How would you go about building a Monk 20?

[mabriss lethe]

Like it says on the tin. Yes, I know monks are terrible, and a lot of advice boils down to "Don't", "play a swordsage", or "get out asap." That's not the point. I'm looking to build a guide to squeezing every drop of playability from bad classes. I'm starting with the monk.

So, again, how would you play a level 20 single class monk in 3.5?

Edited to add edition reference.

[Kaje]

Wild Monk from Dragon 324.

[Venger]

Like it says on the tin. Yes, I know monks are terrible, and a lot of advice boils down to "Don't", "play a swordsage", or "get out asap." That's not the point. I'm looking to build a guide to squeezing every drop of playability from bad classes. I'm starting with the monk.

So, again, how would you play a level 20 single class monk?

That's simple. You--


"Don't"

oh, ok then.

As you seem aware already, monk is unplayably awful, so your best bet if you want to see it through to 20 is its acfs/sub lvls. It has quite a few, and some of them are actually pretty good, though you do run into the problem of triage since many trade the same features.

In my experience, you want to start out by choosing strongheart halfling for race to retain the extra feat and allow access to hin disciple:

1 sub lvl: hin disciple : bonus feat: underfoot combat
acf: decisive strike: replace flurry of misses with one attack for double damage
2 sub lvl: hin disciple : bonus feat: combat reflexes
acf: invisible fist: ditch evasion, replace with ability to be invisible
3 sub lvl: dark moon disciple: darkvision
5 sub lvl: planar monk: ditch purity of body, gain energy resist
6 vanilla: bonus feat: imp trip
7 sub lvl: dark moon disciple: shadow blend. gain total concealment whenever not blasted with full sunlight
9 acf: invisible fist: gain blink instead of imp evasion

after level 10, you're kind of up a creek since there are almost no acfs and no sub lvls for this late in the game for monk, and the ones that exist, like dark moon disciple's walk the shadows, are a complete downgrade from vanilla monk (yikes!) so there's no reason to take them.

I've used something like this stub many times, but not for more than 9 levels of monk, since there really isn't anything to stay for.

In the absence of being able to leave in order to pick up things like precision damage, psionic powers, or similar, you'll need to get things like that through equipment or feats. You could do a lot worse with your feats than martial study/martial stance for some shadow hand stuff.

This build has a somewhat heavy stealth focus, so do what you can to actually imbue it with some amount of offensive punch once you get into position. Shadow blend gives you total concealment pretty much all the time, and with invisible fist on top of it, you can skulk around pretty well, although without native soulmelds or spells, your bonus will still be kind of low. A feat on shape soulmeld (kruthik claws) isn't a horrible idea.

Definitely spend your 9th level feat on confound the big folk and never look back. you can harass enemies in all kinds of ways. in the absence of native compression, see if you can buy a incarnated compression effect to make your body as small as possible so you can use this tactical feat on the largest number of enemies, and make sure you rack up bad things to do to them once you render them flat-footed. stick with psionics since that way if it gets dispelled, you can put it back on at 20, since your type change will render permanent reduced person inoperative.

for levels 10-20, there's really no way to customize the class chassis itself, so it's mostly feat selection.

this build normally uses precision damage and ability damage/drain rider effects on each attack to incapacitate enemies, since aside from getting really big and dealing ni damage with greater mighty wallop, that's the other popular strategy of getting monk to pull its weight. once you contrive precision damage via martial stance (assassin's stance), take maiming strike to damage enemy charisma. once you've got them to 0, your low base damage will be slightly less important as you cdg with a scythe like normal.

best of luck with your monk 20

[Karl Aegis]

The trick is to never be in melee range ever.

[Venger]

The trick is to never be in melee range ever.

