The Monk - Is It Better To Just Dump Wisdom and Wear Armor?


Advice

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Okay, after looking through the threads, I decided to go ahead and figure out if Wisdom should even be considered as an essential Monk Stat. Now, in order to start this off, we first need to consider what all that the Wisdom stat provides to the monk (excluding bonuses to skills and increases to Will saves of course). In addition, I will also explore the pros and cons of wearing armor. Therefore, let us begin...

Pathfinder SRD wrote:
When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses his AC bonus, as well as his fast movement and flurry of blows abilities.

Okay, so if you wear armor or use a shield, this is what you lose:

1) Wisdom to AC and the bonus AC gained through level progression. (This isn't really a problem for several reasons: a) In the long run, AC won't really matter. b) if you wear armor or use a shield, you can EASILY make up for this loss of AC. and c) armor and shields can provide you with many more benefits, but we'll get to that in a bit).

2) Fast Movement. (This ability is actually useful, but in the long run, not really an issue. If you want more speed, Boots of Striding and Springing, anything that lets you fly, or even the haste spell can all compensate for this loss)

3) Flurry of Blows. (Basically a weird version of TWF with some bonuses to hit. Again, this is not really an issue, depending upon how you are building your monk. With the right feats, the loss of this ability can be easily replaced)

Okay, so now we have established what you lose by wearing armor, lets try and understand what you GAIN by it instead. Of course, before you ask, I realize that a monk is not proficient with any sort of armor. However, when you really think about it, the lack of proficiency is only detrimental IF the armor has an armor check penalty.

Therefore, if you eliminate the armor check penalty, there are NO penalties for wearing armor (aside from the ones mentioned above). Now, the obvious question is this: how do you reduce or eliminate armor check penalties? Well, here is just a small list of possibilities that I was able to find...

1) The 'Comfort' armor property (+5,000 gp) - reduces ACP by 1.

2) Mithral Armor - reduces ACP by 3 (and raise Max Dex of armor by 2).

3) Armor Expert trait - reduces ACP by 1

I'm sure there are other methods as well, but the monk should have access to all of the mentioned abilities above, which essentially totals to a -4 for the armor check penalty. In addition, Mithral also makes any medium armor made of metal count as 'light' armor. Thus, at the end of the day, we can conclude this...

A monk is perfectly capable of wearing medium mithral armor without incurring any penalty to attacks, skills, speed, etc, so long as he can reduce the armor check penalty to zero.

Surprisingly enough, almost all medium armor can be reduced to 0 armor check penalty using the above mentioned methods. However, I'm sure someone is going to say "what if I have a high dexterity? Won't I miss out on increasing my AC through dexterity if I wear armor?"

To that I say...take a look at Celestial Armor: max dex of +8 with a -2 armor check penalty. Just slap on your armor expert trait with the comfort property (or arguably just make it mithral) and presto! Your armor will afford you all the Dex you need.

Then again, if you are STILL able to get your dexterity higher than that, just get a haramaki and call it a day.

Anyways, now that we have established the use for armor, let us take a look at a monk who uses shields. As before, the same restrictions apply, so if you reduce the ACP to zero, you take no penalty. With shields, this is actually very easy - just make them all mithral. Doing so allows a monk to wield ANY shield (except tower shields) without a problem.

Now, some of you might be thinking: "how can I two-weapon fight with a shield in my hand?" The answer is easy - if you're using unarmed strikes, just use your feet. This allows you to wield a buckler or a shield in your hand without penalty while still utilizing two-weapon fighting. Pretty neat trick right? ;)

The next step in this process is figuring out what type of properties to put on your armor/shield (which is very important considering that you gave up quiet a bit to get this stuff in the first place). For shields, I seriously recommend getting Heavy Fortification (honestly, there really isn't any other property that is better than this...75% chance to ignore crits and sneak attacks is just too good). As for armor, just get the 'brawling' property and then customize your armor in any way you like (honestly, there aren't that many useful '+' properties in pathfinder in my opinion, but if you have access to the magic item compendium from 3.5, there are a lot of good options there).

With the inclusion of enhancement bonuses, combined with a high enough dex, your AC should be relatively equal (if not higher) then the AC granted by a Wisdom based monk with no armor (of course, bracers of armor can change that). Still, lets take a moment and look at some math...

