Kimera757's page

Merry is at least a warrior, or maybe a rogue. He helped kill the Witch-King, and I'm pretty sure he invented the Backstab concept for fantasy RPGs while doing so.

All of the halflings are proficient with short swords, and didn't seem to need lessons in how to use them. I'm thinking Frodo would be an aristocrat (the equivalent), and didn't have adventuring gear because he's not actually an adventurer. (A 1st-level aristocrat "swashbuckler" might not have chainmail despite being proficient in it and being able to afford it.)

Of course, this is so far off-topic...

Back on-topic, players who bring weak PCs to the game are sometimes being selfish. They may have a cool character concept, but it's only cool to them and/or doesn't work well mechanically. This didn't necessarily happen in this case, but after being burned by "cool but weak" PCs a few times, other players might get intolerant of seemingly-weak PCs.

I can convert adventures from 1e, 2e, 3e and Kingmaker into 4e. I can convert from 4e into Pathfinder. I could convert any old adventure across editions, and even systems.

(I've converted Shadowrun and Feng-Shui adventures into 4e and d20 Modern respectively, and quite frankly I don't even know Feng-Shui's rules.)

Look up the Giant in the Playground Diplomacy rules about deal-making.

Every time they request something from him, they need to offer him something. And maybe he doesn't want anything from them at the moment. Which means they're asking him for something but giving nothing in return. (The GitP Diplomacy system would inflict a -10 penalty for that.)

Ouch!

Unfortunately the person I was talking about was an adult (1st year university student). Or (in a different group) a gamer who refused to take Weapon Finesse and insisted on having her elven rogue use a longsword. *Sigh* I'm not even sure if that was a "coolness" issue.

We all have to make allowances for children though. (I had my first PC in 2e at about that age, and whined about how unfair healing potions were, since I kept rolling minimum.)

Ive seen a number of posts refuring to characters as dead weight

Now i know some chatacers are better than others in different ways but in 33 years of gamimg ive never met a character thats dead weight.
So i was wondering what do you think makes a character "dead weight"

Lots of players don't know how to play D&D, both in rules terms and non-rules terms.

I've played 3.x straight from 2000 till now, so I've got 13 years experience. This doesn't make me some kind of virtuoso, but I know about things like optimizing AC (don't spend all your money on one defensive item; it's more efficient to split), I know that you need to buy Cloaks of Resistance and the approximate level-based schedule, etc. Some of this I've learned from messageboards and some by myself. Unfortunately, I was left with the assumption that other players know this. That's not true.

I recently discovered some of the players in our Kingmaker campaign not only didn't know these basic facts, but couldn't even create a character without a character builder. (I play d20 but I run 4e, and I hate it's Character Builder with a passion for this very reason. Well, a bunch of them, but that's one that comes up often.) We had a barbarian with a Will save of +3 at 11th-level (+5 with rage), as he had never bought a Cloak of Resistance. (I knew his Will save was low, but didn't put the five seconds of thought required to figure out why this was until we'd reached that point, about two years into the campaign in real time.) Even experienced players like myself can fail to use their gray matter.

In our last Kingmaker campaign, we had an evil rogue PC. (We actually had two evil PCs, but one was playing the game.) The rogue only showed up once (player had attendance issues, and kept making new PCs) and went out of his way to avoid plot hooks. One example: because rescuing poor people gave us nothing but glory, and why would an evil rogue do anything that didn't make money? That's an example of not knowing how to play the game in a non-rules way. Everyone else was cool with this, even the other evil PC (who made sure that anything we did ended up giving him more power; he was great at social manipulation) so we just ignored the rogue and adventured anyway.

When it comes to unoptimized characters, IME, the worst issues is "coolness". We should all be able to play cool characters, right? Unfortunately, it's far too easy to build a character who is cool but virtually unplayable, and if you don't know the rules well, you might not realize the latter. Worse, when someone tells you the character the weak, you can react badly and try to "show them" by playing the character anyway.

Sometimes the coolness issue can be fixed. Someone wants to sing and talk to animals, and decided to play a bard/druid? Good thing there's some way to get a bard to talk to animals, so at least you've got a single-classed bard with a cool RP ability.

This even affects game designers. How many times have I seen a class that looks cool but isn't? People want to play it anyway. (I'm sure if I invented an incredibly weak elven dual-wielding chef class, someone would want to play it, and pester me for feats that make it not suck.) People will want support for the weak but cool class rather than giving up on it... because it's cool. (I count the 3.5 and later versions of the soulknife in that category. You could replace that entire class with a feat for psychic warriors. A player with as much experience as myself was thinking about playing the class. *Sigh* )

I wish there was some kind of psychological formula for telling someone who wants their first character to be a monk "don't" without offending them. There probably is a way to do so, but I've got no ranks in Diplomacy in real life and can't figure it out.

I'd go for it, at least if I can put Heighten Spell on it, because it's really that good.

You can blind multiple people for a fairly long duration within combat, ignoring spell resistance, and as a bonus might reveal someone who is invisible. What's not to love?

