We just had our session zero for an upcoming RotFM campaign and I want to pay a Monk.
However, other than a Beastmaster Ranger's pet (from Tasha's) my character will be the only frontliner. I could choose another class, but I've been wanting to give a monk a real try for quite awhile.
Triton is a race I always wanted to try as well and their Darkvision / Cold Resistance seems like a perfect fit for this campaign so my race is chosen.
How would you suggest building a Triton Monk as a frontline defender of the party? Way of the Open Hand seems like a good choice and Sentinel seems.like an ideal feat, but what other options are there?
1) The Crusher feat is good for freely moving baddies around the battlefield with every hit, so it may be worth picking up
2) Taking a dip in Fighter might not be bad. This would let you get the Unarmed Fighting fighting style, which could boost your damage of your unarmed strikes early on. Your martial arts die isnt going to progress higher than a d8 within the levels for RotFM anyway. It would also get you Second Wind for an added heal option. It would also get you extra weapon proficiencies, giving more options for the Dedicated Weapon feature from Tasha's, like a Whip for extra reach. This dip would cost you one of your ASIs, though, so keep that in mind if you need to up your scores.
3) If your goal is to move enemies around the battlefield, Way of the Open Hand is a good choice. If your goal is to stop creatures from moving past you, then I might recommend Way of the Long Death monk from Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. At 6th level, this one can freely use its action to pump a fear effect. If you are standing between an enemy and an ally, once the enemy is frightened of you it cannot move closer. Even if it does get past you, as long as it can see you it will have disadvantage on its attack rolls. The Way of the Long Death Monk is also extra tanky, as it can gain temp HP and stop itself from dropping to 0 HP so long as it has ki points.
One additional issue is that there is no rogue in our party. I can address that through a background choice, but I was thinking of starting level 1 as a Rogue and then going Monk from there. Opens a lot of proficiencies for the character. I thought maybe the 1d6 sneak attack could come up on occasion (as long as the Battlemaster's pet is engaged anyway). It might also serve as an alternative. If the Monk isn't cutting it for the party I could try to go Swashbuckler to add some options (though I'd prefer to stick with Monk).
Would a 1 level Rogue dip be worth it?
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Gideon Hawke Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
The Long Death might be an option, I need to check it out.
As for the fighting style, the DM gave me the option to take the Trident as a proficiency because of the Triton. I love the flavor of that even though it's basically a spear mechanically, though DEX based thanks to dedicated.weapon. With that as a option I don't think I need the Fighting style, though I had originally considered it for this character.
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Gideon Hawke Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
A 1 level Rogue dip probably will not help you character, unfortunately. To use sneak attack, you need to use a weapon with the finesse property (or a ranged weapon). Even though your Unarmed Strikes and Trident (as a dedicated weapon) can use DEX, that does not grant them the finesse property, so they are ineligible for sneak attack.
If you are going to use a Trident, then you probably do not need to take Crusher, since that is based on bludgeoning damage, but it could still be nice for your unarmed attacks.
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If you want to be a front liner the first thing is to use patient defense and don't use flurry of blows.
A few options:
1. Second Chance feat: Play a halfling and start with a 17 dexterity, take second chance at 4th level. This lets you force an enemy to reroll one hit per fight
2. Gift of the gem dragon - Second Chance is better, but if you are not playing a halfling this would be my go-to feat for a front line Monk. Start with a 17 Wisdom so you boost it to 18.
3. A 1-leve Sorcerer dip for shield and absorb elements twice a day. Shadow is good because this also gives you strength of the grave and you can play a human and this gives you darkvision. If you do shadow sorcerer start as sorc for the charisma save proficiency (for strength of the grave). Clockwork is another option that gives you protection from evil and good in addition to shield and absorb elements. A 3-level dip can get you blur twice a day and more shields. Finally you can use booming blade and step of the wind to land more damage in tier 1.
4. A 1-level light Cleric dip. Reaction to pose disadvantage. Combine it with shield of faith for an AC boost for 2 fights a day. This is an easy multiclass because your Wisdom is high.
