This is something I've been debating with myself for a while now. My Master of Many Styles is built more as a melee brute, but I like having bit of extra utility in the form of Scorching Ray and Barkskin in the place of Slow Fall and High Jump.
However, the Sacred Mountain Monk has a few nifty things as well that I can't ignore, the free extra AC and Toughness, as well as essentially "4 extra AC when full attacking" are nice extras, especially for a melee attacker.
The problem being that Sacred Mountain already replaces High Jump/Slow Fall, thus negating my ability to obtain any Qinggong powers until Monk 7 (total of 10th level for this character, he's 8th now as a Brawler 3/Monk 5).
Before my rebuild is finalized (I got a bit of extra time due to a hiatus on the game) I would like to decide which is better, the Scorching Ray/Barkskin + Evasion or the Natural Armor/Toughness + Immunity to Trip and Extra AC when standing still. I can't really decide which I like more, they both sound good.
So, I'd like to hear everyone else' opinion on the matter before I choose. On the one hand, being able to deal 4d6 at range (though short) and a solid temporary boost to my AC is definitely good and I like the option. My Ki Pool currently sits at 6, if that helps matters.
On the other, the permanent addition of 8 HP +1 per level and a permanent extra AC is also likely to be very helpful. Though the loss of Evasion does kinda suck.
Evasion is amazing, Toughness and a piddly +1 bonus isn't as amazing.
Sacred Mountain gives you some bonuses for standing still; as a melee fighter who needs to move to get full attacks and gets move speed bonuses it seems wasteful.
Stay with Qinggong.
Depends on the style of the game/AP.
If your GM is more fond of casters and strange monsters, then Evasion is gonna be quite useful. If the enemies tend to be more mundane brutes, then evasion is hardly ever useful.
Personally, I would dismiss evasion, because it is rather circumstantial. HP and AC is tested in most every fight. And unless I am missing something, monks suck when they don't stand still to flurry anyway, so the abilities are going to come into play a lot more.
It's the Serpent's Skull AP. I'm not sure how many enemy spellcasters are in there in the future books, but by book 3 it seems like all the boss characters are spellcasters of some sort, but none so far have used damaging spells bar one that fired a single Lightning Bolt.
No Flurry on this guy (Master of Many Styles). I'm running Dragon, Snake, and Panther, so he'll generally have Dragon and Panther up while moving and Dragon and Snake when standing still to full attack. Since he has Combat Style Master I can swap as a Free action so I actually have a few Swifts to spare.
He hits fairly hard and hits pretty well (at least on the first hit) due to the Brawler dip (+12/+7, 1d10+25/1d10+22 on a Power Attack) and having good stats from good rolling (22 Str/14 Dex/15 Con/14 Int/18 Wis/12 Cha). As the main benchmark I have to go by, he hits a bit less hard than the Barbarian (the Barbarian has +15 on a Raging Power Attack I believe, and hits for 2d6+25 or maybe 27) and a bit less often, but has better defenses and potentially has more hits overall due to Snake Style granting hits for people missing (22 AC and 24 Sense Motive, he has the highest AC of the group) and Panther Style granting more attacks while moving for triggering AoOs.
82 HP due to a house rule (1.5x max HP at first level) and good rolls also makes him the second sturdiest character, tied with the Paladin but again behind the Barbarian (who has something like 100+, more when Raging, but that's to be expected).
Really the only thing bringing him down as a frontliner is the fact that the AoMF costs so damn much and causes him to lose out on 3.5 stuff the Barb has like the weapon slot gems that effectively invalidate Flaming/Shocking/Corrosive as weapon enhancements. But I refuse to use weapons since in my eyes that kinda defeats the purpose of being a Monk in the first place. Ah well.
Did not play SS (Which we re-dubbed "Difficult Terrain" for obvious reasons) past part 3. But yeah, the gist of it smacks of fort saves and will saves until the cows come home, if I understand the flavor of the AP right.
When I think about it, blasting in general seems to have taken a bit of a backseat in PF compared to earlier. Forgotten Realms had a real hard-on for casters, and I recall it being a whole lot more prevalent there (2E-3.X). Seems most APs I read these days have like 1-2 blasty enemies per book (2-4 levels of play), which in my opinion constitutes "rare".
But with your styles, standing still sounds less desirable, so there is that. Never been a fan of MoMS, as flurry is kinda what makes the monk martially relevant in my eyes. But since there is a paladin AND a barbarian in the party, I can totally see how you might want to be the mobility dude, and dash up to people who play keep-away from the other two.
Ah. I love the MoMS archetype. It may not be optimal but IMO it's a lot more fun.
And yeah, the only blasty casty guy I've seen is the one I made to fill in while I rebuilt this Monk. I plan to keep him around and play him once in a while, he was fun.
So we got one in favor of Qinggong and one also on the fence. Anyone else?
Also, while we're at it, good replacements for Wholeness of Body if I go with Qinggong? I was thinkin' Gaseous Form, Cloak of Winds, or True Strike.
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Evasion is amazing, Toughness and a piddly +1 bonus isn't as amazing.
Sacred Mountain gives you some bonuses for standing still; as a melee fighter who needs to move to get full attacks and gets move speed bonuses it seems wasteful.
Stay with Qinggong.
Evasion is amazing...when you get to use it. My estimation is that I get hit with an AoE attack that requires a Reflex save for half damage in less than 3% of encounters (this includes encounters where the opponent may have had such an ability but didn' get to use it or didn't include my character in the AoO). On the other hand, the number of encounters where the opponents attack my AC or do damage to me is almost 100%. YMMV depending on the campaign, but while +1 AC and extra HP may be less flashy than Evasion I think it is more than a fair trade, especially on a front line character. It is also worth noting that the +1 to AC stacks with an Amulet of Natural Armor or Barkskin since it is a bonus to you Natural Armor rather than an Enhancement bonus to your Natural Armor.
Also, while it may be counter intuitive, standing still is exactly what a Monk wants to do because his offensive strength comes from his Flurry of Blows which he can't do if he is zipping around the battlefield.
But this Monk doesn't have Flurry, you see.
And I'm less focused on Evasion and more on Scorching Ray and Barkskin. With a Ki Pool of 6 Ki and since I dropped Drunken Master with this rebuild, is the +1 Natural Armor/Free Toughness worth losing those two given that I'm generally either going to be full attacking or purposefully generating AoOs?
Technically, you can do both. You just can't replace abilities that Monk of the Sacred Mountain already replaces.
If you do want to play a "thick of the melee" monk, then I would suggest combining Flowing Monk with Monk of the Sacred Mountain. They stack together, and do the job nicely.
Technically, yes, but since Sacred Mountain replaces Slow Fall/High Jump already it wouldn't come in until later.
I guess the real question is: Are the Qinggong powers best taken as early as possible, to maximize their effective range of levels?