Given the disparity between save DC and saving throws, I don't think the save-per-round thing will hurt you much. Even blinding an NPC barbarian for a round or two is already worth it. Blinding said barbarian and his buddy who was right beside him already pays off, even if they both make their saves the next round. (And they probably won't, if you're targeting the right guys.)

Things I'd like to see:

Discussions of real-world religions when it comes to magic (perhaps in out-of-universe sidebars). I got really confused really fast when I was trying to figure out the in-universe (non-rules) difference between a shugenja and a miko in Rokugan. Which one used shikigami, because Wikipedia seems to think this is wrong? Who is supposed to use them? Did people call themselves shugenja in real life, or is that invented for the game?

FEATS. A Japanese fighting style coded as a feat or as a series of feats is a great idea. You don't need a class for drawing your sword quickly. Said feats aren't used by other cultures simply because they're not taught. These feats wouldn't be superior or inferior to other feats.

Armor and equipment equivalencies. Kama don't need their own stats; they're variant sickles. Lamellar armor doesn't need its own stats; it's variant chainmail or scale mail. Daikyu don't need their own stats; they're bows.

Things I'd not like to see:

Stereotyping. It's my belief that Japanese people have the most stereotypes associated with them. Some are bad, some are good, most are inaccurate and the rest exaggerated, although that's pretty common with most ethnic stereotypes. I'm pretty sure they have the longest list, though, as Chinese people get a really long list, and then people toss on nonsense about suicide, honor, samurai, katana and ninja... while including all the (already inaccurate and/or exaggerated) Chinese stereotypes.

My old group literally had to throw a player out of the group over that. (The PC wanted to commit suicide because he lost his ancestral weapon.)

Avoiding stereotyping is hard, and even if you avoid it, readers might not.

Some years back I read a series of books by Stephen Turnbull. The books were just about the history of warfare and weren't intended to teach readers about Japanese culture. Therefore the author didn't say things like "did you know samurai didn't commit suicide very often?" (People who believe the stereotypes will ignore this, especially if you only mention it once.) Instead, he simply described the battles like a historian would. You'd notice quickly that whenever one side lost a battle, they ... ran away. None of this nonsense about fighting to the bitter end, or committing suicide in droves. In fact, only samurai leaders seemed to commit suicide, not after every battle, and only if they got beat down hard, much like Roman commanders used to do sometimes. There was precisely one example of a mass suicide as a result of a battle, and it was pointed out as an extremely shocking event because that kind of thing was either very rare or had never happened before.

Don't include new classes unless you have to. You do not need a ninja class (I know, it's too late) or a samurai class (ditto). There's nothing wrong with including a sample ninja done using the rogue class, or a sample samurai using the fighter class (perhaps with new feats, where valid).

WotC did two samurai classes. The one in Complete Warrior was a failure due to a lack of research and lots of stereotyping. (It was also weak, but that's secondary.) The one in Complete Samurai not only avoided a lot of those issues, but the creation of clans with different fighting styles meant there were lots of options. Even if you've got one of those players who insists that samurai always dual-wielded, they can take the Dragon Style feats and you don't have to damage the class for everyone else. (Incidentally, despite OA having a samurai class, there were NPCs shown in the books who used the fighter class, and they did not appear to be outclassed or acting like foreigners to the setting.)

Oh that is awesome. I first picked the Judge Dee books up at the Harvard book store back in 92.

Another Judge Dee fan. I've read every translated book (into English) available in my library system (they ship to the home library, which is cool).

Thank you for reminding me why I usually avoid any thread with the word "paladin" in the title, and for demonstrating exactly why the original poster started this thread.

I will never understand all the paladin hate around here. I guess some players of paladins play them as holier-than-thou jerks, which leads to the others at their table having a bad taste in their mouth about the whole class. A lot of people seem to incorrectly assume that the paladin code has to be a major factor in any game that includes a paladin, but it really doesn't have to even come up most of the time.

Well, here's the code:

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of lawful good alignment and loses all class features except proficiencies if she ever willingly commits an evil act.

This part is hardly a problem, although there's the usual issue of nobody agreeing on alignments. (TSR/WotC-derived alignments aren't clear. Palladium, which has far worse rules, does a far better job.)

Additionally, a paladin's code requires that she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

This is the worst part. Respecting legitimate authority makes perfect sense for a lawful good character, and it's not likely to hurt a campaign.

Acting with honor with a problem. Cue Game of Thrones. More seriously, paladins not being allowed to lie is a huge deal. It cuts off a whole range of strategies and plots. You can't infiltrate. If you get caught by cultists while investigating, instead of talking your way out (by lying), you have to close your mouth, beat the cultists silly which might not even be possible (the party could be heavily outnumbered), or do that Aes Sedai thing where you're technically not lying but are still violating the spirit of the code in order to mislead the bad guys. Or I guess you could try to intimidate them (see part about how beating the cultists doesn't always work). Why would a paladin's god have a problem with them lying to the forces of evil?

You can't use poison. At least this isn't linked to only using stealth as a last resort any more.

You must punish those who harm and threaten innocent. Sounds proper for a lawful good character, but are you allowed to prioritize?

Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.

A paladin cannot associate with someone who offends their moral code. Does that mean you need to leave the group if you've got a bard PC who keeps lying to people, even for good reason? Or worse, do you need to tell the bard to stop lying because you're afraid of losing your powers because you're associating with a liar?

