Been running my players through the Skull and Shackles adventure path. So far, the party monk (linked above) has dominated most of the encounters. No one can hit him unless they roll a natural 20.
So far, I've been able to knock him down once in no less than 10 game sessions. In our last game, he punched a stone pillar while a wizard (who had already succeeded in running off the rest of the party) tried to slay/stop him with spells. Why was he punching a pillar? Because he could. The wizard ran out of spell slots. Then the monk started punching the wizard until he fell down. He made nearly every save and dodged every ray. Nothing could touch him.
It was the most ridiculous in-game combat I've ever seen. And that's just with a fighter/MoMS monk multiclass character.
This got me to thinking that maybe there is something about the build that we missed, something illegal. My player is not one to cheat, but honest mistakes do occur, even with the level of system mastery our group demonstrates. Therefore, I wanted to get a few extra sets of eyes on it.
Does everything look to be in order? It's generally meant to be a highly defensive trip monster. He knocks you down and just beats the tar out of you.
So far, it isn't interfering with anyone's fun, so if nothing appears to be amiss, I doubt I will take any further action. I just want to make sure that all the i's are dotted and that the t's were crossed.
Also interested in PEACHing it, but the link is broken.
Seems legit to me, so far. But it can't be, cause "Monks suxors and cannot be good!!!11!" The internet told me so. It has to be true.
This is a minor issue, but his Singleton damage should not apply to unarmed strikes unless he's wielding a weapon. He's not wielding a weapon if both hands are free. I didn't do the calculation to see if he was including it in his unarmed damage, but if he is, he shouldn't be. Unless he's holding a kama in the other hand or something.
"+1 guided amulet of mighty fists (doubles as amulet of natural armor +2"
How's this doubling thing work?
You can pay 1.5x the cost of the lower-cost enchantment to make a magic item do double duty.
+1 guided AoMF = 16,000 gp
+2 amulet of natural armor = 8,000
The AoNA is the lower cost, so multiply it by 1.5, therefore add 12,000 to the price of the +1 guided AoMF. Total cost, 28,000 gp.
Is surprising the fact that he isn't qinggong.
In any case, he is legal.
Maybe he's out of wealth by level, is there anyone in the party that crafts things?
Unless I miscalculated something at level 1 his was a 31 point buy character. Very high point buys (or incredible rolls) favor MAD classes. I didn't add it all up precisely, but he also appears to be above WBL, which also tends to favor more MAD classes.
All that said, he doesn't seem to me that he should dominate an encounter. Yes good AC and saves, but fairly pathetic damage. Unless your other characters are much less optimized (and/or have much worse stats) this character should not be that decisive.
It looks like a 23 point buy to me.
Racial +2 dex, +2 wis, -2 cha
Belt +2 str
Headband +2 int, +2 wis, +2 cha
Level 4 increase +1 dex
Level 8 increase +1 wis
Level 1 14 str (5), 15 dex (7), 13 con (3), 13 int (3), 15 wis (7), 8 cha (-2) = 23 points
Looks a little over-geared for his level, but I didn't do all the math. Just eyeballing it.
Everything else seems on the up and up. It just happens to be a very synergistic build. His AC isn't particularly high and his CMB to trip isn't high enough to succeed against high CMD opponents. His damage is also about average for a character of that level.
Characters like this are usually very good against humanoid NPC type targets, since they tend to have relatively low CMD.
I doubt he'd be as super effective against your more typical style monsters at that level.
As Ugbash has already pointed out: the guided weapon property is pre-Pathfinder RPG. It did not make it into the rules. Maybe they should take it down from d20pfsrd, because a lot of people seem to think it is part of the game.
Of course, you could go weapon finesse and agile and achieve similar results, but you'd be down a feat.
The character should be 25-point buy.
His WBL might be a little off as we don't track it closely after character creation (which was 1st-level in this case). Feel free to let me know if it's off by a large margin however. Though I likely won't do much about it, it would be nice to know that, that might be a contributing factor.
We do track the effects of coin weight, though we rarely list it on the character sheet (instead writing "excluding tender") since it generally changes hands so much. In short, we eyeball coin weight while tracking everything else more accurately.
I'm aware that the guided property is technically from the v3.5 rule set, though that doesn't bother me as there is already the agile property elsewhere, and the wording on guided doesn't contradict any of the new/changed rules.
We also have a gunslinger and sorcerer in the party who do a lot of damage, which might make up for the monk's shortcomings in that department. What he excels at, is helping them all get damage too.
An enemy approaches and attacks, he deflects the attack, trips his foe with the resulting bonus attack, then when the foe goes down EVERYONE gets attacks of opportunity against him thanks to Greater Trip, then the monk also gets to attack him a second time thanks to his stomp feat. Most such foes don't survive their own turn. If they do, standing up provokes more attacks of opportunities from anyone who has any left. THEN the monk takes his turn and crushes whatever hit point might be left. It's an unbelievably powerful build. (In a way, I'm proud of him since, after years of playing with him, it demonstrates a level of system mastery comparable to my own.)
In the entire adventure path so far I've only seen him fail to trip once, on a monster much larger than he was, and he doesn't even try against flying and incorporeal creatures, since he knows they can't be tripped.
So everything looks legit then?
It looks legit, and honestly...nothing particularly stands out about it to me. His AC is pretty rad, his saves are decent, but nothing to write home about, and his damage is about average, maybe slightly below par for level 10. He honestly looks like a slightly lower level version of my 13th level Monk/Brawler Fighter/Ranger, with better AC, equivalent saves (his would reach that by level 13 I'm sure), and much lower damage. Ignore my guy's gear, there's some houserules in place. Just assume the Cloak of Displacement is a +3 Cloak of Resistance and some of his wealth is reallocated into stat boosters and he's about the same stats-wise, albeit built on 20 PB.
Oh, actually, something's not quite right on Fire-Eye Sang...his Stunning Fist DC should be 20, not 17. The DC actually keys off CHARACTER level (since it's a Feat), not Class level. So level 10/2 = 5 + 20 Wis +10 = DC 20.
I'm not sure I see the synergy of a trip build if the party's heavy hitters are the gunslinger and sorcerer. Prone enemies get +4 to AC against ranged attacks, and they won't get attacks of opportunity either.
Edit: You mention he failed to trip an opponent much larger than he is, but you can't even attempt to trip opponents over one size larger than you, unless you're an Underfoot Adept (or maybe he's got something similar I missed).
Second Edit: Awesome character art though. If he found it after concepting his vanara monk pirate rather than before, that's pretty amazing.
We started with old Crane Wing and switched to the new. The new is more powerful in some respects and weaker in others.
The art is photoshopped and now has a completely different background. He used to be a boxer sitting in a boxing ring corner. I cut him out and added in the paniterly bench and bloody gibblets (or flower petals and leaves, depending on your interpretation).
Curious, in what respects is the new Crane Wing more powerful?
It uh...forces you to use Total Defense, which gives you a slightly higher AC...?
Curious, in what respects is the new Crane Wing more powerful?
It makes you more willing to choose the pummeling style chain instead of the crane chain.