3.5 The (skill) Monkey King

[Human Paragon 3]

This fun build uses factotum and tattooed Monk to leverage insane skill bonuses out of a massive int and cha with the Bell Flower tattoo. Not only do we create one monstrous skill monkey through use of the tattoos, but we also make the monk less MAD by focusing almost solely on int with cha as a backup stat.

The factotum's cunning insight dovetails nicely with the monk's decisive strike feature (PHB II) and Int bonus to AC, creating a surprisingly formidable combatant as well. With Brains Over Brawn (Int to Str checks), you'll even be able to effectively use improved grapple, a pre-req for Tattooed Monk.

He's based on Son Wukung, the Monkey King from the famed Chinese folk tale Journey to the West, but with his mobility and versatility, you might as well call him Visa, because he's everywhere you want to be.

Advice on how to make this build even more fun and playful (feat selection etc) would be nice. Thanks!


The Monkey King

Factotum 3/Monk 2/Tattooed Monk 9/Swashbuckler 3/Thief Acrobat 3

1 Able Learner
H Endurance
F1 Cunning Insight, Cunning Knowledge
3 Knowledge Devotion
F3 Cunning Defense, Brains Over Brawn
M1 Improved Grapple, Decisive Strike
6 Kung Fu Genius
M2 Combat Reflexes, Evasion
9 Power Attack
12 Stunning Fist
15 Font of Inspiration
S1 Weapon Finesse
S3 Int to damage
18 Font of Inspiration
TA1 Fast Acrobatics, Kip up
TA2 Agile Fighting, Slow Fall
TA3 Acrobatic Charge, Defensive Roll

Tattoos:
Monkey (#tattoo to 10 different skills)
Bell Flower (#tattoo/day gain CHA bonus to any ability)
Wasp (Haste yourself tattoo/day)
White Mask (+10 to bluff, immune to detect lies and detect alignment)
Tortoise (T/day use your class level instead of skill ranks)

Ability Priorities
Int
Cha
Dex
Str
Con
Wis


EDIT: Added in Knowledge Devotion at level 3.
EDIT: EDIT: Added in Power Attack at level 9 for x4 decisive strike goodness.

[Frosty]

This build fails for not including Knowledge Devotion as one of its feats.

[Human Paragon 3]

That's a little harsh. I don't have complete champion, so I don't know what that feat does.

[sonofzeal]

That's a little harsh. I don't have complete champion, so I don't know what that feat does.
Don't do it!

Complete Champion is (imo) the single worst 3.5 suppliment WotC has ever published. It's chock full of brokenly awesome stuff, brokenly horrible stuff, and stuff that just plain makes no sense. And the Devotion feats are the gateway drug! Don't give in, man! Just say no!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's a nice build, but... his skills are crap. Over half his levels have lousy skill selection (tatooed monk and swashbuckler) and only Factorum and (if I remember correctly) thief acrobat even have Disable Device or Open Lock.

It's a nice build, but it's not a skillmonkey by any means.

[Human Paragon 3]

Able learner at level one makes all skills class skills for his entire career. High INT and the tattoos give him more than enough skill power.

[Frosty]

That's a little harsh. I don't have complete champion, so I don't know what that feat does.

It gives you a +x/+x to your hit and damage depending on how well you roll on your knowledge at the beginning of the encounter. For example, if you roll a 35 or better on Knowledge (nature) you'd get a +5/+5 vs humanoids, animals, plants, etc. While a similarly good Knowledge (religion) check yields bonuses vs Undead and whatever else Religion is good for identifying. Take the feat and max out your knowledge skills for goodness in battle.

[dyslexicfaser]

Personally, I'd get rid of the Swashbuckler/Thief Acrobat to take 8 levels in Factotum and, I dunno, I guess a 10th level in Tattoo Monk? I'm not real familiar with the Monk PrC. The important bit is the 8th level Cunning Surge, letting him pull off multiple Decisive Strikes or a huge chain of Flurry of Blows, which is just neat.

This also lets him add 8 to any skill instead of just 3, which will help with his non-str/dex abilities (which also get int added to them, and so are fine).

Me, I'd just nickname him Bruce. Woh-pah!

[Human Paragon 3]

Or you could do it without spending any ranks on knowledge skills at all.

