Searching about this seems to only produce results tied to the confusion about a Monk's normal and flurry attacks.
Well, I'm looking for something else.
How to get a Monk to hit better.
Other than the Amulet of Mighty Fists and any item than can boost anyone's attack bonuses (such as Ioun Stones or other things), are there any other ways to increase the total attack bonus?
A feat that lets a Monk add his Wis modifier in place of Str modifier to hit would already be great, for example, but does it exist in any core book?
Your problem might be that you fell into the common trap of prioritizing wisdom over your physical stats.
As far as getting wisdom to hit, the sensei archetype gets that built in. There's also the "guided hand" feat, but taking advantage of that requires multi-classing.
Guided Hand lets you do that*. But it requires the ability to channel energy, the Channel Smite feat, and worshiping a god who has Improved Unarmed Strike as their favored weapon.
Bodywraps of Mighty Strikes act similarly to the Amulets of Mighty Fist--they don't stack, but you can put other properties on the Amulet while using the bodywrap for enhancement bonus.
Speaking of other properties... the guided enchantment lets you substitute Wisdom for Strength on attack AND damage. It isn't from one of the core books, though, appearing in chapter 4 of Curse of the Crimson Throne.
That's all that occurs to me at the moment.
*Ninja'd!
Your problem might be that you fell into the common trap of prioritizing wisdom over your physical stats.
It's not my character, but anyway I just noticed that Str and Wis are both at 15, so using Wis to hit would change nothing.
(With Guided Hands, even if Wis was 16, gaining a point for the feat and losing it for having multiclassed into Cleric, which has +0 BAB, would be quite laughable).Looking at the body wraps, they do cost less than the amulet, but the limited use per round doesn't really make them good. They're also bad from a gameplay perspective, since the player must always declare the use, do the math, and keep track of remaining uses, whereas with the amulet you always get the same bonus, no need to waste any time.
The slot doesn't change much. Unless the GM has blinders (ours luckily doesn't) and every item must absolutely be as it is in the book, you can use the Amulet of Mighty Fists and get the effects of other amulets in an item that uses a different slot.
About the Amulet of Mighty Fists, I seem to recall there was a debate that led to some revision, does anyone else remember any detail?
Because the cost is really disproportionate, it costs double than a weapon with the same bonus (basically, bonus^2 * 4, that's crazy).
I just went with a monk that has the sohei archetype.
They have two main advantages over vanilla core monks: armor and weapon training.
Weapon training is obvious- they get attack bonuses, just like a fighter. They also qualify for gloves of dueling for an extra +2. So they get enough bonuses that they hit like bards on standard action attacks, and then like a fighter during their flurry. They can also use the weapons of their weapon training groups to flurry (mostly notable for giving you 'get more flurries by just reaching further' reach weapons, 'high crit' nodachi, 'throwing is now viable with some new feats' daggers, and 'flurry all day every day' bows).
Soheis can also flurry in light armor, and that is a less obvious addition to their offense. The first advantage is that they can have passable AC even if hey don't pump up wisdom. Just having a chainshirt is the same as starting with 18 wis. So you can just invest in strength instead. Eventually, going unarmored is better even with a moderate starting wis... but this is an issue of surviving early levels while still having good offensive stats.
The other advantage of armor is the brawling armor property. Exclusive to light armors, this proper can give a +2 to attack/damage on unarmed attacks. Untyped bonus, and it stacks with everything. Which is why it was later nerfed with a price hike, since you used to be able to get a +1 brawling chainshirt for about the same price as a +1 weapon, and it had much, much greater effect. Now, it is a +4 property...and honestly still worth it, despite being a later game purchase.
From the get go it depends on which version of Monk.
Playing Vanilla, no archetypes the Unchained Monk has far superior accuracy for the price of one less attack, something most consider to be worth it.
Beyond that I don't think there is any Monk specific options.
An Unchained Monk
+20/+20/+20/+15/+10/+5 with a 2 handed weapon before spending KI for another +20
A fighter, Barbarian and Paladin with a 2 hander
+20/+15/+10/+5
They get to add more to those attacks from there class to make up for this difference.
About the Amulet of Mighty Fists, I seem to recall there was a debate that led to some revision, does anyone else remember any detail?
Because the cost is really disproportionate, it costs double than a weapon with the same bonus (basically, bonus^2 * 4, that's crazy).
That is the revised cost. It used to be *6.
