[Unchained] The Monk Unchained


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Sovereign Court

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Rynjin wrote:
I don't play PFS, and you can't spend over half your WBL on a single item.

Why not?

After a masterwork weapon, every heavy armor combatant I've ever played has sprung for masterwork fullplate when their total wealth was 2k or so, making it 80% of their wealth.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
I don't play PFS, and you can't spend over half your WBL on a single item.

Why not?

After a masterwork weapon, every heavy armor combatant I've ever played has sprung for masterwork fullplate when their total wealth was 2k or so, making it 80% of their wealth.

In the core rules there is a section that says you probably shouldn't spend more than half on a single item. But that is just a guideline and has no actually rules. For example, that section also say you should spend about 25% of you WBL on consumables.

Sovereign Court

Kared wrote:

In the. Pre rules there is a section that says you probably shouldn't spend more than half on a single item. But that is just a guideline and has no actually rules. For example, that section also say you should spend about 25% of you WBL on consumables.

Right - it's just advice. Once you get your baseline items, it's generally a good idea. (masterwork weapon/armor usually) But the wand of mage armor is really a baseline item for a monk.


I'm going to have to give a deep analysis when my book comes in but didn't I hear that Unchained Monk gets access to quiggong abilities including Barkskin, and some sort of reactive ki AC?

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

An unchained monk who takes the slow fall ki power gets unlimited height on slow fall, as early as 4th level. Yes, it costs a ki point. But it is way better way sooner otherwise.

Liberty's Edge

Malwing wrote:
I'm going to have to give a deep analysis when my book comes in but didn't I hear that Unchained Monk gets access to quiggong abilities including Barkskin, and some sort of reactive ki AC?

It gets both those things.

The reactive ki AC takes the place of the core monk's ability to spend 1 ki for a +4 dodge bonus to AC; the ki power, however, is an immediate action, allowing you to wait until someone actually takes a swing at you before you spend the point and try to dodge it.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Being an Immediate action means you can also kick it after they've rolled and said it hit to force it into a miss.


Kared wrote:
Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
I don't play PFS, and you can't spend over half your WBL on a single item.

Why not?

After a masterwork weapon, every heavy armor combatant I've ever played has sprung for masterwork fullplate when their total wealth was 2k or so, making it 80% of their wealth.

In the core rules there is a section that says you probably shouldn't spend more than half on a single item. But that is just a guideline and has no actually rules. For example, that section also say you should spend about 25% of you WBL on consumables.

I thought that was a hard rule, actually. Most games I've played in take it as such anyway.

Sovereign Court

Robert Jordan wrote:
Being an Immediate action means you can also kick it after they've rolled and said it hit to force it into a miss.

I don't think it can do that - just like a Swash can't wait to parry a blow until after their opponent rolls to hit. An immediate action isn't a retroactive action.

*shrug* Unless there's a ruling that I missed.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Robert Jordan wrote:
Being an Immediate action means you can also kick it after they've rolled and said it hit to force it into a miss.

I don't think it can do that - just like a Swash can't wait to parry a blow until after their opponent rolls to hit. An immediate action isn't a retroactive action.

*shrug* Unless there's a ruling that I missed.

You're right, but a lot of tables don't play it that way. It's usually easier for the GM to just let you apply it retroactively than to have to ask the player if they want to parry every time you roll an attack.

Designer

Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Robert Jordan wrote:
Being an Immediate action means you can also kick it after they've rolled and said it hit to force it into a miss.

I don't think it can do that - just like a Swash can't wait to parry a blow until after their opponent rolls to hit. An immediate action isn't a retroactive action.

*shrug* Unless there's a ruling that I missed.

Swash parry actually isn't using an immediate action, and it has special language about declaring before the roll.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Actually the only place I remember seeing that kinda limitation is in the wealth by level, right there near making higher level characters. I tend to lean towards the restrictions when folks make higher level characters to prevent someone from having a +5 sword of select dooms and nothing else. If you've been playing from level 1 and sat on your share of the coin/spoils to afford an item that's all you mate you survived without all the consumables/defense items/ponies/what have you, your reward is getting to blow that coin on something awesome.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

To my knowledge an immediate action can interrupt another action, so if someone rolls to hit you and they rolled a 16 (for this example we'll say your AC is 14) you know they hit you before it was "announced" so blow a ki point and they miss.

