Playing A Small Monk.

[Kid Jake]

I'm in the middle of teaching two players the joys of D&D and one of them immediately got excited about the prospect of playing a gnome monk. I don't know why, he's just always loved gnomes and kung fu movies.

Not being one to squash his enthusiasm I told him sure; we'll make that work, but I'm not sure how. It really seems like his decreased damage and penalties to disarm/trip/grapple are going to severely limit an already limited class.

His starting array is 16, 15, 14, 14, 12, 10 and they've been assigned as Str:10 Dex:16, Con:17, Wis:14, Int:14, Cha:10 with his first feat being Improved Initiative. I figure for the first couple of levels he can use a crossbow until he picks up Weapon Finesse, but that's not really in the spirit of the class.

Any suggestions to make a small monk enjoyable? Multi-class combinations or just general tricks? We're sticking to Core only until these guys have it down, but I'm going to be flexible with WBL.

[Tevesh]

I'd say that he should have Weapon Finesse first and then pick-up Improved Initiative or get an item that gives Initiative.

Unfortunately, all solutions for small Monks are outside of Core unless you want to give him with a Monk's Belt (worth 10k).

I'm a fan of Confound the Big Folk and Underfoot Combat as feats. I'm sure there are also other feats that improve the small man's game.

The higher AC and improvement to Tumble should definitely be worth the issues with Tumble, especially if you're not playing with modified rules and as soon as you hit Tumble 15 (or 25), you're a god amongst men.

Edit: I was thinking Halfling, especially since Halfing is sooo good.

[Maginomicon]

You could implement the Defense Bonus variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm) which would synergize well with the Monk's Unarmored AC ability.

[Psyren]

3.5 or Pathfinder?

In PF he could use Agile Maneuvers and a very dex-focused monk like Flowing Monk. Or simply an unarmed Ninja, which can gain scaling monk fist dice and use sneak attack to increase the damage.

[Captnq]

Core only?

Err... He's gonna suck.

I mean, if you are willing to allow A&EG, technically, a beekeeper's outfit can be enchanted like a suit of armor, yet is not a suit of armor (it's an outfit) so he could get ASAs that way. And if you allow A&EG then you also allow the ward cestus, which would allow him to put WSAs on his unarmed attacks.

That doesn't even get into the Necklace of Natural Weaponry/Bracers of striking cheese. At least he'd have "some" options for magical weapons/armor and it'd RAW.

Although rather then make him run around in a beekeeper outfit, you could just let him wear Gnome Strip Cloth Armor.

Yes, it's ARMOR. However, it's armor with NO Maximum Dexterity Bonus. Unlike every other set of armor out there (with the exception of the Bondleaf Wrap, which is a symbiotic leaf that attaches to your body.) it's the only armor that has NO MDB. This is because it is actually strips of cloth hanging from his body. Seriously. Monks wear rags all the time and it doesn't interfere with their abilities.

And remember, the armor is exotic, which requires a feat. However, it is gnome strip cloth, so as a gnome, he'd technically get the feat for free with his race. Me? I'd let it slide. It's AC one, fer crying out loud. But that's not RAW. The Beekeeper's Outfit is RAW. Do you want to make your monk run around dressed up as a beekeeper? He's an adventurer. Whatever has the most bonuses, you know?

The Ward Cestus is a feat as well, no way getting around that, but then he can enchant it and it'll make up for the fact that other fighters get magic weapons and he won't.

Otherwise, by core, no. Monk's suck by core. Small monks suck even more.

[TheDarkSaint]

Since they are beginners, they won't really know if they suck or if they don't. You can modify encounters so they get to use all their powers and skills and have a great time with it. No reason to get them jaded this early.


I would recommend Monk2/Cleric4/Sacred Fist10

You can pick up domains that are helpful to a monk, he gets some spell casting that could be amusing and helpful to small folk and Sacred Fist is a hoot to play. It opens up Intuitive Attack as well as some other Exalted Feats that might help.

I would DM for fun, tailoring so they got to use neat Monk Abilities instead of bog standard dungeon runs where what he does/doesn't do isn't very applicable.