How do you do any damage? archers need a bunch of feats and monks, as many bonuses as they get, still need a bunch of feats to function and without being able to dip into different classes as needed for most archery builds, your damage and other archer-related efficacy will suffer. plus you're only proficient with the light or heavy crossbow

[Keld Denar]

Would you be open to rule change suggestions? Simply carve off all of the SU abilities from the monk, basically everything but UAS, unarmored bonus, move speed, and bonus feats. Then staple on Psychic Warrior manifesting and PP/day. Then take 20 levels of monk.

Build however you want because your optimization floor just increased enough that there are very few bad choices left.

[fallensavior]

Like it says on the tin. Yes, I know monks are terrible, and a lot of advice boils down to "Don't", "play a swordsage", or "get out asap." That's not the point. I'm looking to build a guide to squeezing every drop of playability from bad classes. I'm starting with the monk.

So, again, how would you play a level 20 single class monk?

Warforged, mainly for Battlefist. (which is enchantable as a regular weapon)

Take ACFs Harmonious Form and Shifting Steel from City of Stormreach and Holy Strike from Complete Champion at least.

Battlefist = Large unarmed damage + Improved Natural Attack = huge unarmed Damage. If flaws are allowed, you should be able to build for Empty Hand Mastery (Oriental Adventures) to get gargantuan unarmed Damage. (level 20 = 2d8 medium/4d8 large/6d8 huge/8d8 gargantuan)

Take Scorpion's Grasp from Sandstorm for pseudo-Improved Grab.

[Karl Aegis]

How do you do any damage? archers need a bunch of feats and monks, as many bonuses as they get, still need a bunch of feats to function and without being able to dip into different classes as needed for most archery builds, your damage and other archer-related efficacy will suffer. plus you're only proficient with the light or heavy crossbow

Being an elf helps with your weapon proficiencies. A two-handed longsword is better than a one-handed unarmed strike if you have enough strength. There is an elf with a strength bonus.

You really only need Rapid Shot to be "good enough" with a bow. Especially with a high strength score. Feel free to put dexterity at 13. Gloves of dexterity and a +2 racial bonus should be enough for initiative and reflex saves. Use Zen Archery for accuracy and all the bonuses a monk gets for high wisdom.

Still Mind, the elf racial bonus vs enchantments and immunity to sleep effects, plus a high wisdom should make you at least resistant to most will saves.
Improved Evasion should mean even if you fail a reflex save not much happens to you. Feel free to eat that Maximized Empowered Uttercold Fireball plus Quicken Breath combo that CR 8 Steel Dragon is laying down.
Fortitude is your weak save. I don't really know what nasty things can target fortitude saves at medium to long range that can't be disrupted by shooting someone in the face. You still get 2 + 1/2 levels.

Raging Monk can be picked up at the cost of flurry of blows and quivering palm. I would say Mighty Whirling Frenzy is worth the loss.
Holy Monk trades your 1st and 6th feat for smite evil, turn undead and aura of courage. Not having to roll for fear effects speeds the game up and you can fuel travel devotion with turn undeads. Only Deflect Arrows, your 2nd level bonus feat, contributes much to an archer build.
Planar Monk gives you some energy resistance in exchange for immunity to disease. Diseases usually don't have a high DC and you have a good fortitude save sooo.... why do you have immunity to disease?

You really don't get anything for levels beyond Improved Evasion for any build. The base monk is "I cast haste and feather fall!" plus evasion.


There's probably more in the depths of Optimization Hell like water-walking or ridiculously expensive scrolls and potions. I found a guy who gave me a potion of Giant Size, a scroll of Divine Power and a scroll of Greater Mighty Wallop in the back-room of a turkey-joint and now I Use Magic Device this partially charged Runestaff! or some nonsense.

[The_Jette]

Like it says on the tin. Yes, I know monks are terrible, and a lot of advice boils down to "Don't", "play a swordsage", or "get out asap." That's not the point. I'm looking to build a guide to squeezing every drop of playability from bad classes. I'm starting with the monk.

So, again, how would you play a level 20 single class monk?

