+1 why? And how do you figure that a short range weapon suffers just as much from "things like webs (I don't mean the spell), twisted caves with stalactites and stalagmites, etc"
+1 so they bypass DR/magic and they still suffer from the same penalties for firing into/past cover. Its likely you won't have ranged feats on a monk to help out with that.
I took a random sample of the CR 10 monster on d20pfsrd and very few of them had DR that could not be overcome with nonmagical adamantium.
Adamantium only overcomes adamantium, not damage reduction against alignment or magic. Though the nice thing about ammo is that you can buy several different kinds, that price can add up and shurikens aren't something you get back(luckily that price is usually a drop in the bucket anyway at 10th). Even DR/5 magic will cut back on the damage quiet a bit though, which was the point of me saying you need +1 to bypass DR/magic.
Because the monk is immune to poison and shuriken are treated as ammo.
What's your point about poison and ammo, eh?
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@Dabbler - But also remember on that 1/3 of the time I stun, I get two additional attacks from Medusas wrath, above and beyond if I burn a ki or use the boots.
Personally, I generally view stunning fist as a side feature. When it works, it is wonderful, but I don't build for it to work because I've found narrowly built designs are just asking for trouble unless they are in a group built to fill the games.
But if you did go for a stunning fist build, I think the one I posted is viable and quite effective.
At the end of the day, I think at this point the armed monk is fine, given you can pour your energies into a single weapon. It is on par or slightly above a ranger, with the secondary abilities being more or less a wash IMHO.
OTOH, I think the unarmed is < armed, which I don't care for. The bump to AoMF helped, and the clarification on haste quieted a number of people...but if the intent is for the monk to be an unarmed specialist, the class isn't really working well in that regard.
Right now, pure DPR the fighter seems to be well ahead. And even with stunning fist, I'm somewhat shocked no one has mentioned that Mantis Style also helps fighters who take stunning fist...
I am still uncertain as the answer to the OP's question, but I do think we've shown that either option can be viable, if sub-optimal.
Between Trip, Stunning Fist, Punishing Kick, and Disarm, my Monk is pretty boss at disabling every foe to some degree. Just a simple Qinggong Monk. Since I likely would use all 3(disarm is a maybe) in one flurry per round(since damage is delivered with stunning fist, punishing kick, and technically trip(once they stand)), one of them is bound to win and give me the ease of hitting them with less effort and more ferocity.
A narrow build is sure to have more disadvantages in a campaign than advantages.
Personally, in my own opinion, I think monks should just buy a wand of strong jaw, have a caster of some sort cast it on them along with enlarge(or enlarge from a wonderous item), use their weapons as merely an extension of their physical abilities and focus on IUS damage with all of the static buffs/abilities they want. That's just my opinion though, I know everyone plays different.
At level 10 a reasonable monk woudl have like +10/+10/+5/+5 (1d3+5 20/x2) (not including the severe penalties due to low range) with shurikens as a back up weapon. how that can be good?
It isn't. Justin simply can't prove shurikens are anything better than awful, so he is simply repeating something about poison.
I'd like to see a Monk consistently damage his target with shurikens and not eat up half his WBL.
Monks could cover shurikens in contact poison, making them touch attacks to cause the poison effect.
Monks being immune to poisons would not care about the contact poison.
Monks could cover shurikens in contact poison, making them touch attacks to cause the poison effect.
Monks being immune to poisons would not care about the contact poison.
So... While you could slather on a massive amount of poison at no penalty to your health, you would have to pay for all that stuff... right?(Contact only requires touch? It requires hitting bare flesh, which... armor definitely covers. Ignoring that.) Hitting touch is easy, and you could definitely throw a ton of stars, but wouldn't be easier and faster just to punch them in the face? You also have to hope they fail the save, and fort is a good save for many monsters, and beyond that the DC's for poisons are usually pretty pitiful.
So yeah, expensive and not likely to work.
Why are we arguing the merits of thrown weapons? Is someone saying thrown weapons are viable or something?
Monks could cover shurikens in contact poison, making them touch attacks to cause the poison effect.
Monks being immune to poisons would not care about the contact poison.
Still wouldn't help them hit their targets. And let's not forget that most poisons are rather expensive and have low save DC.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Mr.Sin.
The poison thing would work for fists surely. Each time you hit someone your poison DC increases.
Monks could cover shurikens in contact poison, making them touch attacks to cause the poison effect.
Monks being immune to poisons would not care about the contact poison.
Still wouldn't help them hit their targets. And let's not forget that most poisons are rather expensive and have low save DC.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Mr.Sin.