Multiclassing a normal, not-unchained Monk can be a huge help, even if it delays extra attacks and powers a bit. Urban Bloodrager and some Extra Rage grants +4STR and the ability to use a Furious weapon, with no adjustment to CON or AC. Three levels of Weapon Master Fighter and some Gloves of Dueling grants +3 to attack and damage, and multiple bonus feats.
Wielding a Monk weapon in two hands tends to play-out better than unarmed strike on a lot of Monk builds.
Monks have no in class nor special shortcuts to raising their attack bonus to hit. Hence the term flurry of misses because they're throwing many punches, but they aren't likely to land.
A bloodrager dip and extra rage feat to get to use wands of mage armor, rage, and furious can help.
Using a weapon for the cheaper enhancement is also a help.
Using one of the few archetypes that "make monk good" help, like sohei gets a in class attack booster.
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in respect to all the nay-sayers, it's mostly about how you attack, rather than with what.
Look into Greater Trip/Punishing Kick and Vicious Stomp. knock your enemies on their asses, and kick them while down. Stare them down, and dare them to stand back up.
Several Style Feats chains increase you damage output.
Boar Style adds 2d6 after two consecutive hits
Kraken Style add your wisdom modifier to damage against foes you're grappling with.
Numerous Elemental Fist style add energy damage.
Dragon Style increases your damage when you charge.
As i'm reading it, Panther Style lets you get two AoO's against enemies moving through your square. i could be reading it wrong.
Hammer the Gap deals 1 more damage to each consecutive hit.
Monks are way more flexible than most other martial classes, as they aren't predefined by their own class.
for the longest time, before i relented and bought a Belt of Giant Strength, my monk only ever 2d6+4 damage- even then, that was mostly thanks to Monk's Robe pushing her damage die up 5 lvls.
now, she does 2d8+6. not as awe-inspiring as a Barbarian swinging around a Warhammer for 2d10+37.
Also, you should not discount your Wisdom. True, it doesn't need to be high- but it shouldn't be neglected.
Look at the Pregen Monk they have available.
13 Wisdom. he gets next to nothing as a AC bonus, his Stunning Fist DC is so pitiful it's not worth even using.
My monk has a Wisdom of 20, mind you she's lvl 11 with a Headband +4. [shaddup up, yes i got a +4 Headband before getting a +4 Belt].
Her Punishing Kick DC is 20- good odds that i'll be knocking people prone and beating them up on the ground.
TL;DR- don't worry about your damage output. find a fighting style and niche your monk can fall into, and embrace it.
while your meathead compatriots are crying over the futility of numerous challenges, step up and prove your worth.
Searching about this seems to only produce results tied to the confusion about a Monk's normal and flurry attacks.
Well, I'm looking for something else.How to get a Monk to hit better.
Other than the Amulet of Mighty Fists and any item than can boost anyone's attack bonuses (such as Ioun Stones or other things), are there any other ways to increase the total attack bonus?
A feat that lets a Monk add his Wis modifier in place of Str modifier to hit would already be great, for example, but does it exist in any core book?
A Monk's flurry gets a BAB equal to his Monk level, which is the same as a Fighter's. Even at -2 because of the flurry, hitting should not be a major problem except with your iteratives. Even then, you should have a good chance to hit. Never heard of a Fighter complaining about their chance to hit, but then again I have never heard of a Monk making this complaint until now.
Comparing BAB to average AC, at 1st level, a Monk with 14 Str gets an AB of +1 (+2 if they've got WF:unarmed), they need to roll 13+ to hit an average encounter and they get 2 hits.
At 20th level their AB would be 20 (level) -2 (Flurry) +5Str (assuming they got Belt of STR+6) +1 (WF:Unarmed) +5 (AoMF) = +29 for a final attack sequence of +29/+29/+24/+24/+19+19/+14 (and that's without any extra bonuses). Against average AC for a CR20 creature of 36-37 (say 37) means they have to roll 8+ for their first 2 attacks, 13+ for their next 2 and 18+ for the next 2 (their final attack, needing 23+ will probably miss). That should give them about 3 hits/round, and that's for a not particularly well optimized Monk.
A Monk's flurry gets a BAB equal to his Monk level, which is the same as a Fighter's. Even at -2 because of the flurry, hitting should not be a major problem except with your iteratives.
-2 from Flurry, no Weapon Training, no Greater Weapon Focus. At, say, 10th level, that's -7 compared to a fighter.
Have you ever played a cMonk without one of the strong archetypes? I have, and the accuracy problems were very notable.
One should never play a cMonk without a defining archetype.
