Is this worth it? Making a "tax" feat pay itself back.

[Arkhios]

I'm pondering about one rather difficult choice I have to make soon-ish. (Note: There's no turning back, as in retraining is not an option).

The character I'm playing is currently a 1st level human monk with Str 16, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 13, Wis 15, Cha 11.

Due to restrictions both from the rules (D&D 3.5) and the campaign1, to take the "tax" feat in question (Weapon Finesse) I need to wait until I have BAB at least +12, so earliest at 3rd monk level (I'm not going to multiclass, other than taking one prestige class, but that doesn't count, right?:smallbiggrin:).
Why I would need to take Weapon Finesse is because of the feat below.
1Cemented by the DM, so no point in trying to change them
2Pathfinder made the feat easier to take, but that's besides the point, since we're not playing Pathfinder


One Finger
Source Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting pg. 219
You can bring to bear the energies of your entire body in a single point, allowing you to strongly affect your foes with the slightest touch.

Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist, Weapon Finesse, base attack bonus +8, ki strike class ability.

Benefit: You can make Stunning Fist attacks as melee touch attacks. You may not use Power Attack in combination with this feat. You may choose to expend one use of Stunning Fist when making a bull rush, disarm, grapple, sunder, or trip attempt to provide a bonus equal to your Wisdom modifier (if positive) to any attack roll or opposed check required. This bonus applies only to a single attempt and does not apply to subsequent checks (as when continuing a grapple in subsequent rounds). You may use this ability once per round on your turn. You may not use it to defend against combat actions attempted against you.

Side Note: since this feat is not an option to be taken as a Monk Bonus feat, the earliest I can take this is at 12th character level; so I would have to "make my peace" with the tax of sorts for 8 levels before it actually would pay up

Now, I realize that my ability score distribution may be slightly skewed in regards to what would've been more optimal for Weapon Finesse, but I have set my mind upon grappling being one of my go-to options in combat, and grappling depends on Strength.3 But that gets me to my question whether the following is worth it.
3Sadly I don't have access to anything that would make this otherwise.

Knowing that we have a relative freedom to acquiring the magic items we want, would this be worth it:
Leaving Strength at 16, and invest in Gloves of Dexterity +2/+4/+6 (possibly later in Manual of Quickness of Action; at minimum +2). In addition to making Weapon Finesse better than it is before these, it would leave my waist slot open for Monk's Belt, so I would take that as well.

In the end, starting a grapple requires at first a succesful Touch Attack, and Weapon Finesse does aid in that as well, so it would continue to benefit grappling somewhat.

[ciopo]

You could leave weapon finesse doen to 9th level feat, that way you have more time to decide? And not be saddled with a useless feat for a lot of levels

As for the feat itself, personally I don't think it would be worth it, and also I need more inro about how the GM plans to backport it to 3.5? Because stunning fist is a rider on your normal attack action, is the feat meant to make your normal attack a touch attack? Generally speaking I think if you just invest in strength and do normal stunning fists you would be fine, and if you "must" have the option to touch attack it, I'd rather spend a feat in skill focus(use magic device) and buy a wand of wraithstrike, but that's kind of awkward as a grappler


There is a weapon property that give finesse iirc, see if your GM is amenable to qualify via item?


But no, I wouldn't pay a feat tax for this one finger thing.

P.s. STR items also exists as bracer or gloves, I forgot which, yiu can still monk belt

[Arkhios]

You could leave weapon finesse doen to 9th level feat, that way you have more time to decide? And not be saddled with a useless feat for a lot of levels
I have other plans for 9th level feat1. Within the same train of thought, though, I have also planned to take Improved Natural Attack at 6th level, so 3rd level is really the only chance for me to take Weapon Finesse, before One Finger, if I take it that is.
1I plan the character to become psionic fist and at that level I would take the Hustle power (gives extra move action), which I think works wonderfully with Psionic Meditation (makes gaining psionic focus a move action), but Hustle has other good uses as well.