+7 AC from wisdom (36,000 gp from wisdom headband) +7 AC from dexterity (36,000 gp from dex belt) and +8 AC from bracers (64,000 gp) = 22 AC

then we have...

+9 armor (22,400 gp from Celestial Chainmail) +7 AC from dexterity (36,000 gp from dex belt) + 6 shield (25,000 gp for enhancement bonus) = 22 AC

Statistically, it is actually CHEAPER to increase your AC through armor.

Again, this is all assuming that you actually care about your AC to begin with, because as we all know, AC kinda becomes less important as you progress in level. However, given the benefits that armor and shields can give you, I would still say that Monk AC is kinda sub-par.

At this point, I would now make the argument that Wisdom should also be considered a 'dump stat' for the monk, and my reason for saying this is simple: the only thing that wisdom controls (aside from the Monk AC) is the effectiveness of your stunning fist, quivering palm, and the amount of Ki points in your Ki Pool (there are a few other things too, but the mentioned abilities are primarily the main the ones).

I would first like to point out that there are many archetypes that eliminate these abilities to begin with (in fact, there are even some archetypes that eliminate flurry, fast movement, and monk AC as well). However, even so, there are still a few things that you need to keep in mind...

1) You will still get Ki points based on your monk level (granted, it's not a lot, but to be honest, it really wasn't a whole lot to begin with anyway...and their are archetypes that let you regain Ki in a lot of easy ways)

2) i have rarely seen ANYONE use quivering palm to begin with, and while it is a neat 'death attack', its usefulness is somewhat limited (in my opinion).

3) Stunning fist is limited in its uses per day, and is mainly used to disable things with a low fortitude save. It's not a bad ability, and it does have uses, but I wouldn't consider it a vital skill.

Therefore, if your goal is to make the 'unarmed monk' who basically beats face all day, then wisdom really should be dropped as a dump stat. In fact, if you decide to go ahead and wear armor, you could even make a monk who is basically a fighter (not sure why you would go this route and not just go fighter, but meh, to each his own).

Then again, if you wanted to just go straight fighter, you could always just use this combination...

Brawling armor + Monk's Robes + weapon training (natural) + all those crazy feats that increase damage = .....yea...a fighter is hands down a better unarmed striker than the monk.

I suppose this just means that people should really just look at the monk as a supportive class if nothing else. If you take it for the 'unarmed strike damage'....well, you're just gonna get outdone. I guess the roll of the monk is to provide some sort of 'martial class battlefield control' where you focus on particular targets and disable them....but as I said, if you're looking for raw damage, just go fighter.

Either way, having a monk with armor is perfectly viable, and in the end, you don't lose anything all that important (especially when you eliminate some of those abilities by using various archetypes). Anyway, I hope this post was able to help. Take care everyone, and thanks again for reading. :)

Grand Lodge

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Ironskin Monk only loses Flurry to armor.

It is also less wisdom dependent.

Sczarni

Also remember you're losing that AC bonus as well, I think you missed that in your calculations. your calculations didn't include the free +5 from just being a lvl 20 monk.


in those calculations, I wasn't assuming 20th level. I was just going off of a gold average. However, if assume the monk is 12th level (getting a +3 bonus) the armored monk still has enough gold to upgrade his armor to a +4 (costing 7000 gp) and can also get a ring of protection +2 (for 8,000 gp).

That still means that he is equal in AC, with 1,600 more gp then the unarmed monk (granted, this is not a lot, and the armored monk has lower will saves, but the point remains - by wearing armor, you won't feel the loss in Ac).

Sczarni

You were calculating +9 bonuses... I'm not sure what level and wealth you're using to be frank.

What gold average are you using?


I don't think the Ring of Protection should be accounted for as an alternative method of increasing AC, since the standard unarmored monk can use it too, for the same cost.

Anything that is a true alternative should be things that the standard monk can't or wont be likely to use.

Your armor/shield comparison is really good though.

Sczarni

I have a hard time believing a armored monk will be as effective/more than a monk. And so far the "math" here is not very transparent and vague.


While I can see it, you lose out on a lot of class features. Some argue everything else is meh.

Wouldn't it just be easier to play a Two-weapon Fighter at this point?

