How does the Monk fair as a damage dealer/frontliner. Is he on par with the Fighter and Barbarian?
Do people tend to skip the Ki powers in favor of his other powerful class feats?
Is it viable to have two stances or does it eat up too many feats? Is it viable to go without a stance?
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In pure raw damage the Monk will cause less damage Fighter and Barbarian, but Monk Flurry of Blows let them be more flexible with their 3 actions.
The Ki powers are decent, gives more option in battle at the cost of focus points, the Ki strike is a huge amount of damage increase and the Abundant Step teleport is not only flexible but really cool per example, they are on par with the other feats.
It's viable to have more than one stance, the book even have feats that resolve around that, doing something like, flurry of blows in Dragon Stance for damage, change to Crane Stance with the last action for the Crane Flutter reaction and then at lvl 14 with Master of Many Styles you automatically start with Dragon Stance in your turn for damage again.
It is, specially with ancestries that gives unarmed attacks or if you wish to use Monastic weapon. Even without these they do fine, one player of mine have gone without stances and is doing fine, he killed a Young White Dragon that was flying by using Wall Run plus Flying Kick this last weekend.
Ohh I see, this comes online pretty early too sweet. I guess you would skip getting Stand Still since it's also a reaction?
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You could. Or you could take both, and have the option to use the reaction that comes up as relevant. I don't think either is necessarily a wrong choice.
the monk does less damage than a fighter or barbarian, but has better action economy at base with flurry of blows.
what i dont like is the monk has very little to enhance its abilities via feats at least in terms of dealing damage. rather its a lot of niche mobility stuff and some styles.
but its hard to be not needing to wear armor, equip weapons, and still be viable in combat.
only monk builds that really interest me though now are trip builds or just some weird one of roleplay things. if i wanna do damage i can do better, if i want to do combat maneuvers i can do better. if i want to run fast though, monk your boy.
Since Dragon and Crane are opposites (Strength and Dex) what do you recommend for race and starting stats?
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I have a Dwarven Str monk that tanks and grapples. Enjoy him a lot. Great hit points and armor class, damage is reasonable but not huge
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I think if you want to stand and bang over hit and run, you need to be a little more selective about your feats. For example, you could use a high damage style like dragon for Flurry and then switch to a more defensive style like Crane on your last action. Wolf drag > flurry seems like a pretty good 3 action routine. Fatal d12 is an awesome if unreliable damage spike, but putting the enemy prone for no additional roll is quite good. Your flurry hits are more likely to land, they will get their backstabber damage, and the enemy probably loses an action standing... Which is a great reason to take Stand Still and potentially put them right back down.
I think if you want to stand and bang over hit and run, you need to be a little more selective about your feats. For example, you could use a high damage style like dragon for Flurry and then switch to a more defensive style like Crane on your last action. Wolf drag > flurry seems like a pretty good 3 action routine. Fatal d12 is an awesome if unreliable damage spike, but putting the enemy prone for no additional roll is quite good. Your flurry hits are more likely to land, they will get their backstabber damage, and the enemy probably loses an action standing... Which is a great reason to take Stand Still and potentially put them right back down.
Cool, tough decision between crane and wolf both look tremendous. Dragon for FoB like you guys mentioned should be gold. But if I wolf Drag and then FoB wouldn't I suffer MAP on the full flurry? The Crane has the advantage of FoB without additional penalties.
Edit: oh I see what your saying if the wolf Drag lands he's prone so my FoB would be at -2/-6?
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I think if you want to stand and bang over hit and run, you need to be a little more selective about your feats. For example, you could use a high damage style like dragon for Flurry and then switch to a more defensive style like Crane on your last action. Wolf drag > flurry seems like a pretty good 3 action routine. Fatal d12 is an awesome if unreliable damage spike, but putting the enemy prone for no additional roll is quite good. Your flurry hits are more likely to land, they will get their backstabber damage, and the enemy probably loses an action standing... Which is a great reason to take Stand Still and potentially put them right back down.Cool, tough decision between crane and wolf both look tremendous. Dragon for FoB like you guys mentioned should be gold. But if I wolf Drag and then FoB wouldn't I suffer MAP on the full flurry? The Crane has the advantage of FoB without additional penalties.
Edit: oh I see what your saying if the wolf Drag lands he's prone so my FoB would be at -2/-6?
Yes, that is what I was saying. And your flurry blows being used as later attacks with MAP really only matters with stunning fist or ki strike. If you just used all 3 actions to attack, you would do the same damage no matter which one was a flurry.
You could always use crane and wolf I suppose. The crane reaction feats do seem pretty dang good.
