Monks.

[Legacy_Nick The Noodle]

               

This why I believe Humans and Half Elves have a huge advantage over the other standard races, for most class combo's.  One level of monk gives you +2 on all saving throws, the evasion and cleave feats, additional skill options (stealth, persuade and tumble), a wisdom bonus to ac if unarmed, an unarmed strike for those modules when you lose all your kit for a while (eg Pirates of the Sword Coast) and more kit options.  The only real downside is a -1 BAB at some levels.

 

Am I missing something, but it appears to me that the Monk was designed to give humans an advantage over other races?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Not following the connection.

 

The two races you referenced provide a generic favored class, which is a consideration only for XP penalty (not always that much of a factor depending on the environment) and prestige class multiclass can negate much of that concern anyway.  Humans get the extra skill point and feat. The only other advantage could be size, but small races gain AB, AC and better stealth and detection to compensate for the loss in unarmed damage.  All medium races can DW kamas.

 

Don't see what any of that has to do with the advantages of using monk in a multiclass. Monk base saves are superior, but only when taken in pre-epic levels.

 

 

 

 

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Nick The Noodle]

               

Not following the connection.

 

The two races you referenced provide a generic favored class, which is a consideration only for XP penalty (not always that much of a factor depending on the environment) and prestige class multiclass can negate much of that concern anyway.  Humans get the extra skill point and feat. The only other advantage could be size, but small races gain AB, AC and better stealth and detection to compensate for the loss in unarmed damage.  All medium races can DW kamas.

 

Don't see what any of that has to do with the advantages of using monk in a multiclass. Monk base saves are superior, but only when taken in pre-epic levels.

 

Yep, those two races get a generic favoured class.  And yes, I'm talking about taking a monk level pre level 20.

 

However, what is important is that the list of abilities for monk at level 1 is awesome, and there is something there for just about everyone, except perhaps rogue, albeit certainly not bard or barbarian.

 

A druid/shifter that adds just one level of monk will get a substantial ac bonus from wisdom, and perhaps from the tumble skill.  The cleave feat will not go remiss either.  Nor the +2 on all saves.

 

A wizard/palemaster suddenly becomes a great deal tougher, again from ac, hitpoint and save benefits.

 

A cleric will gain from the cleave and evasion feats, and the +2 on saves.

 

In modules that revolve around stealth, the fact that move silent and hide are monk class skills, makes a non stealth specialist more viable.

Monks also gain persuade as a class skill, which makes the addition of monk to another combo usually a viable proposition.

 

In fact, the only module where I haven't found it useful, was in A Dance With Rogues.  Here I stumbled upon what I found to be the best combo for that particular module imo.  Went human rogue L1 for the skills.  The intention was to be a good princess, but I didn't check the alignment shift as you 'recovered objects'.  I started level 1 LG.  Initial stats were S10, D14, C14, I14, W12, Ch14. I went Paladin L2, Rogue L3, Paladin L4 and Rogue L5.  At level 6 my intention was to be a level 3 Paladin with the Divine Might feat.  However, by this stage I was chaotic neutral, and Paladin was not an option.  Further, I had 'wasted' 4 points on wisdom, to get a level 1 paladin spell at some point.  Second time round I decided on good princess gone bad.  I initially went Rogue 1, the went Paladin level 2 and 3, because immunity to fear is extremely useful both in part 1 and part 2.  Didn't care about alignment and soon became chaotic evil, probably by Level 5, certainly by level 6. Then I went Blackguard, taking L3 BG at level 12, and BG L4 at Level 15 to get divine might and divine shield.   Further, I didn't have to put 4 points into wisdom at level 1 and those I ended up putting into adding 2 points of dexterity (Stats: S14, D16, C10, I14, W8, Ch14.  This proved a good call, since many thief skills rely on dexterity.

 

As I hope I've illustrated above, particular modules need to have tailored made PC's to win.  Some don't.  The range of abilities that a level 1 monk character brings to any build is truly remarkable.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_HipMaestro]

               

Then you are citing two issues: 1) avoiding XP penalty and 2) using a single dump class exploit.

 

With judicious planning, there are methods to avoid XP penalities.  The single class dump is most effective taken at the end of the build schedule anyway and at that point the penalty means nothing.  Then the racial benefits can be more effectively explored.  If dumping earlier, electing prestige classes can avoid or postpone the penalty as well.  Bottom line: any race can be used to create an optimized monk build.  Humans are just the most common because they are the easiest to manage.  Half-elves are a diluted version of humans except for AA builds where they are one of the prereq races.

 

Unless a Discipline dump is all that important (and it typically won't be for caster types), rogue provides UMD which can be a HUGE advantage for fighter-type class builds.  Rogue is also intrinsically a higher skilled class dump.

 

A single bard dump provides the best of both worlds, providing access to the Discipline, Tumble and Spellcraft (+saves vs. spells) skill dumps plus UMD to boot to gain access to all the divine-based items and scrolls and class-specific items.

 

The monk AC and -3 progression benefits not only druids and many shifter forms.  Any polymorphs that use creature weapons gain all those characteristics even if the toon is wearing heavy armor and/or shield.  Clerics fall into this category as do any classes that can buff up WIS (especially empowered version).

 

Cleave will benefit a melee build only.  That leaves Evasion as the only beneficial feat for general use including range attackers and casters.  Unless the build is intending to actually play like a monk (i.e. robes and unarmed strike or kama, no shield)  the rest of the monk feats (stunning fist, FoB, IUAS) of monk 1 are worthless or severely limited.

 

That leaves the saves benefit.  Vs spells, a Spellcraft dump is superior. For pre-epic up to +4, epic +8 (plus the INT modifier).