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Greetings all. I have recently decided to get myself into the RPG scene and I decedid that Pathfinder would be my best bet for some true RP fun.
Now, I have read all of my rule books and have been considering my options and I believe that I know whom I shall start playing.
I plan on starting my character a Lawful Good Monk up to three levels, then multiclassing into Paladin (Hospitaler Var.) and taking the Monastic legacy feet to keep upgrading his Unarmed damage.
I'm not trying to make a maxed-out character, I just have a theme in mind for this character based upon personality and character motivation.
Other notes on char: will also wield a Naginata and take some Dragon Stance Style feats.
please add you two cents for this noob who would like advice
I have zero experience with Paladins, but I did recently build an Anti-paladin NPC (stupid name) for my GM. I've built several Monks, but never played them either. One of my party members plays a Monk that I helped him rebuild, and it seems to be pretty successful, though.
Why use a naginata (reach weapon) if a Monk is better when fighting directly adjacent to his foes? If you take the Dragon Style feat chain, that only works with unarmed strikes anyway. Usually Monks only have weapons as backup when they can't overcome some kind of damage resistance.
If you are going to fight a lot with a Monk weapon, you may want to use the Weapon Adept archetype (APG). It gives you some nice feats for free in those first two levels. The only drawback is how limited your weapon choice is for Perfect Strike. That, and you lose Evasion.
If you think you might be fighting a lot of undead, taking the Crusader's Fist feat (UC) might be a good choice. You can "lay on hands" with your unarmed strike to deal damage. Or you can punch your friends in the face to heal them, but I don't think it's supposed to work that way. =)
Monk is considered a hard class to play, because they don't really specialize; they're very dependent on being versatile and knowing the system. I don't recommend them for someone new to the game.
Paladins on the other hand are pretty easy to grasp mechanically, and a very strong class, but they might be a little harder to roleplay. Talk to your game master about his views on alignment and paladins - some GM's are basically forcing paladins to be "lawful stupid", while others are far more lax.
To make things worse, one of the biggest problems with the monk that makes it hard to make good is that it's suffering from Multiple Ability Disorder (MAD). It requires good strength, dexterity, constitution, and wisdom to play - compare to a sorcerer which only needs constitution and charisma. The paladin is also a bit MAD, though it can somewhat neglect dexterity and/or constitution due to armor/healing.
However, the classes don't mesh very well since they have different requirements - a monk/paladin needs good strength and charisma, and decent to good dexterity, constitution, and wisdom. You will be forced to drop intelligence abysmally low in a point buy, and if you roll for stats, you might not even get viable stats at all.
Thus, I don't recommend it to someone that isn't very experienced. You CAN ignore wisdom and just take a single level of monk for the unarmed damage (make sure to get cestuses (sp?) ASAP), saves and bonus feat, but you really shouldn't take more than that. Wear armor, all the time. Armor is your friend.
If you want to play an unarmored "holy smiter", rather go for monk all the way and reflavor things a bit.
Regardless, any combination of monk/paladin, and anything with much monk in it, requires skill to use. If you're tactically minded and experienced with games of other kinds, it might work - but it's not a cakewalk.
Why use a naginata (reach weapon) if a Monk is better when fighting directly adjacent to his foes? If you take the Dragon Style feat chain, that only works with unarmed strikes anyway. Usually Monks only have weapons as backup when they can't overcome some kind of damage resistance.
off the top of my head, it gives you an extra chance for AoO`s and doesn`t impede you from attacking with UAS in any way, they just have different threatened areas. if the naginata grants an AoO, or has the reach to make an attack that UAS couldn`t do, then it is a net gain for minimal investment. plus enemies that think it would be a good idea to get inside the naginata`s reach may have an interesting surprise.
monks and paladins have different secondary stats (WIS/CHA) which somewhat affects things. it may be better over-all to give up the WIS to AC bonus, letting you lower the WIS and raise other stats, and just wear armor instead... doing that, you may want to take Paladin earlier than 4th level so you can get Heavy Armor Proficiency. OR if you want a higher WIS for things like Stunning Fist, you will probably not have that high of a CHA score, which is OK also, you are probably OK starting with only a 12 or 13 CHA at level 1. the only thing is that you don`t gain additional flurry attacks (ala improved/greater 2WF) but Full BAB and Paladin Smite, along with scaling UAS, should make it workable.
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I plan on starting my character a Lawful Good Monk up to three levels, then multiclassing into Paladin (Hospitaler Var.) and taking the Monastic legacy feet to keep upgrading his Unarmed damage.
