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