Monk enthusiast please note..

[magnetism]

If you take weapon finness to use you dex mod instead of your str mod
you will not receive these bonuses for unarmed combat, in addition if you use kamas your 1-10[20] fist damage is painfully reduced to 1-6.

I note this because at the suggestion of DraconisRex,I recall, I tried just this.

At:
Str-14,dex-18,con-14,wis-16,int-10,chr-10
feat:
weapon finness
Unarmed I recieve no bonus damage..armed my damage goes from 1-10 to 1-6 there is my damage bonus...

So my nice +4 bonus is all but wasted.

Str/Wis are the halmarks of a unarmed monk if someone knows a way arround this please let me know.

[Rokenn]

Weapon Finness only effects your to hit numbers, not your damage. Your damage bonus only comes from your strength.

With monks you have to make some choices. Do you boost strength for better overall melee (increase to hit and damage). Boost wisdom to be a defensive monk (increase AC), or Dex to get a mix of the two when you take the Weapon Finness feat (increase to AC and To hit).

[Morgan_Corbesant]

well, i put alot into dex and con, a few in the others, so i have no negatives, and the rest went into str and con. there are tons of items in the game that raise your strength. potions are easy, and there are belts too. if you get a bonus at all to strength, but your dex is higher, and you have weapons finesse, you still get the "to hit" with your dex, and the damage bonus still applies, if you have one. i get a +2 damage from my strength, and i have an 18 dex, and 16 wis, so my ac is rather high. i have a few items too. boots of the sun soul+2 for one. i have some cool gloves that are +2 to hit, and do 2 sonic damage, so my monk hits for between 6 and 14 damage per hit. not too shabby. i dont worry about charisma, persuade (great feat) is a monk skill, so it have it at level 7 or so right now. it works nine out of ten times for me. im an elf, so i see all traps, an i carry a bow with elemental arrows to destroy trapped chests and doors. monks are by far the second best characters in the game, right after sorceror that is. [img]smile.gif[/img] i multi-playered a game, it was me vs a 20th level monk. i had improved stoneskin, which i cast on me, my familiar (panther) and a summoned skeleton chieftain. while he was fighting them, i was blasting him with horrid wilting, fireball, fire arrow, acid arrows, and useing a good ole timestop or two. he was MAD!!! it was the first time he was beaten, because he usually just used his quivering palm and killed his enemies in one hit!!! aside from the magic aspect though, monks are my favorite melee fighter. i just wish the kensai from BG2 would be in this. that would be awesome.

[DraconisRex]

Originally posted by magnetism: If you take weapon finness to use you dex mod instead of your str mod you will not receive these bonuses for unarmed combat, in addition if you use kamas your 1-10[20] fist damage is painfully reduced to 1-6. I note this because at the suggestion of DraconisRex,I recall, I tried just this. At: Str-14,dex-18,con-14,wis-16,int-10,chr-10 feat: weapon finness Unarmed I recieve no bonus damage..armed my damage goes from 1-10 to 1-6 there is my damage bonus... So my nice +4 bonus is all but wasted. Str/Wis are the halmarks of a unarmed monk if someone knows a way arround this please let me know.

I'm not sure what the problem may be, except prehaps your perception. In rebuttle I just reviewed a number of different monks I played (half-orc, elf, dwarf, halfling, half-elf & human (but not gnome) plus I created a level 11 Female Elf Monk (DebugMode 1} {GiveXP 60000}, with the following attributes: 14, 18, 12, 10, 15, 10. I specifically avoided all combat feats except Weapon Finesse.

The Base Attack Bonus for an unarmed 11th level monk is found on page 186 of the manual: +8/+5/+2 The base attack bonus for my new elf monk is +12/+9/+6. The difference is +4. Since my character's strength modifier is only +2, I should have received a +10/+7+4 base attack bonus. Therefore, since I took weapon finese with my character, I have increased my "to hit" rolls by an additional +2 AT NO COST TO MY DEFENSE.

For your strength method, you would have to give up defense. I do not. I give up damage, but that can be made up.

My damage modifer remains at +2. It did not go away. I am now at 1-10 + 2 for damage. The Min/Max MR (100% hitting) damage is 9-36.

