Hi everyone so im planning on playing a way of shadow monk.
Ill be starting level 5 which means i can choose either a feat or ability score. I was thinking of choosing changeling as my race and using the points buy ill have 17 dex and 15 wisdom. My thought are either go with an ability score increase which will put my dex to 18 and wisdom to 16 however if i choose a feat i had the idea of choosing Eldritch Adept and then choosing Devil's Sight which allows me to be able to see in both magical and non magical darkness. If i chose that feat it would mean when i use the Darkness spell i can see in it while most others cant. Also helps with the shortcoming of a changeling in not having darksight.
I would love to know everyone else's thoughts on this. Thanks for your help.
No matter what i do, without taking the ability score im going to have odd numbered abilities.
And if i cant use eldritch adept then is there another way i can see through magical darkness? Otherwise it kinda makes the Darkness spell a bit useless doesn't it?
If you can exploit obscurity by casting it directly on you and bringing it back toward the enemy, you don't really need the Mobile feat, since a person who cannot see you cannot make opportuity attacks on you. The problem then arises with enemies who use different ways of seeing or perceiving. The main problem is that you cannot see in the darkness (I always found this to be a design error of the shadow monk, too bad it is not like the shadow sorcerer). to solve this problem there is always the possibility of taking a fighting style of the ranger "Blind Fighting" and if you are interested take the subclass "Gloom Stalker". These are good combinations.
When you have a chance to take a feat you can also take Eldritch Adept, since with ranger enchantments you are allowed to. You can also take the Mobile feat if you think Blind Fighting is sufficent (if you are in the sphere of darkness your range of vision will remain only 10 feet and after eliminating the first enemy you will have to go blind to find the second... Although you can always help yourself with perception).
Blinded Condition
A blinded creature can’t see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight.
Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage
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Opportunity Attack:
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for a chance to strike an enemy who is fleeing or passing by. Such a strike is called an opportunity attack. You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.
Blind Fighting. You have blind sight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn't behind total cover, even if you're blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.
Dread Ambusher
At 3rd level, you master the art of the ambush. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier.
At the start of your first turn of each combat, your walking speed increases by 10 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If that attack hits, the target takes an extra 1d8 damage of the weapon's damage type.
Umbral Sight
At 3rd level, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet.
You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness.
What you say makes sense, but a Perception checks generally consume a player's action. If they want to notice things without using their action, you'd use their Passive Perception and see what they can notice with that. It's up to the DM, however, and a lot of DMs allow players to make perception checks for free.
So we can infer that it is more useful to take the Mobile feat in case the shadow monk could not use his darkness to disengage safely. But, you must also remember that shadow step uses sight to be used. If the monk is enveloped by darkness it cannot use shadow step that would be a pity. So for me both feats are good possibilities.
Shadow Step
At 6th level, you gain the ability to step from one shadow into another. When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you cansee that is also in dim light or darkness. You then have advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of the turn.
I just found out that the Darkness spell can be deactivated if it is covered with something non-transparent (opaque). So the monk could cast darkness on an object he keeps uncovered when attacking and when he has to move simply disable the spell by covering its source and move. I don't know how much it takes to cover and uncover a small object, but I think it could be done as a free action (if you can convince a good tinker to build a mechanical object in the glove that with a finger movement allows them to operate an automatic cover) - hypothetically... it could work.
Darkness
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it. If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn’t being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness. If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled.
It’s definitely a “talk to your DM” situation. Although by the rules you know where someone is if they are not actively hiding but some DM’s, like mine, doesn’t handle darkness that way. If you are in magical darkness and cannot see and you want to move, he requires you to roll a d8 to determine which direction you move. So with that type of ruling you would definitely not know where the next enemy was.
The covering an object that has Darkness on it is a good idea but some DM’s might find that as “cheesy” and make it less useful (makes it an action to do or something) especially if it’s a common tactic.
Using darkness on something small and covering it to temporarily disable darkness at will is a good way to step around that issue. I might talk to my DM about having something on my person that can do that and also if it will cost my action to cover/uncover it.
Another thing about being shadow monk and low light/darkness is my race i was going to play was changeling because i thought it would be fun to be able to change my appearance at will almost instantly whenever i want. Big issue about that is it doesnt have darkvision. Which obviously means i cant see in the dark. Do you think this will be a major issue? Sure i can cast darkvision on myself for 8 hours but it also uses up 2 Ki points. 2/5 at this stage seems like a lot. As far as im aware there isnt a race similar to changeling that has darkvision.
