Do you ever get tired of being the puny human pawn representing the enormous, indestructible, lifesucking abomination right behind you that no one can see, and just want to BE the abomination? Is such a thing even possible? Yes it is! I like to start with variant human for Skilled feat to get expertise in Athletics, and put a 13 in str, 14 dex, 16 wis. Take 2 lvls of Moon Druid, then start taking lvls of Long Death Monk. You probably want to throw a lvl of Barb in there as well. Max your wis and get grappler. You can now transform into a giant octopus. They're CR 1, with 52 hp (remember to barb rage) and your wis is raising your AC to 16. You can hold your breath for 1 hr before you need a body of water, and you only move 10. But Longstrider and Unarmored Movement get you up to 35! You have two atks which means you can do your tentacle attack twice instead of once. You can burn a ki point on your bonus action to dodge, at lvl 7 druid your tentacle atks count as magic atks but your martial arts atks will be magic anyway by monk 6 (yes the octopus can still do roundhouse kicks) so if you don't want more druid you don't have to. Long death gives you temp hp for everyone you kill, grappler gives you advantage against anyone you grapple which helps mitigate your low hit bonus at high levels. Monk 6 also gives you Hour of Reaping which means everyone within 30 ft of you has to make a fear save against your maxed wisdom or have disadv on atks against you. "Balderdash!" I hear you say. "I was promised indestructibility!" Of course. I would never lie to a Lovecraftian horror. At monk 11 Mastery of Death enables you to spend 1 ki to respawn when reduced to 0 hp which means your mage can literally nuke you once you have 8 enemies grappled and your octopus just reappears with 1 hp (you need to use regular grapples to get up to eight, tentacle attack only gets 1 free grapple). Fun things for the druid side: shillelagh, magic stone, if you don't take barb, call lit, guardian of nature or stoneskin before you transform. Have fun eating people as their minds shatter! PS - You now have a reach of 15 ;)
Oh and if you have a friend with a high AC, get em to take the mounted combatant feat and let em ride you;) They can block hits for you as you reel in targets for them to hit while holding the rest back.
The build is great in theory but theres some major flaws.
Firstly, you need 4 levels of druid to wildshape into a beast with a swimming speed, and you need to take 7 levels of moon druid to get magical attacks in brast form, but you just talk about 2 levels druid, 1 barb and then the rest monk. Might just be a mistake idk.
Secondly, this is great, but by the time you get all of this online a lot of enemies will either have higher movement, a reposition ability or be flat out stronger than you. Of course expertise will always give you a +6, and advantage IF raging on the check can come in clutch, but I dont see it working as effectively at higher levels.
The monk abilities are interesting. Of course super flavourful, but also a bit obsolete? You are dedicating much of the build to grappling (at least from much of the description) making the long death ability of temp hp on kills a bit rare to come by, but good when it does. The level 6 aoe fear is great, until you realise its taken you 11 levels to get and be worth anything, and whilst you do have max wis, it can be countered by quite a few creatures with either having adavantage on those saves or proficiency in wis saves. (Remember the dc is set from your wisdom, they dont compete directly against it).
It is a super cool build in idea, but it falls a little short in execution, mostly due to levels and playstyle clashes.
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'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
Oh and if you have a friend with a high AC, get em to take the mounted combatant feat and let em ride you;) They can block hits for you as you reel in targets for them to hit while holding the rest back.
Are you ... certain octopi qualify as mounts, though? =D
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Oh. Well, I guess if google says so, who am I to argue? =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Mebbe they could hold a pc on their head with one arm while they run like a little hat? I'm also noticing you can't do a swimmer till lvl 4 druid... so gotta go that far at least.
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Do you ever get tired of being the puny human pawn representing the enormous, indestructible, lifesucking abomination right behind you that no one can see, and just want to BE the abomination? Is such a thing even possible? Yes it is!
I like to start with variant human for Skilled feat to get expertise in Athletics, and put a 13 in str, 14 dex, 16 wis. Take 2 lvls of Moon Druid, then start taking lvls of Long Death Monk. You probably want to throw a lvl of Barb in there as well. Max your wis and get grappler. You can now transform into a giant octopus. They're CR 1, with 52 hp (remember to barb rage) and your wis is raising your AC to 16. You can hold your breath for 1 hr before you need a body of water, and you only move 10. But Longstrider and Unarmored Movement get you up to 35! You have two atks which means you can do your tentacle attack twice instead of once. You can burn a ki point on your bonus action to dodge, at lvl 7 druid your tentacle atks count as magic atks but your martial arts atks will be magic anyway by monk 6 (yes the octopus can still do roundhouse kicks) so if you don't want more druid you don't have to. Long death gives you temp hp for everyone you kill, grappler gives you advantage against anyone you grapple which helps mitigate your low hit bonus at high levels. Monk 6 also gives you Hour of Reaping which means everyone within 30 ft of you has to make a fear save against your maxed wisdom or have disadv on atks against you.
"Balderdash!" I hear you say. "I was promised indestructibility!" Of course. I would never lie to a Lovecraftian horror. At monk 11 Mastery of Death enables you to spend 1 ki to respawn when reduced to 0 hp which means your mage can literally nuke you once you have 8 enemies grappled and your octopus just reappears with 1 hp (you need to use regular grapples to get up to eight, tentacle attack only gets 1 free grapple).
Fun things for the druid side: shillelagh, magic stone, if you don't take barb, call lit, guardian of nature or stoneskin before you transform. Have fun eating people as their minds shatter!
PS - You now have a reach of 15 ;)
Oh and if you have a friend with a high AC, get em to take the mounted combatant feat and let em ride you;) They can block hits for you as you reel in targets for them to hit while holding the rest back.
The build is great in theory but theres some major flaws.
Firstly, you need 4 levels of druid to wildshape into a beast with a swimming speed, and you need to take 7 levels of moon druid to get magical attacks in brast form, but you just talk about 2 levels druid, 1 barb and then the rest monk. Might just be a mistake idk.
Secondly, this is great, but by the time you get all of this online a lot of enemies will either have higher movement, a reposition ability or be flat out stronger than you. Of course expertise will always give you a +6, and advantage IF raging on the check can come in clutch, but I dont see it working as effectively at higher levels.
The monk abilities are interesting. Of course super flavourful, but also a bit obsolete? You are dedicating much of the build to grappling (at least from much of the description) making the long death ability of temp hp on kills a bit rare to come by, but good when it does. The level 6 aoe fear is great, until you realise its taken you 11 levels to get and be worth anything, and whilst you do have max wis, it can be countered by quite a few creatures with either having adavantage on those saves or proficiency in wis saves. (Remember the dc is set from your wisdom, they dont compete directly against it).
It is a super cool build in idea, but it falls a little short in execution, mostly due to levels and playstyle clashes.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
Are you ... certain octopi qualify as mounts, though? =D
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
...huh. You got me on that one. Google just shows me fan art of things riding them or photos of octopi riding other things :D
Oh. Well, I guess if google says so, who am I to argue? =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Mebbe they could hold a pc on their head with one arm while they run like a little hat? I'm also noticing you can't do a swimmer till lvl 4 druid... so gotta go that far at least.