Flimbo's Monk Guide

Foreword (By Flimbo)

Welcome to the Duh-finitive Monk Guide by Flimbo. In this guide you will learn lots of things. Here are some of those things:

• Monks. Why are they.
• Monks. How are they.
• Monks. What are they.
• How many professions Monk is better than.
• How much Flimbos does it take to write a guide.

This guide is for novice and experienced Monk enthusiasts alike. It is a work in progress, and will cover creation up through cap in as much detail as the Flimbo sees fit to and has caffeine to impart.

If you are not here for the full creation experience, and instead just have a Monk question, there's a chance it's answered in the Frequently Asked Questions portion of this guide.

Overview (Written by Flimbo)

Strengths

• Monks excel at dealing with swarms of things.
  • You will more than likely have a whole heap of Multi Opponent Combat, for reasons that will become more apparent in the training section of this guide.

• Monks have excellent maneuver, physical and bolt defenses.
  • Your ability to easily 2x or 3x dodge and physical fitness makes it very difficult to hit you with maneuvers.
  • Only having to wear robes is another huge boon to your maneuver defense, and UAC offenses.
  • Many of your spells offer excellent DS and maneuver bonuses for both you and your group.
  • Once you hit a certain breakpoint for spells, you will rarely, if ever, have to leave stance offensive.

• Monks are very self sufficient.
  • With proper spell and skill training, it is incredibly easy to be well defended without the need for outside spells.

• Unique Stances and Maneuvers
  • Perfect self is quite possibly the best maneuver in Gemstone. No other maneuver can come close to the benefit to every single thing that you do like a passive +100 stats can.
  • Your focus spells, Mind over Body and Focus Barrier, have infinite duration, affect you and your group, and only fall if you get stunned for a long period of time.
  • Monks have access to a solid list of unique martial stances and maneuvers which I will go into detail about in the appropriate section.

Weaknesses

• Target Defense
  • As you will primarily be wearing robes, which have a +15 CvA (Compared to -21 on full plate), your target defense will start out lower than normal. You can however offset this detriment in a number of ways, which will be detailed in another section.

• Armor
  • Again, with robes, your armor will generally be lighter than a warrior's. The 1202 spell allows your robes to protect as heavier armor without the detriments to maneuvers of wearing or training for said armor, but generally the best armor you will realistically hope to be protected by is augmented chain. You can go higher with enhancives and lore training, but by the time that becomes a factor in your training, you won't need my guide to figure it out.

Why play a Monk?

This is a question that's impossible to answer for everyone, so I'm just going to answer it for me, and hopefully that may give you some insight or idea as to why you may want to choose Monk.

I was happily playing a two handed warrior. I enjoyed mstriking with a maul. I enjoyed being able to take hits and dish out damage without watching my mana bar. I had a pocket wizard to keep him spelled up, and a pocket empath to heal all his many little wounds. And then something cast Earthen Fury at me. And it didn't matter that I had a billion hitpoints. It didn't matter that I was spelled up. It didn't matter that I had all manner of redux. I just died. That was strike one.

Strike two was that I just don't like active skills, maneuver or otherwise. I don't like upkeeping enhancives. I don't like typing cman whatever critter. I didn't like losing control of my character with berserk. Most of what warrior offered and what made it special, I wasn't using.

Strike three was taking a look at the wiki.

• +100 stats and I don't have to push a button? Sign me up.
• About 120 DS worth of self spelled defenses? Yes please.
• Still get all that juicy redux and don't even have to throw 140+ ranks into armor training? Buhbye Warrior.

In short, I like all the passive bonuses granted by Monk. I love that I was able to sell my pocket wizard and empath and still stand around in stance offensive and never get hit. I like how many ranks of multi opponent combat I can get without having to 3x armor training. If any of this sounds appealing to you, you might ought to want to give Monk a go.

Test

Flimbo's Monk Guide Type Square Spell Circles Minor Mental, Minor Spiritual Prime Requisites Agility, Strength Mana Statistics Wisdom, Logic

Physical Skills Skill Cost Ranks Two Weapon Combat 2/2 2 Armor Use 10/0 2 Shield Use 8/0 2 Combat Maneuvers 5/3 2 Edged Weapons 2/1 2 Blunt Weapons 3/1 2 Two-Handed Weapons 5/2 2 Ranged Weapons 4/1 2 Thrown Weapons 2/1 2 Polearm Weapons 6/2 2 Brawling 2/1 2 Ambush 3/2 2 Multi Opponent Combat 5/2 2 Physical Fitness 2/0 3 Dodging 1/1 3

Magical Skills Skill Cost Ranks Arcane Symbols 0/6 1 Magic Item Use 0/7 1 Spell Aiming 5/20 1 Harness Power 0/6 1 Elemental Mana Control 0/15 1 Mental Mana Control 0/8 1 Spirit Mana Control 0/8 1 Spell Research 0/38 1 Elemental Lore 0/40 1 Spiritual Lore 0/12 1 Sorcerous Lore 0/35 1 Mental Lore 0/12 1

General Skills Skill Cost Ranks Survival 2/2 2 Disarming Traps 3/4 2 Picking Locks 3/3 2 Stalking and Hiding 3/2 2 Perception 0/2 2 Climbing 1/0 2 Swimming 2/0 2 First Aid 1/2 2 Trading 0/3 2 Pickpocketing 2/2 2

Base Monk Growth Intervals

	STR	CON	DEX	AGI	DIS	AUR	LOG	INT	WIS	INF
Monk	25	25	20	30	25	15	20	20	15	10

Monk Growth Intervals by Race

Race	STR	CON	DEX	AGI	DIS	AUR	LOG	INT	WIS	INF
Aelotoi	25	23	23	33	27	15	20	22	15	8
Burghal Gnome	20	25	23	33	22	13	25	25	15	10
Dark Elf	25	23	25	35	23	15	20	20	15	10
Dwarf	30	30	17	25	28	15	20	20	18	8
Elf	25	20	25	33	20	20	20	20	15	13
Erithian	23	25	20	30	28	15	22	20	15	13
Forest Gnome	22	27	22	33	27	15	20	20	15	10
Giantman	30	28	18	28	25	15	20	22	15	10
Half Elf	27	25	22	32	23	15	20	20	15	12
Half Krolvin	28	30	22	32	25	13	18	20	15	8
Halfling	20	30	25	35	23	15	18	20	15	10
Human	27	27	20	30	25	15	20	22	15	10
Sylvankind	22	23	25	35	20	18	20	20	15	13

A link to the foreword