Ex-Paladins

A paladin who ceases to be lawful good, who willfully commits an evil act, or who violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and class features (including the service of the paladin's mount, but not weapon, armor, and shield proficiencies). She may not progress any further in levels as a paladin. She regains her abilities and advancement potential if she atones for her violations (see the atonement spell description in Spell Lists), as appropriate.

A paladin who violates the code of conduct loses all paladin spells and class features... Unfortunately, there's no guidelines for what counts as a violation. A single lie? Bypassing the slave market to do an adventure, intending to come back and free the slaves next week?

I just played my paladin in Pathfinder Society for the third time last night, and the paladin code has never even been mentioned. And no, that doesn't mean I'm ignoring it and play my paladin against her deity's code. She goes out of her way to seek out evil and destroy it. She doesn't use poison or tell lies, but she doesn't impose those restrictions on her allies. Last night, she offered wounded enemies a chance to surrender, then helped her allies gut them when they refused.

Isn't PFS a pick-up game, with pre-written modules with little flexibility?

Traps have historically been badly designed.

Partly this is due to the old attritional model. Failure to find the Cone of Cold trap or falling into a pit trap meant someone was injured (probably a substantial portion of their hit points), and the poor cleric spent a lot of healing spells on whoever triggered it.

In 3rd Edition and beyond, traps should not be used by themselves. They're part of a combat encounter.

As a result, a PC finding the trap is not a bad thing. If there's already an encounter going on (perhaps the wizard who crafted the Cone of Cold trap, and his friends are present), the rogue has to decide if he wants to spend a round disabling the trap in the midst of combat, or trying to kill someone. Even if the rogue knows exactly where the trigger is and what the area of effect is, nobody is going to want to go there, which means the trap is still contributing.

Also note that the "panel" to disable the trap could easily be far behind the trigger zone. The cold projector could be 60 feet from the edge of where the cone will reach. (The rogue, or anyone else for that matter, pretty much has to risk triggering the trap before they can even disarm it.) Although of course some DMs won't like this idea.

Even a simple pit trap becomes interesting in an encounter. It's not a case of "the fighter fell and hurt his leg, we spent three charges on our ever-present Wand of CLW to fix that", it's "we just lost our front-line guy for at least one move action, oh and now the kobolds are tossing cages full of scorpions down the pit; do we spend time rescuing our friend, or do we try to kill the kobolds?"

Catelyn was suffering from depression, does that reduce Wisdom or Int? (She was pretty smart. Yes, Tyrion got away from her at the Vale, but when she captured him and made people think she was taking him to Winterfell, she was pretty smart. Lyssa messed up, but she's obviously insane. The dumb jailer didn't help matters.)

Robb acted like he had low Wisdom though. When you fight a war, you have to sacrifice the personal. (Also, he broke the "no sex on a battlefield rule", coined after warlord Cao Cao broke the rule and lost his son, cousin, part of his army and the affection of his first wife simultaneously.)

I think the Starks were simply too inflexible. Heck, maybe Robb actually has low Int but is some sort of tactical genius, making him seem smarter than he really is.

I'm very happy to hear this; I went those pawns before I run my next session.

Just saw the Amazon release date too, supposedly January 2014. It's not even the only site saying so. (Telegraph Book Co in the UK says so too.)

The PDF will supposedly come out in late June, but unless it's coming out with bases it's not going to do much for me :(

The entire purpose of the deception was to get a surprise attack. Catelyn may have made her check, and not been surprised, but she's a 5th-level (according to Guardians of Order) aristocrat, so it didn't help her much.

GRRM obviously doesn't care about encounter balance. But we already knew that, right?

No ranks in Sense Motive.

Robb (and, off-screen, Ned) were really good tactical commanders, so presumably high Int. In the books Robb was sixteen when he started his rebellion, yet he was outthinking more experienced Lannister bannermen. Admittedly, many of those bannermen didn't have much in the Int department, getting their jobs due to family connections, but experience still means something.

Both seem resistant to temptation, especially Ned. (He might not have even had an affair; look up the L + R = J theory sometime, but also note the TV series dumped that possibility entirely. GRRM might have been annoyed at it.) I'd give them decent Wisdom too, with maybe Iron Will.

But yes, no Sense Motive. Ned's "code of honor" was restrictive. He didn't just fail to notice being lied to (yes, Littlefinger has lots of Bluff, but still...) but he actually told Cersei his plans ahead of time.

The RW (won't say the full name to avoid spoilers) was an entire situation with a Sense Motive DC. It's probably high. I'd pick a decent level and just steal a 4e skill DC for it. (I'd use the chief's level. You know which chief I'm talking about.)

It would also be a skill challenge. Simply noticing that one person is behaving oddly wouldn't reveal the entire circumstance. Also, it's a bit difficult to get out of, you need a good excuse to skip that sort of thing, and can't fight your way out unless you convince your followers that they need to do so.

Zhayne wrote:

More specifically, it's because they don't have a code at all.

