Suggesting and Rating a multiclass for Monk i created and it goes like this:
3 levels in Monk for Way of the Astral Self subclass and you start focusing only on wisdom(you want to spend Ki points only for the summoning of the arms). 3 levels in Fighter(unarmed fighting style,Action surge) for Eldritch Knight subclass so you can pick up Mage Armor,Shield and sth like Absorb Elements or Silvery Barbs. the rest of the levels go to Druid and the best subclass is probably a homebrew in ******* the Forged subclass but probably other subclasses will work. you can take more monk levels for stunning strikes if you want.
Probably it's better to choose the spores subclass from druid so you can cast spells.Unarmored defense stacks with mage armor and shield with absorb elements bring tankiness.You can get extra attack if you want just spend more levels in monk.This build focuses on making the monk playble :D by ignoring Dex and focusing on wisdom.You pick some defensive spells from eldritch knight and the rest on druid for the subclass.
Unarmored defense stacks with mage armor and shield
Unarmored Defence: your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Wisdom modifier.
Mage Armor: The target's base AC becomes 13 + its Dexterity modifier.
Shield: Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC,
So while Shield is a bonus to you AC Mage armore and unarmored defence are two difference calculations so do not stack. Three levels of fighter is a lot to give for a couple of 1st level spells and action surge. If you are using your action surge for two attacks just get to 5th level in monk or fighter to get two attacks every round. If you want to cast a spells take 2 levels of fighter on a full caster.
I am stil unsure how you are planning on playing the character especially in combat so many of the features contradict. As mentioned mage armor doesn't work with unarmored defence. Unarmored fighting style allows you to make unarmed stricks with strength but you sre Wis focused so what is the purpose of that? ,
Ok since unarmored defense and mage armor dont stack probably getting fighter multiclass isnt worth to do.Just get 6 levels on monk with Way of the Astral Self and max your wisdom so you hit with it when Astral Arms are activated(they will always be up if you dont waste ki points elsewhere).Moon druid or Spores druid after.Maybe 1 or 2 levels in Cleric would help too.The point is to focus on less ability scores the problem of monks is that they need 3 ability scores to funtion.Wildshape druid fixes that.
Ability score improvements are not going to make a class known to be weak like the monk good delaying them is not the end of the world.Focusing only on wisdom and getting relevant features will.Campaigns that start level 7+ can use this pretty well.You will be activating the arms as a bonus action and wildshape as an action.Action surge and then attack.Arms last for 10 minutes and wildshape for an hour so it's enough for whole combat.Short rests bring ki points wildshape and action surge back.The rest is up to you.
Compared to your build in the OP straight Monk is God tier lol. Lets just do a level 12 comparison which is a end point for a lot of campaigns (if not earlier).
Your build: 1 ASI means you get 16 DEX and 18 WIS (because you want to focus of WIS) resulting in 17 AC, you get 10 ft extra movement, you get Action Surge which is the one great feature you get from your build but all that multiclassing results in a small pool of Ki (3 points) which will most likely not even be enough for 1 battle. Your wild shapes will also be fairly subpar because of the CR rating limit unless you went Moon Druid. Not to mention all those defensive spells from EK do not work while you are in wild shape.
Straight Monk: 3 ASIs means you are rocking 20 DEX and 18 WIS, you have 12 Ki points, 19 AC and 20 ft of extra movement. I won't even bother mentioning the other Monk features because I feel what I mentioned already surpasses your hot mess of a multiclass lol.
Ok since unarmored defense and mage armor dont stack probably getting fighter multiclass isnt worth to do.Just get 6 levels on monk with Way of the Astral Self and max your wisdom so you hit with it when Astral Arms are activated(they will always be up if you dont waste ki points elsewhere).Moon druid or Spores druid after.Maybe 1 or 2 levels in Cleric would help too.The point is to focus on less ability scores the problem of monks is that they need 3 ability scores to funtion.Wildshape druid fixes that.
