For my monk past life, I did a stick build
QuickStick by Aldbar
9 Monk/ 6 Fighter/5 Rogue
This was my first and only mainly monk life. This was probably the first time I spent more than half of the time soloing up to 20. I did feel it to be very effective to 20, but less effective in legendary. Granted, I only had 13 past lives at the time. I might fare better now with better gear, tomes, reaper points, etc. If I was running 1-20 real quick, I might roll a d3 whether I this build, past life inquisitive build by stoner81, or ROBOT build by zvedgor. All three have trap skills and solo ability. Reaper XP still makes a big difference to me, which is why I would hesitate to pick the quick stick build again as I felt 1-20 was much smoother than 20-30.
Even if you do not follow this exact build, he has videos that talk about some of the basic tenants like AOE and spring attacks. He also talks in great detail about the different quarterstaves. I would watch some of the videos in the build post for some ideas and inspiration.