Another thing about being shadow monk and low light/darkness is my race i was going to play was changeling because i thought it would be fun to be able to change my appearance at will almost instantly whenever i want. Big issue about that is it doesnt have darkvision. Which obviously means i cant see in the dark. Do you think this will be a major issue? Sure i can cast darkvision on myself for 8 hours but it also uses up 2 Ki points. 2/5 at this stage seems like a lot. As far as im aware there isnt a race similar to changeling that has darkvision.
That'll depend on how often your party will act at night or sneak around in dungeons/buildings without lights. It will definitely limit your level 6 ability to only dim light and limit what you can do with your level 11 ability quite a bit too. As you said there's a build-in way for you to get around it but ki points are precious and you already never have enough to begin with even without having to cast Darkvision every once in a while.
Something helpful to keep in mind is that every light source has an area of bright light and then dim light before it's back go darkness, so even if your party is carrying a torch at night and there are torches around somewhere you can still use them for the teleportation. You just have to keep your distance a little bit and you can't teleport away from an enemy carrying a torch without moving away first (Mobile would help with that so you can just walk away after attacking that enemy).
I guess you could take one level in Twilight Cleric though. Not for the kinda broken Channel Divinity feature, but for the 300 feet darkvision you get from the 1st level feature Eyes of Night. Every other way of acquiring darkvision involves more levels. 3 for Gloomstalker to get the Umbral Sight feature and 2 for any Warlock (or 1 and a feat) to get Devil's Sight. Each have different additional benefits that might be of interest. The Twilight Cleric can share their darkvision with friends for an hour (plus other stuff unrelated to darkvision), the Gloomstalker makes you invisible in darkness against creature that rely on darkvision to see you (plus other stuff unrelated to darkvision) and the Warlock as you already know lets you see even in magical darkness (plus other stuff unrelated to darkvision).
These are all good options. From my point of view, the monk needs at most 3 levels of a class that follows his characteristics. (druid, ranger, cleric, thief, fighter). In this case I recommend ranger or cleric. This is also because they offer Hunter's Mark or Bless as spells. These spells offer good support to the monk who after 10th level it begins to lose in damage power. I do not recommend the warlock because you need at least 13 in charisma to enter the class and I do not recommend making the monk even more MAD. If case you can afford to have 13 in charisma (having rolled the characters with some luck) it is also fine since the warlock's spells are rechargeable with a short rest.
No matter what i do, without taking the ability score im going to have odd numbered abilities.
And if i cant use eldritch adept then is there another way i can see through magical darkness? Otherwise it kinda makes the Darkness spell a bit useless doesn't it?
A1-level twilight cleric dip will give you the best darkvision in the game (but not the ability to see through magic darkness). Then you also have the spellcasting feature and can take the eldritch adept feat. You would start as a Cleric-1/Shadow Monk-4 with eldritch adept.
Another way to see through darkness, or part of it anyway is the blind fighting fighting style. You can pick that up either with a 1-level fighter dip or with the fighting initiate fighting style.
Darkness is great even without being able to see through because it cancels disadvantage as long as your enemies can't see through it. Blindness makes it so all attacks are straight up - enemies can't see you and you can't see them. This simultaneously applies advantage and disadvantage to all attacks which cancel each other and RAW also cancel all other cases of advantage and disadvantage. So if you are restrained or poisoned or fighting an invisible enemy for example you have disadvantage on attacks, and with restrained or invisible enemies, they have advantage attacking you. If you cast darkness over yourself it levels all those rolls for both you and your enemies. Now your enemies no longer see you so that gives you advantage on your attacks which cancels the restrained or poisioned disadvantage. Enemies no longer see you either so they have disadvantage on their attacks and this cancels the advantage they would get from restrained.
No matter what i do, without taking the ability score im going to have odd numbered abilities.
And if i cant use eldritch adept then is there another way i can see through magical darkness? Otherwise it kinda makes the Darkness spell a bit useless doesn't it?
A1-level twilight cleric dip will give you the best darkvision in the game (but not the ability to see through magic darkness). Then you also have the spellcasting feature and can take the eldritch adept feat. You would start as a Cleric-1/Shadow Monk-4 with eldritch adept.
Another way to see through darkness, or part of it anyway is the blind fighting fighting style. You can pick that up either with a 1-level fighter dip or with the fighting initiate fighting style.
Darkness is great even without being able to see through because it cancels disadvantage as long as your enemies can't see through it. Blindness makes it so all attacks are straight up - enemies can't see you and you can't see them. This simultaneously applies advantage and disadvantage to all attacks which cancel each other and RAW also cancel all other cases of advantage and disadvantage. So if you are restrained or poisoned or fighting an invisible enemy for example you have disadvantage on attacks, and with restrained or invisible enemies, they have advantage attacking you. If you cast darkness over yourself it levels all those rolls for both you and your enemies. Now your enemies no longer see you so that gives you advantage on your attacks which cancels the restrained or poisioned disadvantage. Enemies no longer see you either so they have disadvantage on their attacks and this cancels the advantage they would get from restrained.
