Looking for Monk/Rogue Quarterstaff Build Guidance

[NoNames]

Hi, gang! Long time reader, first time poster here. I'm a casual player looking for a little guidance from some of you pro character builders.

First, the background: As I said, I'm a casual player, but I've been playing and reading the forums long enough that I understand most of the lingo, but I realize that I still don't know that much about all the ins and outs of character building. I play every weekend with two other friends and we just did our first True Resurrection on our first level 30 characters. The team currently consists of a pure cleric, a pure sorcerer (so far), and a Rogue 1/Monk 2 (me). My past life was a level 30 Monk. As you can see, we are not really heavy on front-line melee. What I am hoping to get some guidance on is building a decent Monk/Rogue that can survive as the only real melee combatant and still be a good trapper.


My wish list:
1. I want to try to have enough Monk levels that this will be considered my 2nd monk life when I TR again. I don't really know how that whole mechanism works, so I apologize if that's a dumb request.
2. Maintain good trapping.
3. Using a quarterstaff. Even if it's not the ultimate best weapon for what I'm trying to do, I still want to build around the staff. I've picked up a few in my first life, including Elemental Bloom, and I want to put them to use.
4. Melee survivability and DPS.

So, before I travel past level 3, what are your suggestions for class mix, feats, and enhancements? Should I be Dexterity-based or Wisdom-based?

Oh, I almost forgot to add that I'm a 32 point build and have the Tome that gives +8 to all stats.
Str - 15
Dex - 23
Con - 17
Int - 19
Wis - 21
Cha - 13

And thanks in advance for your consideration and any tips you can give.

[Lauf]

Hi, gang! Long time reader, first time poster here. I'm a casual player looking for a little guidance from some of you pro character builders.

First, the background: As I said, I'm a casual player, but I've been playing and reading the forums long enough that I understand most of the lingo, but I realize that I still don't know that much about all the ins and outs of character building. I play every weekend with two other friends and we just did our first True Resurrection on our first level 30 characters. The team currently consists of a pure cleric, a pure sorcerer (so far), and a Rogue 1/Monk 2 (me). My past life was a level 30 Monk. As you can see, we are not really heavy on front-line melee. What I am hoping to get some guidance on is building a decent Monk/Rogue that can survive as the only real melee combatant and still be a good trapper.


My wish list:
1. I want to try to have enough Monk levels that this will be considered my 2nd monk life when I TR again. I don't really know how that whole mechanism works, so I apologize if that's a dumb request.
2. Maintain good trapping.
3. Using a quarterstaff. Even if it's not the ultimate best weapon for what I'm trying to do, I still want to build around the staff. I've picked up a few in my first life, including Elemental Bloom, and I want to put them to use.
4. Melee survivability and DPS.

So, before I travel past level 3, what are your suggestions for class mix, feats, and enhancements? Should I be Dexterity-based or Wisdom-based?

Oh, I almost forgot to add that I'm a 32 point build and have the Tome that gives +8 to all stats.
Str - 15
Dex - 23
Con - 17
Int - 19
Wis - 21
Cha - 13

And thanks in advance for your consideration and any tips you can give.

Hi!

While I do not presume to be a pro builder, I certainly have had a lot of experience with stick builds and trappers, so until a pro-builder comes along, here we go.

First thing you should know is that when you TR, you get a past life for the class you've had the most levels in. When it's a tie it gets a bit weird, old classes are alphabetically determined, then newer classes... or at least that's how it used to be. I'm sure you'll find a list someplace, I'd just avoid TRing a tie.

As to trapping, I find it's mostly gear dependant. If you've got good gear, you should be able to trap without much issue. 1 level of rogue is all most trapping monks take, and just dump skill points into search and disable.

The question you should really be asking yourself is how deep do you want to splash your monk. most would probably not go far because monk abilities have a DC that depends on monk level, and monks get some nice perks at level 18.
A deep splash would make you more of a general melee qstaff character and less of a "monk" as far as playstyle, so if you do go down that route be sure you have a good reason for doing it.
I usually deep splash monk stick builds, but I just enjoy playing around with weird (usually sub-optimal) class combinations, so my good reason is "for fun". And since your idea of fun may be different than mine, make sure you have a strong compelling reason for splashing more than the 1 rogue level. (e.g. paladin for saves)

feats are fairly straight-forward: get great cleave and the two-hand fighting chain, get swords to plowshares, that should sort your qstaff needs.
with what's left you could go for dodge and precision.

I'll leave it to the master builders to get you to the best possible values of prr/dodge etc., I'll just say that it's been my experience that movement is a great defense, so if you're a casual new player know that as an alternative to standing in a group of mobs wondering why your survivability isn't where you'd like it to be, moving would significantly reduce the damage you're taking.

Hope this helps, have fun!

[Vish]

I would say 15/5 monk rogue

15 you get Qp
Double dip staff trees maybe even with losing cauldron, but you trap
Prob wis build, with int items
I could trap multiclassed with 1 rouge on heroic builds
Depends on the diff you run

Let me know if this sounds any good and you want a build