Drunken Master
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Wyatt
- Posts: 671
- Joined: Sun May 22, 2016 7:44 am
- Location: Tombstone
Drunken Master
A question to posed to all the builders out there. I'm curious as to how people are building their Drunken Masters. How deep into monk progression. Non-monk heavy Drunken Master builds. As a mostly RP player I am just wondering how people are finding this PC mechanically and if/how they are making it work as they are progressing.
*Yellow text means the marshall is in town*
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Rudolph
- Posts: 547
- Joined: Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:41 pm
Re: Drunken Master
I've theory-crafted some solid Drunken Masters variants and am playing one with a STR focus at the moment. It's good fun. Here are some pointers based on my experiences:
Mechanically, the class is a great melee choice for mainly two obvious reasons (I haven't found a way of optimizing for Feint yet):
1) high STR bonus.
2) high weapon dmg from improvised weapons.
These can both be beneficial even to armored builds that do not make use of specifically Monkish perks, though I doubt such builds can ever outshine those that do, given the benefits of (Greater) Flurry and +3 AC without armor. A shield-wielding robe-wearer is the only potential exception I can think of since the Drunken Master AC bonus - like that of the FoF - is not denied by a shield.
To make most of the improvised weapons (+2d10 +1d6 fire with +5 AB), you'll need to have 10 lvls of Drunken Master and at least 10 levels of Monk and/or Fist of the Forest combined. This means a non-monk-heavy build should still have at least 7 Monk levels unless you are willing to forego 2 dmg points per hit on average. If you are willing to forgo that damage, you can also make do with 3 Monk levels - though that would also mean giving up Improved Knockdown and in most cases 1 AC and some speed, which seems quite a loss to me. All in all, I'd say: Monk 7 (or more) and FoF 3 are a must, mechanically speaking, which leaves you with room for up to 10 more levels of a fourth class.
Re. the fourth class, you are pretty free, although there are some obviously bad choices. For instance, unless you are willing to give up on the high STR bonus entirely (which synergizes with both Improved Knockdown and the Corkscrew Rush), any additional class that relies on WIS for anything important is out (e.g. cleric). You'll still need 12 WIS, though, to get to 16 with a +4 item (shop), which will then be reduced to 6 by boozing. Unarmored, this means you'll get +5 to your STR modifier and give up 3 AC for it. In places where AC is really essential, you could keep the latter by just not drinking. Using the expensive +4 STR shop bracers means you'll only give up 6 STR points (i.e. 3 AB and 3-5 damage) by not getting drunk - and the bracer slot (which might mean losing another 1 AC since you can't use +4 DEX bracers any more then).
Since you only need 12 WIS, races with WIS bonuses will rarely make a good Drunken Master. As will small races, given that their size and STR malus detract from the Knockdown and Corkscrew modifiers.
Crucial feats for the Drunken Master are:
Toughness and Steadfast, esp. with high CON and FoF (to keep the WIS loss from affecting your Will saves).
One Weapon (unless you're very feat-starved due to a challenging class mix or mainly use TWF as outlined next).
Northlander Hewing (great damage increase and synergy with STR bonus! - here you need to think carefully about attacks per round, though, and either take 11 Monk levels for Greater Flurry or - a recipe I am proud of having found - consider TWF/ITWF for the one-handed weapons: this is a bit fiddly but possible: just add your left-hand weapon after improvising the right hand one).
Luxury feats, in case you have a WIS point to spare as well to meet their requirement:
The Combat Focus line.
Ki Step.
With some trickery, you can create quite a few powerful variants - apart from pure STR, for instance, you could also do well by focusing on CON AC and DR, using the FoF and Dwarven Defender class. Or you could maximise Spell Resistance and build a mage-hunting Deep Gnome.
Pure Monk with Drunken Master may be viable but does not seem optimal to me. You'd benefit little from the extra fist dmg you get, intuitive attack is out due to the WIS malus, and taking at least FoF in addition to Monk would have practically no mechanical downsides.
Mechanically, the class is a great melee choice for mainly two obvious reasons (I haven't found a way of optimizing for Feint yet):
1) high STR bonus.
