mabriss lethe
2020-09-29, 01:34 AM
What is the Swiss Army Monk?
The Swiss Army Monk, Or SAM for short, is sort of a worst case scenario handbook. It's a dive into playing one of the worst classes in the game with the absolute minimum amount of support without multiclassing or prestige classing out.
Why "the Swiss Army Monk"?
Much like the little red knives with all the gadgets, the SAM is a build with lots of little options that are better than nothing, and can serve in a pinch, but aren't able to compare to a dedicated build. Also, even if somewhat successful, the SAM is a bit of a tool.
How does the SAM work?
The SAM works, for an admittedly low value of "work", by judicious use of the equipment available in the PHB, the monk's native class abilities, and some unusual feat choices. You could accomplish most, if not all, of what the SAM does with other classes and equipment, but that's not the point of this exercise.
Mabriss, why are you even bothering with this?
It's an idea I've been playing around with for a long time, mentioned a handful of times, but I don't think I've ever written it all out. Besides, quarantine is getting to me and I'm bored. I don't really expect anyone to play a SAM except possibly as a challenge.
So... On with the show.
General build and play style guidelines.
Ability Scores: You'll want positive ability score mods in all of your physicals, High wisdom, as much Int as you can spare (or at least not a penalty), and dump Charisma. Exact strength or dex values are going to vary, but Str 13 is sort of a floor. A pretty viable formula would be Wis>Str=Dex>Con>Int>Cha
Races: You really don't have a whole lot of options when it comes to race. Human is great. Dwarf is a good second place since your fast movement will overcome the dwarf's lack of mobility, half orc is... not great, but doable. Elf is sort of niche, and a possible choice, but that con penalty is going to hurt. None of the others are really worth looking at. The small races are not going to be suitable choices and Half elf is just sort of bad.
Play style:
The Swiss Army Monk style of play is... well... Desperation. Your job is to be there when things go pear shaped and use whatever tools you can to salvage things. It isn't going to be pretty, and you're going to fail at things that a more dedicated build would have better chances at. Your skill set make you ideal for backing up rogues and other scout or trapfinding type classes. You can be very stealthy and can easily help set up sneak attacks, your ability to stun and trip can let the rogue have a very good time. You're also a good bodyguard candidate for casters. By backing up the caster you can keep them safer when they're the squishiest and will probably be the closest target for buffs. If you feel like picking up a hat of disguise you can even be the party decoy by pretending to be the wizard. Your land speed allows you to bounce between those two roles and provide SHTF medic support. With a small supply of healing items you can get to downed characters faster than a heavily armored cleric and let the cleric support the party in other ways. You can even be the AOO martyr. your own innate ability to heal yourself, high movement speed and possibly using Mobility and picking up a miss chance from somewhere, you can try to draw enemy fire by running through threatened spaces, allowing other characters to follow up without provoking.
Being a Swiss Army Monk also means swapping and dropping weapons as the situation dictates. Quickdraw, monk weapons, and expanded proficiencies will let you switch between reach, trippping, disarming, thrown and ranged weapons as well as weapons made from exotic materials as the situation dictates. Your unarmed strikes will always be available so don't be worried about dropping weapons, especially due to failed trip or disarm attempts early on.
The Details:
Skills: The monk has a decent skill list, but it's also very shy on skill points. Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently are probably the skills you'll want to sink full ranks into. Spot, Listen and balance are worth at least a minor investment. (you have good wisdom, so Spot and Listen won't require as much investment and 5 ranks of balance get you the ability to bypass Grease and a synergy bonus to tumble. A few ranks in diplomacy can be useful, but mostly so that you can hit a DC 10 reliably to aid the party face. It really isn't worth more of an investment than that. Oddly enough, you might find at least a dip into a perform skill could come in handy for some of the magic musical instruments if they happen to come your way, but that's a bit situational.
Feats: Your PHB feat selections are not very good. for the most part, stick with feats that add some sort of utility or capitalize on an existing strength. Due to the monk's... let's be kind and call them "design quirks"... some odd choices are going to be a heck of a lot more useful than they would be for other characters. As a general rule, you can safely ignore any of the +2/+2 skill feats and the save boosting feats, as well as the obvious casting feats.
