Good monk races need some!

[toddex]

What are some good monk races?

[BRC]

With or without LA?, For a Player or for a DM?
For example, Vampires make very good monks, but the LA tends not to be practical for a PC.
Off the top of my head, Human, they don't lose any attributes and monks have such a hefty MAD.

[toddex]

With a level adjustment I have 12 levels to work with.

[SoD]

If you can put up with the penalty to int, half-orc. Bonus to strength=happy. Penalty to charisma=meh. Penalty to intelligence=acceptable.

Not full orc though, penalty to wisdom does not make a happy monk.

Halfling could be good, but the penalty to strength and the smaller size damage...

As said, human is probably the way to go, but my advice; play what you want.

Chances are, if you're playing a monk, you don't care if you're amazingly overpowered, and are happy with the roleplaying aspect of martial arts fighting.

[Keld Denar]

Without LA, Human and Dwarf are probably best. Since Cha is a dump stat for a monk, the -2 Cha doesn't hurt, and everyone wants more Con. Monk fast movement recovers the loss of speed dwarves suffer. Human is good because humans are good at everything.

Um...I'd avoid LA if you can. Monks are already terribad on their own, but even worse when you start taking HD away from them that denies them BAB, HP, and class features (damage dice, DCs on abilities, everything).

If you really want an effective monk, try this.

Human or Dwarf
Monk2/PsychicWarrior10 or Monk2/PsychicWarrior4/Slayer6

Take Tashalatora so that your manifesting levels advance your UAS damage. Use your PsyWar powers to do monkly things like being really hard to hit with Inertial Armor, Jackie-Channing up the wall with Up the Walls, using your enemies might against them with Strength of My Enemies, execute real Bicycle kicks with Psionic Lion's Charge, and Hulk out to giant size with Expansion.

More monk than your monk can handle!

That or Unarmed Swordsage varient from Tome of Battle. They kick more ass then a donkey rider.

[Lizard Lord]

Aasimar's gets a bonus to wisdom.

[sonofzeal]

Monks are a very hard class to play - they get a lot of defensive stuff which doesn't really bring them back onto par with heavy armor guys, and they get some offensive stuff which doesn't really bring them back onto par with the heavy hitters. Their theme is about mobility and speed, but to use flurry (their only real source of offensive power), they need to stand still using a full attack. That said...

Of the core races, I'd go Dwarf. Fast movement overcomes your speed disadvantage, you NEED Con because you're going to be taking hits, and Dwarves get a lot of goodies.

Of the LA+1 races, I'd go Catfolk. There's a racial feat that they can take to get Pounce, which is VERY VERY OMG YES good for you, because now you can get a full Flurry on a charge! Stack up as many sources of bonus damage as you can, and try to take things down on the first charge.

Also worth considering is Warforged. There's debate about whether Warforged Monks get Wis-to-AC, especially if they take "mithral body" or "adamantine body", and honestly I can see it both ways. If you can get it approved, or sneak it by your DM, that'll make you into a veritable tank, with minimal investment.

[Sendal]

It depends where you want to go with the character, and what type of monk you want to be.

I'm going to go ahead and assume your not out for ultimate power, because you're playing a monk...

Human is good for anything. You can get surprisingly good monks out of the sub-par half orc. Its two penalties are int and cha, two stats a monk isn't generaly too bothered about, although your skill points will suffer a little.

If your after something a little more exotic, and level ajust is OK, Any big creature with massive strength mod will seriously help you land a few more of your flurry attacks. Off the top of my head, minator or half minator could work well.

[Talya]

If you're going grappler, Goliath (races of stone) isn't a bad choice. +4 str, -2 dex, +2 con, and large size grapple/trip bonuses and weapons (see if your DM will houserule large fists for them, too), for a paltry +1 LA.

Tortle (dragon magazine) is awesome with +2 con/wis, -2 dex/cha, +3 natural armor, slow moving at 20' --but you're a monk so who cares--and the 10' swim speed would also benefit from monk speed, no level adjustment, but then you're pretty much obliged to name yourself after a renaissance artist.

[Starbuck_II]

With a level adjustment I have 12 levels to work with.

Pc races: what books allowed?
While small sized: I find Domovoi (Frostburn) pretty good. 2 LA, 2 Fey HD. +6 Wisdom/Cha, +4 Int/Dex, +2 Con, -2 Str. +2 NA.

