Halfling Help Required

[5w337x7007h]

I've used google to the extent of where I'm getting nowhere. I want to build a halfling monk with weapon finesse and I know about the RotW book's halfing monk substitution levels, but I need advice on which is better for my character, Skirmish or Flurry of Blows.

[Amphetryon]

I've used google to the extent of where I'm getting nowhere. I want to build a halfling monk with weapon finesse and I know about the RotW book's halfing monk substitution levels, but I need advice on which is better for my character, Skirmish or Flurry of Blows.

Flurry of Blows is only ever better if it specifically unlocks a PrC for you later.

[Manateee]

The Monk's skirmish is terrible. If you go that route, I'd recommend only taking the first two levels of Monk, grabbing whatever prereq-less bonus feats you can from the UA variants (remember they can be mixed and matched), grabbing the invisible fist variant from Exemplars of Evil, and multiclassing straight into: Monk 2/Ranger 1/Scout 3/Ranger X.
With Ascetic Hunter feat at level 3 and Swift Hunter at level 6, this will give nearly full Unarmed Strike damage and Favored enemy, more than full skirmish, pretty good BA and some strong spell options from the Spell Compendium for a strong wisdom.

[5w337x7007h]

I'm curious because when reading the RotW, it said that if I take a substitution level for the halfling monk, I can freely multi-class between monk and rogue.

[5w337x7007h]

A simple question after noting your advice. Can I take the original monk 1st level, then go for the racial substitution levels, or are there rules against it?

[Manateee]

Substitution levels come at the assigned levels. So if you want the level 1 sub level, you have to replace your level 1 abilities. And you have to do that when you hit level 1 (this can get a bit fuzzier with retraining, but you probably shouldn't worry about that).

That doesn't mean that you have to either take all or none of the class substitution levels. So you can skip the level 1 substitution, but make the level 2 exchange, if you want to.

[5w337x7007h]

Thanks for that info! :3