Bo fighter

[Djeserit]

Another player recently told me that when monks use a quarterstaff, they get ki for each glancing blow. Also, they get ki for every hit with cleave or great cleave. Is this accurate?

He claimed that STR based monks therefore get the most ki, and are 'awesome, dude'.

He did seem to be doing ok in the quest.

Are STR based monks viable? It seems like the stat points are just spread too thin. Are there examples of good builds out there?
(Don't answer if you used a +2 tome on your monk, your experience is irrelevant to most players.)

...

[feynman]

I can confirm that you get the extra ki for each hit of cleave & great cleave, not sure about glancing blows, but it seems like it works that way (hard to tell when spamming cleave and GC).

STR monks have many inherent advantages: Str adds to to-hit and to damage, and you get a 1.5x bonus when using a two handed weapon like a q-staff; you also get double the damage bonus when using power attack with a two hander, making quarterstaves the highest DPS monk weapon in the game (short of dual mineral II kamas, but let's stay serious).

My elven monk's starting stats (final)(highest stanced):

STR 16 (27)(30)
DEX 16 (26)(29)
CON 12 (20)(22)
INT 8
WIS 16 (24)(26)
CHA 8

If I had to go back, I would trade 2 wis points for 2 con points, but it's minor. I used 2 +2 tomes (dex and con), but the build is solid without them. The point is that I have a respectable AC and acceptable HP, while still having a good DPS output; DEX monks have a problem dealing damage because our weapons have crappy crit ranges, and we need the STR bonus to make up for the lack of crits, especially on high DR mobs.