Monk Beginner Tips

[CaimDark]

I'll soon start the game and I´m considering a monk. I don´t remember anything about 3rd edition rules and I want to jump straight into the game and figure things out as I go rather than spend hours researching online. Anybody can give me some beginner pointers or suggestions? I´m not asking for THE BEST BUILD, or a detailed guide, just some tips to make sure I don´t find out my character is hopelessly underpowered 20 levels later.

If Monk is a crap class I´m open to other non-caster class suggestions as well.

[Lady MacBeth]

Back when I played the game alot there were really the crazy dual wielding kama style monks with like 14 attacks per round when hasted. So thats a fairly easy thing to build. Just go high dex, dual wielding, weapon finese, and the rest pretty much takes care of itself if I recall correctly. (that might be kama monk and weapon master now that I think about it)

[CaimDark]

Also, can I just go straight monk all the way or is there a significant advantage to picking a prestige class at some point? At a glance It doesn´t look like any of the prestige classes are a great fit for an unarmed monk.

[jonnin]

it is not at all crap. Its gear heavy to get a survivable AC, and it suffers a bit not having a weapon you can enchant or get bonuses from if going unarmed and kamas are sort of lame too. It only has medium BAB. At high levels though it is seriously tough and good damage.

sorc 1 / RDD 10/ M out is very nasty, high str and stats and AC bonus on top of monk + maybe mage armor or shield level 1 spells.

cleric monk to get a few spells (mage armor, stat spells, etc) can be very potent.

various other ideas from rogue/shadowdancer approaches work as well, getting sneak attacks etc.

its actually quite good just pure monk.

its a staple of shifter builds for unarmed shapes with monkish boosts.

kama weaponmaster monk is pretty strong even though its a weak weapon. This fully depends on the weapons being good, which means higher levels.

many other combos work too. Its a flexible class, but with the exception of low level monks for various weird builds (shifter or 1 level on a mage etc) you want to level the monk part high or not at all. Without driving your fists to d-20 damage and picking up the AC and feats from levels in monk, it is not great IMHO. All the builds I like for monk, the monk has 25-30 levels or more and anything else is just a little something to round it out for flavor.

things not to do... not a fan of small races due to reduced damage. Not a fan of trying to max out AC with high wis and dex but low other stats. I prefer unarmed to kamas. Just math says that even a 3d6 kama isnt much better than a d20 punch, and time you have these weapons game is about over anyway (you can do even better on big item servers). Circle kick is pretty cool, so dex 14 is a good place to be.

[jonnin]

straight monk all the way is fine.


RDD offers massive advantages to a monk (AC class bonus and damage from str). Pale master also, but PM is weird, RDD makes sense, to me. PM gets you AC and another touch and die attack and a powerful pet, and powerful spells, but its attacks/round and BAB are horrid. RDD is same BAB as a monk and the bonuses are just outstanding. Other hybrids are depending on what you need... as I said, buff spells go a long long way in the original campaigns so even 4 levels of cleric with the right domains is uber.

NOTE: you must go sorcerer to do RDD. Monk and Bard alignments are incompatible and while you can fix this, its a royal pain to do that.

[CaimDark]

Alright, pure elf monk all the way it is. Evil, meet fists. Fists, meet eeeeeeviiiiiiiiill!!!

[RotherHans]

I always like to go Monk and still remember my Human (extra feat comes in very handy) Neverwinter pure Monk fondly after all these years.
The details are a tiiiney bit blurry after more than a decade but it was great fun.
Definitely has to plan ahead and choose each feat VERY carfully, leveling up is double rewarding though.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Beginner pondering Monk here... hope asking this question here can be of use to the Thread Creator too... I read in the Instruction Book .pdf and the Wiki I recently got pointed to both, that Monk must start out as any Lawful Alignment. Some Classes, like Barbarian or Paladin seem to say that the Class will stop being able to level if it leaves its target alignment, but I see no such same warning on the Monk Class Info... does this mean Monks must start Lawful but can afterwards drop to neutral with no penalty, or does Monk act like other Classes & lose ability to level if they drop outta Lawful Alignment?

[DrLoboto]

I think they will lose their abilities, too.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Damn... but was worth a try. Many thanks. :)