16 ответов в этой теме

[BoardGuest808888l]

I need one of those. I've tried several times building a monk, but I never get the feel of it. I plan to make one to carry over to MotB, but it seems after level 12 or so, monk ceases to be interesting.

I've tried other forums, but it seems about monk there are only 2 opposing opinions, either monk sucks or awesome, without middle ground or explanation.

I also tried some monk builds, but they seem not very "monk" for me. Either Sacred Fist (a cleric who likes to punch), Kaze no-Kama (only good after level 25+ with MotB items), Shadowdancer (a rogue without sneak attack) or Druid 29 (doesn't seem like a monk at all). To make it more clear, here're some questions I'd like to ask about monk:
1. What ability score to focus on ?
2. Is Unarmed worth it or not ? Do I need to max it ?
3. What is monk's niche in a party ? (Why a party need a monk)
4. Multiclass or not ?
5. How about feats, which ones should I get ?
6. Read somewhere Circle Kick is bugged. How so ?
7. Is Blazing Aura worth it ? In any case, what epic feats I should get ? (monk seems to lack any interesting epic feats)
8. What skill to focus on ?
9. How is Flurry compare with other attack modes (Parry, Power Attack, Expertise) ?
10. Other thinks I need to know ?

[Arkalezth]

1. STR or DEX. Monks are warriors, and warriors need AB. The choice is between more damage or more AC. If you're using Kaedrin's pack, WIS is viable with Intuitive attack.

 

2. It's fine, yes. The more monk or sacred fist levels you have, the better damage wise, but that doesn't mean that you should avoid multiclassing.

 

3. It's a warrior class, like fighter, barbarian, paladin or ranger.

 

4. A little multiclassing is normally an improvement, but you should do fine in the OC/MotB either way. Sacred fist is the most obvious multiclass, but you said you're not into it.

 

5. The typical warrior feats: Weapon focus, improved critical, etc.

 

6. It switches targets sometimes. It's usually better to keep hitting an enemy until it's dead before moving to the next, and CK might make that difficult.

 

7. Not unless you're playing some sort of offensive-casting monk/cleric or using Kaedrin's pack. It requires high WIS, and you shouldn't focus on WIS.

 

8. Monks don't need any skill in particular, so general rules apply. Tumble, spellcraft and perhaps UMD are the most powergame-y ones.

 

9. On a monk? Flurry is better. I suppose you could make a case for expertise if you need some extra AC at some point, but I wouldn't bother with it.

 

10. Monks are warriors with medium BAB and no armour, so yes, they kinda suck without multiclassing or party support. But we aren't talking about a super hard module here and you will likely have buffers in your party, so play whatever you like.

[BoardGuest808888l]

So strength better than wisdom ? Make sense. I always increased wisdom but yeah, attack bonus is problematic for monk. Can't believe, but at level 15 Khelgar can get +10 higher AB than my monk. Heck, even Elanee's pet badger has higher AB..

BAB seems the problem most faced by my monk. Looks like there is no way to increase it other than multiclassing ?

Thanks for the infos.

[Arkalezth]

I'd say DEX (with Weapon Finesse, of course) is slightly better than STR on a pure(ish) monk, but you can probably get a decent defence with companions' buffs either way.

 

BAB depends only on class and level, but AB is what really matters.

[unclejoe1917]

So strength better than wisdom ? Make sense. I always increased wisdom but yeah, attack bonus is problematic for monk. Can't believe, but at level 15 Khelgar can get +10 higher AB than my monk. Heck, even Elanee's pet badger has higher AB..

BAB seems the problem most faced by my monk. Looks like there is no way to increase it other than multiclassing ?

Thanks for the infos.

 A few levels of fighter would give your BAB a boost and also allow you to specialize in unarmed attack. If you do that, plan on maxing out your monk levels at 13, 15 or 16 depending on how important their progression of special abilities is to you.  I frankly don't think Empty Body is worth taking your monk levels to 19 if you are trying to make him more of a damage dealer in combat. 

[Arkalezth]

If you do that, plan on maxing out your monk levels at 13, 15 or 16

 

16 is ok if enemies with DR x/adamantine are common. 13 and 15 don't add anything worthwhile.

 

You could indeed take weapon specialisation with 4 fighter levels, but less monk means less fist damage, so it wouldn't necessarily be an improvement as far as damage is concerned. A little more BAB is ok, but the main reason why your AB sucks is your focus on wisdom (plus, a monk simply cannot reach the AB level of a fighter, regardless).

