Ki Strike Monk or The Path Less Pummelled (Ongoing)

[Baseili]

Introduction & Concept
After rolling my previous character I decided to do something I'd always planned on but could never quite get the idea right, a monk, so I did far too much research into the various monk orders and finally landed on a potentially fun concept. Once that was done I starting looking at how to represent it mechanically.
This was going to be someone who saw the path of the monk as a state of being, so it made sense it'd be purist, a full 30 levels of unarmed monk, so I thought why not go the distance and aim for ki strike 5? And here we are.

Now given the changes to monk and subsequent revisions I imagine very few would go for such a character so I thought I'd document and comment on the class as the character progresses, pointing out the bonuses or shortcomings as I find them. I'll be updating this post as I reach select feats or changes to the class along with a review every 5 levels.

Ability Scores
STR - 8
DEX - 16 (+2 Gift) - 18 -> 22 @ lvl 30
CON - 12
WIS - 16 (+2 Gift) - 18 -> 21 (+1 Great Wisdom) - 21 @ lvl 30
INT - 14
CHA - 8

+1 DEX at levels 4, 8, 24 and 28.
+1 WIS at levels 12, 16 and 20.

Levels 3 - 5
An easier start than anticipated though painfully low damage, offset slightly by adding +1d4 acid to a set of gloves at the basin, makes dungeons drag on. Taking a single cross-classed point of lockpicking made a world of difference to finding items, though mostly wisdom gear which isn't all that useful compared to dexerity or constitution at this point.
Not much in terms of items in the Cordor shops at this level range, a set of Clawed Bracers (+2AB, 1 Piercing, 1 Bludgeon damage) were a godsend and judging by the tailoring gauntlets, they will be with me until I get adamantine knuckles/disciples wraps.

Feat wise the free Unarmed Focus has really helped get through the early levels, being able to hit more often is never a bad thing. Stunning fist hardly works and has been mostly ignored on my bar since level 4.

Levels 6 - 10
The curve has gotten steeper, enemies hit harder, more often and have more HP while I'm doing around the same damage requiring the constant use of essences to see 10+ hits with any frequency. AC is 28 with items at lvl 10. Soloing dungeons takes a fair bit of time but is still tolerable, phylactories, stoneskin and elemental shields are the banes of my existance.
Item-wise the situation is still lacking, more basin work to add Dex to armour and cloak, AC to helm and boots to keep up also bought a solid ring for a great price at a temporary stall. At level 7 there are items in the shops that can be used though only two gauntlets available, one not worth the minor upgrade (+1AB and +1 unisave) and the other being the wraps, only armour available has been runed out of price range.

The knockdown feats are worth their weight in adamantine as per usual, as too is the new wholeness of body. Stunning fist is now utterly useless even with the +5 wisdom modifier, being usage per day hamstrings it further. Combat mastery has kicked in with a +1 damage, its small but every little helps.

Levels 11 - 15
Additional gear has helped these last 5 levels as too has learning to judge opponents, I've taken to sampling the mobs in areas before committing to a fight as the variety of what the character faces has expanded. Doing so has lead to some interesting discoveries, including inadvertently playing up to that high wisdom score in RP, of what the character can handle. Damage remains much the same while enemy HP is steadily creeping upwards making fights last significantly longer which can make combat exceedingly dull, enemies with stoneskin and/or elemental wards can sometimes take up to 5 minutes each to kill.

Feat wise Diamond Body and Soul are both smashing additions which have saved the guy's skin (and healkits) more times than I can count since level 12. Wholeness of Body still stands as the most useful by far, Stunning Fist remains useless as fortitude DC's on opponents have raised across the board sometimes as much as +20 above and Quivering Palm will join it which is disheartening since these two feats are some of only boons granted to unarmed.

Levels 16 - 20
Leaning a lot of potions during this particular span mainly due to the lower AB but overall a pretty fun time. I happened along some superb items that have kept the AC in decent enough levels to solo things like the Sibayad crypts and the talassian fortress, the low fort save due to going heavy wisdom is a rather glaring weakness that will probably see me forgo the Great Wisdom feat in later epics to remedy.

Empty Body and Perfect Self have been super additions, along with Whirlwind Attack at level 20. The extra AB and 2 damage from Combat Mastery are covering the hole left by taking 3 points of wisdom which, while useful for the extra 3 AC and multiplier on Wholeness of Body, is starting to feel like too great a hurdle to gain 2 epic feats compared to say the 21 Con for epic damage reduction.

Levels 21 - 25
Much the same as the previous 5 levels, fun in the sense you can go almost anywhere but diluted by the fact that most of what Monk has going for it can now be reproduced via wands or items albeit to a lesser degree. I've not taken Great Wisdom as the increase offers no real benefits over other options, I'm still set on taking full 30 levels of the class but as others are hitting their nice bonuses Monk has ran pretty much dry with only +2 AB and 3 damage to look forward to at 28.

