Is it just me or would this build rock?

[enderrocksonall]

Looking at the BoED it seems that a decent dex and wis lvl 5 human monk can get his AC into the 30's without breaking a sweat by taking Vow of Poverty, Vow of Nonviolence, and Vow of Peace.

Even better make the campaign gestalt and have a pally//monk with charging smite to get the damage even higher. Later on you can drop one of them to start the dragon devotee or desciple PrC's to boost your stats and you're well on your way to epic at level 12.

[martyboy74]

Looking at the BoED it seems that a decent dex and wis lvl 5 human monk can get his AC into the 30's without breaking a sweat by taking Vow of Poverty, Vow of Nonviolence, and Vow of Peace.

Even better make the campaign gestalt and have a pally//monk with charging smite to get the damage even higher. Later on you can drop one of them to start the dragon devotee or desciple PrC's to boost your stats and you're well on your way to epic at level 12.

What happens when you're facing a flying opponent? Or, for that matter, if you actually need to, y'know, fight someone?

[Bears With Lasers]

It's just you. Sure, you have a high AC, but Vow of Poverty weakens you very significantly in the long run, plus there's the problem of flying foes.

And, of course, vow of Peace/Nonviolence means your entire party has to change their playstyle, and you can't actually fight, so what's the point of having the AC?

[Piccamo]

You can turn the other cheek rather well, congrats!

[enderrocksonall]

its not that you cant fight its just that you cant deal lethal damage. for a monk that is just a different flavor of ice cream anyway. for the flight thing become a dragonborn with wings no biggee.

[martyboy74]

If you want to get that high of an AC, it's npt very hard for a monk anyways. Just pump WIS, with the magic items you couldn't use before, an be at least semi-useful.

[enderrocksonall]

If you want to get that high of an AC, it's npt very hard for a monk anyways. Just pump WIS, with the magic items you couldn't use before, an be at least semi-useful.

how would you get your wis THAT high? I realize my optimization skill is at a -8 but I cant figure how you would get that many stackable bonuses from items.

[Zincorium]

Base AC: 10
Vow of Poverty: +5 (at level 5)
Vow of Peace: +6
Total before ability modifiers: 21

So, to get an AC of thirty, you're looking at a dex and wisdom with a total modifier of +9.

That's at least one score of 20 or above, which you could only get with a racial mod to dex or wisdom since you haven't got a 2nd ability score increase, as well as at minimum a 17 and an 18, with a +2 to dex from elf or halfling and a +1 to the 17 at level 4.

That's pretty boss scores, of course you're going to have a good AC. And, of course, the only race this works with is strongheart halfling from the FR campaign setting. Why? Because otherwise you can't get the feats by level 5. Remember you don't get the bonus feats from vow of poverty if you take it after the level you get them, it says so in the preceding page. You need to take sacred vow and vow of poverty at first level to make it, and that means a bonus feat. Humans don't get a plus to an ability score, so you can't make the ability mods to get to 30.

Of course, you can't use any magic items, and all wealth you come across has to be donated to a worthy cause (you can't just let the other players take it), and you're going to tick off your party members to no end, because not only can you not kill enemies, you can't let them do it either. And any normal campaign is not going to solely feature undead and evil outsiders. It will come up.

[enderrocksonall]

Base AC: 10

Of course, you can't use any magic items, and all wealth you come across has to be donated to a worthy cause (you can't just let the other players take it), and you're going to tick off your party members to no end, because not only can you not kill enemies, you can't let them do it either. And any normal campaign is not going to solely feature undead and evil outsiders. It will come up.

The math aside, and you're right my head math at 4 am was a little off, its not true that you can't allow your allies to kill anything. They simply suffer a -1 atk roll penalty for an hour/level if they do it within 120 feet of you. That's it. they want to kill something, they say "take a hike Zak! Come back in about an hour and we'll have let our hobgoblin friend here go on his merry way."

