Paladin + Monk Explanation

[Nem]

Hello,

I made a post a few days ago about how to build a paladin on unfair mode. Most of the replys said to take monk after pally level 2 and get scaled fists and crane style.

I read what these do and from my understanding the bonus only apply if I don't use armor or a weapons. Can someone fully explain how this build would work and what items I would use?

thank you

[Dixon Sider]

i think there is a monk style that reduces your loss from fighting defensively.

If you want to wear heavy armor you can put some points in fighter as well to get some of that armor penalty reduced. I wanted to do this too but the no heavy armor felt wrong on a paladin lol

[Harukage]

Nah to hell with armor.
First of all crane style decreases the penalty for atack to -2 while increases fightinging defensively bonus to +3 dodge AC. Further you can increase the bonus to +4 if you have 3 ranks or more in mobility.
Then you will need some decent Cha. Paladins get their bonus to saves equel to Cha bonus, Scaled Fists get insight bonus to AC eqael to that same Cha bonus when they do not wear armor. You can increase both with items that grant extra Cha.
But you can use bracers of armor, they very much replace normal armor since bonuses from them do not stack. And they go up to bracers +8 wich is really good.
Then you can put necklace of natural armor for extra natural AC bonus.
Additionaly there are robes that also grant AC, like Censor's robe or Arbiter's robe. Robes do not count as armor, they are cloth, so you will still get monk AC bonus.
Plus you can cast Shield of Faith. It will give you shield AC bonus, but it does not count as wearing shield for purpose of other bonuses. Plus you can squeeze extra AC using things like Security ring or aldori dueling mastery ( if you use dueling swords ) for extra stacking shield AC.
All in all you WILL have more AC than a paladin in heavy armor while wearing no armor at all.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Harukage:

Nah to hell with armor.

Plus you can cast Shield of Faith. It will give you shield AC bonus, but it does not count as wearing shield for purpose of other bonuses.

Shield of Faith is actually a Deflection bonus, the same type as a Ring of Protection +x gives. You can get Jubilost with the Infusion Discovery to give you a +4 AC bonus by casting Shield (the spell) on you though, I believe.

[Arden]

The build you are looking for is 1 scaled/1 vivi/2 pala/sorc/dd/ek. It achieves around 40-42 ac at lvl 2 with full buffs as dex based with 20 dex, 19 cha and extract the dex value you skipped to see the ac for strength build. The damage is very good because you get 1 more attack with flurry when unarmed or with monk weapons. The saves are awesome.

Survivability wise your str char will have problems in act 1 and early act 2 till you get mirror images. You will have to use fighting defensively with 3 in mobility and crane wing in order not to die every fight. You also must have vivisectionist in the party to cast shield infusion on you. After that the str build won't have problems and will have superior damage but will require mirror images and displacement for every fight till you get a couple more items and spells.

To have a smooth run my advice is to main something else than melee, start with dex based build and recruit an extra merc at lvl 1 or 2 and build him as str based around lvl 8-10. Or just handle it and roll with the str build. It will add several hours of reloading to your playthrough if you are not familiar with the game mechanics.

[Shahadem]

Armor really needs to be fixed so that it doesn't make it impossible to receive a dex bonus.

The people who created the rules never tried on or even looked at real plate mail. Plate mail doesn't impede movement in the slightest and the protection it offers is excellent. Much better than BS garbage implementation we have.

[Daliena]

Originally posted by Shahadem:

Armor really needs to be fixed so that it doesn't make it impossible to receive a dex bonus.

The people who created the rules never tried on or even looked at real plate mail. Plate mail doesn't impede movement in the slightest and the protection it offers is excellent. Much better than BS garbage implementation we have.

Most armor -does- allow a dex bonus, it just limits how much, because bollocks wearing a suit of full plate offers as much unrestricted freedom of movement as not being armored at all. Even if the armor itself didn't limit you, the weight certainly would slow your movements somewhat.

Beyond that, it's a balance issue, and that goes way, way back because if all armors allowed you to apply unlimited dex bonus, what would be the point of not always equipping the heaviest armor possible?