Yes, because the core book can't fit in the dogmas of 20 cults. Still, you'd think clerics would be as tightly bound to their religion as paladins are to their code. It would stand to reason the gods wouldn't grant miracles to some layabouts who'd much rather do their own thing when there are hundreds of perfectly devout and proper worshippers, wouldn't you?

Maybe they should be, but they're not.

Gods can have clerics whose alignments are a bit "off" of theirs. A neutral good cleric of a lawful good god is legal. Paladins must be lawful evil. As a result, you can have a neutral or chaotic good cleric in a dishonorable chaotic good party with no qualms.

A chaotic god might not care much about alignment. They're unlikely to audit a cleric for "randomness". (They'll probably be more upset if the cleric is actively supporting a repressive regime, but fighting said regime is a pretty good plot hook.)

A god might be more interested in an agenda than alignment. As long as you like libraries and don't burn books, a god of knowledge might not give a hoot about alignment.

Especially in older editions, you had to have a cleric in the party, whereas a paladin was just an extra, so anything that made a cleric harder to play was a bad thing.

Just a curiosity thing from surfing the forums:

Why is it that everyone on the forums loves making paladins fall for anything, but any GM that dares to target a wizard's spellbook is treated like a dirtbag? Looking at the CRB, the paladin's Code of Conduct and the wizard's Spellbook look quite similar - if you're gonna treat one as fluff, shouldn't they both be? And if it's a balance thing, aren't wizards one of the most powerful classes in the game?

Note that this isn't a complaint about either class, I don't really care which is more fun or more powerful, it's just a question about the mentality of forum posters.

The paladin's obstructive code of conduct hurts fun at the game table. Quite often it's the other players rather than the DM pushing for the paladin to fall, as the CoC is taking away their fun. (Same if there's another annoying PC at the table, such as a kender or other kleptomaniac, or someone who stabs PCs in the back, etc.)

The wizard's spellbook does not suck away the joy of gaming. Even though wizards are one of the most powerful classes, capable of making almost everyone else look like chumps, they're not required to act like jerks.

Also, the code of conduct isn't really a "rules" thing. It's certainly not a balance thing. You could take it away and the DM's job gets easier, not harder. There's no in-the-rules argument about losing your spellbook. There's quite a lot of "in-the-rules" arguments about how many times a paladin can compliment an ugly person's appearance before they fall.

but Im not being very successful.

Okay we can make potions. Okay we can mutagen into bigger beings. Okay we can throw exploding things in a 5 ft burst.

AM I missing anything?

I did the mechanics for a hulk alchemist. I even threw in a level of barbarian to give the rage for added str/con. I still cant see melee wise being close to a normal melee character. AC blows so standing toe to toe doesnt work so well. Sure, it can be fun to Hulk smash but really, an equal level fighter or even cavalier will wipe the floor with you.

The potions cant compare to "normal" spellcasters.

So what is there so great to love? Is it worth it to play a subpar character for flavor?

I have a little experience watching other players play alchemists. Two of the three alchemists in my group -- simultaneously! -- multiclassed with barbarian.

One took a longspear, would enlarge, and generally used incredible reach to gut opponents before they could come close. They'd only use a single round to drink that potion ("Accelerated Drinker") although I'm not entirely sure how legal that was. They also used the armored hulk archetype for the barbarian, and the vivisector archetype to do devastating flank attacks.

It was Kingmaker, and we frequently had lots of warning, so that meant an extract of Shield would be drunk ahead of time. Between longspear "keepaway" and the Shield the PC could survive nearly anything that was thrown at the party.

Jerrys, could you summarize those results?

Just letting you know I've seen this thread.

I would link it to my signature, if I knew how to make one :(

So, how many archetypes have been proven to be "OK"?? it would be very nice If there is a way to make a good use of 50% of them.

For this thread, none.

A zen archer versus an invulnerable rager comparison (as an example) doesn't prove anything. The first is hardly a monk, and the second has a completely different role from the first.

I did notice Mikiko, but she has an archetype. (I included your other builds, as they're following the "goalposts".)

I did add your ranger, it's just I was adding the builds 1 by 1.

By the way, are you taking over? I'm fine with that, but I just want to be sure.

This is the newest repost of the archive (weird computer error), we might end up doing a contest in another thread. There's a lot of level 8 and 10 monks, so I'll list both.

PCs should be 8th or 10th level, 20 point buy, and not use archetypes. We currently have a large collection of monks, but there's only been a few competitors so far.

Level 8
Unnamed monk by The Big Dog
Unnamed monk by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
"Monk1", dwarf monk by Wraithstrike
Kondor the Wand Monk by EldonG
Unnamed monk by Dilvias
----

Level 10
----
Unnamed monk by Lorekeeper
Brother Brian by John F
Humphrey by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
Dex monk by Lorekeeper
Flaming Fist Monk by the Big Dog
Unnamed monk by Artanthos - just the first one (as it's archetype-free)

Non-Monks
----
Level 10
Grok the Dwarf Barbarian by Wraithstrike
Slyss E Dyss, human ranger by Rynjin
Two TWF rangers by Lemmy, one unarmed
Half-elf ranger by Lemmy (he's really prolific)
TWF fighter by Nicos
Ranger by Wraithstrike

