I think a 20 level dip in fighter would allow this monk build to stay comfortably above baseline.

@unchartedexe

2 жыл бұрын

🤣😂😂🤣😁

@jeffersonian000

2 жыл бұрын

Oddly enough, I made to exact same argument in my regular group. Put bluntly, a straight class Fighter Battlemaster built around Unarmed Fighting is better than any Monk at being a Martial Artist. I like building Boxers in D&D, it’s my baseline for testing new editions of the game. My current 5e boxer is a NG Fallen Aasimar Barbarian 1/Evil Divine Sorcerer that uses Inflict Wound and other similar spells to “cast fist” as a Street Fighter style martial artist. With d6 hit die, my dude is a naked Tank that hits for 5-9d20+bonus damage per turn. No where near as good as our Glaive welding Smitadin, but definitely fun to play.

@TheGaboom

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeffersonian000 Mercy Monk is pretty solid, but you'd probably want battle maneuvers for a Martial Artist feel and any other monk would likely multiclass after 5 Monk levels Bit puzzled by the barbarian/sorcerer build What is barbarian bringing to the table here? Unarmored Defense? If so, wouldn't it be easier to do 1 Monk / X Cleric ?

@jeffersonian000

2 жыл бұрын

@@TheGaboom Unarmored Defense let’s me use my high Con as armor so I don’t have to worry about being MAD.

@toxxaniusornica824

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeffersonian000 Ok i love this idea

Hi Chris, I'm relatively new to DND as I've only been playing for about a year now. For a while I was playing a suboptimal Eldritch knight build and I've consistently not done anything in our battles, or at least it feels like it. Half the combats we have are alright but half are just awful for me. At first I thought that the game was just unfair and that enemies were just unbalanced but after finding your videos out I began to realize that my build really wasn't that great and did not optimally portray how I wanted my character to be. When I found your videos, it helped open my eyes and broaden my perspective on what makes a solid build and how to make characters that don't suck. Not only are they effective but they also look like a lot of fun, I definitely want to try out builds like your Forge Cleric build. It also helped me figure out ways how to make my own optimized characters. I love your videos and they've been really helpful for me. Now my character's a Paladin who will in the future be multiclassing into warlock and it much better fits my vision than I had with Eldritch knight. I certainly look forward to seeing more of your videos and learning more of your methods on how to make characters both mechanically and thematically well made! Edit: Not saying EK sucks! I think EK is fine too, it just doesn't fit the vision I have for my character. I will be revisiting EK again on a different character in the future. A part of the reasoning for my change probably stems from the bad experiences I had from the earlier levels with my character and getting quite unlucky several times leading to a feeling of disempowerment.

@TreantmonksTemple

2 жыл бұрын

You made my day, thanks so much!

@Battleguild

2 жыл бұрын

One of my favorite character's I've played was an Eldritch Knight/Arcana Domain multiclass. Once he got to 12th+ level (6F/6C), he really started to shine as a Greatsword wielding frontline healer/debuff breaker/mage slayer. He only had a 10 into Intelligence, but that quickly got band-aided by a Headband of Intellect.

@texteel

2 жыл бұрын

can you tell us more about your eldritch knight? What were you trying to do, why didnt it work?

@HammerheadStarcraft

2 жыл бұрын

@@texteel Yeah, EK is fine. However, I’d argue that it fails as the Fighter Mage option that a lot of new players want.

@texteel

2 жыл бұрын

@@HammerheadStarcraft I agree, but I am curious of OberonGaia's story

This is almost exactly what I did for my armored GWM monk I've been playing in AL for a few years and your results were about what I expected. I will make a few points in favor of the build though: 1) If you play at a table that gets more short rests, then you'll notice an uptick since you can be more free with your ki 2) A lot of AL modules are 3 combats with a SR. Again, you can be more free with your ki and maneuvers in that environment 3) Battlemaster/Shadow Monk gives you a lot of options every round. My character is a goliath so he also has a the reaction to reduce damage but if you take trip, precision, and riposte for your maneuvers plus all of the monk stuff then you have multiple potential uses for your reaction, action, and BA. If you like to have many different tools and are willing to give up some damage for the versatility, then you might enjoy the build. 4) This applies more to AL again but if you can get a belt of giant strength (and it's not that hard to do in AL) then everything comes together a bit better. I got one in tier 3 but I never felt underpowered at a table before that. 5) There is a fair bit of out of combat utility with this too. Need to descend a cliff? Just jump or if it's dim light, teleport down. Need to sneak? Cast pass without trace. Need to get into a locked building? If it's dark and there is a window, just teleport in. Need to block sight or sound? You have options for that. Do you have party members without darkvision? Cast darkvision on them. Even after a SR they'd have 7 hours left. 6) The build is actually pretty adept at taking out spellcasters with silence, trip, and stunning strike. Most enemy spellcasters don't have great options to deal with these things and if they run, you might just be able to teleport next to them again. Basically, you're not going to be optimal for damage but you have a lot of options every round and I've found it very fun in practice.

@natashasurvivallady8021

2 жыл бұрын

Honestly, I prefer this style of play. Focusing too heavily on damage has always felt a bit boring to me, and I like being able to pull a new tool out of the box for every situation. Spellcasters are the best for this, sure, but if you can have the versatility/flexibility AND puch people in the face then you have a really fun character imo. Plus none of your stuff can be counterspelled, which is cool.

I feel like we all knew this was an exercise in futility. Going armored doesn't take an enormous amount away from the monk, but they have so very little to be happy about already.

@nickm9102

2 жыл бұрын

This build concept could work but I still think it should be Cleric (Twilight or War) not fighter and stick with DEX. Monk is difficult enough to build without adding STR to it. Now here is where it becomes a very limited option. You would have to find a way to get Mithril armor. And this is where it leaves the build and now requires a magic item

@joshuawinestock9998

2 жыл бұрын

@@nickm9102 I think the issue now is there's no way to enhance damage. Great Weapon Master was the whole point of going strength here, and without it you're really not getting anything that the base monk isn't getting. Also you really can't make a build that "requires" mithril armour; mithril might not even exist in a lot of campaign settings (remember, the vast majority of campaign settings used at tables are homebrew, including mine heh)

@nickm9102

2 жыл бұрын

@@joshuawinestock9998 there are things like piercer that would enhance damage they just aren't as defenative as GWM/SS. I also pointed out that when you have a build that requires a magic Item it becomes a very limited option as you basically need your DM to agree that you will find or be able to buy the item early on and that makes it almost useless. The trade off of making it a DEX build is that you can play the Monk and if you are in a game that you can get the armor you can take advantage of the build. If you never see the armor you still have the normal monk play option. Sadly the other option is to roll stats and make this build on a lucky roll. But in my experience rolling for stats is less likely than getting the armor easily.

@joshuawinestock9998

2 жыл бұрын

@@nickm9102 piercer doesn't do that much for DPR, probably less than 1DPR increase. At that point it's just a normal monk build and you're just hoping you find some armour you can use effectively

@cyanidechimp

2 жыл бұрын

@@nickm9102 I thought about the War Cleric idea myself, but didn't see a lot of use to it. Personally, I would rather a nature cleric. Go with medium armor and forget about strength entirely, use shillelagh. Since your club is a monk weapon, you can use it for your ki-fueled attacks and SAD with wisdom means your stunning strikes will be great. Custom origin with Elvish accuracy means that after an initial stun or shadow step, you'd have triple advantage. Using the Treantmonk assumptions puts us at 19.78 avg damage at level 7. Just barely below his 20.06 while having +1 AC and doing substantially more with our stuns. It does limit our weapon choice, isn't a Stronk as Treantmonk set out to make, and STILL isn't a supergreat build....but it's passable.

Warforge gloomstalker ranger, 1 forge cleric, 6 shadow monk, teleporting invisible demon, with 20 ac, 22 with shield, invisible most of the time so no reaction attacks, poison is no issue, then tank con

I'd love to see a heavy armor way of long death monk that instead of focusing on baseline damage focuses on stunning strikes and taking hits.

@midshipman8654

Жыл бұрын

agreed, and grappling.

What if we do a one level dip in twilight cleric for heavy armour/martial weapons? Overpowered + underpowered = middle powered. I think that’s how math works.

@Puffinbar

2 жыл бұрын

I would also take 2nd level for the Channel Divinity for (some would say broken) utility. Bless would be good to offset GWM, but if we aren’t going fighter we’ll be really missing that con save proficiency. But it delays our monk level progression. And the constant struggle is just… why not go straight cleric to be a super valuable party member? (From a power perspective).

@mattf5935

2 жыл бұрын

Gets you more consistent use of shadow step

@jackingjackrabit47

2 жыл бұрын

It could balance the low hp with the temporary hp

@ElManReborn616

2 жыл бұрын

It mostly holds the line while concentrating on bless, you have to take a race that grants natural weapons

Results were promised and delivered. Nobody said, or assumed since it was a monk, that the results would be good.

@brettmajeske3525

2 жыл бұрын

Frankly is was better than I feared it would be.

You might consider taking a warhammer, making it your monk weapon, and drawing it on the turns that you spend ki for ki-fueled strikes. Save you a fighting style on Unarmed Fighting (maybe for Blind Fighting), and add an extra point of damage besides.

