build help (monk/pally)

[Illithid]

Build Help

[skypse]

1) Go 2 levels of Master of Many Styles. There is no Monk like the Master Monk. After all you WILL lose your Flurry of Misses since you will be wearing pally's heavy armor, so do yourself a favour and throw that FoM away. Additionally since you don't want more than 2 levels on Monk, MoMS is your best option since you get 2 free style feats for lvl 1 and 2 without caring about the prerequisites unless you chose elemental fist. So you get to have your Dragon Style and either follow the specific style tree taking Dragon Roar (since you don't care for prerequisites) or go for Boar style to have a really strong "nuke" attack adding 2d6 bleed damage 1/day. Otherwise you can go for Panther Parry or Snapping Turtle Clutch if you want something more defensively.

What I want to ask in this point is if you are actually considering to play the Policeman unnarmed. The Monk's styles and special abilities usually revolve around unnarmed strikes and no weapons (not even monk weapons) so I fail to see how this combination of classes could work. However, it's your choise so I continue.

So the Cop. Cops are generally the strongest early game class in D&D and imho they become kinda useless compared to other classes around lvls 10-12 and forth. However the Cop will be able to outplay almost anything up to level 8 which makes him a really good low level multiclass and a really bad high level class. Add in the fact that he will be looking ridiculous if he is without a weapon (so he can use his monk stuff) or that he won't be able to use his monk stuff so you would have wasted 2 class levels. Even so, Cops can be effective for random encounters and for emergency healers. Unfortunatelly the only way to use LoH offensively is if you become an Anarchist (or Anti-Cop as the book states) which means that you will have to play an evil guy. Other than that, just go with the classic Cop built and you won't see any problems untill you're a total level of 12 or so.


What is your starting level? What's your point system?

[Abd al-Azrad]

More than the usual questions, I'm interested to know more about the concept you're working to realize here.

Paladins tend to work best in heavy armor with big old weapons, and monks use basically the opposite combat setup.

Scorpion Style would be great for keeping enemies from fleeing you, or alternately from moving past you to hit your friends. The former would make you more of a shock trooper, while the latter would be heavily benefited by various methods of attaining Reach (without a Reach weapon, because the Scorpion Style attack must be an unarmed strike).

The Spring Attack / Scorpion Style method is kinda weird to me. I do see the value in theory - you run up, smack someone and drop their move speed massively, then run away. It makes for an interesting skirmisher, but neither the Monk nor Paladin combat styles really work best as skirmishers - Monk relies on lots of volume for damage, while Paladin loves to smite for crazy full attacks.

However, there's a more fundamental problem with the combo, which is that it explicitly doesn't work - see the Vital Strike FAQ page (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/vital-strike-combat---final) for a breakdown of this. Basically, Spring Attack is a special Full-Round Action which allows you to make an attack, while Scorpion Style (like Vital Strike) requires a Standard Action of its own - not compatible with Spring Attack.

The best synergy I can think of in the pally/monk, off the top of my head, would be to use a Zen Archer dip on a Divine Hunter Paladin Archer to allow you to fill in most of the best ranged combat feats before Level 20.

[Serafina]

Theres a prestige class (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/champion-of-irori) for that idea! And a guide (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1bu5RkMqNkZbHpHRF9RX09ZWE0/edit) for it.
That'd technically make it a Monk 3/Pal 2/Champion of Irori X.

An alternative build is to just go with the Enlightened Paladin (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/archetypes/paizo---paladin-archetypes/enlightened-paladin-paladin-archetype) Archetype, which is basically an lightly Paladin without smite evil, but a Ki Pool.

Technically its also possible to combine the two due to the Chevalier PrC (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/c-d/chevalier), which grants Smite Evil. That's only feasible at high levels though - you'd go Monk 4/Enlightened Paladin 2/Chevalier 3/Champion of Irori 6.


Scorpion Style is not a bad feat for a unarmed Defender, but doesn't work with Spring Attack - both are specific actions, so you can't combine them. Of course, you could just move and then use your Scorpion Style. The enemy now can't move more than 5 feet away, so you can take a 5-foot step and full attack in the following rounds.

[DrDeth]

What I want to ask in this point is if you are actually considering to play the Policeman unnarmed. The Monk's styles and special abilities usually revolve around unnarmed strikes and no weapons (not even monk weapons) so I fail to see how this combination of classes could work. However, it's your choise so I continue.

So the Cop. Cops are generally the strongest early game class in D&D and imho they become kinda useless compared to other classes around lvls 10-12 and forth.


the Policeman?? The Cop??:smallconfused:

[Abd al-Azrad]

Perhaps slightly more constructive: do you think you could find a means to get Shield Other as a spell or similar effect?

One of the toughest things about being a high-defense character is that, eventually, smart enemies start avoiding fighting you. Scorpion Style and similar feats will help, but you'll still be both (1) much more ideal to soak damage, what with your high hit die and swift-action Lay on Hands, and (2) hard to land hits against.

If you're absorbing half the damage from one of the party "glass cannons," however, you'll be much more able to use your in-combat healing in a beneficial way. I understand the first-level Fey Foundling feat works wonders for this concept, giving you +2 healing per die rolled whenever you are subject to a healing effect.

[Titan]

(I was making a sorc and a ranger look underpowered with a Barb1/FtrX in a previous campaign... worse and worse as levels increased.

I've never not seen a fighter grab one level of Barbarian for that sweet rage boost. Sure you miss out on your capstone, but since most games don't go that far, and that you can retrain the level to fighter later, it's just better to grab that barb early and let it go when you need to.

But for a Paladin/Monk, yeah the Champion of Irori was designed for that. But if I could recommend the new Brawler class from the Advanced Class Guide. I think what it offers for 2 levels, or even just one level is amazing.

Brawlers Cunning: If the brawler's Intelligence score is less than 13, it counts as 13 for the purpose of meeting the prerequisites of combat feats.

That alone is fantastic for a Paladin since they generally dump intelligence. So they can invest points elsewhere.

Then with Martial Flexibility, they can grab any combat feat for 1 minute, so later they can still go up a bit on a feat chain if they need to move or couple that with Martial Training which counts them as a Fighter and Monk of same level for feat purposes, they can grab an entirely new Style feat if they need it.

That's just the first level stuff, at level 2 they get a free combat feat so that's pretty nice as they can get a head start on their style.

[Serafina]

Champion of the Enlightened! Love it, thanks. How did I not see that?

("Irori"???)


Irori is the god of knowledge, enlightenment etc. in Golarion (official setting for Pathfinder). Both the Archetype and the PrC were made for followers of that deity in mind, but other deities are easily substituted.

Oh, also found a guide for the Enlightened Paladin (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uVa329HrRCkaSJrdTTcWgW-lQtrEw_lquNmlQ1Htyqg/edit?pli=1).


Note that going purely unarmed is suboptimal for most builds. However, flurrying with a two-handed monk weapon and your unarmed strikekick combined works perfectly fine, and would look pretty cool too.