Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EUBanana" data-source="post: 5744821" data-attributes="member: 6676815">Well, I remade the guy as a level 11 monk, and lost the whip due to me being in error.  He took fury's fall instead of exotic weapon proficiency whip, and perfect strike at level 11, and uses a +3 kama.His CMB with a trip is going to be 11 (level 11 monk)6 (strength)3 (dex)2 (improved trip)3 (+3 kama)= +25-1 for fighting defensively-2 at minimum if done as part of a flurry= +22, as part of the typical full attackPossibly +2 on that if you use exploit weakness offensively.I envisage in general when moving and attacking and therefore unable to flurry, it would be a trip at +24, as you may as well, you get the AoO if you hit so you can chip a bit at the same time.  Which seems adequate to me.  The issue I envisage is not to do with CMD, but not being able to trip things at all potentially.  He could only trip things of size large or smaller, and things that don't have lots of legs, like bebiliths.  The size thing could be mitigated with Enlarge though, which the party has access to.Perfect strike is good for attacks you really desperately want to hit as well, and a trip is probably a good candidate.  I'll copy him out when I get home if you like.He'll be in the same boat as the monk though - a guy with a lot of class abilities and probably feats that are unusable.  So being distinctly sub par.If you're talking about the paladin, well...I got an immovable rod, a bag of holding, a +1 light crossbow and some flaming crossbow bolts as well but thats not really germane to the conversation.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />  I've fired six shots with the crossbow since I got given it as nobody else wanted it, that was about 8 levels ago now.  Trinkets picked up along the way.My paladin saves are +15/+11/+12 anyway without any items specifically to enhance it.  And thats with wisdom 7.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Though the headband of charisma is effectively a cloak of resistance +2 among other things - I think you discount how raising attributes is really good for some classes, extra charisma does all sorts for a paladin.  More spells, more accurate smites, more AC when smiting, more saving throws, its an excellent item to have.  Monks are similar.  Like that belt of physical perfection does all sorts, saving throws, AC, attack bonuses, more attack bonuses thanks to feats, skills...  Things like belts of physical perfection just make you man plus, better across the board.Mobility, well, most of the party is groundbound, I don't feel hugely limited by not being able to fly.  We tend to be hasted, I've not known mobility be a huge issue really even in heavy armour.  Occasionally it is but only occasionally.  Even unhasted I can lumber 60' in a round though if I do nothing else, 60' is a pretty long way if you're in a dungeon or something - certainly bigger than most rooms which is the main thing - and generally all I want to do is stick to the ranged guys like glue anyway as they volley arrows and spells, and let the bad guys come to us.  We do fight indoors about 3/4 of the time I'd guess.  We're going into a sewer in our next session, I seriously doubt mobility will be much of an issue in there.If you mean the monk, well, saving throw wise he's solid ish as it stands with his attribute boosts and decent base saves, and improved evasion.   Mobility wise he has excellent ground speed, reasonable acrobatics, and the ability to potentially ignore AoOs or boost AC dramatically against individual targets, so I'm pretty sure he can run around the battlefield very well without any magic items.  I guess you could argue about fly and the like, but the only guys in our party who can fly are the wizard and the sorcerer with boots of levitation, being ground bound isn't going to be unique to me.If you got a MAD class where attributes feed into a lot of different things, the utility of stat boosts becomes far greater.  The only stat boosts a fighter is really likely to benefit from is strength, really, and dex and con up to a point - but that point can be achieved in chargen more or less.  A charisma headband on a paladin though affects such a vast range of things.    I was making this point ages ago, MAD is not necessarily a flaw, you can leverage it as an advantage.  Bonuses to dexterity and wisdom for a monk are awesome, they do loads of different things - skill rolls, stunning fist DCs, saving throws, armour class, ki pool or equivalent, all sorts.  It's about as generalist as it gets. The only movement option this guy could really make use of is winged boots or something I guess.  Yeah, maybe it'd be ok, but can't see how it'd help much in a sewer, or Castle Ravenloft, or the Tomb of Horrors if we live that long.  Seems quite specific to me.Good encounter design?  A town is a town, a castle is a castle, a forest is a forest, a sewer is a sewer, a tomb is a tomb.  Chokepoints are pretty normal.  In half of the above chokepoints are the pretty much the inescapable norm in fact.It's not like we run into the nearest open field and try and fight the baddies in the worst possible way imaginable.    I guess the DM could deliberately try screwing us over by suddenly having us fight in an arena, or be ambushed in the middle of a barren plain, or something like that, but it would seem pretty contrived to me.I think we're getting mixed up between the char I actually do play and the monk I would play.