The Fighter is not the only one offering fighting style, the Ranger and Paladin also have fighting style. Ranger is the most ideal because it offers fighting style at low levels and spells such as hunter's mark and the ability to later access the eldritch adept feat. For darkvision, solve with Gloom Stalker - Umbral Sight. The twilight cleric is also a good choice.
I have always seen Darkness as misused as an offensive strategy piece. To me, it is more defensive or utility. Instead of dropping it on an enemy, drop it on a light source. Inside or in a dungeon, block the light source and shadowstep wherever you like. Put it in a doorway or cave entrance to slow pursuit. (Who runs straight into an inky black spehere?) Even at noon outside you could put a darkness globe above your head. Light does not pass through the spell area, so you would be in dark shade. According to source books, this is enough for "dim light".
Item idea that your DM could give you. Flametongue, but with a twist. Instead of a bright red fire that casts light, it has a black/purple fire that casts shadow. Basically looks like a flametongue and its effects have been inverted. Seems not too OP and would be fun. You could shadowstep from pretty much anywhere, provided you have a shadowy destination.
Using darkness on something small and covering it to temporarily disable darkness at will is a good way to step around that issue. I might talk to my DM about having something on my person that can do that and also if it will cost my action to cover/uncover it.
Another thing about being shadow monk and low light/darkness is my race i was going to play was changeling because i thought it would be fun to be able to change my appearance at will almost instantly whenever i want. Big issue about that is it doesnt have darkvision. Which obviously means i cant see in the dark. Do you think this will be a major issue? Sure i can cast darkvision on myself for 8 hours but it also uses up 2 Ki points. 2/5 at this stage seems like a lot. As far as im aware there isnt a race similar to changeling that has darkvision.
Yes, it will be a major issue. Shadow Monks in general need darkvision in order to make Shadow Step, their L6 feature, work properly. You can get around seeing in darkness most easily by taking a 1-dip in Fighter as your first level, which will get you:
Longsword proficiency for early access to 1d10 monk weapon damage.
Blind Fighting as a fighting style, so within 10' of you your magical darkness is a non-issue.
Constitution save proficiency, super important on anyone intending to concentrate on a spell while on the front line.
+2 hit points.
However, 10' is a heck of a nerf to your Shadow Step range. You're much better off having racial darkvision. While no other race can dynamically change its appearance, Custom Lineage has any appearance you want that you decide on before the campaign begins, and it will let you have 60' Darkvision and start with an extra feat, which can go a long way - e.g. you could take Alert. Mechanically, the best shadow monk build I know of uses Fighter levels as a multiclass and uses half-elf as a race (to help fix how MAD monks are). As a general rule, Monks favor the MAD-fixing races: Half-Elf (any variant with +2/+1/+1), Mountain Dwarf, and Custom Lineage.
The Fighter is not the only one offering fighting style, the Ranger and Paladin also have fighting style. Ranger is the most ideal because it offers fighting style at low levels and spells such as hunter's mark and the ability to later access the eldritch adept feat. For darkvision, solve with Gloom Stalker - Umbral Sight. The twilight cleric is also a good choice.
It requires 2 levels on a Ranger to get the fighting style vs 1 level on a fighter. A 2 level fighter dip will get you action surge (2nd 2nd wind). I think that is a lot better than a 2-level Ranger.
I would disagree that Ranger with HM is ideal. Monks have a bunch of bonus action options that are going to conflict with HM. At 5th level two attacks plus a martial arts attack will do quite a bit more damage than one attack with HM. Granted he gets the HM bonus on subsequent turns, but you have to move it a lot and you have to defend your concentration, which is going to be tough when you can not use your bonus for disengage or dodge. I do think it will be well behind a single class Monk at level 5. I think he will generally be behind a 4/1 fighter who has an ASI and 2 more ki per short rest and behind a 3/2 fighter with 1 more ki and action surge.
Gloomstalker is a great, but that is 3 levels and that point you are not really playing a Monk. Keep in mind we are talking about a 5th level "Shadow Monk" here - a Gloomstaker multiclass means the character is not a shadow Monk at all. It is a Ranger with a Monk dip.
Hi everyone so im planning on playing a way of shadow monk.