[Shiny, Bearer of the Pokystick]

BoED has a level of existence consistent with the level to which Monkey Grip exists.

Shush! Or you will wake the sleeping giant of bad ideas!

[martyboy74]

The math aside, and you're right my head math at 4 am was a little off, its not true that you can't allow your allies to kill anything. They simply suffer a -1 atk roll penalty for an hour/level if they do it within 120 feet of you. That's it. they want to kill something, they say "take a hike Zak! Come back in about an hour and we'll have let our hobgoblin friend here go on his merry way."

THAT'S NOT HOW EXALTED CHARACTERS WORK!
(Anyone have a picture of Morbo?)

Exalted characters are pure good. Letting people do that kind of things is not exalted.

[Piccamo]

Originally Posted by enderrocksonall
The math aside, and you're right my head math at 4 am was a little off, its not true that you can't allow your allies to kill anything. They simply suffer a -1 atk roll penalty for an hour/level if they do it within 120 feet of you. That's it. they want to kill something, they say "take a hike Zak! Come back in about an hour and we'll have let our hobgoblin friend here go on his merry way."

THAT'S NOT HOW EXALTED CHARACTERS WORK!
(Anyone have a picture of Morbo?)

Exalted characters are pure good. Letting people do that kind of things is not exalted.

Yeah, it says in the Special text that if you knowingly let your allies kill someone like that you've broken your vow.

[Zincorium]

The math aside, and you're right my head math at 4 am was a little off, its not true that you can't allow your allies to kill anything. They simply suffer a -1 atk roll penalty for an hour/level if they do it within 120 feet of you. That's it. they want to kill something, they say "take a hike Zak! Come back in about an hour and we'll have let our hobgoblin friend here go on his merry way."

That's vow of nonviolence. And you can't let them do it, you have to at least attempt to stop them.

You also have vow of peace. That ups the ante. You MUST take an incapacitated foe prisoner, or you have broken your vow. Period. If there is an incapacitated foe, and he dies at the hands of you or your allies, it's all over. That's the annoying part. It only works, at all, if your party is all hip to the exalted business and/or you fight only undead, constructs, evil outsiders, and enemies who will play nice.

Also, am I the only one who thinks it's complete BS that your allies take a morale penalty to their actions for doing something against an oath you took? Leaving aside the whole question of interfering directly with other characters, it leaves no room for discussion on whether a particular character would feel remorse at all. Sometimes, even good characters feel fully justified in removing a threat from the realm of the living, regardless of how another character feels about it.

[enderrocksonall]

Yeah, it says in the Special text that if you knowingly let your allies kill someone like that you've broken your vow.

right but directly following that rule is a specific example of getting an oath of non interfearance from them which if they break that vow then they can get killed with no penalty. seems pretty fair to me since you have to knock them out in the first place.

Anyway forget the impact on the party guys. I meant for this character to be a solo NPC in the campaign I am running now.

[Piccamo]

Its fine as an NPC. NPCs don't always have to follow the same rules. You want a level 8 challenge to wildshape as a level 15 druid? No problem, just don't give him too many other abilities.

[enderrocksonall]

That's vow of nonviolence. And you can't let them do it, you have to at least attempt to stop them.

You also have vow of peace. That ups the ante. You MUST take an incapacitated foe prisoner, or you have broken your vow. Period. If there is an incapacitated foe, and he dies at the hands of you or your allies, it's all over. That's the annoying part. It only works, at all, if your party is all hip to the exalted business and/or you fight only undead, constructs, evil outsiders, and enemies who will play nice.

Also, am I the only one who thinks it's complete BS that your allies take a morale penalty to their actions for doing something against an oath you took? Leaving aside the whole question of interfering directly with other characters, it leaves no room for discussion on whether a particular character would feel remorse at all. Sometimes, even good characters feel fully justified in removing a threat from the realm of the living, regardless of how another character feels about it.

