flurry of blows + sneak attack?

[Ezberron]

So, I'm toying with a monk antagonist for my campaign and I came across this combination....wanted to make sure it was legal.

If I make a monk with a one-level dip in rogue, can I combine stunning fist (first attack in a flurry of blows) to stun them and set them up for sneak attack damage for the rest of the flurry?


Ez

[Crake]

So, I'm toying with a monk antagonist for my campaign and I came across this combination....wanted to make sure it was legal.

If I make a monk with a one-level dip in rogue, can I combine stunning fist (first attack in a flurry of blows) to stun them and set them up for sneak attack damage for the rest of the flurry?


Ez

yup, that should be entirely legal. This probably would have been a better question to throw into the RAW questions thread.

Note that unless your rogue level was your first level, you wont be able to swap back to monk progression after taking the dip.

[Phelix-Mu]

yup, that should be entirely legal. This probably would have been a better question to throw into the RAW questions thread.

Note that unless your rogue level was your first level, you wont be able to swap back to monk progression after taking the dip.


But there is precedent for creating monk orders that allow free multiclassing between monk and a specific one or two other base classes. Some sample monk orders can be found in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

[Fouredged Sword]

Aesthetic rogue. Complete adventurer if I am not mistaken. Consider rogue 2 as well as you can trade the evasion for ray reflection. Then go into the mageslayer line of feats and dip through warblade or swordsage to get the save replacers diamond mind counters.

You get to be a spellcasters most irritating foe. You pass all saves that are not silly high. You ignore all magical protections. You have a high touch AC, and ranged touch spells that miss get turned back at the wizard as a deterent from the wiseguy who decides to shoot a enervation at you. Wall of blades is also a good counter as it lets you have a chance to deflect that ray that just passes your touch AC.

[Gavinfoxx]

Ascetic, I think is the correct term...

[Curmudgeon]

Aesthetic rogue. Complete adventurer if I am not mistaken.
Right book, but wrong name: it's Ascetic Rogue, as Gavinfoxx noted.

Instead of swapping out evasion from Rogue 2, I instead strongly recommend switching out evasion from Monk 2 for Invisible Fist ACF (Exemplars of Evil, page 21). You can be invisible for a full round, every 3 rounds. That will enable sneak attack for a full attack using flurry of blows.

[aphoticConniver]

Right book, but wrong name: it's Ascetic Rogue, as Gavinfoxx noted.

Instead of swapping out evasion from Rogue 2, I instead strongly recommend switching out evasion from Monk 2 for Invisible Fist ACF (Exemplars of Evil, page 21). You can be invisible for a full round, every 3 rounds. That will enable sneak attack for a full attack using flurry of blows.

So how else can the Monk class be broken with a club of irony?

[gr8artist]

Instead of swapping out evasion from Rogue 2, I instead strongly recommend switching out evasion from Monk 2 for Invisible Fist ACF (Exemplars of Evil, page 21). You can be invisible for a full round, every 3 rounds. That will enable sneak attack for a full attack using flurry of blows.
Admittedly, I didn't look at that ability in particular, but this last sentence may not be correct.
If the ability acts as Greater Invisibility, then you would stay unseen for the full flurry and get tons of sneak attacks.
If it acts as regular Invisibility, however, then only the first attack in the flurry gets sneak attack credit.

On a side note, you said you were the DM, correct?
Blast the monk-leveling rules, blast equivalent class features, blast whatever else you have to to make the concept you want work. Make an alternate monk that gets sneak attack instead of slow fall/fast movement.
You are god. Act like it.

[SowZ]

yup, that should be entirely legal. This probably would have been a better question to throw into the RAW questions thread.

Note that unless your rogue level was your first level, you wont be able to swap back to monk progression after taking the dip.

Rogue should be your first level anyway to take advantage of a million skill points.

[animewatcha]

What sources are allowed? As drag mag has an alternative monk that gets sneak attack every 3 levels.

[SowZ]

Actually, you might be better off dipping one level of monk for the stunning fist/flurry of blows and then going Rogue for the rest of your levels. Take the feat ascetic rogue, which allows your Rogue levels to advance unarmed damage. It also gives your stun +2 DC.

Then take Carmendine Monk so you don't need Wis, but can use Int. for your AC bonus and Stunning fist.

If you'd like, you can take two levels in Swashbuckler for the free Weapon Finesse and then grab Daring Outlaw. Your build would be Rogue 17/Monk 1/Swashbuckler 2.

