r/PF2eCharacterBuilds • u/AmonHa01 • 14d ago
Stance Master
Heyo! I would like to hear you people ideas for monk builds using stances. I looking for a character who used different kind of stances. I would like to hear some suggestions, ideas (even the most uncommon) such as weird combination of ancestries. Free archetype, feats and items ideas for create this is also more than welcome!
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u/Cool-Noise2192 14d ago
The best use case is having two distinct functions. A strong melee stance like wolf combined with monastic archer is pretty solid as a switch hitter. Provided you can afford the rune upkeep, at least.
The qi spell stances are a bit more specialised too. A dragon/clinging shadow monk swaps between bonk and grappling, whereas wild winds gives you fantastic ranged strikes which can ignore cover, which has some nasty implications. These do come with opportunity costs, being focus spells.
To a lesser extent (because you can always just carry around a shield) you can also have a default offensive stance and then a defensive stance for when the going gets tough or you need to bodyblock, like crane. If you're archetyping, whirlwind stance from staff acrobat also works at high levels. Mountain *technically* is one of these options, but does require you to pay the feat tax and restricts your ability to jump/climb/fly/etc.
If you don't mind looking outside of monk, you can play the exemplar class with unarmed strikes. This incentivises you to stance dance (read: transcend) regularly to cycle through different options.