Ideas for the monk, need help

[drakoonity]

I am playing a monk in our current campaign, and I'm trying to find ways to make him more powerful. I know psionics work well but another keeps harping about how overpowered they are so the DM would never allow it. I need ideas on how to improve him, any would be great and please provide like a reference book so then i can show the DM thanks. :)

[Phelix-Mu]

If psionics are out, look to Sacred Fist, from the Complete Divine supplement. I believe the obligatory comment is that the text indicates that it gets full casting advancement (which is not indicated by the table, but text trumps table, happily).

Two buff spells from Races of the Dragon can help monks a lot. They are mighty wallop and it's freakishly powerful older brother, greater mighty wallop. Both are excellent spells for the party arcanist to prep for the monk, and the monk might even get a pearl of power or similar to give to the caster to replace the spell slot that the caster uses on the monk.

Also, the item fanged ring, I believe, from Dragon Magic, is a good investment for a monk. It's found in the dweomered scales section, not the normal magic items section.

[Flickerdart]

Fist of the Forest (Complete Champion) is a good addition to any unarmed fighting build.

[Keld Denar]

Well, for starters, the main thing that psionics does for monks is with the Tashalatora feat from Secrets of Sarlona. Most people use it to duct tape 2 levels of monk to the Psychic Warrior (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psychicWarrior.htm) class. You can read about it there.

Ask your friend what he thinks is broken about psionics. Then tell him these words EXACTLY "You can not spend any more points on a single power than your Manifester Level." That's the part of psionics that some people miss and think that a level 3 psion can deal 20d6 damage with an Energy Ray.

No, a Tash style monk character uses their psionics to buff themselves, much the way that a combat cleric does. The reality of it is that it strips away all of the stupid abilities that monks get, their healing, their slowfall, their 1/day SLAs, and replaces them with the ki power of body manipulation. You still get the Unarmed Striking goodness, along with Flurry and the AC bonus, but you get more modular, customizable class features (called powers) that really have a more monkly feel than a bunch of magical SLAs.

I'd just show your DM the Psychic Warrior I linked above, and ask if you can play one. Then just build for Monk2/PsychicWarrior18, and don't tell anyone (other than your DM) that you aren't a full monk. Done and done.

[drakoonity]

Thanks for all your help, and will I will have to read more into those things suggested. Until next time :)

[Waker]

The ideas for psionics and sacred fist are good, you might also consider the enlightened fist which mixes monk and arcane magic. Monk also benefits from taking levels of incarnate to gain access to skills boosts and a number of magical abilities like flight or see invisible.

[ArcturusV]

Yeah. If you can't finagle Psychics, I'd look towards other "Gestalt" feats which let you multiclass and stack abilities. There's a few of them out there for monks. And ending up with something like Monk 2/Bard 4 with the appropriate feat can give you monky flavoring and some abilities while making you just generally more effective than if you were a Monk 6.

The other option would be to PrC out as much as possible. I'd consider taking 1 level (Probably not more than that unless you were really psyched for certain choices) in the Tattooed Monk PrC. For a single level you get a lot of mileage, still improving your Monk abilities and getting more/better Spell Likes typically.

Similarly, I like the Shintao Monk PrC. Just a single level in it gets you Monk Ability progression, "Touch of the Void Dragon" (Raise one stat of your choice 1d4+1 for 1 hour/Shintao Monk level per day.) and a Bonus Feat. Second level of it gets you Detect Evil, Smite Evil, and Detect Magic. Third you're immune to Stuns, Sleeps, and Slows, and another Bonus Feat.

Third level might be where you'd want to ditch Shintao Monk, as fourth level only get you Light 1/day/Shintao Monk level.

Henshin Mystic is good for a two level dip. Get Scry as a 1/day SLA, and a bonus on Listen, Spot, and Search. 2nd giving you Diamond Body and Blind-Fighting for free.

Initiate of Pistis Sophia might be good to ride for a few levels too. Just watch out for the Sacred Vow feature of the class. You have to take one. And while you can take ones that won't cripple you as badly, most of them do have quite real drawbacks. Probably want to take Chastity, Abstinence, and Purity. Otherwise you get more Smiting, Electrical Resistance, more Dodging. But I wouldn't take it full ride because... eh... Just not all that impressive and the "You're an outsider with DR 10/Unholy" isn't all that impressive. Not exactly a stick in the eye, but you can do better.

If you got levels you probably could do well to finish out Henshin Mystic or Shintao Monk. Might also want to look into Kensei with a focus on your unarmed strikes.

[sonofzeal]

Wild Monk is also pretty badass. Pump Wis, Wildshape into a Fleshraker, and go all Flurry of Claws on them.

[Piggy Knowles]

I put together an Ascetic Hunter build for someone else who was trying to build a monk/ranger/assassin a while back, but I think it could actually be pretty fun:


Azurin, Monk 2/Ranger 18

ACFs: Arcane Hunter, Shadow Sword Ranger, Invisible Fist, Distracting Attack

1- Stunning Fist, Extra Stunning, Sapphire Fist
2- Combat Reflexes
3- Ascetic Hunter, Track
4- Two-Weapon Fighting
6- Pain Touch
9- Ability Focus (Stunning Fist)
12- Bonus Essentia
15- Improved Natural Attack
18- Snap Kick

+19 BAB, 4d8 damage on unarmed attacks, almost full ranger casting (which is actually pretty solid for you, and gets a lot of the goodies that you would otherwise see on the Assassin list). And you get all the cool high-level ranger abilities like camouflage and HiPS. Oh, and Shadow Sword means that you get a big Move Silently boost, and you can give your fists the Bane property against your favored enemies.

