GM advice - Crane Style Monk is causing balance issues


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Here's the situation: I'm running Kingmaker right now and we're starting the third book. The players are level 7. The party is...

-A Fire/Healing Cleric of Sarenrae (Queen of the kingdom)
-An Inquisitor of Gorum who wields a spiked chain
-An Aquatic bloodline Sorcerer
-A bow-wielding Ranger

And one cranestyle monk that makes my job as GM quite challenging.

You see, I've always considered myself pretty good at encounter balance. But this monk is a huge problem when it comes to keeping the game challenging and fun. Behold my dilemma:

Problem #1: High AC compared to the rest of the party:

We're talking low 30s a lot of the time here, with the widely available mage armor. Owl's wisdom and cat's grace are cast on the Monk at even the hint of combat, pushing it even higher.

Problems fixing #1:
If I want to hit this character even 25% of the time, I need an attack modifier on one these monsters of +17 or even higher. While that's not entirely out of the question to include at 7th level, I can't make every creature the PCs fight that brutal. Especially when it means that if ANYONE OTHER THAN THE MONK gets attacked, they have nearly no chance of avoiding it. This just makes the rest of the PCs feel defenseless. You should see their eyes roll when I roll a 5 out in the open and a creature still manages to club one of them because it had to be at least somewhat of a threat to the party superstar.

Problem #2: Parrying the first attack each round.:

I really think this is a cool class feature. Unfortunately, it's just too much when compounded with the rest of these issues. What's the point in a creature EVER charging without pounce vs. a Crane Style monk? You only get one attack and its getting deflected no matter what. On a full attack, the first one is always the best chance to hit and that's the one that's going to be deflected. Behold: The mighty troll warchieftain with a mighty +17/+12 full attack with his morningstar. He only has a 25% chance of even triggering the parry on his first attack vs. the monk's 32 AC (it gets higher), and will only hit with the followup on a natural twenty. Basic probability (.25 X .05) dictates that on a full attack, a lone chieftain only has a 1.25% chance of ever hitting. That is ludicrous.

Problems fixing #2:
Surprise attacks are an option. However, I can't do this every time, and even if I do make it past the three PC's with fully maxed perception scores, if I don't take down the monk on the surprise round or win the initiative roll, my chances of ever harming the character drop to... well... you saw the calculations I just did. Grappling could work. Enough successful checks could deal automatic damage, but we're talking about grappling a monk of all classes. This isn't easy either. He also still gets full attacks during the grapple and is often enlarged making it more difficult.

Problem #3: Most spells are worthless:

A monk's amazing saves are one of the few good advantages the class has held over others. But here, it's just frustrating. You see, I don't mind the tower shield wielding tin can as much, seeing as he can still be Dominate Person-ed. But the chances of landing a will negates spell on a monk are so low, it's usually just a wasted action. How about good ol' fireball? Sure it'll toast the rest of the party, but the Cranestyle monk has evasion and a great reflex. How about touch spells? Most of the monks AC goes to touch, making this futile as well. Not to mention, whatever spellcaster slung that spell had better be more than 120 feet away, because this monk's movement is high.

Problems fixing #3: AOE spells still hurt the rest of the party but I dont just want to kill all of them. I want to challenge this PC's character. So maybe no save spells? Please recommend me a few I could use. I sure could use em.

Problem #4: He knows it:

This character knows he's invulnerable. He goes in first always. He challenges anything. He ACTUALLY ASKS THE SORCERER AND CLERIC to fireball him in combat because he's the center of attention. Forget 10 foot wide dungeon hallways. This enlarged monk will just plug them, trivializing entire encounters with his girth and impenetrable defenses.

All in all, it's really hard to challenge this character without completely destroying the rest of the party as a result. I understand that one PC will always outshine the rest, but by how much? He just got his Monk's Robe as well. What do, Paizo forums? I just want to have a challenging campaign that everyone feels useful in.


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Ignore him, which will be the advice you'll get from most people here.

Monks in general are not heavy hitters. High AC Crane Style users are even more notoriously bad at actually hitting and hurting their opponent. This means he has nothing that will really "draw aggro". Intelligent monsters will see him as a non-threat, who's there to be a distraction once they flail at him a couple of times and he gives them a Flurry of Lovetaps in response.

He goes in first because he knows the monsters will attack him, and they will likely fail to do anything. Don't play by his rules.

If you have ever enemy rush the Monk first, you're just going to end up with another stalled encounter. At best, have one guy attack him. Let him be immune to one dude, at least until it becomes clear to the enemy that hitting him is a fool's game and he moves on to softer prey.

The time taken could range from one to two attacks (a human level intelligence foe), a couple of rounds (animals, barely sentient creatures) or even never (mindless undead and vermin).

Don't completely shut him out, that'll just ruin his fun. But stop making every enemy attack him all the time. That's just going to end up with you being frustrated. Attack the easier to hit targets like the Inquisitor, or have them bum rush the back lines where the Ranger and Sorcerer are hanging out.

Crane Style gets a bad rap for being overpowered. It's not. It just requires a slight change in tactics from the GM, like any nonstandard tactic.


I have been doing this for seven levels. Don't just throw me in the "GMs that don't use tactics" bin.

A few times it has resulted in the rest of the party dropping their jaws as creatures easily smite them and then finally move on to the monk. Also, +8/+8/+3 for 3d6+5ish each when enlarged with a chance to stun isn't necassarily a flurry of lovetaps.

Liberty's Edge

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There is no good solution. Allowing Crane Style into your game has rapidly brought you to the end of what I call 'The Deos Theory'. In short, allowing players unhindered optimization will inevitably bring you the problem you have now - there's no way to challenge the overpowered character without crushing everyone else or singling him out with custom-made encounters that will leave him frustrated.

In short, the only real solution is to talk to him about it. See if he'll consider rebuilding or accepting a blanket nerf to crane style. I suggest taking away the attack deflect but leaving the fighting defensively bonus in place.

Crane Style is overpowered. Anyone that says otherwise is ignorant of its function in actual play. Even in the theoretical scenario where the party fights nothing but dragons with 8 attacks that always hit, the crane styler is still bounds ahead of a non-crane styler. In my current highest level game (17th) I'm still waiting for the 'sweet spot' where crane style loses its luster.