Level ???
Bob the Barbarian by Gnomersy

Monsters
---
List of CR 7 through 9, collected by Tarantula:

CR 7

aboleth, air elemental (huge), black dragon (young), black pudding, brass dragon (young), bulette, chimera, chuul, dire bear, dracolisk, drider, earth elemental (huge), elasmosaurus, elephant, fire elemental (huge), flesh golem, ghost, greater barghest, hill giant, invisible stalker, lillend, medusa, nymph, remorhaz, shadow demon, shaitan, spectre, stegosaurus, succubus, water elemental (huge)

CR 8

behir, copper dragon (young), dark naga, dire tiger, efreeti, erinyes, giant octopus, giant slug, gorgon, greater shadow, green dragon (young), intellect devourer, mohrg, nabasu, ogre mage, sphinx, stone giant, treant, triceratops

CR 9

air elemental (greater), blue dragon (young), bone devil, bronze dragon (young), dire crocodile, dire shark, dragon turtle, earth elemental (greater), fire elemental (greater), frost giant, giant squid, marid, mastodon, nessian warhound, night hag, roc, spirit naga, tyrannosaurus, vampire, vrock, water elemental (greater)

CR 10

bebilith, brachiosaurus, clay golem, couatl, fire giant, giant flytrap, guardian naga, rakshasa, red dragon (young), silver dragon (young), white dragon (adult)

CR 11

air elemental (elder), barbed devil, black dragon (adult), brass dragon (adult), cauchemar, cloud giant, devourer, earth elemental (elder), fire elemental (elder), gold dragon (young), hezrou, retriever, stone golem, water elemental (elder)

CR 12

copper dragon (adult), green dragon (adult), lich, purple worm, roper, sea serpent

About to add new builds, just collecting them...

IMO the magus is superior.

The Eldritch Knight's only ability is to stack up BAB and casting levels. Admittedly a good blend, but it doesn't give you active abilities. It's only better than the magus if your DM usually lets you know what's coming several minutes in advance.

The magus solves the action economy issue that fighter/wizards otherwise suffer from. A magus caught flat-footed is much more likely to turn the tables on the opposition.

What a torrent of responses! And I'm about to go off to play Pathfinder :) When I'm back I'm going to collect the new builds. Good to see some competitors to the monks around.

Ok so by lvl 10 DD can port a wizard 800ft away.

A lvl 10 monk has a move of 60ft
120ft charge
240ft run or 300ft run with the run feat

By the time the caster ports out of the monks range the caster is outside the range needed for his close (50ft) and medium (200ft) spells.

Long range spells do not pack nearly the same punch as the closer range spells to the point that an archer would be more useful at that distance.

If as the monk you can make the enemy caster DD out of combat, you have done your job. The party is safer than it would have been.

I agree a monk can really motor, but if the wizard is smart, they'll teleport up a hill or behind difficult terrain. (At which point the monk starts making Stealth checks...)

Kimera that barbarian is actually level 10. I forgot to change the name.

Okay, fixed it. (The edit button returned. This is a really inconsistent computer problem.)

This is the newest repost of the archive (weird computer error), we might end up doing a contest in another thread. There's a lot of level 8 and 10 monks, so I'll list both.

PCs should be 8th or 10th level, 20 point buy, and not use archetypes. We currently have a large collection of monks, but there's only been a few competitors so far.

Level 8
Unnamed monk by The Big Dog
Unnamed monk by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
"Monk1", dwarf monk by Wraithstrike
Kondor the Wand Monk by EldonG
Unnamed monk by Dilvias
----

Level 10
----
Unnamed monk by Lorekeeper
Brother Brian by John F
Humphrey by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
Unnamed monk by Artanthos - just the first one (as it's archetype-free)

Monsters
---
List of CR 7 through 9, collected by Tarantula:

CR 7

aboleth, air elemental (huge), black dragon (young), black pudding, brass dragon (young), bulette, chimera, chuul, dire bear, dracolisk, drider, earth elemental (huge), elasmosaurus, elephant, fire elemental (huge), flesh golem, ghost, greater barghest, hill giant, invisible stalker, lillend, medusa, nymph, remorhaz, shadow demon, shaitan, spectre, stegosaurus, succubus, water elemental (huge)

CR 8

behir, copper dragon (young), dark naga, dire tiger, efreeti, erinyes, giant octopus, giant slug, gorgon, greater shadow, green dragon (young), intellect devourer, mohrg, nabasu, ogre mage, sphinx, stone giant, treant, triceratops

CR 9

air elemental (greater), blue dragon (young), bone devil, bronze dragon (young), dire crocodile, dire shark, dragon turtle, earth elemental (greater), fire elemental (greater), frost giant, giant squid, marid, mastodon, nessian warhound, night hag, roc, spirit naga, tyrannosaurus, vampire, vrock, water elemental (greater)

CR 10

bebilith, brachiosaurus, clay golem, couatl, fire giant, giant flytrap, guardian naga, rakshasa, red dragon (young), silver dragon (young), white dragon (adult)

CR 11

air elemental (elder), barbed devil, black dragon (adult), brass dragon (adult), cauchemar, cloud giant, devourer, earth elemental (elder), fire elemental (elder), gold dragon (young), hezrou, retriever, stone golem, water elemental (elder)

CR 12

copper dragon (adult), green dragon (adult), lich, purple worm, roper, sea serpent

Other Classes

Now looking for competitors. Fighters and rangers make pretty good competitors. No archetypes though.

