Question on Miko's build choice

[Iago]

Is the Monk/Paladin combo that Miko pursued actually any good as a combination in 3.5 core? She took "a couple" levels in Monk before switching, presumably meaning two or three. Two levels gives a +1 to BAB, +3 to all saves, plus evasion and a couple of (iffy) feats. Third level gives another +1 BAB, plus the speed boost and another save bonus vs enchantment spells. It's not d10 hit dice, but it's only one hp/level lost on average. And more skill points to start.

So... is it worth not pursuing paladin all the way up? Thoughts?

[ZeroNumerous]

Is it worth it? Your DM can make anything worth it.

Is it viable? No, monk by and large is not viable.

Is it good? Arguable as that's personal choice.

Ultimately, I'd say a few levels of monk will hurt virtually any build exempting a select few designed with monk in mind. However, Paladin is top-heavy enough that any full BAB class will supplement it just fine as long as you have 6 levels in Paladin.

[silvadel]

Evasion is very nice for a paladin, as is the bonus to saving throws. In essence those 2 levels of monk cost you 1 bab and 3 hit points. In general warrior types die to magic spells -- so in essence your saves go from really good to off the charts -- plus all of those reflex save spells end up missing entirely instead of doing half damage 95% of the time.

[Sewblon]

I don't know much about optimization. But if I understand the tier system, you can't do much with either of those classes.

[Mando Knight]

In Stick-verse, where the Fighters are roughly on-par with the Wizards in terms of overall capability/optimization, it's probably a good choice. Miko seems to have been blessed with terrifying stats, since she wades into battle without heavy armor and fights quite well with two weapons. Since she's got good stats, combining a few levels of the most MAD core classes seems like an OK choice, even if it's not a terrific one.

[Fenlun]

I feel like its always healthy to multi-class. It may not be the best choice for some classes (Wizards and the like who rely on spell levels more than anything).

But the variation and whatnot you gain in invaluable, and if your DM isn't a tight-***, the cross classing can be helpful in a lot of Role playing aspects too outside of combat:smallamused:

[Gavinfoxx]

A better way to do that concept would be a Crusader/Swordsage build...

[Boogastreehouse]

I feel that if you're in a party, the optimal thing to do is specialize. In other words, if you're a fighter, you progress all the way up as a fighter, possibly taking a fighter-complementary prestige class. You've got other party members to pick up the slack, a rogue for skill-based situations for instance, so you're wasting levels by "dabbling."

Now, I said that's the optimal thing to do, not necessarily the fun thing to do. Sometimes it's just fun to take a level or two of something weird, and it doesn't matter whether it's the most efficient choice you can make.

But yes, a party of characters is supposed to cover each other's weaknesses, so the "smart" thing to do is usually to stick with your class and not dabble.

Thing is, Miko is a solo-character, so all that goes out the window. She doesn't have teammates to fall back on, so she needs to be able to rely on herself. If she dabbles a little to give her more versatility, she'll probably benefit from it.

[factotum]

I think the crucial thing here is that Miko is not a player carefully picking her classes for optimal reasons. She had the Monk levels because she was raised in a monastery--she became a Paladin because Lord Shojo convinced her to do so.

[SadisticFishing]

Do we know that she's in heavy armor? Sorry if this has been discussed.

[Raging Gene Ray]

Do we know that she's in heavy armor? Sorry if this has been discussed.

She used Evasion against V's Fireball and Durkon's lightning, so no. She is, however, wearing light armor, so no WIS to AC.

[Shpadoinkle]

She used Evasion against V's Fireball and Durkon's lightning, so no. She is, however, wearing light armor, so no WIS to AC.

She probably has a negative Wisdom modifier, so she's not losing anything.

[DwarvenExodus]

Don't forget that Miko was made before the 3.5 update.

[Gamerlord]

The people of OOTS never have been optimized.
V: Blaster caster.
Roy: Fighter.
Durkon:Healbot.
Haley: ??????
Belkar: Any guy who plays 3.5 knows how poorly optimized this guy is.
Elan: Not too bad.

See?

[Kobold-Bard]

She probably has a negative Wisdom modifier, so she's not losing anything.