You do realize that Astral Self monks are the best at using Stunning Strike reliably, right? 10ft reach unarmed strikes that use wisdom are the main (if not the only) reasons to choose the subclass, making Stunning Strike more likely to land, so you will be using ki points more often (at least 1 attempt per turn). Ironically, the MADness of monks is not much of a problem for Astral Self, since you are mainly focusing on Wisdom first, Dex is not a priority, you only need it until you activate your arms (which is the first thing you do with Astral Self), and so, you can increase Con after Wisdom.
What exactly is your goal with Druid? Damage (Spores), Tankiness (Moon), or just Exploration + Utility (any druid)? Spores is the best for damage increase, but poison is heavily resisted unfortunately; necrotic not so much, but the damage is too low for a once per turn feature, getting Sentinel might yield more damage than Halo of Spores. Moon is a tank, but if you are using your Astral Arms for attacks, then what's the point in going Moon? Heck, I'd argue that a Swarmkeeper Ranger has more sinergy with an Astral Self monk, since the gathered swarm gives you more options for your attacks, and all of its features benefit from a high Wis.
Ability score improvements are not going to make a class known to be weak like the monk good delaying them is not the end of the world.Focusing only on wisdom and getting relevant features will.Campaigns that start level 7+ can use this pretty well.You will be activating the arms as a bonus action and wildshape as an action.Action surge and then attack.Arms last for 10 minutes and wildshape for an hour so it's enough for whole combat.Short rests bring ki points wildshape and action surge back.The rest is up to you.
What are you wild shaping into? As other have said any official druid subclass other than moon doesn't use wild shape in combat because it is useless. You initially mentioned a homebrew subclass (I admit I don't know the details of that) a spores druid dosn't wild shape in combat it used symbiotic entity so I will assume you have taken moon druid.
Most of the usual CR1 wildshapes for a moon druid have natural armor which diesn'r stack with unarmored defence. For example a Brown bear has +0 to Dex but an AC or 11 due to natural armor, assuming your DM agrees that your wildshape for can use unarmored defence you therefore have the option of that AC of 11 or you unarmored defence of 10 + (the bear's) dex + (your) Wis. If your Wis is +3 that will be 13.
Asuming you win initiative you use your action to wild shape bonus action to produce the arms and then attack, what attack are you using, the bears multi attack or something else? Whatever you choose I can not the the damage getting close to that of a evel 10 single class monk expecially if they use flurry of blows to equalise the ki use (and they have a LOT more ki). You didn't say anything about taking advantage of reach or say whether you would try to retreat after the attack so I will assume either you hoose not to or don't have the movement to do so.
What heppens next by the time you get to around level 7 or 8 you will be facing things like fire giants, or T-Rexs by level 9 they will have some mobs. A Fire Giant has two attacks each diing an average of 28 damage. With +11 to hit it will hit you 90% of the time (you can't cast shield in wildshape) if it rolls slightly higher than average damage you will be out of wildshape after the first attack, if it ttacks you twice you are almost certain to be out of wild shape. On round two do you go back into wildshape (if so what do you do after that until you have a chance for a short rest).
The monk is the weakest class but this multiclass is investing a levels to get things which it can't use so you are left with a level 3 monk ith a few extra hit points in a level 9 party.
I should really have voted in this. The monk is D tier this certainly no higher than F.
Ability score improvements are not going to make a class known to be weak like the monk good delaying them is not the end of the world.Focusing only on wisdom and getting relevant features will.Campaigns that start level 7+ can use this pretty well.You will be activating the arms as a bonus action and wildshape as an action.Action surge and then attack.Arms last for 10 minutes and wildshape for an hour so it's enough for whole combat.Short rests bring ki points wildshape and action surge back.The rest is up to you.
The fact that you have 1 attack a turn on what is primarily a non-caster is going to make this class very weak at 5th level and above.
Wildshape is rarely going to last 2 rounds if you are using it on a character with 6 levels sunk in other classes. It will never last a whole combat against anything meaningful. Also you are 7th level and your Wildshape attacks are not magic, where your Monk attacks would be if single class at this level.
If you want to Wildshape you are better off just playing a Druid. If you want to melee you are better off just playing a Monk.
Also 3 levels of fighter is a huge investment for spell casting. A single Wizard level or a human with the Magic initiate feat would be more effective.
