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I love Monks and I think they are one of the best designed classes in PF2E.
I like everything about them except one thing...
In the very specific case that you:
- Want to go STR-focused
- Aren't going with Mountain Stance
...then, you kind of need to go for 20 DEX to maximize AC with Explorer's Clothing/Bracers of Armor.
I wouldn't have a problem with that if it weren't for the two +1 ASIs you need to spend (usually at levels 10th and 15th) to do so.
This leaves a sour taste to me, as most other classes start branching out into tertiary scores after 10th, just to round out their characters.
Meanwhile, my Monk "loses" 1 ASI to go from DEX 18 to 19.
It's an extremely minor thing, but for the same reason, I think it could be optimized...
What if we had a variant Explorer's Clothing/Bracers of Armor that required STR 18 to use, and had +1 AC bonus and +4 Max DEX?
It would be functionally identical to Leather Armor, save for the Comfort trait, but locked behind a high STR requirement to prevent use from casters. It could also be a nice option for other martials characters interested in going buck naked!
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Idk where you ever got the idea that you dip out of your 4 main stats outside of level 20. Basically every character in 2e is going to have scores that look like:
A) 18/16/12/12/10/10 letting them hit 20 in their secondary and 18 in their tertiary at 15
B) 18/14/14/12/10/10 letting them have double 18s at 10 and double 20s at 20.
C) 18/16/14/12/8/8 for the best of both worlds
Nobody outside of some edge case flavor build is really deviating from these stat spreads. When your monk is going 18-19 in dex at level 10, everybody else is doing the same thing with their secondary stat too or else they're doing it at 15.
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Idk where you ever got the idea that you dip out of your 4 main stats outside of level 20. Basically every character in 2e is going to have scores that look like:
A) 18/16/12/12/10/10 letting them hit 20 in their secondary and 18 in their tertiary at 15
B) 18/14/14/12/10/10 letting them have double 18s at 10 and double 20s at 20.
C) 18/16/14/12/8/8 for the best of both worlds
Nobody outside of some edge case flavor build is really deviating from these stat spreads. When your monk is going 18-19 in dex at level 10, everybody else is doing the same thing with their secondary stat too or else they're doing it at 15.
I used to think about that about 14s... but then I stopped when I noticed that you only enjoy those stats on only the final lvl (around 4 sessions) compared to gaining more boosts into other stats that you will enjoy the bonus for a longer period of time.
Heck even 16s start I see myself stopping at 18s if I don't end with any stray stats at 20.
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If you leave your Dex at 18, you're still one AC ahead of most other martials. If the extra +1 AC isn't worth the ASI to you, just don't spend it.
That being said, the "optimal" way to spend ASI will always be key ability score + Dex + Con + Wis (barring heavy armor). That's true for all classes, not just the monk.
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I guess my curiosity is, why str over dex for a monk if not mountain stance? A majority of monk attacks have finesse.
A str monk has the best single action offense in the game at the moment leaving their action economy very open. It helps that even a str monk will match and then beat heavy armor ac from non-champions. So you've got a mobile, durable, hard hitting melee character from level 1 that has a spare action others don't without haste.
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I guess my curiosity is, why str over dex for a monk if not mountain stance? A majority of monk attacks have finesse.
Dragon, Flame and Gorilla stance don't though.
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Fair enough. Then what is the problem with 18 str, 16 dex?
There isn't a problem with an 18 str, 16 dex monk? Sounds like a perfectly good character to have.
Fair enough. Then what is the problem with 18 str, 16 dex?There isn't a problem with an 18 str, 16 dex monk? Sounds like a perfectly good character to have.
It sounds like the same defense as any ranger or rogue.
With the higher defense proficiency, you can pretend they are a normal martial class wearing light armor, and stat accordingly. Full dex is what you use when you want to stand next to the full place users.
You're trading some AC for extra damage and athletics potential. Monks can make some of the best athletics builds imo.
It is also what you use if you're aiming for reach, since monks don't really have a 'whip' style option yet (as far as I am aware).
Monks do pretty good with reach too. And both of the reach weapons they have also do trip.
Nothing really wrong with 18 str 16 dex, although it ends up consuming most of your stat line (you get 2 12s besides that) and at low levels it sort of nullifies your armor proficiency bump which is kind of the monk's big thing. Both of those are a bit of a drag.
But it's definitely not bad.
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You get legendary unarmored AC. If you leave your Dex at 18, you still come out 1 ahead of most martials. That definitely feels like an appropriate trade-off, like an intimidation-focused Barbarian leaving Cha at 18 because Intimidating Prowess gives +2.
Unarmored armor "needing" 20 is the point, design-wise. Light armor saves you that double-boost, medium armor lets you max out at character creation even on a secondary or tertiary, and heavy armor lets you ignore Dex entirely. Monk gets their legendary proficiency to compensate.
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I'd say it is more that you get a bit shoehorned into specific skills. Monks make some of the best athletics and acrobatics users in the game, and are pretty good for stealth-- if you're gonna sneak ahead from the party you want the ability to run away real fast if you get caught.