Step 1: Activate Bell Flower to boost your INT to, say, 24 (conservative estimate) (+7)
Step 2: Activate Tortoise Tattoo to use your level instead of ranks (9), and you're considered trained.
Step 3: Activate Cunning Insight to get your int to the knowledge skill (+7 again)
Step 4: Profit with a +23 to the knowledge skill of your choice without investing any ranks whatsoever, and still hitting that 35 DC 50% of the time. This is without any magic items to boost stats or skills.

You can repeat the same process for any skill you please. And don't forget, while your INT is boosted, you'll get that nice fat bonus to all STR and DEX checks throughout the encounter, not to mention occasionally attack, damage and AC. A round +5/+5 to attack and damage is boss, and better than any other use of cunning insight I can think of, so I'll add knowledge devotion at level 3. What are the other DCs?


The extra factotum levels are certainly do-able, although the 10th level of tattooed monk gives you precisely ****. Even another level of plain old monk would be preferable for still mind and the 10ft of slow fall.

[Frosty]

I...don't believe I can post the other exact DCs here. It'd let you use the material without having to have the book. Quoting just one of the DCs gives you an idea of what the feat is like without giving you the entire thing.

[Human Paragon 3]

Fair enough. I guess I'll have to walk into a book store and look at the page. :smallwink:

[Person_Man]

There are a few other more efficient ways to boost Skills that you may wish to consider:

Item Familiar (www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm): You can invest Skill points in your familiar to gain a big boost to one Skill.

Marshal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b): Can gain his Cha bonus to any set of Skills. At the very least, you should dip one level to pick up Motivate Dexterity.

Incarnate: Using the Magic of Incarnum supplement is a bit difficult for those who are unfamiliar, but once you read it, you'll realize how awesome it is. Basically you get a number of soulmelds, and a pool of incarnum. Soulmelds give you bonuses to various things, depending upon how much incarnum you invest in them. You can also bind soulmelds, getting special powers. The amount of incarnum that you can dump into each soulmeld scales with your character level and your incarnum class level, (topping out around 4-7 points of essentia, depending on your buid). A 5 level investment into Incarnate can usually get you a 12+ Insight bonus to most Skills, whenever you want it.

Exemplar: A one level dip gives you the ability to Take 10 in a bunch of Skills. A few more levels gives you the Lend Talent ability, allowing anyone to use Trained Only Skills, which opens up...

Nanobots: An old combo. Aid Another (www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Aid_Another) is an untyped bonus, and thus it stacks with all other bonuses. Convince a bunch of townspeople to follow you around, or have the party's Wizard cast Animate Objects (or buy a wand, or use Handle Animal, etc). Use Marshal and Exemplar to boost their Skill checks, and you can essentially reach any Skill DC, limited only by the number of minions you can get.

Items: Search through the various splat books, and you'll find a ton of Skill boosting items. Some are magic, some are mundane. For example, you can make a masterwork tool (PHB) for any Skill to gain a +2 bonus. With a moderate investment, you can usually get +10 or more to most Skills.

Spells: There are a ton of spells out there that boost Skills. Glibness comes to mind. It's also worth mentioning that many Skills can be mostly or entirely replaced by low level magic. Comprehend Languages, Knock, Silence, Invisibility, Shatter, Summon Monster (great way to disarm traps), etc. Alter Self and/or Polymorph can be used to disguise yourself as anything, and will boost your stats a lot higher then Tattooed Monk. A modest Wand investment goes a long way.

[Draz74]

With Brains Over Brawn (Int to Str checks), you'll even be able to effectively use improved grapple, a pre-req for Tattooed Monk.

Sadly, grapple checks are not Strength checks.

As long as I'm in nitpick mode, @Frosty: humanoids are covered under Know(local), not Know(nature).

[Swooper]

I...don't believe I can post the other exact DCs here. It'd let you use the material without having to have the book. Quoting just one of the DCs gives you an idea of what the feat is like without giving you the entire thing.
Fine, I'll do it. Here (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/feats.pl?Knowledge_Devotion,CC).

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Or you could do it without spending any ranks on knowledge skills at all.

Step 1: Activate Bell Flower to boost your INT to, say, 24 (conservative estimate) (+7)
Step 2: Activate Tortoise Tattoo to use your level instead of ranks (9), and you're considered trained.
Step 3: Activate Cunning Insight to get your int to the knowledge skill (+7 again)
Step 4: Profit with a +23 to the knowledge skill of your choice without investing any ranks whatsoever, and still hitting that 35 DC 50% of the time. This is without any magic items to boost stats or skills.