I concur with others that suggest talking to him about it. Get them to swap it out. Maybe allow it at a higher level. Sounds like it is problematic at lower levels, but I allowed it in my game and they were somewhere around 12, and I noticed no particular issue with it at that point.
I have had experience with overpowered characters myself, and know it can be frustrating, especially if you try for some time to make things sufficiently challenging for them without either slaughtering everyone else, or ending up with them way outshining other players. Also.... another approach I'm going to do from now on is to playtest new characters a bit before they actually are approved so that any big balance issues hopefully are caught early.


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+8 is a very low attack bonus. If that is all he has then he is not much of an offensive threat. You can send one monster after him, and the rest after the other members.

With a +8 he will be strugging to hit monsters also.

Having monsters use aid another to make attack rolls to hit him also works.

You can use witches to drop his AC with evil eyes.

Dispelling his buffs also drops his AC even more.

Have buffing enemies to help the big hitters. That should be enough to get at least an effective 8 point swing in AC.

Using casters with magic missile also works.

Going after his CMD also works.

Using PC classes with NPC classes and wealth might also work.


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Feral wrote:


Crane Style is overpowered. Anyone that says otherwise is ignorant of its function in actual play. Even in the theoretical scenario where the party fights nothing but dragons with 8 attacks that always hit, the crane styler is still bounds ahead of a non-crane styler. In my current highest level game (17th) I'm still waiting for the 'sweet spot' where crane style loses its luster.

Don't call people ignorant because YOU are not able to handle something. The problem is not cranewing. The problem is that he is more optimized than everyone else. That is GMing 101. So asking to tune it down or helping everyone move up if they agree to do so also helps.

Being able to auto-negate an attack is also good so it will never lose its power. If you play until level 50 that feat will be good. Why should a feat lose its luster? Power Attack does not lose its luster.

Something is only overpowered if is an issue across the board. You not liking it does not make it OP. If you think autoblocking the first melee attack is too much for your games then don't allow it in your games, but don't assume it is an issue for everyone else.


wraithstrike wrote:

+8 is a very low attack bonus. If that is all he has then he is not much of an offensive threat. You can send one monster after him, and the rest after the other members.

With a +8 he will be strugging to hit monsters also.

Having monsters use aid another to make attack rolls to hit him also works.

You can use witches to drop his AC with evil eyes.

Dispelling his buffs also drops his AC even more.

Have buffing enemies to help the big hitters. That should be enough to get at least an effective 8 point swing in AC.

Using casters with magic missile also works.

Going after his CMD also works.

Using PC classes with NPC classes and wealth might also work.

+8/+8/+3 is decent, not very low. Especially when compared to the rest of the party or the monsters in this adventure path's AC. Here's the AC of the next five creatures in the AP (I'm using the six player conversion btw): 16, 21, 17, 19, 17.

I like the Evil Eye idea. However, dat will save...

Dispel is always a great option. I'm glad I've reached a level in the AP where this spell is able to be more common.

The buffing idea is alright. Maybe a custom encounter where the presence of four "helper" enemies each add a bonus to-hit for the big guy in the group and you have to defeat them to lower his chance to hit?

Magic missile is a solid choice. Thanks, I forgot about that spell :)

His CMD is quite high, unfortunately.

PC classes, huh? That might help. I GOT IT. CRANESTYLE DRAGON! These guys better watch out xD


Evil eye works for one round even if they fail the save, and you can cackle to extend it. :)

I did not know you were running an AP. Optimized characters normally force you to adjust the encounters for an AP.

The helpers only to hit an AC of 10 and they can be of lower levels. That way if you use XP it wont cause them to level too quickly.


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Spastic Puma wrote:

I have been doing this for seven levels. Don't just throw me in the "GMs that don't use tactics" bin.

A few times it has resulted in the rest of the party dropping their jaws as creatures easily smite them and then finally move on to the monk. Also, +8/+8/+3 for 3d6+5ish each when enlarged with a chance to stun isn't necassarily a flurry of lovetaps.

+8/+8/+3 for 3d6+5 IS pretty sad. That's an average of about 15 damage a hit. At level 7, that's not exactly stellar, especially when it comes from such a low attack bonus (the +3 might as well not even be there), and that's AFTER buffs.

Lessee, average enemy AC chosen from 5 random CR 7 creatures...is about 20 AC. The stuff he should be taking on one on one, he has a 40% chance to hit. While buffed. And with an average HP of...81 (just numbers from the same 5 monsters), he's not one-rounding these guys. Ever (well actually one of the enemies only had 68 HP but still). If ALL of his attacks connect, for max damage, he's still only doing 69 damage. WHILE BUFFED, again, the important factor. Unbuffed with Enlarge Person his damage drops significantly (one point of static, and down to 1d10 damage dice). That's even more pitiful.

The problem is that the rest of your party consists of a healer, a water blaster, and a dude with a chain. And the Ranger, who should by all rights be kicking the Monk's ASS in damage, but for some reason isn't.

The problem in this scenario isn't the Monk, not directly. It's that the rest of the party is obviously unoptimized as all get out, except maybe whoever's buffing up the Monk (the Cleric, I assume).


Hit him with natural attacks... this sounds pretty cheesy but read the wording on crane wing. It specifically states melee weapon attack. Note that pathfinder does differentiate between natural weapons and melee weapons.


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haruhiko88 wrote:
Hit him with natural attacks... this sounds pretty cheesy but read the wording on crane wing. It specifically states melee weapon attack. Note that pathfinder does differentiate between natural weapons and melee weapons.

Incorrect. Melee weapons are any attack made with a melee weapon. A melee weapon is any weapon that is not a ranged weapon.

MANUFACTURED weapons and Natural Attacks are different, but both may be melee weapons. Just like some manufactured weapons and natural attacks are ranged (like Manticore spines).


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Quote:
+8/+8/+3 is decent, not very low. Especially when compared to the rest of the party or the monsters in this adventure path's AC. Here's the AC of the next five creatures in the AP (I'm using the six player conversion btw): 16, 21, 17, 19, 17.

That means the monk has less than a 50% chance to hit. That is not good at all. At level 7 your ranger should have

If the monk did not a high AC that low attack bonus would get him killed.


Have you tried using combat maneuvers? Crane Wing doesn't work on those.

-Matt


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Good to know, did a little digging my usual gm has been lying to me. I usually just trust the gm I play with since he has a lot of system-fu. I was also under the assumption that it would work like deflect arrows which does not work against ranged attacks generated by natural attacks.

Sczarni

@Mattastrophic

I am not so sure that Crane Wing doesn't block combat maneuvers. Sunder for example uses the weapon, so it would work against it. Combat maneuvers are attacks after all. I doubt he will get much mileage from those attacks anyway. Monks CMD should be pretty much close or equal to his AC.