Fighters have in class attack boosts. So you're not as accurate as a TWF fighter.
A fighter lv20 TWF has 20-2+5+1+5 same as monk But it also has +4 Weapon training, +1 greater weapon focus for a final attack sequence of
+34/+34/+29/+29/+24/+24/+19
DO you see what the fighter did? His first iterative attack is the same bonus as your monk's primary attack. I need to roll a 3+ for first set, 8+ for next, 13+ for next, and 18+ for my last attack. this gives me at least 2 more attacks landing. I can power attack and be about as accurate as this monk.
And landing 3 out of 7 attacks, that's the flurry of misses, you've missed more than you hit.
so you hit 3 times per round at lv20. How much damage are you doing? 3(2d8+5+5) ~= 57 damage a round. The fighter is doing 5(1d6+5+5+4+4) ~= 105 damage a round.
Have you ever played a cMonk without one of the strong archetypes? I have, and the accuracy problems were very notable.
One should never play a cMonk without a defining archetype.
Yeah, while I speak out against unmonk, most of my ire comes from the fact that the strong archetypes aren't compatible with it.
It kind of runs against the primary reason for pathfinder forming- it came about since some were reluctant to go to D&D 4.0 and leave behind the large amount of 3.5 stuff. And thus why this game gets nick named D&D 3.75.
So you never see me arguing for vanilla cmonk. It is more of the surrounding supplementary material that I cry for.
On the upside, the new Scaled Fist pulling a CHA shift is a really interesting feature among some interesting features, and it works for UMonk as well...
A Monk's flurry gets a BAB equal to his Monk level, which is the same as a Fighter's. Even at -2 because of the flurry, hitting should not be a major problem except with your iteratives.-2 from Flurry, no Weapon Training, no Greater Weapon Focus. At, say, 10th level, that's -7 compared to a fighter.
Have you ever played a cMonk without one of the strong archetypes? I have, and the accuracy problems were very notable.
One should never play a cMonk without a defining archetype.
At 10th level, the Fighter would have +2 from Weapon Training and +1 from Greater Weapon Focus (if they got it. Can't say I see many fighters chomping at the bit so as to be able to get GWF at 8th. Most of them have more important Feats they want to pick up). They don't get -2 from flurry but would get -2 from TWF if they went that route. So that's +3.
But, fair enough, maybe Fighter was a bad example. How about Paladin. Ranger. Barbarian (though Barbs get Str bonus that helps them hit). Cavalier. Bloodrager (Also gets Str bonus). Again, none get GWF or Weapon Training, but I don't hear complaints about them not being able to hit.
and, as I pointed out, a Monk at 20th level should get about 3 hits per round (actually, it's probably nearer 4). A Fighter of similar level only gets 4 attacks, how many of them are likely to actually hit? I can't see accuracy being a problem for a reasonably built Monk. Damage might be more of a problem, but not accuracy.
Paladin: Smite, Buff Spells
Cavalier: Challenge+Order and Banner. And if it's a mounted charge build, it's giving up iteratives anyway for that 3x Lance damage on the charge.
Ranger: Favored Enemy, Buff Spells (Including ones to make targets their favored enemy)
Barbarian: Rage
Bloodrager: Rage, Buff Spells
Davor is right about the other reasons Monks have accuracy issues. It isn't just that the Monk has no in-class attack bonuses, it's the fact that 1. the Monk is MAD, needing STR, DEX, CON, and WIS, and 2. Unarmed strikes are twice as expensive to enhance than weapons are.
I don't agree that UnMonk makes the archetypes irrelevant, though. An archetyped Chained Monk can get really good at specific things, and I love the Zen Archer :D
yeah, paladin has smite and buffs,
barb and bloodragers have rage and furious weapons,
barbs have rage powers like reckless abandon and beast totem to power attack with no penalty,
bloodragers have spells to buff especially heroism.
Rangers have Favored enemy and instant enemy or archetype to get FE or partial FE against more targets.
gunslingers go against touch AC,
Swashbuckler gets fighter feats and it's own version of weapon training.
Brawlers and cavaliers are the other full BAB classes without easy attack bonuses.
Cavalier has a few orders that grant it some, but mainly it has HUGE damage, and has accuracy bonuses on charges. It's a class that is basically made to do one thing, mounted charges.
Brawlers are able to take fighter feats, but other than that they have many of the same issues a monk does, though they are pretty great at combat maneuvers.