5. 2-level wizard dip - start with a 13 intelligence and take 2 levels in Wizard, getting shield, absorb elements and protection from good and evil. For subclass if you can buy magic items go bladesinger and pick up a headband of intellect. If you can't buy magic go war wizard for the reaction to boost AC by 2 when you run out of shields.
6. Hexblade 1-level dip - shield spell once per short rest.
7. 3-level Eldritch Knight dip, getting you shield, absorb elements, protection from evil and good, action surge and second wind. I think the full caster are actually better because they will have more spell slots on a 3-level dip and the same number on only 1-level
If you do one of these classes and one of these feats and don't waste Ki on FOB you will be pretty survivable. You won't be as durable as a sword and board EK or a bladesinger that has a screaming high AC and enough slots to spam shields at will. However, combined you will have a lot of uses of these abilities enough between the feat, patient defense and the spells you will avoid a lot of hits over the course of the day.
Consider this: You don't actually need a frontliner if the whole party has ways to take care of positioning and defense. "Tanking" is not actually a viable thing in 5E, at least not the way people think of it. A highly armored melee combatant doesn't actually have very many viable ways to stop enemies from reaching the casters. But casters have a great many ways to lock down and stop melee enemies in their tracks.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
A monk who uses their Ki points to Dodge or Disengage as a bonus action every round is pretty hard to hit. You’ll burn through your Ki points in no time if you do that though!
A monk who uses their Ki points to Dodge or Disengage as a bonus action every round is pretty hard to hit. You’ll burn through your Ki points in no time if you do that though!
Not really.
Two fights per short rest means about 6 turns per short rest. At 6th level that means you can on average do this every single turn (as long as you don't use ki for other things), at 12th level you should be able to do this and use a ki for something else just about every turn. The problem with the ki shortage is the Monks that go Nova with Ki - burning 5 on a single turn (FOB, 4 stunning strikes), then complaining they don't have enough ki. Not saying that is a bad strategy, sometimes it is the right play but I have seen monks use stunning strike every single hit until it lands when they really don't need to.
There are a lot of assumptions that go into that - length of fights and number of fights between rests but I think those numbers are on the conservative side and I actually think it is usually better than this. Most Monks I play with go into short rests with ki still left though unless there was a boss they went crazy on.
We just had our session zero for an upcoming RotFM campaign and I want to pay a Monk.
However, other than a Beastmaster Ranger's pet (from Tasha's) my character will be the only frontliner. I could choose another class, but I've been wanting to give a monk a real try for quite awhile.
Triton is a race I always wanted to try as well and their Darkvision / Cold Resistance seems like a perfect fit for this campaign so my race is chosen.
How would you suggest building a Triton Monk as a frontline defender of the party? Way of the Open Hand seems like a good choice and Sentinel seems.like an ideal feat, but what other options are there?
TYA.
Gideon Hawke
Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
1) The Crusher feat is good for freely moving baddies around the battlefield with every hit, so it may be worth picking up
2) Taking a dip in Fighter might not be bad. This would let you get the Unarmed Fighting fighting style, which could boost your damage of your unarmed strikes early on. Your martial arts die isnt going to progress higher than a d8 within the levels for RotFM anyway. It would also get you Second Wind for an added heal option. It would also get you extra weapon proficiencies, giving more options for the Dedicated Weapon feature from Tasha's, like a Whip for extra reach. This dip would cost you one of your ASIs, though, so keep that in mind if you need to up your scores.
3) If your goal is to move enemies around the battlefield, Way of the Open Hand is a good choice. If your goal is to stop creatures from moving past you, then I might recommend Way of the Long Death monk from Sword Coast Adventurers Guide. At 6th level, this one can freely use its action to pump a fear effect. If you are standing between an enemy and an ally, once the enemy is frightened of you it cannot move closer. Even if it does get past you, as long as it can see you it will have disadvantage on its attack rolls. The Way of the Long Death Monk is also extra tanky, as it can gain temp HP and stop itself from dropping to 0 HP so long as it has ki points.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
One additional issue is that there is no rogue in our party. I can address that through a background choice, but I was thinking of starting level 1 as a Rogue and then going Monk from there. Opens a lot of proficiencies for the character. I thought maybe the 1d6 sneak attack could come up on occasion (as long as the Battlemaster's pet is engaged anyway). It might also serve as an alternative. If the Monk isn't cutting it for the party I could try to go Swashbuckler to add some options (though I'd prefer to stick with Monk).