First thing, though. You get 3 bonus feat slots by level 6, the only one that's really a choice is the level one choice between improved grapple and stunning fist, at higher levels take combat reflexes and improved trip. Between IG and SF, I'd probably go for SF. Not that either are going to be particularly good, it's just that there are a few things you can do to improve stunning fist's utility.
Weapon Proficiency Feats, Simple, martial, exotic
We're going to start with weapon feats. You actually CAN get a lot of use out of all three proficiency feats as a single class monk, and I recommend picking at least one of them. How sad is that?
Even the poor, benighted Simple Weapon Proficiency feat gives you some versatility that you're otherwise lacking. The two big takeaways for SWP are the (non spiked) gauntlet and the longspear. Access to gauntlet proficiency allows you to use magic enhancement bonuses and abilities with unarmed strikes. That does a lot to improve a monk's efficacy in combat. The fact that gauntlets don't stack, but overlap, with something like a permanent Greater Magic Fang is actually a plus, since it allows you to benefit from something like a +5 defending gauntlet while still benefiting from GMF for the damage bonus. The longspear gives you a reach option, you can't flurry with it, but it's still a huge boost to attacks of opportunity in conjunction with combat reflexes (which you get for free)
Martial weapon proficiency is much more focused. You want the guisarme. it's the only martial weapon that brings something to the table in the form of both reach and tripping qualities, and unlike exotic, MWP has no prerequisites. Also, if you take Stunning fist, both the guisarme and the longspear make great vectors for stunning fist.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency is probably the worst of the three. You won't be able to pick it until level 3 due to BAB requirements, and what it offers is not super great, but can still be useful. You really won't get much use out of the go-to EWP that most prefer, Spiked chain. If you want those options you could have picked up a guisarme without waiting for level 3. What good is it then? It allows early access to the debuffing exotic ranged touch weapons like the bola and the net, the latter being the better of the two. That said, later on it is sort of a waste because even at 3/4 BAB you can just eat the nonproficiency penalties on either and still hit a touch attack.
Combat Expertise chain
Skip it. You really don't need to invest in CE or related feats at all. The only one of real use is Improved Trip and you get it for free from your bonus feats. If you want to try your hand at other expertise based maneuvers like disarm, you can usually find a way to get bonuses from equipment.
Dodge Chain
Dodge, as usual, is an absolute donkey of a feat. That said, Mobility is pretty great and works well with the SAM's primary methodology. If you go for pseudoSAM builds and prestige out, both are very common prerequisites for prestige classes that you can get some use out of.
Point Blank Shot Chain
A minor investment in PBS and related feats is both tempting and useful. PBS and Far shot benefits ranged shuriken flurries and if you find yourself plinking at a distance with a crossbow, rapid shot can be a pretty good investment if you have the room.
TWF chain
Skip it. Two Weapon Fighting just isn't worth it, it's feat intensive and you already have a similar ability with flurry.
Power Attack chain
Power Attack won't be your first pick, but you should definitely think about it by level 9 at the latest. You WON'T be pulling the sort of numbers down from it that a full BAB character would, but it's one of your only sources of bonus damage that you can get from the PHB. Further down the chain, Cleave is probably the only other one you'll find useful. The rest you can easily skip.
Mounted Combat chain
Skip it. You'll probably be faster on foot than most of your party's mounts by mid levels and riding isn't going to be your strong suit anyway.
Blind Fight: It's a decent feat that you'll easily qualify for. Squeeze it in if possible.
Combat Reflexes: It's a great feat for you and you get it for free as a bonus feat. take it.
Craft Magic Arms and Armor: Wait, what? what's a magic crafting feat doing on this list? Short version, for hilarity. At level 12, due to Abundant Step, you qualify for magic crafting feats, and even as a monk you can craft basic magic weapons and armor, and ki focus weapons. I'm not saying you should take this feat, I just think it's funny that you can.
Deflect Arrows: Ok, this is a situationally useful defense. and as far as PHB feats go, you could do a lot worse. It isn't worth taking over Combat Reflexes at 2nd level, but you easily qualify for it if you have the feat open and don't have any better ideas.
Improved Grapple: It's a decent feat if you feel like dealing with the grapple rules and with some magic support you can even be pretty good at it. Additionally, even if you pick Stunning fist at first level, you will almost by default have the prerequisites to nab it later. It's to offensive capabilities what Deflect arrows is to your defensive ones. Easy to to get and won't be completely wasted.
