Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lusden Veharo 10-12-05, 12:30 AM	Monk Truisms: 1) A monk is not a primary damage dealer without feats 2) A monk is the ultimate battlefield control specialist among the non-casters 3) A monk relies upon mobility to be effective Bearing these three in mind, an Anthromorphic Bat would seem to be a very strong choice for a Monk. Consider: a) The monk's bonus speed is never stated to apply to his land speed, and for a race with a higher speed with an alternate movement type, it's illogical to apply to his land speed. Thus, our Anthro Bat should get this to his fly speed. b) A monk can get Wisdom to AC, attack rolls, and his Stunning Fist DC, and the Anthro Bat has +6 Wisdom racially. Though his damage will suck (-4 Strength and Small size), a first level Anthro Bat Monk with a 32 point buy (12 str, 16 dex, 12 con, 12 int, 16 wis, 8 cha before racial bonuses) can jack his AC up to 20, his attack bonus to +7 with Intuitive Attack(most DMs let this pass even without BoED), and make two attacks with a +5 bonus, each dealing d4-1 damage. Toss in his Stunning Fist has a DC of 16, and you've got a more than respectable early tank. This gets even greater is if UA and the BoED are allowed; take a Flaw (Shaky is the best, Murkey-Eyed scores points for flavor) and snatch Sacred Vow and Vow of Poverty at first level for a 24 AC. Nymph's Kiss as your first level bonus, Intuitive Strike at second, Vow of Nonviolence at fourth, and Vow of Peace at sixth will ensure you can stun any humanoid. You don't even suffer the normal Monk weakness of not being able to fly, and a dip into Kensei later on nets you +1 Ghost Touch Metalline fists to overcome DR. Power Surge even helps with your low strength, and you'll net 6 attacks a round after the 4 level dip. Am I missing anything here, or is this truly a solid build?
Neonsamurai 10-12-05, 05:02 AM	Being small size in melee is bad. Being small and weak in melee is even worse. Yes you got a nice touch AC but once someone got you in a grapple you are usually toast even with a maxed out escape artist skill. Clever Wrestling might help here but I prefer to be medium or large size in the first place. With small size you also cripple your battle field control abilities b/c now you are stuck on stunning fist and flanking maneuvers. Grapple is out of the window and your trip ability is also badly disabled. You trade two battle field control mechanisms and a vulnerability to grapple attacks for +3 AC / stunning DC. IMO that's a bad deal because you turned away from one of the monk's most valuable abilities: combat versatility. Vow of Poverty IMO is a bad choice as well. In early game it is nice and flashy and all but from mid-game on it is usually a huge drawback and gets worse on every step to level 20. Since there are items to increase your stun DC, AC, movement, trip checks and ways to make you practicably immune to grapple I would not go the athro-bat route for a monk but chose one of the more traditional paths. Human Monk20, human monk10/fist of zuoken10 and if you want it more twinked out try prince of smack :)
Funny Slaughter 10-12-05, 09:38 AM	true words spoken indeed. take a look at the monk guide from mean_liar (via 3.5 build faq) to learn the high initiations of monkism gs Funny
Lusden Veharo 10-12-05, 01:42 PM	Who's that a reply to, Funny? Neonsamurai, I strongly disagree with your inclusion of grappling as a battlefield control technique for a monk. Not only does it preclude attacking anyone other than your victim, but anybody you can beat in a grapple check is NOT going to make multiple saves against the Stunning Fist DC any monk can generate. Further, grappling fails utterly as a monk against big monsters, and Escape Artist WILL give you a better chance to wriggle free. Losing the option to trip hurts, but disarming is nearly its equal; a warrior without their weapon is just as badly off as one seated on the floor, and you can ready an action to disarm a holy symbol or spell component if you can't just blast a spellcaster with multiple Stunning Fists. Things with natural weapons might not be subject to disarm, but most things with high strength and natural weapons lack great magical abilities, and so Pain Touch works nicely.
tsuyoshikentsu 10-12-05, 09:02 PM	Isn't there that feat that's basically Spring Attack for flying? That'd help with most presented problems.