Vow of peace doesnt up the ante at all the restrictions are actually LESS stringient and spelled out than the restrictions for vow of nonviolence. They copy pasted the first part of the special section. The only way it is more restrictive is that you cant harm ANY living thing instead of just humanoids or monstrous humanoids, which are the only enemies nonviolence applies to BTW.

[Zincorium]

right but directly following that rule is a specific example of getting an oath of non interfearance from them which if they break that vow then they can get killed with no penalty. seems pretty fair to me since you have to knock them out in the first place.

Anyway forget the impact on the party guys. I meant for this character to be a solo NPC in the campaign I am running now.

Right. NPC. You realize that NPCs are under no restriction on being legal characters, no? And contrariwise, aren't supposed to present more of a challenge than the CR you assign to them?

[Scrubbed]

[Nevermore]

You are definitely not the only one Zincorium...

[enderrocksonall]

Right. NPC. You realize that NPCs are under no restriction on being legal characters, no? And contrariwise, aren't supposed to present more of a challenge than the CR you assign to them?

If you're doing this as an 'oh look at this NPC I built, isn't he so shiiiiny...', then you need to do the following:
[Scrubbed]

Wow...This went fast in an ugly direction. Take a chill pill, i'm merely pointing out your misquotation.

[brian c]

It's just you. Sure, you have a high AC, but Vow of Poverty weakens you very significantly in the long run, plus there's the problem of flying foes.

And, of course, vow of Peace/Nonviolence means your entire party has to change their playstyle, and you can't actually fight, so what's the point of having the AC?

A good thing to remember is that monks can deal nonlethal damage with their unarmed strikes at no penalty whatsoever; nonlethal damage is explicitly allowed by Vow of Peace so monks can fight with no penalty, they just have to not kill an incapacitated opponent. Also, Intuitive Attack from BoED lets you use Wis on attack rolls, increasing the monk's melee effectiveness. With improved Grapple as a monk bonus feat, this kind of build is valid and interesting to play. A Poverty/Peace monk will have higher AC compared to other players in a non-optimized, low magic or low gold (below WBL) campaign, and still have decent offensive abilities.

Back to the OP though, it should be noted that you can't pick up Dragon Disciple from Paladin//Monk; the stat boosts would be cool but you need spontaneous arcane spellcasting.

[enderrocksonall]

Back to the OP though, it should be noted that you can't pick up Dragon Disciple from Paladin//Monk; the stat boosts would be cool but you need spontaneous arcane spellcasting.

Yah i remembered that 10 minutes after i put up that post, but a 3 level dip into Devotee will fix that and give a decent stat boost. Or just a 1 level dip into sorc.

[enderrocksonall]

Also, am I the only one who thinks it's complete BS that your allies take a morale penalty to their actions for doing something against an oath you took? Leaving aside the whole question of interfering directly with other characters, it leaves no room for discussion on whether a particular character would feel remorse at all. Sometimes, even good characters feel fully justified in removing a threat from the realm of the living, regardless of how another character feels about it.

i guess the puppy eyes work REALLY well on some people!

[Zincorium]

Wow...This went fast in an ugly direction. Take a chill pill, i'm merely pointing out your misquotation.

Not in the post I quoted, and seriously, if you weren't obviously the DM, you would be grossly violating both the vow of nonviolence and of peace through letting your allies kill stuff, after the first time which you might get away without breaking your oath if you had no reason to believe they would. After that, you have too high of a wisdom score not to figure it out.

And as far as me taking a chill pill, it wouldn't make a difference. I'm not upset or angry or even highly annoyed. But saying that a particular NPC is really awesome on a message board would indeed make you boastful person. And if the only reason they're cool is because you gave them feats that only work well due to you being the DM and having full control over what happens, well, that's kind of sad.

If you were playing a real character, instead of statting out a piece of talking scenery, it might be worth props if you were interested in playing the character rather than how uber high your AC was. As it is, that's all you seemed to care about in the OP. Roleplaying > optimization. If you can get both, good, but never go for the second at the expense of the first, and that's what it looked like you were doing.

