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Just a few days ago, in the Giant In The Playground Forums, Sir Giacomo, a stalwart defender of the power of monks, posted the guide below to show how monks can beat a Batman wizard. I now submit it to CharOp for analysis. Tear it up, boys.

Beating Batman: Sir Giacomo’s Guide to Monks
Making the Most of What you Have (When Casters Believe What They Have Is Already Ridiculously Good)

“We need to be enlightened by the OMFGWTFBBQ Ultimate Monk Build” – Solo


I. Introduction

Face it. If you play a non-caster, a monk in particular, chances are that caster players or wizard fans will laugh in your face, try to mop the floor with you and have a chat with a fellow caster while doing it (range: unlimited). Ever since the logicninja’s Batman concept hit the boards (and likely before that), casters and wizards in particular seem to be UBER. More astoundingly, actually, often even the non-casting classes appear to be a way more viable choice for...everything: fighting, scouting, etc.
And, to add insult to injury, it appears as if the 4th edition gave up on monks altogether.
However, this guide is intended to provide some ideas to make monks (and you can easily apply stuff found here to other non-casters) more of a challenge/fun to play throughout all levels. Feel free to add ideas and comments!

Specifically, it can be a guide for, say,
- players, when you play a monk in a party with highly-powered casters – and thus also highly-powered caster oppostion (basically, a proof vs said players kindly asking to play a caster instead lest you spoil their fun)
- DMs, create some npc monk challenges to your caster players
- Overall inspiration to show the monk is definitely balanced with all other core classes

For simplicity and better usability in most campaigns, as well as help for beginning players (as well as my own limited purse to buy rule books), I’ll restrict it to generally available core rules (PHB, DMG, MM, SRD excepting psionics and divine domain rules) – so no celerity combos, timestopped maws of chaos (whatever that is) on the caster side and no belt of extra actions, vows of xy or or feats that push your damage to the colossal lvl 18 monk size by level 9. If you wish to (ab)use all the many great companions out there, you should still be able to use the principles outlined here as a source of ideas.

A great link for monks outside core in particular can be found here…
Non-core monk by emeraldstreak
Monk as balanced? Any good at all?
Here is where some of the more heated debates on this subject has happened on these boards.
And for a highly entertaining read, Talic once started a playing thread of a 20th level group with monk played by lord_khaine, barbarian by Worira, sorcerer by Solo (who else?) and cleric by Rachel Lorelei to prove how weak monks are.
Unfortunately, the excercise stopped in the midst of the first serious encounter – up to that point it was unable to prove anything at all. What the thread (and its accompanying rules discussion thread) nicely illustrated, though, was a great many hints how ultra-high-level play might really work.
Will put in more links as I come across them!

Ah, and let us not forget: the monk while focusing on what this class can do greatly (being a bane to casters) should not become an idiot specialist. He/she (for simplicity, and with due respect to the female posters here, I’ll use the male abbreviation henceforth throughout if you forgive me… has also to fight monsters and other non-casters. While the monk might be ideal to specialise in overcoming magic-reliant opponents (it’s simply a facet of the PHB recommendations of spy, assassin, infiltrator and opportunist combatant), some tricks should help him survive long enough to actually reach that enemy caster through his minions. Or in a caster-rare (not magic-poor!) campaign. Or whatever.

Here it comes…

II. The Very Basics of Monkery

As logicninja has immortally put it:
“The traditional adventuring party has four people, filling the roles of Meat-Shield, Skill-Monkey, Heal-*****, and Batman.
You're--as Frank Miller put--the ******* Batman.”

As a monk you’re – as Frank Miller would have paraphrased as well – the ******* Joker!
Relying on tricks and unusual stuff to overcome the physically…er magically stronger Batman. Perform is even a class skill, so you could tell some jokes to entertain your desperate enemies and awestruck adventuring teammates while you squish the casters and face everything else as easily as other non-casters.