Marrulurk (Sandstorm): +2 Str, +6 Dex, +4 Con, +6 Wis, +4 cha. +1 LA, and 3 Monstrous HD. Sneak attack +1d6, Death Attack, Poison Use. +2 NA Again small sized.

Lumi (MM 3): Meduim, +4 Wisdom, +2 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex. 2 LA and 2 Outsider HD.

Githzeria (XPH): 2 LA, +6 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Int: many psionic abilities. 3/day Inertial armor means force armor bonus with manifester of 1/2 HD in your case lasts 5 hours and adds +6 Armor bonus.

[toddex]

I kind of wanted to start going monk then some hexblade to get mettle then start on soul eater ^ ^

[toddex]

I have access to just about every book just tell me what the books are.

[Harperfan7]

Svirfneblin and Thri-kreen

[Demons_eye]

What Keld Denar but with the saint template for more goodness. Get the SuS from ToB and get a monks belt plus improve natural attack. For the 2 levels of monk try to go for material monk that makes your bonus feats fighter feats. You end up with +9 levels for unarmed strike and 1 size up.

So saint2/monk2/PW8 you get

wisdom to ac twice
4d6 unarmed strike
The ability to increase 2 sizes and get higher unarmed strike
6 bonus feats
Try to get The feat from BoED that lets your wis replace str to hit
Grab a necklace of natural attacks for enchanting your unarmed strikes
Edit: saint also gives you tongues, holy touch, fast healing 5, DR/5 evil &
+2 con +2 wis +4 cha.

[Sendal]

Hell, if we're sujesting Saint why not throw in vow of poverty and break it properly.

[Talya]

Hell, if we're sujesting Saint why not throw in vow of poverty and break it properly.

Because generally VoP sucks? Especially for monks...although there are ways to make it work to a degree.

[Sendal]

Generally, yes. but a sainted monk? thats pretty much the ideal character to get by without gear.

This is irrelevant however, and I don't want to get into a lengthly debate. The point I was trying to make is : Saint is cheezy and you don't want to have to deal with the "paladin code x10" restrictions anyway.

[Lycanthromancer]

Anthropomorphic bat is alright, especially if you do something like psionic variant monk* 2/psywar 8/slayer 10. With Talashtora.

Granted, your base land speed will be meh for a few levels, but do your adventuring above ground and nab, say, the Speed of Thought feat, and you should be pretty darned good.

*You gain 2 pp at first level, and count as psionic for taking feats. You can also sub psionic feats as monk bonus feats, if you want.

[theMycon]

If you're starting at level 12, Str will be a dump stat- it won't affect damage output noticably anymore, so it's just there for carrying capacity. Just take (Intuitive Attack is good-aligned, weapon finesse if not).

Human is always a good choice. Depending on if they're allowed, I've hear good things about half-giants. Anything that'd boost Wis and/or Dex is good, anything that lowers them and/or Con is bad.

For a real "best choice", just decide what you want to do with it- A melee damage dealer (tolerable, worse than fighter), a slightly-worse-at-it rogue (but gets big damage on non-Sneakable enemies), or someone who wants to disrupt everything around him and force enemies to change their strategies?

[NPCMook]

Skarns from Magic of Incarnum can make decent monks, even have a few racial level substitutes

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Githzerai... or was it Githyenki... one of the Gith races was pretty much tailor made to be a monk, although the LA+3ish is rather painful.

If you are looking at Core, then Human is probably best, with half-orc as a 'hard style specialist' and Elf as a harder-to-hit soft-style specialist.

[Ponce]

Water Orc. As mentioned above, you have a wis penalty (BOO!) But you have +4 strength and +2 con! And a swim speed equal to your base land speed! These are much more important. Take fist of the forest and it all works out! The wis hit sucks, but the loss of it amounts to -1 AC, -1 will save (meh, you'll still have plenty), -1 stunning fist DC (IF you take it, this just means that the alternative [imp grapple] is more appealing, especially with your greater strength, so not really a weakness imho), and -1 quivering palm DC (lol). Note also the penalties against fire-based spells and sp-likes as well as abilities from fire creatures (not a big deal imo).

[Waspinator]

but then you're pretty much obliged to name yourself after a renaissance artist.

Ok, you win.