If you had 18 strength, you would add 6 to the min/max damage while dropping your armour class by two.

However I could change to one of a couple of magic Kama's I have in my monk's inventory. I could use the +3 Kama or a +1 Imaskari Kama (+1+ 1-4 Acid damage).

The +3 kama would give me the following damage range: 18-33. Therefore, the +3 Kama is superior to plain unarmed damage. The Imaskari Kama would give me a damage range of 15-39. Again, superior to straight hand damage.

To offset, you could use Gloves of the Yellow Rose (+3). They add +1 to damage (electrical). That, essentially evens the damage playing field. In addition, that would improve your "to hit" by +3. But then, so would the +3 Kama. So the "to hit" tends to even out.

At this point, your character would have +5 damage modifier (+4 ST, +1 Elec.) and a +7 attack modifier (+4 STR, +3 gloves). My character would have a +5 damage modifier (+2 ST, +3 Magic) and a +7 attack modifier (+3 Kama, +4 DEX).

Your character would do, on average, 2 hp more damage per hit and hit the same amount of times as my character on the average target.

However, the odds are you would die before me. +2 average damage is far less signifcant than +2 AC difference. For example, you're fighting a +4 attack bonus 11th level fighter and have a 24 AC. I'm fighting his twin brother and have a 26 AC. They're +15/+10/+5 to hit.

On the first attack, your opponent must roll a 10 or better. (11 of 20 possible.) My opponent must roll a 12 or better (9 of 20 possible). [(11/9)-1] = 22% greater chance of being hit (in relative terms).

On the second attack, your opponent must roll a 14 or better. (7 of 20) Mine must roll a 16 or better. (5 of 20). [(7/5)-1] = 40% greater chance of being hit. (Once again, these are in relative terms.)

On the third attack, your opponent must roll a 19 or 20. My opponent can only hit on a 20. That's a 100% in relative threat.

In absolute terms, it's not as great. In three attacks in one melee round, covering 60 possible random numbers, your under threat for 20 of 60 possible outcomes. My character is under threat for 15 of 60 possible outcomes. That translates to your character having about a 1/3 greater chance of taking damage than my character.

For that, you average +2 hp damage greater per hit in combat with an 18 STR monk? And your monk, in your example isn't an 18 STR monk. And most monks are not. 14 is the starting STR & DEX of a monk, before racial modifications and player tweaking differences.

So, like I said, I'm not sure what your gripe at me might be, except your perception of the events. The combat log interface doesn't tell you many things, which might be skewing your perception of the facts. It certainly did with me, until I realized that some information is already combined prior to observation.

[magnetism]

I believe the manual specified that Weapon finess
used dex for damage mod as well to hit, anyway if it does not
than I'm not so terribly upset..

However I have dex/wis 1+4)/16(+3) and my ac is 20 I would not call this great.. but not bad for just a +1 cloak.

Another question however...

Lighting Reflexes - seams a no brainer since a reflex save means zilch damage for monk.

Because my str(or int) is low I am limited in Discipline
( lvl 7 ) so I descided to skill focus(discipline)
Have not bean knocked down for 4 lvls now.

Any must have secondary feats worth looking at like these?

One last comment -- Grimknaw - "The Homicidal Monk" owns I love this guy, great script fun companion, if he had a small rodent to talk to he would be perfect...

[magnetism]

My grip was that I thought weapon finess would apply dex mod to damage (for unarmed combat)while griping however I realized that the benifits of a dex based monk are compelling at least.

Hey Draconis thanks for breaking it down for me... I no desire to fiddle with numbers ( I program software and nessisarily need a distraction from that sort of thing. )

The thing that sparked my concern was fighting next to grimknaw
s-20,d-14,w-20,con-16,int-10,ch-4 he is doing 1x-3x damage
his damage bonus is like +7 ( str+5 and +2 gloves I assume ) while I am doing 6-14 average damage... like I hit for 6 and he hits for 19
i hit for 7 he hits critical for 39, I hit critical for 14 he hits regular for 19 ^_^...

I am sorry it seamed that I was railing your advice, grim was just making me jealous... hrmm and he has 27 ac as well jeese my guy feals inferior... at least I am more charming than him...