Kama Monk

[clean_slate]

Hey guys, a little help here. I like the Monk class and the whole RP aspect of it, but I don't like ridiculous unarmed combat animations, so I was thinking of making a kama focused Monk. Any suggestions? I would want to have exactly 11 Monk levels for the Greater Flurry, while also retaining heavy investment into Monk class.

But what to combine it with?

[Storm Munin]

Monk 11, Ranger 11 and Assassin 8 is a solid ancient build for Kama users (usually in the appearance of claws).

/M

[chad878262]

M11/R10/A9 is also a good split to get decent sneak dice+ epic precision.

[Sun Wukong]

If you would like to try something slightly different to the usual HiPSing sneak attack kama monk... I might have something else to pick your brain with.

On BGTSCC, they have reduced the Wisdom requirement of Blazing Aura to 23. It is an epic feat that requires Diamond Soul (Monk 13) and it applies 1d10 fire damage on whatever weapon you posses, or both weapons.

So, if you pick a race that can start with 20 Dexterity and 18 Wisdom, it is possible for you to get 25 Dexterity for Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting and 23 Wisdom for Blazing Aura.

So, with a tiefling, your starting stats could look like:

STR: 8
DEX: 20
CON: 8
INT: 10
WIS: 18
CHA: 6

As for build itself, you could go for a Monk 14/Fighter 16, every monk level is followed by one level of fighter and you can avoid multiclassing experience penalty. This build can even reach BAB of 26. So you get six attacks per hand, and five more from Greater Flurry of Blows.

As for damage per hit:

1d6 (Kama) + 4 (EB) + 4 (Greater Weapon Specialization) + 2 (Slashing Melee Mastery) -1 (STR) + 1d10 (Blazing Aura) = 18~

Ehh... It is a bit on the low side... and you will struggle against damage reductions... But you will have a ton of attacks and if you find +4 EB kamas with any elemental damage on them, your damage output jumps up considerably.

Oh yeah, you cannot get Expose Weakness. But, it would be something different, at least.

[chad878262]

Really like the build, Comments Only. As you note, damage is a bit low (this is why Kama monks are generally going to include sneak dice and HiPS).

I also just wanted to add that Flurry / Greater Flurry of Blows are not added for two weapon fighting, so if you have 26 BAB and PTWF you would get 14 attacks (15 with haste). 8 (9)with the main hand, 6 with the off hand... So you would not get 17 APR w/ Greater Flurry and haste (but 15 is still awesome)!

edit: All this said, you could try for an Air Genesai (fighter favored class) and try to something like M13/F8/A9 which would give you HiPS and 5d6 SA dice (but no Epic Precision). You wouldn't have 26 BAB so only 13 APR instead of 15, but damage would be better and you could still get the stats for PTWF and Blazing Aura.

edit 2: scratch the Air Genesai thing... I thought they were basically the same as Tiefling, but they actually get -2 WIS so that wouldn't work.

[mrm3ntalist]

Really like the build, Comments Only. As you note, damage is a bit low (this is why Kama monks are generally going to include sneak dice and HiPS).

Or go Swashbackler and Combat insight for double int damage. mrieder played such build very efficiently. I thing to note though, the tiefling that is the best race for such a build comes with a 40% xp penalty. mrieder did...

I also just wanted to add that Flurry / Greater Flurry of Blows are not added for two weapon fighting, so if you have 26 BAB and PTWF you would get 14 attacks (15 with haste). 8 (9)with the main hand, 6 with the off hand... So you would not get 17 APR w/ Greater Flurry and haste (but 15 is still awesome)!

They do get added

[mrm3ntalist]

This is a build i play with a 20% xp penalty mid epics - http://nwn2db.com/build/?202591

[chad878262]

They do get added

What??? Damn... When I get back to the Server I am so building a Monk! 15 APR means you get a 5th SA in the first flurry, right? Why did I always 'know' that flurry only gave 1 extra APR???? Learn something new every day... thanks M3nt!

[mrm3ntalist]

They do get added

What??? Damn... When I get back to the Server I am so building a Monk! 15 APR means you get a 5th SA in the first flurry, right? Why did I always 'know' that flurry only gave 1 extra APR???? Learn something new every day... thanks M3nt!

You only need three monk levels to get the 5th attack on the 1st flurry.

Try Rogue19/Ass8/monk3. Better AC ( from wisdom ), better saves, better defence ( more speed ) and more damage ( one extra attack at the highest AB ).

If you really are commited then add 3 nwn levels for +1BAB, more speed and even better saves. The problem is hips at 30. I leveled such a build all the way to 30 and is one of my favorite characters.

Here is the build - http://nwn2db.com/build/?227504

[chad878262]

right, you actually need to get to 16 APR to a 6th attack in the first Flurry... Hmmm...off to go try and figure out some silly monk build that has decent Sneak AND 16 APR or higher... Probably not possible to get Greater flurry this route, but can't have everything.