2) high weapon dmg from improvised weapons.
These can both be beneficial even to armored builds that do not make use of specifically Monkish perks, though I doubt such builds can ever outshine those that do, given the benefits of (Greater) Flurry and +3 AC without armor. A shield-wielding robe-wearer is the only potential exception I can think of since the Drunken Master AC bonus - like that of the FoF - is not denied by a shield.
To make most of the improvised weapons (+2d10 +1d6 fire with +5 AB), you'll need to have 10 lvls of Drunken Master and at least 10 levels of Monk and/or Fist of the Forest combined. This means a non-monk-heavy build should still have at least 7 Monk levels unless you are willing to forego 2 dmg points per hit on average. If you are willing to forgo that damage, you can also make do with 3 Monk levels - though that would also mean giving up Improved Knockdown and in most cases 1 AC and some speed, which seems quite a loss to me. All in all, I'd say: Monk 7 (or more) and FoF 3 are a must, mechanically speaking, which leaves you with room for up to 10 more levels of a fourth class.
Re. the fourth class, you are pretty free, although there are some obviously bad choices. For instance, unless you are willing to give up on the high STR bonus entirely (which synergizes with both Improved Knockdown and the Corkscrew Rush), any additional class that relies on WIS for anything important is out (e.g. cleric). You'll still need 12 WIS, though, to get to 16 with a +4 item (shop), which will then be reduced to 6 by boozing. Unarmored, this means you'll get +5 to your STR modifier and give up 3 AC for it. In places where AC is really essential, you could keep the latter by just not drinking. Using the expensive +4 STR shop bracers means you'll only give up 6 STR points (i.e. 3 AB and 3-5 damage) by not getting drunk - and the bracer slot (which might mean losing another 1 AC since you can't use +4 DEX bracers any more then).
Since you only need 12 WIS, races with WIS bonuses will rarely make a good Drunken Master. As will small races, given that their size and STR malus detract from the Knockdown and Corkscrew modifiers.
Crucial feats for the Drunken Master are:
Toughness and Steadfast, esp. with high CON and FoF (to keep the WIS loss from affecting your Will saves).
One Weapon (unless you're very feat-starved due to a challenging class mix or mainly use TWF as outlined next).
Northlander Hewing (great damage increase and synergy with STR bonus! - here you need to think carefully about attacks per round, though, and either take 11 Monk levels for Greater Flurry or - a recipe I am proud of having found - consider TWF/ITWF for the one-handed weapons: this is a bit fiddly but possible: just add your left-hand weapon after improvising the right hand one).
Luxury feats, in case you have a WIS point to spare as well to meet their requirement:
The Combat Focus line.
Ki Step.
With some trickery, you can create quite a few powerful variants - apart from pure STR, for instance, you could also do well by focusing on CON AC and DR, using the FoF and Dwarven Defender class. Or you could maximise Spell Resistance and build a mage-hunting Deep Gnome.
Pure Monk with Drunken Master may be viable but does not seem optimal to me. You'd benefit little from the extra fist dmg you get, intuitive attack is out due to the WIS malus, and taking at least FoF in addition to Monk would have practically no mechanical downsides.
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wurdpass
- Posts: 158
- Joined: Wed May 02, 2018 4:24 pm
- Location: how's the family?
Re: Drunken Master
Hi there, some questions:
- Do Improvised Weapons benefit from Monk's adamantine fists?
- Is the improvised fire damage normal fire or "unresistable" fire like Darkfire/Blazing Aura?
- How does Corkscrew save work? Str vs Str?
- Do Improvised Weapons benefit from Monk's adamantine fists?
- Is the improvised fire damage normal fire or "unresistable" fire like Darkfire/Blazing Aura?
- How does Corkscrew save work? Str vs Str?
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Theodore01
- Recognized Donor
- Posts: 2927
- Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 5:32 pm
Re: Drunken Master
Corkscrew Rush rolls 1d20 + Strength Modifier + Size Modifier VS the same for your target. Success on equal or higher roll. (from wiki 
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