Sovereign Court

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Robert Jordan wrote:
To my knowledge an immediate action can interrupt another action, so if someone rolls to hit you and they rolled a 16 (for this example we'll say your AC is 14) you know they hit you before it was "announced" so blow a ki point and they miss.

Right - but I was under the impression that it would have to 'interrupt' before the actual roll. Once they actually swing - it's too late. Though still considerably better than the swift action that it was before.

Actually - with this monk ability on the books - there should be a FAQ on it - as the power level of the ability will vary widely depending upon it.

With my reading, it wouldn't be uncommon to blow a ki point where they would have ended up missing anyway, or they hit anyway.

With your reading, ever time you spend a ki point on it, you'd be hit at least once less.


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Also, a little off topic, but why are the PDFs available so much later than the Hardcovers? I briefly got excited at the blog post saying it was available and then was disappointed when it still said 29th for PDF. I wanted to see how off the mark I was.


With those powers my usual monk has 38 AC before consumables, magic items, and any other ki abilities that are around at lvl 20. I think I'm happy enough with that.


Rynjin wrote:
Also, a little off topic, but why are the PDFs available so much later than the Hardcovers? I briefly got excited at the blog post saying it was available and then was disappointed when it still said 29th for PDF. I wanted to see how off the mark I was.

If I had to guess, they want to encourage sales of the hardcovers. Paizo does need to sell those books they spent a lot of money printing out, after all.

Scarab Sages

Charon's Little Helper wrote:
Robert Jordan wrote:
To my knowledge an immediate action can interrupt another action, so if someone rolls to hit you and they rolled a 16 (for this example we'll say your AC is 14) you know they hit you before it was "announced" so blow a ki point and they miss.

Right - but I was under the impression that it would have to 'interrupt' before the actual roll. Once they actually swing - it's too late. Though still considerably better than the swift action that it was before.

Actually - with this monk ability on the books - there should be a FAQ on it - as the power level of the ability will vary widely depending upon it.

With my reading, it wouldn't be uncommon to blow a ki point where they would have ended up missing anyway, or they hit anyway.

With your reading, ever time you spend a ki point on it, you'd be hit at least once less.

There are several immediate action to cast spells that give you a retroactive bonus to saves/skills/attacks/etc. They're pretty great. Unless the ability has a restriction limiting it to before an attack roll or damage roll is made then I think it's perfectly fine coming into play after the attack.

Sovereign Court

I have actually never seen a gaming table that followed the WBL guidelines, if someone wants to spend all their wealth on one item...go for it.

I'm actually pretty happy that Unchained Monk gets proficiency with all monk weapons, that was seriously long overdue.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Actually I was looking at In Harm's Way as my immediate action example to block a hit for a person, so I just applied its logic to the Furious Defense so you boost your ac for that extra burst of movement to avoid the hit.

Grand Lodge

Mark Seifter wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
<good insights>
Rynjin, thank you for taking the time to give that solid analysis above. I will say, though, that I think that having mage armor is usually a low bar to ask for a monk, raising everything you have there by 4. Now, not always, I agree. In Owen's Wrath of Rightous game, we haven't been able to buy consumables for a while, and I think that's going to have a noticeable effect on my no-armor paladin and Stephen's monk in the next few fights. I've definitely felt it pretty heavily ever since I ran out of potions.

of course, the problem is anyone can just buy wands of mage armor if they don't want to wear actual armor. The problem is, as Rynjin pointed out, is the monk has to fundamentally weaken his combat stats to fuel class abilities, has to pay near double his companions to upgrade said abilities, and also has to deal with a gold sink in the form of consumables until he can afford those higher priced options.

At no point is this a good deal, unless of course you were just grabbing some bennies to go with that improved unarmed strike feat.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

9mm I'm not certain I understand. How do monks have to fundamentally weaken their combat stats to fuel abilities?