You are all about intelligence. You will have crazy skill points. You will be adding SA dice and your Int. to every sneak attack dice, doing unarmed damage as a level 18 Monk. Anyway, something to consider.

[lsfreak]

Admittedly, I didn't look at that ability in particular, but this last sentence may not be correct.
If the ability acts as Greater Invisibility, then you would stay unseen for the full flurry and get tons of sneak attacks.
If it acts as regular Invisibility, however, then only the first attack in the flurry gets sneak attack credit.

It acts as neither; there is no reference to a spell, only to the invisible condition. You are simply invisible for 1 round as an immediate action.

[animewatcha]

You would need a 3rd level of swashbuckler for Int to damage rolls.

[SowZ]

You would need a 3rd level of swashbuckler for Int to damage rolls.

Not with Daring Outlaw. Your Rogue Levels and Swashbuckler levels stack for getting SA and Swashbuckler abilities. Meaning this build misses out on 0 SA dice.

[gr8artist]

It acts as neither; there is no reference to a spell, only to the invisible condition. You are simply invisible for 1 round as an immediate action.
I... this... how...

This is one of the strangest and most OP things I ever saw.

Back to topic, you guys are getting way off base. He's the DM. His character has all the skill points and cross-class-ability-stacking it needs. :smallbiggrin:

[Averis Vol]

I tried a build like this for a roving revenant npc who was looking for revenge against the people who originally killed him. but that doesn't matter, what matters is his build was rogue 2/monk 2/unarmed swordsage 7 trading out monks evasion for the invisible fist, and his attack rotation was:

go invisible, flurry at +15/+15/+10/+15 (+7+7+2 from flurry, +9 to each from dex, +1 for amulet of natural attacks, -2 for snap kick)

and damage was 2d8(effective 18 level monk)+3d6(1d6 from rogue, 2d6 from assassins stance)+17 (9 from dex, 2 from str,+1 enhancement, +5 from colliding) with the last attack being at +18 (str and a half) additional damage.

sufficient to say, this isn't too terribly great, but for my group......well, they weren't even supposed to fight him, they picked the fight because he gave the fighter the cold shoulder. the fighter drew a blade and went down before he got to swing.

Moral of the story, invisible fist is awesome and the monks really need more things like it.

[animewatcha]

Not with Daring Outlaw. Your Rogue Levels and Swashbuckler levels stack for getting SA and Swashbuckler abilities. Meaning this build misses out on 0 SA dice.

Complete Scoundrel pg 76. Sneak attack, yes. Swashbuckler's dodge class bonus to ac, yes. Reflex bonus from grace class feature, yes. Insightful strike ( aka what is giving the int mod to damage ), no.

[Ashtagon]

Aesthetic rogue. Complete adventurer if I am not mistaken. Consider rogue 2 as well as you can trade the evasion for ray reflection. Then go into the mageslayer line of feats and dip through warblade or swordsage to get the save replacers diamond mind counters.


Aesthetic Rogue is the feat that allows for stacking of benefits between the rogue class and the rouge class. It's of no help for monks.

[Lictor of Thrax]

I... this... how...

This is one of the strangest and most OP things I ever saw.


Yeah, I had to come onto the boards to clarify my interpretation of that.

Ways to screw with your DM. Dip Wizard and take Abrupt Jaunt (immediate action teleport for 10 feet with no qualifications) and then Invisible Fist (full round invisibility, no qualifications).

[Alienist]

If nothing else, Monk is worth dipping two levels in, simply because of the ridiculously huge number of feats. If you can retrain the feats, this is gravy.

So rogue 1, monk 2, and then a bunch of dips that grant +1d6 sneak attack on their first or second (if you're really slumming it) levels (including fighter if you take the right ACF).

The sneak attack fighter sacrifices the fighter bonus feats, and the thug ACF (more skill points) sacrifices the feats and the heavier armours. Normally therefore they wouldn't be able to stack (they both give up the same thing so they would normally be mutually exclusive) but this one specifically mentions they can stack.

Interestingly, I looked at the SRD Rogue and based on the description I looked at there you can still sneak attack in heavy armour.

The problem though, with this combo, is that you can't flurry while wearing armour.

[Alienist]

Aesthetic Rogue is the feat that allows for stacking of benefits between the rogue class and the rouge class. It's of no help for monks.

