Sohei is actually worth sticking around for Weapon Training, if only so you can flurry with all the weapons in your group. Funnily enough, if you multiclass Fighter, any weapon training you take with Fighter, you can flurry with as well.
A sohei may use flurry of blows and ki strike with any weapon in which he has weapon training.
You aren't limited to only the Sohei's weapon training, just any weapon in which you have weapon training.
The Ayutthayan Monk by Purple Duck Games / 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming, if you allow 3PP material, is a fairly atypical monk variant. One of the new class ability / feat trees is Body Hardening (with basic, Improved, Greater, and Superior levels). Getting all 4 levels gives your monk a constant DR 5/-, +9 to Fortitude saves vs special attacks, and +4 to unarmed attack damage.
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@Scott, me too. For the LONGEST time now. Then as of a few recent posts I was proven wrong in my thinking :T It was RIGHT there the whole time.
It says you can take an "Animal Shape" but mentions nothing about a Magical Beast.
for example: "At 8th level, a druid can use wild shape to change into a Huge or Diminutive animal,a Medium elemental, or a Small or Medium plant creature. When taking the form of animals, a druid's wild shape now functions as beast shape III."
Huge or Diminutive Animal is pretty specific, as much as I don't want it to be. When I realized this it felt like someone just swept my feet right out from under me. Ugh.
As for your question:
Well, essentially what happens, is you wear your armor outside of your polymorph. You lose your flurry, fast movement and monk ac bonus. As soon as you shift, you get it ALL back. Not only that, but any static bonuses(aside from armor or armor bonus combined with wild armor enchant) stick with it too. I can't really think of a quick or cheap way to remove armor. It's best to just jack it up(enhancement for armor that is along with Wild Armor enchant) and do your best not to get hit outside of your wildshape. Even if you do, eventually that Armor outshines your Monk AC bonus outside of Wildshape. Just ... wildshape...asap : P
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Tiefling Multiclass Build
Got linked to this from a different thread and looking this over I see LOTS of technical errors with this build. Looking through the thread I'm not seeing anyone calling them out so lets address them.
First of course as everyone else is pointing out assuming you can get all the attacks from snake style is invalid. If you are lucky you can manage to get 1 of those a round, 2 if the opponent is an idiot.L4 F2M2: Feral Combat Training Claws: 2 claw attacks do 1d6 each like monk unarmed strikes with no 2-weapon penalty, even though character is using a shield, they can be taken as AoO's via Snake Fang. +1AC Damage 6(1d6+4)=45
While you don't have the 2 weapon fighting penalty you DO have the secondary natural attack penalties. A shield counts as a weapon so your claws are now at -5 to hit and half str to damage anytime you use that shield in a fight.
Damage (1d6+1)=4.5 per hit.L5 F2M3: Still Mind, Maneuver Mastery, Monastic Legacy. Damage: 6(1d8+6)=63
What is this Maneuver Mastery you are talking about? You have access to maneuver training but that's just a +1 to your CMB so not that big of a deal.
Damage: (1d8+1)=5.5 per hit. No idea where you think you are getting the extra +5 damage from.L6 F2M3Ranger1: Freebooter, can use Wand of Lead Blades. 6(2d6+7)=84
Lead Blades do not work on Natural weapons and there's nothing about Feral Combat Training that changes that.
Damage: (1d8+1)=5.5 per hitL7 F2M3R2: Improved Natural Attack, Rending Claws. Damage6(3d6+8)/1d6=114.5 (Somebody says I am a genius for this.)
A. Improved Natural Attack is an illegal feat for you in PFS and outside that it's a monster feat requiring GM permission to take it.
B. Rending Claws only work once per round.Damage: STILL (1d8+1)=5.5 per hit and IF you hit twice on the same target you can do an extra 1D6 (3.5 on average)
L8 F3M3R2: +1AC
At this point you WOULD have gotten your 4th attack for being a monk or your first iterative attack but you gave that up for going MoMS with claws so still just 2 attacks a round for (1d8+1)=5.5 per hit.
