Monk/Ur Priest Build Ideas

[Ulchabhán]

Hello, all.
I am playing a 6th level Monk/Ur-Priest, and looking for suggestions on optimization. The original idea involved getting a good magic staff and enchanting both ends to use as a quarterstaff. Also toying with the idea of Eilservs School, but that's a lot of feats.

The DM required level 1 to be an NPC class (without multi-classing penalties), so I am currently Expert 1/Monk 4/Ur-Priest 1. Feats so far are Iron Will, Spell Focus (Evil), and Practiced Spellcaster.
Thanks for any help!

[Psyren]

The obvious route would be to aim for Sacred Fist, is that your plan? If so you'll need Combat Casting and Combat Reflexes asap. What race are you?

[Gruftzwerg]

If you intend to play with (or as) undead, I would recommend a single lvl dip into Shadow Sun Ninja. This gives you the "touch of shadow sun" ability. The ability alters between negative energy (first use and every odd after) and positive energy (second use and every even after) from your hands. They scale with your unarmed strike dmg (note: get sizing enhancement). The negative energy is used for either your undead minions to heal or to deal damage to living enemies. The positive energy can heal with your (living) allies or deal dmg to undead.

Since it is only a single lvl dip, I would try to get it. The sole problem are the required maneuvers. You need another lvl dip into Swordsage (unarmed variant) for that. Maybe your DM lets you exchange a monk lvl for it?

[H_H_F_F]

Yeah, this should be a sacred fist build. Assuming you got combat reflexes from second level of monk, check with your DM if they'll let you regret practiced spellcaster and take combat casting instead, otherwise it's gonna really hold you back.

I'd get another level of Ur priest anyway for rebuke undead. This, and 10 levels of sacred fist, will have you covered for full ur priest spellcasting. Last 3 levels could go to anything, though I would consider a couple of hierophant levels.

[Saintheart]

If you're after Eilservs School you're going to be waiting at least a few more levels on that build; it has a requirement of BAB +6. Still, if you need more feats, the Martial Monk variant is the easiest way to pick up some of the ones for Eilservs School: TWF and WF are fighter feats, they can be substituted in.

But even then I very sadly wouldn't really recommend it. I suspect that by aiming for Eilservs School you're inherently trying to cover too many bases. Eilservs School really has its best effect if the intent is almost-exclusively martial TWF and you're planning on spamming as many attacks as possible rather than dishing out big single hits with the staff. That usually suits a full-BAB type with a lot of feats since the idea of a TWF-ing quarterstaff build is many attacks which build up on either the spell effects imposed or the small damage adding up.

The problem with Eilservs School in that regard is that the more you hit the enemy with spell effects from the staff, the less damage you do: the hitpoint damage done under Eilservs School depends on the number of charges left in your staff. The solution to that issue is either have a method to recharge your staff -- not impossible, but not easy -- or have a custom magic staff which has, say, 50 charges of light and several other spells you want to fire without consuming a charge. That sort of staff would give you the best of both worlds because it would have a spell available to fire on hitting the enemy twice with the staff, but it also would never drop your damage bonus because you wouldn't be using a charge from the staff. These items are not impossible -- the Staff of the Magi from the DMG itself is one such item -- but they're also going to be hideously expensive.

I'm not saying it can't be done. My quarterstaff handbook contains several methods by which it's possible. But it depends on having a very wide array of sourcebooks to build from, and even then I'd still suggest something other than a Monk to build from.

[Quertus]

Imma go in a completely different direction, and recommend DMM Persist Divine Power, to give you full BAB for your "stick it to the man" plan.

Or, you know, just Persist Divine Power once you hit 9s, because Ur-Priest.

[Ulchabhán]

Thanks for all the ideas!
I was thinking Divine Power for sure. I think it works well with flurry/TWF. Sacred Fist is a good build, but I am interested in using weapons, so I may leave that alone. I also realized I can no longer advance in Monk . . .

[Gruftzwerg]

Thanks for all the ideas!
I was thinking Divine Power for sure. I think it works well with flurry/TWF. Sacred Fist is a good build, but I am interested in using weapons, so I may leave that alone. I also realized I can no longer advance in Monk . . .