You can repeat the same process for any skill you please. And don't forget, while your INT is boosted, you'll get that nice fat bonus to all STR and DEX checks throughout the encounter, not to mention occasionally attack, damage and AC. A round +5/+5 to attack and damage is boss, and better than any other use of cunning insight I can think of, so I'll add knowledge devotion at level 3. What are the other DCs?


The extra factotum levels are certainly do-able, although the 10th level of tattooed monk gives you precisely ****. Even another level of plain old monk would be preferable for still mind and the 10ft of slow fall.

And you can only use this combo five times per day.Tortoise is only usable #tatoos/day.

A 'skillmonkey', in the classic definition, doesn't NEED to rely on things like tatoos. A Factorum/Exemplar/Rogue/Warlock is a typical example. In brief, he never needs to make a roll on a skill, because he can take ten on all of them.

[Chronos]

Marshal: Can gain his Cha bonus to any set of Skills. At the very least, you should dip one level to pick up Motivate Dexterity.Much better than Bellflower, for three reasons. First, you only get +1 to a skill for each +2 to an ability score, so it gives double the skill bonus that Bellflower does. Second, it applies to all party members, not just you, so everyone gets a nice boost on initiative checks, and everyone has a decent chance of sneaking past an inattentive guard. Third, it's continuous and active all day, not just five times.

EDIT: I forgot to also make a few comments on Incarnate. First, I wouldn't take any more than 3 levels in it, and possibly only 1. Three levels is enough to get soulmelds for all the skills you really want, and enough essentia to fill up any single soulmeld. Since you can shift your essentia around as a swift action, and you're usually only using one skill at a time, you don't need to fill all of them. Second, if you're going Incarnate anyway, three levels of Umbral Disciple is a good investment, for more essentia, decent skills, and (most importantly) Hide in Plain Sight. Third, if Complete Scoundrel is allowed, Incarnate is a very good candidate to advance with Uncanny Trickster: This way, you can get the benefit of three levels of Incarnate, while only spending a single level with lousy actual skills.

[Human Paragon 3]

The Bellflower's Tattoo Bonus is untyped, so it will stack with the Marshal's aura. I don't see anything wrong with using both. Maybe a marshal level can step in for the mysterious last level once I switch the other levels to factotum. Also, 5/day should be plenty. I usually don't get 6 encounters in a typical day, and the ability lasts level rounds (9), probably the entire encounter.

Item familiar is a great idea, and actually fits well with the monkey king flavor, since he has his famous staff.

[Chronos]

The Bellflower's Tattoo Bonus is untyped, so it will stack with the Marshal's aura. I don't see anything wrong with using both. Maybe a marshal level can step in for the mysterious last level once I switch the other levels to factotum. Also, 5/day should be plenty.Sure, but you're spending nine levels to get that. You'd get a much better return on investment by replacing those 9 levels of tattooed monk with 1-3 levels of Marshal and 6-8 levels of something else entirely.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

A better skillmonkey would be:

Autopilot
Changling Rogue1 (sub level)/Factorum3/Rogue6/Exemplar1/Rogue3/Warlock4/Marshall2

You get:

Factorum. Yea, whenever I need a LOT of ranks in a skill, I got it.
Skill Mastery. out the ying-yang. Exemplar grants Int+1, Rogue10 Skill Mastery grants Int + 3. Warlock4 grants me UMD. Changling sub-level grants Skill Mastery to all your 'party face' skills, 5 in all. conceivable skill I could ever want, I can take 10 in.
Marshall Auras.

Int and (secondary) Charisma are the two stats, everything else can potentially be a dump stat.

This guy does it all, and does it all well, and does it all day long.

And let's not forget 5d6 Sneak Attack, so he can quite easily dish out serious damage in melee, since he's taking 10 on his UMD checks on the wands to do precision-based damage to anything that is normally immune to it. And he's got a 2d6 Eldritch Blast, which with his sneak attack damage, brings up to 7d6 damage. Not anything uber, but hey... it's consistent, and reliable damage output that gives him something to do in combat besides make coffee.

Alternately, drop the Marshall levels, and make it Warlock 6, and Walk Unseen. Nothing says 'screw you' like a skillmonkey who can Invisibility at will. However, this keeps him from leveraging his Charisma mod. This is an option available for those who did not roll two good stats, making the build SAD on Int.