1. Key Insights on Giamonk strategy (and: what the Joker would say….)

1) “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” – The Joker
Be prepared for a harsh truth: Magic is cheap in core 3.5. And the “Giamonk” (courtesy Kurald Galain) intends to make full use of it. In that way, he is quite close to the classic gish…
The Batman may think he is special, but in a magic world as envisioned in the core 3.5 rules, everyone will want to have magic. And everyone gets it, thanks to four major goodies for all classes
- fellow pc casting. This is the way assumed by the game (for instance, the enlarge spell has almost no use for the sorcerer or wizard, but it is greatly helpful for fighting characters). In many instances, though, the non-caster or monk needs to be on his own..
- npc casting (this could be helped by, but does not need the leadership feat)
- wealth by level guidelines and thus, permanent magic items
- Use Magic Device (UMD), either cross-class or class. It does not really matter, since the greatest bargains, the wands simulating ALL 1-4 spell levels are safely usable with just a UMD score of +19. And even one rank of UMD and total bonus of +0 will allow you to eventually activate a wand…only a “1” rolled without +19 UMD will mean stopping to use that item for the day, but you could carry several for the same effect, lowering your risk greatly. Wands are the cheapest way for non-casters to obtain non-pc buffs. Based on the usual casting and spell levels of arcane and divine spells, level 1 spells, it is 15 gp per use, for level 2 spells 90 gp, for level 3 spells 225 gp and for level 4 spells 420 gp.

Great level 1-4 spells to get in store (some are range: personal)
Spoiler: Show

And on the issue of whether partially charged wands are purchasable or not...
Spoiler: Show

Additionally, while you can for a long while not safely activate a wand in one round (meaning in combat you often cannot use it reasonably), you can still make use of:
- longer-lasting buff spells (10 mins/lvl & up)
- short-lasting buff spells when you have the opportunity to buff up before combat (say, enlarge wand)
- instantaneous spells usable between combat without stress (healing, research)
- touch spells with “holding the charge” use. This is something where the non-casters would even surpass the casters since they 1) have better hitting chances and 2) they most often do not cast spells in between, ending “the charge”.
Some of the great things for a monk using wands:
- you can grapple while using/holding wands (even in both hands)
- you can do all your unarmed strikes while holding wands (even in both hands)

This basically gets you everything you need. For the higher spell levels, either get
- scrolls or
- other casters casting (via npc spellcasters, cohort spellcasters or team member spellcasters).
If all fails, level the playing field, either with AMF or lower-level effects (yes, there are some, see below).
Plus, there are some fairly cheap single spells that can shut down the effects of whole schools of magic:
- mind blank (enchantment, divination)
- true seeing (illusions, excepting the real part of shadow magic)
- death ward (necromancy)
- wall of force (all conjuration/evocation/necromancy/transmutation/phantasm/shadow attacks)
Some of those are available in existing magic items (true seeing, wall of force, death ward), some could be available as custom items (explicit DM’s approval).

Make use of one of the biggest balancing insights of the game: magic is cheap, and can counter magic easily! Batman got the most recent computer technology…eh spell innovation? Well, get the same stuff cheap!

So here, in a nutshell, are the two Giamonk principles:
1. Get spells that synergise greatly with the monk abilites
2. Get items that synergise greatly with the monk abilities

2) “And where...and where...is the Batman?” – The Joker
Some things that will help you in your noble quests to make life miserable for casters:
You have spot and listen as class skills (only the druid on the caster side can compete here). So since ALL casters have no move silently skill, they can try to use invisibility, but at high levels you can still pinpoint them. Before that, simply use see invisibility or cheaper faerie fire wands, which are a bargain when you know that someone is around invisibly (which requires only a simple listen check).
Alternatively, you can make caster life quite tough by simply obscuring their (whatever magically-enhanced) perception abilities, too – it blocks most of what they can do to attack. A simple smokestick does the trick at low levels. Better stuff is available at higher levels (see also the advantaged monkery below in part III.)
It also helps that you will thus not only likely be the one with a surprise round vs casters (and my, does your range for a partial charge extend the higher you rise in level!), You can also often go first in regular rounds as well (if you have good DEX and the improved initiative feat). Against monster manual casters and monsters, you most likely do.
Only at very high levels, when the 9th level foresight spell could be up quite often on the caster side, things will start to get complicated…

3) “And where…and where….is the Joker?”
There is one vital thing about how to survive in combat at all levels for the monk:
Control. The. Encounter.
There are basically two sets of class abilities that let you do it:
- the combination of the skills spot/listen, meaning more likely than not that YOU will surprise the enemy instead of the the other way round.
- the combination of move silently/hide and your superior move skill that lets you move out of the range of the enemy while still keeping close to him , waiting for an opening.
Some wizard fans will fantasise about “casters flying out of range invisibly and raining death from above” while a monk using the same tactics in a different manner is called “fleeing”. You know why. Because it’s what they fear most:
Someone simply waiting out their buffs and spell defenses – and with ranks in Spellcraft as a monk you can actually have a chance to gauge how long that particular buff lasts..
A key insight here is: in the core games, there are hardly any longer-lasting buffs. Fly and invisibility last 1 min/lvl and can thus easily be waited out. While this is in a way sad for a monk using UMD (since most buffs are too short-lived to be of use, and can likewise in some instances be waited out by clever opponents), it is the great chance to fight casters. Note though, that the Joker’s magic spells cannot be recognised when cast with Spellcraft (it’s only an obscure command word), while the spellcasters’ spells can...

