Hey guys,

Haven't posted on these boards since I was playing Wiz 8, but I got back into this game (still on the original campaign-not even expansions yet) but I decided to go with an elven monk/rogue dual class solo. All I can say is "wow." With flurry of blows on, a stunning fist results in about 12 or more sneak attacks with my gloves of Long Death +4. I had to get help from Daelan with the devourer(my first Waterdhavian) and down in the Warrens with that stupid bloated dire spider, but the rest has been hands-down I kick your booty! I'm currently in the beginning of Chapter 2, having cleaned out the caves and won the tourney (I was even able to kill all those invisible stalkers-had to use a few heals, though). This character has been a ton of fun for me to grow.

Nice. I ran a pure monk through the OC and had pretty much owned everything once I got past the very early levels. Are you building him up as a dex based character? You might want to check out the prerequisites for epic dodge to see if you can pick it up in HOTU (if you keep the character that long). It rocks.

Unless you haven't already done so, go for high Dex and pick Weapon Finesse. The high Dex score will give you a good AC that won't go away if you're flat-footed, while WF will give a high AB.

Edit: Oh and buy the Robe of Dark Moon (or whatever it's called) in Chapter 2. It doesn't add any AC but gives you a permanent Haste. Haste gives you +4 dodge AC and one extra attack per round.

[ 02-13-2006, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: Stratos ]

Monk/rogues are pretty fun man. If you plan on playing him long term I would go with using Kamas as weapons instead of unarmed. The reason for this is if you keep leveling rogue you wont get the ki strike bonuses to hit creatures that need +2 or +3 to defeat damage reduction after awhile. If you use Kamas you will still get the same amount of attacks and can still buy or find magical kamas that have these bonuses. Plus when you get knockdown for free with the monk you will be a sneak attacking mofo. I am pretty sure Kamas are light weapons and can benefit from the weapon finess feat too. Another fun combo is Monk 6/rogue 5/Blackguard X. You get some cool abilities, decent sneak attack, fun summons and with a few charisma points you have some decent saves. Anyways,


Sly

Right now I'm using the improved robes of the old order because I needed the damage soak, but I'll try out the other robes and see which I like better.

I kept the Robes of the Dark Moon throughout - Haste was nice, and they just looked cooler than any of the others.

Well, Improved robes of the Old Order just gives you +2 to AC and something like 5/+1 soak damage. 5/+1 soak damage doesn't do much if you're facing tough opponents, and is completely pointless against anyone with magical weapons and/or elemental damaging ones.

Speaking of Robes of the Dark Moon with the Haste effect; I once tried a Dwarven Lv. 40 Monk with those robes. Boy, could he move those little legs of his. :D

Monk gloves can overcome damage reduction just like magical weapons, unless they've changed it in some patch. All you need if you face an enemy with, say, 20/+3 damage reduction is to buy a glove that have an enchantment bonus of +3 or greater. This makes the Ki Strike +4 and +5 feats completely reduntant.

Monk gloves don't give you a bonus to damage, though, just AB.

If you want permanent haste (and who doesn't, especially monks), then the boots of spped are good too. Another option, unfortunately not available until HOTU, is to have your favorite kamas upgraded with haste, if you are using them. I took a pure monk all the way through the OC & HOTU but I mostly kept him unarmed and used the boots of speed and the best monk gloves I could find.

Doing a dexterity based monk, then dualing to thief/rogue sounds like it would be pretty awesome. I have always wanted to do a monk/wizard or monk/sorceror, but unfortunately a monk will never have enough intelligence or charisma to make a really good wizard or sorceror. Has anyone given a monk a level or two of sorceror to qualify for Red Dragon Deciple? the extra stats from the RDD would really help the monk. Plus you do pick up a couple points of charisma for free from the RDD, though I guess you would have to do one more level up as a sorceror after the RDD levels to take advantage of the extra spells available with the extra 2 points of charisma.

A monk/bard/RDD might be interesting, but the opposed alignment prerequisettes for monk and bard prevent that combo.

I thought about making a Halfling monk/assassin. The idea would be to sneak around and scout stuff out, set a ton of traps, then try to death attack the strongest person and lead the rest in to the traps. The idea was to have the character using shurikens with rapid shot on and just flinging them all over for sneak attacks. It seemed like fun heh.


Sly

Part of the RP of this guy required that he's unarmed (and I love him that way, anyway) He's a self-centered butthead that sneaks around and kidney punches everything. I like the haste robes, though. Dude just tears through everything right now. I'm still in Chapter 2, and even the Lich guy wasn't too bad..Right now he's Monk7/rogue6

Don't forget Improved Knockdown that Monks get a lv. 6; all attacks will be sneak attacks while they're knocked down and Monks get alot of attacks. :D

I was screwing around with a wierd build last night just to see what bonuses stacked. I made an epic shifter just for undead shape and took the rest as monk levels and it ended up pretty weird. The AC went out the roof, somewhere around 32-35 with nothing equipped at all. The only problem was even though the vampire had unarmed attacks, none of them stacked with the monk bonuses. My original idea was to remake Bohdi from BG2 and go with thief levels but I decided to try monk and see what went with what. It was still kinda interesting though, you just lose all your feats when you shapeshift, which sucks.


Sly