Improved initiative: This is a good standby feat if you can't think of anything else. You'll have a pretty good initiative anyway, but going first is always better than not.
Leadership is broken and you all know why by now. You won't be great at it anyway with a low Cha mod. If you want to take leadership, just take the the class you'd pick for a cohort as your build and skip this thought exercise entirely.
Quick draw: It's a pretty good feat and really helps bring a SAM build's reliance on rapid loadout switching together. It's a nice choice for Level 3
Rapid Reload: This is a "take it or leave it feat" Your crossbow is a good backup weapon for long range, and you can do a lot with enchanted ammunition to keep costs down. If you find yourself plinking with your light crossbow very often, it will boost your ranged viability but it will never be a first round draft pick.
Stunning Fist: If you're going to take it, take it at first level, otherwise the earliest open feat slot that you qualify for it is level twelve. It's one of the reasons why I rate SF a bit higher for your bonus feat slot. It's so much harder to get than Improved Grapple.
Weapon Finesse: This is highly situational. If you prioritize dex over strength, which isn't a bad plan, but isn't the only way to build a SAM, then it will definitely be a good way to boost your ability to hit.
Equipment
Monk Weapons:
Unarmed Strike: Old Reliable. You'll never leave home without it. As you level up it will be your prime contender for basic damage dealer. Other weapons are to capitalize on different situations, but this one will always be your fallback. and you can use your Unarmed strike even while wielding other weapons.
Crossbow: You have a choice between Light or Heavy, Light crossbows are going to be more reliable even without feat support and only grow more useful if you devote resources to it. It gets my vote over heavy crossbows.
The grab bag of garbage: Club, Dagger, Handaxe, Javelin, and sling. You can't flurry with any of these so they won't see much use. That said, clubs and slings are zero cost ranged weapons and can see some early game use, and javelins might see some use as a mid ranged option if you don't invest feats in the crossbow.
The Flurry of Garbage: Here's a quick breakdown of monk weapons.
Shuriken: Low base damage and short range, but it's your easiest ranged flurry option and since they're considered ammunition, acquiring enchanted versions is dirt cheap. It's always a good choice.
Kama: The best of a bad lot. It opens up tripping as a viable option before 6th level and does slashing damage. always keep one handy
Nunchaku: Don't bother with this lump of wasted space. it deals bludgeoning damage equal to your unarmed strike and its bonus to disarm doesn't even counteract the penalty it gets for being a light weapon. You have two better options if you want to disarm.
Quarterstaff: This is actually a pretty good weapon. It interacts with flurry a bit differently than your other weapons and is a good vector for power attack. It's also the best weapon if you want to attempt a disarm. the size bonus it gives you alone beats out the bonus from either the sai or the nunchaku.
Sai: This is your other option for disarm and ranged flurry. It does less damage than other melee weapons, but that isn't why you carry it. It is a great option to have ready when you don't know what to expect from a combat encounter and pairs well with the kama for giving you the most options in a single loadout.
Siangham: It does piercing damage...and that's it. On the off chance piercing damage is helpful, keep one handy, as it is your only flurry compatible source, but otherwise it's probably going to gather dust.
Thinking outside the grab bag: You need to spend some feats for proficiency in these, but they've all got their pros
Gauntlet: Magic versions directly improve unarmed strikes and are still flurry friendly because the rules are weird that way. requires Simple weapon proficiency
Longspear: The bonus feature for simple weapon proficiency. You can't flurry with it without going outside of PHB, but you can still use it as a standard two handed reach weapon, which you otherwise don't have. While it's outclassed by the guisarme, you get a bit more for your buck in terms of accessibility with the longspear gauntlet combo. It makes a good ki focus weapon.
Guisarme: If you don't care about bumping up your unarmed strike with the gauntlets, Martial weapon proficiency with the guisarme is rather good. it gives you reach and trip in a single package and combined with ki focus, can be absolutely nasty.
Nets and Bolos: both are ranged touch attacks and both require exotic weapon proficiency. However, if you're at a high enough level you can just tank the nonproficiency penalty and still hit.
Magic Items: To keep with the theme of the SAM, I'm sticking to the stuff from the DMG only.
