living Greyhawk right now. She has monk levels, so I'll mention her; you can decide if she's actually a proper monk:
Tallfellow halfling:
Monk 2/Fighter 2/Cleric 2 (of Arvoreen--nobility and war domains)/Paladin 3/Pious Templar 2 (at the moment--Pious Templar is going to be the rest of her levels).
Starting stats:
Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 14
Current stats: Str 18 (+4 belt), Dex 16, Con 12 (+2 amulet), Int 10, Wis 11, Cha 16 (+2 cloak)
Feats: Dodge, Mobility (b), Power Attack (b), Weapon Focus: Longsword (b), Improved Grapple (b), Combat Reflexes (b), Divine Might, True Believer, Close Quarters Fighting
Next feats: Elusive Target, weapon specialization: Longsword (pious templar), melee weapon mastery (b)
All told, she has been surprisingly effective. She can grapple pretty much anything medium or smaller reasonably effectively (well enough to shut down small opponents and disable spellcasters or single opponents as well as to force most medium fighter types to spend their time escaping grapples instead of attacking--and, in a pinch, she can be buffed with enlarge person, etc to take down larger opponents (my APL 4 or 6 party defeated a shadow template dire bat in that manner)). She also dishes out a pretty good amount of damage provided that she has a decent weapon for her level. (Her current weapon is a +1 holy green starmetal longsword).
Because she wears armor (mithral breastplate) and uses a heavy shield and longsword as her primary armarment, she doesn't fit the typical monk concept, but she does grapple fairly regularly and uses unarmed strikes whenever it's not convenient to have her sword in hand or whenever she wants to take an opponent alive. Because she gets a fair amount of her damage from things like divine might and smite evil, you might also not consider her a purely strength based character, but she's as close to a small strength based monk as I've played or seen played.
Choon-Ma said:
I'm glad people actually posted. My last threads died really quick....
Has anyone ever actually built a small STR monk? I think it would be an interesting role-playing option. How can you make that doable... if it is...