help in defeating 3.5 monks

[Ringtail69]

i am just curious to see how would be the best way to deal with a monk in one of my campaigns. any suggestions besides assassination while sleeping?

[BWR]

Send any other class after him?

Jokes aside, if you want help, we need a little more information than you have provided.

[Morcleon]

Send any other class after him?

Jokes aside, if you want help, we need a little more information than you have provided.

*snerk* He's got it in one... :smallamused:

But yeah, we'll need a bit more info. Level and OP level of monk, equipment, stats (if you have them), the intended killer's stats, etc...

[Eldariel]

Monks' biggest weakness is that they're worse fighters than any warrior class of equivalent level, worse sneaks than any sneak class of equivalent level, and non-casters vs. casters of equivalent level.

So if you have a warrior, a thief or a spellcaster of equal level to the Monk you're facing available and are optimized to the same level as the Monk, you should be fine. If you're facing multiple Monks, matching their numbers should guarantee success. Unless they're lower level Monks in which case you are probably fine even if outnumbered 2-3 to 1.

Tactics of note: They can grapple, trip, disarm, sunder, etc. Same thing any warrior can. They're worse grapplers than most warriors but they do decent damage in it so if you're vulnerable to grapple, it's worth bringing precautions (a Rogue to backstab any grappler will do, as does any form of anti-grapple spell/item or big body and high strength).

They're as good trippers as any non-Barbarians so optimally you can match them in terms of tripping, are balanced, can fly without wings or somehow mitigate tripping attacks; this is their most dangerous ability.

Finally, if they hit you with an unarmed attack and guess right which attack is gonna hit, they can try to stun you for one round on a failed Fortitude-save. Vs. this, you want any manner of defense vs. critical hits (Fortification Armor or some crit-immunity spell for instance), Fortitude-saves (just good Fort-saves helps), stunning (there are some types that grant you immunity to stunning, as well as some spells, items and so on) or just plain high Armor Class works too (can't stun if they don't hit).

Oh, and of course if you let them full attack they can do average damage in melee. The best tool against this is not letting them start the turn next to you able to take an action. They can't move and attack and lose more than anyone else if they don't get iterative attacks so just keep moving (unless you're a bruiser of some kind; Barbarian, Fighter or whatever can just wreck them in the face much harder than they can hit back).

[Chronos]

To add to the questions, what counts as "defeated", and why do you want that to happen? For instance, is it good enough for you if the monk runs away? Because it's not completely trivial to catch a fleeing monk, but that might be good enough for your purposes anyway.

[ben-zayb]

Send any other class after him?
Seconded. :smallwink:

On a more serious note, monks are considered to be very item-reliant (barring VoP monks) at almost all levels, so a successful dispel check before inflicting the pain might be a good idea.

Following that, a aerial assault (archer with fly speed or arcane blaster) would be ideal since most monks won't do crap against them.

But, really, I just want to reiterate:

Send any other class after him

[Zero grim]

Worse at melee then fighters, worse at stealth then rogues, this is what people always bring up, how about:

Better sneakers then fighter, better in melee then rogues, fight the opponent where they are weak, not where's they are strong, so be careful a melee with a monk could turn into an ambush, and vice versa.

mages are pretty good against anything, monks included so long as the mage has the range advantage and covers isn't common, the monks weakness is any other non casters weakness, attack them while flying and they are stuffed, 500ft should put you easily out of range of any counter attack then you can just plink with some long ranged spells, not exactly super efficient but its rather safe as a Plan A.

Plan C is hire an army of longbow users, there's very little that can deal with that, cost to you perhaps 100g for a days pay to a mercenary company.

Plan DM, drop a rock, a really really big one, falling objects give no save of any sort so just drop a house on them, if you cant find a way to pick up and drop a house I'm sure someone will mention a spell or prc here or there which can lift moons or somthing :P

[eggynack]

I don't think that monks necessarily fight better than rogues. Sneak attack is pretty sweet if you know what you're doing. Sneaking better than fighters is basically a non-issue. It's like saying that monks can do magic better than fighters because fighters don't get to approximate feather fall at any level. Basically, if you're trying to kill a monk, just make sure to corner him somehow. They can't really combat anyone in any meaningful way, but they have high saves and can run like the dickens. It's terrible, but it means that a caster is going to want some no-save spells to take him down, and that a fighter is going to want to specialize a bit in tripping to narrow his escape.

