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Tengu standard monk - favored class - HP (Probably my biggest weakness)
STR: 10
DEX: 18
CON: 10
INT: 12
WIS: 18
CHA: 7
Skills
Acrobatics: max - 8 at level 1
Perception: max - 10 at level 1
Sense Motive: max - 8 at level 1
Stealth: max - 10 at level 1
Heal: maybe max, need at least 3
Swim: maybe some points if I don't max heal
Fly: maybe if I get glide racial trait & Qinggong Slow Fall for Ki Stand or barkskin I'll put all but 3 here.
Linguistics: maybe all but 3 here
Vows
Truth
Silence (with a super stealthy scout and taking sign language with my bonus language this could be fun RP, but might be too difficult)
Traits: Mizu Ki Hikari Rebel (Chu Ye) & Reactionary
Maybe Caretaker if I really wanted to be a backup nonmagic healer.
Alternate racial traits
Exotic Weapon Training - tonfa +3 more light
Glide or Carrion Sense maybe
Feats (C=character, M=monk)
1C - Weapon Finesse
1M - Dodge
2M - Deflect Arrows
3C - Crane Style
5C - Crane Wing
6M - Combat Reflexes (or Improved Disarm-weapons can add +2 unlike trip)
7C - Crane Riposte
9C - Mantis Style
10M- Medusa's Wrath
11C- Combat Style Master
Magic Items (1. first; not sure what order for the rest)
1. Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists
Monk's Robe
Goggles of the Night
+X Defending Tonfa
Headband of Inspired Wisdom
Belt of Incredible Dexterity
Cloak of Resistance
Ring of Protection
Bracers of Armor
Ring of Regeneration
Feather Step Slippers (maybe)
(That's as far as I've gotten)
I would appreciate any opinions anyone is willing to post.
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well im looking at your stats, and im not seeing why you are willing to lose out on hp, for 2 extra points of ac.
i understand that you are playing a scouting character, which is a great idea imo. but why not play a halfling for that role? +4 for small size to stealth, +con and dex then -2 strength (it seems like you dont care about that).
with a 14 wisdom, and a 16 con you would be better at surviving melee.
at low levels you wont see how that lack of hp will hurt due to one attack monsters and crane style, but when youre getting full attacked with 2-3 attacks at 5th level and up, crane style will be less of a godsend and more of a liability. small size will also net +1 to ac and flat footed.
most people dont like playing the small races, but i think it would fit your concept better then the giant bird thing race.
with the same basic stats i see you getting a +12 stealth at level 1 and a +8 preception (+2 racial bonus)
other then those few suggestions i see nothing else i would disagree about in your build.
Note that Sign Language is NOT a legal language in PFS. You will need some other way to communicate(I suggest getting a chalkboard).
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well... stunning fist is a very bad feat, fortitude is the best save for most of your available targets for the conditions that stunning fist will apply. so its very limited in use and you most likly wont use all of your attempts per day.
a dc 14 isnt anything to scoff at, a 16 is better. with small races the difference of damage is only 1 point for most weapons. its a mjor misconception that small races cant deal good damage. a better way to get medusas wrath, i know you dont want an archetype but im just tossing this out there, is with shatter defenses + dirty trick which you would need to play a maneuver master, which i will guess is a big no.
from my experience with monks, medusa's is a very rare thing to pull off.
i will let you know what to expect in PFS
1-2 undead, humans
3-5 undead, humans, elementals
6-8 undead, humans, elementals, constructs/golems
8-12 i have no experience with.
there are exceptions to this, but the are very limited to one or two mods. stunning fist works very well on arcane casters. and after level 4 thats all i ever use it on.
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Note that Sign Language is NOT a legal language in PFS. You will need some other way to communicate(I suggest getting a chalkboard).
sign language isnt a language at all, its a dc of 15 bluff. the only wierd thing about it, is that it doesnt say that the message has to be spoken, but they hear it... so it would be gm call about hand gestures for simple messages.