A couple good Monk ideas:
1. 2 levels of Death Cleric (start as Cleric). Do this either with Shadow Monk or Long Death Monk. This gives you really effective cantrips (Twin Toll the dead and Twin Chill Touch) for Ranged attacks and they stay viable the whole game. It also gives you martial weapon proficiency so you can use 1d10 weapons and other magic martial weapons you find. Max wisdom first on this build
2. 1 level of Shadow Sorcerer (start as Sorcerer) then Long Death. Go with minimum Charisma to allow the Multiclass. This gives you Absorb Elements, Shield, 4 utility cantrips. The Strength of the Grave provides some resilience lacking in the class early until the Long Death feature takes over (and saves a Ki even after it does). This does not do a ton of damage but the character is very hard to kill.
3. Play a Dhampir - Your Dampir bite counts as a Monk Weapon and has a bunch of cool uses and that makes it scale with your martial arts die. Add the 2 proficiencies, extra movement and walking on ceilings and this makes for an awesome Monk. Several good options here for subclass. Shadow and Long Death are again most thematic, but Mercy and Dragon are effective too.
The biggest thing when playing a Monk is smart use of FOB (by smart almost never) and smart use of Stunning Strike (only when it makes sense). Your most powerful and reliable use of ki is Patient Defense. Most of the mistakes of Monk players come from spamming ki on FOB or stunning strike, when they should be using it on patient defense or another Monk subclass ability.
The biggest thing when playing a Monk is smart use of FOB (by smart almost never) and smart use of Stunning Strike (only when it makes sense). Your most powerful and reliable use of ki is Patient Defense. Most of the mistakes of Monk players come from spamming ki on FOB or stunning strike, when they should be using it on patient defense or another Monk subclass ability.
The alternative to patient defence is step of the wind, the problem wth both of them however is ki limits how often you can do it and that is reduces your DPR significantly (using it instead of flurry of blows reduces your attacks from 3 to 1 before level 5 and 4 to 2 after). Astral self of course means you don't need to disengage often.
Unless going astral self as an alternative to Damphir , Bugbear makes a really good choice of race, long limbed allows you to attack and retreat without disengaging as long as the enemy doesn't have. reach. I played a goblin open hand monk mainly so I didn't need to use ki to attack and disengage it was far from the most powerful build but it was viable and fun, this was before MotM was released, if the new bugbear was available I would probably have taken that.
The alternative to patient defence is step of the wind, the problem wth both of them however is ki limits how often you can do it and that is reduces your DPR significantly (using it instead of flurry of blows reduces your attacks from 3 to 1 before level 5 and 4 to 2 after). Astral self of course means you don't need to disengage often
Yes but the cost/benefit is not great. It does reduce DPR, but your unarmed strikes are low damage anyway until high level. IMO, if you are not going to use PD you should usually not be using FOB either that turn, you should just attack. At very high levels when you can pretty much use ki at wll this is not the case.
Using PD (or SOW) eliminates your bonus action attack, but it is not every turn that you use it. When you are not using those you should be making a single unarmed strike instead fo using FOB. By doing this, considering the chance to hit, you are losing about 5-6 damage on average on that turn as compared to using FOB, but you are also not burning any ki. That means having ki at the start of the next fight to use on PD when surrounded by 4 enemies with multiattack.
Unless going astral self as an alternative to Damphir , Bugbear makes a really good choice of race, long limbed allows you to attack and retreat without disengaging as long as the enemy doesn't have. reach. I played a goblin open hand monk mainly so I didn't need to use ki to attack and disengage it was far from the most powerful build but it was viable and fun, this was before MotM was released, if the new bugbear was available I would probably have taken that.
Both good ideas. Bugbear would be really good and what I said above about FOB probably does not apply in the first round when you are doing an extra 2d6 on that attack on top of the attack and doing it from outside threat range.
The Mobile feat eliminates the need for Patient Defense and Step of the Wind, as this basically gets you free disengage against up to 4 targets at level 5+ (how often are you surrounded by more than 4 enemies? And in those instances, you still have PD or SotW as an option). Coupled with the Monk's crazy high speed (+10 from Mobile), you should always be able to hit and run.