Still though, you basically need the opposite of strategy for this. Is the monk higher level than you by a lot or something? Do you have to fight him with one hand tied behind your back on a weird bet? Otherwise, this is going to be pretty easy.

[ThePhantom]

Please, just because a monk isn't good at dealing damage doesn't mean a monk is bad at surviving. They do have good saves and are faster than most classes. Your best bet would be a barbarian, as they are as about just as fast, hit hard, and have good fort saves which is where the monk's dangerous attacks target.

[Namfuak]

Seconded. :smallwink:

On a more serious note, monks are considered to be very item-reliant (barring VoP monks)...

VoP monks are still item-reliant, they just don't get to use any items.

[Gavinfoxx]

Just send a high strength, high armor, big weapon, charge-focused barbarian at him. Seriously, barbarians can do like ~500 damage in a single charge at level 9.

See:


Human, Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion), Whirling Frenzy (UA/SRD) Barbarian 9

Feats:
1. Power Attack
Hu: Battle Jump (FR: Unapproachable East)
3: Improved Bull Rush
6: Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior)
9: Leap Attack (Complete Adventurer)

Items of note: A +1 Baatorian Greensteel (Fiendish Codex 2) Gloryborn (Dungeon Master's Guide II) Valorous (FR: Unapproachable East) Greatsword (a +2-equivalent weapon). Note you don't need THESE specific enhancements, this is just a general view of the sorts of things that are possible -- other +damage materials would work better with gloryborn than greensteel, for example.

A +2 Enhancement item of strength.

Assumptions: He starts with an 18 strength and he puts his level 4 and 8 bonus to strength, and he maxxes Jump.

Here is his attack routine on a Whirling Frenzy-enabled Heedless Charge, jumping at the enemy to enable Battle Jump, with Leap Attack, with full power attack, at level 9:

Attack 1:
26 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+9 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 charge

Damage: 2d6
+1 enhancement
+12 strength (8 +4)
+1 Gloryborn
+27 with a Leap Attack Power Attack (9*3, via leap attack, rather than 9*1.5)
+1 from Greensteel

Multiplier x3 = Battle Jump (x2) + Valorous (x2)

(So a 2d6 changes into 6d6 after the x3 multiplier)

Damage on first attack is 6d6+126

So +18/6d6+126
or an average of 147 damage.

Attack 2:
26 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+9 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 charge

This is the same as the first attack, so +18/6d6+126
again, an average of 147 damage.

Attack 3:
28 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+4 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 Charge

+13 to hit

Damage:
Damage: 2d6
+1 enhancement
+12 strength (8 +4)
+1 Gloryborn
+27 with a Leap Attack Power Attack (9*3, via leap attack, rather than 9*1.5)
+1 from Greensteel

So this is +13/6d6+126
again, an average of 147 damage.

So 441 damage at level 9, while relatively under-equipped (you should have higher strength and better gear).

[Eldariel]

Please, just because a monk isn't good at dealing damage doesn't mean a monk is bad at surviving. They do have good saves and are faster than most classes. Your best bet would be a barbarian, as they are as about just as fast, hit hard, and have good fort saves which is where the monk's dangerous attacks target.

The Monk is good at surviving specific things; not as good as anyone who can cast Teleport, but better than a Fighter. Attacks are, however, not one of them. They're really weak to any class that can attack their AC (that would be all of them; granted, Wizard-likes need to cast Planar Binding or Polymorph-type things to get serious anti-AC attacks but they're there).

They also don't have Hide in Plain Sight so their sneaking options are heavily limited; not all illuminations and terrains allow for hiding.

[Blueiji]

Please, just because a monk isn't good at dealing damage doesn't mean a monk is bad at surviving. They do have good saves and are faster than most classes. Your best bet would be a barbarian, as they are as about just as fast, hit hard, and have good fort saves which is where the monk's dangerous attacks target.

This is a good suggestion.

A Cleric would also work well, VERY well.

