Sydd |
Hi all,
I'm making a human monk for a role of a tank/defender and the idea of using a Bo Staff for tripping with Tangled Forest Stance feats tree interests me for that purpose.
Here are my GM's and the campaign's restrictions:
1) I have access to stuff from CRB and APG only.
2) I'm starting at level 2
3) If i have Monastic Weaponry, i can start with some shuriken and a monk weapon of my choice
4) If it can help, the rest of my party is composed of a Arcane Sorcerer, a Draconic Barbarian and a Ranger with a companion
Ancestry : Human, Versatile Heritage(for the extra feat)
Background : Martial Disciple (Dex)
Starting Stats:
Str-14 Dex-18 Con-12 Int-10 Wis-14 Cha-10
Ancestry Feats
1st: Natural Ambition (+1 class feat)
Class Feats
1st: Monastic Weaponry, Ki Strike
2nd: Stunning Strike
4th: Stand Still/Wholeness of Body
6th: Abundant Step/Align Ki
8th: Tangled Forest Stance
General Feats
From Verstile Heritage: Toughness/Assurance (Athletic)
3rd:Assurance (Athletic)/Incredeble Initiative
7th: Any
Skill Feats
Background: Quick Jump
2nd: Titan Wrestler
4th: Any
6th: Any
8th: Any
In short, i'm going high Dex for AC, Str for Athletic, damage and hiting with a Bo Staff and Wis for Will Saves and Perception. I wanted to incorporate some ki spells here and there to help survivability and potentially go with or retrain towards Wild Wind Initiate for ranged combat and versatility.
At the same time, there is some questions regarding a few things about the monk occured to me while writing this post.
1. Does Handwraps of Mighty Blows increases the damage die of any stances' strikes(eg. lashing branch from Tangled Forest)?
2. Is Clinging Shadows Initiate a better option for the role of a tank?
Any suggestions and critiques would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Asethe |
1 Yes, Handwraps with Striking runes will increase the number of dice for your unarmed attacks
2 Arguably not. It gives you reach, but you would already have that from the bo staff. Also, you have to wait for level 8 to get it.
Another path might be to go with Crane stance and some Handwraps, as that will still do decent damage while providing you with some added mobility and an AC bonus. You won't have reach, but you also don't have an AoO to exploit that fully
lemeres |
You won't have reach, but you also don't have an AoO to exploit that fully
Rangers and monks have a lesser version of AoO available at level 4 which covers movement actions only (which also includes getting up after being tripped). Less useful for lock down of casters, but it is fine foe the common situations you would use AoOs in melee situations.
Also, bo staves are reach weapons. The only bludgeoning reach option right now (if you aren't a leshy or barbarian)
Anyway, you have 14 str and 18 dex in this build. the bo staff is not a finesse weapon. Additionally, you want to trip, which means str based athletics typically.
You could seek 18/16/12/10/12/10. Maybe take voluntary flaws in int/cha to get a 14 to throw around. When you account for the fact that you have better (un)armored proficiency compared to other classes, you will start you about as well as the rangers and rogues in your party, and you can build up to full plate level defense later on.
This should be fine, honestly. Because you have a reach weapon, you can stand back further than other classes. Even if you face large+ opponents, you might have enough room to do a 5' step out of their reach, and you have the action economy with flurry to get out as needed.
The key part of being a 'tank' here is that you can destroy action economy with a trip+stunning fist, and you make enemies waste more actions while trying to move around you to get at other targets. Going from 'decent' to 'good' AC is fine for this.
Outside of that, you mentioned wild wind initiate. I wouldn't worry about that too much. You have monastic weapons, so you have at least a basic ranged attack. And your build ends at levle 8- the level 10 feats right after that gives you Wind Jump. that is the same focus cost, but it gives you a fly speed instead. So you could use that to use your nice big, rune filled beat stick instead.
Deriven Firelion |
I would Champion MC as soon as possible and then take Champion's Reaction at some point, likely paladin which would give you an AoO equivalent.
