I'm just starting a party with three Monks. I was wondering what the quickest way to build stealth would be and are they best with their bare hands or would a weapon be better, or even both?
I decided on Lizardmen so what would be the first 2 attributes to build?

Lizardman monk huh... nothing like 5 levels of apprenticeship, looks like you won't be building anything for a while.

Ok, what's better and how do I build him/her?

I just went up a level and now I know what you mean! I didn't know I had to make up that -30! So, I'm open suggestion.

Why not try a mix of races for monks? Human, Felpur, and Mook, say. Or Hobbit, Gnome...you get the idea. You can compare how they fight! And, if bored, can change to another profession more easily than Lizardmen. My 2 cents.

Everyone in my all-hobbit party seems to be doing fine, including my monk. I've maxed dexterity and speed. Skill points have been put to that unarmed combat skill thingy, stealth and critical hit, then (when no more points could be put in those skills, before I got snakespeed and reflextion) to psionics, mental realm thingy and some other realms, now I put'em to snakespeed, reflextion and psionics...

Human and Hobbit both have noticably more total starting Attribute points than any other races. This is important when your Class has so many requirements.
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Stealth building: At L4-5 you start getting Seekers in LM, and if you stay at their max range (the edge of Thrown) they don't hit very often and do less damage and nausea. You can shop at Burz and get beck downstairs by crashing through the rail (If you jump where there's no rail, you die a lot: IIRC you can crash through the 3rd section from Burz--but you land in the water, so either be ready for the fish or time your fall when they're under the bridge)
Get som Fairy Dust and lots of heals. Do laps until you get a group of at least 5 Seekers, drag them into the Ramp room so they can all line up and shoot at you. Your Sleep spell won't be very good yet, so use Fairy Dust so you can get out of Combat without killing them, so you can save the game periodically. You'll get hit some until your AC is up around 10, so keep watching so you can administer potions; then you can go do something else while they train.
Once they get around 70 Stealth, the seekers may wander around and start shooting again from closer, or wander away completely--someone else may wander in to eat you. This is when you go to the Garden behind Phooney, sleep them so you can close the door, and stay by the door to Altheides.

That's a good idea Ziggy. Was thinking of that and I may bite the bullet and give it a try.

When i have a monk in my party, i usually don't use a missile weapon. Instead, i used martial arts for short range, and the Zatoichi Bo for extended range (and some spells for greater range). Since this is available quite late in the game, i start bare-handed, and switch to Staff of Doom (cursed) when i get it.

But there's only one guaranteed Zatoichi Bo, and i don't think other weapons are worth using with a monk. So that would be hand&feet for the other two.

If your party is more range-oriented, then staff of doom isn't that good (i only use a monk in melee-oriented parties). In this case, better ignore staffs completely.

I think that using an extended weapon (staff) with 1 or 2 of them, and the boomerang shuriken with (also of course martial arts for close range) would be quite good

excuse me for the stupid question but does stealth also make you less visible by enemies, or does it only add to defense?

I like the Mindblast Rod for my monk but you got to
kill a lot of trang to get it.

It makes you less visible and adds to defense.

btw, martial arts soaks up stamina quite rapidly - you could find one or more of you monks passed out taking a beating. Also there will be no additional criticals because of bonus critical weapons for a martial monk. This suggests then that you should not rely on criticals for this character and instead try to maximise damage. (i.e. note what the lay brothers are doing, hiting often and doing a lot of damage.) Unfortunetly the two non-requisite attributes are the most important (str. and vit. - though vit. to a lesser degree because piety's also adds to stamina).

Since you are only using Monks I would seriously consider maxing piety as quickly as possible to unlock Ironwill for all characters. (its a great expert skill in what ordinarily is an otherwise "worthless" attribute.) Here however ALL of your characters will have the skill and because of this all will have incresed resistance to magical attacks (this expert skill in the context of a party is otherwise worthless, i.e its all or none). As noted above the increases in piety will also give you additional Stamina (and don't forget that you will also be increasing your mana pool - which is important for non-bishops). Furthermore Piety IS a requisite attribute for a Monk. I checked out races and Human is over all the best race for the monk. Remember that Speed for a Monk can be addressed later in the game with the spell Haste.

Human Monk starting attributes would then be:
str. 54 (at level 13 you unlock powerstrike)
int. 50
pie. 57 (at level 12 you unlock Ironwill)
vit. 45
dex. 59 (continue on with this secondary after piety is maxed)
spd. 55 (use haste to compensate)
sen. 55 (Possibly continue on with this skill after str. IF senses is strongly affecting chances for criticals - and I think it is. Otherwise pick any other attribute.)