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I think if you want to stand and bang over hit and run, you need to be a little more selective about your feats. For example, you could use a high damage style like dragon for Flurry and then switch to a more defensive style like Crane on your last action. Wolf drag > flurry seems like a pretty good 3 action routine. Fatal d12 is an awesome if unreliable damage spike, but putting the enemy prone for no additional roll is quite good. Your flurry hits are more likely to land, they will get their backstabber damage, and the enemy probably loses an action standing... Which is a great reason to take Stand Still and potentially put them right back down.
One of the advantages for monks is that they are a class that typically has an open hand for athletic maneuvers. So you could grab assurance in order to take 10+proficiency and knock down lower level opponents for less actions than wolf drag.
The tactic is similar to wolf style, but it can be more easily adapted for a high damage/low action use build. A dragon stance user that kicks someone in the throat with Stand Still when they stand up does great damage.
...But wolf drag is still fantastic because it can knock down any level of opponent that you can hit with the jab. Which can cover the areas that assurance does not cover. Wolf stance + assurance athletics is a great strategy on its own (back stab and agile).
I kind of hope that wolf stance gets an upgrade feat later. Wolf stance currently has two feats in the chain, while some like mountain stance have three. Fighters already have a similar feat that goes to a single action, so removing the extra action for wolf drag wouldn't be unusual.
Yes other stance trees that could use another feat are Dragon and Crane.
Yes other stance trees that could use another feat are Dragon and Crane.
I will say that Wolf Stance presents the most obvious 3rd feat upgrade, since it does mirror the fighter feat tree. A lvl 10 feat would be comparable in progression, and provides a nice 2/6/10 advancement at every 4 lvls.
It's viable to have more than one stance, the book even have feats that resolve around that, doing something like, flurry of blows in Dragon Stance for damage, change to Crane Stance with the last action for the Crane Flutter reaction and then at lvl 14 with Master of Many Styles you automatically start with Dragon Stance in your turn for damage again.
Quote:
A stance is a general combat strategy that you enter by using an action with the stance trait, and that you remain in for some time. A stance lasts until you get knocked out, until its requirements (if any) are violated, until the encounter ends, or until you enter a new stance, whichever comes first. After you use an action with the stance trait, you can’t use another one for 1 round. You can enter or be in a stance only in encounter mode.
Emphasis mine. (Page 637)
not to antagonize, but just in case, i was building something around switching betwen stances and with our we found this combo woulnd be posible since you cant enter a new stance until your next turn, so once you switch stance with master of many styles, you cant (in theory, i may be missing something so, if i do please tell me) use your last action to switch again
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How does the Monk fair as a damage dealer/frontliner. Is he on par with the Fighter and Barbarian?
It's a difficult comparison because generally the monk isn't doing things the same way the fighter or barbarian do them. In a campaign where the party actually included a barbarian, fighter, and monk, my monk pretty consistently out-damaged the tanky fighter and often pulled more damage over the course of the fight than the barbarian, but had lower burst damage than both. The monk has some really significant action economy advantages, not just thanks to flurry of blows, but also thanks to things like incredible movement and their other mobility feats. Any time a monk takes one action to move where a fighter needs to take two, the monk is also increasing their damage potential for the round by a significant amount. In dynamic fights this can really add up.
Do people tend to skip the Ki powers in favor of his other powerful class feats?
My experience is that it's not really a binary state. You probably want to take a mix of ki powers and other feats, with the exact ki powers you chose being dependent on your build and playstyle. I really like humans for monks since they open up the option of taking a stance and ki power at 1st level so you can branch off from both as necessary.
For Strength-primary monks, I'm more likely to take ki powers like ki rush, wind jump, etc. so I can really lean into boosting my Strength and Con while having some magic to shore up my mobility. For a Dex-focused monk I'm more likely to take things like ki strike and Elemental Fist so I can boost my damage with bonus accuracy, extra dice, and the ability to trigger a wider array of weaknesses.
Is it viable to have two stances or does it eat up too many feats? Is it viable to go without a stance?
Both are very doable, though I'll generally try to grab two or three other class feats to round out my build before grabbing a second stance, and if I'm not taking a stance I'll probably grab Monastic Weaponry and Brawling Focus. Having access to a variety of damage types and weapon traits can be a pretty big deal in PF2.
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So the concept of a frontliner basically comes down to holding a frontline so that your squishy friends can stay safely in the back. A champion does this by sticking close to her allies and using her reaction to punish foes that engage them.
A monk instead aims to establish the frontline further from the squishies. Superior mobility means you can be on top of the enemy first and still unleashing big damage they won't want to ignore. Stand Still is obvious way to keep enemies on you, but you can also grapple enemies, Whirling Throw them away from you allies, and make them lose actions with stunning fist.