Hello, I am starting a new campaign soon with the 2024 DND rules and I am wanting to make a mercy monk. Initially I was just gonna go full monk but i am now deciding whether to multi class one or two levels of fighter. My idea is to get weapon mastery Nick and as a monk at level 3 be able to do 4 attacks which would be awesome. Also the campaign will end at level 11. So basically I'm asking whether one or two levels of fighter for action surge, second wind, weapon mastery, fighting style and tactical mind is worth losing some ki, bigger unarmed damage die, heightened focus, self restoration and flurry of healing and harm. What do you guys think? Thanks.
Level 11 in Monk would give you a d10 Martial Arts die (on average, an increase of 1 damage per hit), as well as the Flurry of Healing and Harm feature which lets you use save focus points when using Hand of Healing/Harm.
Taking a single level of Fighter will give you a third attack as part of the Attack action thanks to the Nick mastery.
Over the life of your character, you are probably better off taking the level of Fighter. The extra attack will come online earlier and have a larger impact of your damage output.
Level 10 in Monk gets you Heightened Focus and Self Restoration. Heightened Focus, among other things, lets your Flurry of Blows hit three times instead of two, and Self Restoration is a really nice feature that lets you flat end the Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned on yourself at the end of your turn for free.
A second level of Fighter gets you Action Surge, which equates to two extra attacks on your turn (can't double dip on Nick).
So your choice is a nice defensive feature and an extra attack whenever you use Flurry of Blows, or Action Surge for two extra attacks once per short rest. In this case, I think you are better off with the extra monk level.
Personally, in this scenario I suggest you go Monk 1 -> Fighter 1 -> Monk 10. This will get your Monk identity established, then immediately get you your extra attacks from the Nick mastery, before going all-in on the Monk abilities.
For ability scores, I would start with 15(+2) Dexterity, 15(+1) Wisdom, and 14 Constitution, then put the rest is Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma as fits the character.
For feat choices, you are only going to get two, so I would suggest you take your favorite Dexterity feat (I like Mage Slayer, Speedy, Skulker, or Crusher, depending on the flavor you are going for) to get that up to 18, then take a +2 for either Dexterity or Wisdom (I like Wisdom here, so both would be at 18).
Just my two cents. As always, you should play the character you want to play. I hope this helps at least a little bit.
Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards too was one level of fighter. For a feat I was probably gonna take mage slayer or grappler because that seems fun with a monk in this edition. also what fighting style would you take for a monk?, I was thinking probably blind fighting as the others wouldn't help that much
Grappler is going to conflict with your use of the Nick Mastery to shift the Light Weapon attack into your Attack Action, unless you have more than two hands, though.
All of its features require at least one free hand, and the Punch-and-Grab feature requires that you take an Unarmed Strike using the Attack action
Grappler is going to conflict with your use of the Nick Mastery to shift the Light Weapon attack into your Attack Action, unless you have more than two hands, though.
All of its features require at least one free hand, and the Punch-and-Grab feature requires that you take an Unarmed Strike using the Attack action
Thri-kreen =)
And you really don't want to do more than a 1 lvl dip into anything.
You could also consider Ranger. It has it's benefits as well.
Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards too was one level of fighter. For a feat I was probably gonna take mage slayer or grappler because that seems fun with a monk in this edition. also what fighting style would you take for a monk?, I was thinking probably blind fighting as the others wouldn't help that much
The only other fighting style feat that makes sense is two-weapon fighting to add your dex to the nick attack.
The Nick Attack really isn't that great by itself. with a d8 MA die, it's ~2 extra damage per turn. If you're going for a weapon-using monk then the combination of Vex + Nick might be worth it. But if I recall correctly several Mercy Monk features (mainly Hand of Harm) requires using unarmed strikes, so I don't know how much you want to go as a weapon-using monk. If you want to stack up more damage, then 1 level of Ranger for Hunter's Mark might be a better option for you, that's at least a potential 2d6-4d6 per turn rather than 1d8 from Nick. If you go 3 levels into Ranger you can grab Collossus Slayer from Hunter (1d8 extra per turn) plus Nick (1d8 extra per turn) plus Hunter's Mark (2d6-4d6 per turn).
