Mastering the (Drunken) Master

[Yoven]

Hey Playground,
i need a little help with finding am build for the Drunken Master that is fun to play and at least not way underpowered in the mid lvl. range.
So he'd be played from 5 to 15 or something like that and should work at all times.

I guess there has to be at least one level of Monk to get the unarmed strikes without blowing a lot of feats and some Barbarian might be cool but i'm not really sure how much, what other PrC's to use and such. Also there's the alignment thingy between Monk and Barbarian...

I'll be allowed to use Core and all the Completes.

Thanks in advance for all your help

[Krazzman]

If you are allowed to use ToB an Unarmed Swordsage would do just fine.

Otherwise IUS doesn't have any prereqs if I recollect correctly so you don't need the Monk for that. Furthermore Unlawful Monks keep their abilities but are not allowed to advance further in this class.

[eggs]

Core+Completes nixes Tome of Battle, which is the easy way to do this.

It's late, so I'm not going to get started fiddling with a complete build, but the three things I'd keep in mind would be:

Drunken Masters never drop the nonproficiency penalties on improvised weapon attacks. That probably falls into the same category as the Monk's unarmed strikes, and can't use them with Monk abilities like Flurry. That makes so many of the DM's class features almost unworkably bad that appealing for a simple houserule on both parts of that would probably be justified in almost any group. Otherwise, you'll want to plead for the Catch Off-Guard (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/catch-off-guard-combat) pathfinder feat.

Drunken Master's best return is for its first 4 levels. The next major ability is all the way at level 9 - probably not worth it.

Depending on whether buying beer counts as buying food, Complete Champion's Fist of the Forest could be the Drunken Master's best friend. It shares prereqs, fast-tracks Unarmed Strike, maintains AC while drinking and could fit very nicely for a character who regularly wakes up inexplicably in fields.

[Darrin]

Hey Playground,
i need a little help with finding am build for the Drunken Master that is fun to play and at least not way underpowered in the mid lvl. range.
So he'd be played from 5 to 15 or something like that and should work at all times.


You'll want to look at Iron Chef Optimization Challenge XV: Drunken Master (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176049). The builds start on page 5 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=176049&page=5).

The winners:

Chieftain Nini (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9823792&postcount=129) (Gold)
Vermillion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9823792&postcount=129) (Silver)
Laph Roaig (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9823784&postcount=128) (Bronze, tie)
Gazebo Jones (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9823824&postcount=132) (Bronze, tie)



I guess there has to be at least one level of Monk to get the unarmed strikes without blowing a lot of feats and some Barbarian might be cool but i'm not really sure how much, what other PrC's to use and such. Also there's the alignment thingy between Monk and Barbarian...


There are... ways around that. You can get a monk-like Improved Unarmed Strike from Battledancer (Dragon Compendium), Unarmed Swordsage Variant (Tome of Battle), Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion), Shou Disciple (Unapproachable East), etc. If you're trying to avoid monk, Flurry of Blows is the most difficult to get, but if you do manage it, then you have to pick up evasion from somewhere.

There are a couple fundamental problems with Drunken Master, though:

1) While Drunken Master requires monk levels for entry, it doesn't do anything to advance your monk class features. Notably, it doesn't increase your unarmed strike damage. That can be fixed somewhat by picking up levels in Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion) or feats like Improved Natural Attack (MM), Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle), or Shape Soulmeld/Open Lesser Chakra: Totem Avatar.

2) Although several of your class features involve improvised weapons, the Drunken Master doesn't actually get any proficiency with them, so he still gets a -4 nonproficiency penalty when attacking with them. Ask your DM if he'll waive this penalty or reduce it. Otherwise, consider getting large and dipping into Hulking Hurler to reduce the improvised penalty to -2.

If your DM allows Dragon Magazine material, there's a City Brawler barbarian variant in Dragon #349 that gets a similar ability, as well as Improved Unarmed Strike and TWF (unarmed strike only). There's a Chaos Monk in Dragon #335 that gets evasion and can multiclass with Barbarian, but it doesn't get Flurry of Blows. In Dragon #295, there's a PrC called Brawler that gets complete proficiency with improvised weapons, and can even take Weapon Focus/Specialization in improvised weapons. The same issue has a general feat called "Improvised Weapon Proficiency" that reduces the improvised penalty to -2.

[Doorhandle]

There is a pathfinder version. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/coreClasses/monk.html)

[Telok]

I dug out an old build that was laying around. I make no claims that it's optimal in any way, it started as a thought exercise. It's a bit light on the Drunker Master part too.

Human, Great Fortitude
Rogue, Dodge
Rogue,
Monk, Ascetic Rogue, Stunning Fist, Flurry, Improved Unarmed Strike
Fighter, Point Blank Shot
Fighter, Precise Shot
Drunk, Prof - Improvised Weapons, Weapon Focus - Improvised Weapons
Rogue,
PsyWar, Improved Initiative
PsyWar, Throw Anything, Brutal Throw
Thrower, Bonus: Quick Draw, Sneaky Shot
Thrower, Improved Evasion
Swordsage, Superior Unarmed Strike

The concept was to use Master Thrower to make move action Sleight of Hand vs target Spot checks, winning denies the target his Dex. Then stack sneak attack on top of unarmed strike damage by throwing an improvised weapon. Assassin (wand of Sniper's Shot) and Nightsong Enforcer are supposed to be the next two levels.

