I'm a D&D player who likes to play a broad role to help cover for niche players in a group. That style like Link from Legend of Zelda comes to mind where I'm a jack-of-all style. As such I have played Bard and much enjoyed its play style.
I'm curious in trying out Monk though, as the fantasy of having just my own body really hits a style I'd love to pursue. The problem is as I see it, Monks seem to just seal damage or knock people down. Is there a style to Monk that allows them to sort of heal, sort of range, and sort of melee as well or is that out of the question for them?
There is a reasonably good healing setup released in the Unearthed Arcana (Way of Tranquility). The only downside to this tradition is that it wants to stay out of combat. The whole idea is to bring peace to the land, so plan on trying to calm your enemies before trying to kill them.
As far as for ranged, Dex is the main stat and that fits in just fine with the Monk. You could dip into Fighter or Ranger to grab some specifics, but you could do just fine without it.
For melee, if you want to stick with Dex, you can go with versatile weapons or any monk weapon to keep your damage up.
If you merge these three areas together you would have a Monk that does OK damage and can heal reasonably well, with some crowd control mixed in.
My Monk feels very versatile even at 2nd level, but maybe not quite what you are looking for.
Variant Human, with the mobility feat. Criminal background (thieve's tools proficiency). Take proficiency in stealth. Dex as primary, dump strength.
I can stealth and pick locks. I can hit up to 3 times in a round against 1-3 enemies and end my turn far away from all of them due to mobility and monk movement. I can try to drop one guy up front, or spread my damage out, however it bests helps the party.
At need I throw darts for ranged attack.
You get a little self healing later on. Keep some healer's kits on hand and with your movement you can easily stabilize anyone that drops.
At third level pick the elemental or shadow route and you have even more versatility, although I plan to go the Fist route and spam those knockdowns.
My level 6 Shadow Monk with the Urchin background has been pretty awesome. I'm also the DM (running Storm King's Thunder) so he isn't at the forefront of stealth type operations, but when needed he's awesome. He just gained Shadow Step which I'm looking forward to using. We don't have a rogue so he fills that role pretty well while having his own abilities, and being able to attack 4 times up to 6 times before resting is awesome (assuming he doesn't use Ki for anything else).
Way of the Sun Soul is a good path to follow if you want the option to go ranged. You can make a ranged attack using your monk damage die, and at level 11 you get the option to throw grenades.
Way of Tranquility seems to be a lot more of the versatility I was looking for. I envision a mobile melee character who can also dish out healing and that seems to be the most accurate representation of such. Is it unbalanced in any way though? I heard a lot about how Unearthed Arcana is sometimes OP and I don't want to waste my DM's time showing him that and being told "no that's too broken"
One just has to remember, that though the Monk feels almost like a kind of a fast tank at low levels, once you get to the point where you are regularly fighting giants and dragons, you definitely are not. Your role changes some. Not enough AC w/o magic items to keep from getting hit in melee by big monsters, and not enough HP to just soak up damage toe to toe. Your play become a lot more tactical. More challenging and more interesting.
That is interesting. I guess late game really is a different game in some ways as I was told Valor Bards change a lot at higher levels as well. It really sounds like I may not like high level content lol
I'm a D&D player who likes to play a broad role to help cover for niche players in a group. That style like Link from Legend of Zelda comes to mind where I'm a jack-of-all style. As such I have played Bard and much enjoyed its play style.
I'm curious in trying out Monk though, as the fantasy of having just my own body really hits a style I'd love to pursue. The problem is as I see it, Monks seem to just seal damage or knock people down. Is there a style to Monk that allows them to sort of heal, sort of range, and sort of melee as well or is that out of the question for them?
I have always thought that monks multiclassed with Clerics and Druids well for increased versatility. But being a Dex focused class they can multiclass with most other classes in the game to some degree.
One key to the usefulness of Monks is the number of short rests the DM allows per day. As far as the versatility mentioned by the OP, multi-classing or obtaining feats like Skilled, Healer, or Magic Initiate go a long way in giving the monk added value in multiple situations.
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Hello Monk players,
I'm a D&D player who likes to play a broad role to help cover for niche players in a group. That style like Link from Legend of Zelda comes to mind where I'm a jack-of-all style. As such I have played Bard and much enjoyed its play style.
I'm curious in trying out Monk though, as the fantasy of having just my own body really hits a style I'd love to pursue. The problem is as I see it, Monks seem to just seal damage or knock people down. Is there a style to Monk that allows them to sort of heal, sort of range, and sort of melee as well or is that out of the question for them?
There is a reasonably good healing setup released in the Unearthed Arcana (Way of Tranquility). The only downside to this tradition is that it wants to stay out of combat. The whole idea is to bring peace to the land, so plan on trying to calm your enemies before trying to kill them.
As far as for ranged, Dex is the main stat and that fits in just fine with the Monk. You could dip into Fighter or Ranger to grab some specifics, but you could do just fine without it.
For melee, if you want to stick with Dex, you can go with versatile weapons or any monk weapon to keep your damage up.
If you merge these three areas together you would have a Monk that does OK damage and can heal reasonably well, with some crowd control mixed in.
Happy gaming!
My Monk feels very versatile even at 2nd level, but maybe not quite what you are looking for.
Variant Human, with the mobility feat. Criminal background (thieve's tools proficiency). Take proficiency in stealth. Dex as primary, dump strength.
I can stealth and pick locks. I can hit up to 3 times in a round against 1-3 enemies and end my turn far away from all of them due to mobility and monk movement. I can try to drop one guy up front, or spread my damage out, however it bests helps the party.
At need I throw darts for ranged attack.
You get a little self healing later on. Keep some healer's kits on hand and with your movement you can easily stabilize anyone that drops.
At third level pick the elemental or shadow route and you have even more versatility, although I plan to go the Fist route and spam those knockdowns.
My level 6 Shadow Monk with the Urchin background has been pretty awesome. I'm also the DM (running Storm King's Thunder) so he isn't at the forefront of stealth type operations, but when needed he's awesome. He just gained Shadow Step which I'm looking forward to using. We don't have a rogue so he fills that role pretty well while having his own abilities, and being able to attack 4 times up to 6 times before resting is awesome (assuming he doesn't use Ki for anything else).
Way of the Sun Soul is a good path to follow if you want the option to go ranged. You can make a ranged attack using your monk damage die, and at level 11 you get the option to throw grenades.
Way of Tranquility seems to be a lot more of the versatility I was looking for. I envision a mobile melee character who can also dish out healing and that seems to be the most accurate representation of such. Is it unbalanced in any way though? I heard a lot about how Unearthed Arcana is sometimes OP and I don't want to waste my DM's time showing him that and being told "no that's too broken"
That's very true! I also want to try to be as close to Adventurer League rule set as possible, because I am attempting to go to that more often.
One just has to remember, that though the Monk feels almost like a kind of a fast tank at low levels, once you get to the point where you are regularly fighting giants and dragons, you definitely are not. Your role changes some. Not enough AC w/o magic items to keep from getting hit in melee by big monsters, and not enough HP to just soak up damage toe to toe. Your play become a lot more tactical. More challenging and more interesting.
That is interesting. I guess late game really is a different game in some ways as I was told Valor Bards change a lot at higher levels as well. It really sounds like I may not like high level content lol
Also, a medium level monk is very, very resilient.
I'm not one that's too into multiclassing but I can see its value with cleric. I may look into it in the future
One key to the usefulness of Monks is the number of short rests the DM allows per day. As far as the versatility mentioned by the OP, multi-classing or obtaining feats like Skilled, Healer, or Magic Initiate go a long way in giving the monk added value in multiple situations.