Monk/Apostle of peace/Celestial mystic

[dantiesilva]

As the title says I am trying to make a build that is more for flavor then all out power.

The build I am looking at is Monk 6/Apostle of Peace 4/ Celestial mystic 10, focusing on using as many exalted and unarmed fighting attacks as possible. After all using a monks Flurry of blows to deal Non lethal damage. Perhaps throwing a few levels of a monkish class in there like sacred fist. I wanted to ask everyone if not only if it was possible to make a fun, useable build for a game with these guidelines, but also as a interesting NPC that keeps a party interested and coming back for more.

Thank you in advance for all your help.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Apostle of peace; or, more precisely, its prerequisite sacred vow feats; are a potential sticking point.

Voluntary poverty hurts most anything that's not a caster at its core quite a bit more than it does a caster. The apostle's spell list isn't a strong enough one to mitigate this. If there's a caster that does the buffing thing in the party with you, this will be less problematic, otherwise it could prove disastrous under the wrong circumstances.

The vow of peace carries more role-playing weight than any other character option in the game. Seriously look at the list of things that a character that took the vow cannot use. Then realize that he must impose restrictions on his allies, since they take mechanical penalties for taking certain actions in the character's presence. Nevermind the calm emotions aura negating the entire possibility of incidental combats. Bandits in the woods; nope. Bears stumble into camp; nope. Anyone that hasn't been sent with the explicit purpose of killing you suddenly finds that they don't really want to unless they make a reasonably difficult will save.

Apostle of Peace moves past "ask your DM about this before playing" territory into "ask your -group- before playing this" territory.

That said, it can be pretty cool in a campaign that's heavy with RP, undead, or both.

[Callin]

Friend of mine played one of those. We all failed our saves and the Bullett passed his.

So we all ate popcorn and watched the Monk get drug off underground and devoured.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Friend of mine played one of those. We all failed our saves and the Bullett passed his.

So we all ate popcorn and watched the Monk get drug off underground and devoured.

..... wait..... what?

[Callin]

His aura of Non-Violence or what not. We all failed and the enemy passed his. So we sat back and watched the thing drag him away.

[dantiesilva]

Thank you everyone for your quick replies.

@Kelb_Panthera I understand the weakness of having the character be a monk instead of say a cleric or even a bard, but the way I was looking at it was his opposite was a cleric and many of the spells that would be useful for this NPC would cause harm which he is not allowed to do. In fact it is his job to cause the least amount of violence possible. As for other party members that buff, he travels alone so should be fine on that regard as any weapon that hits him shatters, along with the aura.

The main reason I am building this person is for RP. I have built a DMM persist Cleric, A half minotaur goliath Barbarian, God wizard. I wanted to try something purely RP and fluff wise. And saying as the monk can choose to deal none leathel damage with his unarmed attacks with no penalty I though I could optimize all those feats out there that improve fighting with natural weapons (Touch of golden ice) and use them to subdue enemies to leave me alone if they pass the save. Healing them, unless they are undead, after the battle so they will recover and I can get away.

[Kelb_Panthera]

His aura of Non-Violence or what not. We all failed and the enemy passed his. So we sat back and watched the thing drag him away.

Ummm...... you can still fight while under the effect of calm emotions, you just can't rage. It only prevents creatures from attacking if they have no serious reason for attacking, e.g. bandits want to steal your stuff but after being calmed by the effect they realize they're staring at hardened adventurers (you're all at least level 8) and a hobo with no valuables to steal. They lose interest. Bear only wanted to chase you out of its territory but after being calmed by the aura it doesn't care anymore and just lumbers off unless -you- attack it.

Bullette munching on your friend, however, should be more than enough reason to fight even if you're doing so while cool as a cucumber. It'd kill the barbarian's rage but that's about it.

I can understand if it was a mixup in what the rules actually meant or if you just wanted that aggravating apostle out of your hair but, at least in the latter case, it's kind of a d-bag move. Calm =/= irrationally uncaring.

Edit: in particular, there's a clause in calm emotions that says the effect is broken if any of the creatures in the AoE are attacked. Since the AoE was centered on the Apostle, I'm pretty sure he was inside the area.

[Callin]

At my table all rules and power descriptions and implementations are the sole responsibility of the one activating/using said power. He said we didnt get to attack so we didnt.

[Kelb_Panthera]

At my table all rules and power descriptions and implementations are the sole responsibility of the one activating/using said power. He said we didnt get to attack so we didnt.