4) “You wouldn’t hit a man with glasses, would you?” – The Joker
For a class which needs to go into melee range (though not to stay for long in classic melee fights until much higher levels), you need to somehow resort to all kinds of tricks to
survive (you are quite similar to the Batman here, only that you have double Hp, better saves, more stealth skills and higher AC and thus have a much better start).
Some basic insights:
- in the beginning in case of a low WIS, you COULD even wear a leather armour for a +2 bonus, since that does not incur any penalties even without the light armour proficiency. And the penalties to your monk ability are negligible. (as yet).
- Otherwise, eventually a monk’s AC bonus with continuously maxed WIS will surpass a full plate +5 (and it is touch AC as well).
- Items and tricks and spells that give concealment and miss chances are good for you as well (since you do not have to rely on sight much with a blind-fighting feat).
Another tactics is to look different. For instance, like a sorcerer, wizard or rogue (basically all who do not normally/necessarily wear armour) or even a usual npc (commoner, adept or expert). You do not even need to disguise, just appear as you are – and let your opponents draw their conclusions and prepare for the wrong challenges. With UMD, you can even wield a magic staff/wand, cast from scrolls and appear to be a spellcaster…er batman.

5) “Haven’t you ever heard about the healing power of laughter?” – The Joker
One often-overlooked monk ability is self-healing. It appears not that important, but for the usual encounter-fillled adventuring day, it is basically equal to a +4 CON score for hit points compared to other non-healing classes. Throw in CLW wands with your UMD, as well as your high WIS with healing and you can be a solid secondary party healer (who may devote resources for the wands of CLW you carry).


2. Monk Myths
“Stop the press!” – The Joker

or: why the heck do so many believe in Monk Suckage?

1) “Don’t even go MAHAHAHAHAAAAD” – The Joker

Spoiler: Show


2) “The monk has no specialty, so at best makes a nice 5th team member”

Spoiler: Show


3) “If for any reason the monk uses spells and UMD cross-class he only shows that his own class abilities suck”.

Spoiler: Show

4) “Speaking about magic items: the monk has to get so many, since he is so weak. Amulets of mighty fists alone cost a fortune.”

Spoiler: Show

5) “The monk is a melee class. So why doesn’t he have full BAB and why can’t he flurry as a standard action? My homebrew monk can do it!”

Spoiler: Show

6) “Hey, I have a great idea: make use the monk’s high move and get him spring attack.”

Spoiler: Show

Now, after getting rid of these more known monk fallacies, let us move to more advanced stuff and then on to what some on these boards have been looking forward to eagerly…


III. Advanced Monkery – The Art of being the Joker
“Gentlemen! Let’s broaden our minds” – The Joker

1) The art of grappling:

This is THE casterbane tactics throughout all levels, althoug the advent of freedom of movement at some point means it’s best up to mid-level, and at very high levels, this tactics returns with a vengeance and AMF.
It is also a great general combat tactics, though. And the monk excels at it.
At low level, it makes a lack of armour and your inferior starting damage dice obsolete, since you lower your opponent damage potential to a mere 1d3 starting damage dice (possibly non-lethal), and TH weapons and power attack of opponents are nullified (power attack is not applicable in a grapple!). Not to mention that a grappled caster is reduced to spells with only vocal components (not that many below dimension door leverl) or, with two successful grapple checks and pinned, the caster cannot do any more spells – barring some still, silent feat prepared spells. But hardly any casters will 1) even have those feats and 2) have it prepared at the time of your attack.
You can also use your higher number of grapple attempts (flurry) to pin and force opponent to waste their highest grapple check to escape the pin. You can move with your opponent through squares threatened by your allies and have fun watching him get x AoO (more AoO with combat reflexing allies).
The major objection to grappling may be that big and strong creatures hit the scene quite quickly (CR 3 & up). There are two caveats to this, though:
- until the mid-levels MOST creatures you encounter you either can still grapple since your grapple check mostly exceeds theirs (and do not forget, if you are, say, level 6, you will not always fight single CR 6 creatures, but more often the CR 2-4 kind in greater numbers alongside the party in one-on-one combat. Plus, your main prey- casters- usually have only freedom of movement as means to foil you – and this only through divine casting (assassin prestige class a rare exception here).
- the big and strong creatures of the earlier levels are exactly that: big and strong. But have few other abilities and no brain to speak of. Animals and vermin or huge zombies/skeletons may be outsmarted quite well.
Then, the issue of: freedom of movement. The permanent item profiding it is only available at the earliest at level 16 with ¼ wbl (DMG recommendation for pcs). The wand is available earlier though, but like the ring, you could disarm it away (grab an item option). That leaves the (divine) spellcasting. Even though monsters mostly do not have the spell up, casters will – sometimes. Try to win initiative before the FOM is up. Or, recognise it with spellcraft and then wait out the buff (i.e. retreat , hide, and strike when spell is over. Few casters have prepared it several times).