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />Perfect strike if he was level 11 - like the fighter - would change the odds there pretty dramatically.OK...  so you have a go at me for all the AC boosting stuff when you did this???On the very narrow field of willpower saves, you've spent a feat, a trait, a magic item slot, and 5 attribute points, all for just this one 1 thing.  So happens its your classes achilles heel, so fair enough, but you sure threw the kitchen sink at that achilles heel.Seems to me that a relatively poor AC is the monks achilles heel, so I acted accordingly.  however, a lot of the stuff the monk uses to cover that heel has a lot more function than something like iron will or a trait, stuff like wisdom and dex boosts do all sorts of things, not just AC.If he's attacking isolated targets they wouldn't be buffed either so the point is moot - buffs are not a factor in this discussion, they depend on circumstances.  Ah I didn't know that.But 60'...  you need more???  If you trip them it provokes.  If they then get up it provokes.  If they don't, fine, you win as its a huge debuff.   The first person to attack you with a weapon provokes (which you use to trip them, and ... provokes <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />)I dunno, if you do end up in the deep trouble of being surrounded, a flurry full of trips would possibly cause a hell of a lot of provoking as people go down and get up.  Of course it would spread the damage out which is bad, but the total damage done would be as high as ever and you'd effectively be putting a big debuff on everybody as well.CMD is strength, hit, dex and AC bonuses, essentially.CMB is strength and hit - dex with a feat, and any other hit bonuses just the same as striking someone, and whatever maneuver feats you have.  It's true a lot of critters have very high CMDs though.  Kinda depends on what you fight.Depends on what you fight, theres certainly things you can't use maneuvers on.  But being good against weapon users is pretty much a constant use thing, even a balor uses a weapon after all.  And most things are trippable.  You could try a permanency'd greater magic fang spell.  I'm trying to decide if thats a cheap shot or not before I present the DM with that...  its dispellable too but I've not been dispelled once as a paladin so I call shenanigans if the first thing people think of when a monk jumps out of the shadows is, dispel him, dispel him!Perhaps not, but they'll certainly last through a lot of treasure hauls.  12 hours of monster bashing is a pretty long time.  Depends on how many 15 minute workdays you have I guess.  Either way, the cost is really quite negligible, even if you assume 1 charge from each per encounter its something like 10% of he value of the encounter.You don't have to necessarily run around every turn though.  Ideally the fighters of the party are engaged as well by the time the monk strikes, so you have a bit of peace and quiet at the back.  After the charge/trip/AoO/stunning fist, next round its the full on can of whup-ass.Barbarian defences suck though, especially if they are using a two handed sword, which they probably are.  Extra hit points is the worst defence of all, especially if healing is assumed.   Barbarian rage is a finite resource and one not very easily controlled given how it can fatigue you, the monks I've described are much more adaptable to changing circumstances and are generally more well balanced characters I would say - barbarians generally won't be packing adequate acrobatics and stealth for their skills to be useful, though I concede that it is possible for them to attempt to do so.Cavaliers are almost entirely dependent for their toasty abilities on being on horseback and being able to charge, and those two things are often stopped almost as a given.  It is true that we've had some freaky scenes (we teleported into someones bedroom once, horse and all, and the guy who was studying at his desk got a lance in the back <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />) involving horses in odd places, but a cavalier will be stuffed there as often as not in my experience, and lugging a horse around everywhere can be quite a burden.    Charging can sometimes be a bit difficult to arrange tactically as well, a clear line with nothing at all blocking the way from the target you want to hit is often surprisingly hard to arrange in practice, especially when you've moved in nothing but straight lines since the opening round as you are charging every time.  Plus to charge, you have to pull away, which means risking AoOs.  Cavaliers are probably the most limited, narrow melee class of all IMO in terms of "doing their thing".  They are OK when out of their comfort zone, it's true, but thats just as well because they'll be out of it quite a lot.Kinda, but a lot of monk stuff tends to be level based, like how exploit weakness works, and at its simplest more BAB is pretty much the main thing of all high level melee classes.     They don't get broader really, but thats true of most melee classes except maybe paladins.  Maybe.  They get more of the same.  Even more attacks, even more stunning fists, even more maneuver options, even more AC from exploit weakness, etc.</blockquote>

Verification