@manlykilt

2 жыл бұрын

Going this route and making it your Monk weapon would also open up cleric as your dip instead of Fighter, allowing you spellcasting and potentially more useful features. I wonder what the math would look like with a build like this, but I suspect without Great Weapon Master it's going to suffer. Not having access to that -5/+10 in melee is probably the most crippling issue Monks have and I suspect that's why Treantmonk lets everyone do it in his house rules.

@kbeazy_3050

2 жыл бұрын

@@manlykilt bless for example would be a good damage bump for one or two fights

@Ekigane

2 жыл бұрын

I thought while doing heavy armor monk we don't care about monk weapons because you don't get the benefits of martial arts (which is were monk weapons get their benefits) while armored.

@SpiderWaffle

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ekigane You just don't get to use the martial arts die, but for most any monk weapon it will be better than the martial arts die anyway. I don't know why you wouldn't use it instead, other than not wanting to draw it and maybe drop it.

@TheGaboom

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ekigane Yes and No. You still have Monk Weapons, which matters for features such as Ki-Fueled Attack You just don't get any special martial arts damage scaling for the Monk Weapons This does mean that if we can justify swapping weapons all the time, between a Heavy Weapon and something else, it would save effort of the fighting style Drawing/Stowing Weapons does complicate things though as you basically juggle the different weapons while fighting. (Points for Style!) Alternatively, if we don't want to deal with drawing/stowing weapons, we could also use a race with a Natural Weapon to circumvent the need for unarmed fighting style Best Racial Unarmed Strike i've seen was on Naga in plane shift amonkhet book. (It is WoTC, but Its a setting-specific book, ask DM) - You'd be looking to use the Constrict Attack ~ Besides dealing 1d6+STR, it grapples and restrains the target (No save to avoid; DC 8+Prof+STR to Escape)

I've been playing around with this since you mentioned it in the previous video. I wonder if both the goal and the approach could be improved. I understand that the unarmed fighting style is a big draw for the Fighter dip. But if you go War Cleric, there's a whole different set of benefits. First, you'll have a couple BA attacks per day using the big weapon. Once you get GWM, that BA attack will benefit from that as well. Next, you'll be able to cast Bless on yourself (and a couple teammates) a couple times per day. In those fights, that's going to be a pretty big increase in successful-5/+10 attacks. After level 6 in Monk, I'd suggest 2 more levels of Cleric, to get access to CD and all 4 1st level slots. If we use that CD to regain a slot, that 5x Bless per day which should be a huge boost to your overall output. Now, in the end it doesn't seem like there was much benefit to the Shadow Monk path, and I wonder if any other Monk offers anything better. The one that seems of greatest interest to me is the dragon Monk. The fact that you get a few uses of your breath weapon before needing to use Ki, and that it's a save-for-half damage effect, means that it's an automatic damage increase even before you use Ki. Being able to choose both damage type and cone/line would seem to give it greater reliability. It also scales slightly with levels too. This opens the door too, to taking Tempest domain and using your CD to maximize a Lightning breath weapon, rather than to regain a slot. Anyway, I'm just kinda thinking that the proficiency bonus uses before spending Ki is probably a big boost, and it's guaranteed damage instead of a chance at damage.

Slight correction for 4:20 - Heavily Armoured is a half feat, so it would bump you up to 18 STR at 4th level. All in all nstill not ideal but I have been playing that variant (mountain dwarf) and while it is by far not an optimal character, it turned out pretty well after a certain threshold. If your DM allows it, I would also recommend possibly switching up your subclass from time to time (see optional rule in Tasha's) whenever a set of features seems more beneficial. Helped me a good bit.

Was I disappointed that this approach didn't "fix" the monk? Sure. Even so, I found this to be a really helpful exercise. Why? Because equivalent output means more diverse options. Does this fix the monk? Nope. But if you fix the monk at your table (or if Wizards figure out how to do it in 5.5), then we now have a totally new playstyle of monk available to us. I would help the baseline monk along by giving more Ki points and/or making their features less Ki-dependent so that they can actually use their fun features. If that fix is implemented at your table, this still provides a whole different archetype for the monk that hasn't been widely considered. Really appreciate the food for thought. Even if it isn't a fix, it's still an exercise that has good value. Thank you for crunching this and playing with unorthodox concepts!

Not a strength based monk but still heavy armour: - variant human - dump strength and get wisdom to 16 - take mobile feat at 1st level to offset the movement speed decrease from heavy armour - start with one level of nature cleric for heavy armour proficiency and a Druid cantrip. Take the shillelagh cantrip to use 16 wisdom as attack ability - use a quarterstaff with the shillelagh cantrip plus a physical shield in the other hand - go monk the rest of the way - pick up polearm master at 5th level (monk 4) and use shillelagh quarterstaff in one hand, shield in the other, giving you bonus action attacks with the one handed quarterstaff 🤔

@keeganmbg6999

2 жыл бұрын

I guess I don’t see why you’re a monk in this case? All you really get in this variant is Stunning Strike.

@DeadpoolAli

2 жыл бұрын

@@keeganmbg6999 sadly not wrong. It's you do all this to be a monk and realize for what you want to achieve you could just go fighter with cleric dips.

@elliotbryant3459

2 жыл бұрын

@@keeganmbg6999 could utilize a monk subclass that is more wis reliant [open hand, ascendant dragon] I guess. Also evasion and some of the unaffected monk abilities are kinda cool, if not super effective. It would suck though if you weren't able to cast shillelagh though [lost your quarterstaff and/or holy symbol, environmental factor like underwater, etc.] -Also high wisdom with the bane spell could make your stunning strikes more impactful.

@cambionblack7939

2 жыл бұрын

@@keeganmbg6999 depending on the enemy and therefore your choice of prioritising offence vs defence, you could keep the shield on your back in order to use flurry of blows for an extra bonus attack but the polearm master helps conserve ki. As per Chris’ previous video, most of the other monk abilities would still be available.

@Autonym

2 жыл бұрын

I foresee low damage due to lack of any of Dueling, GWM, and Sharpshooter. Though at least your Ki save DC will be good if you focus on Wisdom.

MAD can be partly solved by grabbing tough as a feat with custom/human. You can drop your con to 12 and have equivalent of a 16. Also War Cleric is great because it gives you a lot of alternative bonus action uses to flurry of blows (spells, war cleric bonus action attack and great weapon master bonus attack) so you're not reliant on unarmed attacks.

A mountain dwarf Str monk with dwarven fortitude (+3 Con and +2 Str) can have good armor armor and heal himself for a hit die every time he takes the dodge action. That's pretty beefy and with high AC and disadvantage to attacks from enemies thanks to dodge, I'd say that's a good tank, at least.

@eXyliad

2 жыл бұрын

Hill dwarf would even have more HP. Then one could go Open Hand for more enemy control or Astral Self to go Wis-based instead of Str, to not be that MAD anymore and have Wis-based grapple/shove attempts. If only Monks would get extra feats like rogues and fighters... :(

@nessesaryschoolthing

2 жыл бұрын

Survivable, but not really a tank unless they can somehow draw agro. Dwarven Fortitude + Patient Defense is a good interaction, but unless you're doing something significant for the party to stay alive for, you're just a living practice dummy.

For a STR-monk that does consistently above baseline damage might I suggest the following: Weapon: two-handed Longsword 1 - Barbarian 2-7 Monk -> note at level 5 we dip 0.2 below baseline - the 6th level of monk is optional it's mostly to get the magic fists. 8-9 - Barbarian (beast) - we drop the Longsword and instead use our claws for baseline 4 x 1d6+STR+2 attacks per round, all reckless for ki-less damage of 37 DPR which is above the 36.4 DPR of a level 19 Warlock+Hex+EB Finish it off with either Monk or Barbarian it doesn't matter b/c we're safely above baseline DMG already, regardless of which monk subclass you choose.

@AndrewWilson-ol6jb

2 жыл бұрын

We have a Beast Barb-Dragon Monk at one of my tables and he's proved it can be very powerful, delivering 5 attacks per round with flurry of blows and adding a +7 flat damage to each hit (rolled stats so 20 strength).

This is the fighting style that was historically used in heavy armour against a heavily armoured opponent. Using heavy weapons to stun them (stunning strike with a heavy weapon, most likely blunt, maybe a pommel strike with a two-handed sword), then brawl/wrestle (grapples and shoves) and attack specific points in the armour (GWM -5/+10 more with half-swording than a large blunt weapon though). The only extra thing historically would be a strong thin-bladed dagger for the kill.

We come up with a lot of these builds running 1 to whatever, planning out every single one of our levels in intricate detail and discovering, for some builds, it doesn't work. So we abandon it. But something we can't plan on is magic items. So we don't. Currently I have a monk who by early third tier play has acquired a Belt of Giant Strength. I'm watching this build idea, and I'm thinking DANG! I didn't waste ASIs or my Point Buy on Strength. But I have a LOT of it now. You've got me mulling over what my monk would be like with a Maul.