[BoardGuest808888l]

Found out there are not that many buffs can affect monk... Flame Weapon, Bless Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon which work great for Khelgar and Casavir just don't work for monk. How about quarterstaff ? Is it a good weapon choice ? I don't really plan to be a weapon-using monk, but seeing how other melee characters casually out-ABed and outdamaged my monk...

[Luminus]

I need one of those. I've tried several times building a monk, but I never get the feel of it. I plan to make one to carry over to MotB, but it seems after level 12 or so, monk ceases to be interesting.

I've tried other forums, but it seems about monk there are only 2 opposing opinions, either monk sucks or awesome, without middle ground or explanation.

I also tried some monk builds, but they seem not very "monk" for me. Either Sacred Fist (a cleric who likes to punch), Kaze no-Kama (only good after level 25+ with MotB items), Shadowdancer (a rogue without sneak attack) or Druid 29 (doesn't seem like a monk at all). To make it more clear, here're some questions I'd like to ask about monk:
1. What ability score to focus on ?
2. Is Unarmed worth it or not ? Do I need to max it ?
3. What is monk's niche in a party ? (Why a party need a monk)
4. Multiclass or not ?
5. How about feats, which ones should I get ?
6. Read somewhere Circle Kick is bugged. How so ?
7. Is Blazing Aura worth it ? In any case, what epic feats I should get ? (monk seems to lack any interesting epic feats)
8. What skill to focus on ?
9. How is Flurry compare with other attack modes (Parry, Power Attack, Expertise) ?
10. Other thinks I need to know ?

1. STR if you go with Sacred Fist (because Light Armor or Mithral Breastplate). Dex without Kaedrin's (or not Sacred Fist), Wis with Kaedrin's. Intuitive Attack is better than Weapon Finesse with K's pack for pure Monks.

2. With Dex, you're better off going with dual Kamas later on. Otherwise, if STR or WIS based, go unarmed.

3. The Monk's niche is supposed to be a mage-killer. Tons of resistances, speed, great saves, improved evasion, immunities, attacks, piercing Stoneskin/Premonition (Adamantine Fist), Stunning, Knockdown, high touch AC etc.
If they succeeded in that it's pretty debatable but that's where their class is geared at.
The other warriors cannot do much against a caster, except the Paladin perhaps but even then, the Monk has lots of undispellable defenses.
On PWs with my Monks, caster mobs fall quite easily even with protections on. They just cut through their Mirror Image, Displacement, Premonition etc.

4. Depends. With K's pack, you want to stay pure for Intuitive Attack. Without, Shadowdancer is great for a dual-kama stealth Dex-based Monk. Sacred Fist is also great. You lose some Monk stuff, you gain spells and general versatility. Assassin is not bad either for HiPS, Sneak Attack with Flurried dual Kamas and Assassin spells.

5. Blind Fight is nice to have just for bypassing some of the mages concealment. Otherwise, Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, Power Critical is not bad for Kamas or Unarmed. Weapon Finesse and Two Weapon Fighting for Dex-based (duh), maybe Two Weapon Defense (not necessary), Improved Initiative is also nice especially with high Dex so you can attack always first and disrupt spells etc. Dodge/Mobility is necessary for Shadowdancer. Otherwise, pick whatever seems better to you.

6. As Arkalezth said, Circle Kick makes you switch targets which is annoying because you need to reclick the previous target. Multiple "Injured" enemies are worse than a couple dead ones.

7. Only worth with Intuitive Attack (K's pack). It's also standard fire damage, which is really easy to resist. But on PWs where damage enhancements are rare and/or expensive, free extra damage is great.

8. Hide/Move Silently/Tumble if you go Dex-based (Shadowdancer/Assassin). Spot/Listen if you go Wis-based. Diplomacy is good to have despite your useless CHA. In the OC, you're the only one that talks to NPCs.
Concentration is useless unless you go Sacred Fist. Parry is totally useless. UMD is great but you won't need it in the OC or MotB but if you have points to spare, you can raise it anyway. UMD is also great on PWs for any class.

9. Flurry is the best of them. Parry is worthless generally. Power Attack works best with high STR AND a two-handed weapon, Expertise is not bad but you need to raise your INT to 13.

