happy monkday

[12owlbears]

Lets say I wanted to play a monk(punching people, acrobating around, perfection of mind and body, etc.), but without actually having to play a monk. What powers/feats would I need to build a psy warrior who can do everything a monk is supposed to do but in an effective way.

[Dusk Eclipse]

IUS, Superior Unarmed Strike and Snap kick cover flurry of blows (and is arguably better), Up the Walls can cover some of the acrobatics (powers help a lot too) and perfection of body and mind are covered by fluff.

Having said that a two level dip into monk, isn't bad for a Psychic warrior, specially if you have access to the Tashalatora feat it becomes even better, since it let's you stack your psywar levels with monk for unarmed strike, flurry of blows and AC bonus. So a Monk 2/Psychic Warrior 18 would have 2d10 fist, +15/+15+/+15/+10/+5 flurry and Wis +4 AC

[SiuiS]

Psychic warrior. Take the Tashalatora feat chain to gain improved unarmed strike damage, flurry of blows, and monk defense, I believe. Skill tricks and Psionic focus cover the rest. Adding levels of war blade or swordsage would also work.

I believe that a Psychic Warrior 5/Monk 0 (that is, no levels of monk at all) still gets +5 monk levels for those specific things, so you don't need the monk levels at all. The prerequisite might though, come to think of it.

[Dusk Eclipse]

You can pick Tashalatora without monk levels true, but personally I find it quite cheesy, and honestly monk 2 is a pretty good deep, specially if you pile on ACF like the UA combat styles or Invisible fist, it also saves you one feat on Tashalatora since you can pick Monastic Training (a pre-req) as your 1st or 2nd monk bonus feat.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Lately when I get that monk hankering I will build an unarmed fighter apecialist. Not thw greatest, but I get full BAB and my choice of armor.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Lately when I get that monk hankering I will build an unarmed fighter apecialist. Not thw greatest, but I get full BAB and my choice of armor.

Maybe, but the OP specifically mentioned he wanted a monk-like character, and while an unarmed fighter might be better mechanically (barely) it doesn't really fit the concept as neatly as a psychic warrior or a Tash monk.

[ZamielVanWeber]

You can take the unarmed fighter into the monk PrCs and grab up their goodness still, but start with a slightly better chassis. (Also the unarmed figher isn't a MAD as the monk, which I consider a huge buff) Heck, psywar can straight up do it, it has the feats, if you don't want to take/cannot take tash.

[SiuiS]

You can pick Tashalatora without monk levels true, but personally I find it quite cheesy, and honestly monk 2 is a pretty good deep, specially if you pile on ACF like the UA combat styles or Invisible fist, it also saves you one feat on Tashalatora since you can pick Monastic Training (a pre-req) as your 1st or 2nd monk bonus feat.

This is all true. I base my decision to leave monks out, on a side-ruling from folks who played rokugan. There was a spiritual monk class, with a weaker progression but deeper insight capacities. A couple players found they could replace monk and contemplative with psychic warrior and psion respectively and it worked perfectly. So I've been running with it; ditch the silly 'spooky ectoplasm psychisms!' Stuff, and a lot of Psionic powers look an awful lot like martial arts technique.


My favorite 'monk' so far was a monk 2/fighter 3/reaping mauler 10/war hulk 5. I never got the war hulk part going (couldn't figure out how to not lose my intelligence...) but the end result was a turn-of-the-century pugilist and bare knuckle scrapper who combined the famous Armstrong Family wrestling techniques with luchadore wrestling and Wuxia wire fu. It was amazing.

[Snowbluff]

Tashalatora has already been mentioned. Ardents and Psywars.

The other option is Unarmed Swordsage.

[Psyren]

Use the PF Psywar; (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/psychic-warrior) Ascetic Path + Brawling Path get you there.

Alternatively, yopu can go with a Deadly Fist (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/deadly-fist) Gifted Blade (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/soulknife/archetypes/dreamscarred-press/gifted-blade) Soulknife.

[Immabozo]

Unarmed Swordsage makes a fantastic monk.

[Keneth]

Oh man, I expected a really happy monkey, then I realized I misread the title and got reminded that I need to rework the monk class sometime soon.

Thanks for ruining my day as soon as I got up. :smallfrown:

This post is in no way serious and I'll probably forget about this thread in the next 10 seconds.

[Zaq]

Oh man, I expected a really happy monkey, then I realized I misread the title and got reminded that I need to rework the monk class sometime soon.

Thanks for ruining my day as soon as I got up. :smallfrown:

This post is in no way serious and I'll probably forget about this thread in the next 10 seconds.