Seriously, you're going to get a lot of people telling you to not do it. There's a lot of Monk hate on this board. But, since you asked:

Race: Human is good. The extra skill and feat don't hurt at all. You're MAD, though, so it's not the greatest choice. Any race that gives a bonus to Dex and/or Wis is useful, too. Int and Cha are dump stats, but so is Str to a certain degree.

Feats: Decide if you want to focus on grappling, tripping, or archery. Yes, monks make pretty good archers. You can take Zen Archery and use your Wisdom for your to hit bonus, which is pretty nice. PF has a nice archetype that focuses all your abilities into your bow, and actually lets you flurry and do UAS damage with it. So, if you're going PF, check that out.

Skills: the best skills to take as a Monk, in my opinion, are hide/ms and diplomacy. You'll probably want at least one point in jump so that you can land on your feat. All those speed increases are going to do wonders for your jump skill. Other than that, take your pick. A sneaky monk is just as good a scout as a Rogue, ime playing one. I took Skill Focus (MS) and could out sneak the rogue every time. Concentration is just a wasted skill, really. I'm not even sure why it's listed as a Monk skill, other than fluff.

After that, if you're building for damage only, then focus on getting feats, items, and other abilities that increase your size category for damage purposes. I've managed to get my base UAS damage to 18d8 per hit, when I focused on that. Make sure that you talk to your DM about that, though. Having a level 11 Monk hit a level 25 Barbarian for half his hit points in a single, average attack tends to make DM's raise their eyebrows at you.

[Gullintanni]

Don't forget about Combat Styles from Unearthed Arcana (They're on the SRD). These let you cherry pick from a small list of pretty good feats.

Overwhelming Attack nets you Power Attack for free at first level.

[Psyren]

Unchained Monk 20, or in a pinch, Qinggong Master of Many Styles/Qinggong Tetori 20. Maybe with Vow of Truth thrown in.

[mabriss lethe]

Like I said, this isn't really for a character I'm actually playing. I'm writing a series of survival guides for bad classes in 3.5. (I'm not sure why, other than "for the sake of completion/it interests me" I now have a better idea how I'm going to organize it. I think I'm going to organize it by available books.

I'm going to start with a worst case scenario section for playing a single class monk with nothing but the PHB.

The following section will be expanded options from other books

I'm then going to have a subsection on variants/ACFs/racial subs

I'll end it with section discussing material from Dragon. Or something like that.

[Jormengand]

The Monk's Belt and Monk's Tattoo increase a lot of your monk bonuses, and the Necklace of Natural Attacks does, among other things, explicitly say that it's okay to put the throwing enhancement on your unarmed strike. You can get Triple-Throw on your unarmed strike on that basis (presumably the resulting monks can finish their own full attacks before disappearing? It's unclear), but that's probably not something you can access soon enough to help. One thing that the monk is quite good at is meeting the prerequisites for word given form mastery, although you'll probably want truename training to make truespeak a class skill for you. WGFM, for the record, is an ability that you just have if you meet the prerequisites, and which gives you total concealment from your dodge target, meaning that among other things they can't target you or see you, and even see invisibility and true seeing don't help, which is quite nice (the only ability I can think of that does ignore it is also a truespeak ability!).

Of course, it says something about the monk that "Pretend to be a truenamer" is a viable strategy to make it better...

[CharonsHelper]

Frankly - not only are monks weak in 3.5 (while I know it doesn't work here - I'd suggest taking a gander at Pathfinder's Unchained Monk) but every martial in 3.5 is sub-par taking just 20 levels. 3.5 is all about multi-classing, especially with prestige classes.

[Godskook]

Like it says on the tin. Yes, I know monks are terrible, and a lot of advice boils down to "Don't", "play a swordsage", or "get out asap." That's not the point. I'm looking to build a guide to squeezing every drop of playability from bad classes. I'm starting with the monk.

So, again, how would you play a level 20 single class monk?