[Urpriest]

If you're just sticking to Core for educational purposes, I'd recommend bringing in the Swordsage for this guy. It's a lot easier of a beginner class than Monk is, and (especially with the Unarmed variant) fits the same conceptual role. I know the last time I taught someone 3.5 it was what I recommended.

[Phelix-Mu]

I don't think it will be too hard if they are beginners. You'll have to be softballing stuff anyway until they get a feel for the danger level of various strategies, how much damage they will take, and so forth.

Give the character Weapon Finesse at level 1. It's totally moronic that the feat is not available to 90% of the builds that could use it until level 3. Just ignore the BAB requirement for the feat, or allow it as the level 1 bonus feat for monk.

Consider importing the Halfling Monk Racial Substitution Level from Races of the Wild. By trading flurry for skirmish, it opens up some new avenues for strategy. Plus, flurry tends to be terrible at low levels (and worse than totally worthless if this character doesn't have Weapon Finesse...seriously, don't let the character try it in a dangerous situation until the player understands that an extra attack at -10% to hit in a round s/he can't move is tantamount to suicide for a low-level monk). Not core, I know, but sticking to core RAW is pretty weak sauce for monks.

Some ACF or other for monks allows Weapon Finesse as one of the bonus feats. I'd just houserule it in. This character will be badly handicapped without it (and still in grave danger with it).

I'd advise against just letting the character use the crossbow until later (plus, monks aren't proficient in crossbow, are they?). If the player was all excited about a short monk, then acting like a short archer is not going to be appealing.

[Kid Jake]

I'm running 3.5 and mostly sticking to Core so that the players have a handy SRD reference that they can use to answer any questions themselves without having to rely on me, but I intend to start introducing other books as we go and house ruling anything that needs smoothed over.

I'm probably going to hand him a Monk's Belt out of the gate to bump him up to a d6 damage and I intend to make a recurring opponent a drop-out of his order so he can loot more monk specific items without wondering what the hell a kobold's doing with magic nunchuks. Plus I figure anybody who wants to play a monk wants at least one chance to utter "Your kung-fu is weak."

I'll also try to give him the rags and maybe some enchanted handwraps or some such to just handwave letting him get enhancements, but I have a feeling if this guy saw the opportunity to have a magical beekeeper outfit he'd grab it and never take it off.

I think I'll bump his BAB to full and give him Weapon Finesse so he can hit the broad side of a barn in melee, but strangely enough he was the one who wanted a ranged monk for reasons he couldn't really explain to me. So I may be missing his intent.

Worse comes to worst we'll just retconn his character to something that fits his concept better after we find out what that is.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm running 3.5 and mostly sticking to Core so that the players have a handy SRD reference that they can use to answer any questions themselves without having to rely on me, but I intend to start introducing other books as we go and house ruling anything that needs smoothed over.

I'm probably going to hand him a Monk's Belt out of the gate to bump him up to a d6 damage and I intend to make a recurring opponent a drop-out of his order so he can loot more monk specific items without wondering what the hell a kobold's doing with magic nunchuks. Plus I figure anybody who wants to play a monk wants at least one chance to utter "Your kung-fu is weak."

I'll also try to give him the rags and maybe some enchanted handwraps or some such to just handwave letting him get enhancements, but I have a feeling if this guy saw the opportunity to have a magical beekeeper outfit he'd grab it and never take it off.

I think I'll bump his BAB to full and give him Weapon Finesse so he can hit the broad side of a barn in melee, but strangely enough he was the one who wanted a ranged monk for reasons he couldn't really explain to me. So I may be missing his intent.

Worse comes to worst we'll just retconn his character to something that fits his concept better after we find out what that is.

Then I think you have a pretty ideal mindset for helping a new player get into the game. The rules exist at the behest of the fun. If they are not fun, change them.

Good luck, by the way. New players can present a series of unique challenges, but I've found that there is a great deal in this game (and rpgs generally) that can greatly enhance friendships and provide lots of good memories. Hopefully you will have a similar experience.

[Spuddles]

Give him triple wealth by level. Monk's not bad when you have a ton of stat boosters and +10 bracers of armor.

[nyjastul69]

... (plus, monks aren't proficient in crossbow, are they?). ...

Monks are proficient with light and heavy crossbows.

[Phelix-Mu]

Monks are proficient with light and heavy crossbows.