2) D-Fense, Part II

A monk has good defenses, but less offensive powers until later levels (when the no. of attacks and monk’s belt really provide great damage output). How to turn good defense into offensive use?
By creating a combat environment that favours the monk who has a particular kind of immunity that others don’t have!
For instance, centre fireballs on yourself in the midst of overwhelming odds surrounding you (with necklace item) and (improved) evasion the damage away. Or grapple an opponent and let your party wizard fireball you and the opponent. Use poison once you are immune to it yourself. Create situations where weapons do not help much (say, tight quarters). Sight is not as important to you as it is for spellcasters (you can even throw shuriken into pinpointed areas with listen). Use your immunity to disease vs, say, an enemy camp by spreading some disease the day before you attack (some diseases even cause WIS and INT loss, or deplete their CON to soften them up vs your stunning fists attacks). Think the “Flesh and Blood” movie. Be creative

3) Prestige classes and multi-classing

Well, there some possible prestige classes in core for the monk. Where then are good departing points (meaning departing for good, since a monk may not lose his class abilities getting to another class or turning non-lawful, but they can never return).?
At lvl 1,2,6: have most bonus feats without ability requirements as possible. Possibly interesting for special fighter builds.
At lvl 11: you just received your 2nd flurry attack. Get full BAB with divine power and thus have most attacks per round. Or wait for level 12 to grab the supernatural dimension door. You can use that ability even when paralysed – it’s a great escape pod for all levels.
At lvl 15: with a monk’s belt you have reached the highest possible unarmed damage.

Good prestige classes reinforcing the roles meant by PHB for the monk (spy, infiltrator, assassin, scout, opportunist combatant) and also good vs casters in general are
- Duelist (get INT to AC, unarmed strike can be considered weapon in only one hand, you get great boosts to your initiative which is vital vs casters)
- shadowdancer (hide in plain sight)
- Horizon walker (for dimension door every 1d4 rounds, a rare competence bonus to listen, etc.)
- Assassin prestige class
I also like a combo of dragon disciple for the STR stat boosts and tremorsense, and possibly fying ability (the monk has knowledge arcane as class skill!) , with a 1+-level dip in assassin to get the spontaneous arcane casting ability. The assassin also gets you wand access to all assassin spells, even without UMD.
For instance, monk 15/assassin 1/dragon disciple 4
This build would add +1d6 sneak, death attack, poison use, a 1 first level spell (could be true strike), access to assassin spell wands, +4 STR, claw and bite attacks in addition to monk unarmed strikes, Bonus to natural AC. This would replace the monk abilites of lvl 16-20 of: etheralness rounds/lvl/day, continuos non-magical tongues, outsider status for magical effects, ageing immunity to physical stats.
Note that you lose out on Spell Resistance and quivering palm DC with any multi-classing – and you cannot return to the monk class.

4) “I have given a name to my pain. It is Batman.” – The Joker

Basically, what would hurt casters most?
Not being able to affect the monk with their magic/effect any magic at all. This can be accomplished by
- blocking their somatic components (grappling)
- blocking their material components (disarming)
- blocking their vocal components (grappling, using silence spell effect)
- blocking all actions (stunning)
- blocking their line of sight (blinding, obscuring vision)
- blocking their line of effect (force effects, use of full cover)
- blocking their area effects (evasion, improved evasion)
- blocking their range (fast moving out of range. Great vs summons and the usual temporary buffs that you recognised before with Spellcraft)
- blocking their refreshment methods (attacking during prayer, learning, disrupting sleep etc.)
- blocking all magic (Anti-magic-field, spell resistance, saving throws, certain force effects; although recent magic item compendium rules which can be seen to update the core rules appear to have AMF no longer block line of effect for magic – courtesy Lord_Silvanos. It is irrelevant for the AMF grappling tactics, though.).