Armor: You don't wear armor, so unless you have a lenient DM that allows clothing to count as 0 AC armor, none of the magic armor properties apply.
Magic Weapons:
Anarchic: Do not touch, You're a lawful character, this will hurt you.
Axiomatic: Not something to go looking for but good against demons and a few other things if that's all you have from random loot.
Bane: Great for shuriken and crossbow ammunition, due to pricing, but too situational for everything else unless you happen to be encountering one type of enemy a lot. Being only a +1, however, it can be nice to pick up some bane weapons for creature types that are notoriously hard to hurt like constructs, undead, evil outsiders as mid level options.
Brilliant energy: hard pass, sure it's a touch attack, but it is expensive and doesn't hurt a lot of common enemy types.
Dancing: don't go out of your way to get one, there are much better things to spend your money on, but if you happen to find one as part of loot? there are worse things to have.
Defending: Is actually pretty useful for you if you use gauntlets. Having one as a +5 defender is fairly inexpensive and quite useful since you can attack with other gauntlets or weapons, or overlap its attack bonus with a permanent greater magic fang.
Disruption: +2 bonus cost and a fairly easy to beat will save to flat out destroy undead. Not really worth the cost.
Distance: probably won't be much use to you
Flaming, Frost, Shock: They're all worth getting, preferably on your primary weapon, gauntlet is a good choice, and/or a polearm or quarterstaff. also great for both shuriken and crossbow bolts.
X burst, keen or any other crit activated property: Your most common weapons have terrible crit rates, don't bother
Ghost Touch: You should have some ghost touch weapon handy as soon as you can swing the price tag. You really don't have any other way to hurt incorporeal creatures.
Ki focus: great, but not for monk weapons, you can generally get better damage from just delivering an unarmed attack. Put this on either the longspear or guisarme (depending on which weapon proficiency feat you go with) and it is a great vector.
Merciful is kind of useless to you since you can deal nonlethal via unarmed damage easily enough unless you have some reason to want a merciful crossbow.
Mighty cleaving: situational, most SAMs probably won't get cleave. pass more often than not.
Returning: You won't have a lot of use for returning weapons, since your most useful thrown weapon is a shuriken. It might be ok on a sai, but otherwise it's kind of a shrugger.
Seeking: If this is the only property you put on your crossbow, it'll be enough. Get it and don't look back
Speed: It's situational. It's expensive, but if you don't have ready access to a haste effect, it's nice even at its price point. it can either be used to give a polearm a pseudo flurry, or put on a gauntlet to boost unarmed strikes. both are pretty good options.
Spell Storing: It's a cheap way to boost your damage output if you've got caster party members who are willing to help. Otherwise it's the property of pseudoSAM builds that can take advantage of it with their own spellcasting.
Throwing: skip it. not terribly useful for you
Un/Holy: take it or leave it. they can be useful but depending on your alignment, not safe to handle.
Vicious: It's actually pretty good for a lot of melee types just not really for you. it's got the highest damage potential of any +1 and on average you'll lose about 3 hp per hit. that can add up quickly while flurrying and only having a d8 hit die.
Vorpal: Way too pricey and only hits on a nat 20. Pass
Wounding: +2 for 1 point of con damage per hit. that can add up quickly on a successful flurry, but there are a good number of creatures that lack a con score or are immune to ability score damage. ymmv on this on.
Wondrous Items: I won''t get into the types of items that are useful for everyone. Just assume that items that are helpful to any class is helpful to the build. for tactical flight options: consult your usual magic item guide for details.
Monk's belt: very useful. pick it up as soon as you have the opportunity
Amulet of natural attacks: expensive but only useful if you either don't use the gauntlet exploit, or can't get a casting of greater magic fang.
Boots/Cloak of elvenkind: These are good cheap options for early game to grant you some quality sneaking bonuses.
Magic Instruments: You aren't a bard, but you do have access to the perform skill. don't discount their usefulness if there's no one else in the party using them and you manage to loot something.
Minor cloak of displacement. You want this as soon as you can afford it. that miss chance will make your life so much easier.
Efficient Quiver: a nice and cheap way to keep some of your weapons and ammunition organized and at the ready.
Gloves will only be useful if you aren't using gauntlets.