Sczarni

say this is lvl 12 like he was suggesting and I had the 136k he used on the "traditional" monk.

monk robes 13k gp. now we have increased ac by 1, and increased stunning fist by 1, and increased unarmed damage by a step.
Dusty rose ioun stone +1 insight ac 5k
Bracers of armor +7 49k
Belt of Incredible Dexterity +4 16k
Hand band of wisdom +4 16k
99k

Tack on the ring of protection +3 18k
and amulet of protection of natural armor +3 18k

Total armor bonus for this monk (assuming at lvl 12 18 in both dex and wis without gear)
+12 from wis/dex +1 insight +3 natural armor + 7 from bracers of armor, +3 deflection and +4 for the class.

My ac monk = 29ac.

This also doesn't cover the issues of having a stunning fist that'll actually do something compared to the armored monks lower save dc due to a lower wisdom etc.


the bonuses were calcuated with a couple of assumptions...

1) Assuming that the unarmored monk started out with a +4 to dex and +4 to wisdom, and then eventually purchased items granting enhancement bonuses, bumping them up +7 respectively for each.

the level really isn't all that relevant - you can make the monk 20th level if you want, giving him the +5 bonus to AC instead, though if you did, my argument would then shift to the increase in gold value.

Capping Wisdom to AC is very easy, for there are only so many ways to increase it.

+5 monk 20th level + 7 wisdom + 7 Dex + 8 bracers + 5 ring of pro + 5 amulet of natural AC = 29 AC

and then we have...

+11 from Celestial armor + 6 from shield +7 Dex + 5 ring of pro + 5 amulet of natural = 34 AC

and the armored monk is 600 gp cheaper.


Marthian wrote:

While I can see it, you lose out on a lot of class features. Some argue everything else is meh.

Wouldn't it just be easier to play a Two-weapon Fighter at this point?

i agree, a two-weapon fighter is the superior unarmed striker in every respect (especially if you play something like a Tiefling with claws and get the tusked trait, giving you 3 extra natural attacks...or a Tengu with his 3 natural attacks as well).

Basically, if you want to be an unarmed striker, don't go monk. Other classes really just do it better.

you're only advantage is to your saves, but I would contend that with the right build and items, a fighter could do just as well.

Sczarni

you're really stretching the resources the wrong way on that lol.

You can see what I did with your gold, and I came well ahead and kept all monk abilities intact at lvl 12.

Sczarni

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I would severely disagree with your anyone is better at being a unarmed striker than a monk. Tell you what want to have a fight off? I'll make a pure monk unarmed striker and we'll see who does better? =P

Sczarni

I will note, AC =/= striker. so if your criteria is damage or ac, it'll impact this scenario =P


allow me to rephrase - 'many' other classes do unarmed striking better than a monk (wouldn't want you sticking me with a witch or sorcerer, now would I?)

I imagine my 12th level tiefling fighter would be proof enough...or maybe my human alchemist....or perhaps even the dreaded 'synthesist' summoner would all do the trick, but I'm not really in the mood to see 'who would do better'. So instead, I'll just do it like this...

12th level fighter

6 attacks + 3 natural attacks (all secondary) + 1 hasted.

unarmed strikes deal 1d8 + full strength (on main and off-hand)

+8 damage from power attack + 2 damage from brawling armor = +10 damage on each unarmed strike and + 8 damage on each natural attack

so far I'm only taking a -3 to hit with unarmed strikes, and a -1 to hit with natural attacks.

If I add the weapon training, my unarmed strikes are at a -1 penalty, and natural attacks are at a +1 (with weapon focus to unarmed strikes, I now take no penalty on attacks with unarmed strikes)

with weapon training, the damage bonus is then bumped up to +12 damage for unarmed strikes and +10 damage for natural attacks (again, all before STR mod is applied)

(Please keep in mind that this is all just from feats and 2 magic items: Monk's robes and +1 armor of brawling)

without even including any other items or my strength mod, my fighter would hit more often than any monk, make more attacks than any monk, and deal more damage than any monk (and my AC would probably be better).

a 12th level monk with monk's robes would deal as follows...

2d8 damage for unarmed strikes with a total of 7 attacks with flurry of blows (assuming hasted and using Ki to get extra attack).

If you Power attack, the odds of you hitting is greatly reduced (for a fighter, this is not an issue). and even assuming you power attack, your damage buff won't be as high.

If you have other tricks to share though, I'm all ears.


