Give me your BEST Monk Build. Gestalt or Not.

As the title has it, give me your best build! I want to see and understand all of the creations you have all come up with. I'm turning into a Monk fanatic here and I really want to get a sample of the different minds in the world that have dabbled in their design. This will be a place where all Monk dabblers and fanatics can put together our ideas :D

1.) Please list all Feats, Class Abilities, Racial Abilities, and Bonus Feats
2.) Please list their Stat Array with a 25 point buy at the most
3.) Please label the Class Combination with Archetypes included
4.) Please label it as either Normal, Gestalt, Optimized and/or Non-Optimized
5.) No 3rd Party material
6.) Please describe the Concept and/or Functionality, along with it's primary Purpose
7.) Please list any recommended or required Equipment(if any)
8.) Please give a cool Story behind it(if any)
9.) Please explain the Reasoning behind the build(if desired)
10.) Provide a Stat Block(if possible)
11.) Please stay on Topic
12.) Post it as Organized as possible

Monk 1 / Synthesist Summoner 19

Or alternatively,

Monk 1 / Druid 19.

Backstory: Johnny really wanted to be a badass martial artist growing up and quit school to enroll in a dojo at age 12. By age 13, even at his still young age he realized how pathetic and worthless monks are in a fight and [was seduced to the dark arts of summoning] / [went to go be a hippy in a druid grove] so that he could actually beat stuff up unarmed.

Monk 1 / Synthesist Summoner 19

Or alternatively,

Monk 1 / Druid 19.

Backstory: Johnny really wanted to be a badass martial artist growing up and quit school to enroll in a dojo at age 12. By age 13, even at his still young age he realized how pathetic and worthless monks are in a fight and [was seduced to the dark arts of summoning] / [went to go be a hippy in a druid grove] so that he could actually beat stuff up unarmed.

I've never been super impressed with the monk dip into spellcaster. I mean, heck if you want to be a spellcaster, you're losing the point of being a monk, which is punching people through walls.

That druid, for example, strong jaw, huge size, monk's belt so you're hitting like a level 6 monk still only nets you 4d8 unarmed strike at best (not bad, but I still say 12d8 is the gold standard).

*heck, at least take two more levels of monk for monastic legacy, so you can deal 8d8 points of damage (as a huge, strong jawed, 16th level monk), and still cast 9th level spells, with 3 monk levels, master of many styles is pretty good as well, 2 free style feats*

The synthesist I'm not even going to countenance, as it is worse at unarmed fighting than the druid. No stat synergy at all.

prototype00

If you're gestalt, then a half-elf Monk/Sorcerer with Paragon Surge. Use Sohei to be able to use more weapons, and Empyreal to use WIS instead of CHA for casting.

StreamOfTheSky wrote:

Monk 1 / Synthesist Summoner 19

Or alternatively,

Monk 1 / Druid 19.

Backstory: Johnny really wanted to be a badass martial artist growing up and quit school to enroll in a dojo at age 12. By age 13, even at his still young age he realized how pathetic and worthless monks are in a fight and [was seduced to the dark arts of summoning] / [went to go be a hippy in a druid grove] so that he could actually beat stuff up unarmed.

I've never been super impressed with the monk dip into spellcaster. I mean, heck if you want to be a spellcaster, you're losing the point of being a monk, which is punching people through walls.

That druid, for example, strong jaw, huge size, monk's belt so you're hitting like a level 6 monk still only nets you 4d8 unarmed strike at best (not bad, but I still say 12d8 is the gold standard).

*heck, at least take two more levels of monk for monastic legacy, so you can deal 8d8 points of damage (as a huge, strong jawed, 16th level monk), and still cast 9th level spells, with 3 monk levels, master of many styles is pretty good as well, 2 free style feats*

The synthesist I'm not even going to countenance, as it is worse at unarmed fighting than the druid. No stat synergy at all.

prototype00

Hippo-Monk.

I've never been super impressed with the monk dip into spellcaster. I mean, heck if you want to be a spellcaster, you're losing the point of being a monk, which is punching people through walls.