I see what you did there.

That said, if you have a high Cha, then you should definitely consider dipping into Rouge. Cha to damage and hit points is golden. And the bonuses to social skills are not to be sneezed at either.

[AttilaTheGeek]

In Pathfinder, there's a rogue archetype (Pathfinder-speak for ACF) called Knife Master that increases your sneak attack dice to d8s with dagger-like weapons, and a rogue talent (which you might be able to pick up with the feat Extra Rogue Talent), Underhanded, which says "If you make a sneak attack during a surprise round, don't roll for damage, it's maximized".

[Daftendirekt]

I... this... how...

This is one of the strangest and most OP things I ever saw.

Back to topic, you guys are getting way off base. He's the DM. His character has all the skill points and cross-class-ability-stacking it needs. :smallbiggrin:

:smallconfused: Same as the CA Ninja...

[Ernir]

I... this... how...

This is one of the strangest and most OP things I ever saw.

Oh yeah?

Prepare your mind! It is about to get blown!

*Pow* (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityGreater.htm)

[Psyren]

One full sneak attack every 3 rounds isn't broken at all. Also, making the enemy lose Dex to AC will help your flurry of misses somewhat, but most monsters get their AC from natural armor or deflection, which you still have to worry about. (Not to mention DR, and simply being immune to sneak.)

[Daftendirekt]

Oh yeah?

Prepare your mind! It is about to get blown!

*Pow* (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibilityGreater.htm)

To be fair, that is a standard action, compared to Invisible Fist's immediate action.

[Psyren]

To be fair, that is a standard action, compared to Invisible Fist's immediate action.

And then no action at all on subsequent rounds :smalltongue:

[SowZ]

Complete Scoundrel pg 76. Sneak attack, yes. Swashbuckler's dodge class bonus to ac, yes. Reflex bonus from grace class feature, yes. Insightful strike ( aka what is giving the int mod to damage ), no.

Ahh. Then may as well grab a second level of Monk, making it Rogue 15/Monk 2/Swash 3, and lose out on one SA die. I won't double check, because looking at my rogue/swash character, I have three levels of swashbuckler. Which I wouldn't have taken if I could have avoided the SP loss so there had to be some reason.

[ericgrau]

I've looked into this before and I got stuck. Stunning fist's main benefit is action economy since it happens on top of your other actions. As a stand-alone tactic it's not that reliable. For sneak attack + medium BAB to keep up with a big weapon + full BAB you need an SA trigger that's at least 75% reliable.

A sneak attack fighter variant may help for full BAB, but you still need a way to crank up your stunning fist DC without hurting your attack bonus. There may be high op ways to pull it off, but do address the issue. Or else most rounds will be "stunning fist misses or he saves, ok I do low damage with my remaining attacks".

[Psyren]

A Wis-SAD build will allow you to pump your SF DC without hurting your melee; for example, grabbing Intuitive Attack from BoED.

[Person_Man]

So as others have opined, it's perfectly legal. But I would not say that it's advisable. Flurry of Blows is one of many ways to add attacks (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7066595). But since it incurs a penalty, requires that you be unarmored, and is restricted to certain weapons, it's not a particularly good choice.

For the sake of comparison, two levels of Totemist can add between 4-7 attacks. A Kobold with the Draconic Tail feat (or anything with a tail) qualifies for the Prehensile Tail feat (Serpent Kingdoms), which qualifies you for Multiweapon Fighting. There are plenty of 2-3 Feat combos which can grant multiple extra attacks per turn; Karmic Strike, Robilar's Gambit, Deformity feats, Shape Soulmeld/Open Chakra, Deepspawn, TWF/Double Hit, etc.

So unless you're playing in a very low level game, I would not consider a Monk dip.

[Phelix-Mu]

Ways to screw with your DM. Dip Wizard and take Abrupt Jaunt (immediate action teleport for 10 feet with no qualifications) and then Invisible Fist (full round invisibility, no qualifications).

And consider Sun School tactical feat, from Complete Warrior. While the first two tactics are decent, the third really shines when combined with Abrupt Jaunt and an optimized Stunning Fist, as well as any other form of teleporting (hello Shadow Hand).

And while we are discussing good rogue/monk tactics, Pharaoh's Fist and Pain Touch are decent choices, particularly if you are fighting lots of humanoids. When a humanoid enemy is stunned, they are probably dropping their weapons, and there is a good chance that this renders them unarmed, a bad condition to have when engaged in melee.