I've been playing monk since 1st ed. The monk has always been behind the curve except in 4th edition. They made the monk a melee caster class and the basically ignored all damage dies and substituted the weapon damage die with whatever was on the ability. The lack of focus and being behind the curve of the monk is due I feel to the monk kind of being "shoehorned in". Like the Ranger is based on Aragorn from LOTR the Monk is originally based on the character Remo Williams from "The Destroyer" book series. On top of this the Developers have always been tippytoeing around the other melee classes and fearing making the monk too powerful, the 1d4 starting damage. Also broadly the monk doesn't fit in well with the rest of the classes and character systems. Meaning it multiclasses poorly, doesn't synergize well with feats and buffing spells, and is of course MAD . Though the MAD is A LOT better than it used to be. In 3.5 you needed dex and wis and con and maybe str and maybe Charisma if you wanted to do the cooler monk powers from the monk related splatbooks. In 1st edition you needed to roll in order a character with at least a 15 in dex, str, and wisdom and a con of 11 befire you could even be a monk and still got wizard size hit die. If I had it my way there would be either a vastly revamped monk or split it into a damage focused martial artist class or subclass for the fighter that doesnt get the mystic stuff except for some Wuxia style movement and then a second "Sage" class that has some un armed and unarmored combat abilities but is effectively a debuffer in combat and a caster similar to the Warlock in spellishness.

@loganreidy7055

2 жыл бұрын

I hope the new D&D in 2024 whether it is 5.5e or 6e overhauls the monk. I Really enjoy the concept/lore of monk but seeing it be the weakest class in the game by far hurts. I think drawing more inspiration from Wuxia or Murim genres would make the class fill a niche and make it quite a bit better

I was hoping so hard for you to be able to make this work. Seemed like such a fun concept.

Nice video! I wonder if a War Cleric dip for the War Priest feature might help bridge that later level gap. Extra spellcasting is a plus as well.

@TreantmonksTemple

2 жыл бұрын

Spellcasting for sure. In my end calculations, this character was using their bonus action every turn.

@raltus669

2 жыл бұрын

@@TreantmonksTemple Fair enough. Always have to remember that Bonus Actions have a lot of competition!

@thedungeonsquid8850

2 жыл бұрын

Forge Cleric gets heavy armor and +1 to AC or Damage

@FruitsCSamurai

2 жыл бұрын

Wouldn’t Divine Favor nearly equal Great Weapon Master? 2.5 more damage per hit = 10 more damage per hit w/ 25% lower hit rate. Though I guess it technically doesn’t work on unarmed strikes. So much for the Holy Hooved Centaur w/ Radiant Flurry kicks. Would have been amusing.

@FranciscoGarcia-sh3to

2 жыл бұрын

@@TreantmonksTemple how about 3 levels of ranger for gloomstalker and/or 2 levels of barbarian for wreckless attack?

A way to try and reduce MAD here could be to dump STR and multiclass with Nature Cleric and use Shillelagh with a quarterstaff. Damage wouldn’t be much, but would allow you to focus on WIS (for stunning strike), and a higher CON would allow it to be more of a tank (with bonus action options for Dodge and Mobility). Probably taking Long Death, instead of Way of the Shadow.

@brettmajeske3525

2 жыл бұрын

I had a DRonk at my table, took this stragedy when not wildshaping. It helped in early play, but still washes out at level 11.

@elliotbryant3459

2 жыл бұрын

and debuff support with bane could help a lot

Let's go! After seeing Monday's video, I did this immediately and have been waiting all week to compare.

So, the only way I could think to boost the Monk damage, and make it's utility way better is with HEX. Take feat Fae-touched to get it. Focus only on dex and wis, with con being third. forget armor forget strength. Target con with hex, go way of the open hand and use flurry of blows to eliminate reactions (no save and hypothetically could target multiple peeps) and hunt spellcasters (especially effective since they cannot use counter-spell and most dms are not sadistic enough to put out more than 1 or 2) . Plus an extra 3.5 Damage on average. Take 2 levels of fighter first for dueling/blindfight/fistycuffs and action surge (3 if you don't care about the lvl 18 resistance because you have permanent sanctuary at 11). If you go 3, Rune knight, battle master, echo knight are my top 3. Then make longsword(or whatever you want for martial arts) your dedicated weapon. I would also consider rouge 2 or 3 with inquisitive or scout (with rapier as dedicated weapon) Get cunning action (so as to not spend a ki point for stupid things), sneak attack, plus a lot of skills. Personally, I think going druid for 2 levels first is hilarious if you go moon druid, then take the rest in monk. Become the Kungfu Panda and use the Wushi Finger hold (quivering palm). Beware Power word death if you do this though. Ps. Don't wear armor. The movement to absolutely power-slap spellcasters is underrated. also get a sling and lots of rocks. Rocks that do sword damage at lvl 11 two handed sword at 17 XD

this is very interesting, i think going monk first and then dipping into war cleric for the next 2 levels would get you a long way.

The monk suffers a good bit from harsh assumptions on rests. My thought would be switch half-elf out for another race, like new aasimar, bugbear, or Longtooth shifter, to boost damage. Let Con drop to 12, raise Dex to 14, and start Barbarian for defensive rage. Half-plate, instead of plate. No idea though how to make an armored monk reach baseline at high levels without liberal rests (except maybe going hexblade/monk with blasts but that seems absurd).

Really appreciate you doing this. I've been trying to play around with monk for a while, but I'm running into the same issues. Great breakdown though!

great analysis and a lot of hard work. Much appreciated thanks even though I'll never play a monk!

Hi Treantmonk, I crunched the numbers regarding a passable STR Monk and I technically got something that consistently gets above the baseline. Race: MPMM Tortle - picked for Natural Armor and d6 unarmed strikes. Stats: 15+2 STR / 13 DEX / 14 CON / 9 INT / 13 + 1 WIS / 8 CHA Level progression: Monk 1 -> Barbarian 2 -> Monk 5 -> Barbarian 3 -> Monk X Technically, that third Barbarian level doesn't influence damage output that much by itself (about 0.5% extra baseline dpr), but it lets you pick a subclass. The build relies on using Reckless Attack all the time and spending all your Ki on Flurry of Blows, preferably use all of your available Ki during rages, spend the leftovers outside of rage. It works okay in tier 1 (50+% above the baseline at levels 1, 3, and 4, level 2 falls down to circa 20% due to Barbarian 1 not giving much in your adventuring day model while Baseline gets Agonizing Blast), dips under the baseline at level 5, recovers slightly at level 6 and then achieves 50+% above the baseline consistently until level 11, where it drops to being around 20% over the baseline, and fizzles in tier 4 where you're around 2% above the baseline. At Monk 2, you can pick any versatile d10 weapon as your Dedicated Weapon, as you have all martial weapon proficiencies due to Barbarian levels, and the damage type doesn't really matter. Your first ASI should probably be Crusher or Slasher, depending on whether you prefer the battlefield control or mitigating some of the risk you take with your always-reckless attacks. Slasher makes a bit more sense than usual here, as your Tortle unarmed strikes can deal slashing damage. Focused Aim is worse than spending that Ki on Flurry of Blows due to inflated hit rate caused by Reckless Attacks. Your next ASI should max out your STR. You can pick any subclass, Long Death + Totem (Bear) is pretty alright for a pugilist theme and surviving as a frontliner, you could also try going Beast + Kensei to all in into maximizing DPR, but the results don't seem good enough - you're about 10-15% higher above the baseline compared to a subclassless Monk-Barb, and you are around 30% over the baseline at level 20 due to Kensei 17, but you sacrificed everything else for mediocre DPR. In general, this would probably be much better in tier 3 and onward if you keep multiclassing for key frontloaded martial features, but I remain uncertain if it would even manage to beat a Barb 5/Rogue X or a PAM+GWM straightclassed Zealot of a similar level. You can increase your party value compared to the other builds if you pick Shadow Monk for utility spells, but a Sharpshooter variant of it will be much safer and consistent. The STR Monk + Barbarian dip build would probably work well enough in a tier 1-2 game with a very low optimization focus.

@Treantmonk's Temple Have you considered Tortle from Monsters of the Multiverse with a strength based Monk? Highlights of doing this: (1) AC is 17 at Level 1 (2) Claws are natural weapons, which can be used for unarmed strikes: 1d6 + Str. (3) Another dip option that we would be able to take would be barbarian. Barbarian 1 gives +2 Damage per attack and 2 rages per day. (4) Barbarian 2 for the reckless attack for advantage and advantage on dexterity saving throws you can see, (5) 3 for a subclass and 3 rages for day: (a) Totem warrior offers resistance against all damage (minus psychic) when raging (b) Zealot adds 1 extra 1d6 + (1/2 Barbarian level) (6) d12 hit die to help boost HP I think the gain you get advantage on attacks and defensive boost from higher HP and resistance to common damage types would be something to look into.

The most optimized monk build is a monk multiclassed with Moon Druid. Almost all of the monk’s abilities work while wildshaped. You can be a dire wolf and get extra attack, a dire wolf with Un armored defense, a dire wolf with extra movement, a dire wolf with stunning strike, and a dire wolf with flurry of blows.

@agilemind6241

2 жыл бұрын

Do the math, it doesn't work as well as you think.

@brettmajeske3525

2 жыл бұрын

@@agilemind6241 I have seen this at my table, not great but it is better than straight monk, at least through level 10. 11+ is when it falls apart.

@jcdenton2187

2 жыл бұрын

@@agilemind6241 please explain for us rather than just blurt out "don't work"

@Autonym

2 жыл бұрын

It's fun, but isn't straight Moon Druid better as well? Why delay Conjure Animals and Aura of Vitality?

