At 0.52 you see a masterwork tool for UMDThe point actually is that the Monk can do everything the Expert can, and can still do other things. What is the Expert going to do with the rest of his feats that the Monk can't do with his? The Expert is meaningfully better at UMD for part of the game, and I suppose 9th level spells are going to be gamebreakingly awesome, but they can't be a regular thing unless you like fucking your WBL in the ass. The Expert can easily mimic the +5 competence item (because really, how does anybody not realize that's where it came from? this is the most basic possible skill optimization), but it doesn't really matter. As you get past level 10, the gap between the Expert and the Monk closes, even if the Monk does nothing but cross-class ranks and buy competence items.
Ok, so where does it come from?
Anyway, I'm not sure what the expert is going to use his feats at, so far I'm sure what he'll use his skill points at: UMD, Diplomacy, Handle Animal and Iaijutsu Focus. If you want to mimic all of those as a monk, you need to use 3-4 feats on it.
But, hey, the Fighter is arguably better than the Wizard for the first level or two (the Wizard gets essentially a save-or-die 2 to 3 times per day, but random chance is so huge a factor that it's got about a 50% chance of working on any given target, which is little better than the odds of a Fighter killing something) and is widely considered to be an acceptable choice up until around level 7 or so, and I don't see anybody arguing that the Fighter is better than the Wizard just because it has some advantages for the first chunk of the game that most people play during. The late game differences aren't as extreme in this case, obviously, but barring book-throwing shenanigans like spamming war dogs at level 1, I really don't see why having a few more ranks in skills makes or breaks the class.
I agree, which is why this challenge is set at level 10. After the 7th level fuck up in power usually happens.
A lot of people do argue that a level 2 fighter is better than a level 2 wizard though, and this particular thread is arguing that a 10th level expert can easily handle the same tasks as a 10th level monk. If the monk spends all his non-bonus feats on making up for what the expert gets in skills, the expert can use his most broken feats to a better effect than the monk. If the monk does not make up for what the expert gets in skills, the expert can use his most broken skills to make up for what the monk gets in raw combat ability.
And yeah, you can use the apprentice feat to grab UMD as a class skill. But you lose one feat gaining something the expert has in his class chassis, if the monk is using precious resources like feats on just grabbing something the expert can already do, the expert have some features that are better than the monk, perhaps instead of grabbing apprentice, the expert could grab nymphs kiss, or faerie mysteries initiate to get more Hp? Or whatever other feat he wanted that he found more useful getting, because he wouldn't want to use feats to get the meaningless abilities the monk has.
And since monks can't use a lot of their useful class features if they don't put their abilities a certain way, they lose even more skill points as they can't buff intelligence.
The frailty of the monk is his bunch of meaningless class features that require odd ability scores to function, and even if you totally ignore these, you still have a bad feat chassis, as well as next to no proficiency with armour.
So lets talk about what the monk has going for him over the expert:
The only things I can see that the monk really has going for him is 4 bonus feats, the evasions and the good saving throws. Everything else is just plain bad or not really worth anything. The 4 bonus feats the monk gets aren't really that good if you don't use sources to exchange them, a monk that wants UMD really doesn't have the strength to be a tripper against most monsters, so improved trip is not good, and disarm is worse against most monsters, combat reflexes or deflect arrows, well combat reflexes require a decent dex to be worthwhile, and that monsters don't want to be in close combat with you or some other thing that grants AoOs, but the monk doesn't really have that. Stunning fist is actually decent as stunned is a nice debuff, but the check is too low to matter all that much, and yes it requires wisdom.
The evasions and the saving throws are sure nice. But is it really worth that much over choosing your skills and more skill points per level?
But if you are so confident in the monks abilities, why don't you build a 25 point buy level 10 monk who can pass a level 10 same game test.
I'm not overconfident that the expert will win, but I still think he can handle more tasks than a monk can, and handle some tasks better.