PS: Whatever you do take 5 levels of Monk straight at the start, because Extra Attack is crucial! Your character will feel so weak if you don't get Extra Attack the same time as the rest of your party.
You can two weapon fight with one hand, just swapping weapon between each hit
The problem you run into is that you can only Draw or Stow one weapon with each Attack action attack, plus the one draw or stow for your Object Interaction
Until you get your Extra Attack, you don't have weapon handling options to routinely get that Nick Attack off every turn with only one hand, and your weapon-juggling is kind of annoying to keep track of. As I understand it:
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, Without Extra Attack:
Turn 1:
Free Object Interaction: Draw Vex Weapon
Action:
Attack 1: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 2:
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon
Action:
Attack 1: Draw Vex Weapon, Attack with Vex Weapon or Unarmed Strike.
No option for Nick weapon, you're not holding it.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike, Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 3:
Action:
Attack 1: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 4: Repeat from the beginning.
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, With Extra Attack
Turn 1:
Action:
Attack 1: Unarmed Strike, Draw Vex Weapon
Extra Attack: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows., or another option
Turn 2:
Repeat as above.
The above changes a bit if you are throwing your weapons, but doing so is also going to interfere with your Unarmed Strikes for most monks.
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🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
atk #1 draw first weapon as part of the atk (if for some reason you don’t already have it in hand)
object interaction: stow said weapon
atk #2 draw second weapon as part of the atk
atk #3 stow second weapon as part of unarmed strike
atk #4 if using flurry of blows draw first weapon after the unarmed strike to remove the need for object interaction (as the weapon should have been in the first place)
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D&D, Youth Work and the Priesthood sadly do not typically interact... I do what I can!
Rules as written, under the 2024 rules, you only get to draw or stow a weapon if you're making an attack with the Attack Action.
Attack [Action]
When you take the Attack action, you can make one attack roll with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
Equipping and Unequipping Weapons. You can either equip or unequip one weapon when you make an attack as part of this action. You do so either before or after the attack. If you equip a weapon before an attack, you don’t need to use it for that attack. Equipping a weapon includes drawing it from a sheath or picking it up. Unequipping a weapon includes sheathing, stowing, or dropping it.
Moving between Attacks. If you move on your turn and have a feature, such as Extra Attack, that gives you more than one attack as part of the Attack action, you can use some or all of that movement to move between those attacks.
You can two weapon fight with one hand, just swapping weapon between each hit
The problem you run into is that you can only Draw or Stow one weapon with each Attack action attack, plus the one draw or stow for your Object Interaction
Until you get your Extra Attack, you don't have weapon handling options to routinely get that Nick Attack off every turn with only one hand, and your weapon-juggling is kind of annoying to keep track of. As I understand it:
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, Without Extra Attack:
Turn 1:
Free Object Interaction: Draw Vex Weapon
Action:
Attack 1: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 2:
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon
Action:
Attack 1: Draw Vex Weapon, Attack with Vex Weapon or Unarmed Strike.
No option for Nick weapon, you're not holding it.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike, Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 3:
Action:
Attack 1: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows, or another option
Turn 4: Repeat from the beginning.
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, With Extra Attack
Turn 1:
Action:
Attack 1: Unarmed Strike, Draw Vex Weapon
Extra Attack: Attack with Vex Weapon, Stow Vex Weapon.
Nick Attack: Draw Nick Weapon, Attack with Nick Weapon.
Free Object Interaction: Stow Nick Weapon.
Bonus Action: Unarmed Strike or Flurry of Blows., or another option
Turn 2:
Repeat as above.
The above changes a bit if you are throwing your weapons, but doing so is also going to interfere with your Unarmed Strikes for most monks.
The second issue is plenty of DM's aren't gonna buy the "technically I can just keep switching weapons in the one hand" argument, regardless of what you can make RAW look like.
You don't have to draw or stow weapons to make unarmed strikes.
This was never in doubt; you can make Unarmed Strikes using the Damage or Shove options if you have weapons in one, both, or all your hands.
