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DeMouse
2010-05-16, 09:43 PM
Hi there guys,

im a complete noob and am just about to join my first campagn which was sposed to be 3.5 but the rest of the group (who are far more experienced) seem to be swinging and say that it migth end up being 4e after all.

i have read enough stuff to understand 3.5 relativly well and if we still do that i am going to play as a warlock, but if they do 4e instead i have decided that i will play monk.


so what sort of things should i be thinking about for a 4e monk if that is what ends up happening?

Meta
2010-05-17, 04:28 AM
Monks are not the easiest class to play for a first timer. Ki foci and full discipline are a bit tricky and the tactical considerations for a class that's always moving are done most skillfully if you know what the other player's characters are capable of and that'll take awhile if you haven't played before. It can certainly be done, but what attracted you to the monk in the first place?

demidracolich
2010-05-17, 10:16 AM
The psionics classes in general are not very easy to play. I guessing your party needs a striker so your are playing a monk. Monks are not the easiest striker to play. Also are you planning going centered breath or stone fist? What level?

Cogidubnus
2010-05-17, 02:05 PM
This thread's having about as much luck in terms of replies as mine on unarmed combat XD Kudos to the two of you who have tried to help though.

Excession
2010-05-17, 03:52 PM
The question is a bit vague. Are there any specific things you want to know about?

Monks make great scouts: high Dex, and Wis for one build, and access to training in stealth and perception. Lots of mobility via speed boosts, shifting and jumping. Athletics, acrobatics and thievery are also good skills to choose. If you want to go with the Radiant Fist paragon path, which is pretty good, you'll also need training in religion by 11. You can end up short of skill slots before you've training everything you want.

In terms of races, Elf is excellent for crazy mobility, matching stat boosts, and you can even put the longbow proficiency to use. Drow is excellent, as always, because of cloud of darkness. Eladrin gets you the juicy teleport, and along with human gets you another skill training. Human is maybe slightly weak because of the shortage of at-wills to choose your third one from. Githzerai seem designed to be excellent monks, and have some good feats for it already.

Half-orc is also a decent choice, especially for the strength build, though other than the stat boosts the other features seem weak; +2 to speed while charging isn't as good as +1 to speed always. Halfling works, especially if you want the defence boost that Second Chance and the Lost in the Crowd feat give you.

For combat, get together with your DM and read over the rules on Monk implements and weapons. That stuff is complex and you'll need to make sure you're on the same page.

For feat choices early on, Unarmored Agility is likely to be one of your first choices. One of the Crashing Tempest or Pointed Step feats is also good early, followed by weapon focus in either spear or club depending on which of those styles you chose. Deadly Draw is excellent for centred breath monks, allowing you to maintain CA without help as long as you keep hitting. When you reach paragon, Starblade Flurry should be one of your first choices.

demidracolich
2010-05-17, 04:33 PM
Also check the dragon article where they first introduced ki foci if you can get it, some are meant to be monk despite the article being about the assassin.

holywhippet
2010-05-17, 04:39 PM
I actually quite like the look of the monk as a class in 4E - they are a striker which means lots of damage but they are also a controller with some area based attacks. This is very useful as strikers can usually be taken out by being swarmed by enemies since they do lots of damage - but only to a single target at a time.

I've built a monk for the 4E campaign I'm in but haven't had a chance to test him out. Consider boosting your charisma just enough to get the bard multiclass feat for arcana training and a daily healing power since that's one thing you don't have.

If anything my main problem was deciding which of the excellent powers the monk has to choose from.

Excession
2010-05-17, 04:50 PM
The problem with Ki Focus implements is that without a lenient interpretation of the rules, you can't use Weapon Focus or either of the style feats with them. For those you must attack with a weapon, and if you're using a ki focus then you aren't using a weapon, not even unarmed. Also, while there are some good ki focus enchantments, there are a lot more good weapon enchantments.

Draz74
2010-05-17, 04:55 PM
Consider boosting your charisma just enough to get the bard multiclass feat for arcana training and a daily healing power since that's one thing you don't have.

:smallconfused: I should think that Charisma would be a very, very low priority for the Monk. Even if one more heal per day (nice, but not exactly game-changing from what I've heard) is what you want, isn't it better to just multiclass Cleric or something?

DeMouse
2010-05-17, 08:29 PM
I'm planning to go for unarmed combat really, difficulty of play is not a problem as i usually pick up on these sorts of things very quickly.

it's not any attempt at min-maxing it's just that i find the monk class far more interesting than any of the others at the moment.

im probably going to go stone fist but i still don't completely understand the difference, the DM is burning his player manuals onto a sic for me but i want to see what i can find out on my own first anyway

holywhippet
2010-05-17, 09:01 PM
:smallconfused: I should think that Charisma would be a very, very low priority for the Monk. Even if one more heal per day (nice, but not exactly game-changing from what I've heard) is what you want, isn't it better to just multiclass Cleric or something?

Bard is a better multiclass than cleric - but that's just my opinion. Multiclass cleric forces you into taking the religion skill (which is already on the monk class skill list) while bard lets you pick one from its skill list which lets you take arcana.

Admittedly multiclass artificer is better IMO, but my DM isn't allowing setting specific books.

demidracolich
2010-05-17, 09:14 PM
Centered breath uses wis for secondary and is more control, stone fist use str and focuses more on damage. You can tell this by looking at their flurry of blows powers.

holywhippet
2010-05-17, 09:42 PM
Centered breath uses wis for secondary and is more control, stone fist use str and focuses more on damage. You can tell this by looking at their flurry of blows powers.
I haven't studied the monk powers much past the first few levels - does it ever really make a huge difference which one you pick? From what I can see, centred breath does only a tiny bit less damage but it more useful because you can use it to shift an enemy.

Excession
2010-05-17, 11:12 PM
To me, the monk's obvious dump stats are Int and Cha. I wouldn't invest in the Cha for multiclass bard, and I wouldn't have the Int to make arcana useful. I wouldn't train religion except it's a pre-req for Radiant Fist, which is one of the better paragon paths. Note that I haven't actually played my monk yet, so there's a good chance I'm wrong.

MC warlord might be a better option for a heal as you get a choice of skills (not all of them useful admittedly) and the only pre-req is 13 Str. For wisdom secondary monks who are planning on reaching epic it may be worth retraining to MC fighter or ranger for the feat Slashing Storm from MP2:

Slashing Storm
Epic Tier
Prerequisite: 21st level, fighter or ranger
Benefit: Any enemy that starts its turn adjacent to you takes damage equal to your Wisdom modifier if you hit a creature during your last turn with a melee attack.

holywhippet
2010-05-17, 11:30 PM
I should probably mention that the rest of the adventuring party isn't especially well balanced in terms of skill. Mainly skills like nature and stealth have been missing from our party and arcana being missing from time to time also.

NeoVid
2010-05-18, 01:04 AM
Monks are rewarded for spreading their damage around, especially the Stone Fist monk, which is fairly counter-intuitive for a striker. Using Flurry on a target other than whoever you attacked makes a big difference in damage for Stone Fist, which just keeps getting bigger at higher levels.

If you're just starting out, I would recommend a human monk, and probably go with the Centered build. Centered is easier to play, and is better at a lot of skills, and human means you'll have more of the monk's strong points: defenses, at-wills, and useful feats.

Starting with 18 Dex, 16 Wis and 13 Con should cover you stat wise. Keep in mind that if you go with a Wis monk instead of Str, you'll need the Melee Training feat, or your opportunity attacks will be useless.