Quote Originally Posted by Failedlegend View Post
Oh and I personally wouldn't drop heighten either...as far as quicken and empower never had em on my casters...never see a reco or neg burst fail....so between that and quicken I'd probably drop quicken or go human...the latter is probably the better choice since your going to be tanking quicken might actually come into play.
Dude, totally respect a different point of view but please trust me when I say that if you're trying to seriously tank a boss Quicken isn't optional - not having it is suicide. You WILL fail concentration checks due to the damage you're taking.

Although I question this "You're not going to be boss tanking trying to UMD a harm scroll to self heal either." why not??
See the above bit about Quicken. You're going to be failing concentration checks right and left and ruining your very limited supply of collectible-turn-in harm scrolls ... and then die because you can't self heal. If you want to reliably self heal while tanking that means Quicken and a spell, not a slow scroll that is easily interrupted.

Monk doesn't give stance possibilities as Shields negate that
The stances give you options for the 90% of the game you're not boss tanking ... like tossing on staff and dropping to Water stance for +2 Reflex, Fort and +3 to Will ... or Fire to hit a lever ... or Earth for 20 more HP ...

and the animal path is only +5 HP.
... and if I'm tanking then the extra 4 HP from monk vs rogue and 5 from stance is absolutely something I look at.

So really (unless you can get Dex/Wis high enough for top tier AC without compromising Int/Con) its an extra toughness or two (as the other monk feats are nigh useless) versus Maxed UMD & Intimidate (11 vs. 23)
It's two more feats, 9 more HP, 3 more Fort and Will saves from Monk vs more UMD (which you can't use while tanking) and Intimidate (which even with the extra points isn't going to have you hitting the big targets). If those two feats are both Toughness, that's what ... 53 more HP total? AC has absolutely nothing to do with it. For a tank ... and not a dancy avoid-hits sniper type ... I think that's far far more useful.

So again its mostly personal preference.
True that ;-) ... but I've tried to explain in more detail why I feel the way I do.