Then focus on maneuvers that keep the enemies in place like grab or trip.
Then take a high AC style like Crane or Mountain Stance, build up around that.
Make a Holy Mountain Style monk where the enemy can't escape the mountain without falling and is punished from up on high for attempting to harm you allies.
lemeres |
If you want to be tough as nails and hard to hit, use mountain stance- you eventually match the Champion for "highest AC in the game."
If you want to control space- use a bo staff, tangled forest stance, stand still, and trip people.
Yeah, that is one of the issues with being a 'tank' in this game- the traditional concept of tank has several different meanings.
At its core, you want enemies to be locked in a fight with you, and not target a squishier team mate. While this would need decent defensive stats, the question becomes "why should the enemy attack me?". If all you have is a good defense, then enemies might just avoid you.
This game doesn't have aggro (or at least very many effective or widely available aggro mechanics). You have to set up situations where it is unpleasant to do anything other than slugging out with you. Good champions are great tanks because they have an answer for that. Their reactions means that defense boosts for allies and other effects can make attacking a nearby ally a waste of time.
Reach builds are often a good method for making enemies fight you. If they are in reach, then they either fight you, or they get smacked. If they are out of reach, then you are probably a big 25' wide circle of pain that prevents them from going in a straight line to squishy party members (and wasted time going around is time spent not doing something useful).
Add on stunning fist and trip, and you have good options prevent enemies from doing what they want.
jdripley |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think 18 STR is important as you need to do good damage and you need to grab and trip. Mountain Stance is your bread and butter tank build as you can have low DEX and spend your attributes on CON instead.
But Crane and DEX 16 has good AC too... just, not as many HP or Fort save... Mountain builds typically have poor reflex. Can’t have everything, you need to choose what you want.
Bo staff also negates ability to use a shield. Maybe multi class into some casting class that gets you the Shield Cantrip?
Qaianna |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think 18 STR is important as you need to do good damage and you need to grab and trip. Mountain Stance is your bread and butter tank build as you can have low DEX and spend your attributes on CON instead.
But Crane and DEX 16 has good AC too... just, not as many HP or Fort save... Mountain builds typically have poor reflex. Can’t have everything, you need to choose what you want.
Bo staff also negates ability to use a shield. Maybe multi class into some casting class that gets you the Shield Cantrip?
Bo staff also mitigates it halfway. It's no shield, but the Parry property means a de facto Raise Shield for +1AC. About the only difference between that and Shield is you can't Bo Block.
And if you think about it, controlling large area plus being a little easier to hit might get that enemy aggro on you. Granted, it may be a bit painful in the long run.
Blave |
I played a similiar character in a level 9 one shot once. It was really fun! Well, for me, anyway. I think the GM wasn't too thrilled about having so many of his actions interrupted. Didn't help that he rolled really poorly on the enemies' saves against my Stunning Fist.
First of all, I'd go 18 Strength, 16 Dex. Starting with 14 Strength is simply too low if you're not using a finesse weapon. You still need to hit to make use of Stunning Fist, Stand Still and Ki Strike. And Stand Still only interrupts if you crit. So not maxing out your attack score will hurt your perfomance quite a bit, probably more than taking some additional damage from losing 1 AC/reflex. You'll also want/need to trip enemies without using Assurace at some point and Strength helps with that, too.
My starting ability scores were 18, 16, 12, 10, 12, 10.
My monk was an half-orc to get the Superstition feats at level 1 and 9. At 5th level I took clever improviser because monks aren't trained in that many skills.
For feats, I had basically the same as you. Picked up Ki Strike at level 7 via Ancestral Paragon -> Natural Ambition. I didn't go for Wholeness of Body because its healing is a bit too low for my liking. We did have a cleric in the party, though so YMMV. This was also long before the APG was released, so I didn't have access to Align Ki. With that as a healing boost, Wholeness of Body does seem a bit more worthwhile.
shroudb |
I had a blast playing a tank monk in a one shot a few weeks back:
I went Str based for maximum modifiers on maneuvers. For AC i went with 14 Dex and grabbed Alchemist Dedication at level 2, giving me Drakeheart elixirs. That should keep your AC at really good value up to level 10 or so (where you can grab improved alchemy to keep scaling the elixirs up)
Clinging shadows is amazing for immobilizing (grabbing) stuff away from you. That basically means that the enemies you grab are unable to attack you until they both break the grapple and they move closer, so at most you get attacked once and that attack is at -5
I went with both grabbing shadows stance and dragon stance, one for control the other for damage depending on the needs of the encounter/round.