IMO, drop either Dex or Wis to 16. This allows you to increase your Str to 14. The extra 2 damage per hit is going to carry you a long way and be way more valuable than the 1 AC you trade for it.
You can consider taking Toughness to help with HP if you are concerned about that.
I don't think Deflect Arrows or Combat Reflexes are worth your time. Especially at level 6, Improved Disarm/Trip will be more useful.
Since you are taking Crane Style, I assume you will be fighting defensively a lot. I like the synergy between Crane Style and the Stalwart Feat (Trade AC for DR). But that it takes 3 feats to get there and thus almost necessitates taking a 1 level dip into Unbreakable Fighter. An entertaining notion none the less.
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Alright, thanks. I thought I saw something about a sign language in one of the books, but then I can't find it again, and after some research online I think it was the Pathfinder Society hand gestures in Pathfinder Chronicles: Seekers of Secrets and someone in a forum was saying it's not an actual language. I actually decided not to mess with the vows at all because of their complications in PFS, I think they'd be better for a home brew.
Hmm, if you face a lot of elementals later on perhaps I should just check out the Martial Artist archetype and do more of a str based build. Or, if I stick with Tengu, look into Maneuver Master to make use of my exotic weapon proficiencies. I don't like how the negatives stack up with multiple maneuvers on it though, -12 to all to do 3? If it was some progressive penalty where it went -2/-5/-12 I'd be more willing. I also like the Flowing Monk, but the Greater maneuvers aren't available, which makes no sense. At the least Greater Trip and Greater Reposition should be available since the Stunning Fist replacement revolves around tripping and repositioning.
Martial Artist does not have the alignment restriction, so you can dip into Barbarian. Go go Rage Monk! >.>
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Yeah, one attribute layout I toyed with was Str/Dex/Wis all at 16. My CMD would be through the roof. Being a 'dual wielder' as monks using Flurry of Blows are, though, makes me cringe at each -1 to hit. I did look at a layout of Str18/Dex14/Wis14 plus dodge. How well does 15 AC hold up early on?
That Stalwart is pretty neat, but would probably only work with Crane Style if you went Master of Many Styles or were really high level. I might steal that build for a character though, 'cause it's a really neat idea. Hmm, if you go half-orc you can get Endurance as an alternate racial trait and half orcs have some neat Die Hard feats that make you super tough.
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To offer my advice, I would put some points into Con.
Knowledge is the most common skill for Grand Lodge missions, I think. Also some Diplomacy and Perception, yes.
If you play older modules you'll be playing Osirion missions, also heavy on Knowledge, Perception and Linguistics.
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So, basically what I'm gathering from everything is don't play a monk in PFS.
You can play whatever you want, but 1) focusing on combat may hurt you on the faction side and 2) it is hard to plan ahead particularly magic items. I don't think you'll ever see access to a ring of regeneration.
Nobody is making you have an 18 Wisdom and Dexterity and lowering one or both of those would give you a higher Con (more HP). You could also raise Charisma.
Basically everything (skills, traits, feats, ability scores) you have on this character is combat related. Once in a while your faction will want you to kill someone and you'll be golden, but the rest of the time you are likely to struggle to complete your faction missions which will delay your access to higher quality equipment. (You could also see what faction is common locally and choose than one and rely on others to complete missions for you).
You might want to consider Silver Crusade. The faction missions frequently require no skill check at all. When they do it's usually Knowledge: Religion, Heal (neither is too bad for you) or Diplomacy (ouch). Diplomacy is the most common of all missions though, maybe somebody will help you out.
i would so stats instead:
str 10
dex 18
con 13
int 12
wis 14
cha 7
adding +1con at 4th
no matter ur ac ur garanteeed to take damage in pfs, if u wanna survive at least have the 12 con, i would prob use the first set of stats
thats saying you get an agile amf
Why do you have a 12 int and a 10 str? You said you wanted to do damage, and right now a cleric with a 14 str and a greatsword will out damage your full attack with their standard attack.