I do not like the mobile feat on a Monk. For one thing I disagree that it eliminates the need for PD or SOW.
Enemies do not have disadvantage attacking you because of mobile, they do have disadvantage when you use PD, so it does not replace that at all. It only replaces SOW when there are few enemies you need to evade, because you have to attack them for it to work. In general people overvalue AOOs. IMO it is not worth it to use an ASI on something that will eliminate one or two AOOs a turn ... or I guess up to 4 if you burn a ki and use FOB, but you could eliminate an infinite amount of AOOs by burning a ki anyway, and now you are splitting up your attacks just so enemies don't get AOOs on you. Taking an AOO is not the end of the world, I think it is better just to take it than to burn the feat and if there are a lot of enemies that are going to get AOOs it is better to use SOW
In general the martials in the party (and that includes Monks) are generally getting attacked by a lot of foes early in battle (or by the BBEG if it is a boss type). I could see this strategy working if you are playing a striker type character, but a Monk really doesn't do very well in that role. A Rogue is a lot better at that and other martials are generally going to be better as well. You have the speed, but so do Rogues, and typically if you run away from the enemy they are going to attack your squishy characters.
Suggesting and Rating a multiclass for Monk i created and it goes like this:
3 levels in Monk for Way of the Astral Self subclass and you start focusing only on wisdom(you want to spend Ki points only for the summoning of the arms).
3 levels in Fighter(unarmed fighting style,Action surge) for Eldritch Knight subclass so you can pick up Mage Armor,Shield and sth like Absorb Elements or Silvery Barbs.
the rest of the levels go to Druid and the best subclass is probably a homebrew in ******* the Forged subclass but probably other subclasses will work.
you can take more monk levels for stunning strikes if you want.
Probably it's better to choose the spores subclass from druid so you can cast spells.Unarmored defense stacks with mage armor and shield with absorb elements bring tankiness.You can get extra attack if you want just spend more levels in monk.This build focuses on making the monk playble :D by ignoring Dex and focusing on wisdom.You pick some defensive spells from eldritch knight and the rest on druid for the subclass.
So while Shield is a bonus to you AC Mage armore and unarmored defence are two difference calculations so do not stack. Three levels of fighter is a lot to give for a couple of 1st level spells and action surge. If you are using your action surge for two attacks just get to 5th level in monk or fighter to get two attacks every round. If you want to cast a spells take 2 levels of fighter on a full caster.
I am stil unsure how you are planning on playing the character especially in combat so many of the features contradict. As mentioned mage armor doesn't work with unarmored defence. Unarmored fighting style allows you to make unarmed stricks with strength but you sre Wis focused so what is the purpose of that? ,
Let me fix it up for you. Go straight Monk without multiclassing and viola you have a very playable Monk.
Ok since unarmored defense and mage armor dont stack probably getting fighter multiclass isnt worth to do.Just get 6 levels on monk with Way of the Astral Self and max your wisdom so you hit with it when Astral Arms are activated(they will always be up if you dont waste ki points elsewhere).Moon druid or Spores druid after.Maybe 1 or 2 levels in Cleric would help too.The point is to focus on less ability scores the problem of monks is that they need 3 ability scores to funtion.Wildshape druid fixes that.
Straight Monk is giga garbage
Ability score improvements are not going to make a class known to be weak like the monk good delaying them is not the end of the world.Focusing only on wisdom and getting relevant features will.Campaigns that start level 7+ can use this pretty well.You will be activating the arms as a bonus action and wildshape as an action.Action surge and then attack.Arms last for 10 minutes and wildshape for an hour so it's enough for whole combat.Short rests bring ki points wildshape and action surge back.The rest is up to you.
Compared to your build in the OP straight Monk is God tier lol. Lets just do a level 12 comparison which is a end point for a lot of campaigns (if not earlier).