L10 F3M3R2A2: Tumor Familiar,poison, poison resist +2, Power Attack 3/6. Damage: 8(4d6+10)=194
Power Attack with a secondary natural attack is a 1 for 1 exchange so you get 3/3 and you still haven't shown anything else increasing your damage so Damage: (1d8+4)=8.5 per hit.
L12 F4M4R2A2: Ki Pool, Unarmed Damage 1d10. Damage: 8(3d8+2d6+12)= 260
Ok at this point you can now finally get a 3rd attack each round (if you spend a ki point for it) and with power attack and weapon spec your damage is now (1d10+6)=11.5 per hit. And IF you hit twice on the same target you can do an extra 2D6 (7 on average) to them BUT with the horrible penalties -8 to hit (-5 from Secondary & -3 from power attack) and being a 3/4 BAB class (only Flurry lets you use your monk level for BAB) you are EXTREMELY unlikely to hit anything at this level (Assuming you put all your stat boosts into strength you are at +13 maximum and +5 when power attacking with those claws, you're not hitting anything at this level but the occasional mook).
Add to that you are running around trying to generate AoO's for snake fang you'll never get 2 hits on the same target to proc the rending fury (unless the target has Combat Reflexes they only get one AoO a round so those 2 feats are kinda wasted).Oh and as a follow up, Brawler Armor doesn't work with the Natural Attacks either and armor spikes will also turn your claws into secondary attacks as well.
This is a completely non-functional build with multiple misunderstandings of how various spells/enchants/Natural attack rules/PFS rules work. There is a possible good idea in here but as it sits it just doesn't work.
Sohei is actually worth sticking around for Weapon Training, if only so you can flurry with all the weapons in your group. Funnily enough, if you multiclass Fighter, any weapon training you take with Fighter, you can flurry with as well.
A sohei may use flurry of blows and ki strike with any weapon in which he has weapon training.You aren't limited to only the Sohei's weapon training, just any weapon in which you have weapon training.
I like the idea of flurrying with a Fauchard. Stretch that crit chance to the limit.
You'd only get it at level 11 but before then you're still Power Attacking with a Fauchard so it's not like you're in a terrible position or anything.
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Tell me more about this temple sword hungry ghost monk and how one would build say a level 13 20 point buy one...Well, it's good because of the expanded threat range of the Temple Sword. But again, a single level dip into Cleric (seranrae) gets you an even better threat range with a scimitar.
It would take a multitude of feats but I've kicked around the idea of a Dervish Dancing Crusader of Seranrae 1/Hungry Ghost Monk X... The idea of using Dervish Dance with a monk is appealing as you don't lose out on the 1.5 STR to damage, since you never had it... It also makes you a little less mad as you can just pump DEX and WIS.
It is a very feat intensive build though. You need Weapon finesse, dervish dance and crusaders flurry in order to fully function. I find it much easier to use a temple sword and make it keen or take improved critical at 10th lvl. 17-20 is good enough for the purposes of regaining ki. You also want to reach 9th lvl asap so that you can steal temporary hp.
Now if you start the campaign at higher lvls, the cleric dip does have merits. You need to be at least 6 lvl in order to have the 3 vital feats.
For sure it's mainly just theory crafting and spitballing... Heck, you could take a level of Dawnflower Dervish Bard to get Dervish Dance without Weapon Finesse (I think), but that would mean you wait until ECL 4 to get BAB +1. That just hurts too much.
Double the buffs for self only would help offset the list BAB, but man, can you imagine having to play that up from level 1? It may (stress may) be an interesting idea if you can jump in a 6th level or something...
Actually, since all three classes run off of 3/4 BAB, their levels would stack to determine the total BAB, as if the character had 4 levels of a single 3/4 BAB class, which would net a +1 at 2nd level, or a +3 at 4th.
that's only by optional rule, iirc.