Sure, if you don't use flurry of blows or the AC bonus or fast movement, and dump wisdom, you'd be better off playing a fighter. Duh. If you make a cleric and don't use spellcasting or channel energy or domain powers and dump wisdom, you'd also be better off playing a fighter instead.


the point of the thread is simple: if you wanna do unarmed strike damage, you're probably better off going elsewhere. In addition, it was also designed to show that even if you still wanted to be a monk, using armor and a shield really isn't a bad choice.

Sczarni

not sure where you are getting the three natural attacks that are secondary (which by the way are at -5 by nature of being secondary attacks)

I'm interested if your point was about AC or about Striking damage?

The focus certainly until now was about AC.


Tiefling with the claw or maw racial trait, then getting the adopted (tusked) racial trait (if you wanna forbid racial traits then I'll just get ring of rat fangs).

The point about AC was to show that wearing armor and using a shield was just as good as the Monk's AC bonus (in other words, you don't really NEED to rely on Monk's AC bonus when armor and shield makes up for it...plus, you can add more properties to your shield and armor)

Sczarni

But when you do this, you sacrifice much of the monk abilities, and as I've shown, your ac options are not ideal for the money. the 136k example I blew out of the water on your armored version.


*sigh* if I must...

+5 shield (25,000gp) = 6 AC from shield

+4 Dex + belt of dex +4 (16,000 gp) = 6 AC from Dex

+4 Ring of Pro (32,000gp)

+3 amulet of natural (18,000gp)

+11 from Celestial armor (38,400gp)

+1 from ioun stone (5,000 gp)

Total AC = 31

with roughly 1,600 gp to spare

Sczarni

just as a quick glance, I'd probably go with MoMS and Martial Artist. Human. Racial bump in Dex.

if I'm right we have 4 bonus feats, 1 racial bonus feat, 6 from levels.

Pick up the feats weapon focus, weapon specialization, dragon style, dragon ferocity, weapon finesse, two weapon fighting, dragon style, dragon ferocity, elemental fist, crane style, crane wing.

I'm at work and haven't spent alot of time thinking this over, but it'd grant good offensive power, and good defensive power (deflect first attack, and the subsequent are against not hitting as accurately)

2d8+1d6+2+str+1/2str for the first two attacks.

Actually tell you what, I'll come back to this thread in a day or two with a pure damage output build since that's what you're focusing your fighter on and this is just not even optimal... yet.

Sczarni

So let's put some parameters on this, say a level and a gold and criteria "does best unarmed damage" or "does best ac unarmed."


quick thing...you can't combine MoMS and Martial Artist...both use up Perfect Self :( sorry

Sczarni

like I said, I'd need to go home and do this, so just make some parameters, it's hard to do everything off of memory and distracted =P

Specifically when you talk about unarmed AC, but then go to measuring damage. =P

Grand Lodge

Ironskin Monk archetype does this best.

It is available to Hobgoblins, and Humans, or Aasimar with the Racial Heritage feat.


ugh...I really don't wanna do this.

I have to say though, I think blackbloodtroll is starting to become the expert in 'unarmed strikes' and natural weapons (I see a lot of your posts refer to them).

I mean, my above fighter was just using feats and hardly ANY magic items to pull that crap off, and I really don't wanna go crunch the numbers (though i will say, you guys have inspired me to make him now).

basically i had 3 builds (all using natural attacks and unarmed strikes) that I wanted to try:

Alchemist
Barbarian
Fighter

Needless to say, I hate summoner synthesist and hope it burns in some deep dark hole *lights the class on fire*

but yea, I am liking my tiefling fighter now :)


the problem with monk AC is that you are 'kinda dependant' on Bracers of armor to get it up there...and the bracers are grossly expensive. And besides, my above build didn't even include AoMF (which is also an expensive item).

Therefore, you already have several disadvantages: a) needing 2 expensive items, b) not being able to use natural weapons in a flurry, and c) you have less feats to spare.

I really dont think setting parameters is gonna change anything :(

I will say that your Will saves (and possibly reflex saves) will trump mine, and my skill list will very much suck, but other than that, my effectiveness in combat will be pretty darn good.

Grand Lodge

I am really not an expert.
I just have experience with a number of "tooth and claw" builds.

I even did grapple builds in 3.5, and boy did everyone hate me for that.


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blackbloodtroll wrote:

Ironskin Monk archetype does this best.

It is available to Hobgoblins, and Humans, or Aasimar with the Racial Heritage feat.