You know what, It's 2am EDT, It's no longer Monkday where I am. Time to call it a night, I'll finish this later
The Swiss Army Monk, Or SAM for short, is sort of a worst case scenario handbook. It's a dive into playing one of the worst classes in the game with the absolute minimum amount of support without multiclassing or prestige classing out.
Why "the Swiss Army Monk"?
Much like the little red knives with all the gadgets, the SAM is a build with lots of little options that are better than nothing, and can serve in a pinch, but aren't able to compare to a dedicated build. Also, even if somewhat successful, the SAM is a bit of a tool.
How does the SAM work?
The SAM works, for an admittedly low value of "work", by judicious use of the equipment available in the PHB, the monk's native class abilities, and some unusual feat choices. You could accomplish most, if not all, of what the SAM does with other classes and equipment, but that's not the point of this exercise.
Mabriss, why are you even bothering with this?
It's an idea I've been playing around with for a long time, mentioned a handful of times, but I don't think I've ever written it all out. Besides, quarantine is getting to me and I'm bored. I don't really expect anyone to play a SAM except possibly as a challenge.
So... On with the show.
General build and play style guidelines.
Ability Scores: You'll want positive ability score mods in all of your physicals, High wisdom, as much Int as you can spare (or at least not a penalty), and dump Charisma. Exact strength or dex values are going to vary, but Str 13 is sort of a floor. A pretty viable formula would be Wis>Str=Dex>Con>Int>Cha
Races: You really don't have a whole lot of options when it comes to race. Human is great. Dwarf is a good second place since your fast movement will overcome the dwarf's lack of mobility, half orc is... not great, but doable. Elf is sort of niche, and a possible choice, but that con penalty is going to hurt. None of the others are really worth looking at. The small races are not going to be suitable choices and Half elf is just sort of bad.
Play style:
The Swiss Army Monk style of play is... well... Desperation. Your job is to be there when things go pear shaped and use whatever tools you can to salvage things. It isn't going to be pretty, and you're going to fail at things that a more dedicated build would have better chances at. Your skill set make you ideal for backing up rogues and other scout or trapfinding type classes. You can be very stealthy and can easily help set up sneak attacks, your ability to stun and trip can let the rogue have a very good time. You're also a good bodyguard candidate for casters. By backing up the caster you can keep them safer when they're the squishiest and will probably be the closest target for buffs. If you feel like picking up a hat of disguise you can even be the party decoy by pretending to be the wizard. Your land speed allows you to bounce between those two roles and provide SHTF medic support. With a small supply of healing items you can get to downed characters faster than a heavily armored cleric and let the cleric support the party in other ways. You can even be the AOO martyr. your own innate ability to heal yourself, high movement speed and possibly using Mobility and picking up a miss chance from somewhere, you can try to draw enemy fire by running through threatened spaces, allowing other characters to follow up without provoking.
Being a Swiss Army Monk also means swapping and dropping weapons as the situation dictates. Quickdraw, monk weapons, and expanded proficiencies will let you switch between reach, trippping, disarming, thrown and ranged weapons as well as weapons made from exotic materials as the situation dictates. Your unarmed strikes will always be available so don't be worried about dropping weapons, especially due to failed trip or disarm attempts early on.
The Details:
Skills: The monk has a decent skill list, but it's also very shy on skill points. Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently are probably the skills you'll want to sink full ranks into. Spot, Listen and balance are worth at least a minor investment. (you have good wisdom, so Spot and Listen won't require as much investment and 5 ranks of balance get you the ability to bypass Grease and a synergy bonus to tumble. A few ranks in diplomacy can be useful, but mostly so that you can hit a DC 10 reliably to aid the party face. It really isn't worth more of an investment than that. Oddly enough, you might find at least a dip into a perform skill could come in handy for some of the magic musical instruments if they happen to come your way, but that's a bit situational.
Feats: Your PHB feat selections are not very good. for the most part, stick with feats that add some sort of utility or capitalize on an existing strength. Due to the monk's... let's be kind and call them "design quirks"... some odd choices are going to be a heck of a lot more useful than they would be for other characters. As a general rule, you can safely ignore any of the +2/+2 skill feats and the save boosting feats, as well as the obvious casting feats.
