And yet you're defending (whether you realize it or not) a build that throws away almost all the Monk class features for skills, using feats.
Just so you know, I am not to be at any point considered to be helping Giaomole's build. Just Monk's in general. And only because we're talking about vs the Expert here, I'd pit a Samurai against the Expert and still say the Expert lost.
And yet you jumped in in favor of Giacomo's build... because you didn't read enough to realize what was being talked about.
How, specifically, is the Expert in question dependent on the campaign? I'm pretty sure "buy the best appropriately mobile mount available" isn't very campaign specific.
Got crafting? It makes to dependent on finding raw materials (what is black lotus made out of again?) and terms of usefulness is next to nill in a world with NPCs picking up crafting skills to make money off adventurers without any of the risk.
Once again, he generates the material via Wild Talent. He could be in the middle of a barren desert and still have the materials. Wild Talent gives him Psionic Minor Creation 2/day... this does not have material components, but does require a craft check to make the poison. There is nothing campaign specific at all. Read the posts before commenting.
Expert Class Features: 6+Int Skills, D6 HD, Good Will Save, 10 skills of your choice as class skills, 3/4 BAB.
Monk Class Features: 4+Int Skills, d8 HD, Good Fort, Relf, & Will Save, 3/4 BAB with up to two extra attacks.
More than just that, of course. But you can see from that skeleton that trying to be an Expert (trying to be a skillmonkey) actually doesn't work, which is what we were talking about here. The reduced skillpoints hurts a bit, but the dependency on four stats other than Int is what really kills it.
You skipped explaining why obtaining UMD and buying a Bat is so hard no one can do it with an off-hand wave
Buying an appropriate mount (doesn't have to be a bat, that's just my personal favorite) is not hard at all, it just shows one of the reasons high movement and safe fall doesn't matter much at all, and shows that combat mobility is more than just having an enhancement bonus to speed. The Monk's dependency on standing still to attack (Flurry or Decisive Strike) hurts them when we're talking about such easy options... while many characters can easily ride about (or run about) and attack, classes like the Monk (and to a lesser extent Fighters) can't run around doing things like that, due to full attack dependency. Monks, having special rules for full attacking, are actually more dependent on full attack actions than most melee classes. Note that the Expert in question didn't care about full attacking at all.
As for UMD, it's just not a class skill for Monks, and it runs off a dump stat for Monks. By comparison, it's a class skill for Experts (if they want it to be) and Experts can generally chose whichever stats they should rely on based on their skill choices.
to value those skills above an inherent +20HP,
Except MAD then usually lowers the amount of Con you can put in there, so there's really no guarantee a given Monk will have such increased HP. In fact, they may have less. In the specific comparison here, I used Necropolitan, which completely invalidated any hp bonus (something that anyone can do to reset their HP to d12+2 at least). Also, why are you talking about level 20? We were talking about level 6. I guess "+6HP" doesn't sound as impressive, especially when you realize the Monks shown have all had equal or fewer hp than the Expert I made.
+6 Fort/Relf (how much does it cost in gp for this?),
I think I showed clearly how easy it is to get rid of much of the need for fort saves, since the Expert I made was immune to the vast majority. And the cost of +6 Ref and Fort at level 20 is relatively trivial, though I don't see why you keep insisting on level 20 comparisons. It's not like Monk 20 is terribly viable (neither is Expert 20 of course).
then never factored those towards the further losses of having zero Class Features. Personally, since Skills are so easy to use, and replace, I consider the Immediate Action Blink trait to single handedly be better than everything the Expert has going for him. And that's ignore because you're too busy trolling Giaomole and he didn't take it (for w/e reasons, I hope it was a good one).
See, the point I was making when you decided to start arguing was precisely that: that if you want to show an optimized Monk, you should be showing how Monk class features can make a build more powerful. Things like the Blinking deal, and flurry, and so on all can show how a Monk is strong. Tanking Wis and Dex so you can pump Int and take Skill Mastery doesn't do anything useful.
Touch of Golden Ice's DC is too low, but all forms of bonus damage become better with access to multiple attacks, the trick is to find one that's great. For instance, Like Drinker on a FoFing Monk can deal 10 negative levels, a Fighter can expect 8. An Expert, 6. And it gets silly when your bonus damage stacks up to a point where you start talking mouth darts (3 attacks per attack action).
ToGI is indeed decent if you can get enough attacks... it functions like a crit effect, landing on one in 20 attacks. With that said, I try to avoid Exalted stuff, as the alignment requirements can be taxing on a party. If you were going to do VoP anyway of course then ToGI is one of the first things to take.
JaronK
