poison_us

Basic commands are a must. Being able to work around them though is a decent skill to have. If you turn off auto attacks (at least for me) the party NPCs just stand there.

Yeah, it could probably use some buffing. It's in the right vein: an item that boosts the monk's unique ability, albeit 2% per wound does mean you'd need to be practically dead to notice it. Making it a flat 1 raw damage per wound would do it much more justice, at least from what I see. That, or adding accuracy per wound alongside the 2% raw damage.

Agreed. From the looks of things, there isn't really a whole lot that most upgrading does, aside from cosmetic boosters, and the whole "earn money via taxes" mentality that gets shafted by hireling upkeep/raids. It really does need some sprucing up, so that it doesn't seem like a money sink with a few small rest benefits...that you can't even get all in one rest.

I left him so I could (hopefully) find a cure. Not quite to the end yet, but I'm assuming there isn't one. Seems I need to double back, I guess.

You really don't need to buy anything -- the game provides you with all the equipment you could ask for by the time you should be in Defiance Bay, and/or you can craft better equipment anyway.

I'm running a cloth, unarmed Monk on normal right now. He deals the most damage of my party, since he attacks insanely quick (especially with lightning strike). One-on-one, he easily outclasses everything I've encountered so far, with the exception of the ogre tribe (one hit, he's at 40% health, though they usually don't get the second off). I made him a Fire Godlike as well, so he's even more dangerous on lower health, which doesn't take him long to get to. Specced mostly into Constitution, Might, and Dex, with some Int for Torment's Reach. All in all, he's not a bad first build, albeit a tad squishy. To be honest, to get any feel for a monk's stats, you must have him in battle and check his stats then, when Transcendent Suffering is active.