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Here it is! Please enjoy.
Tarondor’s Guide to the Pathfinder Second Edition (Remastered) Monk
Nice guide. Monk starts off well, slows down a bit in the middle levels, then gets real strong in the end game.
Some personal preference on feats:
1. Wolf Stance and Reflective Ripple Stance I believe to be the top stances. Wolf Stance because d8 damage with finesse and agile with backstabber and trip is a great weapon. Reflective Ripple because a +1 circumstance bonus to trip that stacks with everything else is really powerful. Using it with a Bo Staff to get reach is a good option.
2. Flurry of Maneuvers is a top tier ability: It gives you a more flexible action economy with Flurry of Blows. That is super nice to have. The Stunning Fist is nice, but it falls off at higher level as fort saves are high and the save doesn't keep up very well, especially against bosses since it has the incap trait. Mooks die fast anyway, so stunning them often feels pointless.
3. Mixed Maneuver: It is top tier. But using trip with a grapple is not as powerful as it looks on paper. You don't want the enemy to stay on the ground once it is tripped. It's already off-guard. The escape action doesn't provoke reaction strikes as it isn't a move or manipulation action. If it strides with a critical success, then you can reactive strike it. It doesn't have to stride. The majority of the benefit comes from the trip and the reactive strikes when it stands up. Thus keeping it from standing up by grappling it doesn't add much.
The best use of Mixed Maneuver is tripping two targets with no map. Very nice. If you're fighting a single target, use Flurry of Maneuvers to trip and hit them.
I tested the trip with grapple and my other party members were not happy Reactive Strikes were not being set off. I wasn't happy that I couldn't activate Stand Still.
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I think trip&grapple are great, our animal barbarian does it with grappling strike to some success - larger monsters often have a bad reflex save and can be tripped, but fortitude tends to be higher, which makes landing both difficult.
Still, escape has the attack trait and gives the target MAP if it escapes, costs an action and still leaves the target tripped.
Its best for targets that have manipulate actions, of course - ranged attackers and spellcasters.
Regarding the guide: Excellent! Monk is a bit complicated to grasp, as most of the power is in feats/stances and their follow-ups, and a guide makes it much easier to get an overview.
I especially like your section about attributes, dex+3/str+4 or the other way around is not very intuitive if you played other classes before.
I think trip&grapple are great, our animal barbarian does it with grappling strike to some success - larger monsters often have a bad reflex save and can be tripped, but fortitude tends to be higher, which makes landing both difficult.
Still, escape has the attack trait and gives the target MAP if it escapes, costs an action and still leaves the target tripped.
Its best for targets that have manipulate actions, of course - ranged attackers and spellcasters.Regarding the guide: Excellent! Monk is a bit complicated to grasp, as most of the power is in feats/stances and their follow-ups, and a guide makes it much easier to get an overview.
I especially like your section about attributes, dex+3/str+4 or the other way around is not very intuitive if you played other classes before.
Escape does have MAP. If the target fails to escape on the first attack, it often doesn't escape so you don't set off any reactive strikes. That is the problem I was experiencing.
Casters set off manipulate actions anyway. Grappling them is overkill. I imagine it works ok since they have to make checks to use manipulate actions. I found grappling with trip to be overkill and not improve outcomes. You have to spend an action each round to maintain the grapple to the next round or just get stuck in the same maneuver every round.
It's better to use something like Reflective Ripple Stance and trip, then have -4 second attack, then guarantee reactive strikes if they stand up.
Worse than that is if the target doesn't have any reason to escape and just spends three actions on offense. The ol' you're locked in here with me routine.
For the guide, seems pretty good. I'm with Deriven on stunning blows being far better on paper than it works out in practice. Some minor disagreements here and there, but that's more personal taste than anything.
If it's free archetype, my build of choice is to go half-elf, push through student of perfection and heavenseeker, grab rogue for sneak attack and multitalented psychic at 9 for shield and psi strikes. Fair bit of bonus damage.
I feel it's worth explicitly stating that energy mutagens don't provide bonus damage to unarmed builds. Maybe do a split color thing there idk.
There's also the neat cheese combo of mask of uncanny breath + wand of choking mist. Hasted monk can strike and ko somebody with the mask and then suffocate them with the wand unless the gm says that an unconscious enemy can hold their breath (that the mask says you suck out to KO them). 3 action wand, so best save that for a build with a caster archetype.
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Escape does have MAP. If the target fails to escape on the first attack, it often doesn't escape so you don't set off any reactive strikes. That is the problem I was experiencing.
Casters set off manipulate actions anyway. Grappling them is overkill. I imagine it works ok since they have to make checks to use manipulate actions. I found grappling with trip to be overkill and not improve outcomes. You have to spend an action each round to maintain the grapple to the next round or just get stuck in the same maneuver every round.
You probably have a lot more actual play experience on higher levels, i just barely reached the double digits twice so far.
If an enemy tries to escape and does not, it has -6/-7 on its attacks (prone+map) and only two actions left, i would say that is a really good debuff. If your whole party built a circle stomping ground and want to trigger the reactive strike rain, the enemy standing up is maybe better - but if it does attack then it is without any malus.
Spending your own actions to take them from an enemy is not worth it if you group fights 10 mooks, but if it is a single enemy it is one of the most powerful options (-> slow)
But back to the guide:
One thing you could add would be Iron Wine - a very cheap buff for 1d4 fire damage, 3g for 10min.