Every point they have to spend on Wisdom to give them a half-decent ki pool, not to mention shoring up a now-deficient Will save, is a point they didn't have to spend on Dexterity, Strength, or Constitution to do their basic job.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Ahh see I think that's where I'm making the disconnect. I can understand needing a con bonus +1-+2 should suffice since you have a d10 for hp now, and can take Toughness or drop 1 hp every level for favored class on there. A Str bonus is probably more desirable than a Dex bonus as it increases hit chance and damage. Dex obviously helps AC and Ref Saves. But Wisdom is amazing, it ups AC, Will saves, Ki Pool, DC for Stunning fist and other monk abilities. And since those Ki points can be spent to fuel other offensive options I feel that folks are looking at Wisdom like it doesn't contribute to combat stats. When AC, Will saves, and Ki abilities are all combat factors.

Scarab Sages

Mark Seifter wrote:
Kared wrote:
I want to see some of the offensive numbers for these monks. It isn't hard to get high defense for a monk. But it is harder to do so while maintaining offensive effectiveness.
I agree with you, and that's where the Unchained monk helps by a pretty large margin: offense. However, I wanted to talk about AC momentarily because some people in the thread were upset that the Unchained monk didn't get more AC powers than it has, and this perplexed me, as I thought it was generally accepted that monks had great AC and other defenses, but low offense (so enemies would just ignore them).

It's for PFS, but my 4th Level Zen Archer has a buffed AC of 27. For what it's worth he tends to serve as a meaty shield for the full casters. I know it's a bit of a feat tax, but if you're flurrying with a finessable weapon, weapon finesse helps solve some of the MADness.

AC Bonus Math:
+2 Barkskin, +4 Mage Armor, +4 Wis, +4 Dex, +1 Dodge, +1 Monk AC, +1 Ring of Protection

Scarab Sages

On another note: Of all the classes, the inherent scaling items rules help the Monk the most, I think. It reduces his need for AoMF, and the enhancement bonus to armor should stack with Mage Armor/Bracers of Armor.

Designer

B. A. Robards-Debardot wrote:
On another note: Of all the classes, the inherent scaling items rules help the Monk the most, I think. It reduces his need for AoMF, and the enhancement bonus to armor should stack with Mage Armor/Bracers of Armor.

You can't enhance mage armor or bracers, but even so, you gain enough ground on the weapon front to more than make up for that, absolutely!


Robert Jordan wrote:
Ahh see I think that's where I'm making the disconnect. I can understand needing a con bonus +1-+2 should suffice since you have a d10 for hp now, and can take Toughness or drop 1 hp every level for favored class on there. A Str bonus is probably more desirable than a Dex bonus as it increases hit chance and damage. Dex obviously helps AC and Ref Saves. But Wisdom is amazing, it ups AC, Will saves, Ki Pool, DC for Stunning fist and other monk abilities. And since those Ki points can be spent to fuel other offensive options I feel that folks are looking at Wisdom like it doesn't contribute to combat stats. When AC, Will saves, and Ki abilities are all combat factors.

Except you need Wis in the first place solely to shore up the glaring weakness that is not having armor.

Stunning Fist is a non-factor. You could have 30 Wis and the save DC would still be terrible.

Ki Pool is required to do anything useful. That is not a good thing.

You're speaking of using Feats to shore up a weakness that over-reliance on a single stat that doesn't contribute to your main combat role in the first place, which is only necessary in part because you need that same stat to shore up a completely DIFFERENT weakness. That's just shoving a finger in the hole of a sinking ship and getting sad when another pops out right next to it.

Scarab Sages

I do think the Ki Pool size is going to be very limiting as written. Though better than a swashbuckler's panache I think, but that has a built in mechanism to gain back panache.

I think I might houserule the Ki pool to tie it to magic level/point buy:
Standard (15-pt) = 1/2 per level
High (20-pt) = 1 per level
Epic (25-pt) = 1.5 (or 2 can't decide yet) per level
etc...

Thinking about it, it might be nice to use this pool tying technique to other classes with per level abilities.