[Indon]

Hmm... you know, an all Vow of Peace party would be quite interesting.

Poverty, that's something you do alone. Peace changes the group dynamic; I'd say it works best in conjunction with other teammates who have taken the same oath (or can readily function in a way commeasurate with the oath).

[brian c]

Hmm... you know, an all Vow of Peace party would be quite interesting.

Poverty, that's something you do alone. Peace changes the group dynamic; I'd say it works best in conjunction with other teammates who have taken the same oath (or can readily function in a way commeasurate with the oath).

Agreed; I have a Poverty monk going on right now and I think I might take Vow of Peace, but only because I think my group could handle it. Well, the fighter may take exception to it, but I think he'd still be allowed to do lethal damage, just not allowed to kill.

[JaronK]

All Vow of Peace/Poverty parties are hillarious. The party makeup is different... usually something like Druid (healing and tanking should an undead or golem show up), Beguiler (for dealing with mechanical traps and the like), and then a bunch of diplomancer characters (Bards, Marshals, and other charisma characters who max out diplomacy). Since everyone's got Vow of Poverty, you don't worry about wealth at all, so the usual motivations for needing to slay stuff in dungeons goes away. With Vow of Peace on everyone, you can calm everyone down and just talk out your differences. Pretty hilarious, and most pre-written campaigns are absolutely not designed for a party like that.

JaronK

[Arbitrarity]

Or, you could make a monk who took improved natural attack at level 15, has a monk's belt, and then had a party caster use Greater Mighty Wallop.

12d10 fists, for hours/level!

Actually, I bet using imp natural attack that way is a bit debateable, but the monks fists say they count as natural and manufactured weapons for all spells and abilities.

[Indon]

All Vow of Peace/Poverty parties are hillarious. The party makeup is different... usually something like Druid (healing and tanking should an undead or golem show up), Beguiler (for dealing with mechanical traps and the like), and then a bunch of diplomancer characters (Bards, Marshals, and other charisma characters who max out diplomacy). Since everyone's got Vow of Poverty, you don't worry about wealth at all, so the usual motivations for needing to slay stuff in dungeons goes away. With Vow of Peace on everyone, you can calm everyone down and just talk out your differences. Pretty hilarious, and most pre-written campaigns are absolutely not designed for a party like that.

JaronK

Ogre BBEG: "Ah, I see you cleaved your way through my goblin forces to finally meet me in combat!"

Monk: "Actually, we just knocked them out and tied them up."

Bard: "And we're here to negotiate for you to stop your attacks in exchange for a free trade agreement with the League of Nonhumans We've Beaten Up In The Past."

[JaronK]

Ogre BBEG: "Ah, I see you cleaved your way through my goblin forces to finally meet me in combat!"

Monk: "Actually, we just knocked them out and tied them up."

Bard: "And we're here to negotiate for you to stop your attacks in exchange for a free trade agreement with the League of Nonhumans We've Beaten Up In The Past."

Yeah, that's basically it. Remember, the Diplomacy check to make someone your friend really isn't that high, especially if you've got time to make that check... and with that many overlaping Vow of Peace calming effects, you're going to have all the time in the world.

Ogre Overlord: Rawr! I shall slaughter you all!

Beguiler: Can't we talk about this?

Bard: Surely there's a better way.

Ogre Overlord: Urge to kill... falling... falling...

Cloistered Cleric: Why do you feel the need to slaughter people anyway? Did you not get enough attention as a child?

Ogre Overlord: I... I was the runt of the litter as a child. *Breaks down sobbing* Everyone always stole my things!

Marshal: That's terrible, here, let's talk about that. Would you like a cookie?

And then Ogre Overlord goes off to become an anger management counciler and lives happily ever after.

JaronK

[elliott20]

ugh... I don't think there is a more humiliating way to defeating a BBEG than "Dr. Phil"ing the guy.