This player character build (monk 1/ fighter 32/ weapon master 7) is a warrior focused on numerous critical hits. It takes advantage of the monk's unarmed base attack bonus and a high base attack to maximize the attacks per round, while leveraging the weapon master's ki critical to increase the chance of a threat roll. The result is a 89% chance to threaten a devastating critical hit (DC 41+) each round when fighting an opponent whose armor class is low enough. (The chance is based on a threat range of 17-20 and ten attacks per round.)
Basics[]
Race: dwarf
Abilities: (final scores in parentheses)
- Strength: 16 (32)
- Dexterity: 15 (16)
- Constitution: 14
- Wisdom: 10
- Intelligence: 14
- Charisma: 6
Alignment: any lawful
Level progression[]
- Level 1: monk
- Levels 2–11: fighter
- Levels 12–18: weapon master
- Levels 19–40: fighter
Ability increases
- All ability increases are in strength.
General feats by character level
- 1: two-weapon fighting
- 3: weapon focus (kama)
- 6: weapon specialization (kama)
- 9: whirlwind attack
- 12: improved two-weapon fighting
- 15: power attack
- 18: toughness
- 21: great strength I
- 24: great strength II
- 27: great strength III
- 30: great strength IV
- 33: great strength V
- 36: great strength VI
- 39: great dexterity I
Fighter bonus feats by character level (fighter level in parentheses)
- 2 (1): ambidexterity
- 3 (2): dodge
- 5 (4): mobility
- 7 (6): spring attack
- 9 (8): expertise
- 11 (10): improved critical: kama
- 20 (12): great cleave
- 22 (14): epic weapon focus: kama
- 24 (16): epic weapon specialization: kama
- 26 (18): overwhelming critical: kama
- 28 (20): devastating critical: kama
- 30 (22): epic prowess
- 32 (24): armor skin
- 34 (26): epic toughness I
- 36 (28): epic toughness II
- 38 (30): epic toughness III
- 40 (32): epic toughness IV
Skills
This build receives 180 skill points over its 40 levels. The skill ranks required by this build are the following.
- intimidate 4 (at level 11 to gain weapon master; taken cross-class)
The other skills most important for this build are the following. Ranks are listed first, with the score modified by the relevant ability in parentheses.
- discipline 43 (54)
- tumble 20 (22) class skill for only monk
There are 93 skill points left at level 40. Suggested uses for them are listen (class skill for monk and weapon master) and spot (class skill for only weapon master).
Stats[]
Attack bonus
In the absence of magical enhancements, whether from items or spells, this character's attack bonus (AB) when dual-wielding (mundane) kamas is composed of the following elements at level 40.
- 29: base attack bonus
- +11: strength modifier
- +5: feats (weapon focus and epic prowess)
- -2: dual-wield penalty
- -2: flurry of blows
41 AB, for attacks per round of +41/+38/+35/+32/+29/+26/+43 / +41/+36
If the character is permitted weapons with a +5 enhancement bonus and gear that provides a +12 bonus to strength (increasing the strength modifier by 6), the attacks per round become +52/+49/+46/+43/+40/+37/+54 / +52/+47. If the character is additionally permitted to reach the +20 attack bonus cap and acquires haste, the attacks per round become +67/+64/+61/+58/+55/+52/+69/+64 / +67/+62.
Armor class
In the absence of magical enhancements, whether from items or spells, this character's armor class (AC) when wearing (mundane) robes is composed of the following elements at level 40.
- 10: base AC
- +3: dexterity modifier
- +0: wisdom modifier
- +2: armor skin
- +4: tumble
- 19 AC
If the character is permitted items with a +5 bonus in the four applicable categories (armor, deflection, dodge, and natural), as well as a +12 bonus to both dexterity and wisdom, the AC total becomes 51. If the character is instead permitted a +20 bonus in each category and the ability bonuses, the AC total becomes 111.
Notes[]
- Similar results can be achieved by only getting 4 levels of fighter and keeping the rest monk. This will reduce the character's BAB, but will provide a variety of useful defensive feats, as well as greatly increasing movement speed.
- This build can be optimized for level 40 play by moving the monk level from character level 1 to character level 37 (or higher). This makes leveling more difficult, has eight fewer skill points, and requires some feats to be shifted (an epic toughness needs to be lost to make room for exotic weapon proficiency by level 3). However, this allows an additional 4 AC from tumble and increases the base attack by 1.