A bit higher level is Rainbow Vinegar for 1d4 acid, or 1d8 for the greater version.
Hey there,
So I've loved this guide. I was looking over the "Iron Tiger" build, and that looks an awful lot like something I'd do with a monk. But I'm wondering, Ironblood Surge... maybe isn't worth it? This build's Str mods don't scale high enough to overcome what the base Stance offers.
Either way, thanks a ton for another great guide!
Later on,
Redblade
I was looking over the "Iron Tiger" build, and that looks an awful lot like something I'd do with a monk. But I'm wondering, Ironblood Surge... maybe isn't worth it? This build's Str mods don't scale high enough to overcome what the base Stance offers.
Yeah, you're right. I've swapped in Peerless Form instead.
In which case, cool, glad I could help!
Have a good one.
First of all, thank you very much for this guide and your other class guides, they are my "go-to" when it comes to quality guides. On Zenith Games, the monk class was severely lacking when it came to guides.
And now to the meat of my comment. I am looking at the "Monastic Weapons Monk I" build and I noticed a couple things when trying to build it.
1: The Staff Acrobat Dedication requires a DEX of +3, which isn't accounted for in the initial attributes distribution. (Suggested change: STR+3, DEX+3) (This suggestion might also change the attribute increase suggestions at higher levels)
and 2: At level two, you suggest the skill feat "Intimidating Glare" but you don't have proficiency in Intimidation from the starting skills. This also is further built upon later in the build by increases to proficiency with Intimidation and additional skill feats. (Suggested change: I think this might be a typo and would suggest changing out proficiency in Survival with Intimidation)
Hopefully, and humbly, this helps. Thank again for your amazing guides!
Hm. How did I miss this? :-)
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Good guide as always! I skimmed through it and agree with just about all of it.
Though I was surprised you rated Harmonize Self so high. It's easy for monks to spec into battle medicine and they have the actions for it. Competing with Stand Still is rough.
A few things I might touch on:
A Str + Wis Statline with Dragonblood Scaly Hide. 4 Str 1-2 Dex 3 Wis is possible and good if you want Qi Blast, Wronged Monks Wrath, Cleric w/Focus Spells, Druid w/ Focus Spells, or Student of Perfection.
Wandering Chef is worth considering just for Rainbow Vinegar and Iron Wine. Additional Lore: Cooking covers it so you don't need int.
Exemplar for Horn of Plenty for Ascendant Dragon Spirit is good too.
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Reinforced Chassis on Automaton was Errata'd. It now counts as medium armor and I am real sad about it.
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Your Rain of Embers Incindiery Aura Oracle Build doesn't start with enough charisma to take Oracle dedication.
Another interesting species for the build is Pine Leshy with Pyrophilic Recovery. Has perfect stats for it too.
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Oops I see a spelling mistake in my post Incendiary* that's what I get for not sleeping.
How do you feel about Sister of Golden Erinys? The stance seems great and it gets Fuse Stance at 18. Triple fused Stance?
Have you looked at many of the newer Archetypes for monk?
Also I heavily disagree on red for Oracle Archetype. Whispers of Weakness, Ocular Warning, Incendiary Aura, Tempest Touch (lol at Upheavel into double Tempest Touch to just delete something), shield, access to some cleric domains. Plus Charisma for Dragon Roar or Stumbling Stance Feint. I'm guessing it's red as a holdover from your previous guide?
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I am enjoying the guide.
You might want to re-examine the Blazing Streak feat.
I don't know if you interpret the text differently (CAPS ADDED):
"making Strikes against up to four DIFFERENT creatures within reach at any point during your movement."
I used to think the feat was AWESOME, but then decided the text meant you had to make the 4 attacks against different creatures (i.e. you cannot make 2 or more of the attacks against the same creature), so for me it went from awesome to only OK.
Also, it should be noted that the movement triggers reactions as normal, so you might want to use this ability with caution - getting a couple of extra -8 MAP attacks (assuming agile) versus giving one or more enemies a MAP-less attack might not be a good use of 3 actions. And you might want to point out the obvious synergy with guarded movement.
If you're using this feat to move in, attack, and move away, you can get most of the benefit by simply striding, flurrying, then striding, and you can use both flurry attacks on the same target (and stunning if you have that feat). This feat becomes more useful if you need the ability to strike different foes at different points along your movement.
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For better AC, I would just switch STR and DEX. And then raise both rather than raise STR and CON first
I would go Dromaar and Orc Ferocity if possible.
Otherwise, Versatile and Toughness plus Natural Ambition to get Qi Spell = Inner Upheaval earlier.
Versatile and Adopted Ancestry might be worth it, for example to get Halfling Luck, but I do not know enough about the ones available in Dark Sun to give the best advice here.
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Not just the +1 to hit, but also the +1 to damage.
Your choice as to which will help you the most.
+1 to Trip is also to be considered.
But DEX and STR are both at 4 from level 5 to 9.
Otherwise, keeping STR highest and using Drakeheart Mutagen (and your DEX maxed at 2) can be a thing. With MC Alchemist for free at level consumables for example.
Or even going armored as none of the Monk feats in the example build with the free archetype for Staff Acrobat requires being unarmored.
Note though that there is a mistake in said build because it takes Prevailing Position at level 12 but it has no Stance feat.
There are 2 Stances that can both be used in armor and allow to use a weapon for Strikes : Clinging Shadows and Wild Winds. Both can be taken at level 8 and require Qi spells since they are Qi spells too.