A Dwarf or Human Cleric with a heavy emphasis on defense and Wisdom would be able to survive whatever the Monk could dish out and then respond with some sort of devastating save or lose type spell. With a high enough Wisdom or a touch-attack based spell then the Monk's high saving throws wouldn't be much of a problem.

[eggynack]

Please, just because a monk isn't good at dealing damage doesn't mean a monk is bad at surviving. They do have good saves and are faster than most classes. Your best bet would be a barbarian, as they are as about just as fast, hit hard, and have good fort saves which is where the monk's dangerous attacks target.
Wait, are we building a character to kill a monk? Like, constructing something optimized particularly for monk slaying? If monks are ever good at surviving, and I'm not convinced they are for a number of reasons, they're not capable of living against someone who has tailored their build for this exact fight. There's nothing in the OP to indicate that we can't pick a class that would be good for this, but if we can then this is trivial. Just build, I dunno, a druid. There. I mean, I could construct a build for this but I've done that before. It's just not a thing of any kind. Still, level matters for the specifics, I think. Your barbarian could probably do it at any level too. Most things could.

[Darrin]

Most monks can be defeated with a single 1st level spell or 50 GP potion: babau slime (Spell Compendium, Dru/Sor/Wiz 1).

If you want to end it quickly, add hamatula barbs (Spell Compendium, Cle/Sor/Wiz 3) and/or thornskin (Spell Compendium, Dru 3).

[Eldariel]

This is a good suggestion.

A Cleric would also work well, VERY well.

A Dwarf or Human Cleric with a heavy emphasis on defense and Wisdom would be able to survive whatever the Monk could dish out and then respond with some sort of devastating save or lose type spell. With a high enough Wisdom or a touch-attack based spell then the Monk's high saving throws wouldn't be much of a problem.

Cleric would actually probably have an easier time just smashing the Monk in the face. Clerics are, after all, the best straight-up warrior class in Core (up there far as the whole game goes) and Monk's greatest weakness is cruddy AC (unless they give up essentials, like items [VoP] or offense [Max Dex/Wis Builds]).

Of course, no reason not to pack some save-or-dies too (no-save effects are generally better vs. Monks tho; they have middling saves across the board so while anything can work, it's not guaranteed to); in case the Monks e.g. can't fly or whatever, it's a nice way to get few cheap shots in.

[137beth]

VoP monks are still item-reliant, they just don't get to use any items.

Yea, but you shouldn't start by trying to dispel a VoP monk's magic items. You should just kill it in one round.


Your barbarian could probably do it at any level too. Most things could.
Well yea, unless the level difference is so huge that the monk is basically fighting with its WBL, in which case a commoner would be about as hard to beat as the monk (or the fight is at high epic levels, where pretty much every class feature except epic spells becomes nearly meaningless compared to WBL, so then if you are the same level as the monk, the solution is "optimize your item selection at least as well as the monk.")

[Gavinfoxx]

You could have an unarmed barbarian (of the same level, with the same amount of wealth access) from a rival martial arts school challenge him to a duel to 'prove once and for all, whose kung fu is superior!'

Some things to use:

-Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion)
-Bear Totem OR Wolf Totem (System Resource Document or Unearthed Arcana)
-Ferocity (Cityscape Web Enhancement) OR Whirling Frenzy (System Resource Document or Unearthed Arcana)
City Brawler (Dragon Magazine #349)
Street Fighter (Cityscape Web Enhancement)

Improved Unarmed Strike
Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle)
Improved Natural Attack: Unarmed Strike (Monster Manual/SRD)
Improved Grapple + Scorpion's Grasp (Sandstorm, if you expect the Monk to try to grapple)
Power Attack

Monk's Belt (DMG or SRD, if your wisdom is high)
Some Light armor, like Mithral Breastplate (if his wisdom isn't high)
Necklace of Natural attacks (Savage Species)
Fanged Ring (Dragon Magic)

Max Str & Con, possibly Wisdom

[limejuicepowder]

Just send a high strength, high armor, big weapon, charge-focused barbarian at him. Seriously, barbarians can do like ~500 damage in a single charge at level 9.

