Ok so I cant really wait until august for the newest version of the monk.
Our straight beta monk died months ago in darkmoon vale.
The player who had it has been playing a cleric, and since play testing is done. I'm letting him make a monk again, with the following changes:
Weapon proficiencies :ALL Simple, Polearm, Spiked Chain, shurikien, scimitar and bucklers or light shields.
Monks can flurry or Ki with anything they have a proficiency with, and of course light shields dont disrupt thier monkiness.
We've gotten rid of all the "exotic" monk weapons too, except shuriken which we made a martial weapon. (of and we made the falchion an exotic weapon, so its a scimitar version of the bastard sword, instead of two hand only, and we dropped all racial weapons as well...oh and we changed dire flail to an exotic one handed weapon that has two heads on the same end, rather than one head on each end) But none of that has to do with the monk.
I'll post how these changes affect the monk, but I expect the builds to be different and the AC to be higher (assuming a build chooses to use the shield option)
I was toying with the idea of letting monks use padded armor, since that armor is barely there and never gets any use.... But then you loose the bare chested dude hammering away at a frost giant visual.
This monk will start at 8th level. and I havent changed the higher level monk features yet as it isnt necessary yet, but I will as we get going.
The other change is that monk weapons go up in damage at the same rate as monk unarmed combat (example: base h2h monk is 1d6. so a 1d10 is two shifts of improvement. so a dagger in the hands of the same monk, that has a base of 1d4 is now doing 1d8 with that dagger, and so on.)
This keeps the weapons viable at all levels, But doesnt force the monk to use them.
A monk with a polearm I assume will be well worth playing as his movement and reach will be stupendous, as well the weakness of the reach weapon (no adjacent attacking) is overcome by his unarmed attacks (kicking).
I'm really looking forward to seeing this thing work.
We are about half way through the second darkness adventure path, this monk should have the availablity to get up to 16th level before the end.
Other characters are: 8th level fighter, 5th level wizard/1st fighter/2nd eldritch knight, 8th rogue/1st shadow dancer, 5th sorceror/4th dragon disciple, 8th cleric.
Good luck with the monk. Currently our group is about halfway through Endless Night and the monk is doing great....the only character yet to die. He doesn't have the damage as our Ranger(favored enemy is drow, he is an elf so it makes sense) but NO ONE can hit him and his saves are insane. So he walks up to casters and prevents all sorts of spell casting while the ranger pelts them with arrows.
Nolveniss was almost a TPK because of the Greater Invis and flying. And I believe that this was just because the monk couldn't fly and see him ;).
So yes my player is enjoying his PF Monk and his 'hidden dragon' jumps.
Couple of changes to the monk.
Flurry of blows is done for "free" with light, one handed or double weapons. Two handed weapons (like spears and polearms) cost a ki point to flurry with.
Monk has WP with all chains/flails (not just spiked chain) so he can use flails, which means nun chucks, we use the dire flail for "section staff/ three peice rods"
During the noveliss fight, (in which I combined the two drow arcanists WITH noveliss) The cleric of calistria used scrying on the room, then they fire balled it twice (a wizard and a sorc) But it didnt do any good actually because they had resist fire up (on all of them)
Then, the monk literally jumped up (skipping the stairs) and landed between the arcanists, using the spiked chain tripped them both and got attack of opportunity on them both.
(monk has combat reflexes)
he hit both times (flurry of blows/trip routine) and then for his last attack threw the spiked chain at noveliss (monk has throw anything) It missed, but it was still cool.
Sorc and rogue dimension door into the room.
Monk has used two ki points (high jump and extra attack in flurry of blows)
Fighter is running up stairs (combat is over the roundbefore he arrives)
The eldritch knight, with the cleric in tow, ride in on the flying carpet(cleric allllmost falls off the dang carpet with a sketchy ride check).
Noveliss turns invisible, drow arcanists decide no matter what they do they will get attacks of opportunity from the monk and the rogue, so they cast from their backs.
The monk nails one of them with AoO, ruining his spell, then takes a nasty MM.
Next round sorc is going to cast fireball (she has a cold version of it) but doesnt know where noveliss is, so...oddly she centers it ON the monk, who with his evasion swears up and down he wont take any damage (the rouge has improved evasion so she doesnt care either)
Low and behold, one fireball (of cold) takes out noveliss, and the two drow arcanists (good guess on where noveliss had moved to) and then the fighter comes into the room.
Technically, the fighter, EK and Cleric werent even needed in the fight over all.
I really think the monk "might" have been able to take them all, with minor help for the sorc (who had see invisible, but never bothered to use it).
Monk is weasring +3 padded armor (we decided to allow padded armor) I think his AC is 21.
Its still the lowest of the group, but at least passer by orcs arent getting pot shots through at him.
Monk was able to get 7 attacks in, 5 hit and he dished out 40 damage in one round.
Not too shabby.
I expect great things from the monk comming up in endless night.
They will not spend time as slaves toadying to a drow noble house. but rather will sculk about, bribing, intimidating, hiding, spying etc. Much more risky and much more fun.
Ive reworked the encounters to actually happen but in differnt ways and for different reasons.
As written, the recorporeal spell seemed cheesoid, and the Slave points seemed painfully boring to take them time dice crunching for random stupidity to bother with.
These characters (as of the end of shadow in the sky) actually took time to learn undercommon, from deporas captured journal, have really good diplomacys, intimidates, and bluffs. And, actually, on their own, ALREADY disguised themselves asdrow to get the drop on noveliss inside the armageddon echo when they stormed the observation tower.
Seeing as they already have experience impersonating drow, why not let them refine it?
Theyve even gone so far as to trade in surface gear (including a suit of noqual full plate) to more "drow like equipment" (ie gear they found ON drow they defeated)
Theyve also (on their own with out knowing what was going to hapen in endless night) used spek with dead to interrogate drow they killed for "inside information"
They plan on actually impersonating existing drow they've killed (of house azrinae) so we will see how far they get with that! ahahaha!