Designer

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Rynjin wrote:
Robert Jordan wrote:
Ahh see I think that's where I'm making the disconnect. I can understand needing a con bonus +1-+2 should suffice since you have a d10 for hp now, and can take Toughness or drop 1 hp every level for favored class on there. A Str bonus is probably more desirable than a Dex bonus as it increases hit chance and damage. Dex obviously helps AC and Ref Saves. But Wisdom is amazing, it ups AC, Will saves, Ki Pool, DC for Stunning fist and other monk abilities. And since those Ki points can be spent to fuel other offensive options I feel that folks are looking at Wisdom like it doesn't contribute to combat stats. When AC, Will saves, and Ki abilities are all combat factors.

Except you need Wis in the first place solely to shore up the glaring weakness that is not having armor.

Stunning Fist is a non-factor. You could have 30 Wis and the save DC would still be terrible.

Ki Pool is required to do anything useful. That is not a good thing.

You're speaking of using Feats to shore up a weakness that over-reliance on a single stat that doesn't contribute to your main combat role in the first place. That's just shoving a finger in the hole of a sinking ship and getting sad when another pops out right next to it.

While I do agree with you that for most monks, Stunning Fist is a hail mary, am I missing something in the formula, or wouldn't a Stunning Fist from a 30 Wis monk have the same DC as the best spell of an equal-level 30 Cha sorcerer?


Stunning Fist has the same scaling DC as the Witch's hexes. The difference is it targets fortitude which is the good save for most things. Plus Monks that aren't Senseis don't have the wisdom to make the DC as high as an equivalent Slumber Witch does.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
Rynjin wrote:
Robert Jordan wrote:
Ahh see I think that's where I'm making the disconnect. I can understand needing a con bonus +1-+2 should suffice since you have a d10 for hp now, and can take Toughness or drop 1 hp every level for favored class on there. A Str bonus is probably more desirable than a Dex bonus as it increases hit chance and damage. Dex obviously helps AC and Ref Saves. But Wisdom is amazing, it ups AC, Will saves, Ki Pool, DC for Stunning fist and other monk abilities. And since those Ki points can be spent to fuel other offensive options I feel that folks are looking at Wisdom like it doesn't contribute to combat stats. When AC, Will saves, and Ki abilities are all combat factors.

Except you need Wis in the first place solely to shore up the glaring weakness that is not having armor.

Stunning Fist is a non-factor. You could have 30 Wis and the save DC would still be terrible.

Ki Pool is required to do anything useful. That is not a good thing.

You're speaking of using Feats to shore up a weakness that over-reliance on a single stat that doesn't contribute to your main combat role in the first place. That's just shoving a finger in the hole of a sinking ship and getting sad when another pops out right next to it.

While I do agree with you that for most monks, Stunning Fist is a hail mary, am I missing something in the formula, or wouldn't a Stunning Fist from a 30 Wis monk have the same DC as the best spell of an equal-level 30 Cha sorcerer?

Sorta yes, sorta no.

I should have said the ability is bad, not the DC.

1.) It requires an attack roll to-hit declared BEFORE it connects (yes I know there's a Stamina thingy that changes that, but the ability as it existed up to now).

2.) This attack is against normal AC, unlike spells which are against touch AC (and usually Ranged), or not at all.

3.) The effect only lasts a single round.

4.) The save targets Fort, most things' good save.

5.) The effect (at higher levels) is often resisted, and relatively minor. No matter what level you are (except 20th), Stun is the best effect you can impart. Staggered is up in the air since it lasts a bit longer, but Fatigued, Sickened, and Blinded or Deafened are relatively minor effects.

It's just...bad.

And then you factor in that a 30 Wis Monk is sacrificing a lot more for that insane stat than a 30 Cha Sorcerer, making the other factors like the attack roll less likely to land, and abilities to raise the DC are fewer and farther between, and the DC actually IS lower on a practical basis.

Scarab Sages

The main reason that the Harrow Warden's Idiot Strike is so good is that it targets Will instead of Fort. Most things in Melee have a good Fort, and if you are trying to shut down a caster you're still better off to grapple.

