Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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The feedback on this has been great. Now at level 9 with my Mercy Monk, I am glad I took Alert over Tavern Brawler. Grappler at level 4 has given me exactly what I want. I'm sure I could get cute with the push effect, but punch-grapple attack feels plenty rewarding. So I'd rather be able to do that and get the jump on combat with the initiative boost from Alert.
And yeah, Mercy Monk's ability to auto-poison any enemy not immune makes its grapple much less risky to itself. The poison effect also makes it hard for enemy to get out of the grapple. The combo allows me a good shot at semi-locking a tough enemy close to the jump, without/in-addition to Stunning Strike. The main barrier is often just landing the grapple in the first place, since the enemy can choose STR or DEX save, which makes total sense. Sometimes it's worth it when I fail the once-per-turn punch-grapple, to just use my next attack to try grappling again since the benefits to me and the team are that great.
So yeah, I would say Tavern Brawler in my experience is not missed on a Monk that wants to do other things, though I've never tried it, so it's probably fun too. Again, since Monk already gets 2 of the 4 TB features, I'd want to explore with my DM getting some other minor benefit from TB: re-rolling 2s in addition to 1s or +1 to Grapple DC or something.
Grappler is a good feat
Alert doesn't give you any significant jump on enemy, early on. At least not in 2024. You only get to add your proficiency bonus, so you have to wait until 13th level just to gain +5 to your initiative, which is given immediately in 2014's edition.
Tavern Brawler was a missed opportunity. Having played the Monk with TB I can firmly state it is a must have for damage.
The more useful part about the 5.5e Alert feat is the ability to swap Initiative rolls with an ally, so you have more control over where you (or they) go in the order. Between that and adding your Proficiency Bonus there's usually a pretty good chance you'll get to go approximately when you want.
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My favorite feat for Monks is Polearm Master. Reactive Strike can be used with a quarterstaff, which is a Monk weapon, so when an enemy comes in close range, you can bonk them before they can do anything, then use Stunning Strike, and completely deny their turn.
Indeed, sadly you will tend to face more robust enemies that have a higher constitution and save against the effect, but it is an extra attack, which means extra damage regardless.
Hmmm. Polearm Master on a Monk. I’m sure it’s fun. I didn’t take it because the Monk’s bonus action is already always so full, with Flurry of Blows mainly. And their Reactions are precious for Deflect Attacks. Have been enjoying both very much.
As for the 1s re-roll, I can see how it feels impactful when it happens, even though folks point out the avg dmg boost is about 1 I think? Maybe that 5 instead of a 1 would have finished off some enemies, but getting a +3 to Initiative for much of the early game can be enough to give e you a whole turn ahead of an enemy. Then yeah plus the switching ability is pretty nice.
On a d6, the re-roll yields an average of +0.416 damage/attack. On a d12, it would be +0.458.
The real benefit of Alert is the ability to manage Initiative. At low levels, the order of combat usually doesn't matter all that much. Everyone is just doing some variant of damage and while going first is nice, it isn't a big deal. As you move up in levels, enemies often have abilities that can absolutely devastate certain characters in the party and your party members often have abilities that can completely reshape the environment to ensure that doesn't happen.
Ultimately, this tends to mean you have high Dex characters with Alert who pass that great Initiative roll to your relatively low Dex pure casters so they can go first and drop those critical environmental effects.
Well put.
A Monk though does have some debuff & control options at early levels that can help shut down at least one enemy, sometimes more, depending on your build.
Level 4: Grappler feat, Level 5: Stunning Strike, Level 6 (Mercy): Hand of Hard auto-poison. Having played this, I can attest to how impactful that can be.
ive been playing for like a year so im not that experienced but correct me if i'm wrong
the sailor background is generally considered the best monk background but in the last campaign i did i saw that wayfarer gives the same +dex + wis ability scores and lucky just seems better than tavern brawler mostly because enhanced unarmed strike doesnt do much bc of martial arts and the push is also given by my open hand subclass (i guess it only applies to flurry of blows but then again i probably wouldnt use that option much anyways because my ac is so high)
I don't own anything with Wayfarer, so I can't comment on that. Lucky has nothing to do with damage, although it could help with winning initiative and attack rolls But at lower level you will expend those point pretty fast and then they are gone until you can get in a long rest. I prefer re-rolling ones after every attack. In a separate character I also chose Savage Attacker, which was good too, since I could re-roll 1's and 2's every turn. The only draw back with Lucky is, you can't use it after the fact. If it said you could spend those points to re-roll with advantage, that would be better. Otherwise you risk spending points on an advantage roll you would have succeed anyway.
I still think Tough is a good origin feat for monks.
Is it the best? Shrug. No such thing. Even if you're looking for a feat that supports what you do in combat, monks are one of the most flexible classes in that regard.
And, ultimately, one is generally better off picking a background that fits your character concept. As long as it boosts dex or wis, you're ok, performance-wise.
Wayfarer also has the advantage of a tool proficiency that might actually matter.
Just for the record, Wayfarer is one of the core backgrounds in the 5.5e Player's Handbook. It's thematically similar to the 5e "Urchin" background.
Like Sailor, it can increase both Dexterity and Wisdom (the third one being Charisma rather than Strength).
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i did not see that it forces luck point spending before the roll happens but even so at a high level i feel like when youre forced to make a high-DC saving throw or smth like that its useful and yes rerolling ones is good but 9/10 times not used seems more than the applicable scenarios for luck
Spending a Luck Point grants you advantage on a roll (or imposes disadvantage on someone else's attack roll against). By definition that has to happen before the dice are actually rolled.
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At first look, I didn't think the new version of Lucky was worth taking over other origin feats, but at-will Advantage is pretty flexible. I've seen well-known creators online use it with martials like Monks to gain Advantage on their attacks to ensure you land one and then hopefully trigger other control features like Stunning Strike, Grapple, Topple, etc. If you start a campaign at level 3, you should be getting 3 and then 4 luck points per long rest for much of the meat of the campaign, which given fewer encounters probably isn't bad. At my tables, we usually have 1 or sometimes 2 combats per long rest, so these could be enough of an impact to make a difference (versus say a +3 or +4 to Initiative with Alert, a feat I tend to like). For a Monk it definitely seems worth considering.
The number of points you get is equal to your Proficiency points. So at level three you are only getting 2 points. You don't 3 until 5th level. But the draw back is you spend on something you might end up succeeding at anyway. As you get higher level, your ability to succeed also increases making this pretty much niche, such as a really high DC save or death save.
If you're thinking about it mainly in the context of using it on your own attack rolls, then it's less impactful for Monks than for some other classes, just because Monks tend to make a lot more attacks than most other classes while having the same number of Luck Points as anyone else would. In general it's more impactful the fewer attacks you make, since each attack hitting is more important.
It's most useful when you're trying really hard to make sure a specific attack hits because it uses up a resource even on a miss (e.g., casting a leveled attack spell like Chromatic Orb) or when having advantage has more of an impact than just making a hit more likely (e.g., you're a Rogue and you don't have any other way to get Sneak Attack on this specific attack).
But of course it can also be used on ability checks, and defensively on saving throws and incoming attacks, so it has a pretty broad applicability. MPA is correct that you might waste Luck Points on things you would've succeeded on anyway, but if that happens you'll never actually know it, so I don't think it's worth worrying about in practice. It's a decent feat for almost any character and it's definitely worth considering if there isn't one that really specifically fits better.
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