Howdy,
Since my previous Jade Regent character died last Friday inside the.., um.., er, crossing the Crown of World (no spoilers, please), I need a replacement ready in a couple of days. This time I am going with a samsaran wizard from Zi Ha, who was traveling on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Tsukiyo in the Forest of Spirits. There he experiences a sign/epiphany/dream sent by Tsukiyo that something hinky is going on to North, and sets out to investigate (thus finding the party).
I have the wizard under construction already, and so far, so good. The wizard will be starting at 8th level, and it is my intention that he have the Leadership feat with enough juice to support a 6th-level cohort. I am looking for a monk valet/bodyguard/craftsman sidekick. You get a virtual cookie for guessing my inspiration here, along with extra chocolate chips for sussing out the name Mr. Fong. ;)
I've never even looked at building a monk in PF before and I'm on a deadline. So any comments, links, or suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Here's the spec...
Scope
Pretty much any Paizo published, PF-native content works. The DM has already signed-off on the samsaran-wizard-with-cohort concept described above.
Ability Scores
22 point-buy. I know this is a non-standard (High Fantasy) number; I am not the DM. I'll make use of the extra 2 points if I can.
Gear
Assume the standard 6th-level 16k gp for the moment. I may kick in funds from the wizard as well, if needed.
Combat
Primary: Run melee interference for the wizard. Grappling or whatever works efficiently, doesn't really matter.
Secondary: Mobility and extra actions. The wizard (conjurer) will be 'porting around a bit, and our cohort will need to keep up. In a pinch, he can smooth out kinks in the action economy, caddying, etc.
He's not expected to get much involved with the front line. This party is way overloaded on melee already. If he stands next to me and does nothing the whole fight but hold a readied action to shut down melee threats, that will work just fine. The wizard will be summoning anyway, and I don't want to hold the whole table up while I'm flogging actions.
Downtime
I already have a lot of RP ideas to mine in social encounters, which don't require build optimizing. However, our friend here will be also be very busy in downtime. I'm looking to offload some crafting skills here, which is at least as important (if not more so) than combat. I'm open to suggestions here, including multi-classing. My current thoughts are...
Craft (alchemy) + Master Craftsman + Craft Wondrous Item
Wondrous items are the main target here, but weapons and armor are also fair game if there is room. Alternatively, if class levels are used to access item creation feats, then wands and staffs are also in play. I'm currently thinking of having the wizard do rods himself, but that's fungible as well. I also like the idea of...
Craft (calligraphy) + Inscribe Magical Tattoo
..which fits the theme very well, but requires 5 caster levels. This is probably too much for our friend here. Maybe something to build towards, or perhaps stick on the wizard.
That's pretty much it. I will update further if there is interest. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Mercy Buckets, Y'all!
If the cohort is more an extra pair of hands and crafter, rather than a combatant, I don't think monk is the way to go.
You can't take Master Craftsman + a crafting feat until level 7.
Why not take an alchemist or bard. Both could take Craft Wonderous Item at level 3.
In any event both bard and alchemist are good at buffing and can hold their own in melee to protect you if required.
If you don't want to hold up the table while the cohort acts, don't go grappler monk!
If the cohort is more an extra pair of hands and crafter, rather than a combatant, I don't think monk is the way to go.
You can't take Master Craftsman + a crafting feat until level 7.
Why not take an alchemist or bard. Both could take Craft Wonderous Item at level 3.
In any event both bard and alchemist are good at buffing and can hold their own in melee to protect you if required.
If you don't want to hold up the table while the cohort acts, don't go grappler monk!
Thanks for the feedback, that's very helpful.
You're right about Master Craftsman. I was thinking, "yeah, I can get that at 5th level", and now I'm all like "d'oh! not enough!"
I was already considering alchemist levels, so that really is a likely solution. If I only wanted to minimax, I'd definitely go all bard and have him just stand there inspiring courage all day; I've played a mid-level bard before and know how to make that work, but that shreds my monk character story completely.
Is there a melee alchemist build that can justify dipping into monk a bit? I haven't actually built a Mr. Hyde-style alchemist before, but I can see how they're done. My last alchy (that just died) was built around ranged attacks.
Regarding grappling, that is one reason I indicated I was open to other solutions for melee control (stunning?). There are so many monk styles out there, and I simply don't have time to bone-up on them all; I was hoping there might be an obvious choice there. However, if it does come to grappling, we have a couple of players at this table who know the grappling rules song-and-verse. Completely memorized. So we already have a fair amount of grappling going on, without much problem.
Any ideas for a alchemist/monk? Can I keep at least 1 of the 6 levels as monk without gimping him?