There needs to be more dwarf monks

[TarionzCousin]

Slight tangent here.

The Dwarf Monk from the Neverwinter Nights video game was fun.

Grimgnaw was his name. He wanted to die the "true death," so every time I resurrected him he grumbled and berated me. Good times.

 

[Borthos]

For another really good monk race for Zen Archers, there's the Oread from Bestiary 2.

+2 Str, Wis, -2 Cha
Darkvision
acid resistance 5

Not bad at all, especially if you multiclass with Sorcerer, as they have the elemental affinity for Earth.

 

[Glade Riven]

And that's *one way* to play a monk. You seem to take it as a core concept that monks must be built around survivability.

*shrug* Just pointing out that a STR based offensive monk is not the only way to do things and still be effective.

Really, there's several main ways to go about character creation: play up the strengths of a race and class and then compensate for weaknesses through magical items and feats, or create a character by trying to compensate for the weaknesses of the class at first level and boost things through feats and magic later on. Granted, there's also Min-Maxing, making choices for roleplaying purposes, or just not knowing what your doing so it doesn't work well. Probably more that I am missing, or combinations of each.

But to each their own.

If I did play this character up through level 5+, I would consider spending feats so that he can craft magical items. Thematically, I like the concept of a dwarf monk forging something using his fists instead of a hammer. But where I take a character depends on group dynamics and how the campaign is going.