Li the Black Tiger signalled his men. One traveller - and a woman at that - did not worry the bandit chief, but he had not lived as long as he had by being careless or foolish. A woman travelling alone, on foot, could be some kind of witch, or even a kunoichi, a female ninja spy. So when he confronted the woman to demand her money and the wrapped bundle she carried, he would be covered by his archers, and more of his men would be ready to spring to the attack.
He moved into position, around a bend in the path so that the woman would confront him as she turned the corner, which she soon did. "What a surprise," Li said, "to see a young woman travelling alone in such dangerous lands. I can guarantee your safety, though, if you will but pay me the modest fee I ask for such service."
With an amused tone as she looks him up and down, "And what fee do you ask?"
"Merely all of your gold and valuables, and whatever is in that wrapped bundle you carry. A small price to pay for a long and peaceful life, is it not?"
Laughing, the woman says, "You are indeed Li the Black Tiger, are you not?"
"You have heard of me," the bandit leader smiles, "Good, then you know that it is foolish to refuse." He put his hand to his sabre hilt, however, for something in the woman's manner disturbed him. She was far too confident in this confrontation, and his instincts said she knew something that he himself did not.
Tugging a string on her bundle, she replies, "On the contrary, it is you who will pay the price of your foolish banditry this day. Li the Black Tiger, by the orders of the Governor of the Wu Pin Province, your head is worth five-hundred gold pieces. Whether I bring your head in attached to your body or not is up to you."
Signalling to his archers and to the men he hid in ambush, Li drew his blade and said, "You are even more foolish than the bounty hunter who came before you. I will not surrender when the odds are in my favor!"
Arrows whistled through the air, and men charged forward from the brush. The bounty hunter didn't flinch, instead spinning her package and making the cloth twirl through the air in front of her as she freed a strange polearm from inside it, one with long, sharp blades on either end. The blurring motion of the sword-staff sent the arrows off course, deflected harmlessly away, and his attacking men stabbed through the floating cloth only to find that woman had duped them and ducked away under its distracting cover.
Whirling the two blades of her weapon around her, in a wide spinning slash of the polearm she cut down three of his men, but her own presence seemed murky and indistinct when they struck back at her, as if the very air around her were blurred. The bandit archers continued to let fly, but their arrows were seemingly unable to score a hit on the female fighter, and soon after the last man fell to the spinning blades they threw down their bows and fled.
The last things Li the Black Tiger himself knew were a sharp pain in the back of his leg, followed by a fall to the earth, ended by the sensation of a blade punching through his chest, killing him before he could rise.
Pei Hsuan of the Whirling Blade had felled yet another petty bandit on her way from her mountain Temple to the provincial capitol of Wu Pin. She wondered why the Governor had sent for her, and hoped that whatever it was, it would be more challenging than killing Li the Black Tiger had been.
+42 AB with nonmagic two-bladed sword (dual wield by default)
27 AC 480 max hp Fort 24 Ref 26 Will 19
Skills - Max Discipline and Tumble. Other skills at your discretion, you'll have points for several. I went with anti-stealth skills, but stealth skills are also a good option.
Pros - Dual wields with a high AB using a two-sided weapon, strength-based build with specialization for direct damage output, has all the bonuses of being a level 20 monk. Has a really cool style. Can use heavy armor until monk bonuses start to kick in for playability.
Cons - Low saves will hurt against death magic, feat starvation, relatively low AC for a monk.
FAQ:
Q: What's the point of this build? A: I don't see many people using double weapons, and thought that the two-bladed sword kind of reminded me of some kind of exotic martial arts polearm kinda weapon, so I wanted to combine it with Monk. Weapon master followed for theme reasons, and for AB boosting to offset dual wield penalties.
The basic point is to make an effective melee with a two-bladed sword and an oriental martial-artsy flavor.
Q: Why not take dev crit? A: I never build for dev crit, and with this build's feat starvation, it would be hard to work in. Probably doable, but not really that advisable in my opinion.
Q: Why 20 levels of monk? Why not more fighter (for feats) or WM (for AB and feats)? A: Because I realized early that this build would have a terrible Will save. The level 20 monk immunity to mind-affecting spells offsets that to an extent, and the level 18 monk Empty Body ability adds to melee defense. You also get a lot of monk speed, and monk bonus AC. The monk levels provide most of this build's defenses, while the fighter/wm levels provide its offense.
Though, of course, you do still get improved knockdown and cleave for free from the monk class.
Q: Why not dual kamas? A: Because alot of people consider them cheesey, because I wanted to do something different, and because kamas are weak critical hit weapons.
Q: What feats would you like to take if you had more feat choices? Or would you swap any feats? A: The first feats I'd take if I were got more choices, or were going to swap optional feats out, would be Blind Fighting and Improved Critical (Two-Bladed Sword). After that, I don't really think I'd change anything, except very maybe to add Overwhelming Critical.
The first thing I'd swap out of this build would be Toughness... losing 40 hitpoints might be a really small price to pay for Blind Fighting, in particular. Armor Skin would be a harder choice since this build isn't that strong in AC. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Edited By Kail Pendragon on 04/29/09 11:13
This looks nice, though im not sure 20 monk levels is need just for will saves. Also you are right, dual-kamas is cheesey, I dont interact with anyone who even attempts to use this.
the only lament i have is that ambi comes so late, as does itwf. but there is not way to bump that forwards without screwing around with AB and pushing WM levels back a bit.
just as a note. you can use armor, as you mentioned, but later on you can make use of dex and wis equipment to boost ac. +12 dex, +12 wis, gives a total +12 to AC (!), and some nice monk robes will raise that, possibly while giving haste or some other desirable qualities. that should make up for the lack of AC, IMNSHO.
cool build. been thinking about something like this for a while, although with unarmed instead of tbs. i think this works better, especially since you can use WM on the tbs. (there is a weapon master, how about an unarmed master?)
nicely done.
