First and foremost I know that this isn't some 'best' multiclass but the player already had a high intelligence score.
So the scenario, my player is playing a shadow monk as a somewhat assassin type feel to him. For example he goes full 'Redcap' and dips his hat in the blood of his enemies. He is a Gnome Shadow Monk, and after finding a Spider Staff from Nezznar the Black Spider he has dreams of being spider man. To get to that eventual end he is taking a level of wizard so he can utilize the staff fully.
His question to me was what kind of spells he should take. The party already has a spellbook from Iarno Glasstaff and from Nezznar himself. I am torn whether I should say you get to pick your spells from those spellbooks and maybe a couple spells they didn't have prepared that day, or just allow him to pick anything he wants from the wizard list, or suggest he picks things that ARE NOT in either of the spellbooks so he can transcribe them into his own sometime later. As the Shadow Monk he already has access to Darkness, Pass without Trace, Darkvision, Silence.
The following are the spells available in the two spellbooks (of level one).
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Mostly suggestions, find familiar and featherfall are two good ideas. Jump... maybe? I guess I need to ask if he wants much in the way of damage dealing from his spells. Disguise Self sounds right up his alley as well, playing into a murderous gnome ninja monk. Probably makes himself looks like a human child too...
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
With a high Intelligence score, he might want to look at going Wizard 2 and taking the Bladesinging subclass if the GM is okay with ignoring the elf-only restriction (if you're in the Forgotten Realms), or if that wouldn't be allowed then maybe Divination or War Mage might work for his concept, reskinning Portent or Arcane Deflection/Tactical Wit as a sort of spider-sense. Any of them seem like they might be a nice addition for a monk.
For a little more mechanical synergy and less MADness, you could go Arcana Domain Cleric instead of wizard. Access to some typically wizard arcane spells, but wisdom based
and then your high INT still plays into skills like Arcana and Investigation, while still keeping the arcane flavor.
I agree with DxJxC, don't come up with a new way for level 1 wizards to work. Just let them pick the 6 spells they want, and two after that if they ever take more levels. These other spellbooks should be resources for them to copy more spells into their book, not a limitation. If they have a good enough intelligence, firebolt would be a nice cantrip to add a ranged damage option. And thy can live out their inner ryu hadouken fantasy. Otherwise I think they will be best focusing on non damaging utility spells. 1 level of wizard isn't going to give you better consistent damage dealing actions than 5+ levels of monk. That reminds me, what level are they? If they haven't gotten to extra attack, maybe consider letting them use the staff abilities 1/day until they can pick up extra attack and then dip. I know I would hate it if I was given a cool magic item but then to use it had to weaken my build that significantly.
Unfortunately cleric doesn't work because it you need to have spider climb and web on your spell list to be able to use the staff. A land (underdark) druid could work for the wisdom synergy, but because of the way circle spells work it would have to be taken for at least 5 levels (I'm pretty sure it works like this anyways). That's a very different build though. Probably something like monk 6-8/druid 12-14.
I'm considering doing this at level 20 on my Open Hand monk. The 20th level monk feature is lame. So a 19/1 Monk/Wizard gives some flare and fun to the character. Some range attacks and some utility spells. Shield would be very useful as would a few of the attacks that give a nice little ranged blast. Some of them could even be played as Monk abilities - like punching the ground for an "Earth Tremor" spell. This also gives access to the magic items (especially staves) that must be attuned to by a magic class. Much more utility here than 4 ki points at the start of combat.
From a build perspective I have looked in to the same combo, and its a bit tricky to pull of because of the 13 intelligence/13wisdom requirement of that multiclass. Easiest way I found was as a half-elf. With standard array it would be Str 8, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 10. Take wizard spells that don't care about stats such as shield, find familiar, mirror image, misty step etc.
A cool aspect of that combo is that many magic staffs can be used as quarterstaffs which are monk weapons.
As for your GM question I would say it doesnt matter all that much as he should be able to find and buy needed scrolls at some point without too much fuzz. As long as shield is in that spellbook he is all good :P
Personally I would have loved a feat that allowed a monk to change wisdom to intelligence for all monky-purposes. There was one in 3.5.
Oh but those feats were some of the worst mistakes in 3.5. There's a reason there are so few ways to get things keyed off of an alternative stat in 5e.
Definitely agree the draw to this MC is using cool wizard staves as your monk quarterstaff. My favorite way to make this MC work is dive in deeper with a second dip into nature cleric. Heavy armor and shillelagh mean you can drop dexterity entirely and polearm master replaces the only feature you really care about losing while wearing armor, your bonus action attack. First build ever that wants to be a regular human lol. 27 point buy: 14/9/13/13/15/8. After boosts that gives you a decent spread of 15/10/14/14/16/9. It's a goofy build and not a solution for a monk who's adapting to a campaign and is already dex based. Luckily it seems this monk in question has a randomly high intelligence.