So the classes that are viewed as more troubled are the ones that also don't have in class bonuses. Plus armor does a lot to stop MAD ness and thus more points to combat stats.
Also I just showed a Fighter getting as many attacks as the Monk at lv20 but having 5 higher to hit. Martial classes "thing" is hitting with their first attack on a 2 against most enemies unbuffed, and thier second attack on a 2 when buffed by a party.
And a fighter lv20 using a THW will hit likely 3 out of 4 attacks. The TWF fighter will hit likely 5 or 6 out of 8 attacks. Note the hovering around 75% accuracy.
While I'd partially agree about accuracy issues and such, comparisons involving bizarre level 20 Monks that are able to inflict only +5 damage beyond weapon because, among other things, they're apparently using unarmed strike without even bothering to take Dragon Style isn't really a very relevant example.
Comparing a fairly generic TWF Fighter and a fairly generic Monk at around level 10, the Monk can do alright for themselves, particularly if taking advantage of the ability to flurry a weapon in two hands.
Assuming they each have 24STR and typical gear, the TWF Fighter has 3 more baseline attack from Weapon Training 2 and Greater Weapon Focus; with Haste, you get a 23 attack against a typical 10CR 24AC target:
.95/.95/.70/.70/.45/.95 = 4.7
Damage is around 18.5 with 24STR, feats, and training, so 18.5x4.7 = 87 damage for an average full attack, excluding crits.
The Monk wielding a temple sword in a full two-handed Power Attack flurry plus Ki would have a total attack bonus that's a painful 6 points lower than the TWF Fighter...
.65/.65/.40/.40/.15/.65/.65 = 3.55.
However, Power Attack with a two-handed weapon means their average damage is going to run around 24.5. So, 24.5x3.55 = 87. It feels like "flurry of misses" and looks rather painful when written out; they're hovering around a 50% hit-rate. But the hit to accuracy from Power Attack means that they're striking far harder, and it plays out statistically.
If throwing in a generic greatsword Fighter with Power Attack instead, .90/.90/.65/.40 crossed with 34 damage yields a round-average of ... 87 again, oddly enough.
Now, these are obviously just generic examples; there's all kinds of ways the basic numbers could be tweaked a bit for having X or not having Y. And obviously, there's a million ways both characters could be optimized with interesting things. But on a basic level, "Flurry of Misses", while somewhat true, isn't really holding down the Monk like it might if they were brainless and not playing to any of their strengths.
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When I ran Cosmic Captive at the high tier, the most effective damage dealer of the party was actually an UnMonk, because Pummeling Style was the best answer to all the monsters with DR 10/-
It didn't hurt that he was hitting for 90 damage per round, either. Still took him about two rounds to whittle down most monsters, that adventure doesn't kid around if you take the hard path on high tier.
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Another group of questions to consider is:
- How many rounds (%) out of every combat are you actually full-attacking?
- How many times are you full-attacking an enemy before he (partially or fully) attacks you? (Given that normally you get to full attack enemies that closed in for a single attack on you, or vice versa.)
- How likely are you to kill a healthy enemy with a full attack?
I think that with Pummeling Charge, Flying Kick and Dimensional Dervish tactics, monks can score very well on especially the first two points. And that can compensate for difficulty in doing as much raw damage per hit as a weapon-based warrior.
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Nice run down Badbird to add one thing. When bench marking in, pathfinder not everything scales linerally.
Against high Cr opponents the balance of damage vs accuracy sways toward accuracy and away from static damage. I'm guessing at 65% the monk is getting close to that. That is why I like to benchmark cr+2 or 3. Those tend to be the fights that kill anyway.
An other example the higher the cr the harder it is to confirm crits with high crit range weapon you can lose, all at once you change to hit, if the ac is hig enough some crit range and the chance to confirm. Ultimately is the extreme case requiring a 20 and a 20. So if you are counting on crits for damage than high ac high CR opponents take a greater toll on crit fishers.
Stuff
Interestingly enough, a Sacred Fist of Gorum wielding a Divine Favor buffed Power Attack greatsword through Crusader's Flurry at that level would, given the same assumptions, produce:
.75/.75/.50/.50/.75/.75 = 4.0; x28 = 112. Or 132 if also buffed with the Destruction Blessing. Yikes.
I'm not sure I've ever even seen someone else talk about a weapon-wielding Sacred Fist, but they're pretty intense (even if greatsword + Destruction is an extreme example). Back before they got their effective-BAB nerf, that greatsword example would be putting out 166 with Destruction Blessing.