The problem with all of this is that the same group of critters that you will have trouble sneak attacking will also be immune to stunning, meaning that you get all of your goodies some of the time, but most of the time you are just a monk with more skill points and less hit points (plus a couple other rogue goodies).

I would again say that, particularly for a villain, just allow free monk/rogue multiclassing as part of some background thing. Save the feats for stuff that gives big mechanical advantage. Aesthetic Rogue may still be worth it, but you can push up the level it's taken if there is a backup that allows monk/rogue leveling freely between the two base classes.

[Pickford]

If nothing else, Monk is worth dipping two levels in, simply because of the ridiculously huge number of feats. If you can retrain the feats, this is gravy.

Point of order, you can't retrain the feats to anything they wouldn't qualify for when taken. Hence, the bonus feats could only be retrained to whatever the other monk bonus feat options were (i.e. 1st level monk bonus = stunning fist or improved grapple, no other choices)

[Psyren]

Point of order, you can't retrain the feats to anything they wouldn't qualify for when taken. Hence, the bonus feats could only be retrained to whatever the other monk bonus feat options were (i.e. 1st level monk bonus = stunning fist or improved grapple, no other choices)

Well, if you can find a high-level caster they can Chaos Shuffle you - but if you can find one, you're better off begging him to make you his apprentice and tossing the monk stuff.

[Answerer]

There are other ways to swap the feats for other things you couldn't have taken, if you really want.

But the number of feats isn't really that ridiculous. You get 3 (Improved Unarmed Strike and two others from a fairly-limited list) in 2 levels. A Fighter can easily be considered to match that (Exotic Shield Proficiency, and 2 others off a very-large list). Psychic Warrior gets two in two levels, plus Power Points in excess of what Wild Talent could get you, and, ya know, Powers. A Cloistered Cleric can get 3 (Knowledge Devotion, 2 more either as Domain-granted abilities or Devotions) in 1 level, plus Turn/Rebuke Undead and Spells.

Which isn't to say that two levels of Monk for feats is an awful choice; if you need Improved Unarmed Strike as a prereq, or actually intend to punch things, plus you can get two other feats you want, you get all that, great saves, Evasion (or Invisible Fist), etc. in two levels. It's not awful.

But you really don't need more than two levels, uh... pretty much ever. There are a couple of ACFs that can change that (most notably Wild Monk), but yeah, for the most part 2 is the max.

[Phelix-Mu]

There are other ways to swap the feats for other things you couldn't have taken, if you really want.

But the number of feats isn't really that ridiculous. You get 3 (Improved Unarmed Strike and two others from a fairly-limited list) in 2 levels. A Fighter can easily be considered to match that (Exotic Shield Proficiency, and 2 others off a very-large list). Psychic Warrior gets two in two levels, plus Power Points in excess of what Wild Talent could get you, and, ya know, Powers. A Cloistered Cleric can get 3 (Knowledge Devotion, 2 more either as Domain-granted abilities or Devotions) in 1 level, plus Turn/Rebuke Undead and Spells.

Which isn't to say that two levels of Monk for feats is an awful choice; if you need Improved Unarmed Strike as a prereq, or actually intend to punch things, plus you can get two other feats you want, you get all that, great saves, Evasion (or Invisible Fist), etc. in two levels. It's not awful.

But you really don't need more than two levels, uh... pretty much ever. There are a couple of ACFs that can change that (most notably Wild Monk), but yeah, for the most part 2 is the max.

Ah, this all comes down to the op-level of the game in question, though. Right now I am playing a monk17/conjurer1/abj champ4 in an epic campaign, which is mid-op, I'd say. With a little multiclassing of my own and some buffs from my allies, my character is doing pretty well as the dedicated melee character. The character build is clearly not op'd well, even for mid-op, and the DM tends to focus on plot development over sure-kill combats (except boss fights, which are appropriately intense).

In any case, last couple sessions I was tanking multiple balors and pit fiends, though the DM was really only playing them as melee toughs with boosted hp (he doesn't have a handle on SLAs yet...again, plot focused campaign, and apparently this wasn't a fight in which he was gunning to kill everyone...the DWK sorcerer almost bit it, though...too many exploding balors).