I'm not trying to make a maxed-out character, I just have a theme in mind for this character based upon personality and character motivation.
Other notes on char: will also wield a Naginata and take some Dragon Stance Style feats.
Big mechanic problems:
* You cannot flurry in armor.
* You cannot flurry with a naginata (not a monk weapon)
* Monastic Legacy's requirement of Still Mind really gouges into paladin levels (which you should be loathe to forfeit for something as trivial as a smidgeon of extra damage on one type of attack).
You could attempt to make it work by substituting glaive for naginata and worshipping Shelyn (favored weapon glaive), then taking Crusader's Flurry at 5th with pala4/monk1 -- which would let you flurry with a glaive (and how ridiculously awesome would that be?).
...but you'll MAD-stat yourself to pieces trying to keep your AC from being utter garbage (and wisdom is a dump stat for paladin, so you'd be getting zero help from monk's WIS>AC bonus.
You don't necessarily need to flurry for a concept to work. Monk 1 is useful anyway, to increase unarmed damage (basically, you can use cestus with the same stats as a club... Yippiekayey), enable odd kinds of unarmed attack types (knees and elbows), get +2 to all saves, a free bonus feat, and a whole bunch of useful class skills (and two extra skill points).
The faster attack when you've lost your armor is just icing on the cake.
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You don't necessarily need to flurry for a concept to work. Monk 1 is useful anyway, to increase unarmed damage (basically, you can use cestus with the same stats as a club... Yippiekayey), enable odd kinds of unarmed attack types (knees and elbows), get +2 to all saves, a free bonus feat, and a whole bunch of useful class skills (and two extra skill points).
If a paladin thinks he needs higher saves, then the rest of the party must already be petrified and lobotomized.
If a paladin thinks he needs higher saves, then the rest of the party must already be petrified and lobotomized.
Well, then he's just very dependable. And paladins don't have that great reflex saves normally due to often semi-dumping dexterity. Now that there's a few more reflex-targeting SOL's, it's more relevant than ever.
But yeah, the 1 monk dip is better for fighters and the like, just wanted to point out that flurry is just a small part of the monk package.
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Even though He has the Naginata, he's really not gonna use it too much, probably just to fend off foes while he's doing his heal-pot jobs (Hence hospitaler Var). Also whenever he fights sentient enemies he's mainly gonna focus on non-lethal damage.
The reason I designed him so is mainy because I prefer to make the character, with backstory, personality and all matter of fluff, first before I worry about mechanics. If you want to hear his story, then here it is (THe vague version, and only the first half of it. the specifics change on the setting).
Torinn (thats his name) grew up in a farming community with his parents and his brother, a retired adventurer who woud entertain him with stories of his daring escapades and occasionaly train him in his skills that he learned over time. One a day powerful (at least CR 25) monster attacked thier village (Originally designed to be a dragon, but up to DM's discretion) And his brother was the only one strong enought to fight it. THough he did slay the beasts he died from his wounds, but not before passing his favored weapon, his Naginata he gained during his travels, onto Torinn.
Eventually Torinn left home to study War and Theology, learning healing arts in order to save those that would die like his brother did, yet continue to practice the combat skills his brother taught him.
CR 25 monster's don't attack villages. They destroy countries by thinking about them.
If you want to focus on the naginata as a monk, consider the Sohei archtype from Ultimate Combat (can check it out in the PRD). The unarmed damage stops progressing past 4th, but gives perks to your mount, and at 6th level can flurry and ki strike with your weapon. Depending on what level the game is going to, might not pay off quick enough for you.
Hmm, monk bonus feats ignore prereqs, can take mounted feats as bonus feats, I wonder if that'd let you grab spirited charge and mounted skirmisher without their prereqs?
Nothing wrong with a monk holding a reach weapon for AoOs and 2h power attack when needed, I figure it's actually suboptimal if you don't.
I think the important thing to figure out is if you want to play a paladin with a bit of monk, or a monk with a bit of paladin. That'll determine whether you go for dex/wis or cha after str, and give you an idea of how many levels you're willing to lose to the other.
last I check the Jabberwok is 21-ish and pettily attacks villages
I wasn't completely serious, but there's still a huge difference between a CR 21 and a CR 25 (like the difference between a hobgoblin and an owlbear...)
