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I'm trying to nurture a monk through level 1. As you all know, monks are terribly vulnerable, especially at low levels. What monk abilities are neutralized if I encase my monk in armor in the low levels, say level 1 or 2? Are all monk abilities and attack modifiers neutralized if he's in armor?

AFAIK, you only lose the movement and wisdom armor bonusses if you wear normal armor. But if you cast mage armor on your monk, you don't lose any bonusses and you gain more benifits than you can find from any armor early in the game.

So, find a mage armor scroll, and learn it to cast on your monk. Nothing can touch a 18 wisdom, 18 dexterity monk with mage armor (except for critical hits) for quite some time. (That is, of course, assuming you aren't playing "difficult" mode.)

Thanks for the advice, Dedigan! Plus, I'd save a little bit of coin from having to purchase the physical armor as well.

[QUOTE=Dedigan]AFAIK, you only lose the movement and wisdom armor bonusses if you wear normal armor. But if you cast mage armor on your monk, you don't lose any bonusses and you gain more benifits than you can find from any armor early in the game.

So, find a mage armor scroll, and learn it to cast on your monk. Nothing can touch a 18 wisdom, 18 dexterity monk with mage armor (except for critical hits) for quite some time. (That is, of course, assuming you aren't playing "difficult" mode.)[/QUOTE]

If you're monk is getting pounded early on try not to use him as a primary fighter. Use him as a ranged fighter in the begining, but trust me the wait will be worth it; later on they can be very powerful.

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if you don't use the targos mod - a well build monk should be quite invulnerable at targos docks!

Dex 18/20 (AC +4/5)
WIS 20/18 (AC +5/4)

dodge (AC+1)
mage armor (AC +4)

should give ~AC 24
...and you won't find many enemies with BAB 5+ in the early game!

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If you never want to get hurt, make him a deeo gnome.

+4 AC
+4 dodge vs/ giants
mirror image 1/day
blur 1/day
+2 dexterity and wisdom on character creation.

While I am a proponent of the strength of a DG monk, let's not kid ourselves about its vulnerability in the early game. With max stats in Dex and Wis for best possible AC, there aren't many points left over for Con. The DG monk does require significant spell buffs to become near-invulnerable, and those buffs are in short supply in the early going; duration in particular is an issue because of lvl 1 spellcasters, assuming that your spellcasters even start off as spellcasters (instead of rogues, say). One or two critical hits can finish a monk, particularly a DG monk that is lagging a few levels, and thus HP, behind its cohorts.

Even a DG monk isn't really capable of being your only tank until it gets a few levels.

I've never thought of taking mage armor as a spell choice right at the start for the targos docks. Is that what you do, silverdragon? MA is available as a scroll and in a ring from the elf in Targos proper, so I've always waited.

[QUOTE=Aerich]I've never thought of taking mage armor as a spell choice right at the start for the targos docks. Is that what you do, silverdragon? MA is available as a scroll and in a ring from the elf in Targos proper, so I've always waited.[/QUOTE]


...never take monk levels that early...


normally start Targos (undead mod) with:

L1 - L2 - L3 - L4 - L5

1. rogue - fighter - fighter - rogue - rogue (20 wiz & 3 barb levels later)
2. rogue - fighter - fighter - rogue - rogue (15 cleric, 3 monk & 5 wiz levels later)
3. cleric - cleric - cleric - cleric -cleric (3 pal & 3 monk levels later)
4. pal - pal - sorc - sorc - sorc
5. bard - bard - bard - druid - druid
6. rogue - wiz - wiz - wiz - wiz (to wiz 20 - main arcane caster until the sorc gains power)

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[QUOTE=Aerich]While I am a proponent of the strength of a DG monk, let's not kid ourselves about its vulnerability in the early game. With max stats in Dex and Wis for best possible AC, there aren't many points left over for Con. The DG monk does require significant spell buffs to become near-invulnerable, and those buffs are in short supply in the early going; duration in particular is an issue because of lvl 1 spellcasters, assuming that your spellcasters even start off as spellcasters (instead of rogues, say). One or two critical hits can finish a monk, particularly a DG monk that is lagging a few levels, and thus HP, behind its cohorts.

Even a DG monk isn't really capable of being your only tank until it gets a few levels.