In any case, these elite demons almost never hit me, occasionally failed Stunning Fist DCs, and with bard buffs, I almost never missed (even without resorting to wraithstrike). With greater mighty wallop, I was dealing tons of damage on a flurry, counting their damage reduction.

My point is that monks are less cool than everyone else, all op being equal, but with enough op, a bit of multiclassing, and a party behind them, a mostly monk can hack it in a low-to-mid op campaign. Not that it's always a good idea, mind you, but really, from the mostly-justified smack that everyone talks about monks, I kind of picture them in wheelchairs or something. A monk isn't strong at all, but it's far from weak.

Now, in a higher op campaign and at lower levels, avoid lots of monk, cause everything that they say about monks is true at low levels.

None of this is relevant for an antagonist, though, so go ahead and build BBEG monk/rogue or w/e. If it's high enough level and has access to enough stuff to UMD or spellcaster support, the idea could be quite fearsome. A bad guy has the added benefit of facing the party members, who are more likely to be stunnable and sneak attackable than monsters generally.

[SowZ]

Ah, this all comes down to the op-level of the game in question, though. Right now I am playing a monk17/conjurer1/abj champ4 in an epic campaign, which is mid-op, I'd say. With a little multiclassing of my own and some buffs from my allies, my character is doing pretty well as the dedicated melee character. The character build is clearly not op'd well, even for mid-op, and the DM tends to focus on plot development over sure-kill combats (except boss fights, which are appropriately intense).

In any case, last couple sessions I was tanking multiple balors and pit fiends, though the DM was really only playing them as melee toughs with boosted hp (he doesn't have a handle on SLAs yet...again, plot focused campaign, and apparently this wasn't a fight in which he was gunning to kill everyone...the DWK sorcerer almost bit it, though...too many exploding balors).

In any case, these elite demons almost never hit me, occasionally failed Stunning Fist DCs, and with bard buffs, I almost never missed (even without resorting to wraithstrike). With greater mighty wallop, I was dealing tons of damage on a flurry, counting their damage reduction.

My point is that monks are less cool than everyone else, all op being equal, but with enough op, a bit of multiclassing, and a party behind them, a mostly monk can hack it in a low-to-mid op campaign. Not that it's always a good idea, mind you, but really, from the mostly-justified smack that everyone talks about monks, I kind of picture them in wheelchairs or something. A monk isn't strong at all, but it's far from weak.

Now, in a higher op campaign and at lower levels, avoid lots of monk, cause everything that they say about monks is true at low levels.

None of this is relevant for an antagonist, though, so go ahead and build BBEG monk/rogue or w/e. If it's high enough level and has access to enough stuff to UMD or spellcaster support, the idea could be quite fearsome. A bad guy has the added benefit of facing the party members, who are more likely to be stunnable and sneak attackable than monsters generally.

I mean, sure, in the right environment Monks can do okay. But the NPC warrior class is arguably better. It does a lot more damage and hits more often, at least.

[Phelix-Mu]

I mean, sure, in the right environment Monks can do okay. But the NPC warrior class is arguably better. It does a lot more damage and hits more often, at least.

Right, I did kind of say that. As the OP mentioned, though, it's an antagonist that the OP is thinking up, so it will be mostly up to the DM to determine how advantageous the fights are to the BBEG npc. In this situation, monk as enemy can have some interesting advantages.

Make sure to have the BBEG have the work arounds for the classic monk problems. The list of monk ACFs is long and has lots of options, and can go a bit toward removing some of the suck from monk.

Jumplomancy can go well with monks, and there are some maneuvers from ToB that might be cherrypickable that can make this even better.

Switch the bad-guy monk to Int-monk (Kung-Fu Genius from Dragon Magazine) and then dip swordsage for 2 levels and pick up Wis Mod to AC and a good collection of maneuvers known. Shadow hand has lots of stealth coolness, and Assassin's Stance can add +2d6 to the baddy's sneak attack damage. The Diamond Mind maneuvers that sub Concentration checks for saving throws can be very nice against spellcasters, especially if the bad guy has some ability to ID the spell being cast.

[Answerer]

monk17 [...] is mid-op, I'd say.
You'd be wrong. Any campaign in which more than two Monk levels isn't out-right crippling is, by definition, very low-op.

[SowZ]

Right, I did kind of say that. As the OP mentioned, though, it's an antagonist that the OP is thinking up, so it will be mostly up to the DM to determine how advantageous the fights are to the BBEG npc. In this situation, monk as enemy can have some interesting advantages.