[Nem]

Originally posted by Arden:

The build you are looking for is 1 scaled/1 vivi/2 pala/sorc/dd/ek. It achieves around 40-42 ac at lvl 2 with full buffs as dex based with 20 dex, 19 cha and extract the dex value you skipped to see the ac for strength build. The damage is very good because you get 1 more attack with flurry when unarmed or with monk weapons. The saves are awesome.

Survivability wise your str char will have problems in act 1 and early act 2 till you get mirror images. You will have to use fighting defensively with 3 in mobility and crane wing in order not to die every fight. You also must have vivisectionist in the party to cast shield infusion on you. After that the str build won't have problems and will have superior damage but will require mirror images and displacement for every fight till you get a couple more items and spells.

To have a smooth run my advice is to main something else than melee, start with dex based build and recruit an extra merc at lvl 1 or 2 and build him as str based around lvl 8-10. Or just handle it and roll with the str build. It will add several hours of reloading to your playthrough if you are not familiar with the game mechanics.

so I need 20 dex for this build to work? So, I still don't understand, am I fighting while wearing no armor and no weapons? Why doesn't STR work with this build?

[Starvald]

Originally posted by Nem:

Originally posted by Arden:

The build you are looking for is 1 scaled/1 vivi/2 pala/sorc/dd/ek. It achieves around 40-42 ac at lvl 2 with full buffs as dex based with 20 dex, 19 cha and extract the dex value you skipped to see the ac for strength build. The damage is very good because you get 1 more attack with flurry when unarmed or with monk weapons. The saves are awesome.

Survivability wise your str char will have problems in act 1 and early act 2 till you get mirror images. You will have to use fighting defensively with 3 in mobility and crane wing in order not to die every fight. You also must have vivisectionist in the party to cast shield infusion on you. After that the str build won't have problems and will have superior damage but will require mirror images and displacement for every fight till you get a couple more items and spells.

To have a smooth run my advice is to main something else than melee, start with dex based build and recruit an extra merc at lvl 1 or 2 and build him as str based around lvl 8-10. Or just handle it and roll with the str build. It will add several hours of reloading to your playthrough if you are not familiar with the game mechanics.

so I need 20 dex for this build to work? So, I still don't understand, am I fighting while wearing no armor and no weapons? Why doesn't STR work with this build?

It's an attempt to cut back on the number of stats you need for the build. Relying on 3 stats is doable, it just won't be optimal - the idea is to get your AC high enough that things only hit you on nat 20s. So the builds can be adjusted towards shifting to dex to hit/damage, so you only need to focus on 2 stats - in this case dex and cha. Higher stats = more AC. You will need to choose your feats/weapons carefully though. Str build is still possible, but with the need to up a third stat, they'll have to be balanced a bit more - but ultimately it will end up doing more damage - it will need a bit more earlier babysitting, and possible reloading, but once you get more access to abilities, buffs and equipment it will get easier.

As for weapons, you can use them, you don't have to stick to fists (although fists have an item to switch them to dex for damage). There's monk weapons as well. You still don't need to stick to those either, although if dex based you have to select the right ones and have weapon finesse.

The monk level is for easy access to crane style, with the bonus of extra un-armoured AC. You can ignore this extra AC if you want to, you will still get the crane style/fighting defensively toggle - no point going crane wing/riposte, as wing requires you to be unarmoured. Ignore the tooltip about needing your offhand free, it works with dual wielding/shields; and has done since the beginning, apparently.

[1ttffsse]

Originally posted by Starvald:

Originally posted by Nem:

so I need 20 dex for this build to work? So, I still don't understand, am I fighting while wearing no armor and no weapons? Why doesn't STR work with this build?

It's an attempt to cut back on the number of stats you need for the build. Relying on 3 stats is doable, it just won't be optimal - the idea is to get your AC high enough that things only hit you on nat 20s. So the builds can be adjusted towards shifting to dex to hit/damage, so you only need to focus on 2 stats - in this case dex and cha. Higher stats = more AC. You will need to choose your feats/weapons carefully though. Str build is still possible, but with the need to up a third stat, they'll have to be balanced a bit more - but ultimately it will end up doing more damage - it will need a bit more earlier babysitting, and possible reloading, but once you get more access to abilities, buffs and equipment it will get easier.