10. Monks are a pretty unique class. I wouldn't really recommend it for the OC and MotB unless you don't care about armor/weapon variety and just want to run and slice/punch stuff all the time.
Personally, I love Monks. But they can be very boring. Still, they're THE set-and-forget class. You get free immunities/resistances without any tedious prebuffing or crafting/equipping and it's a great feeling when mages throw a ton of stuff at you and you dodge/resist/immune lots of them.

[BoardGuest808888l]

So Kaedrin did make some modification to monk. This sounds promising. I recall the pack has something called Fiery Fist and Fiery Defense (or something). How about it ? Is it really worth the feat ?

[Luminus]

In the OC and MotB? Not really. It's just 1d6 fire damage per Stunning Fist use and lasts a few decent rounds.
It's better on low-magic modules and on PWs where free 1d6 fire damage is great against trolls etc.

While it stacks I think, it's ultimately replaced by Blazing Aura which basically combines Fiery Fist and Fiery Ki Defense at no cost. 
And even that isn't worth it in MotB with the stupid overpowered enhancements. Especially with Flurry and dual Kamas.

It should be noted that once Kaedrin releases the latest public version of his pack (it's been a while but he said that he's going to) pure Monks are going to be even better.
Until then, go Intuitive Attack on PWs and Dex-based/Dual-kamas in the OC and MotB.
You can just use fists until you can enchant your kamas in the late-game with Weapon Finesse. 

[TBastian]

Monks are basically skirmishers in the OC, their job is to get in/out of combat quickly and take out key targets. Thanks to monk speed, they are ideal for rushing enemy casters and killing off/disabling ranged attackers with Stunning Blow. Quivering Palm is also nice when it works.

 

The great thing about Monks is that they already get most of the feats they need from the class itself (bonus speed, AC gain from wis, knockdown, fist damage/property scaling, etc). Even if you decide to go dual kamas later, you can safely ignore two-weapon fighting feats until you reach higher levels. It helps that although many enemies in the OC have various resistances, the game gives you useful monk items to deal with these (sonic damage gloves, the gauntlets of Ironfist for even more crushing damage, various monk-specific belts/boots, etc).

Gear-wise I'd suggest focusing on improving your saves/using items with immunities, especially against mind effects and death magic. Based on my own experience, monks have no trouble running away from enemies that do massive physical damage (giving you time to regenerate HP). It's the casters you need to watch out for.

Besides combat/dialogue skills, Spot/Listen are useful in the OC. Combine that with something that grants you True Seeing and your monk will have no trouble destroying enemy rogues/casters.

 

While monks do not require prebuffing (you can send them after some random potentially dangerous enemy mob as soon as combat starts) another good thing about monks is that the class gives you plenty of room for improvement, since pretty much your only restriction is not using armor. Elanee, for example, can give you a fat +15 dodge/natural AC boost with the spells Owl's Insight and Tortoise Shell, as well as giving you knockdown immunity with Foundation of Stone (make sure you have a Freedom of Movement effect on your first). Other potentially useful spells include Shield (+4 shield AC, wizard/sorc but self-only so use an item/wand), Enlarge Person (+3 magical damage per hit, wizard/sorc) and Improved Mage Armor (+6 armor AC, wizard/sorc). Like with any other warrior character, having Grobnar around also helps a lot.

If you're wondering why I recommend stacking so much AC, it's because one of the defining features of the NwN2 monk character is the Flurry/Greater Flurry of Blows combat mode. You will want to keep this up as much as possible, and besides the obvious (staying alive - AC, SR and resistances help with that) that means sacrificing other potentially useful defensive combat modes like Improved Combat Expertise and Parry. At higher levels you can have Sand/Zhjaeve/Elanee craft whatever you need so your character can cast the buffs you want him/herself.

[BoardGuest808888l]

Umm, but spells like Owl's Insight is self-cast only. I don't plan to make cleric/monk or druid/monk. It seems using Kaedrin's Pack gives some improvement to monk. Otherwise, I do like said by Arkalezth, increasing STR seems a good bet. Monk lacks AB severely, unless I got supports like Grobnar around. But then, isn't it better to buff say, Khelgar or Casavir than my monk self ?

[TBastian]

No, Owl's Insight can be cast on allies.

Monks do not lack AB, medium AB is more than enough for the OC (and even most persistent worlds) combined with items (gloves, strength belts, other craftables), buffs and decent starting strength (at least 14).
Unless you actually plan on playing in a persistent world where mobs only spawn with 30-50 AC pre-epic levels and so stacking AB > anything else, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Buffing is all about cost vs gain. The Monk is the only class can hit 2 attacks per round by itself in melee (Flurry of Blows) at level 1 and you can pair that with a club (incidentally you get a free +1 club during your very first enemy encounter) or a quarterstaff for extra strength damage - twice as many attacks, twice as much potential bonuses. You start with a -2 AB penalty, but that's manageable because the game only throws low AC mobs at your early on. That extra attack is also made at MAX AB, which important because extra attacks are only impressive if they hit.