First thing, though. You get 3 bonus feat slots by level 6, the only one that's really a choice is the level one choice between improved grapple and stunning fist, at higher levels take combat reflexes and improved trip. Between IG and SF, I'd probably go for SF. Not that either are going to be particularly good, it's just that there are a few things you can do to improve stunning fist's utility.
Weapon Proficiency Feats, Simple, martial, exotic
We're going to start with weapon feats. You actually CAN get a lot of use out of all three proficiency feats as a single class monk, and I recommend picking at least one of them. How sad is that?
Even the poor, benighted Simple Weapon Proficiency feat gives you some versatility that you're otherwise lacking. The two big takeaways for SWP are the (non spiked) gauntlet and the longspear. Access to gauntlet proficiency allows you to use magic enhancement bonuses and abilities with unarmed strikes. That does a lot to improve a monk's efficacy in combat. The fact that gauntlets don't stack, but overlap, with something like a permanent Greater Magic Fang is actually a plus, since it allows you to benefit from something like a +5 defending gauntlet while still benefiting from GMF for the damage bonus. The longspear gives you a reach option, you can't flurry with it, but it's still a huge boost to attacks of opportunity in conjunction with combat reflexes (which you get for free)
Martial weapon proficiency is much more focused. You want the guisarme. it's the only martial weapon that brings something to the table in the form of both reach and tripping qualities, and unlike exotic, MWP has no prerequisites. Also, if you take Stunning fist, both the guisarme and the longspear make great vectors for stunning fist.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency is probably the worst of the three. You won't be able to pick it until level 3 due to BAB requirements, and what it offers is not super great, but can still be useful. You really won't get much use out of the go-to EWP that most prefer, Spiked chain. If you want those options you could have picked up a guisarme without waiting for level 3. What good is it then? It allows early access to the debuffing exotic ranged touch weapons like the bola and the net, the latter being the better of the two. That said, later on it is sort of a waste because even at 3/4 BAB you can just eat the nonproficiency penalties on either and still hit a touch attack.
Combat Expertise chain
Skip it. You really don't need to invest in CE or related feats at all. The only one of real use is Improved Trip and you get it for free from your bonus feats. If you want to try your hand at other expertise based maneuvers like disarm, you can usually find a way to get bonuses from equipment.
Dodge Chain
Dodge, as usual, is an absolute donkey of a feat. That said, Mobility is pretty great and works well with the SAM's primary methodology. If you go for pseudoSAM builds and prestige out, both are very common prerequisites for prestige classes that you can get some use out of.
Point Blank Shot Chain
A minor investment in PBS and related feats is both tempting and useful. PBS and Far shot benefits ranged shuriken flurries and if you find yourself plinking at a distance with a crossbow, rapid shot can be a pretty good investment if you have the room.
TWF chain
Skip it. Two Weapon Fighting just isn't worth it, it's feat intensive and you already have a similar ability with flurry.
Power Attack chain
Power Attack won't be your first pick, but you should definitely think about it by level 9 at the latest. You WON'T be pulling the sort of numbers down from it that a full BAB character would, but it's one of your only sources of bonus damage that you can get from the PHB. Further down the chain, Cleave is probably the only other one you'll find useful. The rest you can easily skip.
Mounted Combat chain
Skip it. You'll probably be faster on foot than most of your party's mounts by mid levels and riding isn't going to be your strong suit anyway.
Blind Fight: It's a decent feat that you'll easily qualify for. Squeeze it in if possible.
Combat Reflexes: It's a great feat for you and you get it for free as a bonus feat. take it.
Craft Magic Arms and Armor: Wait, what? what's a magic crafting feat doing on this list? Short version, for hilarity. At level 12, due to Abundant Step, you qualify for magic crafting feats, and even as a monk you can craft basic magic weapons and armor, and ki focus weapons. I'm not saying you should take this feat, I just think it's funny that you can.
Deflect Arrows: Ok, this is a situationally useful defense. and as far as PHB feats go, you could do a lot worse. It isn't worth taking over Combat Reflexes at 2nd level, but you easily qualify for it if you have the feat open and don't have any better ideas.
Improved Grapple: It's a decent feat if you feel like dealing with the grapple rules and with some magic support you can even be pretty good at it. Additionally, even if you pick Stunning fist at first level, you will almost by default have the prerequisites to nab it later. It's to offensive capabilities what Deflect arrows is to your defensive ones. Easy to to get and won't be completely wasted.