She has a better one than Belkar, and frankly taking Track and a Survival rank would be stupid without at least a +0 Wis Mod, otherwise you're learning to do something that you'll never, ever use.

Don't forget that Miko was made before the 3.5 update.

Remember that by using that argument the Order of the Scribble pre-date D&D entirely (seeing as Hayley's dad was a 1st Edition Thief).

[Optimystik]

It's not a terrible choice (though curiously, it seems she wears armor), and it seems she had high attributes so she could pull it off.

To make a good Miko build in 3.5, Complete Adventurer has the Ascetic Knight feat, which allows your paladin and monk levels to stack when calculating both Unarmed Strike progression and Smite Evil progression, as well as allowing you to multiclass freely between the two.

In addition, Dragon Compendium has the Serenity feat, which allows all Paladin abilities to rely on WIS instead of CHA, thus eliminating her MAD.

[rewinn]

... by using that argument the Order of the Scribble pre-date D&D entirely (seeing as Hayley's dad was a 1st Edition Thief).

This is a cogent argument, yet we can get around it as follows:

The Creation of D&D was a singular event, defining the beginning of time. Early on, there was an enormous expansion of the D&D universe, during which Time itself was experienced differently than now. Thus the few years in our universe that intervened between 1st & 2nd Ed was experienced in the Stickverse as thousands of years.

Also note that the Stickverse experiences time relative to our own universe in two was: objective time (as noted in pop culture references, and most especially in the fine tribute to Dave Arneson (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0644.html)) and rules time. Stickverse has almost stopped with respect to rules time, having converted to 3.5 early on and almost certainly never reaching 4.0.

[King of Nowhere]

Basically, she lost a bit of paladin powers to get a good jump on saving throws. Those couple monk levels make a good anti-wizard build (seeing as she's already has good saves due to being paladin), while reducing her effectiveness against evil foes and fighter types.

[ericgrau]

Gained:
Stunning fist ("kick"), which keys off of her decent paladin wisdom.
Combat reflexes or deflect arrows
Evasion (no damage when you avoid an area spell, instead of half damage)
A bunch of skills (jumping and so on)
A +2ish to all 3 saves (help her avoid spells)

Lost: Only 1 point of base attack bonus (ability to hit stuff; paladins get 1 per level), and a couple levels of minor special abilities. Maybe lost her 4th use of remove disease (hooray?) and a little paladin spellcasting, which is weak anyway.

Not a bad trade, and we've seen her use everything she gained except maybe the 2nd item. Avoidance is especially good for someone who fights solo.

[Acero]

wait, is light armor required for evasion?

[MReav]

wait, is light armor required for evasion?

It can't be heavier than Medium (I assumed Miko used a Mithral breastplate)

[Acero]

oh, okay. im gonna try the miko build now on DDO

stats?

[Kish]

Higher than you're allowed to start with on DDO.

[Acero]

Higher than you're allowed to start with on DDO.

i mean to start...

[Kish]

I don't know much about DDO. But, it being an MMORPG, I will eat my hat if it uses rolls, rather than some kind of point buy system.

You can't get Miko with that. Fundamental to her role in the story is that she got really good rolls for her attributes. You can likely make a paladin with a two or three-level monk dip, but it won't be Miko's build, and the MAD will be a killer in point buy.

Good luck. You'll need it.

[SoC175]

On of the Complete [...] splatbooks actually has a feat that either let you stack monk and paladin levels toward your paladin abilities or toward your monk abilities (I forgot which way the feat works, but it's definately there. There might even be two feats, one for each direction, I am only sure that one feat definately exists)

Edit: I was now able to look it up. The feat is in 'Complete Adventurer' and it's called 'Ascetic Knight'. If makes your monk levels and paladin levels stack for the damage of both your 'smite evil' and your 'unarmed strike', but not for any other paladin or monk class features. You can now also interchangeably take levels in each class (without the feat you can no longer take a level as monk or paladin once you took your first level in annother class)

[derfenrirwolv]

If you roll well, paladin monk is a great class to be a fighter in. Its better than a fighter, but you'll still blow compared to a strait wizard or cleric or druid.

