What is the best way to create effective Monk only with core rules?

[James McMurray]

I don't have to do the math, WotC did it for me in Sword and Fist. By their figures, it evens out once the monk starts needing 15 to hit. That meanst hat it will start doing worse once you need a 16+ or better to hit. Of course, once you reach needing a 20 to hit the average damage is in favor of flurrying again.

Given a monk's lower attack bonus generall, being in the 16-19 range happens fairly often. I just feel it pays to try to hit something once or twice without a flurry before going all-out. Unless of course it is obvious your foes will be easy to hit because they are slow, lightly armored, or both.

 

[Gizzard]

> Even with a 10 int, you're getting 5 skill points per level.

10-11 is +0, so you get 4 skill points, right? You'd have to go to 12 to get +1. (My own Monk is 10 INT).

> The times when it's better not to use Flurry of Blows when
> you get a full attack are so massively rare that it's best not
> to think about it.

Yes indeedy. Also note that the PHB example for Flurry has errata.

Anyway, my thoughts:

1) The first choice is Race. If you are playing a campaign with a lot of dungeon crawling then getting Darkvision by being a Half Orc is an interesting possibility. With skills like Hide and Move Silent and good movement rate you make a good scout. If your campaign is mostly outdoors or Goggles of Darkvision are cheap then this isnt the best plan.

Humans get the extra Feat which helps you if you are trying to get Spring Attack at level 6. Halflings get DEX and good Skill synergy, but lose STR and movement which seems not so good.

I play a human, btw. I miss having Darkvision, but I dont feel a need for more DEX at the cost of STR. I messed up my Feat tree so I cant comment on Spring Attack other than to say many people recommend it.

2) Skills. My INT is 10, I dont have a lot of points to spend, so I kept within my Class Skills. Tumble is by far the best Skill and it has a synergy bonus with both Jump and Balance. I filled those 3 out quickly along with Hide and Move Silent. The Monk actually has a pretty good Skill selection, it somewhat compensates for being weak in other areas. By level 5, I am pretty happy with my Skills, even at INT 10.

3) Feats. I chose Combat Reflexes and Improved Initiative at first level. This is not optimal in any way. Monks do not get a lot of Feats and you must choose them carefully.

If you pick up Weapon Finesse at level 3 (because of its BAB+1 requirement its not available at level 1) then you can gain probably 1-3 points on your attack roll. You wont want to shirk on STR since you still need a decent damage bonus to fight, but if you arent headed for Spring Attack its a good benefit.

If you want Spring Attack at level 6, you need to choose Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack, which eats up all your Feats unless you are Human. Spring Attack seems to get better and better as your movement gets higher; it might not be worth it to get it at level 6. Of course, if you dont, you wont get it until level 9.

4) Stats. I arranged my stats a lot like James did in his example. I rolled them and then arranged to get 15 STR, 17 DEX, 13 CON, 10 INT, 16 WIS, 9 CHA. I chose to favor DEX over WIS because I felt it was more generally useful at the time. I still think that is true since so many of your best skills are DEX based. You dont lose the WIS bonus to AC when flat-footed, but thats about the best I can think of.

Another thing to think about is where to put that first attribute point at level 4. I chanced my 17 DEX to 18, giving me a +4 instead of a +3 which really helped. Try to make sure you have a natural place to put your free point.

 

[Gizzard]

> I don't have to do the math, WotC did it for me in Sword and
> Fist. By their figures, it evens out once the monk starts
> needing 15 to hit.

I came up with the same figures Christian did when I did the math. Basically, you lose 10% (-2) for taking the second swing, so if your second swing hits more than 10% of the time (an 18) you are golden. And dont forget that you auto-hit on a 20 anyway, making the math even more favorable.

 

[James McMurray]

10-11 is +0, so you get 4 skill points, right? You'd have to go to 12 to get +1. (My own Monk is 10 INT).

My example was human, thus 5 points per level. If you go any other race you will drop to 4 points per level.

I wouldn't mind seeing Gizzard and Christian's figures, since either you or WotC are wrong about where the change in effectiveness hits. Check out the chart in Sword and fist.

 

[Christian]

I don't have to do the math, WotC did it for me in Sword and Fist. By their figures, it evens out once the monk starts needing 15 to hit. That meanst hat it will start doing worse once you need a 16+ or better to hit.