As a second alternative, only get Warlock1 for the EB to charge with SA (and Detect Magic at will) and grab three more levels of Rogue, which bumps your SA to 7d6, and lets you get ANOTHER 3+ Int Mod skills to Take 10 on.

[SoD]

A better skillmonkey would be:

Autopilot
Changling Rogue1 (sub level)/Factorum3/Rogue6/Exemplar1/Rogue3/Warlock4/Marshall2

You get:

Factorum. Yea, whenever I need a LOT of ranks in a skill, I got it.
Skill Mastery. out the ying-yang. Exemplar grants Int+1, Rogue10 Skill Mastery grants Int + 3. Warlock4 grants me UMD. Changling sub-level grants Skill Mastery to all your 'party face' skills, 5 in all. conceivable skill I could ever want, I can take 10 in.
Marshall Auras.

Int and (secondary) Charisma are the two stats, everything else can potentially be a dump stat.

This guy does it all, and does it all well, and does it all day long.

And let's not forget 5d6 Sneak Attack, so he can quite easily dish out serious damage in melee, since he's taking 10 on his UMD checks on the wands to do precision-based damage to anything that is normally immune to it. And he's got a 2d6 Eldritch Blast, which with his sneak attack damage, brings up to 7d6 damage. Not anything uber, but hey... it's consistent, and reliable damage output that gives him something to do in combat besides make coffee.

Alternately, drop the Marshall levels, and make it Warlock 6, and Walk Unseen. Nothing says 'screw you' like a skillmonkey who can Invisibility at will. However, this keeps him from leveraging his Charisma mod. This is an option available for those who did not roll two good stats, making the build SAD on Int.

As a second alternative, only get Warlock1 for the EB to charge with SA (and Detect Magic at will) and grab three more levels of Rogue, which bumps your SA to 7d6, and lets you get ANOTHER 3+ Int Mod skills to Take 10 on.

Oh, good lord! I am SO creating a character who makes coffee during combat! Now just to work out how...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Oh, good lord! I am SO creating a character who makes coffee during combat! Now just to work out how...

Profession (Starbucks Employee)? Oh, wait... you're actually wanting to make good coffee...

Exemplar + Craft (Coffee) might let you do it. Wasn't there a PrC that focused on doing Craft checks in combat?

[SoD]

Profession (Starbucks Employee)? Oh, wait... you're actually wanting to make good coffee...

Exemplar + Craft (Coffee) might let you do it. Wasn't there a PrC that focused on doing Craft checks in combat?

Not sure...hmm, what to make? Maybe a character with travel devotion for the extra action each turn (used for brewing coffee whilst fighting/running away/etc.), anything with craft (coffee). High int, low wis, decent cha, con not so important, neither is str, dex, yeah, so I can, I dunno...umm...be dextrous and not spill coffee? Maybe I can take a flaw to be addicted to caffeine? Geez...I'll need to look in the Book of Vile Darkness for information on drugs!

[theMycon]

Neither of those builds can cloud-sumersault, shapeshift, or have a magical size-changing cudgel that weighs 40,000 catties.

They're also not the cohort of a totally worthless Boddhistava.

I'm utterly disappointed.

[Chronos]

Oh, good lord! I am SO creating a character who makes coffee during combat! Now just to work out how...Combat Trapsmith, and re-fluff your Great Scorchers to spray boiling-hot coffee on people.


Neither of those builds can cloud-sumersault...All it takes is a DC 120 balance check (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#balance). I'm sure we could figure out some way to pump skills that high...

[playswithfire]

I believe there's a Dragon Magazine feat Keen Intellect that lets you use INT for your Will save and Wisdom based skills. May be useful.

[Human Paragon 3]

Just be clear, the point of the build isn't to make the world's greatest skill monkey. Mostly I wanted to use the tattooed monk to create a competent character who works well inside an outside of combat, and noticed the factotum synergy.

And, I'd like to point out, that the current build does more in combat than make coffee. By power attacking, stacking up damage with cunning insight, and decisive striking with a two handed weapon (staff) the monkey king can deal upward of 80 damage with a single blow. It's not ubercharger territory, but even with 5d6 sneak attack hitting 3 times in a round, that's only about 40 damage.

By the way, I'll have an extra bold cafe americano with room, please.