Taking Ki strike 4 & 5 has removed a rather large thorn from the unarmed monk's side, magic damage reduction, being able to pierce -/5 really makes the world of difference though I am still of the mind that 21 wisdom is far too steep a price for what you'll undoubtly remove when breaching damage shields. Improved Whirlwind attack on the otherhand is somewhat of a downgrade, not only does it replaced the original it also requires far better timing to use, which if fired off at the wrong time can see you waste two rounds and I have a sneaking suspicion that it makes you flatfooted too.

Thoughts

3 - 10:
The high wisdom start hasn't been as bad as I thought but the tradeoff is starting to bite when it comes to attack values, the multiplier on wholeness of body is the one upside but the cooldown (10 mins) means its saved for key moments rather than blown constantly.
Unarmed is feeling very weak at the moment and the lack of sensible scaling in the gaunlets bites home hard. I feel removing the standard brass and bone knuckles would be an idea, replacing them with their "mastery" versions with brass recieving a +2 AB so they would scale thusly: Bone +1AB 2 damage, Brass +2AB 4 damage, Adamatine +3AB 4 damage, Wraps +3AB 6 damage.

11 - 15:
Tedium thy name is Unarmed Monk Combat. I think to remedy this Stunning Fist could be changed into a status effect applier, rather than holding for 3 rounds it would have a chance to apply some effect depending on how high the roll is beaten: Top stuff could be confusion, blindness/deafness or a silence. Mid could be the current 3 round hold, mild AC and spell failure penalties or Wounding. Low stuff could be a minor AB and spell failure penalties or lesser wounding. It would need to be on a timer to prevent chaining, perhaps even granting the monk a small AB boost (+1-2) to the next strike if Stunning Fist lands but doesn't beat the DC?

16 - 20:
It really seems the best parts of the Monk class are behind me now, the +1 AB that lays ahead isn't exactly thrilling for the investment of 25 levels. The bonus feat Improved Whirlwind is an uninteresting additional 5 meter range to the existing Whirlwind. By comparison Druids have gained a free epic feat choice, including Dragonshape which they no longer need to exert themselves for, Fighters have gained the ability to pierce -/5 damage reduction, 1 damage along with 3 AC collectively and Rogues (assuming a 4 level dip) have unlocked their 20% speed increase in stealth, the bonus AB that counts towards DR piercing and access to a Mirror Dust grenade.
The changes made since the rather overpowering rework aren't bad at all, and make this particular monk fun to play yet it feels rather middling compared the other classes who are beginning to hit their stride as monk stalls. I'm not sure what to suggest to make it better, apply wisdom to something else? Give the Ki feats for free and abandon Wisdom entirely? I don't honestly know.

21 - 25:
Rounding the corner where other classes are getting their big bonuses whilst getting nothing but minor increases really illuminates how the reworked rework was a little heavy handed in the epics. Even stopping the class' innate spell resistance from progressing while replacing it with various pluses (+3 max) to AB and damage and a feat that is rather worse than its original. While the class has improved overall its still feels a good two steps behind the others.
I would suggest removing improved whirlwind at 25 and instead adding it as an epic feat option with its stat requirements removed, instead allowing the spell resistance to continue like it used to but disabling the SR feats. At 28 apply a 1/5th reduction to the class abilities (Empty Body and Quivering Palm (when and if it gets added) would be 4 minute CDs, Wholeness 8 minutes) or some additional benefit from Wisdom?

Edit 1: 11 - 15 sections added 31/01
Edit 2: 16 - 20 sections added 14/02
Edit 3: 21 - 25 sections added 06/03

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

There is a lot of gloves you can find too. I been having + 2 ab + 2 something damage gloves sitting in my shop for 3 thousand for months now. A temp essence on those for a lowish level monk would go well.

My recommendation is take advantage of potions and, or temporarily use of a bronze kama with GMW scrolls. (You really Should have lore)

PM me if you are literally dying to find a good a potion shop npc as one should only let masochism go so far. But like potions for your str, dex, and wisdom + skleen can be a + 7 + 5 + 5 to stats of your choice with barkskin potion and shield scrolls too you should as a dex based, higher wisdom pure monk be able to rock a very solid AC without even turning on expertise (which makes parrying options more viable if you were into that or just having ab with no improved expertise)

Also seeking out other monks can be useful; as they often they keep old items for potential disciplines, etc and may even be able to help you craft better equipment.


But yeah, 8 str monk can be rough.

*edit*

Also, if you make it to level 20, any area where enemies don't have magical weapon eqauls awesomely dr for you

[chris a gogo]

Depends on which server your playing.