@Tortferngatr

2 жыл бұрын

@@Autonym because Kung fu panda meme druid

I can see this build working ok on tables where you get fewer combats per day, but even then it falls off hard past level 10. Really, it's mostly because of the Monk's garbage scaling, though. Thankfully most campaigns end at roughly level 10, and surely if you talk to your DM about wanting to play this build you can persuade them to give you a magic item or something that could help you live out your best Champion Gundyr fantasy. Communication is key!

This is showing the disadvantage of under calculating short rests while keeping long rests at the recommended 8. The ki usage should be 50% more valuable.

I presented a build not completely dissimilar to this on your discord about a year back and eveybody basicly said it was bs. Cool to see you do it now.

Hello again Chris! Just finished this one up, on to the Wild Magic and Fiend patron!

I tried doing something similar after seeing your last video on this topic, glad to say we went in very similar directions so there's probably a viable build in here somewhere

The GWM bonus action attacks and ki fueled attacks aren't independent events. You'd need to use the odds of them both happening on same turn and subtract the lesser, ki fueled attack.

As someone who is currently playing a monk, as much as I'd love to try this, I'm relying a lot on the extra movement with the preemies of being set up to my group by either getting a crit with one of my attacks and triggering Crusher to give everyone advantage on a major target, just causing a general distraction to let my group safely board a ship that we are trying to loot, or literally push off people with crusher to make the fights easier. Not having that extra movement nor water walking is a major draw back for this specific case (It's a pirate campaign so we are pretty much always near water to some degree) and it's pretty fun to just be able to out run ships for when we need to catch up to someone sailing away

I think we should go for utility. Heavy plate cleric/mercy or shadow monk. Think cast spirit guardians bonus action dodge, later cast sanctuary bonus action dodge. Reject fist. Embrace Roomba. I think you can even get quaterstaff with shield as spellcasting focus.

I think i would go tortle for the 17 base ac and the d6 unarmed strikes, then take the first level in barbarian for the martial weapons proficiency, the monk 5 for extra attack and GWM at level 4, and after that one more level in barb for reckless attack and then monk all the way up, maybe eventually barb 3 for the subclass. I would choose long death for the temp hp, wich combined with strong hit dices for barb levels and sometimes rage would mitigate the poor con modifier (+2) and the defensive penalty for reckless attack. Our AC isn't bad thanks to turtle, and the fact that we are not wearing armour would mean that we would benefit from unarmored movement, so we should have very good mobility for a melee fighter. Our stunning strike wouldn't be too reliable, but it would still give us a bonus action attack trough ki fueled attack. Our offence would be pretty decent, and we would be above baseline at all levels except level 5. This would probabily be my best attempt at a strenght based monk. I appreciate it would not be very powerful, but the power of the monk base class in the first place limits any monk from being very powerful anyway.

@nessesaryschoolthing

2 жыл бұрын

The premise of the video is a monk in heavy armor. Tortle is a good way to go for a Strength Monk, but it's not relevant to this idea

@lucapaini4748

2 жыл бұрын

@@nessesaryschoolthing yes i know, and i thought of a way to make it work, but i found i couldn't make it effective, so i just tried to make a strenght based monk that could benefit from weapon enancing feats that normally are not an option for monks and still be able to survive more than two rounds going into melee. Still, i know this in not the concept behind this video, i just thought this was a cool way to build a monk

Hi Trent monk I don't know if you remember me.We've been around since 3.5 optimization boards. You know my only problem with things like this in my old age is when my when my players sit down I want to play a monk it's a hard sell for me to say put in my full plate. I realized this is more a thought exercise but one I'd like to pull up some examples of monks actually wearing armor in history. they did. And just for once talk about the conceptualization of a monk in armor. A lot of players really want to play naruto When they read the class description. Alternatively this convinces me that armored in life should mimic full plate completely as a class feature

Yusss, was waiting for this!

Yea the darkness/blind sight build is decidedly superior for a str based monk whos main purpose is damage. Take PAM/GWM. Stick with 14 wis. You will exceed baseline relatively easily, but yea stunning strike will be difficult unless you know you are facing monsters with low con saves, but having said that there comes a time in tier 3 when you can start spamming it and it will stick…. Then in tier 4 its almost impossible to hit b/c con saves go through the roof and its mainly to eat legendary resists.

@agilemind6241

2 жыл бұрын

PAM+GWM only outpaces unarmed monk damage for levels 1-10 if you are a variant human or a fighter.

Even though this didn't get the results you were looking for, I'm grateful to have found it because it gave me a fun way to build a strength based monk or one inspired by the sohei. It's so easy to get stuck in expectations as even non-optimizers based on what a character "should do" so I wouldn't have ever thought to put a monk in armor, despite having no qualms about doing so to wizards or sorcerers. Optimization isn't my thing, but I do love ingenious, out of the box ideas that seem fun and don't make the game harder to play or make you regret your choices (I had this regret playing a Champion Fighter for too long, over a year, never hitting the Improved Critical).

I would say the only way you could possibly get more damage is adding maths for advantage from stunning strike. Maybe this isn't that much more damage due to the low % of successful stuns, but I feel like judging by the numbers it could be a better use of ki at least in certain combats. Also shadow step is again a very situational thing, but by the wording theoretically anything casting a shadow should be shadow steppable, thus I feel like you could argue it's usable every turn if you want to. Either of these are of course situational and up to dm interpretation, but advantage is by far the best damage boost you're gonna get without multiclassing. Another thing to note which isn't applicable to how you calculate damage is short rests. Obviously for any game where you have less combats per short rest you do more damage, probably even more so with the extra fighter levels. Another option is spending ki differently, not using your shadow arts spells for example while adding more stunning strikes into the maths would be more damage on paper. Alternatively add a dpr calculation for how much your shadow arts spells give you. My assumption is you want this for pass without trace, so using your surprise video as a reference and the fact you have a lot of combats per short rest I think you could assume surprising some creatures with your shadow arts use. You can't assume the extra damage allies make really, but you could add some free attacks either straight up or kind of like a % you'd get more than enemies would. Overall though I'm not sure it's entirely a failed idea. It seems like you're just be a more survivable Monk. I feel like you also retain a lot of what monks do or have the option to do, especially the ability to stunning strike against targets with weaker con saves when needed. I can't blame you for seeing low damage for a Monk build, it's just standard for the weak class. It does seem like a more optimal Monk build though, and might work for a less combat heavy per short rest game.

@Kurse_of_Kall

2 жыл бұрын

> Also shadow step is again a very situational thing, but by the wording theoretically anything casting a shadow should be shadow steppable, thus I feel like you could argue it's usable every turn if you want to. I would say good luck finding a DM/table that would allow this.

@deathtoexistance

2 жыл бұрын

@@Kurse_of_Kall I don't see why they wouldn't, I certainly would. I think its harder to think of a situation where there isn't any dim light or darkness. If you're somewhere there isn't light, you're in darkness and can use it. If you're in sunlight, but there's any terrain, it will have a shadow you can use for shadow step. If there is no terrain casting shadows, how big is the monster you're fighting? If it's medium or larger chances are it has a shadow to shadow step to. Ditto for allies. So the only way I can imagine there being no dim light or darkness is if you're in an open area with no trees rocks buildings or anything, not even hills that could cast a shadow. Realistically either the combats are super linear and its always midday or the DM just isn't allowing it out of spite. Sunlight sensitivity is similar, but not as commonly avoidable imo. For sunlight sensitivity your target can't be in bright light, so them having a shadow doesn't help alleviate it. Being in any sunlight would give disadvantage, but shadow step isn't worded like that. Since shadow step just wants you to go to a space that is in dim light I feel like you can use it a lot more often than it's made out to be here. Much more than 50% at least. I'd probably argue a number 80% of the time or higher, at least for it being possible to use. Maybe enemies start staying away from terrain once you're using it and attack at midday, but I still think there are good places to shadow step in most cases.

@Rashagar

2 жыл бұрын

"in my world the sun only ever shines directly downwards and then vanishes at night" =P

@deathtoexistance

2 жыл бұрын

@@RTukka the description in the phb for dim light literally says "Dim light, also called shadows". The game literally defines it as shadows, as such anything that can and would cast a shadow is a valid target given the space is unoccupied.