As for weapons, you can use them, you don't have to stick to fists (although fists have an item to switch them to dex for damage). There's monk weapons as well. You still don't need to stick to those either, although if dex based you have to select the right ones and have weapon finesse.

The monk level is for easy access to crane style, with the bonus of extra un-armoured AC. You can ignore this extra AC if you want to, you will still get the crane style/fighting defensively toggle - no point going crane wing/riposte, as wing requires you to be unarmoured. Ignore the tooltip about needing your offhand free, it works with dual wielding/shields; and has done since the beginning, apparently.

while DEX/CHA build is easier and safer for initial playthrough to, it is suboptimal to the STR/CHA build pretty fast. think of it as tops an extra +3 AC at the start of the game....vs much more damage late with an actual STR build (with a big two-handed axe transformation and legendary proportions).

the STR/CHA build has much more synergy in ability and feats as one reaches mid-game too. You can take the dazzling display+intimidating prowess and dreadful carnage to become the best fear spreader in the group with the high CHA.

It takes some luck and a bit of reloading in ACT1 and start of act 2 with the STR/CHA build, so some suffering on unfair early but doable, after that once you get spell level 2 on sorcerer and mirror image you are set though. Before that buy some potions of blur and displacement for the more difficult fights early like the end boss of the initial chapter.

And yes fighting defensively without the crane feats from monk is not an option on hard/unfair because you will never hit stuff and be useless so you need crane style/wing/riposte to get the most out of fighting defensively.

the feats you want to take on level ups in approximate order are:
Dodge // Crane Wing (monk bonus)
Extend Spell (sorc bonus)
Weapon Focus: Greataxe
Dazzling Display
Outflank // Power Attack
Crane Wing
Shatter Defenses
Improved Critical: Greataxe
Crane Riposte
Dreadful Carnage
Intimidating Prowess
Greater Weapon Focus: Greataxe
Cleave
Cleaving Finish

[Shahadem]

Originally posted by Daliena:

Originally posted by Shahadem:

Armor really needs to be fixed so that it doesn't make it impossible to receive a dex bonus.

The people who created the rules never tried on or even looked at real plate mail. Plate mail doesn't impede movement in the slightest and the protection it offers is excellent. Much better than BS garbage implementation we have.

Most armor -does- allow a dex bonus, it just limits how much, because bollocks wearing a suit of full plate offers as much unrestricted freedom of movement as not being armored at all. Even if the armor itself didn't limit you, the weight certainly would slow your movements somewhat.

Beyond that, it's a balance issue, and that goes way, way back because if all armors allowed you to apply unlimited dex bonus, what would be the point of not always equipping the heaviest armor possible?

You are 100% wrong in every statement you made.

The armor is not heavy and does not impede your movement at all. Since armor is worn tight up against the body the weight is distributed evenly along the body.

Look at this video:
https://youtu.be/qzTwBQniLSc

Now imagine someone with a belt of Frost Giant Strength having a STR of 22. That extra weight is absolutely going to be meaningless.

And yes, armor DOES disable you from having a dex bonus because it caps out the dex bonus you can gain at an extremely low dex bonus. It's not difficult to stack to over 22 dex which SHOULD give you a AC bonus of 6 but with plate armor (and there is no reason whatsoever why anyone wouldn't be wearing plate mail if they could afford it INCLUDING wizards who shouldn't be penalized for wearing armor because how the f does that make any sense?) you will only receive a dex bonus of 1 or 3.

DnD and really most D20 systems are ludicrously terrible systems in every way.

One of the best PnP systems is actually the Marvel Super Hero RPG system using d100s and intensities.

Each weapon type can deal damage up to a certain intensity depending on the weapon, the materials and the strength of the person using it.

Armor likewise negatives damage up to a certain intensity depending on the materials it is made from and its construction.

Both types of equipment will also receive degradation as they are dealt damage at or above their intensity.

