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[Dwarmin]

Here's where I landed on with my Dwarf Monk.

Str: 18
Con: 16
Dex: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 12
Cha: 8

For my racial abilities, going Mountain Roots+Boulder Roll to be the battlefield bully. I'll generally just concentrate on walloping people, pushing them about, or tripping them.

I'm not quite sold on the monk ability I want to take, though I'm thinking stunning fist could be really good if we have any stabby rogue characters about.

Also I'm pretty sure my character both needs no weapons and has no capability to wield any other weapons. That's odd.

[Gentlefish]

Doubloon is playing a rogue, and might appreciate stunned enemies to stabbify.

@Dubloon, if you multiclass into fighter using the fighter multiclass feats instead of rogue class feats, you can end up with, essentially, two-weapon fighting.

[Pancaek]

Don't rogues get bonus damage against flat-footed characters? Because I can basically buff everyone with inspire courage and attempt to make one enemy flat-footed with daze every turn.

[Gentlefish]

They do get their sneak attack against flat-footed characters. Flanked creatures are considered flat-footed which is now a flat -2 to AC.

[Egan_BW]

I'll also be doing stunny punches for the record.

[Dwarmin]

Btw, if we're giving feedback, I find monks needing a feat tax to wield simple weapons to be lame. Granted, once you get to level 3 you can start ignoring resistances anyway, which obviates the need for slashing/piercing weapons, but until then you're useless to anything resistant to bludgeon (unless you take a stance, but which one is going to be useful? huhuhuhu). You need decent WIS and to take a ki feat to have any good ranged attacks at all. It's just going to feel annoying if I have to bust out my sling.

Thus, I think that flying enemies are the Monks bane. Or waist high fences you can't jump over. Zombies? Oh, you can go to hell if you didn't pick up tiger stance.

I understand not every character is supposed to be good at everything, but this feels like a liability.

Don't rogues get bonus damage against flat-footed characters? Because I can basically buff everyone with inspire courage and attempt to make one enemy flat-footed with daze every turn.

Yeah, that's the traditional method.

Stunning Fist targets their Fort save, as opposed to Dazes will save (also traditionally, abilities targeting Fort saves suck because monsters almost always have sky-high CON), and is obviously only usable in melee. Of course it actually does damage along with the effect. It also has a scaling effect that makes it better when critting, giving enemies actual stuns (can't act that round) or stupefying them (penalty to mental stat checks).

Tho if Egan is also playing a Monk and going stunning fists, I'll get something else. :V

[Gentlefish]

Perhaps if there were a style that used the weapons they would be more useful but even as-is, your unarmed does as much if not more than the typical monastic weapon. The ranged gripe is important, but monks have always kind of been terrible at ranged combat unless they archetyped out.

[Dwarmin]

I think the ranged restriction makes a vague sort of sense if you assume Monks are 'melee mages'-they can do a lot of damage without significant set-up. So just like mages are weak in melee, generally, Monks need a tax to be good at range. I guess.

...

Anyway, ultimately I decided to go Wolf Stance. Since my build will primarily work with putting people into flanking positions with my allies anyway. My general plan will be to wrestle people into submission and flurry of blows on them for bonus damage. I don't understand the exact numbers, but Wolf attacks are somehow better if you use multi-attack abilities on flanked enemies. It makes me somewhat rogue-ish, but the set up is a bit easier, as long as I'm not the only body on the frontline.

Hence, various stances are good if you want to spam FOB. I'll be interested to see how this works in game, ho ho.

[TricMagic]

I'll prep my spells then. Phone is not the best.

[Egan_BW]

My solution to monk range was getting a feat for simple weapon prof and getting a crossbow.
Seems worth an ancestry feat to get a d8 of ranged damage, plus other options.

(And at later levels where d8 isn't very impressive, I can toss ki at things.)

[Dwarmin]

Yeah, those are good. In retrospect, I wonder if we'll even get to 5th level. If not there would be no reason me to take a pre-req ability.

@Gentlefish: Do you see this game going to 5th level or beyond?

[Egan_BW]

It's the adventure coming with a playtest of the game, so I assume it'll have some higher level stuff. Also probably kobolds, dungeons, skeletons, traps, and maybe a dragon and/or lich.

[Pancaek]

It's the adventure coming with a playtest of the game, so I assume it'll have some higher level stuff. Also probably kobolds, dungeons, skeletons, traps, and maybe a dragon and/or lich.

Are there parts where we're in a city/town at any point? I hope so, because I doubt dungeon skeletons are all that open to diplomacy.

[Dwarmin]

It should be safe to say these adventurers will be well designed enough to not be mindless combat murder sprees. And Diplomacy should never be limited to cities and towns.

[Pancaek]

I'm all for trying to woo the kobolds, skeletons and the lich, but I draw the line at dragons.