@Spastic Puma

There is few things that come to my mind, but both include reworking encounters;

a) Advancing animals or similar monsters per HD. This grant's them additional HP and attack bonuses and doesn't improve the damage output that much. What you get is essentially tougher and more precise monsters.

b) Add bunch of low level minions. Even a 30 AC monk will have hard time when 5 goblins surround him and grant +12 bonus on hit (+10 aid another, +2 flank) to a single bad guy. This type of tactic will provide threat, but from my experiences, it won't really kill any PC, because the damage output is slow.

c) Use the terrain. Player from my games curses the rain still from the days when he played ranger (rain grant's -4 on ranged attacks). This is fun way to step the difficulty.

This is all that I managed to come up with so far, and I realize that some people already probably mentioned it, but it's possible to challenge such player. It just requires a lot of pondering and planing.

Malag


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Spastic Puma wrote:
A few times it has resulted in the rest of the party dropping their jaws as creatures easily smite them and then finally move on to the monk. Also, +8/+8/+3 for 3d6+5ish each when enlarged with a chance to stun isn't necassarily a flurry of lovetaps.

No, it should be a flurry of misses. Remember, Stunning Fist can only be used once per round.

Spastic Puma wrote:
+8/+8/+3 is decent, not very low.

No, it's very low. I have a fighter 5/rogue 2 with a +16 attack bonus and similar damage WITHOUT any buffs.

Spastic Puma wrote:
Especially when compared to the rest of the party or the monsters in this adventure path's AC. Here's the AC of the next five creatures in the AP (I'm using the six player conversion btw): 16, 21, 17, 19, 17.

This opens a window on what your party considers good; maybe you have an optimized monk in an unoptimized party? In my Kingmaker game the 6th level barbarian general with an enlarge dropped on him is cleaving through enemies with +14/+7 for 3d6+18...half my foes are dying in round one, they are lucky if they even get in a full attack, and he's only mildly optimized. The monk in the same party has an attack bonus of +9 (with my custom changes that make it slightly stronger) and is lucky to get as many hits as the barbarian in a round.

Basically, at this level the monk should get in the occasional good one, and that's it. He should be struggling to keep up with a full-BAB class, not leading the pack.

Spastic Puma wrote:
Dispel is always a great option. I'm glad I've reached a level in the AP where this spell is able to be more common.

It is, and where any party starts relying on buffs to carry them I start dropping them regularly. One greater dispel and he loses that enlarge, four points of AC, and if I do not miss my guess maybe a fair chunk of to hit and damage as well?

Spastic Puma wrote:
The buffing idea is alright. Maybe a custom encounter where the presence of four "helper" enemies each add a bonus to-hit for the big guy in the group and you have to defeat them to lower his chance to hit?

You can buff up ACs as well. Take an AC 20 monster and drop a mage armour on it and you have AC24. Or just armour up some encounters - in Carrion Crown I just boosted the effectiveness of some simple skeletons by giving them normal rather than broken armour and weapons. Give a monster a set of light barding for +2 AC - you'll be amazed at the difference it makes.

Don't make the foes hit more accurately, make them harder to hit themselves. Oh, and haste spell gives them an extra attack...put in a wand with just a few charges, and the party get it as a bonus when they win.

Spastic Puma wrote:
Magic missile is a solid choice. Thanks, I forgot about that spell :)

I'm betting this character's HP are not stellar, if he has that much focussed in offence/defence. Hence the steady attrition from an enemy with a wand of magic missiles will have him worried.

Spastic Puma wrote:
His CMD is quite high, unfortunately.

There's no unfortunately, monks ARE defensively very good. It's their offence that sucks, and that limits their effectiveness. At level 7 the monk is on the upper cusp of "being good" that he can expect to have. As you go to higher levels, they disparity in his attack bonus vs the monster's AC will increase and reduce his effectiveness considerably. By level 12 you will be wondering what you were concerned about.

Right now he has a chance to shine, so don't take that from him. Later, it'll be a struggle for him to do much.


Had similar issues with a monk in my homebrew game. Ruling that monk wisdom to ac and mage armor does not stack solved the issue for me without completely invalidating the monk. They were still a challenge to damage, but stayed within 4-6 ac of the rest of the party. May be a house rule you'd want to consider?


If he makes that houserule the monk might be in trouble. They have always been good at damage OR AC, but never decent at both unless you really know the system well.

But if the rest of the party is also not optimized it might work out.


You could also try using some Swarms in a few places. Many might be immune to the (likely bludgeoning) damage he would inflict with his AoO when they move into his space. They don't need any attacks to inflict their damage as long as he's in their square. His save will probably be enough to keep from being nauseated, but that's perfectly fair.

He can easily get away if he really wants to (with his monk speed), though some swarms might be able to move or fly at 50 they'll probably stop at the other party members if he moves behind them. A typical swarm of appropriate CR will only do maybe 2d6 damage per round to those within it, so it's not like some uber-behemoth coming out with massive swings or a sudden unexpected critical that flattens a player.

You should use multiple swarms, rather than one. This way you can harry the whole party if the monk is standing in one spot or you can actually stack the multiple swarms so their overlapping damage builds should you find more or less damage needed.

Area effects will be what's needed, so the casters will get a chance to be the heroes if they aren't nauseated, but that's fair for having poor saves. Hope they didn't stack up on monk buff spells to the detriment of common sense and good planning.

A portcullis or barricade that the monk must lift will buy time. Being enlarged he will get a bonus or just succeed but you can claim it takes a round or two to lift the gate until it locks in place or actually require him to hold it up while one or more party members move into the room beyond (possibly engaging the enemies) to find a locking lever. The enemies can launch spells or attacks at his party past him as he does this. Or they can attack the monk and you can declare that he can't parry or deflect, probably doesn't even get his Dex and dodge modifiers (and those based on them) while holding and lifting the barrier.

Other things you can do. If the monk is getting enlarged have the enemies down 5 foot wide corridors that will slow the monk down while the enemy casters launch their spells right past him. He might block the passage, but unless he's a solid form like a gelatinous cube, he doesn't block line of effect.