Would a 1 level Rogue dip be worth it?
Gideon Hawke
Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
The Long Death might be an option, I need to check it out.
As for the fighting style, the DM gave me the option to take the Trident as a proficiency because of the Triton. I love the flavor of that even though it's basically a spear mechanically, though DEX based thanks to dedicated.weapon. With that as a option I don't think I need the Fighting style, though I had originally considered it for this character.
Gideon Hawke
Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
A 1 level Rogue dip probably will not help you character, unfortunately. To use sneak attack, you need to use a weapon with the finesse property (or a ranged weapon). Even though your Unarmed Strikes and Trident (as a dedicated weapon) can use DEX, that does not grant them the finesse property, so they are ineligible for sneak attack.
If you are going to use a Trident, then you probably do not need to take Crusher, since that is based on bludgeoning damage, but it could still be nice for your unarmed attacks.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
If you want to be a front liner the first thing is to use patient defense and don't use flurry of blows.
A few options:
1. Second Chance feat: Play a halfling and start with a 17 dexterity, take second chance at 4th level. This lets you force an enemy to reroll one hit per fight
2. Gift of the gem dragon - Second Chance is better, but if you are not playing a halfling this would be my go-to feat for a front line Monk. Start with a 17 Wisdom so you boost it to 18.
3. A 1-leve Sorcerer dip for shield and absorb elements twice a day. Shadow is good because this also gives you strength of the grave and you can play a human and this gives you darkvision. If you do shadow sorcerer start as sorc for the charisma save proficiency (for strength of the grave). Clockwork is another option that gives you protection from evil and good in addition to shield and absorb elements. A 3-level dip can get you blur twice a day and more shields. Finally you can use booming blade and step of the wind to land more damage in tier 1.
4. A 1-level light Cleric dip. Reaction to pose disadvantage. Combine it with shield of faith for an AC boost for 2 fights a day. This is an easy multiclass because your Wisdom is high.
5. 2-level wizard dip - start with a 13 intelligence and take 2 levels in Wizard, getting shield, absorb elements and protection from good and evil. For subclass if you can buy magic items go bladesinger and pick up a headband of intellect. If you can't buy magic go war wizard for the reaction to boost AC by 2 when you run out of shields.
6. Hexblade 1-level dip - shield spell once per short rest.
7. 3-level Eldritch Knight dip, getting you shield, absorb elements, protection from evil and good, action surge and second wind. I think the full caster are actually better because they will have more spell slots on a 3-level dip and the same number on only 1-level
If you do one of these classes and one of these feats and don't waste Ki on FOB you will be pretty survivable. You won't be as durable as a sword and board EK or a bladesinger that has a screaming high AC and enough slots to spam shields at will. However, combined you will have a lot of uses of these abilities enough between the feat, patient defense and the spells you will avoid a lot of hits over the course of the day.
Consider this: You don't actually need a frontliner if the whole party has ways to take care of positioning and defense. "Tanking" is not actually a viable thing in 5E, at least not the way people think of it. A highly armored melee combatant doesn't actually have very many viable ways to stop enemies from reaching the casters. But casters have a great many ways to lock down and stop melee enemies in their tracks.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
A monk who uses their Ki points to Dodge or Disengage as a bonus action every round is pretty hard to hit. You’ll burn through your Ki points in no time if you do that though!
Professional computer geek
Not really.
Two fights per short rest means about 6 turns per short rest. At 6th level that means you can on average do this every single turn (as long as you don't use ki for other things), at 12th level you should be able to do this and use a ki for something else just about every turn. The problem with the ki shortage is the Monks that go Nova with Ki - burning 5 on a single turn (FOB, 4 stunning strikes), then complaining they don't have enough ki. Not saying that is a bad strategy, sometimes it is the right play but I have seen monks use stunning strike every single hit until it lands when they really don't need to.
There are a lot of assumptions that go into that - length of fights and number of fights between rests but I think those numbers are on the conservative side and I actually think it is usually better than this. Most Monks I play with go into short rests with ki still left though unless there was a boss they went crazy on.