Grand Lodge

Robert Jordan wrote:
But Wisdom is amazing, it ups AC, Will saves, Ki Pool, DC for Stunning fist and other monk abilities. And since those Ki points can be spent to fuel other offensive options I feel that folks are looking at Wisdom like it doesn't contribute to combat stats. When AC, Will saves, and Ki abilities are all combat factors.

except wisdom really isn't all that great. stunning fist's dc is still entirely to low; will at best increase your ac by 4 if you max it (again at expense of it's offence) and you spend lots of gold to actually have armor via wand or bracers; almost all ki-ablites are defensive in nature; and your will save wasn't the problem to begin with (though ironicly it is now).

Again the problem is ac 50 and good saves does you no good if you can't end the threat. Now if monks wis actually became a combat stat this would have been a glorious revival of unarmed badassery, instead it's just a suck slightly less.

Liberty's Edge

Arachnofiend wrote:
Stunning Fist has the same scaling DC as the Witch's hexes. The difference is it targets fortitude which is the good save for most things. Plus Monks that aren't Senseis don't have the wisdom to make the DC as high as an equivalent Slumber Witch does.

While true, the slumber witch doesn't do 4d6+14 plus 3d6 energy damage at the same as as she fires off her hex; the DC 20 Fort Save vs sickening or stunning is just a bonus at that point.


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Am I the only one that thinks having to dump a stat (usually Charisma) in order to have your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom at a usable level is the second worst part of a Monk?


No, you're not.

If the Monk got Wisdom to-hit and damage it wouldn't be so bad, or even if they could wear light armor and Wis to AC was a true EXTRA instead of a necessity it would be much, MUCH better.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

Aside from Stunning Fist there's also Quivering Palm, Punishing Kick, Elemental Burst (which targets reflex).

Things you can do offensively with Ki:
Abundant Step with the Dimensional Dervish feat tree
Cobra Breath
Elemental Fury
Elemental Burst
Formless Mastery
Ki Blocker, which can also block Grit/Panache/Arcane Pool/Arcane Reservoir/Inspiration
Ki Hurricane
Ki Volley
One Touch
Quivering Palm

That's on top of your Style Strikes. Or any feats you take such as Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Imp insert maneuver here and other sundry choices.

Wisdom is a more useful stat for the unchained monk than core. You get the same AC returns point for point that Dex would give you, it gives you more uses of special powers or just an extra attack on flurry, which is another offensive use, and it increases your will save. I noticed a lot of people harp on Save or Destroy your own party spells, but honestly Fear effects come up a ton more often and being able to just shut that down with 1-2 ki points is a helluva lot better than in core happening to fail it and being stuck with it.


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Rynjin wrote:

No, you're not.

If the Monk got Wisdom to-hit and damage it wouldn't be so bad, or even if they could wear light armor and Wis to AC was a true EXTRA instead of a necessity it would be much, MUCH better.

I'd honestly settle for just Wisdom to-hit. Maybe I could convince the DM to make a Ki Power that grants Wisdom to-hit so long as you have more than one Ki Point remaining.

Sadly, this wouldn't work with PFS, which is what a lot of people would be stuck with. That's even assuming PFS chooses to allow the Unchained Monk.


More useful, yes.

Useful enough to outweigh reducing your base combat and other ability? Debatable.

How many of those things require Ki to use? If it's the majority, then that's a problem.

And again, this:

Quote:
You get the same AC returns point for point that Dex would give you

Is meaningless. You need BOTH, because you lack armor. You must ever increasingly pump Wis to increase your AC, along with Dex, or fall way, way behind.

The Monk gets shafted as far as gear goes in every direction. His weapon costs twice as much, and takes up ANOTHER big AC boosting item. His Bracers give less benefit, for the same cost, and take up yet another item slot. He (essentially) needs to spend twice as much on stat boosters just to keep up with the Joneses.

Has the book addressed ANY of those problems to an appreciable degree?

Sovereign Court

All this talk about AC...but isnt the general consensus on forum that AC sucks at higher level anyway?

I mean, just sayin'.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

If, for argument sake, we granted them the usage of Light Armor. Chain Shirt is arguably our best buy. So +4 armor bonus, max enhancement of +5 to take it to a total of +9, 1 point ahead of Bracers of Armor's cap of 8. Now to be fair the Chain Shirt has the added bonus of being able to get 5 points of special abilities beyond that, and it's cheaper. 25,250 +5 Chain Shirt vs 64,000 +8 Bracers of Armor. The armor has a max dex bonus though so that caps at 4. Now there's only so hard we can really scrutinize things due to table variation, some groups may climb into high levels where Inherent Bonuses from wish/manuals come into play and +6 stat items are common.