While Squeezing, his AC and Attacks lower -4 (the AC being what you're looking to bring from Supernatural to just plain Superhuman.) Also, since each square counts as 2, he's moving slower. So even a 10 or 15 foot-long pit trap (5 feet wide since that's the corridor width) can present a challenging jump check to a character who normally has exceptional bonuses just based on speed alone (especially if he's been neglecting his skills because he assumed his speed bonus would always come into play). Now he's at at 25 instead of 50, so instead of a +8 to his Acrobatics checks from just speed, you could say he's at -2. It's -4 for each 10 feet below 30 ft movement so that's fair. Still only a DC 10 or 15 check depending on if he gets a 10 foot running start, which won't be until after it opens and he's leapt back to safety with his Reflex save.

A good pit would be 50' deep, that's about CR 4 or so, he'll probably make the Reflex save when it opens but that won't get him across. If he does fall. It's all still fair, you know he has safe fall 30' and with an Acrobatics check that's just 10 feet of damage. Other than making the walls slippery, he'll get out easily, being able to brace himself like in a chimney (if he's enlarged, -10 DC) or using a corner if he's not (-5 to DC). Of course, if he is enlarged and assuming you didn't have the pit open up wider than at the top or making it circular at the bottom so there's no corners to climb with, he'll be moving at half speed since he's squeezing, which will buy the other PCS in the encounter an extra round or 2 to shine (or crumble if it turns out they were using the monk as a crutch) while he extricates himself.

Of course, having a flying swarm of locusts or biting horseflies rise up out of the rotting corpse at bottom of the pit that he lands on will add a challenge (not necessarily raising the trap CR but increasing the encounter CR to a level challenging a 6 or 7.) It might distract him, slowing or preventing him from climbing as fast. Also, if his party members aren't doing their fair share of getting into the action, just have the bad guys firing at him as he's climbing. He should have no Dex and as such no Dodge modifiers to his defense, add that to -4 for squeezing and the potential to fall if taking damage and you have a reasonable encounter that isn't made to kill the character but actually challenge him and allow him to us all those cool special skills, like slow fall, that he has.

Also remember, it's the caster that has to Dismiss the Enlarge person not the recipient, and while he might ask for the caster to do so, it will take a standard action and must be in range (about 55 feet at 7th level). So they could do it from the top of the pit. Of course, the swarm of velvet ants or rats that came out of the walls around the party might be distracting the caster, causing spell failure or even nauseating them, preventing standard actions.

Other things to note, if the monk is human he might not be able to see in the pit if he doesn't have his own light source out or if the pit cover has an automatic reset to close above him.

Also, substituting an insect swarm with patches of green slime (CR 4) along the pit walls and a patch coating the bottom is always an option. Hope he's carrying a knife or tools to scrape it off with. Otherwise, he can easily be saved by the party tossing down a fireball to annihilate the slime and clean him off (possibly after some Con damage) but he's already demonstrated that he's okay with that and it will give the cleric a chance to use some restoration magics.


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Are the other players bored? With the party makeup, the chain wielding inquisitor may be the only other melee combatant. (I forget if chains have reach.) The rest look like back line support and damage characters. Having a monk up front stopping all attacks may be the ideal for them.


haruhiko88 wrote:
Good to know, did a little digging my usual gm has been lying to me. I usually just trust the gm I play with since he has a lot of system-fu. I was also under the assumption that it would work like deflect arrows which does not work against ranged attacks generated by natural attacks.

To be fair the feat RAW doesn't work on natural attacks using original PF terminology. The FAQ on other issues clarified that Melee Weapons meant all Melee attacks and that they now used Manufactured Attacks and Natural Attacks to differentiate. As opposed to Melee Weapon Attacks and Natural Attacks that were originally used to differentiate.


Stephen Ede wrote:
haruhiko88 wrote:
Good to know, did a little digging my usual gm has been lying to me. I usually just trust the gm I play with since he has a lot of system-fu. I was also under the assumption that it would work like deflect arrows which does not work against ranged attacks generated by natural attacks.
To be fair the feat RAW doesn't work on natural attacks using original PF terminology. The FAQ on other issues clarified that Melee Weapons meant all Melee attacks and that they now used Manufactured Attacks and Natural Attacks to differentiate. As opposed to Melee Weapon Attacks and Natural Attacks that were originally used to differentiate.

That's not really the case. I've always thought that weapons included natural weapons.

I'm not quite sure what FAQs you mean either...


You can give enemies some quick buffs, bull's strength and bless can pop up from a third level cleric who's hiding in the back.

Teamwork feats are also wildly in the GM's favor with resource allocation not being much of a thing for throwaway encounters, but giving it to them gives all of em a +4 on flanking (+5 with bless and +7 for the bull's strength'ed one). Slap on a level of barbarian to a dude and rage for another +2 if you want (it's how I made a handful of Barbarians well below the party a major threat.)

Also, the real reason to give dragons monk levels is for the flurry of bites.

Dabbler wrote:
Right now he has a chance to shine, so don't take that from him. Later, it'll be a struggle for him to do much.

Yeah, let the problem take care of itself.

Sovereign Court

Sounds like the Monk is overdue for an arch-nemesis. An opposite aligned Monk who wants to test his skills against the PC and will do whatever it takes to make that happen... Classic Kung-Fu showdown.


Spastic Puma wrote:

Here's the situation: I'm running Kingmaker right now and we're starting the third book. The players are level 7. The party is...

-A Fire/Healing Cleric of Sarenrae (Queen of the kingdom)
-An Inquisitor of Gorum who wields a spiked chain
-An Aquatic bloodline Sorcerer
-A bow-wielding Ranger

And one cranestyle monk that makes my job as GM quite challenging.

I feel your pain. I'm running Kingmaker and I have a PC that's a Silver Dragon Wyrmling/Monk- master of many styles 2/Cleric 1/Sorcerer 1 with Crane Wing.

I truly feel your pain.

Crane Wing when combined with relatively high AC is a major PIA and unfortunately most people on this board will pooh pooh you because it's not politically correct to see Crane Wing as a problem.

Suggestions -
1) Shape the combats so that some of the enemy can get to the other players and set the attacks levels that they are a challenge to them but aren't auto-hitting. Yes, this means the Monk won't be at all threatened. So what.

2) Concentrate more stuff on non combat. Recruiting the enemies after you defeat them. Making allainces. Have enemies more likely to talk to the party because of the other players abilities/classes/whatever. Basically give other PCs a place in the sun that doesn't involve combat. This is Kingmaker. The campaign is made for that sort of approach.

3) Where does the Monks AC com from specifically? Will a feint build work to get multiple attacks through? Use Shatter Defenses build. If he's made flat-footed he can't use Crane Wing. Invisibility also gets past it. If he's not aware of the specific attack he can't use Crane Wing.