So for example a steel sword could deal a maximum of 20 damage if used by a very strong person while steel armor can protect against 20 damage. Thus the attack will be nullified if the attack roll even succeeds at registering a hit.

If two crossbows which can deal 20 damage each hit the same spot on the armor they are considered to be an attack with an intensity of +1 so they would be considered to be a single attack at 30 which would deal 10 damage to someone wearing steel armor. It's a way better system than DnD.

Especially for magic and dungeon crawling since a person would be able to use magic as much as they want up to their intensity level of magic if they can generate the magical power or only up to the total amount of stored magic they have. Magic functions as either a control power or a spell casting power. If it is a control power the person manipulates the magic to do what they want with so long as the DM allows it and they succeed at rolling a success. If it is spell casting then they can only use the spell if they have already learned it or spent enough karma (or XP) to be able to use a new spell and then roll a success for using the new spell.

For holy spellcasting, each holy caster would have a magic symbol that provides either a constant amount of holy power up to a certain intensity or a limited amount of power which gets constantly consumed. That holy caster would have to pray to their god every day to imbue more power into the holy symbol which they use to empower their spells. That is much better than having to preselect and preremember an excessively tiny amount of spells which are overshadowed by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ nonsensical potions in DnD.

[ELVIS]

Some things to remember: 1) Armor, Shield and Natural Armor bonuses to AC don't count vs. Touch attacks (and there are a lot of Touch attacks later in the game), 2) Dexterity and Dodge bonuses to AC don't count if you're flatfooted (unless you have Uncanny Dodge) but do count vs. Touch attacks, 3) the Monk AC bonus is always on unless you're immobilized, helpless or wear any armor or shield., 4) Deflection bonuses are always on, 5) Bonuses of the same type (Shield, Deflection, Sacred, etc.) don't stack except for Dodge bonuses and those without a bonus "type".

[Shadenuat]

Why do you want Paladin for Unfair exactly?

There are really only 2 things Paladin brings which matter - bonus to saves (and early Bestow Grace of the Champion as well) and Mark of Judgement. First one needs just 2 levels and second whole 11 levels of being dedicated to the class. Depending on that you make the character and actually whole party.

[Arden]

Originally posted by 1ttffsse:

Originally posted by Starvald:

It's an attempt to cut back on the number of stats you need for the build. Relying on 3 stats is doable, it just won't be optimal - the idea is to get your AC high enough that things only hit you on nat 20s. So the builds can be adjusted towards shifting to dex to hit/damage, so you only need to focus on 2 stats - in this case dex and cha. Higher stats = more AC. You will need to choose your feats/weapons carefully though. Str build is still possible, but with the need to up a third stat, they'll have to be balanced a bit more - but ultimately it will end up doing more damage - it will need a bit more earlier babysitting, and possible reloading, but once you get more access to abilities, buffs and equipment it will get easier.

As for weapons, you can use them, you don't have to stick to fists (although fists have an item to switch them to dex for damage). There's monk weapons as well. You still don't need to stick to those either, although if dex based you have to select the right ones and have weapon finesse.

The monk level is for easy access to crane style, with the bonus of extra un-armoured AC. You can ignore this extra AC if you want to, you will still get the crane style/fighting defensively toggle - no point going crane wing/riposte, as wing requires you to be unarmoured. Ignore the tooltip about needing your offhand free, it works with dual wielding/shields; and has done since the beginning, apparently.

while DEX/CHA build is easier and safer for initial playthrough to, it is suboptimal to the STR/CHA build pretty fast. think of it as tops an extra +3 AC at the start of the game....vs much more damage late with an actual STR build (with a big two-handed axe transformation and legendary proportions).

the STR/CHA build has much more synergy in ability and feats as one reaches mid-game too. You can take the dazzling display+intimidating prowess and dreadful carnage to become the best fear spreader in the group with the high CHA.

It takes some luck and a bit of reloading in ACT1 and start of act 2 with the STR/CHA build, so some suffering on unfair early but doable, after that once you get spell level 2 on sorcerer and mirror image you are set though. Before that buy some potions of blur and displacement for the more difficult fights early like the end boss of the initial chapter.