As for the feat itself, personally I don't think it would be worth it, and also I need more inro about how the GM plans to backport it to 3.5? Because stunning fist is a rider on your normal attack action, is the feat meant to make your normal attack a touch attack? Generally speaking I think if you just invest in strength and do normal stunning fists you would be fine, and if you "must" have the option to touch attack it, I'd rather spend a feat in skill focus(use magic device) and buy a wand of wraithstrike, but that's kind of awkward as a grappler
It seems to be a little-known-fact that Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting was actually made for D&D 3.5 (not for Pathfinder Core rules), so there's no need to backport anything, as it already is intended to work with 3.5. As for how my DM has ruled for One Finger to work, is that you indeed make the normal attack as a touch attack as long as you are using Stunning Fist with it. After all, RAW, you must decide to use Stunning Fist before you make the attack roll, not after you know whether you hit or not.


There is a weapon property that give finesse iirc, see if your GM is amenable to qualify via item?
Not that I could find. Maybe it's in some book that we don't have access to. Thanks for the thought, though.


But no, I wouldn't pay a feat tax for this one finger thing.
Noted, thank you for your opinion.


P.s. STR items also exists as bracer or gloves, I forgot which, yiu can still monk belt
I believe that would be Gauntlets of Ogre Power (so, "gloves" a.k.a. Hand slot), but they cap at +2 enhancement bonus to Strength, and by RAW doesn't have more powerful versions. We have asked before if we could just improve items like these, but the DM has ruled that they are "unique" items and thus can't be improved upon. To be fair, it's a reasonable ruling, and I have no reason to argue against it.

[ciopo]

I should actually ask if it's the touch attack you care the most for, or the WIS-to-grapple if you spend a stunning attempt

I will assume you will be using 3.5 grapple rules, and not pf cmb/cmd

Note that RAW weapon finesse does not apply on the opposed grapple check, it would only apply on the step 2: touch attack, and not to step3: opposed check.

It is reasonable to ask otherwise, but I can also see that being nimble doesn't help as much as being beef for the purpose of holding something down

[thethird]

I don't know if you have considered sleeping tiger monk. But just in case: here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm). This would get you weapon finesse as a bonus feat. You don't need to take improved sunder as you can abandon a martial style.

As for the feat being worth it, targetting touch AC is a good thing. So if you feel like it fits your build and you want to take it go for it.

[Arkhios]

I should actually ask if it's the touch attack you care the most for, or the WIS-to-grapple if you spend a stunning attempt
I have no preference between the two. Both seem pretty nice to have. The latter especially is a nice option to have, because Wisdom is going to be the highest of my natural ability scores (all increases from 4th to at least 12th level will go there).


I will assume you will be using 3.5 grapple rules, and not pf cmb/cmd
Yes, we use D&D 3.5 as the base rules, and play in the Setting of Golarion, receiving additional character options from the Campaign specific content (all of which made with D&D 3.5 in mind)


Note that RAW weapon finesse does not apply on the opposed grapple check, it would only apply on the step 2: touch attack, and not to step3: opposed check.

It is reasonable to ask otherwise, but I can also see that being nimble doesn't help as much as being beef for the purpose of holding something down
Yes, I'm aware. Weapon Finesse would only apply to the Grab (the melee touch attack part of Grapple) to take hold of the target, not to the Grapple Check to see whether grapple succeeds or not. I admit, it's not a big benefit, since Touch AC is generally quite low, and the chance to make a touch connect is consequently quite high already.


I don't know if you have considered sleeping tiger monk. But just in case: here (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm). This would get you weapon finesse as a bonus feat. You don't need to take improved sunder as you can abandon a martial style.
To be fair, I thought about asking if I could use the Unearthed Arcana variants (despite that they're not in use by default), but there was another option that is tailored for the campaign, and I went with that. Normally, a monk would get only either Improved Grapple or Stunning Fist as a 1st level bonus feat, and only then. With the campaign variant, I will get both, because with it, Improved Grapple is a 1st level bonus feat and Stunning Fist is a 2nd level bonus feat.


As for the feat being worth it, targetting touch AC is a good thing. So if you feel like it fits your build and you want to take it go for it.
Edit (rephrased my response): I do like the One Finger feat. And would love to take it, as it's seriously cool AF, but... the required Weapon Finesse is what bugs me because, for a very long time, without reliable means to make it actually beneficial, it would be a "feat tax" that does absolutely nothing for me. I mean, sure, I can buy Gloves of Dexterity, but in order to do that, I'd need at least 16,000 gp to increase my Dexterity higher than my Strength currently is (alternatively, I can cross my fingers and hope that those +4 dex gloves drop sooner rather than later, and our rogue doesn't take a dibs, which they probably will).
Anyway, being able to target Touch AC is certainly a great thing. Especially because how it seems to work, you still make an unarmed strike and deal your unarmed damage normally, just making the attack roll against touch AC. Also, with Psionic Fist PrC, I could combine this with some rather nasty tricks (such as the Dissipating Touch power).