But if you want to branch out into things like Intimidate (which at least two of the strength stances encourage) you definitely feel the pinch.
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I don't really see it as being shoehorned. Every character you make ends up being better at skills that match the ability score(s) you focus on. Classes tend to have ability scores that the class focuses on. But, by no means do you have to do anything. It does lead to "tradeoffs", you don't just get to be good at everything. You have to choose something over something else. It is balanced.
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I don't really see it as being shoehorned.
I mean, it pretty clearly is. More MAD classes have a lot more trouble investing in tertiary attributes than some other ones. I don't even really think it's something that can be debated it's just how the stat allocation system works out in PF2.
It's just one of the small disadvantages of the system.
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Level 1 Str Monk. Stats Str 18 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 10. Unarmored AC is 17.
Level 1 Rogue w/ 18 dex has an AC of 18.
Level 1 Champion (sans shield) AC of 19 in heavy armor.
At level 5 Monk stats are Str 19 Dex 16 Con 16 Int 10 Wis 14 Cha 10. AC of 22 (assuming no rune).
Rogue with her 19 Dex is at 22.
Champion with his Heavy Armor is at 23.
By level 10 Monk is at 29 (w/ +1 rune). Rogue has shed her armor with the 20 dex, but is still only rocking a 28 AC. The Champion with his expert proficiency is up at a monstrous 31.
If the Monk does nothing else with Dex from here on out, he stays at least one ahead of the Rogue for most of their adventuring careers. At 17, the Monk with their legendary prof has an AC of 39 (not counting runes). Rogue is still only at Expert, with an AC of 36, or 37 if they have their Apex Dex item. At 19 when Rogue gets master armor (and apex dex), they are both at 41. It is only at level 20 that the Rogue is ahead with their 24 dex, 43 vs. 42. A monk that started with 18 dex, and tops out at 24 with the rogue has an AC of 45, one ahead of the Champion.
tldr, a 14 dex monk is perfectly viable starting stat.
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Yeah, if Champions in light or medium armor are viable despite 1 less AC, I figure Str monks are viable with less than max dex.
Remember, nothing except "it seems weird" prevents you from using a shield on a monk.
I wouldn't go 14 dex personally, unleeeeess you are gonna be abusing hit and run tactics, which the monk does extremely well. Monks can be build with lower AC if you work hard to limit opportunities to get hit.
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Wasn't one of Michael Sayre's playtest characters a Str monk with 10 dex (and this was before Mountain Style existed)? Just to stress test whether "can a monk's mobility combined with tactics essentially replace AC in many situations".
IIRC it worked, but it wasn't a character he would recommend.
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I don't really see it as being shoehorned.I mean, it pretty clearly is. More MAD classes have a lot more trouble investing in tertiary attributes than some other ones. I don't even really think it's something that can be debated it's just how the stat allocation system works out in PF2.
It's just one of the small disadvantages of the system.
Except it pretty clearly isn't. A 10 dex monk with a shield has an AC of 17 at level 1. There are options. Though, it admittedly requires creativity to find them. A lack of creativity is not the fault of the system...a message I feel I've had to repeat a number of times on these boards.
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I mean, dumping dex isn't really creative (neither is thumbing your nose at people but w/e) it's just sort of a rough trade. A trade that some other classes don't need to consider in the first place... which just goes back to "MAD classes have more trouble investing in tertiary attributes" being a fact of the system. Whether or not that's a meaningful problem is up to personal taste, but it's just a reality that the more stats you need for your class features, the less you have for other things.
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It seems that maybe we have a different definition of 'need'.
edit: There is not a class yet that I have seen that requires more than 1 focused stat to function.
I don’t mean to sound dickish, but it sounds like @squiggit feels that being unable to optimise for STR & DEX with skills based on other stats simultaneously is a system flaw. I feel that it’s a system perk.
I don’t mean to sound dickish, but it sounds like @squiggit feels that being unable to optimise for STR & DEX with skills based on other stats simultaneously is a system flaw. I feel that it’s a system perk.It seems that maybe we have a different definition of 'need'.
edit: There is not a class yet that I have seen that requires more than 1 focused stat to function.
Sort of. The thing I'm pointing out is just how much you need to trade is really dependent on your class/build. It's less 'flaw or perk' and more just the reality that for some classes it's a much bigger deal than others.
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Sort of. The thing I'm pointing out is just how much you need to trade is really dependent on your class/build. It's less 'flaw or perk' and more just the reality that for some classes it's a much bigger deal than others.I don’t mean to sound dickish, but it sounds like @squiggit feels that being unable to optimise for STR & DEX with skills based on other stats simultaneously is a system flaw. I feel that it’s a system perk.It seems that maybe we have a different definition of 'need'.
edit: There is not a class yet that I have seen that requires more than 1 focused stat to function.
I guess I just am not seeing what you are seeing.
