Author Topic: Monk's Handbook  (Read 280367 times)

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Sinfire Titan

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #140 on: October 16, 2009, 06:23:34 PM »
I'm reading through the Tattooed Monk and I see the main issues with it (doesn't improve Unarmed damage aside from progressing at Monk level, Medium BAB, poor skills, and a wasted feat), but the benefits attached to the class are really... unusually high powered. Worth noting is that a Kobold can enter this PrC using Races of the Dragon fairly easily.

The tattoos themselves all require a Move action (not Standard) to use. I'm just going to give a quick breakdown of the tattoo abilities:
[spoiler]
Arrowroot: Lay on Hands, but Wisdom based. Class level*Wisdom modifier in HP can be healed. Assuming 10th level and a Wis of 30, that's 100 HP (vastly superior to Wholeness of Body, but not that great). Move action to use. Kinda meh.

Bamboo: 1/day/tattoo, get an Enhancement bonus to Con equal to the number of tattoos you have. Lasts 1 round/class level. Meh, not as good as the real deal. If it wasn't an Enhancement Bonus, it would be well worth it. The good news is it is usable 5/day.

Bat: As Bamboo, but Dex.

Bellflower: As Bamboo, but Cha.

Butterfly: As Bamboo, but Wis.

Centipede: 1/Week, Shadow Walk as the spell. Minimum of 5th level. Not worth the ability, considering a magic item in the Tome of Magic has the same effect and then some.

Chameleon: Alter Self 1/day/tattoo possessed. Lasts 1 hour/class level. Move action to use. Holy **** this is a great ability for a Monk!

Crab: DR 2/Magic per tattoo. Not worth it at all. If only it were a natural armor increase...

Crane: Stage 1 is immunity to Disease. Stage 2 is immunity to Poison. Stage 3 is Dragonwrought without the feat cost. Advances based on the number of tattoos you have, not on how many times you take it. Kinda meh.

Chrysanthemum: Fast Healing, minus the Fast. You heal 1HP/Class Level/Hour. Cuts healing costs nicely, but meh.

Dragon: 4d6 fire damage, DC 13. It's Scorching Ray, but it allows a save instead of an attack roll. Usable 1/day/tattoo. Due to an odd loophole in the wording, it's actually usable 3/activation as a Move action. Not worth it, but cool to think about.

Dragonfly: 1/day/tattoo, gain a Dodge bonus to AC equal to tattoos possessed for a number of rounds equal to your class level. That's +5 AC 5/day for 1 minute per use. Not powerful, but not bad either.

Falcon: Immune to Fear. Allies within 10ft gain your Cha modifier to Will saves against Fear effects. So much potential in the name, but not worth it.

Lion: 1/day/tattoo, Smite someone. +4 on the attack roll, +Class level to damage. Not red because it is a flat +4, not blue because it doesn't scale well and sucks for extra damage.

Monkey: Blanket +1/Tattoo bonus to Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand, and Tumble checks. So +5 at 10th level. You'd be on crack if you didn't say this was decent. Grant for a Skill Monkey (ha!) wannabe like the Monk.

Crescent Moon: Ethereal Jaunt 1/day. Requires 9th level. CL is decent, but uses/day suck without Action Points in the ECS. Not a bad choice, its just not as good as some new abilities.

Full Moon: +2 Luck bonus on Attacks, Saves, Skill checks, or Ability checks 1/day/tattoo. Move action to use, works only at night. Luck bonuses are hard to find, but its kinda underwhelming.

Mountain: +4 Con and Wis for 1 round/class level, usable 1/day/tattoo. -20 to Dex-based checks, but not Init. Blanket immunity to Bull Rushes or Trip Attempts. If not for the fact that you can't move from the spot you activate it, it would be amazingly powerful. You can't even take 5ft steps. The Con bonus is nice. The Wis bonus is nice.

Nightingale: Wholeness of Body. Better than the original because its a move action, worse than the original because it only heals 20 HP tops, and because the Arrowroot from above is 5 times better (no, really).

Ocean: Never need to Eat, Sleep, or Drink again. Meh.

Phoenix: Ick... SR 15+Class level. SR is fairly bad unless you can control it.

Pine: Remain Conscious? I think they meant Diehard. No such feat. Diehard isn't that good anyway.