It's a Monkday miracle!

[bekeleven]

Happy Monkday! Let me share a conversation I had last week trying to convince someone that sorcerers were not worse than monks.


No class is terrible (well, MAYBE a plain-vanilla sorcerer). Monks are defensive specialists, excellent tactical fighters, and have a great variety of special abilities.


Erp.

The class abilities, first of all, suggest a split. Given things like its move speed bonus, you'd assume it's designed to be a skirmisher, dancing out of the way of enemy strikes. Not so! It can only use flurry of blows on full attacks. In fact, skirmishing is one of the easiest ways to kill a monk, since their single strikes will be weaker than most enemies. The exception is a monk that went chaotic to dip barbarian with the Spirit Lion Totem alternative class feature, but that's niche.

How about grappling? Well, a monk gets improved grapple so surely they can take others on. Unfortunately... the monk will have lower strength than, say, a fighter (another bad class; substitute warblade if Tome of Battle is in play) due to reliance on 4 stats instead of 3. And the monk loses 5 base attack bonus to the fighter by level 20, so it loses its grapple checks on two counts. If they actually get into a grapple, the monk can deal more damage per hit (unless the fighter has the Superior Unarmed Strike feat and a Monk's Belt) but won't be able to hold him. Not to mention that trading blows is bad for a class with a smaller HD and lower con. And the gimmick is useless if fighting giant enemies or enemies with freedom of movement.

Then there's the rest of the monk's powers. By level 20, Slow Fall is still worse than a first-level spell. Wholeness of Body heals less than the 750GP Healing Belt until level 13 (!!) and by level 20, doesn't heal more than two of them (a 1500GP investment). Diamond Soul prevents the monk from being healed in combat. Quivering Palm is a 1/Week hit-with-an-attack-then-save-or-die given at a level where Wizards have been casting Phantasmal Killer for 8 levels and are now casting Polymorph Any Object, Symbol of Death, Maze, Scintillating Pattern, or Binding - all of which can disable or kill a creature with one save, or none.

The monk's capstone ability is useless DR and immunity to enlarge person, the only buff spell capable of salvaging any part of the class. If it could deal damage equivalent to a barbarian... maintain tactical or social utility like a rogue, combat utility like a duskblade or warblade... but it can't. The monk is not a mechanically effective class.

This is not to say that the monk can't be fun to play! Only that if you are in a group with other players playing... most other classes, you won't be carrying very much of the roll-playing weight in your party. Find a group with a samurai, a fighter, a paladin and an expert, maybe. Or dip invisible fist decisive strike martial monk for 2 levels in another build.

Sorcerer, on the other hand...


I disagree. Check out the charop forums at WOTC if you want to discuss it more: http://community.wizards.com/forums/103131

Incidentally, this is why I asked whether any boards have a reputation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=335689) last week. This guy isn't representative of WotC boards is he? I didn't even get to the point in the conversation where I bring up unarmed proficiency!

[SliceandDiceKid]

Check out Fist of the forest and shou disciple. Both will boost your unarmed damage at an accelerated rate. Also yes to superior unarmed strike.

FotF is a 3 lvl PrC
And shou disciple is 5.

[Metahuman1]

It also let's you Flurry with a weapon that you wouldn't normally be able to flurry with.

And for all your other levels, there's Tome of Battle.




Also, the Binder from Tome of Magic can imitate the Monk better then the Monk can with the right vestiges bound.

[Psyren]

Also, the Binder from Tome of Magic can imitate the Monk better then the Monk can with the right vestiges bound.

Eh, they can do monkish things, but for me the fluff does not work at all. "Monking" is about power from within (which is why psionics/ToB works so well for the concept) while binding is pretty much the opposite of that.

[Komatik]

Eh, they can do monkish things, but for me the fluff does not work at all. "Monking" is about power from within (which is why psionics/ToB works so well for the concept) while binding is pretty much the opposite of that.

"Power from unspeakable, a-few-screws-loose entities from beyond the world" doesn't sound monk-y to you? Tell me, what is this "Lovecraft" you speak of?

[Psyren]

"Power from unspeakable, a-few-screws-loose entities from beyond the world" doesn't sound monk-y to you? Tell me, what is this "Lovecraft" you speak of?

Honestly no, it doesn't. The attention of such entities - whether beneficial or otherwise - doesn't seem to have much relation to self-actualization or self-perfection at all.

Indeed, what I know of Lovecraft seems to advocate the opposite; "don't venture too far, don't dig too deep, some things are better left unexplored." Not the most zen of mindsets.