Ill be starting level 5 which means i can choose either a feat or ability score. I was thinking of choosing changeling as my race and using the points buy ill have 17 dex and 15 wisdom. My thought are either go with an ability score increase which will put my dex to 18 and wisdom to 16 however if i choose a feat i had the idea of choosing Eldritch Adept and then choosing Devil's Sight which allows me to be able to see in both magical and non magical darkness. If i chose that feat it would mean when i use the Darkness spell i can see in it while most others cant. Also helps with the shortcoming of a changeling in not having darksight.
I would love to know everyone else's thoughts on this. Thanks for your help.
No matter what i do, without taking the ability score im going to have odd numbered abilities.
And if i cant use eldritch adept then is there another way i can see through magical darkness? Otherwise it kinda makes the Darkness spell a bit useless doesn't it?
If you can exploit obscurity by casting it directly on you and bringing it back toward the enemy, you don't really need the Mobile feat, since a person who cannot see you cannot make opportuity attacks on you. The problem then arises with enemies who use different ways of seeing or perceiving. The main problem is that you cannot see in the darkness (I always found this to be a design error of the shadow monk, too bad it is not like the shadow sorcerer). to solve this problem there is always the possibility of taking a fighting style of the ranger "Blind Fighting" and if you are interested take the subclass "Gloom Stalker". These are good combinations.
When you have a chance to take a feat you can also take Eldritch Adept, since with ranger enchantments you are allowed to. You can also take the Mobile feat if you think Blind Fighting is sufficent (if you are in the sphere of darkness your range of vision will remain only 10 feet and after eliminating the first enemy you will have to go blind to find the second... Although you can always help yourself with perception).
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Dread Ambusher
At 3rd level, you master the art of the ambush. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier.
At the start of your first turn of each combat, your walking speed increases by 10 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If that attack hits, the target takes an extra 1d8 damage of the weapon's damage type.
Umbral Sight
At 3rd level, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you already have darkvision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet.
You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness.
What you say makes sense, but a Perception checks generally consume a player's action. If they want to notice things without using their action, you'd use their Passive Perception and see what they can notice with that. It's up to the DM, however, and a lot of DMs allow players to make perception checks for free.
So we can infer that it is more useful to take the Mobile feat in case the shadow monk could not use his darkness to disengage safely. But, you must also remember that shadow step uses sight to be used. If the monk is enveloped by darkness it cannot use shadow step that would be a pity. So for me both feats are good possibilities.
Shadow Step
At 6th level, you gain the ability to step from one shadow into another. When you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that is also in dim light or darkness. You then have advantage on the first melee attack you make before the end of the turn.
I just found out that the Darkness spell can be deactivated if it is covered with something non-transparent (opaque). So the monk could cast darkness on an object he keeps uncovered when attacking and when he has to move simply disable the spell by covering its source and move. I don't know how much it takes to cover and uncover a small object, but I think it could be done as a free action (if you can convince a good tinker to build a mechanical object in the glove that with a finger movement allows them to operate an automatic cover) - hypothetically... it could work.
Darkness
Magical darkness spreads from a point you choose within range to fill a 15-foot-radius sphere for the duration. The darkness spreads around corners. A creature with darkvision can’t see through this darkness, and nonmagical light can’t illuminate it.
If the point you choose is on an object you are holding or one that isn’t being worn or carried, the darkness emanates from the object and moves with it. Completely covering the source of the darkness with an opaque object, such as a bowl or a helm, blocks the darkness.
If any of this spell’s area overlaps with an area of light created by a spell of 2nd level or lower, the spell that created the light is dispelled.
It’s definitely a “talk to your DM” situation. Although by the rules you know where someone is if they are not actively hiding but some DM’s, like mine, doesn’t handle darkness that way. If you are in magical darkness and cannot see and you want to move, he requires you to roll a d8 to determine which direction you move. So with that type of ruling you would definitely not know where the next enemy was.
The covering an object that has Darkness on it is a good idea but some DM’s might find that as “cheesy” and make it less useful (makes it an action to do or something) especially if it’s a common tactic.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Using darkness on something small and covering it to temporarily disable darkness at will is a good way to step around that issue. I might talk to my DM about having something on my person that can do that and also if it will cost my action to cover/uncover it.
Another thing about being shadow monk and low light/darkness is my race i was going to play was changeling because i thought it would be fun to be able to change my appearance at will almost instantly whenever i want. Big issue about that is it doesnt have darkvision. Which obviously means i cant see in the dark. Do you think this will be a major issue? Sure i can cast darkvision on myself for 8 hours but it also uses up 2 Ki points. 2/5 at this stage seems like a lot. As far as im aware there isnt a race similar to changeling that has darkvision.