The main problem is that out of str dex con int wis cha You need a good strength (to hid and deal damage), a good con (to take damage), wisdom to cast spells, and charismia to add to your saves. this is whats called MAD, multiple atribute dependancy.


If you take 2 or 3 levels you only loose one point of bab, but you gain a LOT on your saves and evasion. A high level paladin monk pretty much will force a wizard to cast weaker spells without saves or burn through a LOT of save or die spells to drop them. Figthers almost never die from hit point damage. They die from failed saving throws, so dropping your hp by a few to greatly increase your saves is a bargain.

[SoC175]

Her best option would be monk4/paladinX. Once you have the first level of monk the damage to your BAB is done and won't grow until your 5th monk level.

So to make the most of it the other three monk level remaining before the loss of BAB grows should be taken for a +3 to two saves, the ability to overcome DR x/magic with your unarmed attacks (although you'll still need an 'amulet of magic fang' to actually hit something with your unarmed attacks at higher levels), evasion and a +2 save bonus against enchantment spells.

[Callista]

Everybody's saying "good saving throws", but if Miko's stats are anything like the typical paladin's, she's got a decent charisma score and is adding it to her saves already. Most paladins don't really need better saving throws.

If she doesn't actually have decent charisma (granted, this makes sense, as "charisma" is mostly people skills), then it might make sense to take Monk; but then, why take Paladin levels at all if you're not going to take advantage of the charisma-to-saves bit? Why not just go Fighter and go for the feats?

She's not optimized. Not horrible, but not optimized, either.

Miko's character is the sort I might make if I ended up rolling ridiculously good stats--if you do that, you get more leeway to do things that aren't quite optimized, but still cool. I once rolled 18 18 17 16 14 12 and went for a Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge that ended up as powerful as everybody else with their optimized characters and normal luck rolling stats. I did like having both kinds of magic available at the same time.

[Optimystik]

Charisma is sense-of-self. Assertiveness and self-confidence correlate with better people-skills, just as they correlate with being attractive to others, but they don't guarantee that people will enjoy being around you. In Miko's case, her Charisma is offset by her high conceit. (One has only to read the SoD foreword to realize what a pain she truly must be even to the other paladins.)


On of the Complete [...] splatbooks actually has a feat that either let you stack monk and paladin levels toward your paladin abilities or toward your monk abilities (I forgot which way the feat works, but it's definately there. There might even be two feats, one for each direction, I am only sure that one feat definately exists)

I pointed this out above you, along with the Serenity feat in Dragon Compendium that keys Paladin abilities off Wisdom. (Though of course, she would not need that kind of assistance with good rolls.)

[bladesyz]

If you roll well, paladin monk is a great class to be a fighter in. Its better than a fighter, but you'll still blow compared to a strait wizard or cleric or druid.

The main problem is that out of str dex con int wis cha You need a good strength (to hid and deal damage), a good con (to take damage), wisdom to cast spells, and charismia to add to your saves. this is whats called MAD, multiple atribute dependancy.


If you take 2 or 3 levels you only loose one point of bab, but you gain a LOT on your saves and evasion. A high level paladin monk pretty much will force a wizard to cast weaker spells without saves or burn through a LOT of save or die spells to drop them. Figthers almost never die from hit point damage. They die from failed saving throws, so dropping your hp by a few to greatly increase your saves is a bargain.

There's no evidence that Miko, despite being about 16th level (she was able to take down Redcloak one on one), has the ability to cast spells. Maybe her wisdom just isn't that great?

Makes me wonder how she's able to stun Roy with her stunning attacks though.

[King of Nowhere]

Rich described the second fight of Miko against the order, stating that in that fight Miko cast cure light wounds, therefore she's got a wis of at least 11.

[derfenrirwolv]

There's no evidence that Miko, despite being about 16th level (she was able to take down Redcloak one on one), has the ability to cast spells. Maybe her wisdom just isn't that great?

Makes me wonder how she's able to stun Roy with her stunning attacks though.

The point was to discuss the merits and flaws of Miko's build, not neccesarily miko herself.