Help with my monk

Remove all ads!

OK, so I'm late, and you've already put the advice to use, but I'll echo what's been said anyway. Taking some fighter levels early will make your game easier a bit later on. You get an early boost in BAB and an extra feat (or two depending on how many fighter levels you have).

A *basic monk* is almost a straight melee specialist (monks can be coupled with a few other classes to nice effect--druid/shifter comes to mind). The problem is that often you'll run into large groups of annoying enemies, so IMO you need to tailor your monk to stand in there and whack away.

I forget which feats you get automatically, but the most helpful offensive feats for that style of play are:

Cleave (automatic)
Great Cleave (I think auto at level 6)
Circle Kick

Those three often give you extra attacks that make them plenty worthwhile IMO. Also defensively:

Dodge
Mobility
Spring Attack

When you find yourself standing amidst a big ole pile of bad guys swatting away at them you'll want these to keep your defense up against all those who would normally get bonuses to their attacks on you.

Another consideration is taking Weapon Finesse for your fists. Since your monk relies on DEX and WIS for his AC far more than other characters, you can make use of your DEX bonus with Weapon Finesse to improve your attack bonus/chance to hit. The downside would be that focusing on DEX and WIS takes away from points that would go to STR which reduces the amount of damage your fists can do.

Depending on how you're doing with your skill points, you may wish to dump a lot of points into Tumble. It's a class skill for monks, and you get +1 to AC for every 5 points in Tumble IIRC.

Finally, make sure you're optimized for AC and your attacks. The monk has some quirks when it comes to equipment...you want to be careful that you aren't actually harming your battle stats with a piece of equipment you're wearing, even if it looks like it should be beneficial.

 

Monks are one of my favorite classes. I recommend a Str 14, Dex 15, Con 8+, Int 8+, Wis 14+, Cha 6-8 for stats. After that select either Str or Wis to put your extra stats into. If you are trying to build a monk that can deal out excessive damage than str it is; if you want a monk that can use his/her fist as +5 weapons you need a wisdom of 21.

Munchkin