Monk feat advice!

[Keaton Stizz]

I'm playing a monk in my pathfinder campaign and just hit level 5, but I'm having a little trouble trying to decide what feat I should pick up. I play a monk that's focused on doing the most damage I can with fury of blows so I've picked up a few that contribute to that like power attack and boar style. I thought about boosting my initiative or one of my saves or maybe picking up another style feat, but at the moment I don't know what to choose! can someone maybe give me some suggestions and help me out please????

[Shady Stranger]

Are you playing an Unchained Monk or Monk?

You could try going the Dragon Style and Dragon Ferocity feats.

[Keaton Stizz]

Straight up monk! But yeah that actually sounds like a good idea!

[TheMonkeyFish]

If you're looking for pure, raw damage, then Jabbing Style would increase your damage by an average of 3.5 points (1d6) if you hit two attacks and 7 points if you're able to hit all three attacks (2d6). At level 8, you increase this damage by an average of 7 points (2d6) for two strikes and 14 points (4d6) for three strikes respectively. Additionally, you can make a 5-foot step in between attacks, to better angle your perspective of attack mid combat.

Likewise, Dragon Style will eventually give you a x2 Strength Mod on your first attack and 1.5x Strength Mod on your follow-up attacks. This BY FAR is your best bet for increasing your damage, especially if you're strength focused. Also, by level 7, you have the option to take Elemental Fist to help your damage by another 1d6 elemetal. You can also take Dragon Roar in order to clear mobs or vermin, or help attack swarm enemies.

Boar style adds flexibility to your damage types (going from only Bludgeon to Bludgeon, Piercing, or Slashing to help kill damage resistant enemies, but that might be mute point in later levels due to the Monk's Ki Pool ability and damage reduction rules). But this style doesn't outright add any damage to your numbers.

Keep in mind, that you're only allowed to use one style feat at a time, and switching between styles is a swift action (as far as I remember). If you're just focused on numbers, I'd say dragons. If you want the freedom of movement, Jabber. If you want flexibility early game, Boar. Likewise, you can take MoMS and be boss at all of them.

[Slim Jim]

Additional Traits [Accelerated Drinker + Honored Fist of the Society]

[Derklord]

First thing you should do is ask your GM if you're allowed to rebuild your character as an unchained Monk - the core Monk is simply a design failure.
If he says no, beg him.

TheMonkeyFish wrote:

[Dragon Style] BY FAR is your best bet for increasing your damage, especially if you're strength focused.

Actually, Jabbing Style a tad ahead for average damage.

That said, unless retraining Boar Style is possible, the highest damage output can be archieved with staying in Boar Style and adding other feats (see below).

Feats to improve overall damage: Weapon Focus, Possessed Hand, and Jabbing Style (doesn't actually require the character to be in-style, so it can be stacked onto another style).

TheMonkeyFish wrote:

Also, by level 7, you have the option to take Elemental Fist to help your damage by another 1d6 elemetal

I'd advise against it - even with Dragon Ferocity, Elemental Fist is pretty weak. Let's say 8th level, 4 encounters á 4 rounds per day. Flurry is 4 attacks per round, plus one from ki attack half of them, for 72 attacks per day. Elemental Fist adds an average of 7 damage to 8 attacks, for an average of + 0,78 damage per attack. That's significantly weaker then a trait!

[TheMonkeyFish]

Derklord wrote:

TheMonkeyFish wrote:

Also, by level 7, you have the option to take Elemental Fist to help your damage by another 1d6 elemetal. You can also take Dragon Roar in order to [u]clear mobs or vermin, or help attack swarm enemies.[/u]

I've corrected your quote, and Bolded the important information you skipped. I also [u]Underlined[/u] something exceptionally important that you cut out. AoE Damage isn't something that should be overlooked. Expecially vs Swarms or Mooks.

[Derklord]

Dragon Roar is a 15ft cone with low damage (even with the oh so amazing 1d6 from EF added) - it's not exactly a strong option for clearing out groups and swarms.

Seriosuly, he's 5th level, the earliest he could have Dragon Roar + Elemental Fist is 11th level - are you really suggesting 1d6 damage added to the 1d10 damage 15ft cone is relevant at that level? Swarms have like 100-150HP at that level, how is your 3.5 Elemental Fist damage increase making a dent?

If a Monk want's AoE damage, Qinggong Powers like Dragon's Breath are way more reliable in that regard.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Keaton Stizz wrote:

I play a monk that's focused on doing the most damage I can with fury of blows

One thing that occurs to me is that you can use your Ki Pool to give yourself an extra attack/round, so it might behoove you to do something to give yourself extra Ki: the Drunken Master Archetype, some kind of Vow you can live with, something.

Keaton Stizz wrote:

I've picked up a few that contribute to that like power attack and boar style.

You are taking Boar Style Feats, so you are doing a lot of Intimidating. If you take Shatter Defenses, you can also make your opponents Flatfooted while you are Intimidating them. That would improve your chances to hit your target, which a Monk that emphasizes FoB like yours could do with a Boost in.