Normally stopping the spells/spellcasting of a caster means almost certain win. A cleric has some decent fighting abilty, but without spells even (or rather, in particular with) heavy armour will be no match in combat for a monk.
Of all the casters the monk can go against, druid is the toughest one. The reason is straightforward: most skill points of full casters (not counting the bard here) and many useful non-spell abilities besides.
In particular the monk can get trouble due to the animal companion protecting the druid (if it is the large kind and not the one with more abilities), and his spells providing most of the powers of the other full casters at high levels (and lower levels besides). As for the usual wildshaping zilla druid – just point out to your DM that most likely polymorph is banned and thus, the druid should likewise not be able to get this kind of superior combat boost (24/7, at that!).
At high levels, a druid hit by an AMF will, of course, also crumble, but before that – what can a monk do in addition to the stuff above (i.e. obstructing the druid spells)?
Some suggestions:
- use hide from animals effects (50 uses in wand for 750 gp only). This negates the animal companion until you have reached and managed to grapple the druid.
- Note that your eversmoking bottle stealth mid-level tactics work not that well vs a druid, since the druid can summon air elmentals spontaneously that will whirlwind your smoke away AND they are the only class (apart from air domain clerics) to cast control winds.

For those batmen retreating to a MMM or tower (abandoning adventuring) the Joker would only say:
“I'm givin' away free money, and where is the Batman? He's at home washing his tights!”



For the rest of the guide, and the storm that occurred, just look here:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80704

So, thoughts?

PS: I claim no responsibility over this guide. 'Tis not mine, I'm but a messenger who submits it to CharOp to see it crushed like it should be because it's idiotic.

Why have I only been mentioned once, at the beginning of the post?

I don't want this to become a flame war. You can use tactics to defeat a wizard. But the point is that casters are better than martial classes.
First of all, it begins wrong. Wizards are powerful on duels but they really shine in parties. An interesting duel would be one between the wizard's buffed party and an all-monk party :P

• blocking their somatic components (grappling) -Dimensional Door or Alter Self or Fly.
  
• blocking their material components (disarming) -Material-less spells.
  
• blocking their vocal components (grappling, using silence spell effect) -That works, but guess what :P silent spell.
  
• blocking all actions (stunning) -Works, i don't know any popular spell that blocks this (well except stuff that won't let the attack hit -mirror image, displacement, etc).
  
• blocking their line of sight (blinding, obscuring vision) -Don't know how you will get these.
  
• blocking their line of effect (force effects, use of full cover) -If you get on the defensive, that'd surely be a mistake. Wizards can destroy people at melee if buffed enough.
  
• blocking their area effects (evasion, improved evasion) -If you are against a warmage :P
  
• blocking their range (fast moving out of range. Great vs summons and the usual temporary buffs that you recognised before with Spellcraft) -erm, what? Monks get what, +50ft speed? Assuming they use spring attack (otherwise it's no use) they'd even be inside the close (25ft + 5ft/2 levels) range.
  
• blocking their refreshment methods (attacking during prayer, learning, disrupting sleep etc.) -works, but it's an exhaustive method and you need to make sure that they won't take care of you on the spot. Also after 9 or so level, they can sleep inside a rope trick.
  
• blocking all magic (Anti-magic-field, spell resistance, saving throws, certain force effects; although recent magic item compendium rules which can be seen to update the core rules appear to have AMF no longer block line of effect for magic – courtesy Lord_Silvanos. It is irrelevant for the AMF grappling tactics, though.) -AMF works, but you need to reach your target first and grapple him. Still even AMF cannot break the invoke magic - dimension door.
  

Live with it people. Spellcasters rule both the mechanics and the roleplaying aspect of D&D.

I forced myself through the blacked-out text, and learned a few things. But good Christ, could you use those little spoiler buttons instead?

Armisael wrote:

Now, THAT is an interesting idea, that wizards shine in the roleplay. Could you expand on that?

Check the stories and novels. Most high-ranking individuals are wizards with archmage levels (e.g. Faerun). Rulers with levels in martial classes (i mean most of the levels of course) are rare.