See:


Human, Spirit Lion Totem (Complete Champion), Whirling Frenzy (UA/SRD) Barbarian 9

Feats:
1. Power Attack
Hu: Battle Jump (FR: Unapproachable East)
3: Improved Bull Rush
6: Shock Trooper (Complete Warrior)
9: Leap Attack (Complete Adventurer)

Items of note: A +1 Baatorian Greensteel (Fiendish Codex 2) Gloryborn (Dungeon Master's Guide II) Valorous (FR: Unapproachable East) Greatsword (a +2-equivalent weapon). Note you don't need THESE specific enhancements, this is just a general view of the sorts of things that are possible -- other +damage materials would work better with gloryborn than greensteel, for example.

A +2 Enhancement item of strength.

Assumptions: He starts with an 18 strength and he puts his level 4 and 8 bonus to strength, and he maxxes Jump.

Here is his attack routine on a Whirling Frenzy-enabled Heedless Charge, jumping at the enemy to enable Battle Jump, with Leap Attack, with full power attack, at level 9:

Attack 1:
26 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+9 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 charge

Damage: 2d6
+1 enhancement
+12 strength (8 +4)
+1 Gloryborn
+27 with a Leap Attack Power Attack (9*3, via leap attack, rather than 9*1.5)
+1 from Greensteel

Multiplier x3 = Battle Jump (x2) + Valorous (x2)

(So a 2d6 changes into 6d6 after the x3 multiplier)

Damage on first attack is 6d6+126

So +18/6d6+126
or an average of 147 damage.

Attack 2:
26 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+9 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 charge

This is the same as the first attack, so +18/6d6+126
again, an average of 147 damage.

Attack 3:
28 str (+8)
-2 to hit from whirling frenzy
+4 bab to hit
+1 enhancement to hit
+2 Charge

+13 to hit

Damage:
Damage: 2d6
+1 enhancement
+12 strength (8 +4)
+1 Gloryborn
+27 with a Leap Attack Power Attack (9*3, via leap attack, rather than 9*1.5)
+1 from Greensteel

So this is +13/6d6+126
again, an average of 147 damage.

So 441 damage at level 9, while relatively under-equipped (you should have higher strength and better gear).

A little off topic, so I apologize, but I'd really like to know what the point of this is. The numbers are impressively awesome, but....that would totally waste most CR 20 monsters (if it hit of course). From a practicality standpoint, why bother? It also puts the DM in the uncomfortable position of the barb auto-killing anything that he can charge. Thus, he has to go out of his way to prevent the barb from charging, which really sucks for the player cause now the build is wasted.

Does anyone actually play uber-chargers? Or are they more of TO type of thing?

[Aegis013]

Does anyone actually play uber-chargers? Or are they more of TO type of thing?

Just depends on the op level of the game.
Ubercharger is a great way to get a low tier class to have the raw power to compete with higher power classes. It can just be a little problematic in their binary approach to problems; Can I charge it? Y: win, N: lose.

(edit: habitually capitalized raw, lol)

[Chronos]

If you want something that's sneakier than a fighter but better in combat than a rogue, then the better choice is ranger. Their weapons do more damage than the monk's do, they have more skill points, they have more BAB, two-weapon fighting is about equivalent to flurry of blows, and they eventually get useful spells and an animal companion.

[JellyPooga]

i am just curious to see how would be the best way to deal with a monk in one of my campaigns. any suggestions besides assassination while sleeping?

1) Break open a pack of cards. Shuffle up and choose your game.

2) Propose a price. Wait for the counter-offer.

That's two ways of "dealing" with monks :smallwink:

The problem with this question is that it has no specifics. What level Monk is he? If he's level 1 then a Crossbow to the face from across the street will do the trick. If he's level 20, then you're going to need something a little better.

In general terms, Monks don't like things that crimp their style. Hit them with movement penalties (stun, web, entangle), be faster than them (Expeditious Retreat does this handily up to level 9), stronger than them (be a Barbarian), a better melee fighter (be a Fighter) or outdamage them in support (be a Rogue). Simply put, pretty much anything will ruin a Monks day, unless that Monk has godlike stats.

[Big Fau]

Does anyone actually play uber-chargers? Or are they more of TO type of thing?

Charger, not Ubercharger. Uberchargers use questionable interpretations of the rules to double the damage output Gavinfoxx listed (specifically by combining Leap Attack with a Mounted Charge by having the Charger leap from his mount and still receive benefits as if he were both leaping and mounted).

