Monk Dragon Disciple

[Jordo Longyfoots]

Heya people,

Here's the gist: We are working on a party for a Way of the Wicked campaign. Everybody decided on rolling something that's easy to make (Cleric, Flame Oracle, Wizard and an Anti-paladin) except for one of my friends.

What he wants to make is a monk (which would be doable on a 25-point buy) , but he wants it to turn into a (mostly) Melee-focused (Beast Brute) Dragon Disciple.

Now I have read Oterisks guide to Dragon Disciple, and Revel and Treantmonks' guides to Monk, but I am having trouble pulling it together in something that would a) not suck at lower level nor b) fall grossly behind at higher levels.

On top of this he would, thematically, prefer a Hungry Ghost Monk, though if Master of Many Styles or Qingqong is better I guess he would be willing to drop that desire if it makes the character good/relevant :).

We are looking at 25-point buy, Human (Lawfull Evil). Anything in terms of level progression, feat choice and stat allocation would be great!

[Red Ramage]

I'd build into a monk-like dragon disciple by taking two levels of Master of Many Styles/Monk of the Sacred Mountain monk, two levels of Unarmed fighter, and one level of draconic sorcerer. DD won't progress any of your monk abilities, so Flurry of Blows is easy to give up. You'll want to grab the Dragon and Crane style feats. DD boosts your strength tremendously, so Dragon Style's 1.5xSTR damage to unarmed strikes really shines. Make sure you pick up power attack too- that 1.5xSTR triggers the better power attack damage. Crane style helps out with defense. This is inportant because you're pumping str and not dex/wis, and are not getting monk AC bonuses.

Human
25 pb scores: STR 18 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 14 CHA 12

LVL 1 MNK 1: dodge, crane style, crane wing
LVL 2 MNK 2: Dragon Style
LVL 3 FTR 1: Dragon Ferocity, Power Attack
LVL 4 FTR 2: crane riposte
LVL 5 SORC 1: Two-Weapon Fighting or feat of your choice

[Dekalinder]

Monk and DD don't mesh well for a couple of reason. First, natural attacks and flurry don't go well togheter, and the bite attack of the DD is the big thing for melee.
Second, you are royally screwed on stats since you will need an additional mental stat on top of your 4 dependancy. The only way to make it at least playable is going crossblooded draconic/empireal to use wis.
Third, all you monk class abilities don't grow. This means flurry will be stuck at only 1 extra attack, no ki pool ecc.

If i really had to build one like that i'd go for Many Style to drop the flurry for being able to use 2 style. Get crane and dragon (ofc) than pick up the dual wield chain to use punches.
Try monk 2 (for still mind, so you can get Monastic legacy as a feat) unarmed fighter 3 for extra feat witch you need and the close combatant with you can ask the master to be considere like weapon training for the duelling gloves (witch even if not raw makes sense). Last sorc 1 into DD. Use low level buff spells, for the rest just punch people.