With that said, there are other options that I would need to sacrifice for this two-feat path. For example, I want to take the feats Psionic Fist and Greater Psionic Fist, and a few others, but I get only so many feats and can't get them all with Weapon Finesse and One Finger in tow. Which is why I'm struggling with this, and what to sacrifice (one more thing to note, I already took Psionic Body at first level, and the feats other than Weapon Finesse or One Finger would be psionic feats, so I'd basically sacrifice 4 extra hit points along with the feats themselves)


Assuming Max lvl 16, Monk's Belt, Improved Natural Attack (unarmed), Dissipating Touch, Greater Psionic Fist, and One Finger:
With 10 power points, and expending my Psionic Focus along with one Stunning Fist attempt, my "One Finger Man" could deal a whopping total of 4d8+14d6+Str+other modifiers damage with a Touch Attack. And Stunning Fist as a cherry on top. On average, that would be 49+Str+other modifers. Meaning, with Massive Damage rules, the target could die instantly, if they fail their fortitude save against Massive Damage, or saving that, they'd have to succeed against Stunning Fist or get at least a massive headache :smallbiggrin:

of course, the above works even without One Finger, but would require an actual hit to connect.

EDIT: I've just realized an alternative option, that I could use for a slightly similar result: Unavoidable Strike (psionic feat). On the other hand, I wouldn't be able to combine Psionic Fist feats with it, and I would be limited to one Unavoidable Strike per turn, unless I use Hustle in the same turn, but I could use that for all day long, as long as I have psionic focus.

[Seward]

Slightly confused by the "touch attack to grapple" with "feat tax for a Pathfinder feat". Must be mixing game systems. But based on the "feat at level 12" you are playing mostly 3.5 with expanded feat options I guess.

So the short answer on "pump dex to make weapon finesse worth it". No. Just no. HELL NO. In case I wasn't clear enough NONONONONONONONONONO

If you really like the PF feat, take weapon finesse as late as you can. That's fine, feat taxes happen. It won't make or break your build to include weapon finesse (especially if you can fit in improved natural attack early, and can eventually fit in power attack for use in higher levels). One finger is pretty attractive once your BAB gets to 11 (at L15) and you can use it on your low iterative (which is taking a -10 penalty). So you might consider pushing it back to level 15, with weapon finesse at L12, if that helps.

But you need to put every attribute point into strength, and boost strength before dex with your WBL. A Monk is at a BAB disadvantage, and while flurry of blows increasingly helps (greater flurry helps a ton) you need all the strength you can get to hit, and all the strength you can get to take advantage of your increased number of attacks (which lacks the half-strength penalty of TWF equivalents of flurry).

This is especially true if you intend to grapple. While that is more useful in lower levels, there will be a category of "non-melee-brute" enemies that it will continue to be useful with even as you enter the teens (especially if you can get silenced before you grab, many such targets are spellcasters). BAB+strength focus is needed to be relevant with grappling and to stay relevant even vs appropriate opponents.

And all of that aside, you don't even get the effect you want by pumping dex with your starting attributes. Your to-hit will always fall behind what you would have had if you had focused on strength, added statbumps to strength and prioritized strength items (in fact it will be exactly 1 lower, no matter what you do, so you are penalizing to-hit by 1 and damage by an increasing amount as you level and don't add statbumps and take strength items late, multiplies by the number of attacks you have per round.)