As someone who likes using skills, I can feel ya here. Most of my character's are casters not because I hate martials, but because they are less MAD, and as such, can branch out into more freely into skills. Caster are almost always good with "KAS, wis, dex, con" for ASIs, and that gives a lof of skill access. Str only has athletics (an admittedly fun skill), but since I still want dex, wis, and con, I have far less options for skills.
Idk how much of an issue this is in practice; I dont have much experience with monks, either as a player of DMing for them
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Saves, perception and HP. You can probably survive without increasing those three stats, but on average they are much more valuable than +1 Int or Charisma.
I've found that people usually make a point of bumping the three save stats when they have the option, since those skills are a lot of bang for your buck.
Wis is Will, Perception, Nature, Religion, Medicine, and Survival
Con is Fort and HP
Dex is AC, Reflex, acumen with finesse and ranged, Stealth, Acrobatics, and Thievery.
Of the three the only one that isn't tremendous bang for your buck is Con, but people take it anyway because it keeps you from being dead.
FWIW, I think the alternate abilities scores in the GMG is a better balanced system (shift Will to Cha, combine Str and Con into one, Split Dex into two different stats).
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This wis, dex, con necessity is news to me. What is the basis?
I wouldn't claim my post said or implied using ASI on these as much as possible are "necessary", but they help with survivability and have a number of nice skills attached to them. I'd argue if you have heavy armor, dex can be left at 10 because of bulwark, but you'll still be pretty vulnerable to ref targeting (though sentinel's mighty bulwark may as well read "turn your +0 dex mod into a +4 for all applications you care about")
That said, while dex and wis have amazing skills, I tend to find that because everyone boosts these stats, you have them in abundance. My favorite skills are actually the cha and int ones. The issue is that when you want one or both of them to be decent, you have to pick a class thats very single attribute dependent (like a caster, ranged attacker, etc), uses one as a KAS, or can finagle their way out of wanting one of them for survivability (atm that's literally just Sentinel with Mighty Bulwark, since stat replacement for other attributes isn't a thing in 2e, for the most part). I actually dont always raise all of them every ASI, but you definitely want at least two to be solidly good later in the game
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Necessity is an overstatement, but the intrinsic value of those attributes is pretty straight forward.
And for the purposes of this discussion, it means that while the example monk is carefully considering whether to reduce their AC and Reflex or HP and Fort in order to improve their Int, a Thief Rogue or Druid can just put their extra boost there while still comfortably enhancing all their 'main' combat stuff.
Idk how much of an issue this is in practice; I dont have much experience with monks, either as a player of DMing for them
It's usually not a huge issue. Dragon Style stands out as a bit odd because it has an Intimidate feat and still wants a lot of Dex, but it ends up playing okay especially if you skirmish.
Though as someone running a game with a player who really wanted to build a charming Magus, it was a huge pain to find a satisfactory way to put that stat line together (and we had to sacrifice some other parts of their character concept to make it come together at all).
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I’ve definitely seen characters who didn’t take wis/dex (or str with bulwark)/con with their ASIs, such as an 8 wis wizard because they wanted to go into Charisma (made more sense for their character).
What happened to them? They got hit with a DC29 phantasmal killer at level 8 because age of ashes, Cf’d their will save (+11 due to no resilient rune), hero pointed, CF’d again and died. Wouldn’t have happened if they had boosted wis instead of cha.
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Though as someone running a game with a player who really wanted to build a charming Magus, it was a huge pain to find a satisfactory way to put that stat line together (and we had to sacrifice some other parts of their character concept to make it come together at all).
The GM can just make the casting stat Cha if they wanted. They have that power.
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House rules like that can also be difficult to implement for character creation, especially if people are using automated tools for it. (Something which has become a necessity rather than a convenience for a lot of remote games. Many GMs basically require something they can see online.
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*shrug*
I suppose if people want to choose to follow the rules to a point where they have less fun it is up to them. Slightly shifting the game for your own enjoyment is how I've always played. I find it hard to fathom not doing it.
Well, it's not like players can simply choose to houserule things for their own characters. The rules generally serve as a middle ground between the players and the GM to ensure things are fair for everyone, so the GM doesn't have to be a game designer and judge how every single system bit and balance aspect works or not. Heck, a lot of them don't even know the system well enough to judge these things. So... I don't think going around asking for your character to be buffed or changing core aspects of classes like key stats is very common or likely to work at most tables.
I suppose I've had different experiences.
I mean, yeah, it seems so because 'I want my special snowflake character that uses mechanics different from everyone else' has always been the type of thing that's been quite unusual to see allowed from my experience.
To be fair, I often play with folks who endeavor to understand the system. Maybe that is one of the main differences.
To be fair, I think following the casting stat for the class you want to take is one of the most the most basic understanding you can get of a system. Altering said stat isn't understanding the system but changing it, so it seems to me that understanding is pretty moot to the issue at hand: houseruling a patch and understanding the system are different things.
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When you understand a system, you then know what is important and what is trivial. You know what changes would bend or break the system and what changes would have little to no effect. I suppose not everyone is able to conceptualize the system as a whole. Some people struggle with seeing big picture. Which is fine.