Anti-Magic Monk

[kainshots]

My entire plan for my character was to have him be a magic hating/hunting hin monk. I worked out a way to get the ki-fist+5 and epic dodge but that required me to use every single epic level feat working towards those leaving out a lot of options/strength. I had planned 25 monk/5 sd and took the kensai path as it fit the roleplay and gave an additional max ab attack(More kd chances = better right?).

My questions are: Are there +4/+5 gloves on the server that would make it irrelevant to get those two ki-fist feats?

Is there a more optimal build that fits with the 'anti-magic' monk theme?

Is +5 weapons still required to ignore a lot of the standard mage defensive buffs?

So far i have:
Strong Heart Halfling, monk 3, kensai
10 Str, 20 dex, 10 con, 10 in, 18 wis, 10 cha with gifts. Planed to put 3 points into wis leveling then the rest into dex +1 great dex feat to qualify for both the epic ki fists and epic dodge.
took dodge at level 1, and weapon finesse at 3.

I figured i should ask now while the character is level 3 rather then when he's level 20+ and suddenly find out my work was pointlessly harder then it needed to be.

[TheRagingGoblin]

I see a few issues but I'll present this situation to you first.

You're dex based and don't do high damage. Let's assume you can beat a mage's DR. How do you defeat an Acid Sheath which you can't breach? It will kill you before you kill the mage and this assumes the mage does nothing but face tank you in melee.

Being "anti-mage" you will need UMD which means no kensai and a class that offers it as a skill.

Epic dodge isn't particularly useful against mages. It's useful against their summons but then you're heavily investing into a way to mitigate just one part of the problem. UMD will give access to Word Of Faith scrolls which is a much more effective answer and they are easy to obtain.

Investing into wisdom on a monk is a trap. Don't do it. Take it as your tertiary attribute on gear and buff it with spells/consumables but don't a invest a serious amount of ability points into it.

The concept and build could use a complete rework. If I had time I'd offer further advice.

[kainshots]

Thanks for the information, i forgot about the dmg-return spells.

I would definitely appreciate a new/completely revamped build if it fits with the 'i hate mages' theme whenever you had time. I haven't played nwn in years and even before i stopped i was terrible at builds thus why I'm asking for help now rather then later!

[Freyason]

For that concept I'd probably look into M20/Ro10 or M20/Ro5/SD5. Either will give you both edodge and UMD.

[Opustus]

A Monk30 with Spell Resistance galore can become immune to most spells, but alas, as explained above, it can't be a mage-killer by itself. Heavy AB+damage and high movement speed is probably the equation to beating unsuspecting mages as a kensai, an alchemy that by default favours Barbarians. The other problem you will face are damage shields, for which you'll need high damage resistances against the Mestil's acid cheat (there's an armorset for this in the module).

The Ki strike feats might be enough to deal with Premonition but otherwise they fall awfully short. In my humbledore, were Ki strike +enchantment bonus instead of just bypassing reduction, the unarmed monk could be made great again.

EDIT: If you'd still consider revising the character, Monk6/Rogue19/Fighter5 fares excellently and you could slip in feats like Slippery mind from the rogue feat pool to emphasise the mage killing aspect. Also Monk16/Fighter4/Rogue10 or Monk20/Fighter5/SD5 (as kensai) could work, if you want to go with more Monk.

EDIT2: There aren't any +5 gloves I would know of, but the gurus can verify this.

[Baron Saturday]

Another HUGE issue with your current build is that on Arelith, neither Greater Ruin nor Hellball has a save, so with 10 base Con, even with con fully buffed that combo will generally knock off more than 2/3rds of your health, assuming it doesn't outright kill you (which, since it can do up to 460 damage, it might).

I'm not aware of any +4 or +5 monk gloves either, unfortunately.

Can I propose I really stupid build? I'm going to.

Monk 27/Rogue 3, Dex/Con focused, all 5 epic feats into Improved SR (for a final SR of 47, effectively giving you 80% immunity to any SR-checking spells that a level 30 pure caster without spell penetration can throw at you - and generally casters don't take spell pen).

With a gonne.

Just kite and shoot, baby.

[Opustus]

Oo, hawt gonne axion!

[dallion43]

Trade fists for quarterstuff, and umd a GMW scroll (+5).
+4/5 fists feats are costly req. wise, and weaker in general then +5 ab/damage undispellable scroll on QS monk synergy.

The main problem of spell resistance is that for it to be effective you need to invest in it with epic feats.
If you looking for survival vs casters that has it's limited(imho, Mord = -10SR) use. If you looking for winning vs casters damage/ab/etc is a key part.

To reliably knok you are looking at beating 33+18+10=62 disc on an average caster. Even with TS potion as monk, thats hard.

Forget about kensai, breach wand is your friend, Mord scroll is your best friend. Even with 3 pieces of acid Res gear with your many attacks and low damage per attack you will trade ~20 damage for ~15 damage. Also, he can switch to fire at any given time.

Don't forget the greater abjuratuon focus as a must.