As the game progresses the AB penalty goes away and you'll always have 1 more attack than even high BAB classes, thanks to Flurry of Blows. Your fists do TWICE as much base damage as most weapons at higher levels, and dual-wielding+Greater Flurry of Blows obviously works VERY well.  Finally, by level 20 a high BAB class actually only has ONE attack with higher BAB than yours - their very first attack.

You seem to underestimate medium BAB scaling in the OC.

Hell, you don't even get to fight high AC opponents in the OC until very late into the game, and by that time you should be swimming in end-game craftables/gear.

Why would you think that buffing your monk wouldn't be worth it?

 

And for the record, level 12 is where ANY PC in the OC actually starts to get interesting, because that's around the time that most classes gain their key bonuses (in your case, 2d6 fist damage and Greater Flurry) and that's around the time that Sand joins/more crafting component merchants show up and you can start creating end-game gear/craftables. I have no idea why anyone would stop playing before that point, because that's basically when the game actually starts for me.

Pre-level 12 may as well be called "The Adventures of Elanee and Qara" because unless your PC is also a druid/sorcerer then these two will dominate pre-level 12 content (Qara has her nukes/buffs/disabling spells spam and Elanee has a little bit of everything + the dinosaur companion, which is outright broken at lower levels).

[BoardGuest808888l]

Hmm, that's interesting outlook sure. And how about epic level monk ? Does monk gain much by being epic or I'll better to multiclass ? As I mentioned, I plan to bring the monk from OC to MotB. Oh, and also I plan to make it as pure as Unarmed-Unarmored monk as possible.

[Luminus]

It should be noted, Owl's Insight caps at +12, not +15. That's a hard cap for any bonuses (STR, DEX  etc) on items.
So Elanee needs to be level 24 to give you the maximum bonus. Cannot happen since the OC caps at level 20 (though it can be removed).

Gann can instead buff you with Owl's Insight, Flame Weapon, Greater Magic Fang, Jagged Tooth (not sure about FW/GMF/JT in vanilla, but sure with Kaedrin's) etc.

In short, go Dex-based and use your Fists in the beginning. When you get Greater Flurry, you can start dual-wielding Kamas and getting them enchanted once you have the ingredients and the gold and in MotB, dual-wielding Kamas with Greater Flurry and Perfect Two Weapon Fighting and Monk resistances/immunities is a no brainer. You will cut through everything like hot butter.

[BoardGuest808888l]

I used Flame Weapon and Greater Magic Fang (Elanee) in OC. But they didn't work (for unarmed). For Flame Weapon, it's said, you need somekind of melee weapon or natural attack. For Greater Magic Fang, the spell can be cast, but has no effect whatsoever. I use Kaedrin's pack v 1.42.

Does it work differently for MotB ? Does Spirit Shaman (Gann) has different version of those spells (than druid ) ?

[TBastian]

You can enchant gloves with elemental damage in MotB (as you would a weapon), you can even add enchantments to monk gloves with an innate +AB enchantment so it's not an issue.

 

The OC is simpler. At low levels you should be using either a club or a quarterstaff for the 1.5x strength bonus, which Elanee can then enchant with Holy/Electrical/Frost/Flaming/etc. or just have her cast Flame Weapon. You can enchant a +3 weapon very early, earlier than you can get +3 with Greater Magic Fang/Weapon.

This is just a low level character thing, you're still a fledgling monk and a novice to the discipline. Even mages do more weapon auto-attacking than spellcasting at lower levels. You can start using your fists as early as level 4 (1d8 fist damage) if you really want to. I'd personally wait until level 8 (1d10) or 12 (2d6).

 

At higher levels you'll be using monk gloves (Hin Fist/Long Death/etc) sold by various NPC merchants for extra AB/damage or a crafted Bracers of Armor+8 if you're stacking AC so you can fight things like dragons toe-to-toe.

You can also use the Gaunlets of Ironfist if you plan on letting Khelgar stay as a fighter. You can get the gauntlets pretty early, and they're quite powerful. Combine with the Belt of Ironfist for more bonuses.