what race would be the best for a pure monk? I was thinking either human or halfling but not sure...also what race if I multi to rogue at some point? I would prob do something like 15/5 monk/rogue, that a good idea?

Then I would use a human to avoid the 20% xp penalty

Well, I don't have the game (yet) but if it's
full D&D rules, DON'T TAKE a SMALL (hobbit,
gnome, ...) character to create a monk. Why ?
because they do FAR less damage with unarmed
strikes.
If you want to dual class monk/rogue get a
human or half-elf to advoid the xp penalty.
Hobbit could also do it (favored class = rogue)
but the make very weak monks.
I think it's not a good idea to dual a monk,
because you will loose lots of mega powered
feats from levels 16-20 (and damage, and moving
speed and SAVES). Monks have the BEST saves in
the game.

[ 07-31-2002, 07:44 AM: Message edited by: ecarletti ]

My thoughts (based on my experiences) with Monks:

Half-elves make great monks, the best race if you plan on dual classing to a non-racial secondary class without maintaining an equal balance between classes. Also, they get many elven affinity bonuses, though reduced in power. For this, they give up the "non-human" bonus feat. (Whoopee, you'll never notice it.)

Dwarves are good monks. Very excellent constitution. They have to be supported heavier in the "persuade" skill. It's not a terrible burden, but it does suck up a few extra skill points. Plus dwarves have all those great affinity bonuses and training. Run a dwarf monk into a nest of orcs, goblinoids or giants and see just how well he/she performs. [img]smile.gif[/img] If you're planning on multi-classing, dwarves add nothing special (fighter, whoopee!). :(

Humans make good monks, but not the best. They're best attribute is the extra skill points, what-not, they get, plus the easier multi-classing.

Elves are good as monks, but blow on constitution so you have to take the toughness feat. But they are pretty good against magic using creatures and they have a lot of affinity bonuses. If you want to be a monk/wizard, this is the race for you.

Half-orcs make good melee-oriented monks, but their portraits all suck. More importantly, since they're stupid AND ugly, it's harder to get all the skills you need because you have to put so many of your so few points into Persuade.

Halflings are poor monks, unless you want your monk to sit in the back and throw shirkun instead of kung fu fighting. If that's the case though, make him a barbarian or a fighter or a ranger and take exotic weapons.

Gnomes are terrible, terrible monks because of their strength/size penalties. The worst class for monkdom. Only use if monk will be the secondary class to wizard.

IMO Monks are best as pure monks, no multi-classing. I was tempted to take some levels of theif as well, but instead just kept my search, disarm traps and open locks maxed. But by the end game even that was unnecessary. As you can open even the most stubborn chest with any of the magic monk gloves you can get (they do elemental damage which bypasses the chest phyiscal damage resitance) and with superior evasion most traps do zero damage [img]smile.gif[/img]