[BobVosh]

Spoiler

Show

Stats & races for monk

Monk needs Wis, Str, Con, Dex, Int in that order, Cha is dumb stat. Wisdom is important to every single one of the monk types outlined above, it affects everything, I wouldn't start with less than 16. Strength is important for attack and damage, plus it needs to be high if you want to be doing any tripping or grappling. 16 would be nice here also. Constitution is required for hp and fort save, 14 is a good start. Dexterity is nice but unless you're doing an AoO build this is the stat you can decrease in favor of others, 14 is the maximum I'd put here. You want to have intelligence of at least 10 in order to avoid skill point penalties. Charisma is irrelevant.

Human is nice for a race because of the extra feat and skill. It's also the most multiclass friendly race.
Dwarves make decent monks, they have a bonus to useful stat (con) and penalty to useless one (cha). They also have darkvision and save bonus versus spells.
Half-orc, however, is the best of the PHB. Their bonus to strength is more than welcome and penalties to intelligence and charisma don't hurt much. Like dwarves they have darkvision.
Halflings with their small size are rather counter intuitive race for a monk but RotW provides very interesting substitution levels for them.
Half-ogre (RoD) is a good choice if the campaign starts higher level. They are large size and have big bonus to strength. Half-ogres have LA +2.
Kalashtar (ECS) is a very good race for a psionic monk. They get nice amount of bonus power points and have racial monk substitution levels.
Goliaths (RoS) have powerful build racial feature and +4 bonus to strength, which makes them good candidate for grapple heavy monk. They also have LA +1.
Catfolk (RotW) have +4 bonus to dexterity and access to limited form of pounce via feat catfolk pounce. A viable choice for a charger monk. Catfolk has LA +1.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=978174

Use the googles google to search the interbutt :P

Half-ogre has my vote, btw.

[Dixieboy]

Halfling could be good, but the penalty to strength and the smaller size damage...

Halflling monks can get an ability called "Size matters not" I think the name speaks for itself

[JeminiZero]

Might I suggest Sylph? Sure the small size and str penalty doesn't help with grappling or damage. But your defensive abilities are considerable: theres a small Dex (+2) and large Wis bonus (+6) on top of the size bonus to AC. And you can fly (solving most mobility problems) and have improved invisibility at will.

Best of all, you cast spells as a Sorcerer equal to your HD+4. With an LA of 5, that means you cast spells as a Sorc, just 1 level behind your ECL, ensuring you can pull your weight in a party (provided you don't botch your spell selection).

[Devils_Advocate]

Best of all, you cast spells as a Sorcerer equal to your HD+4.

No, you don't. That's not what "caster level" means. And taking it to mean that would clearly be some damn crazy munchkinry.

[playswithfire]

If your plan is Soul Eater, I join those who suggested Thri Kreen, and also mention the non-psionic (1 LA instead of 2) version from MMII.
LA 1/Hit Dice 2/Monk 2/Hexblade 3/Soul Eater 4 gets good saves, evasion and mettle, BAB 10 and you've got 5 natural weapons to drain levels with. The CHA penalty isn't ideal for Hexblade, hence only dipping there long enough to get mettle.

[Dragonsdoom]

I don't know if they are particularly good or not for their LA, but being a centaur monk can really help pump out the damage.

I played a tallfellow halfling monk at one point, he was a great character.
Races of the wild has some alternate levels for halfling monks, and I recommend that if you go far enough monk to get quivering palm to plead with your DM for something more useful, like the feat toughness.

I don't remember why off the top of my head, but I recall thinking a mongrelfolk monk might be interesting.

On the 'just plain wierd' end of the pool:
Anthropomorphic Squid from savage species, or even better anthropomorphic baleen whale.

Being a dex based monk can have it's advantages, especially if you have a high wisdom.

I don't know if it is mechanically viable for players, but roleplaying a dragon monk would be fun.
The lowest ECL I can find is six for a brass wyrmling though.

[Flickerdart]

No, you don't. That's not what "caster level" means. And taking it to mean that would clearly be some damn crazy munchkinry.

Except that, just like Unbodied who "manifests powers as a 4th-level psion (telepath)", a Sylph casts spells as a sorcerer of her HD+4. Not "all Sorcerer spells she casts have a +4 to caster level". There is a significant difference between the two abilities.