THIS IS ASSUMING NO MODS!!!!

How are monks best used? Are they melee fighters, scouts, decoys, are they better with a dip into other classes (rogue, cleric, wizard)?

I want a monk in my party, but don't know how to best take advantage of the class.

What is the best racial choice for a monk?

Role: Scout/Melee
Racial Choice: Aasimar (wis), Tiefling (dex), Drow (racial multiple)

Deep Gnome.

Try a pure class to start, that will give you a good idea of a monk's abilities. Go ahead and toss in some mix-ins if you take it to HoF. A monk gets its last class-based special ability (20 damage resistance to unenchanted weapons!) at lvl 20.

Early on, the role is scout/archer, with some melee possible against a few enemies at a time. Later, with appropriate buffs, the monk can take on a primary melee role as a decoy/invulnerable melee target for hordes of enemies.

I was thinking deep gnome as well... the ecl doesnt get in the way?

It does a little at the start because of the lack of HP. However, once you get a couple levels and start adding buffs to your monk (note, this is very important, as it moves it from hard-to-hit closer to near impossible to hit on anything less than a critical), the DG can really use its racial advantages to great effect as a monk. You will still have to have ready access to healing potions for the heat of combat; less HP means that back-to-back criticals can kill you easily if you have less than 5 levels or so.

Note that the DG stat modifiers are almost perfect for a monk; +2 Dex, +2 Wis compared to -4 Cha (so what?) and -2 Str. Besides, a DG has a generic +4 to AC, which gives it an automatic AC advantage over other races that cannot be offset by 3 extra levels.

Spell resistance all the way along is nice too, as the monk will be targeted the majority of the time as the scout/decoy/primary melee option. The natural spell resistance stacks with the class-based spell resistance, so your DG monk becomes essentially invulnerable to spells (spell resistance in the 40s!) at lvl 13. That in itself is worth a little early pain.