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.

Creation (Did by Flimbo)

Stats

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

Training (Mathed by Flimbo)

Combat Maneuvers

Must Haves

The first Combat Maneuver any Monk must have is Perfect Self.

This is made difficult by the fact that in order to get Perfect Self, one must first get two dirty active prerequisites that you have to actually push buttons to use. It's awful.

Namely, you must get 3 ranks each of Surge of Strength and Burst of Swiftness before starting Perfect Self. Many people enjoy Surge especially regardless, but if you're like me in disliking things that make you push extra buttons, these will only be marginally useful.

You can maximize Perfect Self at level 31, as it costs 30 CMAN points to complete. At this point, your CMAN training will looke like this:

Surge of Strength (3 ranks) Burst of Swiftness (3 ranks) Perfect Self (5 ranks)

Perfect Self is always the first thing you should be maximizing as a Monk, without fail. There is no combat maneuver in the game that can compete with the sheer utility of a passive +10 to every stat. It helps everything you do.

After Perfect Self, the order of things is based on personal preference. I chose at this point to get one rank of Rolling Krynch Stance, and then work on Punch Mastery, Kick Mastery, and Grapple Mastery masteries. The mathemagicians among you will note that you can start these slightly before you finish Perfect Self based on the fact that you'll store up more points by level 30 than you can actually spend on the 30 point Perfect Self skill. To that I say: Goob job, poindexter. You are a MATH NERD and I will dunk your head in a fantasy toilet when I see you in game. That's right. You're the biggest nerd in a 25 year old text game. Congratulations. I hope being smart was worth it.

Anyways, one must have punch, kick, and grapple mastery. I personally recommend all three ranks of all of them as a Monk, as tiering up in position is very important, but by the time you're high enough level to master all three (Around level 65), you'll be informed enough to make your own decision.

Next, I recommend also getting all three ranks of your Rolling Krynch Stance, and I recommend doing so after you finish your masteries (I only finished it around level 70). But again, by that point, you'll know for yourself what you want.

And lastly, one rank of Combat Mobility at some point in your training is absolutely a good idea for anyone who can get it. This will pop you back to standing 50% of the time when swung at if you're unstunned but knocked down.

Personal Preference

Evade Mastery - This skill allows you to flat out dodge attacks more. As a square wearing robes, this skill is more beneficial to you than any other profession in the game as the lighter your armor, the bigger its bonus (27% increase to outright dodge an attack at rank 3). The only reason it's in the personal preference section rather than the must haves is because even without it, you will find you defend, and dodge absolutely spectacularly, so you may feel that you don't need it.

Combat Focus - This skill gives you +2 TD per rank, up to 5 ranks for a total of +10 Generic TD Bonus. It is very expensive to complete (30 points). If you feel you haven't offset your TD in enough other ways, it is a decent CMAN to pick up though. There are cheaper ways to get your TD into a healthy state, though, so consider just one to three ranks if you have extra points nearing cap.

Ki Focus - This is an active use skill that grants an increased chance of tiering up your position on the next strike. Personally I haven't found a need for it, but some Monks (Githros) use it. Personally I prefer to go the passive route, with maximized rolling krynch stance and three fully trained masteries, but if you like active skills and absolutely must tier up immediately, Ki Focus is a good one.

Inner Harmony - This stance will shake off a negative spell effect every 30 seconds. Personally I don't recommend getting this unless you can get the full three ranks. At rank 3 of this stance, you can shake off a negative effect immediately after assuming the stance. In my experience, if you need to get rid of a spell effect badly enough to spend CMAN points on it, you're dead before 30 seconds is up anyway. So all in or bust on this one.

Slippery Mind - Slippery Mind works like Evade Mastery, but for warding spells. Upon reaching rank 3, you get a 27% chance to outright dodge warding spells. Generally speaking I find the "Kill it before it kills you" method preferable, and boosting up my TD to outright pass warding checks, but in a pinch, this one's decent.

Feint - Lots of people like feint. You're a Monk. If you can't hit it while it's in stance defensive, you're doing it wrong. But I suppose it does make things a little easier.

Flurry of Blows - I'm only adding this because people will ask about it if I don't. Pound for pound, Rolling Krynch Stance is superior. Don't get this.

