Making a Monk

[Keikat]

Hello, my DM is going to make a Living Greyhawk based campaign and as such he is changing the rules a bit, allowing any base class and feats, and letting us use the 32 point buy system, but he will enforce the rule on magical items and such.
So I though about making a monk, he allows fighting styles and such, and I would like some help with it, we still start at level 1 and I would like to know if Vow of Poverty is good for this type of campaigns.

Thank you for any help.

[Esgath]

Detailed infos please. What books can you use and do you want a character that works like a monk or are you hellbent on the monk class? An unarmed swordsage from Tome of Battle can easily replace and surpass a monk in nearly every way.
Are you interested in taking psionic or casting classes to complement your character's abilities or do you want to play a completely mundane character? As a rule of thumb: more casting = better.
Please take some time to phrase your request better as there are many people here who could help you but may do something you are not allowed or do not like.

he is changing the rules a bit, allowing any base class and feats, and letting us use the 32 point buy system, but he will enforce the rule on magical items and such.

What does that mean?

he allows fighting styles and such

Where are those fighting styles from?

Generally Vow of Poverty is only viable in campaigns where there are literally no magic items. If you are lucky to have a +1 longsword at level 10, then get it, otherwise don't.

[Keikat]

Any 3.5 book is allowed, exalted deed, tome of battle, tome of magic, completes, etcs. and the fighting styles are from Unearthed Arcana.

and well the Living Greyhawk has a rule about magic items that they must be found in the campaign, they cant be bought or simply crafted.

[SorO_Lost]

VoP tends to flop on it's face. You get basic six (deflection/natural/armor/shield enhance, weapon, ability boost) at lower scale than what you could buy and your alternative bonus, like VoP's Deathblock & Freedom of Movement, are rudimentary and obtained slower than normal. Plus you totally give up utility based items such say even being able to use a Passwall scroll to walk under an army to assassinate the king. No Maneuver granting items, no Wands of Hunter's Eye, etc. Now VoP isn't entirely un-feasible. Strictly speaking Grafts, Magical Locations, and Spellcasting Services do not break your vow as they are not magical items. You *could* build something useful out of it but we're talking a high level of optimization and your DM will probably prevent you from using those anyway.

Personally, I'd pick up Spellcasting and either create your own items or buff up with spells. Ascetic Monk / Sorcerer / <Something> Fist has a very nice Monk-like feel while picking up spellcasting. Alternatively there is always the Unarmed Swordsage which deserves a mention whenever someone mentions Monk. But assuming you want Monk and Monk only; I consider Passive Way the greatest none-Dragon variant. But don't forget your other ACFs, they fix the otherwise unusable Class.
Passive Way Monk 1: Improved Natural Attack^Flaw, Combat Expertise^Bonus, Skill Focus(bluff)^Flaw, Battle Jump^1st.
Passive Way Monk 2: Improved Trip^Bonus, trade Evasion for Invisibility (immediate action, lasts 1 round, usable once per 3 rounds).
Passive Way Monk 3: Unknown (or skill focus)^3rd, Trade Still Mind for Prayerful Meditation (bonus on all spell effects if opponent's alignment is opposite)
Passive Way Monk 4: Trade Ki Strike(magic) for Holy Strike (+1d6 vs none-aligned), trade Slow Fall 20ft for Wall Walker (can run on walls).
Passive Way Monk 5: Trade Purity of Body for Resistant Body (resist [one element] 5).
Passive Way Monk 6: Knock-Down^6th, Trade Bonus Feat for Track, gain Survival as a Class Skill and dump your points in it.
Passive Way Monk 7: Trade Wholeness of Body for Shadow Blend (total-concealment if not in full-daylight).
Passive Way Monk 8: Nothing to see here, move along.
Passive Way Monk 9: Snap Kick^9th, Trade Improved Evasion for Blink (immediate action, lasts 1 round, usable once per 3-WisMod rounds, 16 wisdom means indefinite usage).
What you have an a totally concealed Monk that deals double damage on a charge (battle jump), and after hitting with his attack gets a free attempt to Trip (knockdown), with a +12 Bonus before other factors (im-trip/battle jump/passive way). When your opponent provokes an AoO for standing you Snap Kick them and attack twice. Thanks to ACFs/Concealment, you have +2 to attack, +1d6 damage, and roll against their Flat-Footed (no dex bonus) AC. The 3rd level Feat is best adjusted to what you want to PrC out to. Shiba Protector's adds your WisMod as a bonus to Attack/Damage rolls (adds, not replaces, str&wis) and you'll need Alertness as your 3rd level Feat and to pick up Iron Will using a Otyugh Hole. Alternatively you can pick up Combat Expertise in the 3rd level slot and take Robilar's Gambit to really penalize anyone that tries to attack you.

You have a lot of options when it comes to PrCs, but honestly sticking around in Monk long enough to pick up Shadow Blend is worth it.