Oh but those feats were some of the worst mistakes in 3.5. There's a reason there are so few ways to get things keyed off of an alternative stat in 5e.
Definitely agree the draw to this MC is using cool wizard staves as your monk quarterstaff. My favorite way to make this MC work is dive in deeper with a second dip into nature cleric. Heavy armor and shillelagh mean you can drop dexterity entirely and polearm master replaces the only feature you really care about losing while wearing armor, your bonus action attack. First build ever that wants to be a regular human lol. 27 point buy: 14/9/13/13/15/8. After boosts that gives you a decent spread of 15/10/14/14/16/9. It's a goofy build and not a solution for a monk who's adapting to a campaign and is already dex based. Luckily it seems this monk in question has a randomly high intelligence.
You also lose your martial arts damage die and movement bonus by wearing armor. Not sure why you would wear the armor anyway considering the 18-20 AC you should have without it depending on number of feats/multiclass levels you take.
If you're using Polearm Master then you have bonus action attack and don't need to use martial arts ever. Losing movement speed sucks but on a tank it's less necessary. I'm not saying this is the best monk build out there. Despite looking super goofy on paper, it is actually a decent build, especially on a Long Death monk which lends itself to staying in the middle of the fray.
But what do you really gain from being a monk this way? Sounds like you would be much better of as a fighter if you have to invest a feat to counter the loss in attack, and lose your movement speed etc.
You drop your dex dependency. Monk's are notorious for needing too many stats boosted. Heavy armor monk gets to focus on wisdom only and then pump con when they can. And it's important to be long death because they have the best abilities for a monk that doesn't move much.
I'm definitely not saying this is the way to build a monk or anything. It's a silly build that is more effective than it looks and I like it.
In a world where the OP is talking about multiclassing monk with wizard I don't think it's out of this realm to bring up other offbeat MC choices.
If you're using Polearm Master then you have bonus action attack and don't need to use martial arts ever. Losing movement speed sucks but on a tank it's less necessary. I'm not saying this is the best monk build out there. Despite looking super goofy on paper, it is actually a decent build, especially on a Long Death monk which lends itself to staying in the middle of the fray.
I wasn't talking about the martial arts BA attack, I was talking about the martial Arts damage die. The thing that makes all your attacks 1d8-1d10 depending on dip. Flurry of blows is also pretty much worthless without it. And even if you focused wisdom instead of dexterity, your AC should still be around 18 without armor, so you still haven't gained anything by putting it on. And your STR will only be as high as your DEX would have been, so you don't gain any attack bonuses. AND you had to lose an ASI to make up for a lost feature, so your STR might actually be lower than your DEX would have been (granted PAM isn't a bad choice either way).
So at best, you only lose your speed and a bit (>25%) of damage output while gaining disadvantage in stealth. And at worst, you lose AC and attack/damage mods in addition to the above.
First and foremost I know that this isn't some 'best' multiclass but the player already had a high intelligence score.
So the scenario, my player is playing a shadow monk as a somewhat assassin type feel to him. For example he goes full 'Redcap' and dips his hat in the blood of his enemies. He is a Gnome Shadow Monk, and after finding a Spider Staff from Nezznar the Black Spider he has dreams of being spider man. To get to that eventual end he is taking a level of wizard so he can utilize the staff fully.
His question to me was what kind of spells he should take. The party already has a spellbook from Iarno Glasstaff and from Nezznar himself. I am torn whether I should say you get to pick your spells from those spellbooks and maybe a couple spells they didn't have prepared that day, or just allow him to pick anything he wants from the wizard list, or suggest he picks things that ARE NOT in either of the spellbooks so he can transcribe them into his own sometime later. As the Shadow Monk he already has access to Darkness, Pass without Trace, Darkvision, Silence.
The following are the spells available in the two spellbooks (of level one).
Charm Person, Magic Missile, Mage Armor, Shield
Thoughts, ideas, or suggestions appreciated.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Well you should let him learn whatever 6 spells he wants to know (at level 1). If you were looking for recommendations: find familiar, jump, longstrider, disguise self, catapult, and feather fall are all useful/thematic.
Mostly suggestions, find familiar and featherfall are two good ideas. Jump... maybe? I guess I need to ask if he wants much in the way of damage dealing from his spells. Disguise Self sounds right up his alley as well, playing into a murderous gnome ninja monk. Probably makes himself looks like a human child too...
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
With a high Intelligence score, he might want to look at going Wizard 2 and taking the Bladesinging subclass if the GM is okay with ignoring the elf-only restriction (if you're in the Forgotten Realms), or if that wouldn't be allowed then maybe Divination or War Mage might work for his concept, reskinning Portent or Arcane Deflection/Tactical Wit as a sort of spider-sense. Any of them seem like they might be a nice addition for a monk.
For a little more mechanical synergy and less MADness, you could go Arcana Domain Cleric instead of wizard. Access to some typically wizard arcane spells, but wisdom based
and then your high INT still plays into skills like Arcana and Investigation, while still keeping the arcane flavor.
just a thought though.