1.Monks do not lose a lot for donning armor. They lose Fast Movement, Flurry, and their AC Bonus. Thus, if the Monk can afford better AC, sufficient movement speed and doesn't care about Flurry, he has no further trade-offs to donning Armor and a Light Shield, beyond the proficiency penalties. Mithral Chain and Mithral Heavy shield both do not *HAVE* ACPs, so with such items in hand, you need only worry about Flurry and Fast Movement about donning them. A 5kgp ring of arming allows you to switch "modes" as a standard action, too.

2.While Giacomo was....overzealous to say the least, his handbook is not to be ignored. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80704-Beating-Batman-Sir-Giacomo-s-Guide-to-Monks

3.And then there's the matrix monk http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11530.msg195532#msg195532

4.Necklace of Natural Attacks is an amazing item for a Monk, if available

[Vizzerdrix]

Hmm... I would start with either a template or race that gave multiple limbs (such as obah blessed) and a single cleric dip for travel devotion. Or, go with something huge with the natural str to keep tripping relivent ( gray dwarf half minataur can get huge).

If you lack the stats for a good ac, look into gaining regeneration or/and DR. Troll blooded gets regeneraton and mark of xoriat gives dr 5/something you will never see.

[mabriss lethe]

1.Monks do not lose a lot for donning armor. They lose Fast Movement, Flurry, and their AC Bonus. Thus, if the Monk can afford better AC, sufficient movement speed and doesn't care about Flurry, he has no further trade-offs to donning Armor and a Light Shield, beyond the proficiency penalties. Mithral Chain and Mithral Heavy shield both do not *HAVE* ACPs, so with such items in hand, you need only worry about Flurry and Fast Movement about donning them. A 5kgp ring of arming allows you to switch "modes" as a standard action, too.

2.While Giacomo was....overzealous to say the least, his handbook is not to be ignored. http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?80704-Beating-Batman-Sir-Giacomo-s-Guide-to-Monks

3.And then there's the matrix monk http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=11530.msg195532#msg195532

4.Necklace of Natural Attacks is an amazing item for a Monk, if available

OH god. I was trying really hard to forget about Giacomo's Joker monk. (the funny/sad part is that some of what I'm working on is somewhat tangential to his less ridiculous moments, same sort of desperation, I guess, but a whole lot less mindless zealotry)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Assuming something like Half-Minotaur wouldn't be permitted, I'd go with a Half-Ogre (RoD), with the +2 level adjustment bought off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm).
Large size, +6 Str, -2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Cha, Darkvision 6
Half-Humans and Humanlike Races (Races of Destiny p150): Humanoid (Human) instead of Giant, counts as Human for all game mechanics (prerequisites, magic item effects, etc.).

Monk 20

Two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm): Slow (base land speed 15 ft.) and Weak Willed (-3 Will saves)

Flaws: Improved Grapple, Aberration Blood: Flexible Limbs (Lords of Madness) - +2 to grapple checks, and a prerequisite for other feats.
1. Stunning Fist, Pharaoh's Fist (Sandstorm) - your Stunning Fist now affects every creature adjacent to your target!
1. Decisive Strike (PH2) - take a full-round action to make an attack for double damage, and if you use Stunning Fist it gets +2 DC, including against adjacent foes.

2. Combat Reflexes, since you're large size.

3. Mage Slayer

4. Water Step (Stormwrack) - You can tiptoe across water like in the movies, replaces Slow Fall, the maximum distance is equal to the slow fall distance you would have had for your current level.

6. Improved Trip, Deepspawn (Lords of Madness) - gain two secondary tentacle attacks, +2 to grapple checks.

7. Dark Moon Disciple (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) - Shadow Blend, like the ability of a Shadow Mastiff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadowMastiff.htm) or the Shadow Creature template. That's basically a 50% miss chance, and you're effectively invisible regarding targeted spells that require line of sight (i.e. anything that's not an Effect or touch range).