Scorpion: 1/day/Tattoo, force an enemy attacking you to use their lowest ability score instead of Strength or Dex. Can be used during your opponent's turn without readying an action, and has no listed duration. They may have meant it to last either for one attack or one round, but RAW there's no duration listed. Check the Errata. Either way, this is a great way to screw someone.

Spider: Stunning fist required. Use a Stunning attempt to instead deliver a Contact poison. 2 Con initial and secondary. DC 10+Class Level+Con. If so many things weren't immune to poison, and didn't have a high Fort save, this would be great.

Sun: Full Moon's counterpart. +2 Luck to checks, but only works in daylight.

Tiger: +1 Attack rolls (untyped), +1d6 damage. Both apply to Unarmed Strike, lasts 1 round/class level, and usable 1/day/tattoo. Decent. If you can't think of anything else to take, take this and run with it.

Tortoise: 1/day/tattoo, replace your ranks in an untrained skill with your class level. Meh, kinda useful.

Unicorn: 1/day, reroll 1d20. That's it. Sucks.

Wasp: Haste for 1 round/class level, usable 1/day/tattoo possessed. In other words, Boots of Speed on crack.

White Mask: Blanket Immunity to any effect that would try to discern your alignment, Detect Thoughts, and Detect Lies. +10 on all Bluff checks.[/spoiler]


It isn't that powerful of a PrC, but it isn't that bad of a choice if you aren't concerned about your Unarmed Damage that much (there's other ways to boost it anyway). Also, if Epic Progression are allowed, Legacy Champion can be used to get more tattoos to work with.


[spoiler][/spoiler]

The_Shaman

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #141 on: November 09, 2009, 11:14:38 AM »
You are reading the CWarrior version, not the OA update one? Because I find the latter much better.

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #142 on: November 11, 2009, 06:27:17 PM »
You are reading the CWarrior version, not the OA update one? Because I find the latter much better.

Complete Warrior supersedes Oriental Adventures, IIRC.
CW is 3.5 and OA is 3.0 so...
Unless, of course, there is an 3.5 update to the OA version created after the CW version.
I don't know of any such update though.
[Spoiler]
Quote from: Runestar
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[/quote]
[/spoiler]

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #143 on: November 11, 2009, 06:36:48 PM »
Complete Warrior supersedes Oriental Adventures, IIRC.
CW is 3.5 and OA is 3.0 so...
Unless, of course, there is an 3.5 update to the OA version created after the CW version.
I don't know of any such update though.
It's in dragon 318.
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #144 on: November 11, 2009, 08:27:48 PM »
Bellflower works just a little different than the other Tats referenced ... see Pun-pun.
iirc the slight difference is maintained throughout the Dr318 and CW versions but I don't have access these days (boo).

**

One of my early CO exercises was coming up with other Tattoos.
Turns out, the reference to "Tattoos" in the OA version, is Not dependent on just the Class based Tattoos.
So I thought of 3.0e PsyWar using Psionic Tattoos.
This because a Magic Tattoo is a Magic Tattoo.
With the limit of 20 psi- Tats, that'll give some weird interesting +20s to a few of the Tats.
And (of course) a psi/magic interaction argument.

I've no idea if this is workable with the Dr318 update or the CW versions.
Really bad , would be the alternate Potion = Magic Tats in CA. This version is basically uncapped.

heyheymymy

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #145 on: November 17, 2009, 07:22:18 PM »
Does anyone know what the monk unarmed damage would be for Huge and Gargantuan size characters? I'm trying to figure it out on my own and I cannot. So any help would be awesome!

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #146 on: November 17, 2009, 08:06:18 PM »
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases

that's the basics and covers most rare stuff.
A longer thread very early in CO history got numbers up to d100's.
And it's lost so ...

Hitoshura

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #147 on: November 17, 2009, 11:11:29 PM »
You mean This One?

heyheymymy

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #148 on: November 18, 2009, 02:42:11 PM »
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases



How does it scale up after 2d8 | 3d8? Does it just keep on going up? 4d6 | 5d6
                                                                                             4d8 | 5d8
                                                                                             6d6 | 7d6 etc?

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #149 on: November 18, 2009, 02:47:18 PM »
IIRC there's a handy table in the back of the MM, with the Improved Natural Attack feat.
You could use that (at least up to a certain size).