@deathtoexistance

2 жыл бұрын

@@RTukka this is why I made the distinction that sunlight sensitivity could apply to a space you could shadow step to. Shadow step requires you can see an area of dim light to go to, ie a shadow. Sunlight sensitivity means you could be in bright light and suffer disadvantage, but the way I read it a shadow you could shadow step to could be cast by something in bright light. In the case where bright light overlaps a shadow I think its clear there would be no shadow, or more accurately there would only be a faint shadow. Basically the way I read shadow step is that the space you go into doesn't need to be 100% dim light. If I was trying to argue there are lots of 5ft cubes of dim light I can see you arguing there's not, but I can't see anyone reasonably arguing that nothing is casting a shadow in an unoccupied space in most scenarios. Another thing is I think it would be very easy to make an area of dim light to shadow step to by say throwing something to cast a shadow with as object interaction, let alone spell effects that would cast shadows from you or your team or the enemies. But my argument isn't that you can shadow step 100% of the time, it's that the figure is higher than 50%. I suggested at least 80%, which tbh I think is low balling it. Usually the arguments for there's no dim light are based on dms not wanting to think about it because it's obscur. And that attitude may usually be fair, but if the question is doing 50% more damage on an attack or not it's less fair to just assume no because you don't want to think about it. In that sense what is "simple" for the dm isn't fair or realistic. But also I don't think it needs to be on the dm, I think it would be easy to say I bet x creature or object has a shadow, I'm gonna shadow step to this shadow, and the dm can't turn it down reasonably unless they state its midday or the source of light wouldn't allow any shadows here or x can't cast a shadow because it's invisible or incorporeal for example. So to answer your question, the space you go to may have bright light in it, but it can also have dim light that you can shadow step to. And bearing all this in mind, you're talking about assuming there are no shadows when it only matters for a Monk subclass, and your damage will barely meet warlock baseline even with good assumptions. Personally I think assuming there can't be anywhere close to an enemy that you can shadow step 50% of the time is a bad assumption logically speaking. There will be exceptions, and those are challenges the dm can make, but it shouldn't be the norm both for balance and logical reasons. And if the dm thinks its too much effort and they're just gonna assume no, why not assume yes? It seems petty tbh.

Honestly, the simplest change you could make to monks to make them feel closer to other classes would be to implement your changes to two weapon fighting. You never really talked about it in your video, but I feel like those features doubled as a direct buff to monks. Rangers and Rogues could get good use out of it, but they could always just stick to sharpshooter and probably deal more damage at less risk. Monks don’t have that option. And while I don’t agree with all of the changes in that video (I feel like the flat bonus to damage for two weapon fighting was a bit much, I would much rather give them something a bit more mechanically unique, like being able to make two attacks whenever they make an opportunity attack (since they’re holding two weapons) or letting them take a -2 penalty to the attack rolls of both attacks, but letting them make an additional attack if both hit (sort of like their own version of GWM that occasionally lets make additional attacks instead of giving them a flat bonus to damage)), I feel like the changes synergies perfectly with monks. That change in and of itself would allow monks to meet baseline damage with no resource cost for far longer than they currently do, and would give them more optimization options in terms of increasing that damage further. If you ever do another video on a monk fix, I feel like you need to bring up your two weapon fighting changes in the video as it is a simple way to improve monks without changing any of their class features.

@AnaseSkyrider

2 жыл бұрын

It needs to be said for those who routinely forget this: many (sub)classes get features that are look like TWF, *but are not TWF.* A Soulknife Rogue does not use TWF with their 2nd psychic blade attack, they are making a 2nd attack as a bonus action using their psychic blade feature. This applies all the same to Monks with their martial arts feature, who also do not get fighting styles, and thus would not get ability modifier damage to their off-hand attacks. A Monk looking to do TWF effectively needs a feat or a multiclass. Anybody looking to do homebrews to improve TWF needs to take that into account. In this case, the solution of "Remove the bonus action cost for TWF" means a Monk who wields a couple 1d6 weapons, making three attacks, one without ability damage, on top of making a 1d6/1d8 unarmed attack every single round. This likely makes Monks defacto dual wielders. I'm okay with this solution, although it's very likely too strong at lower levels. It raises the question of why the usually-weaker unarmed strike from martial arts isn't just free instead while reducing Flurry of Blows to 1 unarmed strike as a bonus action.

Take one level monk and multiclass into one level of Twilight Cleric and take Bugbear as your race and get surprise attack . Take a second level of Twilight Cleric if you want to be sure you have dim light when you need it for your Shadow step .

Why do you assume 4 combats per short rest? It just quite clearly puts short rest classes at a significant disadvantage.

@therandom58

2 жыл бұрын

I believe that’s what’s recommended in the DMG so that’s how he started doing builds when 5e came out. Obviously not many people really play that way but I think he keeps doing it so it doesn’t make his older videos irrelevant. If u make the same “mistake” with every build at least u can still compare those builds to each other. You can sorta scale how this build would do at ur table based on the combats per short rest

@crunchevo8974

2 жыл бұрын

He's said it's to assume the worst situation and hopefully make a buold that's still good. But he's also said that he's considered making a new ranking system but that would basically nullify all his old buolds cause the DPR calculations will be way higher.

@TreantmonksTemple

2 жыл бұрын

I explain here (timestamped for you): kzread.info/dash/bejne/f4KVraWQYKTOYs4.html

@naturalkind5591

2 жыл бұрын

@@TreantmonksTemple thanks

@naturalkind5591

2 жыл бұрын

@@therandom58 the DMG recommends 3 short rests for 8 combats. That's giving short rest classes twice as many reasources as TM. Also reads to funny stuff like this monk dying at lv7 if they take 4 damage a round.

If you accounted for magical weapons, assuming +2 by L11, the GWM would receive a slightly larger boon than compared to the non GMW/SS monks.

Even though the result is dissappointing, thank you for trying it, keep up the good work! I know that the topic of this video is putting monks in heavy armor, but have you considered trying Barbarian for damage purposes instead? If you consider up to 3 lvls, that would give one 3 rages per long rest, +2 dmg on all str based attacks while raging, Reckless Attack to get advantage on all attacks while using Flurry of Blows instead of Shadow Step, as well as Danger Sense. I know AC might be the problem here, but if we take Bear Totem and Way of Long Death for our subclasses, we can probably mitigate a lot of damage through resistances and temp hp. I have not really tried it yet, but I have seen builds with dwarf as their race and dwarven fortitude later on as a feat to also occassionally heal oneself with Patient Defense.

It wouldn’t exactly fix all of the problems the character faces here, but would a Monsters of the Multiverse Tabaxi be better off than a Half-Elf? You lose a language, your choice of two skills and the advantage on Charmed saves, but you’ll get Perception and Stealth, Cat’s Claws has your unarmed strikes deal 1d6 Slashing damage, Feline Agility lets you move just as well as a 20th level monk if you actually need the extra movement for a turn right at level 1, and you even get climb speed equal to your walking speed just in case you want to scale something and the DM decides that the Unarmored Movement Improvement feature actually doesn’t work when you’re wearing full plate. The cat doesn’t help much with water, though. Getting that buffed unarmed strike also frees up your Fighting Style for something like Defence to help a little with AC or Superior Technique, which are probably more consistent benefits than Blind Fighting. Speaking of Superior Technique, maybe Stunning Strike is something of a trap here? I’m pretty sure the only two things that this Shadow monk has that benefit from going above 13 Wisdom are Stunning Strike, and your Minor Illusion’s DC for someone to figure that it’s an illusion. Going Strength means that maneuvers from Superior Technique and Battle Master will land a lot more consistent effects for buffing your attacks, even if the effects are less dramatic, and as far as I can tell, literally every other thing you can spend your Ki points on do not, in any way, care about how high your Wisdom modifier is. Maybe it’s better to dump Wisdom to 13 to have that 16 Con and then play around with Ki and Superiority Die? Would have to play around with it but I think there’s a fair amount of options to work with there. This would also mean running a Monk with 13 Dex and 13 Wis, which is objectively funny.

@danielbeshers1689

2 жыл бұрын

I think the reason to focus on trying to get value out of Stunning Strike is that if you're not using it, you have to start asking yourself why you're bothering to take Monk levels at all.

@somethingother2316

2 жыл бұрын

@@danielbeshers1689 Well that’s already a fair question anyway much of the time, and I guess here the answer here would be having more consistent GWM hits with Focused Aim that add a bonus action unarmed strike for a little extra damage, a bonus action dodge, some circumstantial/utility casting with Shadow Arts like Pass Without Trace, and Shadow Step’s nice to have too. My thought’s just that it might be better to have Superiority Dice do the heavy lifting in place of Stunning Strike in terms of adding effects to attacks because while the effects for things like Menacing Attack or Trip Attack aren’t nearly as potent, they’re at least scaling off of a stat that’s also doing other things for the character and they deal some extra damage, besides Precision Attack. Just not sure if it’s best to invest so much into Wisdom for essentially a single ability instead of investing into Con, but again, none of this is enough to “fix” the build’s problems. It’s very likely stuck as a gimmick, but I think a passable 13 Dex/Wis monk in full plate is pretty fun as far as gimmicks go

I just watched the last video. I am glad for some reason I waited until now. I wanted to play this but once you got tier three rough.

amazing work, thank u!

I've messed around with ideas for a barbarian-mixed strength monk. It's not reliably workable, though, as it ultimately will rely on finding a STR magic item (belt or gloves) - probably in tier 2. The idea is basically to have Dex, Con and Str start at 14, Wis at 16, wear medium armor, and rely on Rage+FoB to make up for the damage stat deficit in tier 1. It also uses Tabaxi for the unarmed damage dice and added mobility to make up for losing Unarmored Movement and Martial Arts. Haven't crunched the numbers on it to know if it's any better than yours, though. And like I mentioned I think it eventually depends on getting a Str belt so that you can go for feats and pump Wis instead of pumping Str.

For your darkness-combo video, I've wondered if the inconvenience would be sufficiently mitigated by putting the darkness spell on a flying familiar and having it hover like 10 feet above the enemy, so you can reduce the amount of the battlefield blocked by the darkness to just whoever you're targeting. I haven't run it, but I wondered about it for a Warlock 3/Echo knight X archer build. If you put darkness on your echo (or put your echo in the bubble next to the familiar, to draw enemy attacks) while you peek from a distance, your echo can be shooting them from above with advantage/sharpshooter without obscuring other targets and without revealing your position. (The echo doesn't have to be in there but if you have a hiding spot within 30 feet it could be, or this could be for use with the scouting-echo ability, with darkness pre-cast).