The table shows only 5+, 10+, 15+, and 18+. Your conclusion that you do worse with 16+ to hit whenever you do the same with 15+ is incorrect. For example-take my newly 6th level monk, with his two iterated attacks at +4/+1. As the S&F tables show, with a 15 needed to hit, flurrying vs. not flurrying is exactly equivalent. If he needs a 16 to hit with his primary attack, he needs a 19 with the secondary attack. This gives an average of .35 hits per round. When flurrying, He gets two attacks that need an 18 to hit and one attack that needs a 20. This gives an average of-.35 hits per round. Still the same-what do you know!

And in fact, while you do worse flurrying with a base 18+ at any level, you do as well or better when you need a 19, and always better when you need a 20 (as you correctly point out). Again, take my 6th level monk, needing a 19 to hit with his base attack (and therefore a 20 with his secondary attack). With a normal full attack, he hits an average of .15 times per round (.10 + .05). With a flurry, he makes three attacks, all needing twenties. Again, .15 average hits per round. This isn't listed in the S&F tables either ... You don't always do better with a flurry when you need something other than an 18, but you always do at least as well.

Another useful calculation is the chance of hitting at least once. With the normal iterated attacks, this is 32.5%. Using the flurry of blows, it is about 31.5%. If you want to make sure that at least one attack lands (eg. if you're hoping to stun a spellcaster), it would be worthwhile to avoid the flurry (in this case). But in general, if your goal is to inflict damage with your full attack, you will do at least as well with a flurry as with a normal full attack.

 

[Ferret]

Whats the best you can do, with a monk(With 1 level of rogue, no unarmed attack(taken as feat first level) No stunning fist and no Deflect arrow, with divine grace, lay on hands, and Aura of courage.) also an aasimar. No I won't Change him.

 

[Christian]

My example was human, thus 5 points per level. If you go any other race you will drop to 4 points per level.

I wouldn't mind seeing Gizzard and Christian's figures, since either you or WotC are wrong about where the change in effectiveness hits. Check out the chart in Sword and fist.

There's nothing wrong with the chart in Sword & Fist, except perhaps for a misleading choice of columns to include. You're just making an erroneous assumption that the values of the 'hidden' columns can be interpolated ...

I'm not going to publish the ten pages of calculations for every monk level and base attack/AC combo. I don't think I have it anymore, because it turned out the results are so easy to summarize, I don't need it ... It works out to this (which, if you compare, is consistent with the charts in S&F):

Needed to hit
20-Flurry is better
19-Flurry is just as good
18-Flurry is worse
17 to x-Flurry is just as good
(The value of x depends on the number of attacks-for one attack, it is 17, for two attacks it is 15, for three attacks, I think it is 12, etc.)
Less than x-Flurry is better

And then this is very easily summarized as, "Flurrying is at least as good unless the primary attack needs exactly an 18 to hit." Which generally just translates into, "Just flurry and don't worry about it."

My group used to call it 'flurry of misses' too. They stopped quite a while ago, for some reason. It may have been the unbelievably long trail of corpses my monk has left behind him ...

 

[Christian]

I came up with the same figures Christian did when I did the math. Basically, you lose 10% (-2) for taking the second swing, so if your second swing hits more than 10% of the time (an 18) you are golden. And dont forget that you auto-hit on a 20 anyway, making the math even more favorable.

It is a bit more complicated than that when you have more than one base attack. But oddly enough, the general rule comes out the same ... I only did a brute-force arithmetical calculation when I worked this out, someday when I have absolutely nothing better to do I may whip out my old math books and try to find out why this is ... it has something to do with continued fractions, there's probably already a theorem somewhere ...

Then again, maybe I'll never be quite that bored.

 

[android]

try this

my server is being affected by a dos attack against someone else on the network, but you may be able to get to the site:

Expected Damage Calculator

I made this a while ago. It will do calculations for average damage. It works well for monks, just run it once with the numbers for flurry, and another time without and you can make the comparison.

I toss my hat in on the side of flurry is almost always better.

 

[Thanee]

I think the best way to make a combat effective monk is to get as much STR as possible!

Yes, DEX and WIS are both good, but STR is what powers the monk's attacks!

You'll also save one Feat (no Weapon Finesse needed)!

Bye
Thanee