Neonsamurai 10-13-05, 07:46 AM	Neonsamurai, I strongly disagree with your inclusion of grappling as a battlefield control technique for a monk. Not only does it preclude attacking anyone other than your victim, but anybody you can beat in a grapple check is NOT going to make multiple saves against the Stunning Fist DC any monk can generate. Further, grappling fails utterly as a monk against big monsters, and Escape Artist WILL give you a better chance to wriggle free. Yes I can see that, but if you are grappled by a larger opponent everything but freedom of movement is futile anyway. While Escape Artist indeed is a better way to wriggle free from grapples (and for that reason all my monks have maxed out Escape Artist) it still does not give you any offensive power. Grapple as a special attack can be quite handy versus high AC opponents, rogues, mages, clerics and a lot of other villainous creatures. Grapple isn't a battlefield control technique, it is a disabling technique. Thus it has a completely different set of purposes. You don't want to guide your opponents into a disadvantagous position but you want to disable one of your opponents completely so that your party members can get rid of the other enemies or kill the enemy that you hold disabled and thus protecting them from its powers, spells, special attacks ... you name it. Therefore grappling is an important combat technique for a monk that adds to his most important advantage - combat versatility - and should only be neglected if you can trade equally advantegous traits for it. IMO a lot of damage, spell casting or good spell like abilities would be a worthy trade off, but not +3 AC / Stun DC. Losing the option to trip hurts, but disarming is nearly its equal; a warrior without their weapon is just as badly off as one seated on the floor, and you can ready an action to disarm a holy symbol or spell component if you can't just blast a spellcaster with multiple Stunning Fists. Things with natural weapons might not be subject to disarm, but most things with high strength and natural weapons lack great magical abilities, and so Pain Touch works nicely. Since disarm also includes size modifiers, I can't see how disarm can work any better than trip with a small character, especially with a monk whose attacks count as light weapons thus conferring an additional -4 penalty. Disarming spell components or holy symbols may be easier by four points and thus your small size will be slightly off-set, a medium or large size monk still is a lot better at snapping such items out of an opponents hand. Yes you get a +1 to hit bonus for small size, but compared to the +4 bonus per size category for larger opponents this looks rather unimportant to me. Hope that brought some insight in my thoughts. :)
Lusden Veharo 10-13-05, 01:01 PM	Yes, grappling can take an enemy out of battle for a few rounds-providing you can win repeated grapple checks, which is by no means certain without full BAB and great strength against anything but an arcane caster-but so can Stunning Fist + Pain Touch. Stunned and unable to do anything the first round, then having only a move action the second round, all based upon a fort save that can easily be jacked up by improving Wisdom. Remember, you're getting AC, Stunning Fist DC, and attack bonus out of your high Wisdom, so there's no reason not to send it as high as possible. If it's really important to keep the enemy down, you can just stand over them and stun them every round, while using the rest of your attacks to deal some damage or grab their weapon. What can a monk do with grappling that a high Stunning Fist DC, along with a few feats to bolster it, can't do just as well or better? As to disarming, the answer is to use a sai with the Disarming enchantment. Combined with the Improved Disarm feat, you have no penalty when attempting to disarm a medium opponent under the worst of conditions, and the enemy can't add their massive strength to the check. Against a very high strenght barbarian or fighter, this is probably as good, or even better, than a trip attempt.
SigmaJargon 10-13-05, 02:07 PM	What can a monk do with grappling that a high Stunning Fist DC, along with a few feats to bolster it, can't do just as well or better?Constructs, elementals, oozes, plants, and undead? ;)
Khazra Reborn 10-13-05, 04:11 PM	i thought anthromophs had racial HD? Generally, as with all classes humans are best. The lesser aasimir may just pip it to the post with +2 wis & outsider type, despite no bonus feat. If you use La buy off it becomes a different story though, especially as a melee class you lose very little by having an La. In fact, monk is probaly the only class i'd ever play a stonechild with (RoS, 6la, 2HD IIRC). If you include LA races, half celestial is awesome for the MAD monk.
Ander Spectacular 10-13-05, 04:26 PM	If you are still talking about the VoP monk, then no sai, let alone no sai with magical enhancements. If you think that a small, weak, monk is going to give you battlefield control, you are mistaken. Perhaps if you were a VoP Monk(or Ninja)/Druid it would be better as you could alleviate the penalities of being small via wild shape. Disarming while unarmed is not optimal unless you are really big and strong. Stunning Fist is okay, but ultimately not going to help much, the effect is similar to grappling, ie limiting your opponent's actions. Sure, if you always stunning fist the low fortitude save guys continuously it will hinder them somewhat, but what do you do to control the battlefield against any fighter type? -AS-