Improved initiative: This is a good standby feat if you can't think of anything else. You'll have a pretty good initiative anyway, but going first is always better than not.
Leadership is broken and you all know why by now. You won't be great at it anyway with a low Cha mod. If you want to take leadership, just take the the class you'd pick for a cohort as your build and skip this thought exercise entirely.
Quick draw: It's a pretty good feat and really helps bring a SAM build's reliance on rapid loadout switching together. It's a nice choice for Level 3
Rapid Reload: This is a "take it or leave it feat" Your crossbow is a good backup weapon for long range, and you can do a lot with enchanted ammunition to keep costs down. If you find yourself plinking with your light crossbow very often, it will boost your ranged viability but it will never be a first round draft pick.
Stunning Fist: If you're going to take it, take it at first level, otherwise the earliest open feat slot that you qualify for it is level twelve. It's one of the reasons why I rate SF a bit higher for your bonus feat slot. It's so much harder to get than Improved Grapple.
Weapon Finesse: This is highly situational. If you prioritize dex over strength, which isn't a bad plan, but isn't the only way to build a SAM, then it will definitely be a good way to boost your ability to hit.
Equipment
Monk Weapons:
Unarmed Strike: Old Reliable. You'll never leave home without it. As you level up it will be your prime contender for basic damage dealer. Other weapons are to capitalize on different situations, but this one will always be your fallback. and you can use your Unarmed strike even while wielding other weapons.
Crossbow: You have a choice between Light or Heavy, Light crossbows are going to be more reliable even without feat support and only grow more useful if you devote resources to it. It gets my vote over heavy crossbows.
The grab bag of garbage: Club, Dagger, Handaxe, Javelin, and sling. You can't flurry with any of these so they won't see much use. That said, clubs and slings are zero cost ranged weapons and can see some early game use, and javelins might see some use as a mid ranged option if you don't invest feats in the crossbow.
The Flurry of Garbage: Here's a quick breakdown of monk weapons.
Shuriken: Low base damage and short range, but it's your easiest ranged flurry option and since they're considered ammunition, acquiring enchanted versions is dirt cheap. It's always a good choice.
Kama: The best of a bad lot. It opens up tripping as a viable option before 6th level and does slashing damage. always keep one handy
Nunchaku: Don't bother with this lump of wasted space. it deals bludgeoning damage equal to your unarmed strike and its bonus to disarm doesn't even counteract the penalty it gets for being a light weapon. You have two better options if you want to disarm.
Quarterstaff: This is actually a pretty good weapon. It interacts with flurry a bit differently than your other weapons and is a good vector for power attack. It's also the best weapon if you want to attempt a disarm. the size bonus it gives you alone beats out the bonus from either the sai or the nunchaku.
Sai: This is your other option for disarm and ranged flurry. It does less damage than other melee weapons, but that isn't why you carry it. It is a great option to have ready when you don't know what to expect from a combat encounter and pairs well with the kama for giving you the most options in a single loadout.
Siangham: It does piercing damage...and that's it. On the off chance piercing damage is helpful, keep one handy, as it is your only flurry compatible source, but otherwise it's probably going to gather dust.
Thinking outside the grab bag: You need to spend some feats for proficiency in these, but they've all got their pros
Gauntlet: Magic versions directly improve unarmed strikes and are still flurry friendly because the rules are weird that way. requires Simple weapon proficiency
Longspear: The bonus feature for simple weapon proficiency. You can't flurry with it without going outside of PHB, but you can still use it as a standard two handed reach weapon, which you otherwise don't have. While it's outclassed by the guisarme, you get a bit more for your buck in terms of accessibility with the longspear gauntlet combo. It makes a good ki focus weapon.
Guisarme: If you don't care about bumping up your unarmed strike with the gauntlets, Martial weapon proficiency with the guisarme is rather good. it gives you reach and trip in a single package and combined with ki focus, can be absolutely nasty.
Nets and Bolos: both are ranged touch attacks and both require exotic weapon proficiency. However, if you're at a high enough level you can just tank the nonproficiency penalty and still hit.
Magic Items: To keep with the theme of the SAM, I'm sticking to the stuff from the DMG only.