As for advice on the basic feats monks would take in 3.5 to stay relevant with offense (your class abilities cover you pretty well on defense)....these are the basics that go with certain choices

Imp Unarmed Strike (free) -> Imp natural Attack > Power Attack
(if going all in on imp unarmed strike you do imp nat attack, weapon focus, power attack, improved crit, but this is rarer, seen more often on humans)

Stunning Fist (bonus) -> Ability Focus (Stunning Fist)

Combat Reflexes (bonus) -> EWP Spiked Chain -> Improved Trip (bonus)

(you can get by without proficiency with a tripping reach weapon, but taking the EWP lets you do meaningful damage with your reach AOOs and with the bonus attack for tripping, especially if you also took power attack. If you hate spike chain any tripping reach weapon will work ok)

A grappler might ignore Stunning Fist (especially as wisdom might be not especially high on a strength oriented build) and take Improved Grapple as a bonus feat, or they might fit it in and delay improved unarmed strike advancement.

Another common L12 monk pick is tactical feat Sun School Martial Arts, which lets you combine your new dimension door power with an attack, plus some other benefits that aren't as important but still sometimes useful

For the build you described at the beginning, my feat chain would be something like:

L1 Stunning Fist (bonus), improved Grapple (L1 feat) EWP Spiked Chain (human)
L2 Combat Reflexes (bonus)
L3 Improved Natural attack (anticipating L4 d8 punch which will go to 2d6)
L6 Improved Trip (bonus) Power Attack (takes advantage of trip penalty to AC and 2-handed reach weapon aoos...)
L9 (weapon finesse)
L12 (one finger)


Other L9-12 chains that are fairly common and obviously expand on your prior build

Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) + Sun School Martial Arts
Weapon Focus (unarmed strike) + improved crit (unarmed strike)
Hold The Line + Stand Still (both feats give more value for combat reflexes, and stand still being dmg vs reflex save works better on the brutes than trip)
Another option if your setting allows it

Take Jutunbrud at L1 and push back other feats (treats you as large for grapple/trip or other combat maneuvers on offense or defense, but you have to be a specific human subrace on faerun), with Scorpion's Grasp added somewhere between 1-12 (free attack grapple after hit with unarmed strike)

No matter what option you take, enlarge person is your friend BUT you might consider swapping dex and wisdom, the reason being that you need 13 dex as a prereq for Improved Grapple, and enlarge person drops the dex by 2. 15 wisdom doesn't help in any way, where 15 dex helps every time you are enlarged and want to grapple somebody. (or for that matter if you want to use One Finger when enlarged, although by the time you get it you'll almost certainly have at least a +2 dex item)

[Telok]

My biggest question would be what your expected opposition is. You're paying 2 feats to get stunning strikes as touch attacks & optionally burn a stun to get a 1/round +wis to a grapple attack.

If you're mainly seeing humanoids in the med-large range then it may be worth it. Most ac is from armor & natural armor, con saves are reasonable, the grapple bonus stacks with a size boost. If you expect more monsters than classed opponents then check or ask about the usual sorts of stuff you'll fight at 12 and see how much difference it makes. You may see enough stuff thats functionally or actually stun & grapple immune to change your mind.

Also, check for other ways to get touch attacks & size increases. You already use psi feats & mentioned hustle, check for the posibility of lower opportunity/pp cost attack & grapple boosts. I, personally, prefer stuff thats less dependent on opponent size-str-con to work because those tend to scale up faster than medium attack bonus and many save dcs.

Without knowing more about your expected prc or possible other feat options its hard to give more than generic advice.

[Arkhios]

Slightly confused by the "touch attack to grapple" with "feat tax for a Pathfinder feat". Must be mixing game systems. But based on the "feat at level 12" you are playing mostly 3.5 with expanded feat options I guess.
I mentioned it once up-thread, but I guess you didn't notice, so I'll repeat - slightly more thoroughly this time:

The book called Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting (see spoiler, below) was released in 2008. A year before the Pathfinder 1st edition Core Rulebook was released (August 2009), and it was Golarion's Campaign Setting book to be used with the D&D 3.5 ruleset. In other words, the rules within the Campaign Setting were written for D&D 3.5, not Pathfinder 1st edition. The book was later replaced by the Inner Sea World Guide, where much of the old Campaign Setting book's content got converted into Pathfinder 1st edition, but some did not.
https://d1vzi28wh99zvq.cloudfront.net/images/5549/357274.png
So, in other words, we are playing in a "D&D 3.5 Golarion", with rules that were made to be used with D&D 3.5, which, as you said, is "mostly 3.5 with expanded feat (and other) options".