Your build: 1 ASI means you get 16 DEX and 18 WIS (because you want to focus of WIS) resulting in 17 AC, you get 10 ft extra movement, you get Action Surge which is the one great feature you get from your build but all that multiclassing results in a small pool of Ki (3 points) which will most likely not even be enough for 1 battle. Your wild shapes will also be fairly subpar because of the CR rating limit unless you went Moon Druid. Not to mention all those defensive spells from EK do not work while you are in wild shape.
Straight Monk: 3 ASIs means you are rocking 20 DEX and 18 WIS, you have 12 Ki points, 19 AC and 20 ft of extra movement. I won't even bother mentioning the other Monk features because I feel what I mentioned already surpasses your hot mess of a multiclass lol.
You do realize that Astral Self monks are the best at using Stunning Strike reliably, right? 10ft reach unarmed strikes that use wisdom are the main (if not the only) reasons to choose the subclass, making Stunning Strike more likely to land, so you will be using ki points more often (at least 1 attempt per turn). Ironically, the MADness of monks is not much of a problem for Astral Self, since you are mainly focusing on Wisdom first, Dex is not a priority, you only need it until you activate your arms (which is the first thing you do with Astral Self), and so, you can increase Con after Wisdom.
What exactly is your goal with Druid? Damage (Spores), Tankiness (Moon), or just Exploration + Utility (any druid)? Spores is the best for damage increase, but poison is heavily resisted unfortunately; necrotic not so much, but the damage is too low for a once per turn feature, getting Sentinel might yield more damage than Halo of Spores. Moon is a tank, but if you are using your Astral Arms for attacks, then what's the point in going Moon? Heck, I'd argue that a Swarmkeeper Ranger has more sinergy with an Astral Self monk, since the gathered swarm gives you more options for your attacks, and all of its features benefit from a high Wis.
What are you wild shaping into? As other have said any official druid subclass other than moon doesn't use wild shape in combat because it is useless. You initially mentioned a homebrew subclass (I admit I don't know the details of that) a spores druid dosn't wild shape in combat it used symbiotic entity so I will assume you have taken moon druid.
Most of the usual CR1 wildshapes for a moon druid have natural armor which diesn'r stack with unarmored defence. For example a Brown bear has +0 to Dex but an AC or 11 due to natural armor, assuming your DM agrees that your wildshape for can use unarmored defence you therefore have the option of that AC of 11 or you unarmored defence of 10 + (the bear's) dex + (your) Wis. If your Wis is +3 that will be 13.
Asuming you win initiative you use your action to wild shape bonus action to produce the arms and then attack, what attack are you using, the bears multi attack or something else? Whatever you choose I can not the the damage getting close to that of a evel 10 single class monk expecially if they use flurry of blows to equalise the ki use (and they have a LOT more ki). You didn't say anything about taking advantage of reach or say whether you would try to retreat after the attack so I will assume either you hoose not to or don't have the movement to do so.
What heppens next by the time you get to around level 7 or 8 you will be facing things like fire giants, or T-Rexs by level 9 they will have some mobs. A Fire Giant has two attacks each diing an average of 28 damage. With +11 to hit it will hit you 90% of the time (you can't cast shield in wildshape) if it rolls slightly higher than average damage you will be out of wildshape after the first attack, if it ttacks you twice you are almost certain to be out of wild shape. On round two do you go back into wildshape (if so what do you do after that until you have a chance for a short rest).
The monk is the weakest class but this multiclass is investing a levels to get things which it can't use so you are left with a level 3 monk ith a few extra hit points in a level 9 party.
I should really have voted in this. The monk is D tier this certainly no higher than F.
Well seems like my idea wasn't good then.So do you have any suggestions for a monk multiclass?
One of the issues with the monk is it doesn't multiclass well but if you want to play a mon multiclass you could try something like this Monk Tank
The fact that you have 1 attack a turn on what is primarily a non-caster is going to make this class very weak at 5th level and above.
Wildshape is rarely going to last 2 rounds if you are using it on a character with 6 levels sunk in other classes. It will never last a whole combat against anything meaningful. Also you are 7th level and your Wildshape attacks are not magic, where your Monk attacks would be if single class at this level.
If you want to Wildshape you are better off just playing a Druid. If you want to melee you are better off just playing a Monk.