Those race restrictions do not necessarily apply.

Depends on how much of a killjoy* your DM is to you.

* = Feel free to use a different word to describe an overly restrictive DM.


blackbloodtroll wrote:

I am really not an expert.

I just have experience with a number of "tooth and claw" builds.

I even did grapple builds in 3.5, and boy did everyone hate me for that.

I have question then: say I wanted to use Claw Pounce with my catfolk. Does this mean I can make 2 claw attacks in addition to the attack I normally make with the charge?

Sczarni

You can't really make a post that acts indepth if you're not willing to go indepth. There's zero reason to do what you've done with a monk in your original post, and to top it off it's just not effective.

Grand Lodge

Claws only.

If you get more arms, and more claws, then you could use those as well.


This post originated from the idea of the 'ironskin monk', in that Blackbloodtroll (and several others) were curious to see what all a monk would lose if he decided to wear armor. This post went 'indepth' to explain what that was, and to also prove that doing so wouldn't really hinder the monk's overall performance.

Grand Lodge

I see.

I have been wondering this myself, but I suck at math.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

Caveat--I only skimmed this thread:

If your goal is to be a mid-combat skirmisher type that uses ki for some cool abilities and has some neat mystical defenses, this could be a viable build. It'd be a good one for grappling or other combat maneuvers since the monk will still get his bonus to CMB (plus you get to use armor spikes, fun!).

I am not sure if archetypes that replace flurry are also restricted by armor requirements -- i.e., could you be a tetori that uses its flurry replacement and be armored?

Now, if your goal is to be a character really good at unarmed combat with only some monk abilities, I'd be more inclined to go monk only for 2-3 levels and then take fighter the rest of the way from there. You'll get the front loaded benefits of being a monk including evasion and stunning fist and some good bonus feats, as well as the non-pain-in-the-ass unarmed strike die (I hate rolling 1d3), but then even more options for armor as well as stuff like armor training, weapon training, better BAB, and lots more bonus feats. If you go to monk 3 for still mind, you can then qualify for the Monastic Training feat or whatever it's called to continue to advance your unarmed strike die if that is important to you.

Sczarni

Duskblade, your post didn't really cover that so much as "hey you can wear armor" but you really didn't cover how it does/doesn't hinder the monk well, nor did you talk about gimping the offense of them by comparison. Your point was over AC, which just frankly is the weakest point to claim.

Also is there something I'm missing in the iron skin monk? I see nothing that really indicates armor prof when I look at the PRD.

If it's because of the natural armor that stacks, sure add other classes and add armor, but a pure monk doesn't gain much going this route compared to otherwise. Specifically that the natural armor bonus is = monk progression really. And then is without wisdom modifiers.

When you ditch your wisdom for your approach, you now gimp your stunning fist ability, your ki pool, and you axe your flurry ability.

These three abilities are iconic for the monk, removing them and gimping them is a exercise in frustration and ineffective monkdom.

The Exchange

wouldn't you lose evasion too?


lantzkev wrote:

Duskblade, your post didn't really cover that so much as "hey you can wear armor" but you really didn't cover how it does/doesn't hinder the monk well, nor did you talk about gimping the offense of them by comparison. Your point was over AC, which just frankly is the weakest point to claim.

Also is there something I'm missing in the iron skin monk? I see nothing that really indicates armor prof when I look at the PRD.

If it's because of the natural armor that stacks, sure add other classes and add armor, but a pure monk doesn't gain much going this route compared to otherwise. Specifically that the natural armor bonus is = monk progression really. And then is without wisdom modifiers.

When you ditch your wisdom for your approach, you now gimp your stunning fist ability, your ki pool, and you axe your flurry ability.

These three abilities are iconic for the monk, removing them and gimping them is a exercise in frustration and ineffective monkdom.

If you feel that the post did not do a sufficient job of pointing out the pros and cons of wearing armor while being a monk, that is (as always) your opinion.

My breakdown proved that your AC isn't really altered (in fact, in most cases, it is enhanced by going the armored monk route), and that you can gain more benefits from armor and shield properties as opposed to not having them.

You also don't 'gimp' your offensive capabilities when you have things like 'brawling armor' to make up for it.

I also proved that instead of aiming for a high Dex, Wis, and Strength, all you REALLY need is a high Dex, Strength, and Con (or heck, if you go with weapon finesse and the Agile property, then you just need a high Dex and Con).

