You could take Clinging Shadows Initiate, Wild Winds Initiate, Wind Jump, Meditative Focus, or Sense Ki to up that number...
I do not want to have to wait until 8th+ level for a class to start to meet the baseline pitch out of what I want out of it. Since that's a long time to not be enjoying myself.
Those fighting styles only unlock at 8th level, and still devour focus points to activate, reducing the ability to do supernatural stuff that isn't just "I turn on my fighting style". Wind Jump is 10th level, so not really valid for these purposes.
Meditative Focus is 12th level, and all it does is mean I get to do 2 things per encounter rather than 1, so a bandaid rather than just "don't bother playing monk for a mystic warrior style martial artist".
I do appreciate that Sense Ki doesn't devour your focus, and I legit hope for more feats in it's style but far lower level in the future.
A Monk has been the first class I tried in every edition I've played (PF1, 5e, PF2). PF2 is the first time I came away from the experience feeling good about it.If you’re interested at all in trying a few others, 4e had a Monk whose schtick was being incredibly mobile, while 13th Age’s is about stringing together “combos” of opening, middle, and finisher moves.
For what it's worth, I ran a 4th ed game with a monk player. The little dude (kobold, homebrewed to have a normal supply of racial features) was really amazingly good at deep-striking into the enemy back ranks and making them very, very sad. He wasn't quite as good at staying upright in response to the surge of attention that inevitably resulted. Certainly pulled his weight overall, though.
Still, at this point for 4th ed if you don't own the books already it's probably not worth trying to track them down.
I wanna say monk weapons are worse because
1- they potentially have no action sink. Considering this is usually only one action per combat I do not know if that's a good reason.
I got nothing
You could take Clinging Shadows Initiate, Wild Winds Initiate, Wind Jump, Meditative Focus, or Sense Ki to up that number...I do not want to have to wait until 8th+ level for a class to start to meet the baseline pitch out of what I want out of it. Since that's a long time to not be enjoying myself.
Those fighting styles only unlock at 8th level, and still devour focus points to activate, reducing the ability to do supernatural stuff that isn't just "I turn on my fighting style". Wind Jump is 10th level, so not really valid for these purposes.
Meditative Focus is 12th level, and all it does is mean I get to do 2 things per encounter rather than 1, so a bandaid rather than just "don't bother playing monk for a mystic warrior style martial artist".
I do appreciate that Sense Ki doesn't devour your focus, and I legit hope for more feats in it's style but far lower level in the future.
How much magic do you need to feel right. Also, does it *have* to come from your class? I personally got some really nice spooky occult monk feel out of Nidalese human ancestry and a witch archetype. Take Living Hair (which is a really very solid feat on monks) and possibly Basic Lesson (if you can find one you like) and refluff the familiar (independent action and manipulate) as your own shadowy hair. Leads into Clinging Shadows stance quite nicely, and you can really blur the lines on what's your hair versus what's shadows versus what's a shadow-creature living in your hair. Works better with Free Archetype, obviously, but can still do just fine without that, especially if you have half-elf
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In general, any attempt to play a magic-heavy monk is going to seriously benefit from Free Archetype... but it's not strictly speaking mandatory.
If you want to play a monk with a bit of a side order of divine... perhaps a spellscale kobold? Go Stumbling Stance for a dex/cha build with a bunch of deception. Any ki spell will give you a properly scaling magic proficiency, which means that you can switch back and forth between a very solid FoB for one action, Electric Arc for two, or both if you don't need to do anything else that round.
If you *do* have FA, you could instead try going Dragon stance with a str/cha. Dragon Disciple will let you get dragon scales to reduce the importance of high dex, and you'll have nice, beefy kicks with trip built right in. Cha feeds both the aforementioned Electric Arc and your later Dragon's Roar. Small... but fierce!
Basically, the monk does have to dip into other things to get much in the way of magic, but the fact that they have a decently scaling magical proficiency as soon as they pick one of two level 1 class feats makes that dipping much more straightforward and long-term viable.
Cosign on Free Archetype; it REALLY helps with your "Magic Monk".
Following up, I think there is a good bit of support for a CHA secondary (rather than WIS secondary) "Magic Monk". Stumbling, Dragon, and Gorilla Stance all benefit from having high CHA, Bard and Sorcerer both allow you to synergize your spellcasting with your Monk progression, and only four of the thirteen Monk Focus Spells require a high WIS for the purposes of DC: Ki Blast, Wronged Monk's Wrath, Quivering Palm, and Medusa's Wrath. Avoid those four and you don't need a high WIS for your Ki abilities.