One last comment: If you want to take some extra levels as a Bishop latter in level (to get extra magical protection) then you will need only increase int. 5 points. - so take that into consideration for your 4th attribute to increase.

or just get the 5 free Int from the
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riddle fountain in the Tree.

Ok, I'll give them a try. I normally don't like them but eventually you gotta' try something different. Y'all know I'm pretty set in my party ways so I'm trying to keep an open mind.

I also heard that you can position yourself in the lower Mon to let a weak beast or beasts start attacking, go to purely defense mode/shield, and go to continuous mode to speed up stealth training. You will have to switch back to phased mode and heal now and then. Haven't tried this. I just fight alot early there to build up strength.

On the side: where is that riddle fountain in Trynton? I never found the thing. Or guess I didn't click on it.

some quick thoughts

- the monk's critical strike works for melee weapons, not just martial arts. so you do get the bonus. i've had criticals using normals staves and nunchucks with monks.

- i like the recommendation to run up piety in an all-monk party. in particulary, it helps learn spell casting (although i'd prefer intelligence to get powercast), adds to stamina, and the iron will opens up the opportunity to wear things like cape of stealth or cloak perception instead of the technicolor robe.

- for an all-monk party building strength and piety, i'd be inclined to run senses and vitality next. dex is useless to a monk (the additional swings and hit bonuses are covered off by speed and strength, and you wont need reflexion, or even get it in reasonable time), and you can never have enough stamina for these bad boys. and the initiative bonus from senses would give you a party that could run in on and strike many enemies before they even got a move.

- my favourite races for the monk are human, elf, and felpurr (in that order). while all should have martial arts as a primary focus, consider building each one slightly different. for example, elf as a spell caster, human as a staff user, felpurr as a thrower, each building slightly different attributes and skills. then you can really see the differences.

- the benefit of stealth making you less visible is that enemies will strike others in the party instead of the monk, or do nothing (sometimes) if no one else is available to strike. however, sometimes they will just run away since they cant see what they're fighting

btw, if anyone recalls my idea to build an all monk party a while back as a way of testing criticals, i found it to be little fun, primarily because i build them all identically. i'm now working on a different party to test criticals (watch this space).

Though I love Vit., I'm still suggesting dex. next because:
1. Additional attacks w/out haste, and with
2. You can pump up dex. to 59 on creation whereas you can't with vit. - meaning its a lot closer to maxing out than vit.
3. Dex. also adds to AC - minimally though (Very important for Monks)
4. If you train heavily in Arnika you should be walking out from there at about level 13 to 14 so reflexation isn't that far off.
5. Reflexation adds +6 to AC when maxed. (Very important for Monks)
6. You can imeadiatly train Reflexation as soon as you open it up utilizing the same meathod you did for Stealth. (i.e. maxed when opened)
7. Vitality isn't as neccesary at the level were talking about switching over to - i.e. you already have a decent supply of hit points and stamina.
8. Additional stamina that vit. would have provided on adding into vit. during level-ups is already covered with pie.
9. Vitality actually adds very little hit points or stamina while leveling-up, perhaps adding no more than 15% to total hit points and 25% to stamina at the end of the game while constantly plowing points into it at level-ups.
10. Unlocking Ironskin is worthless - (it takes to long to unlock it in this instance - see #2; when its unlocked it takes even longer to increase it; monks already have damage absorption)

As for the criticals with nunchucks -WOW! I thought only thrust weapons received critical capability. Definitly go with nunchucks then dual-wield for that awesome KO of 15% each (statistically that should be better than weilding a giant sword).

Intelligence really isn't neccesary because you can fire off spells at X3 each which dramatically increases your odds of effect and your amount of damage (if its a damage type spell) - i.e. powercast isn't neccesary. With that in mind I'd make all the monks the same. (though for variety if you want you can always choose one for staff, one for nunchucks, and one for martial arts.) Alternativly if you decide you want more magical protection you could opt for only switching one Monk to a Bishop. For psionic spells your still casting X3 Plus with this scenario you have the ability to put up additional defenses that don't need the X3 effect.

As for the intelligence pool in Trynton - I thought that was only for Rangers and I thought that was only for one character? If its only the latter then you could still use the extra 5 intelligence for that one character that might become a Bishop latter.