Well touch attacks are easier to hit and poison multi exposer rules help in regard to DCs.
I'm not really defending the idea, just trying to express where people might be coming from.
Monk's don't need range weapons. Especially short range throw weapons.
Monk's don't need range weapons.
How so? Can they fly? Do they have infinite reach? Because Abundant Step spends a lot of K and doesn't make you stay airborne.
Everyone needs at least one ranged backup weapon.
Monk's don't need range weapons.How so? Can they fly? Do they have infinite reach? Because Abundant Step spends a lot of K and doesn't make you stay airborne.
Everyone needs at least one ranged backup weapon.
Monks can jump.
Monks can jump.
And...? Do all flying opponents stay inside jump reach? Even if they do, are Monks capable of grappling all of them? Monks are not any better than any other martial class at combat maneuvers, you know. Or are you proposing they jump, make a single attack, and fall back, then repeat the next round?
Monks can jump.
They tend to come back down, with a few exceptions here and there.
Monks can jump.And...? Do all flying opponents stay inside jump reach? Even if they do, are Monks capable of grappling all of them? Monks are not any better than any other martial class at combat maneuvers, you know. Or are you proposing they jump, make a single attack, and fall back, then repeat the next round?
Nah they use stunning fist, causing the enemy to fall.
I love using Monks as Villains and think they are underused as bad guys. With their saving throws and movement abilities they are great to use against players who think Arcane caster are everything.
Nah they use stunning fist, causing the enemy to fall.Monks can jump.And...? Do all flying opponents stay inside jump reach? Even if they do, are Monks capable of grappling all of them? Monks are not any better than any other martial class at combat maneuvers, you know. Or are you proposing they jump, make a single attack, and fall back, then repeat the next round?
23% of the time. Did you really miss the Stunning Fist discussion or are you simply trolling?
I love using Monks as Villains and think they are underused as bad guys. With their saving throws and movement abilities they are great to use against players who think Arcane caster are everything.
I cast shift and using overland flight appear 20 feet above him. Yeah. Of course, this is if they are even in a place that can be hit, if you got past everyone else, and if you got the first move and the caster didn't cast something like mirror image to protect himself, and if the caster is on the same plane, and if...
I don't love it when someone talks like that. Arcane casters aren't immortal, but pretending that you have to go after them just to prove they are infallible is sort of adversarial.
23% of the time. Did you really miss the Stunning Fist discussion or are you simply trolling?Nah they use stunning fist, causing the enemy to fall.Monks can jump.And...? Do all flying opponents stay inside jump reach? Even if they do, are Monks capable of grappling all of them? Monks are not any better than any other martial class at combat maneuvers, you know. Or are you proposing they jump, make a single attack, and fall back, then repeat the next round?
So it takes them a few rounds.
So it takes them a few rounds.
Yeah, good luck spending precious Ki points to jump high enough and make a single attack against your enemy multiple rounds in a row... Obviously all eneies idiots and will stand still and do nothing in the meantime.
So it takes them a few rounds.Yeah, good luck spending precious Ki to jump high enough and make a single attack against your enemy multiple rounds in a row... Obviously all eneies idiots and will stand still and do nothing in the meantime.
That's why you trip them instead.
That's why you trip them instead.So it takes them a few rounds.Yeah, good luck spending precious Ki to jump high enough and make a single attack against your enemy multiple rounds in a row... Obviously all eneies idiots and will stand still and do nothing in the meantime.
You are suggesting trip on flying opponents?
Yup... You're definitely trolling.
That's why you trip them instead.So it takes them a few rounds.Yeah, good luck spending precious Ki to jump high enough and make a single attack against your enemy multiple rounds in a row... Obviously all eneies idiots and will stand still and do nothing in the meantime.You are suggesting trip on flying opponents?
Yup... You're definitely trolling.
You can trip flying opponents...
At level 10 a reasonable monk woudl have like +10/+10/+5/+5 (1d3+5 20/x2) (not including the severe penalties due to low range) with shurikens as a back up weapon. how that can be good?
They aren't good. I haven't used them since low level. Average AC I'm going up against at lvl 10 is 23 to 25. My dex is 14. No ranged feats. I'm not wasting feats on weapons that are close to useless.
That makes my flurry with Shuriken: +10/+10/+5/+5. If I use a ki point to waste an attack with shuriken and with haste, that's two more attacks. So it would be +11/+11/+11/+11/+6/+6 for 1d2+6 damage per attack. A sad, sad amount of damage with not many of your attacks hitting. Shurikens are used only if you're desperate and have nothing else you can do.