Jump and True Strike are gold for a Monk.
Gorilla is... less impressive than it could be for the monk. In particular, its expansion feat is a flourish, so it's competing for space with FoB. Further, Gorilla Slam isn't finesse, so it requires you to go strength, while denying you access to Mountain Stance. Ironically, it does not have the "you are unarmored" requirement. Between that and the fourish, it arguably works better as a martial artist dip from other classes than it does for the monk itself. A potentially interesting option for thaumaturges, among others.
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Gorilla is... less impressive than it could be. In particular, its expansion feat is a flourish, so it's competing for space with FoB. Further, Gorilla Slam isn't finesse, so it requires you to go strength, while denying you access to Mountain Stance. Ironically, it does not have the "you are unarmored" requirement. Between that and the fourish, it arguably works better as a martial artist dip from other classes than it does for the monk itself. A potentially interesting option for thaumaturges, among others.My friend, I believe in noting synergies, not evaluating effectiveness.
I like the thought of going "If you like Gorilla Pound, these things work well with it". I've found the conversations to be much more pleasant that way. :D
If you like Gorilla Pound, being a str-based armor-wearing class (with reason to invest in cha and/or some intimidate synergies) that picks it up with a martial artist dip works well with it. Bonus points if you do not otherwise have in-class access to flourishes.
I was attempting to note monk antisynergies (and associated synergies for those martials that are least like monks), rather than pan the thing as a whole. I've edited slightly to try to make that a bit more clear.
I'd not meant that as a cut on you directly. It's true that it *is* a stance with charisma synergies, and your overall thesis (that there are viable cha-monk builds out there) is still quite true.
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In general, any attempt to play a magic-heavy monk is going to seriously benefit from Free Archetype... but it's not strictly speaking mandatory.
If you want to play a monk with a bit of a side order of divine... perhaps a spellscale kobold? Go Stumbling Stance for a dex/cha build with a bunch of deception. Any ki spell will give you a properly scaling magic proficiency, which means that you can switch back and forth between a very solid FoB for one action, Electric Arc for two, or both if you don't need to do anything else that round.
If you *do* have FA, you could instead try going Dragon stance with a str/cha. Dragon Disciple will let you get dragon scales to reduce the importance of high dex, and you'll have nice, beefy kicks with trip built right in. Cha feeds both the aforementioned Electric Arc and your later Dragon's Roar. Small... but fierce!
Basically, the monk does have to dip into other things to get much in the way of magic, but the fact that they have a decently scaling magical proficiency as soon as they pick one of two level 1 class feats makes that dipping much more straightforward and long-term viable.
Monk plays notably well with the Psychic multiclass; since Psi Strikes applies to all of your strikes being able to strike twice with one action is quite good. If you go Tangible Dream you can have Shield as a straightforward way to fuel it that's a good use of an action anyways.
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I'd say Monks have the most of what I'll call agency. They have the mobility to go where they want, the defenses to remain there if they wish, and the free hands to Interact/maneuver as needed.
...
Monks don't have good speed, they have the best speed, speed so far ahead it strains other builds to catch up, and backed by feats that build on that.
I agree, and I love how a monk's movement speed serves to further create action economy for the monk.
One of my favorite examples of this "agency" (I like that term) is on a monk with the Medic Dedication's Doctor's Visitation.
In 3 actions/1 turn, this monk can do what would take most characters 7 actions/3 turns to accomplish:
> Move 50 feet (2 actions for the price of 1... assuming a 25 ft movement speed for another character)
> Flurry of Blows (2 more actions for the price of 1)
> Doctor's Visitation (move 50 feet...administer Battle Medicine to an ally...that's 3 actions for the price of 1)
Is this an optimal turn/approach to combat? <shrug>
Does it feel good to play? It feels great to play
I'd say Monks have the most of what I'll call agency. They have the mobility to go where they want, the defenses to remain there if they wish, and the free hands to Interact/maneuver as needed.
...
Monks don't have good speed, they have the best speed, speed so far ahead it strains other builds to catch up, and backed by feats that build on that.
I agree, and I love how a monk's movement speed serves to further create action economy for the monk.
One of my favorite examples of this "agency" (I like that term) is on a monk with the Medic Dedication's Doctor's Visitation.
