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I've played a Maneuver Master Monk (focusing on Trip and Dirty Trick) and it made for a very effective battlefield control/party enabler type (though he was Str/Wis focused, to take advantage of the free attacks you can get from trip).

Dirty Trick is great because Rogues love blinded opponents, and it works on everything (while some things can't be tripped). If it's a blind opponent, you can impose other penalties.

All of the yeses. I had a twf Ninja that levelled with my version of this character. She never missed because the enemy was prone, flanked and blinded after my first turn, Ki throw with unarmed trip is great. She never had to use her invis trick till Eyes of the Ten.

Fruian Thistlefoot wrote:

What makes the brawler so nice is the flexiblity you can gain any maneuver you need.

Plus the double AOO from Vicious Stomp / Greater trip.

I've even thought about a build where you use said trip AOOs to use dirty trick to blind them (with quick dirty trick) and then disarm them at +6 in addition to them being flat-footed. I'm not sure if it's actually worth all of the feats - it just seems funny to me.

I did that with my manouver master. Dirty trick for free, then trip, Ki throw Greater trip, rogue full attack with sneak kills everything.

They actually take it first as a combat manoubvre check is an "attack" roll and they have to be taken from highest BAB to lowest. You generally want them taken first if you are using dirty trick, trip or steal anyway as the opponents AC plummets. My PFS character uses Dirty trick (free combat manouvre) to blind, followed by trip as in place of an attack, then Ki Throw kicks in and I put them prone next to someone for a full attack, then I hit them once. When you get Greater trip it gets ridiculous with a TWF rouge or ninja, things just explode.

The main problem I see is people expect monks to do amazing DPR. Mine just specialises in manouvres, disarm, trip, dirty trick, reposition, steal, ki throw and simply shuts people down by making them prone, blind, disarmed and flanked. Then the 2 weapon fighting rogue, also supposedley a lower tier clas, simply unloads a full attack and everything dies. As for mobilty, cheap potion of fly, eventually a flying carpet or other flight granting options fix that problem.

Not saying it did not take some work to pull these tricks off, just it required a different way of looking at the characters effectiveness and build.