I agree with DxJxC, don't come up with a new way for level 1 wizards to work. Just let them pick the 6 spells they want, and two after that if they ever take more levels. These other spellbooks should be resources for them to copy more spells into their book, not a limitation. If they have a good enough intelligence, firebolt would be a nice cantrip to add a ranged damage option. And thy can live out their inner ryu hadouken fantasy. Otherwise I think they will be best focusing on non damaging utility spells. 1 level of wizard isn't going to give you better consistent damage dealing actions than 5+ levels of monk. That reminds me, what level are they? If they haven't gotten to extra attack, maybe consider letting them use the staff abilities 1/day until they can pick up extra attack and then dip. I know I would hate it if I was given a cool magic item but then to use it had to weaken my build that significantly.
Unfortunately cleric doesn't work because it you need to have spider climb and web on your spell list to be able to use the staff. A land (underdark) druid could work for the wisdom synergy, but because of the way circle spells work it would have to be taken for at least 5 levels (I'm pretty sure it works like this anyways). That's a very different build though. Probably something like monk 6-8/druid 12-14.
I'm considering doing this at level 20 on my Open Hand monk. The 20th level monk feature is lame. So a 19/1 Monk/Wizard gives some flare and fun to the character. Some range attacks and some utility spells. Shield would be very useful as would a few of the attacks that give a nice little ranged blast. Some of them could even be played as Monk abilities - like punching the ground for an "Earth Tremor" spell. This also gives access to the magic items (especially staves) that must be attuned to by a magic class. Much more utility here than 4 ki points at the start of combat.
From a build perspective I have looked in to the same combo, and its a bit tricky to pull of because of the 13 intelligence/13wisdom requirement of that multiclass. Easiest way I found was as a half-elf. With standard array it would be Str 8, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 10. Take wizard spells that don't care about stats such as shield, find familiar, mirror image, misty step etc.
A cool aspect of that combo is that many magic staffs can be used as quarterstaffs which are monk weapons.
As for your GM question I would say it doesnt matter all that much as he should be able to find and buy needed scrolls at some point without too much fuzz. As long as shield is in that spellbook he is all good :P
Personally I would have loved a feat that allowed a monk to change wisdom to intelligence for all monky-purposes. There was one in 3.5.
Oh but those feats were some of the worst mistakes in 3.5. There's a reason there are so few ways to get things keyed off of an alternative stat in 5e.
Definitely agree the draw to this MC is using cool wizard staves as your monk quarterstaff. My favorite way to make this MC work is dive in deeper with a second dip into nature cleric. Heavy armor and shillelagh mean you can drop dexterity entirely and polearm master replaces the only feature you really care about losing while wearing armor, your bonus action attack. First build ever that wants to be a regular human lol. 27 point buy: 14/9/13/13/15/8. After boosts that gives you a decent spread of 15/10/14/14/16/9. It's a goofy build and not a solution for a monk who's adapting to a campaign and is already dex based. Luckily it seems this monk in question has a randomly high intelligence.
You also lose your martial arts damage die and movement bonus by wearing armor. Not sure why you would wear the armor anyway considering the 18-20 AC you should have without it depending on number of feats/multiclass levels you take.
If you're using Polearm Master then you have bonus action attack and don't need to use martial arts ever. Losing movement speed sucks but on a tank it's less necessary. I'm not saying this is the best monk build out there. Despite looking super goofy on paper, it is actually a decent build, especially on a Long Death monk which lends itself to staying in the middle of the fray.
But what do you really gain from being a monk this way? Sounds like you would be much better of as a fighter if you have to invest a feat to counter the loss in attack, and lose your movement speed etc.
You drop your dex dependency. Monk's are notorious for needing too many stats boosted. Heavy armor monk gets to focus on wisdom only and then pump con when they can. And it's important to be long death because they have the best abilities for a monk that doesn't move much.
I'm definitely not saying this is the way to build a monk or anything. It's a silly build that is more effective than it looks and I like it.
In a world where the OP is talking about multiclassing monk with wizard I don't think it's out of this realm to bring up other offbeat MC choices.
I wasn't talking about the martial arts BA attack, I was talking about the martial Arts damage die. The thing that makes all your attacks 1d8-1d10 depending on dip. Flurry of blows is also pretty much worthless without it. And even if you focused wisdom instead of dexterity, your AC should still be around 18 without armor, so you still haven't gained anything by putting it on. And your STR will only be as high as your DEX would have been, so you don't gain any attack bonuses. AND you had to lose an ASI to make up for a lost feature, so your STR might actually be lower than your DEX would have been (granted PAM isn't a bad choice either way).
So at best, you only lose your speed and a bit (>25%) of damage output while gaining disadvantage in stealth. And at worst, you lose AC and attack/damage mods in addition to the above.
Significant loss, no gain.
ok