23% of the time. Did you really miss the Stunning Fist discussion or are you simply trolling?Nah they use stunning fist, causing the enemy to fall.Monks can jump.And...? Do all flying opponents stay inside jump reach? Even if they do, are Monks capable of grappling all of them? Monks are not any better than any other martial class at combat maneuvers, you know. Or are you proposing they jump, make a single attack, and fall back, then repeat the next round?
I think (but I'm not sure), at most levels flying enemies have below average AC and/or fortitude saves, on average (of course there are exceptions). So percentage chance would be a bit higher.
That said, if previous experience is anything to go by, I recommend not pursuing a discussion of martials with that particular user. Ze tends to be... not very nuanced, to put it diplomatically.
On shurikens, I would recommend anyone who wants to keep them as a backup weapon to cover all of them in Drow Poison. Even if the chance of dropping the target is like 5-10%, you only use shurikens when you're desperate and then, forcing a few saves can save your skin.
Not that that makes shurikens any good, but it's a good thing to do with basically any backup weapon since drow poison only costs 75gp.
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I would love to see a build where they work. Nothing makes me happier in these threads than seeing assumptions proved wrong. But I don't see it.
Either you pump dex, and get no benefit from the added Strength damage (which is an absolutely must with the low base damage), or you pump strength and can't hit anything.
At low levels, they can be a nice backup, but I don't see it working well beyond that, with well defined as doing 1/4 of hit point damage by DPR for the level.
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I would love to see a build where they work. Nothing makes me happier in these threads than seeing assumptions proved wrong. But I don't see it.
Either you pump dex, and get no benefit from the added Strength damage (which is an absolutely must with the low base damage), or you pump strength and can't hit anything.
At low levels, they can be a nice backup, but I don't see it working well beyond that, with well defined as doing 1/4 of hit point damage by DPR for the level.
Or you can combine Weapon Finesse with a Dex/Wis build, with Agile on some of the shurikens. There is no way this can be proven to be good unless you weren't a standard monk, or you were a Ninja instead. It gets so expensive too...
I've never "had" to use shurikens. As a Vanaras, I would climb and attack, high jump and attack or stun, or let the ranged folk handle the ranged job while I just hovered around the squishies in our group in an attempt to keep them out of harms way. I remember I jumped and stunned some nasty demon imp thing in the catacombs underneath the sandpoint lighthouse on the first try, and we just decimated her at that point. There are options other than fighting too.. sometimes the job just needs to be left to party members.
sometimes the job just needs to be left to party members.If this is the case it's a sign of poor design. Nobody should be completely useless in combat. Or any situation that makes up a substantial portion of table time, but this particular issue is with combat.
There is a significant difference between being completely useless in combat and being completely useless in a combat, though.
Not saying the monk doesn't have issues, but not being able to contribute in every combat =/= being useless. However, if you often can't contribute, then when you contribute you should be all the more effective. Whiiich the monk isn't.
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sometimes the job just needs to be left to party members.If this is the case it's a sign of poor design. Nobody should be completely useless in combat. Or any situation that makes up a substantial portion of table time, but this particular issue is with combat.There is a significant difference between being completely useless in combat and being completely useless in a combat, though.
Not saying the monk doesn't have issues, but not being able to contribute in every combat =/= being useless. However, if you often can't contribute, then when you contribute you should be all the more effective. Whiiich the monk isn't.
The question (well off topic...) is if you can keep the shurikens as a viable option in a monk build, again viable defined (by me at least) as being able to do 1/4 of the damage of an equal CR creature DPR.
I want to see a shuriken build work. I really do. But the longer the discussion goes without such a build appearing, the less inclined many of us are to believe it can be done.
I don't see it, given you would need point blank, precise and deadly aim just to get in the ball park, and with the really, really low base damage you would need high strength to do much of anything, all of which at close range.
Maybe a poison build could work, given immunity, but the cost is going to be painfully high given the advantage is volume, and each one would need to be coated.
Maybe there is something I'm missing, it wouldn't be the first time, but I personally don't believe until I see. Far to many times on here assumptions are flat out wrong.
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Not likely to work - since we're talking about comparing specifically against an unarmed fighter, the odds are that the fighter's gonna have the unarmed fighter archetype, and right about the same time the tetori gets grab (and way before he gets constrict) is when the unarmed fighter gets the ability to take AoOs even if the grappler has grab or Improved Grapple. Since damage rolled from the AoO is added directly to the DC of the grapple attempt, the grapple's not gonna happen. (And that's not even counting the brawling armor enchantment, which is a auto-take for any unarmed fighter.)
actually this is wrong, if the target has greater grapple, which the tetori does, then the fighter cannot make an aoo against the target attempting the grapple.