[Keikat]

Well..lets say I have been looking into the unarmed swordsage..how would it be..because im gonna start at level 1 and well..it doesnt seem i get actually good AC from it. and I also though about a feat called Jotunbrud, and I was thinking about a unarmed kind of controller build where i grapple, bull rush and such.

[Solo]

Well..lets say I have been looking into the unarmed swordsage..how would it be..because im gonna start at level 1 and well..it doesnt seem i get actually good AC from it.

Buy some light armor.

[Demelain]

Unarmed Swordsage is better than Monk. Your AC problem only lasts one level, I wouldn't be worried about it.
How responsive is your DM to magic item requests? you're not allowed to buy or craft equipment, does he try to place appropriate items? If he rolls items randomly, this might be one of the few cases I would advocate VoP in.

@Solo Unarmed Swordsage loses proficiency in light armor. Though, it doesn't change the WIS to AC ability, so I guess he can wear some that doesn't have an ACP.

[ariasderros]

Okay, Grappling is usually bad, because: you are quickly outmatched by monsters; you are giving up character choices to be able to lock down just one enemy; many enemies can still attack you well enough, thus it isn't even an advantage for you. See the grappling handbook for details. It isn't bad at low levels or against predominantly enemies who are humanoid, but at high levels or against monsters, it sucks. Also, at mid to high levels, you can't grapple the people you really want to, casters, because of things like Dimension Door and Freedom of Movement.

Bull Rush is likewise not usually worth it. The reason for this is that all you are doing is moving one opponent a little, so unless you are moving them into a strategic position (such as over a cliff), it isn't worth it unless you really invest into it. Chargers that use Dungeoncrashing + attacking on the same charge can do this pretty well, and make it look good.

But, in the interest of helping out, I'll link you to some builds from the Character Optimization Showcase. I'm not saying "hey, play these" so much as providing a bit of inspiration for you to go off of for som ideas about figuring out a bit more of what you want to do.
Robo Tackle, you want Bull Rush taken to 11, plus a lot of other goodies, here you are. A Warforged who uses his own body as his weapon.
Inevitable Nightmare, this uses the Warforged race in the showcase, but it doesn't have to be. This is just good damage. Usually, for good melee damage, you must either: use a lot of attacks to "crit fish", but that falls apart against enemies that have DR and / or are crit immune; Uber-charge (racking up a lot of damage by stacking effects that generate damage on charge). This build does neither, but still brings the pain.

OR
...
A build that uses Monk, Bull Rushes, Grapples, is not all that dependent on gear, and can even heal a bit, is melee that can still provide utility, is melee that doesn't have issues with DR / flying / crit immunity / etc.
The T3.

[SorO_Lost]

It must be the rain but like the first thoughts come to mind are crap, crap, more crap. Oh wait. I see what you did there.

Robo Tackle is build like the original TO Ubercharger. That is, hey look what I found if I ignore this, except you can do better without ignoring anything. Powerful Charge triggers on attack, Bull Rush isn't an Attack. It assumes Charge multiplier's apply to Bull Rush's damage as well, through there again they relay on you making an attack. And if you do pick up Shock Trooper, then your typical Fighter deals more with a single attack than Dungeoncrasher's 8d6+TripleSTRMod (avg 40 @18 str) vs charging's 118 (2d6+6 thstr, +12 thpa, +12 leap, *valorous/battle-jump) making the Dungeoncrasher a worthless investment of your Bonus Feats. It's TO level Bullrush, and it's still pretty unimpressive.

Inevitable Nightmare on the other hand is a solid build. No quarks, traits, uniques, nothing that makes it deserve a name, bookmark, or hey look at me. But it is solid. It's like the first build you'd design after getting your hands on the Tome of Battle and is a prime case for how the book really helps out the mundane side. But the build has no direction other than to be a decent Fighter, and it does this using Psionics and Martial Adapts which is an almost no fail area.

The Tashalatora Triple Threat reads off exactly like the second link. This is Tashalatora, you now have six seconds to present a build that doesn't use Psion. Did you come up with Ardent 18 / Monk 2?
So did everyone else.

What I do find interesting is they are modicore quick suggest builds posted as a weekly speal. If you exclude the unimpressive TO nature of the first they are better read off as highlights of traditional suggestions tossed out to keep people happy. So I suppose there is a lesson in there. You snooze you lose. You could have tried being all savy and posted a Handbook covering these common suggestions, I only brought this very topic up almost two years ago, but nope. So haha.

[ariasderros]

@ Soro
1)

" I'm not saying hey, play these" so much as providing a bit of inspiration for you to go off of for som ideas about figuring out a bit more of what you want to do.

The request, as-is, is still pretty vague. I was hoping that the OP would read those and form a bit more of an idea as to what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it.

2) If you want to criticize those write-ups, this isn't the place.

