Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a halfling monk build.

Everyone knows that I love kitsune, but did you know that before the kitsune were created, my favorite race was halflings? That’s right, Alex is a sucker for hobbits! I’ve done some halfling builds before, but honestly, I’ve never gotten a chance to talk about what could very well be my absolute FAVORITE option for halflings, the underfoot monk. What’s to love? Boy, friend, did you ever come to the right place!

Build Concept

Let’s take a quick look at just what, exactly, comprises our build today before we get started.

• Halfling: The general theme of the halfling race’s options is, “We’re good at taking down stuff that’s bigger than us,” and the options we’ll be using today are no exception. For our monk class, we’re using the halfling “underfoot monk” archetype, which allows the halfling to specialize in bringing down foes who are bigger than her. We’re also going to be grabbing the Risky Striker feat because it’s absolutely fantastic.
• Monk: As mentioned, we’re going with the underfoot monk archetype, but we’re also grabbing the maneuver master archetype. Its not particularly clear whether these archetypes stack or not; the maneuver master adds additional feats to the list of bonus feats that the monk can select, but it never replaces any of the monk’s feats. The underfoot archetype, on the other hand, replaces the monk’s 1st level feat. Since maneuver master doesn’t actually replace or alter anything, I’m inclined to think these options are fine but who knows? Your GM does, I guess.

Alright, and that’s ALL we need to talk about before we dive into this topic! Huzzah!

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: Monk (maneuver master, underfoot adept) 7
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Improved Trip (Bonus), Weapon Finesse (1st), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Vicious Stomp (3rd), Risky Striker (5th), Greater Trip (Bonus), Ki Throw (7th)
• Abilities: evasion, flurry of maneuvers, ki pool (magic), maneuver defense, meditative master, maneuver training, reliable maneuver, unarmed strike, underfoot grace, underfoot trip (+1 size)

I’ve used the maneuver master before on my blog, so I’m only going to go over it quickly. Basically, instead of extra attacks, your not-flurry gives you extra maneuvers during a full attack. The monk also gets additional abilities that allow him to play off of combat maneuvers, but the free maneuvers (even ones that couldn’t normally be used during a full attack) and the huge expansion to the monk’s bonus feats are what make this archetype shine.

Underfoot adept, on the other hand, is an appropriately unassuming archetype. It reduces the penalty for using Acrobatics to move through threatened areas and spaces, gives the monk Improved Trip for free, and makes the monk bigger when determining her CMB and CMD for tripping and when determining what she can trip. As you might have guessed, that final ability is the reason you go underfoot adept; at 4th level, the halfling can trip stuff as if she were Medium sized and by this effective size goes up by one category per four levels the monk attains thereafter. This is a fantastic ability that removes one of the big problems that players have with trip maneuvers: size restrictions. It also indirectly solves another problem: size adding to CMD. Because the monk uses her effective size for calculating his CMB, he gets a fairly substantial bonus as he levels up. His size penalty is removed for trip attempts at 4th level, then he gets a +1 size bonus at 8th level because he’s effectively Large, a +2 size bonus at 12th level because he’s effectively Huge, a +4 size bonus at 16th level because he’s effectively Gargantuan, and a +8 size bonus at 20th level because he’s effectively Colossal. As you can see, this not only makes it possible for the monk to trip many high-level baddies, but it also makes him all the more effective against smaller opponents.

Feat-wise, we start by going for attacks of opportunity via Combat Reflexes, Vicious Stomp, and Greater Trip. That’s a tried and true combo that simply works for a build like this. Next, we go for part of the Ki Throw line. Ki Throw is an AWESOME feat; first, it’ll let our monk spend ki points to throw larger creatures before underfoot trip would normally allow her to, and second, it’ll allow our monk to effectively reposition anyone that she’s tripped for free. VERY good for setting up combos and attack formations. Also, we’ve got time to pick up Enhanced Ki Throw, which allows the monk to spend ki to damage anything she’s tripped. This can be VERY useful, especially against opponents with easy-to-beat CMDs (like most Medium creatures).

Let’s move on to the Mid Levels and see what sort of a splash our monk can make there!