----
Level 8

Level 10
Grok the dwarf barbarian by Wraithstrike

I didn't mean to repost, but my computer randomly decided it hates Paizo today. Again. The edit button just went missing :(

I think he was just saying no other class can use archtypes. He was not complaining about the tiger itself.

True... but I was also wrong. (Too bad, a ranger/tiger combo would have been fun to watch.)

This is the repost of the archive, we might end up doing a contest in another thread. There's a lot of level 8 and 10 monks, so I'll list both.

PCs should be 8th or 10th level, 20 point buy, and not use archetypes. We currently have a large collection of monks, but there's only been a few competitors (fighters only) and all of them used archetypes, so none are currently listed here.

Level 8
Unnamed monk by The Big Dog
Unnamed monk by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
"Monk1", dwarf monk by Wraithstrike
Kondor the Wand Monk by EldonG
Unnamed monk by Dilvias
----

Level 10
----
Unnamed monk by Lorekeeper
Brother Brian by John F
Humphrey by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
Unnamed monk by Artanthos - just the first one (as it's archetype-free)

Monsters
---
List of CR 7 through 9, collected by Tarantula:

CR 7

aboleth, air elemental (huge), black dragon (young), black pudding, brass dragon (young), bulette, chimera, chuul, dire bear, dracolisk, drider, earth elemental (huge), elasmosaurus, elephant, fire elemental (huge), flesh golem, ghost, greater barghest, hill giant, invisible stalker, lillend, medusa, nymph, remorhaz, shadow demon, shaitan, spectre, stegosaurus, succubus, water elemental (huge)

CR 8

behir, copper dragon (young), dark naga, dire tiger, efreeti, erinyes, giant octopus, giant slug, gorgon, greater shadow, green dragon (young), intellect devourer, mohrg, nabasu, ogre mage, sphinx, stone giant, treant, triceratops

CR 9

air elemental (greater), blue dragon (young), bone devil, bronze dragon (young), dire crocodile, dire shark, dragon turtle, earth elemental (greater), fire elemental (greater), frost giant, giant squid, marid, mastodon, nessian warhound, night hag, roc, spirit naga, tyrannosaurus, vampire, vrock, water elemental (greater)

CR 10

bebilith, brachiosaurus, clay golem, couatl, fire giant, giant flytrap, guardian naga, rakshasa, red dragon (young), silver dragon (young), white dragon (adult)

CR 11

air elemental (elder), barbed devil, black dragon (adult), brass dragon (adult), cauchemar, cloud giant, devourer, earth elemental (elder), fire elemental (elder), gold dragon (young), hezrou, retriever, stone golem, water elemental (elder)

CR 12

copper dragon (adult), green dragon (adult), lich, purple worm, roper, sea serpent

Other Classes

Now looking for competitors. Fighters and rangers make pretty good competitors. No archetypes though.

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Level 8

Level 10

I didn't mean to repost, but my computer randomly decided it hates Paizo today.

Artanthos, I'll add the first monk to the archive in a moment. Paizo ate my last post... Or rather my computer security software randomly decided the NSA own Paizo.

About wizard spells - I'm planning on pre-selecting a list of spells for any wizard NPC. They'll get their free spells "known" (so 3 + Int bonus free at 1st-level, 2 free spells in the spellbook for every other level) and have to pay for extra spells within the rules, probably by buying scrolls and paying the scribing costs.

Naturally this means the wizard will have limits on what spells they'll have available. Of course, the wizard NPC will try to select spells that are most broadly applicable. An 8th-level wizard might not take Dimension Door, despite having four free 4th-level spells known, because they have so few 4th-level slots they can't rely on them. A 10th-level wizard has more flexibility.

Of course, that assumes I'm DMing. I haven't run 3rd Edition since 2006 (and Pathfinder not at all), and have no experience using electronic tools. I'd rather someone else DM. But if no one steps up to the plate, I'll have to learn those tools, pick a dea

We aren't using rangers (or other classes) with archetypes. However, ranger companions are just druid companions -3, and there's a feat that "fills in the gap". 8th-level druids can have large cats as companions, and an 8th-level ranger with that feat can too.

Link: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/boon-companion

The Boon Companion feat is the one I'm thinking of.

You could add that to a ranger, with the right feats to have a companion that powerful, and make a valid comparison.

(We couldn't use the beast by itself, because no matter how good its stats, it has Int 2.)

Is it core only monk? I thought it was just asked that you try to make a monk without archetypes people already said did well.

And then there'd be a big fight over which archetypes are good and which aren't. Easier to not use them. The monk's competitors, whenever we get them in this thread, face the same restrictions.

This is the start of the archive, we might end up doing a contest in another thread. There's a lot of level 8 and 10 monks, so I'll list both.

PCs should be 8th or 10th level, 20 point buy, and not use archetypes. We currently have a large collection of monks, but there's only been a few competitors (fighters only) and all of them used archetypes, so none are currently listed here.