4) Use Crane Wing builds back at him. Give monsters the Advanced Template and/or Class levels. My players learnt anything can have Class levels. Commonly Barbarian, Fighter and Ranger levels for animals, but high Wisdom does give options. :-) Remember the Stolen land s is a strange place. Also look at the Fey Animal/Creature templates.

5) Poison! Especially poison that gets activated when the monster gets hit. My personal favourite - Poisonous Maniticore

creature stats:
Poisonous Manticore CR 6
XP 2,400
LE Large magical beast
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent; Perception +9
Aura poisonous cloud (10 ft., DC 19, 1d3 Str and sickened)
DEFENSE

AC 17, touch 11, flat-footed 15 (+2 Dex, +6 natural, –1 size)
hp 69 (6d10+36)
Fort +11, Ref +7, Will +3
Defensive Abilities toxic flesh; Immune poison

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., fly 50 ft. (clumsy)
Melee bite +10 (1d8+5 plus poison), 2 claws +10 (2d4+5 plus poison)
Ranged 4 spikes +8 (1d6+5 plus poison)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks poisonous cloud, spikes, venomous breath

TACTICS

A poisonous manticore begins most attacks with a volley of spikes, then uses its breath weapon. Thereafter, it closes to melee and slashes with claws and teeth.

STATISTICS

Str 20, Dex 15, Con 22, Int 7, Wis 12, Cha 9
Base Atk +6; CMB +12; CMD 24 (28 vs. trip)
Feats Flyby Attack, Hover, Weapon Focus (spikes)
Skills Fly –3, Perception +9, Survival +4 (+8 tracking); Racial Modifiers +4 Perception, +4 Survival when tracking
Languages Common
SQ

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Detect Anti-Poison (Su)

At will as a standard action, a poisonous manticore can detect alchemical items, magic effects, and magic items within 30 feet that neutralize or delay poisons, or determine whether a creature in the same range is naturally immune or resistant to poisons. For each such example in the area, the poisonous manticore can make a DC 15 Wisdom check. Success indicates that the poisonous manticore knows the location of the qualifying creature, object, or magic effect and why it qualifies.

Knowing the location of a hidden or invisible creature or object does not reveal it; the creature merely knows what square or squares the creature or object occupies. The creature knows the location an object, effect, or creature at the moment of the detection, but it cannot follow it's movement (if it moves) without another detection attempt. The creature usually uses this ability to determine whether it can affect a certain foe.

Poison (Ex)

Bite, Claw or Spikes—injury; save Fort DC 19; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Con; cure 1 saves. Save DC is Constitution-based.


Also Fire Shield. Your Spell casters and Ranged combats will be fine but Mr Monk will go "Oh Crap".

Hope this helps.


I was going to come here and suggest the same things that Rynjin did from the onset.

Ignore the monk. If the enemy has any knowledge about the party in advance they should know to just immeadiately ignore the monk. He is a non-threat. He can barely hit and his damage is trivial. At most have one enemy fight with him and the others go after the rest of the party. If you want to be particularly advesarial, after the enemy gets a full attack against the monk he realizes that he cannot hit the monk because of high AC and deflection ability. Have him also move away and fight the other PCs and completely ignore the monk. As the monk stands there and fails to hit or do anything meaningful during the round he may consider that he cannot go full defense all the time. This may force him to drop Crane Style occasionally to otherwise contribute to the party. He is only a problem if you let him be. Don't play the game on his terms or let him have his way.

If you cater to the players strength then surely he has already won.

Diminutive swarms are a great idea against this character. If you can get a gunslinger with higher init than the monk you will ruin his day. He will be flat-footed against the attack, which will target his touch AC and he wont get to add his dex or wis. A decent amount of HP damage might scare him a bit. Further, gunslingers are still great in combat against everyone else with their touch AC targetting.


Cheapy wrote:
Stephen Ede wrote:
haruhiko88 wrote:
Good to know, did a little digging my usual gm has been lying to me. I usually just trust the gm I play with since he has a lot of system-fu. I was also under the assumption that it would work like deflect arrows which does not work against ranged attacks generated by natural attacks.
To be fair the feat RAW doesn't work on natural attacks using original PF terminology. The FAQ on other issues clarified that Melee Weapons meant all Melee attacks and that they now used Manufactured Attacks and Natural Attacks to differentiate. As opposed to Melee Weapon Attacks and Natural Attacks that were originally used to differentiate.

That's not really the case. I've always thought that weapons included natural weapons.

I'm not quite sure what FAQs you mean either...

The relevant FAQ is on Magus where Natural attacks are defined as Light Melee Weapon attacks. This overrides the actual rules on natural weapons in the CRB where they clearly differeniate between Natural Attacks and Melee Weapon attacks as been different things in a single sentence. Not especially interested in rehashing the business and hijacking the thread but I can point you to the thread if you really want to read it.

My point is simply that the other players GM wasn't necessarily been lied to by the GM when he incorrectly ruled how it worked.


Monks rushing ahead and yelling, "Fireball me!" is actually not that unusual. I've seen it IMC.

I don't have the module in front of me, but I'd suggest going through and looking for ways to make combats more complex and interesting. Other people have already posted some good ideas. I agree that it's a challenge but there are ways around.

Swarms -- aw yeah swarms. The only drawback to these guys is that they're so vulnerable to fireballs and other AoE spells. But if they pop out of holes in a wall and are all over you? The swarm doesn't care how high your AC is.

Flying opponents -- let the ranger and the ranged caster shine. He doesn't have Fly yet, right? So.

Brute opponents -- guys with lots and lots of hp and really high Fort saves are going to shrug off his silly stunning attack and carry on with whatever they were doing. Giants, oozes, plants and constructs all should work well here.

Mooks -- for flanking, for assists, and for soaking up Crane Wing. Remember, a 20 always hits. If half a dozen orc barbarians are surrounding the monk, good chance one of them is going to get a whack in. Or have three mooks jump him with grapple attempts. Only one has to get through, and then he has the highly annoying grappled condition.

Crane Wing first -- draw his Crane Wing with an obvious attack. Say, the giant swings at him, while three lower-level fighters are moving to flank. He Crane Wings the giant's club... good for him. But you've given two of the fighters Dirty Trick, and now they can make maneuver rolls against his CMD. (Yes, his CMD is high, but it's not as horribly high as his AC or touch AC.) If one of them gets through, he's blinded or sickened until he spends a move action (which means no multiple attacks or flurries).