But we can look at it and just say if they had, for argument sake, a Dex of 20 that's a +5. Our Chain Shirt will give us 9 + 4 dex for a total of 13, our Bracers of Armor will give us 8 + 5 for a total of 13. Looks even to me. Now I understand the argument about needing to put points in Dex and Wis and that offsets things a bit.

I think a good thing to keep in mind as well is that going to full BaB and no longer having a penalty on Flurry gave you a +2 on all your to hit rolls, that's 4 points of Str.... or Dex if you went with Weapon Finesse I guess. Or Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, or a +2 Amulet of Mighty Fists or constantly Flanking. You may not hit as hard as a Two Handed Fighter or Barbarian, then again you can two hand a weapon for str and a half in the unchained version, so maybe you will.


Rynjin wrote:

More useful, yes.

Useful enough to outweigh reducing your base combat and other ability? Debatable.

How many of those things require Ki to use? If it's the majority, then that's a problem.

And again, this:

Quote:
You get the same AC returns point for point that Dex would give you

Is meaningless. You need BOTH, because you lack armor. You must ever increasingly pump Wis to increase your AC, along with Dex, or fall way, way behind.

The Monk gets shafted as far as gear goes in every direction. His weapon costs twice as much, and takes up ANOTHER big AC boosting item. His Bracers give less benefit, for the same cost, and take up yet another item slot. He (essentially) needs to spend twice as much on stat boosters just to keep up with the Joneses.

Has the book addressed ANY of those problems to an appreciable degree?

I think he means the ki powers that give you AC bonuses. Some kind of relfexive +4 ability and barkskin at the very least. If you go Str>Wis>Con>Dex=Int>Cha then the extra ki points you lost from having to use Dex would grant you the bonus AC via ki powers.

Also from what I've been picking up the amount of abilities that require ki is exaggerated.


Mark Seifter wrote:
While I do agree with you that for most monks, Stunning Fist is a hail mary, am I missing something in the formula, or wouldn't a Stunning Fist from a 30 Wis monk have the same DC as the best spell of an equal-level 30 Cha sorcerer?

Feat support. At the point in time in which we're talking 30 casting stat, that's approaching at least level 15, so you can expect increased DC from Spell Perfection (possibly with Heighten Spell), Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus for starters. Add in Elemental Focus and Greater Elemental Focus if the spell being cast is one that benefits. So we're looking at +4, +8, or more to spell DC with Spell Perfection in play. There's also boosts from class abilities like Bloodlines (Arcane Bloodline) or similar.

By contrast, Monk has... Ability Focus if they can take it, Mantis Style, Nightmare Striker if they qualify (pretty much never), and the martial artist archetype bonus. Grand total of +5 in an ideal world in which they play a martial artist taking Mantis Style and Ability Focus.

Essentially, in the end game where we have 30 <stat>, Monks get slightly less than half the potential bonus compared to a caster's Perfection'd spell. If we remove Spell Perfection from the mix, the caster still edges out the monk by a few points (1-3 depending on class features and other effects that may boost DC.) This, by the way, requires the monk to hit in melee, which may not always be possible or desirable. Caster casts a spell and forces a save. Monk moves in, attacks with X% chance of failure minimum 5%, then forces the save after doing damage.

This is relatively off the cuff, I'm sure others can elaborate further with more exhaustive studies.


Robert Jordan wrote:

If, for argument sake, we granted them the usage of Light Armor. Chain Shirt is arguably our best buy. So +4 armor bonus, max enhancement of +5 to take it to a total of +9, 1 point ahead of Bracers of Armor's cap of 8. Now to be fair the Chain Shirt has the added bonus of being able to get 5 points of special abilities beyond that, and it's cheaper. 25,250 +5 Chain Shirt vs 64,000 +8 Bracers of Armor. The armor has a max dex bonus though so that caps at 4. Now there's only so hard we can really scrutinize things due to table variation, some groups may climb into high levels where Inherent Bonuses from wish/manuals come into play and +6 stat items are common.