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Sohei. Because a Sohei using unarmed strikes will do more damage then almost any other monk archetype, except maybe martial artist, due to brawling armor+weapon training. Yeah, only a d6 damage, but still. Also because they are Armoured Monks.
Sohei has armor proficiency, but cannot flurry while wearing armor.
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Sohei. Because a Sohei using unarmed strikes will do more damage then almost any other monk archetype, except maybe martial artist, due to brawling armor+weapon training. Yeah, only a d6 damage, but still. Also because they are Armoured Monks.Sohei has armor proficiency, but cannot flurry while wearing armor.
According to the FAQ, they can.
also with nature soul+animal ally a sohei can grab a full-advancement animal companion to beef up with their sohei stuff.
The Monktopus is brilliant, but I'll still vote for my human Zen-Archer.Oddly enough the Zen Archer is what I would pick too.... to actually play. Monktopus is just some theorycrafting fun. Like a mad scientist asking "what happens if I do this...?"
I really like the Zen Archer all around... its a very potent archetype.
I am also very fond of the Tetori Monk, because grappling the biggest thing in the room into submission is just downright cool.
I cast Ressurection on this thread. For you it may have been theorycrafting, for me I actually ended up playing a Monktopus in a CoTCT campaign and he simply one rounded all bosses. Truly disgustingly OP. It ruined the campaign, my allies felt useless and our GM left us :(
It ruined the campaign, my allies felt useless and our GM left us :(
Ouch...
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If he lacked the imagination or skill to match your party, that's really on him, not Lord Markov...
I agree, more or less. Characters like that are why a Session 0 is so important, and why it's vital that you check in with your players as the game progresses. If anyone at my table wanted to play some kind of martial artist-turned shape-shifting berserker, they had best let me on in their plans straight away. I can usually help my players build a character that both interests them and that actually belongs in my settings, but somethings will almost always be just too far. Like this octopus-shaman-kung fu master.
A GM is supposed to be able to adjust the difficulty level of his campaign to fit his PCs.
When one player's character is tougher than the rest of the party combined, there's no way he can do that. (If you think the monko is bad just slapping people around, imagine him grappling with eight tentacles.)
--That's why you don't play broken characters...unless everybody is playing one.
A GM is supposed to be able to adjust the difficulty level of his campaign to fit his PCs.When one player's character is tougher than the rest of the party combined, there's no way he can do that.
--That's why you don't play broken characters...unless everybody is playing one.
Unless you're playing a broken supporter. Optimizing someone whose sole role is to make the rest of the party shine is a lot of fun.
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Unbalanced characters are one thing - broken is a whole different issue.
That's fair. Broken in the sense of actually *broken*; a character that has ruined some part of the game. Making combat trivial, etc.
But I think that goes beyond simple mechanics, too. A player that refuses to be part of the story your table has already agreed to tell. A character that is deliberately and drastically of a different genre than the game they're being played in.
I've seen so many novice GM's get huffy and frustrated when one of their players presents them with a pile of game disrupting nonsense--infinite damage, robot cowboys, etc--and don't seem to realize that it is fully within their power to stop such things. More importantly, it's within their right. And most importantly of all, it's their responsibility.
I admit some responsibility here - Atalius asked for help maxing out damage on that character to the sky and beyond. His group is quite different to anything I've experienced BTW, apparently they pay GMs who aren't a member of the group to run the game. Not sure if that's some of the time or all of it, but the guy walking away might not have been the social disaster that it'd be with my friends. OTOH the GM might not have felt they had the leverage to say no.
...apparently they pay GMs who aren't a member of the group to run the game.
I've heard of this. Wish I could get in on that action.
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...apparently they pay GMs who aren't a member of the group to run the game.I've heard of this. Wish I could get in on that action.
Roll20 (or similar) is probably the easiest way. I've thought about it but don't think I could run a game well with strangers.