9. Inhuman Reach (Lords of Madness) - increase natural reach by 5 feet, +2 to climb checks, -1 to all attack rolls.

12. Rapid Stunning (CW) - Both of your Decisive Strike attacks can now be Stunning Fist attacks with Pharaoh's Fist. If they're against adjacent foes, each foe is affected by both Stunning Fist effects.

15. Pierce Magical Concealment

18. Pierce Magical Protection


You must get something from every category of Necessary Magic Items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?187851-3-5-Lists-of-Necessary-Magic-Items), except the miss change since you get that from Dark Moon Disciple.


On Shadow Blend:
Get a tiny wood or bone pendant on a string that you can wear around your neck. Put Unguent of Timelessness (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#unguentofTimelessness) on the pendant itself, so its passage of time is one day of age per one year of actual time. Hire an NPC spellcaster to put Extended Deeper Darkness on the pendant at caster level 20, at standard rates (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell) it should cost only 800 gp and last 40 days. Due to the unguent on the object it's cast on, it will take one year of actual time for one day of its duration to pass, so it will actually last 40 years. The pendant itself is still a mundane item so it will not occupy a magic item space on your character.

You can place the pendant in your mouth, blocking the effect, with the string/chain still around your neck. When you need it to be dark, you can 'drop' it as a free action by spitting it out, it falls back down to your chest as normal when it's worn and plunges the area into darkness. If you're worried about light spells cancelling it out, get the initial spell cast with Heighten Spell applied so it counts as a higher level darkness effect and can automatically override any lower level light spells, including Daylight. NPC spellcasting if it's Heightened to 9th level and Greater Rod of Extended should be only 2,000 gp.


Hire NPC spellcasters (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell) who have a Ring of Enduring Arcana (+4 dispel DC) to put Greater Magic Fang on your Unarmed Strike (which affects any Unarmed Strike attack you make, regardless of what body part is used) at a caster level of 20th for 600 gp, and to put Permanency on that at a caster level of 20th for 8,500 gp. Those will both have a dispel DC of 35, and that gives your Unarmed Strikes a permanent +5 Enhancement bonus.


If custom magic items of continuous spell effects are available, get something that gives you a continuous Touchsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/touchsight.htm) effect. That thwarts Superior Invisibility, magical darkness, even Sequester, Darkstalker, and literally everything else in the game except blocking line of effect and incorporeal foes. Also get a constant effect of Greater Mighty Wallop on your unarmed strike, and a constant effect of (augmented) Grip of Iron (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/gripofIron.htm).


This character can grapple when needed (single opponent), and he can trip and/or stun when needed (multiple opponents). He's good against spellcasters, considering Mage Slayer and Shadow Blend, and he can stand on the front lines from an early level considering his reach, natural armor, and Shadow Blend. His damage isn't anything to write home about but AoOs after using Decisive Strike should still be dealing double damage.

[Godskook]

OH god. I was trying really hard to forget about Giacomo's Joker monk. (the funny/sad part is that some of what I'm working on is somewhat tangential to his less ridiculous moments, same sort of desperation, I guess, but a whole lot less mindless zealotry)

If you use enough solvent, there's a few nuggets of truth in the stuff he says, particularly about RAW accessibility to the Magic-Mart, as well as his synergy counter-counterpoint to the claim "anyone can -buy- items".

That said, I served proudly on the other side during the great Giacomo wars, so this is a bit like stealing a Lich's spellbook for me.

[mabriss lethe]

If you use enough solvent, there's a few nuggets of truth in the stuff he says, particularly about RAW accessibility to the Magic-Mart, as well as his synergy counter-counterpoint to the claim "anyone can -buy- items".

That said, I served proudly on the other side during the great Giacomo wars, so this is a bit like stealing a Lich's spellbook for me.

I stayed way the heck out of that fight. But yeah. There are some useful bits buried in the refuse.

As for the current work, my running mantra has become "Tools, not Tactics." Very little of what the monk gives constitutes a solid combat style. That said, they're often situationally useful. Basically, don't rely on anything, but remember that it's there. Examples: "Just because you can flurry doesn't mean you *must* flurry." "SR is a double edged sword. Sometimes it's better to keep it down." "If you hit like a rogue, learn to fight like a rogue, even if you don't get the sneak attack." "There's no shame in being the buff pony."