Flurry of maneuvers was kinda mandatory, and you can get either throw or standstill at level 6, both are great depending on situations, i chose throw because it's more fun throwing people around, but standstill is equal or even better from a pure optimising perspective.
HumbleGamer |
I'd go with Staff acrobat dedication + Champion dedication
16 str
18 dex
1- Monastic weaponry
2- Staff acrobat dedication
4- Bullying Staff ( Able to trip anybody )
6- Staff Sweep ( Tripping 2 targets with just -5 map after the action )
8- Wholeness of Body ( Self heal and higher focus points pool )
9- Champ Dedication
10- Whirlwind Stance ( you will have a permanent +2 circ AC )
12- Champion Reaction ( you will get your reaction )
14- Deity's Domain ( Protection )
16- Advanced Deity's Domain ( Protection )
18- Meditative Focus ( improved focus regeneration ).
20- Golden Body ( More self Sustain )
...
Shortly, you will swap between Staff Sweep and Flurry of blows depends the situation ( control or damage ). Remember that staff sweep only counts as -5 Map, like flurry of blows counts as -10.
By lvl 16, you will be always using an action to sustain the protection sphere during the combat, and given your high mobility and your flourish moves ( Staff Sweep and Flurry of blows ) you will be able to just hit/trip twice and move with 2 action. The 3rd one won't be needing ( and will be invested into protection sphere ).
If you are low on hp, you might consider using wholeness of body.
That's it.
ps: the champion alignement is up to you, but i'd go with a paladin ( if you are comfortable with its tennets and edicts, because it's very strict ). Alternatively, either Liberator and Redeemer are fine.
Leave apart the evil tennets because are not worthy.
dpb123 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm currently playing a lvl 4 human bo staff-using monk and it is a BLAST. My starting stats are: Str 18 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 10. I wrote up the build I'm using as Basic Bo Becomes Iron Forest.
My basic tactics are:
Round #1 - Move so I'm within 10ft of target, (reach) Trip, Flurry. Yes the Flurry is -5 and -10 but offset by the target being prone so it's equivalent to -3 and -8. If any of my flurries hit, I may stun the target due to Stunning Fist but that's gravy since Stunning Fist has incapacitation trait, so I don't count on it.
If target uses a move action to stand up or crawl away, I use Stand Still reaction to get an AOO strike with no MAP
Round #2 - [if they stood up] Trip, Flurry, Activate Bo Staff Parry trait' [if they didn't stand up], Flurry, Strike, Activate Bo Staff Parry
I'm looking for decent damage, but more looking to mess with the target's action economy by tripping and potentially stunning. I also use my superior speed to get to back row casters and archers but that's more of my and my party's tactics than a feature of the build so YMMV depending on your party.
jdripley |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So looking at your party (bo monk, barbarian, arcane sorcerer and companion ranger), you won’t have healing. Sure battle medicine and potions/elixirs are a thing and your party will 100% need to spend heavily on those consumables, but for most battles I think the strategy needs to be “out damage the enemy before they kill you.” None of your party is particularly robust or has strong mitigation. All of your party has strong offense.
That said, you can all work together to mitigate. You have 2, maybe 3 high STR characters, if the ranger is going for melee. Tripping, disarming, grappling... plus the sorcerer can employ spells to neuter the enemy. Color Spray makes the enemy miss 25% of their attacks, that's a fantastic mitigation tool. Fear, through spell or intimidate, is also great. Command spell and have the enemy throw their sword, lol.
