Imbicatus
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If you have attacks left in your full attack, you could make a Trip attack. Since a Stunned creature cannot take actions, you need not worry about an AoO even if you do not have Improved Trip. The -2 to AC and loss of Dex to AC also apply on their CMD, and you have a +4 bonus to CMB against them. That usually means a +8 or more to the maneuver.
| Gregory Connolly |
Pick up their weapon! They drop whatever they are holding, and they can't take actions, so simply pick up what they dropped, unless you are a weapon monk what does it matter if you are holding something you have no intention of using? You still have your other hand free to deflect arrows and you can full attack even with both hands occupied.
Imbicatus
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Medusa's Wrath + Greater Trip + Improved Ki Throw + Viscous Stomp + Combat Reflexes is good for a monk. Stun is successful triggering two more attack from Medusa's Wrath. Use one of those attacks for a Ki Throw, doing damage from Improved Ki throw and triggering two more AoOs from Great Trip and Viscous Stomp. This takes a lot of feats to pull off, but it's a thing of beauty when it works.
Imbicatus
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I should add that Stunning Fist is one of the most unreliable feats in the game. If you are going to put a lot of investment into combos that proc off stunning someone with stunning fist, you should have a very high wisdom to pump up the DC of the save, and a very high attack stat to make sure you hit when you declare the attack.
It works best if you are Wisdom based, using either Sensei or the Guided Hand feat(via a cleric dip) to base your attacks of Wisdom, and take Mantis Style and/or be a Martial Artist to further increase the DC.
| Gregory Connolly |
I was once in a party where the Barbarian, Fighter and Paladin all had Vicious Stomp. We stomped anything that we could, the Paladin had a dip in Maneuver Master and the fighter had Greater Sunder and Greater Trip, I was playing the Barbarian and we just got it all clicking when the campaign ended. If you have more than one character like this working together it gets brutal fast for medium sized opponents.
Brad McDowell
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Imb, I appreciate your combo of feats. That's precisely one option that I was looking for. Gives me a good idea.
However, your second post isn't needed. I fully understand what I'm asking about. I simply thought that maybe, just maybe (as your combo of feats post suggests) that others like yourself would be able to find feat/spell combos faster than me searching through 8 books and 4 guides. I'm sure you've contributed to other threads about how the monk is or isn't the most optimized. That's not this thread.
Back on topic...
Are there any other feats or spells that I should be researching?
| Gregory Connolly |
I haven't played a Monk in 18 years, and back when I did it was a full caster class. Stunning Fist is cool, like Phantasmal Killer is cool. Flashy and awesome when it works, but you feel like a chump when it doesn't. Any kind of hard save-or-lose effect is basically gambling. It is like playing a gambit in speed chess. Either it works right and you win or it doesn't work right and you lose. I think that is what Imbicatus is getting at. How much do you want to invest in a chain of events that has 2 major breakdown points before it works? You can miss the attack, unless you are mythic you can't possibly improve your odds above 95% to hit, and then they get a save, another thing you can't get better than 95% good at. So the more resources you invest in cool things after the save-or-lose works, the more resources you need to invest in making sure the save-or-lose works so you didn't waste your investment. Making wisdom do double duty as your to hit bonus and your save DC bonus makes it much cheaper to boost the effectiveness of the save-or-lose since you push both the chance to hit and the chance of a failed save up when you boost wisdom.
| Gregory Connolly |
Unseen Servant can pick up the dropped items saving you the action.
Mind Fog makes it much easier to stun people, but now you are in the Mind Fog...
Working with your party members helps too. Ill Omen, Evil Eye and Misfortune help a monk as much as anyone. Doom, Prayer, Enervation, Bestow Curse, there are whole guides written on how to make a nasty debuffer. Team up with that character.
Reynard_the_fox
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Mantis Style only requires a few ranks in Heal and is awesome for Stunning Fist builds.
You might also consider attempting to pin and tie up the enemy, though you'll probably need some grapple feats for that.
Imbicatus
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You might also consider attempting to pin and tie up the enemy, though you'll probably need some grapple feats for that.
You can't do that yourself after a stunning fist. Grapple requires a Standard Action to initiate, and the stun wears off at the beginning of your next turn.
Imbicatus
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Unfortunately, Rapid Grappler only allows you to make a swift action grapple check after you have used a move action grapple to maintain a grapple with Rapid Grappler. Even with Rapid Grappler/Greater Grapple, it's still a standard action to initiate a Grapple.
You could do it as a Maneuver Master monk with Flurry of Maneuvers, but I think that's it.
| XMorsX |
Without the 3.5 kung fu genius feat, monk/witch is not really viable, unless you have rolled extraordinary (pun intended :P) good stats. And even then, you would need to lvl in witch in order to have respectable DCs on your hexes, crippling even further your BAB and your hit-dice, and of course losing the flurry and unarmed dice progression etc. I just don't see it working without homebrewing some kind of PrC that progresses Hex DCs and the basic monk stuff (AC bonus, flurry of blows, stunning fist, and unarmed strike class features) along with medium BAB and d8 Hit Dice.
A cleric dip for the no-save staggered domain touch attack could be potent though.
| BigNorseWolf |
Maybe you could tie them up? I believe it's some kind of CMB check to tie someone up with a rope, but I can't seem to find the rule for it. Still, it's not hard to imagine a monk fighting with some rope coiled around one arm.
you have to pin someone before you can tie them up. Look under the grapple rules.