[Keikat]

Well..while most of those seem interesting and such..They go to places I'm not used to going and most seem alien and weird and playing something like that would kind of cut half the fun of it, I want something a bit simple, it doesn't have to be a monk, but it would be nice to have the monk's unarmed progression...and I guess I should had clear my idea better.
So I'm making a human as a race and one of my feats is going to be Jotunbrud, mainly for flavor and background, I have looked over the passive way..and i would rather not have flaws and traits, mainly because my DM said something like this, "You may use whatever you want, but things that end up making you too overpowered and just cut through the creatures, I will make you make a new character." So with this, I am looking for a fun build, something that can not only make combat cool but also has RP into it, like for example the jotunbrud that makes my human character like 7'8 feet height, making her a tower for the normal characters which I hope I could translate to a character that came from a ice tribe that is used to fighting for her life and surviving.

So in resume, I don't want too much cheese in my sandwhich, I am looking for something more fun then overpowered.

[ariasderros]

So in resume, I don't want too much cheese in my sandwhich, I am looking for something more fun then overpowered.

At this point, it is less about cheese and being overpowered than it is just making Monk viable. Flaws and Traits can help with that. The extra feats aren't going to make your character so overpowered as to hit ban-hammer territory any time soon.
I think Soro's build in reply #3 is a good one at being viable. I would add Freezing the Lifeblood in there somewhere, just because having a nice Save-or-Lose on a melee character is a nice way of giving them a bit more 'oomph'.

[Keikat]

Yeah..but even if flaws and traits make help me..I don't want to take them because it makes me feel a bit overpowered (even if it doesn't really make me).

[SorO_Lost]

You can trim is easy enough. Also Skill Focus(bluff) is needed for Passive Way's additional +4 bonus to Tripping, I had a memory lasp and listed that as Improved Feint. >.>

Battle Jump, Skill Focus, Knock-Down + Passive Way sets the entire Trip combo up. Totally feasible without Flaws or Human. You just won't have Improved Natural Weapon or the 3rd level slot free for planning ahead.

[Jackinthegreen]

Here are almost all the regular book ACFs.  It doesn't include Dragon Mag stuff.

Be warned that D&D 3.5 has an extreme mastery curve, which means the more you know about it the more powerful/useful you can make your characters.  To get almost anywhere decent you'll need to get into some "complex" stuff.

If items are going to be a problem then playing an Incarnate or Totemist (or even a Soulborn, but they can be lacking in terms of decent power) from Magic of Incarnum might work.  Incarnum specifically says you can't use items in the same slots you have a soulmeld bound unless you have certain feats or magic items, so it can get around lack of items without too much worry.

Have you read The Monk Handbook?  I'd suggest looking at it for inspiration and to see what is good and what is less so.

If you're going Jotunbrud, you might be able to get your DM to OK the large-sized unarmed strike progression instead of the medium.  Up to you though.

Edit:  I recall there was a refluffed barbarian that might be interesting to you since it's an unarmed variant from Dragon Mag.  I forget who posted the refluff, but it had an oriental flavor and could be any alignment...  If I remember I'll edit the link in.  Or if someone else remembers it, could you post it please?

[SorO_Lost]

Oh god no.
Two things wrong with that. First being chuck Norris jokes were never funny. The second is MMX boards need to remain free of GitP's stupid fetishes.

In that I mean, City Brawler (DR 349) trades away martial weapons and medium armor for Improved Unarmed Strike, they also gain (Greater/Improved) Two Weapon Fighting line for unarmed only. So you trade away that 2d6 THF greatsword to deal 1d3 damage. And you do this without the Monk's exceptions, like Magic Weapon benefits or can make Unarmed Attacks even if both hands are full. For an additional Feat you can pick up Superior Unarmed Strike and still be behind the Monk, specially so if the Monk invests the same.

City Brawler is should only discussed on less intelligent forums. I mean, in it's basic conception you're operating on the idea Dragon Mag is allowed. Dragon Mag Monks get Wild Shape, Smite Evil & Turn Undead, Inspire Courage for Dragonfire, or even pick up Weapon Supremacy & Greater Two Weapon Fighting by the second level, and *shudders* Chaos Monk. A couple of those abilities are single handedly better than the entire Barbarian Class. So why not play a Monk that turns into a dragon and eats people after punching them in the face?

[Jackinthegreen]

Soro, there's no need to get snippy about it, especially when it comes to your own "preferences."  I said what could be a possible option, especially since the OP wants more flavor than sheer power.

And in case you didn't know, I'm not a regular on GitP.  I don't know where some of that stuff has come from.  I found that refluff here on MMB, though I can't remember exactly where right now.

[SorO_Lost]

Snippy? I call it nipping it in the bud.

Is Dragon Mag even allowed? OP said 3.5 book.

And if it was released here I'm going to go cry in the corner for a bit.

[snakeman830]

This is probably not the time to bring up Fisty McFlingerton, is it?

[SorO_Lost]

After a quick google and glance through the thread, nope. It's the perfect time.

We're missing a +1 Throwing Necklace of Natural Weapons suggestion and the guy that posts after that...