EDIT: Linky: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsterFeats.htm#improvedNaturalAttack
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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #150 on: November 18, 2009, 02:48:08 PM »
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases



How does it scale up after 2d8 | 3d8? Does it just keep on going up? 4d6 | 5d6
                                                                                             4d8 | 5d8
                                                                                             6d6 | 7d6 etc?
No one knows for sure. Look at the link directly above your post for a discussion.
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #151 on: November 19, 2009, 07:11:46 PM »
Does Tashalatora stack or overlap
with Fist of Zuoken or Zerthy-Monk Prcs ??

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #152 on: November 19, 2009, 11:10:41 PM »
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm#sizeIncreases



How does it scale up after 2d8 | 3d8? Does it just keep on going up? 4d6 | 5d6
                                                                                             4d8 | 5d8
                                                                                             6d6 | 7d6 etc?
No one knows for sure. Look at the link directly above your post for a discussion.

Since no one knows for sure, as far as I can tell Might Wallop will still give you a die size increase because its description talks about die sizes not size categories
I don't employ memes. Mass-produced ammunition, even from reputable manufacturers, tends to malfunction on occasion.

awaken DM golem

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #153 on: November 20, 2009, 05:59:56 PM »
This was part of the old argument about what Die happens after d12.
Does it go to d20 or even d100 ??
Still, it was never clearly decided ... and I didn't participate / don't remember the logic lines, etc.

**

One thing that always bugged me about dealing damage,
was that at 50 hit points damage, the Death by Massive Damage save kicks in.
But there really wasn't any way to bump up that save.
Monks can get there ... minimal save-or-die.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/massaveDamageThresholdsAndResults.htm
This is a UA variant, but it was never hashed out.
It might be interesting.

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #154 on: January 12, 2010, 05:48:09 AM »
No mentions of the Sacrilegious Fist yet?
Duskblade 3/ Monk 2/ Ur-Priest 2/ Sacred Fist 10/ Enlightened Fist 3 

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #155 on: January 13, 2010, 02:31:35 PM »
For future Monk arguments with Giacomo, irrefutable proof that he's an idiot:

Quote from: Sir Giacomo

Post Number: 7684986

To answer the OP in a nutshell: I do not think that an inherent imbalance was put into the game; rather, a different way to play has evolved for many people.

- Giacomo



[spoiler][/spoiler]

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #156 on: January 13, 2010, 02:48:39 PM »
For future Monk arguments with Giacomo, irrefutable proof that he's an idiot:

Quote from: Sir Giacomo

Post Number: 7684986

To answer the OP in a nutshell: I do not think that an inherent imbalance was put into the game; rather, a different way to play has evolved for many people.

- Giacomo


He has also told me that Core is perfectly balanced, and that all supplements are unbalanced by default since they were written not to be playable but to provide ideas for character concepts. While admitting that he has never read or used anything outside Core.

As evidence he said that there's a non-Core monk build which does 1000 damage every turn while moving. When I asked for details it turned out to require buffing from multiple casters and use five charges from a Belt of Battle per round (the item only gives you three per day, and you can't use it more than once per round). And it assumed that every attack in a flurry hit and dealt maximum possible damage.

Oh, and his monk characters have been tested at GitP. They died in every combat.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2010, 03:02:09 PM by Prime32 »
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #157 on: January 14, 2010, 04:33:20 AM »
Seven encounters so far.

Died in combat the first two (note: his monk's character sheet says that he is a "Giacomo monk tank variant"... lulz). Mentally dominated in the third. Fourth involved the rest of the party going in and rescuing him - his monk did a number on the party (and had quite a few buffs) which he uses as proof that his monk is great. Fifth involved attacking a few undead - relatively easy considering the other stuff that happened. Sixth involved being attacked by shadows. His monk teleported everyone out (minus a dead druid), and everyone made for the escape. Seventh encounter is underway.

Other characters are an Aspect of Nature druid who died twice due to being ambushed by Shadows in his sleep, a Rogue who died twice, once in combat and once due to shadows, and a wizard (don't even ask what two schools the idiot playing her banned or let alone the specialization. The character may as well be wearing a gimp suit) who died once so far.
« Last Edit: January 14, 2010, 05:36:10 AM by Solo »

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JaronK

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #158 on: January 14, 2010, 08:44:35 AM »
Quote
I do not think that an inherent imbalance was put into the game; rather, a different way to play has evolved for many people.

In all fairness Giacomo's quote is sorta correct.  There's no imbalance if you play via the playtest method of blaster Wizards and heal bot Clerics.  Playing a different way results in imbalance.  So, the ways that most people play evolved and created the imbalance (or rather brought said imbalance to light).  However, that imbalance is certainly inherent to the system, it's just hidden if you play a specific way (by essencially dropping the strengths of a bunch of classes and playing them in a very weak way).  Certainly, that statement is not the dumbest statement he's made!