Hey Chris. I was thinking in addition to DPR why not introduce other ways of ranking your character builds. You could have survivability for hp, damage resistance and saves, Battlefield control, utility etc. you could rank each of these with a number of stars so viewers would what you were trying to achieve with each build. I’d like to see you break down each of these ranking at key levels like the DPR breakdowns get a better idea of how this character would play at the table and their strengths and weaknesses. Thanks for making such well thought out videos they’re very insightful!

Great video! I’m six months late to the convo but I have some words to say about Monk in 5e and my experience with the class. To preface, I can understand the hate people have for the class. However, I’ve been having fun playing a monk for a few months now. I’m only level 5 in Monk, and it appears the disappointment with the class stems from its late-game options, but early level (and I imagine late level) will be a blast for me. For reference, I’m playing a Variant Human Mercy Monk. I took the Mobile feat at level 1, which at level 5 Monk gives me 50ft of movement. Being able to blaze around the map never gets old. Similarly my damage has also been great - Spear and punches have been more than adequate for damage, not to mention flurry of blows and stunning strike. I will say the lack of Ki is a pain. I feel like WotC are cheapskates in this regard. Sure replenish every SR is nice but I always feel like I’m out of Ki at the worst times. I’ve also multiclassed into rogue and intend to use a short sword/short bow from now on for sneak attack damage - I intend to dip to Rogue 3, not sure what subclass to take yet (maybe Assassin). Suffice it to say, Monk, imo, is great but could definitely use some tweaking on WotC’s part. Like, the fact that Monks are heavily skewed toward dex and not given adequate strength options for class abilities is ridiculous. Also, the monk abilities post level 14 make me sad, I’m not even sure if I should push my monk to level 17 at this point.

Looking forward to that video on darkness, devil-sight combo. Every time I hear it suggested people just waive away the concerns it brings up. Now on how to make Monk work............... What I would have liked on this video is a comparison on how much better it would be then a straight Mercy Monk. Both DPR and survivability as a big bonus is the HP from fighter and possibly the AC.

A utility/damage build I have used with decent success has been a rune knight fighter (unarmed fighting style) and open hand monk. No armor or shield, and no weapons. Using variant human for a feat, or half elf to mitigate some of the multiple ability dependency. Focusing primarily on strength, while using second wind for a bit of a survivability bump and grappling and shoving priority targets, using the monks speed to drag them around and using the prone condition to give them disadvantage on attacks against you while doing so. Feat selection includes alert, mobile, and skill expert (athletics).

At first I thought the Centaur would be a good fit for this character since the d6 hooves save you a fighting style and charge give you a bonus action attack if you move towards an enemy before attack. Unfortunately upon rereading charge I realized you have to move *30 FEET* towards and enemy *AND* hit them with an attack to get the bonus action attack. It’s no wonder people don’t use the Centaur, that race is terrible.

I'm looking forward to your next video on Darkness/Blind Fighting. My table uses the Midgard setting by Kobold Press so we have access to Sibeccai and Trollkin as races, which both give access to a natural weapon to increase our unarmed attack damage as well as dark vision which is rather important on a shadow monk build. My table isn't optimized, so if I can explain the case to my DM, this could be a very fun character to play( he is skeptical of multiclass builds in general and most of my characters specifically). As a Trollkin with a lineage of trolls, hags or other fey beings of the Shadowfell, the idea of a martial knight with shadow magic powers is very fun to me. In my head cannon, it's a Mixing the shadow mutant Benge from Vampire Hunter D with the Lord Marshall from The Chronicles of Riddick.

I like where you went with this build. Focused aim is incredible on a build using GWM. Not for the 2 ki or 3 ki options. But for the 1 ki option, if you can turn a miss into a +10 damage hit for one ki point that is a very good trade. You get a ton of options with how to spend your bonus actions and your resources, so that's entertaining. You're breaking out of the typical optimization options and you only just fell short of a decent martial here. I'd play it for a one shot for kicks and giggles. Unfortunately I somehow only find myself in campaigns where there's two fights per long rest so I don't think this build would really compete with a blaster or a divine smite addict there. The DM should probably just allow this build to have an always available default bonus action unarmed attack as if your lv 1 monk martial art feature was active.

Forge Cleric + Long Death Monk in heavy armour might be interesting. You could take a half elf variant to get Longsword proficiency and trade it for Maul proficiency using the Tasha's rules. First level in forge cleric gives you a +1 Maul increasing your chance to hit, offsetting some of the great weapon master penalty. You would lose the unarmed fighting style from Fighter, but then you'd be free to spend your bonus action on patient defence, which is a great feature that Monks almost never get to use. With the 3rd level feature of Long Death you can get temporary hit points to offset the 14 Constitution (and it doesn't eat into Ki). After Monk 5 (for Extra Attack and Stunning Strike) or 6 (for the Long Death mass frighten and one more ki point), you can go back and do more levels in Forge Cleric for more defence through Blessing of the Forge, Spiritual Weapon as the backdoor to a bonus action attack (or Heat Metal in some specific cases), and Spirit Guardians to further increase DPR. At that point you're basically building a very bizarre gish. The down side is that you'd have to do something to protect concentration.

"oh my god, TreantMonk is evolving, he is now... ArmoredMonk!"

Interesting comments at the end there Treantmonk regarding Darkness, will your upcoming video include ideas relating to how to mitigate the problems of Darkness? I've been toying around with the idea of a Dhampir sorlock to cast darkness whilst on a high ceiling or up a tree/wall etc... or any class with flying to avoid melee and then darkness to defend against ranged attacks, whilst keeping out of the rest of your party's way.

@harperjames4799

2 жыл бұрын

If your table allow feats your party members could take the Eldricht Adept feat in order to get Devil Sight but it may be broken.

My heavy armor monk is also a forge cleric with magic initiate for shillelagh, absorb elements and thornwhip to combo with spirit guardians. At least a couple fighter levels at some point for more AC and action surge to combo even on turn one. LOTS of AC, evasion, bonus action dodge and if you go kalashtar, adv even on wis saves.

Potentially multiclassing, in addition to 1 level fighter for the fighting style, 1 level in forge cleric would help here. I haven't run in depth numbers but Blessing of the Forge to have a +1 weapon and getting the bless spell would add an average of +3.5 to hit (or +17.5% chance to hit) on all attacks. This alone will boost the average damage from 2 weapon attacks with GWM up by 8.3 points. This should at least reach baseline for 11th level while active. Plus two allies get blessed. Some downsides being you only have 2 spell slots that come back on long rests so maybe you wont always have access to bless and can still loose concentration. But since you start fighter you have prof in CON saves (and are already blessed since... that's the spell we are concentrating on) so you are less likely to lose concentration even in melee.

One way to up the damage a bit is to go lizardfolk. You can use the bite for flurry of blows, basically making it the normal monk attack again.

I’m currently re-playing a campaign that I had partly missed where (before I knew better), I made a monk/sorcerer gish. Now I’m trying that same character as a straight melee sorcerer and I’m finding I’m not missing much at level 8 not having those 2 monk levels I had before.

One really strong monk combo a player we had use was monk 1, hexblade 2, paladin 8 focusing on greatswords. We only got to 10 in the campaign but the player explained at 11 the monk level would have really brought the whole package together.

You could probably play a tortle monk to get the benefits of heavy armor with their shell without losing out for wearing armor

I almost thought the War Cleric/Shadow Monk was the way to go because with a Warhammer and Shield, you're decent. Not a world beater or anything, but decent

Treantmonk, great video! First time commenter, long time follower [since 3.5 God-Wizard guide]. A few points to explore: Did you consider using a racial unarmed attack option? Minotaur, for example, would free up your selection of fighting styles (blind fighting, as you mentioned at the end, or maybe dueling? See below). In addition, Minotaur would provide an additional bonus action (Hammering Horns). Worth exploring of the usage of the 10 foot push to bash someone against a wall, which according to push rules, would knock them prone for subsequent advantage attacks. Alternatively, maybe can pull some shenanigans and use the dampir’s bite attack as a monk weapon (its not a natural weapon weirdly)? What about the tavern brawler feat? Partial ASI, triggers on unarmed attacks, and the grapple + prone would be advantage source.. This would would work with a versatile weapon and provide a free hand as needed. It would also offer the additional benefit that longswords would qualify as monk weapons using the Tasha’s feature. So stunning strike attempts, Kai-Fuled strikes, and flurry of blows all with long sword. Could use dueling or the 2H versatile + another fighting style. DPR probably falls off hard later, but some battle field control. The grapples also combine nicely with…darkness. :p What about a natural weapon race combined with War Cleric? Minotaur war cleric 1 > monk 14 > cleric 5? Greatsword + hammering horns, bless (later divine weapon or spirit guardians) channel divinity, war cleric BA attacks, GWM. And a weird idea to end! Can you make a viable Wisdom-only, full-plate monk using Way of Astral self? Mountain dwarf, variant stats to get wisdom bonus, maybe nature cleric for shillelaghs and PAM? Not sure where the DPR would sit, but a fun alternate take on full-plate monk. Thanks and keep up the videos!