But we can look at it and just say if they had, for argument sake, a Dex of 20 that's a +5. Our Chain Shirt will give us 9 + 4 dex for a total of 13, our Bracers of Armor will give us 8 + 5 for a total of 13. Looks even to me. Now I understand the argument about needing to put points in Dex and Wis and that offsets things a bit.

I think a good thing to keep in mind as well is that going to full BaB and no longer having a penalty on Flurry gave you a +2 on all your to hit rolls, that's 4 points of Str.... or Dex if you went with Weapon Finesse I guess. Or Weapon Focus and Greater Weapon Focus, or a +2 Amulet of Mighty Fists or constantly Flanking. You may not hit as hard as a Two Handed Fighter or Barbarian, then again you can two hand a weapon for str and a half in the unchained version, so maybe you will.

You forgot Mithral. A +5 Mithral Chain Shirt has +9 AC, a Max Dex of +7, and no ACP. For nearly a THIRD of the price of Bracers of Armor that grant LESS AC.

Eltacolibre wrote:

All this talk about AC...but isnt the general consensus on forum that AC sucks at higher level anyway?

I mean, just sayin'.

A base level of AC is necessary to survive.

Non-AC defensive abilities are great! Monk has access to exactly 0 of them in-class, so that point is moot.


Ryzoken wrote:
By contrast, Monk has... Ability Focus if they can take it, Mantis Style, Nightmare Striker if they qualify (pretty much never), and the martial artist archetype bonus. Grand total of +5 in an ideal world in which they play a martial artist taking Mantis Style and Ability Focus.

Actually, I'm pretty sure martial artist and mantis style don't stack.

Scarab Sages

More importantly, if you can wear light armor, unarmed monks get a free +2 to hit and damage from Brawling.

One thing I will say, is that unchained monks look like they will be far better weapon based monks than any current monk (other than Zen Archer). Sansetsukon or Seven Branched Sword is awesome, and you have the Ninja chain weapons for reach flurry if wanted.

Scarab Sages

LoneKnave wrote:
Ryzoken wrote:
By contrast, Monk has... Ability Focus if they can take it, Mantis Style, Nightmare Striker if they qualify (pretty much never), and the martial artist archetype bonus. Grand total of +5 in an ideal world in which they play a martial artist taking Mantis Style and Ability Focus.
Actually, I'm pretty sure martial artist and mantis style don't stack.

They do stack. They are untyped bonuses from different sources.


You are right, I was thinking of stunning fist adept.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

In reference to the abilities above I'll give a brief blurb on each to at least give you an idea what they do.

Cobra Breat, Lvl 12 need Diamond Body, instead of neutralizing the poison you redirect it (ranged touch) to a target within 30 feet forcing them to save (poison's dc) or be affected. No additional cost

Elemental Fury, lvl 6, Pick an energy type swift action get 1d6 of that energy for a number of rounds equal to 1/2 monk lvl. Costs Ki

Elemental Burst, lvl 18 need Elemental Fury, 4 points 20d6 30ft cone targeting ref save. Costs Ki

Formless Mastery, lvl 7 but Mark said it should probably have been lvl 6 and was a slip up. Long as you don't have any style feats you can gain a +4 to hit and your monk level in damage vs someone who is using a style. Costs Ki

Ki Blocker, lvl 10, 1 point stop Ki, 2 stop all that other stuff, lasts 1 hour. Costs Ki

Ki Hurricane, lvl 10 need Sudden Speed (which remember lasts for 1 minute now and is 30 feet), Can move up to double speed and spend ki points to make flurry attacks while moving... you know till you're out of movement/attacks/ki whatever comes first. Costs Ki

Ki Volley, lvl 16 need Diamond Soul, they fail to overcome SR you can send the spell back as per Spell Turning. Costs Ki

One Touch, lvl 12, standard action unarmed strike as touch attack get 1/2 monk lvl as bonus damage. IF you spend ki you can double the bonus damage so you'd get full monk lvl

Qinggong Powers, Literally that ginormous list of powers go nuts you know what they are otherwise reference the SRD

Quivering Palm is Quivering Palm.

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