(My website where I review boston coffee houses. (http://www.examiner.com/x-5856-Boston-Coffeehouse-Examiner))

Just to be extra clear, thanks for the input. I appreciate all the comments and I'm glad this build has seemed to grab people.


EDIT: Now about the DC 120 Balance check.

Let's assume 26 INT, 20 CHA and 18 DEX to start, along with the 23 ranks in balance. That gives us a +35 to start thanks to B over B. Next, we'll activate bell flower, which brings it up to +40. Then, we'll activate cunning intellect for another +13, which gives us a +53. Let's also say that 20 of those balance ranks are invested in an item familiar. That brings us up to a +63. More than half way there. Skill focus and an exemplar level with skill mastery in balance takes us to 70. Our aforementioned marshal level gives us another +5 for 75. Then of course we have the Monkey Tattoo for another +5.

Current balance modifier: +80.

Let's talk items. We'll need a custom magic item of balance (+5) plus a mundane item of balance (+2) which takes us up to 87. We're close. Let's use Balancing Lorecall as our factotum SLA for another +4 and then wand Surefoot for another +10.

This brings us to +101. You can now make the check on a roll of 19 or better! Hooray! But we're not done yet. Divine Insight, cast as a Factotum SLA gives us another +13 for 114. Finally, a wand of Divine Agility gives us a +10 enhancement bonus to dexterity, raising that modifier to a grand total of +119. You now make the check even on a roll of 1.

[Draz74]

I believe there's a Dragon Magazine feat Keen Intellect that lets you use INT for your Will save and Wisdom based skills. May be useful.

*looks up*

Nope, it's Oriental Adventures, not Dragon. And it has prerequisites that are OA-specific (a Clan), so it's extra-unlikely to be available in most campaigns. And it doesn't even work on Listen or Profession (or Autohypnosis) checks for some reason. :smallconfused:

[Chronos]

Finally got a chance to look up all of these things.


... Next, we'll activate bell flower, which brings it up to +40.
Bellflower adds an enhancement bonus, so it won't stack with an item. You're better off with a Headband of Intellect, etc. You also appear to be adding +5 to the skill, instead of +5 to the ability score.

Then, we'll activate cunning intellect for another +13,
What's Cunning Intellect?

and an exemplar level with skill mastery in balance takes us to 70.
Skill mastery is a competence bonus, so there are a bunch of things it won't stack with (including an item).

Then of course we have the Monkey Tattoo for another +5.
Another competence bonus

Divine Insight, cast as a Factotum SLA
The Factotum draws his spell-like abilities from the wizard list. You could still get this from an (expensive, since you want high CL) scroll or wand, though.

Let's talk items. We'll need a custom magic item of balance (+5)
Probably another competence bonus, unless you really abuse the custom item rules

Let's use Balancing Lorecall as our factotum SLA for another +4
Insight bonus, so it won't stack with Divine Insight

and then wand Surefoot for another +10
Yet another competence bonus.

[Human Paragon 3]

It's all gone to hell in a hand basket!

Oh well, I had fun anyway.

[SoD]

And, I'd like to point out, that the current build does more in combat than make coffee. By power attacking, stacking up damage with cunning insight, and decisive striking with a two handed weapon (staff) the monkey king can deal upward of 80 damage with a single blow. It's not ubercharger territory, but even with 5d6 sneak attack hitting 3 times in a round, that's only about 40 damage.


But the question is; can he make a good coffee during combat?




By the way, I'll have an extra bold cafe americano with room, please.

(My website where I review boston coffee houses. (http://www.examiner.com/x-5856-Boston-Coffeehouse-Examiner))

Looks good. Do you get paid to do that, or is just a hobby?

[Human Paragon 3]

But the question is; can he make a good coffee during combat?


Sure he could. All he needs to do is make a craft coffee roll with his tortoise tattoo. Quick craft is a +10 or 20 DC, so with cunning insight, I'm sure he could pull off a cup before combat ends. How good it would be is another matter...




Looks good. Do you get paid to do that, or is just a hobby?

I get paid slave wages!

[Chronos]

...so with cunning insight, I'm sure he could pull off a cup before combat ends.Cunning insight gives you a bonus to attacks, damage, or saves. You might be thinking of Cunning Knowledge, which adds to skills, but that'll only be +3 (Factotum level), and it's only usable once per skill per day.

[Human Paragon 3]

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Not quite as good, but at least craft is an Int skill. So you'd have around a +18 modifier or so, still possible.