A friend that is completely new to Pathfinder wants to join us for game night and play a character based on the D3 Monk. I don't think a straight monk is the best bet.
Currently thinking a Sacred Fist Warpriest may be the closest, but we're starting at level 9, so it's going to be an interesting learning curve for a new player. Warpriest may even be a little too complex right out of the gate with blessings, alignments, spells, ki, flurry, etc...
Goals: Fun to play, easy to play, feels sort of like a D3 Monk.
Currently looking at: Sacred Fist Monk, Enlightened Paladin, TWF Style Ranger using cestuses. I invite any further ideas or opinions.
Unchained Monk can fulfill all that the D3 Monk does.
Unchained Monk can fulfill all that the D3 Monk does.
I know they can do Ki point healing, but what about the buffs and area effects? I haven't played D3 in quite a while, so it could have changed, but I'm remembering abilities like sanctuary.
I don't know much about the characteristics of the D3 monk, but I might as well suggest a sohei archetype monk.
Sohei is the 'good at attacking' archetype. It allows the use of light armor during the flurry (which could go up to mithral medium armor, since it counts as light; just grab armor expert to fake having medium armor proficiency). They gain weapon training like a fighter, allowing them to match up to other 3/4 BAB classes out of flurry and to full BAB classes while in flurry.
Another interesting aspect of the sohei monk is that you can flurry with the weapons in your weapon training groups. Sohei can pick monk, throwing, spear, polearm, and bows. Reach tends to be a rather good build for martials, allowing for easier full attacks (which you want, because a lot of your strength is in flurries). But you could also grab fist weapons under monk, or daggers under throwing weapons.
I don't know much about the characteristics of the D3 monk, but I might as well suggest a sohei archetype monk.
Sohei is the 'good at attacking' archetype. It allows the use of light armor during the flurry (which could go up to mithral medium armor, since it counts as light; just grab armor expert to fake having medium armor proficiency). They gain weapon training like a fighter, allowing them to match up to other 3/4 BAB classes out of flurry and to full BAB classes while in flurry.
Another interesting aspect of the sohei monk is that you can flurry with the weapons in your weapon training groups. Sohei can pick monk, throwing, spear, polearm, and bows. Reach tends to be a rather good build for martials, allowing for easier full attacks (which you want, because a lot of your strength is in flurries). But you could also grab fist weapons under monk, or daggers under throwing weapons.
Monks in D3 are super mobile dual-wielding characters (fist weapons, swords, axes, daggers, maces) that work with some sort of element (lightning was always the big one when I played) and they can have healing and defensive buffing abilities. I was always a paladin player in video games, and that was the closest class to a paladin in D3 due to the divine-type magical abilities.
Nothing is going to fit perfectly, ask your friend what they really want to focus on.
As it sits, Sacred Fist is quite terrible because they decided the SF doesn't get to treat their level as their BAB for their flurry attacks. So basically you just get the TWF feats for free with the archetype, which isn't actually very good.
I think a monk centered around the movement feat tree would be a good base but your probably going to need a few levels in cleric to really get close to the D3 monk. Maybe start out monk 5 cleric 4, this would get you some of the protection spells(sanctuary,blindness/deafness and some buffs) that the monk gets in D3. I would never get more than one more rank in Cleric but done right could be a pretty effective build
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I love the Warpriest to bits and absolutely have played a Sacred Fist where I just fluff the spells as mantras and ki power.
Sacred Fist has a bumpy start but will probably do fine if you're starting at level 9, as all its defensive measures come online by then.
You may just want to consider straight Warpriest in any case, as it offers more versatility and better accuracy - it also has one less resource to track as you don't have Ki. It can otherwise achieve much the same as the Sacred Fist through bonus feats and has a cleaner package.
I do worry that there might be too much to manage diving straight into level 9 Warpriest - I would at the very least help him with a build and go through action economy and go-to spells with him. Warpriests are so incredibly swift action gated and there is a lot of crunch involved to figure out how to run this stuff.
I think U-Monk is a much better place to go for a new player, but the reality is if they want to enjoy the huge pool of support abilities D3 monks did, they're going to need to get into the bookkeeping business.
If you do go Warpriest, here's the options you have:
Sacred Fist:
+ Streamlined package, all the monk abilities in one place.
+ Best defences if you go unarmored.
+ Ki Pool AND Fervor feel amazing together for flavour.