[mrm3ntalist]

right, you actually need to get to 16 APR to a 6th attack in the first Flurry... Hmmm...off to go try and figure out some silly monk build that has decent Sneak AND 16 APR or higher... Probably not possible to get Greater flurry this route, but can't have everything.

You only need 13 attacks per round - 5/4/4. 10 attacks from a typical rogue build + Flurry does that. 14d6 SA as well.

[Rudolph]

Maybe you prefer Dexers, clean_slate, but if not, here's a theoretical experiment that relies on the Northlander Hewing feat. There is not that much info on that feat yet, so the build might not work in practice, but maybe some of you BGTSCC experts can give some answers...

http://nwn2db.com/build/?255884

[chad878262]

right, you actually need to get to 16 APR to a 6th attack in the first Flurry... Hmmm...off to go try and figure out some silly monk build that has decent Sneak AND 16 APR or higher... Probably not possible to get Greater flurry this route, but can't have everything.

You only need 13 attacks per round - 5/4/4. 10 attacks from a typical rogue build + Flurry does that. 14d6 SA as well.

Yeah I know, was talking about the potential for a 6th SA by hitting 16 APR. However, it's kinda pointless because you need 11 levels of Monk and 16 levels of high BAB to get there, so you'd end up with 4d6 SA and you would have no reliable way to land those sneak attacks...so really an exercise in futility.

[Kiran]

Something a bit different.

http://nwn2db.com/build/?252341

You would of course want to wear cloth armour, want the +4 int item from the thayans for +12 dmg from int, use the 2 epic kamas from hell (One adds bludgeon dmg, very handy) And the DC's and your speed works very nicely.

With dervish at 10 you can go into super mode as well, bringing your AC and AB up incredibly + with the actual AB at 41 and bab over 26 you get to hit a lot.

You can skip out two handed defense for sembian fencing as well if you want to hit the big ol' white worm etc, but that is up to you play style wise, you lose 1 ac.

Also in the epics I went for armour skin, this can be replaced with another cool epic feat like epic deflection. Archers are no longer a problem. Up to you to play around with that one.

Your AC should be awesome especially buffed.

Big draw back. Low Wisdom and 20% xp penalty.

[Sun Wukong]

Really like the build, Comments Only. As you note, damage is a bit low (this is why Kama monks are generally going to include sneak dice and HiPS).

Now, I am not sure if it has been 'fixed' for this server, but I recall the Blazing Aura damage ignoring fire damage resistances on stock NWN2. So, technically, you should be getting at least 1d10 damager per hit.

I also just wanted to add that Flurry / Greater Flurry of Blows are not added for two weapon fighting, so if you have 26 BAB and PTWF you would get 14 attacks (15 with haste). 8 (9)with the main hand, 6 with the off hand... So you would not get 17 APR w/ Greater Flurry and haste (but 15 is still awesome)!

You are only half-right, the flurry of blows attacks are not added to the off-hand by default. However, once you get the Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting feat, they are. (Except that bugged extra attack.)

Thus it is actually possible to get a total of 18 attacks with the previosuly mentioned build and haste. Haste can be acquired relatively easily with that +4 AC Bracer from Candlekeep.

So, let us imagine that we are only dealing that 1d10 blazing aura fire damage and we got 18 attacks per round, and 2/3rds of them actually hit. We are still dealing roughly 66~ points of damage. Although not great, we do have rather high AC with the help of some +3 dexterity and wisdom items. We get +9 from dexterity and +8 from wisdom, on top of +2 from monk levels, to our AC. Thus you should be able to tank it out.

And let us imagine that we drink a potion of Bull's Strength and our avarage damage jumps to 20~ per hit and that our opponent has no damage resistances whatsoever. If 2/3rds of attacks hit as before, we are looking at the avarage damage of 240 per round. This damage only gets higher with some elemental damage added on our kamas.

Oh, and the AB of this build is going to be something like:
26 (BAB) + 9 (Dexterity) + 4 (EB) + 4 (Epic Weapon Focus) + 2 (Slashing Melee Mastery) - 2 (Two Weapon Fighting) = 43

Thus our attacks would most likely look like this:

43/43/43/38/33/28/23/18/45, 43/38/33/28/23/18/13/8, 43

Comma seperates the main hand attacks from off-hand, bolded are from greater flurry, and the one in italics is the attack from haste. The AB of 45 is not a typo, as this bugged attack tends to ignore all penalties that should be applied naturally.

edit 2: scratch the Air Genesai thing... I thought they were basically the same as Tiefling, but they actually get -2 WIS so that wouldn't work.

Deep Gnomes get +2 dexterity and wisdom. Which means you got two free epic feats to get something else.