Of course, if you still feel so strongly about the subject, feel free to post your own thread regarding how the 'standard monk' is so incredibly powerful with his unarmed strikes and prove your case there. :)

Liberty's Edge

You lose flurry, fast movement, and the cost of the armor you have to buy.

You gain armor check penalties.

So no.


@Ciretose

That's biased, because you forgot that you gain AC from actually wearing armor.

Liberty's Edge

Icyshadow wrote:

@Ciretose

That's biased, because you forgot that you gain AC from actually wearing armor.

Not more than you do for being a monk.

Frankly, I left out the fact that as a monk you get an armor bonus that stacks with everything. Mage armor, bracers of armor, still useful.

And if you dump wisdom, you lower will saves and stunning fist DC.

Liberty's Edge

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Oh, and did I mention it works against touch AC?


The loss of Flurry of Blows is the big sticking point, IMO.


I was going to avoid this thread, but accidentally clicked it after hiding a different post, so I guess I'm here :)

Jason Nelson wrote the sohei with this in mind, actually. The idea of the archetype, quite a brilliant one, IMO, was that it let you choose between either an unarmored monk or an armored one, and gave boons to both. The armored sohei couldn't flurry, but would be less dependent on Wisdom. The unarmored one could flurry, potentially with many interesting weapons, and would get weapon training etc, but would still need to focus on Wisdom to help with AC, etc.


If you are willing to give up flurry of blows, let me make the following recommendation. If you are able to use 3rd party materials, check out the super genius guide to martial archetypes and the Yuxia archetype.

The package the monk can trade out is flury of blows ki points, and i think a bonus feat and abundant step.

What you get with the yuxia is you get ki pool back (and you get it at 2nd level instead of 4th) and a bunch of cool ki powers. One of them 'Iron Skin' is a swift action and gives you a natural armor bonus of 2+1/2 level for one minute. No need to blow cash on armor, and you get a scaling bonus that doesnt interfer with any other abilities. There are also lots of other cool kip powers like Ki Stance which eventually makes you crouching tiger hiden dragon. There are a few others, most very useful for a monk.


Cheapy wrote:

I was going to avoid this thread, but accidentally clicked it after hiding a different post, so I guess I'm here :)

Jason Nelson wrote the sohei with this in mind, actually. The idea of the archetype, quite a brilliant one, IMO, was that it let you choose between either an unarmored monk or an armored one, and gave boons to both. The armored sohei couldn't flurry, but would be less dependent on Wisdom. The unarmored one could flurry, potentially with many interesting weapons, and would get weapon training etc, but would still need to focus on Wisdom to help with AC, etc.

I'm sorry if this drags you back in Cheapy :)

The way the sohei is written, an armored sohei (actually wearing any armor not just light armor) can use flurry of blows.

PRD wrote:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Monks are proficient with the club, crossbow (light or heavy), dagger, handaxe, javelin, kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shortspear, short sword, shuriken, siangham, sling, and spear.

Monks are not proficient with any armor or shields.

When wearing armor, using a shield, or carrying a medium or heavy load, a monk loses his AC bonus, as well as his fast movement and flurry of blows abilities.

That's replaced by the sohei section

PRD wrote:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A sohei is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and with light armor.

Since flurry of blows ability section does not preclude using it while wearing armor, a sohei would be able to do so. An armored sohei would lose the monk AC bonus and AC bonus from wisdom since the armor restriction (and encumbrance) are repeated in the AC section. If the sohei is wearing heavier than light armor would also lose evasion since that's specifically listed in the section for evasion. The sohei archetype already loses fast movement.


I probably should've linked to the author's explanation about the Weapon and Armor Proficiency with that statement.

But anyways, that isn't meant to override the restriction on flurry of blows.

Actually the post also explains the armor / unarmed aspect of the sohei too, so that's useful and relevant.


Ciretose is right. With all of the alchemists and ray casters out there, I would rather have a ridiculously high touch AC.

If I want armor, I wouldn't be playing monk, and I likely wouldn't just be punching things either.


Mithril Comfort Medium armor costs 9000+ gp. Following standard equipment guidelines, that's 25% of WBL so we can expect a character to come into such armor no sooner than level 8, and more likely 9. Keeping in mind that most games start at level 1, what is this monk supposed to do for the first 8 levels of the game?

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