Keaton Stizz wrote:

I thought about... maybe picking up another style feat

If you mean taking more Boar Style Feats, then sure. But if you mean taking Feats on another Style Feat Tree, like Jabbing Style, for instance, I advise against this for this character. Unless you are a Master of Many Styles Monk, and since you use Flurry of Blows, you're not one, you are only allowed to use feats from 1 Style Feat Tree at a time, and you are already using Boar Style. Maybe you might use different Styles for different situations: Panther Style for skirmishing, Tiger Style for Charging, something like that, but my instincts say don't. You already have Boar Style, stick with that.

Keaton Stizz wrote:

what feat I should pick up.

What race is your Monk? You see, I think that the Feat Risky Striker might be a good Feat for you. Risky Striker is kind of like Power Attack, but you take an AC penalty instead of an Attack Penalty, and that would be lovely for an FoB Monk. The problem is it's a Halfling Feat. But if you were a Human, Half Elf, or Half Orc, you could take Racial Heritage Halfling, then take Risky Striker.

Keaton Stizz wrote:

I thought about boosting... my saves

Well, my favorite way to boost my saves is by Multiclassing. If you took the Monastic Legacy Feat, 1/2 your nonmonk levels would count as Monk levels for the purposes of increasing your Monk Unarmed Strike Damage.

If you dip a level in Alchemist, you would get a +2 on both your Fort and Reflex saves. Plus, you get Alchemal Mutagens. If you became a Drunken Master in addition to being an Alchemist, you could pop your Mutagens and Extracts without provoking Attacks of Opportunity. A Strength Mutagen would give you a +4 St, so a +2 Attack and Damage, and a Natural Armor Bonus. All lovely things for an FoB Monk. Even 1 level in Alchemist would let you use Wands with Spells that are also Alchemal Extracts, such as Bull Strength, which would give you a +4 St that would stack with your Mutagen and Alter Self, which gives you a +2 St Bonus that stacks with both Bull Strength and the Mutagen. And you can engage in Melee as a Monk with a Wand in your hand with no penalties, so you don't have to waste a Move Action to put the Wand away.

If you took levels in a class with Sneak Attack Damage, such as the Vivisectionist Alchemist Archetype, then Boar Style + Shatter Defenses would compliment this quite nicely. You'd use all those Intimidates from Boar Style to make people Flatfooted with Shatter Defenses, then you get to do Sneak Attack Damage because Flatfooted targets don't get Dex Bonuses. Then if you took Sap Adept, Sap Master, and Knockout Artist, you would more than double your Sneak Attack Damage. If you took Accomplished Sneak Attacker, you would do and extra 1d6 to offset the fact that you are taking Monk levels.

If you dipped a level in Ranger with the Freebooter Archetype, you could, as a Move Action give yourself and all your allies a +1 Attack and Damage against a single opponent until you re-designated another opponent. It's called Freebooter's Bane, and it's Freebooter's version of Favored Enemy. Plus, Ranger Spell Wands, maybe. Lead Blades would increase your Virtual Size by 1 point (The wording is funy, though: vet this with your GM.), and Strong Jaw by 2 points. Plus, there are Ranger Spells like Magic Fang, Magic Weapon, Bloodhound, cool stuff.

If you took a dip in Barbarian, a Barbarian Rage would also give you a +4 St which would actually stack with the Alchemal Mutagen. The big problem with this is that a Barbarian has to be Chaotic, and that would mean you would have to change your Monk Archetype to Martial Artist, and you couldn't be a Drunken Martial Artist Barbarian.

If you took a level in the Prestige Class Living Monolith, you would get to Enlarge Person as a Spell Like Ability, which would increase the damage dice you use for Flurry of Blows. Further levels in LM would give you defensive bonuses such as Damage Reduction and immunity to Bleed.

[Slim Jim]

Are you a dwarf? Do you have Steel Soul yet?

To the OP: When you ask a question like this, we need more details than just class and level. I.e., what are your stats, what feats do you have already, etc.

[Randir Raloqen]

I'm currently running as a monk. I recently took the eldritch heritage feat, and used the shapechanger bloodline for it. Basically it lets me treat my unarmed strikes damage as if I was a large creature without the penelties of it. It can only be used for a number of rounds equal to 3+CHA/Day sadly, but in the long run that increase in damage isn't something to ignore. The downside is that it requires you to take skill focus (Disguise) as a pre-requisite. So using up a feat for it is a risky decision if you don't have many to spare.

[Derklord]

Randir Raloqen wrote:

I'm currently running as a monk. I recently took the eldritch heritage feat, and used the shapechanger bloodline for it. Basically it lets me treat my unarmed strikes damage as if I was a large creature without the penelties of it. It can only be used for a number of rounds equal to 3+CHA/Day sadly, but in the long run that increase in damage isn't something to ignore. The downside is that it requires you to take skill focus (Disguise) as a pre-requisite. So using up a feat for it is a risky decision if you don't have many to spare.

Very likely not worth it.

At 8th through 15th level (it's even worse before), even if you only count the rounds where the size increase is active, that's two feats for an average increase of 3.5 damage per attack - making each feat worse than Weapon Specialization. If you add in that you only have the effects about a quarter of the time...