Shut up and tell me what to take

This is my CMAN training, in the order I took it:

Surge of Strength - 3 ranks (12 points)
Burst of Swiftness - 3 ranks (12 points)
Perfect Self - 5 Ranks (30 points)
Punch Mastery - 3 Ranks (24 points)
Kick Mastery - 3 Ranks (24 points)
Grapple Mastery - 3 Ranks (24 points)
Rolling Krynch Stance - 3 Ranks (24 points)
Combat Mobility - 1 Rank (5 points)
Evade Mastery - 3 Ranks (24 points)
Combat Focus - 4 Ranks (20 points)
Feint - 1 Rank (2 points)

Total Points - 201

TD, and what to do about it (Talked about by Flimbo)

One of the main things people say about Monks is that "Their TD is awful!". It is not. You just did it wrong or are parroting someone who did it wrong. Your TD does start out lower than other squareses, and here is why:

Robes have a CvA of +15. Compare that to the best possible CvA of -21 on Full Plate, and your starting off point is 36 overall TD worse than a warrior wearing full plate. So your goal is to get 36 TD to bring yourself even with a level 40+ warrior. No problem! Let's go to the math!

Now, assuming you are a Monk (Hint: You are), you will have for the majority of your training, 20 ranks of Minor Mental and 20 ranks of Lesser Spirit spells. Let's add up those self spelled boosts.

101 - 10 Spirit TD

107 - 15 Spirit TD

120 - 20 Spirit TD

1208 - 26 Mental TD (At 20 ranks)

Now, your overall bonus will fluctuate a bit based on the type of spell being cast at you, so let's just deal with "Generic TD" for now. This is the minimum "always on" bonus granted by the above spells to your TD. It only goes up from here if you're having a Spirit or Mental spell cast at you. Generic TD added is half that of your specific TD spells.

10/2 = 5 TD from 101

15/2 = 7 TD from 107

20/2 = 10 TD from 120

26/2 = 13 TD from 208

Total of - 35 TD!

Congratulations! With only self spelled Generic TD, you've just offset your TD penalty from wearing robes compared to a warrior in full plate. Almost. There's 1 more point to go. So let's get into the other ways to boost your TD.

Assume you're a Flimbo, which you should be aspiring to be anyway. I have four ranks of Combat Focus, as detailed in the CMAN section above:

Combat Focus (4 ranks) - 8 Generic TD

Now, ensorcell your robes. Like Combat Focus, ensorcelling your armor adds +2 Generic TD per tier. Therefore, a Tier 5 ensorcell will give you:

Tier 5 Ensorcell - 10 Generic TD

Now let's not forget you can get yourself treasure gen robes that have TD on them. Mine are +5 TD, so let's go with that.

+5 TD Robes - 5 Generic TD

If you are lucky enough to be in Voln, or CoL I guess, you will have an easy, reliable symbol/sign to boost your TD. Sunfist also has a sign for it, but it only lasts 90 seconds, and I mean...come on. If you want to push lots of buttons, be a warrior.

CoL - +15 Generic TD

Voln - +13 Generic TD (Bonus because it's tied into symbol of protection which you've got up anyway for DS!)

But wait! There's More! You're a MONK! You have perfect self! And with +10 to every one of your stats comes +5 bonus to each of your TD stats. So let's add that too.

+5 TD stat bonus - 5 Generic TD

So let's add all that up, again, assuming you're a Flimbo, in Voln with a Tier 5 ensorcell and TD enhancive robes.

Combat Focus (4 ranks) - 8 Generic TD

Tier 5 Ensorcell - 10 Generic TD

+5 TD Robes - 5 Generic TD

Voln Master - 13 Generic TD

+5 TD stat bonus - 5 Generic TD

Self spelled Generic TD - 35 Generic TD

Total Bonus TD from spells, skills, and gearing - 76

Who's got TD problems NOW? Nobody, that's who. Well, maybe somebody, but not you. Keep in mind also that certain races, like Halfling, get obscene bonuses to types of TD (Elemental in the Halfling's case), so keep that in mind when choosing a race. Self spelled only, and geared properly using societal skills, you'll easily be better off than most other professions. Not worse. And keep in mind, all of these maths were just for generic TD. Your individual TDs for spirit, mental, and hybrid will be higher. Elemental will remain the same.

Frequently Asked Questions (Answered by Flimbo)

A link to the foreword