Which Combat Maneuvers for my Monk?

[Hap Hazard]

I'm starting a monk and am looking at the pros/cons of the combat meneveurs and their respective feat trees. For the moment lets forget stats (I was considering a low int which would preclude the top tier of the combat-expertise sub feats).

Bull Rush

I like the idea of this CM but it's pretty situational and there seem better choices.

Disarm

Pretty powerful for a monk as you have a decent chance of taking your opponents weapon and at the very least they'll provoke an AoO if/when they pick it up.

Grapple

A great way of taking one creature (like a spellcaster) out of the combat but potentially not the fastest way to take down an opponent and you're more vulnerable to other attacks made against you.

Overrun

More or less redundent with Acrobatics?

Sunder

I actually really like this. At low levels it's going to be tricky to make it work against heavy armour or metal weapons but it will still be effective against wooden shields, leather/hide armour and wooden-hafted weapons. At higher levels it seems peretly feasible to be able to destroy/break even metal armour and, with Greater Sunder, carry over some damage to your oppponent too.

Trip

Good for keeping your opponent to one attack a round and for that AoO when they get up (if they get up). Greater Trip adds that little bit more with an AoO as they go down. Do you really need the Greater version of the feat however?

Feint

Going to be hard to make this work effetively with a Monk I think. Better options elsewhere.

Hap

[Eric Mason 37]

I'd suggest not bothering with disarm.

"Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack."

Tripping is generally considered to be the most useful thing to take. Getting grapple too wouldn't be a bad idea either IMO, nice for grabbing wizards you've managed to catch.

[Hap Hazard]

Eric Mason 37 wrote:

I'd suggest not bothering with disarm.

"Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack."

Tripping is generally considered to be the most useful thing to take. Getting grapple too wouldn't be a bad idea either IMO, nice for grabbing wizards you've managed to catch.

I think Sunder will outdo Disarm, especially at higher levels.

Trip is pretty good, it really is, and even makes a 13 Int tempting...

Hap

[Wintergreen]

Eric Mason 37 wrote:

I'd suggest not bothering with disarm.

"Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack."

Tripping is generally considered to be the most useful thing to take. Getting grapple too wouldn't be a bad idea either IMO, nice for grabbing wizards you've managed to catch.

A monk counts as being armed (with the Improved Unarmed Strike feat) so they don't suffer that penalty to disarm. So disarming is actually a great tactic with a monk.

[Mistwalker]

Disarm is a top CMB for a monk. Most opponents use weapons and taking them away from them is a great way of dealing with them.

Grapple is good, as it allows you to control opponents without having to kill them.

[YawarFiesta]

Eric Mason 37 wrote:

I'd suggest not bothering with disarm.

"Attempting to disarm a foe while unarmed imposes a –4 penalty on the attack."

Yeah, but any disarming friendly monk will be weilding a Kama, Nunchaku or other +2 to disarm weapon, also adding its enhancement to the check.

[Michael Suzio]

Disarm is probably the most optimal choice overall, but don't discount Bull Rush. I've used it in almost every adventure my PFS Barbarian has been in since I picked it up, and in both 3.5 and PF, it has been a very handy feat to have.

You would be surprised at how often, tactically, it helps to move someone around. With fast movement, you can often even circle around someone and push them <b>towards</b> your allies if needed.

Maybe you can build a couple of possible build-outs and playtest them with a friend? I did that before when I was trying to understand how combat maneuvers worked and deciding on how to incorporate them into my adversarial repertoire in my home game. Actually, I also structured a couple of recent fights in my home game specifically to make myself and my players get more familiar with these rules -- the last time, I had them under orders to take someone alive, and leave no trace they had kidnapped this person. They couldn't harm her, they couldn't harm her guards (or if they did, they had to heal them before they zapped them with the mass hypnotism spell to make them forget they had been there). That was a deliberate attempt to force them to grapple, disarm, etc. Worked great!