Pile on the saves -- his Will save is probably +12 or something crazy like that, right? So he'll make a DC 16 Will save 85% of the time. But if you throw four DC 16 Will saves in a row at him, statistically speaking he's likely to fail at least one of them. And of course, a 1 always fails. So throw saves, throw more saves, and then throw more saves.

Suck or Suck spells -- There's a short list of spells (Fleshworm Infestation comes to mind) that will mess you up even if you save. Throw some of these at him.

Split the Party -- if he's regularly rushing ahead, drop a portcullis between him and the rest of the party. Then hit him with a bunch of mooks or pit or a poison gas cloud or whatever.

Again, it's a challenge. But I don't think it's insurmountable.

Doug M.


Claxon wrote:


Diminutive swarms are a great idea against this character. If you can get a gunslinger with higher init than the monk you will ruin his day. He will be flat-footed against the attack, which will target his touch AC and he wont get to add his dex or wis. A decent amount of HP damage might scare him a bit. Further, gunslingers are still great in combat against everyone else with their touch AC targetting.

Just one correction. Flat-footed doesn't remove the Monks Wisdom bonus to AC.

It only stops Dex and Dodge AC bonises.


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First the problem doesn't appear to be the monk. The problem is the casters casting Mage Armor, Owls Wisdom and and Cats Grace on him for +8 to his AC every encounter. This normally wouldn't be a problem but in King Maker with exploration you typically only get 1 encounter per day. This means every encounter can have those buffs.

I ran into this problem in my King Maker game and I didn't even have a monk in the game. They buffed the crap out the Paladin and the Paladin was killing the monsters 1 a round. At the 7th level range all the encounters were trivial because the casters could nova on each encounter with having conserve spells due to 1 encounter a day.

To fix this problem I end up just stacking random encounters. I wouldn't roll I'd pick interesting combos. So as they party explored hex after hex I'd roll a random encounter and pick an intelligent creature that would attack right away but follow them. After 4 random encounters I'd have them all attack or if it 3 attack at set encounter. It would be all at once a the Hex is big area. I just had hex that 3-4 encounters. Only problem I found with this is their experience started going up faster than it should have and I had to limit the treasure. So I stopped awarding XP and level them up when appropriate. The change made the game much more enjoyable for the players. I still left some encounters 1 a day for the player to flex their muscle and feel all powerful though.


voska66 wrote:

First the problem doesn't appear to be the monk. The problem is the casters casting Mage Armor, Owls Wisdom and and Cats Grace on him for +8 to his AC every encounter. This normally wouldn't be a problem but in King Maker with exploration you typically only get 1 encounter per day. This means every encounter can have those buffs.

[...]

To fix this problem I end up just stacking random encounters. I wouldn't roll I'd pick interesting combos. So as they party explored hex after hex I'd roll a random encounter and pick an intelligent creature that would attack right away but follow them.

Yes, this. Kingmaker is a great AP, and I like it a lot -- it's a sandbox, and the whole "build a kingdom" thing is terrific. That said, it has one big weakness: no other AP has such a bad case of the 15 minute adventuring day. Even the dungeon crawls are usuall configured to favor retreating and regrouping. And over half the encounters aren't dungeon crawls... they're in-hex encounters, either random or programmed, that typically don't last more than a few rounds. So, "buff hell out of the supercharacter" becomes a much more viable strategy.

You can counter this (in part) by having days when *stuff keeps happening*. If the PCs have gotten in the habit of thinking 'one big encounter per day, then rest', then you can really mess with their calculations by hitting them with a second and then a third. If you do this too much it gets obvious, of course -- but you really only need to do it once or twice to make them cautious about burning up their buffs and dailies.

Doug M.


use high frequency saves, he'll fail eventually.

He's hardly optimized dealing 3d6+5 AFTER enlargement, he just has a high AC. Find or make creatures that have a high attack but don't necessarily deal a ton of damage (they're probably going to be dex based as well).

Fire shield was already mentioned, anything similar works. He has multiple low damage attacks, he'll end up doing near as much damage to himself as to the enemy.

Once the party figures out how to deal with this and the casters attack the things going after the monk and the monk attacks the things going after the casters, you can chalk that up to the party working better finally and let it happen.


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Stephen Ede wrote:

Just one correction. Flat-footed doesn't remove the Monks Wisdom bonus to AC.

It only stops Dex and Dodge AC bonises.

Good call, can't be right all the time. Thats why I actually look up the rules during a game.


Claxon wrote:
Stephen Ede wrote:

Just one correction. Flat-footed doesn't remove the Monks Wisdom bonus to AC.

It only stops Dex and Dodge AC bonises.
Good call, can't be right all the time. Thats why I actually look up the rules during a game.

If it's heat of battle I'll often make a ruling rather than stop the flow.

If it turns out I'm wrong and the player or party seriously hurts from it I give them a hero point to make up for it.

For some reason they don't get very upset when I make a mistake that disadvantages them seriously. :-)


Douglas Muir 406 wrote:
voska66 wrote:

First the problem doesn't appear to be the monk. The problem is the casters casting Mage Armor, Owls Wisdom and and Cats Grace on him for +8 to his AC every encounter. This normally wouldn't be a problem but in King Maker with exploration you typically only get 1 encounter per day. This means every encounter can have those buffs.

[...]

To fix this problem I end up just stacking random encounters. I wouldn't roll I'd pick interesting combos. So as they party explored hex after hex I'd roll a random encounter and pick an intelligent creature that would attack right away but follow them.

Yes, this. Kingmaker is a great AP, and I like it a lot -- it's a sandbox, and the whole "build a kingdom" thing is terrific. That said, it has one big weakness: no other AP has such a bad case of the 15 minute adventuring day. Even the dungeon crawls are usuall configured to favor retreating and regrouping. And over half the encounters aren't dungeon crawls... they're in-hex encounters, either random or programmed, that typically don't last more than a few rounds. So, "buff hell out of the supercharacter" becomes a much more viable strategy.

You can counter this (in part) by having days when *stuff keeps happening*. If the PCs have gotten in the habit of thinking 'one big encounter per day, then rest', then you can really mess with their calculations by hitting them with a second and then a third. If you do this too much it gets obvious, of course -- but you really only need to do it once or twice to make them cautious about burning up their buffs and dailies.

Doug M.