I liked the battlefield and manor on the surface with my monk, the problem now is with the nerf to SR you will need to find death protection potions as your SR won't stop anything.
They did alter the battlefield spawns to do more damage they all use power attack now so will get past your DR but it will be in low numbers of course there will be like 20 of them attacking you so you will get hit a lot even with massive AC.

In the UD I tended to go to spiders, myconids then to the dwarf dungeon and formarians I liked the latter more as it's less travelled and IMO a better dungeon after the SR nerf ive no idea if you can stop any of the casters spells I do know the dwarven dungeon your SR won't stop anything even at level 30.

If you have good AC the burning shores is also a good choice as you can evade a lot of the magic damage and ive never had any problem there.

[Baseili]

I found those clawed bracers for about 2,000 which was a bargin, of course I saw another pair the next day for half that which is fairly typical but what can you do. Potions and essences have been the mainstay of any soloing, and I do have some lore mainly to identify the jewelery so low level scrolls are open to me.

It would be nice if wisdom could be applied outside of the AC and heal bonus of Wholeness, maybe adding the base mod as magic damage to fists capped by the ki strike feats? It'd certainly make more sense than a simple barrier to overcome for ki strike 4 and 5.

The guy is on the surface, still level 10 so the battlefield is still a bit away. Shame about the SR cap though, I can understand wanting to make it breachable to allow counterplay but why take it away from the epic levels?

[Ebonstar]

with your str that low, go for str gear with basin

all your gear from lvl 16 will be the monk runic things which will balance out the wis boosts for your dcs,

by 20 all your gear should be trip stat str wis con

dont bother with great wisdom use it for hp or sr boost that 20 hp or 2 sr can come in handy depending how you want it to work

make sure you get all your gear resistances that will help your dr at 20 work during pvp as well to cancel essenced blades etc

[Zavandar]

they need dex for ab and ac

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

with your str that low, go for str gear with basin

all your gear from lvl 16 will be the monk runic things which will balance out the wis boosts for your dcs,

by 20 all your gear should be trip stat str wis con

dont bother with great wisdom use it for hp or sr boost that 20 hp or 2 sr can come in handy depending how you want it to work

make sure you get all your gear resistances that will help your dr at 20 work during pvp as well to cancel essenced blades etc

You missing dex there? He is dex based. Ideally je wants to br qaud stated which is serious lonf term character business. But his triple stay combo needs to be dex str wis or dex wis con.
Or even some of it would be dex/str/con since there are bunch of monk items that give significant wisdom bonuses that drinking owls wisdom for another plus 5 can net him plus 12 wisdom without having to have wisdom on his rings, cloak, and boots.

[Ebonstar]

they need dex for ab and ac

yes but he doesnt need to waste points in wis when he needs it in str

all monk end gear is wis bonuses before runes so use those three boosts to str so he can do some damage

[Zavandar]

ac is almost always more important than damage. i'll take 6 ac over 6 damage any day

monk damage is just generally anemic, and there's little that can be done to get around that

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Ideally you want your ded and wis at maxed bonus with con and str (in that order) increased next. Potions + skleen helps a lot. If your ac is really high you can affors to use nornal or no expertise instead of IE in a lot of situations. More ab is more hits which is more damage.

[chris a gogo]

Don't fret about strength your a dex wis build skleen and bulls pots will give you 7 extra strength points.

Damage I can tell you at 30 you will be doing around 25-35 damage per hit with fists(small stature so 1d12 base) 6+ times a round with an ac without expertise in the 60's I took expertise at first but later dumped it after finding I never ever used expertise or Improved expertise it just wasn't needed for pve, if your going to get hit with mid sixties AC then they are rolling 20's and IE isn't going to help you.

At level 30 your AB will be in the mid to high 40's meaning you can take on pretty much anywhere I know ive soloed most of the server dungeons.

Of course if you go against 30 monk and add 5 SD levels you can gain epic dodge which is nice but you will lose both damage and AB.
I played around with it after the massive monk alterations and for me personally I preferred the extra ability to hit things and do damage over dodging one hit per round.

[Baseili]

I'm not overly concerned with much about this character, judging by the little bit of messing around I've done on the PGCC server I reckon he'll be fun if not slightly flawed but that just adds a little depth.
However I am wondering about the Great Wisdom feat, considering if it should be replaced with something to prop up the lowish fortitude or add to the AB, theres also two pre epic feats to choose so there are a few combinations available plus a stack of skill points.

For reference the character has 36 AC ungeared (with the great wisdom) and 36 AB at max level.

[Baseili]

Updated at new milestone.

[Baseili]

Updated for level 20.

[Baseili]

OP updated with the level 25 milestone.