It seems like there are a few ways to use a level or two of monk to good effect for a little kung-fu flavor. A few thoughts:
Any / Master of Many Styles - An easy way to not only jump into style feats quickly, but use two at once.
Eldrich Knight / Sohei - Use the sohei archetype to gain martial proficiency plus WIS to AC, flurry with a monk weapon, and possibly Crane Style.
Any / Flowing Monk - Redirection gives an immediate trip or reposition when attacked, plus a (weaker than a pure monk) chance to sicken. Unbalancing Counter is likewise going to be weak, but it's still going to force anything struck by an attack of opportunity to reflex save or be flat-footed.
Duelist / Monk - Unarmored Crane Style flurry kung-fu? Depending on how you interpret the rules regarding Duelist there could be a ton of strange kung-fu synergy.
Any thoughts, ideas, or accusations?
EK/Sohei sounds cool!
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you would gain a lot in the function of your character. if you are NOT playing by point buy rules i would say go for it, because getting great monk stats by rolling is easier then milking point buy.
i use monk as a dip class when my gole is to gain unarmed strike and a few of the monk feats that don't require prereqs like trip, grapple, or disarm.
A Dip of Master of Many Styles is really good for an Unarmed Fighter, since it lets you take Elemental fist early and then get very early access to the Elemental Style feats through your fighter bonus feats.
Always point buy these days...
I'm GM'ing a campaign where I made everyone start at two with a one level dip in something fairly random, so the whole party would be slightly nerfed, and people could try out things like arcane trickster that otherwise seemed underpowered in a normal party.
The paladin chose monk for his dip, for concept reasons, but if you have any ideas how he can squeeze anything useful out of it I'm all ears.
Monk dipping provides one huge benefit to a paladin: saving throws. One level for +2 to all saves,two levels for +3? Not bad for the martial class with the best saves already.
I have actually been using Master of many styles and been getting good mileage from snake style. The sense motive for AC 1/rd + suspicious trait means even at level 1 your average AC/roll is 17 without a wisdom bonus. comes in handy if your touch AC sucks
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wow, you let a monk pally in your party? tell him to go with sensai archetype with qinggong for restoration,truestrike,barkskin,and whirlwind attack, then have him go about 6 pally with greater mercy and ultimate mercy, my god he would gave a cleric a run for his money in group buffing/debuffing, healing, and resurrecting.
he would only need wis and cha for stats, man that character would kick ass.
wow, you let a monk pally in your party? tell him to go with sensai archetype with qinggong for restoration,truestrike,barkskin,and whirlwind attack, then have him go about 6 pally with greater mercy and ultimate mercy, my god he would gave a cleric a run for his money in group buffing/debuffing, healing, and resurrecting.
he would only need wis and cha for stats, man that character would kick ass.
The way the guy said it, it sounded as though they'd start fairly low level. Problem with Sensei is that he'd need atleast level 6 to get the ability to use his Ki powers on others, and with that he'd only have access to two 4th level Quingong powers (which is still barkskin and truestrike as you suggested).
Which restrictions? The no Armor for wis to AC and no movement for FoB?
Think he was referring to the roleplay restriction of having to be lawful.
Right now he just made level 2 paladin hospitaller archetype with a 1 level dip in straight monk, but I would let him retrofit a monk archetype if it would benefit him. He's been struggling since he envisions himself as the healer and has not had his lay-on-hands or channel or spells.
At the moment he wears no armor and fights with a temple sword, I think he took dodge and toughness for feats.
If your level dipping just go monk, then become an ex-monk if your not gonna go back by coming up with a RP reason to change your alignment and your done; You keep all of your monk abilities, but cannot gain any new ones. Armor does suck but pending on the class its not so bad, my ninja just uses a wand of mage armor and the rogue talent for the wisdom based ki pool. At level 6 shes got 25 AC.
wierd... my post was deleted.
I agree with BBT that there are some problems with Monk dips, but that needn't be a show-stopper.
I have found Vanilla Monk to be a good dip for any Martial build that wants to Grapple,
given the UAS tax to qualify for Grapple, Monk is a good way to go, while also getting Monk Saves.
Alignment isn't really that much a problem: you just can't further progress in Monk,
but I've had plenty of fun playing Chaotic ('fallen') Monks from level 1 who progress thru Barbarian from there.
You will miss out on some class benefits, but the whole package can still work for plenty of builds.
For the Flowing Style thing, I think that ultimately only makes sense if you eventually take Greater Trip.
re: Flurry, you DO have to factor in that the Flurry isn't 'progressing' at all, so no further bonus attacks, while suffering from the Monk Weapon limitation, and in all likelihood you shouldn't be able to use the same weapon to make 'bonus' attacks as your normal iteratives (since the bonus attacks are invoked via the 2wf rules, i.e. offhands distinct from mainhand).
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oh if he wanted to be "the healer" then he should have chosen cleric, if you would have allowed it. witch and alchemist could also have worked for him.
but a 2 monk, 2 pally would be a pretty good 4th level character. pally would have layon hands and a sweet acrobatics modifier, he could spot heal the group, until pally 2 though it would be hard for him.but he could still make that concept work if he chose sensai as his main class, or took
cleric instead of pally.
So I guess sensei is out since he won't be picking up anywhere near 6 levels of monk.
Sidekick, he just made Pally 2 at the end of the last session. He wants Pally over Cleric for the swift healing in combat.
The only change I would let him retro in now at this point would be a monk archetype if it helps his build.
So do you think a 2 level monk dip is better then 1? He could go for that Monk 2/ Pally 2 you mentioned, but is it worth it to slow him down from reaching his channels and casting and divine bond?
In either case, what feats would be good for him to take going forward? Manouver stuff?
RE: Alignment restrictions - You can go Martial Artist to avoid it, or you can start with a character who couldn't hack the Lawful anymore and left the monastery.
I'm surprised more people don't seem interested in Crane Style. Wield any one hand weapon in two hands while attacking, then free action to take a hand off. Attacks of opportunity will have to be one-handed... oh well. Master of Many Styles using Crane and Snake could be a well-defended retaliation machine without armor restrictions. You would have to have a free-hand between turns and two of your three retaliations would have to be unarmed, but you'd be rolling out a pretty shocking number of high ab attacks when it wasn't even your turn. Does anyone know if its legal (always a pretty dicey question with a PF monk) to be using things like punishing kick and stunning fist with an unarmed retaliation?
yeah, unless hes planning on unarmed striking things, i cant see a great way to make that dip worth it.
Ok, well no big deal. The whole party have an unoptimized random dip in something, it was a campaign idea. So he'll be on somewhat equal footing at least. It just hasn't felt like it so far while he waited to get lay-on-hands.
in all likelihood you shouldn't be able to use the same weapon to make 'bonus' attacks as your normal iteratives (since the bonus attacks are invoked via the 2wf rules, i.e. offhands distinct from mainhand).
That's a whole can of argumentative worms that hangs over the monk. PF flurry is... a mess 'legally' speaking. As it stands the statement is both ambiguous and self-contradictory, so it really comes down to how individual players and gm's interpret it.
crane style only really works for monks and fighters... and fighters dont need it.
Seems to me that it would work for anyone who met the weapon wield conditions, and could benefit from improved AC, hit negation and free counterattacking. I'm not saying it's free, but I could VERY easily see a Crane Duelist, for example.
Unarmed Fighter will give you Crane Style, or whatever style feat you are interested in.
You will also be proficient with more monk weapons than a monk.
Very true, though it won't let you double-style. It also depends on what you're going for; you can't Unarmed Fighter dip with a Free Hand Fighter.