My point was more along the lines that CR25 creatures are unique beings that alter the whole world, and one of those creatures taking an active interest in the prime material in such a way would be something that defines history of that time. See the text of the tarrasque (the only CR 25 creature in core):
"when it wakens, kingdoms die."
Playing in a world just 20 years after a wake period of the tarrasque would severely alter most campaigns, so the DM might be very adverse to include such happenings.
Something with "at least" CR 25 is enough to shape history, and usually not something you use for a simple plot hook. That's what the CR 7-13 range is for, where you also find most adult dragons. There simply are no core dragons as high as CR 25 - a great gold wyrm tops at 23. Even slaying a CR10 adult white dragon is a great feat and if your brother manages that, he'd be a hero and legend in your village for ages. People who FIGHT CR25 monsters aren't really humans anymore anyway - if you can solo a CR25 monster, you're off the charts a looong time ago.
While there's no demographic stats in PF, their native setting Golarion is a bit more low-leveled than most 3.5 settings - and in the 3.5 guidebook, the highest-leveled character in a 1000 person village would be like 6-7th level.
I'm not saying "yer doin it wrong", it's just that something like this is very unlikely to get accepted by any DM who has a specific idea for a setting, and more or less impossible in, say, Golarion.
Also, that makes it impossible in most campaigns to ever reach the point where you can feel that you surpass your brother's power - actually being capable of succeeding at a task as hard as that of your brother might feel like a major spot in his adventuring career, but since most campaigns seem to end in the early teens, you'll likely never get that far.
To solve the wis/cha requirement you can ask your DM for permission to use the Aasimar race which gives you +2 wis, +2 cha racial bonus.
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Fine, I'll make it a CR 15 ifin that pleases you, plus I said that it was entirely up to DM discretion.
As for the Aasimar, I guess that it could work, however chances are he'll probably not be aware of it until later, and it'll make the fact that the Love of his life is a Tiefling a bit more interesting...Whoops, there were some spoilers and other things you're probably not interested in.
Overall my main problem is I'm still a bit of a n00b. Heck, due to all manner of circumstance I've never even played a game yet and have been stuck with millions of books and PDFs, but no party members since the guy who got me interested in DND moved away before I could even play a Bloody game.
Recently I've heard of some guys at a local game-shop playing pathfinder, so Imma look and watch them play a round to see if they'd be fun to play with.
....sigh, sorry that I've turned this into a soap-box.
'Tis not about pleasing me, it's about pleasing the DM/storyline. It was just a suggestion since you're new to PF and might not know how the CR line is calibrated.
I still vote for a pure qui-gong monk though, chosing powers that feel a bit divine. Play lawful good, but without having the roleplaying constraints of a paladin... You can be more of a jedi kind of guy. Or if you want more of the divine spells and support with healing and the like, a single level of cleric gives some relevant spells, the ability to use wands unhindered, and two domains with powers that may work wonderfully together with monk. And it automatically solves the MAD issue.
Overall, even if you solve the MAD issue, paladin and monk don't really stack well in terms of focus and abilities. Paladin is about damage, support, and big chunks o' metal, monk is about versatility and movement.
Hum. Exactly what is it that you want from the paladin class? What powers seem interesting? Know that a character doesn't usually refer to h**self by class, so even if you're a monk you can still call yourself a paladin. Heck, I've had a rogue with the magic talents refer to herself as a sorcerer whenever asked, because that's what she saw herself as.
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It mainly the whole cadre of Smite, channel, lay on hands, Mercy, and divine bond abilities (Who wouldn't wanna immediatly add bonuses to your weapons?) that draw me to Paladin and make it feel like an amazingly diverse class, able to act as both Arbiter and Savior without having to commit to being a full caster. Combine that with the Wuxia Style combat prowess of a monk and able to freely switch between lethal and Non-lethal damage for your unarmed strike, plus abilities like Stunning Fist, Evasion, fast movement, and the bonus feats allow you to have more diversity and able to adapt to almost any combat situation.
Besides, it feels more intune to the Character and the whole point of Roleplaying isn't to have the most powerful PC in the world, but to have fun with unique and memorable characters in your in a world where you can experience your own fantastical tales and adventures akin to stories by such writers like Tolkien and Eoin Colfer
Oh, of course it isn't important to have the most powerful PC! It's just that it's good to be able to pull your own weight - and sometimes a "jack of all trades" is really hard to put of, especially when stuff doesn't stack that well. Not saying it's impossible, but it will be hard to get it to mesh well enough to be "viable", so to speak.
