So i want to do a ancestral barbarian, astral monk with both being his village that was slaughtered and him being the seeming oinly surviver. the ansetral barbar power comming from well those that died. and the monk power being his twin brother. im just not sure how to best balnace this ourt with the things i want. namly the defences buffs to allys from barbar while the bad ass monk shit from astral
I would go Astral 6/ Ancestral 3/ Astral X. Honestly, it's an awkward multiclass. Both your extra arms and rage take a bonus action. Astral promotes wisdom based stuff, but Barb is all strength all the time. Astral is very ki dependant and taking levels off means less ki. If you want your unarmed strikes to feel decent, then getting to monk 6 is pretty dang important. Ancestral Barb is great to take to 6, but doubling up on extra attack is not good. I think the progression I listed is the best compromise.
Agree with Heironymus in that a Barb/monk multi is very tricky to build. If you are open to suggestions allow me to offer an alternate multiclass that would still fit the theme of the character you are trying to make while being less MAD. The humble Ancestral Barbarian/Echo Knight multiclass. Basically the echo represents your twin while leaving the rest of your backstory untouched. The build will be Barb 6/Fighter 3/Whatever you want X, with the build coming online at lvl 9. Although if you want your theme to come together earlier you can go Barb 3/Fighter 3/Barb 3/Whatever you want X.
This build has excellent synergy in that nothing really conflicts. Since summoning your echo requires no resources except a bonus action you should always have one by your side. When a battle starts send in your echo aka your "Twin" and Reckless Attack away. Now here is the beauty of this build, if they try to attack your "Twin" they do so with disadvantage because of Ancestral Protectors, they also do not get advantage hitting your "Twin" even though you used Reckless Attack. Now if you take the Sentinel feat which I highly suggest you do, if the enemy tries to move past your "Twin" to get at you, yup you guessed it your "Twin" gets a AOO to potentailly locked them down.
If they successfully attack and kill your "Twin" thats fine they burned their action for their turn so next round you just resummon your "Twin" and repeat this technique that I dub "The Art of Tanking from Behind"
You also can potentially burst something down with Action Surge and Unleash Incarnation.
If you're willing to drop ancestral, then using cleric to pick up spirit guardians is another way to represent the spirits of your dead village. Monk/Cleric is much easier to work than Monk/Barbarian. Another way to approach reworking the concept if keeping the astral arms feels super important.
If you're willing to drop ancestral, then using cleric to pick up spirit guardians is another way to represent the spirits of your dead village. Monk/Cleric is much easier to work than Monk/Barbarian. Another way to approach reworking the concept if keeping the astral arms feels super important.
To be honest I feel Monk/Anything not Monk is kinda bad. Every level in Anything not Monk is 1 less Ki point and a Monk can NEVER have too many Ki points.
If you are set on monk/barbarian for concept reasons, consider going with a strength-based monk. That will reduce your MAD issues. I am doing a monk/barb character that’s a tortle to both help with STR and AC. Goliath would also potentially work, though without the AC.
Alternatively, you could do a DEX barbarian build, but it will impact some of the features.
Either way, you should make a choice between STR and DEX for both. Because you also need to lean hard hard into WIS. Either that, or have pretty low CON on a character that’s going to draw a lot of hits.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
sorry for click bait title.
So i want to do a ancestral barbarian, astral monk with both being his village that was slaughtered and him being the seeming oinly surviver. the ansetral barbar power comming from well those that died. and the monk power being his twin brother. im just not sure how to best balnace this ourt with the things i want. namly the defences buffs to allys from barbar while the bad ass monk shit from astral
I would go Astral 6/ Ancestral 3/ Astral X. Honestly, it's an awkward multiclass. Both your extra arms and rage take a bonus action. Astral promotes wisdom based stuff, but Barb is all strength all the time. Astral is very ki dependant and taking levels off means less ki. If you want your unarmed strikes to feel decent, then getting to monk 6 is pretty dang important. Ancestral Barb is great to take to 6, but doubling up on extra attack is not good. I think the progression I listed is the best compromise.
Agree with Heironymus in that a Barb/monk multi is very tricky to build. If you are open to suggestions allow me to offer an alternate multiclass that would still fit the theme of the character you are trying to make while being less MAD. The humble Ancestral Barbarian/Echo Knight multiclass. Basically the echo represents your twin while leaving the rest of your backstory untouched. The build will be Barb 6/Fighter 3/Whatever you want X, with the build coming online at lvl 9. Although if you want your theme to come together earlier you can go Barb 3/Fighter 3/Barb 3/Whatever you want X.
This build has excellent synergy in that nothing really conflicts. Since summoning your echo requires no resources except a bonus action you should always have one by your side. When a battle starts send in your echo aka your "Twin" and Reckless Attack away. Now here is the beauty of this build, if they try to attack your "Twin" they do so with disadvantage because of Ancestral Protectors, they also do not get advantage hitting your "Twin" even though you used Reckless Attack. Now if you take the Sentinel feat which I highly suggest you do, if the enemy tries to move past your "Twin" to get at you, yup you guessed it your "Twin" gets a AOO to potentailly locked them down.
If they successfully attack and kill your "Twin" thats fine they burned their action for their turn so next round you just resummon your "Twin" and repeat this technique that I dub "The Art of Tanking from Behind"
You also can potentially burst something down with Action Surge and Unleash Incarnation.
i never thought of the echo knight. im gonna have a look and deffenlty thank you
If you're willing to drop ancestral, then using cleric to pick up spirit guardians is another way to represent the spirits of your dead village. Monk/Cleric is much easier to work than Monk/Barbarian. Another way to approach reworking the concept if keeping the astral arms feels super important.
To be honest I feel Monk/Anything not Monk is kinda bad. Every level in Anything not Monk is 1 less Ki point and a Monk can NEVER have too many Ki points.
true but im also not optimizing trying ti build an idea an rp not a dugeon crawll.
If you are set on monk/barbarian for concept reasons, consider going with a strength-based monk. That will reduce your MAD issues. I am doing a monk/barb character that’s a tortle to both help with STR and AC. Goliath would also potentially work, though without the AC.
Alternatively, you could do a DEX barbarian build, but it will impact some of the features.
Either way, you should make a choice between STR and DEX for both. Because you also need to lean hard hard into WIS. Either that, or have pretty low CON on a character that’s going to draw a lot of hits.