I'm looking to build a monk that uses Elemental Fist. I've been reading over the various archetypes, and of course Monk of the Four Winds (MotFW) and Master of Many Styles (MoMS) have caught my eye. I can't take both, because they both replace Perfect Self. I prefer the MoMS, but losing flurry of blows just seems...harsh. That's sort of a monk's bread and butter.
So, assuming I want to go straight monk for 20 levels (no multiclassing), which archetype(s) will best help me fulfill the role of elemental-damage-wielding melee combatant? I've considered Monk of the Sacred Mountain, or even Hungry Ghost Monk. Also, which of the Qinggong abilities are best to grab?
Also, randomly, is there a monk ability (or an ability via a magic item that I monk could use) that pulls enemies closer?
The monk of the four winds improves his elemental damage as he levels which is pretty hard to beat for your concept. Go with qinggong for the elemental like abilities in place of some of your left overs and your set.
The elemental fighing styles also allow you to use elemental fist with cone attacks and other funky things.
You'll want the highest strength you can not to miss with elemental fist.
Of course you can't take the feats very quickly, but you could also just be a plain ol' monk with the Dragon Style and Elemental Fist feats. Personally, I feel like FoB is a decent trade in order to activate several styles at once to pack more of a punch with MoMS. You can get the Dragon Style feats pretty quickly, grab Elemental Fist, then move on to whichever genie style fits the element you're focusing on. You won't hit as often, but you will hit harder, just like a two-handed fighter versus two-weapon fighter.
Make sure to pick up Boar Style and Combat Style Master. Boar style lets you deal 2d6 bleed when you hit with two unarmed strikes, and Combat Style Master lets you begin combat with a style already active, and switch styles as a free action. So begin with Boar Style, deal 2d6 bleed (which effects the victim every round until DC 15 heal check or magical healing), then switch over to your preferred style, like Marid for example. Remember, the Elemental Fist styles like Marid also give you an extra use of your Elemental Fist.
One of the limits with Elemental Fist, though, is you can only make one Elemental Fist attack per round.
Also, a little combo for you, take Marid Style and Stand Still. When using Marid Style, your reach with unarmed strikes increases by 5 feet. Combining that with Stand Still will allow you to stop people from getting close enough to attack you. They approach and provoke when they leave the square 10 ft away from you, then you make an AoO and force them to stay there. On your turn, you make a Flurry on them, then at the end of the flurry, take a 5 ft step back, putting 10 ft between the two of you again, preventing him from getting close enough to attack.
Do you keep the bleed damage from Boar Style if you change to another style? I ask because Boar Shred specifically says "The bleed damage dealt while using Boar Style persists even if you later switch to a different style."
Yes, but Bleed Damage is specific in that once you take Bleed Damage, it only goes away with a DC 15 heal check or 1 point of magical healing. I honestly think the Boar Shred feat is a horrible feat design. Bleed Damage always persists on following rounds, and Boar Style itself does not say that the Bleed Damage only lasts as long as your are using Boar Style. Personally, if I were to re-word Boar Shred it would say:
You can make an Intimidate check to demoralize an opponent as a move action. While using Boar Style, whenever you tear an opponent’s flesh, the bleed damage increases to 3d6. You can deal the bleed damage from Boar Style even if you switch to another style.
Or something along those lines. As it is, Boar Shred is poorly designed and shouldn't really ever be taken for any reason. It's a waste of a feat in my opinion.
Okay, I can't make up my mind.
A MotFW/MotSM monk, focusing on Marid Style and its feat progression, along with just Boar Style (not the other Boar feats). I like that I keep flurry of blows.
A MoMS/MotSM monk, beginning with Marid Style at level 2 (Elemental Fist at level 1), Boar Style at level 3, and then dipping into the other elemental feats as I get my monk feats (4, 10, etc.) or as I qualify for them normally. This build has more versatility, but as was pointed out above, I'm relying on the monk's weak BAB as the party's primary melee combatant. I'm also not set on MotSM with this build; I could take another archetype or even just stay with only MoMS.
Thoughts? Once I decide on one build or the other, I'll post a feat progression for review.
My thoughts:
MotFW/MotSM: If you go this route, you'll want to pick up Boar Style at 3rd level, Marid Style at 5th and Combat Style Master at 7th. Boar Style requires 3 ranks in intimidate, so you could take it at 3rd, while both CSM and Marid Style have the prerequisite of Monk level 5th, but CSM requires two Combat Style feats. Boar style will allow you to kill things a lot quicker, so it will be a necessity to get asap. You might think about taking Combat Reflexes as a Monk Bonus feat and Stand Still as a regular feat at first level so when you make 5th, you can stop people in their tracks with the reach granted by Marid Style.
