natural attacks, unarmed strikes and feats

[Emanresu]

yah your right otherwise his attacks might be as feeble as hitting Yellowbeard with a club across the back...smack smack smack "what do you want now"?

[Unbeliever]

and damage modifiers

Unarmed damage is one of the things that's relatively easy to pump.  That wouldn't apply to his natural attacks, though.

[kitep]

So what are some of the ways?

[Unbeliever]

I think Person Man's list is pretty complete:  http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?127732-3-X-Increasing-Size-Effective-Size-Unarmed-Damage-Reach

Short version is increase your effective size, which yields sort of increasing returns.

[Emanresu]

Im confused, but not unexpectedly, err maybe I'm just saddened that every decision, every logical well thought out decision to boost the monks ability, to strengthen the monks effectiveness, basically make the monk better at what it is a monk does, involves taking less Monk levels and more of anything else.

[altpersona]

ya... i think that is the consensus

same thing w/ rogue, i think.

and fighter. 

[Unbeliever]

Im confused, but not unexpectedly, err maybe I'm just saddened that every decision, every logical well thought out decision to boost the monks ability, to strengthen the monks effectiveness, basically make the monk better at what it is a monk does, involves taking less Monk levels and more of anything else.

What Altpersona said.  This is a well-known problem.  Monk is probably the ideal example of the biggest problem in 3E D&D.  A player, very reasonably, expects the Monk to do what the intro paragraphs say it does.  It punches and kicks, and kung-fus, and whatever.  But, the mechanics behind the class do not deliver on this, really at all.

This is a little off-topic, but when it comes to the Monk this isn't caused by a drive to major optimization.  What I'm saying is this.  It's not the case that in a desire to squeeze every ounce of power you eschew Monk levels in favor of cherrypicking abilities from various sources (also known as making a non-ToB warrior in D&D).  The straight Monk 12 build just probably isn't even competent at its role of some sort of melee combatant. 

Others have commented on this at great length, but to some up the big issue it's that the class' abilities are all over the place.  They don't build on each other synergize well, especially after the first few levels.

[altpersona]

somewhere around here we probably have a dual 9 caster build w/ 15+ bab and a feat to spare for Unarmed Strike.

add some monky (no banana) robes and boom... your a monk... who out monks a straight lvl 20 monk...

its WoTC's fault... they sorta suck... 

[Emanresu]

any alternative monk class features that work? I read somewhere "martial monk" is this legit or wiki? Also kung fu genius, ahhh thats all I got...I also read something, I at first thought ridiculous, now I find merit in and that something is that Monks should have VoP. But IMO thats just piling more ingredients in a bad soup.

poor monk, the red headed step child of the Dnd world

Eman

[FlaminCows]

Martial Monk is in Dragon Magazine #310. Kung Fu Genius is not an alternate class feature, but a feat. It is in Dragon Compendium.

Do not put Vow of Poverty on monks. Monks need the magic items.

[wotmaniac]

[...] VoP. [...]

[Emanresu]

Martial Monk is in Dragon Magazine #310. Kung Fu Genius is not an alternate class feature, but a feat. It is in Dragon Compendium.

Do not put Vow of Poverty on monks. Monks need the magic items.

are there any other feats / alt class features for the monk? I listed what I knew/heard of...

I agree with above response, monks class features dont synergies well with eachother. Its almost as if somebody randomly selected some of those class feratures via drawing from a hat

[FlaminCows]

are there any other feats / alt class features for the monk? I listed what I knew/heard of...

Oh, there are loads of alternative class features and feats for the Monk. Prime32's monk handbook has a good listing. Many builds can, with the right combination, benefit greatly from a Monk dip.

But that is it. It is a dip class. One extra attack (compared to a full BAB class) and the equivalent of a few low-level spells does not a class make.

[Unbeliever]

...
But that is it. It is a dip class. One extra attack (compared to a full BAB class) and the equivalent of a few low-level spells does not a class make.

This.  And, don't be hung up on how many Monk levels your "Monk" character has.  That's not how 3E D&D works.  Often the way to build any character really, and especially warrior-types in the system, is to hunt around for abilities and then find the ones that you can stack up together to make it work for you.

[phaedrusxy]

any alternative monk class features that work? I read somewhere "martial monk" is this legit or wiki? Also kung fu genius, ahhh thats all I got...I also read something, I at first thought ridiculous, now I find merit in and that something is that Monks should have VoP. But IMO thats just piling more ingredients in a bad soup.

poor monk, the red headed step child of the Dnd world

Eman

SoroLost has touted the power of monks with enough ACFs added onto them. Hopefully he'll chime in here in a bit, but I know he one of the big things is the Invisible Fist ACF, which I think kicks in at 9th level to basically give you perma-invisibility. I forget where that's from, though. I basically quit building monk builds years ago...

[Unbeliever]

Exemplars of Evil, I think.  It should be in the Class Boosters handbook. 

[linklord231]

I've been working on a Monk build for quite a while now.  Can't seem to get it to a point where I think it can compete with well played Tier 3's at high levels. 
Monk 7/Duskblade 3/Suel Arcanamach 10 makes a decent gish, but it doesn't get Greater Mighty Wallop until far too late, and it relies on all six stats. 
Monk 7/War Mind/Fist of Zuoken makes a decent psi gish, but why not Tashalatora?
Monk 7/Rogue 2/Assassin 1/Ninja of the Crescent Moon would make a good stealther, and can use Assassin wands. 
Monk 7/Incarnate 1/Totemist 2/Umbral Disciple 10 could be fun, and goes well with the shadowy theme of Invisible Fist/Dark Moon Disciple.
Monk 7/Master Thrower 5/Ninja of the Crescent Moon 8 could make a good stealthy thrower. 

All of those builds are decent, but they don't have the damage output that they need.  They are pretty good at stealth, especially with Darkstalker and a Ring of Darkhidden and some way to count as standing in less than full daylight, but stealth doesn't kill people. 

The trick with monks is to spread your stats around (keeping Str at a 16 or so), and buy stat boosters for everything.  MAD is actually kind of a blessing for them, because it means better returns on a smaller investment due to the way stat boosters increase in price exponentially.  Unarmed Strikes are also the cheapest weapons to enchant, because so many things apply.  You can get an Amulet of Mighty Fists, a Ward Cestus, and those bracers from Magic of Faerun, and they all stack to make your fists the equivalent of +30 weapons. 

Good monk ACFs: 
Invisible Fist (EoE) - trade Evasion for Invisibility, 1/3 rounds, trade Improved Evasion for Blink 1/3 rounds, both immediate actions
Dark Moon Disciple (CoV Web Enhancement) - trade Still Mind for Darkvision @ lvl 3, trade Wholeness of Body for total concealment in < full daylight @ lvl 7
Holy Strike (CC) - trade Ki Strike (magic) for evil aligned attacks and +1d6 vs good
Wallwalker (DS) - trade Slow Fall for ability to run on walls an equal distance

[FlaminCows]

SoroLost has touted the power of monks with enough ACFs added onto them. Hopefully he'll chime in here in a bit, but I know he one of the big things is the Invisible Fist ACF, which I think kicks in at 9th level to basically give you perma-invisibility. I forget where that's from, though. I basically quit building monk builds years ago...

I'll link to the guide in question. The build uses alternative class features from Exemplars of Evil, The Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Scoundrel, and Champions of Ruin's web enhancement. After all that, the builds use 7 monk levels.

[Jackinthegreen]

Did someone say alternate class features?  Here's the regular D&D ones.  Here's the Dragon Mag ones.