The discussion was about making use of the Nick Mastery, which requires the use of at least two different Light Weapons during your turn, while maintaining a free hand for use of the features of the Grappler Feat (and potentially, a spare Unarmed Attack during the Attack action for trying its Punch and Grab feature), and then Cheeky_Hamster suggested the weapon-juggling.
Obviously, it is much less of an issue for everything if you don't need a free hand, or don't need to make an Unarmed Strike during your Attack Action.
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🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
You don't have to draw or stow weapons to make unarmed strikes.
This was never in doubt; you can make Unarmed Strikes using the Damage or Shove options if you have weapons in one, both, or all your hands.
The discussion was about making use of the Nick Mastery, which requires the use of at least two different Light Weapons during your turn, while maintaining a free hand for use of the features of the Grappler Feat (and potentially, a spare Unarmed Attack during the Attack action for trying its Punch and Grab feature), and then Cheeky_Hamster suggested the weapon-juggling.
Obviously, it is much less of an issue for everything if you don't need a free hand, or don't need to make an Unarmed Strike during your Attack Action.
Thri-Kreen
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Hello, I am starting a new campaign soon with the 2024 DND rules and I am wanting to make a mercy monk. Initially I was just gonna go full monk but i am now deciding whether to multi class one or two levels of fighter. My idea is to get weapon mastery Nick and as a monk at level 3 be able to do 4 attacks which would be awesome. Also the campaign will end at level 11. So basically I'm asking whether one or two levels of fighter for action surge, second wind, weapon mastery, fighting style and tactical mind is worth losing some ki, bigger unarmed damage die, heightened focus, self restoration and flurry of healing and harm. What do you guys think? Thanks.
Level 11 in Monk would give you a d10 Martial Arts die (on average, an increase of 1 damage per hit), as well as the Flurry of Healing and Harm feature which lets you use save focus points when using Hand of Healing/Harm.
Taking a single level of Fighter will give you a third attack as part of the Attack action thanks to the Nick mastery.
Over the life of your character, you are probably better off taking the level of Fighter. The extra attack will come online earlier and have a larger impact of your damage output.
Level 10 in Monk gets you Heightened Focus and Self Restoration. Heightened Focus, among other things, lets your Flurry of Blows hit three times instead of two, and Self Restoration is a really nice feature that lets you flat end the Charmed, Frightened, or Poisoned on yourself at the end of your turn for free.
A second level of Fighter gets you Action Surge, which equates to two extra attacks on your turn (can't double dip on Nick).
So your choice is a nice defensive feature and an extra attack whenever you use Flurry of Blows, or Action Surge for two extra attacks once per short rest. In this case, I think you are better off with the extra monk level.
Personally, in this scenario I suggest you go Monk 1 -> Fighter 1 -> Monk 10. This will get your Monk identity established, then immediately get you your extra attacks from the Nick mastery, before going all-in on the Monk abilities.
For ability scores, I would start with 15(+2) Dexterity, 15(+1) Wisdom, and 14 Constitution, then put the rest is Strength, Intelligence, or Charisma as fits the character.
For feat choices, you are only going to get two, so I would suggest you take your favorite Dexterity feat (I like Mage Slayer, Speedy, Skulker, or Crusher, depending on the flavor you are going for) to get that up to 18, then take a +2 for either Dexterity or Wisdom (I like Wisdom here, so both would be at 18).
Just my two cents. As always, you should play the character you want to play. I hope this helps at least a little bit.
Thanks, that's what I was leaning towards too was one level of fighter. For a feat I was probably gonna take mage slayer or grappler because that seems fun with a monk in this edition. also what fighting style would you take for a monk?, I was thinking probably blind fighting as the others wouldn't help that much
Grappler is going to conflict with your use of the Nick Mastery to shift the Light Weapon attack into your Attack Action, unless you have more than two hands, though.
All of its features require at least one free hand, and the Punch-and-Grab feature requires that you take an Unarmed Strike using the Attack action
🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
Charisma Saving Throw: DC 18, Failure: 20d6 Psychic Damage, Success: Half damage
Oh yea I totally didn't even think about that, thanks for bringing that to my attention
Thri-kreen =)
And you really don't want to do more than a 1 lvl dip into anything.