Also 3 levels of fighter is a huge investment for spell casting. A single Wizard level or a human with the Magic initiate feat would be more effective.
A couple good Monk ideas:
1. 2 levels of Death Cleric (start as Cleric). Do this either with Shadow Monk or Long Death Monk. This gives you really effective cantrips (Twin Toll the dead and Twin Chill Touch) for Ranged attacks and they stay viable the whole game. It also gives you martial weapon proficiency so you can use 1d10 weapons and other magic martial weapons you find. Max wisdom first on this build
2. 1 level of Shadow Sorcerer (start as Sorcerer) then Long Death. Go with minimum Charisma to allow the Multiclass. This gives you Absorb Elements, Shield, 4 utility cantrips. The Strength of the Grave provides some resilience lacking in the class early until the Long Death feature takes over (and saves a Ki even after it does). This does not do a ton of damage but the character is very hard to kill.
3. Play a Dhampir - Your Dampir bite counts as a Monk Weapon and has a bunch of cool uses and that makes it scale with your martial arts die. Add the 2 proficiencies, extra movement and walking on ceilings and this makes for an awesome Monk. Several good options here for subclass. Shadow and Long Death are again most thematic, but Mercy and Dragon are effective too.
The biggest thing when playing a Monk is smart use of FOB (by smart almost never) and smart use of Stunning Strike (only when it makes sense). Your most powerful and reliable use of ki is Patient Defense. Most of the mistakes of Monk players come from spamming ki on FOB or stunning strike, when they should be using it on patient defense or another Monk subclass ability.
The alternative to patient defence is step of the wind, the problem wth both of them however is ki limits how often you can do it and that is reduces your DPR significantly (using it instead of flurry of blows reduces your attacks from 3 to 1 before level 5 and 4 to 2 after). Astral self of course means you don't need to disengage often.
Unless going astral self as an alternative to Damphir , Bugbear makes a really good choice of race, long limbed allows you to attack and retreat without disengaging as long as the enemy doesn't have. reach. I played a goblin open hand monk mainly so I didn't need to use ki to attack and disengage it was far from the most powerful build but it was viable and fun, this was before MotM was released, if the new bugbear was available I would probably have taken that.
Yes but the cost/benefit is not great. It does reduce DPR, but your unarmed strikes are low damage anyway until high level. IMO, if you are not going to use PD you should usually not be using FOB either that turn, you should just attack. At very high levels when you can pretty much use ki at wll this is not the case.
Using PD (or SOW) eliminates your bonus action attack, but it is not every turn that you use it. When you are not using those you should be making a single unarmed strike instead fo using FOB. By doing this, considering the chance to hit, you are losing about 5-6 damage on average on that turn as compared to using FOB, but you are also not burning any ki. That means having ki at the start of the next fight to use on PD when surrounded by 4 enemies with multiattack.
Both good ideas. Bugbear would be really good and what I said above about FOB probably does not apply in the first round when you are doing an extra 2d6 on that attack on top of the attack and doing it from outside threat range.
I do not like the mobile feat on a Monk. For one thing I disagree that it eliminates the need for PD or SOW.
Enemies do not have disadvantage attacking you because of mobile, they do have disadvantage when you use PD, so it does not replace that at all. It only replaces SOW when there are few enemies you need to evade, because you have to attack them for it to work. In general people overvalue AOOs. IMO it is not worth it to use an ASI on something that will eliminate one or two AOOs a turn ... or I guess up to 4 if you burn a ki and use FOB, but you could eliminate an infinite amount of AOOs by burning a ki anyway, and now you are splitting up your attacks just so enemies don't get AOOs on you. Taking an AOO is not the end of the world, I think it is better just to take it than to burn the feat and if there are a lot of enemies that are going to get AOOs it is better to use SOW
In general the martials in the party (and that includes Monks) are generally getting attacked by a lot of foes early in battle (or by the BBEG if it is a boss type). I could see this strategy working if you are playing a striker type character, but a Monk really doesn't do very well in that role. A Rogue is a lot better at that and other martials are generally going to be better as well. You have the speed, but so do Rogues, and typically if you run away from the enemy they are going to attack your squishy characters.