Also scouts virtually must have darkvision to function.
In PFS, so far I've had pretty good luck starting out with 17 in my main stat and bumping it to 18 with my 4th level attribute bonus. That gives me an extra 3 points to spend elsewhere (more if I don't have a racial bump in that stat.) If you're doing a multi-attribute build, you're probably OK with a 16 in your secondary stat, too.
If you want to go with high Dex and Weapon Finesse, you'll probably want Agile Maneuvers, too: use your Dex bonus instead of Str for CMB.
As a monk, your unarmed strikes increase in damages as you progress, so you should be OK at higher levels if you can stick it out. Personally, for a dexy monk, I'd stick with flurry of blows: by 4th level, you get 3 attacks/round by spending a ki point, which usually gives you a higher average than most medium-strength weapons. (Check out the Hammer the Gap feat as a way to overcome DR.)
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I wanted to make a dex / wis tengu Flowing monk similar to this. (High AC, support type. not primary damage). The problem is getting your to-hit bonus high enough to really do anything. Just an example, at level 11 i think average monster AC is 25. Your bab is 8. If you jack dex you can get a +7 or +8 mod, but let's say a +7 since you probably won't spend 36k on the +6 dex belt. That's a +15 (8 bab + 7 dex) to hit. You are missing 50% of the time. (they don't call it flurry of misses for no reason.)
No weapon training. No gloves of dueling. No greater weapon focus. No armor of brawling. No +3 AOMF. (you'd be paying 20k for a +1 Agile AOMF, hopefully you can get someone to cast greater magic weapon / fang on you and just go with the straight dueling for 5k).
It's REALLY freaking tough as a monk to do anything with good STR score, let alone trying to go dex. You are feat taxed weapon finesse, which you can use on Trip, Disarm, Reposition, dirty trick [up to gm], and sunder. But it doesn't do crap for Grapple (one of the few maneuvers you can do against guys more than one size category larger). So you'd have to invest ANOTHER FEAT, for agile maneuvers. Now you could go with just agile maneuvers to do your combat maneuvers, but forget about hitting anything without weapon finesse.
To add insult to injury, if you want to trip/reposition anything huge, you need to drink a potion of enlarge person. Now your to hit goes down 1 for being large, and it goes down ANOTHER for losing 2 dex. and your AC goes down 2 points also.
One of the only ways I thought of making a high dex/wis monk effective is with the qinggong archetype; take True strike (don't forget about barkskin). You can use it to try and get a grapple on a tough opponent when you need to take them out for a round. I think that could be very effective, and annoy the hell out of the enemy since you'll be so damn hard to hit. Plus you could examine the other goodies like scorching ray. There is a ring in the ultimate equipment guide that will let you use ki abilities that take more than 2 ki points and reduce one from the cost. So you can scorching ray and things like that with only 1 ki point.
You'll typically get into 3 - 4 encounters in a pathfinder scenario. There usually is one final boss (with minions), and probably a tough sub-boss type before the last encounter. So I can definitely see being a scout and just harassing the enemy and annoying them with your high AC while your friends blow everything up. Save your ki-points and go all out on the harder guys and I think you could have fun and feel effective.
In direct reference to your build; as others have said get that con up to 12.
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Yeah, I don't plan on using maneuvers with this build, it just is too tricky for what I'm doing. My focus is AC, deflecting attacks, stealth, speed, and Stunning Fist. If you notice, a magic item with darkvision is on my list of magic items for my scouting job (Goggles of the Night) and my dexterity bonus will go to my damage once I get an Agile Amulet of Mighty Fists. Putting points into strength is therefore less useful than an extra skill point.
I think I'm going to drop dex to 17, increase con to 12, then get 18 dex at level 4 though.
The aid another idea is a great one too, thanks. And flanking is one reason I like my high speed and high acrobatics (another benefit of high dex). I just randomly happen to have a bunch of skills that compliment my high stats.
Thanks again for the ideas and posts.