The World of Avlis

What are the benifits of high wisdom for a monk?

I know the bonus is added to AC, but what are the other reasons to have a high wisdom?

IIRC is affects the DCs of your abilities (stunning fist and such).

Ringwraith wrote:IIRC is affects the DCs of your abilities (stunning fist and such).

That is correct
Zen Archery
Selection of other Feats (Improved Ki Strike +4 and +5)

When you can quivering palm a dragon with some decent chance of success, it's a good thing. You can get the DCs for QP and stunning fist into the 40s and 50s, which is a bad thing for most mages, and not a good thing for everything else.

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I was always told that Monks should go for WIS and DEX. Never quite sure why, although the DEX makes sense for the speed and mobility needed by a Monk.

Wisdom and Dexterity bonuses stack for AC purposes, which is one way to put one together. Wolfy mentioned Zen Archery, which is another very good and oft overlooked way to build a support-oriented monk. Aside from shurikens, an elf monk can use bows. If not an elf, then bows and such are only a Martial Weapon Proficiency feat (or Fighter multiclass) away.

One of the best uses of the monk Wis AC bonus is as a Cleric multiclass. There are two schools of thought on this. The first regards Monk as a splash class, all but eliminating the need for a cleric to wear heavy armor. The second is more balanced, offering the chance to pick up high ranks of Discipline and Tumble (alternatively or additionally, Hide and MS), improved UBAB bonus, bonus feats and militant bonuses. Most min-maxers usually take either 1 or 6 levels of monk on the way to 40, though on Avlis a good case exists for more monk levels in order to benefit greatly from militant levels.

Nighthawk4 wrote:I was always told that Monks should go for WIS and DEX. Never quite sure why, although the DEX makes sense for the speed and mobility needed by a Monk.

This is a tangent from the original topic, buuuut....

Monks get a lot of oomph from their class feats like immunities, unarmed damage, partial concealment, healing, etc. But just sticking with Wis is boring. Dex is different but can be an amazingly good build too. But that's been done before too.

Be creative. I have a quite fun Con/Cha monk! A 12/12 monk/sorcerer that has some damage resistance from the epic DR feats and the benefits of Sorcerer spells. I think Felling has a 10 Dex and an 8 Wis. He was a big experiment and worked out to be pretty competent. I started the equivalent (and probably better) Con/Int Wizard version but I just could NOT get into all the wizard spell management. Are they as powerful as an uber-Wis or uber Dex version? Probably not, but they can be more versatile and lead into different RP situations (i.e., a monk-heavy build in a mage Order, like Unen).

Anyway, with lots of monk levels, don't get stuck just thinking Wis Wis Wis, or Dex Dex Dex!

Supposedly one can make a competent monk by having decent WIS and STR scores, replacing the high DEX mentioned above. I am to understand somehow that this is better for dwarves & half orcs for obvious reasons and that these monks should aspire to using kamas, dual wielding perhaps, for less obvious reasons.

In an IRC discussion a week or so back a few of us were bandying about the various benefits of monks and the loose consensus seemed to be that monk is good as a base class and may be rather nasty as the base of an arcane archer or dominator of Valok. YMMV.

Dominator SR stacks with the Monk SR

I have a monk I just got AA with. It looks like it should be fun. Going WIS based with Zen Archery he'll have decent AB and AC. It's also a build that seems to be solid at lower levels too. Far too many builds don't come in really until 20 or 30. At 30 this one will be uber, but he's a fairly resilient support archer right now.

Monk really is built to be worth single classing. It keeps getting better even at the highest levels. IMO if you are putting monk in your build you almost HAVE to go with 20+. Just too many goodies on the way there.

I know this is really doesn't answer the OP question, but Dex not only boosts AC, like Wis does, but if you have Weapon Finesse, it also adds to your melee AB, which is very handy if you like to punch things in the face (or kneecaps in Nayala's case).

I kept Nayala as balanced Wis and Dex for a bit, but then decided that she needed Improved Ki Strike V which requires a 21 Wis. Nayala just got IKSV a few days ago... I'm still waiting to test it out.