Quote
He has also told me that Core is perfectly balanced, and that all supplements are unbalanced by default since they were written not to be playable but to provide ideas for character concepts. While admitting that he has never read or used anything outside Core.

See, that quote is totally inexcusable.  I can't think of any way to interpret that statement that comes out sounding even vaguely reasonable.

Quote
As evidence he said that there's a non-Core monk build which does 1000 damage every turn while moving. When I asked for details it turned out to require buffing from multiple casters and use five charges from a Belt of Battle per round (the item only gives you three per day, and you can't use it more than once per round). And it assumed that every attack in a flurry hit and dealt maximum possible damage.

Oh, and his monk characters have been tested at GitP. They died in every combat.

Okay, I feel like we should be able to build a non core monk that does 1000 damage a turn, just with Power Attack.  Heck, I've gotten a Commoner to over 300 damage a round at level 20.  Let's go pure Monk, I have to see it done.  And we're going to use Flurry, because otherwise it just isn't a Monk.

First off, we'll need Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack.  I don't think there's any way to Flurry with a Lance, so we'll use a Valorous... I dunno, something.  Doesn't matter much as long as it's two handed.  Even a Quarterstaff would do.  And of course we'll need Pounce.  Feral Water Orc is a good base race (LA Paydown means you could still hit Monk 20).  We'll definitely want Headlong Rush, an Orc only feat that doubles charge damage.

At level 20 on the charge that'll give us 5 attacks that from power attack alone do 60 damage, and then Valorous+Headlong Rush gets us 180.  That's 900 damage right there, but that's one of the biggest sources of damage.  If we could flurry with a shield I could do it from here with Shield Charge/Improved Trip, but we can't and I feel like if we don't use Flurry we're cheating.  Still, we're really close already.  The large quarterstaff (Strongarm Bracers) does 1d8 damage base, but that's 3d8 with Valorous+Headlong Rush.  A Feral Orc has a +8 base strength mod, so at 16 strength to start, +6 from items (hardly unreasonable) and +5 from leveling we get a strength of 35, for a strength bonus to damage of +18 (since we're wielding the Quarterstaff two handed).  That bonus is tripled from Valorous and Headlong Rush, and multiplied by 5 because we have five attacks, so we get 270 damage from strength.  Make it a +5 Valorous Quarterstaff, and the enchantment bonus gives us another 75 damage.

To finish it out, let's take Snap Kick.  Even without figuring out a way to make this one Valorous or using Greater Magic Weapon (which you could get from a Tooth of Leraje), you can still add power attack damage to it and Headlong Rush still applies, so it's doing 4d10+72 damage.  

And don't forget we've got two claw attacks, each doing 2d8 (IIRC)+72 damage, and two rake attacks doing the same.  So that's another 8d8+288 damage.  If both claws hit, we also Rend for 4d8+48.  Thanks Feral!

Total damage per round if you hit with all ten attacks on the charge: 27d8+4d10+1653 damage, for an average of 1796 damage when all attacks land.  You can even miss a few attacks and still get the job done.  We've got a free feat still... Improved Natural Attack would work, but I bet there's something better.  We could have done this with Catfolk instead of Feral but that wouldn't be every round since Catfolk Pounce only works on flat footed opponents, and we wouldn't get the claw/claw/rake/rake/rend.  I'm not sure how to do this without Savage Species or LA though, and I'd like this better if I could get to Monk 20 without needing LA Payoff.  Luckily we're still well over 1000 damage without the claw/claw/rake/rake/rend, so theoretically we can pull this off without Feral if we can just get pounce some other way.  There's plenty of room left over for gear and if nothing else we could at least get +5s onto the natural weapons.  We could use an item that gives Pouncing Charge, but that wouldn't be every round.

Sorry, but I had to try.  Ever since Aelrynth insisted it was impossible to make a decent shield based warrior without house rules I've had a thing for trying to make impossible builds viable.

JaronK

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Re: Monk's Handbook
« Reply #159 on: January 14, 2010, 08:50:01 AM »
Make a Monk/Bard.

No use of Ur Priest or Sublime Chord allowed.

"I am the Black Mage! I cast the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

The Legend RPG, which I worked on and encourage you to read.