[Aerich]

I agree that it's a marginal feat, and useless in some situations (e.g. with a melee monster using greataxes and much of HoF). However, it's not so bad as you posted above.

1) Improved Critical moves the critical threat roll from 20 to 19-20. If the character uses a dagger (which I do quite frequently, at least in the normal game when the monk's Ki Strike hasn't caught up to the damage resistance of certain enemies), the natural threat range of a dagger is 19-20, which becomes 18-20 with Improved Critical. That's 15% chance per attack of a critical threat, and say for the sake of argument that 66% of critical threats become critical hits. Therefore, you could critical hit on 10% of all strikes with a dagger, and maybe 7% of all hits with fists.

2) It was my understanding that you have a 100% chance to cause Slow or Blind, with an even probability to cause either one. Even if your understanding of the 50%/50% is correct, that's still a 75% chance that one or the other occurs.

3) This is the killer, if you are doing HoF. However, you can help it along by attacking certain physically weaker enemies - like spellcasters. I also tend to use a lot of bonus/malus spells in HoF. Malison and Recitation together take 4 off of a save, which is significant.

DF can be quite helpful for characters that do not cause a lot of damage with each hit - such as an archer or a low-Str decoy.

Look at it this way; a lvl 30 character that is primarily a monk will attain 11 or more feats (more if it is human or takes levels in wizard or fighter). What feats should it have?

It's my understanding that Klorox's monk is optimized as a decoy (with 13 Int and Expertise). Therefore, it is unlikely to have 13 Str and access to Power Attack and Cleave.

In no particular order, here's my list of "must-have" feats for a monk/decoy.

Expertise, Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will, Dodge, and Improved Critical. I'd add Weapon Finesse if the player has the mod that treats monk fists as daggers for the purposes of Weapon Finesse. That's 6 feats, so there's 5 more to go.

Great Fortitude is the last save-booster feat I'd take (it's tested less often, IMO), but I'd likely take it. That leaves 4 optional feats. Rapid Shot can be useful, but probably won't be used much. Precise shot is useless (monk would shift to fists). There's a whole host of feats that are useless or unavailable to a dedicated monk (casting feats, rogue feats, Heretic's Bane, Heroic Inspiration), and quite a few that boost skill checks. Monks get Deflect Arrows automatically as a level-dependent class feat, and Dash is entirely unnecessary. So what's left? Blind Fight? I say Dirty Fighting is ok as one of the options. It's certainly got as least as much utility as Toughness, which was the original question.

[ 07-02-2007, 03:34 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]