Armor: You don't wear armor, so unless you have a lenient DM that allows clothing to count as 0 AC armor, none of the magic armor properties apply.
Magic Weapons:
Anarchic: Do not touch, You're a lawful character, this will hurt you.
Axiomatic: Not something to go looking for but good against demons and a few other things if that's all you have from random loot.
Bane: Great for shuriken and crossbow ammunition, due to pricing, but too situational for everything else unless you happen to be encountering one type of enemy a lot. Being only a +1, however, it can be nice to pick up some bane weapons for creature types that are notoriously hard to hurt like constructs, undead, evil outsiders as mid level options.
Brilliant energy: hard pass, sure it's a touch attack, but it is expensive and doesn't hurt a lot of common enemy types.
Dancing: don't go out of your way to get one, there are much better things to spend your money on, but if you happen to find one as part of loot? there are worse things to have.
Defending: Is actually pretty useful for you if you use gauntlets. Having one as a +5 defender is fairly inexpensive and quite useful since you can attack with other gauntlets or weapons, or overlap its attack bonus with a permanent greater magic fang.
Disruption: +2 bonus cost and a fairly easy to beat will save to flat out destroy undead. Not really worth the cost.
Distance: probably won't be much use to you
Flaming, Frost, Shock: They're all worth getting, preferably on your primary weapon, gauntlet is a good choice, and/or a polearm or quarterstaff. also great for both shuriken and crossbow bolts.
X burst, keen or any other crit activated property: Your most common weapons have terrible crit rates, don't bother
Ghost Touch: You should have some ghost touch weapon handy as soon as you can swing the price tag. You really don't have any other way to hurt incorporeal creatures.
Ki focus: great, but not for monk weapons, you can generally get better damage from just delivering an unarmed attack. Put this on either the longspear or guisarme (depending on which weapon proficiency feat you go with) and it is a great vector.
Merciful is kind of useless to you since you can deal nonlethal via unarmed damage easily enough unless you have some reason to want a merciful crossbow.
Mighty cleaving: situational, most SAMs probably won't get cleave. pass more often than not.
Returning: You won't have a lot of use for returning weapons, since your most useful thrown weapon is a shuriken. It might be ok on a sai, but otherwise it's kind of a shrugger.
Seeking: If this is the only property you put on your crossbow, it'll be enough. Get it and don't look back
Speed: It's situational. It's expensive, but if you don't have ready access to a haste effect, it's nice even at its price point. it can either be used to give a polearm a pseudo flurry, or put on a gauntlet to boost unarmed strikes. both are pretty good options.
Spell Storing: It's a cheap way to boost your damage output if you've got caster party members who are willing to help. Otherwise it's the property of pseudoSAM builds that can take advantage of it with their own spellcasting.
Throwing: skip it. not terribly useful for you
Un/Holy: take it or leave it. they can be useful but depending on your alignment, not safe to handle.
Vicious: It's actually pretty good for a lot of melee types just not really for you. it's got the highest damage potential of any +1 and on average you'll lose about 3 hp per hit. that can add up quickly while flurrying and only having a d8 hit die.
Vorpal: Way too pricey and only hits on a nat 20. Pass
Wounding: +2 for 1 point of con damage per hit. that can add up quickly on a successful flurry, but there are a good number of creatures that lack a con score or are immune to ability score damage. ymmv on this on.
Wondrous Items: I won''t get into the types of items that are useful for everyone. Just assume that items that are helpful to any class is helpful to the build. for tactical flight options: consult your usual magic item guide for details.
Monk's belt: very useful. pick it up as soon as you have the opportunity
Amulet of natural attacks: expensive but only useful if you either don't use the gauntlet exploit, or can't get a casting of greater magic fang.
Boots/Cloak of elvenkind: These are good cheap options for early game to grant you some quality sneaking bonuses.
Magic Instruments: You aren't a bard, but you do have access to the perform skill. don't discount their usefulness if there's no one else in the party using them and you manage to loot something.
Minor cloak of displacement. You want this as soon as you can afford it. that miss chance will make your life so much easier.
Efficient Quiver: a nice and cheap way to keep some of your weapons and ammunition organized and at the ready.
Gloves will only be useful if you aren't using gauntlets.
You know what, It's 2am EDT, It's no longer Monkday where I am. Time to call it a night, I'll finish this later