Which monk archetypes allow for armor?


Advice


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I want to make an armored monk, but don't want a bunch of class abilities I can't use (such as Monk AC, flurry of blows, or fast movement).

What monk archetypes are available that give those abilities up for others that may prove to be more useful?


What is it from the monk that you want?


Sounds more like the unarmed fighter to me

Sovereign Court

Maneuver Master, Master of Many Styles, Sensei and Tetori all ditch Flurry of Blows to some degree. Sensei also ditches Fast Movement so that would probably be your best bet for an Archetype.

Doesn't look like anything messes with the AC bonus though.

Armoured Monks are a lot of fun. :)


Not much to go on...

Is there anything you want from the monk? Monks unarmed strike that can be enhanced?

And what do you want with the build?

Silver Crusade

The closest I've seen to in such an Archetype is the Iron-skinned Monk for Hobgoblins in the Advanced Race guide. It gives up monk AC for a growing natural armor bonus, gives up fast movement for a growing DR/-, but does not give up flurry of blows.

It can make use of all of its abilities except flurry of blows when when wearing light armor (so the highest AC armor you'll be looking at is a Mithral Breastplate). Of course, you'd have to kill two feats or dip another class in order to make use of this.


I am dying to try a Maneuver Master/Fighter build. You can Flurry of Maneuvers in full plate and a heavy shield. All the bonus feats give you tons of flexibility (I want to try out the Improved Whip Mastery chain.)

To really cheese it out, take Shield of Swings to get +4 AC while you're incapacitating everyone within 15 ft. your maneuvers.


Well, the Master of Many styles loses the main reason to avoid armor, the flurry of blows. With that out of the way, you could just decide to take a dip into fighter to get armor proficiencies. Your bonus to AC from wisdom would require you to have 18 WIS to match a chain shirt early on, so it might not be that bad to give up. Fast movement would just disappear, but that is not too much of a loss anyway. You;d still have these abilities, technically, but you can marginalize them enough by focuses on other areas (like putting more points into STR rather than WIS) that they would basically be gone.

A 3 level dip into brawler would both let you use armor, and give a decent bonus to your unarmed strikes. Alternatively, you could go for any martial weapon and other archetypes, since you do not need to worry about the monk property without flurry of blows.

You can make a very unmonklike monk with MoMS styles, but the single image of a poor, unarmed bald man in pajamas was not such a grand image to begin with. If countless martial arts movies have taught me anything (other than the fact that montages can solve anything) is that there are many ways to make your 'martial artist' type character. This method would let you make something other than a DEX based unarmored fighter dealing with a crippling case of MAD.

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