I..... what..... how..... :smallconfused:

Do you think it was suicide? :smalleek:

[Callin]

Nope. Was not a suicide because he tried to play that character again a few more times. Each time we smacked it down.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Nope. Was not a suicide because he tried to play that character again a few more times. Each time we smacked it down.

Note the above quote, OP.

I'm guessing you guys got tired of having to uphold -his- vows? Or was it the whole, "nobody ever attacks anybody else as long as this 'monk' is around?"

[dantiesilva]

Well it sounds like more you not wanting him to play that character then it being bad as one of the vows add +4 to the DC of stunning fist as long as you deal nonlethal damage. And well that +4 can come in handy as if maxed out it can be made so nothing can pass it except undead and constructs which it can attack to kill.

[Callin]

Note the above quote, OP.

I'm guessing you guys got tired of having to uphold -his- vows? Or was it the whole, "nobody ever attacks anybody else as long as this 'monk' is around?"

Honestly it was the annoying fact that we would have to make saves every combat to act normally. He was the only one upholding his vows and we didnt care about em.

He actually died in the very first encounter of the game with that character. So we cant tell ya if we were fed up with the roleplay aspect of it. It never came up.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Well it sounds like more you not wanting him to play that character then it being bad as one of the vows add +4 to the DC of stunning fist as long as you deal nonlethal damage. And well that +4 can come in handy as if maxed out it can be made so nothing can pass it except undead and constructs which it can attack to kill.

I honestly don't care one way or the other if he plays that character. I'm just trying to help him be aware of the potential pitfalls. Having someone who's witnessed those pitfall's first hand, Callin, can really illustrate my point in a concrete manner.

Apostle of peace is -not- appropriate for a kick in the door, hack and slash, loot the dungeon style of game. It makes for a fine hunter of undead and can be quite useful in an RP heavy, pseudo-political campaign; and it's not terrible if the other players are on board with the whole "bring the villians to justice by delivering them to the proper authorities" angle, as opposed to the more common "mete out 'justice' as we go" model.

It's not great for a "standard" game and the very book it's in discusses this in detail in the "voluntary poverty" and "waging peace" sections of chapter one.

[Callin]

I agree Kelb. The style of game that my group likes to play is mostly hack and slash with a dash of RP and story thrown in. Personally I like the story aspect because while I love to smash stuff, I want to know the reason I am going off to do it.

This person (the one in my group) likes to make characters that dont mesh well with the rest of the group or to intentionally cause conflict. That was the whole point of the character but it is honestly based on a cool concept that if it was another style of game I wouldnt be against it.

This type of character can cause snags with your typical gaming group. So I suggest (as Kelb already stated) talking with the rest of the group to see if it would fit in with how they want the next game to be run.

[dantiesilva]

As I, the OP have stated though it would be a single person group, him, maybe get a few Justicars to help on occasion with Kensai levels. And it would be high RP not dungeon crawling.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thank you everyone for your quick replies.

@Kelb_Panthera I understand the weakness of having the character be a monk instead of say a cleric or even a bard, but the way I was looking at it was his opposite was a cleric and many of the spells that would be useful for this NPC would cause harm which he is not allowed to do. In fact it is his job to cause the least amount of violence possible. As for other party members that buff, he travels alone so should be fine on that regard as any weapon that hits him shatters, along with the aura.

The main reason I am building this person is for RP. I have built a DMM persist Cleric, A half minotaur goliath Barbarian, God wizard. I wanted to try something purely RP and fluff wise. And saying as the monk can choose to deal none leathel damage with his unarmed attacks with no penalty I though I could optimize all those feats out there that improve fighting with natural weapons (Touch of golden ice) and use them to subdue enemies to leave me alone if they pass the save. Healing them, unless they are undead, after the battle so they will recover and I can get away.

Just noticed this.

Carry on then. RP heavy is exactly what such a character -is- good for.

[Callin]

Ok so this is going to be a DMPC? Or is it you and a DM where you want to play this type of character?

You said its goin to be a mostly RP game. Thats a good thing because the fluff is nice and can be very interesting. Playing as this guy would be cool (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwai_Chang_Caine)

[dantiesilva]

Its ok with so many posts it is easy to miss one or two posts with ease. Any options on feats I should invest in as I get an exalted one every 2 levels

1,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20

And a normal feat every 3 levels

1,3,6,9,12,15,18

+1 from being human, +2 from Flaws, and an additional +2 from being a paragon. To make things a bit easier here is my build so far.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=589395

It is a bit complicated on what to call it to be honest as it is many things including a DMPC an NPC, my character...so can't help there.

[dantiesilva]

So no other advise from anyone?