Thanks for correcting me. Was being a bit lazy, and it's been almost a year since I designed a core monk from the ground up. I always found that monk prof list just...unusual. I much prefer things that appear in homebrew like "All simple plus three martial/exotic," and the like, as the fluff-specific list of exotics or martials in one list or another always seemed terribly restrictive. Weapon choice is rarely going to split the game wide open, but it can make a martial character more interesting to play if you get to choose what you want without wasting precious feats on proficiencies.

[Spore]

Since they are beginners, they won't really know if they suck or if they don't. You can modify encounters so they get to use all their powers and skills and have a great time with it. No reason to get them jaded this early.

Oh you will start to see when your character sucks in every encounter where everyone else can pull their own weight.

Let him have a non optimized gnome monk but offer him retrains. He will need them (and probably not knowing that he wants them).

[Bronk]

You could have your player skip right to playing a chaos gnome chaos monk. That class is in Dragon 335 and fits on one page... pretty easy to keep track of, and will have more strikes available to make up for damage that is slightly reduced from being small.

[Kennisiou]

If you're already going the enhanced handwrap magic item route, then may I make a suggestion? Take a page from the Neverwinter Nights games and give some monk-specific items that allow him to do things like self-cast some useful buff spells (like haste) or some spells that compliment areas where he's normally lacking (like fireball for ranged/elemental/AoE damage or grease for battlefield control).

If you want, it would probably not be a bad idea to use this as a means of introducing maneuvers to the game and to the character without having to change his build or class. A powerful magical belt made by a master monk, sealed within are the secrets to his greatest combat techniques only available to a monk who wears them. Gives him once-per-combat access to a few maneuvers, possibly with more maneuvers unlocking based on monk level. This lets you give him the maneuvers he's going to want to feel like an unarmed badass without requiring him to rebuild his class and allowing you to do things like cherrypick them for him so he gets ones that are useful and thematic and gets them when it's appropriate.

Edit: also, stone dragon has a lot of stuff about fighting larger foes. It would be a good place to look for giving him maneuvers as items/feats/etc to let him still be an awesome badass small monk. A magic item that lets him stay in giant-killing stance all the time without actually having access to that stance could be cool, for example.

[Emperor Tippy]

About the only good core only use for the Monk is as a scout/archer. It will suck in melee combat.

Flurry of Blows is just bad. Without a Belt of Battle, Shadow Blink, Cunning Surge, Sudden Leap, or a similar ability you are pretty much never going to get into a position to use Flurry reliably.

Honestly, for a core melee Monk you should probably go Monk 13/ Shadowdancer 1/ Fighter 6, max Tumble and Hide, take Spring Attack, and then run back and forth using Tumble to ignore AoO's and hitting enemies as a Standard action before Hiding. If you party is willing to wait for you to do it and you aren't in a confined space then you can kill pretty much everything in core with a death of a thousand cuts with relative impunity

Outside of core, Decisive Strike Invisible Fist Martial Monk 9/ Factotum 8/ Swashbuckler 3 with Kung Fu Genius is a decent tier 3 character; but that is outside of core.

[Darcand]

I the past I've homebrewed monks to gain wisdom to attack and damage when unarmed or using monk weapons. Thematically it made sense to me that their fighting style was more about knowing exactly how to strike then sheer power.

I also gave them half caster progression based on the paladin (I think) with some slight changes to the alignment specific spells.

Really helps bring them up to par.



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[Phelix-Mu]

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OMG, there's an Android app for GitP? *last vestiges of life being drained away*

[Psyren]

OMG, there's an Android app for GitP? *last vestiges of life being drained away*

But it apparently removes the thread title from your post! That's unacceptable. I'm guessing it's a custom app

[Phelix-Mu]

But it apparently removes the thread title from your post! That's unacceptable. I'm guessing it's a custom app

I hadn't even noticed. I almost never look at that part of the post anyway.

More on point, I love small monks. I play them often. Granted, I am tending more toward homebrew monk fixes these days (or playtesting my own fixes), but some tables can tolerate the level of suboptimal that monk often reveals.

My latest incarnation is a lesser wispling Kung-Fu Genius monk. I'm liking it a lot, flavor-wise.