-c _________________ "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
It's not for the higher will saves alone, it's for the Empty Body ability (50% concealment twice a day, a super defense power) at monk level 18, and immunity to mind-affecting spells (notably fear which is an aura ability many monsters have).
Also gets you monk speed bonuses and monk AC bonuses, and 30 spell resistance (near the max you can get from an item and enough to protect you against lower level casters and many "spellsword" casters).
If your server/world/whatever has mind spell immunity items, you can go 18 monk easily and rely more on your gear, but you will lose a little more than just mind immuity. The mind immunity's the biggest thing though.
And the cool glowing eyes. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Very cool, I made a build just for fun similar to this but used a quarterstaff instead. Not very powerful though but very stylish. Monks should have some kind of ability with a quarterstaff I think. twobladed sword is cool though.
Kaliban steps up, sheepishly hiding his two kamas under his robe and clears his throat....
Nice build X. And great introductory story. I really like the image of a Double Sword-wielding Monk. I've built a Monk 25/Fighter 8/WM 7 that dual-wields Rapiers before, but I like this build better.
How about moving your first level of Monk to character level 2? So you boost your AC by 1 and get Cleave right away?
Since you post builds so frequently, I'm going to ask you to modify your posting style a bit - would you add the class level to each line please? That helps when reviewing builds. For example:
I know the weapon is actually Two-Bladed Sword, but I like Double Sword much better. _________________ What I'm reading now: The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer.
Quote: Posted 10/11/05 22:05:42 (GMT) -- Bruce Lee 72
Very cool, I made a build just for fun similar to this but used a quarterstaff instead. Not very powerful though but very stylish. Monks should have some kind of ability with a quarterstaff I think. twobladed sword is cool though.
Try it using Dire Mace - it's much more effective.
Kaliban _________________ What I'm reading now: The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer.
Sure... I don't like cluttering up the levelling lines with skill picks and such but I guess including class level isn't clutter
Moving a monk level to 2 is very doable. I waited because I wanted to wear medium or heavy armor armor at low levels (negating alot of the monk bonuses) for the extra protection over the monk's AC bonus while growing up.
One thing I like to do is post a build that's tolerant of variants and personalizations like that. Just because I did it one way doesn't mean it's the only way. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Sure... I don't like cluttering up the levelling lines with skill picks and such but I guess including class level isn't clutter
Agreed!
Quote: Moving a monk level to 2 is very doable. I waited because I wanted to wear medium or heavy armor armor at low levels (negating alot of the monk bonuses) for the extra protection over the monk's AC bonus while growing up.
You could still wear armor and without losing the benefits of Tumble 5 (AC +1), and Cleave.
Quote: One thing I like to do is post a build that's tolerant of variants and personalizations like that. Just because I did it one way doesn't mean it's the only way.
Dialogue is the bedrock of civilization.
Kaliban _________________ What I'm reading now: The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer.
Quote: (there is a weapon master, how about an unarmed master?)
nicely done.
-c
An unarmed master? wouldn't that be a monk?
Well, it would be nice if WF (Unarmed Strike) would work for weapon master or COT qualification.
Though if you are a small race and +4 weapons are available, or if +7 or better weapons are available, then even without dual wielding kama monks come out ahead of unarmed monks on average damage. _________________ Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Well, it would be nice if WF (Unarmed Strike) would work for weapon master or COT qualification.
Though if you are a small race and +4 weapons are available, or if +7 or better weapons are available, then even without dual wielding kama monks come out ahead of unarmed monks on average damage.
In the PW I'm playing on (Wheel of Time), weapons are mostly capped at +5, while I can get +8-gloves. That has kept me from re-modeling my monk there to go with kamas ...
I fell in love with this build the first time I saw it. But to suit my playing style - and the PW I play on - it needed a lot of changes.
So I shuffled around the class progression and after sacrificing some AC and AB I managed to get both feats like Blind Fight as well as all the prerequisites for Dev Crit.
So I took the lilberty to post my changes in case someone would like to follow. But one thing is to be rememberd - All the cred goes to you for thinking up this amazing build in the first place. At my PW he is level 40 now, but still one of my most loved chars to play.
Hitpoints: 440 Skillpoints: 212 Saving Throws (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 24/17/23 Saving Throw bonuses: Mind Effects: +2 BAB: 29 AB (max, naked): 41 (melee), 31 (ranged) AC (naked/mundane armor/shield only): 24/30
Discipline 43(53) Tumble 43(45)
Edited By gorche on 03/28/09 16:57
I personally would hook up 21 monk since odd levels of fighter never do anything useful.. 2HP can burn itself for all I care
-DaMouse
Quote: Posted 04/08/09 23:48 (GMT) -- DaMouse404
I personally would hook up 21 monk since odd levels of fighter never do anything useful.. 2HP can burn itself for all I care
-DaMouse
Yes either take another WM level for another Ki Damage (no loss to HP), or take monk for -2HP, +1SR (bringing SR to 31). That odd fighter level does nothing another WM doesn't do. (Unless you take epic weapon specialization as did the main build).