Either you'll have to drop being unarmored, or your going to have to drop all cha-related paladin boons because your AC is too low otherwise. You're also going to have to be dumb as a brick to be even possibly adequate in all but the most generous point buys. Aasimar will help, but not by much.
i was going to say go four winds and many styles, but they both swap perfect self. But It was not like your going monk 20 so maybe your dm will let it slide.
You will probably want to go Many styles anyway, as you can pick up dragon style from the get go and fuse it with another style as well. Four winds would have been to snag elemental fist, but i guess you can't win em all.
Anyhow, you lose flurry, and gain dragon style so its not like you'd to miss the feature you weren't going to use.
Even though He has the Naginata, he's really not gonna use it too much, probably just to fend off foes while he's doing his heal-pot jobs (Hence hospitaler Var). Also whenever he fights sentient enemies he's mainly gonna focus on non-lethal damage.
The reason I designed him so is mainy because I prefer to make the character, with backstory, personality and all matter of fluff, first before I worry about mechanics. If you want to hear his story, then here it is (THe vague version, and only the first half of it. the specifics change on the setting).
Torinn (thats his name) grew up in a farming community with his parents and his brother, a retired adventurer who woud entertain him with stories of his daring escapades and occasionaly train him in his skills that he learned over time. One a day powerful (at least CR 25) monster attacked thier village (Originally designed to be a dragon, but up to DM's discretion) And his brother was the only one strong enought to fight it. THough he did slay the beasts he died from his wounds, but not before passing his favored weapon, his Naginata he gained during his travels, onto Torinn.
Eventually Torinn left home to study War and Theology, learning healing arts in order to save those that would die like his brother did, yet continue to practice the combat skills his brother taught him.
Have you considered the inquisitor? You could flavor its abilities according to those of the paladin (bane for smite, spells for healing), possibly going for the preacher variant to provide your allies with some paladin-like boons (bonus to ac, protection against attacks etc.).
You could mix it with monk and the monastic training feat to further improve your unarmed strike as well... :-)
I plan on starting my character a Lawful Good Monk up to three levels, then multiclassing into Paladin (Hospitaler Var.) and taking the Monastic legacy feet to keep upgrading his Unarmed damage.
The amount of benefit that you'd get from the Monastic Legacy feat would be pretty small. Most of the time it would be good for +1 damage, on average (raising your 1d6 damage to 1d8 damage). Then, by the time you're a monk 3/paladin 10, you'd get a +2 bonus to damage (1d6 -> 1d10). That's pretty small potatoes, especially if you're planning on using a weapon most of the time anyways.
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Then, by the time you're a monk 3/paladin 10, you'd get a +2 bonus to damage (1d6 -> 1d10). That's pretty small potatoes, especially if you're planning on using a weapon most of the time anyways.
Check your math, three levels of monk+5(half of the Paladin levels due to monastic training)= 8 levels, aka 1d10 unarmed damage. THen you add the +2 damage due to to the paladin's Divine bond and then, well you get the gist. plus I already said that his Naginata is more for decoration than anything else.
Also I like the idea of making it a Many Styles (Thank you for being the only positive supporter here Brambleman) and I think that would work well for his character.
As for inquisitor...nah, the flavor is a bit too off for this character. plus he's not much of a preacher, he's more of a saint-like character who goes out of his way to help people.
Then, by the time you're a monk 3/paladin 10, you'd get a +2 bonus to damage (1d6 -> 1d10). That's pretty small potatoes, especially if you're planning on using a weapon most of the time anyways.
Check your math, three levels of monk+5(half of the Paladin levels due to monastic training)= 8 levels, aka 1d10 unarmed damage.
Bwuh? Wasn't that what I said?
The difference in average damage between 1d6 and 1d10 is 2 points (3.5 vs. 5.5). Consider my math checked. :-)
If you are going to fuse styles with this character there are two paths than might interest you. The first is getting elemental fist from dragon ferocity or even from qualifying normaly, then add an elemental style. I recommend Effriti, for the cone of fire myself.
The other is to pair with Panther style and get Combat Patrol. Then hit anything that you move by on your way to your AOO.
sounds like youve got the character almost nailed then.
I think a monk/paladin would be a great way to go - especially if you can snag the Serenity feat. I don't think you'll be as gimped as people say you will be; people tend to get a little panicky when sub-optimal choices are made, but the optimal choice is not always the funnest one, and just because you aren't the best doesn't mean you'll be useless.