Level 8
Unnamed monk by The Big Dog
Unnamed monk by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose
"Monk1", dwarf monk by Wraithstrike
Kondor the Wand Monk by EldonG
Unnamed monk by Dilvias
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Level 10
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Unnamed monk by Lorekeeper
Brother Brian by John F
Humphrey by Tarantula
Unnamed monk by Ciretose

Monsters
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List of CR 7 through 9, collected by Tarantula:

CR 7

aboleth, air elemental (huge), black dragon (young), black pudding, brass dragon (young), bulette, chimera, chuul, dire bear, dracolisk, drider, earth elemental (huge), elasmosaurus, elephant, fire elemental (huge), flesh golem, ghost, greater barghest, hill giant, invisible stalker, lillend, medusa, nymph, remorhaz, shadow demon, shaitan, spectre, stegosaurus, succubus, water elemental (huge)

CR 8

behir, copper dragon (young), dark naga, dire tiger, efreeti, erinyes, giant octopus, giant slug, gorgon, greater shadow, green dragon (young), intellect devourer, mohrg, nabasu, ogre mage, sphinx, stone giant, treant, triceratops

CR 9

air elemental (greater), blue dragon (young), bone devil, bronze dragon (young), dire crocodile, dire shark, dragon turtle, earth elemental (greater), fire elemental (greater), frost giant, giant squid, marid, mastodon, nessian warhound, night hag, roc, spirit naga, tyrannosaurus, vampire, vrock, water elemental (greater)

Other Classes

Now looking for competitors. Fighters and rangers make pretty good competitors. No archetypes though.

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Level 8

Level 10

Tomorrow morning I'm going to collect links to the accepted builds, as they're scattered over 11 pages now.

One of the good-looking builds is 10th-level though, while most are 8th. Should we still aim for 8th?

there are always PC class villains in the top end scenarios of APs

The random monsters should include at least the occasional NPC too. (Maybe a half-orc sorcerer? I dunno. Depends on the DM, I guess.)

Kimera757 wrote:

I understand we all want to bash various builds, but I think we can just build them and "set them loose". I'd rather we focus on whether the builds are "legal" (errors happen, after all) and suggest mild tweaks.

I'm opposed to the drunken master build because it's using an archetype. The "wand monk" build is following the rules of the contest (and has been updated to include equipment).

Actually, I don't want to bash. Heck, I'm only posting in this thread because I know a lot of people have a blast playing monks...and people that enjoy the game as it is are always horribly under-represented. I'm not a huge monk fanboy, and I'm far more into the roleplay than number crunching...but somebody has to stand up for those that are too busy playing and having fun...

I wasn't accusing you in particular, I just saw a lot of bashing and wanted to get on with the building instead. I have my own thoughts about the monk you've built, but as I'm not a monk expert, it's probably best I stay silent.

We should probably pick a DM soon, and maybe some kind of arena. Random maps from some place?

I understand we all want to bash various builds, but I think we can just build them and "set them loose". I'd rather we focus on whether the builds are "legal" (errors happen, after all) and suggest mild tweaks.

I'm opposed to the drunken master build because it's using an archetype. The "wand monk" build is following the rules of the contest (and has been updated to include equipment).

For some reason, PCGen doesn't list the wands. His UMD is +15. He has a few he can use in advance: Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Owl's Wisdom, and Mage Armor. They last long enough for him to use them as they go to a place he knows he'll be fighting in...if he knows in advance.

The others are Magic Weapon, Lead Blades, and Enlarge. He'll hand off at least one to an arcane caster in advance, to save a round's buffing, if he has the opportunity.

Without the wands, he gets chewed up bad.

Could you add these to your post? Even if PCGen messes it up, you can fill in the gap.

For upcoming encounters, how much prep time do the PCs have? I'm thinking we could do it randomly, so sometimes the monsters get to make a Stealth check, to sometimes the PCs knowing they're about to invade a nest of monsters.

Just remember to throw some real beasties in there. The world has more than just medium sized opponents.

So what are we proving now?

Couldn't we use the Bestiary I's monsters, CR 7 through 9? There should be a variety there.

Kimera757 wrote:

Who told you that?

About half the naysayers in this thread when they restrict build options to unarmed monks only.

Core rulebook monks are not restricted to unarmed.

Use weapons then, if you're doing your own build. Not using weapons isn't part of the consensus.

(Yes, you'll get complaints that "unarmed monks suck", but there's also complaints that "Dex monkeys suck" too, so just roll with it.)

Tarantula wrote:

Right, we are comparing core book classes(i.e. no archetypes), but still allowing feats/items/etc from all the paizo books.

We have a concensus on this.

What about the 20 point buy?

While 15 point buy is probably the way Pathfinder was playtested, I doubt anyone uses it. 20 point buy should be fine, as it's pretty common. Ciretose's monk is probably built to that anyway; I couldn't get a +2 to Dex and Wis at 15 point buy.

The point of the thread was "are monks underpowered?"

I think the thread should have used clear criteria in the first place. Every build thread runs into that problem.

Ciretose is building a competent core-only monk, and I don't think that's threatening anyone's perceptions, at least not those who are willing to engage in a debate.