So the short answer on "pump dex to make weapon finesse worth it". No. Just no. HELL NO. In case I wasn't clear enough NONONONONONONONONONO

If you really like the PF feat, take weapon finesse as late as you can. That's fine, feat taxes happen. It won't make or break your build to include weapon finesse (especially if you can fit in improved natural attack early, and can eventually fit in power attack for use in higher levels). One finger is pretty attractive once your BAB gets to 11 (at L15) and you can use it on your low iterative (which is taking a -10 penalty). So you might consider pushing it back to level 15, with weapon finesse at L12, if that helps.

But you need to put every attribute point into strength, and boost strength before dex with your WBL. A Monk is at a BAB disadvantage, and while flurry of blows increasingly helps (greater flurry helps a ton) you need all the strength you can get to hit, and all the strength you can get to take advantage of your increased number of attacks (which lacks the half-strength penalty of TWF equivalents of flurry).

This is especially true if you intend to grapple. While that is more useful in lower levels, there will be a category of "non-melee-brute" enemies that it will continue to be useful with even as you enter the teens (especially if you can get silenced before you grab, many such targets are spellcasters). BAB+strength focus is needed to be relevant with grappling and to stay relevant even vs appropriate opponents.

And all of that aside, you don't even get the effect you want by pumping dex with your starting attributes. Your to-hit will always fall behind what you would have had if you had focused on strength, added statbumps to strength and prioritized strength items (in fact it will be exactly 1 lower, no matter what you do, so you are penalizing to-hit by 1 and damage by an increasing amount as you level and don't add statbumps and take strength items late, multiplies by the number of attacks you have per round.)

As for advice on the basic feats monks would take in 3.5 to stay relevant with offense (your class abilities cover you pretty well on defense)....these are the basics that go with certain choices

Imp Unarmed Strike (free) -> Imp natural Attack > Power Attack
(if going all in on imp unarmed strike you do imp nat attack, weapon focus, power attack, improved crit, but this is rarer, seen more often on humans)

Stunning Fist (bonus) -> Ability Focus (Stunning Fist)

Combat Reflexes (bonus) -> EWP Spiked Chain -> Improved Trip (bonus)

(you can get by without proficiency with a tripping reach weapon, but taking the EWP lets you do meaningful damage with your reach AOOs and with the bonus attack for tripping, especially if you also took power attack. If you hate spike chain any tripping reach weapon will work ok)

A grappler might ignore Stunning Fist (especially as wisdom might be not especially high on a strength oriented build) and take Improved Grapple as a bonus feat, or they might fit it in and delay improved unarmed strike advancement.

Another common L12 monk pick is tactical feat Sun School Martial Arts, which lets you combine your new dimension door power with an attack, plus some other benefits that aren't as important but still sometimes useful

For the build you described at the beginning, my feat chain would be something like:

L1 Stunning Fist (bonus), improved Grapple (L1 feat) EWP Spiked Chain (human)
L2 Combat Reflexes (bonus)
L3 Improved Natural attack (anticipating L4 d8 punch which will go to 2d6)
L6 Improved Trip (bonus) Power Attack (takes advantage of trip penalty to AC and 2-handed reach weapon aoos...)
L9 (weapon finesse)
L12 (one finger)


Other L9-12 chains that are fairly common and obviously expand on your prior build

Ability Focus (Stunning Fist) + Sun School Martial Arts
Weapon Focus (unarmed strike) + improved crit (unarmed strike)
Hold The Line + Stand Still (both feats give more value for combat reflexes, and stand still being dmg vs reflex save works better on the brutes than trip)
Another option if your setting allows it

Take Jutunbrud at L1 and push back other feats (treats you as large for grapple/trip or other combat maneuvers on offense or defense, but you have to be a specific human subrace on faerun), with Scorpion's Grasp added somewhere between 1-12 (free attack grapple after hit with unarmed strike)

No matter what option you take, enlarge person is your friend BUT you might consider swapping dex and wisdom, the reason being that you need 13 dex as a prereq for Improved Grapple, and enlarge person drops the dex by 2. 15 wisdom doesn't help in any way, where 15 dex helps every time you are enlarged and want to grapple somebody. (or for that matter if you want to use One Finger when enlarged, although by the time you get it you'll almost certainly have at least a +2 dex item
Your opinion is appreciated of course.