[ 08-29-2003, 03:13 AM: Message edited by: ScottG ]

All party members receive +5 int upon answering the riddle fountain. It's just to the right of the entrance ramp to the Sanctuary. (where the Fairies are)

However, note that monks can knock out monsters when fighting barehanded - and they do it a lot.

No, everyone gets it. Any party member.

Thanks for all the input. I'm still a little confused about the stealth though. I was just figthing some Seekers and I set the Monks to defend and went to continuous mode and then just did nothing. Is this a good way to building stealth? It seemed to work but I wasn't sure what my stealth was at before. I think it might have gone up 3-4 points.

my mistake about the pool - sorry.

Yup stealth should go up this way - the problem you'll encounter is that after a while the seekers may run away. to cure this problem you'll need several seekers (i.e. at least 4). this way when they start getting tired they don't all run away at the same time. Its also better if you do this in an enclosed area so they can't run away - like leading them into the grassy courtyard area of the monestary and closing the door. Also the additional missles pumps up stealth faster (from more seekers).

between 4-7 seekers often takes at least two hours realtime of babysitting your monks until they reach skill level 90. then as long as your people are at the outer firing range of the seekers you can pretty much leave your computer on "auto-pilot" and walk away from it. Then it can take as much as 10 hours realtime for the last 10 points (but of course you could be sleeping while this occurs so your really not "loosing" time.)

[ 08-29-2003, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: ScottG ]

The stealth trick really worked! I had 2 seekers at lvl 2 in the room with the chest that isn't locked and the green water on the floor. I gave my bishop a shield and let them all defend. Just leave it on cont. combat for about 2000 rounds and you've got lots of stealth and shield skill.
Unfortunatly I'm still having a hard time enjoying this party. It just seems so long until they start to get good.

P.S. I really missed y'all while the site was down!

[ 09-02-2003, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: Variol (Farseer) Elmwood ]

scottg - your reasonings on the values of dex are all valid. however, i understood variol to be saying this is a three-man party.

as a veteran of many 3 and 4 man parties, i can say without a doubt that building up only two stamina-yielding stats will still not give you enough stamina. the other benefits of dex you listed are covered off by other skills/stats, but stamina is precious for these parties.

for example, take on 7 juggernauts with 3 level 9 monks and the fight will last 25+ rounds, with the monks swinging 6 times per round. even with 1 round in 5 spent healing/buffing/casting, that's still 120 attacks each, and even with pie and str run up and using pickmeups you'll still be pushing stamina uphill.

and dont count on criticals to bail you out until much later in the game. my three-man criticals party just had such a battle, and after 250 attacks (hit/pen about 3/4'ths of the time) had just 1 critical, in spite of critical skills of 61 and 76.

a priest (or lord/valk) with rest all can be a big help, but this is where strategy comes into play ;)

Sorry Sultan, I actully have a 4 person party. The fourth is a Bishop, so I can use Rest all as a means to keep stamina up. But I really prefer not having to cast it if I can avoid it so I can cast something else.

Sultan - Numerous ways to maneuver around a fight like that..
1. Run away. (works really well w/ stealth only party for stamina replenishment)
2. use flash powder
3. utilize a 3 sided barrier and rotate your characters so that at least one is resting in the back and can be rotated back into the battle when rested (and of course pulling out the character(s) that need to rest
4. quaff LOTS of urine samples and healing potions (or pickmeup potions)
5. etc.

I see part of the problem from using martial arts - that meathod of attack consumes a ludicrous amount of stamina...... makes me wonder what two nunchucks would be like. Of course two nunchucks also has that nice 15% each KO which should help out tremendously for stamina (i.e. your not dodgeing attacks othewise resulting in huge losses of stamina).

Yup Variol.. typically the fewer characters you have the more you must train = the less fun it is.

[ 09-02-2003, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: ScottG ]

since variol has a bishop this is really a moot point.

scottg, i take your point: there's lots of solutions. many of the ones you've listed require specific situations or have other drawbacks, including losing some of the fun factor (for me, anyway).

on the other hand, sure, dumping points into vitality means not pumping dex or senses. for me, the types of parties i play, my preferred style of combat, vitality suits, if for no other reason than, once it's built up, it's one less thing to think about.

that's what's so great about this game, there's no right or wrong answer. only pros and cons to the various solutions. i hope our discussion raises some thoughts for new and experienced players to try different things.