Make sure to have the BBEG have the work arounds for the classic monk problems. The list of monk ACFs is long and has lots of options, and can go a bit toward removing some of the suck from monk.

Jumplomancy can go well with monks, and there are some maneuvers from ToB that might be cherrypickable that can make this even better.

Switch the bad-guy monk to Int-monk (Kung-Fu Genius from Dragon Magazine) and then dip swordsage for 2 levels and pick up Wis Mod to AC and a good collection of maneuvers known. Shadow hand has lots of stealth coolness, and Assassin's Stance can add +2d6 to the baddy's sneak attack damage. The Diamond Mind maneuvers that sub Concentration checks for saving throws can be very nice against spellcasters, especially if the bad guy has some ability to ID the spell being cast.

I love Monk for boss monsters, actually. The movement speed makes it tough for them to outmaneuver him too bad. The other things is that I will give him an absurd level, pushing him way past CR.

This will make for an actually difficult boss encounter. He won't do a lot of damage with his hits, (as anything of equivalent CR would be likely to do.) He will have great saves so shouldn't succumb to any save or die/save or suck abilities. Even if it doesn't allow a save, the great SR should keep the casters from succeeding on too many single target spells without great luck.

The casters might actually have to play a supporting role in buffing/battlefield control. Or else summoning. Either way, I prefer the casters having to be clever as opposed to using win buttons.

Deflect arrows, stunning fist, etc. will all keep him from being killed too quickly. The best part is that he has lots of HP because he has so many hit dice. The fact that the Monk is so weak in actual fighting but has such a large number of miscellaneous abilities makes it a great boss fight because t isn't rocket tag.

[Phelix-Mu]

I was referring to the epic campaign being mid-op. My character is decidedly not, and largely on purpose, as my system mastery outstrips that of the other players and even the DM by a considerable margin. I'm sure you are aware how having the run of the table as a single player is antithetical to enjoyment of the game.

The DM is largely the master of the op-level, but I mainly said mid-op because of the other players having characters that aren't low-op. DWK sorcerer incantatrix (in a campaign where all of the players know more about spellcasting than the DM), druid, and sublime chord/bard that has done some fairly good inspire courage op. The campaign focuses more on plot development than combat challenges, so our op-level is at least equal to the DMs, and I'd have to peg this as mid-op. Plus, epic level options, so we are pretty not low-op.

DOUBLE EDIT: Or maybe I am wrong and have no idea what mid-op means. It's kind of a subjective term, but yeah, we are no where near high op, so maybe it is low. I defer to those with more experience judging this issue.

And, in any case, my comments were totally tangential to the OP's topic.

[Answerer]

You are ECL 23 with 17 levels in Monk. The fact that you aren't long-since dead means your campaign is not mid-op by any stretch of the imagination.

[SowZ]

That's not a bad idea. Sometimes playing a low op class and then optimizing within it is the best way to have fun with character building but not break the game. Monk's are still eligible for battle jump. So if you can get pounce...

Anyway, it sounds like a low op environment, at least, even if the other players built mid-op. A mid-op world is, to me, one where Balors will have traps and contingencies and plans based on spells. A low op one is where Balors have always done fine in melee so they use that primarily.

[Phelix-Mu]

Ah, I should have specified, and I did edit my post a bit, sorry if I missed you, Answerer.

The campaign started at level 20. I never had to suffer through the ignominy of low-level monk, and I've always had wraithstrike, shield, and a really high AC. My saves aren't great, mostly down to character stats and it being epic level bosses, but I will shortly dip into swordsage, my AC will advance into the mid-60s, and I am buying epic type stuff that negates a lot of the usual monk suckage.

I would also just posit that the op-level of a campaign is largely not determined by the build of a single character. Way too complicated a thing for my sub-par monk to be that influential.

Again, in case you missed it, I am way, way more experienced than the DM. I don't want to mid-op my character, cause I'd probably have wrecked the game by now if I was more, I dunno, monk/conjurer/master of the east wind/abjurant champ, or just the same but with swordsage.

[Phelix-Mu]

That's not a bad idea. Sometimes playing a low op class and then optimizing within it is the best way to have fun with character building but not break the game. Monk's are still eligible for battle jump. So if you can get pounce...