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: Monk (maneuver master, underfoot adept) 14
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Improved Trip (Bonus), Weapon Finesse (1st), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Vicious Stomp (3rd), Risky Striker (5th), Greater Trip (Bonus), Ki Throw (7th), Enhanced Ki Throw (9th), Improved Dirty Trick (Bonus), Crane Style (11th), Crane Wing (13th)
• Abilities: evasion, flurry of maneuvers, improved evasion, ki pool (cold iron, magic, silver), maneuver defense, meditative master, maneuver training, sweeping maneuver, reliable maneuver, unarmed strike, underfoot grace, underfoot trip (+3 sizes), wholeness of body

Since I’m assuming you know all about the maneuver master archetype already, there isn’t much new material to cover in the mid levels. The monk gets Enhanced Ki Throw and starts to expand into dirty tricks. In my opinion, dirty trick is the absolute best combat maneuver because of how versatile it is, and the maneuver master makes it better by giving the character an easy way to perform it during a full attack. Also, I like Crane Style, so I’m recommending it here.

Let’s check the high levels to finish out the build.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: Monk (maneuver master, underfoot adept) 20
• Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike (Bonus), Improved Trip (Bonus), Weapon Finesse (1st), Combat Reflexes (Bonus), Vicious Stomp (3rd), Risky Striker (5th), Greater Trip (Bonus), Ki Throw (7th), Enhanced Ki Throw (9th), Improved Dirty Trick (Bonus), Crane Style (11th), Crane Wing (13th), Greater Dirty Trick (Bonus), Piranha Attack (15th), Improved Grapple (17th), Improved Critical: unarmed strike (Bonus), Greater Grapple (19th)
• Abilities: evasion, flurry of maneuvers, improved evasion, ki pool (cold iron, magic, silver), maneuver defense, meditative master, maneuver training, perfect self, reliable maneuver, sweeping maneuver, unarmed strike, underfoot grace, underfoot trip (+5 sizes), whirlwind maneuver, wholeness of body

End game! It’s … pretty boring, eh? Well, when you’re tripping the tarrasque, I’m sure you won’t be worried about your feat selection at 20th level, eh?

Alternative for Non-PFS Players

This isn’t legal for Pathfinder Society play, even though it probably should be. (Seriously, the fact that none of the feats in Blood of the Moon listed skinwalker as a prerequisite was one of the reasons that I loved that product!) At any rate, if your GM is cool with it, you can replace the Crane Style and Ki Throw feats with an option that is honestly much better: Wolf Style, Wolf Trip, and Wolf Savage.

Wolf Style (specifically the Wolf Trip feat) has all of the benefits of Ki Throw with none of the size restrictions; you don’t have to worry about spending ki to throw bigger things. Ki Throw is likely better in that niche fight where you need to pump your affected size, but Wolf Trip is just all-around better. Wolf Savage is where the chain gets nasty, though. If you deal enough damage to a prone opponent, you can actually inflict a powerful disfiguration on them, as bestow curse. That is SUPER nasty, and since it has no uses per day and no real cost other than, “Kill this guy,” it is honestly icing on the cake of your halfling’s life. You know, as long as you don’t mind investing a number of ranks into Knowledge (nature).

More Strategies to Be Awesome

People don’t like trip specialists for several reasons. One, the size limitation. Two, the fact that CMD scales rapidly. Three, the blanket bonuses and immunities many creatures have. One of the most common, “Ha ha I’m immune” creature types are flying creatures, and some people might say that they shut down this build. Never fear, take the Heirloom Weapon trait at 1st level and pick a Guisearm. First, maneuver master monks have no reason to care about using weapons other than unarmed strikes and monk weapons; they’ve traded flurry of blows and flurry of maneuvers doesn’t care at ALL. Second, a dragoncatch guisarme, which is a decently priced magic item, allows you to TRIP FLYING CREATURES. So yeah, only four+ legged monsters and serpents are really safe from your fury now!

So, what did you think of this build? Leave your comments and questions below, and I’ll do my best to get back to you to answer ALL of your questions. That’s it for this article in the meantime! Be sure to come back next week for two all-new installments of Guidance. Take care!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex also cohosts the Private Sanctuary Podcast, along with fellow blogger Anthony Li, and you can follow their exploits on Facebook in the 3.5 Private Sanctuary Group, or on Alex’s Twitter, @AlJAug.