What STR should a pure monk have?

[Juno]

I'm trying a monk and so far it's pretty awesome. I wasn't sure how to break down that stats. It would seem a monk needs STR for hits and damage, but STR isn't flagged as a recommended stat (WIS, DEX, and CON are).

Does DEX get used for +hit or +dmg when using unarmed fighting on the monk?

[Aero]

No, dex does not get used for hit or damage.

My monk build was 18 str, 14 dex, 16 wis, 12 con.

Monk can't wear armor, but they get to add both their dex and wis to their AC. Increasing their AC is very important, so it's a good idea to take the dodge feat with your monk bonus feats. You can also pick up the Barkskin ki power and have a caster cast mage armor on you.

[garr_71]

You need weapon finesse to use dex to hit, theres an item you can find that makes dex to damage too.

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by Aero:

No, dex does not get used for hit or damage.

My monk build was 18 str, 14 dex, 16 wis, 12 con.

Monk can't wear armor, but they get to add both their dex and wis to their AC. Increasing their AC is very important, so it's a good idea to take the dodge feat with your monk bonus feats. You can also pick up the Barkskin ki power and have a caster cast mage armor on you.

Amulet of Agile Fists are in the game that let you have your dex go to daamge. However I will note that it's in chapter 2.

[Dickspawn]

Most Monk builds I've ever seen primarily use Dexterity. Most of your damage is going to come by sheer number of the attacks you can make in a round, unless you have the Amulet of Agile Fists (see above). IIRC, Magic Fang affects natural weapons like an unarmed strike (if the game is true to table-top). Str should likely be at a 10 or 12, unless you're not worried about survivability: I've seen some Monk builds that use Sorcerer/Wizard to great effect, and supplement their lack of armor with Mage Armor. Same could probably be done with Cleric, although to lesser effect (Shield of Faith is only a +2, whilst Mage Armor and Shield are potentially a +8).

[Juno]

I built for:

STR 18
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 16
CHA 7

It seems good but that strength is mostly wasted if DEX can be used for hit/dmg on fists. I don't really want to go to Act 2 on crappy STR though in order to get agile fists.

I was torn on maybe going 16 STR and 18 WIS. I keep the defensive fighting on all the time with Crane so I thought a STR of 18 would offset the -2 hit from defensive.