That druid, for example, strong jaw, huge size, monk's belt so you're hitting like a level 6 monk still only nets you 4d8 unarmed strike at best (not bad, but I still say 12d8 is the gold standard).

*heck, at least take two more levels of monk for monastic legacy, so you can deal 8d8 points of damage (as a huge, strong jawed, 16th level monk), and still cast 9th level spells, with 3 monk levels, master of many styles is pretty good as well, 2 free style feats*

The synthesist I'm not even going to countenance, as it is worse at unarmed fighting than the druid. No stat synergy at all.

prototype00

The OP specified a "monk build," so I thought I had to take a level in the class for it to count. And the idea with a monk 1 / something 19 is to get a ton of natural attacks and pounce, so you can full unarmed + 2ndary naturals every round. You focus too much on unarmed base damage, it's more about the dakka ("rate of fire", so to speak).

That said, MoMS* Monk 1 is a decent dip, albeit a weaker option than staying straight class, for a druid. As can be said of anything that loses a CL. But...you get wis to AC, you get to skip straight to Snake Fang if you do your dip intelligently and get a 2nd style later to stack with it, and stunning fist. If you plan to take the Feather (Animal) subdomain and Boon Companion anyway, you have a spare lost druid level to make up for anyway, so only casting and wildshape falls a level behind (and wildshape has diminishing returns past level 8 and stops improving completely at 12 anyway). Any levels beyond Monk 1 offer much less returns for an exponentially steeper cost (more lost CL, "quadratic wizards" and all that).
*Since flurry is useless. You can unarmed TWF + naturals. But not flurry...

And how is Synthesist not synergistic? It literally -- right from level 1 -- DOES NOT CARE about Str or Dex, and doesn't need much Con, either. You want high Cha, beyond that it's largely personal preference. A lot go high int, but there's nothing wrong with high wis instead. You get pounce and natural attacks right from level 1 to combine with unarmed, you get wis to AC to cover not being able to wear armor...it's about as good a combo as the monk/druid was. Better initially, a bit weaker later on.

Monk build or "Monk" build?

I've had pretty good luck with this one and variations on the theme.

Basically it hits hard, has decent mobility, and solid survivability.

Not super on the skills, but makes a fun character and I think it does well. Comes together fairly quick in a basic sense, is fully online by 12 or 13, so fairly ideal in that regard.

I'm kinda partial to a Monk of the Sacred Mountain3/Hospitaler1/Crusader1/Champion of Irori10/Hospitaler5 build, giving you pretty much Smite-Cycling from level 7 on by using a Ring of Ki Mastery and a Bronze Gong Channel Foci, along with getting full Smite Progression with Bracers of the Avenging Knight, Almost Full BAB, Wisdom to Attack, and a ton of other goodies that lead to some really destructive full attacks.

There is also the Conqueror Ooze build for a 7d8 base 15-20 critical range unarmed strike with flurry or vital strike for some pretty heavy attacking power.

Monk 10/ Rogue 10!

In the past I have used 8Fight/6Range/6Monk builds or variations similar to that to utilize both Unarmed combat AND bows. The Ranger/Monk alone compliment each other in many ways and the fighter provides the extra feats to support both weapon specializations. Though as time passed on I eventually dropped the heavy multi-classing for more archtype heavy play, and then ultimately deciding that what I wanted would be so much better if I stuck with just using the monk archtypes Flowing Monk + Monk of the Sacred Mountain alone. Instead of trying to combine it with Deep Walker for ranger, and less levels of Fighter with the Archer Archtype. Maybe if there was a way to get Zen Archery as a feat? So that I could count the bow as a monk weapon and rely on the rangers multishot and keep monk flurry of blows for melee?

I don't know this is still work in progress, my hopes are that someone else here has done a similar monk build and could shine some light.

One build that stays mostly monk that I have been tinkering around with:

(Sorry, this is a hodge-podge listing, as I'm doing this more or less from memory).

It may not be "the best" build, but I think it's effective.