Not much to say about the rest, except that you seem to have forgotten that just like Weapon Finesse, EWP requires BAB +1 at minimum, so I wouldn't be able to take it at 1st level, human or not.
In regards to grappling and high wisdom, I must disagree that a grappler might not have high wisdom. You see, while grappling, you and your target both lose your dexterity modifier to your AC, but a monk retains their wisdom and class bonuses. Since you lose your dexterity, you become a very tempting target especially for rogues, or others that get sneak attack or similar benefits against someone who has lost their dexterity bonus to AC. Since monks can/should not use armor, having a high wisdom as a grappler is imho actually very good thing, as it helps you protect yourself better against all outside threats.

That aside, I won't be using the standard Monk's bonus feat list. Instead, I'm using a Variant from the Campaign Setting, that gives me the following options (bolded the ones I have decided to take already):
1st level) Improved Grapple or Point-Blank Shot
2nd level) Deflect Arrows or Stunning Fist
6th level) Improved Trip or Rapid Fire (I'm pretty sure that is meant to be Rapid Shot, and is just a brainfart from the designers).
There's also another feat in the Campaign Setting that I might take in place of the 6th level bonus feat (see below), which I didn't mention before because I didn't think it would be relevant (and I still don't, but here it is):
Secret of Steel-Shattering Spirit
Source Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting pg. 85
As a student trained in the Impossible Techniques of Jalmeray, you can rend wood, burst brick, or even shatter steel with the perfect focus and application of your ki.

Prerequisites: Improved Unarmed Strike, base attack bonus +6, must be lawful.

Benefit: You gain a pool of ki points equal to 1 + your Wisdom modifier (minimum of 1). As a swift action, you may focus your ki into strikes that can overcome the hardness of any substance. Each unarmed strike attack you make while in this focus expends 1 ki from your pool, whether or not it hit. You lose your focus automatically when you run out of ki, when the encounter ends, if you are reduced to fewer than 0 hit points or killed, or as a free action any time you wish.

While focused in this way, your unarmed strikes are treated as adamantine weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction or bypassing hardness.

Special: You may gain this feat multiple times. For each additional time you gain the feat you add 1 to your ki pool and your unarmed strikes gain an additional property for overcoming damage reduction, in the following order: adamantine, cold iron, silver, magic, lawful, epic. If your unarmed strikes already count as one or more of those properties (from any source), they gain the next property in line.

A monk trained at one of the Houses of Perfection may select Secret of Steel-Shattering Spirit as his 6th-level monk bonus feat.

Side note: We have established with our DM that my monk was specifically trained at one of the Houses of Perfection, so I could select this feat if I wanted.


My biggest question would be what your expected opposition is. You're paying 2 feats to get stunning strikes as touch attacks & optionally burn a stun to get a 1/round +wis to a grapple attack.

If you're mainly seeing humanoids in the med-large range then it may be worth it. Most ac is from armor & natural armor, con saves are reasonable, the grapple bonus stacks with a size boost. If you expect more monsters than classed opponents then check or ask about the usual sorts of stuff you'll fight at 12 and see how much difference it makes. You may see enough stuff thats functionally or actually stun & grapple immune to change your mind.

Also, check for other ways to get touch attacks & size increases. You already use psi feats & mentioned hustle, check for the posibility of lower opportunity/pp cost attack & grapple boosts. I, personally, prefer stuff thats less dependent on opponent size-str-con to work because those tend to scale up faster than medium attack bonus and many save dcs.

Without knowing more about your expected prc or possible other feat options its hard to give more than generic advice.
I didn't think it would be necessary to bring up the whole build, but here you go.

And let me say this right away; I can't use Psychic Warrior nor Tashalatora feat (I hear this suggested far too often that I didn't want to bring the build up before precisely because of it). I have a lorewise permission to use Psionic Fist, and that's the end of it.