Charger builds are not that powerful in actual gameplay. They are easy to counteract, and it's also incredibly easy to just ask the guy playing the class to not go overboard. The thing about builds based around Power Attack is that Power Attack's benefits are controlled by the player, allowing him to choose how much damage he deals. It's also just as easy to throw some mooks/miscellaneous threats between him and the actual encounter you want to run, just to give him something to mow down.

Just because the numbers are a bit high doesn't mean the build isn't useable in an actual campaign.

[Azoth]

For insult to injury use a setting sun/desert wind focused unarmed swordsage...he just got out monked...by the least powerful swordsage there ever was.

[limejuicepowder]

Charger, not Ubercharger. Uberchargers use questionable interpretations of the rules to double the damage output Gavinfoxx listed (specifically by combining Leap Attack with a Mounted Charge by having the Charger leap from his mount and still receive benefits as if he were both leaping and mounted).

Ah, I didn't realize ubercharger referred to a specific build. I thought it was just a character that did LOL amounts of damage by charging.



Charger builds are not that powerful in actual gameplay. They are easy to counteract, and it's also incredibly easy to just ask the guy playing the class to not go overboard. The thing about builds based around Power Attack is that Power Attack's benefits are controlled by the player, allowing him to choose how much damage he deals. It's also just as easy to throw some mooks/miscellaneous threats between him and the actual encounter you want to run, just to give him something to mow down.

Just because the numbers are a bit high doesn't mean the build isn't useable in an actual campaign.

That doesn't sound very usable at all.

For starters, though out the course of the game most enemies don't even have 100 hit points. Dealing 400 or 4000 damage doesn't matter; it's still enough to kill even very strong opponents in one round. Essentially, it is a "no save, just die" effect that is only situationally usable - and that's my problem with it. The DM either plans every encounter around denying the charger the ability to attack the bad guy that matters, or he makes up a new BBEG each time. In the former case, the player gets annoyed cause their build is useless, and in the latter the whole game becomes anticlimactic because the barb just curbstomped what was supposed to be a great threat.

Maybe it's just my notions of how long I like combat to last, but the more I think about it the less I think I'd like playing with a charger in the group - whether I was the DM or a player.

[Aegis013]

Maybe it's just my notions of how long I like combat to last, but the more I think about it the less I think I'd like playing with a charger in the group - whether I was the DM or a player.

Different tables play at different levels of optimization. There are plenty of games where it's very inappropriate. Plenty of tables that it works fine at too. It's just up to the group to decide what's appropriate.

[JoshuaZ]

For starters, though out the course of the game most enemies don't even have 100 hit points. Dealing 400 or 4000 damage doesn't matter; it's still enough to kill even very strong opponents in one round. Essentially, it is a "no save, just die" effect that is only situationally usable - and that's my problem with it. The DM either plans every encounter around denying the charger the ability to attack the bad guy that matters, or he makes up a new BBEG each time. In the former case, the player gets annoyed cause their build is useless, and in the latter the whole game becomes anticlimactic because the barb just curbstomped what was supposed to be a great threat.


So they go up against stronger beings with high AC or higher hit points. Or they go up against beings who really like mooks. Or deal with flyers. Or have a reoccuring lich villain who can keep coming back. Etc. Etc. Dealing with a moderately optimized charger isn't nearly as hard as dealing with a core-only optimized wizard or druid.

[Story]

Wait, are we building a character to kill a monk? Like, constructing something optimized particularly for monk slaying? If monks are ever good at surviving, and I'm not convinced they are for a number of reasons, they're not capable of living against someone who has tailored their build for this exact fight. There's nothing in the OP to indicate that we can't pick a class that would be good for this, but if we can then this is trivial. Just build, I dunno, a druid. There. I mean, I could construct a build for this but I've done that before. It's just not a thing of any kind. Still, level matters for the specifics, I think. Your barbarian could probably do it at any level too. Most things could.

It's probably not optimal, but there is the Frosty build I made for a previous Monk challenge. The basic idea is to just fly around, trap the Monk with Solid Fog or Web if possible, and then blast away with Metamagiced Grave Mists. You'd probably want to add Piercing Cold if you were worried about the Monk getting cold resistance somehow.