The question (well off topic...) is if you can keep the shurikens as a viable option in a monk build, again viable defined (by me at least) as being able to do 1/4 of the damage of an equal CR creature DPR.
I want to see a shuriken build work. I really do. But the longer the discussion goes without such a build appearing, the less inclined many of us are to believe it can be done.
the only character i have ever seen make good use of shurikens is a ninja. with the exception of a barbarian built for rage power throwing you cannot make a throwing character viable after 5th level. ive tried so many times to make one who uses daggers or axes or even exotic 3rd party weapons.
WTB master thrower archetype from 3.5 complete warrior.
anyway back to the ninja, if you dipped 4 levels of ninja into your monk, you could get about 8 attacks by 12th level and with invisibility or some way of making sneak attacks, deal a good amount of damage against non dr targets...
It's a "great when it works" power, you can't depend on it even with your stun-oriented monk who thanks to his awful AC pretty much has to depend on it.AC 25 is not an awful AC at 10th level, I would say is pretty much in the middle. I do not think a non shield user ranger, a (non beast totem) barbarian, paladin and most fighter will not have a considerably better AC.
It's low for a character that has to go toe-to-toe with an enemy.
10th level 2-handed fighter, WBL 62Kgp, probably 20-25K on defensive items for AC.
+3 Plater armour, ~12Kgp
+1 Amulet of nat. armour, 2Kgp
+1 Ring of Protection, 2Kgp
+1 Dusty Rose Ioun Stone, 5Kgp
+2 Dex more than likely
+1 Dodge just because he's a fighter and has feats to burn
Total AC28, and that's not trying hard, that's fairly typical.
Taking Ciretose's monk, if he's focussed on Dex rather than Strength and has a +1 agile AoMF, he'll be -1 to hit for an AC of 31 with Barkskin SLA.
The AC to aim at if you are getting into a front-line fight is 20+character level. If you go for an offensive build with most full-BAB classes, you probably won't quite get that, but you will still beat 25.
@Dabbler - But also remember on that 1/3 of the time I stun, I get two additional attacks from Medusas wrath, above and beyond if I burn a ki or use the boots.
Oh yes, but you still need to stun that enemy in the first two rounds to win, which means a 1/3 fail chance. Your two-handed fighter kills the enemy inside two rounds, and has better AC and better hit points. That's why a Dex monk with an Agile AoMF would have worked better - slightly less odds to hit, but way better chance to avoid getting hurt.
Personally, I generally view stunning fist as a side feature. When it works, it is wonderful, but I don't build for it to work because I've found narrowly built designs are just asking for trouble unless they are in a group built to fill the games.
My view as well, on both counts.
Or you can combine Weapon Finesse with a Dex/Wis build, with Agile on some of the shurikens. There is no way this can be proven to be good unless you weren't a standard monk, or you were a Ninja instead. It gets so expensive too...
Can't put agile on a missile weapon, or agile bows would be all the rage. Although...you might be able to do it with a monk of the empty hand. Just maybe. I can't see it being more effective than a Zen Archer in any event.
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sometimes the job just needs to be left to party members.If this is the case it's a sign of poor design. Nobody should be completely useless in combat. Or any situation that makes up a substantial portion of table time, but this particular issue is with combat.There is a significant difference between being completely useless in combat and being completely useless in a combat, though.
Not saying the monk doesn't have issues, but not being able to contribute in every combat =/= being useless. However, if you often can't contribute, then when you contribute you should be all the more effective. Whiiich the monk isn't.
@Atarlost
The monk certainly isn't, if you read everything I put in that post. There are other options, and the monk typically has to reach for them. Those options that require use for thatcombat, don't come up often.You have to keep your mind open. Not every class is meant to be ready for every occasion. It doesn't work that way. If every class was meant to be ready for everything even at a general standard of power regardless of the focus they choose for combat, then why bother having more than one, if any class.
Not everyone can be useful at everything, whether it's on occasion, or often.
Although, the monk could have been designed a liiitle better ;) At level 5 I'm very happy with mine so far though.
@Ilja
Exactly.
I agree, although I find a way to contribute regardless. Resourcefulness. Instead of a shuriken though, if the monk truly wanted, they could use a sling or something. It's not really a big deal.
@Dabbler
I had no idea i couldn't put Agile on those shurikens. There are so many of those enchants I'm not so familiar with I get it all mixed up on what can go where. Thank you for pointing that out.