Anyway, it sounds like a low op environment, at least, even if the other players built mid-op. A mid-op world is, to me, one where Balors will have traps and contingencies and plans based on spells. A low op one is where Balors have always done fine in melee so they use that primarily.

See, so I was right; I don't know what I'm talking about. By this very sensible outline, the campaign is low-op, the characters are mid-op. My bad all around. Color me stupid.

[Synovia]

Not with Daring Outlaw. Your Rogue Levels and Swashbuckler levels stack for getting SA and Swashbuckler abilities. Meaning this build misses out on 0 SA dice.

No:


Your rogue and swashbuckler levels stack for the purpose of determining your competence bonus on Reflex saves from the grace class feature and the swashbuckler's dodge bonus to AC. For example, a 7th-level rogue/4th-level swashbuckler has grace +2 and gains a +2 dodge bonus to AC, as if she were an 11th-level swashbuckler.
Your rogue and swashbuckler levels also stack for the purpose of determining your sneak attack bonus damage. For example, a 7th-level rogue/4th-level swashbuckler would deal an extra 6d6 points of damage with her sneak attack, as if she were an 11th-level rogue.

Its specifically the grace class feature and dodge bonus. You need 3 levels of Swashbuckler to get Insightful Strike.

[Starbuck_II]

Point of order, you can't retrain the feats to anything they wouldn't qualify for when taken. Hence, the bonus feats could only be retrained to whatever the other monk bonus feat options were (i.e. 1st level monk bonus = stunning fist or improved grapple, no other choices)

You forgot PHB 2 added choices like for 2nd level Flaming Fist (use a stunning fist attempt (free action) to get a flaming attack for full rd).

[SowZ]

No:



Its specifically the grace class feature and dodge bonus. You need 3 levels of Swashbuckler to get Insightful Strike.

Yeah, you're right. I must have looked that up back when I was playing my daring outlaw character, too, otherwise why would I have taken three levels in Swashbuckler? At any rate, don't beat yourself up, Phelix-Mu. You are right, it is a subjective term and can refer to the characters or the campaign world.

[Ezberron]

Thanks for all the replies..

This isn't (at present) a BBG or anything, just a possible mid-level antagonist for when the campaign switches from fighting skaven to dealing with hobgoblin raiding parties.

The group isn't terribly optimized and I think its a good thing. more role-playing and just enough tactics to make things fun for everyone..(and it's pathfinder which I forgot to mention...:smalleek:) so I'm not looking for total OP. just a non-standard combination to explain why hobgoblin badguy #7 is in charge and well, "stun-you-then-beat-you-down" sounds pretty good. :smallbiggrin:

I like the idea of reversing it by dipping into monk and then taking the rest in rogue. Especially since fists qualify for weapon finesse. That should help with the missing part of flurry of blows right? rely on Dex and sneak attack instead of strength.

Only downside i can see with a one level dip is that you only get 1 SF per monk level so would be a 1 time/day sort of trick when I would rather it be something more bread/butter... so maybe a few levels in monk (if anything helps with saves and such). can you take any feats that buff your stunning fist save? forcing a reroll on a stun save would be nasty...

(One of the things I'm going to work into the storyline is that hobgoblins in my setting are not only just lawful but organized and militant much like the romans...and how this can be a bad bad thing for everyone else if you really do it right. having a hobgoblin "order of monks" seem to fit nicely for that. so even if most of the levels are actually rogue, as long as it looks like a monk and fights like a monk, its all good...)

Thanks again! :smallcool:

Ez

[Phelix-Mu]

There is the feat Extra Stunning in Complete Warrior. Not at all sure how this might/might not help with PF setting.

Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) is a thing, I believe.

There is an item called ki straps in the MIC, again, not PF, but no reason there can't be an item like that. It was pretty cheap, IIRC.

[Pickford]

You forgot PHB 2 added choices like for 2nd level Flaming Fist (use a stunning fist attempt (free action) to get a flaming attack for full rd).

Well....I wouldn't say I forgot as such, seeing as I was talking about the 1st level feats not the 2nd level feat options. :smallcool:

[danzibr]

So, I'm toying with a monk antagonist for my campaign and I came across this combination....wanted to make sure it was legal.

If I make a monk with a one-level dip in rogue, can I combine stunning fist (first attack in a flurry of blows) to stun them and set them up for sneak attack damage for the rest of the flurry?


Ez
I find it very cool a Monk/Rogue (or something of the sort) is going to be a main antagonist. Very cool.