I don't know how much good it would be in play before level 10, might depend a lot on your groups optimization level.

[Rejakor]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9823824&postcount=132) is the best one.

The others are just 'how do we make a drunken master that can fight in melee and not suck', which is more boring and most of them don't even take a single level of drunken master til level 10.


Drunken Master's improvised weapon ability is the strongest/most unique part of the class (other than the chug a lug for str score bonuses). But you need to get bonus damage and defences from other sources, just like a standard monk.


At the very least, take quick draw so you can be switching out improvised weapons for stuff. Maybe take Iaijutsu Focus somehow so you can get iaijutsu bonuses for drawing your tankard and smashing someone with it. Other than that, stuff that adds damage, and stuff that adds AC, like Saint or Swordsage + Monk or whatever. Keep in mind though your wis goes down when you drink. So Fist of the Forest/Deepwarden might be a better combination.

[Piggy Knowles]

There was an old thread on the long-dead 339 boards called "Exploiting the Drunken Master - the Art of the Circular Charge" or something similar.

It was pretty interesting. It was a charge build, which used the Drunken Master's "Stagger" feature to repeatedly charge the same enemy, by charging in a circle around him. This was pretty early in the days of 3.5 CO (it definitely pre-dated ToB, for instance), so it could probably be updated, but if you're only allowed the cores and completes than that could actually be a good thing for you.

I just tried googling for the original thread and couldn't find a cached version, although I haven't tried the Wayback Machine yet. Still, you could probably re-create the concept pretty easily.

[silverwolfer]

I would suggest looking at I think swords and fist ? 3.0 version of drunken master is vast improvment any build could offer.

[eggs]

I think some of the IC entries are a bit crippled by the strong encouragement full use of the class, even with frontloaded classes like DM where the returns aren't all that great.

I think my ideal cases, as much of the class as is reasonable, would be:

Monk 1/Warblade 4/Fist of the Forest 1/Drunken Master 4/Warblade 11
Build details aren't really important because it essentially optimizes itself, but grabbing a crappy super-reach weapon like a rope to not make AoOs and charge Stormguard Warrior's Channel the Storm, which would then be used to make a bunch of attacks with weapons or unarmed strikes that can take weapon enhancements to deal decent damage.

Or, with LA buyoff and fractional BA (neither's necessarily required, but they just keep things sane):
Goliath Overwhelming Assault Monk 1/Totemist 2/Dungeoncrasher Fighter 2/Fist of the Forest 1/Drunken Master 9/Fist of the Forest 2/Totemist 3
Feats: Power Attack (Monk), Improved Unarmed Strike (Monk), Improved Bull Rush (Level 1), Great Fortitude (Level 3), Dodge (Fighter 1), Knockback (Level 6), Bonus Essentia (Level 9), Improved Feint (DM 5), Improved Grapple (DM 6), Scorpion's Grasp (Level 12), Snap Kick (Level 15), Shape Soulmeld: Mauling Gauntlets (Level 18)

Using these limited sources, I'd think:
Ex-Monk 2/Barbarian 1/Fighter 2/Fist of the Forest 1/Drunken Master 4/Holy Liberator 6/Divine Oracle 2/Sacred Fist 2
Str>Con>Wis/Dex>Int/Cha
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Monk 1), Combat Expertise* (Monk 1), Great Fortitude (1), Dodge (Human), Combat Reflexes (Monk 2), Extra Rage (3), Power Attack (Fighter 1), Improved Bull Rush (Fighter 2), Karmic Strike* (6), Shock Trooper (9), Practiced Spellcaster (12), Battle Blessing (15), Knowledge Devotion (17), Combat Casting (18) and Iron Will from the Otyugh Hole sometime before ECL 11, Skill Focus: Know (Religion) from the Frog God's Fane some time before level 17.

*If the SRD's Unearthed Arcana contents don't count as core, swap in Stunning Fist and Leap Attack, respectively.

If you start play at level 1, the build would have an awkward alignment shift sometime during ECL 2 (or it could throw the fighter levels earlier, shuffle feats around and prolong it if you want). Starting at level 2+, Ex-Monk is pretty easily wrapped up as "backstory."

The build would start as a raging charger with a bit more defensive focus. Drunken Master levels would remove the tactical trickiness of charging in interesting battlefields and would give improved improvised weapons with its associated silly AoO reach shenanigans. At level 11, it gets to go into Holy Liberator with its Paladin spellcasting - even without full SpC access, that's pretty handy for things like swift Divine Favor, Resurgence, Divine Insight or Death Ward.

The biggest problem would be stat reliance. Even disregarding some of the abilities based on tertiary stats like Divine Grace, point buy stat generation will probably have to do a bit of compromise on its highest stats to afford prerequisite skills or to meet Dex requirements, and rolled stats will need to reject the build with only 2 or 3 abilities over 12.

Divine Oracle 2 and Monk 2 might be redundant. I'd suggest retraining Monk 2 for CMage's Spell Reflection ACF as soon as the build gets DO level 2, or just taking the Spell Reflection ACF to begin with

EDIT: Or what silverwolfer said. Even with awkward 3.0 Monk mechanic translations, the Sword and Fist DM (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20010105) [ignore the last column] made things easier, even with lower base damage (it had full BA, advanced monk abilities, Rage and its combat maneuver bonuses stacked with Improved Grapple).

[Yoven]

thanks for all your help so far, il read through all of it and try to build something cool together