It's a non traditional party in that you don’t have a cleric or a “real” tank (no real active mitigation ala shield or champion reaction), but one of the triumphs of PF2 is that they build tools into the game that allow for teamwork and solid tactics to make a big difference.
I think one of the fun parts of playing your party will be in figuring out when it's best to go full offense and just wreck the enemy, and when it’s better to spend a round or two tripping and disarming and rebuffing enemies first and THEN hammering them into the ground.
Have fun with it :)
Sydd |
Hi all, sorry for the late reply.
Honestly, everyone made good options to choose from. I didn't tought there would be so many ways to develop my character to be better in being a 'tank' or a 'defender'.
I definitely consider everyone's ideas and i might check with my party to see what they would prefer.
We obviously need some form of healing to the group and i believe the only one who have trained in Medecine is the ranger but i've read that healing in pathfinder is not as powerful as in dnd due to action economy. Which is why i wanted to play that role in the first place, thinking that if i can reduce the damage the party can recieve by denying the enemies' actions and getting a good AC, the need of healing during combat would be lessen.
But once again, I thank you all for your replies.
Falco271 |
We obviously need some form of healing to the group and i believe the only one who have trained in Medecine is the ranger but i've read that healing in pathfinder is not as powerful as in dnd due to action economy.
I have Battle medicine on a ranger (8th) with max Wis, Medic archetype, Godless healing and you can actually heal quite a lot. Move-BM-BM on one person for 2 action once per hour is pretty good, which makes you heal 2d8 (4 on crit) + 20 per BM (4d8+40). That actually is the same or more than a comparable 2 action heal from a priest. Once you can reach a 30 check easily, you can get that up to 4d8+90 for two actions. That is actually a lot.
Blave |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
i've read that healing in pathfinder is not as powerful as in dnd due to action economy.
I'm not a 5e expert by any means, but I would say the opposite is true. A 2-action heal spell in combat will easily heal 30-50% of a character's health. I think that's quite significantly more than in 5e, especially since you get more spell slots at the higher spell levels, so it scales much better.
Healing in 5e is just broken because you can spam Healing Word all day long and play life-and-death yo-yo every turn. It's less effective in numbers healed, but since there's no wounded condition, dropping to 0 HP 5 times in a single fight doesn't really affect you in any way.
Out of combat healing is even better. You need to invest a bit in medicine, but then you can heal up your party in a reltively short time for a basically unlimited amount. And that's not even covering unlimited focus power healing like Lay on Hands.
Sagiam |
How tanky do you want it?
Because if the answer is as much as possible, then I've got a build for you.
Dump dex and raise int to 14, pick up Mountain Stance at first level, and then alchemist dedication (yes, really) at second. Use your 4 free items per day to make Drakeheart Mutagens. Chug one before or during the first round of each fight. 24 AC at 2nd level.
Edit: Take Expert Alchemy at 6 and your AC will go up to 29 and your mutagens will last you more or less the entire day. Just focus on Mountain stance feats after that.
Blave |
Drakeheart and mountain stance has already been identified and marked as a mistake and will be changed sooner or later. I would not build a character around such an obvious exploit.
Sydd also seems to be going for the Gandalf-style tank (I.e. "you shall not pass!"), not the highest possible AC route. The latter is mountain stance either way, even without mutagens.
lemeres |
We obviously need some form of healing to the group and i believe the only one who have trained in Medecine is the ranger but i've read that healing in pathfinder is not as powerful as in dnd due to action economy. Which is why i wanted to play that role in the first place, thinking that if i can reduce the damage the party can recieve by denying the enemies' actions and getting a good AC, the need of healing during combat would be lessen.
Well, the Blessed One archetype can provide some decent healing as well. Since you are going with ki spells, you will already have a focus pool to support lay on hands use.
it is a rather good archetype since it doesn't really have any requirements (well, other than flavor, of course). If you want healing and don't have plans for any other archetypes, it is worth grabbing.
I like grabbing both medicine and lay on hands. You could refocus while waiting for continual recovery to come off of cool down, so doubling up on options seems fine.