A 1 level Hexblade dip gives you + proficiency to damage against your marked enemy for 10 rounds/short rest. That scales as you level and let's you make up at least some of the shortfall. If you take it to Hexblade-3 you can add your Darkness-Devil Sight combo (which I agree is not always useful, but still, it should be some of the time) and dump Strength in favor of Charisma.

Hi there Chris! Thanks for the great content as usual. One question: Why not start with a Forge cleric dip? This gives proficiency, some spells and slots, and the blessing of the forge to add an additional ac (or plus 1 to a weapon here).

@MegaHuntress

2 жыл бұрын

Fighter gets a fighting style on level 1, so you choose fighter over Cleric as a 1 level dip if you only take one of them. So if you are only after the weapon and armour proficiencies fighter is usually better. Also, War Clerics would arguably be a better choice because of their superior spells. Forge is excellent because it gets permanently +1 AC and allows you to smite/identify. But War Cleric got +2 AC as long as you keep concentration and allows you to bonus action attack with your weapon a few times per rest.

@MegaHuntress

2 жыл бұрын

I recently made a *SUPER MAD* Grappleing shadow Monk build with Tasha's Unarmed Fighting Style that used a 1 level dip into both Fighter and War Cleric. Wanted to make a Monk that used armour and I'm pretty sure it could have been more optimised, but it's a lot of fun so far. We started at level 3, but I don´t see why it could not work on lower levels too. I started as a Goliath for flavour / grappling fiat ( but there are tons of other races like Hill Dwarfs that work too ) *We used Point buy so I took 14,13,15,8,13,9 / so you end up with 16,13,16,8,13,9 with Goliath* . ( Rolling stats might be better or worse ) This allowed me to make a monk with only 13 dex so I could wear medium armour ( and later on heavy once you can afford/find it.) *The first level is a 1 level dip fighter for Tasha's Unarmed Fighting Style* This makes it so all Unarmed strikes are 1D6 or 1D8 if you are unarmed from level 1amd also 1D4 extra damage on all attacks. This allows you to dip into a lot of classes without losing damage from unarmed strikes and you can ignore the loss of martial arts. *2nd level you go into Monk and level all the way up to level 5 Monk(3rd or 7th level ) for the extra attack* . (optional) take a 1 level dip into War cleric at 3rd or 7th level to get War priest benefits, My character took it at level 3 for flavour reasons. ( i also took the Athlete half feat (1+dex) at 6th level to pull off some MMA grappling shenanigans I will get into later, but it's optional and you should talk with your DM if he allows it ) Otherwise, you could just take a normal ASI or some other feat. *Then keep going all the way to level 8 monk for the 2nd ASI/feat* ( i took the half feat, "Skill Expert"(+1 wis) for expertise in Athletics You could multiclass 1 level rouge for the Expertise and proficiency in stealth, or both if you want to be extra crazy. *We are only at level 10 right now, but I plan to take my next level in fighter for the Action surge and second wind* . I might take more monk after that, or go deeper into Fighter to get battle master manoeuvres and ASI but I'm not 100% yet ( i got time to consider my options after all ) or I could multiclass some more for the hell of it like Spore Druid to get "Aura of Spores" / other ways to buff damage ... I don´t expect the game to last until level 20 anyway. *The way my character fights is by grappling opponents and beating them to death with his unarmed strikes that do 1D8 per hit at all levels* I also started juggling a shield with my free item action against targets that I could not grapple tho. A creature that is both grappled and prone ( from a shove attack or otherwise ) can´t stand up because its movement is 0. And being prone means they have a disadvantage on defending themselves and anyone in melee has advantage ( not as good for ranged party members tho ) As long as he has one hand free he can still grapple and all Ki actions still work with armour. ( you only really lose out on the free bonus action punches and movement speed ) Because of my other class features, I still have plenty of options for my bonus actions/reactions. My DM has also allowed me to use my bonus action "Step of The Wind" and 2x my jump so i can leap 10 feet into the air while grappling a target ( Goliath are strong ) And then bodyslam myself and the target into the ground which results in fall damage and both of us falling prone ( unless I use my reaction to "Slow Fall" myself ) And thanks to the Athlete half feat, When you are prone, standing up uses only 5 feet of your movement and a jump only needs a half as long as a running start ) It's a lot of fun and outside of the bodyslam is a perfectly fine rule wise, it's probably going to fall off at tier 3 levels of play, but how many games go that far anyhow?

I’ve tried to imagine a combination of Way of the Ascendant Dragon and Tempest Cleric but you need at least nine levels to get the lightning damage/Thunderbolt strike combo and likely still need a fighter level for fighting style.

If possible make a video about the metamagic options from the sorcerer please! Careful spell looks really powerful because you can use web or hypnotic pattern mid fight with your allies nearby! Maybe getting metamagic adept at level 4 so you don't have to give up quickned, subtle or twinned spell.

when it comes to magical darkness also consider summon fey as the tricksy version can drop a 5 ft cube of darkness on you alone and not affect the rest of your party. effectively giving you invisibility.

I just built a mercy monk that I found interesting. Start 2 lvl of twilight cleric for armour and weapon proficiency. Then 3 lvls of blood hunter, (ask if you can get unarmed added as ption for lvl 2 blood hunter fighting style choice , DM decision). Go lycan, so you can apply your crimson strikes to unarmed, plus get resistance to normal damage and boost AC. At level 5 go mercy monk for 11 levels. At some point finish twilight cleric till lvl 6. Decide monk or cleric based on if you want to get better at fighting or healing first. Here's the cool part. You have lots of refreshing temp hit points, you can heal every flurry of blows, and you can use healing magic (especially eventually aura of vitality, spirit shroud/guardian, beacon of hope, revivify.) Basically you can be a healer who is hard to kill, and also be a bad ass kung fu werewolf with lightning hands. Most of your abilities reset on a short rest. And you should be able to be fresh for 1-2 solid combats per short rest. For fun, at lvl 20 you can throw on gloves of soul catching and read manual of quickness of action. Anyway, great video. Interesting points.

The best monk build I've found is warlock multiclass. One level of warlock gets you 6 hex casts per day, which adds significant damage since monks attack so many times per turn. If you go hex blade you can do a similar build to the one you made in this video and use medium armor with a charisma based weapon for damage. Shield would be a good alternative to hex if you need more AC in an encounter and you don't opt to use medium armor since you house rule it to not work with armor. After 6 you can either continue in warlock for shadow blade and agonizing blast, or continue in monk for 6th level subclass feature and evasion. Eventually eldritch blast will be better than melee attacks so for higher level builds you may want to put points in charisma and start using armor at some point regardless.

Forgot to add, the big advantage to this monk is high AC plus dodge as a bonus action. They make great dodge tanks imo. Flurry of Blows is a waste of ki if you're in a good position to tank hits.

I've been inspired by treantmonk's video last week to tinker with the idea, and encountered the same hurdles. Still, it's a way to make more flavorful monks! My mind immediately jumped to rakshasa-looking hindu warrior demigod with multiple arms holding weapons, so I went with tabaxi (for the claws) astral self monk 11/war cleric 1. War cleric opens up Bless and adds a few bonus action weapon attacks per day for rounds where you don't get one from GWM and don't want to Flurry. A round at level 12, with Bless and Str 18: - 2 × GWM glaive (+5.5 to hit vs. AC 18 = 42.5%, 1d10+14) = 17.125 damage - Flurry of Blows (+10.5 to hit vs. AC 18 = 67.5%, 1d6+4) + Empowered Arms (+1d8 to one hit) = 14.435 damage - out-of-ki bonus action attack (GWM glaive) = 8.56 damage Way too little juice too keep this up for TM's 8-encounter-day, but spells have the advantage of being deployable when needed. Also, this is all with reach - astral self gives you the wiggly arms; coupled with Feline Agility, it seems like a fine skirmisher. I won't even try to calculate the impact of Focused Aim and Stunning Strike - I know my limits.

A) Mountain Dwarf gets prof in Med Armor and a nice +2 CON B) Feat gives a Dwarf the ability to heal while taking the Dodge action. C) Monk can spend a ki point to Dodge as a swift action. Combine A,B,C and occasional Stunning Fist for a nice Tank build.

I think this build missed the boat just slightly. Your reasons make sense but I think the real key is going medium armor, not heavy. You need to slide one more point for DEX to do it, so your AC is good. Then for level 11 what you want is 6 monk/3 battle master/2 barbarian. Rage + reckless attack fixes all the damage issues. Precision attack plus focused aim ensure those hits go off at high frequency. When you don't get your GWM bonus attack, you probably want Flurry of Blows as its you're next best damage source. Stunning Strike is a nice option but its usually a hail mary past tier 2, so I would only use it occasionally.

I like the bugbear for this build. Sometimes gets a sneak attack, but the longer reach will come in handy. Maybe dip 1 into barbarian.