L1 - Monk1: Improved Grapple (bonus), Wild Talent (human), Psionic Body (normal)
L2 - Monk2: Stunning Fist (bonus)
L3 - Monk3: Psionic Fist or Weapon Finesse? (normal)
L4 - Monk4
L5 - Monk5
L6 - Monk6: Secret of Steel-Shattering Spirit or Improved Trip? (bonus), Improved Natural Attack (normal)
L7 - Psionic Fist1: Inertial Armor (power)
L8 - Psionic Fist2: Grip of Iron (power)
L9 - Psionic Fist3: Psionic Meditation (normal), Hustle (power)
L10 - Psionic Fist4 Offensive Prescience (power)
L11 - Psionic Fist5: Psionic Fist or Greater Psionic Fist (bonus psionic feat), Metaphysical Weapon (power)
L12 - Psionic Fist6: One Finger, Unavoidable Strike, or Overchannel (normal), Defensive Precognition (power)
L13 - Psionic Fist7: Inertial Barrier (power)
L14 - Psionic Fist8: Weapon of Energy (power)
L15 - Psionic Fist9: Expanded Knowledge (Energy Cone (power)) (normal), Energy Adpatation (power)
L16 - Psionic Fist10: Expanded Knowledge (Psionic Fly (power)) (bonus psionic feat), Danger Sense (power)

Although I plan to use Grappling as much as possible, I don't want the character to be a one-trick-pony. So, I'm trying to make him able to survive and excel in combat when he can't grapple or stun opponents.

The character concept is an amalgam of two or three rather well-known anime martial artists (let's see if you can recognize all of them), and there's a pun in his name: Sajan Uttam (Uttam means "the Best" in hindi; so basically the name can be read as "Sajan the Best" ...alternatively "Super Sajan" :smallbiggrin:)

As for powers, not all are set in stone, and I might change some of them, depending on my final feat choices; for example, I could take Dissipating Touch in place of some power if I decide to take either One Finger or Unavoidable Strike

[Seward]

1st level) Improved Grapple or Point-Blank Shot
2nd level) Deflect Arrows or Stunning Fist


Ok, with that bonus feat list you don't need 15 dex, because prereqs don't matter on imp grapple if you get it via bonus feat.
Without combat reflexes, ignore my advice to get a reach weapon. (looking back at my own old monk, I realize I took EWP spiked chain at L3, but I had figured it was because it was a half orc and couldn't afford it at L1. It might have been the BAB requirement, it's been about 20 years since I made that decision).

If you have a different L6 feat choice, improved trip might not be the only choice (improved disarm is strictly inferior on a reasonably strong monk build).

Well, that frees up a feat. As for wisdom - yes, I know wisdom helps with AC and with will save, but in the typical Stunning Fist vs Improved Grapple L1 bonus feat choice, a strong monk with low wisdom will find stunning fist pointless, and a high wisdom low strength will find improved grapple pointless. In your case, your wisdom and str are both decent, so you can go either way, or both.

I'd likely take ability focus (stunning fist) instead of EWP spiked chain. The rest of my advice stands.

[Darg]

I don't know if your DM would allow 3.0 content, but Oriental Adventures has a feat called Unbalancing strike that might be useful to you and can be gotten at 1st level monk.


Prerequisite
Improved Unarmed Strike (PH) , Stunning Fist (PH) (or monk's stunning attack) , WIS 15,

Benefit
Against a humanoid opponent, you can make an unarmed attack that has a chance of unbalancing your target. If your attack is successful, you deal normal damage and your target must attempt a Reflex saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + your Wisdom modifier). If the target fails this saving throw, he is thrown off balance for 1 round, losing any Dexterity bonus to AC and giving attackers a +2 bonus on their attack rolls.

It would give you something to target your opponent's reflex saves. Another feat in the same book called Freezing the Lifeblood allows you to spend stunning attempts to paralyze for 1d4+1 rounds which makes the target helpless instead of just stunned.

Sandstorm has some juicy stuff for grappling: an exotic weapon Scorpion Claws that give a +4 untyped bonus to grapple checks and the Scorpion's grasp feat which is basically improved grab in feat form.

You'll want to bum polymorphs (bears are nice as you get a large strength boost and 3 extra attacks to do grapple checks with) from your wizard/sorc friend along with mage armors and you'll definitely want your druid buddy to hand you Owl's Insights and barkskins. Otherwise a couple levels of druid will qualify you for sentinel of bharrai for at will bear shape at level 3. At much higher levels, a skin of proteus for a continuous brown bear form might be worth it instead.