In 3 actions/1 turn, this monk can do what would take most characters 7 actions/3 turns to accomplish:
> Move 50 feet (2 actions for the price of 1... assuming a 25 ft movement speed for another character)
> Flurry of Blows (2 more actions for the price of 1)
> Doctor's Visitation (move 50 feet...administer Battle Medicine to an ally...that's 3 actions for the price of 1)Is this an optimal turn/approach to combat? <shrug>
Does it feel good to play? It feels great to play
As a side note: in my iron gods game in the ultimate fight agaisnt Hellion, the swashbuckler with medic dedication did just that. With panache swashys have as much speed as monks so she was constantly moving around with doctors visitation and healing everyone, tripping the low ref DC boss and she did almost no damage, but she was the most impactful character in the fight.
Definitely a rewarding playstyle that the monk would also be great at.
I'll preface this by saying I think monks are awesome in PF2 and genuinely really fun to play and engage with the system in great ways. I love stances. I love a lot of their feat options, I love the mobility, I love flurry.
But if I had to level a few criticisms at the class
-Mystical options take a while to come online. If you really want to lean into the ki monk concept, it's going to be slow, and for a while all the magic you'll have is like... ki blast once per combat. Mysticism was a big part of other versions of the monk so for some people this can feel kind of lame.
-Monastic Weaponry feels overtly limiting. There's only a handful of options. The options seems really stuck on Monks = Wuxia, but even then there are lots of examples in that kind of fiction of monks using spears and normal swords and axes and knives and all of that stuff just isn't there. More subjective, but honestly a lot of the weapon options just don't feel like a great choice either. You're spending a feat to unlock these weapons and options like the knuckle duster, monkey fist, and a lot of others don't really feel like they're worth a feat.
-The class is a little bit MAD, which isn't a huge deal especially compared to PF1, but sometimes it feels a little unrewarding to try to go outside your wheelhouse. This is more a general PF2 thing though for any martial that's greedy for multiple attributes.
... Finally, and I guess a little more controversially. Sometimes it feels like the monk's best strengths can be a little bit, uh, theoretical. Monks have amazing mobility and action economy and with feats you can dash across lakes and run up walls and avoid falling damage, flurry essentially means they have four actions all the time right out the gate... it's awesome.
But then more often than I'd like I end up sitting in a 10x20 room with a monster and hit them twice with flurry and... do I really want to make two map-10 attacks? Raise a shield is smart, but idk how much I want to be A Monk With A Shield. I could move but where would I move and is it worth it at all? My intimidate's not super high but I guess I could throw out a demoralize just to see what happens.
Class kicks ass but sometimes it can feel hard to flex that energy.
"If you want a mystic monk, be multiclass" isn't really an applicable answer to me, because I can just not go monk to begin with and already be closer to that pitch. The class just is not designed for the fantasy I'm interested in for monks, never will be unless something major happens. This is okay, just because it doesn't fulfil my tastes doesn't mean it isn't hitting the mark for people who want their monks to just be 'martial artist' focused.
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How I wish Monks had a feature in their chassis that gave them an action to raise their guard, which occupies a hand, giving +2 AC and a feat to enhance it and allow Shield Blocking. I despise the fact that Monks that don't use shields are leaving AC on the table that only costs 2gp to grab, and interferes with almost nothing they do except their aesthetic.
Also, as some have said above, why do they allow the core feature, and damage booster, of the Monk to be poached by the archetype? A Human can grab multi-talented at 9th and then grab Flurry of Blows at 10th.
Too late now, but this and the Champion Reaction should have been guarded a little better IMO.
You seem to be complaining in the abstract. What do you want to see the Monk be able to do? How many spells should it be casting in an encounter at first level, for example; out of five rounds, how many spells/magic effects are you expecting?
I don't mean this as sarcasm. I suspect that the image of what you want is one that falls into the "design space" of an unarmed Magus, not a Monk. I specifically found myself wondering if Arcane Cascade was the sort of thing you want at low levels... and if so, then I think that has been "gated" away from Martials in favor of letting Spellcasters have that.
The Magus is certainly closer, though has the issues of being very specific in the form of it's magic being highly focused around spell strike & being just Arcane List + Int as casting stat.
More diverse magus style classes but focused around different types of magical fighting rather than just "Attach a damaging spell to my punch/slash/bow" would likely eventually fulfil the gap fine, yes.