You've got excellent skills, so you can play the sneak very well (and spells/Shadow Sword/Invisible Fist help with this). If you want to be an assassin, the ability to track your enemies is pretty nice. (Don't take the last Shadow Sword sub level unless portals are a big part of your game, since that means you'll lose Swift Tracker.)

Instead of Death Attack, you focus on stunning (and pain touch). Sapphire Fist + Ability Focus comes out to a +6 to your stun DC, and you also add half your favored enemy bonus, which should be another solid +5. Add on Ki Straps for another +2. So that's a DC of 33 + your Wisdom modifier. No three round wait time, either.

The biggest problem is that azurin does not have monk or ranger as a favored class, so if your DM enforces multiclassing penalties, you may want to switch things up. A human would work, but that means one less point of essentia to feed into Sapphire Fist, so your DC and damage will drop by one. Not a terrible loss, but not nothing, either.

[SSGoW]

First off pick up the PHB and the XPH and Flurry of Blows the guy that thinks Psionics if overpowered.... Please tell me he is playing a Cleric, Wizard, or Druid lol

There is a monk build that let's you Flurry with a martial weapon (THF + Power Attack) and use two handed fighting.... Yes you Flurry + THF + TWF all at the same time, I think Xervous posted it on the Tippy thread....

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=285801&page=7

Yuup post 197 and higher explain it...

Do it.. Dooo itt...

[Xervous]

Well I'll just step right in here and provide some nice help then.

THF + TWF.

two handed fighting requires you to use both hands on the weapon, durh. Two weapon fighting requires you to have a mainhand weapon (that stick you're holding in two hands) and an offhand weapon (unarmed strike is always available).

feats: two weapon fighting, snap kick, improved two weapon fighting, greater two weapon fighting.
+11-15 BAB yields the following with flurry, snap kick, and TWF. Attacks marked with asterisks must be unarmed strikes.
-4/-4/-4/-4*/-4*/-9/-9*/-14/-14*


THF + TWF is doable with core, however you need campaign setting material (Forgotten realms: Unapproachable East: Shou Disciple) to use a martial weapon. Quite frankly, I don't think its worth it to use Shou disciple if you don't have to. I only did so because it was one of the few options that I had access to for prestige-ing to boost my saves and it had a dandy full BAB. In a practical build, wasting two feats just to flurry with martial weapons is rather pointless unless you have some mitigating circumstances (story reasons granted you an uber greatsword for some reason or other).

One problem with THF+TWF is that you still have to buy two enchanted weapons for your character. The twohander and a necklace of natural weapons.



On top of all this, Shiba Protector (Oriental Adventures) is an amazing 1 level dip for those human monks out there. Iron will can be picked up through Otyugh hole, alertness is easily gotten with an Ioun stone (pronounced I-Win stone) and combat expertise could be nabbed with an alternate monk fighting style from Unearthed Arcana. So basically you do very little to qualify, spend one level here, and get WISDOM TO ATTACK AND DAMAGE. Then you take intuitive attack (BoED) and your simple and natural weapons now use Wis in place of Str for attack rolls.

If you want dex to damage on top of this, you can obtain a shadow hand stance, best way is 3,000 gp for Shadow Hands (an item), then you get Shadow Blade (a feat).

Two levels of paladin (or better yet, Prestige paladin to stack onto your cleric levels) gets you divine grace. Serenity, a feat from dragon compendium makes your turn undead, lay on hands, and most importantly divine grace use Wisdom.


Wis to attack TWICE, to damage, to armor class, and to saves. If you can become a saint, you get it to armor class yet again.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

I don't think two-weapon fighting works with unarmed strikes, considering that they're closer to natural attacks, but getting more natural attacks or limbs is a good idea. Going a dragonblooded race allows you to take dragon tail, and follow it with snap kick like xervous stated. Next, take rapidstrike when you can, and take improved natural attack, superior unarmed strike, and pain touch with a monk's belt to allow you an extremely high number of attacks that all do huge amounts of damage. Use your pain touch with stunning fist to shut people down for 2 rounds. That build works with even things like divine fist, although divine fist means you can get spells like girallon's blessing (2 more arms) and combo them with some DMM persist.

[Xervous]

Have some WotC unarmed strike TWF (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20070403a)

[Flickerdart]

I don't think two-weapon fighting works with unarmed strikes, considering that they're closer to natural attacks.
In what way? Unarmed strikes work like manufactured weapons in every respect - they have iteratives, there are no primary and secondary unarmed strikes. The only way they're like natural weapons at all is that they're part of your body, which isn't actually a rules thing.

[Piggy Knowles]

Yeah, I've heard arguments against allowing TWF between a two-handed weapon and either armor spikes or an unarmed strike, with the usual argument being that if both hands are on a weapon, you can't assign your unarmed strike as being "off-hand." I think it's silly - you can explicitly TWF between an unarmed strike and another weapon, nothing in the rules prevents that other weapon from being two-handed, it's a much needed buff for two-weapon fighting in general and monks in particular, and it's a fighting style that actually makes sense (a heck of a lot more sense than many of the stupid double weapons).

Some DMs, of course, flinch at anything outside of the box with melee characters and will say no, claiming that it goes against the intent of TWF. Like anything in this game, always discuss it first. But the rules allow it, I would absolutely allow it, and I'd encourage other DMs to allow it too.

[drakoonity]

I was thinking of using dual wield for quarter staffs as the way we always played is that with the staffs, you hit with both ends for one attack so stacking with flurry of blows at 1st level I would be getting 4 attacks. Is this a good idea or should I scratch it all together

[drakoonity]

And yeah SSGoW he was playing a druid but the DM made him change as it conflicted heavily with the story, so now he is a barbarian.