[Arkhios]

I don't know if your DM would allow 3.0 content, but Oriental Adventures has a feat called Unbalancing strike that might be useful to you and can be gotten at 1st level monk.



It would give you something to target your opponent's reflex saves. Another feat in the same book called Freezing the Lifeblood allows you to spend stunning attempts to paralyze for 1d4+1 rounds which makes the target helpless instead of just stunned.

Sandstorm has some juicy stuff for grappling: an exotic weapon Scorpion Claws that give a +4 untyped bonus to grapple checks and the Scorpion's grasp feat which is basically improved grab in feat form.
Sadly no, not for this particular campaign. I guess it's a difference of taste, but we tend to use content that fits the lore and/or is relevant to setting rather than try to shoehorn lore to fit in.


You'll want to bum polymorphs (bears are nice as you get a large strength boost and 3 extra attacks to do grapple checks with) from your wizard/sorc friend along with mage armors and you'll definitely want your druid buddy to hand you Owl's Insights and barkskins. Otherwise a couple levels of druid will qualify you for sentinel of bharrai for at will bear shape at level 3. At much higher levels, a skin of proteus for a continuous brown bear form might be worth it instead.
You know, I might consider replacing Expanded Knowledge (Psionic Fly) with Expanded Knowledge (Metamorphosis), so that I could "polymorph" at my own whim instead of bumming things from other characters at the expense of their resources. I mean, I realize it's a team effort, but I prefer to be self-sufficient with whatever I try to accomplish. And Inertial Armor is basically Mage Armor 2.0

[Telok]

Sorry, haven't gotten to ref my books yet, other people are huge time sinks. Running off my memories of the psi classes you'rd going to have the psiWar problem in spades. Not enough pp. Its something I saw every time people tried a hustle+short buff build, they ran put of pp during the first or second fight and couldn't risk using any out of combat.

Check your expected pp against the powers you expect to use and how often you'll use them. People I saw use hustle and other instant powers tended to run out very very fast. Most of the theory builds are highish level and focus on one fight. Real play needs more endurance. You have some of that with the monk base, but still need a look at your pp efficency at 6+.

[Arkhios]

Sorry, haven't gotten to ref my books yet, other people are huge time sinks. Running off my memories of the psi classes you'rd going to have the psiWar problem in spades. Not enough pp. Its something I saw every time people tried a hustle+short buff build, they ran put of pp during the first or second fight and couldn't risk using any out of combat.

Check your expected pp against the powers you expect to use and how often you'll use them. People I saw use hustle and other instant powers tended to run out very very fast. Most of the theory builds are highish level and focus on one fight. Real play needs more endurance. You have some of that with the monk base, but still need a look at your pp efficency at 6+.

I've been trying to choose mostly long buffs (such as Inertial Armor and, starting from 5th level, Metaphysical Weapon), but there are only so many, so I've been trying to fit in situationally useful powers as well (but, admittedly, some are chosen only for their 'cool factor'). Painfully aware of the shortage in PP I'm going to have, I intend to get my WIS as high as I possibly can with the time and levels we're likely to gain, so with what I'm looking at on paper is natural score of 18, and hopefully 24 with a magic item, so I would have 93 to 108 PP. If I manage to gather enough gp to spare, I might aim for a +2 or +4 WIS book, adding 5 to 10 PP.

[Darg]

I've been trying to choose mostly long buffs (such as Inertial Armor and, starting from 5th level, Metaphysical Weapon), but there are only so many, so I've been trying to fit in situationally useful powers as well (but, admittedly, some are chosen only for their 'cool factor'). Painfully aware of the shortage in PP I'm going to have, I intend to get my WIS as high as I possibly can with the time and levels we're likely to gain, so with what I'm looking at on paper is natural score of 18, and hopefully 24 with a magic item, so I would have 93 to 108 PP. If I manage to gather enough gp to spare, I might aim for a +2 or +4 WIS book, adding 5 to 10 PP.

Take a look at manifester weapons and armor. You can't use pp from separate sources per power, but it would give you extra avenues for expanding your pp.

[Arkhios]

Take a look at manifester weapons and armor. You can't use pp from separate sources per power, but it would give you extra avenues for expanding your pp.

Ah, I'd forgotten those!

As a monk, though, armor options might not be the best bet, but I appreciate the hint nonetheless!