In that same vein, I'm currently running the numbers on a combat style I'm calling "The swiss army monk" involving switching monk weapons out as you fight to get the most out of your limited kit. The most flexible load-out seems to be dual wielding a kama and a sai. The Kama gives you trip, the sai is the second best monk weapon at disarming (if/when it comes up), and can be thrown. with that load out, you default to unarmed strikes for higher damage, and flurry a thrown sai followed by shuriken if you need a ranged attack. If you fail on a trip/disarm, or throw something, it's no big loss, since you can keep on punching or draw another weapon to try again.

[death390]

as long as your not the face of the party i suggest the abberant feats.

there is 1 required feat that gives a minor bonus but the feat line includes 5ft natural reach increase, flight, darkvision (limited by #abberant feats), 2 natural attacks. (suggests 3 feats: pre-req, reach, flight)

the downside to these feats are social skills take a stacking 1pt penealty per feat.

as for ACF's there is the chaos monk for those who don't want to be lawful, which the flailing strike feature can get you more attacks per round than flurry of blows or less due to randomness of rolls.

if your going for AoO's i suggest the Deciscive strike ACF that does 1 hit at x2 damage instead of flurry. the reason is that all damage is doubled until your next turn. this means that if you have say 2 tentacle natural attacks, a snap kick (tome of 9swords feat) and combat reflexes you can get several double damage attacks, heck add robilards gambit or karmic strike in there and you provoke AoO's against anyone who hits you if you lower AC a bit.

i don't recommend Vow of Poverty, while interesting, due to the fact that monks are gear dependent it is not viable later in the game. if you don't care about optimization you can have fun with a vow of poverty abberant chaos monk (Chaotic Good). which gets all of the benifits of VoP with flight and extended reach and a stupid number of attacks per round.

if you want massive number of strikes there is a 3 feat chain that synergies well. martial study(shadow hand), Martial Stance(assassins stance lvl3 cant get until lvl6), arterial Strike (remove 1D6 sneak attack bleed target by 1 per arterial strike). so if you are monk 20 with 5 flurry strikes 2 tentacle attacks then your target with bleed 7/round if all hit, then 14 next round, ect ect as you continue to stack bleed.



also a couple of RAW notes that most people houserule away. Improved Natural attack does not work on monk unarmed strike and Two Weapon Fighting does not work with flurry of blows.

[Gruftzwerg]

The problem is (as others stated) that monk doesn't get any usefull abilities past lvl 11 (max flurry) or lvl 13 Diamond Soul (Spell Restistance). And even those can be replaces by either some PrC or a magic item.

Everything else is either useless, to limited (1/week + further restrictions) or weaker than a 1st lvl spell..

The Unarmed Strike progression can be capped with 11 lvls monk + monk's belt (5) + 1 lvl dip into Fist of Forest (brings you to the next step of US).

If you advice people to play 20 lvl of monk, it is a really bad advice. There is no reason to misleading newbies into thinking a pure 20 base class besides from T1-2 (maybe 3 too) would make sense.

if you still insist on a pure 20monk guide, do everybody a favor and make a big disclaimer that the newbies are aware of the suboptimal state and oddness of such a build.

Really, this is just this "my class(es) = my RP profession" thinking. And newbies should be saved from adapting such false impressions.
If you wanna roleplay a monk for 20 lvls you don't need to take 20 lvl of monk.
_________________

What we really need imho is a new monk guide who cleans up with some of the harder to gasp rules for optimizing monk and covers all of the new stuff (builds/combos) that poped out since the last guide was written.
I had a few rule discussions in the past months regarding monk US and others and can say that there are a lot of people with wrong impressions of the rules (e.g. sizing or stacking).
Imho go for a new (regular multiclass) monk guide and make us happy ;)
Just start it and we'll join to help out where help is needed.