These are all good options. From my point of view, the monk needs at most 3 levels of a class that follows his characteristics. (druid, ranger, cleric, thief, fighter). In this case I recommend ranger or cleric. This is also because they offer Hunter's Mark or Bless as spells. These spells offer good support to the monk who after 10th level it begins to lose in damage power. I do not recommend the warlock because you need at least 13 in charisma to enter the class and I do not recommend making the monk even more MAD. If case you can afford to have 13 in charisma (having rolled the characters with some luck) it is also fine since the warlock's spells are rechargeable with a short rest.
A1-level twilight cleric dip will give you the best darkvision in the game (but not the ability to see through magic darkness). Then you also have the spellcasting feature and can take the eldritch adept feat. You would start as a Cleric-1/Shadow Monk-4 with eldritch adept.
Another way to see through darkness, or part of it anyway is the blind fighting fighting style. You can pick that up either with a 1-level fighter dip or with the fighting initiate fighting style.
Darkness is great even without being able to see through because it cancels disadvantage as long as your enemies can't see through it. Blindness makes it so all attacks are straight up - enemies can't see you and you can't see them. This simultaneously applies advantage and disadvantage to all attacks which cancel each other and RAW also cancel all other cases of advantage and disadvantage. So if you are restrained or poisoned or fighting an invisible enemy for example you have disadvantage on attacks, and with restrained or invisible enemies, they have advantage attacking you. If you cast darkness over yourself it levels all those rolls for both you and your enemies. Now your enemies no longer see you so that gives you advantage on your attacks which cancels the restrained or poisioned disadvantage. Enemies no longer see you either so they have disadvantage on their attacks and this cancels the advantage they would get from restrained.
The Fighter is not the only one offering fighting style, the Ranger and Paladin also have fighting style. Ranger is the most ideal because it offers fighting style at low levels and spells such as hunter's mark and the ability to later access the eldritch adept feat. For darkvision, solve with Gloom Stalker - Umbral Sight. The twilight cleric is also a good choice.
I have always seen Darkness as misused as an offensive strategy piece. To me, it is more defensive or utility. Instead of dropping it on an enemy, drop it on a light source. Inside or in a dungeon, block the light source and shadowstep wherever you like. Put it in a doorway or cave entrance to slow pursuit. (Who runs straight into an inky black spehere?) Even at noon outside you could put a darkness globe above your head. Light does not pass through the spell area, so you would be in dark shade. According to source books, this is enough for "dim light".
Item idea that your DM could give you. Flametongue, but with a twist. Instead of a bright red fire that casts light, it has a black/purple fire that casts shadow. Basically looks like a flametongue and its effects have been inverted. Seems not too OP and would be fun. You could shadowstep from pretty much anywhere, provided you have a shadowy destination.
Yes, it will be a major issue. Shadow Monks in general need darkvision in order to make Shadow Step, their L6 feature, work properly. You can get around seeing in darkness most easily by taking a 1-dip in Fighter as your first level, which will get you:
However, 10' is a heck of a nerf to your Shadow Step range. You're much better off having racial darkvision. While no other race can dynamically change its appearance, Custom Lineage has any appearance you want that you decide on before the campaign begins, and it will let you have 60' Darkvision and start with an extra feat, which can go a long way - e.g. you could take Alert. Mechanically, the best shadow monk build I know of uses Fighter levels as a multiclass and uses half-elf as a race (to help fix how MAD monks are). As a general rule, Monks favor the MAD-fixing races: Half-Elf (any variant with +2/+1/+1), Mountain Dwarf, and Custom Lineage.
It requires 2 levels on a Ranger to get the fighting style vs 1 level on a fighter. A 2 level fighter dip will get you action surge (2nd 2nd wind). I think that is a lot better than a 2-level Ranger.
I would disagree that Ranger with HM is ideal. Monks have a bunch of bonus action options that are going to conflict with HM. At 5th level two attacks plus a martial arts attack will do quite a bit more damage than one attack with HM. Granted he gets the HM bonus on subsequent turns, but you have to move it a lot and you have to defend your concentration, which is going to be tough when you can not use your bonus for disengage or dodge. I do think it will be well behind a single class Monk at level 5. I think he will generally be behind a 4/1 fighter who has an ASI and 2 more ki per short rest and behind a 3/2 fighter with 1 more ki and action surge.
Gloomstalker is a great, but that is 3 levels and that point you are not really playing a Monk. Keep in mind we are talking about a 5th level "Shadow Monk" here - a Gloomstaker multiclass means the character is not a shadow Monk at all. It is a Ranger with a Monk dip.