My warforged monk.

[hu-flung-pu]

So he's level 7 now and I'm having a blast with him, looking forward to level 20 with him when it gets here.

Starting stats

14 STR
14 DEX
14 CON
10 INT
14 WIS
6 CHA

His skills are maxed out concentration, spot, jump, and tumble. Jumping off of huge heights with tumble and slow fall always on and not taking a point of damage is always fun, especially watching the heavy armored Dwarven Fighters and Barbarians with feather fall items slowly drifting down around me, while I'm already cranking out heavy hits from Ki strikes and have my finishing move ready to go. His high speed maximizes jump, covering huge distances that leaves the others struggling to keep up. It's also come in handy when I've had to take their stones to the shrines.

In the low levels, he was never found lacking for any of his attributes, and being able to shift his stats around on the fly helped a ton. With all four elements bought with my enhancements. I've even got monks improved recovery 1 and healers friend 1. And have no plans to take it past that. If a cleric is moaning about healing with 70% then he's got major cure problems that I can't cover for him.

Even in the mid-levels, I've found a couple of key +2 stat items, DEX and STR. Still need to get that WIS and CON item. Still not perfect yet. But it's a start.

I do some serious damage over all though, I don't rely on stunning blow for the easy crit, my WIS is too low for it to land succesfully just yet, but it'll be there. Instead, I rely on pure brute force. I've been monitoring the kill counts, when there's nothing to do but kill in a mission, i'm either WAY out ahead, or just even with the great axe wielding barbarians who like to zerg rush and try to solo the quests, I don't know if it's just a point of pride they have, or if they feel threatened by a monk waving a big stick keeping up with them.

The feats: Discipline, dodge, mobility, improved sunder, and power attack. And as soon as I'm able, spring attack and improved critical blunt. My sunders land regularly, just making it easier for my power attack. I mostly fight bare handed, but I'm not afraid to pull out my whoopin stick when I need to. I'm going to take eagle claw and unbalancing strike, for a total of -10 AC after three moves. Enough for any mob to take notice.

Now, for the down side.

He's a great big squishy. He packs a powerful punch, but you need to keep a lot of potions on hand to keep yourself up and ready to fight again. I keep a mix of repair lights, and repair serious. And sparingly use the repair serious. At 900 a pop, it starts to hurt after a while. Especially when you've had a rough night, and you're down to 6 or 7 repair lights. And just spent over a thousand gold trying to repair all your stuff, and had to down potions when the cleric wouldn't throw a heal your way (even after you bought him a cure moderate wand, but I'm not bitter...grumble...), or a wizard just forgot he could repair a warforged (even though you gave him a wand of repair moderate.)

I've got him with a +3 Docent, and depending on my stance have a 25-27 AC. Not bad, but not great either. Expect to get hit a lot.

I can't tell if it's a lack of hit points that hurts, or the lack of AC. I've taken to start using shield of faith potions, mage armor potions, and contemplating barkskin potions. But that's all expensive ****, and my +3 wraps +1 shocking wraps and +1 true law of pure good q-staff, is starting to get dated at these levels. So not sure what I'm going to do just yet.

Your milage may vary, but so far, I'm a machine when it comes to doing damage. Don't believe the hype that Monks can't keep up, you just gotta figure out how to maximize your damage. I took the path of inevitable doom instead of the path of harmonious balance, being able to debuff the mobs I felt was more advantageous with this build, then going for phoenix. It's got it's place, but this guy is about killing things, the faster the better with his low AC.

His plans are at level 7 to take mid tier water and wind stances, and at level 8, all the elemental monk strikes, like eagle claw, unbalancing strike, and iron fists (ESPECIALLY iron fists), not so sure about ten thousand stars just yet(maybe if I were a halfer who specialized in throwing weapons). Later on at around 12-13, I'll start taking Warforged power attack to really make it hurt.

I also love humiliating pure DEX and WIS based 32 point buy monks. With a 28 point build Warforged.

Also for any monk out there with power attack, don't just assume that Sun stance is the best, I strongly urge you to try wind stance to really up the ante on damage dished out. Don't be surprised if you've got your next round of attacks going out, by the time the two handers are just winding theirs down.

[GORAK]

Just wait until you meet elite rust monsters!

Lots of fun there!

[Myxalplyx]

I have not had too much trouble with elite Rusties.

Adamantimonk - Lvl 16 (Khyber)

See you there. Love the build.

[hu-flung-pu]

He's got some retooling to make since Mod 8. And I've come to the conclusion that monk for the way I envision them being played as, need to master all four elemental stances. So essentially a 32 point build, and four +2 tomes for a base 18 in four stats.

And monks at this point need two weapon fighting.

Thanks for the compliment by the way.