I've never thought of taking mage armor as a spell choice right at the start for the targos docks. Is that what you do, silverdragon? MA is available as a scroll and in a ring from the elf in Targos proper, so I've always waited.[/QUOTE]
Yes, as you say, it takes 1 or 2 critical hits, something that doesn't happen often, and if 1 or 2 critical hits do happen, it will spell the end of almost any 1st or 2nd level character. You can find a Mage Armor scroll in the prologue, amd my wizard memorizes it asap.

As a sidenote on the topic:

I once played a gold(?) dwarven fighter (1) / monk (x), who made use of heavy armor.
Never made it through the game - because I lost interest in the game - but he did okay, if I rember correctly.
He almost never used his "stunning blow" ability (which wouldnt have been very usefull later on because of the lack of a wisdom bonus anyway), so if you like your monks to rely on that, this build wont be of much use to you. Oh, and its most certainly not HoF-compatible.

Anyway, if someones interested, his stats, starting as a fighter, were as follows:

STR 17
DEX 13 (for dodge)
CON 20
INT10 (could be reduced)
WIS 10 (armor prevents wisdom bonus to AC)
CHA 6 (could be reduced even more)

[QUOTE=Endugu]As a sidenote on the topic:

I once played a gold(?) dwarven fighter (1) / monk (x), who made use of heavy armor.
Never made it through the game - because I lost interest in the game - but he did okay, if I rember correctly.
He almost never used his "stunning blow" ability (which wouldnt have been very usefull later on because of the lack of a wisdom bonus anyway), so if you like your monks to rely on that, this build wont be of much use to you. Oh, and its most certainly not HoF-compatible.

Anyway, if someones interested, his stats, starting as a fighter, were as follows:

STR 17
DEX 13 (for dodge)
CON 20
INT10 (could be reduced)
WIS 10 (armor prevents wisdom bonus to AC)
CHA 6 (could be reduced even more)[/QUOTE]


from a powergaming view it doesn't make any sense to build a monk on 10 WIS

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I don't understand what the point of adding the monk levels is, Endugu.

Well, I never said its a powergaming build.

The idea behind this char is more like...
A member of the gold dwarf race who somehow and for some reason made his way to the surface world. He likes to face challenges up close and personal, without the use of fancy weaponry - except when dealing with obviously bigger opponents, in which case he uses the trusting throwing axe(tm) he always keeps at his side (and because, come on, punching a dragon always looks ridiculous, no matter what crazy-fu your monk sports ) Of course, since hes not the most agile guy around he has to rely, in stereotypical dwarven manner, on heavy armor in order to protect him from blows instead of jumping arround and dodging attacks.

At least, thats the rough concept behind this char: I just found the idea of a dwarven "brawler" (boxer, wrestler etc...) interesting and tried to find a way to iclude one in an IWD2 party.
And since the only way to improve a chars unarmed attacks in IWD2 is via monk levels, I made him a monk. But then, I didnt find the image of a kung-fu dwarf, darting around the battlefield, very appealing, so I put him into some armor in order to get rid of the monks speed.
Thats were the fighter level comes into play: This char is not supposed to be a fighter with monk levels (though I do find those interesting, if only for the good saves, improved evasion, spell resistance and monk items), but a monk who took a single level as a fighter in order to use heavy armor efficiently. Otherwise, as a pure monk, hed have to waste 3 feats and wait till level 6 to wear some plate.

Silverdragon, the reason why hes got only 10 WIS is because anything higher would be of any use: As you probably know, armor prevents the monks "WIS bonus to AC"-feature. Since the whole concept of this build revolves around a heavily armored, unarmed brawler, I saw no reason to put points in wisdom...well, except maybe to improve his stun attack, but then I almost never use that anyway (seems to connect not often enough to be reliable/usefull in any way, no matter the WIS and monk build. At least in my experience. Maybe Im always doing something wrong...).
I know for many people the monk's stun attack is the only reason to have one in a party, after all.


In the end, I never claimed that the monk in armor would be a great idea . Just something I came up with one day and found to be more enojoyable than another "how can I achieve to highest AC possible"-build - not that theres anything wrong with playing those.
Maybe Im just not into extreme powergaming adn min-maxing. Tried it sometimes but it usually becomes boring very fast - just not my gaming style, Id guess.