At 5th level, you begin combat, and as a swift action, start Boar Style, and hit the enemy with 2 attack and deal bleed damage if possible. If you can't get two attacks, start Marid Style and stop them from reaching you. If you can get the bleed damage off, on your next turn, you switch to Marid Style, hit them with an Elemental Fist, then acrobatics back so they are 15 ft away from you. Then when they try and charge or move up, you get an AoO and use Stand Still to stop them 10 ft away. On your turn, you can Flurry attack them, or even trip, grapple, etc. if you choose to. This option will only get more better as you level up with taking the maneuver feats like Improved Grapple or Trip as you can really hound the enemy. You can Trip them from 10 ft away, and if the go prone, when they stand up, they provoke and then you substitute your AoO for a grapple and keep them down. Greater Trip would make this even deadlier as they then provoke AoOs from your allies when you trip them.
MoMS/MoSM: A similar process would start here but with taking Marid Style as your free Style Feat, and Boar style at third. Then you can take CSM only if you choose to take a bunch more style feats. One option to think about is Boar Style + Marid Style + Dragon Style so you can charge across difficult terrain at no penalty, and strike from 10 ft away. Mix in Lunge and you can strike from 15 ft away and stop people from getting close at 10 ft. Then you full attack (not flurry) with Boar + Marid styles. Later on, Mix in Panther Style with Dodge and Mobility and intentionally provoke AoO with movement. When you get the final Panther Style feat, you can provoke an AoO, but you get an AoO as well that goes first. You could, theoretically, provoke an AoO, take your AoO first, and grapple the opponent, which prevents him from making AoOs if you succeed. So you move up on your turn, and attack. Next turn you attack again, and intentionally provoke an AoO by moving away, which would then allow you a free grapple.
Personally, I'd go with MotFW/MotSM as your Elemental Fist will scale up and do some decent damage at higher levels, while the MoMS will get a lot of versatility with styles, but he'll be better off using Maneuvers than attacks as he still gets Maneuver Mastery.
That's some good advice. I asked this question in the Rules forum, but I'll copy it here. Elemental Fist says:
When you use Elemental Strike pick one of the following energy types: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. On a successful hit, the attack deals damage normally plus 1d6 points of damage of the chosen type. You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt).
Now, is Elemental First its own special attack (as in, as a standard action, make a single attack...), or is this something that I can activate and it applies to all of my unarmed attacks for that turn (so a monk could use it to great effect with flurry of blows)?
You forgot the other half of the text.
Benefit: When you use Elemental Strike pick one of the following energy types: acid, cold, electricity, or fire. On a successful hit, the attack deals damage normally plus 1d6 points of damage of the chosen type. You must declare that you are using this feat before you make your attack roll (thus a failed attack roll ruins the attempt). You may attempt an Elemental Fist attack once per day for every four levels you have attained (see Special), and no more than once per round.
Special: A monk of the four winds receives Elemental Fist as a bonus feat at 1st level, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A monk may attempt an Elemental Fist attack a number of times per day equal to his monk level, plus one more time per day for every four levels he has in classes other than monk.
So you are limited to one Elemental Fist per round, and that implies you can make multiple attacks per round. I've always interpreted Elemental Fist (and Stunning Fist) that you can make them as part of a flurry, but only one attack can be an Elemental Fist. You could even make an Elemental Fist + a Stunning Fist as part of your flurry.
The key to this thought is they don't mention any kind of action, only the declaration of using Elemental Fist as part of your attack.
That makes sense. I can attack as often as I want in a round and use Elemental Fist or Stunning Fist, but I can only apply those abilities to one attack each round.
Here's my current build (with a lot of gaps):
Human Monk of the Four Winds
1: Dodge
1 (MotFW): Elemental Fist
1 (monk): Improved Unarmed Strike
1 (human):
2 (monk):
3: Boar Style
5: Marid Style
6 (monk):
7: Combat Style Master
9: Marid Spirit
10 (monk):
11: Marid Coldsnap
I'm open to suggestions on the various blanks. I'm also looking at the following specific Qinggong swaps:
Slow Fall (4) (swap for barkskin)
Wholeness of Body (7) (swap for gaseous form)
Now, I'd love to take Cloud Step at 15th level, but it requires having a slow fall speed. Should I keep slow fall and instead drop High Jump for barkskin?