You could also consider Ranger. It has it's benefits as well.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
You can two weapon fight with one hand, just swapping weapon between each hit
The only other fighting style feat that makes sense is two-weapon fighting to add your dex to the nick attack.
The Nick Attack really isn't that great by itself. with a d8 MA die, it's ~2 extra damage per turn. If you're going for a weapon-using monk then the combination of Vex + Nick might be worth it. But if I recall correctly several Mercy Monk features (mainly Hand of Harm) requires using unarmed strikes, so I don't know how much you want to go as a weapon-using monk. If you want to stack up more damage, then 1 level of Ranger for Hunter's Mark might be a better option for you, that's at least a potential 2d6-4d6 per turn rather than 1d8 from Nick. If you go 3 levels into Ranger you can grab Collossus Slayer from Hunter (1d8 extra per turn) plus Nick (1d8 extra per turn) plus Hunter's Mark (2d6-4d6 per turn).
PS: Whatever you do take 5 levels of Monk straight at the start, because Extra Attack is crucial! Your character will feel so weak if you don't get Extra Attack the same time as the rest of your party.
The problem you run into is that you can only Draw or Stow one weapon with each Attack action attack, plus the one draw or stow for your Object Interaction
Until you get your Extra Attack, you don't have weapon handling options to routinely get that Nick Attack off every turn with only one hand, and your weapon-juggling is kind of annoying to keep track of. As I understand it:
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, Without Extra Attack:
Turn 1:
Turn 2:
Turn 3:
Turn 4: Repeat from the beginning.
Dual Weaponing One-handed With Vex & Nick Mastery, With Extra Attack
Turn 1:
Turn 2:
The above changes a bit if you are throwing your weapons, but doing so is also going to interfere with your Unarmed Strikes for most monks.
🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
Charisma Saving Throw: DC 18, Failure: 20d6 Psychic Damage, Success: Half damage
Nah it’s way more flexible
atk #1 draw first weapon as part of the atk (if for some reason you don’t already have it in hand)
object interaction: stow said weapon
atk #2 draw second weapon as part of the atk
atk #3 stow second weapon as part of unarmed strike
atk #4 if using flurry of blows draw first weapon after the unarmed strike to remove the need for object interaction (as the weapon should have been in the first place)
Rules as written, under the 2024 rules, you only get to draw or stow a weapon if you're making an attack with the Attack Action.
Flurry of Blows is making an attack with a Bonus Action. as is the Bonus Unarmed Strike from the Martial Arts feature.
Attacks made using a Bonus Action, (or a Reaction, or the Magic Action) do not allow you to equip or unequip weapons.
🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
Charisma Saving Throw: DC 18, Failure: 20d6 Psychic Damage, Success: Half damage
The second issue is plenty of DM's aren't gonna buy the "technically I can just keep switching weapons in the one hand" argument, regardless of what you can make RAW look like.
You don't have to draw or stow weapons to make unarmed strikes.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
This was never in doubt; you can make Unarmed Strikes using the Damage or Shove options if you have weapons in one, both, or all your hands.
The discussion was about making use of the Nick Mastery, which requires the use of at least two different Light Weapons during your turn, while maintaining a free hand for use of the features of the Grappler Feat (and potentially, a spare Unarmed Attack during the Attack action for trying its Punch and Grab feature), and then Cheeky_Hamster suggested the weapon-juggling.
Obviously, it is much less of an issue for everything if you don't need a free hand, or don't need to make an Unarmed Strike during your Attack Action.
🎵I'm on top of the world, looking down on creation, wreaking death and devastation with my mind.
As the power that I've found erupts freely from the ground, I will cackle from the top of the world.🎵
Charisma Saving Throw: DC 18, Failure: 20d6 Psychic Damage, Success: Half damage
Oops my bad, I did forget about Bonus Action attacks not counting, for free draw/stow.
You can always just use two of the same Nick weapon if you don’t want things to be complicated
Thri-Kreen
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Love a Thri-Kreen Grappler