The first "proper" monk in this thread was 8th-level, IIRC, and I think someone said that's when unique class abilities start appearing.

I do not see a reason why it have to be core only unless you are comparing it to core rangers, barbarians and paladins.

That is what we're doing.

If you're letting in lots of core stuff, every monk turns out to use an archetype such as drunken master, sohei, or what not, which means we're not comparing monks to other classes. (It would also be unfair to pit a fighter or rogue with a random powerful archetype against a core monk. Making both use just core rules levels the playing field.)

We've seen previous build comparisons break down because one person wanted to use partially-charged wands, and someone else said you can't buy them, and there's no thread-leader to pick one option over the other... I want to avoid such "corner cases".

I personally would have gone with grapple and something else rather than spring attack and mobilit

Feel free to switch it out. Spring Attack is pretty much a "trap option" for a monk.

Kimera757 wrote:

I almost feel like I need to build a monk then :( But I've not done one before. Unfortunately, no one else seems willing to build a core-only monk.

That's because core-only unarmed monks kinda suck.

That was the whole point of the thread. Anyway, Ciretose seems to be doing something similar. It's not exactly core-only, but close enough. I think we need to steer clear of archetypes for these comparisons. A fighter "out of the box" seems stronger without any such thing.

Edit: Doesn't seem to be a point now that Ciretose is building a "proper" monk too. but is an amulet of health and amulet of mighty fists combo "legal"?

Brother Random, Partially Constructed Human Monk 8

Initiative +1. Perception +14.

AC 20 (+3 bracers of armor, +1 ring of protection, +1 Dexterity, +2 monk levels, +3 Wisdom)

Hit Dice:

Saving Throws: Fort +9, Reflex +9, Will +11 (+13 vs enchantment)

SQ evasion, fast movement (50 feet), high jump, ki pool (7 points), purity of body (immune to disease), slow fall (40 feet), wholeness of body

Offense

Speed 50 feet

SA flurry of blows, ki strike (emulates magic, cold iron, silver), stunning fist (DC 17), unarmed strike (1d10)

Let's try something new. Let's cooperatively build a monk. So far we're dealing with a level 8 monk. I think it should be 15 point buy (yes, that's right, that's the way the game was playtested). I have one partially constructed, which I'll put in my next post. Feel free to suggest stuff that needs to be taken away or added.

But that is a horrible monk. Equal Charisma and Wis? Seriously?

I almost feel like I need to build a monk then :( But I've not done one before. Unfortunately, no one else seems willing to build a core-only monk.

Kimera757 wrote:

Rynjin wrote:

I still don't understand why it's such a pain to add some "Mystical Ki Focusing Armwraps of Punching Good" to the game that work as magic weapons for unarmed strikes.

IIRC, Paizo errata'd the Amulet of Mighty Fists to be much cheaper.

They reduced the price to double what a weapon with the enhancement bonus would cost, rather than 2.5 times.

It's still really expensive for any character who is only using Unarmed Strike, and now an even better buy for druids and summoners who are getting multiple natural attacks.

I'm glad you told me this. I have a druid PC who just gained four levels (DM was having too much hassle running adventures that were now four levels ahead of our levels).

We already have a core legal monk for comparison purposes, just posting it here again:

Posted by Tarantula here: http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pswo&page=7?Why-do-people-keep-saying-monk s-are-underpowered#313

Monk 8
LN Medium Humanoid (human)
Init +3; Senses Perception +13
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Defense
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AC 19 , touch 15, flat-footed 18 (+3 armor, + 1Dex, +2 Monk AC, +1 deflection, +1 dodge, +1 Natural,)
hp 52 (8d8+8)
Fort +9, Ref +9, Will +10 (+2 vs. enchantment)
Defensive Abilities Evasion, Deflect Arrows
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Offense
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Speed 50 ft.
Melee Unarmed Strike +13/+8 (1d10+6/20/x2)
Special Attacks Flurry of Blows (+13/+13/+8/+8) w/ki (+13/+13/+13/+8/+8)
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Statistics
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Str 22, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 14
Base Atk +6; CMB +14; CMD +23
Feats (In Order!): 1 Enforcer; 1 Intimidating Prowess; 1 Dodge; 2 Deflect Arrows; 3 Weapon Focus(Unarmed Strike); 5 Dazzling Display; 6 Mobility; 7 Spring Attack; 9 Shatter Defenses; 10 Medusa's Wrath
Traits Bully, Reactionary
Skills Perception +13, Intimidate +20
Other Gear Belt of Strength +4: 16,000, Bracers of Armor +3 9,000, Cloak of Resistance +2 4,000gp, Ring of protection +1 2,000gp, Amulet of Nat Armor +1 2,000gp; All gold spent
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Special Abilities
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Flurry of Blows: Fight like TWF w/level as BAB +6/+6/+1/+1
Fast Movement: +20ft
Unarmed Strike: 1d10+6
Stunning Fist:
Evasion: No damage on successful reflex save
Ki Pool:
Slow Fall: 40ft
Wholeness of Body:

Well, almost core. I don't know where the traits are coming from, and two feats I can't recognize, but it's pretty close.