Is Rasaad Going To Suck?

Having BGTuTu installed I'm able to roll up a monk in the first game and frankly level 1 monks are TERRIBLE! If Rasaad has an 18 strength and 18 dexterity with at least 16 Constitution he'll be at peak performance for a level 1 monk but he'll still totally suck. I seriously doubt that overhaul will give him these stats as it seems a little excessive but if they do he'll have a whopping 5 AC with 10 hit points and a THAC0 of 19 with his fists with 1 attack per round. He'll actually be worse at fighting than a level 1 thief with the same stats wearing studded leather armor (the thief would have 3 AC). I forsee Rasaad needing to be constantly babysat to make sure he doesn't die in just about every combat particularly since he will move faster than the other characters and thus close to melee faster having all enemies target him first.

What do you think overhaul is going to do to compensate for the weakness of the monk class at the lower levels? I'm hoping they will start him with a pair of bracers bringing his AC more in line with the rest of the NPC's. A friend of mine suggests giving him a sling and sitting him in the back but this is dependant on whether or not he'll have proficiency. Also, having a monk sitting in the backfield using a sling kind of defeats the purpose of the class, doesn't it? You could do the same with a thief but be able to backstab, or pick pocket, or do any number of useful thief abilities aswell. Does anyone else have any ideas of how to make Rasaad a useful addition to the group?