Loosing the option to advancing as a monk is the least problem imho. You don't take more than 1, 2 or 6 lvls of monk, since the abilities later are all medicore and can be replaced with magic items. If you want to further progress monk abilities, you have to do it with monk related PRC.

e.g. Shou Disciple: This prc consists of 5 lvls that will progress your monk stuff and enhance your abilities to flurry with non monk weapons.

or

First of the Forest: Progresses your monks unarmed strike by 2 steps (!) in 3 lvls.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Unless your character concept (which requires starting as an NPC class) requires that level of expert, and if Dragon Magazine flaws are allowed, since you've got to be on the more evilly side of the alignment scale anyway, how about you take a level of commoner with the Infested With Chickens flaw and use Fell Animate and Fell Drain to turn the chickens into undead to peck at your foes? The Destruction Retribution feat makes your chickens explode when they die, dealing negative energy damage all around. If your party takes the Tomb Tainted Soul feat, that's plentiful, nearly free healing for everyone, as well as all the undead minions in your possession.

Also, optimize your WBL. Only one monk level is actually required for that, although two is good. Make sure to hit up the ACFs for monk.

[Ulchabhán]

how about you take a level of commoner with the Infested With Chickens flaw and use Fell Animate and Fell Drain to turn the chickens into undead to peck at your foes?

That is hilarious and I love it.

For more context, this is a Menzoberranzan game, with the requirement that your first three levels be ECL or NPC classes. I am a Drow Expert, which helped me both satisfy the Ur-Priest reqs and also gave me longspear proficiency to make the most of my Combat Reflexes.

So from the start, this character is not exactly min-maxed . . .

[MaxiDuRaritry]

That is hilarious and I love it.

You could reflufffeather it and call it "Cursed With Cuccos." Of course, the drow aren't familiar with chickens as being fairly inoffensive critters, so if their only exposure to them is as an exploding undead plague, they'd likely be terrified of them. Which would have the even more hilarious side-effect: drow surface raiders would run screaming as soon as they spooked the village chickens, meaning large numbers of chickens would be an effective way of warding off drow attacks, and keeping chicken coops around entrances to the Underdark would effectively keep the drow underground.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Say you visited the Otyugh Hole in CS to get Iron Will for 3,000 gp instead of spending a feat on it.

That NPC class at 1st is a bit annoying, especially since it's an extra point of BAB lost. See if you can use fractional BAB from UA.

Expert 1/ Monk 2/ Duskblade 2/ Ur-Priest 2/ Sacred Fist 10/ whatever else 3.
Duskblade (PH2) gives you BAB and the class skills to qualify for Ur-Priest, plus a few utility spells, and Ur-Priest counts its levels for determining caster level.
Sacred Fist (CD) advances your Monk abilities and your Ur-Priest spellcasting. Its speed bonus doesn't stack with the Monk class's speed bonus, so only taking Monk 2 is ideal.

[Gruftzwerg]

while we are at commoner chicken infested build:

A)
- warforged
- a level in swordsage or warblade to get access to the "Blood in the Water" stance
- a crit build

The stance gives you an untyped (stacking) +1 on attack and dmg rolls for each crit with 10 rounds duration (refreshing on each crit).
You chicken supply will ensure to refresh your stack duration and add constantly more stacks to it. Warforged doesn't need to sleep and thus never needs to stop adding more stacks. 1-shot anything with your stacks.^^


B)
or as already mentioned, with Shadow Sun Ninja:

Out of combat you have an infinite supply of chickens to alter between your negative energy touch and your heal touch. This means infinite out of combat healing for a single lvl of SSN.
To increase your heals and dmg, get yourself "Sizing" (necklace of natural attack) to increase your unarmed strike to colossal.
For each step size difference you get -2 to hit, up to -8 for colossal size hands (for a medium size character).
Since your negative energy is a touch attack and you can adjust the size/penalty as you like, this is a nice and safe dmg boost.
Further the healing touch doesn't need an attack roll (it's only a touch and not a melee touch attack!), which means you can size your unarmed strikes always to colossal for max healing.