Wiz in such build has little relevance, or str/con or dex/con, wiz comes as tertiary.

Heavy rouge invested builds aren't bad as a monk, hit and run, break Los due to speed, darkness, wof, sneak etc.

If you are fine with 3-6 lvls of monk there is more options.
If not consider standard 21monk/6fighter/3Rou with Quarterstaff.

P.c
I am no expert on monks, I am sure there is people more familiar with monk vs caster that will advise you soon :p.

[RedGiant]

Monk SR cannot be lowered. Your concept greatly depend on whether or not you want to simply kill mages or to take spells on the chin, or is it both?

As for reflexive damage, that's not the end all be all to this equation. There are ways to work round this without breach...assuming proper gearing.

In short, if one of your goals is to take spells on the chin, you are going to need the vast majority if not all to be monk lvls with SR feat investments.

If I were to dip....at all....honestly Baron Saturday's build isn't bad for what you are looking for, but it comes at a cost (1 epic feat, couple of points of SR, a speed category). Note: this might be worth it if you want to use cool gear and magic items, but it will also come painfully late in the build.

Also, one last question: why halfling? You "short" yourself some fisted damage there...and other races seem to give better perks, everything from an extra feat to detect mode always on?

[kainshots]

Thanks for all the advice everyone! It makes me a little sad that on here the best builds for 'anti-magic' is 'get magic'. I was really hoping there would be a way to stick with the no-magic theme. And as to why halfling? It's because i started with the character concept then moved to making a build. My idea is for a halfling that saw his original home destroyed by some bad mages and now believes the only good magic is magic given by the gods, and preferably only the halfling gods. Though Baron Saturdays SR build looks really funny, how hard/easy is it to get one of these 'gonne's?

[Opustus]

Halflings are vicious creatures! The gonnes are easy to craft, they're under Carpentry in the trade system, but I'm under the impression that getting the right ammunition requires a bit of work.

[Freyason]

Gonnes are forging item.

[Baron Saturday]

Does this mean I get to talk about gonne mechanics? I do? Awesome.

Gonnes are indeed a forging item, and relatively easy to find in player stores. The ammo is a LITTLE bit trickier, but still uses fairly common ingredients. To be a fully independent gonne owner who don't need no crafter, you'll want:

Alchemy - 19 ranks
Forging - 6 ranks
Art Crafting - 7 ranks

Conveniently, these three crafting skills will help you with getting the ingredients for most alchemy products, so investing more into them isn't a terrible idea.

Few other things to note about gonnes, while we're at it.
1) They've got a level requirement (or used to, haven't used one in a while), something like 11-13.
2) The ammo weighs 0.3 lb each, so don't skimp too much on strength! Strength carry weights have been adjusted on Arelith, here's a handy chart for that. I'd say that 12 would be fine?
3) Gonnes operate through a ranged touch attack, fire only once/round through the use of the gonne's special ability, can crit for ~200 damage, generally hit for ~80-100, and are NOT impacted by weapon feats (so don't bother grabbing improved crit: crossbow or anything like that!).
4) Sometimes (rarely) they'll malfunction and set you on fire. This is extremely amusing, but fairly easy to work around with a decent reflex save and some fire DR. Such as from, say, a certain alchemic essense.
5) Gonnes can also function as crossbows, BUT will do 0 base damage. You'll have to use magical bolts to get anything out of them.
6) You can target yourself with a gonne. I advise against it.
7) The default gonne appearance is a heavy crossbow, missing the "cross" part, instead featuring an odd little bag. If you change it to get rid of the bag, it will look like a normal crossbow, and you WILL NOT be able to change it back. So, y'know. Think twice.

[RedGiant]

To say if I didn't use Baron Saturday's build, I would go 30 monk for what you are looking for. You can still use that Gonne, you will be at max speed, and you can literally make yourself immune to all but epic spells/feat effects (though some spells that alter the environment will still function, such as the aforementioned reflexive damage, time stop, etc.)

[Baron Saturday]

You could totally do 30 monk and end up with up to 52 SR (if you feel like investing all your epic feats) or 48 and still enjoy very effective spell resist while having 2 bonus epic feats left over. I slipped rogue in there for 2 reasons - firstly, UMD is super useful for gearing even if you don't want to use wands/scrolls, and secondly, monks benefit quite a bit from uncanny dodge.

[Opustus]

Does this mean I get to talk about gonne mechanics? I do? Awesome.

Does the super sophisticated gonne damage arithmetic also factor in sneak attack for extra villainy?

[Baron Saturday]

Nope! There are no possible modifiers to gonne damage aside from crits.

Misfires (which apply a combust effect to you) and crits seem to happen based on a hidden roll, not the ranged touch roll, and I would guess that there's a 5% chance of each. For more info on how ranged touch attacks are calculated, see the wiki.

Honestly there's a lot of info about gonnes that's pretty well-hidden. I couldn't tell you how the damage is calculated, for instance, though I can make an educated guess that the crit threat range & multiplier is 20 x2.