Your feats will depend, somewhat, on your stats. For instance, if you are going to have a low strength, high dex, go for Weapon Finesse at first. Most Monks will probably have low strength, high dex as dex can benefit them so much more in the long run.
You forgot the Monk Bonus Feat at first level, but here's my suggestions.
1 Dodge
1 (MotFW) Elemental Fist
1 (Monk) Improved Unarmed Strike
1 (Monk Bonus) Combat Reflexes
1 (Human Bonus) Weapon Finesse
2 (Monk Bonus) Improved Grapple
3 Boar Style
5 Marid Style
6 (Monk Bonus) Improved Trip
7 Combat Style Master
9 Marid Spirit
10 (Monk Bonus) Spring Attack or Mobility
11 Marid Coldsnap
I take it from the 11th level stop, you're playing this for PFS?
I really like the idea of, at 6th level, using the AoO granted by Marid Style's reach to switch out the attack for a Trip, then when they stand up, you Grapple them. This could easily shut some creatures down, and it's something I've been planning for on my own Monk in Legacy of Fire.
Remember, if you have Weapon Finesse and are using a Finesseable weapon (such as an Unarmed Strike), and you use a Combat Maneuver such as Trip, Sunder, or Disarm, then you use your Dex instead of Str for your CMB, see here. So at 6th level, you could be looking at a +11 (assuming a 17 Dex) to Trip attempts when using an Unarmed Strike. If you were running PFS with a 12 Str, 17 Dex, 12 Con, 12 Int, 16 Wis, and 9 Cha, you would have a CMD of 24 vs Trip, and Monks usually have one of the higher (if not the highest) CMDs as they get 3 ability scores and a class feature that adds to CMD. It would be 26 if you could squeeze Defensive Combat Training in there somewhere.
I'd love to throw Defensive Combat Training, Combat Expertise and Greater Trip in there, but if it's PFS, you won't be getting anymore feats. If it's a home game, then they are all options.
[Edit]Forgot your question about the Qinggong. I don't see any problem with either of those swaps. I've never personally run a monk before, but I've played with several and few of them ever use those abilities. If they need healing, they more often UMD a Wand of Cure XXX instead of use Wholeness of Body.
This is for a home game, not PFS. The DM had us use a dice pool system for rolling stats, and I ended up rolling quite well: 18, 18, 16, 12, 11, 7. Then of course there's any racial bonuses. The DM is playing character creation pretty fast and loose: if it's on the SRD, it's fair game. We're starting at 5th level, and I'd imagine that we'll play to 20, but I'm not sure.
If it makes any difference, the rest of the party consists of a kitsune sorcerer, a halfling bard, a gnome summoner, and a human gunslinger. So, other than the eidolon, I'm the party's only melee combatant.
You'll also be the Party's tank. With that in mind, it might be better to drop Qinggong and take SM as you originally thought. Qinggong and SM won't stack, for your purposes as SM replaces Slowfall and High Jump.
For your stats, my personal preference would be 14 Str (+2 racial), 18 Dex, 16 Con, 12 Int (+1 at 4th), 18 Wis and a 7 Cha. This would give you an AC of 20 at lvl 5, which isn't too shabby, a CMB of +7 (+9 Grapple) and a CMD of 24 (26 vs Grapple), if you use the feats I suggested. If you take the MotSM Archetype, then you will have an AC of 21, 23 as long as you begin and end in the same square. This is, of course, before any magical enhancements, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to see an AC of 25 or 27 (if standing still), assuming +1 ring, +1 amulet, and +2 bracers. This would put your costs at 8,000 out of 10,500.
The Gunslinger and Bard will help with damage output, so your primary duty is to stop people from getting to the party. If you work with the summoners summoned help, then you guys should be able to delay anyone from getting to the party long enough to put them down. Especially since you'll have the Marid Style/Stand Still combo.
I'm gonna admit I'm a little concerned about damage potential as you don't have a full BAB class so you may find yourself using Maneuvers more than attacks to put people down.
[Edit] I just realized I forgot to include Stand Still in the feats I suggested. With that thought, I'll suggest replacing Dodge with Stand Still, and picking up Dodge at 10th as a Bonus Feat. This will drop your AC by 1, but it will allow you to do the Mard Style/Stand Still combo and stop your enemies from getting in range to attack, while keeping them in range of your attacks.