[Telonius]

It's been a while since I really considered what a Monk's strengths might be. Taking the whole chassis, along with my personal experience playing a Monk, its chief value seems to be in being really hard to hit with melee or ranged attacks, and good at resisting or avoiding targeted spells that offer saves or resistance.

So just to throw out a couple of ideas on your party niche ... partial crowd control and situational "buffer." If you can't hit the other guy yourself, help your friends do it. Make use of Aid Another and flanking; they are untyped bonuses, which are relatively hard to come by. The attack routine would be something generally like: win initiative, use your fast movement (and possible Tumble check) to get to the other side of the enemy as a move action, then use your standard action to Aid Another. Your friend now has a +4 to his attacks versus that enemy (+2 from flanking, +2 from Aid), potentially +6 if they're charging. This is particularly good if your friend is using full power attack or is a Rogue.

[Darrin]

Rubik's anti-Elder-Evil monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=15474863&postcount=732) is about as close as you can get to an "A-Game" monk. However, it involves a lot of optimization that most groups might find unpleasant.

[mabriss lethe]

It's been a while since I really considered what a Monk's strengths might be. Taking the whole chassis, along with my personal experience playing a Monk, its chief value seems to be in being really hard to hit with melee or ranged attacks, and good at resisting or avoiding targeted spells that offer saves or resistance.

So just to throw out a couple of ideas on your party niche ... partial crowd control and situational "buffer." If you can't hit the other guy yourself, help your friends do it. Make use of Aid Another and flanking; they are untyped bonuses, which are relatively hard to come by. The attack routine would be something generally like: win initiative, use your fast movement (and possible Tumble check) to get to the other side of the enemy as a move action, then use your standard action to Aid Another. Your friend now has a +4 to his attacks versus that enemy (+2 from flanking, +2 from Aid), potentially +6 if they're charging. This is particularly good if your friend is using full power attack or is a Rogue.

There are whole sections that will be dedicated to "being the fire brigade" and providing assistance to the rest of the party. A strategy taking advantage of high movement that recognizes that it's your job to be there when things go wrong for other members of the party. The rogue goes off alone and gets ambushed? You're the first one on the scene. After you've dealt with that? Somebody makes it past the beat sticks and threatens the caster. Bam! You're there for the intercept with a stun a trip or a grapple or whatever. The rogue is recovered and setting up for a sneak attack? Go be the flanking buddy. Run through the enemy formation to eat your opponents' AoOs so that squishier party members can position themselves safely. Stuff like that. Don't be the Joker. If you've to emulate a comic character, be daredevil...

[Rhyltran]

Personally my goal when making a monk is simple. Stack unarmed strike sizing modifiers, use WBL to cover my weaknesses, boost my already good saves, and try to get as many other tricks as possible to increase my versatility. Unfortunately there's not a lot of ways to do that with a 20 monk reliably. I mean, I don't really fully understand the purpose of your guide. Is it for if you have to be in a campaign that literally doesn't allow any cross classing/prestige classes?

If you allow variants Dark Moon Disciple/Chaos Monk/Or Wild Monk would be a good look but basic monk 20?

[mabriss lethe]

Personally my goal when making a monk is simple. Stack unarmed strike sizing modifiers, use WBL to cover my weaknesses, boost my already good saves, and try to get as many other tricks as possible to increase my versatility. Unfortunately there's not a lot of ways to do that with a 20 monk reliably. I mean, I don't really fully understand the purpose of your guide. Is it for if you have to be in a campaign that literally doesn't allow any cross classing/prestige classes?

If you allow variants Dark Moon Disciple/Chaos Monk/Or Wild Monk would be a good look but basic monk 20?

The purpose is mostly theorycrafting. Just to see how far a bad class can go on its own, and what sort of playstyles can make the best use of its abilities. Not actually advocating doing so, more " FOR SCIENCE!" Than anything else.