Nightfall, but think about making a fighter with an 18 strength, two weapon fighting, combat expertise and improved disarm. They beat the shit out of the monk in terms of CMB, Damage, and the ability to do Disarms, which the monk won't start until 6th level.

What makes monks good, if playing Raw, needs to be something else.

For whatever it is worth: In the mid-high level D&D game I used to play in until the DM got weird about the girl player and shitcanned the game..

The Monk used a crossbow.

He did alright for himself.

It was confusing. Then again, the primary offensive spell caster went all arcane hierophant and basically traded good spells for lots of sub par spells. Our 'warrior' was a ranger aasimar with wings and I was a blaster-cleric with a warforged familiar (Gondsman, but whatever...).

So not your traditional party by any means.

Our rogue was a lance using horseman. Just because I wanted to be more complete. With a shortbow.

With the right party and a strong concept anything is playable and fun. But mechanically, yeah, monks can(do) suck.   However one thing Frank misses out on is that apparently someone in WoTC realized that Monks needed Nice Things too and put up 'magic fist hand wraps'. In the last six years every 3E Monk (3.5, whatevah!) got 'em. Presto! Magic weapons for the monk, available when ever magic weapons come on line for the party as a whole.

Well dunno about fist wraps, but there is the cestus and brass knuckles which do help with the range of monk weapons.

Play a Swordsage.  They're what monks should have been and they even come with an unarmed option.  

The Book of Nine Swords is requisite for anyone wanting to play a non-caster in 3e.

Quote from: MonkeyWrench;427364Play a Swordsage.  They're what monks should have been and they even come with an unarmed option.  

The Book of Nine Swords is requisite for anyone wanting to play a non-caster in 3e.

Unless of course you really don't like The Book of Nine Swords and do really like the Monk class.

The Book of Nine Swords was the first sign for me that the game was moving in a direction that I had no interest in. I was right.

Fair enough.  It does smack of 4e design principles.  However, it *is* a fix for the monk.  It takes the core concept, magical kung-fu guy, and makes it work.  They just don't call it a Monk, and for some reason class names really matter to those people.

If B09S isn't your thing then more power to you. However if you're looking for ways to fix the Monk then you might as well look at the alternatives other people have come up with.