I call the 1 encounter/day problem of Kingmaker a Feature rather than a Bug. :-)

Basically most of my players aren't really looking for threatening fights as a whole so I don't mind if they walk over most of the encounters.
Instead I get my fun convincing them to voluntarily get possessed, start selling their souls, getting them pregnant (where reasonable) and other ways of "challenging their days" with out actually beating them up. And leaving skeletons of little Grey men with non-functional phasors, as seen through a non-tech society, along with Planar wall weaknesses into Cuthulu land just to worry them for sh!ts and giggles. :-)


Fire elementals work well with their burn ability to do fire damage everytime he hits them with his unarmed strike.


Monks usually have poor Fort saves. Throw the Blindness spell at him.

I know you're using an AP, but you can modify it to taste. This isn't PFS. Take a look at the NPC Codex stats (the stats are free) to save time making NPCs. Toss one of those at-level casters into several encounters and feel free to change an occasional spell to ... Blindness, Magic Missile, whatever you think might work.


Yeah the others have summed it up pretty well, but just a few things to recall:

1) As mentioned, you can only stunning fist once per round, and it has to be declared BEFORE the attack, so if it misses, its gone for that round. Plus, stunning fist isn't usually all that great anyway since it also requires a failed save on top of that.

2) Shoot arrows, bullets, etc. at him. Crane Wing won't help him (though fighting defensively will).

3) Odds are, his Fort Saves are the weakest, so target that occasionally.

4) It hasn't been mentioned, probably because most already remember it and assume it, but keep in mind that if he's Enlarged, his AC goes down by 2 (-1 for being large, -1 for the loss in Dex).

Sure, when he's enlarged, he can plug up a 10 foot corridor fairly easily, but as mentioned, ranged attackers can still shoot past him. Keep in mind too that the enemies are usually fighting on their turf, so it makes sense that they would have figured out how to use it to their advantage. Archers firing from behind arrow slits can really ruin the monk's day. Sure, they might still miss him, but they can hit the party and there isn't much the monk can do about it since they are behind the slits. Finally, keep in mind too that most of Kingmaker takes place away from the 5 and 10 foot corridors, plus there's nothing to say that you cannot occasionally redesign an encounter area to make it more interesting.

In my 4ed game, I have a similar issue with the tank in the party. She has incredibly high defenses (often requiring an 18 or higher to hit). However, if the monster has even a decent intelligence, it will quickly realize that swinging at the tank is like swinging at an adamantine wall, and will simply go after a different PC. Even with the minuses that are imposed by the mark (different system I realize) it is still usually preferable for the monsters to attack somebody else. None of this is an issue either as the tank does almost no damage.

The bottom line is, do not feel as though a) you must always cater to the players or b) that you cannot adjust what is in the AP in order to make the encounters interesting. Just continue to occasionally think outside the box, while still having encounters where the monk gets to do his thing.

Finally, talk to the other players and see if they'd like some tips to make their characters a bit more effective. If the monk is leading the way in damage, then the real problem is that your other players are not taking full advantage of what their classes have to offer them.


His attack routine is a +8/+8/+5?

That means his primary attack has a 50% chance of missing a 1st level character! His offense is pathetic.

My suggestion, send something with decent (not even high, just decent) AC and let them fail to land a single hit on each other for the whole encounter while his friends have to deal with other monsters.

While crane Wing an be a bit annoying at times, it's in no way overpowered. ranged attacks, spells, multiple attacks, multiple enemies, AoE effects... All of them either greatly reduce the effectiveness of Crane Wing or completely ignore it, and none of them are anything rare.

The only thing of Crane Wing that might be a bit problematic is parrying melee touch attacks... Other than that, it's just a good feat, but nothing game-breaking.

It's usually not Crane Wing that is the problem, but (Crane Wing + Great AC + Good Saves + other Defensive abilities)... And that's only if the Character actually has a decent offense... If he's not a threat, I don't mind enemies not being a threat to him either. That seems to be the case with this Monk.


Given how untouchable monks are, why did Paizo even publish the feat? And why did the player take it?


It’s interesting. If you listen to a certain VERY vocal group of posters, the Monk is badly broken into complete uselessness and is totally worthless. However. thread after thread comes in with the Untouchable monk. But honestly, OP, this build *IS* pretty powerful in defense at low levels. I’d just let him have fun. But are the other players complaining?

Dabbler, how on earth do you get a +16 with a bab of 6? Str= +4? Feat +1? Weapon +1? Even with str of 20 and a +2 weapon it's only 14.


You could have a character who is useless (eg a PC who can't hit anything) and is also untouchable. Indeed, we have this very situation in the OP.

Scarab Sages

Monks are not untouchable. You have to find other options that would lock them out. Darkness, sleet storm, Acid cloud, ice storm, unholy blight, etc. These are a few examples of spells that either negates the use of crane style or flat out do damage that can not be evaded.

You can also try fliers and combat while climbing. They lose their dexterity bonus while climbing. Another thing you can do is have a creature with Greater Feint.

Combine a few stuff, like darkness, Greater feint, and a bunch of ranged attack form stuff with darkvision, and it might help.


DrDeth wrote:

It’s interesting. If you listen to a certain VERY vocal group of posters, the Monk is badly broken into complete uselessness and is totally worthless. However. thread after thread comes in with the Untouchable monk. But honestly, OP, this build *IS* pretty powerful in defense at low levels. I’d just let him have fun. But are the other players complaining?

The issue is that, particularly when optimization is considered, offense generally beats out defense. i.e. Higher damage is valued more than higher defense.

In the case of the Untouchable Monk, sure, he's hard to kill. Thing is, odds are its also very hard for that monk to kill anything around its level. The +8/+8/+3 for an average of 15 damage per hit that the OP posted for a level 7 character really isn't impressive. The extra attacks offered by Flurry and the ki pool are not so much nice as they are a necessity in order for the monk to feel even remotely useful in combat. Not dying is useful in that it preserves party resources, but once enemies realize that attacking the monk is near useless, then you won't even be preserving party resources since everyone else will be getting attacked.

Now, that is not to say that monks are not capable of being useful and interesting party members. The thing about monks is that they are o.k. (usually at most) at a lot of things, just not particularly good or great at any one thing.

Finally, as mentioned upthread, Crane Style/Wing really is pretty good at low levels. However, the higher you get in level, the more the weaknesses of the monk are going to stand out. That amulet of natural armor that most PC's covet? Not for the monk as he'll need the Amulet of Might Fists (assuming unarmed). But that AoMF is noticeably worse at high levels than other weapons because it has a max +5 to its enhancement. So either you get +5 to hit/dmg and no special abilities, or you to-hit suffers. Etc., etc.