And yes fighting defensively without the crane feats from monk is not an option on hard/unfair because you will never hit stuff and be useless so you need crane style/wing/riposte to get the most out of fighting defensively.

the feats you want to take on level ups in approximate order are:
Dodge // Crane Wing (monk bonus)
Extend Spell (sorc bonus)
Weapon Focus: Greataxe
Dazzling Display
Outflank // Power Attack
Crane Wing
Shatter Defenses
Improved Critical: Greataxe
Crane Riposte
Dreadful Carnage
Intimidating Prowess
Greater Weapon Focus: Greataxe
Cleave
Cleaving Finish

That's why my advice is to main another character and recruit mercs. Use them as dex at start and as str around lvl 8-10 when str builds become superior while having the same survivability.

There is no reason to do the extra hours with the str builds which are suboptimal at the start and prone to unnecessary deaths and reloads. Unless of course you have a lot of time on your hands or know exactly what you are doing. Extra mercs cost 500 gold at lvl 1 which is literally nothing and saves a lot of time in both cases.

[Arden]

Originally posted by Nem:

Originally posted by Arden:

The build you are looking for is 1 scaled/1 vivi/2 pala/sorc/dd/ek. It achieves around 40-42 ac at lvl 2 with full buffs as dex based with 20 dex, 19 cha and extract the dex value you skipped to see the ac for strength build. The damage is very good because you get 1 more attack with flurry when unarmed or with monk weapons. The saves are awesome.

Survivability wise your str char will have problems in act 1 and early act 2 till you get mirror images. You will have to use fighting defensively with 3 in mobility and crane wing in order not to die every fight. You also must have vivisectionist in the party to cast shield infusion on you. After that the str build won't have problems and will have superior damage but will require mirror images and displacement for every fight till you get a couple more items and spells.

To have a smooth run my advice is to main something else than melee, start with dex based build and recruit an extra merc at lvl 1 or 2 and build him as str based around lvl 8-10. Or just handle it and roll with the str build. It will add several hours of reloading to your playthrough if you are not familiar with the game mechanics.

so I need 20 dex for this build to work? So, I still don't understand, am I fighting while wearing no armor and no weapons? Why doesn't STR work with this build?

There is little reason to put any less than 20 in your main attack stat. You get your saves from charisma and the only other stat that is useful for this char is constitution where you dump whatever points are left. Str does nothing for you at the start - the character will use weapon finesse and agile weapons (uses dexterity modifier for damage) in act 1 and agile amulet and unarmed attacks in act 2 till you replace him with the str version of the build at lvl 8-10.

I personally don't bother with the sorc and paladin levels at all on the temporary dex build and put all extra levels in vivisectionist for the additional sneak damage and the feral mutagen which adds 2 more attacks. The character survives very easily with the occasional displacement buff for the tougher fights and doesn't need to roll against any saves if you kill the casters first which you should always do. There are a couple problematic fights in early act 2 but they can be dealt with in other ways.

[Bast]

Originally posted by Arden:

Originally posted by Nem:

so I need 20 dex for this build to work? So, I still don't understand, am I fighting while wearing no armor and no weapons? Why doesn't STR work with this build?

There is little reason to put any less than 20 in your main attack stat. You get your saves from charisma and the only other stat that is useful for this char is constitution where you dump whatever points are left. Str does nothing for you at the start - the character will use weapon finesse and agile weapons (uses dexterity modifier for damage) in act 1 and agile amulet and unarmed attacks in act 2 till you replace him with the str version of the build at lvl 8-10.

I personally don't bother with the sorc and paladin levels at all on the temporary dex build and put all extra levels in vivisectionist for the additional sneak damage and the feral mutagen which adds 2 more attacks. The character survives very easily with the occasional displacement buff for the tougher fights and doesn't need to roll against any saves if you kill the casters first which you should always do. There are a couple problematic fights in early act 2 but they can be dealt with in other ways.

So if i wanted to build a one, what race and i start off with monk then go into other classes?