Monk and Urban Druid Combo?

[ZhanStrider]

Hey Giants,

A friend of mine is looking into the Urban Druid class from Dragon Compendium, but he's already got 4 levels of monk. It there a good or optimal level to stop Monk and start Urban Druid?

[nedz]

The optimal exit points for Monk are {0,1,2,6,11}; in that order.
So unless Monk 6 gives him something useful he should already have switched class.

Ed: Note:
Druid 6 > Monk 2/Druid4 > Monk 4/Druid 2 > Monk 6

[Troacctid]

Urban Druid doesn't synergize especially well with Monk due to using Charisma instead of Wisdom. I would consider using the urban variants for a normal Druid (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) instead, which does a good job of replicating most of the Urban Druid's functionality.

Otherwise, as nedz said, Druid 6 > Monk 1/Druid 5 > Monk 2/Druid 4 > Monk 4/Druid 2 > Monk 6.

[nedz]

Well there's the Deadly Hunter (UA p58) ACFs which gives you some Monk (and Ranger) class features too.

[Troacctid]

That would be redundant if you're already a Monk, though.

[nedz]

Well semi-redundant but not totally.

[Molan]

Frankly Monk and Druid don't blend well together AT ALL imo. Monk is already a rough base class when it comes to optimizing. Druid is broke but you're just watering it down with Monk. You could TRY to blend them but it sounds like for the most part your friend is going to wind up more fluff then fierce. His efficacy is mostly going to hinge on what his Druid/monk level ratio is. I recommend maybe focusing on feats/abilities/items that improve both natural and unarmed attacks? Other then that they seem like two relatively obtuse paths to me.

[Oberon Kenobi]

If you can take Pathfinder content, maybe grab Feral Combat Training (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/feral-combat-training-combat). Then you can Urban Shape into an animated fire hydrant that knows karate. Turn into a monstrous centipede and use Flurry of Blows with your bite attack to deal all the poison damage.

Unfortunately Feral Combat Training only applies to one attack though, so you'll have to specialize if you can even take the feat. Monks don't get nice things. Except Unchained Monks, but that's a different story.