- Horrible accuracy, even if you're using the Fate's Favored trait with Divine Favor.
Non-archetyped Warpriest:
+ One less resource to juggle.
+ Better feats and Sacred Weapon patch up your combat ability
+ Access to armour and brawling enchant.
- You need the Dexterity to run TWF and ITWF.
Molthuni Arsenal Chaplain:
As non-archetyped, but...
+ Weapon Training!
- Loses damage scaling, unless you're cool with them grabbing advanced weapon training with a bonus feat.
I'd also consider a one level U-Monk dip but as you're starting at level 9 its benefits (accuracy) are dwindling and the unarmored bonus never improves.
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Monks in D3 are super mobile dual-wielding characters (fist weapons, swords, axes, daggers, maces) that work with some sort of element (lightning was always the big one when I played) and they can have healing and defensive buffing abilities. I was always a paladin player in video games, and that was the closest class to a paladin in D3 due to the divine-type magical abilities.
Well, let´s see what the unchained monk has to offer:
- Mobility - no problem. High speed and acrobatics as a class skill with bonuses. Some monk powers give you bonuses to jumping or keeping your balance, including walking on air for a short time.
- Weapon use - this is a tough one, monks want to use their specialized weapons for optimal use. However, with the advanced weapon type system you can invent other monk weapons if your DM is okay with that. If not, just choose some of those already existing. Note that the unchained monk is automatically proficient with all monk weapons. Some styles allow you to treat other weapons as monk weapons (i.e. Wyvern fury style lets you treat daggers, punch daggers, whips etc as monk weapons).
- Dual Wielding - hmm, flurry of blows sort of works there. You do not need TWF or take a penalty to attacks as long as you do not get extra attacks from having an extra weapon, so a flurry with alternating weapons that do not give extra attacks works. That said, you can use dual wield for more attacks, but you want your offhand weapon to be light.
- Elemental attacks: well, the unchained monk has a power that gives them elemental damage aura for natural (incl. unarmed) attacks, and you can get some elemental damage via qinggong powers (i.e. dragon´s breath) but the class offers nothing for the weapons. That is more a barbarian or a magus trick (or a fighter via weapon spirit). Elemental fist works, also through a ki focus weapon, but unless your DM lets you use the old monk of the four winds archetype on the unchained monk the damage is sort of low, though it can be boosted somewhat if you invest in genie style or its respective equivalents (efreeti, shaitan and marid style).
- Healing and defensive buffing: No problem. Wholeness of body was a classic monk power, and unchained monks can get barkskin and more as qinggong powers.
The scaled fist is okay, but I think the regular unchained monk is perfectly solid for what you have in mind due to the qinggong powers it gets. The scaled fist is better if you want to use the charisma synergy, other than that I don´t think it is better than the core one. If your DM allows you to take (with minor modification) the old monk archetypes with unchained monk, you will have a lot of better options (the sensei, for example, is pretty fun for party buffing).
Sacred fist is a much better support character, due to being a caster. The enlightened paladin is a bit of a cross between the two, but also worth considering. A pity that it loses aura of courage, in most games it is much better than what it gets. Still, it keeps lay on hand, the mercies, some spells and several of its auras, which are all pretty handy for something like the Diablo monk.
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I actually just built my own version of this for PFS, using a chasis of Paladin (Iroran archetype) with one level of Monk (Sohei archetype).
I feel that this gives you pretty much all basic abilities that the D3 monk possess and also happens to be pretty effective as well, amazing saves, high BAB with an extra attack from Flurry, buffing from the Paladin spells and opens up the option to essentially ignore Wisdom for Charisma, allowing you to be something of a face as well as having an excellent AC (between Cha to AC and eventually a mithril breastplate).
I did a similar build with a dex based unarmed inquisitor. Duel wielding inquisitors can do a lot of damage, add a level or two of monk for defenses and fast movement and I used snake style for extra flavor.
Bane, judgement and spells get most of the style of the d3 monk and there are lots of good archetypes to play with the flavor. I do wish they would make a divine archetype for the monk and a ki based archetype or inquisition for the inquisitor though. It bothers me that every unarmed divine archetype is stuck with irori.
You can skip the monk levels as an inquisitor of irori and use brawling armor too, most of of your damage comes from bane. Or do 5 levels of monk for flying kick and inquisitor from there.