Vooman (PAM), Cleric 1 (Forge), Monk 4 (GWM). Gets access to magic weapon or +1 AC, has bonus action attack with GWM so no wasted Ki on Flurry. Has bless to mitigate -5 from GWM. Can use Ki for Step of the Wind, Stunning Strike, and Patient Defense much more frequently, since not spending on Flurry. Flurry is nice cuz it's 2 attacks, but it's biggest weakness is it is unarmed, so you can't add GWM damage. I think if you hit fairly consistently that 1 PAM + GWM bonus action is probably about the same as 2 unarmed FoB attacks. 1d4+str+10 vs 2x(1d8+str) If we assume 16 str(at least): PAM+GWM is an average of2.5+3+10= 15.5 damage/hit Flurry is an average of 2x(4.5+3) = 15 damage (if both hit) However, PAM has the additional utility of allowing you to make reaction attacks when enemies enter your reach, which over time will allow you to deal more damage. Starting Monk, and DIP-ing into cleric will allow us to KEEP Dex save proficiency which will drastically increase the value of Evasion passive. For a 1 level dip I think Cleric is better than Fighter for a number of reasons. 1: You can dip it whenever you want and still get Heavy Armor. 2: If you take PAM, you don't need the unarmed fighting style, because you don't care. 3: You get spell casting. Including Guidance, Bless, Healing, and Ritual Casting for exploration phase problems (Detect Magic). IF you decide to take a 2nd level of cleric (Probably want at least 6 levels of Monk so character level ~8), you would get another spell slot, and channel divinity which could be used out of combat to create metal for making armor, and would help flavor why you're even wearing heavy armor on a monk in the first place. And in combat it's either Turn Undead (probably not) OR another spell slot / short rest.

A minor point that could provide a little more free ki for the shadow monk: The Shadow art spells qualify you for casting spell scrolls. If you use the spell scrolls to cast your shadow arts spells, you have more ki available for other stuff

@marssmit84

2 жыл бұрын

They unfortunately do not. You do not have a spell list as granted by the pact Magic or spellcasting traits. Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights are stated to use the Wizard spell list but the Shadow Monk and Four elements Monk make no reference to a spell list in their wording.

Personally I think going with a race that has its own unarmed attack let's you go cleric since you don't need the fighting style. Also Twilight cleric and shadow monk feels like a flavor win. Personally I like lizard folk for the bite unarmed attack.

@tidomann

2 жыл бұрын

Lizardfolk also has a boost with temp HP from hungry bite

Poor monk. I looked at a custom lineage hexblade mercy monk. at first glance it looks like you can be above baseline when you are using Hexblade’s curse, FOB and HOH. Possibly using hex if you take the fighting initiate (dueling) feat. You would need to do either a 1 level dip or take 4 levels to keep all of your ASIs.

@TreantmonksTemple

2 жыл бұрын

A straight mercy monk can actually beat baseline at all 20 levels. I did a build on this channel where I went over the math.

@thomashawkins1733

2 жыл бұрын

Even a Player's Handbook Monk can, I think, if you sacrifice defence entirely. Same assumptions as your Beastmaster Ranger Video, you can go Half Orc with a quarterstaff (17 STR) -> Weapon Master (2d6 Heavy Weapons for later)/+1 STR ASI -> +2 STR ASI -> GWM (now use a maul and flurry) -> MI(find familiar help).

taking cleric offers spells to cast such as bless and spirit guardians that are very potent on monks due to the high number of attacks they make, not to mention spirit shroud. also by taking war cleric you can add a bonus action attack with the weapon rather than an unarmed strike increasing the damage output by an additional 1d6 + 5 +10, you both save a ki point doing it this way and gain the ability to use stunning strike an additional time. not to mention the utility that cleric spells offer. 5-6 levels of cleric and 14-15 levels of monk for the full split.

Yeah, seems you found the same thing I did, which is that the multiclass rules requiring 13 DEX and WIS really hurt, and not having 16 WIS also sucks if the plan is to land more stunning strikes, since the main advantage over an archery monk is that you can use great weapon master and still stunning strike. Honestly, I think the exciting new Monk build is just using the new version of Bugbear. Bugbear's Surprise Attack goes well with Flurry of Blows. Not many builds can make use of Surprise Attack 3x on turn 1 as early as level 2, or 4x on turn 1 as early as level 5. And having reach on attacks is also a reasonably nice perk for a squishy melee character.

One thing that might make the Darkness build more viable if the problem is how it affects the rest of the party is the following quote: "Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness." You can do this as a free action. Of course, there are a few problems such as that the enemies won't have disadvantage against you and getting hit might end the concentration, but the high AC from the armor could help with that. Another problem is that you can't use free object interaction every turn to both uncover and cover the source of darkness, so half of the turns you would still be covered in darkness during your allies' turn. During these turns you could just walk far enough so that you aren't covering the enemies in darkness since creatures that can't see you can't take attacks of opportunity, and then just walk back your next turn. I think this too has its own set of problems but perhaps it is worth looking into anyway.

What about picking a race with a built-in Unarmed Strike ? Wouldn't that free up the need for unarmed fighting style and upgrade our build ? 🤔 Best Racial Unarmed Strike i've seen was on Naga in plane shift amonkhet book. (It is WoTC, but Its a setting-specific book, ask DM) - You'd be looking to use the Constrict Attack ~ Besides dealing 1d6+STR, it grapples and restrains the target as long as they remain grappled (No save to avoid; DC 8+Prof+STR to Escape) Seems a fair bit stronger than the fighting style anyway, our stats do take a bit of a hit though Begin play Level 1 War Cleric, then go Monk until 5 - and then back into cleric until 5. Any remaining levels in Monk - Spirit Guardians could help with that "missing" damage spike that classes get at 11

Late to the party on this one, but taking a race like Lizardfolk or Minotaur to get a 1d6 natural weapon that you can use for unarmed strikes let’s you do the war cleric dip instead of the fighter dip at level 1. Using the 2 spell slots for bless, means that for 2 combats a day your DPR jumps significantly. Below is my math emulating Chris’ breakdown at 16:21 but with the added +2.5 chance to hit. Attack: (21*0.425+7*0.05)*2= 18.55 GWM BA Attack: 9.275/4= 2.32 Ki-Fueled: (7.5*0.725+3.5*0.05)/4= 5.61/4= 1.40 Focused Aim: 42/16= 2.63 Shadow Step: [(21*0.92375+7*0.0975)-9.275]/2= (20.08-9.28)/2= 10.80/2= 5.40 18.55+2.32+1.40+2.63+5.40= 30.3 Granted, this is only 2 combats a day, assumes you don’t lose concentration, and doesn’t take into account the Action it takes to cast bless, however, bless will help your party as well, and this math doesn’t cover the additional few bonus action maul attacks from war cleric.

@paytonmiller768

2 жыл бұрын

@Professor Thinker I mentioned this in my final paragraph.

If you dip 3 levels into sorcerer to use sorcery points to cast darkness, then you can see through that darkness as a a shadow monk, while also having some utility spells like mage armor which will give you more AC for the first few levels I'm sure someone has tested it with negative results but it's worth a try.

Question: If we don't have ki points for flurry of blows anyway... why not go Cleric and cast Bane to reduce their resistence to our stunning strikes?

@Flaraen

2 жыл бұрын

I wondered this, but we still are making unarmed attacks when we use ki with our action

@Xorgrim

2 жыл бұрын

@@Flaraen Stunning strikes work with any melee weapon attack, so no need to do unarmed for that. Or what Ki point use did you mean in combination with an action?

@Flaraen

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah so if we use a ki point on our action we can do an unarmed attack as a bonus action, hence why the fighting style

@Xorgrim

2 жыл бұрын

@@Flaraen Ic, you are talking about the optional rule. I wasn't counting on that rule being applied.

Good analysis, thankfully however in the tables I see we get signifigantly more short rests. Also I don't know whether or not you would consider it powergaming but you can "drop" your Maul or Greatsword during your unarmed strikes to bump it to a d8 from a d6.

I think the best a Monk can do in terms of Survivability and Damage is to double down on manoeuvrability. The current character I play is a Custom Lineage (Naztharune) Shadow Monk. If you get the correct feats. Squat Nimbleness for (18 Dex and +5 speed), and Mobile you have 60ft of movement +60 if you bonus action shadow step. If you do not have advantage, teleport behind an enemy and use the two attacks with stunning strike. If you do have advantage just run in and Flurry after two longsword attacks. You can then retreat up to 60ft away avoiding the risk of injury. The speed also allows you to close in on spellcasters or priority targets and lock them down with silence (2 Ki points) followed by a Ki-Fueled stunning strike (2 Ki points). If they move then it's an opportunity stunning strike again (1 Ki point). If you have a Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard in the party ask them nicely for Catnap and Ki points then become less of an issue. If it's a non dangerous encounter then we can just leave the Ki abilities spare and do hit and run. It's unlikely that there won't be some form of cover to break line of sight within 60ft of an enemy so getting away from casters can work as well. We can even do it and run with a Shortbow very few enemies will be able to keep up. Monks are not bad, it's just they are not simple and require good analysis of a fight to make optimal use of limited resources and use speed to gain cover

Still think it’s a fun concept - everyone’s face when you turn up in full plate saying I am a monk but wouldn’t want to play it. Looking forward to the devils sight video.

I think Long Death is probably the better subclass. Yes it's only a small amount of temp hp, but with the great weapon there's more chance of actually getting it. You'll also have more ki if you're not wasting it on Shadow abilities, which I personally view as a trap on an armoured build. I'd also go half wood elf for the extra speed.