Bottom Line is the Untouchable Monk is good at not dying at low levels, but doesn't offer much else, particularly in combat.


That being said, if you really think you, as a GM, either don't enjoy having Crane Wing at the table or don't think you'll have a good time with accounting for Crane Wing in your game, it's totally legitimate to just ask the Monk player to choose a different feat.

To be honest, it sounds like your issue is that you are having trouble dealing with a character who is hyper-focused on defense, of which Crane Wing is merely a component.

-Matt


This is one reason why D&D is a TEAM game, not a one-one-one PvP arena contest. Clearly this build doesn't do well DPR wise. But it is really good at tanking (a role some claim is useless), leaving the others to deal out the hurt. This is excellent teamwork. Note also that the Op has five PC’s so one of them can be the “bow-wielding Ranger”, which likely is the DPR dealer here.

This is a solid team, you have divine & arcane caster, ranged DPR dealer (who also can do skills), back-up healer and tank( who also can do skills) and finally super tank who also can do skills.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

I can reinforce two things that were said here and introduce a third. My recently retired Crane Wing/Snake Style monk had trouble with swarms and that annoying guy in the back with the wand of magic missiles, but I also had big trouble with the burning skeleton horde. Sure, they couldn't hit me with any attacks, but just standing next to them caused me a d6 of fire damage, and I had to stand next to them a LONG time to kill them, especially because my elemental fist (fire) couldn't help.


DrDeth wrote:

It’s interesting. If you listen to a certain VERY vocal group of posters, the Monk is badly broken into complete uselessness and is totally worthless. However. thread after thread comes in with the Untouchable monk. But honestly, OP, this build *IS* pretty powerful in defense at low levels. I’d just let him have fun. But are the other players complaining?

Dabbler, how on earth do you get a +16 with a bab of 6? Str= +4? Feat +1? Weapon +1? Even with str of 20 and a +2 weapon it's only 14.

Sadly even the untouchable monk falls face first in the dirt to the 5% rule.

As for +16? Lessee +6 Bab +4 Dex +1 Feat +1 Weapon + 1 Weapon Training +1 Size and Probably gloves of dueling/armor of brawling/or headband of ninjistsu to maek it +16.

Hey, he didn't specify he wasn't a dex fighter. :)


Stephen Ede wrote:
Crane Wing when combined with relatively high AC is a major PIA and unfortunately most people on this board will pooh pooh you because it's not politically correct to see Crane Wing as a problem.

That's because it isn't a problem. Sure, it's a powerful defence at low level, but once you are fighting something with four high attacks you have a problem. Or fighting something at range. Or any one of a dozen other scenarios. It's basically awesome against One Hit Wonders and after that, it's "meh" because being defensive isn't all that hot.

Crane Style isn't even best used by the monk, put it on a duelist by dipping two levels of Master of Many Styles and it works must better than the "parry" feature.

The REAL issue with this monk is not Crane Style, it's the stellar AC caused by the casters dropping buffs on him like raindrops. ANY melee character with that many buffs will be an unstopable juggernaut, in the monk's case it happens that it makes him defensively untouchable as opposed to one-hitting creatures several steps up the CR chain.

Jake the Brawler wrote:
Given how untouchable monks are, why did Paizo even publish the feat? And why did the player take it?

Because they are not untouchable - paladins generally match their AC and have better saves and defences without the drawbacks, and better offence as well, all for two less skill ranks a level. As I have said, the issue here is that the monk in question is being buffed to the skies. Crane Style is just the icing on the cake for when the Dm rolls a hit.

DrDeth wrote:
It’s interesting. If you listen to a certain VERY vocal group of posters, the Monk is badly broken into complete uselessness and is totally worthless. However. thread after thread comes in with the Untouchable monk. But honestly, OP, this build *IS* pretty powerful in defense at low levels. I’d just let him have fun. But are the other players complaining?

That's because the Untouchable Monk is largely a case of a defence-optimised and buffed-up monk in a non-optimised and un-buffed party. Put ANY optimized class in an unoptimized party and it shines, just as if you buff any single character to the roof he shines. Take the case of a barbarian with an AC of 18 but all-out in attack: with this many buffs (say enlarge, bull's strength, bless) he can be pulling +16 to hit and 3d6+24 damage at 6th level (and that's what happens in my Kingmaker game). It doesn't matter what their attacks are, they'll be dead before they can use them more than once or twice.

In this case, the monk is able to make use of a lot of common spells that buff him up very well. Their effectiveness is greatest at low level and non-existent at high level.

Let's break it down:
Mage Armor - yes, +4 AC at level 1 is great. Wait until level 12 when +4 bracers of defence are the norm for a monk, and the benefit vanishes completely.
Cat's Grace - again, +4 Dex is fantastic, but when magic belts start appearing (as they should by around level 7-8) the "real" benefit drops first to +2 and then to nothing.
Bull's Strength - ditto above.
Enlarge - the monk gets a lot out of this because of his unarmed strike, but the telling factors on a weapon in the long run are the static bonuses, the threat range, and the enhancement - three factors the unarmed strike scores bottom of the range on. Then there's the problem of using it in a confined space.

Not to mention one well placed greater dispel can wipe the monk down to his unbuffed state in one round.

Basically, this character shines at this level, and will fade as the party levels up. Also, his shine is only defensive - his attack bonus is awful, although his damage is reasonable.

DrDeth wrote:

Dabbler, how on earth do you get a +16 with a bab of 6? Str= +4? Feat +1? Weapon +1? Even with str of 20 and a +2 weapon it's only 14.

TarkXT wrote:

As for +16? Lessee +6 Bab +4 Dex +1 Feat +1 Weapon + 1 Weapon Training +1 Size and Probably gloves of dueling/armor of brawling/or headband of ninjistsu to maek it +16.

Hey, he didn't specify he wasn't a dex fighter. :)

He is a dex fighter, and you are close indeed:

+6 BAB, +6 Dexterity, +1 Weapon Focus, +1 Weapon Training, +2 Weapon - no buffs involved. Yes, the high dex and the +2 weapon are a lot for 7th level, but not impossible. DrDeth is correct in that +14 is more regular (it's what the level 6 barbarian in my kingmaker game can manage with an enlarge) I agree, and still leaves this monk's +8 in the dirt crying because the barbarian hits as often for more damage. If the enemy is high AC, the monk doesn't hit at all while the barbarian is mildly challenged.

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